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Look Forward To Staying In Touch: Trump Launches New Website

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Donald Trump established his official post-presidency office in Florida earlier this year.
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Washington:
Former US President Donald Trump and former First Lady Melania Trump on Monday announced the launch of 'the official website of the 45th President of the United States".
The website is meant to allow supporters to request their participation in events, submit letters and ask for personalised greetings, The Hill reported.
According to a brief statement from Trump's office, the former first couple is "continually strengthened by the enduring spirit of the American people" and looks forward to staying in touch.
The website, called 45office.com, contains a page summarising Trumps' time in the White House as well as another page where supporters can submit comments to the former president, reported The Hill.
"Through this office, President Trump will remain a tireless champion for the hardworking men and women of our great country -- and for their right to live in safety, dignity, prosperity, and peace," reads a message on the website's homepage.
This comes after Trump was banned from social media platforms Twitter and Facebook following the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 this year.
Trump established his official post-presidency office in Florida earlier this year, but he has been largely silent about future plans amid swirling speculation that he may run for office again in 2024.
 
 
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news world Look Forward To Staying In Touch: Trump Launches New Website

Donald Trump established his official post-presidency office in Florida earlier this year. Washington: Former US President Donald Trump...

Vietnam Sentences Flight Attendant For Breaking Rules, Spreading Covid

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Hau breached 14-day quarantine regulations and met 46 people following his flight. (Representational)
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Hanoi:
A court in Vietnam handed a two-year suspended jail term to a Vietnam Airlines flight attendant on Tuesday after finding him guilty of breaking COVID-19 quarantine rules and spreading the virus to others, police said.
Duong Tan Hau, 29, was convicted of "spreading dangerous infectious diseases" at the one-day trial at the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security said in a statement.
Vietnam has been praised for its efforts to contain the virus through mass testing and tracing and strict centralised quarantining. It has recorded fewer than 2,600 COVID-19 infections and only 35 deaths due to the disease.
Hau breached the country's 14-day quarantine regulations and met 46 other people following his flight from Japan in November, according to the indictment posted on a police ministry website.
Hau had mingled with other people during a stint in state quarantine and according to the indictment visited cafes, restaurants and attended English classes while he was supposed to be self-isolating. He tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 28.
Hau's violations resulted in the quarantine and testing of around 2,000 other people in the city at a cost of 4.48 billion dong ($194,192), the indictment said.
State media said he had infected at least three other people.
"Hau's violation was serious, put society in danger and endangered the safety of the community," the statement said.
Reuters could not immediately reach his lawyer for comment.
In December, Vietnam sentenced the head of the Hanoi Center for Disease Control and Prevention to 10 years in prison after finding him guilty of wrongdoing linked to the procurement of equipment intended to help tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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Hau breached 14-day quarantine regulations and met 46 people following his flight. (Representational) Hanoi: A court in Vietnam handed ...

Myanmar Civil War Fears Growing After Airstrikes

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A road blockage set by anti-coup protesters in Yangon on March 28.
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As the death toll among Myanmar's protesters rose dramatically last weekend, military air strikes against one of the country's largest rebel groups stoked fears of another problem: Full-fledged civil war.
The Karen National Union, which controls an area in the southeast along the Thai border, confirmed Monday that about 10,000 residents fled to a safe zone last weekend after the Myanmar military conducted air strikes that killed three people. The fighter jets came out in retaliation for an attack by ethnic Karen rebels on a base of the national army, or Tatmadaw, in which 10 soldiers were killed and another eight were arrested.
The attacks came on the same day at least 114 people were killed in clashes with the military and police in the deadliest weekend since the Feb. 1 coup, sparking condemnation from governments around the world. With the death toll now exceeding 500 over the past two months, the prospect of a wider fight with potentially dozens of armed militias risks even more bloodshed.
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Anti-coup protesters clash with security forces in Yangon on March 28.
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"There is a distinct possibility of mass demonstrations cascading into civil war or inter-state war," said Lee Morgenbesser, a lecturer at Australia's Griffith University whose researches Southeast Asian politics. "Given the sometimes porous nature of Myanmar's borders, along with the fact that the armed ethnic groups are not subject to state authority, it is likely that the crisis spills across international borders."
On Sunday a dozen defense chiefs from North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific jointly condemned the use of lethal force against unarmed people. Then on Monday, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha of neighboring Thailand said preparations had begun for an influx of migrants.
'Mass Migration'
"We don't want there to be a mass migration into our areas but we must also keep human rights in mind," said Prayuth, a former army chief who staged a coup in 2014. "As there are violent conflicts in their country it is only normal that there would be migrations."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian also repeated a call for all sides to de-escalate the situation, while declining to comment on the prospect of a civil war. China shares a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) border with Myanmar.
"Violence and bloodshed is in the interests of no one," Zhao said.
Protesters and key allies of detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi have called on Myanmar's numerous armed ethnic groups to band together to face down a common enemy in the Tatmadaw. On Sunday, the Kachin Independence Army, another armed group that has urged the military to end its crackdown on demonstrators, launched deadly attacks on at least four police battalions in Kachin State, according to Myanmar Now.
Since independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar has struggled to build a national identity inclusive of the numerous minority groups in it, fueling resentment against the military -- dominated by the Bamar, or ethnic Burmese -- and perpetuating some of the longest-running armed conflicts in the world.
Myanmar has hundreds and possibly thousands of armed militias in a country where the state recognizes 135 distinct ethnic groups, according to a report last year by Brussels-based International Crisis Group. Of those, around 20 ethnic armed groups have both political and military wings.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Terrorist military junta attacked KNU brigade No.5 area by airstrikes and a house was burnt down by this attack. There were also death and injuries of the villagers. They are committing the atrocities around the country. They must be held accountable for what they have done! <a href="https://t.co/UiftsJpQKA">pic.twitter.com/UiftsJpQKA</a>
— CRPH Myanmar (@CrphMyanmar) <a href="https://twitter.com/CrphMyanmar/status/1375997887985803265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2021</a></blockquote>
A parallel administration set up by members of Suu Kyi's allies, known as the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, or CRPH, has agreed with the major ethnic groups on the need for a unity government that would compete for legitimacy with the junta, according to Sasa, who goes by one name and describes himself as the envoy representing Myanmar's ousted parliament to the United Nations.
The CRPH is working with several ethnic groups on writing the text of a new constitution, Sasa said in an interview last week, without naming them. It would include progress toward a longstanding goal of a federal army that would allow the ethnic minorities to retain their own armed forces, he said.
A federal army has "become essential," Sasa said, adding that rank-and-file soldiers could join the new organization instead of suppressing demonstrations under the name of the Tatmadaw. "The government that we are going to form in April is going to be called the National Unity Government, so we'd like to as inclusive as possible," he said.
Unity Government
Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing has sought to reach out to various ethnic armies to prevent them from joining together. Earlier this month he removed the Arakan Army from a list of terrorist groups following clashes in which it fought for greater autonomy in western Rakhine State.
In response to the KNU attack on Saturday, state broadcaster MRTV said the KNU assured the junta a rogue brigade was responsible for the strike and gave the green light for the Tatmadaw to retaliate. Efforts to reach Phado Kwe Htoo Win, the vice chair of the KNU, were unsuccessful.
While the Karen National Union last week said it had received an invitation to meet with Min Aung Hlaing, it only plans to do so after the military meets a series of demands that included transferring power to a National Unity Government. In a separate statement Tuesday, three other major ethnic armed groups including the Arakan Army said they would join protesters in what they call a "spring revolution" against the Tatmadaw if it doesn't stop the killing immediately or meet calls to restore democracy.
"Our Brotherhood Alliance is now reviewing the non-ceasefire agreement following acts of the Tatmadaw after the coup," the groups said in a statement. "We will continue to cooperate with other organizations for border stability, Covid-19 containment, people's safety and international anti-terrorism acts."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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A road blockage set by anti-coup protesters in Yangon on March 28. As the death toll among Myanmar's protesters rose dramatically la...

Vaccines In A Race Against Time As US Warned Of Covid Spike

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"The war against Covid-19 is far from won," President Joe Biden said Monday at the White House.
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The U.S. could soon go the way of Europe, with a burgeoning resurgence of the coronavirus, as states loosen restrictions and more contagious variants become increasingly prominent, the nation's top public health official warned.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said she had a feeling of "impending doom" amid a new wave of infections even as the number of Americans vaccinated continues to rise. Scientists nationwide are calling out the dangers of loosening state measures like mask mandates and capacity restrictions.
"It's just irresponsible to do the kinds of things you're seeing many governors doing," as variants spread with millions still unvaccinated, said Ashish Jha, dean of the school of public health at Brown University.
While the U.S. races to vaccinate its population -- almost 29% have received at least one dose -- the virus could still push ahead, experts said. Each time it infects a new person, the possibility increases of additional mutants that could spread faster or evade vaccines.
"The war against Covid-19 is far from won," President Joe Biden said Monday at the White House, urging states to maintain mask and social distancing guidelines to ward off a resurgence.
"Absolutely the signs suggest we should be concerned right now," said Ellie Murray, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University. Though many of the most vulnerable people have gotten vaccinated, "everyone is vulnerable. We really need to get those vaccines rolled out before we expect to get things under control."
Full Tilt
The latest turn in the U.S. pandemic trajectory follows a fall and winter surge. Cases steadily decreased from early January through mid-February, before stalling, falling again, stalling again and then starting to rise.
Now the country's vaccine push is tilting into high gear, with states widening eligibility criteria and supply opening up. New York expanded its guidelines, and Biden said that 90% of U.S. adults will be eligible for vaccination by April 19.
Even so, eligibility does not equal vaccinations: Only about 16% of the U.S. population, or 52.6 million people, is fully immunized. The campaign has prioritized those at highest risk and had particular success among older individuals. Almost three of four people ages 65 and older have received at least one shot, and nearly 50% have been fully vaccinated.
It's likely that this strategy will dampen rates of severe disease and deaths in the case of another surge. Yet younger people can still fall ill with Covid-19 and contract severe cases. Virus-related hospitalizations are now climbing in 25 states, often among patients younger than 65 years old. Vaccinating them could be key to saving lives.
"Anybody who gets sick and dies today is somebody who would be vaccinated a month from now, or sooner," Brown's Jha said.
Jha said he expects there will be a fourth wave of infections in the U.S but that the harshest effects will be mitigated by vaccination of vulnerable people. While "you'll still see people die," he said, "we're not going back to the horrible numbers of December, January."
Cautious Voice
Walensky has been a cautious voice at the CDC, telling Americans for weeks that there could still be a resurgence of the virus, but Monday was her strongest statement to date.
"I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom," Walensky said at a press briefing, her voice strained. "We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now I'm scared."
Public-health experts and modelers have indicated in recent weeks that the U.S. virus trajectory is trending in a troubling direction.
The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, which produces Covid-19 projections, revised its "worse" scenario recently, predicting that U.S. deaths will rise to 657,000 by July 1 -- 57,000 more than in its base-case scenario. The projection is based on faster reductions in mask-wearing, increases in mobility and spread of variants of concern, according to IHME.
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Variant Spread
B.1.1.7, a contagious strain that first surfaced in the U.K., now makes up about 26% of all sequenced viruses, Walensky said Monday. The CDC has previously projected it could become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S. by March. It is "probably less forgiving and more infections will occur," Walensky said on Monday.
How big a role variants played in the latest trends isn't clear because states were loosening restrictions as the new strains raised alarm bells, Boston University's Murray said. U.S. genomic surveillance efforts that can help identify variants and their spread have also lagged behind some other nations and are still ramping up.
Walensky on Monday also criticized states' relaxation of restrictions, and said she was working to persuade governors to slow the pace of reopening. Officials have also observed an increase in travel, and people are tired of the pandemic, she said.
Looking Ahead
In New Jersey, the number of people hospitalized for the virus increased to 2,225, the highest since Feb. 17. Governor Phil Murphy on Monday increased outdoor gathering limits, in hopes of encouraging residents to be social outside. He said fatigue, the variants and still-cool temperatures are driving higher cases, as is the state's density.
Walensky on Monday compared U.S. Covid trends to those a few weeks ago in the European Union, which has since seen spikes occur.
Daily case totals have surged to the highest levels since November in France, where doctors have warned that shortages of ICU beds loom. Italy, Germany and other countries are also seeing increases. So far deaths are well below levels from previous waves of the pandemic, however.
In the U.K., meanwhile, both cases and deaths have plunged to the lowest levels since September. The country has been Europe's leader in vaccination, with shots given to more than half of the adult population. Britain eased some lockdown measures on Monday, with further steps planned in the coming months.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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"The war against Covid-19 is far from won," President Joe Biden said Monday at the White House. The U.S. could soon go the way...

Canada Halts AstraZeneca Shots For Under 55 On Clot Concerns

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Last week, Denmark extended its suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine for another three weeks.
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Health officials in Canada are suspending plans to give AstraZeneca Plc's Covid-19 vaccine to younger people over concerns it could lead to blood clots in rare circumstances.
Provincial health authorities, including those in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, halted the AstraZeneca shots after the nation's vaccine advisory committee recommended a pause on administering it to people under 55 years old.
It's another setback for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's vaccine effort, which is off to the second-slowest start among Group of Seven countries. Canada is due to receive 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca shot from the U.S. this week.
Just 1.8% of Canadian residents are fully vaccinated, compared with 15.8% in the U.S., according to Bloomberg's Vaccine Tracker. Most of the vaccines distributed so far have been the Pfizer Inc. or Moderna Inc. shots, which were approved by Canadian health authorities months before the AstraZeneca shot.
The suspension comes as new virus cases are on the rise: Canada reported an average of 4,352 new cases a day over the seven days ended March 28, up 23% from the previous week.
British Columbia, which has kept restaurants open for most of the pandemic, announced Monday it would close indoor dining, worship services and most indoor fitness activities for three weeks. Vail Resorts Inc.'s Whistler Blackcomb ski resort will be shut.
"We need a circuit breaker to stop this virus now," Bonnie Henry, B.C.'s provincial health officer, said at a news conference. The region recorded more than 2,500 new cases over the weekend and new variants are on the rise.
In Toronto, Canada's largest city, officials reported 670 new cases; about a third of them are among those aged 20 to 39, Medical Officer of Health Eileen de Villa said.
'Rare but Serious'
News of the change in the vaccine panel's recommendation on AstraZeneca was first reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Joss Reimer, head of Manitoba's vaccine task force, said a "rare but very serious side effect" of blood clots was seen mainly among young women in Europe. "Out of an abundance of caution, Manitoba will be recommending that these vaccines only be used in people who are 55 and older at this time," she told reporters Monday in Winnipeg. "This is a pause while we wait for more information."
The move could cast further doubt about the safety of the vaccine after concerns were raised in Europe about potential side effects. Only two weeks ago, Trudeau sought to reassure Canadians the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe for use.
The federal government is responsible for procuring and approving vaccines, while provinces are in charge of administering the shots and setting the rules for vaccine rollout.
"I'll tell you, I won't hesitate to cancel that in half a heartbeat if it's going to put anyone in harm," Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference in Niagara Falls.
Last week, Denmark extended its suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine for another three weeks and Sweden has decided to use it only on people older than 65.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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Last week, Denmark extended its suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine for another three weeks. Health officials in Canada are suspending...

One Of World's Greatest Hidden Fortunes Crashed In Days. How It Happened

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Bill Hwang's strategies and performance remained secret from the outside world.
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From his perch high above Midtown Manhattan, just across from Carnegie Hall, Bill Hwang was quietly building one of the world's greatest fortunes.
Even on Wall Street, few ever noticed him -- until suddenly, everyone did.
Hwang and his private investment firm, Archegos Capital Management, are now at the center of one of the biggest margin calls of all time -- a multibillion-dollar fiasco involving secretive market bets that were dangerously leveraged and unwound in a blink.
Hwang's most recent ascent can be pieced together from stocks dumped by banks in recent days -- ViacomCBS Inc., Discovery Inc. GSX Techedu Inc., Baidu Inc. -- all of which had soared this year, sometimes confounding traders who couldn't fathom why.
One part of Hwang's portfolio, which has been traded in blocks since Friday by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co., was worth almost $40 billion last week. Bankers reckon that Archegos's net capital -- essentially Hwang's wealth -- had reached north of $10 billion. And as disposals keep emerging, estimates of his firm's total positions keep climbing: tens of billions, $50 billion, even more than $100 billion.
It evaporated in mere days.
"I've never seen anything like this -- how quiet it was, how concentrated, and how fast it disappeared," said Mike Novogratz, a career macro investor and former partner at Goldman Sachs who's been trading since 1994. "This has to be one of the single greatest losses of personal wealth in history."
Late Monday in New York, Archegos broke days of silence on the episode.
"This is a challenging time for the family office of Archegos Capital Management, our partners and employees," Karen Kessler, a spokesperson for the firm, said in an emailed statement. "All plans are being discussed as Mr. Hwang and the team determine the best path forward."
The cascade of trading losses has reverberated from New York to Zurich to Tokyo and beyond, and leaves myriad unanswered questions, including the big one: How could someone take such big risks, facilitated by so many banks, under the noses of regulators the world over?
One part of the answer is that Hwang set up as a family office with limited oversight and then employed financial derivatives to amass big stakes in companies without ever having to disclose them. Another part is that global banks embraced him as a lucrative customer, despite a record of insider trading and attempted market manipulation that drove him out of the hedge fund business a decade ago.
A disciple of hedge-fund legend Julian Robertson, Sung Kook "Bill" Hwang shuttered Tiger Asia Management and Tiger Asia Partners after settling an SEC civil lawsuit in 2012 accusing them of insider trading and manipulating Chinese banks stocks. Hwang and the firms paid $44 million, and he agreed to be barred from the investment advisory industry.
He soon opened Archegos -- Greek for "one who leads the way" -- and structured it as a family office.
Family offices that exclusively manage one fortune are generally exempt from registering as investment advisers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. So they don't have to disclose their owners, executives or how much they manage -- rules designed to protect outsiders who invest in a fund. That approach makes sense for small family offices, but if they swell to the size of a hedge fund whale they can still pose risks, this time to outsiders in the broader market.
"This does raise questions about the regulation of family offices once again," said Tyler Gellasch, a former SEC aide who now runs the Healthy Markets trade group. "The question is if it's just friends and family why do we care? The answer is that they can have significant market impacts, and the SEC's regulatory regime even after Dodd-Frank doesn't clearly reflect that."
Valuable Customer
Archegos established trading partnerships with firms including Nomura Holdings Inc., Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG. For a time after the SEC case, Goldman refused to do business with him on compliance grounds, but relented as rivals profited by meeting his needs.
The full picture of his holdings is still emerging, and it's not clear what positions derailed, or what hedges he had set up.
One reason is that Hwang never filed a 13F report of his holdings, which every investment manager holding more than $100 million in U.S. equities must fill out at the end of each quarter. That's because he appears to have structured his trades using total return swaps, essentially putting the positions on the banks' balance sheets. Swaps also enable investors to add a lot of leverage to a portfolio.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, for instance, are listed as the largest holders of GSX Techedu, a Chinese online tutoring company that's been repeatedly targeted by short sellers. Banks may own shares for a variety of reasons that include hedging swap exposures from trades with their customers.
'Unhappy Investors'
Goldman increased its position 54% in January, according to regulatory filings. Overall, banks reported holding at least 68% of GSX's outstanding shares, according to a Bloomberg analysis of filings. Banks held at least 40% of IQIYI Inc, a Chinese video entertainment company, and 29% of ViacomCBS -- all of which Archegos had bet on big.
"I'm sure there are a number of really unhappy investors who have bought those names over the last couple of weeks," and now regret it, Doug Cifu, chief executive officer of electronic-trading firm Virtu Financial Inc., said Monday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. He predicted regulators will examine whether "there should be more transparency and disclosure by a family office."
Without the need to market his fund to external investors, Hwang's strategies and performance remained secret from the outside world. Even as his fortune swelled, the 50-something kept a low profile. Despite once working for Robertson's Tiger Management, he wasn't well-known on Wall Street or in New York social circles.
Hwang is a trustee of the Fuller Theology Seminary, and co-founder of the Grace and Mercy Foundation, whose mission is to serve the poor and oppressed. The foundation had assets approaching $500 million at the end of 2018, according to its latest filing.
"It's not all about the money, you know," he said in a rare interview with a Fuller Institute executive in 2018, in which he spoke about his calling as an investor and his Christian faith. "It's about the long term, and God certainly has a long-term view."
His extraordinary run of fortune turned early last week as ViacomCBS Inc. announced a secondary offering of its shares. Its stock price plunged 9% the next day.
The value of other securities believed to be in Archegos' portfolio based on the positions that were block traded followed.
By Thursday's close, the value of the portfolio fell 27% -- more than enough to wipe out the equity of an investor who market participants estimate was six to eight times levered.
"You have to wonder who else is out there with one of these invisible fortunes," said Novogratz. "The psychology of all that leverage with no risk management, it's almost nihilism."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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news world One Of World's Greatest Hidden Fortunes Crashed In Days. How It Happened

Bill Hwang's strategies and performance remained secret from the outside world. From his perch high above Midtown Manhattan, just ac...