Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 09 July 2017
Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.
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U.S.
- No Trump press conference at G20 (NBC-2) The president of Russia did it. So did the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Turkey and Spain. Not President Trump. The heads of state of at least a half dozen nations took reporters’ questions at the conclusion of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany on Saturday. Trump, however, did not hold a press conference.
The president’s unwillingness to take questions from reporters is part of an undeniable pattern during his first six months in office.
President Trump has continued the anti-journalism rhetoric that marked his campaign for office. And he has assiduously avoided questions from the White House press corps.
- Former congresswoman pleads with Republicans not to take away her health care (ThinkProgress) A former congresswoman is pleading with Congress not to pass its plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), saying doing so wouldn’t just hurt millions of Americans  –  it would also likely result in her former colleagues hindering her own access to life-saving health care.
In a Washington Post op-ed published Friday evening, former Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards details her personal struggle with health care costs.
Edwards, a Democrat, writes that she was “proud” of helping pass the ACA in 2010, which required her to purchase insurance on the D.C. health exchange created by the legislation. The often staggering costs of health insurance, however, became strikingly real for her in June 2016, when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease that attacks the nervous system.
- Trump Team Met With Lawyer Linked to Kremlin in 2016 (The New York Times) Two weeks after Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination last year, his eldest son arranged a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer who has connections to the Kremlin, according to confidential government records described to The New York Times.
The previously undisclosed meeting was also attended by Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, as well as the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to interviews and the documents, which were outlined by people familiar with them.
While President Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed meetings between his associates and Russians, this episode at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, is the first confirmed private meeting between a Russian national and members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle during the campaign. It is also the first time that his son Donald J. Trump Jr. is known to have been involved in such a meeting.
EU
- ECB Officials Disagree on How Much Is Too Much for Stimulus Plan (Bloomberg) European Central Bank policy makers continued to air their differences over when to rein in stimulus, sending conflicting signals on whether pumping cash into the economy for much longer will help the euro area or hurt it.
Chief economist sees need for ‘long period’ of accommodation
Dutch central-bank chief says ECB is close to overdoing it
France
- French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe says failure to commit to the Paris climate agreement is selfish and ignorant.
- President Trump withdrew from the agreement in June.
- Philippe also announces reforms aimed at retaining businesses on French soil.
Germany
- Merkel defends Ivanka Trump sitting in at G20 meeting (The Hill) German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday defended President Trump’s daughter Ivanka for briefly sitting in for her father during a Group of 20 summit meeting in Germany. Merkel, who served as the host leader of this year’s summit, said at a news conference that it was up to individual nations to decide who represents them, Bloomberg reported. Merkel said, according to the report:
“The delegations themselves decide, should the president not be present for a meeting, who will then take over and sit in the chair. Ivanka Trump was part and parcel of the American delegation so that is something that other delegations also do. It’s very well known that she works at the White House and is also engaged in certain initiatives.”
Russia
- Trump’s disturbing exchange with Putin on election interference (ThinkProgress) Putin says Trump accepted his denials about election interference. Trump’s story isn’t much different. See also Russia says Trump accepted Putin’s denial on election meddling; US disputes that (CNBC).
- Putin: Trump different in person than on TV (The Hill) Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly said Saturday that President Trump is a very different person on television than he is in person after meeting with the U.S. leader. The Kremlin leader said if the two leaders can continue to have more conversations like they did on Friday then the diplomatic relationship between their respective countries could improve. Putin said at a press conference, according to a translation by Wall Street Journal reporter Anton Troianovski:
“Trump on television very much differs from the man in reality. He is very concrete, he fully perceives his interlocutor, and he analyzes and answers questions or new elements that come in the course of the discussion quickly enough.”
China
- White House Confuses Taiwan And China In Painful G20 Press Release Blunder (MSN News) Just before leaving the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on Saturday, President Donald Trump held a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Following that high-level talk, the White House blasted out a transcript of Trump’s public remarks preceding the meeting, a document that called Xi “President Xi of the Republic of China“. One problem: the “Republic of China” refers to Taiwan. China is referred to as the “People’s Republican of China“.
- Cutting China’s coal power ‘overcapacity’ can save water for 27 mn people: Report (Can-India.com) Urging China to cut down on its “severe” coal power overcapacity, a report on Wednesday said this could save enough water to meet annual needs of 27 million people in water-stressed areas.
The report by Greenpeace East Asia said that despite reduction in coal powered plants since 2014, the Chinese coal-fired capacity in areas of high water stress continues to increase.
However, China’s per capita water resources amount to only one-third of the global average. According to the report, by 2020, more than 60 per cent of the coal power industry’s water consumption is projected to take place in areas of high water stress.