Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 04 April 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
- China gains as rest of Asia slips amid simmering trade concerns (CNBC) Asian stocks traded mostly lower on Wednesday as the overnight bounce on Wall Street stalled. Recent concerns over trade tensions also persisted amid new China-U.S. trade developments. The dollar index was up slightly at 90.082. U.S. WTI crude futures were at $63.36 a barrel at 0208 GMT, down $0.15 (0.24 percent, from their previous settlement. Brent crude futures dipped to $67.94 per barrel, down $0.18, or 0.26%. Spot gold rose 0.2% to $1,334.44 per ounce as of 0334 GMT, after falling 0.6% in the previous session.
U.S.
- Lawyer gets jail time in first sentence of Mueller probe (The Hill) A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan to 30 days in prison for lying to federal investigators in the first criminal sentence to result from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Van der Zwaan, who was also ordered to pay $20,000 in fines, pleaded guilty in late February to making “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations” to the special counsel’s office and FBI agents.
In a court filing on Monday, prosecutor Andrew Weissman said van der Zwaan, the son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, is in “an unusual position of having information related” to the Russia probe that “is not widely known – including information that he knows first-hand due to his role in the conduct the Office is investigating.”
- WaPo: Mueller preparing report on Trump’s actions in office (The Hill) Special counsel Robert Mueller is preparing a report on President Trump’s actions during his tenure in office and anything that could be considered obstruction of justice, according to The Washington Post. Sources told the Post that Mueller relayed the information to Trump’s legal team, and emphasized his team’s need to sit down with the president in order to determine if he had any intent to foil the federal probe into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The publication also reported on Tuesday that Mueller told Trump’s lawyers last month that he does not consider the president to be a criminal target at this point in his probe.
- Half of voters approve of Trump’s job performance: poll (The Hill) Half of U.S. voters said they approve of the job President Trump’s done in office, according to Rasmussen Reports‘ daily Presidential Tracking Poll on Monday. The survey found that 50% of likely voters polled said they approved of Trump’s job performance, while 49% of voters said they disapproved. See also next two articles.
- Trump Approval Rating Remains at 42% But Disapproval Has Come Down (Real Clear Politics)
- Trump Approval and Disapproval Little Changed Last two Months (538) Polls are sampled for all citizens and for registered or likely voters.
- No, the Postal Service isn’t losing a fortune on Amazon (Politifact) The post office is losing a fortune, but Trump is wrong to blame Amazon. In 2017, parcels brought in $19.5 billion, or 28% of USPS’ annual revenue. At $2.1 billion, packages contributed the largest revenue increase. Deals with private shippers like Amazon accounted for $7 billion of the $19.5 billion in revenue. While we know that Amazon is the biggest e-commerce player, we don’t know exactly how much of the $7 billion comes from Amazon, because the details of the postal service’s deals with private shippers are considered proprietary and not made public.
USPS ships about 40 percent of Amazon’s packages. Amazon bulk-delivers packages to a USPS distribution center, and the Postal Service brings it to your door. USPS negotiates the discounted rate for that service with Amazon, as it does all other bulk shippers.
Those rates are kept under wraps. That said, we do know the Amazon deal is at least a break-even venture.
That’s because the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act made it illegal for USPS to price parcel delivery below its cost.
- AMZN Traders Tell Trump ‘Up Yours!’ (Rick Ackerman, Rick’s Picks) RA contributes to GEI. Tonight he says:
Trump also kept the heat on Amazon, his least favorite company, with an unfriendly tweet. AMZN shares shrugged it off and rallied sharply in the final hour. “Up yours!” traders seemed to be telling the President. If that’s what makes stocks fly these days, then the President’s next snit can’t come too soon.
UK
- Final warning issued to firms to report gender pay gap by midnight (The Guardian) The government has issued a final warning to businesses to report their gender pay gap by midnight as it emerged the Conservative party did not plan to file its own figures until a day after the deadline.
Amber Rudd, who is the minister for women and equalities as well as home secretary, said there was no excuse for businesses not to be transparent as the deadline on Wednesday approached and warned them that refusing to report was breaking the law.
Syria
- The leaders of the three countries will meet in Ankara for talks on a new constitution for Syria and increasing security in “de-escalation” zones across the country, Turkish officials say.
- The Syria summit brings together two powers which have been President Bashar al-Assad’s most forceful supporters, Iran and Russia, with one of his strongest opponents, Turkey.
- Cooperation between the rival camps raised hopes of stabilizing Syria after seven years of conflict in which 500,000 people have been killed and half the population displaced.
China
- China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, said Beijing will “certainly” “fight back” against what he called U.S. protectionism.
- President Donald Trump’s White House unveiled a list Tuesday of Chinese imports the administration proposes to target as part of a crackdown on what the president deems unfair trade practices.
Canada
- Afghan woman shot in face builds new life in Canada after US rejection (The Guardian) Shakila Zareen, 23, lost much of her face after being shot by her husband but, after multiple surgeries and seeing her hopes of resettlement dashed, she has a new home in Vancouver. After the United States abruptly retracted its offer to settle her as a refugee, she is now starting a new life in Canada. But her ordeal began years earlier; she was 17 years old when her brother-in-law – a strongman with links to the Taliban in Afghanistan’s northern Baghlan province – descended on her family home with a 20-man entourage, intent on marrying her off to a cousin 14 years her senior. After repeated physical abuse episodes, her husband shot her.
