Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 16 November 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 stocks mixed; pound struggles following fresh Brexit uncertainties (CNBC) It was a mixed picture for markets in Asia on Friday, on the back of fresh uncertainties emerging from the U.K. overnight after multiple important ministers resigned from Prime Minister Theresa May’s government. The U.S. dollar index was lower at 96.867 after seeing an earlier high of 97.059. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were at $56.84 per barrel at 0353 GMT, up $0.38 (0.7%) from their last settlement. Brent crude oil futures were up $0.48 cents, or 0.7%, at $67.10 per barrel. Spot gold was up 0.2% at $1,215.07 per ounce, as of 0445 GMT. Earlier in the session, the bullion hit $1,216.79, its highest since Nov. 9.
- Trump’s summit no-show draws Asian nations closer together (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t make it to this week’s summit of Asian nations in Singapore, but his influence was still keenly felt among the leaders who gathered in the city. And the influence will be far from positive from the U.S. perspective.
One prime minister warned that the trade war between Washington and Beijing could trigger a “domino effect” of protectionist steps by other countries. Another fretted that the international order could splinter into rival blocs.
And yet, in Trump’s absence, countries from South to East Asia pressed on with forging multilateral ties on trade and investment among themselves, including with China.
- Global Reflation is Over (Lance Roberts, Twitter) LR is a regular contributor to GEI.
U.S.
- Florida not using Broward County’s recount tally because it uploaded results 2 minutes late (The Hill) Florida will not use results from Broward County’s machine recount because the office submitted its results two minutes past the 3 p.m. deadline Thursday. Joe D’Alessandro, an electing official, said to the Sun-Sentinel that the recount was submitted late because of his unfamiliarity with Florida’s website. He also said that there was a difference of about 2,000 votes between the manual recount and the one tabulated earlier.
- Hand recount ordered in Florida’s divisive U.S. Senate race (Reuters) Florida election officials on Thursday ordered a hand recount of ballots in the closely fought U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson and his Republican challenger, Governor Rick Scott, after a machine recount showed them divided by a razor-thin margin. But in another tight contest, Republican Ron DeSantis appeared to secure the Florida governor’s seat against Democrat Andrew Gillum when the electronic recount showed DeSantis with an 0.41% lead, outside the 0.25% threshold to trigger further recount. In the Senate race, Nelson trailed Scott by about 12,600 votes, or 0.15% of the more than 8 million ballots cast following an electronic recount of ballots in the Nov. 6 election.
- Abrams, Kemp both claim victory after federal judge’s split decision in Georgia (The Hill) Both Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp are celebrating victory in the Georgia governor’s race after a split decision by a federal judge on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ordered that the secretary of state’s office not certify results until absentee ballots on which the voter’s date of birth is missing or incorrect are counted, siding with Abrams’s campaign. Jones sided with Kemp’s campaign on two counts, however. Counties will not be required to accept absentee ballots with incorrect addresses or provisional ballots cast by people who tried to vote in the wrong county.
- U.S. Starts Process to Open Arctic to Offshore Drilling, Despite Federal Lawsuit (Inside Climate News) Environmental groups are challenging President Trump’s move to revoke an Obama-era order that had put the same waters off-limits to oil and gas production. Obama’s decision to withdraw the Arctic waters from drilling were made in part out of concern for what would happen should an oil spill occur there. A White House release said at the time:
[The move] “reflect[s] the scientific assessment that, even with the high safety standards that both our countries have put in place, the risks of an oil spill in this region are significant and our ability to clean up from a spill in the region’s harsh conditions is limited.”
- Julian Assange charged in secret, mistake on US court filing suggests (The Guardian) A court filing submitted by U.S. authorities in an unrelated case mentioned existence of criminal charges against someone named ‘Assange’. This slip-up indicates that Assange, a major target of the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election, has been criminally charged in secret.
- Sen. Lindsey Graham: Acting AG Whitaker says special counsel is handling the Russia probe correctly (CNBC)
- Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said that as far as he has seen, special counsel Robert Mueller has handled the Russia probe correctly, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday.
- Graham said Whitaker also told him that he sees no need to recuse himself from his role overseeing the special counsel’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election – a step increasingly demanded by Democrats and some legal experts.
- Graham’s remarks to an NBC News reporter came just after the senior Republican senator spoke with Whitaker in a closed-door meeting in his office on Capitol Hill.
- Are we moving toward a cashless economy? (St. Louis Fed) Currency in circulation is consistently growing more than is the economy or the population. (This article will be posted in full as an article at GEI sometime in the future.)
- California Burning (Los Angles Times) Map showing active fires:
- Made homeless by flames, Camp fire evacuees face hardship, disease and desperation (Los Angles Times) Many hundreds (thousands?) are homeless in California after wildfires destroyed their homes. Some are living in vehicles and others in tents. See also next article. See also California: Camp fire missing soars past 600 with death toll up to 63 (The Guardian)
- Burned Neighborhood in Paradise (Twitter)
UK
- The British state has given up on the children who need it most (The Guardian) This Op Ed is very critical of UK’s social fabric (or lack thereof):
The active, conscious and persistent underfunding of Britain’s young people has gone beyond critical levels. A toxic blend of austerity and free-market orthodoxy has left them neglected where they should be nurtured; commodified instead of cared for. The most vulnerable are hit the hardest, placing enormous stress on families and robbing kids of their childhood and their future.
Turkey
- Recession Ahead for Turkey (Twitter)
Cambodia
- Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of genocide in Cambodia’s ‘Nuremberg’ moment (The Guardian) The two most senior Khmer Rouge leaders still alive today have been found guilty of genocide, almost 40 years since Pol Pot’s brutal communist regime fell, in a verdict followed by millions of Cambodians.
Nuon Chea, 92, who was second-in-command to Pol Pot, and Khieu Samphan, 87, who served as head of state, were both sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide and crimes against humanity carried out between 1977 and 1979, in what is a landmark moment for the Khmer Rouge tribunals. The pair are already serving life sentences for crimes against humanity.
Japan
- Japan’s minister of cybersecurity admits he’s never used a computer (CNBC) In a stunning admission, Japan’s new minister in charge of cybersecurity has admitted that he has never used a computer. During a question and answer session Yoshitaka Sakurada told a Lower House cabinet committee meeting that he had never found the need to use one during his career. He said according to the Japan Times:
“I don’t use computers because since I was 25 I have been in a position of authority where secretaries and employees handle such tasks for me.”
North Korea
- Kim Jong Un tests ‘high-tech’ weapon in message to the US (CNN) North Korea has tested a “newly developed ultramodern” weapon in an event supervised by leader Kim Jong Un, state media said Friday, amid faltering nuclear disarmament negotiations with the United States. Very little is known about the weapon or whether it is even new, but the test is the latest sign that Pyongyang is prepared to return to a more militaristic relationship with Washington if talks continue to go poorly. Josh Pollack, senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterrey, told CNN:
“He’s tiptoeing towards a more aggressive posture in negotiations with the US and he’s signaling that he’s not going to give way and can simply return to his old practices if (the US) don’t change their approach.”
China
- Scandals Catch Up to Private Chinese Hospitals, After Fortunes Are Made (The New York Times) Even in China, health services for a profit have created a scandal. The Putian network of 8,000 facilities, which expanded rapidly with little government oversight, is facing national outrage and scrutiny over a death and fraud allegations.
- China Indicates Global Reflation is Over (Lance Roberts, Real Investment Advice) LR is a regular contributor to GEI. Here he writes:
What is important about China, besides being a major trading partner of the U.S., is that their economy has been a massive debt-driven experiment from building massive infrastructure projects that no one uses; to entire cities that no one lives in. However, the credit-driven impulse has maintained the illusion of economic growth over the last several years as China remained a major consumer of commodities. Yet despite the Government headlines of economic prosperity, the markets have been signaling a very different story.
Mexico
- Stelter: The ‘caravan’ faded from the news. Obama predicted this would happen. (CNN) In the past few days, many members of the media have pointed out a sudden change in President Trump’s priorities. In the closing week of the midterm campaign, Trump mentioned the migrants traveling through Mexico toward the US southern border more than 60 times. He portrayed the migrants as an imminent threat and parroted Fox‘s use of the word “invasion” to describe the travelers. He pushed to keep the migrants in the news. And yet Trump has only used the word “caravan” once since election day, and it was almost in passing, at a news conference the next day. The migrants are still heading north, but you’d barely know it from Trump’s behavior.
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