A new outbreak of Canadian wildfires is sending a plume of unhealthy smoke into the US yet again

Eric Zerkel
Sat, July 15, 2023

A recent outbreak of wildfires in western Canada is again sending a plume of unhealthy smoke into the United States.

Air quality alerts were in effect Saturday for at least eight states across the northern Plains and upper Midwest as smoke from the wildfires returns.

Smoke will be heaviest across parts of Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa on Saturday before shifting southeastward later in the weekend. Minneapolis and Des Moines, Iowa, will see the worst of the smoke Saturday while cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and Cincinnati will begin to see the effects on Sunday.

The Midwest will continue to see poor air quality and decreased visibility into early next week as the smoke lingers.

Chicago experienced some of the worst air quality in the world amid heavy smoke in late-June.

This time, the smoke plume is not coming from the Canadian province of Quebec. It is instead funneling across Canada from much further away in the West, so it shouldn’t reach the Northeast like it did in early June, when New York City’s skies turned an apocalyptic shade of orange.

On Friday, the encroaching smoke dropped air quality in parts of Montana and North Dakota to code red, or unhealthy levels on the Air Quality Index, and to code orange, or unhealthy for sensitive groups, in Minnesota, according to airnow.gov

An out-of-control fire burns 60 miles southeast of Kamloops, British Columbia, on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. - Pete Laing/BC Wildfire Service

Wildfire smoke contains tiny pollutants known as particle matter, or PM 2.5, that can get into the lungs and bloodstream once inhaled. These pollutants most commonly cause difficulty breathing and eye and throat irritation, but have also been linked to more serious long-term health issues like lung cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The plume was birthed from nearly 400 fires sparked in Canada’s province of British Columbia in the past week, nearly half of which were started by 51,000 lightning strikes from thunderstorms, the BC Wildfire Service said. Some of those thunderstorms were “dry” or produced inconsequential amounts of rain to help squelch any fires, a dangerous prospect in a province experiencing the worst level of drought.

Parts of the US will be at risk of smoke for the foreseeable future depending on weather patterns and fire flareups because Canada is experiencing its worst fire season on record. More than 24 million acres have burned so far this year, an area roughly the size of Indiana.

British Columbia has had more than 1,000 fires start since April. Those fires have already burned through nearly three times the amount of land compared to an average year in British Columbia over the last 10 years, the BC Wildfire Service said.

ONE FATALITY

One firefighter died Thursday responding to one of the blazes near Revelstoke, British Columbia, a press release from the firefighter’s union said. The BC Wildfire Service confirmed the death to CNN. The firefighter has not been identified.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau eulogized the firefighter on Twitter Friday.

“The news from British Columbia – that one of the firefighters bravely battling wildfires has lost her life – is heartbreaking,” Trudeau said. “At this incredibly difficult time, I’m sending my deepest condolences to her family, her friends, and her fellow firefighters.”

 CNN.com

CRYPTO CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Binance lays off employees days after executive exodus


Updated Fri, July 14, 2023 
By Jaiveer Shekhawat

(Reuters) -Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has cut jobs just days after it was hit by a wave of executive exits, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The layoffs at the world's biggest crypto exchange come at a time when the industry's future in the U.S. market is uncertain, with regulators aggressively clamping down on what they deem are illegal activities.

The job cuts were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which said more than 1,000 people had been let go in recent weeks.

"As we continuously strive to increase talent density, there are involuntary terminations. This happens in every company. The numbers reported by media are all way off," Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted, adding that the exchange is "still hiring."

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Binance and Zhao for allegedly operating a "web of deception." Binance has said it would defend itself vigorously.

The lawsuits against Binance and peer Coinbase Global underpin SEC Chair Gary Gensler's tough approach towards the industry, but a U.S. judge recently siding with crypto firm Ripple Labs highlights that the regulator is facing an uphill battle.

Applications for spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from asset management giants BlackRock and Fidelity have also been viewed as a vote of confidence for the industry.

"Over the last six years, we have grown from 30 to a team of almost 8,000 across the globe. As we prepare for the next major bull cycle, it has become clear that we need to focus on talent density across the organization to ensure we remain nimble and dynamic," a spokesperson for Binance said.

Last week, a string of executives quit Binance, which included its Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann.

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh and Jaiveer Shekhawat and Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

BlockFi Management Ignored Warnings About FTX and Alameda, Creditors Allege

Jonathan Randles
Fri, July 14, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- BlockFi Inc. executives dismissed repeated warnings from its risk management team about not issuing substantial loans to Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research that were collateralized with digital tokens created by FTX, BlockFi creditors allege in a newly unsealed report.

The report, prepared by a committee representing BlockFi unsecured creditors, blames the crypto lender’s failure on missteps made by Chief Executive Officer Zac Prince and other senior managers. The creditors’ findings were made public Friday, days after BlockFi released its own investigation contending Prince and other executives had little reason to worry about lending to Alameda before Bankman-Fried’s platform collapsed amid allegations of fraud.

The committee said as early as August 2021, BlockFi had a copy of an Alameda balance sheet showing the trading firm relied substantially upon FTT, a digital token created by FTX. Alameda’s over-reliance on FTT “set off alarms at BlockFi,” the committee said, but those concerns were dismissed by Prince. The report quotes Prince saying in an email that Alameda represented “the largest/clearest growth opportunity we have.”

The FTT token played a major role in FTX’s failure. In early November, industry publication Coindesk reported on the same balance sheet BlockFi had, triggering a public run on FTX that forced Bankman-Fried’s platform into bankruptcy within days, according to the committee’s report.

Aside from allegedly dismissing red flags from FTX, the committee claims BlockFi’s business was “fundamentally flawed” because it required riskier investment counterparties to deliver high customer returns. That meant BlockFi could only do business with a relatively small number of firms, like Alameda, capable of delivering high enough returns to pass on to customers, including failed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital Ltd. and a Bitcoin trust launched by Grayscale Investments, the committee said.

Prince’s lawyers didn’t return a message seeking comment and a BlockFi spokesman referred to the company’s earlier investigation. BlockFi disputes the committee’s conclusions, which the company described as misleading, and denies Prince or other executives ignored warnings about Alameda and FTX. Criticisms about BlockFi’s business could be leveled against any lending business, the company said.

FTX Concerns

BlockFi said executives performed reasonable due diligence before entering into transactions with Alameda and implemented checks on Prince’s decision-making authority. The crypto lender said management supported the transactions in part because Alameda quickly returned $1 billion in loans last year, before FTX collapsed. The company is seeking to settle allegations against Prince and other BlockFi executives in exchange for their help in valuable litigation involving FTX and other firms it did business with.

The committee’s report said some BlockFi executives were concerned about FTX. A year before Bankman-Fried’s platform unraveled, BlockFi Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Flori Marquez said to Prince in a series of Slack messages that using FTT as collateral “just sounds sketchy” and asked about associated risks.

Prince wrote “if FTX went down, FTT was going down with it.”

“That’s my concern,” Marquez responded.

“and we would be sitting on a pile of worthless FTT in our fireblocks wallet,” Prince said.

Lawyers for Marquez didn’t return a message seeking comment. BlockFi said in its earlier report that the committee mischaracterized the Slack exchange. Prince wasn’t discussing the value of FTT, the company said, but instead discussing the risks and benefits of taking the tokens as collateral and staking them on FTX’s platform for additional yield. He was expressing that if Bankman-Fried’s platform went down, it wouldn’t matter where the FTT is custodied, according to BlockFi’s lawyers.

BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 protection in late November and is planning to liquidate in bankruptcy in an effort to repay customers as much as possible.

The case is BlockFi Inc., 22-19361, US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey (Trenton).

An Arrest, a Ruling, a Rally: Crypto’s Wild Day in the Courts


Muyao Shen, Yueqi Yang and Sidhartha Shukla
Thu, July 13, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- It was a day that started with something of a bang: the charismatic Alex Mashinsky, former chief executive officer of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network under arrest and charged with fraud.

In a flurry of enforcement activity, the US Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission all filed lawsuits Thursday against both Mashinsky and Celsius itself.

Allegations against Mashinsky ranged from pumping up the price of CEL, the lender’s native token, to wire fraud. Mashinsky has pleaded not guilty and will be released on bail after agreeing to a $40 million personal recognizance bond.

Then, shortly before noon, a judge issued a long-awaited ruling in the case of the SEC v Ripple Labs Inc. that sent crypto Twitter into a frenzy and token prices soaring. US District Judge Analisa Torres held that XRP, the token associated with Ripple Labs and central to the case, is a security when offered to institutional investors but not the general public.

“Institutional buyers would have understood that Ripple was pitching a speculative value proposition for XRP with potential profits to be derived from Ripple’s entrepreneurial and managerial efforts,” the judge wrote.

But Torres ruled that finding didn’t apply to programmatic investors, meaning the broader public. She said there was no evidence that such investors could parse the many statements made by Ripple about XRP, and found that many statements cited by the SEC may not have been shared with the broader public.

Whether cryptocurrencies are securities has been a major question hanging over the industry, which has long fought efforts to regulate it by arguing that the tokens do not meet the necessary criteria.

XRP almost doubled, soaring to as much as 94 US cents on Thursday before easing back to 78 cents as of 1:20 p.m. on Friday in Singapore. An offshoot of XRP, Stellar’s XLM, also surged.

Other tokens that were recently described as unregistered securities by the SEC increased too: Solana is up about 30% since the ruling and Cardano 25%. Bitcoin held a 3% gain to roughly the highest since June 2022, while Ether breached $2,000.

“Judge Torres’ decision in Ripple is a huge win for the cryptocurrency and digital asset industry,” said Arthur G. Jakoby, co-chair for Securities Litigation and Enforcement at the law firm Herrick Feinstein LLP. “If upheld on appeal, this decision significantly narrows the SEC’s jurisdiction over the crypto market.”

Shares of crypto-dependent companies also rallied. Coinbase Global Inc. rose the most since its public debut, closing Thursday at $107. The exchange is embroiled in a lawsuit of its own with the SEC that alleges that it sold tokens that are unregistered securities.

“This underscores that direct sales of digital assets by an issuer will often be securities, but other sales, most notably sales on the secondary market, are unlikely to be deemed securities, which is a key argument in Coinbase’s defense against the SEC,” said Elliott Stein, Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst for litigation.

MicroStrategy jumped 11.7% and crypto miner Marathon Digital closed more than 14% higher on the day.

“My overall impression is this is a positive decision for the digital asset industry,” said Daniel Tramel Stabile, partner at Winston & Strawn. “The court expressly concluded that XRP is not, in and of itself, a security. Instead, the focus must be on the circumstances of the offering itself.”

The SEC sued San Francisco-based Ripple and top executives in December 2020. At the time, the regulator accused the company, co-founder Christian Larsen and Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse of misleading investors in XRP by selling more than $1 billion worth of the tokens without registering them, depriving investors of information about the cryptocurrency and about Ripple’s business.

Even prior to the day’s enthusiastic price action, cryptocurrencies have been on a tear.

In recent weeks, a raft of filings for spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US, driven in large part by an application by Wall-Street heavyweight BlackRock Inc., has reinvigorated traders who’d been buffeted by the long crypto winter.

Bitcoin has risen around 90% in 2023, rebounding from a rout last year that was exacerbated by a string of industry scandals and bankruptcies, including that of Mashinsky’s Celsius. The token remains some way below its all-time high of almost $69,000 in 2021.

--With assistance from David Pan, Chris Dolmetsch and Allyson Versprille.

 Bloomberg Businessweek

White House Economists Defend Industrial Policy in New Paper



Jordan Fabian
Fri, July 14, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- The White House began offering a more detailed defense of its industrial policy against critics who doubt its effectiveness, saying it will deliver clear benefits for the US economy.

Officials from the National Economic Council and Council of Economic Advisers wrote in a new paper that hundreds of billions of dollars President Joe Biden approved for infrastructure, the energy transition and domestic semiconductor manufacturing are essential for keeping the US competitive, and that those fields suffered from decades of private sector neglect.

“The administration is taking strategic action in cases where markets on their own have not delivered. We are unlocking the potential for these industries to thrive, while keeping costs low for families,” the officials wrote in the paper, which was obtained by Bloomberg News.

The White House has sought to rebrand and promote Biden’s economic policies as “Bidenomics,” in an effort to reverse the president’s poor approval ratings on his handling of the economy ahead of the 2024 election.

Republican critics argue Biden’s agenda will drive up the national debt, stymie growth and fuel inflation. Some economists say there’s little evidence massive government spending in certain sectors will make the US economy more efficient and resilient.

The full benefits of Biden’s climate, health, tax, chips and infrastructure laws will not be seen for years, making it difficult for Americans to feel their effects. But the White House has argued the laws are already helping lift the economy, and some measures like factory construction have already risen.

“What we invest in and how we invest paves the way for whether and how the economy benefits families, communities, and business all across the country,” said Investing in America Cabinet chief economist and CEA member Heather Boushey, a co-author of the paper. “This modern American industrial strategy lays the foundation for good jobs and decades of sustained—and sustainable—equitable growth.”

White House economic advisers wrote that “public investment can attract more private sector investment, rather than crowd it out.” The paper cited more than $500 billion in commitments from companies on new US semiconductor and electronics manufacturing and also clean energy, electric vehicle and battery projects as evidence the approach has bolstered domestic industries.

“This is particularly true in sectors that are central to the long-term economic and national security interests of the United States—from our infrastructure, to semiconductors, to clean energy and climate security,” the paper said.

Private investors in the past have been too risk averse to fund research and development on their own in technologies to accomplish goals like hastening the transition away from fossil fuels, they argue.

The paper also offered a defense of elements of Biden’s signature legislation, such as “buy American” and prevailing wage provisions. Critics have said those policies could hamper underlying projects and products by making them more expensive compared to their competition.

The White House said that those types of policies are crucial for shoring up and expanding an American middle-class hollowed out by de-industrialization. Building up key industries could protect the US against future supply-chain shocks and counter China.

“When it comes to the US-China relationship, economic resilience and national security go hand-in-hand. We continue to have significant bilateral trade, but we also need to build more secure value chains and ensure appropriate safeguards,” the officials said.

WEST VIRGINIA THE MANCHIN PROJECT

Mountain Valley Pipeline Builder Asks Supreme Court to Let Work Resume




Ari Natter and Greg Stohr
Fri, July 14, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Equitrans Midstream Corp. asked the US Supreme Court to allow it to resume construction on its controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline after a federal appeals court issued a pair of orders blocking the $6.6 billion project earlier this week.

The company urged Chief Justice John Roberts to lift a pair of orders issued by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which came despite language in recently enacted debt-ceiling legislation intended to prevent the pipeline from being stalled by the court. The company has said the pipeline, which has backing from West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, may not meet its goal of being completed by the end of this year unless the court’s orders are quickly reversed.

The route for the roughly 300-mile (480-kilometer) pipeline runs through the Appalachian Mountains, a national forest and across hundreds of streams as it carries natural gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia. It has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists.

Roberts is the justice assigned to handle emergency matters from the 4th Circuit. He could act on his own or refer the request to the full nine-member court.

Toughest ESG Rule Yet Puts EU on Collision Course With US


Frances Schwartzkopff
Fri, July 14, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- The woman in charge of getting Europe’s toughest piece of ESG legislation through the bloc’s parliament says she’s confident the US will embrace the global accountability the bill introduces, once politicians stop being distracted by lobbyists.

US skepticism toward the legislation has perhaps “been confused a little bit by the lobbying going on,” said Lara Wolters, the lawmaker helming the passage of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive through EU’s legislative chamber. This week, she worked to close any loopholes companies might try to use.

“What we’re after here is accountability and surely the US government doesn’t support a lack of accountability for causing or contributing to human rights harms,” Wolters, a Dutch member of the EU parliament who’s been in the chamber since 2019, said in an interview.

The comments come roughly a month after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned of “negative, unintended consequences” stemming from CSDDD. If passed, the directive means large companies selling products and services in the EU — wherever they’re based — would risk civil lawsuits for failing to address human rights and environmental violations in their value chains. CSDDD would also require companies to have climate transition plans that are aligned with the Paris Agreement.

Yellen said in June that the Biden administration is “concerned about the directive’s extra-territorial scope.” There’s support for CSDDD’s high-level aims, but some requirements “where there is no clear nexus to the EU” are concerning, so talks are underway with the EU, Yellen said.

The EU’s plan to push ahead with CSDDD underscores the very different trajectory the bloc is on from the US when it comes to environmental, social and governance frameworks. In the US, Republicans have sought to ban ESG across much of the country, and are penalizing firms that embrace it.

In a hearing last month, US Representative Frank Lucas, a Republican from Oklahoma, said Europe shouldn’t set standards for US companies, and regulators must be “diligent” in “defending US sovereignty.”

The House Financial Services Committee is holding hearings this month, during which the matter is set to come up. Among legislation proposed by the GOP is a requirement that the US Comptroller “conduct a study on the detrimental impact” of CSDDD and of ESG reporting requirements.

In Europe, meanwhile, lawmakers and regulators are rolling out the world’s most comprehensive set of rules ultimately designed to reinvent capitalism and steer money into greener, fairer activities. Much of the legislation is global in scope, as it requires compliance from asset managers and businesses that target EU customers.

Though far from perfect in its execution of the huge array of measures being pushed through, the European Union has moved much faster than other jurisdictions with its ESG ambitions.

Wolters says that CSDDD is necessary because markets can’t be relied on to self-regulate.

“It’s our job as policymakers to make guard rails where market forces fail,” she said. “I think the aim is absolutely one that the US government probably can subscribe to.”

Regulatory focus on ESG risks in supply chains is already shaping corporate priorities. A recent survey by Deloitte showed that ESG is now the second-top concern of chief procurement officers. As recently as 2021, it ranked seventh.

As it’s currently worded, CSDDD would require ESG due diligence checks up and down the value chains of companies or subsidiaries with annual sales in the EU starting at €40 million ($45 million).

The directive also targets the finance industry. An analysis published in June by the European Central Bank found that the litigation risks for banks “may substantially increase” once CSDDD becomes reality. The ECB has recommended a gradual phase-in of the directive.

CSDDD has already made its way through the EU Parliament and lawmakers are now negotiating its final wording with the European Council and the EU Commission. Wolters says there’s little likelihood the cross-border scope of the directive will be curtailed.

“What we’re doing here is, we’re setting out how companies of a certain size, of a certain turnover, ought to behave when it comes to human rights and environmental harm,” Wolters said. “And in this case, where there is significant turnover within the EU, I think it’s only normal that we set rules for that.”

 Bloomberg Businessweek

Larry Fink isn't saying 'ESG.' But he is urging investors to stay focused on climate.

ESG investing: Virtue signaling or force for corporate good?


Ben Werschkul
·Washington Correspondent
Fri, July 14, 2023 

BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink on Friday kept to his pledge to no longer use the acronym ESG. But he also made it clear that investors would be wise to keep their focus on climate concerns.

In its quarterly earnings announcement, BlackRock announced that assets under management rose to $9.4 trillion while net income rose and revenue fell. Then, in a conference call, Fink seized on a question about transition investing, which is loosely defined as putting money beyond the transition to a carbon-free economy.

He didn't refer to ESG — an acronym he believes has been "weaponized" by the left and the right — but called transition investing "probably one of the greatest opportunities in the world today." ESG stands for investing with environmental, social, and corporate governance principles.

"We're having more and more conversations with more and more corporations about how they think about their platform related to decarbonization," he added.

Fink has become a prominent face in the debate about ESG in recent years as Republicans in Washington now look to limit do-good investing.

Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City in April. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

"One of the concerns I've got is the fiduciary responsibility of these investment groups like BlackRock," Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a Republican from Missouri, said at a Congressional hearing this week.

Luetkemeyer is one of the leaders of the anti-ESG efforts expressing worry that "political agendas overshadow sound financial management."

'There's not a government that is not focused on this'

BlackRock has garnered much of the political attention because of its outsized power across the economy and the proxy voting power it holds at nearly every major S&P 500 company.

Fink is certainly not shying away from his focus on climate issues. He traveled earlier this week to the United Kingdom for a climate-themed event at Windsor Castle that featured King Charles III and President Joe Biden as well as other business leaders like Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Britain's King Charles III enter a climate engagement with philanthropists and investors at Windsor Castle on July 10. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

Fink on Friday emphasized that government actions around climate change represent much of the opportunity for investors in the years ahead.

"There's not a government that is not focused on this, [and] how do they successfully navigate their economy and energy and power is becoming one of the dominant conversations."

BlackRock itself has also taken an increasingly direct role in the energy transition by providing funding to companies looking to raise capital for energy projects.

On Friday, Fink touted a recent $700 million investment in Australian battery storage and a carbon sequestration project in the US.

For Fink, a focus on the climate will clearly be a long-term focus, saying, "We look at this as a multi multi-year growth opportunity."

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

Brazil Taps JPMorgan, Itau, Santander for Debut ESG Bond Sale

Vinícius Andrade
Fri, July 14, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- Brazil is tapping banks for advice on the nation’s first-ever sustainable bond sale, a long-awaited transaction that’s expected to hit markets by the end of the year.

The Treasury said Friday it will work with Banco Itau BBA, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Banco Santander Brasil SA to sell the notes and revise its framework for debt that relates to environmental, social or governance goals.

Brazil — home to the majority of the Amazon rainforest — is expected to debut in global ESG debt markets following an investor roadshow in late August or early September, a person familiar with the matter said last month.

The terms of the sale, including exact timing and size, were still being discussed, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private.

Earlier this year, Brazil sold $2.25 billion of dollar bonds due 2033, luring strong-enough investor demand to up-size the deal. That was the country’s first debt offering in global markets in about two years.

Brazil plans to keep monitoring debt-market conditions for potential issuances of traditional external debt, according to the statement.

RIGHT WING NATIONALIST GVT

Finnish Racism Scandal Sparks Opposition Bid to Oust Cabinet




Kati Pohjanpalo
Fri, July 14, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Finland’s opposition wants the parliament recess to be interrupted in the middle of summer holidays to gauge confidence in government due to its ongoing racism scandal.

The five opposition groups asked Speaker Jussi Halla-aho to reconvene lawmakers after a debacle surrounding the coalition’s junior partner, the Finns Party, gathered pace. Halla-aho is the former leader of the anti-immigrant party, and has in recent days taken a reticent stance to calling back the parliament from the break.

The scandal over racist and extremist remarks by the far-right party’s members has been swirling since the four-party cabinet was put together in late June, hampering its agenda of addressing the Nordic nation’s ballooning public debt and stagnant economy. It’s already led to the resignation of Vilhelm Junnila as economy minister after just 10 days over his alleged association with white extremists.

Since then, the party’s other ministers have been under mounting scrutiny, including Interior Minister Mari Rantanen over using the term “the great replacement” which refers to a white nationalist conspiracy theory, and most recently Finance Minister and party leader Riikka Purra over blog posts fantasizing about violence. Rantanen has since said she does not believe in conspiracies.

Some of Purra’s remarks were made about 15 years ago under the pseudonym ‘riikka.’ Purra on Wednesday apologized for them, telling reporters “I do not condone the language and words I have used” and saying “I have never accepted, and will never accept, any form of violence.”

But the scandal did not die down, with more recent racist remarks emerging, such as her 2019 blog writings where she refers to Muslim immigrant women as “black sacks.”

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Purra refused to apologize for the remarks four years ago, saying she was defending “western society” against an influx of immigrants that erodes “women’s freedoms and women’s rights.”

“If we start down the path of examining the past of the Finns Party, what we have said and written, that will never end,” she said. “It’s clear that our frank and unembellished words, the rhetoric we use and our criticism of immigration have been portrayed in a way that allows people to keep bringing up this topic.”

The ouster of a government in Finland would not automatically trigger snap elections. Instead, it’s customary to attempt to forge a new ruling coalition from the sitting parliament. Finland’s general election was held in April and Orpo’s cabinet got sworn in just weeks ago.

Purra said she believes the coalition partners still have confidence in her and that she hasn’t considered resigning. Lawmakers from the Swedish People’s Party, one of the ruling parties, are set to meet Friday evening to discuss the opposition motion. Their support would bring the motion majority in parliament, which the speaker has said would strengthen the case for resuming work.

In a rare departure, President Sauli Niinisto who tends to stay away from commenting on domestic politics, has already intervened twice during the scandal, urging the government to adopt a stance of zero tolerance toward racism.

That’s precisely what Prime Minister Petteri Orpo on Wednesday pledged, seeking to quell the crisis. But his words touting “zero tolerance toward racism or extremism” rang hollow.

The Finns Party’s far-right sympathies aren’t shared by the coalition government’s other members. Orpo has said no ideological glue binds the ruling parties together, but that their main focus lies in fixing the public finances.

“The government has an important task to accomplish and we have committed to reforming the economy,” Orpo said on Wednesday.

China's clean energy demands fuel Zimbabwe's charge up the mining value chain


Sat, July 15, 2023

As nations seek to cut their carbon footprints, demand has surged for clean energy, fuelling the global competition to secure critical minerals for climate-friendly power sources like batteries. China has been laser-focused on the task.

After spending more than US$1 billion to acquire mining sites in Zimbabwe over the past two years, several Chinese-owned companies have now completed construction or upgrades of lithium processing plants. Observers said the new plants would help the country move up the mining value chain by processing - as well as mining - the metal while employing thousands of workers.

Shanghai Stock Exchange-listed Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, China's Sinomine Resource Group, and Shenzhen-listed lithium materials producer Chengxin Lithium Group are three Chinese mining companies that have recently commissioned processing plants in Zimbabwe, which holds one of the world's largest hard-rock lithium reserves.

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.


Lithium - known as "white gold" - is an essential raw material for the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries that power electric vehicles and in solar panels that store solar energy.

Last week, Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, a unit of the Chinese mining giant Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, formally commissioned a US$300 million lithium processing plant at the Arcadia hard-rock lithium mine.

Located in the town of Goromonzi, 80km (49 miles) southeast of Harare, the facility has a processing capacity of 4.5 million tonnes of hard-rock lithium, which translates into around 400,000 tonnes of concentrate per year for export.

An armed soldier stands guard at the Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe plant on July 5, the day it was officially commissioned by the Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa. 

Photo: EPA-EFE 

While commissioning the processing facility last week, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the plant would boost the government's ambitious target of generating US$12 billion in revenue from the mining sector by the end of this year, up from about US$5.6 billion of mineral exports in 2022. Lithium mining was expected to generate about US$500 million.

"Investment will promote the value addition of lithium ore. Lithium is the mineral of the present and future. Its beneficiation [for smelting] will position our country to be a competitive player in lithium production," said Mnangagwa, who was elected president in 2018 after a military coup and is seeking a second term in office. Mnangagwa said he appreciated the investment and support from China, and was looking forward to more.

Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Zhou Ding said mining cooperation between the two countries had good momentum and broad prospects. "Chinese mining companies have made better use of Zimbabwe's mineral resources, making Zimbabwe an important link in the international new energy industry chain," Zhou said at the Arcadia launch.

Huayou Cobalt bought the Arcadia operation from Australian-listed Prospect Resources and Zimbabwean minority stakes in 2021 for US$422 million. It invested US$300 million to develop the mine to expand production for the electric vehicle (EV) market. It is currently producing the lithium concentrates spodumene and petalite for export to China for further processing into lithium chemicals for making batteries.

Last year, Zimbabwe banned exports of raw lithium ore, forcing companies to set up local factories to process ore into concentrates before export.

The recent global rush to lithium has improved Zimbabwe's economic fortunes, with several Chinese companies making multimillion-dollar acquisitions to secure lithium supplies.

Zimbabwe is believed to hold Africa's largest lithium reserves, the fifth largest in the world. The resource had remained largely untapped, however, because of a lack of investment in the country, which two decades ago was slapped with Western sanctions over human rights violations and the seizure of land from white farmers.

Meanwhile, another firm, China's Sinomine Resource Group's Zimbabwe lithium unit, has just completed building a spodumene concentrate plant at its Bikita minerals site, with a total price tag of US$300 million for expansion and exploration.

Last year, Sinomine bought Bikita, the country's oldest lithium mines, for US$180 million with the aim of producing spodumene concentrate and petalite, which is used in the ceramics and glass industries.

The plant will produce 300,000 tonnes of chemical grade spodumene concentrate annually for export once the Bikita project reaches its full production capacity.

Sinomine expects to upgrade petalite production to 480,000 tonnes per year from the previous annual rate of 50,000 tonnes.

In May, another Chinese company, Chengxin Lithium Group, commissioned a 300,000 tonne per year lithium concentrator at the Sabi Star mine in eastern Zimbabwe.

Chris Berry, president of ­commodities advisory firm House Mountain Partners in New York, said for the energy transition to continue and lithium supplies to begin to approach demand in the coming years, Africa would need to become a more significant source of lithium.

"The Chinese have realised this and that's why projects in Zimbabwe and Mali are moving forward," Berry said. Ghana could join the ranks of lithium-producing countries in the next few years as well, he added.

"Lithium is not rare [in Africa or elsewhere], but producing commercial quantities of battery grade material is the challenge. As Chinese capital has a tougher time finding a home in Western projects, it would seem that African lithium projects are a natural fit."

Adam Megginson, a price analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said there were only a handful of lithium mines operating in Zimbabwe, but announcements of new projects and project expansions continued, especially from Chinese miners, lithium converters and conglomerates.

"Overall we forecast Zimbabwe's mined supply to increase 250 per cent from limited current volumes to 2025 as more capacity comes online from the country," Megginson said.

But even if it meets those projections, he said Zimbabwe would only account for less than 3 per cent of global mined supply by then.

Megginson said Zimbabwe's ban on unrefined lithium exports had encouraged a build in the concentration capacity of spodumene and petalite ore before export, but it had yet to spur the construction of refining capacity for carbonate and hydroxide, which are refined lithium chemicals required to make lithium-ion batteries.

"We don't expect Zimbabwe to have any lithium [refining] chemicals capacity by 2025. So it will continue to rely on other countries, primarily China, to process material into battery grade carbonate and hydroxide required for use in batteries," Megginson said.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Zimbabwe President Signs Law That Prohibits Criticism of State


Emmerson Mnangagwa
President of the Republic of Zimbabwe

Ray Ndlovu
Fri, July 14, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed a law that prohibits citizens from criticizing the government, a month before the southern African nation holds elections.

Mnangagwa’s assent to the so-called Patriotic Bill was announced in a government notice published in the capital, Harare, on Friday. The law lists as an offense “willfully injuring the sovereignty and national interests of Zimbabwe” by citizens calling for military intervention and sanctions against the country.

Zimbabwe will hold presidential elections on Aug. 23.

Read more: Bad-Mouthing The State Is Outlawed Before Election in Zimbabwe

Half of Zimbabweans Expect This Year’s Election to Be Manipulated, Survey Shows

Godfrey Marawanyika and Antony Sguazzin
Wed, July 12, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Almost half of Zimbabweans polled in a survey expect the result of next month’s election won’t reflect how citizens voted and a majority anticipate violence after the ballot.

All elections in the southern African nation since 2000 have been marred by allegations of intimidation and irregularities, and the findings of the poll of 2,400 Zimbabweans by pan-African survey company Afrobarometer will stoke fears that the trend will continue.

Another disputed vote could further isolate the country, which has been bedeviled by economic and political turmoil since it instituted a failed land reform program more than two decades ago. Many of its ruling politicians are subject to sanctions from the US, UK and European Union and the nation is locked out of international debt markets because it hasn’t serviced its loans.

The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, which has led the country since independence in 1980, is seeking to extend its rule in a year when the national currency has become virtually worthless and inflation is surging. Voters’ biggest concern is unemployment and 85% of those surveyed felt the government had managed the economy very badly, Afrobarometer said.

Still, change is unlikely.

More Zimbabweans believe the results will be manipulated than those who don’t, the survey showed. More than one-in-eight of those canvassed declined to answer the question as to whether the outcome was likely to be rigged, or said they don’t know.

A splintering of the opposition means ZANU-PF should still garner 35% of the vote in both the presidential and parliamentary vote, while the biggest opposition group, the Citizens Coalition for Change, would get 27% and 26% respectively in the two contests, Afrobarometer said. More than a quarter of respondents declined to identify their preferences.

Despite their cynicism about the process 85% of eligible Zimbabweans have registered to vote.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, in power since ousting longtime ruler Robert Mugabe in a coup in 2017, will face off against nine presidential hopefuls on Aug. 23, with his main opponent being the CCC’s Nelson Chamisa. The High Court on Wednesday nullified the candidacy of Saviour Kasukuwere, a former cabinet minister who fled the country after Mugabe’s removal.

The survey, which was conducted between April 29 and May 13, has a margin of error of 2%.

--With assistance from Desmond Kumbuka.

Zimbabwe elections 2023: What you need to know

Shingai Nyoka - BBC News, Harare
Thu, July 13, 2023 

Voters will be choosing a president, MPs and local councillors

Zimbabwe heads to the polls in August against a backdrop of one of the world's highest rates of inflation and accusations of an intensifying crackdown on the opposition.

Long-time president Robert Mugabe was deposed in 2017 but many say that little has changed.

In the run-up to the vote, questions linger over how free and fair the ballot will be in a country that is trying to rehabilitate its image.

When are the elections?

Zimbabweans will vote on 23 August to elect councillors, members of parliament, and a president. If there is no outright winner in the presidential contest, a run-off will be held six weeks later, on 2 October.

Who is running for president?

Zimbabwe's electoral commission has approved 11 candidates.- ADVERTISEMENT -

This is sharply down on the 23 who contested the last election, in 2018, no doubt because each candidate now has to pay $20,000 (£16,000), up from $1,000 (£800).

But the contest is likely to be between two candidates:

Incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa, from the governing Zanu-PF party

Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, from the Citizen's Coalition for Change (CCC)

Mr Mnangagwa, 80, has led Zimbabwe since the military forced Robert Mugabe to resign in 2017, and then won a disputed election a year later. He was a long-time ally of Mugabe before the pair fell out.

Zanu-PF, the governing party, has a lot of support in rural parts of the country

Mr Chamisa, 45, came second in 2018, winning 44% of the vote. A 2020 court ruling stripped him of the leadership of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and he subsequently lost access to party assets and state funding.

He formed the CCC in 2022, remains hugely popular in urban areas and is the main face of the opposition.

Other contenders include Douglas Mwonzora, the MDC's new leader.

Saviour Kasukuwere, an exiled former Mugabe ally, has been barred from standing on the basis that he has been living outside the country for more than 18 months - a decision he is challenging.

Who will win?

Zanu-PF has the advantage of incumbency, state power and access to state resources. The party, which has been in power since independence in 1980, also retains strong support in rural areas.

However with the economy in such a mess, many people, especially those in urban areas and the youth, think it is time for a change.

Rural voters normally turn out in huge numbers, unlike urban and youth voters, which could work against the opposition. The government has also refused to allow Zimbabweans living abroad to vote - which could also work against Mr Chamisa.

This is the first general election that the CCC will be contesting

Polling so far has predicted different results, so it is hard to use that as a guide as to who may end up president.

Furthermore, human rights activists say that in the past Zanu-PF has used various tactics to stay in power, including violence and intimidation, state-media blackouts and negative coverage of the opposition. Zanu-PF has previously denied using dirty tricks against its opponents.

What are the main issues?

The cost-of-living crisis continues to be at the core of voters' concerns, with the last three years having been some of the worst in a decade. In the 12 months leading up to May this year, prices rose by 86.5%, one of the highest annual inflation rates in the world.

Meanwhile, businesses are struggling to cope with crippling power outages and an unstable local currency, which lost 86% of its value between January and early June.

Allegations of corruption also remain a source of frustration, with a very low rate of prosecution. During the Covid pandemic, equipment was allegedly procured at inflated prices - the health minister was fired but then exonerated by the courts.

How do the elections work?

For members of parliament and council candidates, the election is won on a first-past-the-post basis - in other words the person who has the most votes.

In the presidential race, however, a candidate needs more than 50% of the vote to be declared the winner, otherwise there will be a run-off election between the top two.
When will we get the results?

By law the presidential election results must be announced within five days after voting ends.

Will they be free and fair?

Civil society groups and the opposition doubt that polls will be free or fair. They cite what they say has been a systemic crackdown on government critics.

The arrests and convictions of opposition figures and government critics has intensified over the last two years.

The electoral reforms that the opposition have demanded for years - to level the playing field, provide access to public media and remove ex-military personnel from the electoral body - have not happened.

CCC leader Mr Chamisa says more than 60 of the party's meetings were banned, or disrupted by police during by-elections last year, prompting fears it will happen again.

As former Zimbabwean politician Jonathan Moyo put it, Zanu-PF will not "reform itself out of power".

What happened in the last election in 2018?

This will be the second time Mr Mnangagwa and Mr Chamisa face each other.

Five years ago, the president won in the first round with 50.8% of the vote, but violence followed polling day in which six people were killed when security forces opened fire on protesters.

Observers generally commended the freedom of movement during the campaign period and relative peace on voting day, but the EU for example noted major shortcomings including state resources being misused in favour of the incumbent.

The EU said the final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors.

Mr Chamisa's party failed in its legal challenge to have the result overturned after arguing that the presidential and parliamentary vote tallies were off by tens of thousands.

TAIL WAGS DOG
Canada to Speed Up Critical Minerals Permits in Bid to Erode China’s Dominance

Jacob Lorinc and Brian Platt
Fri, July 14, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government hopes to unveil a plan by the end of this year to streamline permitting for mining projects as the US and its allies push to accelerate the production of critical minerals in North America.

Canada faces mounting pressure to keep pace with its southern neighbor as the US ramps up efforts to secure the metals needed for electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines. American lawmakers have been debating legislation that could substantially speed up approval times for resource projects.- 

While Canada is home to significant deposits of key minerals, it can take anywhere between five and 25 years to develop them into a mine. This timeline poses a significant challenge to Canada’s dreams of becoming a key player in the US-led drive to topple China’s dominance in the sector.

US negotiations to introduce permitting reform legislation make it all the more urgent for Canada to accelerate mine building timelines, said Heather Exner-Pirot, special adviser with the Business Council of Canada.

“We know the Americans are getting much more serious on permitting reform as commodity prices go up and we start to see some shortages of critical metals,” she said. “If we want to be in the critical minerals business, we have to move on it.”

Ideally the Trudeau government will have its plan ready by a budget update due in the fall, according to an official familiar with the matter. It will seek to enforce legislation passed in 2019 that was designed to cut regulatory hurdles that can stall mining projects for more than a decade, the official said.

Permitting backlogs have largely stemmed from underfunding at agencies tasked with approving permits as well as a lack of coordination between the federal government and its provincial counterparts. The 2019 legislation — the Impact Assessment Act — was supposed to reduce permit timelines to a maximum of five and a half years by setting time limits on assessments and approvals, though in practice projects still experience delays well beyond that time frame.

The process creates uncertainty for investors, sometimes resulting in funding shortfalls for mine builders, said Exner-Pirot.

“It’s a very political process, and from an investor perspective that creates uncertainty and risk. You don’t know if a politician is going to put the brakes on a mine development five years from now,” Exner-Pirot said in an interview.

Mining projects are also subject to rigorous environmental assessments, both at the federal and provincial level, and often face opposition from neighboring Indigenous communities that may be vulnerable to the hazards of operations. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has acknowledged the need to speed up permitting but vowed not to compromise environmental standards or Indigenous consultation.

One high-profile example of Canada’s lengthy process is Ontario’s “Ring of Fire,” a metals-heavy region seen as key to Canada’s critical minerals ambitions. Projects in the area have sat undeveloped for nearly two decades as mining companies struggle with permitting delays and opposition from some indigenous groups.

Recent high-level government departures have added to Canada’s challenge in making reforms. The permitting review was initially spearheaded by Janice Charette, the top federal civil servant, and Michael Sabia, the top Finance Department official. But both chose to leave government in the past two months.

John Hannaford, who replaced Charette at the top of the federal bureaucracy, is now helping shepherd the review along with Paul Halucha, a top official in the Environment department. Mollie Johnson, a senior official in the Natural Resources department who has been working on it, is moving to a new role as deputy secretary to the cabinet on July 24, the prime minister’s office announced Friday afternoon.

--With assistance from Derek Decloet.

TC Energy urges Canada to speed permits for energy transition projects



Wed, July 12, 2023 
By Nia Williams

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Canada's TC Energy on Wednesday urged policymakers to streamline permitting for repurposing oil and gas infrastructure to advance energy transition projects and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

TC Energy has more than 20,000 kilometers (14,300 miles) of pipeline in western Canada that could be repurposed to carry carbon dioxide for sequestration underground or transport low-emissions hydrogen, Chief Executive Francois Poirier said.

"Does there need to be same timeline and level of regulatory scrutiny as for a greenfield project on a new right of way? These are the conversations we are having with governments," Poirier said at the LNG 2023 conference in Vancouver.

"Policymakers are driving us towards significant emissions reduction by the end of this decade and we will not achieve those goals if it takes seven years to permit and put an asset into service," he added.

Canada, the world's fourth-largest oil and sixth-largest natural gas producer, aims to cut carbon emissions to 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Its oil and gas industry, the country's highest-polluting sector, is counting on deploying carbon capture and storage (CCS) and cleaner fuels like hydrogen to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But those nascent energy transition industries will require a significant build-out of new infrastructure.

Paul Marsden, head of Bechtel Corp.'s energy business unit, said forcing new technologies that repurpose existing assets to go back to the beginning of the permitting process risked choking innovation.

"We are not asking for corner cutting," Bechtel said, speaking on the same panel, noting the cost of building new infrastructure was getting more expensive.

Trinidad and Tobago's Energy Minister Stuart Young said repurposing assets to help speed the transition to cleaner forms of energy was the next frontier.

"Why are we putting the private sector through the hurdles as though (they're) starting from ground zero and from scratch," Young said. "That's where I think governments and policymakers and regulators need be able to listen."

(Reporting by Nia Williams in Vancouver; Editing by David Gregorio)

Charting the Global Economy: Inflation Cools Further in US

Vince Golle and Molly Smith
Sat, July 15, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- The US inflation rate slipped to a more than two-year low, spelling relief for American consumers and moving the Federal Reserve a step closer toward ending an historic cycle of interest-rate hikes.

China’s economy continues to struggle, with recent trade figures showing the largest drop in exports since early 2020. Industrial output in Europe remains weak, while strong wage growth in the UK threatens to add to inflationary pressures.

Here are some of the charts that appeared on Bloomberg this week on the latest developments in the global economy:

US & Canada

US inflation cooled sharply last month, offering fresh hope that the Fed can wrap up the most aggressive tightening in decades soon after an expected hike at their July 25-26 meeting.

The Bank of Canada raised interest rates for a second straight meeting, keeping the door open for more hikes as it pushed back inflation’s return to its 2% target. At 5%, the overnight lending rate is the highest in 22 years.

Some 72,700 people in families with children were experiencing homelessness in 20 of the largest cities in the US as of January, a 37.6% jump from a year before, according to an analysis of data provided by jurisdictions. In New York, that figure shot up by two thirds, while Chicago, the District of Columbia and Fort Worth, Texas, also saw outsize increases.

Asia

China is facing pressure on trade as foreign shipments drop off and domestic demand remains weak, with a darkening global growth outlook and geopolitical tensions making a reprieve unlikely anytime soon.

India, the world’s biggest rice shipper, is considering banning exports of most varieties, a move that may send already lofty global prices higher as the disruptive El Niño weather pattern returns.

Australia’s business conditions showed ongoing resilience in June, defying the Reserve Bank’s more than yearlong tightening cycle and warnings of slower economic growth, while consumer confidence remained in “deeply pessimistic” territory.

Europe


UK wages rose more than expected to a level that Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said is fueling inflation, maintaining pressure for higher interest rates. Average weekly earnings excluding bonuses rose 7.3% in the three months through May from a year ago.

Euro-area industrial production rose less than anticipated in May — adding to signs that manufacturing is struggling to regain momentum after the 20-nation bloc suffered a recession over the winter.

Emerging Markets

Southeast Asian nations that were counting on Chinese travelers to drive tourism revenues and their economies post-Covid are finding the flow of visitors far from the flood they were hoping for. The visitor statistics suggest that Southeast Asia’s economic recovery this year will be muted.

Saudi Arabia’s decision to extend its oil production cuts — part of a largely unsuccessful bid to raise prices — may trigger an economic contraction in what was the Group of 20’s fastest-growing country last year.

Brazil’s inflation fell below target in June to hit its slowest level since September 2020, clearing the way for the central bank to begin cutting interest rates at its next meeting.

World

Israel left interest rates unchanged for the first time in over a year while New Zealand’s central bank stood pat for the first time since August 2021. Peru kept borrowing costs at a 22-year high and South Korea held rates steady.






























--With assistance from Philip Aldrick, Erik Hertzberg, James Mayger, Abeer Abu Omar, Aline Oyamada, Swati Pandey, Pratik Parija, Tom Rees, Andrew Rosati, Augusta Saraiva, Zoe Schneeweiss, Siddhartha Singh, Randy Thanthong-Knight, Fran Wang, Lucy White, Sonja Wind and Yihui Xie.