I found out that Bitfinex and Tether have the same parent company, so that explains why they both have bank problems. But there's more going on that also affects other exchanges that trade BTCUSD. See here. The question now is, does Bitfinex want to comply with the new AML regulations. Only then can they resume USD withdrawals.

Sooner or later that should have happened

And I don't mean just Bitfinex alone but rather relationship entire between Bitcoin representing crypto, on the one side, and the US dollar representing fiat, on the other. It seems that we are close to an open confrontation between the fiat camp and cryptocurrency camp. It may look that the former have the overwhelming advantage but I wouldn't be too fast with sweeping conclusions. Some people are saying that Bitcoin and friends are depending on fiat, now we will see if it is actually so. Personally, I think that Bitcoin can exist without fiat perfectly well since it is money as well as a payment system in and of itself. I understand that many people are interested in the withdrawals of the US dollar (i.e. converting their bitcoins to fiat) but not all people actually need that

Could you provide any proofs to your claims?

So far it looks more like a smear campaign. Why would they want to sell their bitcoins and how do you know that? I guess if they really had bitcoins in any significant amounts, that would bring the prices down. Also, what about cryptocurrency withdrawals? Are those allowed? If they are allowed, this is not logical if they were really going to scam on us. Could anyone clarify how matters stand in respect to such withdrawals? Further, if USD withdrawals (as well as deposits) are disallowed for the reasons specified by the exchange, I think you wouldn't be able to withdraw to any bank account irrespective of where you are living

It looks like their main update channel isr/bitcoin.

Ente

Does anyone trade on Bitfinex know how to calculate their fees? I can't find a definite list of my fees per trade.

Do they automatically calculate it into my trade price? effective trade pricing? Bittrex does that well.

Unlike other exchanges (e.g. Btc-e), they take the fees not from the amount you bought, but from your leftover balance. That may cause a lot of confusion, for example, when you place a Sell order of, say, 1 BTC and have no leftover (i.e. your available balance becomes 0), your order will be filled only partially (order amount minus fees). If you want to see the list of fee transactions, you go to Account->Reports->Balances, and then choose the currency which you traded

Are cryptocurrency withdrawals working flawlessly at this exchange today?

You can deposit, withdraw and trade cryptos as much as you want at any amount without any verification.
Only getting fiat on and off needs verification.
You can, for example, send BTC to BitFinex, trade all pairs (including USD), and withdraw your gains in Ether.

Ente

There are quite a few options there

You may whitelist IP addresses which are allowed to access the site (though it is not really recommended if you have a dynamic IP address). You may also disallow withdrawals from new IP addresses for 24 hours in case someone steals your credentials and tries to withdraw your funds. If I'm not mistaken, you can also lock withdrawal addresses, i.e. the withdrawals will be possible only to the specified addresses. There seem to be a few other options but I didn't look into them

Write down the private key for your Bitfinex withdrawal address and store it where you have stored backups from all your other private keys? Just a thought.