PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Verano 2023

[Cadavre Exquis]

Saludos.

La campaña aviva el dilema de las pensiones: "Si quieres una pensión segura, compra un piso"

https://www.elmundo.es/elecciones/elecciones-generales/2023/07/20/64b96b85fc6c8333208b457a.html

https://www.elmundo.es/elecciones/elecciones-generales/2023/07/20/64b96b85fc6c8333208b457a.html

Saludos.

[Derby]

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-property-giant-country-garden-sinks-renewed-storm-2023-07-21/

Chinese property giant Country Garden sinks in renewed storm

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG/LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - China's property sector crisis escalated again on Friday as a sharp fall in the shares and bonds of one of the country's biggest developers, Country Garden (2007.HK), capped a turbulent week for the long-troubled sector.

News that the firm, which has thousands of projects in nearly 300 Chinese cities, had moved to refinance part of a 2019 loan facility sent its Hong Kong-listed shares (2007.HK) down more than 5% and left its bonds close to record lows hit late last year.

"That doesn't get them completely out of the woods," said one Country Garden bondholder, who declined to be identified, adding that the developer was facing a further batch of bonds payments in coming months.

Raymond Cheng, head of China research at CGS-CIMB Securities, delivered a similar warning and said it was part of the broader issue of the government's approach to the crisis.

"If sales don't improve people will worry about the repayment ability for developers like Country Garden who have large exposure in smaller cities," Cheng said.

"Country Garden is a top developer in terms of sales. If it defaulted it would send a very bad signal to the market that the central government does not care (about) more developers going down and has no plan to bail out."

It has been another week of unsettling news in the property market in China. The sector has been on a downward trend that accelerated during the COVID pandemic, with home sales slumping and the government moving to rein in unsustainable borrowing built up during a decade-long building boom.

Other high-profile, but debt-strained China firms, including Dalian Wanda Group and state-backed Sino-Ocean (3377.HK), have also seen sizable sell-offs this week amid a flurry of major rating downgrades.

Analysts at ANZ said the worst may not be over either with the sector facing $12.8 billion of dollar-denominated bond repayments before the end of the year, they estimated.

"New measures, while helpful, are no panacea for the sector’s woes. Other efforts are needed to boost buyers’ sentiment about the long-term trajectory of the property market," they added.



Country Garden, which declined to comment on Friday's selloff, is one of China's top market players and its troubles are adding to the pressure for Beijing to provide additional support to the property sector, which previously accounted for around a quarter of China's economic output.

JPMorgan's analysts said Country Garden's loan refinancing was "marginally credit positive" as a large part of the outstanding amount was being rolled into a new 30-month term instead of facing immediate repayment.

"That said, the onshore operating environment remains challenging for the developers, especially with no indication of relaxation of escrow account supervision," they said.

This week's other main problems in the sector, at Dalian Wanda Group, another of China's most high-profile conglomerates, Sino-Ocean (3377.HK) and the second default in just over a year by state-backed Greenland (600606.SS), have also unnerved investors.

Wanda, owned by China's once-richest man Wang Jianlin, has $400 million bond payment due at its key property unit, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management (DWCM), on Monday. Rating agencies Moody's and S&P Global are uncertain it will make it.

Wanda was one of the few private firms to have navigated the property crash of the past three years. DWCM had even managed to sell bonds earlier this year, in what was seen as an encouraging step for the sector.

Friday's selloff saw Country Garden's bonds <XS2051371222=TE> , fall to between 17 and 21 cents on the dollar - around of a fifth of their face value. Its onshore bonds , slumped roughly 30% each.

"Country Garden is in great difficulties," said Yao Yu, founder of credit analysis firm Ratingdog, adding that it had more than 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) of debt due in the next two months.

Wanda Commercial's bonds, which have plunged over 70% this year also slipped, leaving them at less than a quarter of their original face value.

Since the crisis began to snowball in 2020 a total of around $120 billion worth of Chinese property debt has defaulted, JPMorgan estimates.

The bank's analysts expect another $9 billion of defaults this year. That does not include Country Garden, which has over $40 billion of debt, although the analysts say it is likely to need the government to provide fresh support to the sector.

[Derby]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/banks-serving-as-guinea-pigs-for-federal-reserves-instant-payments-system/

Fed’s new instant payment system could be trouble for PayPal, Venmo

The Fed's goal is to connect 9,000 financial institutions nationwide.

Yesterday, the US Federal Reserve officially launched FedNow, a new system rolled out to 35 early-adopting banks and credit unions for processing instant payments between financial institutions. The Fed's goal is to eventually connect more than 9,000 banks and credit unions nationwide, tossing out the old payments system and supporting faster payment processing between all US institutions.

If FedNow becomes popular enough, it could one day make trouble for apps like PayPal and Venmo, which serve as intermediaries to make fast payments between banks. Cash apps could eventually seem so slow or unnecessary that they become obsolete. For now, peer-to-peer payments apps seem safe, though, as analysts told NBC News that FedNow is "likely to benefit consumers and small businesses the most."

"The Federal Reserve built the FedNow Service to help make everyday payments over the coming years faster and more convenient," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a press release. "Over time, as more banks choose to use this new tool, the benefits to individuals and businesses will include enabling a person to immediately receive a paycheck or a company to instantly access funds when an invoice is paid."

Ars reached out to large and small institutions included on the Fed's list of early adopters to find out how they're using the new payments technology.

Among the big banks listed as early adopters are Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase. Wells Fargo declined to comment, but a JPMorgan Chase spokesperson confirmed that FedNow is already enabling one of the world's leading financial services providers to "deliver faster, seamless, and more efficient payment services" to its customers.

As the Federal Reserve seeks to expand adoption, big banks like JPMorgan Chase could serve as a key model proving the benefit of switching to FedNow's instant payment rails. JPMorgan Chase's spokesperson told Ars that the financial giant also expects that "given the rapid pace of innovation, our participation will help us learn, grow, and better serve our customers as a result.”

Many smaller, early-adopting regional banks and credit unions helped test FedNow ahead of its launch and are forming a foundation for the country's first government-built instant payments system. Others are still waiting to see how FedNow works before adopting it. Financial services consulting firm Cornerstone Advisors reported that almost a quarter of financial institutions said they were waiting for FedNow's launch before they even considered hatching their own instant-payments strategies.

Massachusetts-based Avidia Bank's press release said that it is "positioned to provide consumers and businesses the option to move funds instantly, offering choice for sending and receiving payments to manage money, make bill payments, and avoid late fees." That press release included a statement from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston first vice president and FedNow program executive Ken Montgomery, who said that banks like Avidia are paving "the way for industrywide progress, setting an example for others wanting to play a role in supporting a modernized US payment infrastructure.”

The more financial institutions that participate in FedNow, the more opportunities Americans have to move money instantly. Currently, FedNow has set a default transaction limit of $100,000, but individual banks can adjust it up to $500,000, Forbes reported. A press release from another early adopter, BNY Mellon, said the Fed would be continuing to onboard more institutions throughout the rest of this year.

Current benefits and uses of FedNow

Most of the smaller participating institutions appear eager to be part of what they see as the future of faster payments, but some are moving slowly when it comes to fully implementing FedNow. While some institutions are currently able to send and receive funds on the FedNow payments rail, others are more limited, using service providers that are only receiving for now.

The Federal Reserve has published a list of service providers, noting which ones are enabling sending and receiving and which are only receiving. A spokesperson for Iowa's Mediapolis Savings Bank told Ars that it is currently only receiving instant transfers, but its "intent is to launch with send" by the middle of next year.

Among those cautiously testing FedNow's waters is Mark Donovan, the chief operating officer of Illinois-based INB. He told Ars that the bank spent the first 24 hours after FedNow's launch "attempting low-dollar live transactions" with their service provider to monitor the reconciliations.

"We signed up for it because this is the first meaningful plumbing upgrade in the payments ecosystem since before I was born, so we just wanted to be there to contextualize both the risks and the opportunities at the front of the curve," Donovan told Ars.

Other institutions became early adopters because they saw how FedNow could expand their offerings. In a press release, Star One Credit Union's vice president of remote services, Minal Gupta, said that the institution's customers have shown substantial interest in instant payments, and "we wanted to be among the first financial institutions to go live on the FedNow Service because we saw a clear vision for this service."

Minnesota-based United Bankers’ Bank (UBB) outlined the benefits of being an early adopter, including meeting customers' expectations, expanding and retaining a broader customer base, and reducing costs, with the potential to grow revenue and reduce interbank settlement risks.

Among the use cases UBB listed were peer-to-peer payments, business-to-business payments, payments between customers and businesses, and government and municipal payments. The US Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which disburses "funds to millions of Americans ensuring their timely receipt of benefit payments," is also an early adopter but could not immediately be reached for comment.

Donovan told Ars that while much of fintech's focus has been on providing faster real-time payments on the front end for customers, FedNow was INB's first opportunity to speed up payment processing on the back end for the institution. Participating institutions can use FedNow's payments rails to process real-time payments 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, participating banks' press releases eagerly note.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/2ab74817-5b14-4110-9815-a7549621b521

EU tightens rules on leverage for private credit funds

Restrictions come amid worries about financial stability risks posed by fast-growing $1.5tn industry

(...)Regulators have grown increasingly concerned about the risks to financial stability posed by the industry, particularly the potential for rapid withdrawals from funds that hold hard-to-sell assets. In a jointly agreed negotiating position published last year, EU member states argued that leveraged private credit funds could “contribute to the build-up of systemic risk or disorderly markets”.

Leverage for funds which do not allow investor withdrawals until the underlying loans have matured will be capped at 300 per cent, while funds that permit redemptions will be allowed 175 per cent leverage.

The rules also include a pledge to bar private credit funds from allowing investor withdrawals before the loans they hold have matured, unless they meet as of yet unspecified criteria which will be outlined by EU regulators.

Blackstone and Goldman Sachs are among the firms to have launched so-called “open-ended” funds in the past few years to attract capital from a wider range of investors, and will have to meet the new rules to keep operating.

Blackstone declined to comment, and Goldman Sachs did not respond to a request for comment.

“Open-ended funds will have to demonstrate they have adequate liquidity risk management tools,” said Jiri Kros, deputy chief executive of hedge fund and private credit industry body AIMA. “There will be a five-year transitional period for funds that are already in existence.”

Kros said that most funds already operate within the leverage limits, but that the limits could cause issues when loan values decrease, potentially leaving funds needing to sell assets or raise extra cash from investors.

“The net asset value of a fund can fluctuate even if the loans are not traded,” he said. “For example we saw during the 2008 financial crisis that performing loan values can fall by as much as 20 per cent. When the value of your loans decreases, your leverage automatically increases. The limits are likely to have a restrictive bearing on parts of the industry.”

Rising interest rates can mean that lenders can charge borrowers more but there are also concerns around rising defaults at some highly leveraged companies that private credit firms have leant money to.

The new legislation is part of efforts to harmonise the EU’s approach to fund management, in an attempt to better integrate member state economies.

The European Commission proposed the private credit reforms in November 2021. MEPs are also working on a so-called “listing act” to make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to raise funds on stock exchanges and a proposal on the harmonisation of corporate insolvency laws, ahead of European elections next summer when lawmaking will grind to a halt.

The new rules on private credit needs to be formally adopted by the European parliament and EU council before they become effective. An EU official said it was unlikely that a final text would appear before September.

[Mistermaguf]

https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/carballo/2023/07/20/sareb-compro-24-26-pisos-subastados-recta-span-langgl-anchoaspan/0003_202307C20C1991.htm

La Sareb compró 24 de los 26 pisos subastados en la recta de A Anchoa

Más de 30 personas acudieron a Cee para pujar por el lote de viviendas de Fisterra, pero finalmente el denominado «banco malo» se los llevó prácticamente todos

ubo dos adjudicaciones antes de que el procurador de la Sareb recibiera instrucciones y, a partir de ahí, ya nada». Así resumió Miguel Ángel Nogueiro, de Suvalia.es, lo ocurrido en la mañana de ayer en la Casa da Cultura de Cee. Poco después de las doce del mediodía se terminó la puja organizada por la empresa que gestiona inversiones, para dar salida a 26 pisos de dos edificios de la recta de A Anchoa, procedentes de un concurso de acreedores. Uno por uno fueron saliendo todos los apartamentos, pero las más de 30 personas que se personaron para participar en el acto ya no tuvieron ocasión de hacerse con alguna de las viviendas.

La Sareb se presenta como una entidad creada en el 2012 para gestionar y vender «los activos problemáticos de las antiguas cajas de ahorro y filiales que recibieron ayudas públicas», según su propia página web. Explican que el objetivo es «conseguir vender todos esos activos, maximizando el valor vendiendo con la menor pérdida posible. Los ingresos obtenidos con las ventas nos permiten ir abonando la deuda avalada por el Estado».

En la Costa da Morte habían sacado a través de inmobiliarias varias promociones, pero es la primera vez que compran en lugar de vender, aunque desde Suvalia.es, explican que se han encontrado con esta situación en otros puntos.

Los dos edificios por los que se podía pujar eran de Construcciones Cipriano Vahamonde, que está en concurso de acreedores desde octubre del 2013. Suscribió en el año 2007 hipotecas por cada vivienda con lo que entonces era la Caixa Galicia. Tras varias operaciones con la entidad, según consta en el Registro de la Propiedad de Corcubión, las cargas de las 14 viviendas del número 37 pasaron a la Sareb, que con la operación de ayer intenta recuperar al menos parte del dinero. Las otras 12, del 35 de A Anchoa figuran solo en concurso de acreedores y no tiene comunidad de propietarios por lo que, en principio, no llegaron a ser habitadas.

Según la empresa Suvalia.es, la idea era que los pisos pudieran comercializarse a precios bastante competitivos y que llegaran a convertirse en segundas residencias, tras algunas mejoras necesarias en los edificios.


Un apartamento hipotecado en el 2007 por 80.000 euros fue tasado ahora por casi la mitad, 41.400
Recuperar dinero que se perdió con el pinchazo de la burbuja inmobiliaria no resultará nada fácil. El apartamento primero B del número 35 de la recta de A Anchoa, que fue vendido ayer, estaba tasado en 41.400 euros. Se trata de un piso de 59 metros cuadrados con un dormitorio, un baño, salón-cocina, un espacio definido como «cuarto pequeño» y balcón.

Esta misma vivienda fue hipotecada en el año 2007 por 80.000 euros, a los que había que añadir 15.500 euros de intereses ordinarios y otros 23.400 de los de demora. A todo ello es necesario añadir otros 8.000 euros de costas y gastos. Son las cargas que constan en el Registro de la Propiedad de Corcubión. Así, la vivienda está valorada ahora por casi la mitad de lo que, en principio, costaría en el momento de su construcción.

Dado que la mayor parte de los apartamentos fueron adquiridos por la Sareb, es previsible que vuelvan a salir a la venta. Seguramente no lo hará por el precio estipulado para la subasta de ayer, pero tampoco para recuperar el dinero, ya que serían 126.900 euros.

Un edificio necesita inversiones para quedar bien y tiene deudas con la comunidad
Catorce de las viviendas que se subastaron incluían una carga de 1.440 euros de deudas a la comunidad de propietarios, además de otros 1.000 euros de IBI que tendría que ir para el Concello de Fisterra. En este caso no salieron a la venta dos de los apartamentos que ya no eran del promotor. Además de estos gastos, según explicó el representante de la empresa que gestionó la subasta, el comprador tendrá que asumir una derrama para dejar en buenas condiciones los edificios, que fueron levantados en el año 2008. La primera hipoteca que pesa sobre ellos es de un año antes.

Los que los compraron han tenido que estar estos años sin vecinos y, por lo tanto, sin nadie que colabore en el mantenimiento de los edificios, lo que ha hecho que se vayan deteriorando.

En principio, las cosas podrían seguir así durante un tiempo porque no está previsto que nadie vaya a ocupar las viviendas, por lo que permanecerán en las mismas condiciones que ahora.

En fin, si alguien lo entiende que me lo explique

Esa es la función de la sareb. Retirar pisos de El Mercao  por la parte baja de la tabla, que es la parte más debil de toda la estructura ppopularcapitalista y por donde se crean las grietas que pueden echar abajo toda la piramide de precios.

Ese es el mandato que El Propietariado  exigió a la sareb, y sus presidentes, como buenos segundones mandaos  del regimen, lo cumplen con total impunidad.

O, en otras palabras, el brazo parapisitófilo del estado, utilizando dinero público -es decir, los impuestos de los contribuyentes- para impedir que los ciudadanos puedan acceder a un bien básico e imprescindible a precios bajos.

Lo del ortograma es eso, ¿verdad? ¿O era otra cosa?

 

[Derby]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bed-bath-beyond-shareholders-to-recover-nothing-under-proposed-reorganization-plan-6ae1130f#refreshed

Bed Bath & Beyond Shareholders to Recover Nothing Under Proposed Reorganization Plan

Some investors bought shares even after the company went bankrupt in April, betting on a long-shot revival

Bed Bath & Beyond shareholders will receive zero recovery under a proposed reorganization plan that the bankrupt home-goods retailer revealed on Thursday.

The proposal, filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey, said the stock in Bed Bath & Beyond “shall be canceled, released and extinguished.” Shareholders will have no right to claim any future recovery either, according to the proposed plan.

Shares at the bankrupt retailer dropped 11.3% to 32 cents Friday morning. The stock has rallied since its bankruptcy filing, peaking at 38 cents this week from a low of 8 cents in early May.

Some individual investors continued to buy Bed Bath & Beyond shares even after the company entered chapter 11 in April, ignoring warnings by the company that its shares would be worthless in bankruptcy. Supporters fueled social media hype that the iconic chain could defy the odds and make an unlikely comeback. (...)

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-21/sbb-brookfield-end-talks-on-sale-of-51-stake-in-subsidiary

Embattled SBB’s Woes Worsen With Brookfield Talks Abrupt End

    CEO Synnes said last week that sale talks were ‘constructive’
    Brookfield deal was seen as key to easing SBB’s funding issues

SBB abruptly ended talks with Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. over the sale of a 51% stake in a portfolio of school buildings, reflecting the struggles the embattled Swedish landlord faces to close a looming funding gap.

The sale of the holding to Brookfield, which already owns a 49% stake in the unit called SBB EduCo AB, had been seen as key to reviving the landlord’s fortunes. Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB — as the company is formally known — is racing to plug an 8.1 billion-krona ($780 million) cash shortfall over the next 12 months.

Stockholm-based SBB is at the epicenter of the broader turmoil in real estate markets, as higher interest rates depress valuations around the world. The company’s troubles risk becoming a broader issue in Sweden as it owns many public-sector buildings like nursing homes and schools.

Shares in the Swedish property company dropped as much as 21%, reversing earlier gains on prospects of narrowing its funding gap. Over night, SBB announced a deal to raise $228 million from a sale of new preference shares in a residential unit to a fund managed by Morgan Stanley. The company’s bonds also reversed earlier gains.

The company “now faces even more pressing liquidity challenges,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tolu Alamutu said in an interview. “The end of talks with Brookfield may add urgency to ongoing bondholder discussions.”(...)

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/inmobiliario/2023/07/21/64b9b96c468aebfc4a8b4617.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/ahorro/2023/07/20/64b942a1e5fdeaf87c8b4628.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/financial-times/2023/07/21/64b9ca0de5fdea863f8b459b.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/mercados/2023/07/20/64b95140e5fdea6c4d8b4652.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2023/07/21/64b98720468aebe47c8b45cf.html

Saludos.

[saturno]

Me llevo lo de Scott Morton al hilo de geopolitica, aunque ya no sé donde ponerlo.
https://www.transicionestructural.net/index.php?topic=2572.msg217485#msg217485

EDIT = el nombramiento de Scott Morton fue del 11 de julio. Calladito, eh.
Su propia renuncia a tomar el cargo es de hoy, 21 de julio.

(Tenemos un problema, y dudo que sea tan sencillo como el Pisito,)

Diganos maestro, Ud, se ha planteado que el Pisito popular capitalista europeo tenga raices genuinamente  estadounidenses? Raices geopoliticas, estilo Maidan, Revoluciones naranjas, a cosas asï me refiero,

OTAN, bases y puertos, contra Pisito,
Y así fue como lo votamos,

¿A que si?

[Derby]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hits-ukraines-grain-fourth-day-practises-seizing-ships-black-sea-2023-07-21/

Russia pounds Ukraine's grain, UN warns of hunger from price rises

KYIV, July 21 (Reuters) - Russia pounded Ukrainian food export facilities for a fourth day in a row on Friday and practised seizing ships in the Black Sea in an escalation of what Western leaders say is an attempt to wriggle out of sanctions by threatening a global food crisis.

The attacks on Ukraine's grain, a major part of the global food chain, followed a vow by Kyiv to defy Russia's naval blockade on its export ports after Moscow's withdrawal this week from a UN-brokered safe sea corridor agreement.

The UN warned that millions of people in poor countries around the world were at greater risk of hunger and starvation from the knock-on effect for food prices.

"Some will go hungry, some will starve, many may die as a result of these decisions," UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council.

In Ukraine, local governor Oleh Kiper said the grain terminals of an agricultural enterprise in Odesa region were hit by air, with 100 tons of peas and 20 tons of barley destroyed.

Photographs released by the emergencies ministry showed a fire burning among crumpled metal buildings that appeared to be storehouses. Two people were injured, Kiper said, while officials reported seven dead in Russian air strikes elsewhere in Ukraine.

Moscow has described the attacks as revenge for a Ukrainian strike on a Russian-built bridge to Crimea - the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014. It accuses Ukraine of using the sea corridor to launch "terrorist attacks."

Russia said its Black Sea fleet had practised firing rockets at "floating targets" and it would deem all ships heading for Ukrainian waters to be potentially carrying arms. Kyiv responded with a similar warning about ships headed to Russia.

The attacks on grain export infrastructure and anxiety over shipping drove prices of benchmark Chicago wheat futures towards their biggest weekly gain since the February 2022 invasion.

The UN says the deal had helped the poorest by lowering food prices more than 23% globally since March last year.

Russia says not enough Ukrainian grain had reached poor countries and that it is now negotiating directly with those most in need. It says it will not re-enter the deal without better terms for its own food and fertiliser sales.

Western leaders accuse Moscow of seeking to loosen sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine, which already exempt exports of Russian food. Russian grain has moved freely through the Black Sea to market throughout the conflict.

WAGNER NEAR POLAND BORDER

A Polish broadcaster reported on Friday that a military reconnaissance drone of unspecified origin had crashed near a base in southwestern Poland this week.

NATO military alliance member Poland has been reinforcing its border with Belarus, where Russia's Wagner mercenary force has taken up residency after a failed mutiny last month.

Belarus has said Wagner fighters are training its troops near the Polish border. Residents in Poland close to the frontier report having heard shooting and helicopters.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin said it was Poland that had territorial ambitions in the region, telling Russia's Security Council that Moscow would react to any aggression against Belarus "with all the means at our disposal."

Investigators in Russia detained prominent nationalist Igor Girkin, a former commander of Russia's proxy forces in Ukraine, who had publicly accused Putin and army chiefs of not prosecuting the war in Ukraine harshly or effectively enough.

"This is a direct outcome of Prigozhin's mutiny: the army's command now wields greater political leverage to quash its opponents in the public sphere," said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik analysis firm.

Inside Ukraine, four people were killed in 80 Russian attacks on settlements in the southern Zaporizhzhia region over the past 24 hours, regional governor Yuriy Malashko said.

A married couple in their 50s were killed in Russian shelling of the city of Kostiantynivka in the eastern region of Donetsk, the general prosecutor's office said.

And in the northern region of Chernihiv, a woman's body was pulled from rubble after a missile strike, regional governor Viacheslav Chaus said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, noted that Odesa port, its grain facilities and its surrounding region, had once again been a target of Russian attacks with more than 20 people injured this week alone.

"If someone in Russia hopes that they can somehow turn the Black Sea into an area of arbitrary action and terrorism, this will not work for them," he said.

"We know how to defend ourselves and we see around the world a readiness to work together further and more actively in order to guarantee calm for our region."

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine last year and claims to have annexed nearly a fifth of its territory. Moscow says it is responding to threats posed by its neighbour, while Kyiv and the West call it an unprovoked war of conquest.

[sudden and sharp]

Me llevo lo de Scott Morton al hilo de geopolitica, aunque ya no sé donde ponerlo.
https://www.transicionestructural.net/index.php?topic=2572.msg217485#msg217485

EDIT = el nombramiento de Scott Morton es del 11 de julio
Su renuncia a tomar el cargo es de hoy 21 de julio

Pero todo esto ha resultado insuficiente. La renuncia de Scott supone una derrota para Vestager, la danesa es la máxima responsable de Competencia y la que había apostado decididamente por su nombramiento como economista jefe del Departamento. Ella acudió el 11 de julio a la Eurocámara para defender su decisión en una comparecencia ante la comisión de Asuntos Económicos del Parlamento Europeo, donde este martes señaló que “sería un error privar a la Comisión y a los europeos del mejor asesoramiento económico posible”. “No hay tantas personas en el mundo que se ajusten a este perfil tan específico y que además estén dispuestas y disponibles para ocupar un puesto temporal en Bruselas”, argumentó la danesa. Frente a ella se han situado el comisario de Mercado Interior, el francés Thierry Breton, o el de Economía y Finanzas, Paolo Gentiloni.

Pues a mi me parece una catetada rechazarla por su nacionalidad. (O un ataque de cuernos de Macrón.)

La presión contra este nombramiento se ejercía, principalmente, desde Francia. Y aumentó el martes, cuando el propio presidente, Emmanuel Macron, mostró su rechazo: “Estaría totalmente abierto a esa configuración si los estadounidenses contrataran a un investigador europeo para que estuviera en el centro de toma de decisiones de la Casa Blanca o si los chinos hicieran lo mismo. Pero veo que, por ley, tienen prohibido hacerlo”. Un día después se ha conocido la renuncia.

No hay por dónde cogerlo. La futbolización de la política europea.

https://elpais.com/economia/2023-07-19/la-economista-jefe-de-competencia-en-bruselas-renuncia-a-su-cargo-tras-las-criticas-de-macron.html