PAKISTAN

President, PM urge following Quaid’s guiding principles as nation celebrates his 146th birthday

Dawn.com Published December 25, 2022  Updated    

Pictures from the change of guard ceremony held at the Quaid-e-Azam’s

 mausoleum in Karachi on Sunday. — Radio Pakistan

As the nation celebrated the 146th birthday of the nation’s founder Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on Sunday (today), politicians reminded Pakistanis of the leader’s guiding principles.

The commemoration of the day began with a change of guards ceremony held at Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum in Karachi today where the Pakistan Air Force cadets handed over the guards’ duties to the cadets of the Pakistan Military Academy, Radio Pakistan reported.

Major General Umer Aziz, the chief guest on the occasion, laid a floral wreath at the mausoleum and offered Fateha prayers.

A clarion call for the nation: PM Shehbaz

President Dr Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in separate messages, have urged the nation to follow the guiding principles of the father of the nation to ensure the progress and prosperity of the country, Radio Pakistan reported.

President Arif Alvi expressed gratitude to Quaid-i-Azam for “carving out a separate homeland for the Muslims of the sub-continent where we are free to realise our dreams”.

In a message shared by the President’s office, Dr Alvi pledged to make the “right decisions at the right time and ensure the continuation of policies to create stability in the country by embracing Quaid’s advice to think a hundred times before you take a decision, but once that decision is taken, stand by it as one man”.

He also renewed Pakistan’s pledge to continue its moral, diplomatic and political support to Kashmiris of India-occupied Jammu and Kashmir in realising their dream of self-determination in line with the UN Security Council resolutions, according to Radio Pakistan.

He reiterated his commitment to “always cherish and uphold Quaid’s vision for Pakistan where we mobilise all our resources in a systematic and organised way and tackle the grave issues that confront us with grim determination and discipline worthy of a great nation”.

Shehbaz Sharif in his message said the best way to pay tribute to Quaid-i-Azam is to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state, Radio Pakistan said.

It further said that the premier stressed the need to put an end to internal differences and work tirelessly for the progress of the country.

In a tweet, the prime minister asserted, “Quaid-i-Azam single-handedly changed the course of history through his sheer willpower, clarity of thought & unwavering struggle.”

He added that “commitment to constitutionalism marked his (Quaid-i-Azam’s) leadership” while remarking that the founder’s “motto of unity, faith & discipline continues to serve as a clarion call for the nation”.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said that the day “reminds us of Quaid’s vision of making Pakistan an Islamic welfare state where everyone gets equal rights” while pledging to “sacrifice everything for the integrity and development of Pakistan”.

Tributes

A flag-hoisting ceremony was held at the Ziarat Residency in Ziarat, Quetta and was attended by the provincial minister Noor Mohammad Dummar, Radio Pakistan said.

The PAF has released a national song to pay tribute to Quaid-e-Azam on the occasion along with a video highlighting the exemplary leader’s struggle for Pakistan.

Leaders across the country remember Quaid

Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, talking to the media today outside Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum, emphasised the need for following the golden principles of the nation’s founder — unity, faith and discipline — to deal with the challenges faced by the nation.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and Governor Kamran Tessori talking to the media outside Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum in Karachi on Sunday. — Radio Pakistan

Tessori said that all of us will have to play our due role in the progress and prosperity of the country and in fulfilling Quaid’s wishes, Radio Pakistan reported.

According to the state news agency, Murad Ali Shah said that we are facing a severe economic crisis and terrorism in the country, which can only be dealt with by forging unity in our ranks.

He assured the people of India-Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir that the government and the people of Pakistan stand with them.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan shared a message saying, “By making the principles of Quaid-i-Azam — faith, unity and discipline — as the motto of our lives, we can make the dreams of Pakistan’s progress and development a reality.”

He added that the state’s “honour and peace is our first responsibility and priority”.

Federal Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman tweeted, “Remembering Jinnah should mean remembering that Pakistan was created as an inclusive [and] progressive democracy.”

She remarked, “Our path may have been darkened by barriers but let’s not forget who we are or should be, where we aim to go and [that] the unity he preached is not impossible at any time.”

---

More to follow

Crypto exchanges simply aren't following the rules, and it isn't a lack of regulation that is the problem with the market, former CFTC chair say

Jennifer Sor

Fri, December 23, 2022 

Timothy Massad, former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, speaks at the Milken Institute Global Conference in 2016.Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

• A problem with crypto is that many exchanges simply aren't following the rules, according to the former CFTC chief.

• Timothy Massad noted that many exchanges weren't registering with the SEC and claiming that tokens were commodities, not securities.

• That reluctance to follow rules that protect clients is among the biggest risks in the crypto space, he said.

A lack of regulation is not the problem with crypto, but rather the fact that exchanges simply are not following rules that are already in place, according to former Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Chair Timothy Massad.

Massad pointed to the Securities and Exchange Commission's existing rules to protect investors. But many crypto exchanges just aren't registered with the regulator and are claiming that crypto tokens aren't securities, though SEC chief Gary Gensler has said that they are.

"The real issue here is that the basic investor protection standards we have in the securities market and the derivatives market aren't being observed by these trading platforms. And by that, I mean the rules we've developed over decades to protect customer assets, to prevent a trading venue from operating a conflicting business and having conflicts of interest, rules to prohibit fraud and manipulation, the trading platforms aren't observing those," he said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday.

Many crypto exchanges have claimed that cryptocurrencies are commodities, Massad said, which places them in a regulatory loophole, as there is no federal oversight over the commodities spot market.

The reluctance to follow rules for securities is a major risk for trading crypto, he added, urging regulators to enforce "common standards" for commodities and securities in the crypto space. That includes limiting how much exchanges can leverage, and limiting the extent a exchange can be involved with conflicting businesses.

"We have to have much tougher standards on protecting customer assets," Massad said. "We want those whether a token is a security or a commodity."

Rahul Gandhi's cross-India march reaches capital city Delhi

"They will spread hate. We will spread love,” Gandhi said, referring to Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party

Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi's cross-India Bharat Jodo Yatra reaches Delhi

Sat, December 24, 2022 
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A cross-country march led by Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi reached the capital New Delhi on Saturday, hoping to regain some of the popularity it lost to the ruling Hindu-nationalist party.

More than 1,000 people joined Gandhi's march against "hate and division", which aims to turn the Congress party's fortunes around after its drubbing by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a 2019 election.

The parade, which has received a better public response than expected, will take a nine-day break in Delhi before starting its final leg on Jan. 3 towards Srinagar in the northernmost Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Gandhi's mother, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, party leader Priyanka Gandhi and her husband Robert Vadra joined Saturday's march.

The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has controlled the Congress party for decades but has also overseen its recent decline. Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president after the last election. The next one is due by 2024.

Sharing a picture of himself hugging his mother during the rally, Gandhi tweeted: "The love I have received from her is what I am sharing with the country".

The "Unite India Rally" march began in September in the coastal town of Kanyakumari on the southern tip of India. It plans to cover more than 3,500 km (2,200 miles) to reach Srinagar in about 150 days.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil and Anushree Fadnavis in New Delhi; Editing by William Mallard)

India opposition’s ‘unity march’ against hate enters capital

SHEIKH SAALIQ and AIJAZ HUSSAIN
Sat, December 24, 2022 

NEW DELHI (AP) — Members of India’s main opposition Congress party and thousands of supporters walked into the capital on Saturday as part of a 5-month-long cross-country “unity march” seeking to challenge what they say is a “hate-filled” version of the country under the Hindu nationalist government.

Joined by thousands of party workers and senior leaders, the march led by Rahul Gandhi, an opposition leader of the Congress party and scion of the influential Gandhi family, entered New Delhi after passing through eight states.

Flanked by his mother, Sonia Gandhi, and sister, Priyanka Gandhi, the 52-year-old leader said that the motive of his long walk across the length of the country is to revive the once-mighty Congress party and showcase the “real India” unlike the “hate-filled version” offered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"They will spread hate. We will spread love,” Gandhi said, referring to Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party

Gandhi set off for the “Bharat Jodo Yatra,” or “Unite India March,” in Kanyakumari, a coastal town that is the southernmost tip of India, on Sept. 7. The march, which is broadcast live on a website, is expected to traverse 3,570 kilometers (2,218 miles) and cross 12 states before finishing in Indian-controlled Kashmir by February.

Passing through hundreds of villages and towns, the march has attracted farmers worried about rising debt, students complaining about increasing unemployment, civil society members and rights activists who say India's democratic health is in decline. Along the way, Gandhi has also shed his formerly clean-shaven look for a thick beard and slept in shipping container cabins during night halts.

In multiple impassioned speeches during the march, Gandhi has often targeted Modi and his government for doing very little to address the growing economic inequality in India, the rising religious polarization, and the threat posed by China. The armies of India and China are locked in a bitter standoff in the mountainous Ladakh region since 2020. Despite over a dozen rounds of talks at military, political and diplomatic levels, the standoff has protracted.

Modi's party has dismissed Gandhi's march and speeches as a political gimmick to regain his “lost credibility.”

“The character of the Congress has been to break India,” the party said in a tweet Saturday.

Hindu nationalism has surged under Modi and his party, which have been criticized over rising hate speech and violence against Muslims in recent years. Opponents say Modi’s silence emboldens right-wing groups and threatens national unity, but his party has denied this.

Even though the Congress party says Gandhi’s cross-country walk is mainly to reestablish an emotional connection with Indians, the march's electoral ambitions are hard to miss.

With a national election less than 16 months away, it could determine whether India’s beleaguered opposition can put up a fight against the electoral juggernaut of Modi’s party that won the majority in 2014 and 2019.

Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst, said Gandhi is “employing some politically correct methods during his long walk that has potential to do some image correction for him.” But he cautioned that only electoral victories will in the end define whether Gandhi’s march is successful.

“Modi’s BJP has a success rate of about 90% in over 200 parliamentary seats where it’s in direct contest with the Congress. If this march reduces that rate, that would be quite a success. In a democracy, it is important to be relevant and win elections," Kidwai said.

In 2019, Modi's party won 303 out of 543 parliamentary seats, in part due to its Hindu nationalistic agenda. Congress was a distant second with 52 seats.

Since Modi came to power for the first time in 2014, the Congress party has also suffered crushing defeats in a slew of state polls. It currently rules only three out of 28 states.

Plagued by leadership crisis and electoral routs, the party in October elected its first non-Gandhi president after 24 years in an attempt shed an image of being run by a single dynasty.

The party has been led by non-family members in the past, but Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had been at its helm since 1998.

The march has helped Gandhi, ratings show.

In November, polling agency C-Voter said Gandhi’s popularity ratings have seen a slight jump since the march began, from 29% to 31%. The marginal improvement in Gandhi’s popularity, however, remains well below that of Modi’s 66%

Rahul Gandhi, leader of India's opposition Congress party, centre in white T-shirt, walks with his supporters during a march, in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2022. Rahul Gandhi, leader of India's beleaguered opposition Congress party, on Saturday marched in New Delhi along with his supporters, part of his five-month-long 3,570km (2,218-mile) countrywide trek through 12 states that began 105 days ago.

Twitter restores suicide prevention feature

Reuters Published December 25, 2022 

 Updated about 5 hours ago

NEW YORK: Twitter Inc restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from some users and consumer safety groups over its removal.

A news agency reported on Friday that the feature was taken down a few days ago, citing two people familiar with the matter, who said the removal was ordered by the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk. After the publication of the story, Twitter's head of trust and safety Ella Irwin confirmed the removal and called it temporary. “We have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that,” Irwin said in an email. “We expect to have them back up next week,” she said.

About 15 hours after the initial report, Musk — who did not initially respond to requests for comment — tweeted, “False, it is still there.” In response to criticism by Twitter users, he also tweeted, “Twitter doesn’t prevent suicide.” The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics. It listed contacts for support organisations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, Covid-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.

Its elimination had led some consumer safety groups and Twitter users to express concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users of the platform.

In part due to pressure from consumer safety groups, internet services — including Twitter, Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Facebook — have for years tried to direct users to well-known resource providers such as government hotlines when they suspect someone may be in danger of harming themselves or others.

In her email, Twitter’s Irwin said, “Google does really well with these in their search results and (we) are actually mirroring some of their approach with the changes we are making.” She added, “We know these prompts are useful in many cases and just want to make sure they are functioning properly and continue to be relevant.” Eirliani Abdul Rahman, who had been on a recently dissolved Twitter content advisory group, said the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was “extremely disconcerting and profoundly disturbing.”

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2022

Exclusive-Twitter removes suicide prevention feature, says it's under revamp




Fri, December 23, 2022 
By Paresh Dave, Fanny Potkin and Sheila Dang

(Reuters) -Twitter Inc removed a feature in the past few days that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, according to two people familiar with the matter who said it was ordered by new owner Elon Musk.

After publication of this story, Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin told Reuters in an email that "we have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that."

"We expect to have them back up next week," she said.

The removal of the feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, had not been previously reported. It had shown at the top of specific searches contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.

Its elimination had led to increased concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users on Twitter. Musk has said that impressions, or views, of harmful content are declining since he took over in October and has tweeted graphs showing a downward trend, even as researchers and civil rights groups have tracked an increase in tweets with racial slurs and other hateful content.

In part due to pressure from consumer safety groups, internet services including Twitter, Google and Facebook have for years tried to direct users to well-known resource providers such as government hotlines when they suspect someone may be in danger.

In her email, Twitter's Irwin said, "Google does really well with these in their search results and (we) are actually mirroring some of their approach with the changes we are making."

She added, "We know these prompts are useful in many cases and just want to make sure they are functioning properly and continue to be relevant."

Eirliani Abdul Rahman, who had been on a recently dissolved Twitter content advisory group, said the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was "extremely disconcerting and profoundly disturbing."

Even if it was only temporarily removed to make way for improvements, "normally you would be working on it in parallel, not removing it," she said.

Washington-based AIDS United, which was promoted in #ThereIsHelp, and iLaw, a Thai group mentioned for freedom of expression support, both told Reuters on Friday that the disappearance of the feature was a surprise to them.

AIDS United said a webpage that the Twitter feature linked to attracted about 70 views a day until Dec. 18. Since then, it has drawn 14 views in total.

Damar Juniarto, executive director at Twitter partner Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network, tweeted on Friday about the missing feature and said "stupid actions" by the social media service could lead his organization to abandon it.

The sources with knowledge of Musk's decision to order the removal of the feature declined to be named because they feared retaliation. One of them said millions of people had encountered #ThereIsHelp messages.

Twitter had launched some prompts about five years ago and some had been available in over 30 countries, according to company tweets. In one of its blog posts about the feature, Twitter had said it had responsibility to ensure users could "access and receive support on our service when they need it most."

Alex Goldenberg, lead intelligence analyst at the non-profit Network Contagion Research Institute, said prompts that had shown in search results just days ago were no longer visible by Thursday.

He and colleagues in August published a study showing that monthly mentions on Twitter of some terms associated with self-harm increased by over 500% from about the year before, with younger users particularly at risk when seeing such content.

"If this decision is emblematic of a policy change that they no longer take these issues seriously, that's extraordinarily dangerous," Goldenberg said. "It runs counter Musk's previous commitments to prioritize child safety."

Musk has said he wants to combat child sexual abuse content on Twitter and has criticized the previous ownership's handling of the issue. But he has cut large portions of the teams involved in dealing with potentially objectionable material.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave, Fanny Potkin and Sheila Dang; Editing by Kenneth Li and Daniel Wallis)

Kentucky Lawmaker Speaks Out About Transgender Son's Suicide

Kentucky Senator Karen Berg, left, speaks with Sen. Morgan McGarvey during the last day of the state session at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., Tuesday, March 30, 2021. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Remy Tumin
Sat, December 24, 2022 at 8:52 AM MST·6 min read

When Henry Berg-Brousseau appeared before Kentucky lawmakers at a hearing in 2015 about a proposed transgender bathroom bill, he closed his testimony with an introduction.

“If you don’t know a transgender kid already, you do now. You know me, Henry,” he said. “And I’d be honored to continue to work with you and help educate you on all trans issues. I’d be even more honored to call you all friends.”

Berg-Brousseau, who was 16 at the time, was urging members of the state Senate’s Education Committee to vote against a bill that would have required transgender students like him to use a unisex bathroom or a bathroom that corresponded with the gender on their birth certificate.

“When somebody tells us that we’re so different, that the only way to accommodate us is to create a special restroom, the message is clear with this bill: that we don’t belong,” Berg-Brousseau said during his testimony.

The bill was approved by the Kentucky state Senate but later failed in the House.

“We were trying to educate the community on what it meant to be a trans kid,” his mother, Karen Berg, said Friday. “He was a warrior. But years later, he told me that the person who had had the courage to do that was harder to find.”

Berg-Brousseau died by suicide Dec. 16. He was 24.

In a statement announcing his death last week, Berg, a Kentucky state senator and a radiologist, said that “this hate building across the country weighed on him” and implored people to “practice tolerance and grace.”

In an interview, Berg, a Democrat, said she had gone public about her son’s death because politicians and anti-LGBTQ groups need “to understand, on a personal level, or else it doesn’t change.”

“The goal is to make the world a better place,” she said. “That’s what Henry was trying to do; that’s what I’m trying to do — to make a space for these children.”

Berg-Brousseau made fighting for the rights of gay, transgender and nonbinary people his mission in life. He was an intern at the Fairness Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy organization in his hometown, Louisville, Kentucky; became a founding member of a chapter of Delta Lambda Phi, an LGBTQ fraternity, at George Washington University; and landed what his friends described as his “dream job” right after college, as a deputy press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, where he focused on political communication.

But the weight of his work became increasingly difficult for him to bear, Berg said. She had recently asked Berg-Brousseau if he wanted to step away from his job, but he said no. “Henry’s not a quitter,” his mother said.

Intimidation and violence against gay and transgender Americans has exploded in recent years, driven by an increasingly vitriolic political conversation. Just this year, members of the Proud Boys and other extremist groups have converged on drag events and participated in anti-LGBTQ rallies. Last month, five people were killed — two were transgender, a third was gay — in a shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Across the country, Republican state lawmakers have focused attention on transgender people and other LGBTQ issues by introducing bills that aim to limit what doctors call gender-affirming care; restrict what students are taught in the classroom about gender and sexuality; bar some transgender students from participating in school sports; and require students to use restrooms for the gender listed on their original birth certificates.

The Human Rights Campaign said that 344 such bills were introduced across 23 states in 2022. More than 25 of those bills, a majority of which targeted transgender people, became law in 13 states. According to a national survey of nearly 34,000 LGBTQ youth conducted in late 2021 by the Trevor Project, a crisis intervention organization, in late 2021, nearly 1 in 5 transgender and nonbinary people between the ages of 13 and 24 had attempted suicide in the previous year.

Berg-Brousseau followed many of these data points and news headlines for his job.

“Not long ago he said to me, ‘Mom, they say it gets better, but it is not getting better, it is getting worse, and I’m scared,’” Berg said.

Even as Berg-Brousseau was finding a community for himself in and around Washington — at college through his fraternity and the Jewish group Hillel, an LGBTQ kickball league, and the Human Rights Campaign — it didn’t make that inside feeling of rejection go away, Berg said.

“He did find a place he belonged; I’m sure of it,” Berg said. “Even though it was there and he found it, at that point he was still a little broken inside from having to struggle and look for it so hard for so long.”

That was something Berg-Brousseau was trying to fix, both for himself and for others.

Luke Briggs, a college friend, described Berg-Brousseau as “a motivating force.”

“He was fighting at a young age so he could feel like he had a place in this world, so that other trans people could as well,” Briggs said.

Berg-Brousseau found joy in his friends, knitting, his mutt Bibi and, more recently, baseball. Briggs recalled being floored by Berg-Brousseau’s quick mastery of the sport and his rapid-fire commentary at Washington Nationals games.

“There were moments like this where he understood, in complex ways, that if he set his mind to it he really could understand how the world functions and how to reach and connect with people,” Briggs said.

That dedication carried over into his job. Delphine Luneau, Berg-Brousseau’s manager at the Human Rights Campaign, said Berg-Brousseau “believed in the work we do with every fiber of his being.”

Luneau, who is transgender, said there was a feeling of “facing that onslaught and putting ourselves in the path of hate that was coming for our community in the hopes that we could deflect some of that and protect the vulnerable.”

But that work came with hardship.

“You don’t get a day’s relief from the knowledge that there is an organized effort to demonize us, to drive us into dark corners, to tell us lies about us,” she said. “There is just no way to avoid it, and it takes a toll.”

Berg-Brousseau’s signature achievement in the past year was working behind the scenes to help Congress pass the Respect for Marriage Act, mandating federal recognition of same-sex marriages, Luneau said.

The pain and grief of Berg-Brousseau’s death will be with her for a while, Luneau said. But she said she was trying to focus on the “intensity of love” that has swelled in his absence.

“When you talk about someone this age, it is easy to talk about it in terms of the potential because of all the great things he could have achieved,” Luneau said. “But what he already achieved was so impressive. He packed so much life into 24 years. There are people who live 100 years and don’t make half the impact that he made.”

—

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

© 2022 The New York Times Company

ORTHODOX ALCHEMIST

Cyprus Church picks theologian and chemistry teacher as new leader



Georgios, Cyprus's newly-elected Archbishop stands inside the Agios Ioannis Church, shortly after a secret ballot of the Church's ruling Holy Synod elected him as a new Archbishop in Nicosia


Sat, December 24, 2022 at 3:10 AM MST·1 min read

NICOSIA (Reuters) - The Church of Cyprus's ruling body on Saturday elected Georgios, a theologian and former chemistry teacher, as Archbishop of the centuries-old Church, replacing the late Chrysostomos II.

Georgios, 73, will lead the Greek Orthodox Church, which has wide political and social influence on the east Mediterranean island and interests from real estate investments to businesses.

Having read chemistry in Greece and Britain and later taught at high schools, Georgios was elected by a majority on the 16-member Holy Synod.

Custodian of the Church since Chrysostomos's death, Georgios was close to the late Archbishop, who notably recognised the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine from Russia.

It is one of a handful of Orthodox Churches worldwide to do so, even though it triggered a rift within its ranks.

The selection process was among three frontrunners from a Dec. 18 public vote. Georgios came second in that vote, trailing by a wide margin behind Athanasios of Limassol.

Athanasios, viewed as ultra-conservative by detractors but enlightened by supporters, also topped the public vote in the last Archbishop elections in 2006, but was edged out then by manoeuvring from other clerics.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

A New Type Of Oil And Gas Funding Is Booming

Editor OilPrice.com
Sat, December 24, 2022 

As banks have pulled back from funding oil and gas operations and other traditional sources of financing such as equity investment or reserve-based lending (RBL) facilities are drying up, private U.S. oil and gas producers are looking at a booming market for alternative fundin.

That’s the proved developed producing (PDP) securitization, in which an oil or gas producer issues bonds in an asset-backed securitization (ABS) transaction. In other words, upstream producers use the cash from their oil and/or gas production as collateral for the notes placed with investors.

Energy Assets Securitization

The first such energy asset securitization took place in 2019, but it has quickly gained popularity over the past year as many private producers look to diversify their funding sources.

“Securitizations backed by oil and gas assets help diversify funding sources for companies that would typically access capital from more traditional sources, such as reserve based lending (RBL) facilities, high-yield bond issuance or equity investment,” Fitch Rating said in early 2020 when this type of funding was brand-new and the pandemic hadn’t crushed oil demand yet.

“The newly issued transactions provide stable cash flow as depletion rates are fairly predictable depending on the age of the wells and the overall diversification,” the rating agency noted back in February 2020.

Even during the pandemic and the volatile prices in 2020 and 2021, oil and gas proved developed producing (PDP) securitizations showed much less volatility, “largely because of commodity price hedges and structural features of the securitizations,” credit ratings firm DBRS Morningstar said in May 2021.

The performance of PDP securitization remained resilient during Covid, despite high volatility in oil and gas prices and operator bankruptcies during the pandemic, Fitch Ratings said in a report in September 2021.

“Required hedges on a majority of production volumes limit the effects hydrocarbon price fluctuations have on expected revenues. Additionally, PDP production has low breakeven costs, as the majority of capex costs have been incurred,” the credit rating agency said.

Booming Energy ABS Market

In 2022, the oil and gas asset securitization market has really blossomed, with energy ABS deals tripling in value from 2021, according to data from Guggenheim Securities cited by Reuters. So far this year, private firms have sold to investors $3.9 billion in PDP securitizations, up from just $1.2 billion last year.

This year also saw the single-largest securitized financing for a U.S. energy producer, backed by a portion of its producing assets, since the PDP securitization funding deals began three years ago.

That was a transaction in October for $750 million securitized financing for natural gas producer Jonah Energy LLC, a Denver-headquartered firm operating in the Jonah and Pinedale Fields in Sublette County, Wyoming. Jonah Energy successfully closed its first securitized financing transaction by offering $750 million fully amortizing notes backed by a portion of its producing assets.

Jonah Energy’s assets and operations are located within the Greater Green River Basin in Sublette County, Wyoming, and consist of over 2,400 producing wells and over 130,000 net acres located in the Jonah Field and surrounding area.

“I’m pleased to have completed a long-term financing transaction that completely pays down our RBL, which positions us with a strong balance sheet to pursue the significant drilling opportunities that we have on our acreage and strategic opportunities that may come our way,” Jonah Energy’s President and chief executive Tom Hart said.

Guggenheim Securities, which was the sole structuring advisor, book-running manager, and placement agent of the offering, said that Jonah Energy’s was the biggest asset-backed securitization completed to date.

“This ABS transaction, which represents the largest PDP securitization completed to-date and the third 144A that Guggenheim Securities has structured for the energy sector, reflects the confidence of industry leaders and market participants in the suitability of energy-related ABS in the market,” said Anuj Bhartiya, Senior Managing Director in Guggenheim’s Structured Products Origination team.

PureWest Energy, Wyoming’s largest natural gas producer, successfully closed in August a second asset-backed securitization—after one last year—offering $365 million of asset-backed notes collateralized by a portion of PureWest’s producing natural gas assets. The transaction followed PureWest’s initial $600 million securitization in November 2021.

PureWest Energy expected to distribute the proceeds from the notes offering, together with excess cash on PureWest’s balance sheet, to its equity holders in the third quarter of 2022.

Oil and gas securitization offerings could be beneficial to both investors and producers, Daniel Allison, energy finance partner with law firm Sidley Austin LLP, wrote last year in Hart Energy. Investors have a relatively predictable cash flow profile of an oil and gas PDP, so they—and rating agencies—see production risk as “a tolerable variable,” Allison says. Producers, for their part, can use energy asset securitization to either diversify their capital structure or tap this alternative market when others are less favorable, according to Allison.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

ATTACKING THE KURDS
Turkey in talks with Russia about using Syrian airspace in potential operation


Turkish Defence Minister Akar holds a news conference in Ankara

Sat, December 24, 2022 at 8:59 AM MST·1 min read
By Orhan Coskun

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is in talks with Russia to use the airspace above northern Syria for a potential cross-border operation against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday.

Turkey has carried out several incursions into northern Syria against the YPG and has been threatening a new incursion for months. It stepped up preparations last month after a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul it blamed on Kurdish militants.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the YPG, have denied involvement in the bombing of the busy pedestrian avenue.

Turkey launched air strikes against YPG targets in November and President Tayyip Erdogan signalled a possible ground offensive.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Akar said Ankara was in talks with Moscow, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, about the operation.

"We are in talks and discussing with Russia about all issues including opening the airspace," he said.

Turkey sees the YPG militia, the leading presence in the SDF, as the Syrian wing of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Washington's support for the YPG in the fight against Islamic State has infuriated Ankara, causing a major rift between the NATO allies.

(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by David Holmes)

  

Days before new president, old divisions tearing at Brazil

MAURICIO SAVARESE
Sat, December 24, 2022

SAO PAULO (AP) — Trumpets and snares will play Brazil’s national anthem at Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s swearing-in on Jan. 1. Then, one will hear a different song on the streets, its lyrics taking a shot at outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro.

“It is time for Jair, it is time for Jair ... to go away!” the lyrics say. “Pack your bags, hit the road and go away!”

When Lula clinched his election win over Bolsonaro on Oct. 30, tens of thousands of people sang the familiar tune throughout the night, pushing the song to the top of Spotify’s list in Brazil and showing one way that many Brazilians aren’t ready to extend olive branches.

Healing Brazil’s divided society will be easier said than done. Lula’s Cabinet appointments thus far favoring leftists and stalwarts of his Workers’ Party are turning off those who trusted the divisive 77-year-old to govern alongside moderates, and who joined forces after Bolsonaro repeatedly tested the guardrails of the world’s fourth-biggest democracy.


“Governing Brazil means deals with agribusiness, evangelicals, former Bolsonaro allies. It can be frustrating for half-hearted Lula voters, but that’s what they have before them,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.

Of course, Bolsonaro’s far-right backers are hardly the picture of post-election bonhomie. Many reject results of the vote and remain camped outside military buildings nationwide, demanding that Lula’s inauguration be impeded.

Brazil’s October election was its closest in more than three decades, pitting two arch-rivals against one another. In Lula’s victory speech on Oct. 30, he declared that “there are not two Brazils,” as tens of thousands gathered outside his hotel in Sao Paulo to celebrate his victory and Bolsonaro’s defeat.

A hopeful sign for Lula’s bridge-building ambitions came days later, with leftists and moderates once again donning the nation’s yellow soccer jersey to cheer on their team at the World Cup. The shirt for almost a decade has been an anti-left symbol and often featured in protests against Lula and in favor of Bolsonaro.

Lula and his allies wore the yellow shirt, too, in an effort to reclaim it; he posted photos of himself to social media, and said green and yellow “are the colors of 213 million people who love this country.” Salesman Elias Gaspar said yellow jerseys started flying off his rack as the team’s flamboyant performances trickled in.

“Before the World Cup I would sell on average six blue shirts and four yellow out of every ten,” Gaspar, 43, said on Dec. 4. “Now it is almost all yellow.”

Soccer was a short-lived unifying force. Brazil exited the tournament earlier than expected after a surprise penalty shootout loss to Croatia in the quarterfinals, and most Brazilians stuffed their jerseys back in their drawers. Bolsonaro's backers are the only ones still sporting the national colors.

Lula has avoided inflaming tensions, mostly refraining from public attacks against Bolsonaro or his supporters, and instead focusing speeches on helping the most disadvantaged Brazilians once he returns to the office he held from 2003 to 2010. At times, though, us-versus-them comments have slipped past his lips. On Dec. 22, while announcing new ministers, he said Bolsonarismo remains alive and angry among those who refuse to recognize the electoral loss, so it must be defeated on Brazil's streets.

For defense minister, Lula picked conservative José Múcio Monteiro after four years of Bolsonaro striving to secure the armed forces' allegiance.

Other Lula appointments seem crafted to please his base and party, such as Anielle Franco, sister of slain Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman Marielle Franco, for minister of racial equality. He also tapped long-time ally Aloizio Mercadante to head the country’s development bank -- precisely the sort of position business leaders expected to remain clear of Workers’ Party hands.

Gleisi Hoffmann, the chairwoman of Lula’s Workers’ Party, said building a Cabinet would be a challenge even if Lula were only selecting progressives. Complicating decisions further is the fact that some would-be ministers are likely 2026 presidential candidates, as Lula has indicated he won’t run for reelection.

“We have our differences within the Workers’ Party, now go figure what happens when we bring a dozen other parties,” Hoffmann said on her social media channels Dec. 16. “It is a puzzle, it takes time.”

That may help explain why the number of ministries will nearly double, to 37.

Centrist endorsements from former environment minister Marina Silva and Simone Tebet, who finished third in the presidential race’s first round, brought in votes from Brazil’s moderates -- a demographic that grew leery of Lula since the sprawling Car Wash corruption probe landed him in jail in 2018. With their support, he beat Bolsonaro by less than two percentage points. Many expected them to be quickly announced as ministers, but negotiations have dragged on.

Thomas Traumann, a political consultant, said delays reflect the fact the president-elect has had a central role in negotiations for positions.

“People who helped him like Marina and Simone will have less stature than they would have had they been appointed shortly after he won,” Traumann said. “Lula’s luck is that moderates will view his administration like many leftist Democrats see (U.S. President Joe) Biden: they might not like what they see, but it is better than the alternative.”

Biden’s attempt to bridge the political chasm could offer an instructional, albeit dispiriting, model, said Brian Ott, a professor of communication at Missouri State University who has researched the stratifying impact of social media on American political discourse.

Early in his presidency, Biden did not shy away from the fact that he was governing in a polarized country and played up his bonafides as a throwback to a different era when Democrats and Republicans could battle on the Senate floor before repairing to the dining room to hammer out compromises.

“The problem that Biden faces and the problem that politicians face in 51% countries like Brazil is there may no longer be smart strategies to deliver big tent messages without alienating your base,” said Ott. “We are now in a period where politics is so intensely, deeply divided culturally, where people don’t have to be exposed to different points."

On Dec. 22, Lula named 16 ministers, bringing his total thus far to 21. Neither Tebet nor Silva are among them.

“It is harder to assemble a government than to win elections,” he said while counseling his appointees to hire staffers from diverse backgrounds. “We're trying to make a government that, as much as we can, represents the political forces that participated in our campaign."

He added that people who helped and haven't yet been named will be taken into account, and are owed a debt for “daring to stick their necks out to confront fascism.”

Still, many new Lula voters already feel inclined to jump ship. One is Thereza Bittencourt, 65, who spoke at a military club in Rio and said initial signs worry her.

“I took a lot of criticism from my friends at the club because I voted for Lula. All of them chose Bolsonaro. I told them the management of the economy would be better,” Bittencourt said as she sipped her caipirinha. “If I only see members of the Workers’ Party in the government, goodbye.” ___

Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

A moving truck is parked outside Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be sworn-in on Jan. 1, 2023. 

(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)