У користування заповідника «Києво-Печерська лавра» передано 16 корпусів. У Мінкульті кажуть: стан задовільний

SocNet Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

Повідомляється, що серед переданих приміщень – келії Гостинного двору, лікарня Гостинного двору з церквою, кілька корпусів тощо
…

US Regulator Seizes First Republic Bank, to Sell Assets to JP Morgan

CensorBiz Бізнес, Новини, Статті, Суспільство 0 Comment

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation said Monday it had closed First Republic Bank and agreed a deal to sell its assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co and National Association, in what is the third major U.S. bank to fail in two months. 

JPMorgan bank was one of several interested buyers including PNC Financial Services Group, and Citizens Financial Group Inc, which submitted final bids on Sunday in an auction being run by U.S. regulators, sources familiar with the matter said over the weekend. 

A deal for First Republic, which had total assets of $229.1 billion as of April 13, comes less than two months after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed amid a deposit flight from U.S. lenders, forcing the Federal Reserve to step in with emergency measures to stabilize markets. Those failures came after crypto-focused Silvergate voluntarily liquidated. 
…

Справу про держзраду екснардепа з ОПЗЖ Волошина передали в суд – йому загрожує 15 років тюрми

SocNet Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

Офіс генпрокурора скерував до суду обвинувальний акт стосовно колишнього народного депутата України ІХ скликання за фактами вчинення державної зради та нанесення умисного легкого тілесне ушкодження, повідомляє пресслужба ОГП.

Як уточнює СБУ, йдеться про Олега Волошина.

«Перебуваючи у лавах забороненої партії ОПЗЖ, він публічно поширював кремлівські наративи щодо суспільно-політичної ситуації в нашій державі. Також у своїх численних дописах у соцмережах та виступах у телеефірах Волошин намагався дискредитувати Україну на міжнародній арені. Крім того, він публічно виправдовував створення та діяльність терористичних організації Л/ДНР». Разом з цим, задокументовано факт заподіяння ним умисних тілесних ушкоджень іншому громадянину. Напередодні повномасштабного вторгнення фігурант втік з України до РФ, де наразі переховується від правосуддя», – повідомляє СБУ.

В ОГП кажуть, що колишньому депутатові обрано запобіжний захід – тримання під вартою. Під час судового розгляду прокурори клопотатимуть про спеціальний судовий розгляд.

«Зловмиснику загрожує до 15 років ув’язнення», – йдеться в повідомленні СБУ.

Волошин склав депутатський мандат у лютому цього року. Звинувачення проти себе не коментував.
…

Food Prices Fall on World Markets But Not on Kitchen Tables

CensorBiz Бізнес, Новини, Статті, Суспільство 0 Comment

A restaurant on the outskirts of Nairobi skimps on the size of its chapatis — a flaky, chewy Kenyan flatbread — to save on cooking oil. Cash-strapped Pakistanis reluctantly go vegetarian, dropping beef and chicken from their diets because they can no longer afford meat. In Hungary, a cafe pulls burgers and fries off the menu, trying to dodge the high cost of oil and beef.

Around the world, food prices are persistently, painfully high. Puzzlingly, too. On global markets, the prices of grains, vegetable oil, dairy and other agricultural commodities have fallen steadily from record highs. But the relief hasn’t made it to the real world of shopkeepers, street vendors and families trying to make ends meet. 

“We cannot afford to eat lunch and dinner on most days because we still have rent and school fees to pay,” said Linnah Meuni, a Kenyan mother of four. 

She says a 2-kilogram (4.4-pound) packet of corn flour costs twice what she earns a day selling vegetables at a kiosk. 

Food prices were already running high when Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, disrupting trade in grain and fertilizer and sending prices up even more. But on a global scale, that price shock ended long ago. 

The United Nations says food prices have fallen for 12 straight months, helped by decent harvests in places like Brazil and Russia and a fragile wartime agreement to allow grain shipments out of the Black Sea. 

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index is lower than it was when Russian troops entered Ukraine. 

Yet somehow exorbitant food prices that people have little choice but to pay are still climbing, contributing disproportionately to painfully high inflation from the United States and Europe to the struggling countries of the developing world. 

Food markets are so interconnected that “wherever you are in the world, you feel the effect if global prices go up,” said Ian Mitchell, an economist and London-based co-director of the Europe program at the Center for Global Development. 

Why is food price inflation so intractable, if not in world commodity markets, then where it counts — in bazaars and grocery stores and kitchen tables around the world? 

Joseph Glauber, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, notes that the price of specific agricultural products — oranges, wheat, livestock — are just the beginning. 

In the United States, where food prices were up 8.5% last month from a year earlier, he says that “75% of the costs are coming after it leaves the farm. It’s energy costs. It’s all the processing costs. All the transportation costs. All the labor costs.”

And many of those costs are embedded in so-called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and has proven stubbornly hard to wring out of the world economy. Food prices soared 19.5% in the European Union last month from a year earlier and 19.2% in the U.K., the biggest increase in nearly 46 years. 

Food inflation, Glauber says, “will come down, but it’s going to come down slowly, largely because these other factors are still running pretty high.” 

Others, including U.S. President Joe Biden, see another culprit: a wave of mergers that have, over the years, reduced competition in the food industry. 

The White House last year complained that just four meatpacking companies control 85% of the U.S. beef market. Likewise, just four firms control 70% of the pork market and 54% of the poultry market. Those companies, critics say, can and do use their market power to raise prices. 

Glauber, now a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, isn’t convinced that consolidation in agribusiness is to blame for persistently high food prices. 

Sure, he says, big agribusinesses can rake in profits when prices rise. But things usually even out over time, and their profits diminish in lean times. 

“There’s a lot of market factors right now, fundamentals, that can explain why we have such inflation,” he says. “I couldn’t point my finger at the fact that we just have a handful of meat producers.” 

Outside the United States, he says, a strong dollar is to blame for keeping prices high. In other recent food-price crunches, like in 2007-2008, the dollar wasn’t especially strong. 

“This time around, we’ve had a strong dollar and an appreciating dollar,” Glauber said. “Prices for corn and wheat are quoted in dollars per ton. You put that in local currency terms, and because of the strong dollar, that means they haven’t seen” the price drops that show up in commodity markets and the U.N. food price index. 

In Kenya, drought added to food shortages and high prices arising from the impact of war in Ukraine, and costs have stayed stubbornly high ever since. 

Corn flour, a staple in Kenyan households that is used to make corn meal known as ugali, has doubled in price over the last year. After the 2022 elections, President William Ruto ended subsidies meant to cushion consumers from higher prices. Nonetheless, he has promised to bring down corn flour prices. 

Kenyan millers bought wheat when global prices were high last year; they also have been contending with high production costs arising from bigger fuel bills. 

In response, small Kenyan restaurants like Mark Kioko’s have had to raise prices and sometimes cut back on portions. 

“We had to reduce the size of our chapatis because even after we increased the price, we were suffering because cooking oil prices have also remained high,” Kioko says.

In Hungary, people are increasingly unable to cope with the biggest spike in food prices in the EU, reaching 45% in March. 

To keep up with rising ingredient costs, Cafe Csiga in central Budapest has raised prices by around 30%. 

“Our chef closely follows prices on a daily basis, so the procurement of kitchen ingredients is tightly controlled,” said the restaurant’s general manager, Andras Kelemen. The café even dropped burgers and French fries from the menu. 

Joszef Varga, a fruit and vegetable seller in Budapest’s historic Grand Market Hall, says his wholesale costs have risen by 20% to 30%. All his customers have noticed the price spikes — some more than others. 

“Those with more money in their wallets buy more, and those with less buy less,” he said. “You can feel it significantly in people, they complain that everything is more expensive.” 

In Pakistan, shop owner Mohammad Ali says some customers are going meatless, sticking to vegetables and beans instead. Even the price of vegetables, beans, rice and wheat are up as much as 50%. 

Sitting at her mud-brick home outside the capital of Islamabad, 45-year-old widow Zubaida Bibi says: “Our life was never easy, but now the price of everything has increased so much that it has become difficult to live.” 

This month, she stood in a long line to get free wheat from Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s government during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Bibi works as a maid, earning just 8,000 Pakistani rupees ($30) a month. 

“We need many other things, but we don’t have enough money to buy food for our children,” she said.

She gets money from her younger brother Sher Khan to stay afloat. But he’s vulnerable, too: Rising fuel costs may force him to close his roadside tea stall. 

“Increasing inflation has ruined my budget,” he said. “I earn less and spend more.” 
…

First Republic Auction Underway, with Deal Expected by Sunday

CensorBiz Бізнес, Новини, Статті, Суспільство 0 Comment

U.S. regulators are trying to clinch a sale of First Republic Bank over the weekend, with roughly half a dozen banks bidding, sources said on Saturday, in what is likely to be the third major U.S. bank to fail in two months.

Citizens Financial Group Inc., PNC Financial Services Group and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among bidders vying for First Republic in an auction process being run by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, according to sources familiar with the matter. US Bancorp was also among banks the FDIC had asked to submit a bid, according to Bloomberg.

Guggenheim Securities is advising the FDIC, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The FDIC process kicked off this week, three of the sources said. The bidders were asked to give nonbinding offers by Friday and were studying First Republic’s books over the weekend, one of the sources said.

A deal is expected to be announced on Sunday night before Asian markets open, with the regulator likely to say at the same time that it had seized the lender, three of the sources said. Bids are due by Sunday noon, one of the sources said.

Currently, the interested banks are evaluating options to see what they would like to bid for, one of the sources said, adding that it is likely that lenders will bid for all of FRC’s deposits, a sizable chunk of its assets and some of its liabilities.

US Bancorp did not immediately respond to a request for comment. First Republic, the FDIC, Guggenheim and the other banks declined to comment.

Difficult deal

A deal for First Republic would come less than two months after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed amid a deposit flight from U.S. lenders, forcing the Federal Reserve to step in with emergency measures to stabilize markets.

While markets have since calmed, a deal for First Republic would be closely watched for the amount of support the government has to provide.

The FDIC officially insures deposits up to $250,000. But fearing further bank runs, regulators took the exceptional step of insuring all deposits at both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature.

It remains to be seen whether regulators would have to do so at First Republic as well. They would need approval by the Treasury secretary, the president and super-majorities of the boards of the Federal Reserve and the FDIC.

In trying to find a buyer before closing the bank, the FDIC is turning to some of the largest U.S. lenders. Large banks had been encouraged to bid for FRC’s assets, one of the sources said.

JPMorgan already holds more than 10% of the nation’s total bank deposits and would need a special government waiver to add more.

“For a large bank to buy all or most of the bank could be healthier for First Republic customers because it could put them on a broader and more stable platform,” said Eugene Flood, president of A Cappella Partners, who serves as an independent director at First Citizens BancShares and Janus Henderson and was speaking in a personal capacity. First Citizens agreed to buy failed Silicon Valley Bank last month.

Stunning fall

First Republic was founded in 1985 by James “Jim” Herbert, son of a community banker in Ohio. Merrill Lynch acquired the bank in 2007, but it was listed in the stock market again in 2010 after being sold by Merrill’s new owner, Bank of America Corp., following the 2008 financial crisis.

For years, First Republic lured high-net-worth customers with preferential rates on mortgages and loans. This strategy made it more vulnerable than regional lenders with less-affluent customers. The bank had a high level of uninsured deposits, amounting to 68% of deposits.

The San Francisco-based lender saw more than $100 billion in deposits fleeing in the first quarter, leaving it scrambling to raise money.

Despite an initial $30 billion lifeline from 11 Wall Street banks in March, the efforts proved futile, in part because buyers balked at the prospect of having to realize large losses on its loan book.

A source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Friday, that the FDIC decided the lender’s position had deteriorated and there was no more time to pursue a rescue through the private sector.

By Friday, First Republic’s market value had hit a low of $557 million, down from its peak of $40 billion in November 2021.

Shares of some other regional banks also fell on Friday, as it became clear that First Republic was headed for an FDIC receivership, with PacWest Bancorp down 2% after the bell and Western Alliance down 0.7%.
…

Political Prisoners Share How Jimmy Carter Saved Their Lives

PolitCens Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

Jimmy Carter tried like no president ever had to put human rights at the center of American foreign policy. It was a turnabout dictators and dissidents alike found hard to believe as he took office in 1977. The U.S. had such a long history of supporting crackdowns on popular movements — was his insistence on restoring moral principles for real?

After Carter, now 98, entered hospice care at his home in Georgia, The Associated Press reached out to several former political prisoners, asking what it was like to see his influence take hold in countries oppressed by military rule. They credit Carter with their survival.

Michèle Montas witnessed the impact from the control room of Radio Haiti-Inter, which carefully began challenging the dictatorship of Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier after Carter said U.S. aid would depend on the growth of a civil society.

“So much was done in Haiti because of him. He managed to force the regime to open up,” Montas said.

But when they broadcast Carter’s reelection loss to Ronald Reagan in November 1980, Duvalier’s dreaded enforcers, the TonTon Macoutes, fired weapons and shouted, “Human rights are over, the cowboys are back in the White House!”

“Everyone who could move in Haiti was suddenly arrested, and the country fell into complete silence,” Montas said.

But Carter wasn’t out of office yet. Montas was put on a plane to Miami, one of a list of prominent Haitian prisoners U.S. diplomats presented to the dictator’s staff.

“We were expelled because there was a strong protest on the part of the Carter administration,” said Montas, who later became the U.N. secretary-general’s spokesperson.

Carter had been briefed by outgoing Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whose “realpolitik” approach meant covertly cozying up to autocrats as they terrorized their citizens. But Carter sought a new approach to winning the Cold War.

“We are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear,” he announced four months into his presidency. “For too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own values for theirs.”

Carter also expanded the State Department’s report on human rights in each country, an annual document authoritarians loathed and feared. His Foreign Corrupt Practices Act aimed to abolish bribery by multinational corporations. And his embassies welcomed victims of state terror, documenting 15,000 disappearances in Argentina alone.

Declassified documents eventually confirmed Kissinger’s secret encouragement of Operation Condor, an effort by South America’s dictators to eliminate each other’s political opponents. Carter’s presidential daily memos, by contrast, included names and numbers of people kidnapped, imprisoned or killed.

Fernando Reati was a 22-year-old Argentine college activist when his whole family was arrested. Although his parents were released and fled into exile, he and his brother were tortured — waterboarding, beatings and stress positions — and narrowly escaped being shot by prison guards.

The U.S. government’s sudden insistence on respecting human rights came as a complete surprise to political prisoners and must have been “very mind-boggling” for Argentina’s military, said Reati.

“They didn’t believe that he was serious, because it was so hard to believe it after decades of U.S. support for all kinds of military dictatorships in Latin America,” said Reati, whose testimony helped convict his torturers of crimes against humanity.

Carter hadn’t focused on human rights until it proved to be a potent campaign issue. As president, he framed it in terms of civil and political rights, avoiding the more difficult rights to food, education and health care, and applied its principles selectively, reflecting pragmatic calculations about U.S. interests, according to historian Barbara Keys, who wrote Reclaiming American Virtue – the Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s.

So while Carter was personally committed to Latin America, he maintained a hands-off approach in Southeast Asia after the U.S. pullout from Vietnam — and his record there suffered for it.

Despite emerging evidence of brutality, Carter waited until 1978 to declare that Cambodia’s bloodthirsty Khmer Rouge was “the worst violator of human rights in the world.” Their nearly four-year reign of terror, from 1975-79, ultimately killed more than 1.7 million people.

In Africa, however, his post-presidential Carter Center helped transform societies by fostering grassroots activism and social justice through public health initiatives, said Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, a former director of Africa Watch who taught human rights law at Emory University in Atlanta.

An-Naim was a University of Khartoum professor advocating for a Sharia that guarantees women’s equality when the dictator of Sudan, Jaafar al-Nimeiri, decreed a draconian version of Quranic principles. To stifle dissent in the religiously diverse country, al-Nimeiri detained An-Naim and 50 colleagues for 18 months without charges.

At another scholar’s request, Carter wrote a personal appeal. Al-Nimeiri became extremely angry and screamed about traitors and enemies, but “we were released without charge, without trial, without a word,” An-Naim said. “It is Carter the human being who did this.”
…

Former US Security Adviser Calls for Closer Ties With Taiwan

PolitCens Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

A former U.S. national security adviser called for deeper interaction between the United States and Taiwan during a visit Saturday to the self-ruled island, which has seen increasing military threats from China.

John Bolton, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024, said at a pro-Taiwan independence event in Taipei that national security teams from both sides must develop contingency plans on how to respond to actions Beijing might take, warning it would be too late once an attack occurs.

“We have to tell China and Russia what the consequences are if they take actions against Taiwan,” said Bolton. “Not just in the immediate response, but over the longer term, to basically excommunicate China from the international economic system if it did take military actions against Taiwan or attempt to throw a blockade around it.”

Bolton, former President Donald Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, started his weeklong trip to Taiwan on Wednesday. The visit reflects the importance of the island’s democracy as an issue in the U.S. presidential election next year amid heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing.

China flies near Taiwan

Taiwan and China split in 1949 following a civil war that ended with the Communist Party in control of the mainland. The island has never been part of the People’s Republic of China, but Beijing says it must unite with the mainland, by force if necessary.

The U.S. remains Taiwan’s closest military and political ally, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between them. U.S. law requires Washington to treat all threats to the island as matters of “grave concern,” though it remains ambiguous over whether American forces would be dispatched to help defend the island.

Bolton said the backlog of U.S. military sales to Taiwan is estimated to be $19 billion and it needs to be resolved.

“Part of that is a U.S. problem. Our defense industrial base is not as strong as it used to be. We need to improve that for global reasons, but particularly for Taiwan,” he said.

On Friday, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said China’s military flew 38 fighter jets and other warplanes near Taiwan. That was the biggest flight display since the large military exercise in which it simulated sealing off the island after the sensitive April 5 meeting between Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. China opposes any exchanges at the official level between Taiwan and other governments.

China protests U.S. flight

Later Friday, China’s People’s Liberation Army also issued a protest over the flight of a United States Navy P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine patrol aircraft through the Taiwan Strait, calling it a provocation that the U.S. “openly hyped up.” But the U.S. 7th Fleet said Thursday’s flight was in accordance with international law and “demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Bolton is scheduled to join a banquet on Monday organized by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, a pro-independence organization headquartered in Washington. Tsai also will attend the event.
…

AP Interview: Ukraine, Democracy ‘Must Win,’ Says Pelosi

PolitCens Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

“We thought we could die.”

The Russian invasion had just begun when Nancy Pelosi made a surprise visit to Ukraine, the House speaker then the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to lead a congressional delegation to Kyiv.

Pelosi and the lawmakers were ushered under the cloak of secrecy into the capital city, an undisclosed passage that even to this day she will not divulge.

“It was very, it was dangerous,” Pelosi told The Associated Press before Sunday’s one-year anniversary of that trip.

“We never feared about it, but we thought we could die because we’re visiting a serious, serious war zone,” Pelosi said. “We had great protection, but nonetheless, a war — theater of war.”

Pelosi’s visit was as unusual as it was historic, opening a fresh diplomatic channel between the U.S. and Ukraine that has only deepened with the prolonged war. In the year since, a long list of congressional leaders, senators and chairs of powerful committees, both Democrats and Republicans, followed her lead, punctuated by President Joe Biden’s own visit this year.

The steady stream of arrivals in Kyiv has served to amplify a political and military partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine for the world to see, one that will be tested anew when Congress is again expected this year to help fund the war to defeat Russia.

“We must win. We must bring this to a positive conclusion — for the people of Ukraine and for our country,” Pelosi said.

“There is a fight in the world now between democracy and autocracy, its manifestation at the time is in Ukraine.”

Looked beyond US borders

With a new Republican majority in the House whose Trump-aligned members have balked at overseas investments, Pelosi, a Democrat, remains confident the Congress will continue backing Ukraine as part of a broader U.S. commitment to democracy abroad in the face of authoritarian aggression.

“Support for Ukraine has been bipartisan and bicameral, in both houses of Congress by both parties, and the American people support democracy in Ukraine,” Pelosi told AP. “I believe that we will continue to support as long as we need to support democracy… as long as it takes to win.”

Now the speaker emerita, an honorary title bestowed by Democrats, Pelosi is circumspect about her role as a U.S. emissary abroad. Having visited 87 countries during her time in office, many as the trailblazing first woman to be the House speaker, she set a new standard for pointing the gavel outward as she focused attention on the world beyond U.S. shores.

In her office tucked away at the Capitol, Pelosi shared many of the honors and mementos she has received from abroad, including the honorary passport she was given on her trip to Ukraine, among her final stops as speaker.

It’s a signature political style, building on Pelosi’s decades of work on the House Intelligence committee, but one that a new generation of House leaders may — or may not — chose to emulate.

The new Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this month, the Republican leader’s first foray as leader into foreign affairs.

Democrat Hakeem Jeffries took his own first trip abroad to as House minority leader, leading congressional delegations last week to Ghana and Israel.

Pelosi said it’s up to the new leaders what they will do on the global stage.

“Other speakers have understood our national security — we take an oath to protect and defend — and so we have to reach out with our values and our strength to make sure that happens,” she said.

‘A fight for everyone’

When Pelosi arrived in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stood outside to meet the U.S. officials, the photo that ricocheted around the world a show of support for the young democracy fighting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

“The courage of the president in greeting us on the street rather than us just meeting him in his office was yet again another symbol of the courage of the people of Ukraine,” she said.

Pelosi told Zelenskyy in a video released at the time “your fight is a fight for everyone.”

Last year, in one of her final trips as speaker, Pelosi touched down with a delegation in Taipei, Taiwan, crowds lining the streets to cheer her arrival, a visit with the Taiwanese president that drew a sharp rebuke from Beijing, which counts the island as its own.

“Cowardly,” she said about the military exercises China launched in the aftermath of her trip.

Pelosi offered rare praise for McCarthy’s own meeting with Tsai, particularly its bipartisan nature and the choice of venue the historic Reagan library.

“That was really quite a message and quite an optic to be there. And so, I salute what he did,” she said.

In one of her closing acts as House speaker in December, Pelosi hosted Zelenskyy for a joint address to Congress. The visit evoked the one made by Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Britain, at Christmastime in 1941 to speak to Congress in the Senate chamber of a “long and hard war” at the start of World War II.

Zelenskyy presented to Congress a Ukrainian flag signed by frontline troops that Pelosi said will eventually be displayed at the U.S. Capitol.

The world has changed much since Pelosi joined Congress — one of her first trips abroad was in 1991, when she dared to unfurl a pro-democracy banner in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square shortly after the student demonstrations that ended in massacre.

After the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s Russia and China that remain front of her mind.

“The role of Putin in terms of Russia that is a bigger threat than it was when I came to Congress,” she said. A decade after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, she said, Putin went up.

“That’s where the fight for democracy is taking place,” she said.

And, she said, despite the work she and others in Congress have done to point out the concerns over China’s military and economic rise, and its human rights record, “that has only gotten worse.”
…