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U.S. inflation measure rose by more than forecast in November (nationthailand.com)

U.S. inflation measure rose by more than forecast in November

InternationalDec 11. 2020Trucks pull shipping containers through the West Basin Container Terminal at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, Calif., on Nov. 20, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Bing Guan. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Reade Pickert

A measure of prices paid by U.S. consumers rose in November by more than forecast as costs of transportation services and apparel accelerated, though inflationary pressures elsewhere remained subdued as the pandemic continues to curb activity.

The consumer price index rose 0.2% from the prior month after no change in October, Labor Department data showed Thursday. Compared with a year earlier, the gauge rose 1.2%. The core index, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, also advanced 0.2% from the prior month and increased 1.6% from a year earlier.

The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 0.1% gain in both the CPI and core measure.

While services costs picked up last month by the most since July, a broadening of inflation will likely take time as the nation awaits the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. Currently, merchants have limited leeway to charge customers more as unemployment remains elevated and a surge in infections prompts some states and cities to reimpose restrictions on business.

The report showed the cost of transportation services jumped 1.8%, the most in four months. Airfares rose 3.5% after a 6.3% increase a month earlier, and motor vehicle insurance advanced 1.1% in November. Lodging away from home was 3.9% more expensive than in October, the largest gain since 2005.

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Premium chocolate emerges as winner in pandemic (nationthailand.com)

Premium chocolate emerges as winner in pandemic

InternationalDec 11. 2020Chocolate Santa Claus figures produced by Lindt & Spruengli on display inside a department store in Berlin on Dec. 6, 2017. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Krisztian Bocsi. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Corinne Gretler

As the coronavirus pandemic leads to the collapse of one retailer after another, Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Spruengli has been gaining U.S. market share and rival Laederach is opening its biggest store yet in New York.

Chocolate has emerged as one product that consumers won’t do without in trying times. The U.S. market for it expanded at unusually fast double-digit rates in June and July and it was still higher than pre-covid growth levels in September, according to Sanford C. Bernstein, which cited Nielsen data.

Laederach is opening a 2,500 square-foot shop on 5th Avenue in New York Thursday near Rockefeller Center. The family-owned brand is known in Switzerland for plates of fresh chocolates that have a shelf life of just a few weeks.

The plans to open a big brick-and-mortar store stand out after the pandemic led to bankruptcies of retailers like Brooks Brothers and J.C. Penney. Consumers looking to treat themselves to affordable luxuries have turned to chocolate, according to Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne.

Laederach entered the U.S. a year ago, betting it will soon become one of its biggest markets outside Switzerland.

“We don’t have any doubts that after the pandemic sales will come back and grow again as they have been,” Chief Executive Officer Johannes Laederach said in a phone interview. “As a family-owned business, we can think long-term.”

Laederach doesn’t publish regular financial details, but had revenue of 120 million Swiss francs ($135 million) in 2016 and sales growth of about 14% at the end of February. The company sells its products in 15 countries, including Germany, Singapore, and Canada. The chain also plans to open a store in Washington D.C. in February.

Lindt, known for its Lindor balls, has also done well in Europe lately, with average value growth of 25% in the second half. That may bode well for the Christmas season, after chocolate makers faced a weak Easter period earlier in the pandemic.

Shares of the chocolatier traded 0.4% higher at 12:38 p.m. in Zurich.

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Jobless claims spiked in the U.S. last week, with 853,000 people seeking new benefits (nationthailand.com)

Jobless claims spiked in the U.S. last week, with 853,000 people seeking new benefits

InternationalDec 11. 2020

By The Washington Post · Eli Rosenberg

The number of new unemployment claims rose sharply to 853,000 last week, an increase of 137,000 from the week before, another sign of the toll the pandemic is taking on the labor market.

The number of claims leapt over 800,000 for the first time since the week ending Oct. 10, when they came in at 842,000.

A large spike in coronavirus cases in the United States, particularly since October, has rattled large parts of the economy. There are now more than 1 million new cases of coronavirus each week in the United States, and the country shattered a record on Wednesday with more than 3,000 deaths from the disease. Hospitals in many parts of the country are overwhelmed and some state and local jurisdictions are imposing fresh restrictions to try and curb the spike.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is trying to reach a deal on a new relief package but those talks have so far failed to produce a consensus plan.

The new burst of jobless claims was slightly larger than the last two big jumps, for that October week, when they rose about 75,000 and in early August, when claims rose 133,000, making it the largest jump in claims since millions began flooding the system at the pandemic’s outset in March.

An additional 427,600 claims were filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program for gig and self-employed workers, according to data released Thursday by the Department of Labor.

Economists have been warning for months about coming damage to the economy if Congress failed to authorize another stimulus package to help prop up struggling businesses and households. The labor market has in general fared better than the most dire projections during the pandemic’s early months, but has been flashing warning signs for weeks.

The 245,000 jobs added in November were the lowest number added since the recovery began in May, and a sign that December’s report could go into the negative. The number of unemployment claims is another concerning data point.

The number of people claiming benefits in all the programs was just over 19 million, although officials have warned that tally may be inflated due to data processing issues compounded by the United States’ patchwork unemployment system.

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ECB Boosts Crisis Stimulus With More Bond-Buying, Bank Loans (nationthailand.com)

ECB Boosts Crisis Stimulus With More Bond-Buying, Bank Loans

InternationalDec 11. 2020The European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters stands on the bank of the River Main in Frankfurt, Germany, on April 28, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Alex Kraus. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Piotr Skolimowski

The European Central Bank escalated its efforts to shield the euro zone from a possible double-dip recession with another burst of monetary stimulus to lock in low interest rates at least until the pandemic crisis is over.

Policymakers increased and extended emergency bond purchases, and approved more long-term loans on cheap terms for another year. The euro jumped.

Highlights:

– The Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program was increased by 500 billion euros ($606 billion) to 1.85 trillion euros, and extended it by nine months to at least the end of March 2022. Reinvestments will be made until at least the end of 2023.

– An older bond-buying program will continue to run at a monthly pace of 20 billion euros until shortly before interest rates rise.

– Favorable terms on the ECB’s TLTRO-III bank lending program will be extended by 12 months to June 2022, and the ECB will make three new offers under the program next year. Total amount banks can borrow raised to 55% of banks’ stock of eligible loans, from 50%.

– Four additional pandemic emergency longer-term refinancing operations (PELTROs) will be offered in 2021 “to provide an effective liquidity backstop.”

– The easing of collateral rules announced earlier this year will be extended to June 2022. It will reassess the measures before the end date.

– Interest rates remained unchanged, with the deposit rate at -0.5%.

“All these steps are real central-bank engineering — something Lagarde called ‘recalibration’ at the October meeting — but no actual stepping up of monetary stimulus,” said Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany. “Instead, the ECB’s main aim is to extend the current level of monetary accommodation.”

The decision came as European Union leaders moved closer to resolving a dispute over a 1.8 trillion-euro joint fiscal package that would put the region on a firmer footing for 2021.

The ECB aims to keep financial conditions loose in the face of mounting debt burdens as governments pump fiscal aid to companies and households. The economy is almost certainly shrinking again, with many shops and restaurants restaurants forced to close to to contain infections.

Also in the background is the risk of a no-deal Brexit. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who held talks over dinner on Wednesday, agreed to give both sides until Sunday to try to bridge their differences.

The euro’s recent surge against the dollar is another headwind for the ECB, putting downward pressure on inflation by making imports cheaper. The single currency rose 0.4% to an intra-day high of $1.2126 following the decision, while German bonds erased gains.

“For me, the last euro downside risk of the year has passed,” said Jordan Rochester, a foreign exchange strategist at Nomura.

Central bankers have been signaling a new round of stimulus for weeks, stressing the need to keep support measures running at least until an economic recovery is entrenched. Covid-19 vaccines are only just being rolled out, and the economic scars from the pandemic will last well past the end of the health emergency.

Chief economist Philip Lane has also stressed the need to get inflation, which is currently below zero, back on its pre-pandemic path toward the goal of just-under 2% as soon as possible.

The Governing Council repeated its pledge to keep stimulus in place until it “judges that the coronavirus crisis phase is over.”

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Trump turns to Congress for help in his election fight (nationthailand.com)

Trump turns to Congress for help in his election fight

InternationalDec 10. 2020President Trump is pictured on Dec. 5, 2020, in Valdosta, Ga. Trump’s congressional allies met privately to pitch a plan about contesting the results of the presidential election. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford 

By The Washington Post · Rachael Bade, Josh Dawsey, Tom Hamburger

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is shifting his focus to Congress after the courts roundly rejected his bid to overturn the results of the election, pressuring congressional Republicans into taking a final stand to keep him in power.

Trump’s push is part of a multipronged approach as he also seeks to lobby state and federal lawmakers to give him cover for his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, as well as rally support for a last-gasp legal challenge in the Supreme Court that election law experts almost universally dismiss.

The president has been calling Republicans, imploring them to keep fighting and more loudly proclaim the election was stolen while pressing them on what they plan to do. He spoke to Arizona GOP Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, on Wednesday, and is expected to meet Thursday at the White House with several state attorneys general. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and point man in the legal fight, has been making similar calls from the hospital, where he is being treated for covid-19.

The president also has enlisted Vice President Mike Pence to reach out to governors and other party leaders in key states to see what else can be done to help the president. A person familiar with the calls said Pence has not exerted pressure for lawmakers to take specific actions and sees them as “checking in.”

The individual spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. The vice president’s office declined to comment. Tim Murtaugh of the Trump campaign also declined to comment.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Trump’s conservative allies in the House have been privately buttonholing GOP senators, seeking to enlist one to join in objecting to slates of electors on Jan. 6, according to multiple people familiar with their effort who requested anonymity to discuss their plans.

On that day, Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes and declare Joe Biden as the 46th president – with Pence presiding. But if a member of the House and Senate challenge a state’s results, the whole Congress would vote – and the GOP plotting all but assures the routine process could take a dramatic turn, forcing Republicans to choose between accepting the election results or Trump’s bid to overturn the outcome.

Trump has called a number of informal, campaign and White House advisers and asked for help, according to three people who have spoken to him and discussed the calls on the condition of anonymity.

“The request is more, can you feel people out to see if they think the election is a fraud, and are you willing to help us overturn it,” said one person familiar with Trump’s calls, who described it as a “last-ditch effort.” “He’s asking people to check in with their contacts in various battleground states to measure whether there is an appetite to take action from the legislature. He says, ‘Why don’t you see what this person says? Why don’t you see what that person says?”

The pressure on Republicans will grow more intense after the electors meet in each state Monday and cast their votes and as Trump’s hopes in the courts continue to fade. Republicans who have spent four years catering to Trump’s desires could face a choice for which they will be judged in the 2022 midterm elections and 2024 if they have presidential ambitions as the GOP has shown unfettered loyalty to Trump.

Biden won the election with 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232, and he leads the national popular vote by more than 7 million. Trump, who has refused to concede, has repeatedly pushed baseless claims and outright falsehoods, insisting that the election was rigged.

Courts and judges across the country have flatly rejected the claims of the Trump campaign and his allies, citing the lack of substantial evidence for his allegations of voter fraud. The effort reached a new nadir on Tuesday when the Supreme Court denied a bid by allies of Trump to reverse Biden’s win in Pennsylvania. Losses also continue to pile up in Arizona, Nevada and Michigan.

None of the handful of lawsuits that remain outstanding are expected to ultimately go Trump’s way. In Wisconsin, a challenge to the results of a partial recount remains pending before a state circuit judge, and a separate federal suit filed by Trump is also unresolved. In Georgia, a small number of suits – including a last-ditch effort by the Republican National Committee – is also still pending.

Rebuffed by the courts, Trump is seeking to enlist another branch of government – Congress – to do his bidding. Some of his fiercest Hill allies are taking up the charge and pressuring their GOP colleagues to join the effort.

Trump called Johnson Wednesday morning, requesting that the conservative leader rally House Republicans to sign onto an amicus brief in an 11th hour Texas lawsuit seeking unprecedented judicial intervention in disallowing the results from four key swing states that went for Biden: Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Johnson eagerly obliged, emailing all House Republicans to solicit signatures for the long-shot Texas case.

In the email, Johnson wrote that Trump “will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review,” ensuring Republicans knew the president would be apprised of who signed on and who didn’t.

“Most of my Republican colleagues in the House, and countless millions of our constituents across the country, now have serious concerns with the integrity of our election system,” Johnson said in a statement. “The purpose of our amicus brief will be to articulate this concern and express our sincere belief that the great importance of this issue merits a full and careful consideration by the court.”

Separately, more than two dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives signed a letter to Trump requesting that he direct Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate “irregularities” in the election – though Barr himself said last week that the Justice Department had found no evidence to overturn the election results.

In the Senate, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., announced that he would hold a hearing on election “irregularities” on Dec. 16 – two days after the electoral college casts its votes.

Many Republicans have echoed Trump’s baseless claims. Ward, who tweeted that she spoke to Trump, reiterated many of the claims about alleged problems with the election that she and her lawyers have been making unsuccessfully in court in recent weeks. The Arizona Supreme Court rejected her latest case, a formal election contest seeking to annul Biden’s victory, on Tuesday evening, affirming a lower-court ruling that found no evidence of misconduct, fraud or widespread errors.

In Michigan, pressure on state legislators to intervene with the selection of electors continues with daily calls to specific Republican lawmakers in Lansing from Jenna Ellis and other members of the president’s legal team. A state legislative staffer said Wednesday that among the items being discussed by Republicans is whether to intervene or support the Texas case Trump is staking everything on.

On Wednesday, House Republicans in Lansing also issued a statement calling for subpoena powers to be granted to the House Oversight Committee to investigate claims of fraud in the state’s ballot count. Separately, by a vote of 4-3, the Michigan Supreme Court Wednesday rejected a legal appeal of a case challenging the Michigan results.

At the same time, attorneys general in 17 states Trump won tried to apply pressure on the Supreme Court to take up the Texas complaint filed by state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Trump ally. The court has told the four targeted states – Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia – to respond by Thursday afternoon.

States have constitutional authority to set the rules of an election, and it is almost unheard of for another state to challenge them. But those states supporting Texas said they are protecting their own voters.

Trump has turned it into something of a showdown at the Supreme Court, writing on Twitter Wednesday, “This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”

Trump has continued to call state lawmakers in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, advisers say, following the news closely in all three states.

The Jan. 6 date in Congress looms large as Trump’s last chance, with the purpose of calls to state lawmakers to get them to pressure members of Congress. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., has said he will challenge the results though it is unclear how many slates of electors he and other Trump allies plan to contest.

The question is whether they can find a Senate Republican to join their effort to trigger votes in the House and Senate.

Earlier this week, Brooks and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., leader of the House Freedom Caucus, met privately with the Senate Republican Steering Committee leaders, including Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas. According to people familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the House members pitched both men on their plan and made clear that they need a Senate Republican to join their effort.

The offices of both senators declined to comment on the meeting or whether the senators would heed the request. Asked about the matter Tuesday, Cruz dodged the question and said the courts would be the final decision on the election.

“There are multiple lawsuits raising allegations of fraud and irregularities in this election,” Cruz said. “We need to allow the judicial process to work its way through and resolve those claims.”

Conservatives also have been eyeing Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who may have future presidential ambitions and would join the effort to make a last stand for Trump.

Republicans also hope to recruit Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., who is locked in a competitive Georgia runoff election set for Jan. 5. Conservatives believe that if she were to announce that she will join the House effort and object to state electors, Loeffler could rally the GOP base and secure her election against Democrat Raphael Warnock.

Loeffler’s office did not return a request for comment, but one individual familiar with the recruitment process said conservatives have been in touch with her.

If the whole Congress is forced to vote, it would likely fail in the Democratic-controlled House and face resistance in the Senate.

“It’s just simply madness,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. “The idea of supplanting the vote of the people with partisan legislators, is, is so completely out of our national character that it’s simply mad. Of course the president has the right to challenge results in court, to have recounts. But this effort to subvert the vote of the people is dangerous and destructive of the cause of democracy.”

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U.S., states sue Facebook as an illegal monopoly, setting stage for potential breakup (nationthailand.com)

U.S., states sue Facebook as an illegal monopoly, setting stage for potential breakup

InternationalDec 10. 2020

By The Washington Post · Tony Romm

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government and 48 attorneys general filed landmark antitrust lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday, seeking to break up the social-networking giant over charges it engaged in illegal, anti-competitive tactics to buy, bully or kill its rivals.

The twin lawsuits filed in federal district court allege that Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, had behaved as an unlawful monopoly for years – one that repeatedly had weaponized its vast stores of data, seemingly limitless wealth and savvy corporate muscle to ascend into one of the most widely used services around the world.

The state and federal complaints chiefly challenge Facebook’s past acquisition of two companies: Instagram, a photo-sharing tool, and WhatsApp, a messaging service. Investigators said the purchases ultimately helped Facebook remove potential potent rivals from the digital marketplace, allowing the tech giant to enrich itself on advertising dollars at the cost of users, who had fewer social-networking options at their disposal.

The lawsuits together represent the most significant political and legal threats to Facebook in its roughly 17-year history, setting up a high-profile clash between U.S. regulators and one of Silicon Valley’s most profitable firms that could take years to resolve. Antitrust regulators explicitly asked a court to consider forcing Facebook to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp to remedy their competition concerns, seeking a punishment that could severely constrain Facebook’s ambitions.

The Federal Trade Commission, led by Republican Chairman Joe Simons, brought its lawsuit in a D.C. district court. Ian Conner, the director of the agency’s Bureau of Competition, said in a statement the FTC seeks to “provide a foundation for future competitors to grow and innovate without the threat of being crushed by Facebook.”

Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general of New York, led her Democratic and Republican counterparts from dozens of states and territories in filing their complaint in the same venue. Appearing at a news conference, James sharply rebuked Facebook for having put “profits ahead of consumers’ welfare and privacy.”

“Today, we are sending a clear and strong message to Facebook and every other company that any efforts to stifle competition, hurt small business, reduce innovation and creativity, [and] cut privacy protections, will be met with the full force of our offices,” James said.

State, federal antitrust charges against Facebook could come as soon as November, sources say

The lawsuits drew rebuke from Facebook, which pledged to “vigorously defend” its business practices in a sign of conflict to come.

“People and small businesses don’t choose to use Facebook’s free services and advertising because they have to, they use them because our apps and services deliver the most value,” Jennifer Newstead, the company’s vice president and general counsel, said in a statement.

Zuckerberg, appearing frequently on Capitol Hill in recent years similarly has argued that the Web remains sufficiently competitive, bolstered by new companies including TikTok that did not exist years ago. Privately, he has told employees he would “go to the mat” to defend against an antitrust lawsuit he saw as an “existential” threat to the company, according to audio unearthed last year.

The lawsuit reflects the vast dissatisfaction with Silicon Valley that has come to pervade all levels of government in the United States. For years, state and federal regulators had maintained a hands-off approach to the tech industry, even as watchdogs in Europe and around the world began to probe and penalize Facebook and its digital peers for their practices. But a series of high-profile scandals and missteps have brought Democrats and Republicans into rare accord as they seek anew to challenge Silicon Valley over its ever-expanding footprint – and the consequences it poses to corporate rivals and consumers alike.

Last month, the Justice Department filed a similarly sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Google, saying the company struck special deals and engaged in other wrongful tactics to expand the reach of its search and advertising empires. Antitrust watchdogs similarly have set their eyes on Apple and Amazon, raising the potential for additional antitrust action to come. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)

U.S. investigators initiated antitrust probes targeting Facebook last year. Dozens of attorneys general led by James in New York promised a broad review of Facebook’s business, aiming to explore the nexus between its digital dominance and ever-growing efforts to siphon users’ data. The FTC, meanwhile, took aim at Facebook almost immediately after concluding an investigation into the company over its entanglement with Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, that forced the tech giant to pay a $5 billion penalty.

Facebook will have to pay a record-breaking fine for violating users’ privacy. But the FTC wanted more.

Immediately, regulators turned their attention to Facebook’s purchase of Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, two deals that the government could have blocked at the time but did not. For Facebook, the two transactions reflected its aggressive attempts at the time to pivot to smartphone devices as millions of users began to spend more time on iPhone and Android apps than desktop computers and traditional websites.

State and federal investigators, however, found that the two acquisitions reflected a troubling strategy at Facebook dating back more than a decade – an aggressive ploy to buy or kill competitive threats, large or small, before they could sap away the social-networking giant’s popularity.

The government lawsuits at times point to correspondence from Zuckerberg himself, who acknowledged in 2012 – before purchasing Instagram – that Facebook had fallen “very behind” in photo sharing and needed to make the critical acquisition to catch up, according to the FTC complaint. In making its move, Facebook sought to wield its “power as a sword,” the state attorneys general said, threatening negative repercussions if Instagram did not agree to a sale.

State and federal investigators detailed a similar troubling pattern with WhatsApp, highlighting additional emails from Zuckerberg, who saw the company and other messaging services at the time as “the next biggest consumer risk” for his social-networking empire. In 2013, a year before the acquisition, the once-independent WhatsApp even had outpaced Facebook’s own messenger product globally as measured by the number of messages sent daily.

In acquiring the company, Facebook initially promised users that it would preserve WhatsApp’s independence and strong privacy protections, state investigators said. But Facebook reversed course years later, frustrating regulators, who said the bait-and-switch had the effect of eliminating a privacy-protective competitor from the digital marketplace.

Facebook on Wednesday sought to rebut the charges: Newstead, the company’s general counsel, stressed that WhatsApp and Instagram became successful precisely because of the tech giant’s massive investments in them.

“This is revisionist history. Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers and promote innovation, not to punish successful businesses,” she said, arguing that federal regulators could have stopped the Instagram and WhatsApp deals but ultimately did not at the time.

“The government now wants a do-over, sending a chilling warning to American business that no sale is ever final,” she said.

The argument has hardly dissuaded the company’s critics, including those in Congress, who found reason for suspicion after concluding their own antitrust investigation this year. The review unearthed a trove of emails from Zuckerberg and his lieutenants apparently plotting against competitors in a series of discussions in which they referenced making a “land grab” for rival apps. Legal experts also said that the government was well within its rights to challenge those transactions on grounds that it ultimately enabled Facebook to act anti-competitively.

Investigators on Wednesday also faulted Facebook for the way in which the company manages its vast trove of user data and the policies that govern when and how third-party app developers and other companies can access it. Such tactics allowed Facebook to stamp out potential rivals before they could become too popular, investigators found.

In 2013, for example, Facebook sought to stop the rise of Vine, a short-video service launched by Twitter, the FTC complaint says. Facebook that January cut Vine off from accessing Facebook’s features, such as users’ friend lists, restricting its growth, according to the federal agency.

“Facebook has hindered, suppressed, and deterred the emergence and growth of rival personal social networking providers, and unlawfully maintained its monopoly in the U.S. personal social networking market, other than through merits competition,” the FTC said.

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Johnson fails to get Brexit deal at Supper Summit in Brussels (nationthailand.com)

Johnson fails to get Brexit deal at Supper Summit in Brussels

InternationalDec 10. 2020Prime Minister Boris Johnson/File photo 

By The Washington Post · Karla Adam, Michael Birnbaum, William Booth

LONDON – It was another of those make-or-break moments for a Brexit deal that ended in a fizzle. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Brussels on Wednesday night for a dinner meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a tête-à-tête the British media dubbed Johnson’s “date with destiny.” The two talked, but no breakthrough was made.

Some feared that the dinner date could be a “last supper” before all hope of a post-Brexit trade and security deal crumbles. But the two sides agreed to send their representatives back to the negotiating table. Britain leaves the European Union in 22 days.

“We had a lively and interesting discussion on the state of play across the list of outstanding issues,” von der Leyen said after the dinner. “We gained a clear understanding of each other’s positions. They remain far apart.”

The European Commission president said in a statement that the two leaders agreed that their negotiating teams “should immediately reconvene to try to resolve these essential issues.”

Johnson left without speaking with reporters. “Very large gaps remain between the two sides and it is still unclear whether these can be bridged,” Downing Street said in a statement, adding that the prime minister “does not want to leave any route to a possible deal untested.”

Johnson and von der Leyen agreed that by Sunday a firm decision should be made about the future of the talks.

And so the British prime minister and the European Commission president did not forge a future relationship based on a bilateral pact. But they had a nice meal. Fish was on the menu – scallops and turbot – and fishing rights at the top of the talks.

Before Johnson left for Brussels, there was much huffing and puffing in London and Brussels over the last-ditch mission, just three weeks before Britain’s 11-month transition period expires at the end of the month.

The dinner between the two leaders was designed to reset the dynamics and unlock further discussions. Others suspected that it could help either side get an edge on the inevitable blame game that will ensue if Britain ends up crashing out without a deal after four decades in the world’s richest trading club.

Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary, University of London, said, “If they are going to get a deal, it’s best for both sides if it looks as if it was tough negotiating but they pulled off a miracle at the last minute.”

Bale cautioned, “By all accounts, they were quite a long way apart, even on most basic issues, even a few days ago.” He handicapped the possibility for an eventual deal at 50/50.

Both sides insist that an abrupt – and possibly chaotic – departure remains a possibility.

The meeting pitted Johnson against a frugal and precise former German defense minister who started as head of the European Union’s executive branch a year ago.

The two leaders share some basic traits. Like Johnson, von der Leyen spent some of her formative years in Brussels as the child of a senior E.U. official. They went to the same Brussels high school for the children of European bureaucrats, though their tenures did not overlap. Like Johnson, she is the parent of a large family: seven children in her case, six or more – the precise number is uncertain – in his.

But Johnson likes to bluster his way past the facts, and von der Leyen likes to muster them. He likes to live large – big Italian red wines and weekends at Chequers, the prime minister’s official countryside estate. She arranged for a tiny apartment to be constructed at the sprawling European Commission headquarters so she could skip the commute to work.

“You run a tight ship,” Johnson told von der Leyen on Wednesday as they entered their meeting, after he sought to take off his mask without keeping a pandemic-friendly distance from her. She politely corrected him, allowed masks off for a moment for the photographers, then told him to put it back on again as they drew close.

The dinner menu was rich with symbolism: French and British fishermen have clashed in the English Channel over scallops, with access to British fishing waters a major subject of contention in the talks.

Earlier in the day, when Johnson was still in London, he complained to Parliament about the European Union’s demands.

“If they pass a new law in the future with which we in this country don’t comply . . . they want the automatic right to punish us and to retaliate,” he said. “And secondly, they are saying that the U.K. should be the only country in the world not to have sovereign control over its fishing waters.”

These were not terms that “any prime minister of this country should accept,” he said.

Britain wants to be able to “take back control” of its sovereignty – for many Brexiteers, that was the whole point of leaving the bloc.

But Europe appears in little mood for compromise.

The disagreements have touched on areas that have been sore points for years – in some cases centuries.

Belgium’s Flemish fishermen have declared that they have eternal fishing rights in British waters because of a 1666 charter granted by King Charles II to the citizens of Bruges.

“We believe the privilege to still be valid today,” said Flemish Economy Minister Hilde Crevits.

The European Union also does not want Britain undercutting it on issues such as state aid and environmental regulations to gain a competitive advantage. It wants to make sure that British rules stay closely aligned with E.U. ones as a prerequisite for Britain to get relatively unfettered access to the European market.

If a deal is not struck, Britain’s exit could be messy and costly. Its trading relationship with its biggest trading partner would default to World Trade Organization rules, meaning overnight tariffs and quotas that would hit both sides, clogging ports and supply chains.

Time is in short supply. A stripped-down trade deal could be approved by leaders and the European Parliament alone, easing passage by Dec. 31. But if there is a more complicated bargain, some national parliaments would also have to ratify it, increasing the possibility of a misstep that leads to Britain dropping out of the European market on Dec. 31 without a safety net.

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Europe seeks to reset relations with U.S., turn page on Trump (nationthailand.com)

Europe seeks to reset relations with U.S., turn page on Trump

InternationalDec 10. 2020President- elect Joe Biden speaks at a news conference on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Demetrius Freeman 

By The Washington Post · Michael Birnbaum

European leaders plan to use a summit that starts Thursday to agree on a new strategy to rebuild strained relations with the United States after four years of a divide-and-conquer approach from President Donald Trump.

From rebuilding the Iran nuclear deal to fighting the pandemic to addressing climate change, Europeans are scrambling to seize the moment with the incoming U.S. leader. Because of Joe Biden’s age and history, many in the bloc say he will be more interested in cooperation with Europe than any U.S. president for the foreseeable future, Democrat or Republican.

But leaders on both sides of the Atlantic warn that some of the irritants of the Trump years will remain, and that other divides could still open – especially on what may be the greatest foreign policy challenge of Biden’s presidency, an increasingly aggressive and expansionist Beijing. European countries vary on how they think they should manage relations with China. The most populous and most powerful country in Europe, Germany, also has the closest trading relationship with Beijing.

European leaders also have become embroiled in an intramural debate about the extent to which they should seek independence from the United States, a goal increasingly pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron and opposed by Germany and others.

“We must be able to act multilaterally when we can. This is our preference,” E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said this week after European foreign ministers discussed transatlantic strategy at a meeting in Brussels. But Europe must also “be able to act autonomously when we must, in order to promote and defend more effectively our interests and values.”

Trump frequently had Europe in his crosshairs, declaring the European Union his greatest “foe” on trade issues and slapping around Germany and others for defense spending that failed to meet NATO pledges. Unlike President Barack Obama, who declared ahead of Britain’s June 2016 referendum on membership within the European Union that he wanted Britain to remain, Trump stoked Brexit.

“Everyone around the world who wishes to see us divided has been opening bottles of Champagne the last few years. That is not OK anymore,” the E.U. ambassador to the United States, Stavros Lambrinidis, said at a panel on transatlantic relations last week.

Although it may be Europe’s turn to pop the bubbly, many policymakers are cautious about how permanent the reprieve from Trumpism may be.

“There’s a sense that this is the last chance,” given the possibility that a Trump ally could recapture the White House in 2024, said Rosa Balfour, the head of the Brussels office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank.

Many of Biden’s pledges align neatly with E.U. priorities. The European Commission has issued a strategy paper that details a long list of issues it hopes to tackle with the Biden administration.

Europeans want the United States back in the World Health Organization and as a leader in global efforts to combat the pandemic – as Biden has said he would make happen from Day 1. They want Washington to rejoin the Paris climate accord, another first-day plan for the incoming Biden administration. They are laying the groundwork for a revival of the Iran nuclear deal, meeting next week in Vienna to formally invite the United States to rejoin the accord after Trump pulled the plug on U.S. involvement. And they hope Biden will drop Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and take a more conciliatory approach to trade issues.

And at NATO, a transatlantic group of strategists released a plan last week to adjust the alliance in the next decade to attune it more toward threats from China, a shift that would bring it more in line with U.S. security preoccupations.

“It’s both wonderful and scary because if we screw up this window, it’ll just be heart-wrenching,” said Anthony Gardner, who was U.S. ambassador to the European Union under Obama and advised the Biden campaign on Europe issues.

But Gardner said some of the biggest issues – including China – may be thorny, in part because Europe itself remains divided.

“We really should be more aligned on China, but getting between that statement of intent and the actual delivery is going to be hard,” Gardner said.

The continent has become more skeptical of Beijing during Trump’s term, but some countries remain dependent on trade with China even as a growing number have agreed to keep Huawei out of their infrastructure systems, a U.S. priority.

“If Europe can’t solve these differences within, it’s very difficult to propose to the U.S. a proactive plan,” Balfour said.

Biden brings a long history to the relationship with Europe, first with his longtime chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later as vice president, when he was frequently dispatched around the world to resolve thorny issues of international affairs.

That is good and bad for Europe, given that Trump’s anger that Europe is not as active in global security issues was largely an undiplomatic reformulation of frustrations from the Obama years.

When Biden, as vice president, met in Rome with Italy’s then-president, Giorgio Napolitano, shortly after the Arab Spring, he complained that the United States was standing alone against Syrian President Bashar Assad as he stoked a bloody war in his country, according to an adviser to Napolitano.

“Biden told Napolitano, ‘We have said what the red lines are in Syria, but we don’t see anyone raising their hands and saying we’re with you,’ ” said Stefano Stefanini, a former Italian diplomat who was Napolitano’s diplomatic counselor at the time.

Although Europe’s engagement with security issues in its neighborhood is still lagging, Stefanini said, the bigger irritant may be in its relations with Russia.

“Europeans have to realize that given the way the ground has shifted between China and the U.S. in the last four years, the idea that exists in some European corners – to continue trading with China as if the rivalry between the U.S. and China is not Europe’s business – cannot apply,” Stefanini said.

European divisions are deep enough that they may struggle to be a strong partner to the United States on all of Washington’s priorities. At the leaders’ summit Thursday and Friday, they will discuss Brexit, their tumultuous relationship with Turkey and their fight with Hungary and Poland about rule-of-law issues.

Relations with Washington will be one of the few areas of concord.

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Like Trump, Biden has promised to end ‘forever wars’ (nationthailand.com)

Like Trump, Biden has promised to end ‘forever wars’

InternationalDec 10. 2020

By The Washington Post · Dan Lamothe

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump took office after repeatedly promising to “beat the hell” out of the Islamic State and end the United States’ “endless wars.” But reality proved more complicated.

Although his administration oversaw the destruction of the Islamic State’s caliphate in Syria and a Special Operations raid that killed its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remnants of the group remain active in several countries.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military is still involved in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and other terrorism hot spots after four years of Trump vowing to bring troops home.

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to face a similar landscape – and political pressure – as he takes over the White House.

In similar fashion to Trump, Biden has said it is time to “end the forever wars,” a catchall for 19 years of military operations launched in response to the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Thousands of U.S. troops – and many more civilians – have been killed since then, and trillions of dollars have been spent.

But Biden has indicated that ending the wars does not mean shutting down all counterterrorism operations abroad.

Although the “vast majority” of U.S. troops should come home, the United States must “narrowly define” and continue counterterrorism operations targeting al-Qaida and the Islamic State, Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine in the spring.

“We must maintain our focus on counterterrorism, around the world and at home, but staying entrenched in unwinnable conflicts drains our capacity to lead on other issues that require our attention, and it prevents us from rebuilding the other instruments of American power,” he wrote.

Early on, the Trump administration sought to reorient itself to prioritize “great power competition” with China and Russia above counterterrorism, and defense officials have said they wanted to make the shift “irreversible.”

But many of the longtime areas of conflict remain just as turbulent.

In Afghanistan, Biden must decide how to handle a delicate situation in which Trump signed a deal with the Taliban that calls for the removal of all U.S. troops by May. U.S. officials have said the agreement will be based on the conditions on the ground, but Trump nonetheless announced plans to cut the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 2,500 by the end of his term, overriding concerns from senior U.S. commanders and former defense secretary Mark Esper.

In Iraq, the United States has the approval to keep a residual military force to train Iraqi forces and watch for any resurgence of the Islamic State, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recently. But the situation is complicated by Iran, whose proxy forces repeatedly have launched rockets at American military positions. Iran also has vowed revenge for the U.S. killing in Baghdad of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian general whom U.S. officials have blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Americans.

In Syria, the United States has kept about 1,000 service members deployed in what the Trump administration has said is an effort to protect oil fields from the Islamic State. But the situation is complex, with forces backing the Syrian regime, including Russians, also in the region.

U.S. Special Operations troops also remain in small numbers in Somalia, Yemen and western Africa.

Biden will have to assess risks, including threats to U.S. service members, when examining the future size of any mission, and whether to continue it, said David Maxwell, a retired Special Forces colonel and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Arrogance, Maxwell said, has on occasion led to decisions to leave U.S. units without enough support, allowing American fatalities.

“We must be asking: Does this mission fit into our national security strategy?” he said. “It’s a basic equation: Is the benefit [of] conducting this operation worth the cost of conducting it if it goes wrong?”

Michael Nagata, a retired Army general and former director of strategy for the National Counterterrorism Center, said the idea that the United States should focus less on counterterrorism and more on other issues is a “bankrupt premise.” For example, he said, less than three years after the U.S. military withdrew from Iraq, it launched operations there again against the Islamic State in 2014.

“I hear this riff all the time: ‘We’ve got to rebalance,’ as though this is somehow a zero-sum game,” said Nagata, now a distinguished senior fellow with the Middle East Institute. “I understand how attractive that idea is – it’s just completely unrealistic. It never works. It never lasts.”

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Poland, Hungary say deal struck on $2.2 trillion EU stimulus (nationthailand.com)

Poland, Hungary say deal struck on $2.2 trillion EU stimulus

InternationalDec 10. 2020European Union (EU) flags fly at half mast following the death of Valery Giscard d’Estaing, France’s former president, outside the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels on Dec. 4, 2020. MUST CREDIT; Bloomberg photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Wojciech Moskwa, Zoltan Simon

Poland and Hungary have agreed on a compromise with Germany to unblock the European Union’s $2.2 trillion budget and pandemic stimulus plan, a senior government official in Warsaw said.

The compromise would end a standoff that saw Budapest and Warsaw threaten to torpedo the EU’s 750 billion-euro ($909 billion) pandemic aid fund and the 2021-2027 budget over objections to attaching rule-of-law conditions to cash.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin said an agreement had been clinched with Germany, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, that would now be presented to the rest of the bloc. A deal could be finalized by Friday by the end of a two-day summit of European leaders in Brussels, he said. A German spokeswoman said a solution hadn’t been reached yet and all member states would need to sign off.

“For now we have agreement between Warsaw, Budapest and Berlin,” Gowin, the government’s biggest advocate of Poland dropping its veto threat, told reporters Wednesday in Warsaw. “I believe this agreement will also include the 24 remaining European capitals.”

The deal was confirmed by a Hungarian official familiar with the state of talks who commented on the condition of not being named. An EU diplomat said officials were waiting for final confirmation that an arrangement had been reached.

A solution would offer a climb-down for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki, who’d backed themselves into a corner over their opposition to the money being tied to democratic standards.

EU ambassadors will meet on Wednesday to discuss the budget situation, according to an official.

The proposal being considered would clarify that the rule-of-law mechanism would only apply to new outlays from the EU, with its implementation only happening after the European Court of Justice weighed in, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named as the discussions are private.

Gowin declined to go into details about the deal, saying only that it keeps “Poland sovereign and the EU united.”

“We know that this veto from Hungary and Poland exists because the financial framework is connected to the rule of law principle,” German deputy government spokeswoman Martina Fietz said in Berlin when asked about whether a deal had been reached. “The chancellor has made clear this morning that she cannot say yet whether a solution will be achieved.”

The zloty jumped 0.7% to the highest level against the euro since September on news of the EU deal. The forint also gained.

The budget holdouts said the link threatened to cut their funding and undermine their governments, which are being probed for alleged violations of the bloc’s norms.

The deadlock threatened at least 180 billion euros that Hungary and Poland were due to receive in the coming years, as well as also payouts that are urgently needed to help ease the record recessions caused by the virus.

It also would have triggered an emergency budget for the EU from Jan. 1, which would have seen funding plunge in almost all areas and potentially put Poland and Hungary at the back of the line for even the limited development aid that would be available in this case.