President Joe Biden has named Willie Phillips, a Democrat, acting chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC said on Tuesday.

Phillips joined the commission in December, 2021 after being appointed by Biden and approved by Congress. Phillips will be the first Black person to take the reigns at FERC.

Before coming to FERC Phillips served as the chairman of the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia, starting in 2018, where he championed issues of environmental justice and equity. He was also a regulatory attorney with nearly 20 years in public and private practice.

The independent panel of the Department of Energy long had a low-key profile and was mainly known for approving natural gas pipelines and export terminals for liquefied natural gas, or LNG. After Phillips joined FERC, that began to change as Democrats had a 3-2 majority and the Biden administration pursued policies to transition to low-carbon energy.

But now Phillips is acting chairman, FERC will be locked at a 2-2 because the former head, Richard Glick, left FERC after Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat, did not hold a confirmation hearing to consider Biden’s re-nomination of Glick. Analysts said FERC may not take up many issues beyond power transmission rulemakings during the deadlock.

Phillips will serve as temporary chief of the commission as the Biden administration considers nominating a permanent chair.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Wednesday he would consider suspending a 2018 inter-Korean military pact if the North violates its airspace again, his office said, amid tension over a recent intrusion by North Korean drones.

Yoon made the comment after being briefed on countermeasures to North Korean drones that crossed into the South last week, calling for building an “overwhelming response capability that goes beyond proportional levels,” according to his press secretary, Kim Eun-hye.

“During the meeting, he instructed the national security office to consider suspending the validity of the military agreement if North Korea stages another provocation invading our territory,” Kim told a briefing.

The 2018 deal, sealed on the sidelines of a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, calls for ceasing “all hostile acts”, creating a no-fly zone around the border, and removing landmines and guard posts within the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone. The government has not said how many mines and posts were removed, citing security concerns.

Abandoning the pact could mean the return of the guard posts, live-fire drills in the former no-fly zone and propaganda broadcasts across the border – all of which drew angry responses from Pyongyang before the pact.

Inter-Korean relations have been testy for decades but have grown even more tense since Yoon took office in May pledging a tougher line against Pyongyang.

During the election campaign last year, Yoon said Pyongyang had repeatedly breached the agreement with missile launches and warned he might scrap it. He said after taking office that the pact’s fate hinges on the North’s actions.

Yoon has criticised the military’s handling of the drone incident, in part blaming the previous administration’s reliance on the 2018 pact.

He has urged the military to stand ready to retaliate, even if that means “risking escalation.”

Yoon ordered the defence minister to launch a comprehensive drone unit that performs multi-purpose missions, including surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare, and to set up a system to mass-produce small drones that are difficult to detect within the year, Kim said.

“He also called for accelerating the development of stealthy drones this year and quickly establishing a drone killer system,” she said.

South Korea’s army operated two drone squadrons within its Ground Operations Command since 2018, but they were primarily designed to prepare for future warfare.

The defence ministry has said it plans to launch another unit focusing on surveillance and reconnaissance functions, especially targeting smaller drones.

“The upcoming unit would carry entirely different tasks, conducting operations in various areas,” Defence Minister Lee Jong-sup told parliament last week.

To boost its anti-drone capability, the ministry announced plans last week it would spend 560 billion won ($440 million) over the next five years on technology such as airborne laser weapons and signal jammers.

($1 = 1,273.9000 won)

Food inflation in U.K. stores jumped to a record high last month with retailers warning of another year of elevated prices.

The British Retail Consortium said Wednesday that food inflation accelerated to 13.3% in December, from 12.4% the previous month, reaching an all-time high for the index, which started in 2005.

Shoppers spent over £12 billion ($14 billion) on groceries as a result of higher prices, according to separate numbers published by Kantar — the first time the threshold has been breached. The data company said sales by volume fell 1% compared with December 2021 but inflation drove up revenue.

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“2023 will be another difficult year for consumers and businesses as inflation shows no immediate signs of waning,” said BRC Chief Executive Officer Helen Dickinson. She cited ongoing pressures from the war in Ukraine pushing up the cost of animal feed, fertilizer and energy.

The cost of fresh food rose 15% from a year earlier, also a record high for the BRC, up from 14.3% in November.

While the BRC said food inflation accelerated, Kantar’s data found it had slightly eased — to 14.4% in December, down from a peak of 14.7% in October.

Furthermore, the BRC said that overall inflation in U.K. stores dipped in December, marking the first decline in over a year. It said shop-price inflation decelerated to 7.3%, down slightly from November’s record high of 7.4%.

The leveling off in prices overall was due to retailers heavily discounting stock in the run-up to Christmas to shift excess inventory. Many stores ordered products earlier in the year, when supply-chain problems still meant long waiting times and before rising inflation began to hurt spending.

The BRC was quick to warn that the dip in prices doesn’t signal an end to spiraling inflation and that retailers may have to put their prices up even more from April once the government’s support on energy costs expires.

Bleak Start

The first months of the year are likely to be bleak as shoppers face credit card bills for their December spend and as energy bills come due. Consumers will prioritize spending on groceries, which are rising in price, while non-essentials like fashion and homewares are likely to suffer, according to Mike Watkins, head of retailer and business insight at NielsenIQ, which produces the data for the BRC.

“The increase in food inflation is going to put further pressure on household budgets and it’s unlikely that there will be any improvement in the consumer mindset around personal finances in the near term,” he said.

Kantar found that shoppers are still adapting to higher grocery prices, buying more own-label goods rather than branded options. Sales of the former category rose 13.3% through to Dec. 25 compared with 4.7% for the latter.

The traditional grocers captured most of the Christmas purchasing, with Tesco Plc, J Sainsbury Plc, Asda and Morrisons accounting for more than two-thirds of all spending. Still, German discounter Aldi recorded the biggest increase in sales at 27%, while Lidl grew almost 24%.

Inflation is “still a painfully high figure at the current rate, impacting how and what we buy at the shops,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar.

Stock markets suffered in 2022 as surging inflation and steep interest rate hikes battered investor sentiment.

Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

• Two key economic releases could influence investors’ outlook this week.
• Federal Reserve minutes and US jobs data could fuel the first major market moves of 2023.
• Here’s how they could spark a much-needed rally – or lead to further declines for stocks.

As 2023 gets going, investors are keenly searching for clues that could offer some insight into how stocks could perform over the first few months.

Red-hot inflation and rising interest rates hammered equities last year, with the benchmark S&P 500 index tumbling 19% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq plummeting 33%.

This week, two events could set the tone for January by showing whether the Federal Reserve wants – and will be able to – press ahead with its monetary tightening campaign without crushing the US economy.

Here’s why the release of December’s Fed minutes Wednesday and the latest US jobs report Friday could fuel the first major market moves of the year.

Fed minutes

The US central bank raised interest rates aggressively last year in a bid to bring soaring inflation under control, boosting its benchmark rate to between 4.25% and 4.5% from nearly zero in March. The institution lifted its benchmark rate by 50 basis points in December, slowing its pace after four previous increases of 75 basis points each.

The steep rise in borrowing costs over the past year has weighed heavily on stocks, because they make holding cash in a bank account more attractive and erode companies’ future cash flows, lowering their valuations.

The Fed is set to release the minutes from its December meeting at 2PM Eastern Time Wednesday, which could offer investors some insight into whether it’ll look to press ahead with its rate hikes – or ease up on monetary tightening as inflation starts to cool toward its 2% target.

Traders shouldn’t expect any major policy shifts just yet, according to Wedbush Securities – with US inflation coming in at 7.1% in November  and a strong labor market giving the central bank scope for further rate hikes.

“The inflation genie is out of the bottle and the Fed is scrambling to get it back in by continuing its rate-hiking crusade,” strategists David Chiaverini and Henry Coffey said in a research note published Tuesday. 

“While we’ve seen a slowdown in the pace of rate hikes, it does not appear a rate cut will be on the table until we start to see a significant rise in unemployment,” they added.

US jobs data

In 2022, the US’s white-hot labor market tended to be bad news for investors.

To recap: the Fed has a “dual mandate” to keep inflation close to 2% while also maximizing employment, and the labor market’s continued strength has given it a license to raise interest rates aggressively without having to worry about the latter objective.

The release of non-farm payrolls data at 9AM Eastern Time Friday will show how many jobs the economy gained in December – and could set the direction of travel for financial markets for the next few weeks.

Should there be any weakening of jobs data in the coming months, it could become one of the defining stories for investors in 2023 – potentially increasing the likelihood that the Fed will have to pivot from its current policy bias to support the labor market.

“Despite remaining strong in 2022, the labor market is poised to weaken in 2023, as it’s a lagging indicator of which medicine takes the longest to cure,” Interactive Brokers senior economist José Torres said Monday.

Economists expect Friday’s labor report to show that the US economy gained around 200,000 jobs last month, according to Refinitiv. That’d represent a decline from November’s 263,000 figure – but suggest that the Fed still has some scope to carry on tightening without crushing the jobs market.

Read more: The market chaos sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may finally be over, according to these 5 charts

US. rail and locomotive company Wabtec Corporation disclosed a data breach after it was hit with Lockbit ransomware attack.

Wabtec Corporation is an American company formed by the merger of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO) and MotivePower Industries Corporation in 1999. It manufactures products for locomotives, freight cars and passenger transit vehicles, and builds new locomotives up to 6,000 horsepower.

The company employs approximately 25,000 people and has 50 plants all over the world.

According to a statement published by Wabtec, threat actors breached the company network and infected internal systems as early as March 15th, 2022.

The unusual activity was detected by the company on June 26th, then the rail giant launched an investigation into the security incident.

“The forensic investigation did reveal that certain systems containing sensitive information were subject to unauthorized access, and that a certain amount of data was taken from the Wabtec environment on June 26, 2022. The information was later posted to the threat actor’s leak site. On November 23, 2022, Wabtec, with the assistance of data review specialists, determined that personal information was contained within the impacted files.” reads the announcement published by Wabtec Corporation. “On December 30, 2022, Wabtec began notifying affected individuals, per relevant regulations, with a formal letter, to let them know their data was involved.”

The company never mentioned the nature of the attack in the announcement, it only stated that the forensic investigation revealed that certain systems containing sensitive information were subject to unauthorized access, and that a certain amount of data was exfiltrated on June 26, 2022. The only reference to an extortion attack is the confirmation that the stolen data was later posted to the threat actor’s leak site, which is a site used by ransomware groups and extortion gangs to announce the availability of stolen data from the victims. On November 23, 2022, Wabtec determined that personal information was contained within the files exfiltrated by the attackers.

Compromised information varies by individual and includes a combination of the following data elements: First and Last Name, Date of Birth, Non-US National ID Number, Non-US Social Insurance Number or Fiscal Code, Passport Number, IP Address, Employer Identification Number (EIN), USCIS or Alien Registration Number, NHS (National Health Service) Number (UK), Medical Record/Health Insurance Information, Photograph, Gender/Gender Identity, Salary, Social Security Number (US), Financial Account Information, Payment Card Information, Account Username and Password, Biometric Information, Race/Ethnicity, Criminal Conviction or Offense, Sexual Orientation/Life, Religious Beliefs, Union Affiliation.

In August, the LockBit ransomware group added Wabtec to the list of victims on its Tor leak site and published samples of stolen data as proof of the hack.

At the time, the ransomware gang fixed the deadline on August 20, 2022 and after the failure of an extortion attempt it published the link to the stolen data.

On December 30, 2022, Wabtec started notifying impacted individuals and encouraged t them remain vigilant against incidents of identity theft and fraud by reviewing their financial account statements and credit reports for any anomalies. 

“While there is no indication that any specific information was or will be misused, considering the nature of the incident and of the affected personal data, we cannot rule out that there may be attempts to carry out fraudulent activity.” concludes Wabtec.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Wabtec)

The post US. rail and locomotive company Wabtec hit with Lockbit ransomware appeared first on Security Affairs.

Desde 1º de janeiro, contamos com um Ministério das Mulheres; um dos Direitos Humanos; um da Igualdade Racial; e um dos Povos Originários no lugar da amálgama bolsonarista que foi o Ministério da Mulher, da Família e dos Direitos Humanos de Damares Alves. Com filiação religiosa pentecostal, ela colocou a família no centro de suas políticas. A retirada do termo do nome dos ministérios é bom sinal, e o governo Lula indica que vai mudar a rota perigosa em que a ex-ministra nos colocou – já que é justamente no seio familiar que mulheres, crianças e adolescentes mais sofrem violência.

Os rumos tomados por Damares desdobraram-se de dois fatores, um local e outro mais amplo, ligado à ascensão da direita global. Começo pelo segundo, sua filiação à agenda antigênero internacional. Surgida nos anos 1990 nos debates católicos conservadores, ela é uma reação do Vaticano e de pensadores religiosos diante das propostas de acordos e tratados internacionais – firmados por meio da ONU e em torno das Conferências do Cairo e Beijing – que faziam uso do termo “gênero” na defesa de direitos das mulheres e minorias.

O movimento antigênero questionava certas ideias feministas e de igualdade de direitos entre homens e mulheres. Particularmente, aquelas ligadas à tentativa de se construir direitos reprodutivos e o reconhecimento do aborto enquanto uma questão de saúde pública. A partir dessa visão impulsionada pela igreja, o conceito de gênero seria uma “ideologia” que visaria destruir as famílias e o casal heterossexual. Aqui, a família nuclear heteronormativa aparece como “família natural”, por oposição ao gênero como algo falso e artificial.

Essa agenda se alia a um discurso muito promovido no Brasil, que costuma responsabilizar as famílias supostamente “desestruturadas” pela violência urbana ou pela rebeldia de alunos no ambiente escolar, culpando muitas vezes o divórcio ou a emancipação das mulheres trazida pelo feminismo. O fato de que muitas famílias são chefiadas por mulheres – no censo de 2010, era o caso de 37,3% dos lares, quase nove a cada 10 deles sem a presença de um cônjuge – aparece como um suposto problema social. No entanto, os arranjos familiares no Brasil sempre foram mais variados do que o ideal de família urbana fundada no casal heterossexual, como tantos estudos históricos já demonstraram.

O modelo ideal de família heteronormativa formada por casal e filhos, vivendo em um domicílio independente, foi promovido no antigo governo como se a família fosse o sujeito dos direitos a ser defendido. Vista como unidade básica da sociedade, a manutenção das famílias foi privilegiada pelos serviços de atendimento à violência doméstica, que passaram a insistir na conservação do núcleo familiar em lugar da proteção efetiva às vítimas de violência doméstica, reforçando que elas devem buscar a harmonia e a recomposição familiar mesmo em contexto de abusos, com o fim de evitar uma separação.

É resultado dessa perspectiva a proposta feita pelo governo Jair Bolsonaro de um corte de 94% da verba destinada a políticas de combate à violência contra mulheres em 2023 – assim como o esforço de Damares para que crianças estupradas não tivessem acesso ao aborto legal, em casos que ganharam destaque na imprensa nos últimos anos.

Vem também daí o reforço de estereótipos de gênero que aprisionam mulheres à função de mães e cuidadoras do lar, dedicadas aos filhos e ao marido, enquanto o homem mantém maior poder, assumindo o papel de autoridade e a responsabilização pelo sustento. “Meninas vestem rosa, meninos vestem azul” foi, afinal de contas, o mote do governo, inspirado pelo movimento antigênero internacional.

O maior desafio será enfrentar o tanto que o foco na família agrada ao Congresso conservador.

Ao analisarmos os dados de violência doméstica e feminicídios, fica claro que esses estereótipos estão imbricados às agressões. Ou seja, muitas vezes, uma mulher é agredida ou mesmo assassinada por seu companheiro por não cumprir o ideal de esposa imaginado por ele – e promovido oficialmente nos últimos quatro anos pelo governo. É no espaço doméstico, lembremos, que essas duas formas de violência mais acontecem. Segundo o último Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, 65,5% dos feminicídios foram cometidos na residência da vítima. Essa ênfase na família e a redução da verba para políticas de atendimento às vítimas de violência tende, no médio prazo, a gerar um aumento dos casos de agressões e feminicídios.

O modelo ideal de família, no entanto, não é aquele que realmente protege as crianças, como quis fazer crer a ex-ministra. O mesmo anuário aponta ainda para cerca de meio milhão de estupros por ano, 75,5% deles cometidos contra menores de 14 anos – ou seja, estupros de vulnerável – e apenas 10% efetivamente denunciados. Praticamente nove a cada 10 vítimas de até 13 anos são meninas, e 80% de seus agressores são conhecidos delas – são pais, padrastos, parentes, vizinhos, amigos, conhecidos da família.

A verdadeira pauta de direitos humanos não é a defesa da família. Se os dados apontam que as relações familiares são geradoras de conflitos e agressões contra mulheres e crianças, é preciso retomar a defesa das mulheres, das crianças e adolescentes – o que, muitas vezes, passa por protegê-las de núcleos familiares marcados pela desigualdade e pela repetida violência.

O maior desafio para essa mudança é o quanto o foco na família agrada a amplos setores conservadores que tomaram o Executivo por quatro anos e seguirão presentes no Congresso, onde o discurso antigênero vem ganhando espaço desde o início dos anos 2000 e mantém sua força. Encampado por amplos setores das bancadas religiosas, ele permitiu inclusive a coalizão entre evangélicos e católicos conservadores.

Essa aliança continua atuando e já vinha marcando sua posição em diversas propostas legislativas desde o governo Dilma – algumas delas, projetadas em torno de figuras de grande poder político, como Eduardo Cunha, Silas Malafaia, ou Marco Feliciano. Sua força política foi materializada, por exemplo, na retirada do termo “gênero” do Plano Nacional de Educação, em 2014, e no domínio que conseguiram em postos chave, como a Comissão de Direitos Humanos da Câmara dos Deputados.

Com um Congresso repleto de expoentes do bolsonarismo – como a própria Damares Alves, agora senadora pelo Distrito Federal – retirar da unidade familiar o foco que ganhou nos últimos quatro anos será um desafio. Mas os direitos das mulheres, estejam eles no campo do enfrentamento à violência ou da autonomia sexual e reprodutiva, só avançarão se o governo Lula entrar nesta batalha, como indica fazer ao recompor o Ministério das Mulheres, comandado por Cida Gonçalves, com novas pastas e secretarias voltadas à promoção de direitos humanos.

Outro sinal positivo veio da nova ministra Cida Gonçalves, que destacou em seu discurso de posse na terça-feira, dia 3, que o antigo Ministério da Mulher, da Família e dos Direitos Humanos levou a cabo um “projeto de destruição” em que “a mulher como sujeito de direitos só foi vista e pensada dentro de uma construção determinada de família patriarcal”. Ela prosseguiu: “A família no singular apaga a diversidade brasileira e a centralidade da mulher enquanto foco de elaboração e implementação das políticas. Há famílias plurais e no plural. Este é um ministério que as reconhece e que as acolhe”.

***

Agradeço à Jacqueline Moraes Teixeira e à Marília Moschkovich, que me auxiliaram nessa reflexão.

The post É urgente tirar a família do foco dos ministérios das Mulheres e dos Direitos Humanos appeared first on The Intercept.

More U.S. consumers want to buy an electric vehicle (EV) but are concerned about rising prices, while fewer aimed to purchase gasoline-powered vehicles, a survey by consulting firm Deloitte showed on Wednesday.

Nearly 7 in 10 prospective EV buyers in the United States expect to pay less than $50,000 for their next vehicle, according to the survey conducted between September and October 2022.

More than half of the respondents in the survey said a lack of affordability was the biggest concern when it comes to EV adoption, at a time when top EV makers are raising prices amid high inflation.

Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) popular Model Y starts at $65,990, while legacy automaker Ford Motor Co’s (F.N) Mustang Mach-E begins from $46,895, according to the companies’ respective websites.

Despite the pricing pinch, the intent to purchase an EV is up 3 percentage points year-over-year in the United States, with an identical increase recorded for hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, Deloitte said in its “2023 Global Automotive Consumer Study”. Internal combustion engine purchase intent dropped to 62% from 68%.

“Although historically high transaction prices are a significant challenge for consumers, a strong desire to reduce refueling costs is driving EV purchase intent around the world,” Deloitte LLP vice chair and U.S. automotive leader Karen Bowman said.

The survey also showed that 30% of U.S. consumers do not trust anyone with the data from their vehicles, signaling a significant challenge for manufacturers looking to further monetize the mobility experience.

Globally, consumers would rather pay for connected technologies upfront as part of the vehicle’s transaction price or per use, compared with a subscription plan, the study said.

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