eFootball fiasco symptom of growing rush to bring out games

Issued on: 05/10/2021

Konami's eFootball 2022 has received scathing reviews from gamers

 CHARLY TRIBALLEAU AFP

Tokyo (AFP)

The scathing reviews of the "grotesque" eFootball 2022 and its "horrible" graphics are a potent illustration of the risks posed by increasing pressure to rush video games to market, experts say.

The latest edition of the game previously known as Pro Evolution Soccer was meant to offer something to compete with undisputed football game champion FIFA, with maker Konami opting for a free-to-play model to attract fans.

But the release was almost universally panned, with just a 10 percent positive rating on game platform Steam days after its release.

With players crying foul, Japanese gaming giant Konami last week apologised and promised to take the criticism into account as it updated eFootball.

It was all too reminiscent of the outcry that followed the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, which was riddled with bugs and was withdrawn from Sony's PlayStation store just a week after its release.

"This kind of thing is becoming more prevalent, sadly," said Mia Consalvo, Canada research chair in games studies at Concordia University.

Part of the issue is simply the increasing sophistication of video games, "leading to many more chances for bugs to emerge", she told AFP.

"Some can be really difficult to fix, while others may not appear unless certain conditions are met and possibly were missed in official game testing."

Developers and publishers face increasing financial pressure to get games out "so they can start generating revenue, particularly if they have already been in development for several years", Consalvo said.

That pressure may have been especially acute for a free title such as eFootball, which relies on in-game purchases including upgraded strips for revenue.

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto is said to have declared that "a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad", but experts say that maxim may no longer hold.

"Since the appearance of hard drives on consoles, it's become possible to 'repair a game'. You can do patches, you can make important changes," said Daniel Andreyev, an author and journalist specialising in video games.

- 'You can only launch once' -

That has created an environment where developers and publishers know they can go back in and fix problems after release -- a risky gamble.

"Sometimes, they cut corners to finish on time and hope nobody will notice the flaws, but occasionally, they miss badly," said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush.

"It's likely that all games are rushed out, but only a handful are flawed enough to trigger controversy."

That's what has happened with eFootball and Cyberpunk 2077, said Serkan Toto, an analyst at Kantan Games in Tokyo.

"These games were brought to market broken beyond repair, with management totally ignoring the production side, which of course always knows if their titles are not ready for release yet," he told AFP.

Putting out a buggy game is a risky move, particularly at a time when fans have more avenues than ever to vent their discontent.

"You can only launch every game once, and you need to nail that," added Toto.

"If not, everything after that is pure damage control, which costs nerves, money and resources."

And while pre-orders aren't affected by post-release griping, there can be a reputational effect that impacts future business, Consalvo said.

That's what happened with WWE 2K20, which was released in 2019 and is among the 100 worst-rated games on Steam, with eFootball currently at the bottom.

The reception was so bad that the game's publisher decided not to bring out another version the following year.

But a buggy launch is not always a death knell for a game.

Cyberpunk 2077 returned to the PlayStation store six months after its debut and now has mostly positive reviews on Steam.

And survival and space exploration game No Man's Sky, which was missing promised features such as multi-player mode at its launch, has gone on to surpass initial expectations with a significant community of players and mostly positive reviews.

burs-mac/sah/axn/qan

© 2021 AFP

Canada court to weigh extraditing fashion exec accused in US of sex crimes

Issued on: 01/10/2021

Peter Nygard, seen here in September 2005, is to appear in a Canadian court for an extradition hearing Friday -- he is wanted in the United States for alleged sex crimes

 Darryl James Getty Images North America/Getty Images/AFP/File

Montreal (AFP)

Fashion executive Peter Nygard, wanted in the United States for alleged sex crimes, is to appear in a Canadian court Friday for an extradition hearing.

Held in prison since his arrest in Winnipeg, Manitoba last December, the 80-year-old Finnish-Canadian millionaire faces nine charges in the United States, including racketeering and sex trafficking.

These involve dozens of victims in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada, and include minors, according to the New York federal attorney overseeing the case.

His extradition trial had been scheduled for five days in November but was unexpectedly pushed up to this week and is only expected to last one hour.

Earlier this year Nygard was denied bail on grounds he might tamper with witnesses or his accusers. The judge noted he had breached court orders on at least five past occasions and that the accusations against him were "disturbing."

His alleged crimes, US prosecutors said, took place between 1990 and 2020. Nygard and his alleged accomplices, including employees of his group, "used force, fraud, and coercion to cause women and minors to have sex" with them, according to the indictment.

He targeted women and girls from disadvantaged economic backgrounds or who had histories of abuse, using "the ruse of modelling and other fashion industry jobs" to lure them, it said.

His company's funds were said to have then been used to host dinner parties, poker games and so-called "pamper parties" where minor girls were drugged and women assaulted if they did not comply with his sexual demands.

Corporate accounts were also tapped to pay for victims' travel, living expenses, plastic surgery, abortions and child support, said prosecutors.

According to court documents, partygoers were often photographed and their personal information including weight and physical measurements kept in a registry.

The perma-tanned Nygard, known for his long, flowing gray hair and flamboyant dress sense, and who claimed stem cell injections kept him young, has denied the allegations.

- 'Worse than Epstein' -

His case has drawn parallels with that of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges when he killed himself in a New York jail in 2019.

"Nygard is worse than Epstein," Lisa Haba, a lawyer representing women suing Nygard in a class action, told AFP, saying the victims suffered "lifelong and all-consuming" pain.

"We believe he had more victims," she said. "And he was more violent in the crimes he committed," including "incredibly violent rapes (and) forcing victims to defecate on him."

Several women have joined the class action launched in February 2020, accusing him of having assaulted, raped and sodomized them after luring them to his seaside mansion on New Providence island, some of them when they were young teens.

Nygard, the founder of women's clothing company Nygard International, was reported to be worth over $850 million (US$ 670 million) in 2015, according to Canadian Business magazine.

He has long boasted about his rise from humble beginnings, as a young immigrant who built a fashion empire with nearly 170 stores at its peak.

His company, however, filed for bankruptcy shortly after the FBI and police raided Nygard's Manhattan corporate headquarters last year.

© 2021 AFP

FORUM ON AUTHORITARIAN POPULISM AND THE RURAL WORLD
Agrarian anarchism and authoritarian populism: towards a more (state-)critical agrarian studies

Antonio Roman-Alcalá
International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands

ABSTRACT
This paper applies an anarchist lens to agrarian politics, seeking to expand and enhance inquiry in critical agrarian studies. Anarchism’s relevance to agrarian processes is found in three general areas: (1) explicitly anarchist movements, both historical and contemporary; (2) theories that emerge from and shape these movements; and (3) implicit anarchism found in values, ethics, everyday practices, and in forms of social organization or ‘anarchistic’ elements of human social life. Insights from anarchism are then applied to the problematique of the contemporary rise of‘ authoritarian populism’ and its relation to rural people and agrarian processes, focusing on the United States. Looking via an anarchist lens at this case foregrounds the state powers and logics that underpin authoritarian populist political projects but are created and reproduced by varying political actors; emphasizes the complex political identities of non-elite people, and the ways these can be directed towards either emancipatory or authoritarian directions based on resentments towards state power and identifications with grassroots, lived moral economies; and indicates the strategic need to prioritize ideological development among diverse peoples, in ways that provide for material needs and bolster lived moral economies. The paper concludes with implications for the theory and practice of emancipatory politics.

https://www.academia.edu/keypass/SngyZjRTYWVFSGVGMktkdkdNNHVFUjJUaGErUTdpaEs3SU9sbGlPOERQbz0tLXFzZXRrN1gwVmZySmU1YURCNHJEcGc9PQ==--c3f56571d3636266142769df254653c36bac1177/t/NmE1-PTTRg8b-nkJY0/resource/work/43205475/Agrarian_anarchism_and_authoritarian_populism_towards_a_more_state_critical_critical_agrarian_studies?email_work_card=title

J.A. Gutierrez Danton and F. Ferretti, 2019,

 “The nation against the State: the Irish

 question and Britain-based anarchists in

 the Age of Empire”, Nations and

 Nationalism,

 early view: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nana.12584

Federico Ferretti

176 Views43 Pages

1 File ▾

Irish Studies,

Political Philosophy,

Political Theory,

Transnationalism,

Republicanism

 ...more ▾

This paper discusses the relation between early anarchism and republican/nationalist ideas. We will focus on the case of British-based activists grouped around the journal Freedom and their engagement with Irish nationalism during the Age of the Empire. Freedom, founded in 1886, was the most important anarchist journal of the English-speaking anarchist-communist networks at the time, and was the main editorial reference for the worldwide community of anarchist activists, mostly exiled, who resided in London at that time. Extending current interdisciplinary literature on transnational anarchism, we argue that anarchist views of nations, while rejecting the novel notion of the nation-State, were associated with anti-colonial struggles and with republican anti-monarchical and egalitarian notions. Based on primary sources, we discuss the intersections between these Britain-based anarchists and anti-colonial Irish radicals, by engaging both with their writings and their international networks of solidarity, thus exploring the complex intermingling of anarchism, anti-colonialism and republicanism.

https://www.academia.edu/40796313/J_A_Gutierrez_Danton_and_F_Ferretti_2019_The_nation_against_the_State_the_Irish_question_and_Britain_based_anarchists_in_the_Age_of_Empire_Nations_and_Nationalism_early_view_https_onlinelibrary_wiley_com_doi_abs_10_1111_nana_12584?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper

Raven Attacks Coffee Delivery Drone, Epic Struggle Ensues


Matthew Hart
Mon, October 4, 2021

Alfred Hitchcock tried to warn us, people. Birds: they are not to be clucked with. Drone pilots are now figuring out this law of the skies firsthand as brawler birds tussle—and often destroy—their hovering crafts. The latest instance of bird-on-drone violence comes out of Australia, where a raven attacked a drone trying to deliver some coffee. And, quite frankly, it’s hard to know who to root for.

PetaPixel picked up on the new aerial battle, which went down in Australia’s capital, Canberra. California-based tech company Wing was using one of its drones in the area to deliver coffee to local man, Ben Rogers. Wing—a subsidiary of Alphabet, which owns Google—has been operating its drones in the area on auto-pilot with the delivery craft out of sight of their operators.

Rogers told The Canberra Times that he’s been using Wing for coffee delivery to his home since the city’s lockdown began. As of yet, Harrison says that the drones have been able to ward off attacks. Although as the video of the raven squabble above shows, the attacks have not been gentle.

A raven attacking a flying drone trying to deliver a box of coffee.

Ben Rogers via ABC News

In Rogers’ video above, which ABC News posted to YouTube, we watch as an Australian raven attacks the Wing drone carrying a delivery container with Rogers’ coffee. The raven swoops in from behind, subsequently attacking the drone’s rear-left side. The drone shrugs off the attack after some wobbling, then proceeds to lower the precious caffeinated cargo. (For clarity, it seems ABC has looped the video twice.)

Although local birds haven’t been able to thwart any deliveries yet, Wing reports it has suspended operations in the area. Which is probably wise as it’s nesting season in the location and nesting birds like this one are vigilant about protecting their offspring. A fact that obviously means we’d like to see birds win out in battle every time. That is unless we really need our coffee. Then it’s a 30-foot-high toss-up in the air.

The post Raven Attacks Coffee Delivery Drone, Epic Struggle Ensues appeared first on Nerdist.

Exclusive: Eli Lilly’s recalled emergency diabetes drug came from plant cited by FDA


Dan Levine and Marisa Taylor
Mon, October 4, 2021

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Lilly is seen on a wall of the Lilly France company unit, part of the Eli Lilly and Co drugmaker group, in Fegersheim near Strasbourg

(Reuters) - A recently recalled batch of Glucagon Emergency Kits, Eli Lilly and Co’s therapy for diabetic patients in crisis, was manufactured at an Indiana factory cited by U.S. health regulators this year for quality-control violations, including several involving that product, according to the company and a Reuters review of federal inspection records.

The Indianapolis-based company on Sept. 24 issued a voluntary U.S. recall of one lot of the kits whose key ingredient is Glucagon, a drug used to treat dangerously low blood sugar in diabetes patients. The company issued a voluntary recall in Canada the following day.

Lilly’s recall notices said that the company had received a report of a patient who experienced seizures even after being injected with the drug, a sign that the treatment was not potent enough to work. The company said the product failure might be related to its manufacturing process, without elaborating.

In response to Reuters’ inquiries, Lilly told the news organization that the affected kits were produced at a company facility in Indianapolis, and that the kit that prompted the recall had been distributed in Canada. As Reuters reported in May, the Indianapolis plant had been cited by U.S. health regulators for substandard sanitation and quality control procedures.

Separately, Lilly is facing a federal criminal investigation into alleged manufacturing irregularities involving another of its U.S. factories in New Jersey, details of which were first reported by Reuters earlier this year. The recall of Glucagon kits made in Indianapolis is the first indication of potential patient harm due to recent manufacturing issues at the company’s plants.

“Lilly is deeply committed to manufacturing high-quality medicines for patients who need them—nothing is more important to us,” the company said in a statement. “We take our obligations seriously and have rigorous quality systems in place to ensure compliance with stringent regulatory requirements.”

In all, roughly 66,000 Glucagon Emergency Kits were affected by the recalls, Lilly spokeswoman Kathryn Beiser told Reuters. She said about 19,000 of those were distributed to U.S. customers and nearly all the rest in Canada. She said the kits were produced at the Indianapolis plant around May 2020. Beiser declined to say whether Lilly has received other reports of adverse events related to the Glucagon kits.

EMERGENCY KITS

The recalled Glucagon Emergency Kit was designed for diabetes patients whose blood sugar is plummeting, and who need to raise it quickly to avoid complications that can include seizures or death. The kit consists of a vial, which is supposed to contain freeze-dried Glucagon powder, and a separate syringe filled with liquid.

Normally, a caregiver inserts the liquid-filled syringe needle into the Glucagon vial in order to dilute the powder before administering it. Lilly's recall announcement said the vial used by the stricken patient contained liquid, instead of powder.

The company’s Indianapolis plant performs what is known in the industry as “fill and finish” - receiving raw drugs made at other facilities, putting them into vials and syringes, and shipping them to customers.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspection records from March 2021 viewed by Reuters cited numerous quality-control violations at that plant, such as staff failing to properly monitor environmental conditions where the finished drugs are made and failing to establish appropriate procedures to prevent contamination.

The FDA inspectors said they observed lapses in the manufacturing of the Glucagon kits as well as in Lilly’s COVID-19 antibody therapy bamlanivimab and several other drugs, according to the inspection records, dated March 16. They concluded that Lilly must take steps to remedy the lapses but did not recommend regulatory action on the part of the FDA.

Lilly spokeswoman Beiser said U.S. distribution of Glucagon Emergency Kits from the lot that was later recalled had ceased by March 25, a little more than a week after the FDA inspection report. Beiser said the distribution of the lot followed its regular process via wholesaler channels and was not related to the FDA report, adding that “any suggestion" it ended for other reasons is false.

Meanwhile, emergency kits from that same batch continued to be distributed in Canada, Beiser said. Distribution of 44,000 kits in Canada began in February 2021 and continued through the middle of September, she said. The patient complaint that triggered the late September recall involved a kit that had been shipped to Canada, Beiser told Reuters.

Beiser declined to comment specifically on why distribution of Glucagon Emergency Kits from the batch continued for another six months in Canada after distribution had ceased in the United States. She did not answer questions about whether the affected patient recovered.

Health Canada, a regulatory agency similar to the U.S. FDA, declined to comment about Lilly’s voluntary recall of the Glucagon Emergency Kits, or why kits from the batch continued to be distributed in Canada for months after they had ceased to be distributed in the United States.

The FDA declined to comment on distribution of the kits, whether it had received other reports of adverse events, had re-inspected Lilly's Indianapolis facility or if it planned additional actions related to the recall.

“It is important to note that this recall was a voluntary action taken by the company,” FDA spokesman Jeremy Kahn said, without elaborating. “We have been closely evaluating this event and will continue to monitor the marketplace and manufacturing efforts to help ensure the availability of safe products for U.S. consumers.”

FEDERAL PROBE

The recall comes as Lilly faces a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into alleged manufacturing irregularities and records-tampering at a separate factory in Branchburg, New Jersey, that produces bamlanivimab and other drugs.

The Justice Department has not accused Lilly of any wrongdoing, and the company said earlier this year that it is cooperating in the probe. Lilly did not respond to a question from Reuters about the status of that investigation. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Bamlanivimab, the COVID-19 antibody, manufactured at the Branchburg facility has been sent to the Indianapolis fill-and-finish plant to be put into vials and shipped.

A group of FDA inspectors arrived at the Indianapolis plant in mid-February and stayed for more than two weeks, according to a redacted version of their report, which Reuters obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

In their report, the inspectors listed Glucagon as among the drugs where Lilly “failed to establish an adequate system for monitoring environmental conditions,” and noted that Lilly failed to establish and follow appropriate written procedures “to prevent microbiological contamination of drug products purporting to be sterile.”

In addition, the inspectors said Lilly did not properly conduct quality-control sampling of glass components like vials and pharmaceutical ingredients for drugs including Glucagon, bamlanivimab and the cancer drug Cyramza.

In Lilly’s April 6 response to the FDA obtained by Reuters through an open records request, the company said it takes the inspectors’ findings “very seriously” and is implementing actions to resolve concerns “on aggressive timelines.”

Lilly said it has established a comprehensive environmental monitoring program designed to assess microbiological control of manufacturing spaces, the redacted response said. The company did not respond to questions about the status of its efforts to rectify violations noted by the FDA at the Indianapolis plant.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Marisa Taylor in Washington, DC; Additional reporting by Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Marla Dickerson)

Canada Pension Plan (CPP) vs. U.S. Social Security
Both offer benefits, but what you pay in—and get out—differs

By THE INVESTOPEDIA TEAM
Updated October 04, 2021
Reviewed by
MARGUERITA CHENG
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What Is the Canada Pension Plan?
Canada Pension Plan Benefits
What Is Social Security?
Social Security Benefits
How Long Social Security Lasts

The Canada Pension Plan and the U.S. Social Security system are publicly provided, mandatory old-age pension systems. They both provide retirement, disability, and survivor benefits. But the amount you pay in and the benefits you receive differ between the two.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Both the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP), and Social Security in the U.S., are government-sponsored retirement income programs.

CPP tax rates and income thresholds are generally lower than those of Social Security. Benefits also tend to be lower.

Taxed Canadian wages go into a trust fund managed by the CPP Investment Board, which invests the funds in stocks, bonds, and other assets.

Taxed U.S. Social Security wages go into the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance Trust Fund. The funds are invested entirely in U.S. Treasury securities.

Social Security faces the risk of its reserve funds being depleted by 2033, which would make it unable to pay full benefits to retirees. The CPP doesn't have this problem.

What Is the Canada Pension Plan?

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is one of three levels of the Canadian retirement income system.1 It was established in 1966 to provide retirement, survivor, and disability benefits.2 Almost everyone who works in Canada, outside of Quebec, contributes to the CPP. A separate Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) provides similar benefits to its residents.3

In general, you must contribute to the CPP (or the QPP if you work in Quebec) if:

You're over age 18
As of 2021, you must earn more than 3,500 Canadian dollars a year

If you have an employer, you pay half of the required contribution, and your employer pays the rest. If you're self-employed, you pay the whole contribution. You make contributions based on your earnings.45 For 2021, the contribution rate is 10.9% (up from 10.5% in 2020) of the amount you earn between CA$3,500 and CA$61,600 (the maximum for 2020 was CA$58,700).

With this cap in place, the 2021 maximum contribution for employers and employees is CA$3,166.45. If you're self-employed, it's CA$6,332.90.6

The contributions go into a fund managed by the CPP Investment Board, which invests the assets "to maximize returns without undue risk of loss."7

Canada Pension Plan Benefits

Similar to the U.S. Social Security system, the Canada Pension Plan provides several types of benefits:

Retirement pension. You can start full CPP retirement benefits at age 65. You can get a permanently reduced amount as early as age 60, or as late as age 70 with a permanent increase.8

Post-retirement benefit. If you're under age 70 and you keep working while you receive your CPP retirement pension, you can continue to contribute to the CPP. These contributions go toward post-retirement benefits that increase your retirement income.9

Disability benefits. You can get disability benefits if you're under age 65 and can't work due to a disability.10

Survivor's pension. Your surviving spouse or common-law partner can collect benefits based on your record.11

Children's benefits. If you die or become severely disabled, your dependent children can receive benefits.12

Your CPP benefits are based on how much you've contributed and how long you've been making contributions when you become eligible to collect benefits. For 2021, the maximum monthly retirement benefit is CA$1,203.75. The average amount for new beneficiaries as of June 2021 was CA$619.68.13

What Is Social Security?

Social Security is a federal benefits program in the U.S. that was founded in 1935.14 In 2021, employees and employers each pay 6.2% in taxes on the first $142,800 of income (up from $137,700 in 2020). If you're self-employed, you pay the full 12.4%. For 2020, the maximum contribution for employers and employees each is $8,853.60. If you're self-employed, it's $17,707.20 (12.4% of $142,800).15


Most people must pay into Social Security, regardless of age. However, exemptions may be available to certain groups of taxpayers, including:

Qualifying religious groups16
Nonresident aliens17
Students who work for the same school they attend18
Foreign government employees19


Social Security taxes go into the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund. Although legally distinct, they're collectively known as "the Social Security Trust Funds"—or plain-old "Social Security" in common parlance.


All Social Security payroll taxes are put into the trust funds, and all of Social Security's benefits and administrative costs are paid out of them. The trust funds are invested entirely in U.S. Treasury securities.20

Social Security Benefits

Like the CPP, the Social Security system provides several types of benefits:

Retirement benefits. Full Social Security retirement benefits start between age 65 and 67, depending on when you were born. You can get a permanently reduced amount as early as age 62, or an increased amount if you wait until age 70 to collect.21
Disability benefits. You can get disability benefits if you can't work due to a disability. Your family members may also be eligible for benefits.22
Survivor benefits. Your surviving spouse and minor children may be eligible to collect benefits based on your record.23


To qualify for Social Security benefits, you must have 40 "work credits," which comes out to about 10 years of work.24 Your benefits are based on your highest-earning 35 years of work.25 For 2021, the maximum monthly retirement benefit is:

$3,895 if you wait until age 70 to file
$3,113 if you file at full retirement age
$2,324 if you file at age 6226

How Long Will Social Security Last?

Budget shortfalls have often threatened the solvency of Social Security. According to the 2021 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, "The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which pays retirement and survivors benefits, will be able to pay scheduled benefits on a timely basis until 2033…. At that time, the fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 76% of scheduled benefits."

"The Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund, which pays disability benefits, will be able to pay scheduled benefits until 2057…. At that time, the fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 91% of scheduled benefits," the trustees' report to Congress further noted.27

As of 2021, Social Security's total annual cost exceeds its total income. But the trust funds' reserves will supplement the program's income so that Social Security can keep paying full benefits until 2033 (to retirees) and 2057 (to the disabled).28 In theory, this gives policymakers time to develop a financing plan for shoring up Social Security.


The Canada Pension Plan does not currently face a similar issue.29

Taiwan Says Peace Crucial to Chip Supply as China Pressure Grows

Debby Wu and Argin Chang
Sun, October 3, 2021,



(Bloomberg) -- Peace in the Taiwan Strait is key to the island’s ability to ensure continuous supply of the chips needed to power a wide range of products from cars to smartphones, a senior Taiwanese official said.

Taipei is seeking to rally political support as China ramps up its aggression toward the island that it considers part of its territory. Warplanes sent by Beijing made a record 93 flights close to Taiwan over a three-day period starting Friday, prompting the U.S. State Department to express concern and urge China to cease its “provocative” actions

“Taiwan has helped foster a great chip manufacturing ecosystem with three decades of efforts against the backdrop of globalization,” Taiwan’s Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua told Bloomberg News in an interview on Friday. “The global community should take Taiwan’s security more seriously so Taiwan can continue to provide stable service to everyone and be a very good partner to everyone.”

Wang’s comments highlight the increasingly politicized nature of semiconductors as governments around the world scramble to secure sufficient chips from Taiwan to accelerate a post-Covid economic rebound. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. boasts a 53% share of the contract chipmaking market, fueling concern that any instability in the Taiwan Strait could cut off supply of key silicon used by hundreds of companies including Apple Inc. for its iPhones. Chairman Mark Liu in July also called for peace in the region, in order to prevent disruptions to the supply chain.

The heavy reliance on TSMC and its local peers has already spurred governments in the U.S., EU, Japan and China to mull bolstering their own domestic chip industries. The Biden administration last month stepped up its pressure on companies to disclose details on their supply-and-demand structures, as the global chip shortage continued to wreak havoc on many industries, including automaking. Intel Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger has exhorted the U.S. government to prioritize support to domestic chipmakers rather than non-American ones, characterizing foreign supply chains as “insecure.”

Wang dismissed concerns that companies around the world are too dependent on Taiwan, saying that the island focuses mostly on chip fabrication within the complex global semiconductor supply chain. It still needs equipment and materials from other countries, such as gear from U.S.-based Applied Materials Inc. and the Netherland’s ASML Holding NV, which has a monopoly on extreme ultraviolet lithography systems required for manufacturing the most cutting-edge chips.

“We can buy EUV machines only from ASML. Are we going to say that it is too risky for us to be so dependent on ASML?” Wang said. “Taiwan has built a professional and reliable ecosystem over a long period of time, so many chip designers end up getting Taiwan to make the chips. It is really because Taiwan has a very efficient production system. Taiwan actually grows and thrives together with global equipment and material suppliers.”

The island’s chipmakers are already doing their part to alleviate shortages plaguing the global automotive industry, she said, with TSMC boosting output of automotive microcontrollers by 60% from 2020. It’s also spending $100 billion to expand manufacturing over three years. But chip packaging and testing services in Malaysia have been affected by lockdowns, and that is what’s causing the current bottleneck in supply, she said.

The chip crunch is now expected to cost global automakers $210 billion in sales this year. They will build 7.7 million fewer vehicles in 2021, according to the latest estimates from AlixPartners issued in September, almost double a previous forecast of 3.9 million. TSMC produces a significant portion of the semiconductors needed by major auto chip suppliers like Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors NV and Japan’s Renesas Electronics Corp., companies that carmakers around the world depend on for essential electronic components for their vehicles.

To mitigate U.S. national security concerns, TSMC is building a $12 billion plant in Arizona with the goal of starting to produce chips by 2024. The Taiwanese company is also considering building a fab in Japan and studying the feasibility of a creating plant in Germany. It’s also adding capacity in a fab in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing.

At home, the Taiwanese government is making efforts to provide TSMC with adequate water and electricity supply in anticipation of the chipmaker’s future needs, Wang said. TSMC has pledged to using 100% renewable energy and producing zero indirect carbon emissions from electricity consumption by 2025.

“The chip industry has propped up Taiwan’s economy. It is a key pillar to Taiwan’s economic security and overall security,” Wang said. “We are working hard to ensure that Taiwan will continue to be a reliable partner for everyone to collaborate with.”

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Korea Antitrust Regulator Steers Away From Harsh Tech Crackdown

Sohee Kim
Mon, October 4, 2021

Korea Antitrust Regulator Steers Away From Harsh Tech Crackdown

(Bloomberg) -- South Korea’s powerful antitrust regulator sought to defuse fears of a sweeping tech crackdown as it takes steps to rein in the influence of its fastest-growing online platforms.

Regulators will impose only the minimum necessary regulations and intervene solely where it is imperative to do so, Joh Sung-wook, chairperson of the Korea Fair Trade Commission, told Bloomberg Television in Seoul. The agency’s priority is to prevent companies with dominant market power from abusing it and hurting competition, she added.

Internet titans Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp. shed more than $10 billion of market value in a single day last month, as worries of a Chinese-style crackdown on their lucrative operations grow ahead of presidential elections next year. One lawmaker dubbed Kakao “a symbol of greed,” echoing growing public sentiment that internet giants are widening the country’s socioeconomic divide by encroaching into areas traditionally the domain of small businesses, such as food delivery and taxis.

Korea wants “a true, fair, transparent trade system and ecosystem where big companies and new entrants can grow and innovate together,” Joh said. That will ultimately benefit consumers and the industry as a whole, including big players like Kakao. “Trust us. We are here to help you.”

Read more: Big Tech Replaces Chaebol as Enemy No. 1 Before South Korea Vote

Internet firms boomed during the pandemic, but their growth also made them the prime target of government scrutiny and criticism. The fear is that regulators in Seoul are taking a page from Beijing, which has launched a campaign to tighten oversight of data, online commerce and even after-school tutoring -- to devastating effect. Kakao’s founder briefly became the country’s wealthiest person just as his company and its industry took over as a more pressing regulatory concern than the family-run conglomerates that traditionally produce Korea’s billionaires and monopolies.

The country’s stepped-up enforcement has already led to delays in the initial public offerings of Krafton Inc. and Kakao Pay, after regulators questioned their valuations. Financial overseers have imposed new restrictions on fintech platform operators, who now must have a formal registration before selling investment comparison services. Dominant e-tailer Coupang Inc. was fined 3.3 billion won ($2.8 million) by Joh’s agency in August over allegations of unfair trading practices. In response to the heightening scrutiny, Kakao announced it’ll exit some businesses such as hairdressing reservations and salad deliveries.

Korea has shown itself willing to take on the biggest companies, passing a law in September that mandated mobile duopoly Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google must open their mobile app stores to allow alternative payment methods. But Joh said her agency would step in only to curb market abuses, which have been on the rise.

“As platform companies grow big, some of them become gatekeeping monopolies and exploit that power, exerting a dual position as a judge and a player in the market,” she said. “Individual merchants cannot survive without online platforms. The balance of power has broken.”

Joh took up her current post in September 2019 and declared her goal was to establish a “digital fair economy.” She set up an expert task force two months later to monitor the development of information and communications technology in the country.

The ICT monitoring team’s remit covers everything from app markets and digital advertising to automobile software platforms, semiconductors and intellectual property. Any future antitrust pain points that emerge can be added to the list, she said.

Under her leadership, the commission has taken a series of major decisions to curb abuses of power. Delivery Hero SE was ordered to sell its local unit before it could complete its acquisition of rival Woowa Brothers Corp. Apple was pushed to undertake voluntary corrective measures after a probe prompted by complaints from wireless carriers and consumers. And most recently, Google was hit with a $177 million fine for hobbling the development of rivals to its Android operating system.

The antitrust watchdog is investigating additional cases related to alleged anti-competitive practices by Google in its handling of payments and digital ads. The probe related to in-app purchases has been completed and the deliberation process is about to commence, Joh said.

“We are currently looking into multiple global and local cases of big online platforms,” she said. “We don’t discriminate between domestic or foreign firms. We have fair standards for all who run a business in Korea.”

The commission is also looking into allegations that Kakao’s de-facto holding company K Cube Holdings -- effectively structured as founder Brian Kim’s family office -- violated regulations that forbid financial investment holding firms from exercising voting rights in non-financial affiliates. Joh declined to elaborate on the investigation, which centers on Kim’s failure to disclose its corporate structure.

The Korean antitrust watchdog is pushing for legislative change as existing laws are failing to protect consumers and merchants on online platforms, Joh said. It wants to see a digital platforms fairness act as well as an amendment to the country’s e-commerce law that would expand the scope of platform-owner liability for consumer harm.

“Those laws would mean that we don’t have to actively intervene, so the impact on the industry will be minimal,” said Joh. Asked when new laws could be passed, she answered: “The sooner, the better.”

China's power crunch puts global economy on red alert


Tim Wallace

THE TELEGRAM, UK
Sun, October 3, 2021

Xi Jinping and China factories

Congratulations if you managed to fill your car with petrol last week. The most urgent part of your personal energy crisis is over.

Unfortunately, Britain is now entering the chronic phase: we are part of a worldwide energy crunch that risks a Christmas lacking festive goods, at least those imported from China.

At home, household energy bills are rising steeply after the price cap was upped by 12pc at the end of last week, as global gas shortages drive market prices to new highs. Economists are predicting an even steeper rise next April.


But our gas and electric issues are a small part of pain being felt globally. Factories across China – the workshop of the world – are the latest victims. The country’s problems are twofold.

One is remarkably similar to the UK’s. British energy providers are in trouble because the prices they charge are capped as the cost of gas they purchase soars, leading to swathes of smaller suppliers closing. Similarly, China’s coal-fired power plants are caught between heavily regulated prices and rocketing coal costs. And just as still weather has deprived Britain of wind power, a drought in China has hit hydroelectric generation.

The second issue is that Beijing sets tough targets on energy intensity – the amount of power used per unit of output – as part of its environmental plans.

Booming demand for goods has sent Chinese factories working overtime, particularly in heavy industry such as aluminium. Power use surged and targets were missed. A mid-year central government examination pressured provinces that have pushed above targets to use less for the rest of the year – power rationing – after grading them by energy usage.

As a result, economists at Goldman Sachs have slashed their economic forecasts for the world’s second largest economy, predicting zero growth for the third quarter and a diminished expansion in the final months of the year.

Metals producers will face a 40pc production cut in “red” provinces, the investment bank estimates, falling to 20pc in “yellow” areas that haven’t missed their targets quite so badly.

The fall for chemicals producers will range from 10pc to 20pc, while others including textiles, paper and plastics makers can anticipate a drop of between 5pc and 10pc.

Impacts are not limited to heavy industry. Even power for electric car charging points and solar panel manufacturers are under threat, says Trina Chen, co-head of Greater China research at Goldman, in moves that are counterproductive when it comes to cleaning up the environment.

Robin Xing, economist at Morgan Stanley, predicts overall steel output will be down 9pc in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2020, while aluminium will fall 7pc and cement 29pc.

As the world’s workshop stutters, the rest of us are set to feel the effects – from our wallets to supply shortages.

“Anything that uses metals globally is going to be affected. Even if China doesn’t export to you directly, the price is determined by supply and demand so you cannot escape it,” says Craig Botham, chief China economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

China is by far the world’s biggest producer of steel, for instance, churning out almost 1bn tons in 2019, compared to India’s 111m tons in second place.

Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has already cut its growth forecasts for Asia, citing China’s energy shortages as a key risk to even those diminished expectations. The country is crucial to the Asian manufacturing nexus, already struggling with a swathe of other issues.

Meanwhile, shipping is still reeling from Covid chaos only heightened by the delta wave, which has intermittently closed Chinese ports and trashed production in other manufacturing hubs such as Vietnam.

Shortages are already being felt around the world and are only expected to heighten as the year goes on. More than three-quarters of German manufacturers have reported bottlenecks and problems with core supplies, according to the Ifo Institute.

The institute’s Klaus Wohlrabe warns conditions are getting “tighter and tighter”, leaving companies torn between placing orders now – when it is hard and expensive to get materials – or taking a wait-and-see approach.

It isn’t just steel and copper but materials for plastics, including packaging and toys, are also in particularly short supply.

British businesses and households can expect to feel the impact via consumer goods such as toys and electronics, as well as major purchases that use metals and microchips, including cars and white goods. The construction industry also relies on steel imports.

John Glen, economist at the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, says demand could spike as importers snap up any available steel before shortages take hold – rather like drivers queuing for petrol.

“If you take a dominant player out of the market, it will have a significant impact. Other players will seek to increase capacity, but that is not something that can be done easily or quickly in iron and steel,” he says.

Even if new suppliers can be found in different countries, or if China ramps up production, the shipping industry is snarled up, making it hard to get goods cheaply or promptly.

Materials for buildings have already spiked in price in the UK. Data from the Construction Products Association shows fabricated structural steel is up almost two-thirds in the past year, with steel bars to reinforce concrete close behind.

Noble Francis, the industry group’s economics director, says “the availability of most imports is easing, as is cost inflation”.

But it could be about to strike again, just as soon as China’s stoppages hit supplies arriving in Britain.

“It tends to take around 30 to 40 days on a cargo ship to come over,” he says. “We have not seen the full impact yet but it will be coming through in the next few months, at a time when we have already seen quite rapid price inflation on goods coming from China.”

We can look forward to a wave of new pressures in the run up to Christmas, feeding stagflation fears of rising prices and stagnant GDP.

“China sneezes and global supply chains catch a cold,” says Glen.

“That is what we are in danger of seeing now. The impact has the potential to be quite severe.”

Chinese Property Developer Fantasia Misses Debt Payments

Claire Boston and Alice Huang
Mon, October 4, 2021, 7:01 PM·3 min read




Chinese Property Developer Fantasia Misses Debt Payments

(Bloomberg) -- Another Chinese developer fell into crisis on Monday after failing to repay a maturing bond, adding to the strains of the nation’s heavily leveraged property firms following industry giant China Evergrande Group’s debt woes.

Fantasia Holdings Group Co. didn’t repay a $205.7 million bond that was due Monday, according to a company statement. Separately, property management company Country Garden Services Holdings Co. said that a unit of Fantasia didn’t repay a 700 million yuan ($108 million) loan that also came due on Monday and that a default was probable.

Signs of stress in China’s property sector are spreading, as lower-rated developers face a surge in bond yields to a decade high. Evergrande, the world’s most indebted developer and biggest issuer of junk bonds in Asia, is headed toward what could be one of the nation’s biggest restructurings and fueling concern about wider market contagion. Shares in Evergrande and its property management unit were suspended from trading Monday, pending an announcement on a “major transaction.”

Fantasia itself poses fewer risks to broader markets than Evergrande due to its smaller size. It ranked 60th in a list of contracted sales in the first quarter of this year vs 3rd for Evergrande. Fantasia’s total liabilities were $12.9 billion as of June 30, according to the company’s first-half report, compared with $304.5 billion for Evergrande. It has about $4.7 billion in outstanding offshore and local bonds, vs Evergrande’s $27.6 billion, Bloomberg-compiled data show.

The market had also already been expecting problems. Fantasia was among the worst performers last month in a Bloomberg China high-yield dollar bond index. The private-banking units of Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG had stopped accepting its notes as collateral, Bloomberg reported in September.

Still, Fantasia’s nonpayment spotlights concerns that have become increasingly common throughout China’s real estate industry as investors struggle to quantify often hard-to-see debts. Just last week, the developer refuted a report that money for a privately placed bond hadn’t been transferred. The risks of opaque obligations were also flagged in recent days when people familiar said that a widely unknown dollar note with an official due date of Oct. 3 issued by an entity called Jumbo Fortune Enterprises is guaranteed by Evergrande.

Prices on Fantasia’s bonds tumbled earlier on Monday as speculation mounted that it would struggle to meet its obligations. The company’s 6.95% of dollar-denominated notes due in December plunged nearly 30 cents on the dollar to 38 cents, according to the bond-price reporting system Trace.

Shenzhen-headquartered Fantasia’s management and board “will assess the potential impact on the financial condition and cash position of the Group” stemming from the skipped bond payment, it said.

Country Garden Services announced an agreement last month to acquire the property management business assets from Fantasia’s Colour Life Services Group. Country Garden said Monday that it was enforcing a provision in the deal that would transfer shares of the Fantasia unit to one of Country Garden’s companies.

Chinese authorities have maintained strict rules on leverage, while measures to cool the housing market are damping sales. Recent days have brought more examples of stress at other property firms. Sinic Holdings Group Co. has received a demand to repay some debt after missing two local interest payments.

Fitch Ratings followed its peers on Monday by cutting Fantasia’s credit grade several notches to CCC-, deep into junk territory. S&P Global Ratings lowered its long-term rating on Fantasia on Sept. 29 to CCC from B, citing “elevated risk” that it may not be able to implement a concrete repayment plan over the next several weeks for upcoming maturities. Moody’s Investors Service also cut its rating by one notch to B3.

Fantasia said last week it had wired principal and interest on a $100 million privately placed bond, refuting a report that funds had not been transferred.

Banks Start Dropping Clients to Dodge Costs Tied to ESG Risk

Frances Schwartzkopff
Mon, October 4, 2021,


(Bloomberg) -- European banks are beginning to drop clients that pose a climate risk rather than face the possibility of higher capital requirements, according to the watchdog overseeing the development.

Banks are raising prices, denying loan requests, “de-selecting industries and in some cases clients,” said Jacob Gyntelberg, director of the economic and risk analysis department at the European Banking Authority.

There’s already evidence that upstream oil and gas projects are falling out of favor as banks move beyond coal exclusions. That’s amid growing pressure on the finance industry from regulators and investors to shift over to low-carbon intensity sectors. At the same time, sectors judged to be at the receiving end of climate change -- including some corners of the mortgage market -- are also being reassessed by banks, the EBA said.

Once viewed as a measure of last resort, the deleveraging comes as the financial sector faces historic requirements to address environmental risks. European lawmakers want to redirect the flow of capital away from industries that pollute, amid unequivocal signs that climate change is already proving deadly and as scientists warn that time is running out.

In a report on Monday, Moody’s Investors Service warned that banks’ loan losses could soar 20% under the most extreme climate scenario. “Climate risk is likely to have a major influence on banks’ loan quality, and depending on how climate change unfolds, and on the policy response to it, the losses that ensue could be substantial,” Moody’s said.

In the lead-up to the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow next month, banks are expected to provide more ambitious statements on cutting their CO2 footprints in updated net-zero carbon emissions goals.

Banks have so far been too slow to address the risks, the European Central Bank said recently. A separate report in May to the European Commission found that while most lenders are trying to figure out how to measure the financial risk of environmental, social and governance factors, few have gotten very far. And while the focus for now is on climate, work on regulating the other two elements in ESG investing is progressing.

The EBA is working with national supervisors and the industry. There’s a fundamental shift under way in how banks do business, and Gyntelberg said his agency is seeing some “encouraging” signs.

Autos, Leasing

Banks are also “making more clear distinctions across the auto loan book, they are making more clear distinctions in the leasing books, they are making more clear distinctions in mortgages,” Gyntelberg said in an interview. “They are looking at sectoral differentiation when it comes to pricing, and they are even saying no.”

Rising temperatures and the sweeping changes that governments and industries are pursuing to mitigate them, present risks to the financial industry in the form of falling collateral values to bankrupt clients. But loan books are where the industry’s vulnerability to a transition to a carbon-free future may be the greatest.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, loans account for two-thirds of the $22 trillion in exposures that the biggest global banks, asset managers and insurance companies have to carbon-intensive industries with the least certain futures.

At the same time, banks have to make good on commitments to help achieve the Paris Agreement, amid pressure from investors to do more to hold temperature increases in check.

“I think we need to take into account that there will be ESG-related risks which won’t remain on banks’ balance sheets,” Gyntelberg said.

Capital Demands

Banks that use so-called internal models to identify risks and estimate how much capital to hold already can integrate ESG into those systems, but the challenge they face is having the right data to feed into the calculations, according to Lars Overby, head of risk-based metrics at the EBA.

Such models “are based on historical data, and clearly some of these elements aren’t already in the data,” Overby said. “There is probably a need to have a discussion on whether we can incorporate this in the framework already now, which is not an easy debate.”

Investors, analysts and activists will get a better look at what the risks are toward the end of next year, when banks will have to start making public disclosures following templates that the EBA is currently working on.

The authority expects that, in the run-up to the publication of those reports, lenders probably will already begin to hold capital against ESG risks.

EU Banks Expected to Add Capital for Climate Risk, EBA Says

Getting rid of risky assets is one way for banks to reduce the need to add capital. The EBA is monitoring the deleveraging on concerns that excluding some client groups from funding could foment its own crisis. As banks drop unwanted clients, that may push the risks they pose into corners of the financial market that are less regulated and harder to supervise.

“An important consideration from a policy perspective is of course where the risk exposure ultimately sits,” Gyntelberg said. “A possible concern is what the overall financial stability implications are if many of the risks end up being held outside the banking system.”

(Adds reference to Monday’s Moody’s report on loan losses, in fifth paragraph)

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