von der Leyen, Ursula

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    Ursula von der Leyen Seeks Second Term as Top E.U. Official

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    The German politician has been European Commission president since 2019, becoming a key contact for the Biden administration.“Who do I call if I want to call Europe?”The answer to the famous question — attributed to Henry Kissinger, but probably apocryphal — has been easier to answer over the past four years than ever before: You call Ursula von der Leyen.President of the European Commission since 2019, Ms. von der Leyen has emerged as the face of Europe’s response to major crises, and on Monday she announced that she would seek a second five-year term.“I ran in 2019 because I firmly believe in Europe. Europe is home to me,” Ms. von der Leyen said on Monday in Berlin at the Christian Democratic Union party conference. “And when the question came up back then as to whether I could imagine becoming president of the European Commission, I immediately said ‘yes’ intuitively.”“Today, five years later, I am making a very conscious and well-considered decision: I would like to run for a second term,” she added.Given her strong record steering the European response to both the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ms. von der Leyen is seen as a relatively sure bet to keep the job, which is not elected but decided in negotiations among European Union leaders.Another term for Ms. von der Leyen would provide continuity for bloc, which could also expect her to further expand the authority of her position, even beyond its duties overseeing the 32,000-strong European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, which is responsible for drafting laws and policies for the 27 member states.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      European Climate Czar Steps Down to Take Part in Dutch Elections

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      Frans Timmermans is stepping down at a crucial time for European climate laws to become the lead candidate for a left-wing coalition in the Dutch elections in November.Frans Timmermans, the European Union’s climate chief, will leave his position in Brussels to become a candidate in coming elections in the Netherlands, the European Commission announced on Tuesday.Mr. Timmermans’s immediate departure comes as the European Union is focusing on meeting climate goals, reducing emissions on the continent as well as transitioning to clean energy.Mr. Timmermans served as the executive vice president for the European Green Deal, a set of proposals that aims to make the E.U.’s climate, energy, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.Last month, European lawmakers approved a key element of the Green Deal that would require member nations to restore 20 percent of natural areas within their borders on land and at sea.“Climate change is happening even faster than feared, battering our planet with no region left unaffected,” Mr. Timmermans said in a speech in July. “Radical, immediate, and transformative action must be taken by all of us.”Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, praised Mr. Timmermans in a statement, saying he helped make strides toward “meeting the E.U.’s objectives to become the first climate neutral continent.” She also said he helped raise “the levels of climate ambition globally.”Ms. von der Leyen has appointed Maroš Šefčovič, a member of the European Commission from Slovakia, to succeed Mr. Timmermans as the executive vice president for the European Green Deal. Ms. von der Leyen also temporarily assigned the responsibility for climate action policy to Mr. Šefčovič, until the appointment of a new member of the commission of Dutch nationality, according to an announcement.Maros Sefcovic will succeed Mr. Timmermans as the executive vice-president for the European Green Deal.Tt News Agency, via ReutersOn Tuesday, Mr. Timmermans became the lead candidate for a left-wing alliance of the Green Party and the Labor Party, which are forming one bloc in the Netherlands’s parliamentary elections scheduled for Nov. 22. In that role, Mr. Timmermans could possibly become the Dutch prime minister. Members of the two parties overwhelmingly chose Mr. Timmermans as the lead candidate on Tuesday, according to Dutch media.Mr. Timmermans was scheduled to address members of the left-wing parties on Tuesday night as leader for the first time, according to the parties.“He is the right person to face the big challenges we stand for: protecting social security, tackle the climate crisis and restore trust in politics,” Attje Kuiken, the leader of the Dutch Labor Party in the House of Representatives, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Ms. Kuiken has, like multiple other politicians since the government collapsed last month, announced her departure from Dutch politics.It’s not Mr. Timmermans’s first foray into Dutch politics. He has served as a member of Parliament for the Dutch Labor Party, as well as minister of foreign affairs from 2012 to 2014.The Green Deal has angered farmers on the continent, including in Mr. Timmermans’s native Netherlands. Last year, Dutch farmers protested against new goals and an announcement that some of them would have to shutter their farms to reach the E.U.’s climate goals, saying that they felt disproportionately targeted.The Dutch government collapsed in July after the parties in its ruling coalition failed to reach an agreement on migration policy. Other issues had been adding stress to the fractured coalition, including climate goals that aim to drastically reduce nitrogen emissions in the country, goals that have been partially set by the European Union.The Netherlands will soon have its first new prime minister since 2010, when Mark Rutte came into power. Mr. Rutte decided not to run again and said he would leave politics once a new coalition is in place after the November elections.Mr. Rutte’s departure from Dutch politics raised questions for the Netherlands, as well as the European Union, where Mr. Rutte found a stage to advance his country’s agenda: rules-based free trade and commerce, fiscal prudence, liberal social values.Who will take Mr. Rutte’s place as prime minister uncertain. The Farmer Citizen Movement, a Dutch pro-farming party that swept local elections in March, has been ahead in the polls, an indication of people’s dissatisfaction with mainstream political parties.On Sunday, Pieter Omtzigt, a popular Dutch politician who has been critical of Mr. Rutte, announced the creation of his new party, New Social Contract. A Dutch poll from this summer predicted that Mr. Omtzigt’s party could win as many as 46 seats in the Netherlands’s 150-member House of Representatives. More

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      As Greece Votes, Leader Says Blocking Migrants Built ‘Good Will’ With Europe

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      Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has taken a tough line on migrants as he turns around the country’s economy. It’s a trade-off that voters and the European Union seem more than willing to abide.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece has been accused of illegally pushing asylum seekers back at sea. He has acknowledged that the state’s intelligence service wiretapped an opposition leader. He has consolidated media control as press freedom in Greece has dropped to the lowest in Europe.It is the sort of thing that the guardians of European Union values often scorn in right-wing populist leaders, whether it be Giorgia Meloni of Italy or Viktor Orban of Hungary. But with Greece holding national elections on Sunday, Brussels has instead lauded Mr. Mitsotakis, a pro-Europe conservative, for bringing stability to the Greek economy, for sending military aid to Ukraine and for providing regional stability in a time of potential upheaval in Turkey.Above all, European Union leaders appear to have cut Mr. Mitsotakis slack for doing the continent’s unpleasant work of keeping migrants at bay, a development that shows just how much Europe has shifted, with crackdowns formerly associated with the right wing drifting into the mainstream.“I’m helping Europe on numerous fronts,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in a brief interview on Tuesday in the port city of Piraeus, where, in his trademark blue dress shirt and slacks, the 55-year-old rallied adoring voters on crowded streets. “It’s bought us reasonable good will.”With Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, calling Greece’s border enforcement Europe’s “shield,” Mr. Mitsotakis argued that after the arrival of more than a million migrants and asylum seekers destabilized the continent’s politics by entering through Greece during the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016, Europe had come around to Greece’s tougher approach.Migrants on a dinghy accompanied by a Frontex vessel at the village of Skala Sikaminias, on the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey in 2020.Michael Varaklas/Associated Press“We’ve been able to sort of change, I think, the European approach vis-à-vis migration,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, a self-described progressive, disputing the notion that the policy — which critics say includes illegally pushing asylum seekers back — was hard-right.“Right-wing or a central policy,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, the leader of the nominally center-right New Democracy party, “I don’t know what it is, but I have to protect my borders.”In turn, Europe seems to have protected Mr. Mitsotakis.“It’s the Mitsotakis exception,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union law at the HEC Paris business school. Mr. Mitsotakis’ special treatment has derived from his political closeness to Ms. von der Leyen, Mr. Alemanno said, and his willingness to build — with funding from the bloc — a vast network of migrant centers that have proved politically popular in Greece.Mr. Mitsotakis argued that some “leftist Illuminati in Brussels” failed to see that he was saving lives with his policy, something that he said Europe’s leaders appreciated.“We’re no longer sort of the poster child for problems in Europe,” he said, adding that what he had done “offers a lot of people relief.”Greeks included. Before Sunday’s elections, Mr. Mitsotakis held a comfortable lead in the polls against his main rival, Alexis Tsipras, of the left-wing Syriza party, even if the prime minister still appeared to lack enough support to win outright. A second round of elections looks probable in July.Alexis Tsipras, left, and Mr. Mitsotakis taking part in a televised debate at the headquarters of the state broadcaster ERT this month.Alexandros Avramidis/ReutersAround the neighborhood where Mr. Mitsotakis campaigned, people talked about how he had made their native Greek islands that were once overrun with migrants livable again, how he had been the first Greek prime minister invited to speak to a joint session of Congress in Washington, and how he had stood up to Turkey’s strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who himself faces an election runoff next weekend.Greeks around the country appreciate how Mr. Mitsotakis has cut taxes and debt and increased digitization, minimum wages and pensions.For a decade, Greece was Europe’s thumping migraine. The country’s catastrophic 2010 debt crisis nearly sank the European Union. Humiliating bailouts followed, and a decade of stark austerity policies — directed by Germany — cut pensions and public services, shrank economic output by a quarter, inflated unemployment and prompted thousands of young and professional Greeks to flee.In 2015, under the leadership of Mr. Tsipras, Greeks voted to reject Europe’s many-strings-attached aid package, and the country was nearly ejected from the eurozone. Social unrest and talk of “Grexit” mounted, but Mr. Tsipras ended up carrying out the required overhauls and moderated in the following years, arguing that Greece had started on the road to recovery.But in 2019 he lost to Mr. Mitsotakis — the son of a former prime minister, trained at Harvard and Stanford, at ease in Washington — who seemed the personification of the establishment. He promised to right the Greek ship.“This was always my bet,” Mr. Mitsotakis said. “And I think that we delivered.”His government has spurred growth at twice the eurozone average. Big multinational corporations and start-ups have invested. Tourism is skyrocketing.Tourists visiting the Acropolis in Athens in October.Petros Giannakouris/Associated PressThe country is paying back creditors ahead of schedule, and Mr. Mitsotakis expects, if he wins, international rating agencies to lift Greece’s bonds out of junk status. The number of migrant arrivals has dropped off 90 percent since the crisis in 2015, but also significantly since Mr. Mitsotakis took office four years ago.“A European success story,” The Economist called Greece under Mr. Mitsotakis.But he argues that he needs another four years to finish the job. Greece, which still has the European Union’s highest national debt, is also the bloc’s second-poorest nation, after Bulgaria. Tax evasion is still common, and the country’s judicial system is so slow that it scares off investors.Critics of Mr. Mitsotakis say that, apart from the economy, he represents a danger to Greece’s values, and that Europe is diverting its eyes as it focuses on the financials and the declining number of migrants.Humanitarian groups have accused Mr. Mitsotakis of illegally pushing back migrants by land and sea. He has hardly run away from the issue, recently visiting Lesbos, the Greek island that became synonymous with the abominable conditions of its Moria camp, which was crammed with 20,000 refugees before burning down.“Moria is no more,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in the interview. “It simply doesn’t exist. I mean, you have olive groves and we have an ultramodern reception facility that’s been built with European money.” Critics have denounced the new camp’s prisonlike conditions, but Greeks overwhelmingly support his tough line.Mr. Mitsotakis during a campaign event on the island of Lesbos last week.Elias Marcou/ReutersEurope is “less on top of Greece for doing pushbacks and all the sort of things,” said Camino Mortera-Martinez, who heads the Brussels office for the Center for European Reform, a think tank.The latitude given Greece, she said, was in part recognition that the country had lived through a decade of brutal austerity. But it also reflected that Europe as a whole is “basically unable to help” Greece and other nations at the front line of the migration crisis, and therefore lets “these governments do what they do.”Migration aside, there are other more immediate concerns at home. In February, a train crash killed 57 people, exposing Greece’s rickety infrastructure and the limits of Mr. Mitsotakis’ talk of modernization. Reporters Without Borders deemed Greece the worst country in the European Union for press freedom in its 2023 index.Destroyed train cars at the site of a crash where two trains collided near the Greek city of Larissa in March.Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York TimesOver the summer, Mr. Mitsotakis’ top intelligence official got caught wiretapping journalists and politicians, including Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the opposition Pasok party and member of European Parliament. Mr. Mitsotakis denied, to the incredulity of many, knowing anything about it. Some of the people his intelligence services listened in on were also found to have illegal malware on their devices. The government has denied putting it there.But Mr. Mitsotakis, in a televised debate this month, conceded that Mr. Androulakis should not have been wiretapped. The spying was an especially bad idea, it turns out, because Mr. Androulakis’s support may prove pivotal to the election’s ultimate outcome.Yet the scandal is way down on voters’ list of priorities, as is Mr. Mitsotakis’ treatment of migrants.John Vrakas, 66, who was handing out fliers for Mr. Tsipras across from the square where Mr. Mitsotakis was due to speak, shrugged that Europe didn’t seem particularly bothered as long as the prime minister assuaged their concerns on the economy and Ukraine. “It’s a kind of trade,” he said.It is one that Greek voters seem happy to make.As Mr. Mitsotakis walked the streets, a bus driver reached out the window and clasped his hand. “Supporters until the end,” chanted a group of men in front of a cafe. “We trust you,” a woman shouted from her jewelry shop.What “resonates in Europe,” Mr. Mitsotakis said, was that his was an “anti-populist government” that had brought much-appreciated stability back to Greece in a rough region.He got up from the interview in a small and otherwise empty restaurant, and shook more hands on the way to the square, where he launched into a short stump speech interrupted by chiming church bells.“I’m not sure who they are tolling for,” Mr. Mitsotakis exclaimed, “but not for us.”In Athens this month.Orestis Panagiotou/EPA, via ShutterstockNiki Kitsantonis More

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      China Returns to Davos With Clear Message: We’re Open for Business

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      Emerging from coronavirus lockdown to a world changed by the war in Ukraine, China sought to convey reassurance about its economic health.DAVOS, Switzerland — China ventured back on to the global stage Tuesday, sending a delegation to the World Economic Forum to assure foreign investors that after three years in which the pandemic cut off their country from the world, life was back to normal.But the Chinese faced a wary audience at the annual event, attesting to both the dramatically changed geopolitical landscape after Russia’s war on Ukraine, as well as two data points that highlighted a worrisome shift in China’s own fortunes.Hours before a senior Chinese official, Liu He, spoke to this elite economic gathering in an Alpine ski resort, the government announced that China’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time in 61 years. A short time earlier, it confirmed that economic growth had slowed to 3 percent, well below the trend of the past decade.Against that backdrop, Mr. Liu sought to reassure his audience that China was still a good place to do business. “If we work hard enough, we are confident that growth will most likely return to its normal trend, and the Chinese economy will make a significant improvement in 2023,” he said.Mr. Liu, a well-traveled vice premier who is one of China’s most recognizable faces in the West, insisted that the Covid crisis was “steadying,” seven weeks after the government abruptly abandoned its policy of quarantines and lockdowns. China had passed the peak of infections, he said, and had sufficient hospital beds, doctors and nurses, and medicine to treat the millions who are sick.A clinic waiting room in Beijing in December. The Chinese government announced a broad rollback of its zero Covid rules earlier that month.Gilles Sabrie for The New York TimesHe did not mention the 60,000 fatalities linked to the coronavirus since the lockdowns were lifted, a huge spike in the official death toll that China announced three days ago.Mr. Liu’s mild words and modest tone were in stark contrast to those of his boss, President Xi Jinping, who came to Davos in 2017 to claim the mantle of global economic leadership in a world shaken up by the election of Donald J. Trump in the United States and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.Since then, the United States and Europe have united to support Ukraine against Russia, leaving the Russians isolated with the Chinese among their few friends. Russia’s revanchist campaign has raised questions among Europeans about whether China might have similar designs on Taiwan, and escalated security concerns among the world’s democracies.Mr. Liu steered clear of political issues like the war in Ukraine or China’s tensions with the Biden administration. But he did say, “We have to abandon the Cold War mentality,” echoing a frequent Chinese criticism of the United States for attempting to contain China’s influence around the world.But it is China’s demographics and economic growth that are raising the biggest questions among businesspeople. The decline in population lays bare the country’s falling birthrate, a trend that experts said was exacerbated by the pandemic and will threaten its growth over the long term. The 3 percent growth rate, the second weakest since 1976, reflects the stifling effect of the government’s Covid policy.“The Chinese are worried, and they should be,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a professor of Asia studies at Georgetown University. “The entire international business community is way more negative about China over the long-term. A lot of people are asking, ‘Have we reached peak China?’”Children playing in the village square after school in Xiasha Village in Shenzhen, China, in November. China’s population has begun to shrink, the government announced on Tuesday.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesProfessor Medeiros, who served as a China adviser in the Obama administration, said, “For the past 20 years, China has benefited from both geoeconomic gravity and geopolitical momentum, but in the last year it has rapidly lost both.”The signposts of China’s economic weakness are everywhere: the government announced on Friday that exports fell 9.9 percent in December relative to a year earlier. “China has an export slowdown, construction is in crisis, and the local governments are running out of money,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University. “China needs the world: to boost its economy, to accompany the return to more normalcy.”Mr. Liu laid out a familiar set of economic policies, from upholding the rule of law to pursuing “innovation-driven development.” He insisted that China was still attractive to foreign investors, who he said were integral to China’s plan to achieve the government’s goal of “common prosperity.”Lianyungang port in China’s eastern Jiangsu province. The government announced on Friday that exports fell 9.9 percent in December relative to a year earlier.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“China’s national reality dictates that opening up to the world is a must, not an expediency,” Mr. Liu said. “We must open up wider and make it work better. We oppose unilateralism and protectionism.”But China’s delegation was a reminder of how the government has sidelined some of its own best-known entrepreneurs as it has reined in powerful technology companies. Jack Ma, a co-founder of the Alibaba Group, used to be one of the biggest celebrities at the World Economic Forum, holding court in a chalet on the outskirts of Davos. Now shunted out of power, Mr. Ma is absent from Davos.Instead, China sent less well-known executives from Ant Group, an affiliate of the Alibaba Group, as well as officials from China Energy Group and China Petrochemical Group. Unlike other countries, notably India and Saudi Arabia, which plastered buildings in Davos with advertisements for foreign investment, China has been low-key, holding meetings at the posh Belvedere Hotel.After his speech, Mr. Liu, who has a command of English and holds a graduate degree from Harvard, met privately with business executives. Some expected him to be more candid in that session about the challenges China has faced.Mr. Liu did not meet top American officials in Davos, though he will meet Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Zurich on Wednesday. Martin J. Walsh, the labor secretary who is at the conference, said he welcomed China’s return. “China’s in the world economy,” he said. “We need to engage with them.”Mr. Liu speaking on Tuesday.Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThough Mr. Liu, 70, has a significant international profile — having led trade negotiations with the Trump administration — China experts noted that he is not in Mr. Xi’s innermost circle. He is also no longer a member of the Chinese government’s ruling Politburo, though analysts said he retained the trust of Mr. Xi.When he spoke at Davos in 2018, Mr. Liu’s speech was among the best attended of the conference. This year, however, about a quarter of the hall emptied before Mr. Liu spoke, after having been packed for a speech by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.The difference in crowd sizes reflected the reshuffled priorities of the West, now focused on exhibiting unity against Russian aggression.Ms. von der Leyen, who celebrated that solidarity in her remarks, did not exactly warm up the audience for Mr. Liu. She accused the Chinese government, in its drive to dominate the clean-energy industries of the future, of unfairly subsidizing its companies at the expense of Europe and the United States.“Climate change needs a global approach,” she said in a chiding tone, “but it needs to be a fair approach.”Mark Landler More

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      Oil Prices Rise as the West Imposes a Cap on Russian Crude

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      Energy traders pushed crude prices higher on Monday following Europe’s embargo of seaborne Russian crude and a price cap by Group of 7 nations went into effect.Will Russia find buyers for its crude?Sergei Karpukhin/ReutersOil prices climb despite efforts to cap Russian exports Crude oil prices rose this morning after a whirlwind of events that could drastically alter the supply and pricing of energy this winter.An E.U. embargo on Russia’s seaborne oil imports went into effect on Monday, following a decision on Sunday by OPEC producers and Russia to keep production quotas unchanged. Those developments, together with an agreement on Friday by Group of 7 nations to impose a $60 price cap on Russian crude and the emergence of more signs that China is easing its Covid restrictions, set off a modest buying spree among energy traders.By 6 a.m. Eastern, Brent crude, the global benchmark, climbed 2.7 percent, topping $87 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate was above $82 a barrel.Crude prices have whipsawed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, rocketing above $100 per barrel in the spring, only to fall over the summer on fears of a global recession. A slowdown in China in particular had capped demand, but prices have remained volatile.Analysts have been scrutinizing fallout from the oil price cap, a move designed to punish Russia for the war in Ukraine — but also meant to avoid significant distortions in the energy markets that would force consumers and businesses to pay even higher prices for fuel.Unsurprisingly, Moscow said this weekend that it wouldn’t accept the Western price cap, and that it would cut sales to countries that participate in the arrangement. How much of an effect that will have is unclear: Even before Monday, European countries have systematically reduced their Russian crude purchases since the start of the war in Ukraine — only for China to step in and buy more oil, often at a discount. But in recent weeks, China has paused some purchases as it waited for details of the price cap to be announced.Helima Croft, the head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, warned in an investor note this weekend that prices could be even more volatile in the weeks ahead as traders watch for signs that Russia could fully cut off oil exports to former trading partners in retaliation for the price cap.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Chinese cities ease zero-Covid restrictions. Shenzhen and Shanghai were the latest big cities to scrap requirements like testing before traveling on public transport, following widespread protests against Beijing’s tough pandemic rules. Shares in Hong Kong and Shanghai jumped amid investor hopes of a broader easing of Chinese Covid restrictions, though analysts warned such a move would take time.Lachlan Murdoch is set to testify in a Fox News lawsuit on Monday. The C.E.O. of Fox will be deposed as part of a lawsuit against the network by Dominion Voting Systems. He is the highest-ranking executive to be ensnared in the lawsuit, in which Dominion argues it was defamed by Fox News anchors repeatedly amplifying false claims about the company’s voting machines in the 2020 election.Wall Street banks weigh cutting bonuses. Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase may cut bonus pools for investment bankers by as much as 30 percent, Bloomberg reports, amid a steep drop in M.& A. activity. That follows plans by Goldman Sachs to cut bonuses for its traders, even though their division posted strong results.Credit Suisse’s investment bank spinoff reportedly draws big new backers. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and a merchant bank run by the former Barclays C.E.O. Bob Diamond may invest in CS First Boston, which is set to be spun off from Credit Suisse, The Wall Street Journal reports. The spinoff is a key part of the Swiss bank’s planned revamp.Delta reaches a nearly $8 billion pay-raise deal with pilots. The agreement in principle would raise pilots’ pay by 31 percent over four years, as well as include a one-time payout. If finalized, the agreement will set a baseline for other airlines in their negotiations with pilots.Crypto’s false calm If this is the crypto apocalypse, investors see a buying opportunity. The price of Bitcoin is up nearly 7 percent, or almost $1,200, in the past week, to just under $17,400.But that market calm does not mean the crypto contagion is contained. The fallout from the collapse last month of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange, FTX, has spread to other firms, setting off a wave of layoffs, lawsuits and investigations. Shareholders of Silvergate, the U.S. bank that processed payments and money transfers for FTX, sued the bank for negligence, calling the exchange a Ponzi scheme.Meanwhile, customers of Gemini, the crypto exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins, are owed as much as $900 million from Genesis, the crypto lender that has faced severe financial distress since FTX’s collapse, according to The Financial Times. And ByBit, a major crypto exchange, announced this weekend that it would cut 30 percent of its staff, the latest firm to cut its head count as digital asset prices sink.Here’s what else is happening in crypto:Mr. Bankman-Fried said on Sunday that he would be willing to testify before the House Financial Services Committee. The catch: S.B.F., as he is known, probably won’t be ready to speak with lawmakers in time for Dec. 13 hearings into the implosion of FTX.Mr. Bankman-Fried’s media tour shows no signs of slowing down. He told The Financial Times that he regretted giving Alameda Research, the trading affiliate of FTX, favorable borrowing limits.S.B.F.’s father, the Stanford law professor Joseph Bankman, has canceled a class he was set to teach next year. Bankman did work for FTX’s philanthropic efforts and is helping with his son’s legal defense.FTX’s bankruptcy has international regulators, including those in Cyprus, Turkey and the Bahamas, squabbling over the company’s assets, potentially complicating which customers get repaid and how much.Andrew Vara, the U.S. bankruptcy trustee for FTX’s case, called on the Delaware court to appoint an independent examiner into the exchange’s sudden collapse, saying there is substantial evidence to suggest that misconduct and fraud were involved.Even though calls for investigations are intensifying, that doesn’t mean Bankman-Fried’s arrest is imminent.On the light side: S.B.F., an eager player of the League of Legends video game, has been getting shade from the likes of Elon Musk and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for being a mediocre player.Have normal times returned to Twitter? Elon Musk is still running Twitter, so naturally, there is still plenty of drama around the social network — notably in the billionaire owner’s decision to actively promote the release of internal documents about executives’ 2020 decision to restrict tweets linking to a news report about Hunter Biden.Despite that, it appears that some major advertisers are slowly returning to Twitter’s platform, after many hit pause following Musk’s promise to revamp how the site moderates user content.Amazon plans to resume buying ads on Twitter, to the tune of $100 million a year, according to Zoë Schiffer of Platformer. Although the e-commerce giant, unlike others, had not quit its ad spending altogether since Musk’s takeover, it had paused some of its campaigns.Meanwhile, Mr. Musk said in a live audio event on Twitter over the weekend that Apple had “fully resumed” ad spending on the social network. The iPhone maker has long been one of the biggest ad purchasers on Twitter. Last week, Mr. Musk said that he had resolved a feud with Apple, chalking up the disagreements to a misunderstanding.That’s a rare bit of welcome news for Twitter’s business. The Times reported last week that the company had rapidly cut revenue projections, as U.S. ad sales continued to come in well below internal expectations. Advertisers have been alarmed by Mr. Musk’s pledges to lessen restrictions on user content, as well as a botched rollout of revamped verification badges that briefly let paying subscribers impersonate brands. Automakers like G.M. have also been concerned that Twitter could share their ad data with the Musk-owned Tesla, a key rival.Mr. Musk introduced a new bit of drama into Twitter over the weekend, when he touted the release of the so-called Twitter Files. The independent journalist Matt Taibbi — who famously called Goldman Sachs a “vampire squid” — published internal documents showing executives’ deliberations about how to handle dissemination of a New York Post story based on files from a laptop stolen from Hunter Biden.The move rankled some former Twitter executives, including the company’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, who said publicizing unredacted documents was “fundamentally unacceptable.” (Musk later conceded, “I think we should have excluded some email addresses.”)“It’s like a cake that was dropped on the table and it looks more or less fine, but inside it’s all blown up.” — Vladislav Inozemtsev, the Washington-based director of the Center for Post-Industrial Studies, a Russian research group, on the state of the Russian economy following sanctions and an exodus of Western firms.The week ahead Politics, inflation data and a trickle of earnings reports will be in focus this week. Here’s what to look for:Tomorrow: A key Senate seat is up for grabs in the Georgia runoff election. Early-voting tallies have smashed state records.Wednesday: New data on the health of the world’s two largest economies will be published, with U.S. consumer credit and China trade data scheduled for release.Thursday: Costco and Broadcom release quarterly results.Friday: The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index and Producer Price Index data are set to come out. China will also release a fresh batch of inflation data.THE SPEED READ DealsOne of the Democratic commissioners at the F.T.C. reportedly favors a less-confrontational approach to Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard, potentially undercutting efforts to block the deal. (New York Post)The private equity firm CVC is said to be weighing options, including a sale, of the computer accessories maker Razer, less than a year after buying the business. (Bloomberg)Assa Abloy will sell its Emtek and Yale security brands to Fortune Brands Home & Security for $800 million. (Reuters)PolicyMeta faces a trio of E.U. privacy fines that could exceed $2 billion, a record. (Politico)The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said that Europe needed to overhaul its public investment rules so its firms could better compete against American counterparts who receive Inflation Reduction Act funding. (FT)New Zealand plans to force Meta’s Facebook and Google to pay news publishers for the content hosted on their platforms, taking a cue from Australia and Canada. (WSJ)Best of the restIt’s not just Big Tech: Big media companies are cutting jobs, too. (WSJ)“Goblin mode,” an Elon Musk favorite, was named Oxford Languages’ 2022 word of the year. (NYT)Activision Blizzard game testers unanimously voted to form a union. (Reuters)“The 4-day week: does it actually work?” (FT)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More