Aurelia Butler

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A U.S. judge decided on Tuesday that victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are not entitled to seize $3.5 billion of assets belonging to Afghanistan’s central bank to satisfy court judgments they obtained against the Taliban.U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said he was “constitutionally restrained” from finding that the Taliban was Afghanistan’s legitimate government, a precursor for attaching assets belonging to Da Afghanistan Bank, or DAB.Daniels said letting victims seize those assets would amount to a ruling that the Taliban are Afghanistan’s legitimate government.He said U.S. courts lack power to reach that conclusion, noting that Biden administration does not recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government.”The judgment creditors are entitled to collect on their default judgments and be made whole for the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, but they cannot do so with the funds of the central bank of Afghanistan,” Daniels wrote.”The Taliban – not the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Afghan people – must pay for the Taliban’s liability in the 9/11 attacks,” he added.Daniels’ decision is a defeat for four groups of judgment creditors that claimed some of the $7 billion of DAB funds that had been frozen at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.”This decision deprives over 10,000 members of the 9/11 community of their right to collect compensation from the Taliban,” said Lee Wolosky, a lawyer for one creditor group known as the Havlish plaintiffs. “We believe it is wrongly decided and will appeal.”The other creditor groups are also planning an appeal, a separate Tuesday court filing shows.In an executive order last February, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered $3.5 billion of the DAB funds set aside to benefit the Afghan people.Last September, the U.S. Treasury said it would move that money to a Swiss-based trust beyond the Taliban’s reach.NOT THE TALIBAN’S MONEYThe creditor groups had sued many defendants, including al-Qaeda, over the Sept. 11 attacks, and obtained default judgments after the defendants failed to show up in court.At the time of the attacks, the Taliban had allowed al-Qaeda to operate within Afghanistan.The United States ousted the Taliban and al-Qaeda in late 2001, but the Taliban returned to power in 2021 when Western forces pulled out of the country.In his 30-page decision, Daniels adopted findings of U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, who last August also recommended no recovery for the creditor groups.Daniels said he lacked jurisdiction over DAB under federal law because the bank was an instrumentality of a foreign government and thus had immunity.He also said Afghanistan, as opposed to the Taliban, neither qualified as a “terrorist party” nor had been designated a state sponsor of terrorism.”Neither the Taliban nor the judgment creditors are entitled to raid the coffers of the state of Afghanistan to pay the Taliban’s debts,” Daniels wrote.Other countries recently held about $2 billion of Afghan reserves.Nearly 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, 2001, when planes were flown into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in northern Virginia, and a Pennsylvania field.U.S. sanctions ban doing financial business with the Taliban but allow humanitarian support for the Afghan people.The case is In re Terrorist Attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 03-md-01570. More

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever.U.S. economic activity indicators on Tuesday accelerated the relentless march higher in U.S. interest rate expectations and confirmed that, for financial markets at least, good news is most definitely bad news.Wall Street and world stocks had their worst day this year after purchasing managers index data showed that the U.S. services sector is roaring back to life. Asian markets are likely to follow when they open on Wednesday.Not one of the 18 economists polled by Reuters expected the services PMI to bounce back above the 50.0 threshold between contraction and expansion, and the shockwaves were felt across all asset classes.Stocks slumped, volatility and the dollar rose, the two-year Treasury yield neared November’s post-2007 peak, the implied U.S. terminal rate rose to a new high of 5.36%, and a potential 50 basis point rate hike next month is coming on traders’ radar.As analysts at Schroders (LON:SDR) put it: “A new regime in policy and market behavior is unfolding before our eyes.” This is not an emerging market-friendly mix. If the dollar and U.S. yields continue to rise, one of this year’s consensus trades and the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars to emerging markets will have to be revised. The geopolitical backdrop is not improving either. Days from the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin announced Moscow will suspend a nuclear arms treaty, and the United States and its allies prepared to impose new sanctions on Moscow.China appeared to signal support for Russia and the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is preparing to visit Moscow for a summit with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in the coming months. Back to the economics and policy, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is expected to slow the pace of its tightening campaign on Wednesday, and deliver a 50 bps hike to 4.75%. That’s the view of 20 out of 25 economists polled by Reuters, and the other five are going for a second successive 75 bps move.If the Fed is as hawkish as markets think it will be it is difficult to see other central banks – developed and emerging market alike – keeping pace. This would cast major doubt over another of this year’s consensus ideas – a weaker dollar.Here are three key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Wednesday:- New Zealand central bank rate decision- Australia hourly wages (Q4)- Hong Kong GDP (Q4 final) (By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Deepa Babington) More

Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, told members of Britain’s governing Conservative Party that while progress had been made in finding solutions, his party was still concerned with the application of some EU regulations or laws to goods produced in the British-governed province.Britain and the EU are edging closer to resolving their dispute over the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, which sets out the conditions for post-Brexit trade with the province to avoid creating a hard border with EU member Ireland and to help protect the bloc’s single market.”He said he was extremely pleased with the progress that had been made so far but there was further to go,” a person who attended the meeting said on condition of anonymity.”Essentially, the most important thing was the continued application of EU law to product standards in Northern Ireland, which was hugely problematic for Northern Ireland in terms of its biggest market, mainland GB (Great Britain).”Donaldson told Conservatives it was “quite wrong” for goods produced in Northern Ireland and destined for Britain to be subject to EU rules, especially when those rules might change over time and the province would still have to adhere to them without having any input in their creation, the person said. Donaldson also urged British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to take his time to solve such issues rather than working to any timetable, a reference to suggestions that London wants a deal to be done before the April anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended three decades of sectarian violence.The protocol was long the thorniest issue in Britain’s negotiations to leave the EU but has also hampered ties since then. Sunak is staking much of his reputation on finding a resolution with the EU, but he faces resistance from not only some unionists in Northern Ireland, but also from Brexit-supporting Conservatives. (This story has been refiled to change ‘North’ to ‘Northern’ in headline) More