Slovenia elects first female president Nataša Pirc Musar

Musar's election is a second significant victory for the Slovenian left, following Golob's victory in April.

By Joe Fisher

A man passes near a huge pre-election poster of presidential candidate Natasa Pirc Musar in downtown Ljubljana, Slovenia, November, 10, 2022. File Photo by Antonio Bat/EPA-EFE

Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Slovenia elected its first female president Nataša Pirc Musar on Sunday following a run-off election.

Pirc Musar, a liberal lawyer and former journalist, defeated right-wing candidate Anze Logar, carrying more than 53% of the vote. She vowed to be more vocal than her predecessor, Borut Pahor, who served two five-year terms as president and was colloquially referred to as an "Instagram president."

"I have never been quiet when it was necessary to speak up, especially not in the last two years", she said in September while campaigning, according to The Guardian.

"After the last Janez Janša government took over I spoke out, because the rule of law was falling apart before our very eyes."

Janša was succeeded by Robert Golob as Prime Minister this summer. Golob is a member of the Freedom Movement, which is a socially liberal progressive party.

Both candidates ran as independents, but Logar is part of the right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party. Musar does not align with a party. She was a human rights expert serving the Council of Europe for 15 years and served as head of Slovenia's data protection authority.

The new president was a television journalist for Pop TV in Slovenia for five years. She was an attorney for Melania Trump, focusing on protecting her name and likeness from misuse while U.S. President Donald Trump was in office.

Musar's election is a second significant victory for the Slovenian left, following Golob's victory in April.

RIP

Keith Levene, founding member of the Clash, dies at 65

Innovative post-punk musician was an original member of the Clash before founding PiL with John Lydon and Jah Wobble

Keith Levene, left, with John Lydon in 1981. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images


Vanessa Thorpe and Dave Simpson

Sat 12 Nov 2022 

Keith Levene, the innovative guitarist who was a founder member of both the Clash and Public Image Ltd, has died at the age of 65.

Levene, who had liver cancer, died at his home in Norfolk , leaving a lasting legacy of influence on British rock music.

His influence on the post-punk music scene was hailed by musicians as news of his death broke. Among his fans is Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante, who once described his style as “spectacular”, saying “he explored the possibilities of what you can do with the guitar”.

Forming the Clash with guitarist Mick Jones and bassist Paul Simonon when he was only 18, it was Levene, alongside the band’s manager, Bernard Rhodes, who asked Joe Strummer, frontman with the 101ers at the time, to join them. Luckily for the Clash, Strummer had just seen the Sex Pistols play at the Nashville Rooms in London and had become convinced that punk was the way forward.
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Levene, who was born Julian Levene in Muswell Hill, north London, remained in the Clash long enough to appear in early gigs and to contribute to songs, including What’s My Name on their 1977 debut album. But he grew apart from the Clash’s increasingly political direction and went on to greater success with PiL.

When the Sex Pistols disbanded in January 1978, singer John Lydon (previously known as Johnny Rotten) and Levene formed the new band with bass player John Wardle (known as Jah Wobble). “John made a wise choice getting Keith,” Wobble said in 2012.

Their first album, Public Image: First Issue, reached No 22 in 1978 and was preceded by the classic single Public Image, which reached the Top 10. Their second album, 1979’s Metal Box, is regarded as a post-punk classic. With various drummers, the lineup took inventive new forms of post-punk, dub, freeform jazz and classical music into the Top 20.

Levene said in 2012: “People thought I was classically trained, which was bollocks. I knew the E chord, and ventured into E minor. We laid the music out on a plate for Lydon. He was very hip at the time and did really good work.” He played synthesiser on 1981’s The Flowers Of Romance, which was his last released work with PiL, but he played with Wobble again in subsequent years.
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In 2021, the website the Quietus described him as “one of the architects of the post-punk sound, his guitar style occupying a space between angular abrasion and pop opulence”.

Levene enjoyed building guitars and had been working on a book about PiL with writer Adam Hammond. His partner, Kate Ransford, who, with his sister, Jill Bennett, and her husband were with him in his final hours, said he had died “peacefully, settled, cosy and loved”. The family have asked for privacy.

The death is the second high profile loss to rock music to have been announced in 24 hours. A spokesperson revealed on Friday that Nik Turner, the co-founder of the British space-rock band Hawkwind, had died at 82.

Announcing the death of the Oxford-born multi-instrumentalist, a statement released on social media said that “the Mighty Thunder Rider” had “passed away peacefully at home,” adding: “He has moved onto the next phase of his cosmic journey, guided by the love of his family, friends, and fans.”

When Turner was 13, his family moved to Margate, Kent, the town where he was first exposed to rock music. After a period in the merchant navy, he travelled and worked around Europe, studying the saxophone in his early 20s.

In Berlin, he was introduced to free jazz and, became convinced that self-expression in music was more important than technique. “I decided that what I wanted to do was play free jazz in a rock band. What I was trying to do in Hawkwind, basically,” he told Mojo magazine in 1999.

HOW COME WE CAN'T HAVE THIS

AUSTRALIA

NSW to launch year of free childcare

The $5.9 billion 10-year investment in universal pre-kindergarten was the centrepiece of the NSW 2022-23 budget. 

Photo: TND

Maureen Dettre12:59pm, Nov 14

A landmark program introducing universal free childcare the year before NSW children start school will be rolled out in 2023, with “childcare deserts” the first to benefit.

Premier Dominic Perrottet said families in Mount Druitt in Sydney’s west, Wagga Wagga in the Riverina, Kempsey and Nambucca in the north, Bourke in the far west, and Cobar and Coonamble the central west would be first to get on board with the program.

Early childhood services in the seven locations will begin rolling out the first stage of the universal pre-kindergarten policy early next year, with interested providers urged to register now.

The $5.9 billion 10-year investment in universal pre-kindergarten was the centrepiece of the NSW 2022-23 budget, and was touted as a way to get women back into the workforce and tackle the gender pay gap.

The government promised places would be created in Sydney’s west, south-west and regional NSW, where there is less than one childcare placement for every three children.

Mr Perrottet said more locations would be added ahead of the state-wide implementation of a full new year of education for children by 2030.

The scale of the program was unprecedented in Australia and would “benefit our youngest learners’ physical, cognitive, social and emotional development”, he said on Monday.

“This is a life-changing investment that the NSW government is delivering to ensure our children benefit from a full year of quality preschool education at no cost to parents,” Mr Perrottet said.

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said families and services in the first stage would help shape the rollout of the initiative across the state.

“This first stage of universal pre-kindergarten will allow us to gather crucial information ahead of implementation of the program across the NSW,” Ms Mitchell said.

“We are continuing to work collaboratively with families, peak bodies, service providers and schools to develop the best model of universal pre-Kindergarten for NSW.”


Workshops for eligible providers will be held in pilot regions during November and expressions of interest will close on December 16.

– with AAP

Alan Kohler: Crypto and the end of the beginning

Will FTX’s collapse mean the end of crypto, asks Alan Kohler.

On Friday, a day after Elon Musk warned that bankruptcy was not out of the question for Twitter, Sam (‘SBF’) Bankman-Fried’s FTX actually did go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Never heard of FTX or SBF? That’s understandable.

FTX is, or was, a crypto exchange, buying and selling cryptocurrencies, and 14 years and one month after the invention of Bitcoin, crypto remains in the shadows of finance.

When FTX ran out of money a couple of weeks ago, SBF had to turn to his competitor, Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance (and known as CZ of course), because there was no appetite among mainstream financiers to bail out a crypto exchange.

Last week, CZ walked away. SBF tried to raise $US8 billion but failed because no one outside crypto-land wanted to touch it. So he put the company into Chapter 11, quit as CEO, called in the guy who handled the Enron collapse, and said goodbye to his own $US24 billion personal (paper) fortune. It’s probably the largest money bonfire in history.

Meanwhile, the world of big tech has also had a rocky couple of weeks.

Rocky road: The share price of Meta dropped 25 per cent in one day.

In late October, the share prices of Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram), Alphabet (owner of Google) and Amazon all fell 20 to 25 per cent in a few days (Meta did it one day), as disappointing quarterly earnings were announced.

Then last Thursday, after US inflation fell and lowered expectations about interest rates, they all zoomed higher and propelled the US stockmarket to its best day in two years.

Actually, these stocks have been falling for exactly 12 months, in tandem with Bitcoin and the other cryptos.

The so-called FAANG index, which includes Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Apple, peaked on November 12, 2021, and has since declined 41 per cent. Meta has fallen 75 per cent because of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s so-far ill-fated adventure in the metaverse.
World’s third/fourth industrial revolution

The decline has been partly due to rising interest rates, but it’s also due to the fact that we’re at the end of the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution.

The question of which is third and which is the fourth is a bit messy.

The third industrial revolution (digital) tends to merge into the fourth (automation), so it might be better to talk about them as one thing.
Whatever – we’re now moving from its second price bubble into something more boring and normal.

The first bubble was the late 1990s, ending in the March 2000 bust.
But over the following decade, the arrival of smartphones, social media, online shopping, video streaming and above all, Google’s internet search tools, kindled a new bubble, this time of real earnings, not just valuations (although valuations did take off as well because central banks slashed interest rates after the GFC and then took them to zero in the pandemic).

But the companies did make colossal fortunes because they had great products.

Apple’s iPhone, introduced by Steve Jobs at the Macworld conference of 2007, is the greatest consumer product of all time – even greater, I submit, than the car. Everybody now has a smartphone and uses it for everything. We simply can’t do without it.

Google is a daily miracle. You type anything into the search field and either it, or Wikipedia with its 6.5 million articles, gives you the answer or where to find it. I am constantly amazed by Google, never get tired of it.

Online shopping (Amazon) and video streaming (Netflix) are incredibly disruptive and have really only just begun to transform the way we live, and work, with Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft’s programs have been with us for so long we take them for granted, but Word and Excel are also a little bit miraculous.

Social media is more troubling, which is a whole other subject, but it’s still a great product, just as disruptive and just as much a part of the third/fourth industrial revolution.

The number of social media users (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, TikTok) add up to the population of the planet (7.5 billion), although there is plenty of double counting since most people are using more than one.

All of these businesses are now settling into becoming regulated utilities, making regulated utility profits.

In other words, it’s the end of the beginning of this industrial revolution, and investors are seeing that.

In his wonderful book The Great Transformation, published in 1944, Karl Polanyi wrote: “At the heart of the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century there was an almost miraculous improvement in the tools of production, which was accompanied by a catastrophic dislocation of the lives of the common people.”

Something similar is happening this time – definitely miraculous improvement in tools, but perhaps not “catastrophic dislocation”, although the impact of social media, and the Chinese government-owned TikTok in particular, is close to being catastrophic, in my view.

The dislocation in the 18th century that Polanyi wrote about led to Marxism and what we now call industrial relations, or labour regulation – that is, controlling how companies pay and treat their employees.

And the colossal profits of early steam, electricity, railway and steel businesses were eventually competed and regulated away.

That is now starting to happen with the businesses behind the third/fourth industrial revolution.

The big money is no longer available, because the “common people” have the vote (they didn’t in the first industrial revolution), and they won’t stand for it.
The future of crypto

Back to crypto: Is it a scam? Well, some of it is.

Here’s what SBF said in an interview with Bloomberg in April: “And now all of a sudden everyone’s like, wow, people just decide to put $200 million in the box. This is a pretty cool box, right? Like this is a valuable box as demonstrated by all the money that people have apparently decided should be in the box.”

A box that has value because people put money in it is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

Will FTX’s collapse mean the end of crypto? Well, some of the 3000 or so cryptocurrencies, or at least it should.

Bitcoin has had another 75 per cent bust over 12 months like it did in 2017; it recovered then and might again, but it’s becoming clear now that Bitcoin will probably never become a form of money – that is, a widely accepted medium of exchange – at least not for anyone except criminals and hackers.

Its only legitimate use, and the reason it still costs more than $US16,000 to buy one, is as a store of value, brought about by the strict limit on the number that can ever be created.

But that’s undermined by the way it can be divided into an apparently limitless number of bits, and anyway to succeed it needs another use, not just store of value. The world might discover at some point that Bitcoin has no use, or value, at all.

It’s possible that the second-biggest crypto, Ethereum, will last because it is the platform for decentralised finance, or defi, which have a permanent place in finance generally, but it will be a smaller place than its promoters claimed and its enthusiasts think, a bit like buy now, pay later. It’s a real business, but not much of one, and not enough of one for all those crowding into it.

For a while it looked like crypto and Bitcoin would kick the whole tech party along and, along with the metaverse, extend the third/fourth industrial revolution into a fifth including blockchain and virtual reality.

Maybe that will still happen eventually, but that future is looking less likely today after the misfortunes of SBF, and the 75 per cent crashes in the prices of Meta and Bitcoin.

Alan Kohler writes twice a week for The New Daily. He is also founder of Eureka Report and finance presenter on ABC news

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/11/criminal-capitalim-explainer-whats.html

AUSTRALIA

Inquest told army helicopter started 2020 Canberra bushfires

The crew on an army helicopter that started Canberra’s devastating 2020 bushfires were landing for a toilet break when they inadvertently ignited the monster blaze.

The 2020 Orroral Valley bushfires were among a series of severe bushfires Australia has endured in recent years. Photo: AAP

Alex Mitchell Nov 14, 2022

An inquest began at the ACT Coroners Court on Monday with evidence from the man in command of the helicopter that started the fire.

An MRH-90 Taipan helicopter – codenamed ANGEL21 – was scouting remote helipads that could be used by outside firefighting teams on January 27, when its searchlight ignited the blaze in the Orroral Valley.

The inquest is focusing on the 45 minutes it took for the helicopter’s crew to alert the ACT Emergency Service Agency to the fire’s location.

The court was played a recording of communications on board the helicopter, which included the army major in charge – who cannot be named for legal reasons – asking if the crew could land to use the bathroom.

“Are we authorised to land in some of these areas for the guys to get out and have a piss?” he said.

They then landed at 1.38pm on a remote helipad that did not form part of their reconnaissance plans for the day.

The major admitted he hadn’t turned off the search light before landing, which the court heard can be as hot as 550 degrees Celsius.

He denied even knowing the light would be hot, telling the court he’d only ever been inside the helicopter when it was on.

The on-board tape recording continued and heard one passenger – another army member – yell, “Come up, come up, we’ve started a fire, turn the searchlight off”.

The helicopter was only stationary for around one minute.

It was heard one of the pilots made the decision to return to Canberra Airport and contacted them with a “pan-pan” distress call, which indicates urgency but no immediate threat to life.

Counsel assisting Kylie Nomchong told the court there’d been regular communications between ANGEL21 and air traffic control on the 17-minute flight to the airport, but added “at no time did anyone on board notify anyone of the fact they had ignited the fire or the location of the fire”.

She said one live issue of the inquiry was when or if the army advised emergency services they’d ignited the fire, the manner of the fire and co-ordinates of the fire.

The fire, which burned for five weeks, was declared out of control after 6pm when more than 1000 hectares were alight and would eventually grow to burn 87,923 hectares throughout the ACT.

ACT Chief Coroner Lorraine Walker opened proceedings by reminding the court the hearings were about learning how similar situations could be efficiently handled moving forward.

“We’re not here to crucify any individual or decision made in the heat of moment, or to undermine the vital relationship between the military and civilian authorities,” she said.

“We’re here to explore how we can learn from it with a view to enhancing everyone’s safety in the future.”

The inquiry is set to run until Friday.

– with AAP

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Major banks to pay $126 million after dodgy insurance sales to customers

Major banks have been forced to cough up millions after selling customers insurance they didn't want. 

Photo: TND

 Nov 14, 2022 

Up to one million ANZ, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank customers will share in settlements worth $126 million after being sold consumer credit insurance of little use.

Without admitting any wrongdoing over the sale of insurance when customers took out credit cards or personal loans, CBA has agreed to pay $50 million, ANZ $42 million and Westpac $29 million.

A $5 million payment is being made by QBE Insurance regarding policies sold in relation to ANZ products.

The settlements remain subject to court approval and follow similar action against National Australia Bank in 2019 which netted 50,000 customers $49.5 million.

Lawyers Slater and Gordon said many of the banks’ customers were unlikely to be able to make a claim because they were already unemployed or had pre-existing health conditions or disabilities.

Some never provided their consent to purchase the policies, were not informed that the insurance was optional, or were not told they would be charged for it.

Lead CBA plaintiff Kristy Fordham, from Queensland, was sold loan protection without requesting it despite not working at the time and suffering from serious health conditions, making her ineligible to claim.

“I believe the bank knew full well that we couldn’t benefit from their products, but they deliberately sold them to us anyway,” she said.

“We were all so vulnerable or else we wouldn’t have needed loans from them in the first place, yet they took advantage of that, in my opinion.”

Lead ANZ plaintiff Tracey Reilly, from Queensland, was sold ANZ Credit Card Protection policies without consenting, but when she came to make a claim was told she was ineligible because she had pre-existing symptoms that were later diagnosed as cancer.

“I’m glad this has been completed with a great result,” she said.

“Now at least people can have a portion of what they paid returned to them, as some people are going through a rough financial time, so every dollar will help.”

Lead Westpac plaintiff Roger Kemp, from Western Australia, could not recall taking out his Flexi Loan Repayment Protection insurance but was also ineligible when the opportunity came to make a claim.

Slater and Gordon said customers eligible for a share in the settlements would be contacted directly.

“Taking on the big banks was never going to be easy but we are pleased that we have been able to resolve these group proceedings and that eligible customers will benefit,” class actions senior associate Alex Blennerhassett said.

“Class actions are one way people can take on big corporations, including Australia’s Big Four banks.”

In statements the ANZ, the CBA and Westpac noted the settlements.

The ANZ stressed in a statement that the settlement was without admission of liability.

CBA said the case related to insurance sold between January 2010 and March 2018.

Westpac said the settlement was announced in its financial results this year and related to insurance sold before 2019.

– with AAP

AUSTRALIA

Medibank hackers release more data on dark web


Russian hackers have leaked more Medibank customers' sensitive information online. Photo: TND

Tess Ikonomou and Andrew Brown

Nov 14, 2022

Hackers behind the Medibank cyber attack have released more sensitive customer data, this time relating to mental health treatment.

The file was posted on the dark web on Monday, where the hackers have previously published data from Australia’s largest private health insurer.

It includes 500 records for people who have had diagnoses of mental illness, among other medical conditions.

The Russian criminals said they don’t plan to post more information until Friday, and will be watching Wednesday’s Medibank shareholder meeting closely.

“There is some more records for everybody to know,” they wrote in an update.

“We’ll announce, that next portion of data we’ll publish at Friday, bypassing this week completely in a hope something meaningful happened on Wednesday.”

Medibank chief executive David Koczkar apologised for the release of the sensitive information.

“We will continue to support all people who have been impacted by this crime through our Cyber Response Support Program,” he said.

“This includes mental health and wellbeing support, identity protection and financial hardship measures.”

A number of health and community organisations have called on major social media outlets to pull down posts that share the sensitive information.

Meanwhile, Medibank could face legal action over the data breach.

Law firm Maurice Blackburn confirmed it was reviewing whether customers affected by the hack could be entitled to compensation.

The firm’s principal lawyer Andrew Watson said the breach of data was one of the most serious seen in Australia.

“Companies that hold their customers’ sensitive health information have an important obligation to make sure that information is safeguarded, commensurate with the sensitivity of that data,” he said.

“Medibank have a heightened responsibility to put in place greater safeguards to secure the personal and health claim information it collected from its customers.”

Data including names, phones numbers, Medicare numbers and sensitive health information was taken by the hackers during the breach.

As the government looks for solutions to improve cyber security laws, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has flagged it could soon be illegal for companies to pay ransom demands to hackers should they be subject to a data breach.

“The way we’re thinking about the reform task … is a bunch of quick wins, things that we can do fast, and the standing up for the new police operation is one of those,” Ms O’Neil told the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.

Federal police confirmed last week Russian hackers were behind the attack.

A 100 officer-strong, standing cybercrime operation targeting hackers will be led by the AFP and Australian Signals Directorate.

“We are offensively going to find these people, hunt them down and debilitate them before they can attack our country,” Ms O’Neil said.

– with AAP

Thousands of Mexicans take to the streets in protest over electoral reform plan


Mexico's president is facing backlash over his plans for the country's electoral agency. Photo: AAP

Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in Mexico to protest President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s plan to overhaul the country’s electoral commission INE, fearing it will concentrate power in the hands of the government.

Mr Lopez Obrador, who put the plan forward in April, has long criticised the country’s electoral authorities, including accusing them of helping engineer his defeats when he ran for the presidency in 2006 and 2012.

He has said the reform would let citizens elect electoral authorities and reduce the influence of economic interests in politics.

It would also cut financing for political parties and limit advertising time.

Congress last week started discussing the plan.

It sparked widespread concerns the changes could foreshadow a power grab because it gives the president more control over the electoral systems.

In the past, Mr Lopez Obrador pursued contentious policies by pitching referendums – including on the cancellation of a part-built airport – to claim popular mandates for his objectives.

Protesters in Mexico City, many holding placards and banners or wearing t-shirts with slogans defending the INE, started at the Angel of Independence monument.

It gathered momentum during the day as protesters moved on Reforma Avenue towards the Monument to the Revolution.

A Reuters witness estimated tens of thousands of protesters had taken part while a police officer on Reforma who witnessed the march estimated 50,000.

Organisers put the number at hundreds of thousands but some political allies of Mr Lopez Obrador gave far lower estimates.

It is one of the biggest marches against Mr Lopez Obrador’s policies so far.

“Democracy in Mexico is in danger,” said Ana Lilia Moreno, an economist who attended the march.

“I hope that many young people – and even those who are normally not interested in politics – will attend, that they will value our institutions and will defend what our parents and grandparents built to mature politically.”

Protesters shared images from other cities on social media.

Mr Lopez Obrador posted a video message on his Twitter as he celebrated his 69th birthday – but did not address the protests.

His ruling Morena party and its allies would need a two-thirds majority in Congress to make changes to the constitution.

Currently, the party is short of that majority.

Corruption exposed: US meddled in Ecuador’s election, using Julian Assange as bargaining chip

A former minister of Ecuador testified that the US government conspired with a right-wing political party to run a disinformation campaign against the leftist Correísta movement, backing a millionaire banker for president in exchange for giving up journalist Julian Assange, who had asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.

By Ben Norton

Nov 10, 2022

Ecuador's former President Rafael Correa, journalist Julian Assange, ex energy minister Carlos Pareja Yannuzzelli, and current President Guillermo Lasso (from left to right)


Ecuador’s former energy minister testified that the US government conspired with a right-wing political party to run a disinformation campaign against the leftist Correísta movement of ex President Rafael Correa.

He said that US “federal agents” pledged to help “influence” the 2017 presidential elections and support the candidacy of conservative millionaire banker Guillermo Lasso in exchange for the promise to turn over journalist Julian Assange, who had been given asylum by Correa and was stuck living for years in Ecuador’s embassy in London.



The former energy minister, Carlos Pareja Yannuzzelli, had fled a corruption investigation in Ecuador and was living as a fugitive from justice in the United States in late 2016 when he was offered large sums of money and US government protection in return for reading a carefully prepared “script” that made false accusations of corruption against Correa and his Vice President Jorge Glas, who was later imprisoned on highly dubious charges.

Pareja testified that the federal agents also coerced him into making false accusations against a US citizen, so they could justify their involvement in the Ecuadorian case. This led to the US citizen being arrested and imprisoned for three-and-a-half years.

Lasso ended up losing the 2017 election (before going on to win the 2021 election), but his victorious opponent, Lenín Moreno, later betrayed Assange anyway, letting British authorities raid the embassy, imprison the WikiLeaks journalist, and prepare to extradite him to the United States.


Ecuador’s former energy minister, Carlos Pareja Yannuzzelli, in 2016

The revelation of this extraordinary example of Washington meddling in another country’s election came from one of the top officials in Ecuador’s oil industry.

Carlos Pareja Yannuzzelli had served as head of the state-owned oil company Petroecuador, and later became Correa’s minister of hydrocarbons.

In 2016, Pareja was named in the Panama Papers leak of offshore bank accounts, and he was forced to step down as energy minister. In 2017, he was sentenced to several years in prison on charges that he used his position in the state oil industry to enrich himself and his friends.

The name Carlos Pareja Yannuzzelli has become practically synonymous with corruption in Ecuador, so much so that he is commonly referred to as “Capaya” (an abbreviation of his name).

On November 9, 2022, Correa published on Twitter a written testimony that Pareja had provided from prison in May 2019. The affidavit, which is signed by Pareja and includes his thumbprint, exposes the scandalous US government-backed plot to meddle in Ecuador’s 2017 presidential elections to hurt the left wing.

US intelligence-linked right-wing Ecuadorian politician uses corrupt US asset to accuse Correa of corruption

Rafael Correa shared the scandalous 2019 testimony in response to evidence-free accusations of corruption that Pareja Yannuzzelli made against the former president in a politicized hearing organized by the National Assembly’s auditing committee on November 9, 2022.

This committee is run by Fernando Villavicencio, a notorious right-wing Ecuadorian political operative who is closely linked to US intelligence agencies.

Today Villavicencio is a member of the National Assembly, but he first made his name as a high-profile opposition activist during Correa’s two presidential terms from 2007 to 2017.

Villavicencio was a key figure in the lawfare (judicial warfare) campaign against Correa. He ran a viciously anti-Correísta media outlet, which – with funding from the US government – consistently spread thinly sourced rumors of corruption about the leftist president.

In 2010, Villavicencio even played an important role in a failed coup attempt against Correa.

Villavicencio enjoyed a brief moment in the limelight in 2018, when he collaborated with British newspaper The Guardian in co-authoring a highly dubious smear piece against Julian Assange.

WikiLeaks adamantly insisted the article was false and created a legal fund to sue The Guardian.

In the tweet below, Villavicencio (on the right, with the glasses) boasts of working with The Guardian reporters Luke Harding and Dan Collins on the allegedly fake story:

By sharing Pareja’s incriminating 2019 affidavit on Twitter, Correa was highlighting Villavicencio’s hand behind the November 9, 2022 hearing, which clearly aimed to demonize the leftist former president and disparage Correísmo, which still remains the most popular political movement in Ecuador.
Ecuador’s ex energy minister details US-backed campaign to help the right wing in the 2017 elections

The devastating May 2019 affidavit demonstrates that Carlos Pareja Yannuzzelli (Capaya), who is still in prison on corruption charges, is a hired gun who will happily spread false claims to undermine Correísmo.

Capaya became a household name in Ecuador back in 2016, when he was serving as minister of hydrocarbons. In April of that year, international media outlets published the Panama Papers, a massive leak of information about offshore bank accounts.

Pareja Yannuzzelli’s name appeared in the Panama Papers, setting off a scandal in Ecuador. Correa was still president at the time, and in May, Capaya was forced to resign and was replaced with a new energy minister.

The Correa government immediately began investigating Capaya’s web of corruption, and found his family had stashed millions of dollars in bank accounts in Panama.

Yet while he was being investigated, Capaya managed to flee Ecuador in September.

Capaya opened his testimony noting that, by December 2016, he “was in the United States in a complicated situation.”

While in Miami, Florida, the Ecuadorian fugitive from justice was contacted by César Monge Ortega, the president of the right-wing political party CREO.

Ecuador’s current president, the conservative multimillionaire banker Guillermo Lasso, is a leader of CREO. Monge was one of Lasso’s closest allies, referred to in the Ecuadorian media as “the right hand of Guillermo Lasso.” He served as the president’s minister of government until Monge died from cancer in July 2021.


Ecuador’s minister of government and former CREO leader, César Monge Ortega, before his death in May 2021

Back in 2016, Monge asked Capaya to join a smear campaign against the presidential candidate who would represent the leftist Alianza País party in the upcoming 2017 elections, Correa’s former Vice President Lenín Moreno.

“He offered me an important sum of money and federal North American protection,” Capaya wrote.

At the time it was widely assumed, even by Correa himself, that Moreno would continue his socialist political program.

Moreno did run on a left-wing presidential campaign, but after entering office, he did a political 180. Moreno turned hard to the right, repressing, imprisoning, and exiling Correísta politicians.

He also stabbed Julian Assange in the back, reversing Correa’s pledge to protect the WikiLeaks publisher and renouncing the Ecuadorian citizenship that had been given to the journalist. In order to arrest Assange, Moreno even let British authorities violate his own country’s sovereignty by storming the embassy, which constitutes Ecuadorian territory under the Vienna Convention in international law.

Correísta politicians have alleged that Moreno was bribed and/or blackmailed by the US government, as he obediently fulfilled all of Washington’s foreign-policy goals, collaborating closely with the Donald Trump administration, removing Ecuador from the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) and Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and even recognizing US-appointed coup leader Juan Guaidó in Venezuela.

Few people would have expected back during Ecuador’s presidential election in 2017 that Moreno would go on to govern like this. The country’s right-wing opposition was concerned that Lenín Moreno (who, after all, was named after the Russian revolutionary) would continue Correa’s leftist program.

So in December 2016, César Monge Ortega, the leader of Lasso’s right-wing CREO party, tried to recruit Carlos Pareja Yannuzzelli (Capaya) for the disinformation campaign against Correa, Moreno, and their Alianza País party.

Capaya wrote in his 2019 testimony that he initially declined the offer, but that Monge was persistent.

“Monge insisted to me that I could contact North American federal agents that were working with CREO for a long time, and they would provide me with protection and stability in the United States,” Capaya said.

“He assured me that the American Democratic Party was committed to backing Lasso’s presidential candidacy in exchange for Julian Assange, to expose his link with the current president of the United States,” Capaya continued.

This comment suggests that Democratic Party leadership had been convinced that US President Donald Trump was somehow connected to Assange, a baseless conspiracy theory that was fueled by Fernando Villavicencio’s extremely questionable report in The Guardian.

Capaya went on: “Finally, one day Monge visited me with [US] federal agents and together they guaranteed me protection in the United States in exchange for my participation in the smear campaign against Alianza País in order to influence the presidential elections in Ecuador in 2017.”


Ecuador’s current president, Guillermo Lasso

Capaya said that, after this in-person meeting with the US federal agents, he accepted their offer.

His role was to make outlandish accusations Correa (who was still president at the time), his government, and his party.

“They gave me a script created and prepared by Fernando Villavicencio, who according to Monge had been contracted by the party CREO,” Capaya said.

He continued: “They told me that in order for there to be an agreement, I had to follow the script to a T. To this end, we met various times in Miami between December 2016 and January 2017. These videos subsequently were made public on social media after February 2017.”

Capaya stressed that “a big part of the script” was dedicated to accusing Correa and his other Vice President Jorge Glas of corruption.

“They made me name third parties that I don’t know,” Capaya recalled. He wrote that the US “federal agents” heavily pressured him to name people such as Frank Roberto Chatburn Ripalda, a Miami-based financial advisor with dual US and Ecuadorian citizenship.

“Despite that I told them on more than one occasion that I never had any relation with him and that he was not being investigated or processed in Ecuador, they expressly told me that in order for there to be an agreement it was required to mention Chatburn, because he had US nationality and with that the federal agents could justify their participation and initiate actions against him in the United States,” Capaya said.

The US Justice Department subsequently charged Chatburn with money laundering and imprisoned him for three-and-a-half years.

Chatburn was not the only one who ended up burned by Washington.

Capaya concluded his testimony lamenting that Monge, his CREO party, and the US federal agents later abandoned him when Moreno won the presidential election.

They failed to fulfill their side of the promise. Capaya was later captured in Ecuador, and put behind bars, where he remains today.

Corrupt Ecuadorian official conspired with Miami-based oligarchs who stole millions from their people

Yet the scandal goes even deeper. Monge was not the only right-wing opposition figures whom Capaya was conspiring with.

As a fugitive from justice living in Miami in late 2016 and early 2017, Capaya also met with right-wing multimillionaire bankers from Ecuador’s notorious Isaías family.

The Isaías Brothers, William and Roberto, are ferociously anti-Correa oligarchs who fled their country of birth and moved to the United States, with millions of dollars of stolen money, during Ecuador’s economic crash of 1998 and 1999.

This massive crisis, known as the infamous “feriado bancario,” bankrupted millions of working-class Ecuadorians, depleting their savings by devaluing the national currency, the sucre, with runaway hyperinflation.

The banker who helped cause this meltdown had been affectionately known as Ecuador’s “super minister of the economy,” and had been lauded by the international financial press: none other than Guillermo Lasso, an ardent neoliberal Chicago Boy who now serves as president.

Lasso and his banker friends, who had held their illicit wealth in dollars, became millionaires thanks to the feriado bancario. Meanwhile, the sucre became so worthless that Ecuador surrendered its monetary sovereignty and adopted the US dollar as its official currency. This remains the case today.

From Miami, the Isaías Brothers have also used their stolen money to fund the campaigns of US politicians – both Republicans and Democrats – including Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and even former President Barack Obama.

IMF warns of ‘wave of debt crises’ coming in Global South, with war, interest rate hikes, overvalued dollar

The IMF said a “wave of debt crises” may be coming in the Global South, and “the global economy is headed for stormy waters,” due to war, rising US interest rates, and many currencies depreciating against the dollar.

By Ben Norton



The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said a “wave of debt crises” may be coming in the Global South, and “the global economy is headed for stormy waters,” as the world faces a “geopolitical realignment” that will be “permanent.”

The US-dominated financial institution warned “the worst is yet to come,” as the depreciation of most currencies against the dollar and rising interest rates make it hard for both governments and companies to service their dollar-denominated debt.

The director of the IMF’s research department, Pierre‑Olivier Gourinchas, made these comments in a press briefing on October 11.

Countries comprising a third of the entire global economy are expected to contract in 2022 or 2023, he prognosticated.

“In short, the worst is yet to come; and for many people, 2023 will feel like a recession,” he said.

Gourinchas explained that “the energy crisis, especially in Europe, is not a transitory shock. The geopolitical realignment of energy supplies in the wake of the war is both broad and permanent.”

Furthermore, the rallying of the US dollar against most other currencies could fuel a global economic crisis, he warned.

“The strength of the dollar is also a major challenge. The dollar is now at its strongest since the early 2000s, mostly against advanced economies but also against emerging markets,” the top IMF researcher said.

He advised Global South nations to conserve “valuable foreign exchange reserves for when financial conditions really worsen,” cautioning, “as the global economy is headed for stormy waters, now is the time for emerging market policymakers to batten down the hatches.”

“Too many low‑income countries are close to or are already in debt distress. Progress toward orderly debt restructuring,” he said, “is urgently needed to avert a wave of sovereign debt crises. Time may soon run out.”

He acknowledged, “there is, effectively, a serious issue of debt restructuring that is needed for a number of especially low‑income countries.”

With the significant appreciation of the US dollar against many currencies, someone at the press conference asked the director of the IMF’s research department, “is it necessary or possible for us to have another Plaza Accord sometime down the road?”

The 1985 Plaza Accord was an agreement between the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan to depreciate the dollar against their currencies. This led to an overvalued Japanese yen, fueling an asset bubble that popped in the 1990s. Japan’s economy has never really recovered from this crisis.

Gourinchas responded to the question stating:

The strength of the dollar is certainly putting a lot of strain on a number of countries. I mean, it works through two channels.

One, it is making the price of imported goods, which often are invoiced in dollars, higher. So that is increasing inflation pressures in other countries.

And then it is also tightening financial conditions. A lot of corporates or governments have dollar debt, and that becomes more expensive to service as the dollar appreciates.

Explaining why the dollar is rallying so much, Gourinchas identified the “fundamental forces” as Fed interest rates and the “energy crisis.”

“It is really the fact that the Federal Reserve has increased interest rates quite aggressively in 2022 so far — is expected to do more — compared to other countries,” he said.

“And it is also reflecting the energy crisis, that a lot of energy importers are impoverished by the high price of energy, and that is reflected in a weaker currency for them,” he added.

In the same press conference, the division chief of the IMF research department, Daniel Leigh, noted that, in Africa, “the higher interest rates, low growth means that two‑thirds of the countries in the region are facing stress or debt distress.”

Leigh warned that they must “avoid the debt crisis from spreading.”

The mainstream financial press has been sounding similar alarm bells.

A market analyst for Reuters, John Kemp, wrote that the “risks to other economies from inflation and rising interest rates in the core have been understood by policymakers and investors for decades.”

He added, “But as long as the Fed’s mandate requires it to focus exclusively on domestic inflation and employment, ignoring international spillovers, and the dollar remains the main reserve currency, rising rates in the United States will continue triggering instability elsewhere.”
Geopolitical economist Radhika Desai argues today is not like the Volcker shock of the 1980s

Multipolarista editor Ben Norton discussed the comments made in this IMF press conference with geopolitical economist Radhika Desai.

She argued the global economic and political situation today is not like the “Volcker Shock” of the 1980s, when persistent stagflation in the United States led Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker to substantially raise interest rates, resulting in a highly overvalued dollar.

“I think we are a very long way away from a 1980s-style crisis,” Desai said.

“Some countries will definitely face a a financial crises,” she argued, but “the situation is very different, and the context is very different.”

In the Volcker shock, Fed interest rates went to nearly 20%, Desai pointed out, but today many economists do not expect it to surpass 5%.

Desai also stressed that, despite interest rate hikes up to roughly 4% as of November 2022, the real Fed rate is still technically negative, because inflation is larger than the federal funds rate.



“We are not there. And the reason that can be summed up in a single word… financialization,” she said.

“When Paul Volcker did what he did, he didn’t have to worry about the huge mountain of debt, and speculative asset markets, and so on, which were all reliant on a long regime of low interest rates,” Desai argued.

She also noted that today’s Fed interest rate still “remain short of the peak that they reached in the early 2000s, the peak at which they burst the housing and mortgage credit bubbles.”

Current Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell knows that “he cannot take interest rates above a certain amount, because it would bring the entire [financial] house of cards crashing down,” Desai said.

She argued:


The Federal Reserve always uses inflation rates and unemployment rates to justify its policy decisions as though it is making policy in the interest of ordinary Americans, and even the world.

But in reality, the main thing that the Federal Reserve, in a long string of chair people of the Federal Reserve, going back to at least Alan Greenspan, what they have been primarily concerned about is the vast quantity of elite wealth that rests on said house of cards.

They will not bring it down, because who pays the piper calls the tune.

And we extol it [the Fed] as an “independent” central bank. In reality, it is only independent of ordinary people’s interests. It is completely dependent on the elites. And so they are not going to do anything to destabilize elite wealth.

And already we are seeing the Federal Reserve basically making noises about how they cannot allow interest rates to go very high.

Desai continued:

There will probably be a lot of debt crises, because some countries are far more vulnerable than others. But in this context we will also see something else.

We will see increasing contestations between the Western world and China, where the Western world will constantly accuse China of being responsible for the developing countries’ debt crisis. And there will be a tug of war between the Western powers in China, as to, if there is a debt crisis, who will be paid back first.

So we are going to see all of these shenanigans. But underlying all of them, what we will also see is increasingly a move away, for all the countries which can do it, will try to move away from borrowing from what Michael Hudson and I have called the dollar creditocracy.

Because it is precisely this dollar creditocracy which is subject to such volatility, that you cannot borrow with any security that you will be paying back only what you agreed to pay back, rather than some insane amounts, simply because the Federal Reserve decides to raise interest rates, or simply because speculators decide to leave your currency and your country and go somewhere else.

So the world needs a more secure financial system. And for the last 70 years and more, the world has been prevented from having the international financial system it really needs, that would really promote development, because the United States has wanted to impose its own will and its own currency on the rest of the world.

Is it time to bring back COVID-19 mask rules? Provinces lag, but chances of infection 'really high right now,' experts say

Abhya Adlakha
·Editor, Yahoo News Canada
November 2, 2022·

In the wake of a new COVID-19 surge and a shocking flu season, many are wondering and debating whether it is time to bring back mask mandates. However, misinformation online and the lack of a coordinated public health response has left people confused about the right course of action.

Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith said last week that she will not permit any further masking mandates of children in schools following a court ruling on the government’s decision to drop and block those mandates.

Despite a recent Canada-wide surge in respiratory viruses, flu, and COVID-19, Smith said that masking has a “detrimental effect” on the mental health of children.

"The detrimental effects of masking on the mental health, development and education of children in classroom settings is well understood, and we must turn the page on what has been an extremely difficult time for children, along with their parents and teachers."

But many public health experts in provinces such as Ontario and British Columbia are still maintaining their position that masking in indoor spaces with huge crowds provides vital protection from COVID-19.

What the experts and provinces are saying

The former head of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory, Dr. Fahad Razak, recently said that it’s time to bring back mask mandates as Ontario is seeing a surge in the new BQ.1 and BQ1.1 Omicron subvariants in the province.

Dr. Razak, an internist at St. Michael’s Hospital, also said that the health system is under immense strain that’s normally seen at the peak of a bad flu season.

“Personally, I would say that the criteria to require something like a mask mandate is clearly here,” said Razak, an internist at St. Michael's Hospital.

“For anyone who says, 'Let's not do that,' I would ask, 'What is the alternative at this point? How do we keep the system that has so little capacity, how do we get it to continue to run over the winter?”




Ontario health staffing crisis goes beyond nurses, doctors, says union

There's a staffing crisis for all health professionals — not just nurses and doctors — in Ontario, says Sara Labelle, chair of the hospital professionals division of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

According to UofT Associate Professor Dr. Tara Moriarty, the Canadian COVID Hazard Index released last Friday shows that traces of COVID in wastewater across Canada has increased nearly three-fold in the last two weeks.

Moriarty says this data shows that the number of people in Canada infected currently is 18 times higher than people infected last year at the same time.

"It means that about 1 in every 24 to 1 in every 34 people in Canada are currently infected," she said.

 

"This is why it's so important not just to wear masks, but also to avoid crowded indoor settings....for everyone. Your chances of picking up COVID are really high right now," she writes in her latest tweet. "Also, even if you're not worried about catching COVID yourself, about half of people in Canada are medically at higher risk from COVID, due to age or underlying health conditions. Or they live with someone who is," she added

University of Toronto Associate Professor and an expert in paediatrics and expert diseases Anna Banerji agrees that due to the high cases of respiratory viruses and hospitals being overwhelmed, it would be the right course of action to bring masks back.

"Yes, definitely yes," she wrote in an email to Yahoo News Canada.

All experts unanimously agree that masking combined with bivalent booster shots can help bring the cases down and relieve the pressure on hospitals.

Public health advisory on the official on the City of Toronto website also advised that staying up to vaccines and wearing a high quality, well-fitted mask can decrease the spread of COVID-19 and the flu.

'Respiratory Spread Guide' notice sent by the city:

We can layer our protection against COVID-19 and respiratory viruses with some simple steps:

Stay up-to-date with your vaccinations including a fall COVID-19 booster and flu vaccine when eligible for the best protection against getting very sick from COVID-19 and influenza.

Socialize outdoors when possible – outdoors is lower risk than indoors.

Wear a high quality, well-fitting mask, especially indoors, and based on the setting and situation. Masks are strongly recommended in indoor public settings, and especially if you are around people who are at higher risk or have a health condition.

Stay home if you are sick or have symptoms, even if they are mild.

If you have symptoms, get tested for COVID-19 and treatment if you are eligible.

Wash or sanitize your hands often, etc.

The Ontario healthcare system under immense pressure

According to latest reports, emergency rooms across the province have had to close for hours due to pressure. Doctors believe that the recent increase in COVID-19 admissions and flu admissions have created the "perfect storm" in hospitals—with wait times up to 20 hours or more.

According to the official Health Canada website, more than 21,000 cases of COVID-19 were reported last week across the country.

The Canada COVID Hazard Index also states around 7,000 people were admitted to hospitals with COVID in the last week across Canada. The data shows that in an already-overwhelmed system, 12 per cent of hospital beds are unavailable due to COVID-19 patients.

Moriarty also pointed out that although we hear COVID is getting better, the statistics say otherwise.

"COVID hospitalizations last week were 6,962. However, the average weekly COVID hospitalizations in Canada since COVID started has been 3,032. This data clearly shows that there were twice the number of COVID hospitalizations this week in Canada than there have been during all of the epidemic in Canada to date," she said.

"Even if you draw the distinction between patients who got admitted who had COVID already (the "with" cases) and patients who got admitted because of COVID (the "from" cases), we still get a number that is 1.7 times higher than what we've seen before," she adds.



Leaked report shows Ontario emergency room wait times are worsening

The Ford government is facing new questions about the state of Ontario’s health care system after a leaked report shows emergency room wait times are worsening, leaving more people being treated in the hallways of provincial hospitals. Colin D’Mello reports

Many ER's are reporting high patient volumes and long wait times, with children's hospitals in particular reporting high demand.

University of Toronto professor and epidemiologist Dr. David Fisman recently posted a memo sent out by McMaster Children's Hospital (MCH) on Twitter.

The memo clearly states that inpatient occupancy is nearing 135 per cent and that the critical care and emergency department are facing "extreme challenges".

As a result, MCH is adopting various mitigation measures—effective Nov. 4—such as reducing the number of pedriatric surgical same-day admits to only one case per day.

The hospital is asking for volunteers across all MCH programs to assist teams at the hospital and they're looking into examining the transfer of youth and adolescents to other hospitals under Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS).

Two days ago, Fisman released another crucial UHN memo on Twitter that mentioned that the Toronto General Hospital is under Critical Care Bed Alert, which means that the CVICU, CICU, and MSICU have all reached their total bed capacity.

The memo also mentioned that the hospital has limited people to safely keep all the physical critical care beds open and running.

UHN told its staff to "avoid" accepting admissions from another hospitals that require a critical bed and to stop sending patients to the emergency department.

Recently, officials with CHEO, eastern Ontario's children's hospital in Ottawa, painted a stark picture of its emergency room as they said the last few months have been the busiest in the hospital's history.

The hospital is functioning well over-capacity with pediatric units seeing 134 per cent occupancy while pediatric intensive care sits at 124 per cent. The emergency department averages 229 patient visits a day while it's built for 150, said CHEO President and CEO Alex Munter.

Moreover, earlier last week, Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children reported wait times of up to 12 hours due to unseasonably high patient volumes.

Experts try to raise awareness and battle misinformation online

With files from The Canadian Press