Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 08 May 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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Special notice: Due to staff travel there will be no Early Bird Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday 09-11 May 2018. We apologize for the inconvenience.
​Global
- Asian stocks edge higher while oil loses steam as investors await Trump Iran decision (CNBC) Asian markets edged up on Tuesday, with oil prices tracking lower following President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would make a decision on the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday during U.S. hours. The dollar index firmed to trade at 92.828 at 12:10 p.m. HK/SIN. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell $0.63 (0.9%) to $70.10 a barrel by 0024 GMT. Brent crude futures were down $0.53, or 0.7%, at $75.64. Spot gold rose 0.1% to $1,315.24 per ounce at 0051 GMT.
U.S.
- Eric Schneiderman: New York attorney general resigns after assault allegations (The Guardian) See also New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Resigns Due to Sexual Assault Allegations, After Getting Away With Selling Out Homeowners (Naked Capitalism). New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, abruptly resigned on Monday night following accusations published in the New Yorker that he physically assaulted four women he was romantically involved with. Schneiderman rose to national prominence as a foe of the Trump administration and a high-profile figure in the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment. Schneiderman said in a statement Monday night:
“In the last several hours, serious allegations, which I strongly contest, have been made against me. While these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time. I therefore resign my office, effective at the close of business on May 8, 2018.”
- Trump proposes $15 billion spending cuts, targets children’s health program (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trump will request a package of $15 billion in spending cuts from Congress on Tuesday, including some $7 billion from the Children’s Health Insurance Program championed by Democrats, senior administration officials said on Monday.
- The water war that will decide the fate of 1 in 8 Americans (Grist) Hat tip to Naked Capitalism. For generations, we’ve been using too much of the Colorado River, the 300-foot-wide ribbon of water that carved the Grand Canyon, supplies Lake Mead (the country’s biggest reservoir of water) and serves as the main water source for much of the American West.
The river sustains one in eight Americans – about 40 million people – and millions of acres of farmland. In the next 40 years, the region is expected to add at least 10 million more people, as the region’s rainfall becomes more erratic.
UK
- Give millennials £10,000 each to tackle generation gap, says thinktank (The Guardian) Every person in Britain should receive £10,000 (€11,360 or US$13,510) when they turn 25 to help fix the “broken” intergenerational contract between millennials and baby boomers, an influential thinktank has proposed following a two-year study. The payment, described as a “citizen’s inheritance“, is intended to redistribute wealth at a time when young people need it most to find housing, return to education or start a business.
It is also intended to reduce resentment towards baby boomers (born 1946-65) who have typically done better out of the housing market and pensions than any subsequent generation.
The idea has emerged from the Resolution Foundation’s intergenerational commission, which has been working on the issue for two years and has now published its final report.
Turkey
- Turkey Says It Will Retaliate If US Temporarily Halts Weapon Sales (The Wire) Lawmakers in the US House of Representatives released details on Friday of a $717 billion annual defence policy bill, including a measure to temporarily halt weapons sales to Turkey. In an interview with CNN Turk, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the measures in the bill were wrong, illogical and not fitting between the NATO allies.
Lebanon
- Hezbollah makes strong showing in Lebanon elections (The Guardian) Iran’s influence in the Middle East is growing. Teheran backed Hezbollah has gained political ground in Lebanon and consolidated Iran’s influence on the fragile state’s affairs after winning, along with its allies, a small majority in national elections. The Shia militia-cum-political bloc’s gains came at the expense of the Sunni prime minister, Saad Hariri, whose authority was weakened by a relatively poor showing in stronghold areas.
Iran
- Iran Deal Announcement Today (Twitter)
- Iran deal: prominent backer says he was warned of Trump bid to discredit him (The Guardian) New details about ‘dirty ops’ campaign, first revealed by the Observer, emerge as Trump pledges decision on Iran nuclear deal this week. A prominent Iranian-American supporter of the Iran nuclear deal,Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), says he was warned by US intelligence during the presidential transition that his communications would be targeted by the Trump camp in a bid to discredit him.
Russia
- Russian Opposition Leader, Activists Detained Before Putin’s Inauguration (The Wire) Vladmir Putin won the re-election in March, extending his term for another six years. He was inaugurated on Monday in a Kremlin ceremony.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and around 1,600 anti-Kremlin activists were detained by police on Saturday during street protests against Putin ahead of his inauguration for a fourth term as president. Navalny had called for demonstrations in more than 90 towns and cities across Russia against what he says is Putin‘s autocratic, tsar-like rule.
India
- The Indian rupee, which hit its lowest in 15 months against the U.S. dollar on Monday, is expected to depreciate even more, analysts said.
- The weakened currency signals potential troubles that await Asia’s third-largest economy amid higher oil prices and rising interest rates in the U.S., analysts said.
- India’s current account and fiscal deficits mean the central bank may have little room to tap into its reserves to to defend the currency.
- What India Can Teach the US About a Federal Job Guarantee (Naked Capitalism) India has for more than a decade had a rural jobs guarantee program in place, for unskilled workers. If India can succeed in designing and implementing such a policy, why can’t the US? The jobs provided a minimum wage – which varies by Indian state (the current per diem rate in the state of West Bengal, for example, is 176 INR – a bit less than USD 3). Employment must be provided within five km of the worker’s home. Roughly 70% of India’s population still lives in the countryside, according to The Business Standard (2013 figures). The jobs are unskilled labor and one program priority priority is infrastructure: e.g., roads, canals, ponds, wells. Economist Jayati Ghosh wrote this assessment of The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (MGNREGA) in The Guardian in 2015:
It was a historic legislation based on two interlinked goals: ensuring livelihood security to rural residents by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work; and using the programme to mobilise existing surplus labour in the countryside, to unleash productive forces and generate more economic growth in rural areas.
The treatment of employment as a right of citizens that must be delivered by the state involved a crucial reversal of the underlying basis of public delivery in India, which has mostly been driven by a paternalistic view of the state as delivering “gifts” to the people.
South Korea
- Japan and North Korea should talk, South Korea’s Moon says (Reuters) At Moon’s summit last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, both sides agreed to work toward denuclearization. Kim said during that meeting he was “ready to have a dialogue with Japan anytime“, Moon told the newspaper. Moon said in the interview with the Yomiuri newspaper:
“In particular, I think dialogue between Japan and North Korea should be resumed. If Japan-North Korea relations are normalized, that would greatly contribute to peace and security in Northeast Asia beyond the Korean peninsula.”
China
- China says last month’s trade surplus with the US was nearly $7 billion more than March’s surplus (CNBC) China’s trade surplus with the U.S. expanded to $22.19 billion in April – compared with a surplus of $15.43 billion in March, customs data showed. For January-April, China’s trade surplus with the United States was $80.4 billion. For more on China’s trade numbers see next article.
- China April Exports Climb, Imports Jump on Solid Global Demand (Bloomberg) China’s overseas shipments exceeded estimates while imports surged, as the global economy continued to support demand. Exports rose 12.9% in April in dollar terms, the customs administration said Tuesday. Imports surged 21.5%, leaving a trade surplus of $28.8 billion.
- Ex-China Political Star Jailed for Life Over $27 Million Bribery (Bloomberg) A one-time contender for China’s presidency, Sun Zhengcai, was sentenced to life in prison for accepting over 170 million yuan ($27 million) in bribes. Authorities intend to confiscate Sun’s personal property and retrieve his “illegal gains and relevant yields,” the official Xinhua News Agency said on Tuesday, citing a verdict from Tianjin No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court. The ruling makes Sun the fourth former member of the Communist Party’s Politburo jailed for life under President Xi Jinping. He told the court at the time:
Prosecutions of such senior-ranking officials are usually carefully choreographed affairs, and state television showed footage of Sun confessing during a one-day trial last month. “This is the outcome of my own deeds and I deserve all of this. I sincerely confess my illegal actions with regret and will obey the court’s decision.”
