tybs
morning B
Bank of England approves bail-in of $595 mln loan to Ukraine's PrivatBank
The Bank of England said on Friday that it had approved the “bail-in” of $595 million of loans that a British-based financial company made to the major Ukrainian lender PrivatBank before it was nationalised in 2016.
The bank’s nationalisation has been subject to lengthy litigation in Ukraine, and the International Monetary Fund last year made successful resolution of the legal issues a condition for financial aid. The loans to PrivatBank had been made by UK SPV Credit Finance plc, which the BoE said did not perform banking activities or have banking customers in Britain and instead had acted as a funding conduit for PrivatBank.
Under international rules, Ukraine’s central bank, the National Bank of Ukraine, had to ask the BoE for recognition of the bail-in of the loans, which were made under English law. “The Bank of England’s recognition gives effect to the bail-in of the four loans in question as a matter of English law,” the BoE said. Under a bail-in, unsecured creditors have their loans written off or converted into shares of the struggling bank according to terms set by regulators where the bank operates. “Whilst considering its decision, the Bank of England has kept relevant stakeholders, including the NBU and representatives of creditors, informed about the recognition process throughout,” the BoE added. Ukraine’s central bank welcomed the decision. It said that the nationalisation of PrivatBank had been carried out within the framework of a reliable legal procedure that fully complied with the legislation of Ukraine and international standards. “In the months ahead, my team and I will continue to work for greater accountability and transparency in Ukraine’s financial services sector,” the central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko said in a statement.
Ukraine’s central bank declared PrivatBank insolvent in 2016 and wrote off the assets of its owners and related firms to cover the lender’s capital gap. It said PrivatBank was nationalised because shady lending practices had pushed it toward insolvency. The Kyiv government invested over $5.7 billion to rescue the savings of about 20 million small depositors. Former shareholders deny any wrongdoing and have fought in different courts since 2016 to reverse the nationalisation.
The government’s handling of the fall-out from the nationalisation is seen as a litmus test for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s anti-corruption reform agenda and willingness to tackle deep-rooted vested interests.
https://www.reuters.com/article/britain-boe-ukraine/update-1-bank-of-england-approves-bail-in-of-595-mln-loan-to-ukraines-privatbank-idUSL1N2N113O
morning w
a leetle yard sale advice
last two I did there were visitors who returned on sunday night to come and 'clean up' wut was not sold-they cased it during the actual sale and then came back to see wut we did not sell cause most peeps leave it in the garage after.
A few taps on the window with the shotgun barrel dissuaded them
LINDA45 USAF WC-135 Constant Phoenix crossed the west coast from it's Brisbane, OZ departure and heading to Lincoln Muni airport Omaha, NE-it's home away from home base (Offutt) while the runway at Offutt is being redone.
The WC-135W Constant Phoenix atmospheric collection aircraft supports national level consumers by collecting particulate and gaseous effluents and debris from accessible regions of the atmosphere in support of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963. The aircraft is a modified C-135B or EC-135C platform. The Constant Phoenix's modifications are primarily related to its on-board atmospheric collection suite, which allows the mission crew to detect radioactive "clouds" in real time. The aircraft is equipped with external flow-through devices to collect particulates on filter paper and a compressor system for whole air samples collected in holding spheres.
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104494/wc-135-constant-phoenix/
*College Station, TX
U.S. consumer sentiment drops on inflation worries
U.S. consumer sentiment unexpectedly dropped in early May as inflation worries sapped confidence in what had been a rapidly brightening economic outlook, a key survey showed on Friday. The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index fell 5.5 points to a reading of 82.8, pulling back from the highest level in roughly a year in April. Economists polled by Reuters had been looking for a reading of 90.4, which would have marked the third straight monthly gain.
Consumers’ assessment of their current situation and their future outlook both soured, while their estimates for inflation shot up to 4.6% for this year and to 3.1% for the next 5 years - the highest in more than a decade for both. “The average of net price mentions for buying conditions for homes, vehicles, and household durables were more negative than any time since the end of the last inflationary era in 1980,” Richard Curtin, the survey’s chief economist, said in a statement.
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-economy-sentiment/u-s-consumer-sentiment-drops-on-inflation-worries-idUSAQN046856
"Dick" Curtain-love the name
Colonial Pipeline hackers DarkSide have reportedly lost control of money
Cybercrime group DarkSide said it has lost control of its web servers and some of the money it’s made off of ransom payments after the FBI confirmed that the gang was behind the $5 million ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline last week that spurred gas shortages and panic buying across the Southeast.
“A few hours ago, we lost access to the public part of our infrastructure, namely: Blog. Payment server. DOS servers,” read a post online by user Darksupp, the operator of DarkSide, according to The Record.
The announcement was posted Thursday evening on cybercrime underground community Exploit Forum, according to Recorded Future threat intelligence analyst Dmitry Smilyanets.
It remains unclear if the announcement is a ruse for the group to escape attention or avoid paying out its partners. Cybersecurity analysts warned that anything posted by DarkSide operators should be taken with a grain of salt.
Darksupp also claimed that cryptocurrency funds were withdrawn from the hacker group’s payment server, which hosted ransom payments made by victims such as Colonial Pipeline, the report said. The funds, which the group is typically supposed to split between itself and its partners, were transferred to an unknown wallet, Darksupp said, according to The Record.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/14/colonial-pipeline-hackers-darkside-have-lost-control-of-servers-report/
U.S. capital running out of gas, even as Colonial Pipeline recovers
The U.S. capital was running out of gasoline on Friday, even as the country's largest fuel pipeline network ramped up deliveries following a cyberattack and Washington officials assured motorists that supplies would return to normal soon.
The six-day Colonial Pipeline shutdown was the most disruptive cyberattack on record, demonstratinghow vulnerable vital U.S. infrastructure is to cybercriminals.
Widespread panic buying continued two days after pipeline network restarted, leaving filling stations across the U.S. Southeast out of gas even in areas far from the pipeline. U.S. pump prices are at their highest in years, two weeks before the peak summer driving season kicks off, with traffic growing after the pandemic. The average national gasoline price has climbed to almost $3.04, the most expensive since October 2014, the American Automobile Association said.
On Friday gas station outages in Washington, D.C., climbed to 87%, from 79% the day before, tracking firm GasBuddy said. President Joe Biden assured motorists supplies should start returning to normal by this weekend.
"Most of these states/areas with outages have continued to see panicked buying, which is likely a contributing factor to the slow-ish recovery thus far," said GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan. "It will take a few weeks."
Colonial Pipeline announced late Thursday it had restarted its entire pipeline system linking refineries on the Gulf Coast to markets along the eastern seaboard.
Some states experienced modest improvements but still had a lot of gasoline outages. About 70% of gas stations in North Carolina were without fuel, with outages in around 50% of stations in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.
The hacking group believed responsible for the attack, DarkSide, said it had hacked four other companies including a Toshiba subsidiary in Germany
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/colonial-pipeline-ramps-up-us-seeks-emerge-fuel-crunch-2021-05-14/
Hong Kong government freezes assets of media tycoon Jimmy Lai
Hong Kong authorities on Friday froze assets belonging to jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai, including all shares in his company, Next Digital - the first time a listed firm has been targeted by national security laws in the financial hub.
Also among assets targeted were the local bank accounts of three companies owned by him, Hong Kong's Secretary for Security John Lee said in a government statement. The statement, issued after the market close, said Lee had issued notices "in writing to freeze all the shares of Next Digital Limited held by (Jimmy) Lai Chee-ying, and the property in the local bank accounts of three companies owned by him". Lai was sentenced to 14 months in prison for taking part in unauthorized assemblies during pro-democracy protests in 2019. He faces three alleged charges under a sweeping new national security law imposed by Beijing, including collusion with a foreign country. The move against his assets was also made under the security law, which criminalizes acts including subversion, sedition, collusion with foreign forces and secession with possible life imprisonment.
The decision by authorities to use the law's powers for the first time to target a Hong Kong listed company could have repercussions for investor sentiment. There have been signs of capital flight since the law was imposed last June, to foreign countries including Canada, according to government agencies, bankers and lawyers. Beijing said it imposed the law on the former British colony to restore order after months of pro-democracy, anti-China protests in 2019. However, critics say the law has been used by China's Communist leaders to suppress freedoms and pro-democracy campaigners - scores of whom have been arrested and jailed, or have fled into exile.
The chief executive officer of Next Digital, Cheung Kim-hung, told the Apple Daily that Lai's frozen assets had nothing to do with the bank accounts of Next Digital, and that their operations and finances would not be affected. The firm's employees pledged to continue to "uphold their duty and keep reporting", in a statement posted on the Facebook page of Next Digital's trade union. Under Hong Kong stock exchange filings, Lai is Next Digital's major shareholder and holds 71.26 percent of shares that were worth around HK$350 million ($45 million) based on Friday's closing share price. The value of the other "property" assets frozen by the authorities was not immediately clear. Next Digital runs the Apple Daily, Hong Kong's most influential pro-democracy newspaper that has long been a thorn in the side of Hong Kong and Chinese authorities. Senior Hong Kong officials have recently warned Apple Daily about its coverage and have spoken of the possible introduction of a "fake news" law. Critics say this is all part of an ongoing crackdown on the city's media.
The Taiwan arm of Apple Daily said on Friday it would stop publishing its print version, blaming declining advertising revenue and more difficult business conditions in Hong Kong linked to politics.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Hong-Kong-government-freezes-assets-of-media-tycoon-Jimmy-Lai
Mississippi River Reopens, Freeing Over 1,000 Stuck Barges
The U.S. Coast Guard has reopened the Mississippi River to maritime traffic, ending a shutdown that stranded more than 1,000 barges on the key conduit for agriculture exports.
The river reopened as of 9 a.m. Central Time on Friday, according to the Coast Guard, providing relief to the queue of 62 vessels and 1,058 barges stranded on the north and south sides of the Interstate 40 Hernando DeSoto Bridge near Memphis, Tennessee. The waterway had been closed since Tuesday after a crack was found in the truss of the bridge. “Based on information provided to us by the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Coast Guard has determined that transit under the I-40 bridge is safe for maritime traffic,” said Coast Guard Capt. Ryan Rhodes, Captain of the Port of Memphis.
The crack in the bridge, found during a routine inspection, stranded barges and cut off the biggest route for U.S. agricultural exports when the critical waterway is at its busiest. Covered barges full of grain and soy float from U.S. farm country to terminals in the Gulf of Mexico, while crude oil, refined products and imported steel also travel through sections of the waterway. Priorities for vessel traffic will be, in order: Department of Defense, red flag fuel barges, passenger boats, southbound cargoes and northbound cargoes, according to Lt. Mark Pipkin of the Coast Guard’s Sector Lower Mississippi River.
The reopening will be “big help for American agriculture,” said Dan Basse, president of Chicago-based consultants AgResource, adding that he sees river operations returning to normal by mid next week. “The record large U.S. summer corn export program is not threatened,” he said in an interview. “Should not be any big snags as long as two-way traffic can persist.” The New Orleans Port Region moved 47% of waterborne agricultural exports in 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The majority of these exports were bulk grains and bulk grain products, such as corn, soybeans, animal feed and rice. The region also supports a significant amount of edible oil exports, such as soybean and corn oils. Of agricultural supplies that floated on barges north of Memphis, about 84% was corn and about 13% was soybeans, according to Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, citing USDA data. Overall shipments of corn and soy during the week ended May 8 were 18% higher than a year ago.
“Any time you have a halt to the flow of barges, there will inevitably be another ‘clog’ that occurs downriver,” Bevan Everett, risk management consultant and grains market analyst at StoneX, adding that at most the delay in movement may extend through the weekend. “Since traffic is going to be open both ways, by Monday you probably won’t be able to tell this halt happened,” Everett said.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/mississippi-river-reopens-freeing-over-1-000-stuck-barges-1.1603785
Switzerland Cancels it Currency
I previously warned that Trudeau had a law passed as of January 1st, 2021 he can cancel the currency of Canada. Little by little, those countries who have joined Schwab’s World Economic Forum’s view that paper money must be eliminated and we must have only digital currency so everything is taxed. Now Switzerland, which has been the hedge in Europe against the euro, has without notice canceled its entire run of currency they call the 8th series which includes the 1,00SF note which has been perhaps the #1 large note used in hoarding.
The notes are NO LONGER legal tender and they are giving everyone until October 30th, to deposit them or lose 100%. Of course, moving for a one-world government headed by the UN, canceling all currency, and COVID lockdowns for a virus that may have been manmade, and a death ratio of just 0.028%, all of this is just a conspiracy theory if you try to connect any dots whatsoever. Our role in society is to play the fool. Just shut up, social distance for everyone is a threat with some disease, and stay in your home and just be ruled. Read the fake news and what fake TV programs that are the new cancel culture. And, btw, have no children. Drink and get drunk that is preferable.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/switzerland/switzerland-cancels-it-currency/