WIDE29 USAF KC-135 tanker setting up at the Not AF1 Joe at Camp David Position
Schedule sez departure for Camp David at 11:10am EST (or in another hour)
And that is it for the day for Not AF1 Joe
https://factba.se/biden/calendar
Singapore court freezes US$3.5b assets of Hin Leong’s Lims
Singapore’s High Court approved a request to freeze as much as US$3.5 billion of assets belonging to the founding family of collapsed oil trader Hin Leong Trading (Pte) Ltd, the company’s liquidator told creditors.
Lim Oon Kuin and his family will be asked by lawyers representing liquidator Goh Thien Phong to disclose their assets to the court in the next few days, according to the email seen by Bloomberg News that was sent to creditors on Friday. The Lims may file an appeal against the asset-freeze order, Goh told creditors.
The asset freeze order is a step toward debt recovery for bank creditors including HSBC Holdings Plc and DBS Group Holdings Ltd, which together are owed about US$3.5 billion by Hin Leong. The Lims have sold assets worth millions of dollars in recent months, including a 41% stake in a Singapore commercial storage facility to state-backed operator Jurong Port Pte in March. The Lims have also divested dozens of ships owned by the family’s Xihe Group, according to VesselsValue, which tracks such sales. Independent liquidator Goh wasn’t immediately available for comment outside business hours. Lawyers for the Lim family at Davinder Singh Chambers LLC didn’t reply to an email seeking comments outside office hours.
Hin Leong, once the city-state’s largest independent oil trader, made an application through its then-judicial managers earlier this year to freeze assets, shares and funds held by its founder, known as OK Lim, and his two children. The application was motivated by a risk of asset dissipation as more than 20 banks fought to recover billions of dollars in loans to the fabled trader. The court approved the winding up of the company in March. Lim has been charged with forgery and related offences.
OK Lim’s business empire spanning from oil trading to bunkering to storage businesses collapsed last year after wrong-way bets on oil prices unfurled hidden losses and alleged fraud. The fallout reverberated across global markets, prompting financial institutions to reassess their exposure and shaking out large tracts of the often-opaque US$4 trillion oil-trading industry.
The family’s assets include properties in Singapore and Australia, cash and investments, insurance policies, shares and club memberships, according to a court filing. OK Lim and his children are allowed to remove any of their assets from Singapore, or dispose or reach deals with their possessions so long as the total unencumbered value of their holdings still in Singapore remains no less than US$3.5 billion, according to the filing.
https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/singapore-court-freezes-us35b-assets-hin-leongs-lims
from August 2020
Founder of oil trader Hin Leong, OK Lim, charged in Singapore court in forgery case
Lim Oon Kuin, founder of troubled Singapore oil firm Hin Leong Trading (Pte) Ltd, was charged in Singapore court on Friday with abetment of forgery for the purpose of cheating, police said.
Hin Leong, one of Asia's largest oil traders, was placed under so-called judicial management in April after banks demanded repayment of loans as oil prices crashed amid the coronavirus pandemic - a collapse that revealed earlier financial troubles.
moar
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/founder-of-oil-trader-hin-leong-ok-lim-charged-in-singapore-court-in-forgery-case-2020-0
120m AstraZeneca shots caught in Japan's regulatory limbo
The fate of roughly 120 million doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine remains up in the air in Japan after the government paused the rollout the very same day it gave the green light for emergency use. With Japan lagging behind such countries as the U.S. in vaccinations, Tokyo's mixed messages have drawn criticism. Still, the vaccine's road to real-world deployment remains rocky as fears over its potential side effects loom large.
The health ministry on Friday formally cleared the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use in Japan. The screening process, which evaluates efficacy and safety based on clinical trial data, is usually the single biggest hurdle for new shots to become available in Japan. The ministry acknowledged that AstraZeneca's vaccine was 70.42% effective in clinical trials and expressed hopes that it would curb the spread of the coronavirus. Still, the ministry decided the same day against the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Japan, at least for now. Like other coronavirus vaccines, AstraZeneca's shots are legally classified here as a pandemic emergency measure. They cannot be used until the health ministry expressly tells municipal governments to go ahead -- a move requiring a separate approval process. This includes a ministry subcommittee on vaccines meeting to discuss the use of AstraZeneca vaccines in Japan in a broader context, based on their efficacy, the supply of alternatives from Pfizer and Moderna, progress in Japan's vaccination drive, and potential side effects. But uncertainties loom.
There have been reports of people developing rare blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, including some deaths. While the risk of this side effect is extremely low, it tends to appear more frequently in younger age groups. The U.K. reported 79 cases of these blood clots by the end of March, compared with 20.2 million doses administered. Of the 19 people who died as a result, 11 were younger than 50. This has led some countries to restrict the vaccine to older recipients -- a potentially infeasible course for Japan. Japan has been inoculating older adults with the Pfizer vaccine and is set to begin offering the Moderna shot at mass vaccination sites Monday. Between the two, the country has secured enough doses for over 122 million people, more than the 110 million people aged 16 and older for whom vaccines have been authorized.
Given that Japan is already on track to have enough supply to cover its vaccination campaign for seniors, which the government aims to wrap up by the end of July, it would be difficult to use the AstraZeneca shot for older groups as has been tried elsewhere. The vaccine subcommittee continued discussions Friday on what to do with the vaccine. "It has not been determined" when a decision will be made, the health ministry says. With many people still waiting for shots, an expert argued at the meeting that no vaccine that has been proved effective should be excluded from consideration. "The Japanese public, with the exception of the elderly, will not be receiving any vaccines until at least the fall at the rate we are going," Gakushuin University economics professor Wataru Suzuki wrote in commentary for Nikkei. "We may not even get there by the end of the year." "There is definitely demand among people who want to feel protected from the virus as soon as possible, or who want a vaccine passport so they can travel abroad for work, and the health ministry is going too far by taking the option away," he argued.
The government has struck a deal to procure 120 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Of these, 30 million are to be produced domestically by Daiichi Sankyo and KM Biologics using undiluted solutions from the U.S. The imports and production began this spring. Both Daiichi Sankyo and KM were preparing to ship the vaccines upon government approval.
Undiluted solutions for the remaining 90 million doses are to be made in Japan by JCR Pharmaceuticals. The midtier drugmaker has begun the production using equipment and technology from AstraZeneca. JCR has announced plans to build a new factory. AstraZeneca says its completed vaccines can be refrigerated for at least half a year at temperatures of 2 C to 8 C. At this time, it is uncertain how many ready vaccines have been made. If there is no decision about where to use the vaccines within the next six months, the stock could expire and be lost. The U.S. has yet to greenlight the AstraZeneca vaccine. Yet the country has agreed to purchase 300 million doses, and there are batches of ready supplies.
For now, the White House plans to ship unused vaccines elsewhere, which matches a proposal made within the Japanese government.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/COVID-vaccines/120m-AstraZeneca-shots-caught-in-Japan-s-regulatory-limbo
Summers Says Crypto Has Chance of Becoming ‘Digital Gold’
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said cryptocurrencies could stay a feature of global markets as something akin to “digital gold,” even if their importance in economies will remain limited.
Speaking at the end of a week in which Bitcoin whipsawed, Summers told Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin that cryptocurrencies offered an alternative to gold for those seeking an asset “separate and apart from the day-to-day workings of governments.”“Gold has been a primary asset of that kind for a long time,” said Summers, a paid contributor to Bloomberg. “Crypto has a chance of becoming an agreed form that people who are looking for safety hold wealth in. My guess is that crypto is here to stay, and probably here to stay as a kind of digital gold.” If cryptocurrencies became even a third of the total value of gold, Summers said that would be a “substantial appreciation from current levels” and that means there’s a “good prospect that crypto will be part of the system for quite a while to come.” Comparing Bitcoin to the yellow metal is common in the crypto community, with various estimates as to whether and how quickly their total market values might equalize.
Yassine Elmandjra, crypto analyst at Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management LLC, said earlier this month that if gold is assumed to have a market cap of around $10 trillion, “it’s not out of the question that Bitcoin will reach gold parity in the next five years.” With Bitcoin’s market cap around $700 billion, that could mean price appreciation of around 14-fold or more. But Summers said cryptocurrencies do not matter to the overall economy and were unlikely to ever serve as a majority of payments. Summers’ comments were echoed by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who doubted crypto’s value as a medium of exchange or stable purchasing power, but said some forms of it may continue to exist as an alternative to gold. “Are cryptocurrencies headed for a crash sometime soon? Not necessarily,” Krugman wrote in the New York Times. “One fact that gives even crypto skeptics like me pause is the durability of gold as a highly valued asset.”
Summers also said that President Joe Biden’s administration is heading in the “right direction” by asking companies to pay more tax. He argued policy makers in the past had not been guilty of pursuing “too much antitrust” regulation although he warned it would be “badly wrong” to go after companies just because of increasing market share and profits.Returning to his worry that the U.S. economy risks overheating, Summers said the Federal Reserve should be more aware of the inflationary threat.“I don’t think the Fed is projecting in a way that reflects the potential seriousness of the problem,” he said. “I am concerned that with everything that’s going on, the economy may be a bit charging toward a wall.”
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/summers-says-crypto-has-chance-of-becoming-digital-gold-1.1607139
SAM554 USAF G5 departed Chatanooga Metro. Airport ne back to JBA
This AC departed JBA yesterday and did some fly bys at Wichita, KS-Eisenhower Airport then nw to Eagle Cty Muni Airport in Colorado prior to arrival at Chatanooga.