U$A
Millions of student-loan borrowers had their debt transferred to new companies over the past year — and it resulted in payment errors for 'hundreds of thousands of accounts,' a federal consumer watchdog says

Ayelet Sheffey



Millions of student-loan borrowers were transferred to new companies over the past year.

The CFPB found those transfers resulted in significant errors on borrowers' balances.

Many borrowers received inaccurate bills and errors tracking their payment progress.

Last year, a number of student-loan companies announced they were ending their federal contracts, requiring millions of borrowers to be transferred to new servicers. A top federal consumer watchdog found the process has been far from seamless.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a report last week delving into practices by student-loan companies. It focused on the challenges that came with transferring 9 million borrowers' accounts to new servicers after major companies Granite State and PHEAA announced they would not be renewing their federal contracts to collect borrowers' student debt and manage their repayment plans.

From payment discrepancies to inaccurate billing statements, the report concluded there were errors for "hundreds of thousands" of accounts.

Here are the main findings with regards to servicer transfers:

Servicers had inaccurate information about borrowers' monthly payments and could not identify repayment schedules

The former and current servicer reported different numbers of total payments that count toward loan forgiveness progress in income-driven repayment plans

One servicer sent inaccurate billing statements to more than 500,000 borrowers

Borrowers were placed on forbearance when it wasn't the best option for them

Servicers were inadequately staffed to manage and implement program changes for targeted loan forgiveness programs and payment pauses.

The report noted that the current payment pause, which is set to expire in January 2023, "provides servicers and FSA (Federal Student Aid) with more time to correct transfer-related errors by making manual account adjustments, transferring supplemental account information, and correcting previous inaccurate or misleading statements."

Both lawmakers and the Education Department have scrutinized how loan companies are handling borrower transfers. After PHEAA — a major student-loan company — announced it was ending its federal servicing last year, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said those borrowers can "breathe a sigh of relief" because they would no longer be subjected to the company's practices like failing to track borrowers' payments and misleading them into taking on more debt than they can pay off.

And FSA Director Richard Cordray previously suggested that companies were shutting down so they would not have to adhere to higher standards the administration put in place for loan servicing.


"We have stuck to our guns," he said. "Some servicers have decided to exit the program rather than contend with these new realities."

But following the CFPB's report, it's clear that companies are still engaging in potentially bad behavior. With regards to transfers, the agency recommended that companies use "robust data mapping exercises" that include test transfers to minimize errors and correct misrepresentations, and it's directing servicers to update their systems with accurate information and improve call-center assistance for borrowers.

Meanwhile, federal loan companies are also tasked with implementing President Joe Biden's recently announced $20,000 loan forgiveness plan through an application that is set to become live in early October.

AMLO NEO-LIBERAL FASCISM

Mexico considers new military-run commercial airline

By

 AFP

Mexico is considering launching a new commercial airline run by the military whose fleet would include a presidential jet that has failed to find a buyer, the government said Tuesday.

Analysis of the proposal made by the defense ministry suggests that the domestic carrier would be profitable, but no decision has yet been made, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters.

If approved, the airline could begin operating in 2023 with a dozen planes, including the government’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner, he said.

Lopez Obrador, an austerity advocate who uses commercial flights, has been vowing to sell the plane since his 2018 election campaign, calling it an “insult” to the people.

The jet was purchased for about $218 million during former president Felipe Calderon’s 2006-2012 term in office, but the only one who used it was his successor Enrique Pena Nieto.

Lopez Obrador tried unsuccessfully to sell the airliner, which is customized with an executive bedroom, private bath and seating for 80 people.

The president has given increased responsibility to the armed forces, including control of ports and customs and major infrastructure projects — moves criticized by his opponents.

He has also introduced reforms to put the National Guard under military control, deepening concerns about what Amnesty International has called “the process of militarization of public security in Mexico.”

U$A
Why Women Age 50 and Over Could Decide 2022 Midterm Elections


Molly Smith
Tue, October 4, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- A majority of US women age 50 and over -- one of the largest and most reliable voting blocs -- is still undecided in the final weeks leading to the midterms, casting uncertainty on the outcome of a critical election year.

While nearly all of older female voters said they will cast ballots in November, 51% hadn’t yet picked their congressional candidates, according to a poll from AARP released Tuesday. Four in ten will decide in the last few weeks before the election, and they divide evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

Turnout will be key. Democrats are slightly favored to keep control of the US Senate, while Republicans are seen with a small edge to win the House, according to political analyst FiveThirtyEight.

Women age 50 and over cast nearly a third of ballots in the 2018 and 2020 elections, AARP said, citing voter files and Census Bureau data. That makes them the largest group of swing voters heading into this election season, according to Nancy LeaMond, chief advocacy and engagement officer at AARP.

“Women voters 50+ can make the difference in 2022 and decide the balance of power in Congress and statehouses across the country,” LeaMond said in a statement.

Hispanic and Asian women are more likely than White and Black women to still be weighing their options, AARP found in the survey conducted from Sept. 6-13. The women polled were also divided as to how well the economy is working for them personally, with Hispanics the only group where a majority said it wasn’t.

While worries about inflation and voting rights break along party lines, older women are more unified in their concerns about division in the country, Social Security and Medicare.

As far as what actions would help this group the most, 75% singled out protecting Social Security from cuts. The next biggest priority is lowering food prices, followed by cheaper costs for gas and health care.

Energy crisis feared by Europe long a reality in Iraq


Tony Gamal-Gabriel
Tue, October 4, 2022 


Europe may fear an energy crisis over the coming winter, but for Iraqis an unstable power supply and frequent blackouts have been a reality during decades of war and turmoil.

The Middle Eastern country is rich in oil, but endemic corruption and devastating conflict have taken a heavy toll on its infrastructure and forced most of its 42 million people to adapt.

The noise of privately owned generators can be heard all over the country as households and businesses try to make up for supply shortfalls from the national electricity company.

"Without generators, Iraq would go completely dark," Mohammed Jabr, a retired public servant, told AFP in his yard in Sadr City, a working-class district of the capital Baghdad.

Ensuring a stable power supply, he said, requires resourcefulness and money when the national grid can go down for four to 10 hours a day in peak summer consumption, according to electricity ministry data.

Generators "provide the electricity we need for the television, fridge, air cooler", said the 62-year-old former accountant.

He pays $50 a month in generator subscription fees -- but even that isn't always enough to keep a whole house running.

"A client may have to turn the fridge off to keep the air conditioner on," explained Khaled al-Shablawi, who has worked for a generator service for 13 years.
- 'Plunged into darkness' -

Soaring energy prices fuelled by Russia's war in Ukraine have forced a new reality upon European nations, where people are asked to limit the electricity they use for heating, lighting and cooking.


Some cities keep street lights on for shorter lengths of time, and in Paris, the lights illuminating the Eiffel Tower are switched off an hour earlier now to save energy.

But to Jabr, such a step "is normal".

"When there's a technical problem, the whole area could be left without power for a day or two before they fix it," he said.

Jabr recalled how immediately after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled longtime dictator Saddam Hussein, "houses were plunged into darkness" after fighting destroyed infrastructure.

"There was very little electricity, only two or three hours" a day, he said. "People had their own generators. They would buy fuel and it would last a day or two."


In Iraq's long summer months, when temperatures can peak around 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) and air-conditioner use surges, overloaded generator providers hike up prices.

Some regions were deprived of power altogether in the summer of 2021, triggering sporadic street protests by frustrated residents.
- Europe 'destabilised' -

Despite its oil wealth, the country relies heavily on energy supply from neighbouring Iran.

With its mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Iraq has some hydro-electric power but no nuclear plants, and is just beginning to explore renewable energy options such as solar panels.


In a bid to overcome the common blackouts, Baghdad has nonetheless moved to increase domestic power production.

It now generates more than 24,000 megawatts per day, said electricity ministry spokesman Ahmed Moussa.

To secure stable nationwide power supply, however, 32,000 megawatts would be needed daily, he said.

For now, the national grid provides most regions with 14-20 hours of electricity a day in summer, Moussa added.

In one Sadr City avenue, private generators line the street, each feeding electricity to some 300 homes and a similar number of shops.

Ali al-Aaraji, who owns a private college for around 300 students, decried "astronomical" generator costs, which he estimated at $600 a month.

"Electricity is a constant problem for Iraqis," said Aaraji, 58, pinning the blame on "the American occupation" of years past.


"Iraqis have managed to put up with the situation for three decades," he added, questioning how Europe would cope with its looming power problem.

"Energy is the source of economic prosperity," Aaraji said.

"Europe is now destabilised. It's going to impact their economy, industry and commerce. They'll go backwards."

tgg/ami/fz/lg

Europe needs to integrate Middle East into broader energy grid, says US economist

Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor, says 'major powers' must cooperate to combat effects of deteriorating climate

A Saudi man stands at a solar plant in Uyayna, north of Riyadh, on 29 March 2018 (AFP)

By MEE staff in
Washington
Published date: 4 October 2022 

Europe should be working with Middle East countries to incorporate them into a broader regional energy grid in order to transition to clean, renewable energies, a leading economist said on Tuesday.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, spoke during an event at The Atlantic Council ahead of the 27th annual UN Climate Conference, known as COP27. The UN meeting will take place next month in Egypt's Red Sea resort, Sharm el-Sheikh.

Sachs highlighted that the Middle East and North Africa are going to be, and in some ways already are, hit hardest by the effects of climate change.

At the same time, the region is well-placed to be at the forefront of the energy transition, given it has huge potential for certain renewable energies, the most apparent being solar energy.

COP27: Egypt creating climate of fear for environmentalists ahead of conferenceRead More »

"This region has to make a massive energy transformation and, at the same time, combat an absolutely serious and potentially devastating set of impacts from climate change. And to make the energy transition is really only feasible in a broader regional context."

"We should have Europe negotiating with the Middle East and North Africa for incorporating those regions into a broader grid."

Sachs said that meetings like COP, where world leaders will meet together in person, should focus on negotiating the legal frameworks that will pave the way for connecting Europe and the Middle East's energy.

The region is already experiencing some of the worst effects of the accelerating climate crisis, with wildfires, floods and earthquakes coming at an increasing rate and intensity in recent years.

At the same time, large parts of the region are dependent on fossil fuel extraction and there is widespread resistance to transformative climate action in royal palaces, company boardrooms and government offices.

The economist noted that geopolitics is a major hindrance in efforts to combat climate change.

"We don't understand the geopolitical implications of the climate crisis. The geopolitical implications are: regions must cooperate, neighbours must cooperate, and major powers must cooperate. There's no place for major power confrontation in this world if we're going to solve this absolutely rapidly deteriorating environmental crisis," Sachs said.

Fighting for a green future

Speaking at the event on Tuesday, Yasmine Fouad, Egypt's climate minister, said that Egypt has been working across all sectors of its government towards a green transition, and called on other countries to follow suit.

"If we want climate mainstream, we have to start by ourselves - having other ministries on board like agriculture, like water, like finance, like planning, like oil and gas and like industry is a very important message that should be delivered around the world," she said.

"We cannot fight the climate only if we keep ourselves locked in our rooms talking about the same matters."

About 90 heads of state have confirmed attendance for the climate conference in Egypt, which will take place from 6-18 November, according to an Egyptian official.

Cairo is using the conference to prioritise the interests of developing nations and their need for financing to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

For the summit's formal agenda, the host country is working on how to include "loss and damage" compensation to climate-vulnerable countries already suffering from climate-related weather extremes.

Despite the efforts by the Egyptian government, climate activists in the country say that authorities are creating an "atmosphere of fear" by curtailing the rights of environmental groups and their ability to carry out their work of protecting the environment.

Human Rights Watch released a report earlier this month that included interviews with activists and academics who said that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's government is harassing and intimidating environmental workers, including by arresting them and criminalising their work.

Many environmental groups told HRW that they are being cautious about the climate conference, fearing that the Egyptian security apparatus could crack down on them once the gathering is over.

THE LAW IS NOT FOR ALL

Judge tosses charges against 7 people in Flint water crisis

OCTOBER 4, 2022 

A Michigan judge dismissed felony charges Tuesday against seven people in the Flint water scandal, including two former state health officials blamed for deaths from Legionnaires' disease.

The judge's dismissal was significant but not a complete surprise after the Michigan Supreme Court in June unanimously said a different judge acting as a one-person grand jury had no authority to issue indictments.

Judge Elizabeth Kelly rejected efforts by the attorney general's office to just send the cases to Flint District Court and turn them into criminal complaints, the typical path to filing felony charges in Michigan. It was a last-gasp effort to keep things afloat.

"Anything arising out of the invalid indictments are irreconcilably tainted from inception. ... Simply put, there are no valid charges," Kelly said.

Kelly's decision doesn't affect former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. That's only because he was charged with two misdemeanors — willful neglect of duty — and his case is being handled by another judge. But he, too, was indicted in a process declared invalid by the Supreme Court. His next hearing is Oct. 26.

In 2014, Flint managers appointed by Snyder took the city out of a regional water system and began using the Flint River to save money while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was being built. But the river water wasn't treated to reduce its corrosive qualities. Lead broke off from old pipes and contaminated the system for more than a year.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission said it was the result of systemic racism, doubting that the water switch and the brush-off of complaints in the majority-Black city would have occurred in a white, prosperous community.

The water tower at the Flint Water Plant in Flint, Michigan, looms large over the city March 4, 2016 nearly 2 years after the start of the city's water crisis. 

GEOFF ROBINS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Separately, the water was blamed for an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, which typically spreads through heating and cooling systems.

Former state health director Nick Lyon and former chief medical executive Eden Wells were charged with involuntary manslaughter in nine deaths linked to Legionnaires'. They were accused of failing to timely warn the Flint area about the outbreak.

Lyon's attorneys praised Kelly's decision and urged the attorney general's office to close a "misguided prosecution."

"This misuse of the criminal justice system has to stop," Chip Chamberlain and Ron DeWaard said. "Misleading statements about what Director Lyon did or didn't do contribute nothing to a constructive public dialogue and do not represent justice for anyone."

An email seeking comment was sent to state prosecutors.

Besides Lyon and Wells, charges were dismissed against Snyder's longtime fixer in state government, Rich Baird; former senior aide Jarrod Agen; former Flint managers Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley; and Nancy Peeler, a health department manager.

Michigan's six-year statute of limitations could be a problem in some cases if the attorney general's office wants to file charges again. The deadline, however, would be longer for charges faced by Lyon and Wells.

Prosecutors in Michigan typically file felony charges in District Court after a police investigation. The use of a one-judge grand jury was extremely rare and was mostly utilized in Detroit and Flint to protect witnesses, especially in violent crimes, who could testify in private.

Prosecutors Fadwa Hammoud and Kym Worthy chose that path in the Flint water probe to hear evidence in secret and get indictments against Snyder and others.

MASS MURDERER 

Gov. Rick Snyder looks at papers during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing about the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, on Capitol Hill on March 17, 2016 in Washington, D.C. MARK WILSON / GETTY IMAGES

But the state Supreme Court said Michigan law is clear: A one-judge grand jury can't issue indictments. The process apparently had never been challenged.

Chief Justice Bridget McCormack called it a "Star Chamber comeback," a pejorative reference to an oppressive, closed-door style of justice in England in the 17th century.

An effort to hold people criminally responsible for Flint's lead-in-water disaster has lasted years and produced little.

Before leaving office in 2019, then-Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, had pledged to put people in prison. But the results were different: Seven people pleaded no contest to misdemeanors that were eventually scrubbed from their records.

After Dana Nessel, a Democrat, was elected, she got rid of special counsel Todd Flood and put Hammoud and Worthy, the respected Wayne County prosecutor, in charge.

There is no dispute that lead affects the brain and nervous system, especially in children. Experts have not identified a safe lead level in kids.

Facing a wave of lawsuits, the state agreed to pay $600 million as part of a $626 million settlement with Flint residents and property owners who were harmed by lead-tainted water. Most of the money is going to children.

Flint in 2015 returned to a water system based in southeastern Michigan. Meanwhile, roughly 10,100 lead or steel water lines had been replaced at homes by last December.


The city had 100,000 residents in 2010, but the population fell roughly 20% to 81,000 by the 2020 census, following the water crisis, according to the government.

Nord Stream pipelines may have leaked a record-breaking amount of methane

DEVIKA RAO

Swedish Coast Guard via Getty Images

While the series of gas leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines have finally stopped, the multiple explosions from the past week are estimated to have caused the largest single emission of methane in history, NPR reports

Approximately half a million metric tons of methane — five times larger than the last largest spill in Aliso Canyon in California in 2015 — was released across three leaks, per NPR.

European leaders have decried the pipeline leaks as sabotage, but have been unable to pinpoint a direct offender. Russian President Vladimir Putin has directly accused the west of sabotaging the pipelines, an allegation the U.S. and its international allies have firmly denied, NPR continues.

Methane is the main component of natural gas, which is transported through the pipelines. It can trap heat 80 times better than carbon dioxide, and doesn't last as long in the atmosphere; that said, its potency yields substantial immediate effects on climate change and global warming.

Though the leak was large, it was only equivalent to approximately a day or two of fossil fuel industry emissions. Methane has caused 30 percent of the global warming witnessed to date, according to the International Energy Agency, underscoring the larger issue of fossil fuel pollution. 

Manfredi Caltagirone, head of the International Methane Emissions Observatory, remarked, "It is important to put it in context of a larger problem that we have, that we need to fix." 

This LinkedIn job posting does not exist: Tim Culpan

The social network for professionals is starting to attract sophisticated scammers who threaten its credibility

TIM CULPAN
OCTOBER 05, 2022 

(Representative image)

As the debate over bots on Twitter plays out in the courts of Chancery and public opinion, another social media company is being forced to tackle scams that pose a far bigger risk to users.

LinkedIn has become the latest target of inauthentic accounts with perpetrators appearing to be far more sophisticated and cunning than those afflicting Twitter Inc. Even bigger dangers abound because customers expect more from the business networking site owned by Microsoft Corp. than they do from the short-message service Elon Musk may end up buying.


Scams aren’t unique to LinkedIn. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and basically the entire internet have been platforms for nefarious actors for years, from variations on the Nigerian Prince fraud, to phishing attacks that lure users to download malicious code and steal credentials.

Yet recent LinkedIn campaigns have come extraordinarily close to replicating real people with the help of one of the most powerful websites on the internet.

ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com creates headshots using artificial intelligence complete with jewelry and a scenic backdrop. It’s eerily good, and allows anyone to create a deep-fake persona that passes as the real thing. Add in web-scraping tools, which copy data from actual LinkedIn resumes, and you too can become Victor Sites, Chief Information Security Officer at Chevron Corp.

That’s precisely what’s happened. Hundreds of times over. Brian Krebs, a noted author and cybersecurity investigator, discovered the profile of Sites and cross-checked it against the real CISO of Chevron. Compounding the perception of reality is that a Google search for that role returns the fake profile alongside the real one. There are countless similar phonies on the site, he noted.

A confounding aspect of the problem is determining motive.

Earlier this year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned that one objective is to lure people into fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes by gaining trust before taking the victim’s money. Researchers at security firm Mandiant Inc. also found evidence that North Korean hackers were using such profiles to land remote jobs inside cryptocurrency firms. These positions could then give the actors access to tools and intelligence that could aid money laundering and handling of illicit funds, Bloomberg News reported.

There are also more mundane purposes. As National Public Radio found earlier this year, dummy accounts have been deployed to cast a wide net as companies seek to hire candidates. Those who take the bait then get passed on to human resources. “Think telemarketing for the digital age,” NPR’s Shannon Bond wrote. The plethora of motives — from gaining inside access and stealing money, to marketing calls and phishing attacks — opens up a broad array of jobs that could be created to lure victims. And there are many more fake profiles for whom the goals and motives aren’t immediately obvious.

What’s clear, though, is that LinkedIn’s cachet as being the social network for serious professionals makes it the perfect platform for lulling members into a false sense of security. Although Musk is using the perception that Twitter is infested with bots as an excuse to wriggle out of his purchase agreement, there’s no evidence to suggest that the fake rate on LinkedIn is any lower.

Yet it is true that consumers place far higher faith on it over rivals. Both Facebook and Twitter rated among the worst in surveys that assessed perceptions of deceptive content and of protecting privacy while LinkedIn was at the top, according to research published by Insider Intelligence last year. That air of professionalism goes a long way toward explaining LinkedIn’s user and revenue growth since Microsoft bought the company six years ago.

While the two companies were once neck and neck, LinkedIn now brings in twice the sales and has narrowed the gap in revenue per user. Its 850 million members is almost four times that of Twitter’s 238 million.

Much of that growth spurt has come in the past two years as the Microsoft unit doubled down on its corporate credentials amid an uptick in hiring and demand for professional services.

Exacerbating the security risk is the vast amount of data that LinkedIn collates and publishes, and which underpins its whole business model but which lacks any robust verification mechanisms. A Twitter user, by contrast, can gather a vast following while still remaining anonymous.

There are two simple steps LinkedIn could take to vastly improve its platform, Krebs noted in a recent post. First, add a “created on” date, which Twitter already deploys, in order to highlight which profiles are recent versus long-established. A second, more powerful, feature would be to implement domain verification which ensures that a member has an email account at the organization where they claim to be employed.

"We work every day to keep our members safe and this includes our automated systems paired with teams of experts to stop the vast majority of fake accounts before they appear in our community,” Oscar Rodriguez, LinkedIn Senior Director of Trust, Privacy and Equity, wrote in emailed response to Bloomberg Opinion. “We also ask members to report suspicious profiles and content to us so that we can take action.”

The company declined to say whether it was considering adding creation date or domain verification, or outline any changes it has made in recent months to tackle the spate of deep-fake profiles.

LinkedIn has a chance to learn from its rivals’ mistakes, but it needs to take action quickly before the situation gets out of hand.

With the Cambridge Analytica scandal putting Facebook in the spotlight, teen mental health highlighting the risks of Instagram, Beijing’s links to TikTok raising concerns about that short-video service, and the debate over Twitter bots raging in a Delaware court, Microsoft has stayed out of the fra

That protective cover won’t last forever.

Tim Culpan is a technology columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Based in Taipei, he writes about Asian and global businesses and trends. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.Credit: Bloomberg

World economy roiled by simultaneous shocks

October 4, 2022

THE STAR – The world economy is showing signs of a rapid downshift as it contends with a series of shocks – some of them self-inflicted by policymakers – increasing the likelihood of another global recession and the danger of major financial disruptions.

“We’re living through a period of elevated risk,” former United States (US) Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers told Wall Street Week with David Westin on Bloomberg Television, for whom he is a paid contributor.

“In the same way that people became anxious in August of 2007, I think this is a moment when there should be increased anxiety.”

At the heart of the strain: The fallout from the most aggressive hiking of interest rates since the 1980s.

Having failed to foresee the surge in inflation to multi-decade highs, the Federal Reserve (Fed) and most peers are now lifting rates at speed in a bid to restore price stability and their own credibility.

Evidence of the impact – and of the blow to consumers’ purchasing power from soaring prices – is mounting quickly.

In the past several days, Nike Inc reported a surging stockpile of unsold product, FedEx Corp shocked with a warning on delivery volumes and key chipmaker South Korea saw the first drop in semiconductor output in four years as demand retreats.

Apple Inc is backing off plans to boost output of its new iPhones, Bloomberg reported. The turn is coming even before the full thrust of monetary tightening is felt.

The Fed and many counterparts are pledging to keep going with steep rate hikes as they attempt to rebuild credibility.

Quantitative tightening programmes, where central banks remove liquidity by shrinking bond portfolios, are also just getting going. Inflation data showcase the need for, as Fed vice-chairman Lael Brainard put it on Friday, “avoiding pulling back prematurely” on tightening.

She spoke shortly after the Fed’s preferred measure of prices jumped more than forecast.

Earlier, data showed eurozone inflation has punched into double-digits.

Layered on top of continuing reverberations from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the spreading economic gloom is sowing fear in financial markets, creating its own worrying dynamic.

A rapidly appreciating dollar, supercharged by the Fed, may help cool US inflation, but it drives it up elsewhere by weakening other currencies – pressuring authorities to restrain their own economies.

“The global economy is in the eye of a new storm,” Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday after lifting rates again.

Prospects for a second global recession so soon after the 2020 downturn triggered by the pandemic were hardly apparent a year ago.

But Europe’s Russian-induced energy crisis, and China’s deepening property slump and continued zero-Covid approach weren’t part of the consensus outlook.

Not all is dark, with US job-market resilience a notable feature. But the plans by Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc for the first reduction in headcount ever illustrate how that may still change.

And Britain’s experience in recent days showcases how investors are in a mood to punish policymakers pursuing approaches deemed unsustainable.

Journalist Percival Mabasa shot dead during an ambush

The radio host had been a prominent critic of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines

Kilusang Mayo Uno, together with journalists and rights defenders, held an indignation rally at the Boy Scout Circle in Quezon City to denounce the brazen killing of veteran journalist Percival Mabasa, popularly known as Percy Lapid.

Twitter/ @abarcacharie

---

Reuters   |   Manila   |   Published 05.10.22, 

---

A news radio host who had been a prominent critic of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines was fatally shot in his car during an ambush near his home, the authorities said on Tuesday.

The journalist, Percival Mabasa, was killed on Monday night outside the capital, Manila, by two men on motorcycles who later escaped, said Brigadier General Roderick Augustus Alba, a spokesman for Philippine National Police. The shooting occurred in the suburb of Las Pinas, outside the gated community where Mabasa lived.

A manhunt was underway on Tuesday as the authorities investigated the killing, Alba said. 

Mabasa was the second journalist to be killed in the country since President Marcos, the son of the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, took office in late June after a polarising election, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.

Last month, the radio broadcaster Renato “Rey” Blanco was stabbed to death in central Philippines, hundreds of miles south of the capital. A suspect in that case later surrendered to the police, but no charges have been filed.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte had threatened journalists who documented his violent anti-drug campaign with physical violence.

At least 23 journalists were killed during his six-year presidency.

Mabasa, known as Percy Lapid to his followers, had accused top Philippine officials of corruption in the hard-hitting radio programme that he hosted for years in Manila.

Among his targets were Duterte’s anti-drug campaign and perceived attempts by supporters of the Marcos family to distort history by portraying the elder Marcos, who died in 1989, as a victim of his political enemies. 

In recent weeks, Mabasa had criticised the current Marcos government for what he said was corruption involving anomalies in sugar imports through a state agency.

The President’s executive secretary, Vic Rodriguez, resigned last month after the backlash generated by Mabasa’s reporting. 

Radio journalist Percival Mabasa shot and killed in the Philippines

 Police officers gather in front of the Commission on Human Rights ahead of a protest denouncing the proclamation of the new Philippine president in Manila, Philippines, on May 25, 2022. Percival Mabasa, a broadcaster known as Percy Lapid who criticized the president and other politicians, was killed by unknown assailants on his way to work in October. (Reuters/Lisa Marie David)

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Frankfurt, Germany, October 4, 2022–Philippine authorities must launch a swift and thorough investigation into the killing of radio commentator Percival Mabasa and bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

Mabasa–better known as Percy Lapid–was gunned down inside his vehicle by unidentified motorcycle-riding assailants in Las Piñas City on the night of Monday, October 3, according to the national police and news reports. He was on his way to work at the time, his brother Roy Mabasa said on Facebook.

Percival Mabasa, host of the “Lapid Fire” program on the DWBL 1242 radio station, had been a prominent critic of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte in his commentaries and YouTube broadcasts, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).

“The killing of radio journalist Percival Mabasa once again shows the Philippines remains one of the most dangerous places for journalists,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. must end the culture of impunity that surrounds the killing of Filipino journalists. This cannot continue as business as usual.”

The Presidential Task Force for Media Security, a government body composed of law enforcement agencies including the national police, said in a statement on its Facebook page that it would presume Mabasa’s killing to be “work related” while investigating, though it was too early to establish the exact motive.

CPJ emailed Marcos Jr.’s office and the task force for comment but did not receive an immediate reply.

Mabasa was the second journalist killed since Marcos Jr. took office on June 30, the NUJP said. The first case was radio broadcaster Rey Blanco, who was stabbed to death on September 18 in the central province of Negros Oriental, according to the union. CPJ is investigating Blanco’s killing to determine whether it was work-related.

In May, CPJ wrote to the office of then President-elect Marcos Jr., urging him to protect journalists in the Southeast Asian country and restore the Philippines’ once-proud standing as a regional bastion of press freedom.

The Philippines ranked seventh on CPJ’s 2021 Impunity Index, a measure of countries worldwide where journalists are murdered and the perpetrators go free.

CPJ