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Business

Insurers shun FTX-linked crypto firms as contagion risk mounts

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Dec 19 (Reuters) – Insurers are denying or limiting coverage to clients with exposure to bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, leaving digital currency traders and exchanges uninsured for any losses from hacks, theft or lawsuits, several market participants said.

Insurers were already reluctant to underwrite asset and directors and officers (D&O) protection policies for crypto companies because of scant market regulation and the volatile prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Now, the collapse of FTX last month has amplified concerns.

Specialists in the Lloyd’s of London (SOLYD.UL) and Bermuda insurance markets are requiring more transparency from crypto companies about their exposure to FTX. The insurers are also proposing broad policy exclusions for any claims arising from the company’s collapse.

Kyle Nichols, president of broker Hugh Wood Canada Ltd, said insurers were requiring clients to fill out a questionnaire asking whether they invested in FTX, or had assets on the exchange.

Lloyd’s of London broker Superscript is giving clients that dealt with FTX a mandatory questionnaire to outline the percentage of their exposure, said Ben Davis, lead for digital assets at Superscript.

“Let’s say the client has 40% of their total assets at FTX that they can’t access, that is either going to be a decline or we’re going to put on an exclusion that limits cover for any claims arising out of their funds held on FTX,” he said.

The exclusions denying payout for any claims arising out of the FTX bankruptcy are found in insurance policies that cover the protection of digital assets and for personal liabilities of directors and officers of companies that deal in crypto, five insurance sources told Reuters. A couple of insurers have been pushing for a broad exclusion to policies for anything related to FTX, a broker said.

Exclusions may act as a failsafe for insurers, and will make it even more difficult for companies that are seeking coverage, insurers and brokers said.

Bermuda-based crypto insurer Relm, which previously has provided coverage to entities linked to FTX, takes an even stricter approach.

“If we have to include a crypto exclusion or a regulatory exclusion, we’re just not going to offer the coverage,” said Relm co-founder Joe Ziolkowski.

D&O QUESTION

Now, one of the most pressing questions is whether insurers will cover D&O policies at other companies that had dealings with FTX, given the problems facing exchange’s leadership, Ziolkowski said.

U.S. prosecutors say former FTX Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried engaged in a scheme to defraud FTX’s customers by misappropriating their deposits to pay for expenses and debts and to make investments on behalf of his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC.

A lawyer for Bankman-Fried said on Tuesday his client is considering all of his legal options.

D&O policies, which are used to pay legal costs, do not always pay out in cases of fraud.

Insurance sources would not name their clients or potential clients that could be affected by policy changes, citing confidentiality. Crypto firms with financial exposure to FTX include Binance, a crypto exchange, and Genesis, a crypto lender, neither of which responded to e-mails seeking comment.

While the least risky parts of the crypto market, such as companies that own cold wallets storing assets on platforms not connected to the internet, may get cover for up to $1 billion, a D&O insurance policyholder’s cover may now be limited to tens of millions of dollars for the rest of the market, Ziolkowski said.

The FTX collapse will also likely lead to a rise in insurance rates, especially in the U.S. D&O market, insurers said. The rates are already high because of the perceived risks and lack of historical data on cryptocurrency insurance losses.

A typical crime bond — used to protect against losses resulting from a criminal act — would cost $30,000 to $40,000 per $1 million of coverage for a digital assets trader. That compares with a cost of about $5,000 per $1 million for a traditional securities trader, Hugh Wood Canada’s Nichols said.

Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru and Carolyn Cohn in London; Editing by Lananh Nguyen and Anna Driver

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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US

Biden asks Republicans to shun ‘MAGA’ in November, vote Democrat

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ROCKVILLE, Md., Aug 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden had harsh words to describe Trump-allied Republicans on Thursday, as he held his first political rally in the run-up to November elections, accusing the group of embracing violence and hatred, and saying they edged toward “semi-fascism” at an earlier fund-raising stop.

Biden, kicking off a coast-to-coast tour, is looking to lend his support to Democratic candidates and prevent those Republicans from taking control of Congress by touting the sharp differences between the two major U.S. parties, and calling on independent and Republican voters for help.

“It’s not hyperbole now you need to vote to literally save democracy again,” Biden told an above-capacity crowd of several thousand at a Democratic National Committee event at Richard Montgomery High School in a Maryland suburb of Washington.

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“America must choose. You must choose. Whether our country will move forward or backward,” he said.

“Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans have made their choice – to go backwards full of anger, violence, hate and division,” he said, warning they “refuse to accept the will of the people.”

Since the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, some Donald Trump supporters have repeated his lie that the 2020 election was stolen and threatened election workers.

In Maryland’s Montgomery County, where more than 78% of voters chose Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020, Biden the stage to ask “Democrats, independents and mainstream Republicans” to join together to commit to the future.

Before the rally, Biden met Democratic donors for a $1 million party fundraiser in a backyard in a leafy neighborhood north of Washington.

Strolling with a handheld mic, Biden detailed the tumult facing the United States and the world from climate change. He spoke about economic upheaval and the future of China and was strongly critical of the direction of the Republican Party.

“We’re seeing now either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA agenda,” Biden said, referring to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “It’s not just Trump. … It’s almost semi-fascism,” he said.

BIDEN AGENDA ON THE LINE

Republicans are hoping to ride voter discontent with inflation, questions about Biden’s policies and cultural resentment from its majority-white base to victory in November, and they have history on their side. The party that controls the White House usually loses seats in Congress in a new president’s first midterm elections, and political analysts predict Republicans have a solid chance of taking control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate.

Democrats hold only a thin majority in the House, while the Senate is evenly divided, with the vice president’s tie-breaking power giving Democrats control.

Republican control of one or both chambers could thwart Biden’s legislative agenda for the second half of his four-year term. Heavy losses could also intensify questions about whether Biden should run for re-election in 2024 or hand over to a younger generation.

But Biden and his team are increasingly hopeful that a string of recent legislative successes, and voters’ outrage at the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 ruling that recognized women’s constitutional right to abortion, will generate strong turnout among Democrats.

The announcement this week that Biden would use an executive order to alleviate student loan debt led to GOP legislators and activists to criticize it as a handout. But on Thursday, the White House noted on Twitter that each had benefited from much larger debt cancellations under the coronavirus pandemic “PPP” loan program.

The rally in Maryland was promoted by groups including women’s health provider Planned Parenthood and anti-gun violence activists Moms Demand, as Democrats lean on a new gun safety law and Republican-backed abortion bans to improve their midterm prospects.

Democrats want Biden’s trip to boost the president’s poor poll numbers and draw attention to his achievements. But some candidates for Congress worry that campaigning with Biden will hurt them in the Nov. 8 election. read more

Biden, whose latest approval rating is 41%, is polling lower than most, if not all, Democratic candidates in competitive races, often by double digits, Democratic pollsters said. read more

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Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Leslie Adler, Rosalba O’Brien and Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Isolation complication? US finds it’s hard to shun Russia

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration likes to say Russia has become isolated internationally because of its invasion of Ukraine. Yet Moscow’s top officials have hardly been cloistered in the Kremlin. And now, even the U.S. wants to talk.

President Vladimir Putin has been meeting with world leaders, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is a NATO member. Meanwhile, his top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, is jetting around the world, smiling, shaking hands and posing for photos with foreign leaders — including some friends of the U.S.

And on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he wants to end months of top-level U.S. diplomatic estrangement with Lavrov to discuss the release of American detainees as well as issues related to Ukraine. The call has not been scheduled but is expected in coming days.

The handshakes and phone calls cast doubt on a core part of the U.S. strategy aimed at ending the Ukraine war: that diplomatic and economic isolation, along with battlefield setbacks, would ultimately force Russia to send its troops home.

Even as he announced plans for the call, Blinken continued to insist Russia is indeed isolated. He argued the travel of its top officials is purely damage control and a reaction to international criticism Moscow is facing for the Ukraine war.

U.S. officials say Russia is trying to shore up the few alliances it has left has left — some of which are American adversaries like Iran. But countries that are ostensibly U.S. partners, like Egypt and Uganda, are also warmly welcoming top Russians.

And after making the case since February that there’s no point in talking to Russia because Russia is not serious about diplomacy and cannot be trusted, the U.S. has conceded it needs to engage with Moscow as well.

The public outreach to Lavrov combined with the announcement of a “substantial proposal” to Russia to win the release of detained Americans Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner took many by surprise.

A Blinken-Lavrov conversation would be the highest-level contact between the U.S. and Russia since Feb. 15, before the Russian invasion, and could set the stage for possible in-person discussions, although administration officials say there are no plans for that.

The Kremlin presumably reveled in the news that the U.S. is now seeking engagement and will likely delay the process of arranging a call to gain maximum advantage.

“They are going to drag this out and try to humiliate us as much as they can,” said Ian Kelly, a retired career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Georgia in the Obama and Trump administrations. “I don’t think it goes along with (the administration’s) overall policy.”

Kelly said the request for a call is “counterproductive to our broader effort to isolate Russia.”

“Other countries will look at this and say, ’Why shouldn’t we deal with Lavrov or the Russians more broadly?’” he said.

Already, Western appeals to convince Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations to shun Russia appear to have been ignored as Lavrov travels around the world.

Still, Blinken played down the importance of Lavrov’s globetrotting. He said it was a response to the cold reception Russia has gotten to Ukraine-related wheat and grain shortages now plaguing large portions of the developing world, particularly as a United Nations-backed agreement to free up those supplies has yet to be implemented.

“What I see is a desperate game of defense to try somehow to justify to the world the actions that Russia has taken,” Blinken said. “Somehow trying to justify what’s unjustifiable.”

U.S. and European officials point out that Russia has come under heavy criticism for the Ukraine invasion and the food and energy security shortages that have resulted.

Biden administration officials, including Blinken, have noted with satisfaction that Lavrov chose to leave a recent meeting of G-20 foreign ministers in Indonesia after listening to a litany of complaints from counterparts about the global impact of the war.

Despite that, there is no sign Russia will be excluded from major international events such as the ASEAN Regional Forum next week, the United Nations General Assembly in September, or a trio of leaders’ summits in Asia to be held in November.

Russia continues to maintain close ties with China, India and numerous developing countries throughout Asia and Africa. Many depend on Russia for energy and other exports, though they also rely on Ukraine for grain.

India hasn’t shunned Russia despite its membership in the so-called “Quad” with the U.S., Australia and Japan. With a longstanding close relationship with Russia, India has boosted energy imports from Russia despite pressure from the U.S. and Europe, which is moving away from Russian gas and oil.

India, for example, has used nearly 60 million barrels of Russian oil in 2022 so far, compared with only 12 million barrels in all of 2021, according to commodity data firm Kpler.

On the other side of the coin, the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, this week scrapped a deal to purchase 16 Russian military transport helicopters due to fears of possible U.S. sanctions.

The Russian foreign ministry has gleefully countered the assertions of Russia’s isolation by tweeting photographs of Lavrov in various world capitals.

Among the photos: Lavrov at the the G-20 meeting in Bali with the Chinese, Indian and Indonesian foreign ministers; in Uganda with President Yoweri Museveni, a longtime U.S. partner; and in Egypt with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, also a U.S. partner, whose country every year receives billions in dollars in American aid.

___

Ashok Sharma in New Delhi and Jim Gomez in Manila contributed.

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Business

EXCLUSIVE China state refiners shun new Russian oil trades, teapots fly under radar -sources

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  • Sinopec, CNOOC, PetroChina, Sinochem refrain from new purchases
  • Worries about sanctions keep state firms at bay
  • Some independent refiners continue ESPO crude imports

SINGAPORE, April 6 (Reuters) – China’s state refiners are honouring existing Russian oil contracts but avoiding new ones despite steep discounts, heeding Beijing’s call for caution as western sanctions mount against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, six people told Reuters.

State-run Sinopec (600028.SS), Asia’s largest refiner, CNOOC, PetroChina (601857.SS) and Sinochem have stayed on the sidelines in trading fresh Russian cargoes for May loadings, said the people, who all have knowledge of the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject.

Chinese state-owned firms do not wish to be seen as openly supporting Moscow by buying extra volumes of oil, said two of the people, after Washington banned Russian oil last month and the European Union slapped sanctions on top Russian exporter Rosneft (ROSN.MM) and Gazprom Neft (SIBN.MM). read more

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“SOEs are cautious as their actions could be seen as representing the Chinese government and none of them wants to be singled out as a buyer of Russian oil,” said one of the people.

Sinopec and Petrochina declined comment. CNOOC and Sinochem did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China and Russia have developed increasingly close ties in recent years, and as recently as February announced a “no limits” partnership, and China has refused to condemn Russia’s action in Ukraine or call it an invasion. read more

China has repeatedly criticised western sanctions against Russia, although a senior diplomat said on Saturday that Beijing is not deliberately circumventing sanctions on Russia.

China, the world’s largest oil importer, is the top buyer of Russian crude at 1.6 million barrels per day, half of which is supplied via pipelines under government-to-government contracts.

Sources expect China’s state firms to honour its long-term and existing contracts for Russian oil but steer clear of new spot deals.

A drop in China’s imports of Russian oil could prompt its giant state refiners to turn to alternative sources, adding to global supply concerns that had driven benchmark Brent oil prices to 14-year highs near $140 per barrel in early March after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. read more

Brent futures have since eased, to below $110, after the United States and allies announced plans to release stocks from strategic reserves. read more

‘RISK CONTROL AND COMPLIANCE FIRST’

Before the Ukraine crisis, Russia supplied 15% of China’s oil imports – half of that via the East Siberian and Atasu-Alashankou pipelines and the rest by tankers from its Black Sea, Baltic Sea and Far East ports.

Unipec, the trading arm of Sinopec and a leading Russian oil buyer, has warned its global teams at regular internal meetings in recent weeks against the risks of dealing with Russian oil.

“The message and tone are clear – risk control and compliance comes before profits,” said one of the sources who was briefed on the meetings.

“Although Russian oil is hugely discounted, there are many issues like securing shipping insurance and payment snags.”

Another of the sources, with a refinery that regularly processes Russian crude, said his plant was told by Unipec to find replacement to maintain normal operations.

“Beyond shipments that have arrived in March and due to arrive in April, there will be no more Russian oil going forward,” said this source.

Unipec loaded 500,000 tonnes of Urals from Russia’s Baltic ports in March, the highest volume in months, supplied by Surgutneftegaz on spot and under a Rosneft export tender that Unipec won for loadings between September 2021 and March 2022, according to traders and shipping data.

Its latest Urals deals will be two April-loading shipments totalling 200,000 tonnes from Russian producer Surgutneftegaz (SNGS.MM), said two traders with knowledge of the deals.

In contrast, India has so far booked at least 14 million barrels, or about 2 million tonnes, of Russian oil since Feb. 24, versus nearly 16 million barrels in all of 2021, according to Reuters calculations. read more

Other state buyers – PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinochem – have shunned Russia’s ESPO blend for May loading, sources said.

Sinopec is facing payment problems even for deals agreed earlier as risk-averse state banks look to scale down financing Russian oil-related deals, the second source said.

TEAPOTS KEEP DEALS ‘UNDER WRAPS’

Sanction worries have driven some independent refiners known as teapots, once a dynamic group of customers consuming about a third of China’s Russian oil imports, to fly under the radar.

“ESPO trading was really slow and secretive. Some deals are being done, but details are kept under wraps. No one wants to be seen buying Russian oil in public,” a regular ESPO dealer said.

To keep oil flowing, these nimble refiners are deploying alternative payment mechanisms such as cash transfer, paying after cargo is delivered and using Chinese currency.

Russian suppliers – Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft, and independent producers represented by Swiss trader Paramount Energy – are expected to ship a record 3.3 million tonnes of ESPO from Kozmino port in May. read more

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Reporting by Reuters, Chen Aizhu and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Himani Sarkar

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

India tells public to shun Musk-backed Starlink until it gets licence

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SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks on a screen during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, June 29, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce/File Photo

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NEW DELHI, Nov 27 (Reuters) – The Indian government advised people against subscribing to

Starlink Internet Services, a division of billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX aerospace company, as it does not have a licence to operate in the country.

A government statement issued late on Friday said Starlink had been told to comply with regulations and refrain from “booking/rendering the satellite internet services in India with immediate effect”.

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Starlink registered its business in India on Nov.1. It has begun advertising, and according to the government, it has started pre-selling its service. read more

Responding to a Reuters email, Starlink said: “No comment for now”.

A growing number of companies are launching small satellites as part of a low-Earth orbiting network to provide low-latency broadband internet services around the world, with a particular focus on remote areas that terrestrial internet infrastructure struggles to reach. read more

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Reporting by Nidhi Verma; additional reporting by Aditi Shah, Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

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Business

BofA Struggles With Tepid Loan Income as Consumers Shun Debt

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(Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp. is struggling to build back its lending income as consumers, flush with cash from government stimulus programs, avoid taking on new borrowings.

Loans and leases in the consumer banking unit fell 12% from a year earlier. Net interest income, on a fully taxable equivalent basis, was $10.3 billion last quarter, the bank said Wednesday. That metric — revenue from customer-loan payments minus what the company pays depositors — was less than analysts’ estimated $10.5 billion.

While government aid programs during the pandemic have helped big lenders like Bank of America dodge widespread defaults, they’ve also meant many consumers and businesses haven’t needed to take on new loans or tap lines of credit. That trend, along with rock-bottom interest rates meant to stimulate the economy, have weighed on the profitability of banks’ core lending businesses. While Bank of America’s loan balances remained down from a year earlier, they grew from the first quarter — the first sequential increase in a year.

“Net interest income and net interest margin both look light,” said Alison Williams, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “The improvement is likely not as much as hoped by some.”

Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said Bank of America sees organic growth reemerging as vaccination campaigns make progress and the economy recovers.

“Companies need to build inventory and hire workers to meet the growing customer demand,” he said on a conference call with analysts. “This virtuous circle of hiring workers and meeting customer spending will help drive the economy and hopefully will result in more line usage.”

Banks’ Wall Street operations have helped pick up the slack as turbulent markets boosted trading volumes. Companies seeking to stockpile cash, meanwhile, turned to debt and equity financing, and a combination of cheap financing for buyers and attractive valuations for sellers spurred a wave of acquisitions.

Bank of America’s trading revenue fell 14% last quarter, while investment-banking fees fell 1.7%. Financial-advisory fees came in at $407 million in the second quarter, little changed from a year earlier. That contrasts with results at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which saw an 83% surge in dealmaking fees, and JPMorgan Chase & Co., where that type of revenue climbed 52%.

Bank of America slid 1.3% to $39.35 at 9:32 a.m. in New York. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company has advanced 30% this year, compared with a 27% gain for the KBW Bank Index.

Chief Financial Officer Paul Donofrio said the second-quarter marked “a turning point” for loan growth and that the bank expects lending to continue increasing as the year progresses. However, he stopped short of reiterating Bank of America’s forecast, provided in April, that net interest income, by the end of the year, would be about $1 billion higher than the $10.3 billion the bank posted in the first quarter.

“This was the quarter where you saw the evidence that we were all looking for that loans were going to start growing,” Donofrio said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday.

Donofrio added later on the analyst call that reaching the previous NII target was “possible” but that a recent significant decline in long-term interest rates “presents a challenge” to achieving that goal.

Bank of America continued to release reserves it built up earlier in the pandemic, anticipating a wave of loan losses that never materialized. The lender released $2.2 billion of reserves in the second quarter, following a $2.7 billion release in the first quarter.

Donofrio said that the bank’s credit losses are at a 25-year low and that he expects reserve levels to continue to decline, though probably not at the pace of previous quarters.

Also in the second-quarter results:

Noninterest expenses rose 12% to $15 billion.Net income more than doubled to $9.2 billion, or $1.03 a share. Analysts estimated 77 cents, on average.Total revenue dropped to $21.5 billion.

(Updates with CEO’s comments starting in fifth paragraph.)

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World

Some Chinese shun grueling careers for ‘low-desire life’

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BEIJING (AP) — Fed up with work stress, Guo Jianlong quit a newspaper job in Beijing and moved to China’s mountain southwest to “lie flat.”

Guo joined a small but visible handful of Chinese urban professionals who are rattling the ruling Communist Party by rejecting grueling careers for a “low-desire life.” That is clashing with the party’s message of success and consumerism as its celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding.

Guo, 44, became a freelance writer in Dali, a town in Yunnan province known for its traditional architecture and picturesque scenery. He married a woman he met there.

“Work was OK, but I didn’t like it much,” Guo said. “What is wrong with doing your own thing, not just looking at the money?”

“Lying flat” is a “resistance movement” to a “cycle of horror” from high-pressure Chinese schools to jobs with seemingly endless work hours, novelist Liao Zenghu wrote in Caixin, the country’s most prominent business magazine.

“In today’s society, our every move is monitored and every action criticized,” Liao wrote. “Is there any more rebellious act than to simply ‘lie flat?’”

It isn’t clear how many people have gone so far as to quit their jobs or move out of major cities. Judging by packed rush hour subways in Beijing and Shanghai, most young Chinese slog away at the best jobs they can get.

Still, the ruling party is trying to discourage the trend. Beijing needs skilled professionals to develop technology and other industries. China’s population is getting older and the pool of working-age people has shrunk by about 5% from its 2011 peak.

“Struggle itself is a kind of happiness,” the newspaper Southern Daily, published by the party, said in a commentary. “Choosing to ‘lie flat’ in the face of pressure is not only unjust but also shameful.”

The trend echoes similar ones in Japan and other countries where young people have embraced anti-materialist lifestyles in response to bleak job prospects and bruising competition for shrinking economic rewards.

Official data show China’s economic output per person doubled over the past decade, but many complain the gains went mostly to a handful of tycoons and state-owned companies. Professionals say their incomes are failing to keep up with soaring housing, child care and other costs.

In a sign of the issue’s political sensitivity, four professors who were quoted by the Chinese press talking about “lying flat” declined to discuss it with a foreign reporter.

Another possible sign of official displeasure: T-shirts, mobile phone cases and other “Lie Flat”-themed products are disappearing from online sales platforms.

Urban employees complain that work hours have swelled to “9 9 6,” or 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

“We generally believe slavery has died away. In fact, it has only adapted to the new economic era,” a woman who writes under the name Xia Bingbao, or Summer Hailstones, said on the Douban social media service.

Some elite graduates in their 20s who should have the best job prospects say they are worn out from the “exam hell” of high school and university. They see no point in making more sacrifices.

“Chasing fame and fortune does not attract me. I am so tired,” said Zhai Xiangyu, a 25-year-old graduate student.

Some professionals are cutting short their careers, which removes their experience from the job pool.

Xu Zhunjiong, a human resources manager in Shanghai, said she is quitting at 45, a decade before the legal minimum retirement age for women, to move with her Croatian-born husband to his homeland.

“I want to retire early. I don’t want to fight any more,” Xu said. “I’m going to other places.”

Thousands vented frustration online after the Communist Party’s announcement in May that official birth limits would be eased to allow all couples to have three children instead of two. The party has enforced birth restrictions since 1980 to restrain population growth but worries China, with economic output per person still below the global average, needs more young workers.

Minutes after the announcement, websites were flooded with complaints that the move did nothing to help parents cope with child care costs, long work hours, cramped housing, job discrimination against mothers and a need to look after elderly parents.

Xia writes that she moved to a valley in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai, for a “low-desire life” after working in Hong Kong. She said despite a high-status job as an English-language reporter, her rent devoured 60% of her income and she had no money at the end of each month.

She rejects the argument that young people who “lie flat” are giving up economic success when that’s already is out of reach for many in an economy with a growing gulf between a wealthy elite and the majority.

“When resources are focused more and more on the few people at the head and their relatives, the workforce is cheap and replaceable,” she wrote on Douban. “Is it sensible to entrust your destiny to small handouts from others?”

Xia declined an interview request.

Guo, the writer in Dali, said he puts in more hours as a freelancer than he did at a newspaper. But he is happier, and life is more comfortable: He and his wife eat breakfast on their breezy sixth-floor apartment balcony with a view of trees.

“As long as I can keep writing, I’m very satisfied,” Guo said. “I don’t feel stifled.”

A handful who can afford it withdraw from work almost entirely.

A 27-year-old architect in Beijing said she started saving as a teenager to achieve financial freedom.

“From last September, when I saw all my savings had reached 2 million (yuan) ($300,000), I lay down,” said the woman, who would give only the name Nana, in an interview over her social media account.

Nana said she turned down a job that paid 20,000 yuan ($3,000) per month due to the long hours and what she saw as limited opportunities for creativity.

“I want to be free from inflexible rules,” said Nana. “I want to travel and make myself happy.”

___

Fu reported from Bangkok. Associated Press researcher Chen Si in Shanghai contributed to this report.

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World

‘Are you insane?’ Some Gazans shun COVID-19 vaccination

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Waiting for her COVID-19 vaccination in a Gaza clinic, Leena Al-Tourk, 28, a Palestinian lawyer, recalled the social pressure she faced in the conservative enclave over getting the shot.

“Some people told me, are you insane? Wait until you see whether it is good or bad,” she said.

Just 8,500 people have turned out to be vaccinated in Gaza according to an official, even though the enclave of two million people has received around 83,300 vaccine doses since February donated by Russia, the United Arab Emirates and the global COVAX program.

Suspicion of the vaccines runs deep in Hamas Islamist-run Gaza, which has registered over 57,000 coronavirus infections and 572 deaths. It has recently relaxed lockdown restrictions.

Some people fear possible side-effects from the jab and are sharing their misgivings widely on social media.

Millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered around the world.

Echoing global scientific and health experts, Majdi Dhair, Gaza’s deputy director of prime healthcare, said the vaccines were safe.

“We have the experience of 8,500 people who have already taken (the shot),” he said.

He said mild side-effects experienced by some people such as short-term headaches and fever “cannot be compared to the huge benefits the vaccine offers to protect them against infection.”

Dhair said health authorities in Gaza were prioritizing the around 150,000 people deemed to be at high risk, such as medical personnel and people with underlying health conditions.

“Only 26,000 people registered. This is a minimal number,” he said, citing misinformation on social networks as part of the problem.

On a Gaza street, Ahmed Nasser, 57, leaned against a pro-vaccination mural, painted by youngsters, that depicts a “coronavirus” with jagged teeth trying to tug a woman away from two youths holding her hand.

“Protect yourself,” a slogan next to the painting says. “Hand in hand we protect the elderly.”

Nasser, a government employee, was unconvinced.

“Of course I will not take the vaccine. They say on social media it can lead to blood clots,” he said.

In contrast, 100,000 Palestinians registered to get the vaccine in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where authorities have received 76,700 doses donated by Israel, Russia and COVAX.

Both the West Bank and Gaza lag far behind Israel, which has been a world leader in its vaccination rollout.



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World

Germans Clamor for Covid Vaccines, but Shun AstraZeneca’s Offering

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BERLIN — At the start of the year, many Germans were complaining about a shortage of coronavirus vaccines that could free them from onerous lockdowns and limited social lives. Just weeks later, many are now upset that they’re not getting the vaccine they want.

As people around the world clamor for inoculations, and many countries have seen severe shortages, a preference for a vaccine developed by the German company BioNTech with Pfizer, is causing a pileup in Germany of the shot developed by AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish company, according to state health officials.

Many people — including health workers — are skipping appointments or refusing to sign up for the AstraZeneca shot, which they fear is less effective than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the officials say. As a result, two weeks after the first delivery of 1.45 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in Germany, only 270,986 have been administered, according to data collected by the public health authority, the Robert Koch Institute.

“The point is that we have a German-made product that is the market leader, but we are not able to get it,” said Michael Breiden, 53, a night nurse in a psychiatric hospital in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He said he would prefer the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, but would take the AstraZeneca one if it meant getting immunized more quickly.

The rejection of the AstraZeneca vaccine has been fueled by weeks of negative coverage about it in the German media, which has portrayed it as “second-class,” citing its lower efficacy rate compared with Pfizer-BioNTech, and reporting stories of people suffering adverse reactions.

Clinical trials do suggest that Pfizer’s efficacy, at 95 percent, is higher than AstraZeneca’s, which is between 60 and 90 percent depending on factors such as the spacing of doses. Still, it is difficult to directly compare shots unless they are tested head-to-head in the same trial. And many health professionals suggest getting whichever vaccine is available first since Covid poses such health risks.

All the leading vaccines offer strong protection against severe disease and death, but as the overall efficacy rates show, some appear to do better than others in protecting against any form of the disease. Even mild or moderate Covid cases can lead to long struggles with symptoms.

Widespread skepticism about vaccines in Germany has exacerbated people’s reluctance to take the AstraZeneca shot. Medical and other frontline workers also have expressed resentment about being given unused AstraZeneca shots, instead of the Pfizer-BioNTech one, saying it showed a lack of respect after their efforts to help the country fight the pandemic over the past year.

The rejection of the AstraZeneca vaccine has caused delays in a mass vaccination campaign that was already struggling with bureaucratic and logistical hurdles. That has raised concerns that, with new cases of coronavirus infection increasing, even as Germany remains largely locked down, failure to immunize enough people quickly enough could stymie efforts to return the country to normal life.

“Vaccinating fast is the order of the day,” Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told citizens in Bavaria during a videoconference on Thursday, stressing that all three vaccines in use in Germany had been approved by the European Medicines Agency and were trustworthy.

“I personally have little sympathy for the reluctance to use one vaccine or another,” he said. “This is a first-world problem, certainly for those who are still waiting for their first vaccination and even more so for people in countries who might not even have the prospect of receiving a first inoculation this year.”

President Emmanuel Macron of France, who had previously dismissed the AstraZeneca vaccine as questionably effective for older age groups, told reporters on Thursday that he would take it himself, responding to reports of the shot facing skepticism in several parts of Europe.

The problem runs deeper than just AstraZeneca. According to a survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a third of Germans say they would not get vaccinated, regardless of who made the shot. In addition to AstraZeneca, Germany is also administering the vaccine made by Moderna, an American company, without problems or resistance. The vaccine has an overall efficacy of 94.5 percent.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine has been generating negative headlines in Germany since January, when the company said it would significantly cut planned deliveries to the European Union. Days before the first doses were delivered, Germany’s vaccine commission recommended that the AstraZeneca shot be given only to adults up to age 65, citing a lack of sufficient data on its efficacy in older people, advice that was followed by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.

Then several hospitals were forced to temporarily stop administering AstraZeneca shots after a number of people called in sick the day after their inoculations after experiencing what are considered normal reactions to the vaccine. Although the hospitals have since resumed vaccinations at a slower rate, the headlines created further uncertainty.

The World Health Organization has recommended the AstraZeneca vaccine for countries where variants are circulating, and Germany’s leading virologists, the health minister and Ms. Merkel, have all defended it as safe. Recent data from use of the vaccine in Scotland showed that even after one dose, the AstraZeneca vaccine could reduce the risk of hospital admissions by roughly 94 percent.

But the numbers that have stuck in the minds of many people are those from earlier trials showing that AstraZeneca provides 70 percent efficacy in protecting against Covid-19, and that the one developed by BioNTech and Pfizer showed higher efficacy.

Dr. Lisa Koch, a dentist from Berlin, said she was surprised at the number of young workers in her office who said they would not get vaccinated, although their jobs meant spending several hours a day around unmasked patients. Only the three dentists and another staff member agreed to be immunized, she said.

“They think that the vaccine is not safe, that it won’t work, or could even harm them,” she said, adding that most of those rejecting the jabs were in their 20s or 30s. “They are all a bit younger, maybe they have the feeling that they don’t need it.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who is also a medical doctor, said that several months ago, before the vaccines had been through their final clinical tests, the hope was that they could reach at least 50 to 70 percent efficacy.

“I would not hesitate to get vaccinated with AstraZeneca any more than I would with other vaccines from BioNTech-Pfizer or Moderna,” Ms. von der Leyen told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.

German doctor associations have issued an appeal urging all medical staff to take advantage of the opportunity to get a shot, stressing that all vaccines approved by the authorities were safe and provided more protection than not getting vaccinated at all.

A study of Britain’s mass inoculation program, released this week, pointed to the effectiveness of the vaccine, even among older people. The study also showed that from 28 to 34 days after the first shot, when it appeared to be at or near peak effectiveness, the AstraZeneca vaccine reduced the risk of Covid-19 hospital admissions by roughly 94 percent.

But all that has not convinced many in Germany.

Berlin police officers have been unsuccessfully asking state health authorities to make vaccines available for them, said Benjamin Jendro, spokesman for the police union in Berlin.

But this week, with thousands of unused doses of AstraZeneca available, the union was told that 24,000 would be earmarked for the force. “Now all of the sudden, because no one else wants the AstraZeneca, they say we can have it,” he said. “It is all still very new, but when others reject something and then it is offered to the police, it is understandable that many colleagues feel burned. And they are worried, there are so many conflicting reports.”

“Some of the colleagues say they will take it immediately, others are more uncertain,” he said.

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