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Woman charged in Capitol riot said she wanted to shoot Pelosi ‘in the friggin’ brain,’ FBI says

InternationalJan 30. 2021

smoke flls the walkway outside the Senate chamber of the Capitol as supporters of President Donald Trump are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers on Jan. 6. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/ AP)

By The Washington Post, Meryl Kornfield

WASHINGTON – Federal authorities arrested two women in Pennsylvania on Friday on charges related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol building after the FBI said one of the women expressed an intent to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Dawn Bancroft and Diana Santos-Smith were identified by law enforcement after the FBI said it received a tip on Jan. 12 with a video purportedly capturing the two women as they left the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 amid a large mob of people, according to a criminal complaint.

“We broke into the Capitol. . . . We got inside, we did our part,” Bancroft said in the video she sent to her children, according to the FBI. “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain, but we didn’t find her.”

The women – who the FBI said initially lied to authorities – face three federal charges, including knowingly entering a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and impeding in government business by engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.

Information about their initial appearances in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was not immediately available. The women could not be reached Friday evening.

News of their arrest and alleged threats come amid heightened security for U.S. lawmakers. Capitol Police asked members of Congress to report travel plans, while the agency beefed up protection for traveling lawmakers in major airports in the region, as well as Washington’s Union Station, The Post reported Friday. Pelosi said on Thursday that part of the threat is an “enemy” within the chamber, referencing colleagues who “want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence on other members of Congress.”

Rep. Cori Bush, a freshman Democrat from Missouri, said Friday she requested to move her Capitol office away from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, claiming the Georgia Republican “berated” her in the hallway without a mask.

Bancroft and Santos-Smith, both donning red Make America Great Again hats, were among countless Trump supporters who entered the Capitol in a violent, chaotic scene meant to halt election certification proceedings, according to prosecutors. At least 160 people have been charged in federal court with crimes related to the riot.

Around Inauguration Day, Santos-Smith first told the FBI she attended Trump’s rally but did not enter the Capitol building, according to the complaint. When FBI agents showed her the video in which Bancroft remarks about Pelosi, Santos-Smith admitted she lied and said she was in the Capitol to protest but had not planned it, the FBI said.

Santos-Smith told the FBI that, before entering the building, she heard people in the crowd saying “they’re letting us in” to the Capitol. She then admitted to climbing over a wall, going under or through scaffolding and entering the building through a broken window, according to the FBI.

Both Bancroft and Santos-Smith told authorities that they were in the building for no more than a minute and denied entering offices. They said they deleted the videos they took from inside the Capitol, according to authorities, and Bancroft, who sent the footage to her children, instructed them to also delete what she shared.

Santos-Smith told the FBI she tried to get rid of the videos she took to prevent law enforcement from discovering it.

Videos and photos captured by those in the Capitol, as well as their own cellular data, have been used against them in criminal cases stemming from the attack.

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Taiwan’s GDP growth outpaces China’s for first time in 30 years

InternationalJan 30. 2021

With a few exceptions, Taiwanese businesses, offices and schools stayed open throughout the year.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Samson Ellis

Taiwan’s economic growth outpaced that of China’s for the first time in 30 years, helped by its early control of the virus and stellar export performance.

Gross domestic product expanded 2.98% last year, official data showed Friday, compared with China’s 2.3% rise. Growth was also faster than the 2.55% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

In 1990, Taiwan was a $166 billion economy dominated by exports of consumer electronics and plastic goods, while China had just opened its first McDonald’s restaurant, an early milestone in its reform and opening up that led to a generational shift in global economic power. That was also the last year that Taiwan’s economic growth outpaced that of its giant neighbor.

Taiwan was able to avoid the strict lockdowns last year that brought most other economies to a halt. With a few exceptions, Taiwanese businesses, offices and schools stayed open throughout the year and there was something of a boom in domestic travel as people opted to vacation at home rather than head overseas.

The island’s largest technology companies, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., have also soared alongside a global demand boom for semiconductors, 5G smartphones, electric vehicles and high-performance server equipment. Taiwan’s eight largest tech companies are on track to announce record or near-record earnings for last year.

Exports contributed about 60% of GDP growth in 2020, according to Natixis SA Economist Gary Ng in Hong Kong. And judging from TSMC’s ambitious capital expenditure plans, there’s little sign of a slowdown any time soon.

“There will always be demand for semiconductors and no-one can replace TSMC,” he said in a recent interview before the data was released.

The expansion in overseas shipments came despite the currency strengthening more than 5% against the U.S. dollar last year, its biggest gain since 2017.

Still, Taiwan’s out-performance of China is likely to be short-lived. Growth in the world’s second-largest economy roared back to pre-pandemic levels in the fourth quarter after Beijing managed to get Covid-19 under control and deployed fiscal and monetary stimulus to boost investment.

Taiwan’s GDP growth also sped up in the fourth quarter, growing 4.94% compared to a year ago, the fastest pace of expansion since 2011.

China’s GDP will likely rebound to 8.4% this year, according to a survey of economists, its fastest rate of growth since 2011. Taiwan’s is forecast to grow 3.7%.

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Weak diesel demand signals a slow rebound for industrial India

InternationalJan 30. 2021Trucks are parked near a wholesale market in Delhi, India, on Sept. 4, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Anindito Mukherjee.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Saket Sundria, Debjit Chakraborty

It’s set to be a slow crawl back to pre-virus levels for Indian energy demand with diesel, the most-used fuel, holding back the recovery.

While demand for diesel, which accounts for around 40% of Indian fuel use in a normal year, rebounded quickly after the the world’s biggest lockdown was imposed in March, the recovery has since slowed. The annual growth rate for diesel consumption won’t get back to pre-virus levels until the year ended March 2022, said Mukesh Kumar Surana, chairman of Hindustan Petroleum Corp.

Used in factories, construction and agriculture as well as powering the truck and bus fleets, diesel is a bellwether of industrial activity in India and its tepid recovery reflects an economy still struggling to shake off the crippling effects of the pandemic. Gasoline demand, by contrast, is being buoyed by people opting to use private cars and motorcycles to avoid being exposed to covid-19.

“The recovery in diesel demand is lagging behind gasoline, and the trend is likely to persist through most of the first half of 2021,” said Senthil Kumaran, head of South Asia oil at industry consultant FGE. “Demand for diesel will average about 5% lower than year-ago levels in the coming months.”

Consumption of diesel in the first quarter will be only 3.9% higher from a year earlier, when the national lockdown was imposed, according to FGE. Motor fuel demand will climb 12.5% over the same period.

The year got off to a shaky start with fuel sales falling in the first two weeks of January from a month earlier and diesel showing the biggest drop. Farmer protests have affected the movement of vehicles in some states and damped consumption, while record high fuel prices have also dented demand.

Only around three-quarters of India’s trucking fleet is operational, according to Naveen Gupta, secretary general of the All India Motor Transport Congress that represents about 10 million truckers. “Operating costs are at an all-time high because of high diesel prices, but freight has not increased,” he said.

There are signs, however, that the economy of India — the world’s third-biggest oil importer — is starting to perk up after shrinking by a forecast 7.7% last year. Seven of the eight high-frequency indicators tracked by Bloomberg News held steady in December and one deteriorated.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to announce generous public spending and measures to put more money into the hands of average Indians when she unveils the federal budget on Monday. Diesel demand should also improve a bit during crop harvesting in March and April, HPCL’s Surana said.

After slumping around 15% last year, full-year diesel consumption will exceed that of 2019 by 3.3%, according to Bloomberg calculations based on figures from FGE and the oil ministry. Gasoline demand, meanwhile, will be about 11% higher this year than in 2019.

Oil consumption is already close to pre-virus levels and should be higher this quarter than the same period last year, Indian Oil Corp. Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya said on Friday. Overall, demand for major fuels — diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, liquefied petroleum gas, naphtha and fuel oil — should rise by around 14% this year from 2020, FGE’s Kumaran said. Oil demand will “definitely”recover to 2019 levels by the fourth quarter, he said.

However, R. Ramachandran, the former refineries director at Bharat Petroleum Corp., said that greater use of fuels like liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas in transport means diesel is unlikely to be as dominant in the Indian energy mix as it was before Covid-19.

“We are witnessing exceptionally good demand for gasoline,” said Ramachandran, who has almost four decades of experience in the Indian oil industry. “But don’t expect diesel to recover to the growth rates of the past.”

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Hong Kong’s economy contracts record 6.1% in pandemic year

InternationalJan 30. 2021

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Eric Lam

Hong Kong’s economy shrank by a record in 2020, with the global pandemic dragging down output in a city already reeling from massive political upheaval.

Gross domestic product fell 3% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, resulting in a full-year decline of 6.1%, according to advance estimates from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department Friday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists was for a 2.1% contraction in the fourth quarter and 6% for the whole of 2020.

Hong Kong hasn’t posted back-to-back annual contractions in data going back to at least 1962. And the biggest contraction in GDP over that period was a 5.9% decline in 1998, when the city’s economy was affected by both the Asian Financial Crisis and the handover to China.

Consumption and tourism-related sectors were particularly hard-hit by the pandemic last year while financial market activity “stayed robust,” the government said in the GDP report.

“The Hong Kong economy is expected to see positive growth for 2021 as a whole, but the economic situation in the first half of the year will remain challenging,” the report said. “Locally, the prospect of domestic economic activities depends critically on how fast the local epidemic situation can be contained.”

Even before the coronavirus hit, the city’s economy was under stress following months of disruptive pro-democracy protests in 2019 that curbed spending and investment. Once the virus began spreading, travel bans brought tourism to a halt and social distancing restrictions put a further dent in spending. By the end of 2020, unemployment had surged to a 16-year high of 6.6%.

Virus outbreaks continue to weigh on the recovery, with the economy losing momentum in the fourth quarter after the government reimposed strict measures to control the spread of infections. GDP growth slowed to 0.2% last quarter compared with the previous three months.

“The next 18 months for me will be full of challenges,” Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam said an interview with Bloomberg Thursday. “I need to deal with this pandemic, and then I need to stimulate the economy to create more jobs for the people of Hong Kong.”

Lam said the economy has a very good chance of achieving positive growth this year, subject to the course of the pandemic. She pointed to an improvement in exports and imports in the latter half of last year as signs of a recovery and said spending at retailers and restaurants will pick up once virus restrictions are lifted.

Revised fourth-quarter and full-year figures as well as growth forecasts for 2021 will be released with the upcoming budget on Feb. 24.

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China to stop recognizing special U.K. passports for Hong Kongers as Britain opens door

InternationalJan 29. 2021

By The Washington Post · Lily Kuo, Shibani Mahtani

TAIPEI, Taiwan – China on Friday accused Britain of turning Hong Kong residents into “second-rate” citizens as the country prepares to welcome tens of thousands of people fleeing Beijing’s crackdown in the Asian financial center.

In a gesture set to inflame tensions between China and the U.K., Beijing said that starting on Sunday it would no longer recognize British National (Overseas), or BN(O) passports – a type of British nationality granted to residents of the former colony born before its 1997 handover to Chinese control.

The U.K. on Sunday begins accepting applications for a program that expands the rights of BN(O) holders, allowing them and their families to live and work in Britain and eventually seek citizenship. Some 5.4 million of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million people are eligible, raising the prospect of a mass exodus.

Britain moved to open its doors after China imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong, sharply curtailing political rights, which London said was a clear breach of the handover agreement. Human rights advocates say authorities are using the new powers to target democracy activists and government critics.

On Friday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “immensely proud” of his country’s “commitment to the people of Hong Kong.”

“We have stood up for freedom and autonomy – values both the U.K. and Hong Kong hold dear,” he said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian responded by saying China would no longer recognize the BN(O) as a travel document or proof of identification – a step it has been threatening for months. Criticizing the U.K. for “disregarding the fact that Hong Kong has been returned to China for 24 years,” Zhao said Beijing reserved the right to take further action.

“The U.K. is plotting to turn a large number of Hong Kong people into second-rate U.K. citizens,” he said, accusing Johnson’s government of “violently” interfering in China’s affairs.

While the comments were among China’s harshest against Britain, it was unclear how much effect the change would have or whether it could be used to stop Hong Kong residents from fleeing. Residents can leave Hong Kong with a government-issued identity card or Hong Kong passport and later use the BN(O) document to enter the U.K.

Activists helping Hong Kongers settle in Britain saw Beijing’s move as largely symbolic, noting that it would be difficult for Chinese authorities to know who had settled in the U.K. through the BN(O) program.

“Not recognizing the BN(O) as a valid travel document is the mildest action Beijing can take, so it is well expected and even a relief,” said Simon Cheng, who was granted asylum in the U.K. last year and now helps newly arrived Hong Kongers with immigration advice, legal aid and other assistance. Cheng, a former British consulate worker, was snatched and detained in China during a business trip there in 2019, and said he was tortured.

China promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy and pledged to preserve the city’s way of life, including a measure of freedom, for 50 years after the handover. But its tightening control of the city, especially after anti-government protests in 2019, has prompted widespread alarm.

Further measures by Beijing could be a concern. Rights groups say Chinese authorities have previously used travel documents as a way to control or pressure citizens it deems troublesome, by confiscating passports or preventing dissidents, as well as Tibetans, Uighurs and other minorities from obtaining passports.

In the months since Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong, residents have sought ways to escape the city.

Britain’s BN(O) offer has been of particular focus. ​Since July 15 last year, some 7, 000 Hong Kong people have resettled in the U.K., which granted them special permission to stay even though the BN(O) program doesn’t take effect until this weekend. Others have also arrived in the U.K. hoping to seek residency through asylum.

In October, the British government estimated that between 123,000 and 153,700 BN(O) passport holders and their dependents could arrive in the first year of the migration offer, and up to 320,000 over five years. Civil society groups say that estimate is conservative, and expect up to 600,000 Hong Kongers to relocate to the U.K.

Activists say Hong Kong authorities could impose further controls, such as pressuring airlines not to recognize the special passports or even restricting dual nationality.

“The worst-case scenario would definitely be the Chinese government urging all Hong Kong [people] to renounce the BN(O) otherwise there will be consequences,” said Nathan Law, an activist who left Hong Kong for Britain. “This is something we ultimately worry about.”