China Surpasses US in Eyes of Young Africans, Survey Shows



Antony Sguazzin
Sun, June 12, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- China has overtaken the US as the foreign power seen as having the biggest positive influence in Africa by young people, according to a survey released on Monday.

A survey conducted by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation found that 76% of 4,507 young Africans across 15 countries named China as a foreign power with a positive influence on their lives, compared with 72% for the US. In 2020, when the inaugural study of 18-to-24-year-olds was conducted, 83% of respondents saw the US’s influence as positive while the figure for China was 79%.

The results are further evidence that China is winning the battle against geopolitical rivals such as the US and the European Union for the hearts and minds of Africans. Beijing has plowed money into African infrastructure over the past two decades and supplies the continent with affordable consumer goods ranging from mobile phones and solar panels to shovels and plastics.

“We see China having climbed to pole position, we see a recognition of the fact that China is engaging in Africa at a time when when very few others are,” Ivor Ichikowitz, chairman of the foundation, said in an interview in Johannesburg. “In Africa, America has played a very very limited role, its actually played an embarrassingly insignificant role in terms of actual investment, actual trade, actual building of infrastructure.”

Dominant Player

In addition to its vast mineral and energy resources, Africa has the world’s most youthful population and is seen as a potential market for the future by countries ranging from France to India. In terms of perceived positive influence, the US has now slipped behind the UK and European Union as well.

“There is no question that China is the dominant player in Africa today,” Ichikowitz said. “Overall we are seeing a much more positive approach to China, that’s going to drive a lot more engagement with China.”

Positive sentiment toward China was strongest in Rwanda, Malawi and Nigeria. The survey, which involves lengthy face-to-face interviews, will be run annually. About 42% of the world’s youth are expected to be African by 2030.

Still, China’s influence is not seen as universally positive. Of those surveyed 56% said they believed the unverified conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was developed and intentionally spread by the Chinese government.

The survey also showed that young Africans have lost faith in their own governments, and are increasingly concerned about climate change and discrimination against women and ethnic minorities.

Key Findings of the survey:

32% of young Africans said they were excited and optimistic about the future of their countries compared with 43% in the 2020 survey. Angolans, Zambians and Malawians were the most pessimistic of their countries while Nigerians had the dimmest view of the continent’s future.


39% said they wouldn’t take a Covid-19 vaccine even if it was easily available.


The top priority for those surveyed was job creation.


72% of youth said they are concerned about climate change, citing worries ranging from droughts to increased pollution.


More than half of those surveyed said they planned to emigrate in the next few years.

Ichikowitz founded the foundation and also heads Paramount Group Ltd., a South Africa-based defense and aerospace business.

(Proportion of world’s youth in seventh paragraph)

What's fuelling China's lithium rush in Zimbabwe? The long game on zero carbon

Mon, June 13, 2022

Zimbabwe holds Africa's largest lithium reserves, the fifth-largest globally, with its province of Masvingo home to the Bikita mine - site of the world's largest-known deposit of the metal at around 11 million tonnes.

The resource, however, has remained largely untapped for decades due to a lack of investment.

But the growing global demand for electric vehicles has seen Bikita and other Zimbabwean mines attract more Chinese companies in recent years, turning the southern African nation into China's next frontier for the key EV battery component.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.


In February, state-run China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group announced it would acquire a lithium project in Zimbabwe, the latest Chinese giant to make multimillion dollar acquisitions to secure Lithium supplies in the worldwide race to go green.

Sinomine Resource Group (Sinomine), a China Nonferrous subsidiary, paid US$180 million to acquire full control of two privately held companies that jointly owned 74 per cent of Bikita Minerals, the country's oldest lithium producer.

The Bikita mine initially opened in 1911 for tin excavation, with lithium mining only starting in 1953. A 2021 British Geological Survey report said it was the only mine in Africa producing lithium, though this was yet to be used in battery supply chains.

At a meeting with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa in April, Bikita Minerals general manager and Sinomine director Wang Zhenhua promised to help the government achieve a US$12 billion output in the mining sector by 2023.

Bikita Minerals general manger Wang Zhenhua meets Zimbabwean 

 President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare in April. 

Sinomine's is only the latest in a spate of Chinese lithium acquisitions in Zimbabwe, a country that has faced more than two decades of Western economic and political sanctions first imposed during the regime of late former president Robert Mugabe, who was ousted in 2017.

The deal comes close on the heels of Shanghai-listed Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt's acquisition last December of the Arcadia hard-rock lithium mine just outside Zimbabwean capital Harare, for US$422 million. This was followed by a US$300 million project to develop the mine, expected to deliver the first batch of lithium in 2023.

Also last year, Chengxin Lithium Group spent US$77 million on a deal including mining rights in the largely unexplored Sabi Star lithium-tantalum mine project in eastern Zimbabwe, described by the Shenzhen-listed firm as "an attractive investment destination for Chinese new energy companies" looking to increase lithium reserves.

The silvery-white metal is in high demand as an essential raw material for the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, as more countries move to cut their carbon footprint.

Chris Berry, president of commodities advisory firm House Mountain Partners in New York, said the slew of Chinese investments was aimed both at the structural shortage seen in the lithium market as well as extending Beijing's reach into Africa via the Belt and Road Initiative.

"Zimbabwe isn't the only destination for Chinese lithium," Berry said, citing battery materials producer Ganfeng Lithium's investment in Mali, and recent rumours that Chinese multinational BYD was in talks to buy six lithium mines around Africa which could provide up to 1 million tonnes of the metal per year.

"Chinese companies aren't 'afraid' of investing in Africa in the same way Western investors are. This is China's game to lose," he said.

The Bikita Minerals lithium mine in Masvingo province, Zimbabwe, is believed to be the world's largest-known deposit of the metal. 

However, it will take time before Zimbabwe can compete with established lithium producers.

"I'm not sure Zimbabwe will ever be a major lithium producer in the way that Chile or Western Australia are," Berry said. "This is due mainly to the historic instability in the country as well as the fact that lithium assets in other countries are superior in quality."

Stephen Chan, professor of politics and international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said Zimbabwe remained out of favour as a location for Western firms because of economic instability and political uncertainty.

"The Chinese are able to achieve favoured investor status by virtue of an immense inflow of aid, loans and foreign direct investment in the country - a classic case of the Chinese preferring to look at long-term prospects despite short-term costs," Chan said.

He said the world needed lithium and supply from places like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was shrouded in controversial issues like child labour.

"Total global reserves of lithium are estimated at only 14 million tonnes," Chan said, warning that, as demand grew with the world turning away from pure reliance on fossil fuels, "available reserves will be exhausted within a decade".

He said China was the world's fourth largest producer of the metal, but its reserves were only at 1 million tonnes. So Zimbabwean lithium, provided there was a lot of tonnage in the mines, would in fact power Chinese industry first and foremost.

The DRC has also emerged as a key source of EV battery raw materials. Chinese mining giant Zijin is embroiled in a legal battle with Australia's AVZ minerals over control of the DRC's Manono mine, estimated to hold the world's biggest lithium deposit.

The 2021 British Geological Survey said significant natural lithium resources and mining potential might provide an opportunity for many African countries to help meet increased demand, most notably Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ghana, the DRC and Mali.

However, there was much less engagement in critical stages further along the supply chain, the study said. "Currently, Africa has very little capacity for lithium mineral processing, further refining of lithium chemicals, or manufacture of battery components," it said.

"This leads to a typical situation where the mineral concentrate is exported; value is added outside Africa, and products using lithium-ion batteries are then imported."

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Report casts doubt on net-zero emissions pledges by big global companies


 Emissions from the chimneys of Yara France plant in 

Montoir-de-Bretagne near Saint-Nazaire

Sun, June 12, 2022
By Gloria Dickie and Simon Jessop

LONDON (Reuters) - Corporate plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions fall short of what is needed to combat climate change, with "major credibility gaps" found among the world's largest companies, according to a new stocktake of net-zero efforts in the public and private sector.

Roughly half of the Forbes 2000 largest companies have yet to announce plans to reach net-zero — the point at which greenhouse gas emissions are negated by deep cuts in output as well as methods to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. Of the 702 companies with a net-zero target, two-thirds haven't made it clear how they plan to achieve that goal, Net Zero Tracker found in their annual report.

Net Zero Tracker, run in part by the UK-based Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) and the University of Oxford, assesses publicly available data for about 200 countries as well as large publicly traded companies, including those in fossil fuels.

"We see a lot of issues with credibility, and the quality and robustness of these targets," said report co-author Frederic Hans, a climate policy analyst at NewClimate Institute, a German think tank.

Many companies with net-zero targets have set no interim emissions goals for before 2050, which the report said was "unacceptably low" if the world is to halve emissions in the next eight years, as scientists say is needed.

Carbon offsetting — or buying credits for emissions reduced elsewhere — also featured prominently among corporate strategies. Nearly 40% of the Forbes 2000 companies with a net-zero target plan to use offsets, despite concerns about the lack of regulation.

Governments will need to impose legal standards and regulations to ensure net-zero progress, said co-author John Lang of the ECIU. At the moment, companies are confused about what's needed from them. "They don’t know what information has to be disclosed," he said.

At its climate summit in Glasgow last year, the United Nations established an expert group to produce net-zero standards for the private sector and analyse commitments. The European Union is also in the midst of drafting net-zero reporting standards, to be adopted in November. The current draft text bars companies from counting carbon offsets toward net-zero.

"We have to have mandatory, top-down regulations to guide them," Lang said. However, he doubted the issue could be resolved before the next U.N. climate summit, "COP27," in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt, this November. It “probably can't be fixed before COP28" in 2023, he said.

(Reporting by Gloria Dickie and Simon Jessop in London; Additional reporting by Kate Abnett in Brussels; Editing by Katy Daigle, Susan Fenton and David Gregorio)

A Mercedes and Volkswagen supplier's daily shipments of parts have fallen 50%, due to the South Korean trucker strikes, report says



Beatrice Nolan
Mon, June 13, 2022

Hankook Tire & Technology, a supplier to major carmakers, has seen its shipments fall, per Reuters.

The shipment issues are a result of a week-long truckers' strike in South Korea.


Truck drivers are striking over low pay amid rising fuel costs around the world.

Truck drivers striking in South Korea are causing supply chain issues for major carmakers, Reuters reports.

Han kook Tire & Technology Co Ltd, a large global tire brand, is a key supplier for carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. The company has seen daily shipments fall about 50% due to the truck drivers' protest in South Korea, a spokesperson for the company told Reuters.

Han kook Tire & Technology did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.

640,000 tires, worth more than $44 million, had faced shipment issues as of Sunday, according to a statement from the South Korean industry ministry, as reported by Reuters.

Monday marks the seventh day of the strike as thousands of workers protest low pay and a lack of government subsidies amid rising fuel costs worldwide. The strike is estimated to have caused South Korean industries accumulate losses of around $1.24 billion, according to the country's industry ministry's statement.

The week-long strike has significantly affected the country's automobile industry. Around 5,400 vehicles, worth around $200 million, have been lost production as of Monday, per the industry ministry's statement.

The South Korean industry ministry did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.

South Korean carmaker, Hyundai, has also faced significant production cuts since the strike began. On Friday, striking workers cut production at Hyundai's Ulsan factories to one-tenth of its usual output, union officials told Reuters.

Hyundai's Ulsan factories produce around 6,000 cars daily and as of Friday, the strike has cost Hyundai around 3,800 vehicles, per Reuters.

The disruptions in South Korea come as another hit to the global supply chain which has been plagued with signification disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine War.

Striking S.Korean truckers say they may block coal to power plant






Sun, June 12, 2022
By Byungwook Kim and Heekyong Yang

SEOUL (Reuters) -Striking South Korean truckers are considering blocking shipments of coal to a power plant if the government rejects their demands for minimum pay guarantees, a senior trade union official said on Monday.

The Cargo Truckers Solidarity Union, on strike for a seventh day, is weighing several options to press its demands, including stopping coal to generate electricity and shutting down petrochemical complexes by blocking their shipments in and out.

"We are thinking of a complete blockade," union leader Kim Jae-gwang told Reuters, referring to coal shipments to a power plant in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province that he did not name, which uses trucks for its coal.

"But we hope such a situation doesn't happen."

The impact of a blockade of the power plant would be limited in terms of national electricity output, even in the high-demand summer, but would mark a significant intensification of the truckers' action.

The strike has cost key industrial sectors more than $1.2 billion in lost production and unfilled deliveries, the government estimated on Monday, as the damage spreads deeper through Asia's fourth-largest economy.

The union is protesting against soaring fuel prices and demanding minimum pay guarantees. Four rounds of negotiations with the government have failed to find a compromise.

Some 7,050 people, or about 32% of union members, were striking on Monday, according to an updated transport ministry estimate. The ministry said in a statement it plans to continue talks with the union to resolve the situation.

Kim said his members were for now letting some movement of traffic to prevent the shutdown of petrochemical facilities, which would cost a lot of time and money to restart, but the union would "reconsider" that if the government did not show willingness to negotiate.

The strike is a major test for South Korea's new conservative president Yoon Suk-yeol, raising the risk of eroding his support, distracting him from his agenda and sowing the seeds of long-term antagonism with powerful unions.

On Monday, Yoon called for ways to reduce the impact of the strike on industry. A transport ministry official said no new meeting with the union was scheduled.

The strike has forced steelmaker POSCO to shut some plants because of a lack of space to store finished products.

It also caused manufacturing losses of 5,400 vehicles for South Korean automakers between June 8-11, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, with Hyundai Motor cutting production for some assembly lines. Cement makers have also reduced output.

CHIPS NOT DISRUPTED

Petrochemical firms have seen average daily shipments from factories tumbling 90% as truckers target complexes in Ulsan, Yeosu and Daesan, an industry association said.

Two petrochemical industry sources, who declined to be identified, told Reuters that although naphtha crackers are still running at previous rates, some companies may be forced to halt them as soon as later this week if the situation continues.

There have been as yet no reports of major production disruption at Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and other semiconductor firms.

Kim Yang-pang, a researcher at Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade, estimated Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix and their suppliers had enough supplies of raw materials in stock for at least two weeks.

Samsung declined to comment, while SK Hynix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The government has urged the truckers to return to work but said it would seek to reflect their demands in legislation. It has also deployed some 100 military vehicles to help companies with shipments.

The truckers are demanding an extension of subsidies, set to expire this year, that guarantee minimum wages as fuel prices rise. The Yoon administration says it is up to parliament to change the legislation.

As supply bottlenecks plague the global economy, any prolonged slowdown in the production and shipment of chips, petrochemicals and autos could add to fears about rising inflation and slowing growth.

South Korea's inflation is set to hit a 24-year high of 4.8% this year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said last week, cutting its growth forecast to 2.7% from a December projection of 3.0%.

(Reporting by Byungwook Kim and Heekyong Yang; Additional reporting by Joyce Lee; Writing by Choonsik Yoo; Editing by Stephen Coates, Edwina Gibbs and Jan Harvey)

UK poised to agree deal to keep coal-fired power station open over winter


Posted on June 13, 2022

The UK is poised to strike a deal to keep open a coal-fired power station that was set to close as the government scrambles to strengthen its domestic energy security.

Ministers and EDF are expected to finalise plans this week to extend the life of the West Burton A power station in Nottinghamshire, which is run by the French energy company, from October to March.

The government would have a standby arrangement with EDF for the plant to remain available for back-up generation, providing enough power for about 1.5mn homes.


The deal was set to be signed last week but EDF is still negotiating the price with the government, energy regulator Ofgem and National Grid’s Electricity System Operator over how much the company would be paid.

Industry experts say the cost is likely to be tens of millions of pounds, with this being levied on consumers’ energy bills.

If finalised, the agreement will prompt a backlash from environmental groups which fear the government is set to backtrack on its net zero 2050 pledge. But the government insist that it will still close all coal-fired power stations by 2024 despite the temporary extension.

The West Burton A Power station was opened in 1966 and was due to close last year but has already had its life extended until September.

EDF will also need to import coal from South Africa, Tyrannical Australia or Kentucky — rather than Russia, from where it drew resources historically.

EDF said was is “working hard to finalise an agreement with National Grid ESO to support the government’s request to keep West Burton A power station available over next winter.”

The government is also in discussions with Drax about reopening its coal plant in Yorkshire, as well as part of Uniper’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal plant in Nottinghamshire, both of which were due to close in September.

The rest of the Uniper plant will run until 2024, when all coal generation will cease. The units could generate electricity for about 4mn homes when running at full capacity.

Uniper and Drax confirmed they had been asked by the government to explore the option of keeping plants open and that discussions were continuing.

Coal is the most polluting form of power generation and was Britain’s biggest source of electricity in 2013 but provided only 2 per cent of the mix last year. Gas now provides the biggest share of electricity supplies, with only three power stations still burning coal in Britain.

The government said: “While it remains our firm commitment to end the use of coal power by October 2024, this is a welcome step in further boosting our energy security and domestic supply in light of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

National Grid ESO said it was “in discussions with a number of generators, however we cannot provide any further detail at this stage”.

Source: Financial Times

The post UK poised to agree deal to keep coal-fired power station open over winter appeared first on The New York Ledger.

FICTIOUS CAPITAL CRYPTO CRASHES

Crypto Lender Celsius Freezes Withdrawals, Fuels Market Rout

Suvashree Ghosh and Sidhartha Shukla
Sun, June 12, 2022,


(Bloomberg) -- Celsius Network Ltd. paused withdrawals, swaps and transfers on its platform, fueling a broader market selloff as traders continued to question the sustainability of high-yielding tokens in the wake of the Terra blockchain collapse.

Celsius’s CEL token was down 31% to 24.2 cents as of 12:42 p.m. in Hong Kong, according to pricing data site CoinGecko, underperforming amid a slump in crypto assets that sent Bitcoin to its lowest level since December 2020.

Doubts about the sky-high yields backing protocols such as Celsius have intensified after Terra’s collapse in May and as tighter monetary policy from global central banks curbs demand for riskier assets. The CEL token promises “actual financial rewards,” including as much as 30% extra returns weekly, according to its website.

“The plunge of Celsius’s token $CEL seems to be a realization of the contagion risk of UST/LUNA into similar financial tools,” said Burak Tamac, senior analyst, regulatory and on-chain at CryptoQuant.

Lending and borrowing protocols underperformed, with their market caps down 10% compared with 6.4% fall in broader crypto universe, according to CoinGecko. Celsius peers Aave, Maple and Compound were down 7.5%, 14% and 9%, respectively.

“We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations,” the platform said in a memo on its website, adding that users will continue to accrue rewards during the pause.

Celsius’s moves come as cryptocurrencies are struggling more broadly. Bitcoin fell as much as 8.9% Monday, while Ether dropped as much as 12%. Both are declining for a seventh straight session.

Crypto lender Celsius pauses withdrawals, transfers citing 'extreme market conditions'



Manish Singh
Sun, June 12, 2022,

Celsius Network, one of the biggest crypto lenders, told customers Sunday evening that it is pausing withdrawals, swap, and transfers between accounts in a move that has sparked discussions and prompted the price of the firm's token to take a 60% tumble in the past one hour to as low as 19 cents.

"We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations," wrote Celsius, which counts stablecoin-issuer Tether International, growth equity fund WestCap Group and Canadian pension fund Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec among its investors.

"Acting in the interest of our community is our top priority. In service of that commitment and to adhere to our risk management framework, we have activated a clause in our Terms of Use that will allow for this process to take place. Celsius has valuable assets and we are working diligently to meet our obligations."

Celsius, which was valued at $3.25 billion when it extended its "oversubscribed" Series B financing round to $750 million in November, allows users to deposit their Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether and receive weekly interest payments. Depending on the time horizon and the token, the platform offers as much as 18% interest a year. On its website, Celsius says 1.7 million people call "Celsius their home for crypto."

The announcement follows one of the brutal weekends in the cryptocurrency market that saw hundreds of millions of dollars worth of liquidation. At the time of publication, Bitcoin was trading at about $25,585 and Ethereum at $1,346, some of their lowest levels in over a year. Other high-profile crypto projects including Solana, BNB and FTT were also down.


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Crypto lenders are facing increased scrutiny following the collapse of Terraform Labs' Luna and its sister token UST last month. Alex Mashinsky, chief executive of Celsius Network, has been trying reassure customers in recent weeks, saying that they can withdraw their assets at any time and questioned skeptics. The firm also launched a recurring promotion recently, offering customers rewards if they transferred assets into Celsius accounts and help positions for up to 180 days.

But Celsius has also grappled with high sell-offs in recent months. The lender says on its website that it has about $3.8 billion of assets, down from $24 billion it disclosed in late December 2021.

“The beauty of what Celsius managed to do is that we deliver yield, we pay it to the people who would never be able to do it themselves, we take it from the rich, and we beat the index. That’s like going to the Olympics and getting 15 medals in 15 different fields," Mashinsky said in a video streamed in December.


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Bitcoin Plunges Below $25K, Lowest Level Since December 2020

Shaurya Malwa
Mon, June 13, 2022

Bitcoin (BTC) plummeted under $25,000 on Monday morning amid weakness in the macroeconomic environment and systemic risk from within the crypto market, data shows.

The asset has slid for nearly twelve straight weeks, falling from nearly $49,000 in March 2022 to under $25,000. It showed some signs of bottoming out in mid-May, but worrying U.S. inflation data released last week did little to cushion falling sentiment.

The consumer price index (CPI), the most widely tracked benchmark for inflation, rose 8.6% on a year-over-year basis in May, topping expectations that it would decline to 8.2% from April's 8.3%, as reported.

Such data contributed to a fall in Asian markets on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell nearly 3.5%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 3.01%, while India’s Sensex dropped 2.44%. Futures of U.S. technology-heavy index Nasdaq opened 2% lower, while S&P500 fell 1.65%.

According to price-charts, bitcoin had strong support at the $29,000 mark, but the fall below that level now means that the cryptocurrency could drop to its 2017 high of nearly $20,000.

Readings on the Relative Strength Index (RSI) – a tool used by traders to calculate the magnitude of an asset’s price move – dropped under 30, suggesting a reversal could be on the way as short-term buyers react to technical data.

Bitcoin RSI dropped under 30 this week, technical indicators show. (TradingView)

Elsewhere, crypto lender Celsius paused withdrawals citing “extreme market conditions,” fueling crypto twitter concerns that the company may not have enough liquidity to pay out its depositors.

A HEDGE AGAINST INFLATION THEY SAID
Bitcoin Tumbles to 18-Month Low as US Inflation Impact Spreads

Joanna Ossinger and Suvashree Ghosh
Sun, June 12, 2022



(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin plunged to the lowest in about 18 months in Asia trading Monday as the impact of Friday’s shock US inflation data continued to reverberate through global risk assets.

The world’s largest digital token tumbled as much as 8.9% to $24,903.49 -- its lowest since December 2020. Other cryptocurrencies also declined as a broader sell-off continued. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 100 Index, which measures 100 of the top tokens, dropped as much as 9.7%.

“Cryptos remain at the mercy of the Fed and stuck in a merry dance with the Nasdaq and other risk assets,” said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder and managing partner of crypto lender Nexo. “We’re hearing Bitcoin forecasts in the mid-teen and single-digit thousands which tells you the type of macro environment crypto is facing for the first time -- and the levels of fear.”

Traders are boosting bets for a more aggressive pace of Federal Reserve tightening after data Friday showed US inflation jumped to a fresh 40-year high in May. Cryptocurrencies, which have struggled amid the Fed’s policy in recent months, have been hit particularly hard. The collapse of the Terra/Luna ecosystem last month, and lender Celsius pausing withdrawals Monday morning Asia time, have further eroded confidence in the space.

“Typically, I’d suggest being a buyer here” on Bitcoin futures, said Rick Bensignor, president of Bensignor Investment Strategies and a former strategist at Morgan Stanley. “But if you do get long, perhaps think about doing so with either a long call spread or short put spread to limit risk. If this dives, there’s no reliable support nearby.”

Other coins were also having a difficult time, with Ether off as much as 12% to its lowest level since February 2021. Avalanche dropped as much as 15%, Solana up to 14% and Dogecoin as much as 11%.

“If Ethereum continues to bleed toward $1,200 (the 200-week moving average) the outlook for other altcoins becomes even bleaker,” Trenchev said.

Bloomberg Businessweek

US Southern Baptist churches facing ‘apocalypse’ over sexual abuse scandal

Edward Helmore
Sun, June 12, 2023

Photograph: Holly Meyer/AP

America’s largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination is being roiled by a sexual abuse scandal that casts a harsh light on one of the most politically powerful religious groups in the country as well as renewing a focus on its racist past.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a collection of loosely affiliated member churches, boasting just under 15 million members, and is dominated by white members, who are usually deeply socially conservative. The convention has often been a powerful tool for rightwing organizing in recent years, especially on issues around abortion.

But the SBC is now so mired in scandal that one recent former top official said it faced a “Southern Baptist apocalypse”.

Related: Southern Baptist leaders ‘stonewalled’ sex abuse victims, scathing report says

The issue at hand is the release by the SBC of a 205-page document naming hundreds of Baptist leaders and members accused or found guilty of sexual abuse of children. The list, which includes 700 entries on cases between 2000 and 2019, was released after a bombshell third-party investigation by Guidepost Solutions said the convention’s leaders in its executive committee failed the public and its community by mishandling sexual abuse cases and mistreating victims and survivors.

SBC leaders Rolland Slade and Willie McLaurin issued a statement saying the list “reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse. Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and healing, and that churches will utilize this list proactively to protect and care for the most vulnerable among us.”

The initial report was released after a seven-month investigation that revealed 380 leaders and volunteers in the SBC have faced public accusations of sexual abuse. It said that the SBC’s general counsel and spokesman had kept their own private list of abusive ministers and that leaders of SBC’s executive committee had focused for decades on trying to protect the SBC from liability for abuse in local churches.

“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” investigators wrote.

Among those named was Johnny Hunt, a Georgia-based pastor and former SBC president, who has been accused of sexually assaulting another pastor’s wife during a beach vacation in 2010.

Hunt, who resigned last month as senior vice-president of evangelism and leadership at SBC’s domestic missions agency, has denied he assaulted the woman but admitted on social media to a “personal sin” and called it “a brief, but improper encounter”.

Others named were a former SBC vice-president who was credibly accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old; a former president who delayed reporting child sexual abuse allegations out of “heartfelt concern” for the accused; and another who failed to report allegations of abuse against young boys.

But the publication of the report and the subsequent list of names has led to pushback within the organization – despite the horrific details contained within it. “I am terrified that we are breaching our longstanding position of being a voluntary association of independent churches, when we start telling churches that they should do this or do that to protect children or women,” said Joe Knott, a North Carolina attorney and longtime committee member.

But some say that the report about decades of sexual abuse cover-up, is an opportunity for the SBC to look more closely at its roots in white evangelicalism, including how it was founded in 1845 to protect the institution of slavery.

A study of that inception, White Evangelical Racism, published last year, studied the roots of the SBC in the south. According to author Anthea Butler, the SBC used scripture to deny the vote to emancipated Blacks during Reconstruction and to later side with racist segregationists. In more recent times the SBC has also taken flak for debating critical race theory, an academic discipline that studies institutional racism in US laws and society.

“The two biggest crises in the SBC are sex abuse and debates over critical race theory, and the two are very much related,” said Sara Moslener, director of the After Purity Project at Central Michigan University. “So much of white racial identity is about obscuring the reality of the racist history of United States and to obscure the issue of sexual assault in evangelical churches.”

For both to be revealed, Moslener says, would be to undermine the status quo in the SBC, theologically and nationally, for white evangelicalism. “Since the report came out, people have been talking about it as an ‘apocalypse’, but an apocalypse can mean both destruction and reveal.”

An article in the New Republic published this month went further, suggesting that the SBC crusade against “critical race theory”, while obscuring sexual abuse within its own ranks, “is further suggestive that racial terror is still very much at work within the organization”.

In 2019, the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, moved to resolve that “critical race theory and intersectionality should only be employed as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture – not as transcendent ideological frameworks”. The convention further resolved that “the gospel of Jesus Christ alone grants the power to change people and society”.

That statement on race caused several Black pastors to break with the SBC and triggered high-level meetings about whether the Black evangelical church has a place in the convention whose leadership had in some cases come out in support of Donald Trump.

According to Pew Research, Black evangelicals made up about 14% of all African American Christians, while 85% of Americans who identify as Southern Baptist are white.

In a subsequent statement, SBC presidents said they recognized the “reality of racism on both the personal and systemic or structural level” but still see critical race theory as incompatible with Baptist teaching.

The SBC has been tracking right since the 1970s when a backlash to desegregation – Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” – was hitched on an anti-abortion sentiment to which the convention had previously been relatively neutral. That effectively led to the rise of the religious right in the US – a phenomenon that still has huge repercussions today especially as America looks set to lose federally guaranteed abortion rights.

“It just so happened that abortion was the new issue and the one that worked very effectively to create a voting bloc that was so powerful that a white southern evangelical president Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan because white evangelicals came to see Reagan as reflecting their values more than one of their own,” said Moslener.

Carter ultimately left the Baptist church over its refusal to ordain women but the issue cemented the relationship between white evangelicals and the Republican party.

Even if the SBC deals with its sexual assault problem, Moslener says, and comes out to say we honor women and will give them equal roles of authority, “Even if they did that, and we see places where evangelical feminism is emerging from the shadows, they still haven’t dealt with the legacy of racism in the church. They’re still only getting to a piece of it.”

Former CIA agent facing trial for the agency's largest leak drew swastikas on students' books at high school, Exhibitionist  report says


Sam Tabahriti
Sun, June 12, 2022

The CIA logo at its Langley headquarters.Getty Images

Former CIA agent Joshua Schulte is accused of the largest leak in the agency's history.


Writer Patrick Radden Keefe spoke to some of Schulte's high school friends for The New Yorker.


They said that Schulte drew swastikas and showed his genitals to other students at school.

The former CIA agent accused of the largest leak in the agency's history drew swastikas and showed his genitals to other students at high school, according to a profile published by The New Yorker.

Joshua Schulte became so known for his temper at the CIA that he was nicknamed the Nuclear Option, Patrick Radden Keefe wrote.

One of his school friends, Kavi Patel, said the former CIA agent used to "draw swastikas all over the place," but claimed he was not anti-Semitic.

Patel said Schulte liked getting a rise out of people and recalled him saying: "I don't really care one way or the other, but it's fun to see the shock on people's faces."

On at least one occasion, according to the article, he drew swastikas on the yearbook of a Jewish student.

When Schulte was in college, he argued on his blog that pornography is a form of free expression that "is not degrading to women" and "does not incite violence," Keefe wrote for The New Yorker.

One woman interviewed for the article said Schulte had repeatedly exposed his genitals to other students in the junior high school band. "He would try and touch people, or get people to touch him—that was a daily occurrence," she said.

In March 2017, WikiLeaks published a series of articles disclosing confidential information from the CIA taken from 2 billion pages of documents stolen from the agency.

In his article, Keele quotes a WikiLeaks statement suggesting that the person who leaked the information wanted "to initiate a public debate" about the use of cyberweapons. Investigators suspected Schulte, obtained a warrant and searched his flat.

According to the article, the FBI seized his computers for forensic analysis and discovered a "virtual machine" – an entire operating system nested within the computer's normal operating system.

The investigators discovered a large amount of child pornography, and his internet research history showed his interest in WikiLeaks.

Schulte will be representing himself in the trial scheduled to begin in New York on Monday.

Keefe said: "Schulte no longer works for the government, but his head is still full of government secrets, and he will be the one questioning witnesses on the stand."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Putin is 'preparing to starve much of the developing world' in order to win Russia's war in Ukraine, Yale historian says

"When the food riots begin, and as starvation spreads, Russian propaganda will blame Ukraine" 

Kelsey Vlamis
Sat, June 11, 2022, 

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his interview with the Russia-1 TV channel in the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, Friday, June 3, 2022.

Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo/Associated Press

Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of blocking millions of tons of grain exports.

Yale historian Timothy Snyder said Putin plans to starve places in Asia and Africa to win the war.

"When the food riots begin, and as starvation spreads, Russian propaganda will blame Ukraine," he said.

Yale historian Timothy Snyder said Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to starve some countries as part of his efforts in Ukraine.

Snyder published a lengthy Twitter thread Saturday explaining how he believes Putin is using food insecurity to his advantage and called it the "latest chapter of hunger politics."

"Russia has a hunger plan. Vladimir Putin is preparing to starve much of the developing world as the next stage in his war in Europe," Snyder, a professor at Yale University and expert on authoritarianism, began, noting the importance of Ukraine's food exports to the global food supply.

The area around the Black Sea, including Ukraine and Russia, has been referred to as the "world's breadbasket" due to its fertile soil and high rates of grain production. Collectively, the two countries account for 30% of the global wheat exports while Ukraine produces about 12%.

Experts previously told Insider that cutting off those exports could have massive implications for countries like Yemen, which previously got nearly a quarter of its wheat imports from Ukraine.

Ukraine has accused Russia of blocking millions of tons of grain exports from leaving its ports, a charge the Kremlin has denied.

"If the Russian blockade continues, tens of millions of tons of food will rot in silos, and tens of millions of people in Africa and Asia will starve," Snyder said.

The historian said he believed Putin's "hunger plan" had three main objectives. First, to cut off Ukraine's exports in an attempt to destroy its statehood. Second, to create instability in Europe by producing refugees from areas that rely on Ukraine's food, like North Africa and the Middle East.

Lastly, he said Putin wanted to use mass starvation as a "backdrop for a propaganda contest."

"When the food riots begin, and as starvation spreads, Russian propaganda will blame Ukraine, and call for Russia's territorial gains in Ukraine to be recognized, and for all sanctions to be lifted," Snyder said.

The historian also said both Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, and Adolf Hitler had sought to control Ukraine's food supply, but that Putin's plan was "a new level of colonialism."

"Russia is planning to starve Asians and Africans in order to win its war in Europe," he said.

For his part, Putin has sought to blame global food supply issues on the West and pushed for sanctions on Russia to be lifted, while Britain has accused him of "trying to hold the world to ransom" with food.

The war in Ukraine has waged on since Russia invaded on February 24. Russian forces refocused on the eastern Donbas region after failing to capture the capital of Kyiv, but Ukrainian officials said this week the country is in need of more weapons.

The Foreign Ministry of Russia 

Threatens Poland with Nuclear Strike

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE


Ukrayinska Pravda

DENYS KARLOVSKYI – SUNDAY, 12 JUNE 2022

The Head of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Viacheslav Volodin, threatens that if the suggestion by the former Foreign Minister of Poland Radoslaw Sikorski to provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons is fulfilled, then the possible nuclear conflict will destroy the European continent.

Source: Volodin’s Telegram-channel

Quote: "Sikorski is provoking a nuclear conflict in the centre of Europe. He doesn’t think neither about the future of Ukraine nor about the future of Poland. In case his suggestions are fulfilled, these countries will cease to exist, as will Europe as well.

Sikorski and the like are the reason why Ukraine must not only be set free from the Nazi ideolody but also be demilitarized, securing the nuclear-weapon-free status of the country."

Details: Volodin also warned that such deputies as Sikorski will cause even more problems in Europe.

The Head of the State Duma of the Russian Federation advised Poland's ex-Minister to be stripped of his mandate, forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation and locked up in his house.

Reminder: Ukraine is already a nuclear-weapon-free country, having voluntarily disposed of all its nuclear ammunition according to the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed in 1994. It guaranteed the integrity of Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty. Russia was one of the guarantors.

Background: Radoslaw Sikorski, the European Parliament Deputy and former Foreign Minister of Poland, suggested providing Ukraine with nuclear weapons. He argued that Russia broke the terms of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances by refusing to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and integrity, so nuclear weapons should be returned to Kyiv, even though Ukrainians voluntarily disposed of them.

Global nuclear arsenal to grow for first time since Cold War - think-tank


FILE PHOTO: Handout of a mushroom cloud rises with ships below during Operation Crossroads nuclear weapons test on Bikini Atoll

Sun, June 12, 2022, 

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The global nuclear arsenal is expected to grow in the coming years for the first time since the Cold War while the risk of such weapons being used is the greatest in decades, a leading conflict and armaments think-tank said on Monday.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Western support for Kyiv has heightened tensions among the world's nine nuclear-armed states, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) think-tank said in a new set of research.

While the number of nuclear weapons fell slightly between January 2021 and January 2022, SIPRI said that unless immediate action was taken by the nuclear powers, global inventories of warheads could soon begin rising for the first time in decades.

"All of the nuclear-armed states are increasing or upgrading their arsenals and most are sharpening nuclear rhetoric and the role nuclear weapons play in their military strategies," Wilfred Wan, Director of SIPRI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme, said in the think-tank's 2022 yearbook.

"This is a very worrying trend."

Three days after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin calls a "special military operation", President Vladimir Putin put Russia's nuclear deterrent on high alert

He has also warned of consequences that would be "such as you have never seen in your entire history" for countries that stood in Russia's way.

Russia has the world's biggest nuclear arsenal with a total of 5,977 warheads, some 550 more than the United States. The two countries possess more than 90% of the world's warheads, though SIPRI said China was in the middle of an expansion with an estimated more than 300 new missile silos.

SIPRI said the global number of nuclear warheads fell to 12,705 in January 2022 from 13,080 in January 2021. An estimated 3,732 warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft, and around 2,000 - nearly all belonging to Russia or the United States - were kept in a state of high readiness.

"Relations between the world's great powers have deteriorated further at a time when humanity and the planet face an array of profound and pressing common challenges that can only be addressed by international cooperation," SIPRI board chairman and former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said.

(Reporting by Johan Ahlander; editing by Niklas Pollard and Bernadette Baum)