Tag: Region Europe

Office of the Spokesperson
The United States continues to put human rights at the center of our foreign policy.  The Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative  – launched at the first Summit for Democracy as part of the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal – is a multilateral effort intended to counter state and non-state actors’ misuse of goods and technology that violate human rights.  During the Year of Action following the first Summit, the United States led an effort to establish a voluntary, nonbinding written code of conduct outlining political commitments by Subscribing States to apply export control tools to prevent the proliferation of goods, software, and technologies that enable serious human rights abuses.  Written with the input of partner countries, the Code of Conduct complements existing multilateral commitments and will contribute to regional and international security and stability.
In addition to the United States, the governments that have endorsed the voluntary Code of Conduct are: Albania, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Kosovo, Latvia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom.   The Code of Conduct is open for all Summit for Democracy participants to join.
The Code of Conduct calls for Subscribing States to:

Take human rights into account when reviewing potential exports of dual-use goods, software, or technologies that could be misused for the purposes of serious violations or abuses of human rights.
Consult with the private sector, academia, and civil society representatives on human rights concerns and effective implementation of export control measures.
Share information with each other on emerging threats and risks associated with the trade of goods, software, and technologies that pose human rights concerns.
Share best practices in developing and implementing export controls of dual-use goods and technologies that could be misused, reexported, or transferred in a manner that could result in serious violations or abuses of human rights.
Encourage their respective private sectors to conduct due diligence in line with national law and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights or other complementing international instruments, while enabling non-subscribing states to do the same.
Aim to improve the capacity of States that have not subscribed to the Code of Conduct to do the same in accordance with national programs and procedures.

We will build on the initial endorsements of the ECHRI Code of Conduct by States at the Summit for Democracy and seek additional endorsements from other States.  We will convene a meeting later this year with Subscribing States to begin discussions on implementing the commitments in the Code of Conduct.  We will also continue discussions with relevant stakeholders including in the private sector, civil society, academia, and the technical community.
Find the text of the full code of conduct .

Four bankers from a Russian bank’s Swiss branch have been found guilty by a Zurich court over vast sums going into the accounts of a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin.

The accounts in the Swiss arm of Gazprombank were held by Sergei Roldugin, the artistic director of the St. Petersburg Music House, who is often dubbed Putin’s cellist.

Roldugin has been a friend of Putin for more than four decades and is godfather to one of the Russian leader’s daughters.

The four men were found guilty of “lack of due diligence in financial transactions”, the Zurich District Court said in its verdict released to media on Thursday, over the millions of Swiss francs flowing through Roldugin’s account.

Under Swiss law, the bankers — two Russians, one Swiss and a Russian-born British national — cannot be identified.

The bank branch’s chief executive was fined 540,000 Swiss francs ($590,200).

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk and a range of tech leaders called on Wednesday for a pause in the development of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems to allow time to make sure they are safe.

An open letter, signed by more than 1,000 people so far including Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, was in response to San Francisco startup OpenAI’s recent release of GPT-4, a more advanced successor to its widely-used AI chatbot ChatGPT that helped spark a race among tech giants Microsoft and Google to unveil similar applications.

The company says its latest model is much more powerful than the previous version, which was used to power ChatGPT, a bot capable of generating tracts of text from the briefest of prompts.

“AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” said the open letter titled “Pause Giant AI Experiments”.

After a relatively calm week in banking, Deutsche Bank is now making headlines for a falling share price and rising CDS spreads.

In an apparent attempt to show strength, the company announced that it would redeem a bond issue early, but the market had other ideas.

Shares of major U.S. banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo and Bank of America dropped between 1% and 2% in early trade.

Shares of regional lenders First Republic Bank, PacWest Bancorp, Western Alliance Bancorp and Truist Financial Corp fell between 1% to 5%.

The S&P 500 banking index and the KBW regional banking index, hit their lowest since late 2020 in the previous session, fell 1.6% and 1.2%, respectively.

European banks also came under pressure after a report on a U.S. probe into Credit Suisse and UBS further soured the mood. Their U.S.-listed shares were down about 5.4% and 4.1%, respectively.

U.S. shares of Deutsche Bank fell nearly 10% after the bank’s credit default swaps rose to a four-year high.

U.S. two-year Treasury yields fell sharply to their lowest levels since September on Friday.

The United States has offered Slovakia 12 new military helicopters as compensation for the MiG-29 fighter jets the European country is giving to Ukraine, Slovakia’s defense minister said Wednesday.

Under the offer, Slovakia would pay $340 million for the Bell AH-1Z attack choppers in a deal worth about $1 billion that also includes 500 AGM-114 Hellfire II missiles and training, Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said.

U.S. foreign military financing would cover the other $660 million, he said. The European Union also would send Slovakia 200 million euros ($213 million) in additional compensation, Nad said.

The Slovak government still needs to accept the offer.

The United States said Tuesday it is imposing a new round of sanctions on Iranian firms and people accused of procuring equipment used for Iranian drones.

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control coordinated with the FBI to designate four firms and three people in Iran and Turkey for allegedly buying equipment, including European-made engines, to be used for Iran’s drone and weapons programs.

Those targeted for sanctions include the Iran-based Defense Technology and Science Research Center, its procurement firm Farazan Industrial Engineering Inc. and two other firms along with purchasing agents from the companies.

South Africa’s Paramount Group is gearing up production of composite blades for Soviet-designed helicopters with the establishment of a production facility in the UAE, looking to collect orders from African operators of the aircraft in need of maintenance and configuration upgrades.

Last month, Paramount said it signed a strategic partnership agreement with UAE-based AAL Group to locally manufacture main and tail rotor composite blades for Mi-type helicopters. The Emirati entity has provided a full-range of maintenance and repair services for the Mi-family of rotary-wing aircraft for more than two decades

“Our activities with AAL Group in the UAE will include but not be limited to the management of an advanced manufacturing plant, an assembly line and maintenance repair and operations facilities, servicing and upgrading fleets of helicopters for our African partners,” Steve Griessel, Global CEO of Paramount told Defense News.

There are more than 23 operators of Mi-type helicopters across the African continent, with Togo being the most recent to receive new deliveries of two Mi-17 transport aircraft in December.

Paris police clashed with demonstrators for a third night on Saturday as thousands of people marched throughout the country amid anger at the government pushing through a rise…

Angry protesters took to the streets in Paris and other cities for a second day on Friday, trying to pressure lawmakers to bring down French President Emmanuel Macron’s government and doom the unpopular retirement age increase he’s trying to impose without a vote in the National Assembly.

A day after Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne invoked a special constitutional power to skirt a vote in the chaotic lower chamber, lawmakers on the right and left filed no-confidence motions to be voted on Monday.

At the Place de Concorde, a protest by several thousand degenerated into a scene echoing the night before. Riot police charged and threw tear gas to empty the huge square across from the National Assembly after troublemakers climbed scaffolding on a renovation site, arming themselves with wood. They lobbed fireworks and paving stones at police in a standoff.

Eleven of the biggest banks in the U.S. agree to provide funds to shore up First Republic as shares plummet by as much as 70 per cent over the past week.

San Francisco-based First Republic is caught in the fallout from Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse last Friday. Its shares have plummeted as much as 70 per cent over the past week. Much like SVB, First Republic has not reported any sudden loan losses or writedowns. But clients nervous about its stability have been pulling deposits and transferring them to larger institutions, something known as a flight to quality.

With First Republic looking like the next domino to fall in a cascade of bank failures, the larger lenders and investment banks are hoping their deposits will keep it standing, and prevent the situation from spiralling out of control.

It is an unusual approach.

Regulators, policymakers and bankers are looking at the role that digital messaging and social media may have played in the collapse, and whether banks are entering an age when the psychological behavior behind a bank run — mass fear from depositors of losing their savings — may be amplified and go viral quicker than bank officers and regulators can successfully respond.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Shoigu told Austin that the incident was caused by the Americans violating the airspace restriction declared by Russia, with all the proper international notifications in place. Shoigu called US drone flights off the Russian coast “provocative in nature” and risked an escalation of tensions in the Black Sea. 

While Russia does not desire such a development, it will “continue to respond proportionately to all provocations,” Shoigu said. He added that the two nuclear powers “must act as responsibly as possible,” which includes keeping a military channel open to discuss any crisis.

Speaking at a Pentagon press briefing, Austin confirmed that he made the call, and said it was “important that great powers be models of transparency and communication.” However, he insisted the US would “continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows.”

Shares of Swiss bank lose more than a quarter of their value in one day, dragging down European and US markets.

Credit Suisse shares tumbled more than 20% in pre-market trading on Wednesday after its biggest backer ruled out investing any more into the troubled Swiss bank. 

“The answer is absolutely not, for many reasons outside the simplest reason, which is regulatory and statutory,” Saudi National Bank Chairman Ammar Al Khudairy said in a Bloomberg interview, responding to whether the Gulf lender would dole out more money. 

Shares in Credit Suisse slid 21.91% to $1.96 in pre-market trading in US-listed shares. Meanwhile, in Zurich, it’s stock fell 19% to $1.79, marking a new record low on Switzerland’s stock exchange. The bank’s stock is down about 24% since the start of the year.

US stocks tumbled Wednesday, as the banking sector saw renewed turmoil — but this time focused on Europe. US-listed shares of Credit Suisse plunged more than 20%, as Saudi backers ruled out further investment in the embattled lender.

Since regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, investors have been concerned about another 2008-style financial crisis. On Tuesday, Moody’s cut its outlook for the entire US banking system. Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported wholesale prices posted a monthly decline of 0.1% in February, versus expectations for a 0.3% increase.