Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 12 Oct 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
- Asia markets broadly recover following extended rout on Wall Street (CNBC) Asia stocks saw a broad recovery on Friday following another tumble on Wall Street overnight, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping by more than 500 points. The U.S. dollar index was lower at 94.962 as of 3:31 p.m. HK/SIN, following a slide overnight. Brent crude futures contract advanced by 1.27% at $81.28 per barrel, while the U.S. crude futurescontract gained by 1.17% to $71.8 per barrel. Spot gold declined by 0.39% at $1,218.96 per ounce. It had jumped about 2.5% on Thursday, its best one-day percentage gain since Jun. 2016, after marking its highest since Jul. 31 at $1,226.27.
- Oil prices have surged more than 25 percent this year, prompting some investors to speculate about the possibility of a return to triple-digits before year-end.
- Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed OPEC for rising gasoline costs, as prices continue to head in the wrong direction for American consumers with midterms just around the corner.
- The closely-watched report comes less than four weeks before the U.S is set to impose targeted crude sanctions against Iran, with Brent prices now established above $80 a barrel.
U.S.
- Facebook Shuts Down Journalist’s Account (Twitter) In case you haven’t heard, hundreds (thousands?) of accounts have been shut down in recent days at Facebook and Twitter. Conservative spokespeople are claiming it is a plot to silence conservative voices. But here is a story that is definitely not involving a “conservative voice”.
A few words on the Facebook purge… My page had nearly 70,000 followers before it was taken down and marked as “spam” because of posts that were allegedly “misleading users,” according to Facebook’s vague statement.
Watch the full video here: https://t.co/jtIAQJ0aE4 pic.twitter.com/Tc5NljY6uK
– Rachel Blevins (@RachBlevins) October 12, 2018
- Clinton fires back at Trump: ‘You asked Russia to hack me on national television’ (The Hill) Hillary Clinton offered one of her most direct rebukes of President Trump in months on Thursday after Trump accused her of colluding with Russia during the 2016 presidential election at his campaign rally in Pennsylvania Wednesday night.
At the rally Wednesday night, Trump told an arena of supporters that there was “collusion between Hillary, the Democrats and Russia” during the 2016 election, despite offering no evidence for his claim. An intelligence community assessment in 2017 concluded that Russia’s efforts were aimed at undermining the Clinton campaign.
- Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson rejects House committee’s request to testify (CNN) Fusion GPS is the firm that commissioned an opposition research dossier on Trump and Russia written by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, parts of which remain unconfirmed. Trump has dismissed the dossier as “fake” and “fraudulent.” Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson is rejecting a House Judiciary Committee subpoena requesting he appear before the committee next week for a confidential deposition, according to a letter sent by his lawyers. The letter said:
“He will instead invoke his constitutional rights not to testify under the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.”
- Hurricane Michael death toll rises as rescue crews struggle to access hard-hit areas (NBC News) With at least six people killed by the most powerful storm to hit the Florida Panhandle in recorded history, officials warned Thursday that the number was likely to rise as search crews struggled to gain access to ravaged areas and sift through the piles of debris. Utility companies said almost 11/2 million customers remained without power from Florida to Virginia on Thursday night as Michael – still a tropical storm a day and a half after landfall – remained dangerous, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph.
- NTSB report: Overpressurized gas lines caused Lawrence-area explosions, fires (The Boston Globe) Hat tip to Sig Silber. Federal investigators on Thursday said Columbia Gas of Massachusetts failed to relocate an underground pressure sensor from an abandoned pipe during construction work in Lawrence in September, triggering a gush of gas into the local network that erupted into explosions and fires that rocked the Merrimack Valley. Five homes exploded and 125 structures were damaged by fire. One person was killed when a collapsing chimney fell on him, and two dozen others were injured.
- The Democrats and “Socialism” (Counter Punch) One sign of the falling rate of intelligence in American public discourse is the wildly inaccurate use of political labels. Listening to the political noise, one might think the country is being overrun by a horde of “neo-fascists”, “fascists”, and bonafide “Nazis” on the right and a wave of Marxists and socialists getting ready to overthrow capitalism on the left. This article concludes:
Social democracy, anyone? Whatever the electoral fate of Ocasio-Cortez and those other 41 DSA-endorsed candidates, Ben Shapiro and those those other anxious FOX pundits can relax: socialist revolution is not on the horizon, while its historical agency would never be DSA (or the Dems) in any case. For those DSA activists still genuinely committed to democratic socialism, the ensemble of structural and ideological obstacles posed by the grand party of neoliberal globalization and imperialism is sure to be insurmountable.
- Cooper: Trump yucks it up while thousands suffer (CNN) CNN‘s Anderson Cooper criticizes President Trump’s White House meeting with Kanye West while Florida simultaneously deals with the fallout from Hurricane Michael.
- A girl was visiting her grandparents when Michael’s winds blew a carport through the roof and it killed her (CNN) Sarah Radney saw trees falling down all around her grandparents’ home when Hurricane Michael roared over Georgia. She was safe until a carport came crashing through the roof. Michael’s strong winds lifted a metal carport into the air before it crashed into a Seminole County, Georgia, house and hit the girl’s head, emergency officials said. She had been in the living room sending her family photos of the trees that had fallen.
UK
- Trump’s UK visit cost police nearly $24 million (CNN) US President Donald Trump’s visit to the UK in July cost police around Pound Sterling18 million ($23.8 million), police estimate. The amount is more than 10 times the cost for Barack Obama’s last journey to Britain as president in 2016. After being delayed several times, Trump’s controversial four-day visit encountered large protests in London and throughout the country.
Germany​
- Angela Merkel Could Save Europe. Why Won’t She? (The New York Times) Germany’s chancellor needs to forget about her political problems at home and focus on the Continent’s future.
Ms. Merkel’s troubles started with the September 2017 election, when her party, the center-right Christian Democrats, and the center-left Social Democrats lost a stunningly large number of voters to the far-right Alternative for Germany. The message was clear: Enthusiasm for Ms. Merkel was waning. It then took the parties more than four months to form a government. Once a coalition was finally established in March, the hope among many pro-European policymakers was that Ms. Merkel would find her footing and return to the European agenda that she had highlighted during the campaign.
Members of her own team have made that difficult.
Turkey
- Forensics expert and former diplomat among Saudi team probed by Turkish officials (CNN) Turkish authorities believe 15 Saudi men who arrived in Istanbul on October 2 were connected to the disappearance — and possible murder — of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. At least some of them appear to have high-level connections in the Saudi government. Sabah, a pro-government private newspaper in Turkey, on Tuesday listed 15 names alongside photographs of men who authorities believe were flown into Istanbul from Riyadh. The state-run Anadolu news agency later published similar details on eight of the individuals.
Turkish officials contend that their mission was the premeditated killing of Khashoggi and that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate. One source told the New York Times that he was dismembered with a bone saw.
Saudi Arabia
- Media companies, executives drop out of Saudi event over missing journalist (Reuters) Media companies are pulling out of a Saudi investment conference because of growing outrage over the disappearance of a prominent Saudi journalist in Turkey.
- Senators warn Trump that Saudi relationship is on the line (The Hill) Senators are making clear that key aspects of the U.S.-Saudi relationship are on the line as they ramp up pressure on the royal family and President Trump over the disappearance of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Top Republican senators are hopeful the Trump administration will heed their warning and act on the Senate’s request for the White House to conduct a statutorily required investigation into whether Saudi sanctions are needed.
But some lawmakers are going a step further by talking about a possible clampdown on the military-to-military relationship that would include nixing arms sales and withdrawing support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen’s civil war.
- Trump reluctant to punish Saudis over reporter (CNN) In response to the disappearance of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump signaled he was not interested in taking steps to punish Saudi Arabia. See also Trump reluctant to slash weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi (YouTube) President Donald Trump says he’s reluctant to slash weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, saying that if the US doesn’t sell arms to the kingdom, then the Saudis will buy them from Russia or China.
India
- Indians top list of ‘overstayers’ in U.K. (The Hindu) India accounts for the largest number of individuals staying in the U.K. illegally, and the number of those subjected to forced returns to India has fallen by 50% in three years, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has said. The problem of “visa overstayers” was highlighted by the department in its submission to a British parliamentary committee’s “Global Britain and India’ inquiry into post-Brexit relations with India.
- India hit with its biggest outbreak of Zika to date, with 32 confirmed cases (CNN) India has recorded its biggest outbreak of Zika virus to date, with 32 cases confirmed in Jaipur, capital of the western state of Rajasthan. The first case was confirmed on September 23 in the city’s Shastri Nagar area, located close to some of the city’s main tourist attractions.
Zika virus was first identified 70 years ago in the Zika forest of Uganda. Isolated, small-scale outbreaks have occurred in various parts of the world, including Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands, but no major complications had been linked to the virus until it arrived in Brazil, which has been reporting an extensive outbreak to the World Health Organization since March 2015, and soon spanned to Central and South America.
The real concern is among pregnant women as the virus can cause microcephaly, a neurological disorder that results in babies being born with abnormally small heads, which in turn can cause severe developmental issues and sometimes death. A Zika infection may cause other birth defects, including eye problems, hearing loss and impaired growth. Miscarriage can also occur.
China
- China’s central bank is not manipulating the yuan’s exchange rate, according to Tim Adams, president and CEO of The Institute of International, a global association of the financial industry.
- The sell-off in the yuan is in some ways a reversal of the strength in the Chinese currency since 2016, Adams said.
- Adams, who expects trade tensions between Washington and Beijing to drag on, said the yuan could decline further if the U.S. Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates.
Australia
- Expectations on house prices and commercial real estate sliding fast (Aussie Business Barometer) ‘Expectations on the availability of credit for buying property are the worst they have been since 2011 with more than twice the number of Australia’s property industry professionals expecting interest rates to rise and house prices as well as shopping centre values to fall over the next 12 months.’
- Australian Dollar Decline (Twitter)
Venezuela
- Maduro says Trump administration wants to have him killed (Reuters) Socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused the Trump administration on Thursday of seeking to assassinate him, as relations strain between the ideologically opposed nations.
Mexico
- Lopez Obrador in Mexico: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old? (Counter Punch) Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO) is now far from the radical he was in his youth and we can expect Mexico to be governed much the same in his administration as in others of recent years.
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