Category: The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com

One protester appeared in the videos holding a sign that read: “Child killers have no place in Dagestan.” Police have now taken control of the airport.

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Canadian labor union Unifor said early Monday it has commenced strikes at all Stellantis facilities in the country, with more than 8,200 members staging a walkout after failing to reach a tentative agreement in labor contract talks.

The union is seeking improved wages and pensions. Its bargaining team has also prioritized discussions around support for its workers in the electric vehicle transition of Stellantis’ Brampton Assembly Plant.

“We have made progress and we will continue to negotiate through the night,” Unifor said in a statement.

Chrysler-parent Stellantis said it was “extremely disappointed” with the strike action and would continue to bargain until an agreement is reached.

Unifor’s talks in Canada are separate from the United Auto Workers (UAW) union’s negotiations in the United States.  The UAW and Stellantis reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract Saturday.

Unifor is using the “pattern bargaining” approach in its talks with the automakers in Canada, and reached ratified deals first with Ford and then General Motors.

The deal with GM was reached shortly after 4,300 workers went on strike at three GM facilities in Canada while the deal with Ford came ahead of a threatened strike.

Unifor is also trying to resolve issues specific to Stellantis including commuted value pension options and protections against outsourcing at the parts distribution centers.

Stellantis assembles some of its popular vehicles including the Dodge Charger, Challenger and the Chrysler Pacifica minivan in its Canadian plants.

The Canadian operations of the Detroit Three are much smaller than their U.S. setups, but all have critical factories in Canada.

 

Asian share markets were mixed on Monday as Israel’s push into Gaza stirred fears of a wider conflict ahead of central bank meetings in the United States, Britain and Japan, the latter of which might see a policy tightening.

The earnings season also continues with Apple, Airbnb, McDonald’s, Moderna and Eli Lilly & Co among the many reporting this week. Results so far have been underwhelming, contributing to the S&P 500’s retreat into correction territory (.SPX).

“The price action is bad as SPX could not defend a key 4,200 level; risk is it heads to the 200-week moving average of 3,941 before a trading rally,” BofA analysts said.

S&P 500 futures did edge up 0.4% on Monday to 4,153.5, while Nasdaq futures added 0.5%. EUROSTOXX 50 futures slipped 0.1% and FTSE futures gained 0.2%.

Risk appetite was dulled by Israel’s push to surround Gaza’s main city in a self-declared “second phase” of a three-week war against Iranian-backed Hamas militants.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) eased 0.04%, having hit a one-year low last week. Chinese blue chips (.CSI300) firmed 0.6%.

China Evergrande Group’s (3333.HK) shares fell as much as 23% in the morning session, though later trimmed losses to 5% after Hong Kong’s High Court adjourned a request to wind up the embattled property developer.

Japan’s Nikkei (.N225) fell 0.95% amid speculation the Bank of Japan (BOJ) might tweak its yield curve control (YCC) policy after its two-day policy meeting wraps up on Tuesday.

Many analysts expect the central bank will lift its inflation forecast to 2.0%, but are unsure whether it will finally abandon YCC in the face of market pressure on bonds.

“Remaining uncertainty about the wage outlook, combined with stresses in global bond markets could prompt the BOJ to err on the side of caution, making our view that YCC will be scrapped a very close call,” said analysts at Barclays.

“The BOJ could still opt to revise policy but less drastically, perhaps by raising the ceiling for 10-year yields as it did in July.”

Yields are already at their highest since 2013 at 0.89% and abandoning YCC altogether would likely add to pressure on global markets already bruised by a vicious sell-off in U.S. Treasuries.

Yields on 10-year Treasuries stood at 4.8751% on Monday, having climbed 30 basis points so far this month and touched 16-year peaks at 5.021%.

Sentiment will be tested further this week when Treasury announces its refunding plans, with more increases likely. NatWest Markets expects $885 billion of marketable borrowing in the fourth quarter and $700 billion in the following quarter.

The sharp rise in market borrowing costs has convinced analysts the Federal Reserve will stand pat at its policy meeting this week, with futures implying a full chance of rates staying at 5.25-5.5%.

The market has also priced in 165 basis points of easing for 2024, starting around mid-year.

“The Fed appears to have coalesced around the view that the recent tightening in financial conditions led by higher long-term interest rates has made another hike unnecessary,” said analysts at Goldman Sachs, who estimated the rise in yields was the equivalent of 100 basis points of rate increases.

“The story of the year so far has been that economic reacceleration has not prevented further labor market rebalancing and progress in the inflation fight,” they added. “We expect this to continue in coming months.”

Job figures due Friday are forecast to show U.S. payrolls rose a still solid 188,000 in October, after September’s blockbuster gain, but annual growth in average earnings is still seen slowing to 4.0% from 4.2%.

The Bank of England is also expected to stay on hold this week, with markets pricing around a 70% chance it is done tightening altogether.

Oddly the ascent of U.S. yields has not helped the dollar any higher recently.

“Likewise, the fall in global equity markets and the ongoing uncertainty around the Hamas-Israel conflict has not done much to drive the dollar higher against risk-sensitive currencies,” Capital Economics analysts wrote in a note.

“This reinforces our sense that a relatively optimistic assessment of the outlook in the U.S. is by now largely discounted in the dollar.”

The dollar was steady against a basket of currencies at 106.56 , having bounced between 105.350 and 106.890 last week. It was flat on the yen to 149.60 , and short of last week’s top of 150.78.

The euro idled at $1.0563 , and is almost unchanged on the month so far.

In commodity markets, gold was steady at $1,998 an ounce .

Oil prices eased as worries about demand outweighed risks to Middle East supplies, at least for the moment.

Brent lost $1 to $89.45 a barrel, while U.S. crude fell $1.13 to $84.41.

Here’s an interesting pattern. Donald Trump has been under gag orders in various cases all year, and he’s made a point of never violating any of them. For instance, after the judge in the E. Jean Carroll trial threatened to punish Trump if he even so much as mentioned Carroll again, Trump meekly obeyed – and didn’t mention Carroll again until the day after the trial ended.

Yet even as Trump has meekly cowered in the face of every gag order, the media has falsely and misleadingly claimed over and over again that Trump has been violating his gag orders. This is so the media can then turn around and claim that Trump is “getting away with it all,” a narrative that scares people into staring at their screens and boosting ratings.

Yet after all these months of narratives falsely claiming that Trump was violating his gag orders when he wasn’t violating, now he’s violation his gag orders. He did it in the Judge Engoron case this past week, and he did again it in the Judge Chutkan case tonight. This marks a new and very different pattern for a guy who had previously spent all year abiding by gag orders.

And yet one can’t help but notice that Trump is now essentially playing into the false headlines that have already been written about him. All the headlines said he was violating his gag orders when he wasn’t, yet now he is violating his gag orders. It’s almost a self fulfilling prophecy.

In fact this is far from the first time over the years in which Trump was going about something in very meek fashion, even as the media chased ratings by falsely claiming that Trump was going about that thing in fierce fashion, only for Trump to then turn around and start doing the thing that the headlines were falsely claiming he was doing. This is a pattern.

It’s almost as if Trump starts off knowing he can’t get away with doing a certain thing, then sees headlines falsely claiming that he is getting away with that thing, falls for his own hype, and becomes emboldened to start doing that thing – only for him to come out on the wrong end of it.

This doesn’t excuse the fact that the media keeps making things up. But it is hilarious that these ratings-driven false stories about Trump seem to be what goads him into getting himself into trouble. Then again, if you saw headlines every day insisting that you had magically omnipotent powers, you might end up falling for your own hype too.

The post Self fulfilling prophecy appeared first on Palmer Report.

Twenty people were injured when hundreds of anti-Israeli protesters stormed on Sunday an airport in Russia’s Dagestan region before security forces closed the airport and removed the demonstrators.

Here are some facts about Russia’s mainly Muslim republic of Dagestan, where waves of violence have erupted in the past.

* A mountainous territory in the eastern part of the North Caucasus, Dagestan is Russia’s most ethnically and linguistically varied region and home to at least 40 different ethnicities. A republic within the Russian Federation, Dagestan’s population is about 3.2 million, according to Russia’s official figures.

* The majority of Dagestanis are Sunni Muslims.

* It is sometimes known as the Mountain of Languages, or Mountain of Nationalities – with some national groups occupying no more than one or two villages.

* The capital, Makhachkala, on Russia’s Caspian Sea coast, was conquered by the Russian Imperial army in the 19th century and served as a major pre-revolutionary trading port. Today, Dagestan is a conduit for major oil and gas pipelines, which go from the Caspian Sea to the Russian heartland.

* For almost a decade until 2017, Russian security forces were battling an armed insurgency conducted by an array of Islamist militant groups in Dagestan, neighbouring Chechnya and Ingushetia.

* Islam came to present-day Russia by way of Dagestan’s ancient southern city of Derbent, when Arabs brought the faith at least 1,000 years ago. After being discouraged under communism, Islam in Dagestan has flourished. The republic hosts some 3,000 mosques, Islamic institutes and schools.

* Dagestan is the birthplace of legendary Islamic fighter Imam Shamil, who resisted Russian rule for 25 years in the 19th century. Many streets and places are named after him.

Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters stormed an airport in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Dagestan region on Sunday, where a plane from Israel had just arrived, forcing security forces to close the airport and remove the demonstrators.

Twenty people were injured before forces contained the protest at Makhachkala airport, local authorities said. The passengers on the plane were safe, security forces told Reuters.

The unrest followed several other anti-Israel incidents in North Caucasus sparked by Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza. The Dagestani government said early on Monday that it was strengthening security measures across the republic, which is home to about 3 million people.

The unrest in the region, where Russian security forces once fought an Islamist insurgency, could pose another challenge for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is waging a war in Ukraine and who has faced an attempted mutiny this year.

Videos from Makhachkala airport obtained by Reuters showed the protesters, mostly young men, waving Palestinian flags, breaking down glass doors and running through the airport shouting “Allahu Akbar” or “God is Greatest”.

Another group were seen trying to topple over a patrol truck.

The Russian Aviation Authority closed the airport until it completes security checks. There were no immediate reports of arrests, but Russia’s federal investigations agency ordered a criminal probe into the incident.

Sergei Melikov, the head of Dagestan, said the incident was a gross violation of the law, even as Dagestanis “empathize with the suffering of victims of the actions of unrighteous people and politicians, and pray for peace in Palestine”.

“There is no courage in waiting as a mob for unarmed people who have not done anything forbidden,” Melikov said on the Telegram messaging app.

Regional leaders in two other areas of the northern Caucasus called for calm. A similar appeal was issued by Dagestan’s chief Muslim cleric, or mufti.

Israel urged Russian authorities to protect Israelis and Jews in their jurisdictions following the recent spate of violence against Israeli and Jewish targets.

In the past few days, a Jewish centre under construction in Nalchik, the capital of the nearby Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, was set on fire, emergency officials said.

There were also reports on social media of small anti-Israeli gatherings over the weekend in Dagestan and across the North Caucasus in Russia’s south. Reuters could not independently verify those reports.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy blamed the events on Russia’s “widespread culture of hatred toward other nations, which is propagated by state television, pundits, and authorities”. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.

Russia has tried to maintain contact with all sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict, but has angered Israeli authorities by inviting a Hamas delegation to Moscow. Israel’s foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador on Sunday.

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Russia would likely confiscate the assets of European Union countries, if the bloc takes frozen Russian funds to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction, according to Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that she was crafting a proposal that would take the profits from Russian frozen state assets to finance Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. 

“Such a decision,” Volodin said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app, “would require a symmetrical response from the Russian Federation.  In that case, far more assets belonging to unfriendly countries will be confiscated than our frozen funds in Europe.” 

Russia said Sunday that it shot down 36 drones overnight over the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula.  Ukraine, which has stepped up its campaign against Russia, has not commented on the overnight attack. 

From their meeting in Japan Sunday, G7 trade ministers issued a joint statement on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling it a “brutal, unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal war of aggression.”

Russian universities have reportedly been instructed to stop any negative discussions during academic activities about any Russian political, economic and social trends, the British Defense Ministry said Sunday,

This move marks yet another “restriction of the information space in wartime Russia,” the ministry said, “making it more difficult to openly discuss policy issues.”

This restriction, the ministry said, will likely further add to “the trend of Russian policy-making taking place in an echo-chamber of politically acceptable, pro-Kremlin perspectives” in the runup to President Vladimir Putin’s anticipated bid for reelection in March, the British ministry said. 

Hundreds of people stormed into the main airport in Russia’s Dagestan region and onto the landing field seeking passengers arriving from Tel Aviv, Israel, according to Russian news agencies.