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In what Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr called an "unflinching" review of the U.S. central bank's supervision of SVB, the Fed said its oversight of the Santa Clara, California-based bank proved inadequate and that regulatory standards were too low. At the time of its failure, SVB had 31 unaddressed citations on its safety and soundness, triple what its peers in the banking sector had, the report said. Barr said as a consequence of the failure, the central bank will reexamine how it supervises and regulates liquidity risk, beginning with the risks of uninsured deposits. "Contagion from the failure of SVB threatened the ability of a broader range of banks to provide financial services and access to credit for individuals, families, and businesses," Barr said. The Fed is looking at linking executive compensation to fixing problems at banks designated as deficient on management so as to focus executives' attention on those problems, a senior Fed official said in a briefing.

☆ U.S. Fed may reverse rules that masked losses on SVB's securities - WSJ
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

If approved, the move spearheaded by Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Michael Barr would reverse a relaxing of oversight granted to some regional banks by the Fed in 2019 under Barr's predecessor Randal Quarles. Reuters reported in March that the Fed is considering tougher rules and oversight for midsize banks similar in size to SVB. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is also expected to release its preliminary review of the failures that same day. Regulators have vowed to review their rules and procedures after the two failures while insisting the overall system remains sound. Barr had welcomed external reviews of regulators' work and expects the Fed to be "accountable" for any shortcomings that are unearthed.

☆ Myanmar Supreme Court to hear appeal of jailed former leader Suu Kyi
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 19 (Reuters) - The Supreme Court in military-ruled Myanmar will hear an appeal by deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi against her convictions for corruption and violating election and state secrets laws, according to a source familiar with the matter. The 77-year-old Nobel laureate is serving 33 years in prison after convictions in more than a dozen cases that Suu Kyi has called absurd and her allies say were orchestrated by the junta to destroy her political career. The source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of matter, said no date had been set by the Supreme Court to hear the appeal of Suu Kyi and co-defendant Win Myint, the ousted former president. The popular, Oxford-educated Suu Kyi has spent much of her political life detained under military governments and is currently being held in an annex of a prison in the capital Naypyitaw. Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Nick MacfieOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/5] Delivery trucks are parked at a parking area along the highway in Chiba, east of Tokyo, Japan April 6, 2023. On April 1, 2024, the government will limit truck drivers' annual overtime to 960 hours, among other reforms officials say are meant to improve the job's notoriously gruelling conditions and make it more attractive. The global consultancy Roland Berger expects a 20% decline in the number of Japanese truck drivers in the decade to 2030. Fierce competition and high fuel prices mean truck drivers are squeezed too despite an acute labour shortage. That would make it difficult for small companies to hire to make up for the lower number of legal working hours per driver.

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - The secretive world of Federal Reserve bank supervision has been laid bare by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and critics say it needs an overhaul to make it more nimble, transparent and decisive. Typically, bank supervisors do most of their work behind closed doors. Bank supervision is typically conducted behind closed-doors because of concerns that publicizing bank missteps could spur bank runs and undermine confidence in the overall system. SVB's rapid growth also was a factor for Fed supervisors. Barr said part of his review would look at whether Fed supervision was appropriate for the bank's "rapid growth and vulnerabilities."

☆ Myanmar junta dissolves Suu Kyi's party as election deadline passes
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi attends the opening session of the 31st ASEAN Summit in Manila, Philippines, November 13, 2017. "It doesn't matter whether they say our party is dissolved or not. The shadow National Unity Government (NUG), which the junta has declared "terrorists", said the military had no authority to hold what would be a sham election. The election would return Myanmar to the quasi-civilian democratic system that experts say the military can control with the NLD out of the picture. Richard Horsey, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, said the election was dangerous for the country.

☆ 4 banks have collapsed in less than a month. Here's what Jerome Powell, Nouriel Roubini, Elon Musk and others are saying about the turmoil.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

In less than a month, Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse have collapsed. Jerome Powell, Nouriel Roubini, Elon Musk, and others have shared their views on the turmoil. Experts have pointed to the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate hikes over the past year as a driver for the turmoil. Jerome PowellFollowing the announcement of a 25-basis-point rate hike, the Fed chief said all depositors' savings are safe, adding that US banking system is "strong and resilient." Elon MuskThe billionaire Tesla and Twitter chief sees danger ahead for the US economy if the Fed doesn't contain the crisis among regional banks.

☆ Fed emergency lending to banks boosted overall Fed holdings in latest week
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Michael S. Derby | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

However, as of Wednesday, banks boosted borrowing under the central bank’s newly launched Bank Term Funding Program to $53.7 billion. In its first outing last week, the facility had drawn a smaller than expected $11.9 billion in lending. The Fed also reported lending to foreign central banks and monetary authorities went from nothing on March 15 to $60 billion on Wednesday. Several major central banks announced recently they would draw on Fed dollar liquidity as needed. “Our banking system is sound and resilient with strong capital and liquidity” and “all depositors’ savings in the banking system are safe,” he told a media conference.

☆ The Fed spotted red flags at Silicon Valley Bank years before it collapsed, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Jennifer Sor | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Fed officials saw issues with Silicon Valley Bank years before it collapsed, according to a NYT report. Officials first identified red flags in a 2021 review of SVB, a familiar source told the NYT. The NYT reported that Fed officials found issues with the now-failed bank after a review in 2021. Despite that, the issues went unaddressed at the bank, leading to a more thorough Fed review in July 2022. The Fed has said it will investigate its supervision of SVB and will report its findings on May 1.

☆ Apple argues UK competition watchdog had "no power" to launch probe
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Sam Tobin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, March 10 (Reuters) - Technology giant Apple (AAPL.O) on Friday told a London tribunal that Britain's competition watchdog had "no power" to launch a probe into its mobile browsers because it did so too late. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened a full investigation in November into cloud gaming and mobile browsers over concerns about restrictions by iPhone-maker Apple, as well as by Google (GOOGL.O). Apple filed an appeal in January at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London and argues the investigation is "invalid". However, the CMA's lawyer James Eadie said the watchdog had complied with the legal time limits, because it initially decided not to open an investigation in December 2021. "A finding of invalidity would terminate the market investigation and leave unaddressed the CMA's concerns about the lack of competition for mobile browsers and cloud gaming," Eadie added.

☆ How Sexual Assault Allegations Against a U.S. Chess Grandmaster Went Unaddressed for Years
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Andrew Beaton | Joshua Robinson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

When former U.S. women’s chess champion Jennifer Shahade alleged on social media last month that she had been sexually assaulted by a prominent grandmaster named Alejandro Ramirez, she had no idea it would set off a broad wave of additional allegations. Ms. Shahade says she was sexually assaulted twice by Mr. Ramirez, one of the most recognizable faces in American chess over the past two decades. Her allegations and others in recent years were reported to top chess bodies, including the U.S. Chess Federation and the powerful St. Louis Chess Club, which failed to act or effectively investigate when first learning of them, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

CHICAGO/WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) - The United States has requested formal trade consultations with Mexico over U.S. objections to its southern neighbor's plans to limit imports of genetically modified corn and other agricultural biotechnology products. "We hope these consultations will be productive as we continue to work with Mexico to address these issues." The United States has previously threatened to take the issue to a trade dispute panel under the trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada over the plan, which would ban genetically modified corn for human consumption. A USTR official said the talks would cover Mexico's planned rejection of GMO corn and other agricultural biotechnology products that have been shown to be safe in the United States and other countries for decades. Corn for food use comprises about 21% of Mexican corn imports from the U.S., a representative from the National Corn Growers Association said, citing U.S. Grains Council data.

☆ Private credit investments surged 89% in 2022 - report
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Chiara | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON (Reuters) - Private credit and infrastructure investments across emerging and developing markets surged to record levels in 2022 as borrowers looked for alternative financing options amid rising interest rates, according to a report published on Wednesday. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File PhotoThe Global Private Capital Association (GPCA) said private credit investment saw the largest rise, growing by 89% to $10.8 billion in 2022 from the year before in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Middle East. Private credit is financing provided by a lender other than a bank, such as an investment fund. “There are persistent financing gaps unaddressed by global or local banks that private credit funds are helping to fill,” said Jeff Schlapinski, Managing Director, Research at GPCA. The Middle East was the only region that in 2022 saw an increase in overall private capital investment, rising 30% to $19.8 billion.

☆ New York police abused demonstrators at George Floyd protest, report finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Tyler Clifford | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

More than 600, or 43%, of misconduct allegations were closed after officers could not be identified, raising a big obstacle in the board's review, the report said. The New York Police Department (NYPD) objected to many of the report's findings, saying less than 15% of all allegations were substantiated. Hundreds of officers were injured and the department had already implemented many of the 17 policy changes recommended by the board, NYPD said. Of the 146 officers cited by the report, 89 of them should face internal charges, which can result in termination. The board recommended discipline, which can include the loss of vacation days, for the other 57 officers.

☆ Nobel laureate Ebadi says Iran's 'revolutionary process' is irreversible
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Parisa Hafezi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/3] Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi answers a question during an interview at the Thomson Reuters office in London, Britain February 2, 2023. REUTERS/Suzanne PlunkettDUBAI, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said the death in custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman last year has sparked an irreversible "revolutionary process" that would eventually lead to the collapse of the Islamic Republic. Iran's clerical rulers have faced widespread unrest since Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the morality police on Sept. 16 after she was arrested for wearing "inappropriate attire". As they have done in the past in the face of protests in the past four decades, Iran's hardline rulers have cracked down hard. Like many critics of Iran's clerical rulers, Ebadi believes the current wave of protests has been the boldest challenge to the establishment's legitimacy yet.

☆ Memphis councilman breaks down in tears over bodycam footage of the beating of Tyre Nichols: 'This wasn't supposed to happen'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

"We gotta build a better Memphis for Mr. Nichols," Jones said. "Don, we have to do something," Jones told Lemon in the clip, which has since gone viral on social media. "Not that we were immune to anything, but this wasn't supposed to happen in our community. This was a traffic stop, it wasn't supposed to end like this." "We gotta do something," Jones told Lemon.

☆ Myanmar army set to cement rule with tough new election criteria
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Richard Horsey, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, who was based in Myanmar for 15 years, said the rules aimed to restore a political system the military can control. Who would fund a political party right now?" The junta says it is committed to democracy and seized power because of unaddressed violations in a 2020 election won in a landslide by the ruling NLD. The NLD in November described the election as "phoney" and said it would not acknowledge it. The election has also been dismissed as a sham by Western governments.

The report said investigators interviewed 97 court employees but was silent on whether the nine justices who sat on the court at the time of the leak were interviewed, prompting calls from Democratic lawmakers and others for clarity. "During the course of the investigation, I spoke with each of the justices, several on multiple occasions," Curley said in the statement, released by the court. "I followed up on all credible leads, none of which implicated the justices or their spouses," Curley added. Curley said on that basis she decided it was not necessary to ask the justices to sign sworn affidavits affirming they did not leak the draft, something court employees were required to do. Gabe Roth, executive director of the court reform group Fix the Court, said the fact that the report initially omitted the fact that the justices were interviewed "smells fishy."

☆ AI art generators face separate copyright lawsuits from Getty Images and a group of artists
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Two separate lawsuits have been launched against AI text-to-image generators. Getty Images also began separate litigation against Stability AI, which is behind Stable Diffusion. On Tuesday, Getty Images filed a lawsuit against Stability AI, the company behind AI art tool Stable Diffusion, alleging it used copyrighted images to train software. The company said in a statement that Stability AI "unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright." A representative for Stable Diffusion told Insider that the artists' "allegations represent a misunderstanding about how our technology works and the law."

☆ What is the US getting in Ukraine for $100 billion?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Daniel L. Davis | Defense Priorities | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In December, President Joe Biden signed a bill with another $47 billion in aid for Ukraine. The question: does adding this Patriot battery represent a game-changer for Ukraine? A Patriot battery ordinarily operates as part of an integrated defense system which may include numerous US and NATO systems. As exposed in 2019 when the Saudi-operated Patriot system failed to stop a complex aerial attack from Iran, the system is not fool-proof even when operational. Air Force via APIncluding this most recent aid package, the US has spent over $100 billion on the war in Ukraine, which is $16 billion more than the entire Russian military budget for 2023.

☆ Analysis: Iran executions quash protests, push dissent underground
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Parisa Hafezi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

They argue the resort to deadly state violence is merely pushing dissent underground, while deepening anger felt by ordinary Iranians about the clerical establishment that has ruled them for four decades. Executive Director at the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Hadi Ghaemi said the establishment's main focus was to intimidate the population into submission by any means. People are either in prison or they have gone underground because they are determined to find a way to keep fighting," he said. Defying public fury and international criticism, Iran has handed down dozens of death sentences to intimidate Iranians enraged by the death of Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, 22. Ghaemi said the main officials pushing for the executions today were deeply involved in the 1980s killings of prisoners.

☆ Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff dodged questions in a rambling 2-hour all-hands. Leaked messages show employees weren't pleased, and one executive even apologized for it later.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Salesforce plans to cut 10% of its workforce, CEO Marc Benioff told employees Wednesday. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff dodged questions about the company's plans to cut 10% of its workforce during a rambling two-hour all-hands on Thursday, and — judging from internal Slack messages viewed by Insider — employees weren't pleased their questions went unanswered. During Thursday's all-hands meeting, Benioff described the company's current situation as a "spiritual moment," and compared layoffs to death. Sources said Benioff has been exerting increasing control over the company, alienating his closest lieutenants while dialing up performance pressure on employees, Insider previously reported. Are you a Salesforce employee or do you have insight to share?

☆ Jan. 6 response would have been 'vastly different' if rioters were Black, House sergeant at arms told investigators
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Ryan J. Reilly | Ryan J. Reilly Is A Justice Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON — The House sergeant at arms, who was head of the D.C. National Guard during the attack on the U.S. Capitol, told the Jan. 6 committee that the law enforcement response would have looked much different had the rioters been Black Americans. I think it would have been a vastly different response if those were African Americans trying to breach the Capitol,” William J. Walker told congressional investigators, in an interview transcript released Tuesday. Walker indicated he thought that more rioters would have died at the hands of law enforcement on Jan. 6 had the makeup of the crowd not been overwhelmingly white. “You know, as a law enforcement officer, there were — I saw enough to where I would have probably been using deadly force,” Walker said. Walker told investigators that it was clear to him beforehand that Jan. 6 was going to be a "big deal" just from being aware of what was happening in the world.

☆ Washington moved fast to crack down on TikTok but has made little progress with Big Tech
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

But in fast-tracking the bill, Congress can’t help but draw attention to its notable lack of progress on regulating American tech giants more broadly — despite years of reports, hearings and proposed legislation. Washington finds a different tech villainThe tech industry’s largest players have faced a kitchen sink of allegations in recent years. The central allegation against TikTok is that the company poses a potential national security risk. But earlier this year, it acknowledged that China-based employees can access TikTok user data and declined to commit to cutting off those data flows in general. “We’re disappointed that Congress has moved to ban TikTok on government devices—a political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests—rather than encouraging the Administration to conclude its national security review,” said Brooke Oberwetter, a TikTok spokesperson.

☆ Australian stock exchange's blockchain failure burns market trust
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Byron Kaye | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +11 min

That 96% of that software is working," Hogben told a Stockbrokers and Investment Advisers Association conference, in footage seen by Reuters. More than a dozen brokers, other market participants and people directly involved in the blockchain project told Reuters the failure had shaken trust in the Australian exchange operator. After New York startup Digital Asset Holdings showed ASX executives a test transaction on its blockchain software, ASX in early 2016 signed the little-known company to begin exploratory work on an overhaul. From an initial plan to run about 12 of CHESS's 400 data transfers per transaction on blockchain, ASX decided the new system would include all 400 transfers, the person said. Its spokesperson told Reuters there was "no off-the-shelf solution available to meet the needs of the Australian market".

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