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Why was there a five-year delay in passing the Caesar Act? What was stopping the US administration? Bilal Farouk, a member of the Syrian-American Council, says that after "Caesar" arrived at the United States, in an attempt to prepare the Act, "we knew the reasons preventing the Act from being passed in Congress and the person who had been disrupting the process."

Bilal adds that after Caesar left Syria and with the aid of jurists to permit him to share the documents he had attained, he was listened to in the beginning, in an attempt to figure out whether or not any Americans were among those who were murdered. This would have allowed for the issue to become one of the US public opinions. However, after seeing the images, it became apparent that the problem was much bigger than that. It became evident that the issue went beyond imposing sanctions to protect civilians.

When the Act was proposed at the beginning of 2016, Barack Obama was still the President of the United States. When the Act was drafted, the tone was different; it had humane objectives to protect civilians and prisoners. It did not include international sanctions on other countries and did not include the oil industry or the army. It was widely supported, and it was imagined that it would pass through the parliament.

At the end of his term, Obama was ready to celebrate the nuclear deal with Iran. He feared that passing this Act may affect the nuclear deal. He called the Speaker of the House of Representatives at the time, Nancy Pelosi, on Friday, only a few days before the Congress was supposed to vote on the Act. According to reliable sources from Pelosi's office, he asked her to withdraw the vote.

After that, civil organizations that followed up the issue tried, once again, in the hopes that it would be re-proposed for voting. In the beginning, the process of passing the legislation was that of independent Act, and it was supported by the vast majority of the Congress. This is what happened after Trump was elected, and the Republicans took over the Senate. The Republican Senator of Kentucky, Rand Paul, known for his relations with Russia and for supporting Bashar Assad, prevented it from being passed in the Senate because this type of Act cannot pass without getting the vote of the entire Senate.

Rand Paul disrupted the passing of the Act in the Senate for three years. He would bounce it back to Congress to vote on it and refer it to the Senate to no avail. Consequently, Syrian organizations decided to communicate with US attorneys and civil organizations to find a way to pass the Act. It was agreed that the Act would be included in the budget Act of the Department of Defense. That way, it would not need to be approved by the entire Senate. It received 74 votes.

Last year, there was an attempt to include the Caesar Act in the budget, but it was challenged by problems that faced Trump in Congress after Democrats took over. This led to a shutting down of the US Government for 35 days as a result of Trump's insistence on including the infamous wall on the border of Mexico in the budget. This suspended the ability to pass any proposition or Act during that time, primarily that the budget cannot be referred to the President to be signed unless it received partisan agreement and the majority of both Congress and Senate members.

This year it was different; Syrian organizations succeeded in including the Caesar Act in the budget.

Bilal concludes by saying that "Caesar" was documenting the corpses and linking them to the victim's name and number, so the information he was gathering was dangerous. He confirmed that "Caesar" is not in the US and that he goes to Washington from time to time to meet with Congress members and US security agencies. However, he worries that if his identity was revealed, he would be murdered by the Russian, Syrian, or Iranian security agencies. This is what has happened and continues to happen to others.

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Obama Obstructed 'Caesar Act' to Save the Nuclear Deal With Iran - Asharq Al-awsat English

Listen in on a conversation with former First Lady Michelle Obama in Anaheim.

Tickets are now on sale for an April 2 visit by Obama to the Honda Center. The conversations moderator has yet to be announced.

Obama, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, started her career as a lawyer in Chicago before later working in the Chicago mayors office and at universities. As first lady from 2009 to 2017, she championed initiatives combating childhood obesity, supporting military families and veterans, encouraging higher education and pushing for more educational opportunities for girls around the world.

Last year she published her memoir, Becoming.

Before her stop in Anaheim, Obama will hold a similar appearance at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on April 1.

Tickets start at $99; seating is in the lower bowl and on the floor. A limited meet and greet VIP package is available for $3,000.

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Tickets on sale for Michelle Obama in conversation at the Honda Center - OCRegister

President Barack Obama signs the the financial reform bill into law July 21, 2010.

Getty Images

To sum up the past decade, you could call it a tale of two presidents.

For evidence of that, look no further than the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

The financial overhaul legislation was signed into law by then-President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010.

On the heels of the financial crisis, it was intended to help rein in banks. The law also paved the way for tougher consumer protections.

It ordered the SEC to evaluate how the industry provides investment advice to retail customers. In 2011, the agency released a study advocating for the creation of a uniform fiduciary standard for investment advisors and broker-dealers.

The measure also called for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government body specifically devoted to serving as a consumer watchdog.

Fast forward: On May 24, 2018, President Donald Trump signed a rollback of a number of banking regulations that were included in that law.

After signing, U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order rolling back regulations from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law on Wall Street reform at the White House in Washington February 3, 2017.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

And while that didn't affect the two big consumer protections, it is up for debate whether consumers are in a better position almost a decade later.

Aaron Klein, a fellow in economic studies at Brookings Institution who helped craft the Dodd-Frank Act, said the answer is a definitive no.

"The Trump administration took over," Klein said. "They told the police to take a break, and they stopped recording crime."

"Ultimately, consumers will lose billions of dollars as a result of purposeful neglect," he said.

One of the big misses this decade, investor advocates argue, is the failure to establish a fiduciary rule.

The regulation was aimed at getting brokers and investment advisors to adhere to a higher standard when providing advice for clients.

Many advocates consider the fiduciary standard to be better protection, because it requires financial professionals to put their clients' best interests ahead of their own.

Investment advisors, for example, have traditionally been held to that. Brokers, meanwhile, have answered to something known as the suitability rule, which means brokers were free to sell clients any investment as long as it was "suitable" for the client at the time, even if cheaper alternatives were available.

Efforts to put together a joint fiduciary rule created an ongoing saga over the past decade.

Despite the SEC's authority to issue a fiduciary rule, the panel mostly didn't take action following its 2011 report. It wasn't until this year that the agency began rolling out a rule called Regulation Best Interest.

While the SEC stalled, the Department of Labor and even some states moved to establish their own fiduciary rules. The Department of Labor's efforts were squashed when the Trump administration took over. But the DOL has said it plans to work on a new rule governing retirement accounts.

While Regulation Best Interest is legally in force, financial firms have until June to comply.

Comedian John Oliver takes a shot at non-fiduciary financial advisors and their spiraling 401(k) fees on a recent segment of "Last Week Tonight."

Source: Last Week Tonight | HBO | YouTube

The rule, called Reg BI for short, requires brokers to keep retail customers' best interests in mind when recommending securities. It also requires broker-dealers and investment advisors to provide clients with a new form that summarizes the relationship.

Critics say the rule falls short of providing investors with full fiduciary coverage.

"It, to some degree, made the area more complex and harmful for consumers," said Jamie Hopkins, director of retirement research at Carson Group and professor at Creighton University Heider College of Business.

"They've expanded the use of the language 'best interest,' when in my belief that's really 'suitability' plus additional disclosures," Hopkins said.

Yet many in the financial industry have embraced the rule.

Earlier this month, Kenneth Bentsen Jr., president and CEO of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, an industry trade group that represents securities firms, called Reg BI a "robust and strict standard."

"It is not a disclosure-only based rule," Bentsen said. "It is much stricter than that."

Hopkins argues that the change puts the burden on the consumer to ask financial advisors if they are fiduciaries and to clarify how they get paid and what services they provide.

"If that's something you want, have the advisor put that in writing that they are a fiduciary," Hopkins said.

As with the fiduciary rule, efforts to develop the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into a robust watchdog have also taken different turns amid the change in administrations.

For evidence, look no further than to the CFPB's own shifting leadership.

When Richard Cordray, the first director of the CFPB, announced in November 2017 that he was stepping down, both he and President Trump named a replacement.

Cordray promoted chief of staff Leandra English to the role of deputy director and said she would serve as acting director until the Senate confirmed a successor.

Instead, Trump named his own acting director, Mick Mulvaney.

Consumer advocates complained that the CFPB's authority was watered down under Mulvaney's leadership, citing an April New York Times Magazine article, "Mick Mulvaney's Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy from Within."

Last December, Kathy Kraninger was confirmed by the Senate as the new director. To cap off her one-year anniversary, the CFPB recently put out a release boasting of its accomplishments.

On that list is an item payday loans that has sparked criticism. These short-term loans often saddle consumers with high interest rates as they try to cover their cash needs between paychecks.

In 2017, the CFPB issued a rule that would establish stricter regulations for payday lenders. But this year, the agency has proposed delaying compliance and rescinding tougher underwriting requirements that lenders would face.

"The biggest concerns that we see with the CFPB today is they are holding the hands of the payday lenders," said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.

"That means that the debt trap will continue and people will continue to lose their cars and their bank accounts as a result of the continued destruction of payday loans," she said.

Klein also criticized the agency for "rewarding the naughty list."

"They have stuffed the stockings of payday lenders and the people who were convicted or pleaded guilty to financial malfeasance by reducing fines," he said.

The good news is that Congress has left the CFPB intact, which means a new administration could re-energize it, Klein said.

A woman enters an All American Check Cashing location in Brandon, Miss., May 12, 2017.

Rogelio V. Solis | AP

"A new director would have substantial authority to revive the agency, and elections have consequences," Klein said. "The CFPB day to day, month to month, needs to be independent."

However, not everyone agrees that having a separate agency dedicated to consumer protection is necessary.

The Federal Trade Commission already protects consumers against fraud, said Norbert Michel, director for the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"All you did was give this new agency this vague new power and said we're going to figure it out later on, which isn't doing anything to protect anyone against fraud," Michel said.

The CFPB's evolution has helped to do one thing: raise public awareness of consumer protection issues, Jun said.

But as with the fiduciary rule, the onus is on the consumer to ask the right questions and speak up if they are wronged.

Individuals should still turn to the CFPB's public complaint database to make their voices heard, Jun said. They should also consider talking to a lawyer or reporting egregious practices to their state attorneys general, she said.

"If something doesn't seem right to you, look into it," Jun said.

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This was supposed to be the decade of tougher consumer protections. That didn't happen - CNBC

Michael Thomas Nowak and Gregg Francis Smith object to the US authorities motion for a complete stay of the CFTC action against them.

About a week after the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a set of documents with the Illinois Northern District Court arguing in favor of a complete stayof the CFTC action against Michael Thomas Nowak and Gregg Francis Smith, the traders have objected to the authorities arguments.

Lets recall that the CFTC charges the defendants with spoofing, engaging in a manipulative and deceptive scheme, and attempting to manipulate prices in the precious metals futures markets while employed at a major US bank. On December 13, 2019, the CFTC and the DOJ once again made clear their stance that the civil case should be stayed pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

On December 20, 2019, the defendants filed their response to the CFTC and the DOJ. Nowak argues that the stay of the civil case should not be complete and that instead it should be partial, and discovery should be allowed to proceed.

According to Nowak, contrary to the CFTCs assertions, his request for a stay that protects him from taking actions that might implicate his Fifth Amendment rights, such as responding to pleadings, answering interrogatories, or being deposed, in no way belies his assertion that he seeks to resolve this matter as expeditiously as is practicable.

Nowak argues that the defendants have a strong interest in expeditiously resolving serious civil charges brought against them by government agencies.

The trader notes that waiting to begin document discovery until the conclusion of the criminal case will significantly delay the resolution of this matter, particularly because document discovery is likely to be extensive. Commencing document discovery now will avoid undue delay, Nowak says.

In addition, Nowak argues that the CFTC has conducted a lengthy and extensive investigation and presumably obtained extensive evidence, none of which it has shared with the defendants. In that context, a proposal that both sides be permitted to engage in document discovery cannot reasonably be characterized as an attempt to gain a tactical advantage, he says.

The defendants urge the Court to reject the CFTCs arguments and deny the DOJs motion for a complete stay of the action.

According to the CFTC complaint, from at least 2008 and continuing through at least 2015, Nowak and Smith repeatedly engaged in manipulative or deceptive acts and practices by spoofing (bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution) while placing orders for and trading precious metals futures contracts on CME Group Inc.s exchanges. The defendants are alleged to have placed thousands of orders with the intention to cancel them in order to send false signals of increased buying or selling interest designed to trick market participants into executing the orders the defendants wanted filled. The complaint also alleges that Nowak and Smith engaged in spoofing with the intent to manipulate market prices and create artificial prices, and thereby enable their orders to be filled sooner, at a better price, or in larger quantities than they otherwise would.

In its action against Nowak and Smith, the CFTC seeks, among other things, civil monetary penalties, disgorgement, restitution, trading bans, and a permanent injunction against future violations of the federal commodities laws.

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Precious metals traders accused of spoofing insist stay of CFTC action should be partial - FinanceFeeds

>>> Quang Hai in 24-man shortlist for Best Footballer in Asia 2019

Ahead of the 2020 AFC U23 Championship in Thailand next January, the AFC has hosted a vote for fans favourite goal from the eight iconic goals of the tournament since its inception in 2013. Quang Hais superb free kick in the snow storm in the final of the 2018 tournament was in the running.

After one week, Quang Hai's free kick against reigning champions Uzbekistan U23s in the 2018 final in Changzhou (China) was the winner of the vote, gaining a total of 1,159,847 votes, streaks ahead of the second most voted for goal by Iranian player Mahdi Torabi against China U23 in 2016 which had a total of 298,037 votes.

The voting result for the most iconic goal at the AFC U23 Championship.

The goal by the Hanoi FCs midfielder was ultimately the deserving winner as it was not merely an equaliser for Vietnam in a very tense situation against Uzbekistan in that final, but also showed other noble values such as team spirit, unwavering belief and the desire of the entire team in the harsh weather conditions many of the players had never experienced before.

Talking about the iconic goal of Quang Hai, the AFC wrote while Uzbekistan won the tournament, Nguyen Quang Hai captured the imagination of fans with his 'Rainbow in the Snow' in the final one of five superb goals by the midfielder providing one of the most iconic moments the competition has ever witnessed.

In the final in January 27, 2018, Uzbekistan opened the scoring in the eighth minute, thanks to Rustamjon Ashurmatovs header, but Quang Hais Rainbow in the Snow levelled proceedings as half-time approached. Vietnam performed admirably and appeared to be heading for a penalty shootout as the game entered its 120th minute. However, substitute Andrey Sidorov volleyed home Dostonbek Khamdamovs corner to seal the victory in the 120th minute to help Uzbekistan claim their first title of the AFC U23 Championship.

Let's witness the superb goal "Rainbow in the Snow" by Quang Hai. (Video: AFC)

The iconic goal by Quang Hai is expected to bring a lot of spiritual meaning to him as a source of encouragement not only for the Hanoian, but also for his entire Vietnam U23 team before leaving for Thailand to attend this years finals.

Coach Park Hang-seo and his players are eager to recreate their impressive achievement in 2018, heading towards a Top 3 finish in the tournament held in Thailand to be granted a ticket to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Currently, Hai and his teammates are in Ho Chi Minh City for their final preparation ahead of the 2020 AFC U23 Championship. They have arrived home after a 10-day training camp in the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Park and his Korean assistants will join Vietnam U23 squad in Ho Chi Minh City this afternoon after a short Christmas holiday in their home country. The team will be back to training from December 25 to prepare for a friendly with V.League 1 side Becamex Binh Duong on December 28.

On January 1, 2020, the squad will set off to Thailand for the 2020 AFC U23 Championship. According to the plan, Parks side will have one last rehearsal with a final friendly with Bahrain U23s on January 3 next year.

On January 10, Vietnam will officially kick-off their Thai campaign with the Group D opener against the UAE, before facing Jordan on January 13. The reigning runners-up will wrap up their group stage with a match against DPR Korea on January 16.

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Quang Hai's 'Rainbow in the Snow' top voted for AFC U23 Championship's Iconic Goals - Nhan Dan Online