CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M
Bipartisan bill targets crypto money laundering in wake of FTX collapse



Igor Bonifacic
·Weekend Editor
Wed, December 14, 2022

US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Roger Marshall have introduced a bipartisan bill designed to crack down on illegal uses of cryptocurrency. If passed, The Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act would extend aspects of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), a Nixon-era law Congress passed to combat money laundering, to cover crypto entities such as wallet providers and miners. Specifically, the new legislation would apply so-called “Know-Your-Customer” rules to those entities by directing the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to treat them as money service businesses. Another BSA expansion would require US citizens to file a report with the Internal Revenue Service whenever they engage in transactions that involve more than $10,000 in digital assets.

Additionally, the legislation would direct FinCEN to implement a rule the agency proposed at the end of 2020 that would require financial institutions to report transactions involving “unhosted” digital wallets. Per CoinDesk, those are wallets where the user has complete control over the contents — rather than an exchange or other third party. The legislation would also prohibit financial institutions from using or transacting with digital asset mixers, which are frequently used to obscure the origin of funds.

“Rogue nations, oligarchs, drug lords, and human traffickers are using digital assets to launder billions in stolen funds, evade sanctions, and finance terrorism,” said Senator Warren. “The crypto industry should follow common-sense rules like banks, brokers, and Western Union, and this legislation would ensure the same standards apply across similar financial transactions. The bipartisan bill will help close crypto money laundering loopholes and strengthen enforcement to better safeguard US national security.”

The push from Senators Warren and Marshall to crack down on crypto money laundering comes a day after the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced civil and criminal charges against FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Due to time constraints, the likelihood of the bill passing in the current lame-duck session is low. Warren and Marshall will almost certainly need to reintroduce it next year.

Warren pushes bipartisan bill to regulate crypto firms after FTX collapse

Ed Pilkington
Wed, December 14, 2022 

Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Elizabeth Warren is pressing Congress to adopt new bipartisan legislation which would force crypto firms to abide by the same regulations as banks and corporations in an attempt to crack down on money laundering through digital assets.

The Democratic US senator from Massachusetts is pushing for the new controls on the crypto industry in the wake of the spectacular collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. On Tuesday its founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with eight criminal counts including conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Related: Five things we know about the collapse of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried

Warren’s bill is being co-sponsored by the Republican senator from Kansas Roger Marshall. The Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act would essentially subject the world of crypto to the same global financial regulations to which more conventional money markets must conform.

Under current systems, crypto exchanges are able to skirt around restrictions designed to stop money laundering and impose sanctions. Should the bill be enacted into law it would authorize the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) to reclassify crypto entities as “money service businesses” which would bring them under basic regulations laid out in the Bank Secrecy Act.

In a statement to CNN, Warren said that the “commonsense crypto legislation” would protect US national security. “I’ve been ringing the alarm bell in the Senate on the dangers of these digital asset loopholes,” she said, adding that crypto was “under serious scrutiny across the political spectrum”.

Bankman-Fried, 30, was indicted by prosecutors at the southern district of New York and is being held in custody in the Bahamas. The US Securities and Exchange commission (SEC) has also brought civil charges against him, accusing him of creating a firm that was a “house of cards”.

An ongoing area of interest to investigators was the vast political contributions made by Bankman-Fried to the Democratic party, as well as to Republicans in the form, he has said, of secretive dark money donations. The Wall Street Journal has calculated that he gave more than $95,000 in direct campaign donations to the same members of the US House financial services committee who are now investigating him.

Even before the implosion of FTX, the treasury department was focusing on the feared risks to national security posed by relatively unregulated digital currency exchanges. In August it moved against Tornado Cash, a virtual currency mixer which it accused of laundering more than $7bn in virtual currency since 2019.

The Treasury said that Tornado Cash was attractive to launderers of the proceeds of cybercrime, including the Lazarus Group, a hacking group sponsored by North Korea. The entity’s appeal to cybercriminals was that it could move digital assets around anonymously, obscuring the origin and destination of transactions and hiding the parties involved.

Warren is a former Harvard law professor and expert on consumer protection and economic inequality. She entered the Senate in 2013, where she established herself as a leading progressive critic of corporate largesse and a spirited opponent of Donald Trump.

She made an unsuccessful bid for the White House in 2020.

Senate crypto hearing yields big claims, possible regulation

Investor and star of "Shark Tank" Kevin O'Leary, testifies before the Senate Banking Committee about cryptocurrency and the collapse of FTX, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)


GLENN GAMBOA
Wed, December 14, 2022

Whether increased regulation would have prevented the spectacular collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX was fiercely debated at a hearing of the Senate’s banking committee Wednesday. However, new legislation is potentially on the way.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced at the hearing bipartisan legislation aimed at cracking down on cryptocurrencies being used in money laundering. The legislation, co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, would require cryptocurrency exchanges to verify customer identities like banks and other financial institutions do.

“Crypto has become the preferred tool for terrorists, for ransomware gangs, for drug dealers and for rogue states that want to launder money,” said Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, adding that “crypto doesn’t get a pass to help the world’s worst criminals – no matter how many television ads they run or how many political contributions they make.”

Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis, of Wyoming, said she and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, would reintroduce their bipartisan legislation, the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, next year. That act would require disclosures and consumer protection obligations from cryptocurrency issuers.

Lummis, like several other Republicans on the banking committee, said the alleged financial crimes of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried should not be used to target cryptocurrency more generally.

“Let’s separate digital assets from corrupt organizations,” she said. “FTX is good old-fashioned fraud.”

However, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, asked the hearing’s four witnesses – two crypto proponents and two critics – whether fraud was systemic at other firms in the industry. They all indicated that it was – one of the few points of agreement in the entire hearing.

Hilary J. Allen, professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law, testified that the current environment cryptocurrency operates in is highly conducive to fraud.

“Sam Bankman-Fried may have engaged in good old-fashioned embezzlement,” she said, “but the embezzlement was able to reach such a scale and go undetected for so long because it was crypto – shrouded in opacity, complexity, and mystique.”

Entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, best known as Mr. Wonderful on the TV show “Shark Tank,” disagreed with the characterization, even though the $15 million he earned as a paid spokesman for FTX is now essentially worthless.

“I am of the opinion that crypto, blockchain technology and digital payment systems will be the 12th sector of the S&P within a decade,” he said, referring to the S&P 500, a well-known benchmark for stocks.

O’Leary also testified that Bankman-Fried told him that the collapse of FTX was due to its battle with crypto competitor Binance, which also held a stake in FTX.

“These two behemoths that owned the unregulated market together… were at war with each other,” O’Leary said. “And one put the other out of business.”

Federal prosecutors say Bankman-Fried defrauded FTX customers and investors starting in 2019 and illegally diverted their money to cover expenses, debts and risky trades at the crypto hedge fund he started in 2017, Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried, 30, was arrested Monday in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government, and remains in custody after being denied bail.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, the ranking member of the banking committee, said FTX’s actions do not reflect the business of cryptocurrency as a whole.

“There’s nothing intrinsically good or evil about software – it’s about what people do with it,” he said. “Code committed no crime.”

However, actor and author Ben McKenzie Schenkkan, best known for his role as Jim Gordon on “Gotham,” said his research shows cryptocurrency is built on “misinformation, hype and fraud” and that the estimated 40 million Americans who have invested in it were lied to.

“In my opinion, the cryptocurrency industry represents the largest Ponzi scheme in history,” he said. “The fact that it has roped in tens of millions of Americans from all walks of life, as well as hundreds of millions of people worldwide, should be of concern to us all.”

 

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey

 

   

Kevin O’Leary Says Binance ‘Intentionally’ Killed FTX 😳 #crypto

 

FTX Spokesman, Shark Tank Co-Host Kevin O’Leary Blames Competitor for Firm’s Collapse in Senate Hearing

Brittany Bernstein
Wed, December 14, 2022 


Kevin O’Leary, an investor and judge on Shark Tank who was paid $15 million to act as a spokesman for FTX, testified before the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday about the crypto exchange’s collapse.

O’Leary has said as an investor he lost all of the money he was paid to act as a spokesman for the exchange, which fell apart in November, costing investors millions in losses.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was recently arrested on charges that he misled investors and mishandled billions in funds. He has been accused of misusing customer funds deposited with FTX to boost his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.

O’Leary was among a group of celebrities, including Tom Brady and Larry David, who were sued by FTX investors for their promotion of the firm. He said he put roughly $9.7 million into crypto from the $15 million deal. The rest went to taxes and agent fees, he said.

Senator Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) asked O’Leary on Wednesday why he believes FTX failed.

O’Leary recounted reaching out to Bankman-Fried after the investor discovered his accounts were stripped of all of their assets and accounting and trade information.

“I couldn’t get answers from any of the executives in the firm so I simply called Sam Bankman-Fried and said, ‘Where is the money, Sam?'” O’Leary testified.

He said he then discovered that Bankman-Fried had spent between $2 billion and $3 billion to repurchase shares from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who held 20 percent ownership in Bankman-Fried’s firm.

O’Leary said he asked Bankman-Fried what would compel him to do that. The founder replied that Zhao would not comply with regulators’ requests for data that would allow the firm to get licensed. The founder allegedly told O’Leary “the only option” FTX had was to buy Zhao out at an “extraordinary valuation” of close to $32 billion.

“That stripped the balance sheet of assets,” O’Leary said. “You ask me why it went bankrupt. Go to the last week. All of a sudden in social media, CZ is asking for another $500 million. He wants to do a block trade of FTT, or the proprietary token of FTX. He wants to convert it back to fiat. Why would you put that out there? You know it’s going to push down the value of that coin dramatically. That’s exactly what happened.”

O’Leary said the two “behemoths that own the unregulated market together” were at “war with each other and one put the other out of business intentionally.”

“Now, maybe there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with love and war. But Binance is a massive unregulated global monopoly now. They put FTX out of business.”

Binance was founded in China but quickly moved out of the country when the government announced it would impose regulations on cryptocurrency trading.

Despite the company’s founding in Shanghai, Zhao has said it “couldn’t be further from the truth” that Binance is run by the Chinese Communist Party or is a “Chinese spy.” Zhao was born in China but is a naturalized Canadian citizen.

Zhao argued in a blog post that it would be impossible for Binance to be a Chinese company today as Binance and other crypto exchanges “have been designated a criminal entity in China.”

VIDEO

Where is the money?: US senators grill FTX spokesperson Kevin O'Leary on collapse

 

Kevin O'Leary, paid to promote FTX, testifies about crypto collapse

   

CNBC O'Shares' Kevin O'Leary weighs in on FTX

  

Watch Elizabeth Warren Debate Crypto Investor Kevin O'Leary (FTX Congressional Hearing)

U$A
New penalties for companies that illegally fire workers who unionize


Federal labor officials released new rules that could penalize companies that break laws when firing employees engaged in lawful union activity. (AP)

Lauren Kaori Gurley, (c) 2022, The Washington Post
Tue, December 13, 2022

Companies that illegally fire or demote unionizing workers can now be held responsible for workers' financial harms - including credit card late fees, lost housing or cars and health care costs - in a move that could help some workers who have been fired from Starbucks and Amazon, labor activists say.

In a big win for labor unions, the National Labor Relations Board ruled on Tuesday to expand the fees and penalties the agency can collect from employers that illegally terminate workers for labor activism, both union and nonunion, in a move long sought after by the labor movement.

"Employees are not made whole until they are fully compensated for financial harms that they suffered as a result of unlawful conduct," said labor board chair Lauren McFerran in a statement.

For decades, employers that fired workers for their involvement in labor organizing - a legally protected activity - have only had to pay for the employee's reinstatement and lost wages. But labor advocates say that has amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist, especially for major employers with deep pockets such as Amazon and Starbucks.

"Fear of retaliation and dismissal is the primary obstacle stopping workers from getting involved in union organizing campaigns," said John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University. "Increasing the currently meaningless penalties for terminating workers is the most obvious thing to fix that."

Under the new ruling, the labor board can also hold companies, as well as unions, liable for damages, such as a wronged worker's health care and child care costs, immigration paperwork and visas, lost investment income and legal fees for defending against unpaid bills.

To obtain relief for workers, the agency's top prosecutor will be required to provide evidence that the company's actions provoked the financial harm and that it was direct or foreseeable. Companies will then have the opportunity to disprove that evidence.

The agency can also collect these penalty payments when employers illegally demote employees, cut their wages, or otherwise retaliate.

The ruling arrives under the recommendation of the labor board's top legal counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, a Biden appointee, who has expanded the agency's tool kit in some unprecedented ways and could be the president's best shot at being the most pro-labor president in U.S. history.

Some law firms that represent management have been critical of Abruzzo's approach, describing her proposals, including increased penalties on employers, as "hawkish" and anti-employer.

This year has seen a surge of first time union victories at companies, such as Amazon, Trader Joe's, Chipotle, and Apple that have long evaded unionization, as well as a 53 percent uptick in filings for union elections nationwide. But union organizers say these efforts have been met with widespread retaliation from employers.

Starbucks Workers United, which has unionized 270 stores over the past year, says the coffee giant has fired more than 150 union activists. Earlier this year, Starbucks fired seven unionizing baristas at a store in Memphis after they spoke to a local TV station, a set of terminations later found to be illegal by a federal judge.

Starbucks has said that it informs and trains managers that employees should not be fired for engaging in legal union activity, and that the Memphis workers committed policy violations related to store safety and security procedures that apply to all workers.

For years, labor-friendly lawmakers have tried to broaden penalties for employers that violate labor law, including a draft provision in Biden's Build Back Better Act that would have imposed a $50,000 fine on employers that illegally fired labor activists. But all of those efforts failed.

Hamas defiant as hardline Israeli coalition takes shape

"We admire the resistance but as a ruler, Hamas needs to find a solution to our misery that doesn't worsen it

 Hamas supporters attend a rally marking the 35th anniversary of the movement founding, in Gaza City


Wed, December 14, 2022
By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Leaders of the Islamist movement Hamas swore defiance in a choreographed display of force on Wednesday as one of the most hardline right-wing governments in Israel's history looks set to take office later this month.

Speaking before a sea of green flags in Gaza City's Katiba gardens at a rally to mark Hamas' 35th anniversary, the movement's leader in Gaza, Yahya Al-Sinwar said Palestinians faced an "open confrontation" with Israel.

He said the al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem, a site revered by both Muslims and Jews, who know it as the Temple Mount, was threatened with encroachment by the "Talmudic, fascist, Zionist, rightist government" and said Hamas would respond with force.

"We will come to you with an endless number of rockets, we will come to you with an endless number of soldiers," he said, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition with hardline religious parties of seeking a "religious war".

The rally, after a year that has seen some of the worst violence in the occupied West Bank in more than a decade and a brief conflict in Gaza, comes as Netanyahu prepares to take office at the head of a coalition uniting his Likud party with a clutch of hardline religious parties.

Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters filled the square, as solemn music boomed out over loudspeakers and black uniformed members of the movement's armed wing marched through the crowd.

Born out of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in the late 1980s, Hamas assumed power in Gaza after defeating the rival Fatah movement in elections in 2006 and has maintained a steadfast hostility to Israel.

But ever since it fought a 10-day war with Israel that ended in a ceasefire more than a year ago, relations between the two sides on the ground have been, if not tranquil, then at least under a wary sort of control.

Sinwar said the movement had been restrained by the need to rebuild after the 2021 war.

"Our silence is preparation and if we talk, it will be guns talking on our behalf," he said.

Despite the West Bank violence that has claimed at least 165 Palestinian lives, Hamas has not intervened and it remained quiet in August when Israeli jets bombarded sites connected with the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group in Gaza.

However its greatest challenge remains at home, where it is under increasing pressure to improve the quality of life for the 2.3 million Palestinians crammed into Gaza, under blockade for the past 15 years from both Israel and neighbouring Egypt and facing an unemployment rate of 50%.

"We admire the resistance but as a ruler, Hamas needs to find a solution to our misery that doesn't worsen it," said Abu Ali, owner of a clothes shop in Gaza city.

(Writing by Nidal Almughrabi; editing by James Mackenzie, Alexandra Hudson)

Hamas marks anniversary, predicts confrontation with Israel


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Palestinians Hamas Anniversary

Members of the Izz ad-Din al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, parade on Hamas' 35th anniversary in Gaza City, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians thronged the rally in downtown Gaza to mark the founding of the militant group, as leaders predicted a year of "open confrontation" with the hardline Israeli government expected to take office in the coming days.

 (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

Wed, December 14, 2022 

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on Wednesday thronged a rally in downtown Gaza to mark the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Hamas militant group, as leaders predicted a year of “open confrontation” with the hardline Israeli government expected to take office in the coming days.

Hamas, an armed Islamic group that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, worked hard to mobilize the large turnout at the city's Katiba park, viewing it as a show of strength at a time when it appears to be struggling for popularity.

Hamas seized control of the impoverished enclave from forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose administration has been confined to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover, tightly controlling the movement of people and goods in and out of the territory in what Israel says is a security measure. Gaza's economy has gone into a tailspin, and the territory has fought four wars and numerous skirmishes with Israel since Hamas took power.

During the rally, Hamas leaders predicted an “open confrontation” with Israel in 2023 as the most right-wing government ever is expected to be sworn in later this month.

“We have to give the chance to ignite the resistance in the West Bank,” said Yehiyeh Sinwar, Hamas' leader in Gaza.

More than 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making it the deadliest year since 2006. Israel says most of those killed were militants, though stone-throwing youths and people uninvolved in fighting have also been killed.

Sinwar slammed Abbas, calling for an end to the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with Israel, which he said hurt mounting resistance to Israeli raids in the West Bank. The Israeli military maintains quiet coordination with Abbas' forces in a shared struggle against Islamic militants.

Hamas also displayed what it said was the assault rifle of Hadar Goldin, an Israeli soldier who along with Oron Shaul was killed in a 2014 war inside Gaza.

Sinwar said Israel has “a limited amount of time” to swap Palestinian prisoners it is holding for the remains of Goldin and Shaul “or we close this file for good.”

While Hamas leaders directed fiery rhetoric at Israel and Abbas, they overlooked the increasing suffering of the 2.3 million residents of Gaza under its rule.

While the blockade has stifled Gaza's economy, critics note that the groups has continuously upgraded its arsenal, including digging attack tunnels into Israel and improving rocket capabilities.

Critics say the group diverts money towards its administration and military wing, while the international community and the PA pay for most of health, education, social and other services for Gaza’ population.

Hamas’ heavy-handed rule allows no room for opposition, and the group has banned protests against it and jailed critics.

Many of the group's top leaders also have left Gaza for more comfortable locations in places like Turkey and Qatar.

A poll conducted this month by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a respected think tank based in the West Bank, found that Hamas remains more popular than Abbas' Fatah party in the Gaza Strip. It said 43% of respondents would vote for Hamas in a parliamentary election, compared to 34% for Fatah. Still, the poll found that just 6% of Gazans think the situation in the territory is positive, and 69% believe that Hamas-run institutions suffer from corruption.

The poll interviewed some 1,200 people and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The Qatar Corruption Scandal Is Rocking the European Parliament

Sanya Mansoor
Mon, December 12, 2022 

Eva Kaili
Former Vice-President of the European Parliament Eva Kaili speaks during a session at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium on December 07, 2022. Credit - European Parliament—Pool/Anadolu Agency/ Getty Images

A high-profile corruption case that alleges Qatar bribed European lawmakers to sway policy has rocked the European Parliament.

Belgian federal prosecutors arrested and charged four people as of Tuesday with corruption, money laundering, and participation in a criminal organization on behalf of a “Gulf State,” which Belgian media and some members of the European Assembly have identified as Qatar. European authorities have not named the country.

Among those charged is Greek MEP Eva Kaili, 44, who is one of 14 Vice Presidents of the E.U. body. The European Parliament on Tuesday voted 625 to 1 to strip Kaili of her role over the allegations. She has denied any involvement in the bribery scandal.

The federal prosecutor’s office said “it is suspected that third parties in political and/or strategic positions within the European Parliament were paid large sums of money or offered substantial gifts to influence Parliament’s decisions,” in a statement.

Between Friday and Monday, Belgian police raided at least 20 raids across homes and parliamentary offices, seizing €1.5 million ($1.6 million) in cash, as well as computers and phones.

Who are the key players involved?

Six people had been taken in for questioning by authorities so far, with two released, the New York Times reported. Others who were detained on Friday include Kaili’s husband Francesco Giorgi, who works as an aide to Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino, as well as her father, Alexandros Kailis. They also include Luca Visentini, chief of the International Trade Union Confederation and Pier Antonio Panzeri, a former member of the European parliament, per the Times. The identity of the sixth individual is not known.

The political groups that Kaili was a part of took swift action in response to the investigation; she was suspended by the Greek party Pasok-Movement for Change as well as the E.U.’s Socialists and Democrats group. Greece has also frozen the assets of Kaili’s family, POLITICO reported.

Giorgi—her husband—is an adviser focused on issues in the Middle East and North Africa in the European Parliament and founder of Fight Impunity, an NGO focused on human rights violations.

How has the E.U. responded?

The E.U.’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed “utmost concern” over the allegations on Monday. “This confidence and trust in our institutions need the highest standards of independence and integrity,” von der Leyen said at a news conference. She called for the creation of an independent ethics body moving forward.

“This will go down in history as one of the greatest and most shocking violations—maybe the largest scandal in European politics, which hopefully is going to trigger some reaction from political leaders…in pushing for reform,” says Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union Law at HEC Paris and founder of The Good Lobby, a non-profit committed to ensuring equal access to power in European policy-making.

The European Union has three major institutions that shape laws, including the Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission. “The weakest link in the European integrity system is the European Parliament; it has the least checks and controls compared to the other institutions,” Alemanno says. “Nobody… is sanctioned for not reporting a meeting, donation or gift… so this is a culture of impunity that permeates the European Parliament.”

What does the scandal mean for Qatar?

The investigation by Belgian officials comes as the Qatar World Cup enters its final week. The country has faced criticism over its labor practices and poor treatment of migrant workers.

“It undermines their credibility and makes it difficult to establish that they have done something that moves the needle forward on labor rights,” says Philip Nichols, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on corruption.

The corruption scandal comes as the E.U. was considering visa-free travel to the European Union’s Schengen Zone. “The visa-free travel to the Schengen Zone is about trust. What Qatar’s done has seriously undermined the effort to create visa-free travel.”

The European Parliament has suspended its work with Qatar. A vote on visa-free stays in the Schengen Zone for Qatar has been postponed.

Qatar denied accusations of misconduct in a tweet on Sunday from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Any association of the Qatari government with the reported claims is baseless and gravely misinformed,” they said.

Kaili had previously expressed support for Qatar ahead of the World Cup.

“Qatar is a front-runner in labor rights… and reducing minimum wage,” she said in a November speech before the European Parliament, while lawmakers were debating human rights in the context of the World Cup. “Still, some here are calling to discriminate them. They bully them and they accuse everyone that talks to them or engages of corruption.”

Alemanno says the scandal is a “wake up call” for the E.U., and trust has likely been eroded in the institution. “The E.U. can hardly afford to look so weak to corruption by countries that the E.U. is chastising on the public stage; there’s a clear double standard that has emerged.”

FRANCE 2 MOROCCO 0

Morocco World Cup wins stir mixed feelings in Western Sahara






A woman wearing a Sahrawis traditional outfit celebrates Morocco's World Cup victory against Portugal in the Morocco-administered Western Sahara city of Laayoune, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Noureddine Abakchou)


Wed, December 14, 2022 

LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara (AP) After the final whistle of every match Morocco won in its history-making World Cup run, crowds poured out of homes and cafes in the biggest city of Western Sahara, celebrating for hours.

The revelers included some Sahrawi people, members of an ethnic group that has sought independence for Western Sahara since Morocco annexed the disputed territory in 1975. Other Sahrawis rooted for Morocco's defeat on the soccer field or refused to take part in the celebrations.

They accuse Moroccan authorities of increasingly cracking down on independence activists, and of touting the World Cup team's success in Qatar to distract the population from economic challenges.

But the presence of some Sahrawi fans cheering for Morocco in the streets of Laayoune illustrates the unifying power of the first Arab or African team to advance so far in the world's biggest sporting event. Morocco's national team, known as the Atlas Lions, faces defending champion France in Wednesday's semifinal.

Al-Salik Al-Yazid, a young Sahrawi in Laayoune, said ''the historic success of the Moroccan national team'' has created a collective feeling of ''overwhelming joy that included all Arabs and Africans, despite the constant discontent with the Moroccan state.''

He called it a sign of gradually shifting mindsets among younger Sahrawis who grew up under Moroccan rule and under a 1991 cease-fire that ended a 16-year conflict between Moroccan forces and Algeria-backed Polisario Front independence fighters.

''With the growth of generations merging and coexisting in one common environment, it has become natural to find Sahrawi individuals celebrating the victory of the Moroccan national team,'' Al-Yazid said. ''Many Sahrawis have overcome the problem of identity caused by decades of political struggle.''

However, a long-promised referendum on the territory's future never took place. Low-intensity hostilities have reignited, leaving the truce at risk of unraveling in Morocco-controlled Western Sahara.

Sahrawi people make up a minority of the estimated population of 350,000 in the territory, a Colorado-sized region rich in phosphates and fishing grounds. The rest, following nearly a half-century of resettlement efforts are mainly Moroccans. Other Sahrawis live in the sliver of Western Sahara ruled by the Polisario, or in refugee camps in Algeria.

On World Cup game nights, the atmosphere is festive but complex.

In past tournaments, Sahrawis generally supported the Algerian team. Activists accused Moroccan police of violently suppressing celebrations of Algerian victories. Algeria didn't qualify for this year's World Cup.

When Morocco played Spain last week, some Sahrawis welcomed Morocco's win and others wore T-shirts supporting Spain, the Western Sahara's former colonial ruler. Some threw stones at people celebrating the Moroccan victory.

Mohamed El-Yousefi, a Moroccan resident of Laayoune, said he understands the resentment, calling it ''closely linked to the conflict in the desert.''

Some Sahrawi people, he said, rejoice in good faith, and others ''hate everything that comes from Morocco.''

''Happy Moroccans also sometimes fall into the trap of politics and chant phrases such as `We won out of spite against the enemy' in reference to Sahrawis who are dissatisfied with Morocco's victory,'' El-Yousefi said.

Sahrawi independence activists say it's not possible to separate the Moroccan team from the Kingdom of Morocco itself.

The team represents the Royal Football League and by extension the monarchy, ''which for us is the cause of the tragedy of our people through its forceful occupation of Western Sahara,'' said Mubarak Mamine, a Laayoune-based Polisario Front activist.

''Football is a tool used by the Moroccan regime to divert the attention of the Moroccan people from their basic issues, especially in light of the deteriorating economic and social conditions in the country,'' Marmine said.

Morocco denies there is an armed conflict in what it calls its ''southern provinces,'' and has grown increasingly assertive in defending its claim over the Western Sahara in recent years.

The kingdom received a major boost - and independence activists suffered a major blow - when the United States in 2020 recognized Morocco's sovereignty over the territory in exchange for Morocco normalizing ties with Israel.

Morocco's climb up the World Cup ladder has taken fans everywhere by surprise, including in Western Sahara.

Sports journalist Balfater Abdel-Wahhab said the celebrations he covered in Laayoune were unlike any the city had seen.

''All the masses in the city of Laayoune came out'' as Morocco beat rival after rival to make it to the semifinal. He called it a ''wonderful celebration of sportsmanship, decorated with national (Moroccan) flags and traditional (Sahrawi) desert costumes.''

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports

As MPs pass Liberal online news bill, Meta again threatens to pull content

OTTAWA — The House of Commons passed a Liberal bill on Wednesday designed to require web giants to compensate journalism outfits for reposting their content, and Meta is once again threatening to remove news content from Facebook in Canada.


As MPs pass Liberal online news bill, Meta again threatens to pull content© Provided by The Canadian Press

Federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has argued the bill will "enhance fairness" in the digital news marketplace by creating a framework and bargaining process for behemoths such as Google and Meta, which owns social media sites Facebook and Instagram, to pay media outlets.

"On the surface, the bill we are debating now is simply about ensuring fair compensation for Canadian media, but the issue is actually much bigger than that," he said during a final speech on Tuesday.

"It is about protecting the future of a free and independent press. It is about ensuring that Canadians have access to fact-based information. It is about protecting the strength of our democracy."

The bill would create a system overseen by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which would have the power to impose administrative monetary penalties on companies that are not compliant with its provisions.

Companies could be exempt from the negotiation process set out in the proposed legislation, known as Bill C-18, if they already have agreements with media outlets that fulfil certain criteria.

Last week, the heritage committee sent the bill back to the House with 18 amendments to add clarity on Indigenous news, eligibility requirements, clearer timelines for the negotiation process and transparency.

As NDP heritage critic Peter Julian pointed out during a speech on Tuesday, 16 of those amendments came from his party during a weeks-long clause-by-clause process.

"There was much that was missing in the bill regarding transparency, supporting local community press and journalism, supporting non-profit journalism, and allowing Indigenous news outlets to have a role. There was radio silence regarding Indigenous news outlets," he said.

Several of the amendments explicitly created protections for Indigenous-led news outlets into the bill, including one that requires tech companies to have agreements in place with "a significant portion of Indigenous news outlets."

The same section was changed to make sure that the companies have agreements with a "range of news outlets in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors," and that reflect "all markets and diverse populations, including local and regional markets in every province and territory, anglophone and francophone communities, including official language minority communities, and Black and other racialized communities."

And it was also updated to allow for public consultations on any such exemptions.

With Conservatives taking issue with the fact that CBC online content would fall under the bill's provisions, another amendment stipulated that the national broadcaster would be required to publicly report any agreements it has with the tech giants.

Google and Meta have roundly criticized the bill.

Related video: Trudeau defends financial assistance programs after calls from Conservatives to reel-in spending (Global News)

Trudeau defends financial assistance programs after calls from Conservatives to reel-in spending

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Meta once again threatened to "consider removing news from Facebook in Canada rather than being compelled to submit to government-mandated negotiations that do not properly account for the value we provide publishers."

Google had previously warned that a provision requiring it to show no "undue" preference to certain outlets could lead to poorer-quality information being presented in search results. It also raised the prospect of misinformation becoming more visible for the same reason.

A Bloc Québécois amendment raised during the committee process sought to assuage concerns that outlets that are not committed to journalistic principles could still benefit from the bill.

It included to the bill's definition of "eligible news business" a requirement for the outlet to be a member of a recognized journalism association and to follow its code of ethics or have its own code that requires "adherence to the recognized processes and principles of the journalism profession, including fairness, independence and rigour in reporting news and handling sources."

Such a code would need to include measures to make sure that news content produced by the outlet does not promote "hatred or misinformation against any identifiable group" and that any errors of fact are promptly and transparently corrected.

Another amendment ensured that any companies that are headquartered outside of Canada would not be captured under the bill.

And the legislation was also updated to broaden the definition of eligible businesses so that owner-operators could be included as one of the two journalists the business employs.

It did not, however, remove a requirement for the two journalists to be employed, despite concerns that would exclude many small businesses. Rodriguez said that the government has other measures for supporting the news business. "As I have said many times, this bill is not a panacea."

Conservatives have argued that the bill would give regulators too much leeway to make decisions about what is and isn't real journalism.

"We want to keep the internet free and we do not want the government choosing what needs to be done there," Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu said on Tuesday.

"To do that, the best thing to do is get rid of Bill C-18 and allow the tech giants to fund something that small media outlets could themselves divide."

The Liberals and NDP have argued that such suggestions make the Tories seem like they are speaking for companies such as Meta.

Another Conservative MP, Brad Redekopp, had given a speech praising Elon Musk's recent purchase of Twitter as having breathed "fresh air" into the tech industry.

Redekopp also said that the people who work at Google are those who care about freedom of speech on the internet: "They may run worldwide organizations, but the Silicon Valley boys are still hackers at heart, living out of their mothers' basements playing Halo, sharing on Twitch and posting on Reddit."

In response, Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux emphasized that such companies bring in billions of dollars of revenue every year while media companies have struggled to keep up.

"The creators and news agencies are reporting on the news and their content is being utilized by these giants, which are not paying anything for it."

The vote ultimately passed 213 votes to 114 on Wednesday, with Conservatives the only ones to vote against it. It goes to the Senate for consideration next.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 14, 2022.

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Meta funds a fellowship that supports journalism positions at The Canadian Press.

Marie-Danielle Smith, The Canadian Press

AUSTERITY BUDGET; TAX INCREASES & JOB CUTS

$60M cut in Edmonton operating budget could mean city job losses

Story by Natasha Riebe •CBC

The City of Edmonton is looking to cut $60 million over four years in services and programs which could mean eliminating redundant staff and middle and upper management positions.


Administration will look at streamlining management, finding redundant positions and analyzing fees paid to consultants to reduce spending $15 million each year.© Natasha Riebe/CBC

The decrease is part of a multi-pronged amendment of 12 decreases and 24 increases to the 2023-26 operating budget that council approved Tuesday night.

All amendments to the city's proposed $7.75-billion capital budget and the four-year operating budget need final approval from council, which is expected on Friday. The operating budget for services and programs in 2023 is $3.2 billion.

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who proposed the omnibus amendment, said the $60 million involves a comprehensive review of all programs and services, city-wide.

"We're not talking about eliminating front-line services," Sohi told news media.

The amendment requires administration to reduce spending each year by a minimum of $15 million by "exercising hiring restraints into non-frontline vacant positions," the amendment reads.

Sohi said administration will determine the scope of the review early next year and report to council on a regular basis on proposed areas to cut.

"It will look at streamlining the management, it will look at layers of accountability within the organization," Sohi said. "It will look at redundant positions that exist within the organization that may be no longer be needed."

The review will analyze consultant fees and the city's use of consultants, he added

The Civic Service Union 52 (CSU 52), which represents about 6,800 workers in technical, professional, administrative, and clerical jobs, welcomed the move.

In a press release Wednesday, president of CSU 52 Lanny Chudyk, said he's pleased the city will evaluate the management structure.

"The City of Edmonton has far too many levels of management in too many departments," Chudyk said in the release.

"This comes at a cost to front-line staff who are overworked and understaffed, which impedes on their ability to serve Edmontonians efficiently and effectively."

Others see the $60 million review as cutting jobs.

As councillors continued to debate more proposed amendments Wednesday morning, Coun. Aaron Paquette said he wouldn't support more decreases in staffing.

"We just passed a massive cut to our workforce which I am personally not convinced it's not going to be without repercussions," Paquette said to council.

"I will absolutely not support any more cuts to the people that we're asking to do more and more and more with less and less and less."

Tax levy goes up

Coun. Erin Rutherford had proposed reducing the budget of the Expanding Diversity and Inclusion program by $253,000 in 2025 and coming years, which was defeated 6-7.

Rutherford said most of the amendments councillors have put forward have added money to the operating and capital budgets, instead of decreasing the budgets.

With amendments passed so far in capital and operating budgets, the property tax increase would rise to 5.1 per cent in 2023, up from the 3.9 per cent administration recommended.

Jodi Graham, director of budget planning and development in financial corporate services, calculated the tax levy would increase 5.5 per cent in 2024, 4.29 per cent in 2025 and 4.47 per cent in 2026.

Other omnibus amendments include $11 million for enhanced snow and ice removal, $11.9 million in permanent funding for on-demand transit service, $3.9 million for 24/7 Crisis Diversion, and expanding the base budget for Explore Edmonton by $5 million.

CSX revamps attendance policy as railroad unions push back on sick time


 A CSX freight train blasts through high snow at a crossing in Silver Spring


Tue, December 13, 2022 
By Lisa Baertlein and Rod Nickel

(Reuters) -Rail operator CSX Corp is changing its workforce attendance policy for unexpected, short-term medical absences next year after U.S. railroads' sick-time policies became a flashpoint in national labor talks.

CSX is among the railroads that used so-called points-based attendance policies to reduce unplanned absences. Under the long-established policies, workers are penalized with points for unscheduled absences, and risk being suspended or fired.

The scheme came under fire during the pandemic, when industry-wide job cuts meant to bolster profits left fewer workers to manage the COVID-related cargo surge.

Rail unions are protesting the lack of federal intervention on sick-time policies outside the U.S. Capitol and in cities around the country on Tuesday.

On Dec. 2, U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation that broke the impasse that could have halted shipments of food, fuel and medicine, stranded commuters and harmed the U.S. economy without making any changes to sick-time agreements.

When the pandemic struck and freight volumes surged, affected rail workers said those policies discouraged them from seeking medical care or taking time off to recover from illness.

Under the new policy effective Jan. 1, CSX said on Tuesday it will no longer assess points when an employee calls in sick shortly before a scheduled workday with an illness for which they saw a doctor.

CSX's new attendance rules will be "non-disciplinary and non-punitive," the company said in an email to Reuters.

Four of 12 unions involved in the latest railroad contract talks rejected a recently negotiated deal because it did not include any paid short-term sick days and failed to address the attendance points system used by CSX and the two largest U.S. railroads: Union Pacific and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF.

Under the new CSX policy, accrued points will expire on a rolling 12-month cycle rather than accumulate indefinitely, and employees will receive credit for working without an absence and can use those to expunge points. CSX said it does not apply points when employees miss work due to hospitalization or emergency treatment.

Clark Ballew, a former CSX track worker and communications director for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED) rail union, said the changes are a step in the right direction, but fall short of repairing damage from industry cost-cutting.

Union Pacific told Reuters it expects to start working with unions on quality of life issues in the coming weeks. BNSF did not immediately respond to questions regarding its policy on health-related absences.

On Friday, more than 70 lawmakers urged Biden to take executive action to guarantee rail workers paid sick days.

Meanwhile, Canada on Dec. 1 granted workers at railroads and other regulated workplaces at least 10 days of paid sick leave annually. Canada's two biggest freight railways, Canadian National Railway Co and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd, have about 10,000 employees in the United States. Collective bargaining with U.S. workers will determine sick-day requirements, the railways said.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg;

Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Matthew Lewis and Kim Coghill)

Researching aged metals harvested from decommissioned nuclear power plants

Published date: 14 December 2022

Decommissioning International co-operation News brief …



Research in the field of aged materials harvested from decommissioned nuclear power plants can provide nuclear industry plant operators and national nuclear safety regulators with an improved understanding of the ageing mechanisms of these materials. This understanding can then support the management of plant ageing, the implementation of life extension programmes and serve as an input to operating licence renewals.

In this context, the Second Workshop on International Harvesting Co-operation was an occasion to review the status of aged metals harvesting and to discuss priorities and opportunities for international collaborative research in this field. During the workshop, held on 17 November 2022 in Stockholm, Sweden, participating experts noted that current decommissioning of nuclear power plants in a number of countries presents new opportunities for harvesting aged metals. Participants noted that recently shut down plants offer rich possibilities for the harvesting of ‘real’ aged material and the key role of utility companies in such harvesting activities.

Collaborative research on these materials, as more investment is directed towards the development of research techniques in the field and dedicated facilities for harvested aged materials are set up, is also becoming possible. The NEA Studsvik Material Integrity Life Extension (SMILE) joint project conducted by Studsvik Nuclear AB, with the support of Swedish utilities companies, was cited as one such successful collaborative venture in the field.

The workshop, which gathered 40 experts from 26 organisations in 15 countries, was co-organised by the NEA and the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC).

SOMEBODY HAD TO SAY IT
Colby Cosh: Despite U.S. 'breakthrough,' fusion power is still a pipe dream

Opinion by Colby Cosh • Yesterday 

Maybe you’re like me, you grew up on a steady diet of science fiction paperbacks and Omni magazine, and you would be absolutely thrilled to bits if it turned out that artificial thermonuclear fusion could be made a practical source of usable earthbound energy.


Technicians use a service system lift that allows them to access the target chamber interior for inspection and maintenance at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., in 2008.© Provided by National Post

I use the word “artificial,” of course, to distinguish sophisticated experimental fusion projects from the solar panels on your nerd neighbour’s roof, which are, strictly speaking, capturing energy from a big yellow fusion reactor in the sky. Harnessing the power of an artificial sun has been a vision of engineers for more than 60 years; to some, it seems to offer the promise of limitless nuclear power without the problems of waste-producing fission reactors.

On Sunday, Tom Wilson the Financial Times got what is likely to be the biggest news scoop in the plodding, hype-fraught history of fusion experiments. According to Wilson, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has achieved the first energy-positive “shot” in the history of artificial fusion.

Researchers fired the world’s largest laser at a small deuterium-tritium target about the size of a BB round, persuaded the hydrogen in the pellet to fuse for a few billionths of a second and got more energy out of the resulting reaction than they put in via the laser beam. This “target gain,” if the NIF pulled it off, would be the proof-of-concept that fusion researchers have been chasing for decades, having found over time that confining even a very small sun was a lot harder than they originally thought.

If you believe that the future of humanity involves ubiquitous nuclear-fusion power plants producing energy too cheap to meter, then today’s expected announcement will be a great moment — the equivalent, arguably, of the first artificial fission reaction, which was completed under a football stadium at the University of Chicago 80 years ago this month.

But reading Tom Wilson’s scoop actually made me sadder than I would have expected from the vantage point of that young man consuming 1980s hype about tokamaks and hohlraums. The Bloomberg energy reporter Javier Blas published a Twitter thread that explains why very well.

The breakthrough of deriving “net power” from a fusion shot is mostly a matter of accounting fictions: the real question, as any bean counter would know in his heart, is “net of what?” The NIF may be the first fusion plant to generate power net of the energy fired into the chamber by an enormous, elaborately tuned laser. But this doesn’t even count the power lost in the charging of the capacitors that fire the big laser.

To be useful for commercial power production, those lasers would have to be capable of firing repeatedly without destroying the equipment used to measure the reaction — as the NIF shot is reported by Wilson to have done. The output of the plant would, over the long run, have to cover implicit energy inputs involved in doing things like creating tritium (a form of “heavy water” not existing in nature), cooling the target pellet to near-absolute zero before firing and, well, building the plant itself, every part of which seems to require micrometric engineering tolerances, exotic materials and mind-blowing temperature ranges.

It is hard to imagine anyone building a second NIF; the one that exists was really built to study nuclear explosions for military purposes, still the chief raison d’être of the Livermore lab. It has gone to a lot of trouble, one has to say, to “prove” that nuclear fusion is possible and produces net energy; both the sun and the original American fusion weapons can be used to demonstrate that much.

The question facing policymakers in 2022 is whether the problems of fission are really so great compared to the engineering challenges of trying to control fusion.

The basic question raised by conventional fission reactors is, “If we dig a really, really deep hole someplace geologically stable in order to store nuclear waste, is there a chance that an unknown species of molemen might get cancer?” Fusion asks, “Can you ignite a star and harness its output, preferably downtown?” I will grant that you have to be impressed that the human species’ answer to this question may now be: “Yes, you can, very, very briefly.”

National Post
Twitter.com/colbycosh