by Tyler Durden, Sun, 03/08/2020
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bigger-lebanon-can-bear-pm-announces-default-12bn-debt-historical-first
Lebanese Government photo of Prime Minister Hassan Diab during his Saturday address, via AP.
Lebanon announced Saturday it will default on its Eurobond debt for the first time in its history. The protest-racked country has seen a recent change in government, banks opened for merely about half of the past few months, strict controls on hard currency withdrawals and transfers abroad amid a liquidity crisis, a plummeting Lebanese Lira since October, a run on dollars, and crushing public debt which has lately blown up to nearly 170% of its gross domestic product (now about $89.5 billion).
Prime Minister Hassan Diab confirmed in public statements the bond payment of $1.2 billion due on Monday will not be paid: “The debt has become bigger than Lebanon can bear, and bigger than the ability of the Lebanese to meet interest payments,” he said in a televised address. “We are paying the price for the mistakes of the past years. Must we bequeath them to our children?”
The broader crisis is being widely described as the worst and most potentially destabilizing disaster since the 1975-90 civil war. It also means that the country's bond which mature on Monday and which last traded at a price of 57 cents on the dollar (or roughly 8000% YTM) won't be repaid.
Local banks, which own some of the Eurobonds set to mature on March 9, have long argued against a default. But clients also fear the continued rapid depletion of their savings. Diab, appearing to respond not only to the people in the streets but to criticisms from the West centered on the Mediterranean nation's decades of state corruption, pledged to continue negotiations to restructure the country's debt "with all creditors... in a manner consistent with the national interest."
“How can we pay creditors abroad when the Lebanese cannot get their money from their bank accounts?” Diab questioned, referencing controversial emergency measures banks have enacted since the start of the year, which in most places has limited account holders to withdrawing a mere $200 total a week. The Lebanese had “lived a dream that was a delusion as though things were just fine, while Lebanon was drowning in more debt,” he said further.
The domestic divide on the first ever default, which didn't even occur during the civil war period, is further described as follows:
According to Marwan Barakat, head of research at Bank Audi, Lebanese banks owned $12.7bn of the country’s outstanding $30bn Eurobonds as of the end of January.
The central bank held $5.7bn and the remainder was owned by foreign creditors, he said.
According to local media reports, Lebanese banks have recently sold a chunk of their Eurobonds to foreign lenders.
Anti-government demonstrators who have remained on the streets since October have lobbied against repayment, fearing a depletion of reserves could further limit access to their savings.
In one of the more deeply alarming moments of his speech, Diab — who's only been prime minister since January after the former government stepped down — cited World Bank figures forecasting that over 40% of the population could soon enter poverty. And Monday's default, it will be even sooner.
Stretching back to last year, massive and sometimes violent intermittent anti-corruption protests have at times brought major cities to a stand-still, as the enraged public has consistently accused the national and commercial banks of "theft" while the bankers desperately attempted to defend against a massive run on the dollar and lack of confidence in the local currently.
Image source: AFP.
All of this of course also comes as ill-prepared Beirut health officials deal with coronavirus, given there's been at least 15 confirmed cases since late February.
"Whether it’s coronavirus, or any disease, or any problem, the government isn’t prepared to deal with anything," a real estate broker told Reuters this week. It will be remarkable how often that complaint is repeated when addressing countless other governments around the globe.
March 1, 2020, Julia Creet, Professor of English, York University, Canada. Disclosure statement: Julia Creet receives funding from The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada.
https://theconversation.com/home-genealogy-kit-sales-plummet-over-data-privacy-concerns-132082
Almost every genetic database shares information with the pharmaceutical industry but it wasn’t until law enforcement started using the databases that consumers took note. (Unsplash)
Surprising news recently emerged from the personal genetics business. The two leading direct-to-consumer companies in North America, 23andMe and Ancestry.com, announced within a week of each other that they were laying off a significant proportion of their workforce as a result of a steep drop in sales.
This past Christmas, the sales of testing kits were expected to take a sharp hike — nothing says family like a gift that says prove it. But sales plummeted instead.
According to Second Measure, a company that analyzes website sales, 23andMe’s business plummeted 54 per cent and Ancestry kits sales declined 38 per cent.
Industry executives, market watchers and genealogists have all speculated about the causes of the drop in consumer interest. Market saturation? Early adopters tapped out? Limited usefulness? Recession fears? Whatever the theory, everyone seems to agree on one factor: privacy concerns.
Family privacy concerns
For observers like me, who have been watching the trends in the industry of family history for years and have repeatedly raised concerns about genetic and family privacy, there’s a certain relief that consumers have taken notice.
Two third-party uses of genetic genealogy have given consumers pause for thought.
One: Almost every database shares information with the pharmaceutical industry. 23andMe was clear from the beginning that its health information would be used by its research partners and asked consumers to consent. But when it started to sign major deals with drug developers in 2015, consumers began to realize that, once again, similar to social sharing platforms, they were the product. A fact not so surprising from a company whose initial investors were from Google and Facebook.
Still, as long as testing prices were low and continued to fall, consumers bought the sell. Companies promised consumers they were contributing to a greater good. Medical science could use their genetic information to develop treatments, even if they might never need the drugs (or indeed if any drugs would ever be developed).
So even though the companies were profiting from their information, the number of people sending in their spit grew exponentially. Business was going well. Then a second third-party use was revealed and sales started tumbling.
The marketing emphasis on genealogy testing kits focused on discovering your family history. That may soon change. (Shutterstock)
The sharp decline of sales
Shortly after California detectives announced they had used GEDmatch, a public genetic genealogy database, to solve the cold case of a sadistic rapist and killer known as the Golden State Killer, the exponential rate of growth in the industry began to decline. That 2018 case set off a wave of privacy concerns about genetic genealogy and divided people who had already submitted their samples.
The GEDmatch founders, a couple of genealogists who just wanted to provide a place for genealogists to share DNA results without the privacy restrictions of the testing companies, eventually sold the company after attempting and failing to align its privacy policy with something viable for consumers and the company.
Initial responses from people who had already been tested seemed to be heavily weighted in favour of the ethics of catching violent criminals over personal privacy.
Gene kits will likely be sold with the idea of discovering more about your medical history and future. Here a cancer researcher sets up genetic samples to run a laboratory technique used to make multiple copies of a segment of DNA. (Unsplash)
But when GEDmatch users were given the opportunity to choose whether their data could be used by police, only 200,000 out of the 1.2 million users opted in, though some of that statistic could be a function of the new European data protection laws (GDPR). A more recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that Americans were almost evenly split on questions of data privacy versus the greater good of solving cold cases.
The question Pew asked, however, did not address the nuanced question of what kind of crime? The type of crime matters. Recent cases, in particular of mothers who abandoned babies decades ago, seem to test another kind of ethical limit. Should the databases be restricted to the search for violent criminals only? Cold cases only? What about nonviolent crime? Where do we draw the line?
What the poll statistics can’t measure is the number of people who have deleted their results. But no company will reveal that information. Anecdotal evidence comes from genealogists who saw a rapid decline in the number of cousin matches immediately after the revelations that law enforcement had been mining genetic genealogy data.
In the face of a slowdown in genetic ancestry testing, the existential question of “Who do you think you are?” is turning to the question of “What lurks inside us?”
Expect less marketing about the past and more about the future, less about the thrills of ancestral stories and more about the health risks we have inherited and threaten to pass on, all couched in the same upbeat language of self-knowledge — to be shared widely.
Five boys are turned in by their parents after 15-year-old girl is brutally beaten by mob of up to 20 kids in Brooklyn amid claims attack was ‘retaliation following fight with their friend at school’
Five teenage boys questioned in mob beating of 15-year-old girl
Suspects turned themselves in with their parents to NYPD on Friday
They told authorities the beating was in retaliation against the victim
Victim allegedly beat up another girl at school earlier in the day
NYPD released footage of attack captured in surveillance
A 15-year-old girl was beaten, kicked and punched by group of teenagers
The attackers stole her phone, debit card and the sneakers off her feet
Girl was taken to local hospital for medical treatment in Brooklyn, New York
Authorities believe Thursday's assault could be retaliation for a previous slight
The New York Police Department questioned five teenage suspects and discovered a motive in the horrific mob beating of a 15-year-old girl in Brooklyn.
A unidentified girl was brutally beaten and robbed by a group of almost 20 teenagers after they chased her near Utica Avenue on Thursday.
Five boys accompanied by their parents turned themselves into police custody early Friday, The Post reports.
The suspects told officers that the incident began when the victim reportedly fought another girl at school earlier that day.
Ecuadorian model was savagely beaten by a group of women
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Surveillance footage shows the 15-year-old girl falling on a sidewalk near Utica Avenue while being chased by a group of teenagers
The group of vicious teenagers seen in the video are allegedly friends with the girl who got into a fight with the victim.
The names and ages of the teenagers involved have not been released by authorities. Charges have not yet been filed.
The NYPD released footage of the shocking attack which was captured by security cameras.
Authorities said the incident began around 4.10pm when the victim was approached by a group of unidentified individuals in front of 216 Utica Avenue.
It's unclear what started the altercation, but surveillance footage shows the group of young teenagers chased after the girl until she fell on the sidewalk.
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The NYPD questioned five boys about the recorded beating on Friday amid claims that the assault was in retaliation
Then, nearly 20 individuals jumped onto, kicked and punched her several times as the group swarmed around her.
As the suspects fled the scene, one of them stole the girl's sneakers off her feet while she's on the ground. Her phone and debit card were also stolen.
The girl was transported to NYC Health & Hospitals/Kings County to be treated for head trauma and bruises.
Authorities believe Thursday's assault could be in retaliation for a previous slight, but the details of that are unclear.
Assistant Chief Jeffrey Maddrey of NYPD Brooklyn North said the ordeal was outrageous.
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Nearly 20 individuals were captured jumping, punching and kicking the 15-year-old girl Thursday afternoon
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The suspects steal the girl's sneakers, debit card and phone during the violent altercation
'...This is sickening video of a 15 year old girl viciously attacked by a group of school children,' he wrote on Twitter.
'One young man takes the sneakers right off the unconscious victim’s feet. The teenager is in the hospital recovering. We CAN NOT allow this behavior in our community,' he added.
According to the NYPD CompStat 2.0, there are 2,499 robbery reports this year so far, making a 34 percent increase from 2019.
Anyone with information in regard to the identity of these individuals is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
