Tag: meets

Garland Meets With State Supreme Courtroom Justices on Evictions Freeze

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Post date August 12, 2021

Biden administration officials, worried that a new freeze on evictions might be struck down in federal court — and racing to prevent a national crisis — are increasingly turning to state courts to help deliver billions in federal housing aid.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland held a virtual meeting with 35 state Supreme Court justices in an effort to encourage them to use every tool at their disposal to avert or delay evictions by ensuring landlords and tenants have access to a $47 billion fund allocated by Congress.

Only about $3 billion of that cash — roughly 7 percent — had been allocated by June 30, according to the Treasury Department, which oversees the program.

“State courts are on the front lines of this crisis,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who has been overseeing the department’s efforts on evictions.

The effort to pay off back rent accrued during the pandemic has been hampered by resistance among some owners, who would rather evict nonpaying tenants than wait for federal payments, and sluggish efforts by states to create an infrastructure to distribute the largest allocation of housing funding in generations.

White House officials cited the need to buy more time for the aid program, along with public health concerns stemming from the Delta variant of the coronavirus, in drafting the new moratorium after the old one expired on July 31.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Mr. Garland cited several state initiatives as models for localities to follow, including an order by Michigan’s State Supreme Court requiring courts to stay eviction proceedings for up to 45 days to allow tenants to complete applications for rental assistance, according to Justice Department officials.

Another effort Mr. Garland singled for praise was a directive by the Republican-controlled Supreme Court in Texas, which modified notices sent to tenants who are sued for eviction to make sure they are aware of the benefits.

The state’s judicial training center also created instructions for local justices of the peace to divert landlords to the federal aid program whenever possible. That move, coupled with a joint federal-state effort to simplify application forms, is already showing some results, said Chief Justice Nathan Hecht.

“I’ve been on the bench for 40 years, and to tell the truth, judges historically did not see these kinds of programs as having anything to do with them, but that is changing,” Chief Justice Hecht said in an interview.

“The key to the whole thing is that the application process has got to be easy, it’s got to be simple,” he added. “Landlords are frustrated, and tenants are facing the streets, and overall it’s a very tense time. So, we can’t be telling people it’s going to take six weeks to get your money.”

In addition to pressuring Mr. Garland to help speed the checks, the justices asked federal officials to prioritize the role of the judiciary in all aid programs — to allow state courts to more easily tap into relief money to hire landlord-tenant mediators and navigators to assist tenants who cannot afford counsel to understand their rights in court.

Tags Court, Evictions, Freeze, Garland, Justices, meets, state, Supreme

Politics

Biden’s China Technique Meets Resistance on the Negotiating Desk

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Post date July 26, 2021

In an effort to maintain an increasingly strained relationship, the Biden government has developed a strategy to confront China on disputes while leaving the door open to cooperation against global threats.

On Monday, China appeared to slam the door on the idea that the two countries could work together in one day and clash the next.

Talks with Assistant Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman – the highest-ranking government official to visit China – began with a spate of public criticism from the Chinese side and ended with little evidence that the two powers were closer to narrowing their differences.

“The relationship between the United States and the PRC is complex, so our policies are very complex,” Sherman said in a telephone interview following the meetings on the People’s Republic of China. “We believe our relationship can tolerate this nuance.”

The meetings, held in northeast China’s Tianjin city, covered the range of disputes between the two countries, she said. Many of them are bitter and defy a simple solution.

These included human rights, the rapid curtailment of political freedoms in Hong Kong, and what Ms. Sherman called “the horrific acts in Xinjiang,” the largely Muslim region of western China where hundreds of thousands of detention and re-education centers passed.

Ms. Sherman also raised China’s demands over Taiwan, its military operations in the South China Sea, and allegations by the United States and other nations last week that China’s Department of State Security was behind the hacking of Microsoft email systems and possibly other cyber attacks.

“This is very serious – that the Department of State Security would help criminals hack Microsoft and possibly others,” she said, adding that many countries had joined the United States, saying that “such behavior is absolutely irresponsible, reckless and totally irresponsible is out of place ”. in our world. “

China gave no reason, at least publicly, saying that the United States had no right to lecture the Chinese government or anyone else. Before Ms. Sherman finished their meetings, the State Department released a series of six harsh statements from the first official she met, Xie Feng, the assistant secretary of state overseeing relations with the United States.

Mr Xie accused the United States of committing Native American genocide and botching the response to the coronavirus pandemic that killed 620,000 Americans.

The Biden government’s policy is nothing more than a “thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China,” Xie told Ms. Sherman, according to a summary of his comments the Chinese State Department sent reporters on Monday before the Americans could show up provide your own account.

“It appears that a nationwide and societal campaign is being waged to bring China down,” Xie told Ms. Sherman, according to the summaries of his comments, which were also posted on the ministry’s overseas website.

Updated

July 26, 2021, 9:15 a.m. ET

Ms. Sherman’s meetings provided the latest measure of how the Biden administration’s strategy is working. At least so far, it has done little to mitigate China’s behavior. Mr. Xie’s remarks underscored the anger that has been building in China towards the United States and undermines the chances that the approach will gain ground.

After a second meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Ms. Sherman pointed out that the two sides had discussed global and regional issues on which the two governments could potentially work together, including North Korea and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. However, she warned of concrete progress, adding that she did not come to the talks with immediate results.

“We were pretty straight forward with each other in the areas of big differences,” she said.

“In areas where we have common interests and there are major global interests, we have had very substantial discussions and exchanged some ideas,” said Sherman. “We’ll have to see where this leads.”

Drew Thompson, a former director of China for the US Department of Defense, said the underlying intent behind Ms. Sherman’s visit appears to be to ensure that the worsening of differences does not lead to dangerous stalemates.

“Beijing is taking a maximalist approach to US-China relations, issuing lists of demands, insisting that Washington adopt reverse policies and actions,” said Thompson, now a researcher at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy the National University is from Singapore.

“The main goal for Washington is to deepen understanding of China’s positions, reduce the potential for misjudgment and avoid misjudgment that could lead to open conflict,” he said.

The tone on Monday reflected the opening of high-level talks between senior Chinese and Biden government officials in March when Beijing’s senior foreign policy leader Yang Jiechi gave a 16-minute talk accusing Americans of arrogance and hypocrisy. The controversial start with the Biden administration caught officials in China by surprise, who thought relations hit rock bottom in the last year of the Trump presidency and therefore could only get better with the new president.

Mr. Xie told the Chinese news media after meeting that he had forwarded two requests to Ms. Sherman, including lifting the visa restrictions on Communist Party members, lifting sanctions against Chinese officials and shutting down major Chinese news agencies in the United States as foreign agents. All of these were introduced during Donald J. Trump’s presidency, but President Biden did nothing to repeal any of them.

While Mr Biden has largely avoided it the heated ideological sparring with the Chinese Communist Party that the Trump administration led in its final year, relations remain strained.

Washington has sought allies to pressure Beijing on many of these issues. Ms. Sherman’s trip also took her to Japan, South Korea and Mongolia to rebuild regional ties that were strained under Mr. Trump.

And the Chinese government has resented calls by the United States, the World Health Organization and others for a new investigation into whether the coronavirus might have hatched from a laboratory in China and set off the pandemic.

Last week, Chinese officials said they were “extremely shocked” at a WHO proposal to reconsider laboratory leak theory. A report in March of a first WHO investigation said it was “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus jumped into the wider population after escaping from a laboratory.

Ms. Sherman said she has urged China to cooperate in the international investigation into the spread of Covid. “I’ll let them speak for themselves,” she said, “but from my point of view I certainly didn’t get the answer I wanted or hoped for.”

China’s belligerent tone seems to flow from above. The country’s head of state, Xi Jinping, has signaled a growing impatience with criticism and demands from Washington, particularly with regard to Beijing’s internal problems such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Beijing has fought against sanctions against Hong Kong and Xinjiang with its own against Western politicians, human rights groups and academics.

“We will never accept excruciatingly arrogant lectures from these ‘master teachers’!” Mr. Xi said in a speech on July 1 to commemorate 100 years since the Chinese Communist Party was founded.

Keith Bradsher contributed to the coverage.

Tags Bidens, China, meets, negotiating, Resistance, Strategy, table

Politics

Household meets with Biden, Harris at White Home

Post author By
Post date May 25, 2021

Gianna Floyd, daughter of George Floyd, along with other family members and lawyers, raise fists and say his name while facing reporters at the White House following their meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington, U.S., May 25, 2021.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

WASHINGTON — Members of George Floyd’s family met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Tuesday, to mark the first anniversary of Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died on May 25, 2020, after then-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Floyd was unarmed.

Floyd’s death sparked worldwide calls for racial justice in policing and a reimagining of law enforcement. Following the hourlong meeting, the Floyd family spoke to reporters outside the White House.

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“Being here today is an honor,” said Terrence Floyd, a brother of George Floyd. “To meet with the president and vice president, and for them to show their concern for our family and to give an ear to our concerns and how we feel in this situation. It was a very productive conversation, and we thank everyone for the love.”

In a statement, Biden said the Floyd family “has shown extraordinary courage, especially [George Floyd’s] young daughter Gianna, who I met again today. The day before her father’s funeral a year ago, Jill and I met the family and she told me, ‘Daddy changed the world.’ He has.”

Despite the global response to Floyd’s murder, Congress has yet to pass a bill to reform policing.

Bipartisan negotiators have worked for weeks to tweak the House-passed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in order to win enough Republican support to get it through the Senate. Negotiators include Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., and Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., who are expected to continue talks this week.

Floyd family lawyer Ben Crump said members of the family would meet with senators later in the day Tuesday.

A Marine holds the door as Gianna Floyd, the daughter of George Floyd, walks into the White House, Tuesday, May 25, 2021, in Washington.

Evan Vucci | AP

Earlier this year, Biden called on Congress to pass a policing reform bill and send it to his desk before the first anniversary of Floyd’s death. That deadline passed Tuesday, but Biden stressed that he was willing to wait longer to make sure the bill contained genuine accountability measures.

“So he’s going to be patient and make sure it’s the right bill and not a rushed bill,” said Crump.

“We have to act,” said Biden. “We face an inflection point.”

Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd said that a Congress that voted to protect wildlife could vote to protect Black lives.

“If you can make federal laws to protect the bird that is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color,” he said.

Tags Biden, Family, Harris, House, meets, White

Business

The Fed Meets In opposition to a Revamped Financial Backdrop: Dwell Updates

Post author By
Post date March 17, 2021

Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, at a press conference in January 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic struck the American economy.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Federal Reserve is staring down a challenge that would have been all but unthinkable a year ago: With its policies set on emergency mode to bolster growth in the face of the pandemic’s shock, it must now navigate an economy that is expected to strengthen rapidly in the coming months.

Officials will release an interest rate policy decision and their first economic projections of 2021 at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, and they are virtually certain to leave borrowing costs unchanged at near zero.

But analysts and Wall Street investors alike are eager to see whether growing economic optimism will shake up the outlook for policy in the months and years ahead.

The Fed slashed interest rates to rock bottom a year ago as the pandemic shut down huge swaths of the economy. It has also been buying $120 billion in bonds per month, a policy meant to keep credit cheap and help the economy rebound from a virus that has thrown millions out of work.

Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, has been clear for months that officials expect to be patient in removing that policy help — a cautious tone that he is expected to maintain at a news conference on Wednesday.

“This is one of the most critical Fed meetings we’ve had in a while,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Markets are really paying attention, and they’re going to dissect everything he says.”

That’s because the economic backdrop is shifting. Coronavirus vaccines are fueling hopes for reopening parts of the service sector. A freshly signed stimulus package will pump $1.9 trillion into the economy, with an eye on preventing evictions, funneling cash to parents and putting $1,400 checks directly into bank accounts.

Against that improving backdrop, economists in a Bloomberg survey expect the Fed to increase rates twice in 2023, the news outlet reported. In December, they expected rates to remain unchanged until 2024 or later.

As investors expect faster growth, higher inflation and a quicker-moving Fed, they have pushed up the yield on 10-year Treasury notes. That has weighed on stock indexes, which tend to fall when rates rise.

The Fed’s economic projections — which anonymously report officials’ forecasts for interest rates, unemployment, inflation and growth both through 2023 and in the longer run — could show a shift when they are released on Wednesday.

Wall Street will pay particular attention to the inflation forecast and the policy rate path. The Fed’s median interest rate forecast previously showed no rate increases over the next three years, but analysts expect that officials could now pencil in one move in 2023.

Wall Street has been paying close attention to the outlook for inflation in recent weeks. Key price indexes are expected to bounce back after weak readings last year, and some economists have warned that big government spending could keep them elevated.

That could put a spotlight on Federal Reserve officials’ inflation estimates, and on anything that Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, says about the outlook during his news conference after the central bank’s meeting on Wednesday.

The Fed is trying to use its policies to coax the economy back to full employment while lifting and stabilizing inflation, which has been slipping in recent decades. It wants to hit 2 percent annual price gains on average, and it has pledged not to raise rates from near zero until they are poised to hum along at a slightly faster pace for some time.

But some prominent onlookers have warned that the economy could overheat. They say inflation may jump well above the 2 percent average target, thanks to government outlays and booming demand in a reopening economy.

Fed officials have been consistently less concerned about that possibility, and will give an up-to-date snapshot of their own expectations in their first Summary of Economic Projections of 2021. The last set of estimates, released in December, showed inflation stabilizing at 2 percent.

“How much do they revise up inflation? That’s something I’ll be looking for,” said Seth Carpenter, chief U.S. economist at UBS and a former Fed employee.

Analysts broadly expect price gains to accelerate in the coming months for a mechanical reason: The data are about to lap very weak readings from last spring. The most closely watched inflation measures are compared against the same month a year earlier, a recipe for an automatic increase.

But Fed leaders have been clear that a short-lived bounce is not what they’re talking about when they say they want to see quicker increases.

“There’s a difference between a one-time surge in prices and ongoing inflation,” Mr. Powell said this month.

Credit…Olivier Douliery/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Investors expect a stronger economy and slightly higher inflation in 2021, and they will watch the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, at his news conference on Wednesday for any hints about what that portends for the central bank’s bond-buying plans.

The Fed has been buying $120 billion in Treasury and mortgage-backed bonds each month, and officials have said they will continue that pace until they see “substantial” further progress.

But Mr. Powell and crew haven’t defined “substantial” with any precision. What counts as sufficient economic healing — when the Fed might slow and stop its program — matters to markets because the buying helps to push up prices in bonds and stocks alike.

Some investors have begun to expect the Fed to taper off its buying sooner than they had been forecasting. Others think a recent increase in longer-term bond yields, which has been driven by investor expectations for growth and inflation, could prompt the Fed to revamp its program in the near term.

That’s because those higher market-based rates could make mortgages more expensive and corporate investments less attractive, working against the Fed’s goals. The central bank could shift the composition of its purchases or even buy more to keep interest rates historically low across the spectrum.

Mr. Powell has pushed back on the idea that a taper is imminent and has promised that the Fed will alert investors well before the slowdown starts. He has also pointed out that rates are moving up because of a brightening outlook, and has suggested that the change isn’t worrying for now.

“I would be concerned by disorderly conditions in markets or a persistent tightening in financial conditions that threatens the achievement of our goals,” Mr. Powell said at an event this month, while stressing that the Fed looks at a range of financial conditions.

Credit…House Financial Services Committee

The House Financial Services Committee is holding its second hearing on the GameStop frenzy on Wednesday, with a range of experts expected to expound on what the saga says about the stock market’s plumbing.

The hearing appears likely to have a more wonkish tone than the committee’s first hearing on GameStop, which put a spotlight on Robinhood, the trading app at the center of a remarkable rally that sent shares of the struggling video game retailer up by over 1,600 percent in January,

Witnesses will include stock exchange officials, market analysts, former regulators and academics. Prepared testimony suggests the witnesses will focus on what — if any — deficiencies in the American stock trading system were revealed by the surge of trading in GameStop.

Sal Arnuk, co-founder of trading firm Themis Trading, plans to spotlight the growing role of payment-for-order-flow, where retail brokerage houses such as Robinhood channel customer orders to specific trading firms in exchange for payments.

“These practices create a massive incentive for such brokers to sell their clients orders to sophisticated trading firms uniquely tooled to profit off of them,” Mr. Arnuk will say, according to preliminary testimony released by the House committee. “This is a needless conflict that can harm retail investors, and it degrades the integrity of the market ecosystem as a whole.”

Other witnesses, such as Alexis Goldstein, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, will underscore the growing dominance of the trading firms that pay retail brokerage firms to execute their orders.

Two major market-makers, Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial, “execute a larger volume of U.S. stocks than the New York Stock Exchange,” she said in prepared testimony, urging regulators to look at whether their growth has worsened the prices that are available to investors on the public exchanges.

The hearing is to begin at 10 a.m. Other participants include Michael Blaugrund, chief operating officer of the New York Stock Exchange; Vicki L. Bogan, a Cornell University professor who focuses on the financial and investment behavior of households; Dennis Kelleher, the chief executive of Better Markets, which advocates market reforms; and Michael Piwowar, executive director of the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets and a former S.E.C. commissioner.

Credit…Jorge Silva/Reuters

BMW became the latest carmaker to promote its commitment to electric vehicles Wednesday, moving up the introduction of a new electric sedan, hinting at plans for an electric Rolls-Royce, and saying that its Mini cars will run exclusively on batteries, though not until the 2030s.

BMW follows rivals like Volkswagen, General Motors and Volvo that have recently declared their intention to shift to electric vehicles. But BMW, based in Munich, is pursuing a more cautious strategy than some of the others.

Unlike Volkswagen, for example, BMW has not introduced a platform — a chassis and other components shared among numerous body styles — designed exclusively for electric propulsion. BMW models will accommodate either battery power or internal combustion engines, an approach that inevitably involves engineering compromises.

Oliver Zipse, the BMW chief executive, said the company’s strategy gave customers more choice. “Others focus on individual market segments and niches,” he said during a news conference Wednesday. “We, on the other hand, are taking a targeted approach across all market segments.”

Some analysts say BMW’s approach prevents it from fully exploiting the advantages of battery power, such as the opportunity to create roomier interiors.

BMW said Wednesday it would introduce its last new Mini with an internal combustion engine in 2025, but would continue to sell the model into the 2030s. In addition, BMW will begin selling its electric i4 BMW sedan this year, sooner than planned. Rolls-Royce, which has been owned by BMW since the late 1990s, will also offer an electric model, Mr. Zipse said, but he did not give details.

Unlike General Motors or Volvo, BMW and other German carmakers have not set a deadline to stop selling cars that run on fossil fuels. They argue that many regions lack charging stations for electric vehicles. “It is not realistic that the same technologies will prevail equally in every country at the same time,” Mr. Zipse said Wednesday.

BMW sold 2.3 million passenger cars last year, 8 percent fewer than in 2019. That is a relatively small number of vehicles compared with Volkswagen or Toyota, which sell four times that number, and could be a disadvantage as the industry goes electric.

BMW as well as Daimler will have trouble selling enough electric vehicles to justify the expense of retooling factories or developing dedicated platforms, Patrick Hummel, an auto industry analyst at UBS, said during a conference call with reporters last week.

“BMW and Daimler will not be in a position to replicate what Volkswagen is doing,” Mr. Hummel said.

Credit…Matt Rourke/Associated Press

The stimulus money promised under the American Rescue Plan will hit the bank accounts of many Americans on Wednesday — the first official payment date — though some financial institutions chose to make the cash available to people even before it arrived from the government.

Not everyone eligible to receive a payment will get one on Wednesday, though. Additional rounds of payments will be made in the coming weeks, including for people who will receive theirs by mail as a check or debit card. You can check the status of your payment with the Internal Revenue Service’s Get My Payment tool.

Payments top out at $1,400 per person, including children and adult dependents. To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person must have an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income must be $112,500 or less, and for married couples filing jointly, that number has to be $150,000 or below. Partial payments are available to people who earn more, but the amounts fall quickly.

The payments are calculated using the most recent information on file with the I.R.S., which could be your 2019 tax return if you haven’t yet filed for 2020.

If you’re newly eligible for a payment based on your 2020 income but haven’t yet filed your return, the law allows the Treasury Department to continue payments until September. If you don’t get one during that period, you can claim what you’re owed when you file your 2021 taxes.

Uber will reclassify more than 70,000 drivers in Britain as workers, it said on Tuesday. The decision, which will provide the drivers a minimum wage, vacation pay and access to a pension plan, is the first time the company has agreed to classify its drivers in this way, Uber said. It comes in response to a landmark British Supreme Court decision last month that said Uber drivers were entitled to more protections. The decision represents a shift for Uber, though the move was made easier by British labor rules that offer a middle ground between freelancers and full employees that doesn’t exist in other countries.
Google is cutting in half its commission on developers’ first $1 million in app sales, following a similar move by Apple that is aimed at appeasing developers and regulators who accuse the companies of abusing their dominance of the smartphone industry. Google said that starting July 1, it would take 15 percent of the first $1 million developers take in from certain app sales, down from 30 percent. Google will still charge 30 percent after the first $1 million.

The S&P 500 index is set to open slightly lower on Wednesday, futures indicated, before the latest Federal Reserve monetary policy decisions are announced.
The S&P 500 pulled back from a record high on Tuesday, but volatility in stock markets has subsided from earlier in the month when bond yields jumped higher at a rate that took investors by surprises and caught the attention of central bank officials.
Government bond prices fell on Wednesday, sending their yields higher. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes rose 2 basis points, or 0.02 percentage points, to 1.64 percent.
Most European stock indexes were down. The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.3 percent, led by health care and industrial companies. In Britain, the FTSE 100 index dropped 0.4 percent and the CAC 40 in France was 0.2 percent lower.
Oil prices fell. Futures on West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, fell 0.7 percent to $64.34 a barrel.

Uber

A Bank of America analyst maintained his “buy” rating on Uber after the company said it would reclassify all 70,000 of its drivers in Britain as workers, giving them additional benefits, following a court ruling last month. Justin Post, the analyst, said the change would increase driver costs in the country by 7 percent to 9 percent but the outcome “reflects evolution, not platform risk.”
The benefits could make Uber more appealing for drivers, force other companies to make similar changes and make it harder for new entrants in the market, Mr. Post wrote in a research note. Uber’s share price fell 2.2 percent on Tuesday before the announcement.

The problems of Greensill Capital, a financial firm with ties to SoftBank and Credit Suisse, deepened Tuesday after its German unit entered insolvency proceedings.

Germany’s banking regulator, known as BaFin, said Tuesday that a judge had granted its request to open insolvency proceedings for Greensill Bank in Bremen. BaFin also formally determined that Greensill Bank was not able to repay all of its customers’ deposits, a step that allows depositors to receive compensation from public and private insurance funds.

The insolvency of the German unit was expected after Greensill Capital, which provides financing to companies and has been advised by former Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, filed for a form of bankruptcy protection in Britain last week.

Credit Suisse acknowledged on Tuesday that it was likely to suffer losses from a loan it had made to the firm. It said that it had received $50 million from the administrator of Greensill Capital’s assets in Britain but that $90 million of the loan was outstanding.

Credit Suisse’s asset management unit oversaw $10 billion in funds that Greensill packaged based on financing it provided to companies. The loans allowed companies to stretch out payments to suppliers. Credit Suisse has returned $3 billion in cash to investors in the funds and said it was working to recover more money.

Credit Suisse said Tuesday that the funds’ managers “intend to announce further cash distributions over the coming months.” The bank has not specified what losses, if any, investors in the funds might ultimately suffer.

Tags Backdrop, Economic, Fed, Live, meets, Revamped, Updates

Politics

Biden administration turns focus to Iran as Blinken meets with allies

Post author By
Post date February 6, 2021

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to State Department officials during U.S. President Joe Biden’s first visit to Washington, DC on February 4, 2021.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold a virtual meeting with America’s key European allies on Friday evening to discuss strategy toward Iran, Western diplomats and senior US officials told NBC News.

Blinken will discuss Iran with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Great Britain. The diplomats will also discuss the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and the situation in Myanmar. The last time the Secretary of State held a call in this format was in 2018, when the US pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal, according to NBC.

The meeting will take place after President Joe Biden’s National Security Council meets on Friday afternoon to discuss the government’s stance on Iran. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the NSC meeting was part of an ongoing policy review and no announcements would be made.

The developments are the strongest indication so far of Biden’s intention to turn the page of former President Donald Trump’s independent approach to Iran and diplomacy in general, and to return the US to a multilateral foreign policy.

An Iranian flag is pictured near a missile during a military exercise involving the Iranian Air Defense Forces Iran on October 19, 2020.

WANA News Agency | Reuters

The White House plans to rejoin the Iranian nuclear deal, but insists that Iran return to full compliance first. The Biden administration has promised to consult closely with US allies on their stance on Iran.

Trump withdrew the US from the deal because it did not restrict Iran’s ballistic missile program or address Tehran’s support for militant groups.

Iran withdrew its obligations under the deal when the Trump administration pursued a “maximum pressure” policy by imposing crippling economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif suggested on Monday that Washington and Tehran should return to the deal at the same time, with diplomatic support from the European Union.

However, the Biden administration rejected this proposal.

“As President Biden said, the proposal is on the table that we will be ready when Iran fully complies with the JCPOA again,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday.

The US has not yet had talks with Iran over the nuclear deal, Price said.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the official name of the agreement negotiated under former President Barack Obama to try to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. China, France, Germany, Russia and the UK were also parties.

Last week, Biden named Robert Malley as US envoy to Iran. Malley helped draft the original 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. The move is seen as a diplomatic effort to move forward in the Middle East.

In his first foreign policy address on Thursday, Biden vowed to repair alliances through diplomacy and restore Washington’s leadership position on the global stage.

While not addressing the Iranian nuclear deal, he announced that the US would no longer support Saudi Arabia’s offensive operations in Yemen. The Saudis are fighting there against an armed movement known as the Houthis. Washington and Riyadh accuse Iran of supporting the Houthis.

Biden said the US would continue to help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, a statement that aims to reassure Riyadh and warn Iran. The Saudis accused Iran of planning an attack on its oil factories in 2019, which forced Riyadh to cut its oil production in half for a short time.

Amanda Macias of CNBC contributed to this article.

Tags Administration, Allies, Biden, Blinken, Focus, Iran, meets, turns

World News

In Myanmar, a Cult of Persona Meets Its Downfall

Post author By
Post date February 4, 2021

In Myanmar, a Cult of Personality Meets Its Downfall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags Cult, Downfall, meets, Myanmar, Personality

Entertainment

The Ailey Firm Meets the Problem of This Misplaced Season

Post author By
Post date December 20, 2020

The Ailey Company Meets the Challenge of This Lost Season

A section of “Revelations Reimagined” is current: a socially distant version of the duet “Fix Me, Jesus”. Usually it’s a work of heroic partnership, shared balances, and elevators, but this is where Jermaine Terry and Sarah Daley-Perdomo don’t touch. Instead – as will be explained later in the program – Mrs. Daley-Perdomo’s husband stands as a body double, only visible as a physical perch and lifting limbs. These safeguards subtly change the meaning, making the man less a preacher than an angel.

This is fascinating, although I still prefer the standard version, which Glenn Allen Sims and Linda Celeste Sims danced flawlessly on another program last week. This couple has just retired after more than 20 years in the company and the program was unfortunately their virtual farewell. Aside from “Fix Me,” the repertoire didn’t show her at her best, but it showed her beautiful attunement, her ability to “become a breath,” as Mr. Sims put it. You will be missed very much.

Other of the previous programs have carefully selected excerpts from meaningfully exploring spirituality, the collaboration of Ailey and Ellington, dance and social justice. In them is the artistic director, Robert Battle, a thoughtful, good-natured host as well as a lithe pitchman who invites guests (including Wynton Marsalis, Toshi Reagon, Bryan Stevenson) to say something, even if – like him – you said things, which they had said many times.

Which brings us to the other premiere. If “Jam Session” is an escape from “Revelations”, “Testament” is an explicit homage. It was choreographed by Matthew Rushing, Clifton Brown and Yusha-Marie Sorzano and shows, as described in Ms. Sorzano’s spoken word, an arc of “lament for hope, pain for power” – the form of “revelations”. Better use of the Wave Hill location makes it cinematically more expressive than Revelations Reimagined, although its director is the same.

Tags Ailey, Challenge, Company, Lost, meets, Season

Health

FDA advisory panel meets at this time to vote on whether or not to advocate approval of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 12, 2020

FDA advisory panel meets today to vote on whether to recommend approval of Pfizer's Covid vaccine

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A panel from the Food and Drug Administration will meet Thursday to vote on whether to recommend Pfizer and BioNTech’s emergency approval of the coronavirus vaccine.

Prior to voting by the Agency’s Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products, the independent panel of medical experts will evaluate the Pfizer clinical trial data and provide their opinion on the vaccine, including whether the benefits outweigh the risks in an emergency .

The FDA is not required to follow the advice of the advisory group, but it often does.

A recommendation from the advisory committee is the final step before the FDA is likely to give final OK to the distribution of the potentially life-saving doses in the United States. The vaccine would be the first to be approved for use in the United States

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

Tags advisory, approval, Covid, FDA, meets, Panel, Pfizers, recommend, today, Vaccine, Vote