Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 04 June 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
- Nikkei rises more than 300 points as rest of Asia gains after US jobs report (CNBC) Asian stocks closed higher on Monday, tracking gains seen on Wall Street after Friday’s expectation-topping U.S. jobs report and shrugging off trade-related concerns. The dollar index was slightly softer at 94.030. U.S. crude futures were off by 0.05% at $65.78 per barrel. Brent crude futures edged down 0.29% to $76.57. Spot gold was nearly unchanged at $1,292.96 per ounce by 0340 GMT, after hitting its lowest since May 23 at $1,289.12 in the previous session.
- Who Dominates Global Steel Production & Trade? (Wolf Street) Steel tariffs are now in place, and the world is grumbling and threatening retaliation against the US. Its closest partners, such as Canada, are trying to figure out how to navigate the waters. But just who is producing all this steel, and who is dominating this trade?
In April, China’s crude steel production rose 4.8% from a year ago to 76.7 million tonnes (Mt), the highest on record, according to the World Steel Association. This was nearly 11 times as large as the 6.9 Mt of crude steel that the US produced.
China’s production was nine times as large as that of the second and third largest producers, Japan and India, each with 8.7 Mt. World production of crude steel in April was 148.3 Mt, of which China’s share was 51.7%.
U.S.
- Admission that Trump dictated statement on Trump Tower meeting raises new questions (The Hill) President Trump’s allies and legal experts faced new questions on Sunday about the legal ramifications of the revelation that the president dictated a letter about a 2016 meeting between his campaign aides and a Russian lawyer, even as his lawyers argue he can’t obstruct justice in the special counsel’s probe. Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said on CNN‘s “State of the Union“.
“Jay Sekulow said time and time again directly into the faces of the American people on television – Sarah [Huckabee] Sanders did the same thing, and said in no uncertain terms … they said the president had nothing to do with that statement by Donald Trump Jr. and didn’t draft it, didn’t sign off on it. And it turns out that is completely untrue.”
- Chris Christie: ‘Outrageous claim’ that Trump cannot obstruct justice (CNN) Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie knocked the claim from Donald Trump’s legal team that, by nature of his office, the President cannot obstruct justice and could simply shut down the Russia investigation altogether.
- Possibility of Trump pardoning himself sparks GOP pushback (The Hill) New talk of President Trump possibly pardoning himself drew pushback from Republicans on the Sunday show circuit this week. Both congressional Republicans and the president’s attorney Rudy Giuliani urged caution that a self-issued pardon could be politically problematic for Trump.
But Giuliani said the president “probably” has the power to give himself a pardon even though doing so would prove to be difficult.
- Trump’s lawyers are ‘playing poker with Mueller’ as they wage a war on 2 fronts in the Russia probe (Business Insider)
- President Donald Trump’s lawyers are gambling with the special counsel Robert Mueller as they prepare to duke it out with him in either Congress or the courts.
- The defense plans to take an aggressive legal approach to Mueller if he seeks to compel Trump to testify in the Russia probe, but legal scholars are highly doubtful Trump’s lawyers would be successful in fending off a grand jury subpoena.
- Trump and his lawyers are also preparing for the possibility that Mueller will forego a court battle and instead release a report of his findings to Congress.
- To that end, they’ve adopted a scorched-earth offensive against the special counsel that might just prove fruitful.
- US Veterans Uncover Underground Bunker Possibly Used for Child Trafficking Camp In Arizona (Gateway Pundit) A group of veterans, who scour bridges and washes to find and aid fellow veterans who are homeless, discovered what appears to be an encampment holding area for children sold as sex slaves. See also Homeless camp or child trafficking den? (KVOA.com) The area used where they claim the children may have been kept could also have been used as shelter to get out of the heat or place to sleep. Tucson police were at the site taking pictures and said they would turn over their investigation to detectives.
EU
- There is no constituency strong enough to wreck the European project.
- Germany’s euro partners can force Berlin to change its economic policies.
- The euro-denominated assets are sound investment choices.
UK
- Visa Goes Down in the UK, Chaos Ensues, Cash is Suddenly King (Wolf Street) For over 12 hours on Friday, shopping centers in the UK and other parts of Europe were plunged into chaos as millions of consumers were unable to use their Visa debit or credit cards at points of sale. The credit card company, which was finally able to restore normal service early Saturday morning, said it had no reason to believe the hardware failure was due to “any unauthorized access or malicious event“.
While the mayhem caused by the outage may have been short lived, it served as a stark reminder of the risks, both for consumers and retailers, of depending purely on cashless payments.
India
- What’s driving the GDP revival? (The Hindu) The CSO’s provisional GDP estimates for FY18 suggest that growth revved up to a brisk 7.7% in the January-March quarter, the highest real GDP print in seven quarters. So, is this sustainable and what are the takeaways from the fine print? Manufacturing, services and investments are looking up, but the government’s hand clearly stands out.
- India’s Hotstar draws over 10 million concurrent viewers, sets new global record (Medium) An Indian on-demand streaming service, with fewer than 400 employees, has pulled off a milestone that Silicon Valley companies Facebook, Amazon and Google-owned YouTube can only dream about at the moment.
On several occasions Sunday evening, more than 10 million viewers simultaneously tuned in to Hotstar, the largest on-demand streaming service in India (by various metrics, including and especially, the size of the user base), to watch the deciding match of the 11th edition of Indian Premier League cricket tournament.
North Korea
- North Korea replaces three top military leaders, Yonhap news agency reports (The Washington Post) Three of North Korea’s top military officials have been replaced, a South Korean news agency reported Monday, marking an apparent shake-up in leader Kim Jong Un’s inner circle before next week’s planned summit with President Trump.
The report by the Yonhap news agency, citing an intelligence source, could not be independently verified. But, if confirmed, the move could suggest a far-reaching intervention by Kim to bring in younger military overseers to replace older ranks possibly at odds with his outreach to the United States and its ally South Korea.
- North Korea’s demolition of its only nuclear test site may have just been a show for the cameras (Business Insider) See also Experts struggle to determine whether North Korea actually dismantled its nuclear test site.
- North Korea recently claimed to have destroyed its only nuclear test site and let journalists record the process, but intelligence assessments suggest this may have just been a show for the cameras.
- The explosions at the tunnels of the mountainous Punggye-ri test site appeared to have been “too small” to have collapsed them in a significant way, according to an international arms control official.
- Despite such concerns, President Donald Trump on Friday said his on-again, off-again meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is moving forward and will take place on June 12 in Singapore.
China
- A senior U.S. official is expected to attend a June 12 launch for the American Institute in Taiwan’s new office in a move that could irritate China.
- The non-profit organization operates as the de-facto U.S. embassy in Taipei and its new facility represents strengthened U.S.-Taiwan relations.
- Beijing opposes other countries pursuing relations with the island.
Australia
- Housing Bubbles in Sydney & Melbourne Deflate (Wolf Street) In Sydney, home prices had jumped over 80% from the end of 2009 through the peak in September last year, after having dipped only 4.6% during the Global Financial Crisis, turning the city into one of the hottest housing bubbles in the world.
But the price boom has run its course. According to CoreLogic Daily Home Value Index, home prices fell 4.2% by the end of May compared to a year ago, with house prices down 5.9%, and prices of condos (“units” as they’re called) down 0.4%. In the eight months since the peak in September, the index has fallen 4.7%:
Guatemala
- Guatemala’s Fuego volcano eruption kills 25, injures hundreds (Reuters) An estimated 25 people, including at least three children, were killed and nearly 300 injured on Sunday in the most violent eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano in more than four decades, officials said. The charred bodies of victims laid on the steaming, ashen remnants of a pyroclastic flow as rescuers attended to badly injured victims in the aftermath of the eruption. Picture below shows road covered with ash some distance from the most damaged areas.
Canada
- Trudeau: It’s ‘insulting’ that the US considers Canada a national security threat (The Hill) See also next article. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an interview aired Sunday that the reasoning behind implementing new U.S. tariffs on Canada was “insulting and unacceptable.” Trudeau told NBC’s “Meet the Press“:
“One of the things that I have to admit I’m having a lot of trouble getting around is the idea that this entire thing is coming about because the president and the administration have decided that Canada and Canadian steel and aluminum is a national security threat to the United States.”
- Trump is heading to Canada this week – and that’s when things on the trade front could get uglier (CNBC)
- Trade could dominate the headlines for markets in the week ahead, as President Donald Trump heads to Quebec for the meeting of G7 leaders, who all have first-hand experience with Trump tariffs.
- With little data and earnings news, markets could hang on every trade headline, and there could also be developments on trade issues with China and on NAFTA.
- The news of new U.S. tariffs rattled markets in the past week, but the counterbalance was strong data on employment and manufacturing Friday that helped stocks rally.
- Grassy Narrows First Nation Afflicted by Mercury Poisoning, Study Finds (The Real News Network) Grassy Narrows First Nation is an Ojibwa First Nation located 80 kilometres north of Kenora, Ontario, in Canada. It has a registered population of approximately 1500 people, of which the on-reserve population is 951. The lifeblood of Grassy Narrows First Nation is the Wabigoon River. Between 1962 and 1978, a paper mill then owned by Reed Paper, dumped ten tons of mercury into the Wabigoon. The residents were told by government officials that the river would clean itself naturally over time. However, as reported by The Toronto Star in November of last year, government officials knew in the 1990s that mercury was visible in soil under the paper mill upstream from Grassy Narrows First Nation, but the people there did not find out until 2017.
