Donald Trump, who rolled back rail safety regulations and slashed environmental protections, donates Trump-branded water to East Palestine residents

Erin Snodgrass
Wed, February 22, 202

Former President Donald Trump heads out of the East Palestine Fire Department next to his son, Donald Trump, Jr., as he visits the area in the aftermath of the Norfolk Southern train derailment Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. In the background is a pallet of personalized Trump water he donated.

AP Photo/Matt FreedMore

Donald Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday, following a disastrous train derailment.

The 2024 Republican candidate donated pallets of Trump-branded water to residents.

Trump's visit raised questions about his administration's rollback of rail safety regulations.

Donald Trump brought his 2024 presidential campaign to East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday, nearly three weeks after a cataclysmic train derailment prompted an environmental disaster in the small town following the release of toxic chemicals.

The former president's visit to the northeastern village preempted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's arrival by one day, and Trump relished every opportunity to castigate his Democratic successors, saying Buttigieg "should have already been here," and commanding President Joe Biden to "get over here," according to local reports.

While assuring East Palestine residents that they had "not been forgotten," Trump managed to tout his own presence in the besieged community and brush off questions about his administration's noted history of rolling back regulations on both rail safety and hazardous chemicals.

Trump started his day by briefly visiting with local leaders, according to WKBN-27, before conducting a small press conference at a fire station, where, donning his signature "Make America Great Again" hat, he handed out a flurry of red baseball caps to attendees.

During his speech, Trump pledged to donate thousands of bottles of cleaning supplies, as well as pallets of Trump-branded water bottles to members of the community, many of whom have expressed continued concern over the safety of the town's water supply following the derailment.

"You wanna get those Trump bottles, I think, more than anybody else," Trump said, while flanked by state and local leaders, including Republican Sen. JD Vance.



The former president dismissed questions about his administration's rollback of Obama-era rail safety regulations saying he "had nothing to do with it."

The Trump administration slashed several environmental and rail regulations while in office, most notably rescinding a 2015 proposal to require faster brakes on trains that were carrying highly flammable or hazardous materials.

The Norfolk Southern Railroad Company freight train involved in this month's crash was carrying vinyl chloride, a colorless gas and known carcinogen, which produced a plume of smoke over East Palestine.

The Department of Transportation under Trump justified the rollback with a 2018 analysis arguing the cost of requiring such brakes would be "significantly higher" than the expected benefits of the update.

A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Following his Wednesday news conference, Trump visited a local Ohio McDonald's where he handed out more MAGA hats and bought meals for firefighters.

Business Insider

Trump Bashes Biden Then Jets to McDonald’s During East Palestine Visit

Tom O'Neill and Ryan Bort
Wed, February 22, 2023

THE TOWN IS ALL WHITE WHICH IS WHY IT GETS ALL

THIS ATTENTION

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Donald Trump traveled to East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday to try to make political hay out of the Feb. 3 train derailment that released hazardous toxins into the town on the state’s border with Pennsylvania.

The former president spoke for around 10 minutes to a hand-selected group of Trump-friendly journalists assembled at the town’s fire station. He claimed, as he’s been doing since last week, that he’s responsible for any federal aid on its way to East Palestine, while alleging the Biden administration doesn’t care about the town’s troubles. “They were intending to do absolutely nothing for you,” Trump said.

Trump didn’t just take credit for the incoming federal aid. He likened his trip to a phone call he says he placed to the head of the Big Ten to insist college football resume during the pandemic. “I said you gotta get this football open,” Trump recalled. “We got that open very early … I did that very personally. I called the commissioner.”

Trump also took the opportunity to hawk his personal brand, announcing that he brought “Trump Water” to the town, and also some water of “much lesser quality.”

Soon after Trump finished his speech, Secret Service entered the McDonald’s on West Martin Street and scanned customers with hand-held metal detectors. Moments later, Trump arrived. “What’s the specialty today?” he asked workers as he approached the counter. “I probably know this menu better than anybody.”

He didn’t take questions at the fire station, but was forced to deflect a few of them at his favorite fast food restaurant. “It’s hard to believe,” he said of allegations that his railroad deregulation efforts may have been related to the derailment. “Every time I see something, I say, when will they blame Trump?”

“They are systematically trying to destroy our country and it’s a shame,” he added of his detractors.

Trump’s visit to East Palestine comes as he and other Republicans have criticized the Biden administration’s response to the Norfolk Southern train derailment earlier this month. The Environmental Protection Agency has been working on the disaster for weeks, but FEMA only announced on Friday that it would lend support, leading Trump to claim responsibility. “Biden and FEMA said they would not be sending federal aid to East Palestine,” he wrote on Truth Social. “As soon as I announced that I’m going, he announced a team will go.”

Republicans have blamed Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and everyone else other than themselves for the disaster, but it was Trump who in 2018 rolled back Obama-era regulations for trains carrying hazardous material. The rules held that such trains must be outfitted with advanced braking systems, but the Trump administration argued doing so would be too costly for train companies. Norfolk Southern lobbied for the rules to be rescinded, pumping money to Republican politicians.

One Republican politician who has received cash from the company is Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, whose response to the derailment has been criticized. Some have argued that his controversial decision to burn the derailed train’s toxic chemicals was made so that the wreckage could be cleared and Norfolk Southern could resume its operations faster. “Norfolk Southern failed to explore all potential courses of action, including some that may have kept the rail line closed longer but could have resulted in a safer overall approach for first responders, residents and the environment,” Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro wrote in a letter last week to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw.

The residents of East Palestine affected by the derailment aren’t as concerned with the political implications of Trump’s visit. “Is he bringing his checkbook?” Johnna Fierro, who didn’t vote for Trump, wondered to Rolling Stone on Tuesday. “This is Trump country,” she added.

East Palestine and its surrounding communities are indeed in Trump’s political wheelhouse. He received 71.7 percent of the vote in Columbiana County in the 2020 election, after getting 68.7 percent in 2016. The county is almost entirely white and largely rural, with only 202 voters per square mile, according to 2022 Census estimates. Per capita income in the past 12 months (in 2021 dollars) is $28,538. The poverty rate is 16.7 percent.

Fierro and others believe Trump is coming for publicity and to lay the seeds for votes in 2024. Some Trump supporters agreed, but they also felt his appearance could be greatly beneficial if it raises awareness of the town’s plight. They contrasted the former president with the current one, who recently traveled to Ukraine “instead of here where he should be,” as one voter who declined to give his name put it.

East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway also bashed Biden for going to Ukraine, telling Fox News on Tuesday that Biden’s quick trip was a “slap in the face that tells you right now, he doesn’t care about us.”

The people of East Palestine know they’re going to be dealing with the aftermath of the derailment long after the national spotlight moves onto another issue. “I’m not big into politics, but it’s going to take a long time, I think, to get people back into the swing of life,” said Leonard Stanley, a Trump voter who owns Pizza Joe’s, right around the corner from the train tracks. “I want to go there and meet him but I have to be in my shop, so it is what it is.”

Nancy Young, who grew up in East Palestine and now lives in a neighboring community, has a similarly practical approach. She said: “The community needs the help.”

Best of Rolling Stone

HE RAN FOR PENN GOVERNOR

Republican Doug Mastriano told supporters he didn't get any money from Ohio derailment train operator Norfolk Southern

Records show he took $1,000

Charles R. Davis
Tue, February 21, 2023 

Pennsylvania Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano

Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano is holding a hearing Thursday on the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment.

Mastriano, a Republican, recently denied receiving any money from train operator Norfolk Southern.

But campaign records show he accepted $1,000 from the company's political action committee.

On social media, state Sen. Doug Mastriano — a Pennsylvania Republican who last year ran for governor with the backing of former President Donald Trump — has gone after "radical environmentalists" and Democrats over this month's train derailment just across state lines in East Palestine, Ohio, suggesting both have neglected the crisis.

In one meme he shared Monday with his nearly 170,000 followers on Twitter, a parent, labeled "US government," is depicted in a pool lifting up one child dubbed "Ukraine" while another, "Ohio," struggles to stay afloat. Another comment he shared attacked President Joe Biden and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who defeated Mastriano in the 2022 election. "Biden's in Ukraine and Shapiro's MIA," the user wrote, praising Mastriano for visiting East Palestine over the weekend.

As chairman of the state Senate committee charged with overseeing Pennsylvania's emergency preparedness, Mastriano is hosting a hearing on Thursday where he will seek testimony from state officials as well as representatives from Norfolk Southern, the company whose rail cars crashed and contaminated local waterways with toxic chemicals, killing thousands of fish and sparking concerns for the long-term health of nearby residents.

Mastriano has positioned himself as a truth-teller who bucks the establishment in both parties. But in a Facebook live stream last week in which he addressed the derailment, the senator misrepresented his own financial connection to the disaster.

When the lawmaker — who campaigned for governor on a platform of deregulation and expanded oil and gas development — told viewers "we can probably use our imagination" to explain the alleged neglect of East Palestine, one viewer, Paulette, offered up this response: "Norfolk rail donates to politicians" ("Donating to Democrats I'm sure!" another viewer, Karen, added in the comments).

"Yeah, Paulette, I heard on one of the news stations last night that that rail network is heavy into donating to politicians," Mastriano replied during the February 16 stream. While Mastriano said he couldn't confirm that was the case, "I know my own finances. I didn't get any money from that train network."

That's not true, according to campaign finance records. Since 2019, Mastriano has in fact received $1,000 from Norfolk Southern's political action committee, the Good Government Fund, per filings with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. The last contribution, amounting to $500, came in 2020 when he was running for reelection to the state Senate.

Mastriano did not respond to a request for comment.

Norfolk Southern has also donated to Democrats. Indeed, in the 2022 election cycle, at the federal level, it gave a total of $725,000 to candidates from both parties, with roughly 51% of its contributions going to members of the Democratic Party. That was the first time since 2010 that a majority of its support did not go to the GOP, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics.

The company has been criticized for lobbying against stricter regulation of the rail industry, including a rule proposed during the Obama administration — and rescinded by the Trump administration — that would have required trains carrying hazardous chemicals to be outfitted with more advanced brake technology, The Washington Post reported.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, assured East Palestine residents that their drinking water is safe. Earlier in the day he and EPA Administrator Michael Regan toured the area and drank tap water from residents' homes.

Joining them was Pennsylvania's Shapiro, a Democrat, who last week ordered his own state's environmental regulators to conduct independent monitoring of water supplies. He lauded the EPA for ordering Norfolk Southern to cover the cost of cleaning up the accident.

"It was my view that Norfolk Southern wasn't going to do this out of the goodness in their heart," he said, CBS affiliate KDKA reported, adding: "There is no goodness in their heart."

Business Insider

Photos show the eerie parallels between the Ohio train derailment and a Netflix movie which was filmed in the state the year before

James Pasley
Tue, February 21, 2023 

A dark plume of smoke rises from a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that leaked toxic chemicals.AP

On February 3, a freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed and caught fire near the town of East Palestine, Ohio, forcing nearby residents to flee.


The incident is eerily similar to a Netflix film released last year called "White Noise," based on a 1985 novel about a toxic airborne event that causes locals in a fictional Ohio town to also flee for their lives.


What's even stranger is that locals in East Palestine starred as extras in the film.

On the evening of February 3, locals from the small town of East Palestine, Ohio, saw smoke rising on the horizon. A cargo train enroute to Conway, Pittsburgh, carrying toxic chemicals, had just derailed outside of town.

Smoke rises from a derailed cargo train in East Palestine, Ohio on February 4.Dustin Franz/AFP

Sources: New York Times


It was almost stranger than fiction. It was also just like fiction — in particular, the 1985 book "White Noise" by Don DeLillo, which was recently turned into a Netflix film directed by Noah Baumbach.

A still from the film version of White Noise. Here, Adam Driver’s character uses binoculars to inspect the rising smoke from the crash.Netflix

Sources: CNN

DeLillo is known for being a prescient writer, but this took it to another level. In the 1980s, he told NPR, "I kept turning on the TV news and seeing toxic spills and it occurred to me that people regard these events not as events in the real world, but as television — pure television."

Don DeLillo in 1992.Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Getty

Sources: The Times

English professor and president of the Don DeLillo Society Jesse Kavadlo told CNN the spills were just a coincidence.

Brittany Vargo and Marcus Turner sit at an assistance center, following a train derailment that forced people to evacuate from their homes, in New Waterford, Ohio, U.S., February 6, 2023.REUTERS/Alan Freed

Kavadlo said, "But it plays in our minds like life imitating art, which was imitating life, and on and on, because, as DeLillo suggests in "White Noise" as well, we have unfortunately become too acquainted with the mediated language and enactment of disaster."

Sources: CNN

In the film, the toxic cloud was caused when a tanker truck carrying toxic materials crashed into a train, derailing it.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

Sources: CNN

In real life, a Norfolk Southern train, which had 20 tankers filled with different types of potent chemicals, slid off the train tracks and caught fire.

A train derailed near East Palestine, Ohio over the weekend.Gene J. Puskar/AP

Sources: CNN

Both the film and the real event were based in Ohio. The real event was on the outskirts of East Palestine, which is about 50 miles from Pittsburgh.

A welcome sign to East Palestine, Ohio.Angelo Merendino/Getty

Sources: New York Times

Whereas the film is set in a fictional, leafy college town called Blacksmith.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

Sources: The Guardian

After the crash, experts wearing hazardous protection suits attempted to assess the damage in East Palestine.

Civil Support Team members prepare to enter the incident areas on February 7 2023.

Ohio National Guard/AP

People in hazardous protection suits appear in the film too, although exactly what they're doing is less clear.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

In East Palestine, five of the tankers were carrying liquid vinyl chloride, a toxic flammable gas, which is used to make PCV, a hard resin used to make plastic products.

Smoke rises from the derailed train on February 4.Dustin Franz/AFP/Getty

Sources: CNN, New York Times, The Guardian

In "White Noise," the toxic chemical is called Nyodene Derivative, a fictional substance made from by-products of manufacturing insecticides.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

Sources: The Times

Both the film and real life featured large fireballs.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

In East Palestine, the fireballs actually happened after impact. To avoid the tankers becoming shrapnel bombs, emergency workers released the chemicals from the tankers then burned them off, creating massive plumes of black smoke.

A fireball rises over East Palestine on February 6, 2023.Gene J. Puskar/AP

Sources: CNN, New York Times

The day after the crash, as smoke continued to billow from the crash site, officials ordered about 2,400 residents to leave East Palestine. This was half of the town's population.

OHIO EPA Emergency Response representative talks to reporters on February 7.Patrick Orsagos/AP

Sources: CNN

Families had to flee in the film, too. "White Noise" focuses on the Gladney family, including Adam Driver's character Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler Studies, and Greta Gerwig's character Babette Gladney and their four children.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

Sources: CNN

In real life, the Ratner family was one of the families that evacuated from East Palestine. What was eerie about their story is that several Ratner family members had actually worked as extras on "White Noise." They were in a scene where cars are gridlocked, trying to escape the town and the toxic smoke.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

They had been told to appear "forlorn and downtrodden."

Ben Ratner told CNN: "The first half of the movie is all almost exactly what's going on here."

He said he recently tried to watch the movie but failed to finish it since it was now too close to home.

Sources: CNN

In East Palestine, evacuees sheltered in an American Red Cross evacuation center.

An empty American Red Cross evacuation support centre for residents of East Palestine.Dustin Franz/AFP/Getty

In the film, locals and the Gladney family sheltered in barracks.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

In real life, locals gathered around a resident named Jamie Cozza to hear news from a conference on her phone.

Jamie Cozza of East Palestine shares a cell phone video of a news conference with fellow evacuees at an assistance center, following a train derailment that forced people to evacuate from their homes, in New Waterford, Ohio.Alan Freed/Reuters

In the film, locals gathered around Heinrich, one of the Gladney children, as he explained what he knew about the toxic chemical.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

On February 8, East Palestine residents were told they could go home.

Neighbors gather outside a house in East Palestine on February 9.Gene J. Puskar/AP

Sources: New York Times, The Guardian

Officials declared that the air and water were safe, but there were reports that fish and frogs were dying in streams, and people were afraid of the chemicals' long-term effects.

Water is rerouted near the derailment in East Palestine.Angelo Merendio/Getty

Sources: New York Times, The Guardian

In the film, the Gladney family return home and attempted to go back to their regular lives. Here, Jack Gladney is back shopping at the local supermarket.

A still from the film version of "White Noise."Netflix

Sources: CNN

But in East Palestine it's not so simple. Residents have been reporting symptoms like burning eyes and feelings of nausea.

Two residents fill out forms for reimbursement after the crash in East Palestine, Ohio.Alan Freed/Reuters

Sources: The Guardian

The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the accident, but it has reported that the derailment was caused by a malfunctioning axle, which is what connects two train wheels.

Sources: New York Times, The Guardian

Locals are now afraid the quiet town will never be the same. And, according to Ohio EPA's Office of Emergency Response, properly cleaning up the site won't be a quick process. It could take years.

A sign reads “Please pray for E.P. and our future,” outside a shop in East Palestine.Angelo Merendino/Getty

Sources: CNN

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Ukraine war has exposed the folly – and unintended consequences – of 'armed missionaries'

Ronald Suny, Professor of History and Political Science, University of Michigan

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, February 21, 2023 

Putin's decision to go to war has seen great geopolitical ripples. 

The evening before Russia invaded Ukraine, it seemed to many observers – me included – nearly unimaginable that Putin would carry through with weeks of a threatened military attack. As I wrote at the time, Putin is not as erratic or rash as he is sometimes painted.

I had failed to take into account that Putin is, in the words of French statesman and revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre, an “armed missionary.” Writing in 1792, Robespierre explained, “The most extravagant idea that can take root in the head of a politician is to believe that it is enough for one people to invade a foreign people to make it adopt its laws and constitution. No one likes armed missionaries; and the first advice given by nature and prudence is to repel them as enemies.”

Those words seem fitting as Vladimir Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine reaches a grim first anniversary on Feb. 24, 2023.

Putin’s decision marked the beginning of a year of massive destruction and death in Ukraine and of extraordinary costs – both economic and in lives lost – for Russia.

It was also a colossal blunder on Putin’s part: It has weakened Russia significantly, solidified the NATO powers around the leadership of the United States and created a more unified, nationally conscious Ukraine than had existed before the war.

Imperial overreach

As a fading power, Putin’s Russia has refused to accept its own limitations, both economically and militarily. In invading its smaller neighbor, Russia made a bid to upset the international system headed by the United States. It also sought to establish its own hegemony over Ukraine, and by implication, over much of the former Soviet Union.

But Russia’s failure to “decapitate” the Ukrainian government, which in turn inspired heroic resistance by Ukrainians, proved a disastrous example of what might be called “imperial overreach” – when a state tries to expand or control other states beyond its own capacity to do so.

One of many destroyed and abandoned Russian tanks. 

Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

It has produced a weakened Russia – an isolated pariah state perceived as a threat to democracies and the rules-based liberal international security system.

Meanwhile, Putin’s diatribes against the West have evolved from complaints about the expansion of NATO to attacking the permissive culture of the West.

Putin deploys rhetoric about dangerously subversive liberal, democratic values and practices – echoing right-wing politicians like Hungary’s Victor Orbán and Giorgia Meloni, the far-right Italian leader. It appears that a new “International” – just as ominous to the liberal West as the Communist International was – is being formed of illiberal and authoritarian states, with Russia a key member.

This view of the Ukrainian war as a cultural struggle plays in the Russian media as an emotional rallying cry to mobilize the basest fears of Putin’s people.

Propaganda disguised as news, social media posts and the screeds of government officials are being deployed to shape ordinary Russians’ perceptions of the war.

Toward a multipolar world?

The consequences of Putin’s miscalculation are not limited to the war itself, or to Europe. Rather, they have had reverberations far beyond the battlefields of Ukraine and the homes of Russians whose sons have been slaughtered or fled abroad.

Putin’s imperial aggression against Ukraine – implausibly proclaimed to be a defense of a united Russia and of Ukrainian peoples against Nazi usurpers – has a long genealogy.

Ever since his famous speech at the Munich Security Forum in 2007, Russia’s president has railed against the “unipolar” military and economic dominance of the United States. What he wants is “multipolarity” – that is, the ability of other great powers to hold sway over their neighborhoods.

In such a multipolar world, Ukraine and Georgia would never join NATO and much of the former Soviet Union would fall under the umbrella of Russia. China would have paramount influence in East Asia, likewise India in South Asia. And perhaps this is Iran’s ambition in much of the Middle East.

To countries hostile to the United States – and even to some friendly states – this multipolar rearrangement of the international order has considerable appeal.

Yes, the war in Ukraine has solidified the Western alliance around its idea of the rules-based international order that has been in place since 1945. But it has also awakened the aspirations of “the Global South” – those countries in neither NATO nor the former Soviet bloc, largely in the Southern Hemisphere.

Countries from Latin America and Africa to Pacific Island nations have urged a greater dispersion and sharing of international clout. The two most populous countries in the world, India and China, have expressed their support for a new multipolar international order and have not been openly critical of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Redefining regional, global power struggles

The war in Ukraine has also had ripple effects on other global tensions.

With Taiwan as a potential flashpoint and saber-rattling by North Korea, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines are gravitating toward closer military cooperation with the United States in East Asia. China and North Korea are moving in the opposite direction, closer to Russia.

The Ukraine war is also reshaping the long-festering conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Both states desire sovereign power over the disputed region of mountainous Karabakh. But with Russia bogged down militarily and economically, Putin has been disinclined to aid Armenia, its one loyal ally in the South Caucasus. This is despite the fact that Azerbaijan has repeatedly violated the borders of its neighbor.

Azerbaijan, by contrast, has been increasingly aided by its regional allies Israel – spurred by a shared hostility to Iran – and Turkey. Both have supplied Azerbaijan with advanced weaponry, giving the country an upper hand in the conflict.

The Ukraine conflict also has an effect on the great global power struggle to come: China and U.S. With EU states and regional rivals to China forging closer ties with Washington, Beijing may eye a growing threat – or even an opportunity to exert its influence more aggressively as regional power dynamics evolve.

American policymakers in both the Trump and Biden administrations have warned that the rise of China, economically and militarily, is a serious threat to the continued position of the U.S. as the strongest, richest state on the globe. To its competitors on the global stage, the U.S. also looks like an armed missionary.

The uncertainty of the Ukraine war, and the still uncertain ways in which it is reshaping geopolitics, will do little to dislodge those fears. Rather, it may encourage international relations scholars, such as Harvard professor Graham Allison, who believe in the “Thucydides’ Trap.” Based on the ancient Greek historian’s explanation for the origins of the Peloponnesian War, the theory has it that when an emerging power threatens to displace a regional or global hegemon, war is inevitable.

As someone trained to look to the past to understand the present and possible futures, I believe that nothing in history is inevitable; human beings always have choices. This was true for Putin on the eve of the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, and it is true for policymakers around the world today.

But the decision to invade Ukraine underscores a clear danger: When statesmen perceive the world as a Darwinian zero-sum game of winners and losers, a clash between the West and the rest, or as an ideological conflict between autocracies and democracies, they can create the conditions – through provocation, threat or even invasion – that lead to wars with unintended consequences.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Ronald Suny, University of Michigan.

Dozens of civil rights groups are demanding the company that runs AP classes stand up to Ron DeSantis

Chris Panella
Wed, February 22, 2023

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisPaul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

30 civil rights groups demanded the College Board stand up to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

The letter asked for new leadership to "advocate for students and academic freedom."

The College Board is facing criticism over the rollout of the AP African American studies course.

Thirty civil rights, education equity, and gender equality groups penned a letter demanding the College Board stand up to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after the botched rollout of the company's AP African American Studies course.

The letter, signed by groups including the National Black Justice Coalition, the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Center for Transgender Equality, called for the current president of the College Board to resign so that new leadership could "advocate for students and academic freedom" and stand "against the DeSantis regime's book banning, censorship, and surveillance agenda."

"The public rollout of the College Board's long-awaited Advanced Placement Black Studies Course has been a public relations and brand disaster for your institution causing pain, division, and turmoil for the community it sought to celebrate," the letter, published on the National Black Justice Coalition's website on Tuesday, said.

It added: "Several lies and a belated campaign to tell the truth from your President, David Coleman, regarding the pilot and revision process of the curriculum played a role in the growing mistrust the public, students, and educators have for your institution and the content of the class."

DeSantis initially rejected the AP African American Studies course in January. At the time, the governor said the course imposed "a political agenda." The Florida Department of Education's director of communications later said in a statement to Insider that the course featured "Critical Race Theory, Black queer studies, intersectionality, and other topics that violate our laws."

College Board then announced a new framework for the course on February 1 that reportedly removed many of the original course's topics, while making subjects like Black Lives Matter and reparations optional for students.

The company said the changes were not made because of political pressure and called out "the Florida Department of Education's slander, magnified by the DeSantis administration's subsequent comments."

But according to reporting from The New York Times, the College Board had repeated contact with DeSantis' administration to discuss the AP African American Studies' course curriculum.

A letter from a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education, first reported by The Daily Caller and subsequently to the Times, showed the College Board had been back and forth with Florida about the course's material and what Florida would approve and disapprove of.

The civil rights groups who issued an open letter on Tuesday criticized the reported correspondence and said, "New leadership is required if the College Board lacks the courage and character to advocate for students and academic freedom."

"Without the courageous leadership needed for this moment in history, the College Board will continue to be a pawn in the political games of governors and other elected officials advancing a white nationalist, anti-democratic agenda," the letter said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Nigeria elections 2023: Young people pin their hopes on outsider

Nduka Orjinmo - BBC News, Abuja
Thu, February 23, 2023


A street vendor wears goggles in the colors of the Labour Party (LP) during a campaign rally at Adamasingba Stadium in Ibadan, southwestern Nigeria, on November 23, 2022, ahead of the 2023 Nigerian presidential election

Young Nigerians have turned Saturday's presidential election into the most competitive since the end of military rule in 1999, with many backing a third-party candidate to take on the country's two main political machines and bring change to the country after years of stagnation, corruption and insecurity in Africa's most populous nation.

Spurred on by the 2020 EndSars anti-police brutality protests that morphed into calls for good governance, millions of young people have registered as first-time voters.

"If Nigeria continues on this downhill, it will be disastrous, so yes, it's a defining moment," said Rinu Oduala, a 24-year-old woman who was among the protesters who camped outside the governor's office in Lagos for weeks, two years ago.

Though the protests were brutally halted by the army, the disbandment of the Sars police unit notorious for profiling young people was considered a success.

That seems to have galvanized frustrated young Nigerians and now they are targeting the highest office in the land.

The man many are backing, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, is not that young at 61. Nor is he really a new broom in Nigerian politics as he has previously been the vice-presidential candidate for the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

But he is considered an outlier because of his accessibility, simplicity and his record of prudence with public funds when he was Anambra state governor.

"I should be in the peak of my life right now, balling financially and physically, but there is no money and there are kidnappers everywhere," said Ovie Esan, a 25-year-old man in Lagos.

Many accuse President Muhammadu Buhari, who is stepping down after two terms, of mismanaging the economy and overseeing the most insecure period in the country since the 1967-1970 civil war.

Under his watch, young middle-class Nigerians have seen their finances battered by record levels of inflation.

One in three of them cannot find a job, students have experienced incessant strikes by lecturers and many of Nigeria's finest are desperate to leave the country.

On top of this, widespread insecurity has seen armed groups kill more than 10,000 people and abduct more than 5,000 last year alone, according to the International Crisis Group.

Sars protests saw many young Nigerians take an interest in politics for the first time

Offering hope of a new era, Mr Obi is going up against the twin behemoths of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the PDP who have alternated in power since the end of military rule in 1999. Their candidates are both in their 70s in a country where a third of Nigeria's 210 million people are aged below 35.

Ethnic and religious factors also influence the choice of many voters.

Mr Obi has been openly supported by Nigeria's huge evangelical Christian movement in the south, and can also rely on the votes of Christians who feel persecuted in the mainly Muslim north.

Mr Obi is an Igbo from the east, the only major ethnic group yet to supply a Nigerian president. While some back the idea it is their turn to be in power, the APC and PDP candidates will enjoy the backing of many in their home areas - the south-west and north respectively.

Victory for Mr Obi is far from guaranteed.

The APC and PDP have the advantage of countrywide name recognition, which the Labour Party seems to struggle with, especially in vote-rich rural areas in the north.

Both parties can also call on tested political machines to bring out the support on election day in villages where voters are influenced by local leaders.

Despite having vast oil and gas riches, Nigeria has been held back by widespread corruption since independence in 1960.

The ruling class, whether military or civilian, has been unable to provide basics like stable electricity, pipe-borne water or jobs for the huge young population.

Now, many seem to have had enough in what the head of the electoral commission has described as the "election of young people". A record 93 million people have registered to vote, 40% of whom are under 35.

If they turn out to vote in large numbers, it could prove to be a watershed in the country's history - a time to reset and begin anew.

Rinu Oduala rose to fame for her outspokenness during the EndSars protests in Lagos

"We can only take so much more before the famed 'Nigerian resilience' crumbles. The importance of Nigeria's stability in West Africa, Africa and the entire world cannot be over-emphasised," said Ms Oduala.

In the past, young upwardly mobile Nigerians and millions in the middle class in the southhave largely been apathetic about elections due to fear of violence on voting day and an uninspiring list of contestants.

But interest in this election has been spurred by Mr Obi.

"He believes in human capacity and invested so much in education," said Atogu Nneka, vice-principal of a state secondary school in Anambra's capital, Awka, where the Labour Party candidate enjoys huge popularity.

Mr Obi has said that youths are running for office through him, and has surrounded himself with many of those involved in the EndSars protest.

They include Aisha Yesufu, whose fist-raising photograph on the day young protesters camped outside the police headquarters in Abuja in 2020 became something of a symbol for the young protesters.

"They dared us to go into politics and change the government and that is what everyone is doing," she said in a rousing speech during Mr Obi's last rally two weeks ago in Lagos.

But in an election where the frontrunners come from the three major regions in the country, a winner will need votes beyond his base to be guaranteed victory and this is more of a challenge for Mr Obi than the other two.

"We only just started hearing of him but nobody knows him in our village," said one woman in Bakiyawwa, a rural community in the northern Katsina state.

Bola Tinubu has spent decades networking politically across Nigeria

Many consider the election to be a referendum on the ruling party, whose candidate Bola Tinubu is widely credited for reshaping the commercial hub Lagos as governor between 1999-2007.

Mr Tinubu, 70, was instrumental in the emergence of President Buhari in 2015 but has controversially said that he cannot be judged on the records of the present government.

For many though, it is hard to look beyond the hardships of the last eight years, exacerbated by the chaos the introduction of new banknotes has caused in recent weeks.

Many have slept outside cash machines and banks waiting to get the new naira notes which are in short supply in a country where many rely on cash.
Nigeria's main presidential candidates:

ATIKU ABUBAKAR: The man who wants Nigerians to look back to go forward


PETER OBI: The frugal businessman capturing young Nigerian hearts


BOLA TINUBU: Lagos 'godfather' sets sights on conquering Nigeria

The government said the redesign will help reduce inflation and has blamed the banks for hoarding the cash, but many think the exercise is targeted at politicians involved in vote-buying on election day and there is a mixed reaction to the policy.

It has led to widespread anger and riots in some states, and will be on the minds of many voters on Saturday.

"You would think that the APC is not trying to win this election," said a taxi driver at a queue for a cash machine in Victoria Island in Lagos.

Mr Tinubu is also having a hard time convincing young people outside his home area that he is the man for the job as many are concerned about his health. He has been seen at campaign grounds being supported when climbing stairs or standing upright and sometimes it is hard to understand what he is saying.

But he is loved in the south-west part of the country where many feel that his legacy in Lagos, where he quadrupled the state revenue and upgraded its infrastructure, is exactly what Nigeria needs.

"He has an eye for talent and will surround himself with people who can get things done," said Rukayat Owolaranfe, a market leader in the Balogun area of Lagos Island where Mr Tinubu has a square named after him.

But he and the PDP candidate, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, 76, are seen by many as part of the old order responsible for Nigeria's ills.

Atiku Abubakar's supporters say he is the only candidate that can hit the ground running

The PDP was in power for 16 years, most of which saw government revenues boosted by oil sales. But it was a time plagued by accusations of widespread corruption, some of it involving Mr Abubakar, which he has denied.

Mr Abubakar has changed parties several times - this is his sixth attempt at the presidency since 1993 - leading many young people to question the freshness of his ideas for the top job.

However, his supporters consider him the most experienced man on the ballot. As the only major candidate from the north, he will enjoy the backing of many in that region. He has promised critical reforms that will restructure the country.

"Nigerians are looking for a messiah but the problems are institutional and can only be solved by correcting fundamental issues," said Francis Ugwu in Rivers state, who has always voted for the PDP.

But for 19-year-old first-time voter Blessing Ememumodak, Mr Obi represents the hope on which her future rests.

"Only those who don't mean well for this country will let this opportunity of electing Peter Obi to pass us by. Eight years, or even four years with a bad president, is a long time," she said.

The election feels like a showdown between an unstoppable force and an immovable object for Nigeria's future. Whoever wins, it feels like the beginning of a new era - in which Nigeria's massive young population will no longer take a backseat.

Nigeria election graphic

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LAGOS STATE: Why the battle for Lagos could decide Nigeria election


KATSINA STATE: 'You let kidnappers take me, now you want my vote'


RIVERS STATE: The oil land with no electricity


BASIC GUIDE: What you need to know about Nigeria's elections


FULL COVERAGE: Nigeria elections 2023

Nigeria election graphic

Bill Gates Buys Stake in Heineken for $902 Million


April Roach
Wed, February 22, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Bill Gates has acquired a minority stake in Heineken Holding NV, the controlling shareholder of the world’s second-largest brewer, for about $902 million.

The Microsoft founder and philanthropist last week picked up 3.8% of Heineken Holding, according to a filing by the Dutch regulator AFM. He bought 6.65 million shares in Heineken Holding, in his individual capacity, and another 4.18 million shares through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.

The shares are valued at €848.2 million ($902 million), according to Bloomberg calculations at closing share price value of February 17.

Gates acquired the stake on the same day that Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB launched a €3.7 billion stock and equity-linked sale for part of its holdings in Heineken. Femsa, as the Mexican Coca-Cola bottler and convenience store operator is known, had last week announced plans to offload its stake in Heineken after a strategic review.

Femsa said its accelerated bookbuild offering of €1.9 billion in shares in Heineken NV priced at €91 apiece, and €1.3 billion in shares in Heineken Holding sold at €75 each. Heineken Holding controls 50% of Heineken NV, maker of the namesake beer as well as Amstel, Moretti, and Sol among others.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust foundation has also invested in Dutch online grocer Picnic BV and holds a 1.34% stake in Dutch fertilizer producer OCI NV.

The foundation has long been a powerhouse in the nonprofit world, employing almost 1,800 people and spending nearly $80 billion since 2000. Heineken and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

--With assistance from Sarah Jacob.

(Updates with Heineken Holdings stake in Heineken NV in the fifth paragraph)

The forgotten story of Jimmy Carter’s White House solar panels

More than four decades ago, President Carter said the U.S. could harness “the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”

by JOHN WIHBEYFEBRUARY 21, 2023

(Image credits: The White House, Jonathan Cutrer / CC BY 2.0; President Jimmy Carter, Trikosko/Library of Congress; Solar dedication, Bill Fitz-Patrick / Jimmy Carter Library; Solar panel installation film, Department of Energy)

Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared on this site Nov. 11, 2008.

The glass, aluminum, and stainless steel panels reclined at low angles and basked in the sun as the men in suits and ties, flanked by reporters, took to the West Wing roof to look at what they thought was the future. That day, June 20, 1979, was clear enough for the sun to bring out a bright reflection on the panels, and for shadows of those on the roof to be drawn dark and tight around them.

For President Jimmy Carter, it had been nearly three years of tough fighting for clean energy. After a long rollout of green tax credits, the creation of a nascent Energy Department, and a pledge to conduct the “moral equivalent of war” (at the time, spoofed by critics as “MEOW”) against an energy crisis, Carter had built up scars. And there would be more to come. He had had battles with Congress and with his political enemies over green issues. But he had some victories, too, and this day brought one more, a small moment of symbolism.

Solar panels, some 32 of them, were on the roof of the White House. The set was just right — the sun had come out for the press as though for a stage call. Tape rolled, the cameras snapped.

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Self-conscious about his idealism, or perhaps just realistic, the president gave voice to his doubts about the panels: “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

The point of all this was simple, Carter said. America was to harness “the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”

Carter was a person of simplicity, of conservation; he was also sort of an oddball, a hybrid, an anti-political Christian proto-green who had donned a cardigan sweater, lowered the White House thermostat, and declared “Sun Day” on May 3, 1978.

A year later he had his panels.

Read: Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits

In the stillness of that rooftop scene — captured now in celluloid for history — Carter reaches out both hands, straight out, palms to the ground, as if to feel the heat. Trees ring the background. The panels reflect the image of his outstretched arm. An election defeat, a grinding stagflation, a mad Ayatollah, and a bungled hostage crisis were all soon to end his political future. But in that moment he was a creator.

The panels were primitive but serviceable. They heated water. They cost about $28,000 to install. According to the person who convinced Carter to put up the panels, George Szego, who died in 2008 at 88, they were models of industry. They cranked out hot water “a mile a minute,” he said.

Carter, in his State of the Union address the year the panels were installed, presented an ambitious plan to put America on a clean energy path: 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2000. Part of his idea was to go far beyond simple hot water solar collectors and direct government research funds toward the development of photovoltaic cells, the kind that could put energy into the grid.

It’s worth tracing the history of Carter’s panels — the idea and the reality — where they went, how they got lost.

Reagan: Tear down these panels

The 1979 panels survived for a surprising seven years, well into the age of Ronald Reagan — well into the age of what seemed a waning energy crisis, of deregulation, and of a final showdown with a dying “evil empire.” The panels became objects of increasing indifference. And so did the tax credits and research funds that had provided the real meat of Carter’s energy initiatives.

President Reagan had declared government the problem, not the solution. That meant no energy credits. That also meant no solar panels. Ronald Reagan helped tear down the Berlin Wall, and he also helped tear down the White House’s solar panels.

Seven years after the West Wing roof party, in 1986, the symbolic solar collectors met with “roof repairs,” and they were never reinstalled. They were put in a warehouse in Virginia and forgotten. There must have been a little hue and cry at the time — enough to force a statement from the White House media shop.

Reagan press secretary Dale Petroskey told the Associated Press: “Putting them back up would be very unwise, based on cost.” That said, the exact motives for the removal of the panels nonetheless remain murky. A top Reagan official “felt that the equipment was just a joke,” the panel installer Szego recalled to The Washington Post, “and he had it taken down.”

There is no easy way to get the truth — whether it was part of an anti-environment, anti-regulation, anti-Carter policy, or just prudent home repairs by Reagan’s groundskeepers as they fixed a roof leak. A few rumors assuming the worst about Reagan’s motives of course float on the Internet. No big deal. A scan of dozens of biographies and histories of the Reagan era sheds little light.

Edwin Meese, Reagan’s Attorney General and longtime confidant and adviser, is said to have given the thumbs-down to the panels, insisting they were not befitting of a superpower. Maybe that’s apocryphal, too. But in 2008, Meese issued memos from a conservative think tank to the Bush White House, urging the Bush EPA to stall on climate change regulation, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Curiously — and this may say it all — the Reagan administration also allowed Carter’s financial incentives promoting renewables to expire around the time that the panels were removed. Tax credits established in 1977 for homeowners installing solar water heaters ended Dec. 31, 1985, just months before the White House roof coup d’état.

Much of America’s fledgling solar industry, started under Carter, went dark.

A long strange solar trip

Meanwhile, the 32 solar panels had been collecting dust in Virginia. They spent five years there. Finally, an administrator at Unity College, a then down-at-heel Maine school looking for publicity, stripped out the seats from a tattered school bus, drove down I-95, and took the panels from the government warehouse back to Maine.

There, in the hinterlands, U.S. energy policy was postponed, exactly 559 miles from relevance — the distance between 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the Unity campus at 90 Quaker Hill Road.

The panels remained far from Washington under later presidencies, too, even under the Bill Clinton/Al Gore self-proclaimed “green” one. Clinton had come into office with some promises to address our energy dependence problem. But the 1990s will not be remembered as a time of clean energy renewal.

“[D]uring his eight years in office — aside from a failed effort to pass a carbon tax in 1993 — Clinton pretty much ignored the energy business,” writes energy journalist Robert Bryce in his book, “Gusher of Lies.”

Eventually, in 2006, one panel made it down to the Carter Library in Atlanta, delivered there, fittingly, by two students in a vegetable oil-powered vehicle.

Library director Jay Hakes said in a 2007 statement that “the current problems of dependency on unreliable sources of oil and climate change would probably be much less than they are today” had the panels and their symbolic power been taken more seriously.

Editor’s note: A lot has happened since we first published this article in 2008.

Solar panels went back up on the roof of the White House during the Obama administration. President Donald Trump left the panels in place, according to ThoughtCo.

ThoughtCo also reports that the Carter panels “can be seen today at museums and show houses around the world. One resides at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, one at the Carter Library and, one joined the collection of the Solar Science and Technology Museum in Dezhou, China.”

US-China Standoff Hits G-20 Effort to Revamp Poor Nations’ Debt


Shawn Donnan, Matthew Hill, Tom Hancock and Eric Martin
Tue, February 21, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- In the realm of global economic policy, Friday Nov. 13, 2020, was meant to be about hope — not the trigger for another pandemic-era fright.

That’s when Group of 20 finance ministers announced final agreement on a blueprint for the US, China and other relatively new creditor countries like India to cooperate on debt relief for more than 70 low-income nations facing a collective $326 billion burden, and deliver it in a “timely and orderly” way.

Within minutes that same day, a prime candidate emerged for the new mechanism known as the Common Framework: Zambia missed a eurobond payment, the first African nation to succumb to the pandemic’s economic ravages and default on its debts.

Two years later, as G-20 finance ministers gather this week in India, the agreement once touted as historic looks increasingly fragile, with debt relief emerging as yet another front in an increasingly bitter geopolitical tussle between the US and China.

Efforts to negotiate sovereign-debt restructurings in developing countries like Zambia and Sri Lanka have stalled as Washington and Beijing disagree on the way forward, leaving those economies in a destructive limbo.

Watching nervously are private-sector bondholders including behemoths like Blackrock and Allianz, whose negotiations with debtor nations hinge on public-sector creditors resolving their differences and who see more debt distress to come.

“We’ve got a super-tough situation that puts a lot of question marks over debt sustainability,” said Sonja Gibbs, managing director of the Institute of International Finance, which represents private-sector creditors and other financial institutions. “Writ large, you have rising rates, you’ve got inflation, you have far higher debt levels than you had a decade ago. It’s like a perfect storm for many of these countries.”

If G-20 finance ministers this week are able to break the deadlock, it could unlock restructurings in Sri Lanka and Zambia — helping to speed up the deployment of billions of dollars in International Monetary Fund aid — and renew hope for those starting in countries like Ghana and anticipated in places like nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Most importantly, perhaps, it would provide evidence that China and the US can cooperate on global challenges and spare other countries from the economic crossfire of their growing competition.

Failure, however, risks leading to an ad-hoc system in which creditors compete against each other to strike individual deals with indebted countries, said Carmen Reinhart, a former World Bank chief economist and Harvard University professor. That would only weaken already-fragile economies, lead to destabilizing humanitarian crises and send new waves of migration out of distressed countries.

“The bottom line is we could have another lost decade for many countries,” Reinhart said.

Nowhere has the China-US dissonance been louder than in Zambia, where President Hakainde Hichilema last week likened the country’s $13 billion debt woes to a “black mamba kiss of death.” An ex-trade minister and Hichilema’s former campaign manager, Dipak Patel, bemoans a “Common Framework Cold War.”

“Zambia is just a pawn in the global cold war with China,” Patel said.

Creditors are yet to agree on how to restructure Zambia’s debts, or even on which loans to include, leaving uncertainty hanging over an IMF rescue.

At the center of the standoffs in Zambia and Sri Lanka are Chinese demands that loans made by the World Bank and other multilateral lenders be included in any restructuring. That’s partly driven by a Chinese view of those institutions as proxies for US power.

But the US and World Bank have rejected the idea, arguing any “haircut” would undermine those bodies’ ability to respond to crises and make concessional loans.

Under the system agreed at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, the World Bank and IMF are traditionally granted seniority in restructurings as lenders of last resort, which relies on their ability to raise low-cost capital to loan at below-market rates.

Chinese banks are also holding to a longstanding reluctance to reduce the principal of loans, preferring to extend their duration and offer temporary payment holidays. The US and others have argued this amounts to simply delaying necessary pain.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who discussed the debt issue with China’s outgoing Vice Premier Liu He in January, said earlier this month that China is holding up narrow debt negotiations in places like Zambia and Sri Lanka over broader debates about the US-led global financial system.

“China’s lack of willingness to comprehensively participate and to move in a timely way has really been a roadblock,” she said.

China has fired back that it’s already offering relief and simply asking for the US and other western powers to do their part.

The brewing stalemate has led to a scramble to save the G-20’s framework, led by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, outgoing World Bank President David Malpass and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of India, which is presiding over the G-20 this year.

They’re convening a “debt roundtable” that’s scheduled to bring together ministers for the first time on Saturday, on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting. The goal is to draw in private-sector creditors and interested governments.

The problem confronting participants is that the G-20 originally agreed only on vague contours for restructurings, said Martin Mühleisen, who helped negotiate the initial agreement when at the IMF. Now, they have to fill in all-important details with a recalcitrant China.

“A key objective here is to bring China into the conversation to try to work out a process we can all live with,” said the IIF’s Gibbs.

For decades, the Paris Club of rich sovereign creditors has led the work of dealing with impoverished nations’ debt woes. The G-20’s Common Framework was meant to expand that by bringing in China — now the world’s largest bilateral lender to developing nations — and other new creditor countries like India and Saudi Arabia.

Many of China’s loans to developing nations were through President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative to fund projects throughout the developing world. Part of the problem now, according to people close to the talks, is that there’s nobody to take a decision on resolving the problems facing Chinese lenders.

For bank executives who approved the troubled loans, “a writedown would amount to admitting a mistake, adding a black mark on their careers,” analysts at consultancy Teneo wrote in a note.

One hope for this week’s G-20 meeting is that a new endorsement of the debt framework by China’s finance ministry might provide cover for those bank executives.

For now, China’s Export-Import Bank is representing the creditor in discussions with both Sri Lanka and Zambia. Neither the bank nor the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, responded to requests for comment on the G-20 roundtable.

Experts and people close to the talks see the potential for compromises including a ramping up in World Bank aid to indebted countries via a special trust fund. Others are pushing for the IMF to back something more radical such as excluding a reluctant China from an initial restructuring to unlock IMF aid.

While China’s position on including World Bank loans in any restructuring is anathema to the US, the institution’s biggest shareholder, the idea has gained traction elsewhere.

“The World Bank’s preferred-creditor status is a custom, but it is not backed by any international law,” said Deborah Brautigam, director of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. More than 40% of the debt in the 73 countries eligible for the Common Framework are held by multilateral lenders, a chunk that’s too big too ignore, she said.

Private-sector creditors have sympathy for China’s position, said IIF’s Gibbs.

“There’s definitely a sense of ‘How do we ensure the best level playing field’” for all creditors, she said, when excluding the World Bank means a bigger burden for others.

Meanwhile, Washington’s increasingly hardline on China is a challenge.

Whereas US and Chinese officials in the past often met at multiple levels to hash out differences on specific areas, those days of granular engagement are gone, said Scott Morris, a former US Treasury official now at the Center for Global Development. “There really isn’t a desire to engage in that way,” he said.

The increasingly aggressive nature of US economic policy toward China has also reduced any leverage Washington once had with Beijing, said Mark Sobel, a former US representative on the IMF board who’s now US chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. It’s no longer the case that a stern word from a US Treasury secretary might yield action from Chinese officials, Sobel said.

That, Sobel argues, means it’s time for the IMF to take a more forceful stand against China, or use loopholes in its rules to push forward aid programs without waiting for a debt-talks resolution.

One way or the other, “the fund really needs to find a megaphone,” Sobel said. “Quiet diplomacy doesn’t seem to be working.”

--With assistance from Alonso Soto and Ronojoy Mazumdar.

China lends Pakistan further $700 mln to shore up FX reserves

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Chinese money to shore up critically low reserves

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More external financing needed to get an IMF deal

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PM hopes to get IMF funding soon

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International bond prices fall


By Asif Shahzad

Wed, February 22, 2023 

ISLAMABAD, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Pakistan will this week receive a new $700 million loan from China to help shore up its foreign exchange reserves, the country's finance minister said on Wednesday, in another step to help the South Asian nation recover from an economic crisis.

The credit facility, made through the state-owned China Development Bank will boost Pakistan's forex reserves by about 20% and comes as the country is thrashing out a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unlock funds from a $6.5 billion bailout.

"This amount is expected to be received this week by State Bank of Pakistan which will shore up its forex reserves," Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Twitter.

A finance ministry official said the loan was in addition to other facilities that China has already extended to Pakistan. The money could come as early as Thursday, he added.

China Development Bank did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he was hopeful of reaching a deal with the IMF as soon as the country completes a series of steps demanded by the lender.

Addressing his cabinet, he said the government was focusing on austerity as a top priority. "Our government will utilise all resources to overcome the crisis," he said.

The receipt of external financing is one of the measures needed before the IMF signs a staff level agreement that will unlock more than $1 billion in funding, that has been suspended since late last year.

"The fact that new money is being committed to Pakistan and old loans are being rolled over despite this, is a sign that the global community is committed to helping Pakistan meet its external challenges," former Pakistani central bank deputy governor Murtaza Syed told Reuters.

SINGLE LARGEST CREDITOR

Pakistan is struggling with its worst economic crisis in decades and its foreign exchange reserves, at their lowest in 10 years, are only enough to pay for less than three weeks' worth of imports. Meanwhile, fiscal adjustments demanded by the IMF are fuelling decades-high inflation.

The country's international bonds extended their decline on Wednesday with the 2027 dollar-denominated bonds dropping more than 1.2 cents in the dollar to trade just over 40 cents, Tradeweb data showed.

China is already Pakistan's single largest creditor with its commercial banks holding about 30% of its external debt. The United States, historically a close ally, said this week it was concerned about this debt, and was talking to Islamabad about the "perils" of a closer relationship with Beijing. 

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad; Additional Reporting by Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Miral Fahmy, Alexander Smith and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)