Early Headlines: Asia Stocks, Dollar And Gold All Down, Oil Up, Stephen Hawking Dies, PA Election Too Close To Call, Tillerson Gone, US Nursing Shortage, UK’s Brexit Bill, And More

Written by Econintersect

Early Bird Headlines 14 March 2018

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, published Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 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

• Stocks in Asia decline after Tillerson ouster and amid trade concerns (CNBC) Asian markets declined on Wednesday following the sacking of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and amid talk of potential U.S. tariffs against China. The dollar index was softer at 89.602 at 11:35 a.m. HK/SIN. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $60.86 a barrel at 0033 GMT, up $0.15, or 0.25%. Brent crude futures were at $64.70 per barrel, up $0.06, or 0.1%. Spot gold fell 0.1% to $1,325.19 per ounce at 0124 GMT.

• Professor Stephen Hawking, renowned physicist, dies aged 76 (The Telegraph) Professor Stephen Hawking, the renowned British physicist and author of “A Brief History of Time”, has died at the age of 76. He died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

U.S.

• Pa. special election too close to call (The Hill) Tuesday’s pivotal Pennsylvania special House election is too close to call, a disturbing sign for Republicans in what has usually been a deep-red district. Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone are locked in a high-profile battle that won’t be decided until the early hours of Wednesdaymorning. As votes continue to trickle in, Lamb is up by 579 votes with 3,200 absentee ballots left to be counted in a district President Trump won by nearly 20 points in 2016. See also Democrat Conor Lamb declares victory in Pa. special election.
• Trump fires Tillerson, a moderate; replaces him with hawkish spy chief Pompeo (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday after a series of public rifts over policy on North Korea, Russia and Iran, replacing his chief diplomat with loyalist CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
• GOP senators see Tillerson ouster as the new normal (The Hill) Republican senators on Tuesday said they were not surprised by President Trump’s abrupt firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, with some acknowledging they’ve grown numb to the president’s unorthodox style of governing. While senators didn’t receive advance notice of Tillerson’s firing, several said it had been clear for some time that he was on the outs with the president.
• What Trump’s pick for top diplomat has said about Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, China – and Trump’s tweets (CNBC) U.S. foreign policy toward adversaries such as Russia, North Korea and Syria may turn more aggressive if CIA Director Mike Pompeo becomes secretary of state.

• CIA Director Mike Pompeo, widely seen as the next secretary of state, is known for a hawkish approach toward foreign policy challenges such those presented by Russia, Iran and North Korea.
• Pompeo’s past remarks on hot-button topics shed light on how Washington will manage its future diplomacy.

• Donald Trump issues new trade threat to EU (Politico) U.S. President Donald Trump has warned EU countries that he will further increase tariffs unless they lower theirs. The president urged EU to drop trade barriers or face taxes on imported cars.
• The E.P.A. Chief Wanted a Climate Science Debate. Trump’s Chief of Staff Stopped Him. (The New York Times) John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, has killed an effort by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to stage public debates challenging climate change science, according to three people familiar with the deliberations, thwarting a plan that had intrigued President Trump even as it set off alarm bells among his top advisers.

The idea of publicly critiquing climate change on the national stage has been a notable theme for Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the E.P.A. For nearly a year he has championed the notion of holding military-style exercises known as red team, blue team debates, possibly to be broadcast live, to question the validity of climate change.

• Nursing Shortage (The Daily Shot) Some states don’t produce enough nursing graduates (which is pressuring hospitals).

UK

• Britain’s Brexit bill revealed: £37.1B over 45 years (Politico) In a document published alongside Chancellor Philip Hammond’s spring statement on the public finances Tuesday, the Office for Budget Responsibility said the U.K. would pay almost half of its outstanding commitments to Brussels by the end of 2020. Overall, the UK will pay a total of £37.1 billion ($51.8 billion) to the European Union over the next 45 years, finally clearing its “Brexit bill” in 2064.
• Putin enemy found dead in London eight days after Skripal poisoning, as counter-terror police launch investigation (The Telegraph) Counter-terrorism police have opened an investigation into the “unexplained” death on British soil of an arch enemy of Vladimir Putin, just eight days after the nerve gas assassination attempt on a Russian double agent. Nikolai Glushkov, 68, the right-hand man of the deceased oligarch Boris Berezovsky, Mr Putin’s one-time fiercest rival, was found dead at his London home on Monday. A Russian media source said Glushkov, the former boss of the state airline Aeroflot, who said he feared he was on a Kremlin hit-list, was found with “strangulation marks” on his neck.
• Britain and Russia brace for showdown as deadline expires for nerve attack explanation (Reuters) Britain braced for a showdown with Russia on Wednesday after a midnight deadline set by Prime Minister Theresa May expired without an explanation from Moscow about how a Soviet-era nerve toxin was used to strike down a former Russian double agent. See Russia says it is not responding to British ultimatum on nerve toxin attack for now.

Morocco

• Morocco turns the Sahara desert into a solar energy oasis (PBS News Hour) Today, the planet Earth meets over 80% of its energy needs with either coal, oil or gas. But as climate science and breakthrough technology disrupt the energy sector, Morocco is taking advantage of an abundant natural resource, unobstructed sunlight, to power part of the North African nation. Some say that plants like this may someday provide all the power for Europe from sunny North Africa. This new technology will provide constant levels of power 24/7.

Syria

• US hits back at Russia claims, says Moscow is ‘complicit’ in Syrian atrocities (CNBC)

• A spokesman for the department told CNBC Tuesday that Moscow is complicit inSyrian President Bashar Al Assad’s crimes in the war-torn country.
• Earlier Tuesday, the Russian military threatened action against the U.S. if it led airstrikes on Damascus.
• Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the armed forces of Russia, was widely reported as saying Moscow had “reliable information” about militants preparing to falsify a government chemical attack against civilians.

• ‘700,000 trapped in Syrian city of Afrin’ after Turkey and allied fighters surround area (The Telegraph) Turkish forces and allied rebels surrounded the Syrian city of Afrin on Tuesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of its mostly Kurdish residents trapped. Hundreds of civilians managed to flee advancing troops on Monday, but an estimated 700,000 are now encircled in Afrin and nearby villages and towns. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the only road out was in range of Turkish artillery fire and was therefore impassable.

Iran

• Tillerson’s ouster could kill the Iran nuclear deal (Politico) The US secretary of state’s would-be replacement, Mike Pompeo, is an ardent hawk who says the agreement is ‘disastrous’.

Russia

• Only Moscow could conduct Salisbury attack, says Russian scientist who warned world of nerve agent without cure (The Telegraph) Vil Mirzayanov, a chemist who worked at the heart of the Soviet program, said Russia was the only country able to produce and deploy such a powerful nerve agent as Novichok, and he warned that many more people may fall ill. Mirzayanov is the whistleblower who alerted the world to Russia’s secret chemical weapons program. Se also Revealed: The Moscow weapons lab that made the deadly Novichok nerve agent.

Japan

• The Stock Market Where Fundamental Research Goes Out the Window (Bloomberg) By all traditional methods of analysis, Japan’s stock shares should be thriving. Valuations are low, profits are strong, and shareholder returns are higher than ever. And that’s even before you add unprecedented stimulus by the Bank of Japan, and an economy cruising to its longest run of growth in decades. For investors who did the research, being a bull seemed the logical choice. But that’s now how it’s playing out.