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☆ Sudan's years of political strife
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

April 6, 2019 - Hundreds of thousands of protesters begin a sit-in outside army headquarters in Khartoum. Five days later the army overthrows and detains autocratic leader Omar al-Bashir, ending his three-decade rule. Aug. 17, 2019 - Civilian groups that backed the uprising sign a deal to share power with the military during a transitional period leading to elections. June 16, 2022 - The U.N. World Food Programme says more than a third of Sudan's population is facing acute food insecurity due to factors including economic and political crises, climate shocks and conflict. Dec. 5, 2022 - Civilian groups sidelined by the coup sign an initial deal with the military to start a new, two-year political transition and appoint a civilian government.

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - Lawmakers are expected to put top U.S. bank regulators on the defensive over the unexpected failures of regional lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank when they testify before Congress on Tuesday. Regulators have vowed to review their rules and procedures after the twin failures while insisting the overall system remains sound. Tuesday's hearing at the Senate Banking Committee will give lawmakers the chance to press watchdogs on what went wrong on their watch, and push preferred policy prescriptions. They just didn't," said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, at a banking industry conference last week. Some Democrats, including major bank critic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have also argued a 2018 bank deregulation law is to blame.

☆ Tech leaders remain oblivious to the true lessons of Silicon Valley Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Matt Turner | Dave Smith | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

On the agenda today:But first: Insider's Madeline Renbarger shares what happened at the SXSW Festival in Texas as tech founders and entrepreneurs learned about the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank. The festival began just as the FDIC announced it was taking control of Silicon Valley Bank to stop the catastrophic, social media-instigated bank run that was in full swing. Silicon Valley's blame gameiStock; Rebecca Zisser/InsiderIn the wake of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, there's been plenty of finger-pointing but little self-reflection on the part of Silicon Valley, writes Insider's Linette Lopez. But in recent weeks, as companies like Meta and Twitter braced for tougher times ahead, the assault on middle managers has picked up new steam. But middle managers move the needle on a company's overall performance far more than senior executives do — and make a bigger difference to the bottom line.

☆ The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank foreshadows a bigger reckoning for the tech industry
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Linette Lopez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

In the days since the stunning collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, I've seen the tech world point a lot of fingers. Silicon Valley Bank imploded in part because it was a repository for the riskiest behaviors of the industry it serviced. In spite of this reality, there has been little self-reflection on the part of the industry that was so closely tied to Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank thrived on these trends. But to grow at the breakneck speed of its clients, Silicon Valley Bank executives had to change things in Washington.

☆ AMERICAS Bank stress, bond volatility and disinflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

But the implications of this sudden bout of financial instability - and its potential economic and policy fallout - were most clearly seen in the interest rate and bond markets. Implied terminal rates for the European Central Bank and Bank of England have been dramatically scaled back too - though one or two further hikes are still priced for those central banks. But the Fed rethink has led to seismic action on the U.S. Treasury market, with the biggest drop in 2-year Treasury yields on Monday since the stock market crash of 1987. Credit spreads in the corporate bond markets have also widened sharply as investors fear an economy-wide tightening of borrowing standards and financial conditions. It would certainly think twice about tightening policy again into this level of financial stress and bond market upheaval.

☆ Morning Bid: Bank stress, bond volatility and disinflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

☆ 'Mexico is safer than the U.S.', Mexican president says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Dave Graham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

MEXICO CITY, March 13 (Reuters) - Mexico's president said on Monday his country is safer than the United States, pushing back against U.S. critics of his security record following a deadly kidnapping this month near the border that claimed the lives of two Americans. The March 3 attack on four Americans in the Mexican city of Matamoros and their subsequent abduction was covered closely by U.S. media and sparked recriminations from politicians in the U.S., particularly Republicans. By the time Mexican authorities found the Americans, two of them were dead. "Mexico is safer than the United States," he told reporters when questioned about the warnings at a news conference. Additional reporting by Isabel Woodford and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City and Julia Harte in New York; editing by Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Meet the woman who wrote a shocking account of her life on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Jenni Reid | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Jamie Fiore Higgins interviewed on TV on Wednesday, August 31, 2022. And so in the book "Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs," published last summer, she chronicled them. A Goldman Sachs spokesperson said the company "strongly disagrees" with the characterization of its culture described in the book, and what it called "anonymized allegations." "For those 18 years, I cared more about Goldman Sachs than I did my husband, my kids, my parents," she told CNBC. Fiore Higgins' account represents one person's experiences over a set period of time.

[1/6] People wait before Pope Francis arrives for a meeting with priests, deacons, consecrated persons and seminarians at the Cathedral of Saint Therese during his apostolic journey, in Juba, South Sudan, February 4, 2023. REUTERS/Yara NardiJUBA, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of Scotland Moderator will meet people displaced by war in South Sudan and hear their stories on Saturday in one of the high points of their visit to the struggling African nation. South Sudan, the world's newest country, broke away from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into civil war in 2013 with ethnic groups turning on each other. There are 2.2 million internally displaced people in South Sudan, out of a total population of about 11.6 million, and another 2.3 million have fled the country as refugees, according to the United Nations. In his own speech, Kiir said his government was firmly committed to consolidating peace in South Sudan.

☆ CIA chief makes rare visit to Libya
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

TRIPOLI, Jan 12 (Reuters) - U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief William Burns made a rare trip to Libya on Thursday, meeting Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah in Tripoli, the Libyan government said. Dbeibah's Government of National Unity announced the visit on its Facebook page, posting a picture of Burns and Dbeibah together. Two sources close to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, who is based in Benghazi, said Burns had also met with him. The United States has previously said it is worried about the role played by Russia in Libya's conflict, and fears continued instability in the OPEC member could impact global energy supply and give space to Islamist militant groups. The detention of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi and his transfer to the United States prompted anger inside Libya, which has no extradition treaty with Washington, and led to recriminations from Dbeibah's political foes.

Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro's justice minister from 2021 to 2022, took a job as Brasilia security chief after leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office on Jan. 1. "This was a structured sabotage operation, commanded by Bolsonaro's ex-minister Anderson Torres," Ricardo Cappelli, the official leading a post-invasion federal intervention into Brasilia's public security, told CNN Brasil. "Torres took over as secretary for security (in Brasilia), dismissed the whole chain of command and then took a trip. The shakeup of capital security highlights a wider challenge facing Lula, whose new government must now deal with a sweeping criminal investigation of the Brasilia riots while establishing a fresh chain of command among police and security forces. For example, the appointment of Torres, 47, at the Justice Ministry followed years of friendly relations with Bolsonaro's family.

☆ 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".

☆ 'Sr.' review: Robert Downey Jr. deals with his late dad in an intimate Netflix documentary
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Brian Lowry | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —At the end of “Sr.,” a documentary so personal the word “intimate” almost doesn’t do it justice, Robert Downey Jr. ponders what his 90-minute ode to his father was really all about. The simple answer, stripped of celebrity, is the painful process of saying goodbye to an aging, increasingly infirm parent, filtered through the careers of these two entertainers. It’s a conversation Downey Sr. clearly doesn’t relish having, although their interplay throughout is one of warmth, forgiveness and love, and if there was second guessing or recriminations on the way to making that peace, you won’t find it here. Shot over three years, the film captures Downey Sr.’s physical decline as he experiences the ravages of Parkinson’s disease. “I’ll miss him,” Downey Jr. says after visiting the old man with his own young son, Exton.

☆ Morning Bid: Wild oil ride amid China and crypto woe
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] General view of the oil refinery, part of Grupa Lotos taken over by PKN Orlen in 2022, in Gdansk, Poland August 9, 2022. Turbulence in oil, China's COVID crunch and unravelling cryptocurrencies make for uncomfortable reading for investors starting to parse what looks like a recessionary year ahead. Higher interest rates and slowing economies dominate most 2023 outlooks, not least Tuesday's latest from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Underlining the growth gloom, China's battle with COVID and its widening curbs only seemed to worsen. Pain in the crypto world continued, with many investors fearing the fallout from the collapse of exchange FTX is just beginning.

☆ After winning the Senate, Democrats' campaign chief warns GOP: Trump will continue to drag you down
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

WASHINGTON — Days after denying Republicans the Senate majority they fought for in the midterm elections, the Democrats' campaign chief warned the GOP: If former President Donald Trump continues to be your leader, voters will continue to punish you. “There’s no question that Donald Trump is a motivating factor for turnout when it comes to Democratic voters,” Sen. Gary Peters, of Michigan, said in an interview at Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters. If the party continues to be following the Trump model and is Trumpian and doesn’t go back to their more conservative roots of the traditional Republican Party, I will say, definitely that’ll be a problem,” he said. The GOP's failure to recapture the Senate has led to recriminations and a dispute about whether Trump was to blame for their underperformance. Warnock, sensing an opportunity to mobilize his party’s base, cut that video into a campaign ad and displayed “Stop Donald Trump.

Two of his revenge picks to knock off House Republicans who voted to impeach him lost critical general election races in Michigan and Washington. To Mr. Trump, none of that had any bearing on his desire to return to power. “A perfect call.” Absconding with classified documents from the White House? “I think the question is who is the current leader of the Republican Party. In light of what unfolded at Mar-a-Lago, that felt more like the wishful thinking of a born optimist than the judgment of a seasoned student of Mr. Trump.

☆ The GOP’s Lost Independents
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Republican midterm election losses are piling up, as Democrats retained the Senate over the weekend and may still retake the House. An honest examination is in order as the recriminations fly, and the most striking midterm result so far is how the GOP lost the middle of the electorate in crucial races for Congress. In the two main election surveys, more Republicans than Democrats turned out to vote: 36% to 33% in the national media exit poll, and 49% to 43% in the AP VoteCast. Republicans could get a majority share of the final House vote without getting a House majority. So much for the GOP’s supposed gerrymandering edge.

☆ Newly-elected House Republican, who ousted a top Democrat, says it's time for the GOP to move on from Trump
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Rep.-elect Michael Lawler pushed for the Republican Party to move beyond Trump. "I would like to see the party move forward," Lawler told CNN. "I would like to see the party move forward," Lawler told CNN. As CNN's Kaitlan Collins pointed out to Lawler, some GOP figures are beginning to try to move the GOP away from Trump. "I strongly believe he should no longer be the face of the Republican Party," King said.

This standoff will shift the terrain only by inches, even if it does help change which party has technical control of Congress. As for resolving the larger argument, that’s still a decision that the country makes during presidential elections, not midterms. For Republicans, a populist questionNeither party is currently prepared for the coming 2024 fight because both have unresolved internal issues that the midterm results may put into sharper focus. But the fact of the matter is, they are losing on the crime issue — not by a little, but a lot. But just because the fight is public and ugly, doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary and eventually helpful ahead of 2024.

☆ White House officials thought they'd struck a secret oil deal with Saudi Arabia only for Biden to be humiliated when the kingdom abandoned it: NYT
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

White House officials believed they'd struck a secret oil deal with Saudi Arabia, per NY Times. The Saudi decision to cut oil output before the midterms angered the White House, per NY Times. Saudi Arabia also enraged Democratic lawmakers and White House officials earlier this month by announcing plans to cut production along with Russia and other OPEC nations, pushing up oil prices. Biden has said there will be consequences for Saudi Arabia as a result of the decision, without specifying what they might be. The White House did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Newly elected Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa gives his first speech in the upper house of parliament in Rome, Italy, October 13, 2022. REUTERS/Yara NardiROME, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Italy's new rightist coalition got off to an inauspicious start on Thursday when it split over the election of the Senate speaker, who clinched the post despite a revolt by Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party. The right-wing bloc, which includes Brothers of Italy, Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini's League, have promised to bring political stability to the country after years of short-lived governments. "I will try with all my efforts to be the speaker for everybody," La Russa told the senators, as opposition chiefs denied they were responsible for his election. Former businessman Carlo Calenda, leader of the centrist Action party, denied his senators provided La Russa with the votes he needed.

Alec Baldwin settled a lawsuit filed by loved ones of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed on the set of his movie "Rust" last year, representatives from both sides of the civil action said Wednesday. Other parties still face civil, criminal penaltiesThe movie set's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was also named as a defendant in the estate's lawsuit. "She is too traumatized to return to that set, because Mamie was standing next to Halyna Hutchins when Halyna was shot and killed," Mitchell's lawyer Gloria Allred said in a statement. She is very happy that Halyna's son and family have reached a settlement that they believe is fair to them. However, Mamie will continue her pursuit of justice in her civil case, and she will also be willing to testify in a criminal case if one is filed."

CNN —Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the immediate “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens on Wednesday, a move that threatens to escalate his faltering invasion of Ukraine following a string of defeats that caused recriminations in Moscow. US President Joe Biden condemned the mobilization and the Kremlin’s planned votes, during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday. “Putin claims he had to act because Russia was threatened, but no one threatened Russia – and no one other than Russia sought conflict,” Biden added. A billboard promoting contract army service, with the slogan "Serving Russia is a real job," in St. Petersburg. On Tuesday, Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, amended the law on military service, toughening the punishment for violation of military service duties – such as desertion and evasion from service – according to state news agency TASS.

☆ Analysis: In Latin America, democracies shaken ahead of key elections
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( David Alire Garcia | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Latin America's political arena has intensified with fallout from the pandemic, war in Ukraine, spiraling inflation plus fears of global recession. Those hardships have all hit voters' wallets in one of the world's most unequal regions, driving deeper political wedges ahead of key elections and in some countries threatening democracy itself. In long-dysfunctional Peru, leftist President Pedro Castillo, who took office just over a year ago, is battling a corruption probe amid plummeting approval ratings. read moreYet Bukele remains very popular, with an approval rating of 85% according to an August CID Gallup poll. "El Salvador is a dictatorship, a populist, beloved dictatorship, but it's a dictatorship," said Guatemalan-American novelist Francisco Goldman.

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