Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 15 August 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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Global
- Asian shares gain as risk aversion takes a backseat; Nikkei rises 1.1% (CNBC) Equities in Asia closed higher on Tuesday, with markets benefiting from Wall Street’s strong lead and subsiding risk aversion. The dollar index edged up to 93.717 at 3:08 p.m. HK/SIN. Brent crude edged up 0.02% to trade at $50.74 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude shed 0.08% to trade at $47.56. Spot gold was down 0.5% at $1,275.79 per ounce, as of 0315 GMT. U.S. gold futures for December delivery shed 0.7% to $1,281.40 per ounce.
U.S.
- Merck and Under Armour CEOs resign from Trump council over Charlottesville (Reuters) See also Intel CEO becomes third exec to leave Trump council after Charlottesville (The Hill). The chief executives of Merck & Co Inc and Under Armour Inc resigned from U.S. President Donald Trump’s American Manufacturing Council on Monday, following Trump’s initially tepid response to weekend violence at a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Kenneth Fraizer, the chief executive of drugmaker Merck and an African-American, said he left the advisory council because of the president’s reaction after the violence between white supremacists and counter protesters. Frazier cited the need to “take a stand against intolerance and extremism.”
The AFL-CIO, a federation of labor unions that represent 12.5 million workers, said it was considering pulling its representative on the committee.
- Justice demands 1.3M IP addresses related to Trump resistance site (The Hill) The Department of Justice has requested information on visitors to a website used to organize protests against President Trump, the Los Angeles-based Dreamhost said in a blog post published on Monday. Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.
DreamHost claimed that the complying with the request from the Justice Department would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content and photos of thousands of visitors to the website, which was involved in organizing protests against Trump on Inauguration Day.
- Trump campaign emails show aide’s repeated efforts to set up Russia meetings (The Washington Post) Three days after Donald Trump named his campaign foreign policy team in March 2016, the youngest of the new advisers sent an email to seven campaign officials with the subject line: “Meeting with Russian Leadership – Including Putin.”
The adviser, George Papadopoulos, offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity,according to internal campaign emails read to The Washington Post.
The proposal sent a ripple of concern through campaign headquarters in Trump Tower. Campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis wrote that he thought NATO allies should be consulted before any plans were made. Another Trump adviser, retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, cited legal concerns, including a possible violation of U.S. sanctions against Russia and of the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from unauthorized negotiation with foreign governments.
- Trump to sign executive order Tuesday on infrastructure projects (Reuters) President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday “establishing discipline and accountability in the environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure projects,” the White House said in a statement on Monday. Trump, who was a real estate developer before becoming president, made rebuilding the country’s crumbling infrastructure a top campaign issue. He has proposed leveraging $200 billion in government spending into $1 trillion of projects to privatize the air traffic control system, strengthen rural infrastructure and repair bridges, roads and waterways. Econintersect: Although no details were provided by the White House we interpret “discipline and accountability” to mean cancellation of some environmental regulations.
- Holocaust Memorial in Boston damaged for second time this summer (The Boston Globe) The New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston has been damaged for the second time this summer. A photograph from a Globe reporter at the scene showed the glass paneling on a piece of the memorial smashed. Boston police officers were also at the scene. One person is in custody for alleged vandalism, Boston police representatives told The Globe, adding that a call came in around 6:40 p.m. Monday.
- Tech companies in the crosshairs on white supremacy and free speech (Reuters) The neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer had its internet domain registration revoked twice in less than 24 hours in the wake of the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, part of a broad move by the tech industry in recent months to take a stronger hand in policing online hate-speech and incitements to violence.
GoDaddy Inc, which manages internet names and registrations, disclosed late on Sunday via Twitter that it had given Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its domain to another provider, saying it had violated GoDaddy’s terms of service.
The white supremacist website helped organize the weekend rally in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man plowed a car into a crowd protesting the white nationalist rally.
After GoDaddy revoked Daily Stormer’s registration, the website turned to Alphabet Inc’s Google Domains. The Daily Stormer domain was registered with Google shortly before 8 a.m. Monday PDT (1500 GMT) and the company announced plans to revoke it at 10:56 a.m., according to a person familiar with the revocation.
- Analyzing ‘the homework gap’ among high school students (Brookings) There is a reason why Asian students excel in American schools.
France
- 100 Days: Record Dissatisfaction with President Macron (The Diplomatic Observer) An Ifop poll shows that at the same time in his presidency François Hollande was 10 points above with a performance satisfaction rating of 46% against Macron’s 36%. The new president’s popularity fell faster in July than for any President since 1995.
Germany
- Germany Misses Q2 Expectations (Twitter)
Italy
- Italy Works with Libyans to Stop Migrants and Control NGOs (The Diplomatic Observer) Italy has given official support to Libya’s decision to ban unauthorized NGO rescue vessels from its coastal waters. Justifying their position, the Italian Interior Ministry said there were 11,193 new arrivals in July, compared to 23,552 last July. Italy has sent two ships to Libya, to help the Libyan coastguard in patrolling the sea and has come to an agreement with Libya to train and equip its coastguard.
Italy’s foreign minister, Angelino Alfano, told La Stampa, an Italian newspaper, that Libya’s actions meant that “balance is being restored in the Mediterranean“. He said the Libyan government was “ready to put in place a search-and-rescue zone in its waters, work with Europe and invest in its coast guards“.
North Korea
- North Korea’s Kim holds off on Guam missile plan; Seoul says will prevent war by all means (Reuters) North Korea’s leader has delayed a decision on firing missiles towards Guam while he watches U.S. actions a little longer, the North’s state media said on Tuesday, as South Korea’s president said Seoul would seek to prevent war by all means. In his first public appearance in about two weeks, Kim Jong Un inspected the command of the North’s army on Monday, examining a plan to land four missiles near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, the official KCNA said in a report. The report said:
“He said that if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the self-restraint of the DPRK, the latter will make an important decision as it already declared.”
South Korea
- South Korea Will Prevent War at All Costs, President Moon Says (Bloomberg) South Korean President Moon Jae-in says any military action against Kim Jong Un’s regime requires South Korea’s consent.
China
- China says it will defend interests if U.S. harms trade ties (Reuters) China will take action to defend its interests if the United States damages trade ties, the Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday, after U.S. President Donald Trump authorized an inquiry into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property.
Trump’s move, the first direct trade measure by his administration against China, comes at a time of heightened tension over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, though it is unlikely to prompt near-term change in commercial ties.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will have a year to look into whether to launch a formal investigation of China’s policies on intellectual property, which the White House and U.S. industry groups say are harming U.S. businesses and jobs.
Venezuela
- Venezuela’s Maduro calls for military exercises after Trump threat (Reuters) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday called for military exercises after U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of a possible armed intervention in the country, but Maduro insisted he still wanted to hold talks with the U.S. leader. As Maduro told supporters in Caracas to prepare for an “imperialist” invasion, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence sought to calm concerns in the region about Trump’s talk, promising a peaceful solution to Venezuela’s “collapse into dictatorship.” The unpopular Maduro, struggling with a collapsing economy at home and increasing diplomatic isolation abroad, has used Trump’s comments on Friday to reaffirm long-standing accusations that Washington is preparing a military attack.
