After losing two full summers of tourism revenue, Britain is getting rid of restrictive quarantine requirements for visitors from 47 countries, including India, South Africa, Brazil and Turkey.

Starting Monday, vaccinated travelers from those countries will no longer have to quarantine for 10 days in a hotel upon arrival in Britain.

Britain recognizes the AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccines.

Visitors from seven countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela will still be required to quarantine.

People who are fully vaccinated and arriving from countries such as India, Turkey and Ghana will now have to provide only a negative test after two days.

Airline companies like Ryanair and easyJet had complained that complicated travel restrictions have prevented the tourism industry from recovering from lost business during pandemic lockdowns.

“Restoring people’s confidence in travel is key to rebuilding our economy and leveling up this country,” British Transport Minister Grant Shapps said Thursday. “With less restrictions and more people traveling, we can all continue to move safely forward together along our pathway to recovery.”

Earlier this week, Britain lifted recommendations against nonessential travel to 32 countries, including Ghana and Malaysia. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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The Irish and Estonian governments on Thursday agreed to sign on to a 15% global minimum tax rate on multinational firms, leaving only Hungary as the last hold-out against the far-reaching deal. 

The reform aims to stop international corporations from slashing the tax bills by registering in nations with low rates. 

“The government has now approved my recommendation that Ireland joins the international consensus,” Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said. 

“I’m absolutely satisfied that our interests are better served within the agreement,” he added. 

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said that joining the reform would ensure “we have the best chance of ensuring that Estonia’s business environment and tax policy continue to work in the interests of a better future for all of us.” 

Finance ministers from wealthy G-7 nations in June endorsed a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15%, reached in the framework of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

It was approved by the G-20 in July and has been signed by more than 130 countries, except Hungary. 

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said earlier this week that there was a chance that his country could agree to it as long as the reform “does not damage the Hungarian economy or put Hungarian jobs in danger.” 

Donohoe said Ireland has insisted on a change of wording, excluding “at least” before the 15% figure, describing this as an important issue that needed to be resolved, due to the “desire of some to seek a higher rate.” 

The minister said the reform was expected to take effect in 2023. 

Ireland currently has a 12.5% tax rate. 

Its tax policy has attracted giants such as Apple and Google, while Estonia had been concerned that joining the reform could threaten its vibrant tech start-up sector. 

The reform will affect 56 Irish multinationals that employ about 100,000 workers, as well as 1,500 foreign-owned multinationals employing 400,000 people. 

It only applies to companies with annual turnover of more than 750 million euros ($870 million) a year. Smaller businesses will still pay corporate tax at 12.5%. 

Kallas said that in the case of Estonia the reform “will not change anything for most Estonian business operators, and it will only concern subsidiaries of large multinational groups.” 

While Ireland stands to lose 800 million to 2 billion euros in corporate tax receipts if companies leave the country, the minister argued that if it did not sign up to the deal, Ireland would “lose influence in respect to the critical decisions that will come in the coming months.” 

He added that there was debate in the U.S. Congress on changes that would align their tax system with the OECD agreement, calling this a key factor due to “significant investment by U.S. multinationals here.” 

Following Ireland and Estonia’s decision, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, “We are on the way to a generational achievement of creating a global minimum tax, which would create a more level playing field so jobs and investment can flourish in the United States.” 

Ireland’s low levy has attracted an outsized number of pharma and tech firms but also prompted accusations the nation acts as a tax haven. 

 
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First-time claims for U.S. unemployment compensation dropped sharply last week after three straight weeks of increasing numbers of jobless workers filing for benefits, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

A total of 326,000 jobless workers filed for assistance, down 38,000 from the revised figure of the week before, an indication that the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, remains on a general recovery from the worst economic effects of the 18-month coronavirus pandemic.

Still, the claims figure remains well above the 218,000 average in 2019. The jobless claims total has fallen steadily but unevenly since topping 900,000 in early January. Filings for unemployment compensation have often been seen as a current reading of the country’s economic health, but economists and Washington officials will also be closely watching the September job growth number set for release on Friday.

Even as the U.S. said last month that its world-leading economy grew by an annualized rate of 6.7% in the April-to-June period, in August it added a disappointing 235,000 more jobs, a figure economists said was partly reflective of the then surging delta variant of the coronavirus inhibiting job growth.

The August total was down sharply from the more than 2 million combined figure added in June and July. The unemployment rate dipped to 5.2%, which is still nearly two percentage points higher than before the pandemic started in March 2020.

About 8.4 million workers remain unemployed in the U.S. There are nearly 11 million available jobs in the country, but the skills of the available workers often do not match what employers want, or the job openings are not where the unemployed live.

The size of the U.S. economy — nearly $23 trillion — now exceeds its pre-pandemic level as it recovers faster than many economists had predicted during the worst of the business closings more than a year ago. Policy makers at the Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank, have signaled that in November they could start reversing the bank’s pandemic stimulus programs and next year could begin to increase its benchmark interest rate.

How fast the U.S. economic growth continues is unclear, with the delta variant of the coronavirus posing a threat to the recovery even as the number of new cases has been declining in recent weeks, now down to about 100,000 a day from the 150,000 or so that were being recorded. The number of deaths each day has also been dropping somewhat below the 2,000 figure of a few weeks ago.

While more than 68 million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated — and many are refusing to get inoculated — thousands of workers have gotten shots in the last two weeks, some under the threat from their employers that they would be fired from their jobs if they did not.  

U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered workers at companies with 100 or more employees to get vaccinated or be tested weekly for the coronavirus. In addition, he is requiring 2.5 million national government workers and contractors who work for the government to get vaccinated if they haven’t already been inoculated, but it will be weeks before the mandates take full effect.

More than 67% of U.S. adults have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and overall, 56.1% of the U.S. population of 332 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Торги на міжбанківському валютному ринку завершуються на рівні 26 гривень 29,5–31,5 копійки за долар
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Поточний обсяг міжнародних резервів покриває 4 місяці майбутнього імпорту
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Листопадові ф’ючерси зранку впали до позначки 981 долар, це на 24% нижче за середній показник минулої сесії
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After bringing the United States to within two weeks of a potential debt default, Congress late Wednesday was on the verge of a deal that would avert the crisis through November by passing a small increase of the limit on how much the federal government is allowed to borrow.

The measure would do nothing to bridge the serious divide between Democrats and Republicans over how to avoid a default on the country’s debts over the longer term. It would also make it likely that by mid-November lawmakers will be dug in on the same battle lines.

That means that the Biden administration and its Democratic congressional allies will be back in crisis mode, looking for ways to avoid a catastrophic default on the country’s financial obligations.

When that happens, one unconventional option that has gained support in recent weeks is likely to be back in the mix: minting a $1 trillion platinum coin to provide the Treasury with the funds it needs to pay the country’s bills in the coming months.

The plan

The plan, according to its proponents, is simple. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen would order the U.S. Mint to create a single coin in the denomination of $1 trillion. The platinum coin would then be transported to the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and placed on deposit in the Treasury Department’s account there. Then, when necessary, the Treasury would draw funds from the account to pay the nation’s bills.

The controversial move relies on the statutory power of the Treasury Secretary to authorize the minting of platinum coins “in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.”

While it may sound fantastical, the fact that the trillion-dollar coin is part of the conversation in Washington reflects just how fraught the fight over the debt limit, a cap on how much the Treasury can borrow, has become.

Deadline approaching

There is no debate over whether or not the debt limit should be raised. Leaders of both parties insist that the government must be allowed to borrow the money it needs to pay its bills. The fight is over how it ought to be done.

Republicans are demanding that Democrats use a complicated procedure known as “budget reconciliation” to vote on the debt limit. Democratic leaders have rejected that proposal, saying that it is too time consuming and could bring the country dangerously close to the point of default.

Concern that the country might inadvertently lurch into default because of an accident of timing has made the trillion-dollar coin idea more appealing to some because, by all accounts, it could be executed very quickly.

Legal loophole

This week, Philip Diehl, the former director of the U.S. Mint, explained to the news website Axios that it would be possible to design and mint a trillion-dollar coin in a matter of hours. The Mint has an ample supply of platinum “blank” coins, and could easily reconfigure the mold used to produce an existing platinum commemorative $1 coin.

The legal statute that gives the Treasury Secretary the authority to mint a trillion-dollar coin was tucked into a 750-page appropriations bill in 1996, and was never meant to be used to avert a fiscal catastrophe.

The reason why the law specified that the Treasury Secretary’s authority to issue new types of coin was limited to those made of platinum, is because rules already existed limiting the ability to strike coins from metals historically used for money: gold, silver, and copper.

The platinum coins issued by the Treasury are typically commemorative in nature, and are purchased by collectors. However, because the law was not written in a way that specifically bars the Treasury Secretary from minting platinum currency, advocates of the idea say it remains an available option in an emergency.

Idea not new

This is not the first time there have been proposals to use a trillion-dollar coin to get around the debt limit. During the 2011 debt ceiling crisis the idea surfaced among some academics and political commentators, though it didn’t receive broad acceptance.

The idea picked up more momentum in 2012, when it was endorsed by Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

Lawmakers took the idea seriously enough that there was a brief effort to pass legislation banning the creation of such a coin in 2013, although it failed.

There has been much speculation about what a trillion-dollar coin might look like, but in the end, that wouldn’t matter much, because virtually nobody would ever see it. The coin would go from the Mint to the Fed — likely to the vaults at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — and would remain there in perpetuity.

Yellen opposed

The biggest impediment to the plan, at the moment, appears to be Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen herself. Last week, she dismissed the idea during testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.

On Tuesday, she made her opposition to the plan more emphatic in an interview with CNBC.

“I’m opposed to it, and I don’t believe that we should consider it seriously,” she said. “It’s really a gimmick.”

She continued, “What’s necessary is for Congress to show that the world can count on America paying its debts. The platinum coin is equivalent to asking the Federal Reserve to print money to cover deficits that Congress is unwilling to cover by issuing debt. It compromises the independence of the Fed, conflating monetary and fiscal policy. And instead of showing that Congress and the administration can be trusted to pay the country’s bills, it really does the opposite.”

Legal quandary

Supporters of the plan will note one thing that Yellen did not say: That minting the coin would be illegal or illegitimate.

Some argue that if Congress fails to act, the Treasury Secretary might, in fact, be obligated to use her authority to mint new currency to pay the country’s bills.

While the debt ceiling places a real, legal limit on the amount of money the government can borrow, spending bills passed by Congress also legally obligate the administration to spend funds as Congress has specified. Additionally, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution specifies that “The validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned,” which some legal scholars have interpreted as meaning that allowing a debt default would be unconstitutional.

Rohan Grey, a professor of law at Willamette University, said that Yellen’s belief that the trillion-dollar coin is a “gimmick” would be no defense if minting the coin were the only thing standing between the United States and default.

“You can’t say, I find this silly or uncomfortable, therefore, I’m going to intentionally violate the Constitution,” he told VOA. “Their obligation is to honor the debts under the 14th Amendment and to honor Congress’s spending directives.”

Lesser of two evils

While minting a trillion-dollar coin might avoid a technical default on the nation’s debts, some experts worry about the effect such a radical proposal would have on public perceptions.

The idea is so “wacky,” said Kenneth Kuttner, Williams College professor of economics, that it might undermine the faith that ordinary people, and even sophisticated financial markets participants, have in the U.S. government.

“They’re managing things so poorly that they’re having to resort to these gimmicks to obviate [raising] the debt ceiling?” he told VOA. “That may look bad for regular people and for the financial markets.” 

 
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The U.S. Senate appeared near to a temporary deal to avert a federal debt default in the next two weeks, after Democrats said Wednesday that they might accept a Republican proposal to defuse the partisan standoff that threatens the broader economy.

Democrats called off an early-afternoon vote after the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, floated a plan that would buy more time to resolve the issue. McConnell proposed that his party would allow an extension of the federal debt ceiling into December.

Without congressional action to raise the $28.4 trillion debt limit, the Treasury Department has forecast that it will run out of ways to meet all its obligations by October 18. The Bipartisan Policy Center said Wednesday that unemployment insurance payments, salaries for millions of federal employees and medical insurance payments could be delayed without a debt-ceiling hike.

No official acceptance yet 

Several Democrats said they would accept the Republican offer. “We intend to take this temporary victory,” Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin said on CNN.

But without a statement from Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, it was not clear whether that was the party’s official stance, and the White House did not commit to the idea. The White House has yet to receive a formal offer, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Still, Democrats would have to address the issue again in December, just as federal funding is due to expire. That could complicate their efforts to pass two massive spending bills that make up much of Biden’s domestic agenda.

Republicans said Democrats could use the intervening weeks to pass a longer debt-ceiling extension through a complex process called reconciliation, which Democrats have dismissed as too cumbersome and risky. McConnell said Republicans would make concessions to help speed the process up.

Republicans had been expected to block the bill that was up for a vote Wednesday, which suspended the debt limit until December 2022, after the midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress for the next two years.

Dangers of default

Analysts say a default could upend the global financial system and cause millions of lost jobs.

Even a close call would likely be damaging. A 2011 debt ceiling dispute that Congress resolved two days before the borrowing limit was due to be reached caused stocks to tumble and prompted a first-ever credit downgrade for U.S. debt.

Moody’s Investors Service said on Tuesday that it expected Washington would ultimately raise the debt limit, however, and U.S. stock indexes rose on Wednesday as investors grew more optimistic that Congress could reach a deal.

A more telling indication of investor relief was evident in the U.S. Treasury market, which would be directly affected by a U.S. default. Rates on one-month Treasury bills — the securities most likely to be impaired by a failure of the government to pay interest or principal on the debt immediately after the deadline — dropped sharply, an indication that investors were again willing to buy them.

Democrats had considered other options to resolve the standoff.

Biden said Tuesday that Democrats might weaken a long-standing rule, known as the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the 100-seat Senate. But that notion seemed to fade on Wednesday, as a key centrist Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin, said he would not support it.
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Amazon.com Inc.’s livestreaming e-sports platform Twitch said Wednesday that it had been hit by a data breach. It gave no details.

An anonymous hacker claimed to have leaked Twitch data, including information related to the company’s source code, clients and unreleased games, according to Video Games Chronicle, which first reported the news of the hack.

Twitch confirmed the breach and said its “teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this.”

The company declined to comment further and said ((https://twitter.com/Twitch/status/1445770441176469512)) it would “update the community as soon as additional information is available.” Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The hacker’s motive was to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space,” according to the Video Games Chronicle report.

About 125GB of data was leaked, including information on Twitch’s highest-paid video game streamers since 2019, such as a $9.6 million payout to the voice actors of popular game “Dungeons & Dragons” and $8.4 million to Canadian streamer xQcOW, the report said.

“Twitch leak is real. Includes significant amount of personal data,” cyber security expert Kevin Beaumont tweeted.

Twitch, which has more than 30 million daily visitors on average, has become increasingly popular with musicians and video gamers. They interact with users while live streaming content.

The platform, which was boycotted earlier this year by users for not doing enough to block harassment, previously made a move to ban users for offenses such as hate-group membership and credible threats of mass violence.
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Торги на міжбанківському валютному ринку завершилися на рівні 26 гривень 37–39 копійок за долар
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