Economy
US lawmaker urges Lutnick to resign over alleged Epstein links
A Republican lawmaker has called on U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to step down over his alleged links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, citing newly released court files as the saga over high-profile ties to disgraced financier deepens.
Representative Thomas Massie told broadcaster CNN in an interview published on Sunday that the documents suggest Lutnick visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island and maintained business ties with him years after Epstein pleaded guilty to child prostitution charges in 2008.
“He’s got a lot to answer for, but really, he should make life easier on (U.S. President Donald Trump), frankly, and just resign,” Massie said.
Epstein, who ran a long-running sexual abuse operation involving young women and minors, died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting further prosecution. Lutnick is mentioned repeatedly in the recently unsealed Epstein files, though inclusion in the records does not in itself indicate wrongdoing.
U.S. media, citing emails contained in the documents, reported that Lutnick and his family planned a visit to Epstein’s island, Little St. James, in 2012, with a follow-up message suggesting the trip may have taken place. The island has previously been described as the center of Epstein’s abuse network.
According to The New York Times, Lutnick and Epstein, who were neighbors in New York, invested in the same private company, while CBS News said the two appeared to have business dealings after Epstein became a known sex offender.
Lutnick had said in a podcast last year that he decided in 2005 never to be in the same room again with Epstein, whom he called a “disgusting person.”
The New York Times reported that Lutnick said in a brief phone call last week that he had spent “zero time” with Epstein.
Israel’s targeting of Palestinian labor following the genocidal Gaza war has pushed the occupied West Bank deeper into economic crisis, leaving tens of thousands without income and raising fears of social collapse.
With most work permits revoked and only a fraction restored, families that once depended on higher-paying jobs inside Israel are struggling to afford food, rent and basic necessities, as unemployment surges and desperation spreads across the occupied territory.
Hanadi Abu Zant has been unable to pay the rent on her West Bank apartment for almost a year since her permit to work in Israel was revoked. When her landlord contacts the police, she takes refuge in a mosque.
“My biggest fear is being kicked out of my home. Where will we sleep, on the street?” she said, wiping tears from her cheeks.
She is among some 100,000 Palestinians whose work permits were revoked since Israel’s relentless war on Gaza began. Confined to the occupied territory, where jobs are scarce and wages far lower, they face dwindling and dangerous options as the economic crisis deepens.
Some have sold their belongings or gone into debt as they try to pay for food, electricity and school expenses for their children. Others have paid steep fees for black-market permits or tried to sneak into Israel, risking arrest or worse.
Israel, which has been occupying the West Bank for nearly six decades, claims it is under no obligation to allow Palestinians to enter for work and makes such decisions based on security considerations. Thousands of Palestinians are still allowed to work in scores of Jewish settlements across the West Bank, built on land they want for a future state.
Risk of collapse
The World Bank has warned that the West Bank economy is at risk of collapse because of Israel’s restrictions. By the end of last year, unemployment had surged to nearly 30% compared with around 12% before the war, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Israel’s genocidal war has killed over 72,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023, after Palestinian resistance group Hamas’ surprise cross-border attack, according to the Health Ministry. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties.
Since the last October cease-fire, Israel’s attacks have killed more than 580 Palestinians.
Before the war, tens of thousands of Palestinians worked inside Israel, mainly in construction and service jobs. Wages can be more than double those in the landlocked West Bank, where decades of Israeli checkpoints, land seizures and other restrictions have weighed heavily on the economy.
About 100,000 Palestinians had work permits that were revoked after the outbreak of the war. Israel has since reinstated fewer than 10,000, according to Gisha, an Israeli group advocating for Palestinian freedom of movement.
Wages earned in Israel injected some $4 billion into the Palestinian economy in 2022, according to the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank. That’s equivalent to about two-thirds of the Palestinian Authority’s budget that year.
Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want back for a future state. Some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, along with over 500,000 Israeli settlers who can come and go freely.
The war in Gaza has brought a spike in settler violence. And military operations that Israel claims are aimed at dismantling armed groups have caused heavy damage in the West Bank and displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians.
‘My refrigerator, it’s empty’
After her husband left five years ago, Abu Zant secured a job at a food-packing plant in Israel that paid around $1,400 a month, enough to support her four children. When the war erupted, she thought the ban would only last a few months. She baked pastries for friends to scrape by.
While there are no definite figures, tens of thousands of Palestinians are believed to be working illegally in Israel, according to Esteban Klor, professor of economics at Israel’s Hebrew University and a senior researcher at the INSS. Some risk their lives trying to cross Israel’s separation barrier, which consists of 9-meter-high (30-foot) concrete walls, fences and closed military roads.
Shuhrat Barghouthi’s husband has spent five months in prison for trying to climb the barrier to enter Israel for work, she said. Before the war, the couple worked in Israel, earning a combined $5,700 a month. Now they are both unemployed and around $14,000 in debt.
“Come and see my refrigerator, it’s empty, there’s nothing to feed my children,” she said. She can’t afford to heat her apartment, where she hasn’t paid rent in two years. She says her children are often sick and frequently go to bed hungry.
Sometimes she returns home to see her belongings strewn in the street by the landlord, who has been trying to evict them.
Forced to work in settlements
Of the roughly 48,000 Palestinians who worked in Israeli settlements before the war, more than 65% have kept their permits, according to Gisha. The Palestinians and most of the international community view the settlements, which have rapidly expanded in recent years, as illegal.
Palestinians employed in the settlements, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, say their employers have beefed up security since the start of the war and are far more willing to fire anyone stepping out of line, knowing there are plenty more desperate for work.
Two Palestinians working in the Mishor Adumim settlement said security guards look through workers’ phones and revoke their permits arbitrarily.
Israelis have turned to foreign workers to fill jobs held by Palestinians, but some say it’s a poor substitute because they cost more and do not know the language. Palestinians speak Arabic, but those who work in Israel are often fluent in Hebrew.
Raphael Dadush, an Israeli developer, said the permit crackdown has resulted in costly delays.
Before the war, Palestinians made up more than half of his workforce. He’s tried to replace them with Chinese workers but says it’s not exactly the same.
Assaf Adiv, the executive director of an Israeli group advocating for Palestinian labor rights, said there has to be some economic integration, or there will be “chaos.”
“The alternative to work in Israel is starvation and desperation,” he said.
This week’s release of the first quarterly inflation report of 2026 by the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) is expected to serve as an early test of the country’s disinflation drive.
Analysts broadly expect policymakers to revise their year-end inflation forecasts upward, but markets will also be looking at potential clues on the interest rate path for the coming months.
Annual consumer price growth has continued to ease steadily, though monthly volatility has persisted. That is seen as one of the factors behind the central bank’s more cautious easing cycle.
Some officials and analysts now say policymakers may need to either slow the pace of rate cuts that began more than a year ago or tolerate a slower rate of disinflation. Most expect a combination of both.
Authorities have been pursuing a more than 2.5-year effort to curb inflation, which has gradually fallen to around 30% as of last month, after peaking near 75% in mid-2024.
Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz said on Saturday that Türkiye’s tight and disciplined monetary and fiscal policies were vital but “not enough,” stressing that supply-side policies could also help to tame annual inflation that had risen as high as 75% in mid-2024.
Yılmaz said the 45-point fall in inflation since May 2024 was not enough, adding the government was on a path to further lower consumer prices.
“We will maintain our tight monetary policy, we will keep our disciplined fiscal policies, we are determined to do this. But these are not enough either. On the other hand, we have to contribute to our battle with inflation through our supply-side policies,” he added.
Lifting forecasts
Attention will turn to Thursday’s inflation report, where Governor Fatih Karahan is widely expected to raise the bank’s year-end forecast from the current 13%-19% range.
Karahan could even nudge the bank’s interim end-2026 target up from 16%, though that move is less certain, given that the target is meant to remain largely fixed in order to guide policy expectations, the analysts say.
Last month, consumer price inflation surged nearly 5% month-over-month, a higher-than-expected uptick that officials attributed to “seasonal factors” and one-off adjustments.
It is expected to slow to around 3% this month.
Easing cyle
Monetary policy easing has zig-zagged since the central bank first cut its key interest rate from 50% in late 2024.
Nearly a year ago, it briefly reversed course due to market volatility, and has since slashed rates by 300 basis points, then 250, 100, 150, and again by 100 points to 37% last month.
Having already slowed its easing, the central bank warned last month about risks to the disinflation process and said it would tighten policy if there were a “significant deviation in inflation outlook from the interim targets.”
Some analysts predict the central bank may need to pause the cuts, possibly as soon as its next rate decision in March, to avoid this deviation.
Wall Street bank JPMorgan raised its year-end consumer price index (CPI) forecast to 24% from 23% and predicted a series of 100-point cuts this year, with the chance of a smaller easing in March due to restaurant and food price pressure during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Türkiye has remained economically resilient despite mounting global uncertainty, underpinned by free trade agreements, strong service exports and an ongoing reform agenda, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said on Monday.
Şimşek, speaking at the Conference for Emerging Market Economies in Saudi Arabia, described last year as a challenging period for the global economy marked by “volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.”
“It’s been a difficult year with heightened uncertainty, in particular for emerging markets,” he said.
Şimşek said Türkiye is relatively resilient to global trade fragmentation, noting that about 62% of its exports are covered by the EU Customs Union and free trade pacts with 27 countries.
While not fully immune, these agreements provide partial protection, and the rest of trade is largely concentrated in nearby regions such as the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.
He said Türkiye ranks among the world’s top 20 in services trade, highlighting its position as fourth in tourism and a global leader in construction and TV series exports. He stressed that services have so far been less affected by protectionism than goods, giving Türkiye an edge, and said the government is prioritizing the sector for its high added value and job creation potential.
Şimşek says Türkiye also prioritizes and invests in the field of artificial intelligence, and stated that along with infrastructure investments, they attach importance to the human capital dimension, skills development, and education.
Şimşek explained that they are also focusing on regional integration, stating that connectivity is a part of this, and that they are building new corridors.
He said Türkiye sits on the Middle Corridor from Beijing to London and is working on new routes linking the Gulf to global markets via Türkiye, adding that boosting connectivity is central to the strategy, alongside energy investments, including plans to build two or three additional nuclear power plants in the coming decades to meet rising demand driven by AI.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles, shared confidential British trade documents with Jeffrey Epstein in 2010, leaking information to the late sex offender during his tenure as a government envoy, emails appear to show.
The former prince, 65, has faced years of scrutiny over his friendship with Epstein, a relationship that has cost him his role in the royal family, titles and home. Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing and not responded to requests for comment since the latest release of Epstein files.
In the latest batch of files released in the U.S., emails appear to show that Andrew forwarded to Epstein reports about Vietnam, Singapore and other places, which he had been sent in relation to a trip he made in an official capacity.
It was not immediately clear whether authorities were planning to open an investigation into Andrew’s sharing of information.
Trade envoys are usually barred from sharing sensitive or commercial documents under confidentiality rules.
Over the last 10 days, revelations from the Epstein files have engulfed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the biggest crisis of his premiership, after he appointed an acquaintance of Epstein, Peter Mandelson, as ambassador to the United States.
Like Andrew, it appears that Mandelson also shared sensitive government files from 2009 and 2010 with Epstein, and police are investigating claims of misconduct in public office.
Thames Valley Police said last week they were reviewing a new allegation against Andrew involving a woman being taken to an address in Windsor in light of the latest Epstein files.
Mountbatten-Windsor, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth, was forced to quit all official royal duties in 2019 and, last October, Charles removed his title of prince. Andrew was moved out of his royal mansion last week.
British government bond yields surged early on Monday as investors continued to weigh the political future of Prime Minister Keir Starmer amid the fallout from the Epstein crisis, although they later eased to move more in line with U.S. Treasuries.
Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, quit on Sunday, saying he took responsibility for advising Starmer to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the U.S. despite his known links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Some in Starmer’s Labor Party are openly questioning his judgment and his future, and investors are increasingly bracing for a challenge to his leadership, raising uncertainty over the path of British fiscal policy.
On Monday, Starmer’s director of communications, Tim Allan, also resigned.
The 10-year gilt yield rose to a high of 4.554% at 08:21 a.m. GMT, up 4 basis points on the day, before easing to 4.533%, in line with a rise in 10-year U.S. Treasuries. Long-dated gilt yields, most sensitive to worries over the budget outlook, rose by similar amounts.
“The decision by his most senior adviser to fall on his sword may buy Starmer some time, but signs of widespread discontent on the backbench, compounded by diabolically bad poll results, are creating the impression that his days are numbered,” said Benjamin Picton, senior market strategist at Rabobank.
On Feb. 5, when there was a previous bout of concerns about Starmer’s future, 10-year gilt yields rose to their highest since Nov. 20 at 4.605% before retreating sharply after the Bank of England (BoE) came closer than expected to cutting interest rates in that day’s decision.
However, gilt auctions in recent weeks have shown exceptionally strong levels of demand. The sale of a five-year gilt due on Tuesday will provide the next test of investor appetite. Economic growth data on Thursday could also move the market.
Türkiye has decided to suspend chicken meat exports ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in a bid to stabilize domestic prices and prevent what authorities described as unjustified increases that could strain consumers.
The decision came after domestic poultry producers and sellers raised prices by as much as 15% before Ramadan, prompting the government to intervene to protect the domestic market.
The Trade Ministry said the decision aimed to support the supply-demand balance and curb volatility in food prices.
Ramadan is a month when Muslims are united in a ritual of daily fasting from dawn to sunset. This year’s Ramadan is due to start next week.
For Muslims, it’s a time of increased worship, religious reflection, charity and good deeds. Socially, it often brings families and friends together in festive gatherings around meals to break their fast.
Türkiye frequently takes temporary trade measures ahead of Ramadan, when food demand typically rises, to contain inflation and ensure a stable supply of essential goods.
Annual inflation in Türkiye has been gradually easing and lastly dipped to 30.65% in January. Still, food has been one of the main contributors to rising prices.
In a statement, the Trade Ministry said recent regional developments affecting food markets, combined with rising domestic demand and seasonal shifts in consumption patterns, have accelerated price movements in certain product groups, including poultry.
“Price developments in the poultry meat market have been closely monitored, and it has been carefully assessed whether price formation has remained within the framework of normal market conditions,” the ministry said.
“Within this framework, as a step to support the supply-demand balance in the market, measures to suspend poultry meat exports have been implemented as of today.”
The ministry added that “any practice or speculative pricing behavior that could victimize our consumers or disrupt market mechanisms through exorbitant price exploitation is being closely monitored,” noting that the necessary inspection and sanction processes were being carried out with “determination.”
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar; the month cycles through the seasons.
The start of the month traditionally depends on the sighting of the crescent moon. This year, the first day is expected to be on Feb. 19.
Fasting is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, along with the profession of faith, prayer, almsgiving and pilgrimage.
Muslims see various meanings and lessons in observing the fast.
It’s regarded as an act of worship to attain God-conscious piety and one of submission to God. The devout see benefits, including practicing self-restraint, growing closer to God, cultivating gratitude and empathizing with people who are poor and hungry.
The daily fast in Ramadan includes abstaining from all food and drink – not even a sip of water is allowed – from dawn to sunset before breaking the fast in a meal known as “iftar” in Arabic.
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