International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde offered a hopeful lesson in how to overcome being the only woman in the room, especially in the high-powered male-dominated world of finance and economics, at the Women in the World New York Summit on Thursday.

Interviewed by historian Niall Ferguson, the former French finance minister and top global corporate law executive admitted, as she looked laughingly at a telling photo of herself surrounded by the nearly all-male IMF board, that women still needed “skin as thick as an old crocodile” to get to the top in what is too often a macho world. “I regret to say that the crocodile skin is unfortunately a sine qua non for a period of time,” Lagarde said when asked about what Ferguson termed the current “nasty macho streak in politics” where men were making the most of their masculinity in sometimes embarrassing way.

“But then I very much hope that we can take off the crocodile skin and be normal human beings without having to shield against horrible attacks.” ”

“London is a big financial city, has huge links around Europe and the world, and [Brexit] is one of the risks that we have on the horizon.”

An interconnected world “completely without borders” was a key theme hammered home by the world’s top banker as she spoke of geopolitical risks that have “big economic consequences” — from terrorism to refugees, pandemics and conflicts.”

The IMF used to deal with a world where the Federal Reserve and other central banks had impacts in their countries, but the situation had radically changed over the past year, particularly because of changes in China suddenly having repercussions elsewhere in the world. “The level of risk and the level of interconnectedness is ever so strong … at the same time because of fear, because of uncertainty, because of lack of confidence people are tempted to retire behind their borders and to say: let’s just protect our turf, let’s just be behind our borders, let’s do things at home, and never mind the rest of the world. Well the rest of the world is not at your doorstep it’s with us and we are whether we like it or not massively interconnected.”

The refugee question has personal resonance for Lagarde, especially since the moving experience of visiting the Jordanian Zaatari refugee camp to speak with women whose family members had been killed in the Syrian conflict.

One of the IMF’s missions, alongside the World Bank and other international institutions was therefore to restore stability and help with the economy. “So that once peace has returned — which unfortunately I cannot do much about [as] this is not the mission of the IMF — which is a pre-condition to any economic revival, then clearly it will be our duty together … to actually help it get back on its feet and realize her dream which is to go home touch the ground of Syria and rebuild what spirit she has.”

In further remarks on the pressures bearing down on European leaders and societies amid successive waves of refugees, Lagarde went out of her way praise her friend German Chancellor Angela Merkel for taking the decision last year to welcome more than a million people fleeing conflict and economic hardship. “I want to pay tribute to her because I think … she has taken the moral high ground at that time and she was isolated frankly.”

Recounting a dinner meeting she had with Merkel this week, Lagarde argued there could be hidden benefits to taking the humanitarian decision to allow more refugees to settle in countries like Germany.

The German Chancellor explained to her that the tradition of jealous guarding of information dividing the state and federal governments had been largely broken down since the wave of asylum-seekers from Syria, parts of Africa and South Asia began arriving. “Because of the refugee situation suddenly there is a willingness to actually share information and reconcile databases,” Lagarde said. “And the second benefit is a more united European approach to asylum seekers.”

Leela Jacinto writes: In the weeks since terrorists struck the Belgian capital, authorities and journalists have wasted no time mapping out the links between the Brussels and Paris attacks. Lost in all these lines connecting Europe’s gray urban landscapes are the sun-drenched hills, valleys, and towns of northern Morocco. And it is to Morocco that we must go to fully understand what has spurred young men to wreak havoc in Western European capitals.

At the heart of terrorist strikes across the world over the past 15 years lies the Rif. A mountainous region in northern Morocco, stretching from the teeming cities of Tangier and Tetouan in the west to the Algerian border in the east, the Rif is an impoverished area rich in marijuana plants, hashish peddlers, smugglers, touts, and resistance heroes that has rebelled against colonial administrators, postcolonial kings, and any authority imposed from above. For the children of the Rif who have been transplanted to Europe, this background can combine with marginalization, access to criminal networks, and radicalization to make the vulnerable ones uniquely drawn to acts of terrorism.

Nearly a decade later, the same jihadi tourism trail has led to the Paris and Brussels attacks. One of the latest Riffians to gain international notoriety has been Najim Laachraoui, the Islamic State bomb-maker who traveled to Syria in 2013, where he perfected his explosives expertise.  He’s one of the three men pushing trolleys in Brussels Airport on the morning of March 22. Laachraoui was one of two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at the airport.

Laachraoui was Riffian: a Belgian national predominantly raised in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels but born in Ajdir, a small Moroccan town with a proud Rif history.

The region’s baggage goes back a long way. The history of the Rif is choked with battles between Berber kingdoms in the precolonial era, which gave way to major wars and rebellions against the Spanish and French.

King Hassan II famously never visited his palaces in Tangier and Tetouan. Government services in the region were negligible, Islamists filled the void, and Wahhabi teachings spread like wild fire in the slums and shanties of cities like Tetouan. Today, the region has the highest rates of poverty, maternal death, and female illiteracy in the country, coupled with Morocco’s lowest growth indices. So, though the current King Mohammed VI has invested in the region and makes it a point to vacation in the Rif, the largesse has not trickled down to ordinary Riffians.

While Europe offered the sorts of economic opportunities for which the first generation of migrants was grateful, the next generation has struggled. The economic downturn since the late 1970s has not helped. The Belgian heavy industries and coal mines that once drew Moroccans from their villages have now shut down, leaving behind areas of urban blight.

But, lurking in the background of all this, there is still the Rif — a radicalizing factor all its own.

The baggage of neglect has affected even the relatively lucky Riffians who escaped poverty back home for Europe. The older generation arrived in then-French-controlled Algeria, Belgium, or mainland France only to find that, as residents of a former Spanish enclave, their French was not up to snuff. Neither, as Berbers speaking Amazigh languages and dialects, was their Arabic.

Under these circumstances, the old Riffian ways and mores of traditional codes of conduct, honor, justice, and suspicion of authorities were transplanted to Brussels neighborhoods and allowed to bloom and grow. Fairly or not, Belgian authorities describe the country’s Rif community as marked by lawlessness and a “tribal, more aggressive culture” that sets it apart from other immigrant communities.

These are the sorts of networks that the predominantly white Belgian and French security services now must crack and infiltrate.

This battle must be won on the streets, from Molenbeek to Tetouan.

Jon Lee Anderson writes:  Panama has always been a country friendly to business.  Banking havens like Panama’s also exist in the Caribbean quasi-nation of Grand Cayman; on the island of Jersey and the Isle of Man; in the Pyrenean sub-nation of Andorra; and in several other aeries around the world. Perhaps the most famous, and possibly most lucrative, offshore bank of all is the nation of Switzerland.

Using the gleaming office tower as a case in point, bricks and mortar are a clever way to hide one’s money, and Panama has long made itself available to real-estate developers who cater to this booming economy. So successful has this resource been for Panama that, seventeen years later, the low-level neighborhood around the tower has wholly disappeared, replaced by scores of newer towers of every hue and description; one, almost lost amid the welter of steel and glass, is shaped fancifully to resemble a corkscrew. The last President of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli, who ran the country from 2009 to 2014, and who is now living in Miami, accused of corruption by Panama’s Supreme Court, was a great believer in public-infrastructure projects, building highways, ocean causeways, and a subway system that will cost billions of dollars. The firm that Martinelli favored with the bulk of these costly projects, the Brazilian engineering giant Odebrecht, is currently caught up in a sweeping corruption scandal at home.

Prominent foreign fugitives have resided in Panama, among them Jorge Serrano Elías, the former President of Guatemala. Serrano had skipped his home country for Panama after being overthrown in 1993. He had been formally accused in Guatemala of stealing tens of millions of dollars in public funds, but had been given a warm welcome in Panama, where he built a luxury housing estate and polo club.

One mayor of Panama City, Juan Carlos Navarro, a Harvard-educated man with Presidential ambitions, has said: “I’ve always thought of Panama as sort of like Switzerland.”  Panama offers a service provided by Panama to the international community. “The world can think of Panama as a refuge of last resort. . . . And if they want to live here quietly,bienvenidos.’”

A massive leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm has provided an unprecedented insight into the use of offshore financial centers by the rich and powerful, which could have reverberations from Russia to Iceland to Fifa.

More than 11m documents were leaked from Mossack Fonseca, a law firm which specialises in setting up offshore companies in tax havens. They include emails, bank records and client information dating back several decades.

The documents were passed to Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German newspaper, and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The year-long investigation involved more than 100 news organisations.

According to the ICIJ, the documents demonstrate that as much as $2bn has been shuffled through banks and offshore companies said to be linked to associates and friends of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

As a result of the investigation, Sigmundur Davið Gunnlaugsson, Iceland’s prime minister, is facing allegations that he used an offshore vehicle to hide millions of dollars of investments in the country’s banks.

The documents also appear to show that Juan Pedro Damiani, a Uruguayan lawyer and member of the ethics committee at Fifa, provided assistance to offshore companies reportedly linked to a former Fifa executive arrested in the corruption investigation at the football governing body.

Yuri Kovalchuk, Bank Rossiya’s chairman and another close friend of Mr Putin, financed the construction of the Igora ski resort near their home town of Leningrad, according to the files. The exclusive resort was the site where Mr Putin’s younger daughter Ekaterina married Kirill Shamalov, the son of another close friend of Mr Putin’s, amid great secrecy in 2013, according to Reuters.

Mr Roldugin also holds a minority stake in Kamaz, a Russian car manufacturer, according to the files, as well as Video International, an advertising giant founded by Mikhail Lesin, a longstanding associate of Mr Putin who died in mysterious circumstances in Washington last year.

None of the Mossack Fonseca files mention Mr Putin by name, or implicate him or his associates in any financial wrongdoing.

Iceland has been convulsed for the past week by escalating claims that have put immense pressure on its centre-right prime minister.

After denigrating the creditors of Iceland’s failed banks as vultures, Mr Gunnlaugsson has been on the defensive over reports that his own wife was among the creditors. The pressure mounted as Mr Gunnlaugsson was forced to admit in recent days that he used to own 50 per cent of Wintris, the offshore company which owns the holdings.

Other ministers — including Bjarni Benediktsson, the finance minister who leads the junior party in the coalition government — have admitted to ownership of offshore companies. This is potentially damaging on the Nordic island which is still dealing with the aftermath of its banks imploding during the financial crisis.

Icelandic opposition parties are likely to push for early elections over the revelations, not least because the anti-establishment Pirate party leads the polls with more support than both government parties combined.

Ramón Fonseca Mora, one of the partners of Mossack Fonseca, is a senior adviser to Juan Carlos Varela, Panama’s president. On March 11, he took leave of absence “to defend my honour and my firm”. He denied any wrongdoing in an interview with La Estrella de Panamá, a local daily.

Panama has long been perceived by many as a safe haven for questionable financial deals. Ramón Ricardo Arias, a respected lawyer who runs the Panamanian chapter of Transparency International, said: “Panama has made an effort to adopt legislation to avoid illicit use of its financial sector. Now is the time to enforce those laws. While there still is no strict compliance, there will be abuses. It is the moment for Panama to grow up.”

In a statement on Sunday, the president’s office said: “Panama’s government leads a policy of zero tolerance before any aspect of its legal or financial system that is not handled with high levels of transparency”.

In a statement to ICIJ, Mossack Fonseca said: “We have not once in nearly 40 years of operation been charged with criminal wrongdoing. We’re proud of the work we do, notwithstanding recent and wilful attempts by some to mischaracterise it.”

How the Tools of Finance are Used to Effect Political Change

Robert Parry writes:  The U.S. scheme for establishing the authority of the “unity government” centers on using the $85 billion or so in foreign reserves in Libya’s Central Bank to bring other Libyan leaders onboard. But that strategy may test the question of whether the pen – poised over the Central Bank’s check book – is mightier than the sword, since the militias associated with the rival regimes have plenty of weapons.

Besides the carrot of handing out cash to compliant Libyan politicians and fighters, the Obama administration also is waving a stick, threatening to hit recalcitrant Libyans with financial sanctions or labeling them “terrorists” with all the legal and other dangers that such a designation carries.

But can these tactics – bribery and threats – actually unify a deeply divided Libya, especially when some of the powerful factions are Islamist and see their role as more than strictly political, though the Islamist faction in Tripoli is also opposed to the Islamic State?

After the sea landing on Wednesday, the “unity government” began holding official meetings on Thursday, but inside the heavily guard naval base. How the “unity” Prime Minister Fayez Sirraj and six other members of the Presidency Council can extend their authority across Tripoli and then across Libya clearly remained a work in progress, however.

The image of these “unity” officials, representing what’s called the Government of National Accord, holed up with their backs to the sea at a naval base, unable to dispatch their subordinates to take control of government buildings and ministries, recalls how the previous internationally recognized government, the House of Representatives or HOR, met on a cruise ship in Tobruk in the east.

Meanwhile, HOR’s chief rival, the General National Congress, renamed the National Salvation government, insisted on its legitimacy in Tripoli, but its control, too, was limited to several Libyan cities.

On Wednesday, National Salvation leader Khalifa Ghwell called the “unity” officials at the naval base “infiltrators” and demanded their surrender. Representatives of the “unity government” then threatened to deliver its rivals’ names to Interpol and the U.N. for “supporting terrorism.”

On Friday, the European Union imposed asset freezes on Ghwell and the leaders of the rival parliaments in Tripoli and in Tobruk. According to some accounts, the mix of carrots and sticks has achieved some progress for the “unity government” as 10 towns and cities in western Libya indicated their support for the new leadership.

Clinton’s State Department email exchanges revealed that her aides saw the Libyan war as a chance to pronounce a “Clinton doctrine,” bragging about how Clinton’s clever use of “smart power” could get rid of demonized foreign leaders like Gaddafi. Clinton didn’t miss a second chance to take credit on Oct. 20, 2011, after militants captured Gaddafi, sodomized him with a knife and then murdered him.

With Gaddafi and his largely secular regime out of the way, Islamic militants expanded their power over the country. Some were terrorists, just as Gaddafi had warned.

One Islamic terror group attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American personnel, an incident that Clinton called the worst moment of her four-year tenure as Secretary of State.

The aftermath of the Clinton-instigated “regime change” in Libya also shows how little Clinton and other U.S. officials learned from the Iraq War disaster.

Nouriel Roubini writes:  With most advanced economies experiencing anemic recoveries from the 2008 financial crisis, their central banks have been forced to move from conventional monetary policy – reducing policy rates via open-market purchases of short-term government bonds – to a range of unconventional policies. Although the zero nominal bound on interest rates – previously only a theoretical possibility – had been reached and zero-interest-rate policy (ZIRP) had been implemented, growth remained anemic. So central banks embraced measures that didn’t even exist in their policy toolkit a decade ago. And now they are poised to do so again.

The list of unconventional measures has been extensive.

(1) Quantitative easing (QE), or purchases of long-term government bonds, once short-term rates were already zero.

(2) Credit easing (CE), which took the form of central-bank purchases of private or semi-private assets – such as mortgage- and other asset-backed securities, covered bonds, corporate bonds, real-estate trust funds, and even equities via exchange-traded funds. The aim was to reduce private credit spreads (the difference between yields on private assets and those on government bonds of similar maturity) and to boost, directly and indirectly, the price of other risky assets such as equities and real estate.

(3) “Forward guidance” (FG), the commitment to keep policy rates at zero for longer than economic fundamentals justified, thereby further reducing shorter-term interest rates.

These policies did indeed reduce long- and medium-term interest rates on government securities and mortgage bonds. They also

(1) narrowed credit spreads on private assets  (2) boosted the stock market, (3) weakened the currency, and (4) reduced real interest rates by increasing inflation expectations.

In most advanced economies, growth (and inflation) remained stubbornly low. There was no shortage of reasons for this.  Unconventional monetary policies could prevent severe recessions and outright deflation; but they could not bring about robust growth and 2% inflation.

Structural policies are needed to increase potential growth and keep firms, households, banks, and government from turning into zombies, chronically unable to spend because of too much debt. And fiscal policies were also necessary to support aggregate demand.

Unfortunately, the political economy of most structural reforms – with their front-loaded costs and back-loaded benefits – implies that they occur only slowly. At the same time, fiscal policy has been constrained in some countries by high deficits and debts (which jeopardize market access), and in others (the eurozone, the United Kingdom, and the United States, for example) by a political backlash against further fiscal stimulus, leading to austerity measures that undermine short-term growth.

As a result, unconventional monetary policies – entrenched now for almost a decade – have themselves become conventional. And, in view of persistent lackluster growth and deflation risk in most advanced economies, monetary policymakers will have to continue their lonely fight with a new set of “unconventional unconventional” monetary policies.

The next stage of unconventional unconventional monetary policy could have three components.  (1) Central banks could tax cash to prevent banks from attempting to avoid the negative-rate tax on excess reserves. With banks unable to switch into cash (thereby earning zero rates), (2) central banks could go even more negative with policy rates.  (3) QE could evolve into a “helicopter drop” of money or direct monetary financing by central banks of larger fiscal deficits. Indeed, the recent market buzz has been about the benefits of permanent monetization of public deficits and debt. Moreover, while QE has benefited holders of financial assets by boosting the prices of stocks, bonds, and real estate, it has also fueled rising inequality. A helicopter drop (through tax cuts or transfers financed by newly printed money) would put money directly into the hands of households, boosting consumption.  (4) Credit easing by central banks, or purchases of private assets, could broaden significantly.

If unconventional unconventional monetary policies sound a little crazy, it’s worth remembering that the same was said about “conventional unconventional” policies just a few years ago. And if current conditions in the advanced economies remain entrenched a decade from now, helicopter drops, debt monetization, and taxation of cash may turn out to be the new QE, CE, FG, ZIRP, and NIRP. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

In the presence of the top representatives of European space industry and institutions, among them ESA Director General Jan Wörner, Chairwomen of DLR Pascale Ehrenfreund and President of CNES, Jean-Yves le Gall, the “Women in Aerospace Europe“ (WIA-Europe) has awarded its lifetime achievement award 2016 to Candace Johnson in recognition of her achievements as a global serial entrepreneur, a telecom networks and infrasticture expert, an investor and business angel.

Candace is co-initiator of SES ASTRA and the architect of SES Global, one of the world’s  leading satellite networks.  She is also the founding president of Europe Online Investments S.A, Loral Cyberstar-Teleport Europe, the VATM, Oceania Womens Network Satellite (OWNSAT), Board Member of KAcific, the Global Telecom Women’s Network (GTWN), and the Global Board Ready Women (GBRW). Besides being a serial-entrepreneur and investor in multiple telecommunications networks, and startups, Candace has consistently initiated and promoted social and educational initiatives for women in the telecommunications business around the world. Currently, she is President of EBAN, the European Business Angel Networks and is promoting commercial investment in space.

WIA-E chairwomen Claudia Kessler emphasized the three „driving forces“ behind the unparalleled success of Candace Johnson as the most successful and renowned woman in the man´s world of space high tech and telecommunications: “Candace has a firm belief:
– in the power of communications to transcend barriers and frontiers,
– in the effectiveness of networking through sophisticated infrastructures, and
– in the boundless inspiration of creativity. ”

Candace Johnson is our age´s Leonardo da Vinci of human and technical infrastructures.“

Besides her engagement in numberless activities and positions Candace Johnson today focuses especially on new satellite technologies, be it earth observation and intelligence, satellite situation awareness, micro-launchers and new communication technologies via laser from earth to satellite.  She is also looking now for technological ways to make telepathy tomorrow as normal as mobile communications today, since for the not-to-far future she foresses that it will be possible to communicate amongst people, continents, and galaies via brain-waves.

Women in Aerospace Europe is a networking platform for women in aerospace; it aims at attracting more women to the aerospace sector, fostering the interests of women working in aerospace, and improving the access of women to leadership positions in aerospace. The organization provides specific educational programmes for women, advocates the political commitment to aerospace programmes and recognises achievements of women in aerospace. With its lifetime award which is granted once a year the organization highlights the achievements of the most outstanding female professionals in the aerospace sector in Europe and worldwide.

Reverse migration is more common than we realize.  BBC reports that two Iraqi girls have returned to Iraq from the UK.  People want to go home again.

A migrant waits for further transport in Hamburg Germany©Getty
Asu Hassan is throwing in the towel. Frustrated by bureaucratic hold-ups, money troubles and months spent living in an overcrowded gym, he is leaving his new home in Germany and returning to Iraq.
“Since I was a child I dreamt of Germany,” the 31-year-old mechanic says. “Now my dream is never to have to see it again.”

Mr Hassan is one of hundreds of Iraqis who reached safe haven in Berlin after a perilous, months-long journey to the heart of Europe but are now heading in the opposite direction. It is a measure of his disenchantment that he is willing to trade a new life in one of the world’s richest and most stable countries for the violence and insecurity of his homeland.
“In a year there will be no Iraqis left here,” Mr Hassan says.

In Berlin’s Tegel airport, queues form at the check-in counter for Iraqi Airways, which operates three weekly flights from Germany to Iraq. Andesha Karim, an airline official, says around half the passengers — 150 people a week — are returning refugees. Demand is growing: plans are afoot to double the number of flights.

The volume of returnees is a mere trickle compared to those staying. More than 30,000 Iraqis applied for asylum last year, the largest number after Syrians, Albanians, Kosovars and Afghans.

But the outflow reflects growing disenchantment with life in the west, where social services have been stretched to breaking point by the massive influx of foreigners. Even in Germany, a country that prides itself on its reputation for efficiency, authorities are struggling to cope.

For the German government, the reverse exodus is a small piece of good news in what has otherwise been a confounding crisis. Chancellor Angela Merkel expects large numbers of migrants to return home once peace was restored in Syria and Isis defeated in Iraq. Some 70 per cent of refugees fleeing the wars in Yugoslavia for Germany in the 1990s ultimately went home.

The German government has encouraged people to return by offering to pay for their tickets home. Last year, some 37,000 people signed up for its voluntary repatriation programme, nearly three times as many as in 2014. More than 700 were Iraqis. (Syria is not included in the scheme because it is too dangerous).

Meanwhile, hundreds of other Iraqis are leaving under their own steam. The Iraqi embassy in Berlin has issued some 1,400 one-way travel documents for returnees since the end of October.

Alaa Hadrous owns a Middle East-focused travel agency and jewellery shop in Berlin, where some Iraqis sell their last remaining valuables to pay for the €250 ticket home.

Sa’ad Rubeyi, a former soldier in the Iraqi army now about to board a flight back to Baghdad, says he lost patience after waiting five months to obtain asylum. He says that for the last two months he’s received none of the pocket money all refugees are entitled to.

There is no evidence so far that recent Iraqi migrants are less able to adapt to life in Germany than other newcomers from the Middle East. Some suspect the affordability and availability of direct flights home has played a role in their decision to leave.

The returnees’ problems are often specific to Berlin. The city’s State Office for Health and Social Affairs, known by its German acronym LaGeSo, has become a byword for administrative chaos.

For four months, he says, he lived in a “dirty, overcrowded” school gym together with 300 others. There were three showers and three toilets for all and only intermittent hot water. “I lost all hope of getting out of there,” he says. By the time of his departure he was still waiting for a residence permit and ID. “We didn’t run away from Isis to be treated like this,” he says.

The complaints are seeping back to Iraq and could be one reason fewer people are making the trek to Germany of late.

India’s Tata Steel plans to sell its loss-making UK business, putting the jobs of thousands of workers at risk.

Its European holding company has been told to “explore all options for restructuring”, including the partial or entire sale of its UK operations.

Union leaders travelled to Mumbai in a bid to persuade Tata to keep making steel at plants including Port Talbot.

The UK and Welsh governments said they were working “tirelessly” to ensure the future of the British steel industry.

Tata’s restructuring decision, which was announced after a board meeting in Mumbai on Tuesday, will also affect workers at its other UK plants including Rotherham, Corby and Shotton.

Tata said trading conditions had “rapidly deteriorated” in the UK and Europe due to a global oversupply of steel, imports into Europe, high costs and currency volatility.  Steel demand is still falling. It peaked in 2013. It is very hard to see who would the steel making end itself, although the rolling mills are more attractive.

In a joint statement, the UK and Welsh governments said: “We remain committed to working with Tata and the unions on a long-term sustainable future for British steel-making..

Unions expressed concern at the announcement and urged Tata and politicians to work at finding a buyer for the business.

Tata Steel has been operating in the UK since 2007 when it bought Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus.

In January the company announced more than 1,000 UK job cuts, including 750 in Port Talbot, where it employs 4,000 staff and a further 3,000 contractors and temporary workers.

And last October Tata Steel said nearly 1,200 jobs would go at plants in Scunthorpe and Lanarkshire.

There have been allegations that Chinese steel is being “dumped” on world markets at prices that UK plants cannot hope to compete with.

At the same time China’s economy has remained sluggish, meaning that its need to export has grown as the demand for steel from its construction sector weakens.

Federal Reserve chair Yellen will keep interest rates low.  The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index both closed at 2016 highs Tuesday after Federal Yellen pulled stocks out of an early slump when she said the central bank will move cautiously on interest rates hikes because of risks of a weak global economy and low inflation.

“Given the risks to the outlook, I consider it appropriate for the (Fed’s policymaking committee) to proceed cautiously in adjusting policy,” Yellen said in the text of a speech she delivered to the Economic Club of New York.

Yellen’s speech came at a key time for markets, as the 12% rally for the Dow Jones industrial average since the low on Feb. 11 has lost some momentum. Her comments today on monetary policy reinforced the Fed’s decision two weeks ago that dialed back its rate hike plans this year to two rate hikes, down from four. Investors were nervous prior to the speech after  comments last week from one Fed member  suggested that the next rate hike could come as early as April.

The Dow, which had its five-week winning streak snapped last week, had been down about 35 points prior to the speech and then quickly moved into positive territory. At the close, the Dow was up about 98 points, or 0.6%, to 17,633 based on preliminary numbers. The S&P 500 index was up or 0.9%, as it moved back into into positive territory for the year, topping its 2015 close of 2043.94. The Nasdaq composite index gained 1.7%.

Tuesday’s finish was the highest this year for both the Dow and S&P and left each in the black for 2016, with the Dow up 1.5% and the S&P up 0.5%. The Nasdaq still has some work to do to wipe out its 2016 loss, and at Tuesday’s close was down 3.2% for the year.

Yellen: Fed to move “cautiously” on rate hikes.  Global economy will impact US.