Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 27 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
- Asian shares decline on lingering trade concerns as China slumps (CNBC) Asian stocks closed lower on Wednesday, led by the drop in China markets as investors digested the yuan’s extended move lower amid trade worries as oil prices rose. The dollar index mostly held onto overnight gains to trade at 94.612 at 2:50 p.m. HK/SIN. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures tacked on 0.51% to trade at $70.89 per barrel after crossing the $70 level for the first time in two months overnight. Brent crude futures edged up by 0.8% to trade at $76.92. Spot gold dipped 0.1% to $1,257.81 an ounce, as of 0045 GMT. It touched its lowest since mid-December at $1,254.16 in the prior session.
U.S.
- Trump congratulates Romney on primary win (The Hill) Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts and ex-presidential candidate, glided to victory against Rep. Mike Kennedy (R) on Tuesday, and is favored to win the general election in November. A vocal critic of Trump in the past, Romney has performed a careful balancing act in his effort not to alienate the president in recent months.
- Establishment Democrats get a wake-up call in New York (CNN) The out-of-nowhere upset of Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley in Tuesday’s New York primary has stunned the Democratic establishment and shook up the party’s likely line of succession to become the next House speaker. Crowley was ousted from his Queens district by Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina running her first political campaign. She is now likely to be the youngest woman ever elected to the House. And it wasn’t even close: Ocasio-Cortez won 58-42 running to the left of a very liberal congressman.
- Ocasio-Cortez Interview (The Intercept, You Tube) House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks to Glenn Greenwald about the need for Democratic Party reform, her views on immigration and criminal justice reform, her approach to “identity politics,” why she has taken such unusually blunt positions on Israel and Palestine, and the challenges of running against a machine boss politician.
- US supreme court upholds Trump’s travel ban (The Guardian) The U.S. supreme court has upheld Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries, in a significant victory for the administration and a blow to anti-discrimination advocates. In a 5-4 ruling handed down on Tuesday, the court accepted the government’s argument that the ban was within the president’s power to craft national security policy and his authority to “suspend entry of aliens into the United States“.
Minutes after the ruling was issued, Trump tweeted: “SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN. Wow!”
The White House called the ruling “a tremendous victory for the American people” and said the supreme court “has upheld the clear authority of the president to defend the national security of the United States” despite “months of hysterical commentary from the media and Democratic politicians”.
- Experts say U.S. among 10 most dangerous nations for women (CBS News) The United States has been ranked for the first time among the ten nations deemed to be the most dangerous for women by experts in the field. A survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation of about 550 experts in women’s issues around the globe labelled the U.S. the 10th most dangerous nation in terms of the risk of sexual violence, harassment and being coerced into sex. The foundation said the U.S. placement on the dubious list was down largely to the #MeToo and Time’s Up campaigns increasing awareness of sexual violence and intimidation of women in the U.S. in the wake of the criminal allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. See also article under India.
- Sanders congratulates progressive candidates on primary wins (The Hill) He wasn’t on any ballot but it was a big night for Bernie Sanders. Sanders endorsed Ben Jealous in the Democratic primary for Maryland governor. Jealous, a former NAACP president, won Tuesday and will take on Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in November. Sanders also congratulated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former campaign organizer for Sanders’ presidential campaign, on her shocking primary victory against Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.).
- Trump threatens Harley-Davidson with ‘big tax’ over its tariff response (The Guardian) President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened Harley-Davidson with a “big tax” and said the motorbike company’s decision to shift some motorcycle production overseas, “will be the beginning of the end“. A day after the company announced it was moving some production overseas to mitigate the impact of Trump’s tariffs on European steel and aluminium Trump used Twitter to say the company is using “Tariffs/Trade War as an excuse” to hide previously announced plans to move jobs to Asia.
The Milwaukee-based company said on Monday it came to its decision because of retaliatory tariffs it faces in an escalating trade dispute between the US and the European Union.
- Farmers in America are killing themselves in staggering numbers (CBS News Marketwatch) Hat tip to Sanjeev Kulkarni. Farmers are dying by suicide at a higher rate than any other occupational group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The suicide rate in the field of farming, fishing and forestry is 84.5 per 100,000 people – more than five times that of the population as a whole. That’s even as the nation overall has seen an increase in suicide rates over the last 30 years. See also article under India.
The CDC study comes with a few caveats. It looked at workers over 17 different states, but it left out some major agricultural states, like Iowa. And the occupational category that includes these workers includes small numbers of workers from related occupational groups, like fishing and forestry. (However, agricultural workers make up the vast majority of the “farming, fishing and forestry” occupational group.)
EU
- European parliament ‘won’t pay for offshore migrant camps’ (The Guardian) A senior European politician has warned that MEPs (members of the European Parliament) would seek to block any use of EU funds for offshore migrant camps in north Africa. The opposition to offshore centres for processing asylum claims raises tensions before an EU summit that will be dominated by a political crisis over migration that threatens Angela Merkel’s future as German chancellor. As Mediterranean countries spar over who is responsible for people rescued at sea, the EU is reviving the idea of processing asylum claims in countries outside Europe.
UK
- France and Germany will block May’s single market plan, says Spain (The Guardian) Theresa May’s plan to protect British industry by keeping the UK in a single market for goods without respecting the free movement of people after Brexit will be rejected by an “angry” France and Germany, despite some sympathy within the EU to Downing Street’s cause, Spain’s foreign minister has said.
The new Spanish government would also block such a political fix, Josep Borrell told the Guardian, ahead of both a summit of leaders in Brussels and a summer tour by the prime minister of EU capitals during which May hopes to convince leaders of her economic case.
Italy
- Italian Bond Spreads (The Daily Shot, Twitter)
India
- India Most Dangerous Country for Women (CBS News) The top ten most dangerous for women:
- Suicides of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers linked to climate change, study claims (The Guardian) Rising temperatures and the resultant stress on India’s agricultural sector may have contributed to increase in suicides over the past 30 years, research shows. An increase of 5C on any one day was associated with an additional 335 deaths, the study published in the journal PNAS on Monday found. In total, it estimates that 59,300 agricultural sector suicides over the past 30 years could be attributed to warming.
Temperature increases outside the growing season showed no significant impact on suicide rates, suggesting stress on the agriculture industry was the source of the increase in suicides.
Also supporting the theory was that rainfall increases of as little as 1cm each year were associated with an average 7% drop in the suicide rate. So beneficial was the strong rainfall that suicide rates were lower for the two years that followed
China
- China is languishing in bear market territory amid ‘worrisome’ trade news (CNBC) See also next item.
- The benchmark Shanghai composite closed officially in bear market on Tuesday.
- Among the factors weighing on the market is the elevation in trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
- The slowing domestic economy has also led to some concern among investors.
- China’s Bear Market (Twitter) See also preceding article.
Mexico
- On the Mexico border, Latino Republicans back Trump’s immigration plans (CNN) In the far south of Texas, Democrats outnumber Republicans. But there are still plenty of Trump supporters to be found in the Rio Grande valley that lies across from Mexico. The region — with its border posts and detention centers — has been at the heart of the impact of the short-lived zero tolerance policy that split families accused of crossing the border illegally. That and other elements of the Trump presidency are causing some, though certainly not all, to rethink their backing for the man in the White House. But there is a minority that strongly backs the president and many of them are Latino.
