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World

Death of 16-year-old protester Nika Shakarami further fuels anger in Iran

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The death of a 16-year-old girl during Iran’s ongoing anti-government protests — and the apparent attempt by authorities to cover it up — has given demonstrators another rallying cry.

Nika Shakarami disappeared in Tehran on Sept. 20 after burning her headscarf in protest and being followed by security forces, her family told BBC Persian, citing the account of a friend who was with her at the time. The government then refused to disclose her whereabouts, stole her body for a secret burial and pressured relatives to make false statements about how she died, the family alleges.

Her story is eerily similar to that of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman whose death on Sept. 16 in the custody of Iran’s “morality police” provided the first spark for the largest demonstrations Iran has seen in several years. Authorities said Amini had a heart attack after being arrested for an alleged violation of Iran’s strict dress code, releasing edited footage as evidence. But her family believes she was abused, and at her funeral, mourners yelled, “Death to the dictator” — a taboo reference to Iran’s supreme leader — before being attacked by police.

The protests now sweeping the country are a formidable challenge to Iran’s clerical leadership, reflecting decades of pent-up fury over poverty, repression, gender segregation and human rights violations. Iran’s leaders blamed the West for the popular uprising and have launched a violent crackdown, cutting internet access and killing at least 80 people, according to rights groups. Authorities have also threatened the families of those arrested and killed, seeking to intimidate them into silence.

Despite the danger, Shakarami’s aunt, Atash Shakarami, shared news of the teen’s disappearance on social media. Soon, her story began to circulate online and gain attention in Iran. A video of Shakarami wearing black baggy pants and a black T-shirt, her jet-black hair cut short, while singing a Persian love song went viral.

For days, Iranian authorities did not publicly comment on the case, but the family says they were privately pressured to keep quiet.

Shakarami’s aunt told BBC Persian that the teenager left the house on Sept. 20 with a water bottle in her bag, supposedly to visit her sister. The family later realized she was going to protest and probably took the water to rinse tear gas from her eyes.

They lost contact with her around 7 p.m. Sept. 20, the aunt said, and her Instagram and Telegram accounts were deleted that night. Security forces often demand detainees give them access to their social media accounts.

The family filed a missing persons report and searched for her in hospitals and police stations. But they heard nothing until 10 days later, when they found her body in a morgue.

“When we went to identify her, they didn’t allow us to see her body, only her face for a few seconds,” Atash Shakarami told BBC Persian.

As a condition for releasing the body, authorities demanded that the family bury her privately — a common tactic to avoid the funeral turning into a protest, as in the case of Amini.

The family brought her body to Shakarami’s father’s hometown in the west of Iran on Sunday, but they never got the chance to hold a funeral. That same day, authorities took back Shakarami’s body and buried her in a village about 25 miles away. They also arrested her aunt, Atash Shakarami.

Realizing they could no longer ignore her case, Iranian authorities finally commented Tuesday on Shakarami’s death, claiming that her body was found Sept. 21 in the backyard of a building after she had fallen to her death. Authorities also said they had arrested eight workers allegedly at the building when she died, according to Tasnim News. The news agency is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp whose police force, the Basij, have been a key part of the crackdown on protesters. Fars News, which is also IRGC-affiliated, released video footage Wednesday that it said showed Shakarami entering the building, though the person is not identifiable.

State television also aired footage Wednesday of Shakarami’s aunt corroborating the government narrative, saying that the teen fell from the roof of the building. Her uncle appeared as well and criticized the protests. But as he spoke, a shadow appeared and someone seemed to whisper in Persian, “Say it, you scumbag!”

Iran’s government has long made use of forced confessions, according to rights groups, and on Thursday, Shakarami’s mother told Radio Farda, the Persian arm of U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, she was also being intimidated.

“They killed my daughter, and now they are threatening me into a forced confession,” she said.



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World

Cuba’s enormous blaze fuels fears of instability even as flames are doused | Cuba

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A lightning strike, a chain of fireball explosions so huge they could be seen 65 miles away in Havana, and a lingering stench of sulphur.

The five-day blaze at Cuba’s main oil storage facility in Matanzas was sparked by lightning on Friday night. Over the following days, the flames spread “like an Olympic torch” to three more tanks containing hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of fuel, according to the region’s governor, Mario Sabines.

Only on Tuesday was the conflagration finally brought under control. By then, it had killed at least one person and injured 125 others, and dealt a critical blow to Cuba’s energy infrastructure.

And as the smoke clears, speculation is mounting that it – and the blackouts that will inevitably follow – could further destabilise the “Cuban Revolution”, already at one of the most perilous moments in its 63-year history.

Millions of Cubans – especially those in the rural provinces – have for months been living with daily power cuts that last hours. In the August heat, food rots quickly and sleep becomes all but impossible.

The situation is tense: the immediate trigger for last summer’s unprecedented protests was a 12-hour power outage.

In Matanzas, Odalys Medina Peña, 60, said she had long grown used to cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner at the crack of dawn in anticipation of blackouts.

“You’ve got to adapt and see whether the country can resolve the situation. When something like this happens, everyone comes together – because if Cuba has one thing, it’s humanity.”

But with toxic smog blotting out much sunlight in Havana over the weekend, the feeling in the capital was less stoic.

A resident sits on a sea wall as smoke rises in the background from the fire. Photograph: Ismael Francisco/AP

“I’m frightened of this horrible cloud and I’m worried about power cuts,” said Adilen Sardinas, 29, who is eight months pregnant. “How is the state going to handle this?”

Officials have not said how much crude, diesel and fuel oil has been lost in the fire, but Cubans are already bracing for an even more severe energy crisis.

Oil shipments from Venezuela have dwindled as Cuba’s South American ally struggles to refine enough oil for its own needs. The surge in global oil prices caused by the war in Ukraine has also made it harder for Cuba to buy it on the global market.

But analysts say the one-two punch of Covid, which all but shuttered tourism in 2020 and 2021, and US sanctions has been decisive.

Cuba’s “foreign exchange inflows almost halved between 2018 and 2021”, said Emily Morris, a development economist at University College London. “Despite reducing fuel and food supplies to an essential minimum, in 2021 they accounted for more than half of all import spending, with more severe cuts in all other imports, including spare parts, production inputs, capital equipment and consumer goods, so you can see what a devastating effect that was going to have.”

Despite Joe Biden’s campaign promise to reverse the “Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families”, the bulk of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against the island remains.

Tankers carrying Venezuelan oil to Cuba still face sanctions. Analysts say this forces the island to pay a premium on freight.

While Venezuela and Mexico sent specialist teams and more than one hundred tonnes of fire extinguishing foam, the U.S. offered technical assistance. “So far the US has offered a phone number to an emergency local authority,” Johana Tablada, the deputy director for U.S. affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, wrote on Twitter.

Fulton Armstrong, who was the US intelligence community’s most senior analyst on Latin America, said there are “fears among supporters of a return to the normalization process launched by President Obama that the [Biden] administration is … privately hopeful that the energy and other problems are a test that ‘the regime’ fails”.

Jorge Piñon, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Latin America and Caribbean energy and environment Program, said that even before the blaze, his modelling had predicted a “total collapse” of the island’s energy grid this summer.

He also noted that a Russian tanker carrying 115,000 tonnes of petroleum was due to dock in the port of Matanzas later this week. “Where is she going to go?”

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Business

Consumer debt tops $16 trillion as inflation fuels credit card surge

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US household debt surpassed $16 trillion for the first time ever during the second quarter, the New York Federal Reserve said Tuesday.

Even as borrowing costs surge, the NY Fed said credit card balances increased by $46 billion last quarter.

Over the past year, credit card debt has jumped by $100 billion, or 13%, the biggest percentage increase in more than 20 years. Credit cards typically charge high interest rates when balances aren’t fully paid off, making this an expensive form of debt.

“The impacts of inflation are apparent in high volumes of borrowing,” NY Fed researchers wrote in a blog post.

High inflation is also making it more expensive to carry a credit card balance because the Federal Reserve is aggressively raising borrowing costs. The Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point last week for the second month in a row.

Not only are credit card balances rising, but Americans opened 233 million new credit card accounts during the second quarter, the most since 2008, the NY Fed report found.

High inflation is also forcing consumers to dip into their savings. The personal savings rate fell in June to 5.1%, the lowest since August 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said last week.

Despite rising debt levels, the NY Fed said consumer balance sheets appear to be in a “strong position” overall.

Most of the 2% quarter-over-quarter increase in US household debt to $16.2 trillion was driven by a jump in mortgage borrowing. Student loan balances were little changed at $1.6 trillion.

By and large, Americans continued to pay down debt on schedule last quarter, a reflection of the very strong job market. The NY Fed said the share of current debt transitioning into delinquency remains “historically very low,” though it did increase modestly.

“Although debt balances are growing rapidly, households in general have weathered the pandemic remarkably well,” the NY Fed said in the report, noting the unprecedented assistance from the federal government during the onset of Covid-19.

There are hints, however, that some lower-income and subprime borrowers are now struggling to keep up with their bills.

The report found that the delinquency transition rate for credit cards and auto loans is “creeping up,” especially in lower-income areas.

“With the supportive policies of the pandemic mostly in the past, there are pockets of borrowers who are beginning to show some distress on their debt,” the report said.

Helped by moratoriums and forbearance programs, foreclosures remain “very low,” according to the report.

However, credit reports indicate the number of new foreclosures increased by 11,000 during the second quarter, the NY Fed said, potentially signaling the “beginning of a return to more typical levels.”

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World

Revealed: oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years | Fossil fuels

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The oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (£2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years, a new analysis has revealed.

The vast total captured by petrostates and fossil fuel companies since 1970 is $52tn, providing the power to “buy every politician, every system” and delay action on the climate crisis, says Prof Aviel Verbruggen, the author of the analysis. The huge profits were inflated by cartels of countries artificially restricting supply.

The analysis, based on World Bank data, assesses the “rent” secured by global oil and gas sales, which is the economic term for the unearned profit produced after the total cost of production has been deducted.

The study has yet to be published in an academic journal but three experts at University College London, the London School of Economics and the thinktank Carbon Tracker confirmed the analysis as accurate, with one calling the total a “staggering number”. It appears to be the first long-term assessment of the sector’s total profits, with oil rents providing 86% of the total.

Chart

Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have driven the climate crisis and contributed to worsening extreme weather, including the current heatwaves hitting the UK and many other Northern hemisphere countries. Oil companies have known for decades that carbon emissions were dangerously heating the planet.

“I was really surprised by such high numbers – they are enormous,” said Verbruggen, an energy and environmental economist at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and a former lead author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

“It’s a huge amount of money,” he said. “You can buy every politician, every system with all this money, and I think this happened. It protects [producers] from political interference that may limit their activities.”

The rents captured by exploiting the natural resources are unearned, Verbruggen said: “It’s real, pure profit. They captured 1% of all the wealth in the world without doing anything for it.” The average annual profit from 1970-2020 was $1tn but he said he expected this to be twice as high in 2022.

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The profit-grabbing is holding back the world’s action on the climate emergency, he said: “It’s really stripping money from the alternatives. In every country, people have so much difficulty just to pay the gas and electricity bills and oil [petrol] bill, that we don’t have money left over to invest in renewables.”

Some of the rents go to governments as royalties, says Prof Paul Ekins, at University College London: “But the fact remains that, over the last 50 years, companies have made a huge amount of money by producing fossil fuels, the burning of which is the major cause of climate change. This is already causing untold misery round the world and is a major threat to future human civilisation.

“At the very least these companies should be investing a far greater share of their profits in moving to low-carbon energy than is currently the case. Until they do so their claims of being part of the low-carbon energy transition are among the most egregious examples of greenwashing.”

Mark Campanale, at Carbon Tracker, said: “Not only is the scale of these rents eye-watering, but it is salient to note that, in the midst of a cost of living crisis caused by record oil and gas prices, this flow of money to a relatively small number of petrostates and energy companies is set to double this year. Shifting to a carbon-neutral energy system based on renewables is the only way to end this madness.”

The Guardian revealed in May that the world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts. The fossil fuel industry also benefits from subsidies of $16bn a day, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Verbruggen’s analysis used the World Bank’s oil rent and gas rent data, which the bank compiles country-by-country and is expressed as percentage of global GDP. He then multiplied this by the World Bank’s global GDP data and adjusted for inflation to put all the figures in 2020 US dollars.

Verbruggen said oil-rich nations, such as Russia and those in the OPEC cartel, including Saudi Arabia, kept rents high by restricting supply: “They change the fundamentals of the markets.” Military action, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and political action, such as the embargo on oil exports from Iran, had also increased the rents, he said. If all available oil and gas could be freely supplied to the market, the price of conventional oil would be $20-30 a barrel, Verbruggen said, compared with about $100 today.

There is far more oil, gas and coal in existing reserves than can be burned if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C, the target agreed by nations in the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Campanale said: “To keep to 1.5C, this means [international oil companies alone] forgoing around $100 trillion of potential revenues. You can see why oil oligarchs and nations controlled by political elites want to keep their fossil fuel rents, the source of their power.”

May Boeve, the head of campaign group 350.org, said: “These profits have enabled the fossil fuel industry to combat all efforts to switch our energy systems. We have to dismantle such rent-seeking systems and build our future based on accessible and distributed renewable energy that is more sustainable and democratic in every way.”

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World

Europe broils in heat wave that fuels fires in France, Spain

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LA TESTE-DE-BUCH, France (AP) — A heat wave broiling Europe spilled northward Monday to Britain and fueled ferocious wildfires in Spain and France, which evacuated thousands of people and scrambled water-bombing planes and firefighters to battle flames spreading through tinder-dry forests.

Two people were killed in the blazes in Spain that the country’s prime minister linked to global warning, saying, “Climate change kills.”

That toll comes on top of the hundreds of heat-related deaths reported in the Iberian peninsula, as high temperatures have gripped the continent in recent days and triggered wildfires from Portugal to the Balkan region. Some areas, including northern Italy, are also experiencing extended droughts. Climate change makes such life-threatening extremes less of a rarity — and heat waves have come even to places like Britain, which braced for possibly record-breaking temperatures.

The hot weather in the U.K. was expected to be so severe this week that train operators warned it could warp the rails and some schools set up wading pools to help children cool off.

In France, heat records were broken and swirling hot winds complicated firefighting efforts in the country’s southwest.

“The fire is literally exploding,” said Marc Vermeulen, the regional fire service chief who described tree trunks shattering as flames consumed them, sending burning embers into the air and further spreading the blazes.

“We’re facing extreme and exceptional circumstances,” he said.

Authorities evacuated more towns, moving another 14,900 people from areas at risk of finding themselves in the path of the fires and their thick clouds of choking smoke. In all, more than 31,000 people have been forced out of their homes and summer vacation spots in the Gironde region since the wildfires began July 12.

Three additional planes were sent to join six others already fighting the fires, scooping up seawater into their tanks and making repeated runs through dense clouds of smoke, the Interior Ministry said Sunday night.

More than 200 reinforcements headed to join the 1,500-strong force of firefighters battling night and day to contain the blazes in the Gironde, where flames neared prized vineyards and billowed smoke across the Arcachon maritime basin famed for its oysters and beaches.

Spain, meanwhile, reported a second fatality in two days as it battled its own blazes. The body of a 69-year-old sheep farmer was found Monday in the same hilly area where a 62-year-old firefighter died a day earlier when he was trapped by flames in the northwestern Zamora province. More than 30 forest fires around Spain have forced the evacuation of thousands of people and blackened 220 square kilometers (85 square miles) of forest and scrub.

Passengers on a train through Zamora got a frightening, up-close look at a blaze, when their train came to a stop in the countryside. Video of the unscheduled — and unnerving — stop showed about a dozen passengers in a railcar becoming alarmed as they looked out of the windows at the flames encroaching on both sides of the track.

Climate scientists say heat waves are more intense, more frequent and longer because of climate change — and coupled with droughts have made wildfires harder to fight. They say climate change will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

“Climate change kills,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Monday during a visit to the Extremadura region, where firefighters tackled three major blazes. “It kills people, it kills our ecosystems and biodiversity.”

Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for ecological transition, described her country as “literally under fire” as she attended talks on climate change in Berlin.

She warned of “terrifying prospects still for the days to come” — after more than 10 days of temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), cooling only moderately at night.

Almost 600 heat-related deaths have been reported in Spain and neighboring Portugal, where temperatures reached 47 C (117 F) earlier this month.

The heat wave in Spain was forecast to ease on Tuesday, but the respite will be brief as temperatures rise again on Wednesday, especially in the dry western Extremadura region.

In Britain, officials have issued the first-ever extreme heat warning, and the weather service forecast that the record high of 38.7 C (101.7 F), set in 2019, could be shattered.

“Forty-one isn’t off the cards,” said Met Office CEO Penelope Endersby. “We’ve even got some 43s in the model, but we’re hoping it won’t be as high as that.”

France’s often temperate Brittany region sweltered, with a record temperature of 35.8 C (96.4 F) measured in the port of Brest, surpassing a previous high of 35.2 C that had stood since July 1949, French weather service Meteo-France said.

The Balkans region expected the worst of the heat later this week, but has already seen sporadic wildfires.

Early on Monday, authorities in Slovenia said firefighters managed to bring one fire under control. Croatia sent a water-dropping plane there to help battle the flames after struggling last week with its own wildfires along the Adriatic Sea coast. A fire in Sibenik forced some people to evacuate their homes but was later extinguished.

In Portugal, much cooler weather Monday helped fire crews make progress against blazes. More than 600 firefighters attended four major fires in northern Portugal.

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Leicester reported from Le Pecq. Associated Press journalists Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Raquel Redondo in Madrid, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, and Jovana Gec from Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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US

Uvalde school shooting video: Surveillance footage fuels scrutiny over delayed law enforcement response

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The video, which was published by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper on Tuesday, shows responding officers approaching the door of the classroom within minutes of the shooter entering yet retreating after the gunman opened fire at them. After more than an hour — with the hallway growing more crowded with officers from different agencies — the doorway of the classroom was breached by law enforcement and the gunman was shot and killed.
Local officials and families of the victims decried the decision to release the footage before those impacted were able to see it for themselves. And the video, which was lightly edited by the American-Statesman to blur at least one child’s identity and to remove the sound of children screaming, still leaves questions outstanding — in particular, why the law enforcement response was so delayed.

“They just didn’t act. They just didn’t move,” Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza said on CNN’s “New Day” on Wednesday. “I just don’t know what was going through those policemen’s minds that tragic day, but … there was just no action on their part.”

The video also does not answer the question of “who, if anybody, was in charge,” state Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) told CNN on Tuesday.

“Even if we see 77 minutes in a hallway, it’s not going to tell us who was in charge or who should have been in charge. And I think that’s the sad statement of what happened on May 24 is that no one was in charge.”

Gutierrez criticized the Texas Department of Public Safety for having a multitude of officers on site yet not taking control of the situation. The state agency has consistently pointed to Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief, as the on-scene commander during the attack.
Arredondo was placed on leave as school district police chief in June and has not given substantial public statements about his decision-making that day despite intense public scrutiny, though he told the Texas Tribune that he did not consider himself to be the leader on the scene. On Tuesday, the Uvalde City Council accepted his resignation from his position as councilman.
Families of the victims said they were disturbed by the leaked footage, saying it was just the latest in a long line of examples of their wishes being pushed to the side. Officials say they had planned to show the footage to families this weekend before releasing it publicly.

“There’s no reason for the families to see that,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said of the leak. “I mean, they were going to see the video, but they didn’t need to see the gunman coming in and hear the gunshots. They don’t need to relive that, they’ve been through enough,” he said.

Officials harshly criticize video’s early release

The Austin American-Statesman’s decision — along with TV partner KVUE — to release the footage was harshly criticized by local officials who echoed the concerns of parents, saying certain graphic audio and images should not have been included.

“While I am glad that a small portion is now available for the public, I do believe watching the entire segment of law enforcement’s response, or lack thereof, is also important,” the chairman of the state House Investigative Committee, state Rep. Dustin Burrows (R) tweeted.

“I am also disappointed the victim’s families and the Uvalde community’s requests to watch the video first, and not have certain images and audio of the violence, were not achieved,” he wrote.

In the first edited video, which is a little over four minutes long, audio captures frantic teachers screaming as the gunman crosses the parking lot after crashing his truck just outside Robb Elementary School’s campus.

He then enters the school at 11:33 a.m., turns down a hallway carrying a semi-automatic rifle, walks into a classroom and opens fire. As the shots ring out, a student who had been peeking around the hallway corner at the gunman quickly turns and runs away.

Minutes later, officers rush into the hallway and approach the door, but immediately retreat to the end of the hall when the shooter appears to open fire at them at 11:37 a.m. Law enforcement continues to arrive in the crowded hallway but do not approach the door again until 12:21 p.m. and wait until 12:50 p.m. to breach the classroom and kill the gunman.

A second edited video, lasting almost an hour-and-a-half, was also published on the newspaper’s YouTube channel.

In the footage, the sound of children screaming has been edited out, but the stark sounds of gunfire are still clearly audible and the gunman’s face is briefly shown as he comes through the school doors.

“It is unbelievable that this video was posted as part of a news story with images and audio of the violence of this incident without consideration for the families involved,” McLaughlin said in a statement.
The American-Statesman defended its decision, with executive editor Manny Garcia writing in an editorial, “We have to bear witness to history, and transparency and unrelenting reporting is a way to bring change.”

McLaughlin also shared his disappointment that a person close to the investigation would leak the video.

“That was the most chicken way to put this video out today — whether it was released by the DPS or whoever it was. In my opinion, it was very unprofessional, which this investigation has been, in my opinion, since day one,” he said during a city council meeting Tuesday.

What will happen next

Despite the leak of the surveillance footage, the Texas House Investigative Committee still plans to meet with victims’ families on Sunday and provide them with a fact-finding report as originally scheduled, a source close to the committee told CNN.

The report will show that there was not one individual failure on May 24, but instead a group failure of great proportions, the source said. Members of the committee also asked the director of Texas DPS, Col. Steve McCraw, to testify a second time on Monday to get further clarification on earlier sworn testimony before the Texas House and Senate, according to the source.

Meanwhile, some outraged family members took to social media to urge people not to share the video while families come to terms with the footage and the law enforcement behavior it reveals. “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THE VIDEO!! We need time to process this!!,” posted Berlinda Arreola, grandmother of Amerie Jo Garza, 10, who was killed in the massacre.
Gloria Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn was killed, also implored her Facebook family and friends not to share the video, saying it is “the opposite of what the families wanted!”

“If you are a true friend please do not share it, I don’t want to see it in my feed nor do I want to be tagged on any of the news stations that are sharing it. Our hearts are shattered all over again!,” Cazares wrote.

The Uvalde school district has scheduled a meeting on July 18 where McLaughlin said he hopes the City Council and victims’ families will be able to get details about the return to school.

The school district previously announced that Robb Elementary School students will not return to the campus and will be reassigned to other schools.

CNN’s Steve Almasy, Andy Rose, Elizabeth Joseph, Taylor Romine, Shimon Prokupecz, Eric Levenson, Cheri Mossburg, Christina Maxouris, Mary Kay Mallonee, Vanessa Price and Dave Alsup contributed to this report.

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Business

Stock markets plunge again as flurry of interest rate hikes fuels recession fears | Global economy

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The global rout in stock markets, cryptocurrencies and other risky assets has gathered pace amid growing concern that out-of-control inflation, rising interest rates and slowing growth could combine to tip the world into recession.

Share prices fell in Asia on Friday at the beginning of what was likely to be another torrid day for investors spooked by the US Federal Reserve’s decision this week to raise interest rates by the largest margin for almost 30 years.

Other leading central banks such as the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank have followed suit – the latter in its first hike for 15 years – sending economists scrambling to revise their forecast for growth downwards.

Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management in Hong Kong said: “No central bankers worth their weight would put inflation-fighting credentials on the line and import higher energy inflation via a weaker currency.

Despite the Bank of Japan announcing on Friday that it was sticking to its ultra-loose monetary policy, he added the rate rises eleswhere were a “highly ominous signal for stock market investors… the global race to hike rates is nowhere near the finishing line”.

Many believe that the United States may be in recession by next year, raising the prospect of a wider global slump.

Shares in the world’s biggest economy have suffered their worst start to a year for 60 years with the S&P 500 benchmark index down 23% since January after losing another 3.25% on Thursday. Analysts at JP Morgan said the state of the S&P 500 “implies an 85% chance of a US recession”.

The falls – mirrored on the Dow Jones average, the tech-heavy Nasdaq and UK and European markets – did nothing to boost confidence in Asia Pacific. The Nikkei in Tokyo was off 1.6% and was on track for its worst week of losses for two years, as was the Indian Nifty index. In Sydney, the ASX200 was down 1.8% on Friday afternoon.

The cryptocurrency rout also shows no sign of abating with bitcoin down 7.8% and ethereum 8.45% worse off. In addition, the Financial Times reported that the Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital – which has $10bn under management – failed to meet margin calls this week amid the slide in crypto values.

The outlook is worsened by the likelihood of the conflict in Ukraine dragging on and the west’s economic war on Russia leading to even higher energy prices ahead of the northern hemisphere winter.

“The speed and degree of policy tightening may prove too much for economies to handle, particularly given the commodity price shock currently in play,” economists at NAB bank in Australia said in a note on Friday. “As a result, recession risk for several of the major advanced economies, including the US, is uncomfortably high.”

David Bassanese, chief economist of Betashares in Sydney, went further and predicted a US recession “within the next 12 months” due to persistent inflation and the Fed’s pledge to raise rates until the inflation genie is back in the bottle.

As a result, he said that share markets in the US had further to fall. “There seems scope for equity markets to fall further. My base case is the ultimate peak-to-trough decline in the S&P 500 will be 35%, implying a decline to 3,100 from its closing peak of 4,796 on 3 January.” It closed at 3,667 points on Thursday.

The ongoing coronavirus lockdowns in China are causing further problems for the global economy. Supply chain snarl-ups in the world’s second largest economy that started during the pandemic are predicted to continue into next year at least thanks to the shutdown of Shanghai and other key regions.

The bigger picture is that China was already facing problems ranging from the decoupling from the west amid geopolitical tensions, a faltering, hugely indebted property market, and the uncertainty caused by president Xi Jinping’s crackdown on large tech companies.

As the west increases rates, China’s central bank has been cutting them and the government in Beijing has been throwing more stimulus at the economy, although it may not be enough to refloat the global economy as its massive $4tn stimulus did after the global financial crisis of 2008-09.

The Bank of England’s decision to raise rates by 0.25% on Thursday was criticised by some as too little too late to stop inflation in its tracks. One forecast says prices will be rising by 11% by October and another report said food price rises could top 15% in the autumn.

The British economy shrank by 0.3% in May, according to figures released on Monday, and after a 0.1% decline it “increased” the chances that the economy will slip into recession, according to Paul Dales, the chief economist at the consultancy Capital Economics.

The eurozone is also limping badly and is riven by doubts over how to deal with the diverging real borrowing costs between different countries which mean Italy has to pay more than Germany despite having the same currency.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) says in a report that although the US rebounded from the pandemic slump more quickly than other economies, there were signs that consumer spending was weakening. Its base view is that US growth will stop short of a recession, but it could be a close call.

“EIU’s core forecast is that economic growth in the US will slow sharply over the course of 2022 and 2023, owing to stubbornly high inflation, rising interest rates and stalling growth elsewhere,” it said.

“We expect consumer demand to be resilient enough to avoid an outright recession, thanks in part to the tight labour market and strong household balance sheets. However, this does not mean that a recession is completely off the cards.”

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Health

Toxic Chemical in Hair Products for Black Women Fuels Cancer Spread

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  • Beauty products containing parabens adversely impact cancer cells in Black women, a new study finds.
  • Parabens are a group of chemicals that keep mold and bacteria from growing on beauty products.
  • The study will be presented at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Atlanta on Saturday.

Haircare and beauty products marketed to Black women often contain a class of hormone-disrupting chemicals called parabens. According to a new study, those chemicals are not only linked to increased breast cancer risk, they uniquely fuel the spread of cancer cells in Black women, compared to white women.

Parabens are a group of chemicals that keep mold and bacteria from growing on beauty products, thus prolonging their shelf lives. But, in humans, parabens can mimic the hormone estrogen, possibly fueling dangerous cell growth, according to research.

The study, which will be presented today at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Atlanta, analyzed the effect parabens had on breast cancer cells from both Black women and white women. Researchers found parabens increased the growth of Black breast cancer cell lines, but did not effect white breast cancer cell lines at the same dose.

Parabens also increased the expression of genes linked to breast cancer in both Black and white women. 

“Black women are more likely to buy and use hair products with these types of chemicals, but we do not have a lot of data about how parabens may increase breast cancer risk in Black women,” Lindsey S. Treviño, the study’s lead researcher, said in a press release. “This is because Black women have not been picked to take part in most research studies looking at this link. Also, studies to test this link have only used breast cancer cell lines from white women.”

Increasingly, scientists are studying cancer risk from Black women’s beauty products

The study is part of a community-led research project called the Bench to Community Initiative. The project brings together scientists, breast cancer survivors, hair stylists, and community activists to study the link between harmful chemicals in Black haircare products and breast cancer.

Black women are particularly hard hit by breast cancer. The demographic has a 41 percent higher death rate from breast cancer, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and Black women under 50 have double the mortality rate from breast cancer than white women.

Observational studies have also studied the link between haircare products marketed to Black women and breast cancer. Boston University’s Black Women’s Health Study, which follows 59,000 women who enrolled in the study in 1995, did not find a link between moderate use of hair relaxers to a higher risk of breast cancer. Researchers at BU did find some evidence that “heavy use of lye-containing hair relaxers” may be associated with a more aggressive form of breast cancer.

“These results provide new data that parabens also cause harmful effects in breast cancer cells from Black women,” Treviño said in the release.

Got a tip? If you have information on this topic, email the author at aakhtar@insider.com.

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Health

Covid Vaccine Misinformation Still Fuels Fears Surrounding Pregnancy, a New Study Finds.

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About 30 percent of pregnant women in the United States remain unvaccinated, according to estimates from the C.D.C.

“We know pregnant individuals are at an increased risk when it comes to Covid-19, but they absolutely should not and do not have to die from it,” said Dr. Christopher Zahn, chief of clinical practice and health equity and quality at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Kaiser researchers found that among women who were pregnant or planning to become pregnant: 60 percent believed that pregnant women should not get the vaccine, or were unsure if this was true; and about the same number believed, or were unsure, whether the vaccines had been shown to cause infertility. While only 16 percent said they believed the false infertility claim outright, another 44 percent said they were unsure if it were true.

Torrents of misinformation during the pandemic have repeatedly disrupted public health campaigns. Previous spikes in falsehoods spread doubts about vaccines, masks and the severity of the virus, and undermined best practices for controlling the spread of the coronavirus, health experts said, noting that misinformation was a key factor in vaccine hesitancy. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, has demanded information from tech companies about the major sources of Covid-19 misinformation.

One reason misinformation about the vaccines and pregnancy may have gained so much traction, experts say, is that the earliest clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccines excluded pregnant women. The lack of trial data led the C.D.C. and World Health Organization to initially give different recommendations to pregnant women, though neither explicitly forbade, nor encouraged, immunizing pregnant women. Other health organizations chose to wait for more safety data from later trials before making an official recommendation for pregnant women to get vaccinated.

“Unfortunately, in the interim, the information gap was filled with a lot of misinformation, particularly on social media, and that has been an uphill battle to combat,” Dr. Zahn said. “While we have made a lot of progress with uptake among pregnant individuals in the last year, there was also a lot of time lost.”

Researchers have pointed for years to the proliferation of anti-vaccine misinformation on social networks as a factor in vaccine hesitancy and in the lower rates of Covid-19 vaccine adoption in more conservative states.

“At the root of this problem is trust, or really, it’s a lack of trust,” Dr. Sell said. “Trusted doctors need to help support women in understanding the importance of vaccination against Covid as well as its safety. But when people don’t have trust in authorities, no provider to go to, or generally don’t feel like they have a place to get good information, this misinformation can fill that void.”

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Business

Elon Musk’s Twitter tweetstorm fuels theories about board drama

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Elon Musk’s sudden decision this weekend to decline a board seat at Twitter coincided with a prolific tweetstorm, providing clues to the dramatic reversal.

At 6:33 a.m. Pacific on Saturday, Musk asked “Is Twitter dying?” And over the course of the next 17 hours, Musk aimed tweets at Twitter’s most popular users, its San Francisco headquarters and its process for authenticating accounts. Before he was done, he made a lewd joke to the company where he is now its largest shareholder.

The erratic string of Saturday tweets was unusual even for a CEO who has earned 80 million followers with controversial 280-character posts that have resulted in lawsuits and Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions.

But it’s the best evidence to parse to help suss out the mysteries of what happened behind the scenes between his agreement a week ago to join Twitter’s board and his decision to decline it Saturday. The board position was attached to Musk becoming the company’s largest shareholder, with a more than 9 percent stake.

“We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal wrote in a post Sunday night.

The decision to ask Musk to join the board was heralded by conservatives, who expected the Tesla chief executive to champion a relaxing of content policies the company — and maybe even to reverse the ban of former president Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Twitter employees expressed discomfort internally, worrying Musk might undo progress the company has made in policing problematic content online.

Now, Twitter “must deal with a wildcard investor that already owns nine percent of the company and has the resources to buy the remaining 91 percent,” Don Bilson, an analyst with Gordon Haskett Research Advisors, wrote in an email to clients.

It’s unclear what exactly happened to result in the reversal. Agrawal said Musk chose not to join the board at some point that morning, but he did not specify exactly what time that morning, nor did he say which came first: Musk’s decision on the board seat or his tweetstorm.

Musk “liked” a tweet from another user early Monday that posited the theory: “Elon became the largest shareholder for Free Speech. Elon was told to play nice and not speak freely.”

In major reversal, Elon Musk won’t join Twitter board

Twitter declined to comment, and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

Agrawal also mentioned that Musk had been subject to a background check. According to a person who has handled background checks for prominent board appointments, this would have probably looked for any information that might cause harm to the company, should it be made public. Musk would have had to cooperate with such a check, this person said.

Elon Musk delayed filing a form and made $156 million

Musk has previously taken to Twitter to criticize or solicit feedback on the company. For instance, he would like the company to add an “edit” button, which would allow tweets to be changed after they are published. Twitter said it was working on that last week, following a poll posted by Musk.

But Musk’s biggest gripe by far is Twitter’s refusal to allow some types of content.

“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy,” Musk wrote on Twitter on March 25, before launching a poll asking: “Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?”

More than 70 percent of the 2 million people who voted said no.

On Saturday morning, Musk informed Twitter that he would not be joining the board, according to Agrawal’s statement.

He continued. Shortly after 5 p.m. he opined that anyone who joined Twitter’s subscription service Twitter Blue should receive an authentication check mark. That would appear to address a long-standing gripe about the proliferation of spam accounts on the service, though it would be an unusual declaration from a new board member.

Elon Musk to address Twitter staff after internal outcry

At 6:31 p.m. he launched a poll on whether Twitter should convert its San Francisco headquarters to a homeless shelter — “since no one shows up anyway.” It was an apparent reference to the company’s indefinite remote work policy.

Fourteen minutes before midnight, Musk made a lewd joke that hearkened to a previous tweet about forming a university with the acronym T.I.T.S.

“Delete the w in Twitter?” Musk asked.

Many of Musk’s tweets that day were later deleted.

“When you tweet about turning Twitter’s office into a homeless shelter, it’s a little hard to believe you’re driven by trying to drive the stock price higher,” said Richard Greenfield, a partner at research firm LightShed Partners.

Musk’s resignation from the board — made public Sunday evening — could in some ways give him more influence over the company. He is no longer limited in how he can use his voting power, nor is he restricted to a 14.9 percent stake in the company, an agreement he made as a prospective board member.

Now, Musk could join forces with other shareholders to force Twitter’s hand. As a new CEO, experts say Agrawal is particularly vulnerable to a shareholder ouster.



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