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Far-right protesters, counterdemonstrators plan to gather Saturday in D.C. amid pro-Trump rallies

InternationalNov 13. 2020President Trump 

By The Washington Post · Marissa J. Lang, Peter Hermann · NATIONAL, POLITICS 
WASHINGTON – Demonstrations in support of President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the presidential election will descend on downtown Washington this weekend. 

The events have been promoted by far-right media personalities, white nationalists and conspiracists – several of whom announced plans to attend. Counterdemonstrations organized by anti-fascist and anti-racism groups are being planned nearby.

The rallies, which include a Women for Trump event, a “Million MAGA March” and a “Stop the Steal” demonstration – which falsely asserts that voter fraud cost Trump the election – will begin Saturday morning in and around Freedom Plaza.

The pro-Trump rallies have garnered support from Fox News host Sean Hannity as well as more fringe figures, including Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys; self-described “American Nationalist” and social media agitator Nicholas Fuentes; conservative provocateur Jack Posobiec, who promoted the “Pizzagate” conspiracy tied to the 2016 shooting at a District of Columbia pizzeria Comet Ping Pong; Scott Presler, a pro-Trump activist who works with anti-Muslim group ACT For America; and Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. 

Jones has said he is leading a “Stop the Steal” caravan from Texas that is expected to arrive Friday night in the nation’s capital.

Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller responded to a tweet Thursday in support of the rally, saying, “Love the outpouring of support for @realDonaldTrump!”

A handful of anti-Trump rallies have also been announced, including one near Union Station organized by local activists and a protest involving Refuse Fascism D.C., which has said it intends to stand against “the Trump regime’s attempts to steal the election.”

Neither District police nor the National Park Service have issued permits for the demonstrations, although the Park Service is processing a permit application from Women for America First, a pro-Trump group that has advertised “Stop the Steal” rallies on its social media pages. It estimated in a permit application that about 50 people would attend its event.

The Park Service regularly works with groups that do not obtain permits before an event to register for one on-site and, if necessary, to move to a safer location. It was not clear whether the Park Police or Park Service had plans to approach demonstrators Saturday. 

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said city officials have been monitoring social media chatter around the planned events.

“We continue to follow those activities and be prepared,” Bowser said at a news conference this week. “Our police chief will have a similar posture this weekend as he did last week. We will be there to support peaceful First Amendment demonstrations.”

Bowser warned out-of-town visitors against bringing firearms to the city, noting the District has more strict firearm laws than other parts of the country. Gun owners are allowed to carry a concealed weapon with the proper license but carrying a gun openly is prohibited. It is also illegal to possess a magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

District police announced road closures and parking restrictions throughout downtown.

District police were put on high alert last week with fears of unrest and violent protests that many cities expected could follow Election Day. Although those fears didn’t materialize, many downtown District businesses remained boarded up through the weekend – and the raucous celebrations that followed Biden’s victory. 

The mayor said she is still urging businesses to remove the boards, even with the Saturday rallies in mind.

Local activists are taking precautions as they prepare for Saturday, including efforts to safeguard the living monument at Black Lives Matter Plaza that has grown on and around the tall chain-link fence encircling Lafayette Square.

Last month, a group of Trump supporters in the District for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings tore down a number of the signs. Activists rebuilt the memorial the next day, and several have been standing guard since.

Past protests in Washington that have featured white nationalists and other far-right provocateurs have been dwarfed by counterdemonstrators.

A year after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned deadly when a car plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters, a small handful of white supremacists came to the District for the “Unite the Right 2” rally. Organizers had hoped hundreds would join them, but about three dozen attended. They were drowned out by crowds of counterprotesters, who chanted and danced in the street.

Last year, hundreds of District police officers kept far-right agitators, including members of the Proud Boys, and left-wing anti-fascist protesters clad in black from clashing during dueling rallies at Freedom Plaza and nearby Pershing Park. Though the groups interacted at times during the July 2019 demonstration, the protests did not turn violent. The crowd of counterprotesters far outnumbered the right-wing demonstrators.

Christopher Rodriguez, the District’s director of homeland security and emergency management, said in a news conference Thursday that officials are expecting a relatively small turnout at Saturday’s rally spread out among about a dozen groups.

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Senate readies vote on Judy Shelton, granting Trump another opportunity to shape Federal Reserve

InternationalNov 13. 2020Federal Reserve nominee Judy Shelton 

By The Washington Post · Rachel Siegel · BUSINESS, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS 
WASHINGTON – The Senate as soon as next week could vote to confirm President Donald Trump’s controversial Federal Reserve nominee Judy Shelton to a seat on the central bank’s board of governors, giving the president another chance to shape the long-term direction of one of the government’s most powerful entities.

Senate Republicans signaled on Thursday that they planned to vote on her long-pending nomination during the lame-duck session of Congress next week.

On Thursday, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said a vote “could be as early as next week” and that Shelton’s confirmation had been discussed among the party’s leadership. Also on Thursday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she would support Shelton’s nomination, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., invoked “cloture,” a procedure that is necessary before the full Senate can hold a vote on Shelton’s nomination. 

Just a few months ago, it was unclear whether Shelton had enough support among the party’s senators to be confirmed. 

Shelton’s confirmation could mark Trump’s final imprint on the Fed board before the Biden administration is inaugurated in January. Trump’s previous picks to fill the Fed’s two current vacancies have been faced with criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike, and getting his final nominees confirmed would be a victory before his administration leaves office. Some of Shelton’s critics had previously questioned whether Trump, if reelected, would try to elevate Shelton to Fed Chair. Yet those prospects have all but evaporated with an incoming Biden administration. 

“Judy Shelton, President Trump’s exceptionally qualified nominee to the Federal Reserve, has the full backing of the White House and we expect she will be confirmed,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement on Thursday.

In September, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., suggested Shelton did not have the votes to be confirmed. At the time, Thune said conversations around Shelton’s nomination “kind of got eclipsed by the coronavirus discussion” and related stimulus negotiations.

“We’re still working it,” Thune said at the time. “She’s a priority for the White House. It’s the Federal Reserve. It’s important, so obviously we want to get it done. But we’re not going to bring it up until we have the votes to confirm her.”

Shelton’s confirmation also appeared in jeopardy earlier in the summer when Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said they would vote against her nomination. In July, Shelton’s nomination narrowly made it through the Senate Banking Committee, which voted 13-12 along party lines to move her through. Some on the panel had previously expressed concerns that Shelton’s views on the Fed’s independence and monetary policy made her too much of an outlier.

Shelton advised Trump’s 2016 presidential bid and has been criticized for her views on the long-abandoned gold standard. Shelton had also called for closer ties between the White House and the Fed despite a long precedent for the central bank’s independence.

Shelton’s nomination was put up alongside that of Christopher Waller, a St. Louis Fed economist. Waller’s confirmation has been far less controversial. If both Shelton and Waller are confirmed, all of the board’s current vacancies will be filled. 

“It means Republicans are taking it very seriously and Trump wants to get it done,” said Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser to the White House who abandoned his own bid to fill one of the Fed’s vacancies amid scrutiny of his past remarks. “People said, well, she’s not in the mainstream with all the other Fed economists. Well, that’s what we like about her…There’s this sense that everyone has to drink the same Kool-Aid at the Fed.”

Still, the makeup of the Fed board of governors could change further once the Biden administration is inaugurated. Lael Brainard, currently the board’s lone Democrat, is also a top contender for Biden’s Treasury Secretary or, some suggest, a successor to Powell if he is not reappointed when his term ends in 2022.

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Iraqis who helped U.S. fear reprisals

InternationalNov 13. 2020Pictured in January 2020, members of the Hashd al-Shaabi militias watch as photos featuring Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis are unveiled in the Karrada vicinity of Baghdad. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Emilienne Malfatto for The Washington Post 

By The Washington Post · Louisa Loveluck, Missy Ryan, Mustafa Salim · NATIONAL, WORLD, POLITICS, MIDDLE-EAST 

BAGHDAD – Iraqis who have worked closely with the U.S. military in their country have grown increasingly alarmed that they could be targeted for attack, fearing their personal identifying information has been obtained by Iran-backed militias. 

At a time when militia attacks on supply convoys for the U.S.-led coalition and against other U.S. interests have been on the rise, the sharing of this information – including names, addresses and license plate numbers – could present a heightened threat to hundreds of Iraqis who have long worked with American forces, in particular as translators. 

The U.S. military provides this personal information to the Iraqi security forces, as required by Iraqi authorities, to secure permission for the translators to move around Iraq, according to documents and Iraqi military officials. But Iran-backed militias have so permeated parts of Iraq’s security apparatus that the information has, in some cases, become accessible to groups that have taken up arms against the Americans and their local support staff, Iraqi officials say.

“It’s not a surprise that militias have these documents,” said an official in Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s office. He added, “They believe it’s going to be a long battle, so they will gather as much leverage over U.S. interests as possible.”

In June, a list purporting to contain personal information about Iraqis admitted to the Union III military base in Baghdad, the main headquarters of the U.S.-led military coalition, was published by the Sabreen news agency, which is affiliated with Iran-backed militias. The list included the names, addresses and identification numbers of Iraqi drivers and the make, model, year and license plate numbers of their cars, among other specifics, and the document bore logos of the U.S.-led military coalition and the U.S. Defense Department. The Washington Post could not independently verify the authenticity of the list.

Separately, two Iraqi translators saidthey witnessed militiamen who were stationed near an Iraqi military checkpoint check a list containing personal information that had been acquired from a military coordination center run by the Iraqi security forces. 

“When we realized where the information had come from, we were shocked. The list contains everything. Phone numbers, ID numbers, even our real names,” said one translator from Baghdad. The Post reviewed a copy of the list and confirmed this description.

“It’d be an easy mission to hunt us down,” the translator said. “They have all the information now. What if this list now goes online?” This man, like seven other translators interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

In response to a request for comment, a U.S. military spokesman said the U.S.-led coalition does not share personally identifiable information about the translators with the Iraqi military or government.

But three documents obtained by The Post show that such information provided by the U.S.-led coalition has been circulated by various elements of the Iraqi security forces over the past year. The documents, all issued by the national operations center under Iraq’s prime minister, say the information was obtained from the U.S.-led coalition and then shared with Iraqi security forces, including at three military camps in Baghdad; the special division for the Green Zone in central Baghdad; and the military intelligence directorate. In one case, the document includes personal information for 143 of the employees.

A senior Iraqi military officer said the U.S. military shared the information so the translators could travel outside military bases.

When the U.S. military spokesman was asked about the documents showing that the U.S.-provided information had been given to various Iraqi security forces, he had no additional comment.

The translators, who have been employed by Valiant Integrated Services, a Virginia-based contractor, represent one of the largest groups of Iraqis who have worked closely with the U.S.-led coalition. Many have served on front lines with U.S. and other coalition troops, sleeping in the same foxholes and camping out in abandoned buildings as fighting raged around them. 

The threat facing the translators has grown more intense in recent months. Many have been laid off as the United States prepares to withdraw its forces from the country, leaving the former contract workers unemployed and potentially unprotected.

The translator from Baghdad, now out of work, has been renting temporary accommodations with two former colleagues to hide out. But money is running out. “We are literally eating our savings buying food here,” he said. “We’ll be empty-handed by the end of the year.”

Under its contract with the U.S. military, Valiant hires translators, formally known as linguists, for work in Iraq, Syria and other places. The company has shared little information publicly about its work and employees, citing contract restrictions. 

Militia access to the personal information of Valiant’s employees could exacerbate a threat long felt by Iraqi support staff, who in some cases already fear they have been identified by militiamen monitoring checkpoints and military bases.

“We have interpreters right now who call me to say they have been threatened when they visit the bazaar or even just when they leave their homes,” said an Iraqi translator who coordinates a network of former support staff. “Some people have been told: ‘We can’t touch U.S. citizens here, but we can touch you.’ ” 

This translator, who lives in the northern city of Kirkuk, recalled a recent evening when he was leaving a busy cafe. A man he didn’t recognize approached from behind and tapped his shoulder firmly. “I turned around and he looked at me directly. He told me I had to leave this city,” recounted the translator.

In response to a request for comment, the U.S. military declined to say whether it had taken any steps to protect the personal information of Iraqi translators and address the threats they now face as a result of this information being accessible to Iran-backed groups.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said he had contacted Valiant and that the company had responded that “it does not share information that puts the safety for their warfighters or teammates in jeopardy.” The spokesman, Col. Wayne Marotto, said Valiant should be contacted for any further information.

When contacted, Valiant did not provide further formal comment. But a person familiar with the issue said Valiant’s policy is to notify the appropriate military unit if a current or former employee reports a threat, which the person said has occurred “a few times a year.” The person added: “This is a priority. The military takes it from there.”

When the U.S. military was contacted again and asked how it handles these threats once it has been notified, the spokesman provided no further comment.

Although Iran-backed militias participated in the U.S.-supported campaign to oust the Islamic State’s caliphate, these armed groups have recently been escalating their attacks on American interests in Iraq, especially after the U.S. killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January. 

Militias in Iraq have described the translators as traitors. Iraqis driving equipment and logistics convoys on behalf of the U.S.-led coalition have been targeted. There have been at least 30 rocket or improvised explosive attacks on the convoys since the summer, according to a figures compiled by Joel Wing, an Iraq expert and author of the Musings on Iraq blog, which chronicles security and political developments. At least two people have been killed and another eight have been wounded. 

Marotto, the coalition spokesman, referred questions about attacks on convoy drivers to the Iraqi military, because the drivers are employed by companies contracted by Iraq’s security forces.

The Trump administration’s plans to draw down most of the remaining U.S. troops in Iraq has come amid escalating militia assaults against the convoys and other U.S. interests, including repeated rocket attacks on bases hosting American forces.

Between March and August, hundreds of Iraqi personnel working in support of the U.S. mission received emails saying their contracts had ended due to a loss of funding, stoking fears that they would be even more vulnerable to revenge attacks once the Americans depart. 

Those who have been working remotely due to the coronavirus outbreak were told not to return to their bases. Those still working at military installations alongside U.S. soldiers said they were informed that their departure would be “coordinated” in short order. 

The U.S.-led coalition has been stationed in Iraq to fight the Islamic State since 2014. In September, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said that the troop reduction – from around 5,200 to 3,000 – reflects the administration’s confidence that Iraqi security forces can handle the remaining threat from Islamic State militants in the country. 

While employed, the translators could report threats they received, and for the most part, they say, their complaints were taken seriously by the U.S. military. Some men were offered a safe place to stay on a military base. Others said their superiors made it clear that they had their backs. 

“I knew the risks when I signed on, but I also knew that the United States had told us that no matter the threat, they would stand by us,” said another translator from Kirkuk. 

During four years of service, he said, he had worked with the U.S. Navy SEALs and the Montana Army National Guard and had most recently been helping train Iraqi forces at two centers in northern Iraq.

When he received his termination notice, he got goose bumps. “I knew then that it isn’t a matter of asking whether something will happen to us. It’s a matter of asking when,” he said. 

Another translator, who said he had worked with the Navy SEALs on the front lines against the Islamic State, said he had not believed a colleague who called to say their contracts had ended. “He told me to check my Gmail, so I did the thing where you drag the screen down to refresh. I really didn’t think anything would show up. When it did, we were all freaking out.”

In late October, a little-known militia named Ashab al-Kahf addressed the translators directly in a statement, suggesting that the group would be willing to “forgive” and even provide a salary to those who identified themselves as working on a U.S. military installation. “Today we think it is beautiful to offer forgiveness to those who have insulted themselves, their religion and their country, who have rendered services to the American, the English, and the rest of the enemies of Iraq,” the statement said. 

A former translator in Baghdad said he saw the offer as a “trap,” adding, “Just like I predicted, the worst is yet to come.” 

The mounting peril comes as the Trump administration has been making it more difficult for people who fear war or other dangers in their home countries to move to the United States. The White House announced in October that it would reduce the annual cap on refugee entries to a record low of 15,000. 

While that number allocates up to 4,000 spots for U.S.-affiliated Iraqis per year, Iraqi applicants have been processed slowly, partly because of heightened security vetting. According to the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), there is a backlog of over 100,000 Iraqi applicants. Last year, the U.S. government also set aside 4,000 spots for Iraqis but only 161 were resettled, IRAP said.

Meanwhile, the United States no longer allows Iraqis who worked with the U.S. government in Iraq to apply for a so-called Special Immigrant Visas program, which stopped accepting new applications in 2014. A parallel program for Iraqi and Afghan translators remains open, but it is capped at 50 people per year. 

“Pathways for humanitarian protection for refugees from Iraq have so narrowed that they are basically closed,” said Sunil Varghese, IRAP’s policy director.

One of the translators who had worked with the Navy SEALs said he had been “honored” to do so. “I’m so proud of all the days I’ve been working with the greatest forces in the world,” he said. “But the problem is that after they are gone, their government doesn’t care about us. We are literally left behind.”

In the northern city of Irbil, a group of translators submitted a letter late last month to the U.S. Consulate there that they said was on behalf of around 400 people who had been hired by Valiant. “We are sure that you are well aware of the situation and the difficulties we face every day. For that, we are asking you kindly to reactivate [the visa] program that used to be provided for Linguists such us just a few years ago,” the letter read. 

Hostile militias, it said, are “capable and willing” to hunt down translators who have supported the departing U.S. forces. “The situation for us is a matter of When rather than If.”

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Swedish central banker says economy is worse than official data show

InternationalNov 12. 2020Stefan Ingves, governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, reacts during a news conference in Stockholm, Sweden, on Dec. 19, 2019. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Mikael Sjoberg.

By Syndication Washington Post,  Bloomberg · Rafaela Lindeberg · BUSINESS, WORLD, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS 

Sweden’s economy has been harder hit by the Covid crisis than is reflected in the latest official forecasts, according to the governor of the Riksbank, Stefan Ingves.

“The recovery seems to be a little slower than we initially thought,” Ingves said in an interview in Stockholm on Wednesday. “It is extremely difficult to assess how long this will take.”

After a summer during which the pandemic seemed to be receding, infection rates have again started to spike as winter approaches and temperatures drop. In Sweden, the government is now resorting to tighter measures than were used in the spring, in an effort to fight back the virus.

Robert Bergqvist, chief economist at SEB, said he doesn’t see much evidence in the latest data that things are slowing down in Sweden. But “changed behaviors” are also making it harder to interpret the statistics that are available, he said.

“It sounds as if Ingves is preparing for more stimulus,” said Bergqvist, who once ran the economic analysis unit at the Riksbank. That’s likely to take the form of an expanded quantitative easing program by 20% to $70 billion (600 billion kronor), he said.

The Riksbank’s latest official forecast, from September, shows Sweden’s economy shrinking 3.6% this year. The estimate was an improvement on the bank’s previous prediction for a 4.5% contraction in 2020. The Riksbank also raised its guidance for 2021 slightly in September, to growth of 3.7% from 3.6% previously.

Inflation stagnated at 0.3% in October, well below the Riksbank’s 2% target, according to data published on Thursday by Statistics Sweden.

Ingves, like some of his peers, cautioned against reading too much into efforts to produce a vaccine.

Stock markets shot up on Monday after an analysis showed that a vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech prevented over 90% of Covid-19 infections. The news was received as a game changer for global efforts to fight the virus, which has already killed more than 1 million people.

There are “lively discussions” about vaccines, Ingves said. But “it will take some time before everyone is vaccinated, and before this goes away.”

The Riksbank’s benchmark interest rate has been zero since Ingves ended half a decade of negative rates last year. He’s since made clear the Riksbank will rely on bond purchases, not rates, to support the economy.

The Riksbank has tested the limits of its toolbox this year, adding corporate bonds to its quantitative easing program for the first time. But Ingves signaled he’d be unlikely to make policy adjustments in response to developments in stock markets.

“We are, of course, looking at the financial sector, the banking system at large,” he said. “The Riksbank’s main focus isn’t the stock market. The stock market is a risk market and that’s something you have to live with, if you choose to put your money there. Sometimes it goes up and sometimes down.”

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G-20 looks to deepen debt relief drive with China’s coordination

InternationalNov 12. 2020

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Alonso Soto, Eric Martin · BUSINESS, WORLD, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS 
Policy makers from the world’s largest economies are set to meet Friday to iron out the details of a plan for debt relief to the poorest countries battered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 scheduled the extraordinary meeting to deepen their work from last month and try to finalize the plan ahead of a summit by their heads of government next week. Officials from host Saudi Arabia will chair the talks.

The next phase of a relief drive is largely aimed at winning buy-in from China, the world’s largest official creditor, which was owed almost 60% of the bilateral debt that the poorest nations were due to repay this year. Beijing and other G-20 members suspended debt payments from dozens of countries until at least the first half of 2021.

The effort aims to standardize the way official and commercial creditors rework sovereign debts, seeking similar rules for China and the Paris Club, a grouping of mostly western government creditors. Beijing has also clashed with private bondholders in recent restructurings.

“Attention has been on getting an agreement that China can get behind,” said Eric LeCompte, the executive director of Jubilee USA Network, a non-profit group that advocates for debt relief for smaller economies. “This has been a process to include China.”

The G-20 members agreed to the framework in principle on Oct. 14 pending domestic approval, leaving the details for Friday’s meeting. Some western governments, however, have been skeptical that China will fully adopt the formula out of fear it could lose its edge in renegotiations and be forced to reveal the full extent of its overseas lending, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

World Bank President David Malpass has complained that neither China nor bondholders have provided enough debt relief.

China “supports all parties to take further common action,” the nation’s Foreign Ministry said on Oct. 30 in a response to questions over its commitment to a common strategy.

Beijing says that global multilateral banks and commercial creditors have failed to provide relief to the poor despite holding much of their debt. However, it’s unclear if private investors would be able to grant leniency due to their fiduciary duties to clients, given that the fine print in many debt agreements prohibits changes in the terms without the approval of the majority of bondholders.

“Anything that moves us in the direction of China accepting Paris-Club-style principles, I think that would be a good thing,” said Mark Sobel, a former U.S. Treasury official now at the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. “I expect the common framework to be incremental and not revolutionary.”

The U.S. presidential transition also hangs over the meetings, with Donald Trump set to exit as Joe Biden takes over the White House in two months. While G-20 heads of government are scheduled to meet on Nov. 21-22 with Trump’s participation, both Sobel and LeCompte urged Biden to call for another summit once he becomes president to strengthen debt-relief measures and coordinate the global response to the virus.

The pandemic-induced shock has hit developing economies particularly hard. Commodity prices slumped and investors withdrew capital, raising fears of a debt crisis that could sink millions into poverty if nothing is done.

As of last year, almost half of all low-income countries have reached, or are near, debt distress, according to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Although the framework should help cut the debt load, lack of a real commitment by G-20 creditors will likely derail the initiative, said Daniel Munevar, a policy adviser with the European Network on Debt and Development.

“The predicted failure of the G-20 response will condemn a large number of developing countries to a lost decade,” Munevar said.

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Japan has worst day of covid cases yet amid fears of winter wave

InternationalNov 12. 2020A screen features Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki delivering a coronavirus public information message at a junction in Sapporo, Japan, on Nov. 5, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Kentaro Takahashi.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Lisa Du · WORLD, ASIA-PACIFIC 
Japan hit a new daily record of coronavirus infections Thursday as authorities began hinting they may take stronger measures to arrest the increase.

At least 1,634 cases were recorded nationwide, according to a tally by national broadcaster NHK, topping the previous high set during a surge in August. While numbers are low in absolute terms compared to many other countries, a spike in northern Japan is leading to concerns cases could spread as winter sets in.

Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister overseeing the country’s coronavirus response, said more stringent steps would be needed if infections continued to rise. That’s the strongest warning yet from the national government in a country that has largely escaped the worst of the pandemic.

“If it continues like this, the medical system could become overstretched,” Nishimura said at a briefing in Tokyo. “It’s not at the point where we need to call for a state of emergency, but we need to have the strongest sense of caution.”

Nishimura said that in some regions, several criteria used to evaluate the situation — such as the pace of new infections and the proportion of cases with an unknown route of infection — had entered the second-most serious stage on the government’s monitoring scale.

The northern island of Hokkaido and Kanagawa, near Tokyo, were among regions that saw record numbers of new cases. The Hokkaido government has already asked bars and other establishments to close early in the regional capital’s nightlife district. Tokyo saw 393 infections, one of the heaviest days to date.

Shares of Japanese stay-at-home stocks rose in Tokyo Thursday, with videogame and e-commerce stocks gaining as investors began to fret over the increase.

“This could be the beginning of a sharp increase in infections,” said Norio Ohmagari, an infectious disease specialist advising Tokyo authorities, at a local government meeting. “We need to be on alert.”

Japan has drawn attention from other nations for its ability to control the spread of the virus without mass-testing or enforced lockdowns. Despite two previous flareups, deaths and serious cases remain low, and hospitals haven’t been pushed to capacity. Life had been returning to normal, with sporting matches resuming, workers returning to offices and a successful campaign encouraging domestic travel.

But in recent weeks, officials have expressed concern over the increasing variance of infection clusters, with cases rising in nursing homes, hospitals and schools. Experts have pointed to an increased spread among younger adults tired of social distancing, as well as within foreign communities, which may struggle due to language barriers and more limited access to health services.

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Biden’s path back to Iran nuclear deal won’t be easy or fast

InternationalNov 12. 2020Mourners carry images of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iranian national flags during the funeral ceremony in Tehran on Jan. 6, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Ali Mohammadi.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Golnar Motevalli, David Wainer · NATIONAL, WORLD, POLITICS, NATIONAL-SECURITY, WHITEHOUSE, MIDDLE-EAST 
America’s European allies have struggled to keep the Iran nuclear deal alive after President Donald Trump quit the accord more than two years ago. Joe Biden’s election victory won’t provide a quick resuscitation.

Biden said during the presidential campaign that Trump’s Iran policy weakened U.S. national security and left Tehran closer than ever to being able to build a nuclear bomb. He vowed to get on the phone with allies on “day one” to begin rebuilding strained ties and said he’d give Iran a “credible path back to diplomacy.”

But Iran’s mid-2021 presidential election, as well as likely continued Republican control of the U.S. Senate, will put the brakes on quick, substantive action, according to U.S. and Iranian diplomats and analysts. In addition, Biden has signaled that his priorities starting Jan. 20 will be on the economy and getting the coronavirus pandemic under control.

“I am not optimistic at all that in the short term anything significant will happen between Iran and the Americans,” Saeed Laylaz, an economist and former adviser to ex-President Mohammad Khatami, said in an interview. “It’s not impossible, but it will be extremely difficult.”

Nuclear watchdogs and security analysts aren’t the only ones focused on what Biden could accomplish: Oil markets are betting on some easing of tensions by summer 2021 that will free the way for Iranian crude to return to global markets by year-end, Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Advisors, said on Bloomberg TV last week.

That could still be an optimistic timeline.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — who leaves office next year after staking his political legacy and reputation on the nuclear accord reached during the Obama administration — referred to Biden as “the new man who’s arrived” and had campaigned on returning to the accord. “If they stick to their responsibilities they can choose the new path,” he said.

But uncertainty about Rouhani’s successor, and the potential that elections could lead to a much harder-line government, will probably temper Biden’s enthusiasm to get something done quickly.

In addition, while presidents generally have some leeway on foreign policy, a Senate under Republican control would mean lawmakers would demand assurances on Biden’s Iran policy before they confirm his nominees, said Richard Goldberg, a former National Security Council official under Trump.

“Any effort to rejoin the Iran deal and build on it will be intensely scrutinized in Congress and among domestic critics,” said Ariane Tabatabai, a Middle East Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund.

If Biden pursues a rally-the-allies approach to Iran, that will likely include close consultations with everyone from Israel to the U.A.E., which aren’t likely to be as accommodating as European partners.

An official with Biden’s transition team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pressuring Biden to take the first step may be tough after the Trump administration spent four years highlighting the threat from Iran, which the U.S. sees as sowing turmoil across the Mideast and accused of hacking American voter data before the election.

Iran’s actions since the U.S. quit the 2015 nuclear deal — including its decision to ramp up uranium enrichment — have in some ways bolstered the Trump administration’s arguments.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Wednesday that Iran’s uranium stockpiles have grown eightfold since the U.S. quit the deal, and it now has enough supply to create three bombs if it enriches the material to weapons grade. Iran says its moves are reversible if the U.S. returns to the accord, and it has continued to host IAEA inspectors and meet other requirements of the nuclear deal.

Iran has signaled its requirements for reviving the multinational deal.

Its negotiators would want to see an authentic effort by Biden to not only scrap Trump’s approach but show that the U.S. had a longterm commitment to the accord, said a source close to official foreign policy circles in Tehran who didn’t want to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

An Iranian official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Biden would have to return to the nuclear accord without condition, compensation to Iran would have to be on the table and the U.S. would have to guarantee that it won’t invoke a “snapback” of United Nations sanctions as the Trump administration has tried to do.

Biden could take some smaller moves that would reduce the pressure on Tehran without committing the U.S. to a full-fledged detente. He could, for instance, ease the transfer of humanitarian aid to Iran, especially as the coronavirus batters the country’s health-care system, said Naysan Rafati, the International Crisis Group’s Iran analyst.

The U.S. can also try to help Iran gain access to a long-sought loan from the International Monetary Fund, he added. But even that would engender heavy scrutiny by Republicans, who are wary of providing funding to a government long listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism.

That’s especially true now that the first of the accord’s “sunset” provisions, which expire at fixed dates, has already passed. An international ban on Iranian arms purchases lapsed in October and other restrictions built into the accord expire in less than five years.

The short time horizon of the 2015 deal between Iran and six world powers prompted Biden to say he wants to expand on the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

Iranian officials, while broadly welcoming Trump’s defeat, have repeatedly said that the original terms of the deal can’t be renegotiated.

“I don’t see Iran being willing to walk that path,” said Adnan Tabatabai, co-founder and chief executive officer of the Bonn-based Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient, adding that Iran would be “allergic” to any mention of a “JCPOA-Plus”.

A final hurdle could still come from Trump, as his team works to restrict options for the incoming administration. The administration has been working to create a layer of hard-to-reverse sanctions that could initially hobble Biden’s efforts.

Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Thursday that the Trump administration will impose new sanctions on Iran but declined to specify which Iranian entities would be targeted or when penalties were likely.

“The Trump administration’s approach now is to add more and more threads to this spider web and hope the next guy has a hard time washing them away,” said Rafati, the International Crisis Group’s Iran analyst. “There’s very little in here that’s totally irreversible. But these are harder to undo because you have to make the case that terrorism is no longer a concern.”

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Erdogan economy u-turn sparks market euphoria – and some doubts

InternationalNov 12. 2020A vendor assists a customer to pick fresh produce from a stall at the Carsamba market in Istanbul on Nov. 4, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Nicole Tung.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Onur Ant · BUSINESS, WORLD, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS, EUROPE, MIDDLE-EAST 
After more than two years of confrontation, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled a cease-fire with international investors, pledging to support his new economic managers with market-friendly policies.

Erdogan on Wednesday followed the ouster of the central bank chief and the departure of his son-in-law as economy czar in recent days with a commitment to contain inflation while putting Turkey on a sustainable growth path. Turkish assets soared, as investors saw a possible green light for interest-rate increases to stabilize a currency that has lost almost half its value against the dollar since May 2018.

“Evidence has been rapidly accumulating that Turkey is eager to execute a dramatic shift in policy making back toward a more orthodox framework,” said Phoenix Kalen, a strategist at Societe Generale in London. “We believe that the central bank will implement a substantial interest-rate hike” next week, possibly as much as 4 percentage points to 14.25%.

The currency gained 4.6% against the dollar on Wednesday. It’s headed for its biggest weekly gain in more than a decade even after retreating 0.6% on Thursday. The Borsa Istanbul 100 Index extended its winning streak to a ninth day, led by a surge in banking shares, which helped push Turkey’s benchmark gauge to an all-time high.

Erdogan’s remarks mark a dramatic U-turn from an approach that has hammered Turkish markets the past two years. Shortly before he was sworn in under a new constitution with near-total authority in 2018, Erdogan promised to take full control of monetary policy to implement his unorthodox view that lower interest rates promote slower inflation.

It didn’t work out, especially under the weight of the global recession spawned by the coronavirus pandemic.

To support the sinking lira, Turkish banks sold more than $100 billion this year alone, according to Goldman Sachs estimates. The effort saw net foreign-exchange reserves fall by more than half to $18.4 billion while money borrowed from banks under short-term swaps reached tens of billions of dollars. The lira touched consecutive record lows last week, extending 2020 losses to over 30%.

The remarks by the 66-year-old president who has led the country since 2003 reflected those pressures. “Like everywhere else around the world, in our country it is the central bank’s job to determine and implement policies needed to curb inflation,” he told lawmakers from his AK Party.

Erdogan’s comments capped a tumultuous stretch that began when he ousted central bank Governor Murat Uysal early Saturday after a series of interest-rate increases failed to stem the lira’s decline. On Sunday evening, Berat Albayrak announced his resignation as treasury and finance minister on Instagram, citing health reasons.

Still, there were doubts about Erdogan’s change of heart and how long it will take before his electoral priorities might cause yet another policy reversal.

“Can a leopard really change its spots?” said Nigel Rendell, a senior analyst at Medley Global Advisors. “There will be a significant degree of skepticism about what Erdogan has said, which will temper some enthusiasm.”

Erdogan’s battle with markets began in earnest in 2018, a year when he was sworn in with additional powers and appointed Albayrak to the top economy position. The appointment was soon followed by a diplomatic row with U.S. over accusations against an American pastorin Turkey. The president blamed a shadowy “interest-rate lobby” for speculative attacks against the currency as the lira plunged.

Erdogan wasn’t completely unaware of the transactions involving Turkey’s foreign reserves, but the crunch came after he sought an explanation from the central bank for its September decision to raise the benchmark one-week repo rate to 10.25%, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Ensuing conversations with former Governor Uysal and other top officials including Agbal allowed Erdogan to get a fuller picture of the FX liabilities and how they compared to net reserves, they said, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The president’s support is critical for new central bank Governor Naci Agbal, who will face a credibility test at his first Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Nov. 19, and new Treasury and Finance Minister Lutfi Elvan. With Erdogan saying he won’t interfere, optimism has grown that Turkey will allow interest rates to rise to offer a sufficient inflation-adjusted return.

Agbal has begun meeting top banking executives to tell them he was appointed with a mandate to lower the inflation rate, which is just under 12%, people familiar with the meetings said, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Even before Erdogan’s speech, Agbal and Elvan have been doing the rounds to convey market-friendly messages to Turkish businesses while they prepare for the rates decision.

To be sure, Erdogan’s career saw previous attempts to appease investors, which proved short-lived. Even in Wednesday’s speech, he repeated his widely discredited view that lowering interest rates will also lead to lower inflation.

“Erdogan’s priority is to consolidate support and maintain the popularity of his party,” Nihat Ali Ozcan, a strategist at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara, said by phone on Wednesday. “He is a pragmatic leader and the economy management appointed by the president are unlikely to act independently. His arguments are aimed at preventing the economy, which is badly hurt by the pandemic, from deteriorating further.”

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Taiwan reaches out to Biden amid speculation on call

InternationalNov 12. 2020Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, during a Bloomberg Television interview in Taipei, Taiwan, on Aug. 24, 2018. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Billy H.C. Kwok.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Samson Ellis, Cindy Wang · WORLD, ASIA-PACIFIC 
Taiwan is “considering various ways” of congratulating President-elect Joe Biden, the island’s foreign minister said, amid speculation about whether Taipei was looking for a repeat of its convention-breaking call with Donald Trump.

Taiwan’s government was in discussions about communications between President Tsai Ing-wen and Biden, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told lawmakers Thursday in Taipei.

“On the topic of congratulating the U.S. president-elect, we will do it in the most appropriate way,” Wu said. “We are communicating about this. We are considering various ways, including a telegram, to congratulate the new president.”

Four years ago, Donald Trump took a congratulatory call from Tsai, the first time a U.S. president-elect had spoken to a Taiwanese head of state since Washington broke ties with Taipei in 1979. The Communist government in Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory despite never having controlled the island, dismissed the call as a gimmick.

Asked by lawmakers if a Biden refusal to take Tsai’s call would represent a diplomatic setback for Taiwan, Wu said any call would have no bearing on the health of ties with the U.S.

Tsai was among the first to congratulate Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their election victory, saying in a tweet that she looked forward to working together to further strengthen U.S.-Taiwan relations and contributions to international society.

Biden’s decision on whether to have a phone call with Tsai could help clarify whether he planned to continue the Trump administration’s tough stance on China — or show greater deference to Chinese sensitivities, especially in his dealings with Taipei. While Biden offered to deepen ties with Taiwan in an op-ed in the largest U.S.-based Chinese-language newspaper last month, he has stopped short of offering specifics on which parts of Trump-era China policies he would change.

Biden spoke to the leaders of Japan and South Korea on Thursday, reassuring them of his commitment to maintaining security alliances with both countries. While the U.S. doesn’t formally recognize Taiwan as a country, Washington is the democratic island’s main security backstop against Beijing’s ongoing threats of invasion.

The Trump administration last week agreed to sell Taiwan four Reaper drones, the latest in almost $5 billion of military sales announced over the past few weeks designed to make Chinese strategists think twice about attempting to capture the island. The sales come as China’s air force continues to pile pressure on Taiwan, with regular sojourns into the island’s Air Defense Identification Zone.

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Chief of staff pick signals end of Trump-era chaos

InternationalNov 12. 2020Ron Klain, President-elect Joe Biden’s newly chosen chief of staff, in his office in 2015. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Bill O’Leary

By The Washington Post · Michael Scherer · NATIONAL, HEALTH, POLITICS, SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT

WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden has chosen longtime Washington operative Ronald Klain as White House chief of staff, sending an early signal that he intends to rely heavily on experience, competence and political agility after a Donald Trump presidency that prized flashiness and personality.

Klain, 59, has been a senior adviser to Democratic presidents, vice presidents, candidates and senators. His appointment marks a homecoming of sorts, since Klain served in the late 1980s as a top aide to Biden when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and ran Biden’s office when he first became vice president.

“Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years that we have worked together, including as we rescued the American economy from one of the worst downturns in our history in 2009 and later overcame a daunting public health emergency in 2014,” Biden said in a statement. “His deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again.”

A strategist with a legal mind and political ear, Klain is the sort of behind-the-scenes Washington hand more common in decades past, an operative who has managed everything from an Ebola outbreak to candidate debates to judicial confirmations.

“This town is brimming with smart people and high school valedictorians,” said Jared Bernstein, an economic adviser to Biden when he was vice president. “Ron brings something extra to the table, which is an ability to quickly process complex, conflicting streams of information and zero in on the optimal solution.”

Often called the second-hardest gig in Washington, the White House chief of staff holds what is traditionally the most important unelected position in government not subject to a Senate confirmation, a person who must wake the president in a crisis and decide who gets to be in the room to shape his views.

The job has often gone to the most talented advisers in both parties – people such as Republican James Baker and Democrat Leon Panetta. Under President Trump, however, the role of the chief of staff has shifted, with the position falling to officials with strained relations and limited sway with Trump. Bucking convention, Trump’s son-in-law, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, established an independent locus of power inside the West Wing.

Choosing Klain reflects Biden’s plan to move beyond that chaos-driven presidency. The internal White House structure will probably revert to form, with a single manager in charge surrounded by senior officials who also have direct relationships with the president. Mike Donilon, who helped write Biden’s campaign strategy, and Steve Ricchetti, the campaign chairman, are well positioned to land influential positions inside the White House, according to people with knowledge of the internal dynamics who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount private conversations.

Other top campaign advisers, including Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director, and her husband, former White House counsel Bob Bauer, are expected to stay out of government this time around.

Many in Biden’s orbit have long seen Klain as the most obvious pick for chief of staff after more than 30 years of background roles. After a falling-out with Biden’s team when he offered early support to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid, Klain has worked his way back into the upper echelons of Biden’s trusted circle.

He consulted with Biden on general strategy even before the former vice president announced his presidential campaign last year, and since August he has served as an unpaid senior adviser to the campaign and led Biden’s extensive debate preparation.

“He is the logical choice and brings the complete package – universally acknowledged ability, a broad range of experience, chemistry with the president-elect – and he is a strategic thinker that brings results,” said Pete Rouse, who was a top aide to President Barack Obama.

At times Klain appears to have worked with every Democratic leader of the past three decades. As counsel to the Judiciary Committee, Klain advised then-Sen. Biden during Clarence Thomas’s volatile Supreme Court confirmation hearings. He worked in the Bill Clinton White House to confirm Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, served as chief of staff to Attorney General Janet Reno and was a top policy aide to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

Klain also served as chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore and led Gore’s legal efforts to force a recount of Florida ballots after the 2000 election – actor Kevin Spacey played him in the 2008 movie “Recount.”

“People frequently tell me that I should ‘get over’ the 2000 election and the recount,” Klain tweeted in 2019. “I haven’t, and I don’t think I ever will.”

Along the way, Klain has developed a specialized role as the Democrats’ preeminent coach for presidential debates. He worked on debate preparations for Bill Clinton in 1992 and Gore in 2000, and he has led the debate prep for every Democratic nominee since – John Kerry, Obama, Hillary Clinton and Biden.

Klain’s debate rules for candidates, versions of which long ago became public, have been a mainstay of both party’s strategies for these presidential matchups. “Write your ‘dream’ post-debate headline,” one bullet point says. “Dress so no one will talk about it,” says another.

“A stumble, fumble, or gaffe can cost you a debate, right up to the last second,” he wrote in one memo that became public. “But while you can lose a debate at any point, you can only win a debate in the first twenty minutes.”

But it is Klain’s experience battling both a recession and a pandemic that could come most quickly into play as Biden confronts the nation’s crises. “He knows Biden and he is loyal to Biden, and he absolutely has Biden’s trust,” Dunn said. “There is no one who works harder than Ron, whether it is on a debate book or covid policy.”

As Biden’s vice-presidential chief of staff, Klain oversaw the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a stimulus package that helped ward off a deeper recession after the 2008 economic collapse.

Klain was considered for White House chief of staff during Obama’s second term. That job ultimately went to Denis McDonough, a longtime Obama policy adviser, after Klain withdrew from consideration for personal reasons.

But he returned to the White House to become the point man for the administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak, which has now made him one of the Democratic Party’s go-to experts for responding to the coronavirus.

“It’s hard to prove a counterfactual, but I believe that Ron Klain is the reason we did not have an Ebola epidemic in the United States,” said Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to Obama. “He is well respected by all the people with whom I have worked.”

When Klain was chief Democratic counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., served as an intern there. About a quarter century later, they worked together again on the U.S. response to Ebola. “Ron Klain brought focus, professionalism, no drama, high competency to our Ebola response,” said Coons, who led the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa.

But Klain has not escaped the friction that is a constant at the highest reaches of government. He resigned as chief of staff to Gore in 1999, in the middle of Gore’s presidential campaign, after it emerged that he was in the room with President Bill Clinton when the president called a reporter for a story about the Gore campaign’s struggles.

Clinton had been seeking to convey to the reporter that Gore’s campaign was now doing well after initial stumbles. But Gore was furious at the implicit criticism in that message and at Clinton for delivering it.

Klain said he had opposed Clinton’s call, but the fallout only deepened divisions between the campaign and the vice president’s White House team. Klain left his job about a month later and was hired back into Gore’s team only after a shake-up in the senior campaign leadership.

More recently, Klain infuriated some in Biden’s inner circle by signing up to advise Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign before Biden, who was mourning his son Beau’s death from cancer, had decided to take a pass on the race. Klain helped prepare Clinton for her first debate against Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., which took place days before Biden announced he would not run.

After the campaign, Ricchetti, who also served as chief of staff to Biden in the vice president’s office, arranged for a meeting between Klain and Biden to clear any lingering bad feelings, according to people familiar with the matter.

“Ron’s value is that Biden trusts him completely and Ron has no fear of telling him exactly what he thinks,” said Jay Carney, a former White House press secretary whom Klain hired previously to work for Biden. “He does it respectfully and bluntly, which is what Biden wants and expects.”

Klain also has private-sector experience, which he got after leaving the Gore campaign. He became a litigator and registered lobbyist from 2001 to 2004, working out of the law firm O’Melveny & Myers for a range of clients, including AOL Time Warner and the federal mortgage giant Fannie Mae.

He then went to work for Revolution, a firm that has invested in companies such as Sweetgreen, Cotopaxi and DraftKings. The company was started by Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL.

Klain is married to Monica Medina, an environmental policy consultant who previously held positions at the Defense Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.