A second Trump White House would seek to sharply reduce the power of U.S. financial regulators, according to a review of public documents and interviews with people allied with the former president. In the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Congress dramatically expanded the U.S. government's oversight of the financial industry to prevent a repeat of the 2008 global banking meltdown. Donald Trump would likely renew his efforts to scale back those reforms, if elected, as well as pare protections for small-scale investors and borrowers, and allow companies to raise money with less scrutiny, according to the interviews and proposals from groups positioned to influence a new conservative administration. Reuters spoke with, among others, about a dozen people who have provided advice or been consulted by Trump or his allies. The Republican Party’s presumptive nominee has not announced a formal policy staff or released detailed positions on how he would regulate Wall Street, aside from short videos and snippets in campaign appearances. But, the sources told Reuters, a constellation of experts and Trump allies are pitching regulatory rewrites, identifying potential staff and floating ideas on TV, in op-eds and directly to Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. Some of the ideas in Trump’s current policy orbit have long circulated in conservative economic conversation. They include curtailing the Dodd-Frank Act, a set of post-2008 financial crisis rules intended to reduce systemic risk. Another idea is to make it easier for private companies to raise capital – in turn opening access to less transparent and more difficult-to-trade private funds and securities. More recent policy ideas include attacking environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments and disclosures, which help screen businesses based on socially conscious factors, or potential dramatic cuts to staff at regulators through a mechanism known as Schedule F, which would reclassify up to 50,000 civil servants across the government as easily-replaceable political appointees. Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said Trump had success in peeling back regulations during his administration. "President Trump's pro-growth, deregulatory agenda ignited the greatest economy in history,” Leavitt said in an email to Reuters. The Trump administration, with mixed success, opens new tab, worked to reverse a range of Obama-era rules, such as those that eased regulations for Wall Street banks or “fiduciary” rules for brokers. Excluding the immediate effects of the coronavirus pandemic, official data show unemployment at its lowest since the 1960s under both Trump and Biden. Though pandemic and other distortions can make comparisons difficult, in inflation-adjusted terms the U.S. economy grew more slowly in Trump’s first three years in office (8.1%) than under Biden (10.6%), according to Commerce Department data. Michael Faulkender, a former Trump Treasury official, has called publicly for scrapping bank stress testing, opens new tab under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act in favor of stronger capital requirements, saying that requiring banks to pass the same set of evaluations leaves the system open to collapse if they all run into the same problems at once. He is now chief economist at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), which was founded by former Trump officials. Asked about his policy positions, Faulkender pointed to his previous writing, opens new tab about ESG investing. “As the academic literature has documented, ESG is too much in the eye of the beholder,” he told Reuters. “Therefore, it can and has been used to deviate from the fiduciary duty that money managers have to their clients, and it has distracted financial supervisors from the safety and soundness criteria that should be used in ensuring the ongoing strength of the U.S. financial system.” TARGETING CLIMATE CHANGE RULES Robert Bowes, a former Trump appointee who has worked with the conservative Heritage Foundation, has called for the abolition, of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – created by the Dodd-Frank Act to police the lending industry at the federal level – and referred to the Securities and Exchange Commission as an “unaccountable meddling shakedown agency” that “uses its regulation to target political enemies, to ram through woke and radical green agenda.” In an email, Bowes told Reuters he was “very concerned about the disastrous bank regulation and economic policies by the Biden administration.” Asked about that characterization and others about burdensome regulations, a Biden White House spokesperson said congressional Republicans have pushed to continue Trump-era policies by “gutting life-saving regulations and legalizing predatory business practices,” thereby increasing risks to the financial system and the economy. It’s unclear what ideas Trump will take up, and what can become settled policy. But taken together, the ideas being promoted in conservative circles would overturn key aspects of current financial regulation. The changes would reverse reforms ranging from investor protections to risk management by the biggest banks, Brian D. Feinstein, an expert on financial regulation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said of the policy proposals being floated for a second Trump administration. “It would upend the U.S.'s entire system of financial regulation,” he said. Campaign spokeswoman Leavitt characterized Biden’s administration as engaging in a "massive push to increase burdensome regulations, especially on our energy and auto industries." The Biden administration has pushed regulations to spur the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources, in addition to seeking fair lending requirements, increased investor disclosures and bank capital hikes. Trump has repeatedly said he wants much less regulation than now exists. A person who regularly speaks with him on economic matters said Trump would be “sure” to “go after all of this climate change stuff,” likely a nod to new corporate climate risk disclosure rules and ESG investments. Feinstein, the Wharton professor, said that some of the proposed policies from Trump’s allies would need to go through Congress, such as limiting the Dodd-Frank Act, making their fortunes uncertain. That will depend on the outcome of November’s elections in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Currently, Democrats control the Senate and Republicans have a narrow House majority. But agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose five-person bipartisan commission is appointed by the White House (usually one each year) and approved by the Senate, would have power to push through other proposals, such as those related to environmental reporting, Feinstein said. And bureaucratic changes such as expanding the definition of political appointees through Schedule F could have a major effect on financial regulators by removing job protections for many career professionals, compelling them to pursue the president’s preferences rather than their own independent judgment, he added. The Biden administration has maneuvered to slow such a move by Trump should he return to office. Even if Trump loses the election, the judicial appointments from his 2017-2021 presidency could change the legal landscape for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission, with the Supreme Court considering challenges to the power of those agencies to issue regulations. THINK TANK TRANSITION The Heritage Foundation, the influential Washington-based conservative think tank, has positioned itself as central to getting the agenda through regardless. Heritage’s preparations, dubbed “Project 2025, opens new tab,” include a more-than-900-page book of policy ideas and an expansive database of pre-screened personnel. The group has compiled policy recommendations since the Reagan era, but the latest edition includes more detail on financial regulation than in 2016. Among Heritage’s policy authors is Stephen Moore, a conservative economist and longtime advisor to Trump who recently pitched him at Mar-a-Lago on candidates to lead the Federal Reserve. Moore proposes a transformation of the U.S. Department of the Treasury that would slash the Internal Revenue Service’s budget and terminate employees who have participated in diversity initiatives, among other things. Moore told Reuters he’d like to see “less of the regulators sticking their fingers in all these financial transactions, especially in areas like banking regulation,” singling out bank capital requirements in particular. A spokesperson at Heritage declined to comment. The America First Policy Institute, the nascent think tank led by Trump White House strategist Brooke Rollins, is also angling for influence. The group is home to more than 50 former Trump administration officials and staff, including Larry Kudlow, the FOX Business Network host and former White House economic adviser who remains close to Trump; Faulkender, who led the Covid-era Paycheck Protection Program at Treasury; and Robert Lighthizer, the former U.S. Trade Representative. The group has also written a high-level policy agenda, opens new tab and is “crafting action-oriented plans for each federal department and agency” as part of the “America First Transition Project, opens new tab.” A spokesman for AFPI said in an email that its Transition Project "is focused on unleashing American prosperity by implementing the America First Agenda." Lighthizer did not respond to a request for comment. POTENTIAL PERSONNEL Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director, said in an emailed statement that there has been “no discussion” of potential personnel. But during a January campaign speech, opens new tab, Trump floated billionaire investor and donor John Paulson as a potential Treasury Secretary. Paulson has said, opens new tab he supports the “reduction of unnecessary regulation”; on Saturday, he hosted other major donors and Trump at his Palm Beach home, raising $50.5 million, according to the campaign. Trump wants Paulson to lead Treasury, and if not him, Scott Bessent, another investor and campaign contributor, according to a source familiar with internal conversations among Trump and his advisers. Former SEC Chair Jay Clayton is among other potential candidates for Trump’s Treasury team, according to two sources familiar with the situation, but considered a long shot. The consideration of Paulson, Bessent and Clayton was previously reported by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. Clayton, in an email to Reuters, said only that he expected the financial team in a new Trump administration would be similar to the first, which he said was “focused on lifting real wages, facilitating growth through domestic investment, and providing strong long term returns for retirees.” Paulson, in a statement to Reuters, said, "It’s too early to discuss any positions in President Trump’s administration." Bessent did not respond to a request for comment.   Source: Reuters

Young Tibetans from the Tibetan Diaspora in Austria protested in front of the Chinese Embassy in Vienna in the evening of 24/02/2024 against the human rights violations perpetrated by the Chinese communist party in Tibet. Adopting a novel protest, the young Tibetans used a projector and played videos of forceful displacement of Tibetans by Chinese in Tibet on the walls of the Chinese Embassy in Vienna. They also projected words highlighting the human rights violations of China and the cultural genocide carried out by China to erase the Tibetan identity. The young Tibetans, associated with VTAG, Europe, also raised slogans against the large scale environmental degradation happening in Tibet in the guise of huge projects which are unsustainable for the region. These projects including huge defence establishments, large dams would displace large number of Tibetans from their native homeland. One of the main objectives behind such projects is to forcefully relocate Tibetans and erase their identity. The systematic disregard for the fundamental rights of Tibetans by the Chinese government reflects a blatant violation of international human rights law. China, obligated to respect and adhere to mechanisms safeguarding people’s rights, has been persecuting human rights defenders, forcibly resettling Tibetans, engaging in forced labor, fostering workplace discrimination, curtailing religious freedom and language rights, assimilating Tibetan children in boarding schools, and perpetrating cultural genocide. During the protest, the young Tibetans also raised slogans in German to bring this create awareness among the Austrian people that what is happening to Tibetans in Tibet is a deliberate extinction of a community, an identity. They called upon the international community to unite and openly support the Tibetan Government-in-exile in their ongoing struggle to protect the human rights of Tibetans in Tibet.   Source: Voices Against Autocracy

On January 22nd, 2024, the handover ceremony of the Golden Great Wall Commemorative Medal by the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China to the Minister of Home Affairs of Bangladesh was held at the Ministry of Home Affairs. Ambassador Yao Wen attended and handed over the commemorative medal and certificate of honor on behalf of the Chinese side. Honorable Mr. Asaduzzaman Khan, Member of Parliament and Minister of Home Affairs together with 80 senior officials from Bangladeshi police attended the ceremony. Ambassador Yao Wen conveyed the cordial greetings from Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong to Honorable Mr. Asaduzzaman Khan. He emphasized that the Ministry of Home Affairs of Bangladesh has made outstanding contributions over the past years in ensuring the personal and property safety of Chinese citizens in Bangladesh and promoting cooperation in the fields of law enforcement and security between China and Bangladesh. In this regard, the Ministry of Public Security of China conferred Honorable Mr. Asaduzzaman Khan with the Golden Great Wall Commemorative Medal. China is willing to work with Bangladesh to continue to deepen cooperation in law enforcement and security, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens of the two countries and advance China-Bangladesh Strategic Partnership of Cooperation. Honorable Mr. Asaduzzaman Khan kindly requested Ambassador Yao to convey his heartfelt thanks and cordial greetings to Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong, and said that the awarding of Golden Great Wall Commemorative Medal by the Ministry of Public Security of China is a great honor for the Ministry of Home Affairs of Bangladesh and himself, which is a vivid manifestation of the friendly cooperation between Bangladesh and China in law enforcement and security. The Ministry of Home Affairs of Bangladesh will, as always, make every effort to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and enterprises in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is willing to work with China to push bilateral cooperation in law enforcement and security to a new level.

Russian security services have accused US reporter Evan Gershkovich of spying on its military. They have provided no evidence. A brief arraignment hearing was held with the case classed as "top secret," his lawyer said. Russia's FSB security agency said on Thursday that it had arrested Wall Street Journal Moscow correspondent Evan Gershkovich.  In a statement quoted by Russian news agency Interfax, the FSB said that it had "stopped the illegal activities of US citizen Gershkovich Evan... who is suspected of spying in the interests of the American government." The security service accused him of gathering information on "the activities of one of the enterprises of the military-defense complex" in Russia "for the American side." He was formally arrested pending after a brief arraignment hearing on Thursday, Russian news agencies reported, pleading not guilty to espionage charges. His lawyer Daniil Berman, a human rights advocate, told reporters that he was not allowed into the courtroom with his client. According to Reuters news agency, he said he was not shown the charges because the case had been marked as "top secret." The Moscow Lefortovo district court said that the journalist was being detained for "a period of one month 29 days, that is until May 29, 2023." WSJ concerned for Gershkovich's safety "The Wall Street Journal is deeply concerned for the safety of Mr. Gershkovich," the newspaper said in a statement reacting to his detention. The paper added that it "vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich. We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family."  Gershkovich also wrote for the English-language Moscow Times. His colleague Francesca Abel noted on Twitter that he had been fully accredited by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She called him "an excellent thoughtful journalist who cares deeply about his work...these allegations are absurd." Covering Russian discontent Gershkovich, who has also worked for several other international media outlets in the past, has long covered Russia and Ukraine. His most recent series of articles for the Journal cover the economic distress of ordinary Russians as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, as well as highlighting the voices of disillusioned Russian soldiers and the clampdown against the anti-war movement across the country. Gershkovich was detained in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains. FSB has offered no evidence for its claims. If convicted of espionage, Gershkovich faces up to 20 years imprisonment. Russia has tightened censorship laws since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, in what Moscow refers to as a "special military operation." Andrei Soldatov, who writes about Russia's security agencies from outside the country, said on social media: "Evan Gershkovich is a very good and brave journalist, not a spy, for Christ's sake. [His detention] is a frontal attack on all foreign correspondents who still work in Russia. And it means that the FSB is off the leash." Moscow accused of politically motivated arrests This is not the first time Russian or foreign journalists have found themselves detained following critical coverage of the war. Last year, Russia sentenced a former defense reporter, Ivan Safronov, to 22 years in prison on treason charges. Moscow has also been accused of arresting US basketball star Brittney Griner for political purposes. Griner was charged with drug possession and jailed but was later sent back to the US after Russia secured a prisoner swap with notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Battling with one branch of government and opening a new confrontation with another, President Donald Trump announced Friday he was declaring a national emergency to fulfill his pledge to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Bypassing Congress, which approved far less money for his proposed wall than he had sought, Trump said he would use executive action to siphon billions of dollars from federal military construction and counterdrug efforts for the wall, aides said. The move is already drawing bipartisan criticism on Capitol Hill and expected to face rounds of legal challenges. Reports AP. Trump made the announcement from the Rose Garden, as he claimed illegal immigration was "an invasion of our country." Trump's move followed a rare show of bipartisanship when lawmakers voted Thursday to fund large swaths of the government and avoid a repeat of this winter's debilitating five-week government shutdown. The money in the bill for border barriers, about $1.4 billion, is far below the $5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance just a quarter of the more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) he wanted this year. To bridge the gap, Trump announced that he will be spending roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through executive actions, including the national emergency. The money is expected to come from funds targeted for military construction and counterdrug efforts, but aides could not immediately specify which military projects would be affected. Despite widespread opposition in Congress to proclaiming an emergency, including by some Republicans, Trump was responding to pressure to act unilaterally to soothe his conservative base and avoid appearing like he's lost his wall battle. Word that Trump would declare the emergency prompted condemnations from Democrats and threats of lawsuits from states and others who might lose federal money or said Trump was abusing his authority. In a sing-songy tone of voice, Trump described how the decision will be challenged and work its way through the courts, including up to the U.S. Supreme Court. He said, "Sadly, we'll be sued and sadly it will go through a process and happily we'll win, I think." In an unusual joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called it an "unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist" and said it "does great violence to our Constitution and makes America less safe, stealing from urgently needed defense funds for the security of our military and our nation. " "The President's actions clearly violate the Congress's exclusive power of the purse, which our Founders enshrined in the Constitution," they said. "The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available." Democratic state attorneys general said they'd consider legal action to block Trump. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told the president on Twitter "we'll see you in court" if he made the declaration. Even if his emergency declaration withstands challenge, Trump is still billions of dollars short of his overall funding needed to build the wall as he promised in 2016. After two years of effort, Trump has not added any new border mileage; all of the construction so far has gone to replacing and repairing existing structures. Ground is expected to be broken in South Texas soon on the first new mileage. The White House said Trump would not try to redirect federal disaster aid to the wall, a proposal they had considered but rejected over fears of a political blowback. AH