Inflation rebounded in France and Spain in February, raising the cost of borrowing for European governments as doubts grew over how quickly the European Central Bank would halt interest rate hikes.
French consumer prices rose 7.2 percent in the year to February, driven to the highest rate since the euro was introduced in 1999 by faster increases in food and service prices. Economists polled by Reuters had expected French inflation to stagnate at January’s 7 percent level.
Consumer prices growth in France and Spain resumed their upward trend in February, driven by higher food and energy costs, official statistics showed on Tuesday. It accelerated to 6.1 percentfrom 5.9 percent in January and ahead of economists’ expectations for a decline to 5.5 percent, despite the government cutting food taxes in January.
The report noted that food inflation edged higher to 14.5% from 13.3%, services prices were up to 2.9% from 2.6%, while prices of manufactured goods rose slightly to 4.6% from 4.5%, with the end of winter sales. Energy prices jumped 14.0% on year in February, Insee said.
The EU-harmonized index stood at 7.2% compared to 7% in January.
Meanwhile in Spain, which succeeded in containing price growth in the second half of 2022, inflation has now risen for two consecutive months in annual terms. Consumer prices increased 6.1% year-on-year in February, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reports.
European government bond prices fell in response on Tuesday, pushing the yield on Germany’s interest-sensitive two-year bond up 0.08 percentage point to 3.15 percent, its highest since the 2008 financial crisis.
The numbers suggest euro-zone inflation could prove more persistent than hoped ahead of the release of February price growth data for the bloc on Thursday, which showed economists predicting a slowdown to 8.1 percent from January’s 8.6 percent expect.
“There are clear upside risks for euro inflation in February,” said Jörg Kramer, chief economist at German lender Commerzbank.
Preliminary data showed that higher electricity and food prices were the key drivers of the increase.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile fresh food and energy prices, stood at 7.7% year-on-year, up from 7.5% recorded in January. Consumer prices, harmonized for comparison with other European Union countries, rose to 6.1% in February in annual terms from 5.9% in the previous month.
“The increase in Spain’s headline EU harmonized inflation is another reminder that the path of price growth will be choppy and sticky on its way down, as underlying price pressures remain strong,” Bloomberg economist Ana Andrade said. “While base effects will dominate over the next few months, bringing inflation meaningfully down by the summer, we still expect it to end the year at above 5%,” she added.
Economists project inflation in Spain and France will continue rising in the coming months, prompting more interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank. The ECB has already promised to raise rates by 50 basis points to 3% in March, to get soaring inflation in the 20-nation Eurozone under control. It may still need to raise interest rates significantly beyond March, as inflation remains too high, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel warned earlier.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the Federal Security Service (FSB) to continue to help the army in the course of the special military operation, including by providing counter-reconnaissance support.
Speaking at a meeting of the FSB board on Tuesday, the president focused on priority areas of the FSB’s work. "First of all, it is necessary to continue to help the armed forces and the National Guard in the course of the special military operation, including by means of providing counter-reconnaissance support to army units, swift exchange of important tactical information," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also instructed the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on Tuesday to take special control of the Russian-Ukrainian border.
"The Russian-Ukrainian section of the state border should be under special control of the FSB Border Service," Putin said at an extended meeting of the FSB.
The Russian leader also noted that the authorities should closely monitor critical infrastructure in the country - such as transport hubs, public spaces, defense industry and energy companies, adding that the West has never minded using extremists to its advantage and always used what is at hand against Russia.
"We know that they [Western states] have never minded using both radicals and extremists in their interests, despite all the loud statements about the fight against international terrorism. They always use what is at hand against us, what they can use," Putin stated.
He added that the FSB should stop those who seek to split Russia and pay attention to the new regions of the country - the Donetsk People's Republic, Lugansk People's Republic, Zaporozhye Region, and Kherson Region.
The audition for 21-year-old Trey Louis who performed a cover of the 2016 song 'Stone' by Whiskey Myers on American Idol took an unexpected turn when the performer's tragic history led to a mental breakdown for one of the judges, Katy Perry.
Although Trey Louis received a unanimous "yes" from all the jurors and made it through his recent "American Idol" audition, it was not cloudless.
The show's broadcast revealed Louis was a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Santa Fe High School in which 10 people - 8 students and 2 teachers - were killed after a classmate began firing in the school's art complex. At the time it was considered the third-deadliest school shooting.
"(I) lost a lot of friends," said Louis, adding he was was in the classroom next to the one where the shooting took place. "It’s just really been negative, and Santa Fe’s had a bad rap since 2018."
This revelation shook "American Idol" judge Katy Perry to the core.
"Our country has f**king failed us!" she shouted. "You should be singing here because you love music, not because you had to go through that f**king bulls**t. ... You don’t have to lose eight friends. I hope that you remind people that we have to change. Cuz, you know, I’m scared, too."
Richie also got visibly choked up, and he and Bryan comforted Perry. Richie then told Louis, "We have tolerated this for so long. Too long. It's become a norm."
Perry then continued, "We've got to change. And I hope you can just lead."
Richie, Bryan, and Perry all voted for Louis to advance to the next round of auditions in Hollywood — although Bryan had to try to say his vote multiple times as he was also getting choked up. The trio gave Louis a group hug as he got his golden ticket.
"It’s terrible, Katy. Horrible," Louis responded to Perry, while Richie with tears in his eyes added, "We have tolerated this for so long, too long. It’s become the norm."
At last count, more than 90 shootings have occurred in the US since the beginning of 2023.
After the audition aired, Luke tweeted, "Trey, man you have the perfect voice. You sing from the heart and we are really blessed you came to us. No child should have to live through what you did. Thank you for sharing your positivity with us and the world. #AmericanIdol."
Katy also shared Trey's audition, simply posting a broken heart emoji.
So far, the Biden administration's action to ban assault weapons has been unsuccessful. Even if successful, Democrats may have to pay the price in political capital.
A phone screen displays a photo of Elon Musk with the Twitter logo shown in the background. (Photo | AFP)
Twitter laid off at least 200 of its employees on Saturday night, three people familiar with the matter said, or about 10 percent of the roughly 2,000 who were still working for the company. Elon Musk, who acquired the social media platform in October, has steadily pared back its work force from about 7,500 employees as he has sought to reduce costs.
The layoffs came after a week when the company made it difficult for Twitter employees to communicate with each other. The company’s internal messaging service, Slack, was taken offline, preventing employees from chatting with each other or looking up company data, five current and former employees told The New York Times. On Saturday night, some employees discovered that they were logged out of their corporate email accounts and laptops, three of the people said — the first hint that layoffs had begun.
By Sunday morning, the scope of the cuts was becoming clear. Some Twitter employees used the platform to post farewell messages, while workers who had kept their jobs scrambled to use encrypted messaging services like Signal to determine who else was left. By Saturday night, the remaining employees had also lost access to a Google chat service associated with their work email accounts, three people said.
The cuts hit product managers, data scientists and engineers who worked on machine learning and site reliability, which helps keep Twitter’s various features online. The monetization infrastructure team, which maintains the services through which Twitter makes money, was reduced to fewer than eight people from 30, a person familiar with the matter said.
Among those affected by the layoffs were several founders of small tech companies that Twitter had acquired over the years, including Esther Crawford, who co-founded a screen-sharing and video chat app called Squad and recently oversaw Twitter’s effort to charge users for verification check marks, and Haraldur Thorleifsson, the creator of the design studio Ueno, which Twitter purchased in 2021.
Several of the founders received higher compensation packages as part of the acquisitions of their companies, which could make it more expensive to lay them off as their stock and bonuses are paid out, three people familiar with the compensation packages said.
Saturday’s round of layoffs was one of the largest since Mr. Musk told employees in an internal meeting in late November that there were no more plans for staff reductions. The cuts followed a mass layoff in early November, when Mr. Musk eliminated about half of Twitter’s work force a week into his ownership of the company. Smaller layoffs and resignations had since reduced Twitter’s staff to around 2,000 employees.
Other employees who were laid off shared on social media that the news was broken to them after they had been locked out of work emails. Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday; “Hope you have a good Sunday. First day of the rest of your life.” These latest job losses follow a number of other job losses at large tech firms, as companies struggle to re-adapt to the post-Covid working environment. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all made lay-offs in the past few months.
Musk has taken a number of steps to try and right Twitter’s finances, following reports that the company was losing $4 million a day when he completed his purchase. Musk is reported to have made his first interest payment last month on the bank loan used to finance his takeover.
Around $13 billion of the $44 billion total was covered by banks, and Twitter is reported to have paid off $300 million of that figure. There have been controversies over the way Twitter has tried to turn its balance sheet around, including via closing its UK offices and reportedly not paying rent for the properties - leading to a lawsuit being filed against the company by Crown Estates in the UK.
Esther Crawford, the director of product management at Twitter who oversaw the introduction of charging for account verification, was reportedly among the employees affected.
Musk’s hard-driving approach to management was exemplified in November by a picture of Crawford sleeping on the floor of Twitter’s offices, which she retweeted with the hashtag #SleepWhereYouWork.
Crawford, tweeted on Sunday that she was “deeply proud” of her team, as she criticised people who had jeered or mocked her achievements, although she did not confirm her departure directly.
Twitter’s premium subscription service had a troubled relaunch in November after some users took advantage of paying for a verified account by launching a slew of impersonator accounts. Nintendo, the pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and the US politician Ted Cruz were among the firms and public figures who found themselves being impersonated by accounts with blue ticks.
Twitter Blue was relaunched again in December and, according to news site the Information, has 180,000 subscribers in the US compared with a global monthly user base of more than 250 million people. Musk has identified growth in subscription revenue as a key target for Twitter, which relied on advertising for the majority of its income prior to his takeover but has suffered a plunge in ad revenue because of issues including the impersonation problem.
The job losses have taken place against a backdrop of financial uncertainty at Twitter, a company that has been loss-making historically and has struggled to generate the cash flow required to pay off the significant debts it inherited after Musk’s $44bn (£36.7bn) takeover.
The deal’s financing included $13bn worth of debt that now sits on Twitter’s balance sheet and costs more than $1bn a year to service. Twitter made the first quarterly payment on that debt in January, but analysts have warned that Musk needs to turn round the business in order to make the debt sustainable in the long term.
Musk sacked half of Twitter’s workforce, about 3,750 people, within days of taking over the business and hundreds more left weeks later after the Tesla CEO demanded that staff commit to being “hardcore” or leave. Musk said in December that his cost-cutting drive meant Twitter was is “not on the fast lane to bankruptcy any more” but he has continued to take action on costs in 2023.
Besiktas' Cenk Tosun holds a teddy bear as fans throw toys on the pitch for children affected by earthquake during a Turkish Super League match between Besiktas and Antalyaspor at Vodafone Park in Istanbul, Turkey February 26, 2023. REUTERS
Besiktas fans threw toys onto the pitch during their game against Antalyaspor in support of those affected by earthquakes in the southeast of Turkey.
Organised by the home side, the Turkish Super League match stopped in the 17th second of the fourth minute and toys rained down from the stands to be donated to children affected by those earthquakes.
Nearly 48,000 have died as a result of the disaster on February 6 when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria and former Newcastle midfielder Christian Atsu was later confirmed as one of the victims.
As the clock strikes 04:17 (the time of the earthquake), Beşiktaş fans throw thousands of soft toys onto the pitch to be sent to kids in the affected areas.
Following the game’s restart, the teams played out a 0-0 draw as Istanbul’s Besiktas moved into third in the table.
A statement from Besiktas said: “Our fans organised a meaningful event called ‘this toy is my friend’ during our A team’s football match with Antalyaspor at Vodafone Park in order to give morale to the children affected by the earthquake that stifled our country.
“Our fans, to give morale to the children in the earthquake zone, in the 17th second of the fourth minute of the match threw scarves, hats and cuddly toys on the Vodafone Park pitch.
Besiktas fans threw thousands of stuffed toys onto the pitch during Sunday's match against Antalyaspor to donate to children impacted by the earthquake in Turkey and neighbouring Syria. The Turkish Super Lig game, which ended 0-0, was paused after 4 minutes and 17 seconds to allow fans to throw the gifts onto the pitch. The earthquake first struck Turkey at 04:17 local time on Feb. 6.
"Our fans threw scarves, berets and plush toys on the ground of Vodafone Park to be given as a gift to the children in the earthquake region to cheer them up," Besiktas said in a club statement.
The death toll from the earthquakes in Turkey and neighbouring Syria has crossed 50,000. Ghana winger Christian Atsu was among the victims, having been found dead on Feb. 18 under the building where he lived in southern Turkey.
Brasil telah mengizinkan dua kapal perang Iran untuk berlabuh di negara mereka. meskipun Duta Besar AS untuk Brasil Elizabeth Bagley memperingatkan Brasilia untuk tidak mengizinkan akses Angkatan Laut Iran ke pelabuhan Amerika Selatan.
Kunjungan pada hari Minggu dilakukan setelah penundaan diplomatik dan terlepas dari tekanan AS.
Kapal perang Iran IRIS Makran dan IRIS Dena telah berlabuh di Rio de Janeiro, sebagaimana dikonfirmasi oleh wakil kepala Staf Angkatan Laut Brasil, Wakil Laksamana Carlos Eduardo Horta Arentz, dalam Berita Resmi negara (Diário Oficial da União). Kapal akan tetap di sana hingga 4 Maret, saat mereka berangkat lebih jauh ke Terusan Panama yang membelah benua Amerika.
Keputusan Brasil tersebut diambil meskipun Duta Besar AS untuk Brasil Elizabeth Bagley memperingatkan Brasilia untuk tidak mengizinkan akses Angkatan Laut Iran ke pelabuhan Amerika Selatan.
Duta besar AS membuat klaim tanpa bukti, dengan mengatakan pada konferensi pers awal bulan ini bahwa kapal-kapal ini “memfasilitasi perdagangan ilegal dan kegiatan teroris.” Ia dengan merasa yakin menambahkan, hingga saat ini belum ada negara lain yang menyediakan pelabuhan bagi kapal-kapal tersebut.
Kapal perang Iran memulai perjalanannya pada bulan Januari, berangkat dari selatan Iran untuk mengelilingi dunia. Awalnya, Brasil berencana menerima kapal pada Januari, tetapi ditunda untuk menenangkan AS.
Presiden Brasil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, yang biasa disebut Lula, sedang merencanakan perjalanannya ke Washington untuk bertemu dengan Presiden AS Joe Biden dan menunda masuknya kapal ke pelabuhan negaranya.
Setelah kedua pemimpin bertemu awal bulan ini dan, seperti yang dikatakan dalam pernyataan bersama mereka, “menegaskan kembali hubungan AS-Brasil yang penting dan bertahan lama,” kapal-kapal Teheran sekali lagi diterima di Rio.
Lula memiliki sejarah hubungan dengan Republik Islam, menyambut presiden saat itu Mahmoud Ahmadinejad di Brasilia pada 2009 untuk mencoba menengahi kesepakatan nuklir antara Washington dan Teheran.
AS dan Iran memiliki permusuhan lama satu sama lain, sejak Revolusi Islam dan krisis sandera 1979–81. AS juga sangat menentang kemungkinan pengembangan tenaga nuklir Iran, dengan alasan bahwa mereka akan memberikan negara Timur Tengah akses ke senjata atom.
Washington juga menuduh Teheran mensponsori terorisme. Pada tahun 2019, Pentagon membunuh salah satu jenderal paling kuat Iran – Qassem Soleimani, dalam serangan udara, sebuah peristiwa yang hanya meningkatkan antagonisme timbal balik.
A wave of anti-war protests has swept through Europe last weekend. Thousands of demonstrators in Germany, France and Italy rallied against arms supplies to Ukraine, warning that the NATO-fanned military escalation is fraught with the risk of sparking World War III.
"Sentiments in European societies about the conflict in Ukraine should be measured in terms of penetration of cognitive warfare," Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels, told Sputnik. "The powerful US machine has compacted two-thirds of the sentiment on the idea that the war will end only with a Ukrainian victory."
"This has been possible with the co-opted engagement of the EU leaders, first of all (EC President) Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO, who are acting like the madrasa in a caravanserai. The consequence is also a wide anti-Russian sentiment powerfully sustained by the UK, Poland and Ukrainian leaders and media. I stress that it is not even an autonomous perception of the Europeans but a sheer manipulation of their cognitive capacities," Raffone continued.
Despite most of the EU establishment publicly advocating continuous military support to Kiev, Europeans are increasingly concerned that the conflict could spill over to the Old Continent and express dissatisfaction with anti-Russia sanctions which backfired across the bloc.
Thus, Italian demonstrators, who took to the streets in Rome, Genoa, Pisa, Milan, Florence and Lecce last Saturday believe that Rome’s pro-EU policy and confrontation with Russia have led to detrimental economic consequences for the Italian population. Meanwhile, French protesters marched through Paris on Sunday carrying banners that read: "For Peace," "No to a Third World War" and "Let’s Quit NATO."
"The biggest European common concern is the expansion of the conflict and the escalation to a nuclear level," Raffone said. "The second concern is the economic consequence of the induced support to Ukraine (in terms of prolonged costs). The third concern is the energy crisis that is still looming on economic activities and households."
German Peace Movement
Some experts suggest that Germany is the country that is poised to lose the most from the ongoing confrontation between the West and Russia.
The Western European state has imported Russia's cheap gas since the 1970s. Now, Germany's status as a European industrial powerhouse is shattered given the unfolding de-industrialization in the state driven by high energy costs. The destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September came as the last straw for German industries, some of which announced their decision to relocate in October 2022.
Therefore, unsurprisingly, the Nord Stream sabotage bombshell dropped by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh earlier this month prompted a heated debate in the Bundestag with the left-wing Die Linke and the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) calling on the German government to probe the allegations. According to Hersh, it was US and Norwegian operatives who blasted Nord Stream. If that's the case, "one would have to question whether the (NATO) alliance guarantees security in Europe or rather endangers it," stated AfD Co-Chairman Tino Chrupalla following the bombshell publication.
"The German government is still stuck firmly in their shameful vassal war rhetoric," Dr. Christian Blex, an AfD lawmaker of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, told Sputnik. "The perseverance and final victory slogans do not allow any change of course. To do this, however, the government would first have to free itself from its sycophantic allegiance to the US. That is of course unimaginable with this green-woke transatlantic government."
"Economic worries about the suicidal sanctions are mounting. Many are afraid that the welfare state will not be able to bear the additional burdens caused by the large number of Ukrainians. Added to this is the growing concern that the transatlantic German government is leading us more and more into active warfare. The majority of Germans are not willing to send their children to a foreign war for US interests. They understand that this war has nothing to do with 'defending our democracy'," Blex continued.
Last Saturday, Die Linke helped organize a "Peace Rally" in Berlin which brought together an estimated 50,000 people. Protesters were seen waving peace flags and holding up placards that read, "Make Peace Without Weapons" and "Diplomacy Instead of Arms Deliveries."
"I am very pleased that, despite all the defamation, tens of thousands of people have taken part in the demonstrations over the past few days, including high-ranking politicians from my party," said Blex. "In the other European countries, too, it is becoming clear that fewer and fewer citizens are following the transatlantic pseudo-elite."
He revealed that on Sunday there was a big demonstration in Ramstein under the motto "Ami go home". According to him, there were approximately 3,000 participants, including Dr. Christina Baum, member of the German Bundestag and of the federal executive board of the AfD.
Furthermore, on February 24, there was a large demonstration in Dresden with Björn Höcke and Dr. Christopher Barth, according to Blex. Both are parliamentary group leaders of the AfD in the state parliaments of Thuringia and Brandenburg. "The motto was 'Make peace without weapons'. In German it rhymes," he added.
Divisions Brewing Within EU
Even though the EU shows "unity" when it comes to arming and funding Ukraine, there are important differences within the bloc, according to Fernand Kartheiser, president of the Alternative Democratic Reform Party parliamentary group in the Luxembourg Parliament.
"Hungary, Croatia and others have dissenting views, even if they don't dare to oppose themselves openly to the larger member states," Kartheiser told Sputnik. "But also in France and Germany, there are many political pressures for a change of policy. In my opinion, sanctions will cause big problems for the EU in the foreseeable future. Under the pressure of their economies, some countries might advocate an easing or even a lifting of some of the sanctions and other member states, for political reasons, will oppose such a change. As we all know, it is easy to introduce sanctions but immensely difficult to lift them."
As per the lawmaker, the peace movement in Europe is still weak. However, its significance is growing, he added.
"The important factors are that the criticism comes from many different directions: left and right wing parties, churches, academics, military and economic experts. Overall, one can safely assume that the peace movements will become stronger and develop a real political weight," Kartheiser explained.
Europe's unwillingness to cross swords with the Biden administration, which is fanning the Russo-Ukrainian conflict by pouring more and more weapons into the zone, may cost the Old Continent its "strategic autonomy," the lawmaker warned.
"In those countries, where a more pronounced and more independent European identity and role are political considerations of some significance, such as in France, the president is under pressure to look for a more visible French role in the conflict and for a more tangible differentiation from Washington. In other countries, it is interesting to note that the Green parties, that were traditionally pacifistic, have now turned into quite aggressive political forces," Kartheiser observed.
At the same time, Sputnik's interlocutors have admitted that Europe is not ready for a years-long conflict in Ukraine or to put its production on a war footing.
"The EU countries, which are still spoiled by prosperity, are not in a position to do this," Blex believes. For his part, Raffone noted that while the population would certainly like to avoid this perspective, "the political leaders are blindly slipping into it."
The emphasis on a wartime economy means of course a reduction of budgets for civilian and social purposes. The 'Russian threat' is not perceived to be strong enough to justify such a dramatic change of policy. The propaganda efforts aim therefore at demonizing Russia. But, it is doubtful that trade unions, churches, and many others will accept major social sacrifices because of a very theoretical and not really credible threat.
In addition, "people will also follow the debates in the United States, where the Republican Party is much more reluctant to portray Russia as a foe than the Democrats," the lawmaker pointed out.
"Political wisdom, therefore, will hopefully prevail and lead to a reduction of tensions," he concluded.
