The Economist - 26 ноября 2022

Год выпуска: ноябрь 2022

Автор: The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group

Жанр: Экономика/Политика

Издательство: «The Economist Newspaper Ltd»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 76

FROZEN OUT: How the world is leaving Europe behind

• Europe faces an enduring crisis of energy and geopolitics that will weaken it and threaten its global position: leader, page 11.
• Despite appearances, the costs and ill consequences of going without Russian gas are growing: briefing, page 17.

A festive wish-list for Congress

• Awish list of centrist proposals for the lame-duck Congress: leader, page 12.
• Congress should act now to protect immigrants brought illegally as children to America: Lexington, page 25.

The real lesson of COP27

• Great-power rivalry will shape the world’s response to climate change: leader, page 14.
• How— and how much—should polluting countries pay for climate damage in poor ones? Page 49.
• America and China are talking again, page 33.

Bob Iger’s encore

• Holywood’s biggest studio brings back its leading man. But the real problem is the script: leader, page 12.
• Like many celebrity boomers, superstar bosses just can’t leave the stage: Schumpeter, page 56.

African football is changing

• A Senegalese academy shows how, page 39.
• For the Middle East, the World Cup is full of political symbols, page 39.

The world this week Politics

• Russian bombs and missiles have damaged half of Ukraine’s power systems, said the Ukrainian government. Widespread blackouts are likely in the coming months, it warned. Evacuations of civilians have begun from the recently liberated parts of the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, where Russian attacks have been especially brutal. The who said millions of Ukrainians face a “life-threatening” winter.
• Russia’s state-owned gas company, Gazprom, threatened to curtail supplies in the last operational pipeline connecting Russia with western Europe, which runs through Ukraine. The Russians claim that Ukraine is hoarding gas destined for Moldova; Ukraine denies this.

Courting a disaster

• The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, reported that recent intense shelling had caused widespread damage across the site of the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, but that key equipment had not been affected. The head of the agency said that a major incident had been avoided by “metres, not kilometres”.
• Rishi Sunak, Britain’s new prime minister, visited Kyiv and met Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr Sunak stressed that although Britain has had three prime ministers in the past three months, there has been no change in the country’s solid commitment to Ukraine.
• Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that a referendum on independence for Scotland could only proceed with consent from the Westminster Parliament. The Scottish National Party, which governs Scotland, had hoped to hold a referendum in October next year.
• Democrats in America’s House of Representatives prepared to choose a new party leader, following Nancy Pelosi’s decision to step down after 20 years, eight of them as Speaker of the House. The favourite for Ms Pelosi’s job is Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who would be the first black person to head either party in Congress. A leadership election is scheduled for November 30th.
• America’s Supreme Court decided that Donald Trump’s tax records must be turned over to a committee in the House investigating his affairs, ending his battle to thwart the committee. Separately, the Department of Justice appointed a special counsel to oversee its investigations into Mr Trump. The former president called the move “a disgrace” that was only happening because he was so popular.
• A manager at a Walmart store in Virginia shot dead six of his colleagues and himself. In Colorado a gunman was arrested after killing five people at a gay bar. He might have murdered more, but a former soldier threw him to the floor, snatched away one of his guns and hit him with it.
• Brazil’s electoral court rejected a challenge by Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing populist president, to the result of an election three weeks ago, which he lost to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by 1.8 percentage points. Mr Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party wanted to annul votes cast on older electronic machines. The court said it was a “ludicrous” request, and fined the party.
• On November 23rd China logged more than 30,000 cases of covid-19, a daily record. Areas responsible for a fifth of the country’s gdp are now under some form of lockdown, according to Nomura, a bank.
• An earthquake struck the West Java region of Indonesia, killing at least 271 people. Scores were still missing. Cianjur, a town that lies 75km south of Jakarta, bore the brunt. Many of the dead were children buried under the rubble of collapsed schools.
• An election in Malaysia resulted in the country’s first-ever hung parliament. The king appointed Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister after his reformist bloc won the most seats. Mr Anwar has sought the job for 30 years, serving as deputy prime minister in the 1990s, only to fall foul of the establishment. He was imprisoned on bogus charges of sodomy in 2015, but later pardoned. The United Malays National Organisation, which has dominated Malaysian politics since independence, won just 26 out of 222 seats.
• Nepal also held an election, with a hung parliament the probable outcome. Final results are still days away, but the ruling Nepali Congress party, which aligns with India, was in front, and its main rival, the uml, which favours China, was second.
• South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, took a clear lead in nominations to remain leader of the ruling party and, by extension, the country. He had faced opposition from a pro-corruption faction within the ruling African National Congress backed by Jacob Zuma, the previous (and scandal-prone) president. Separately, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr Zuma was to return to jail to serve a sentence after his unlawful parole on spurious medical grounds.
• The party of Teodoro Obiang, the autocrat who has ruled Equatorial Guinea for 43 years, claimed to have won 99% of votes in presidential and legislative elections. The tiny petrostate locks up and tortures opposition activists and has no free press.
• Israelis feared a new wave of Palestinian terrorism after two bombs exploded in separate incidents near bus stops on the outskirts of Jerusalem, killing at least one person and injuring more than a dozen others. Two days before, a young Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli soldiers during a raid on the restive West Bank town of Jenin. Meanwhile Binyamin Netanyahu continued to negotiate with far-right parties to form a coalition government.
• Islamist parties fared poorly in elections to Bahrain’s national assembly, which has an advisory role under the sway of the country’s monarch, Hamad al-Khalifa.
• Violence intensified and spread across Iran, particularly in the Kurdish-populated west of the country, amid protests against Islamist rule that have persisted for the past two months. Humanrights groups said that 416 people, most of them protesters, have been killed across the country since the unrest began.

A lot of upsets

• Saudi Arabia’s footballers beat Argentina in the World Cup. In another shock, Japan beat Germany. Iran’s team refused to sing their national anthem, in solidarity with protesters against their piously despotic rulers back home. Some Iranian fans went further, booing their own anthem. fifa, football’s governing body, barred players from wearing One Love armbands, which promote gay rights, for fear of upsetting the Qatari hosts, who don’t. Qatar banned beer from stadiums, irritating nearly everyone.

The world this week Business

• In a shock move, Disney ousted Bob Chapek as chief executive after just 33 months in the job, and brought back Bob Iger, the previous ceo, to replace him. Senior executives lost confidence in Mr Chapek’s leadership, which came to a head when the latest quarterly earnings revealed rising losses at Disney+, the company’s premium streaming service. Mr Chapek also earned the ire of the creators of Disney’s content when he restructured the business around a policy of streaming first, taking creative control out of their hands. Mr Iger led Disney for 15 years during a period of growth, when it took over Pixar, Lucas-film and Marvel studios.

Fried bankers is about right

• FTX owes more than $3bn to its largest creditors, according to a list compiled for a court hearing on the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy. However, a lawyer for FTX’s new management team said that a large chunk of its assets are either missing or stolen. He described the firm as the “personal fiefdom” of Sam Bankman-Fried, one of the founders, and that it was run by “inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals”.
• Elon Musk indefinitely postponed the relaunch of Twitter’s blue-tick verification scheme. Mr Musk introduced a charge for the service shortly after taking over the company, which has led to a large number of accounts impersonating celebrities and businesses, such as a fake Pepsi account which tweeted that Coca-Cola is the better drink. Meanwhile, hundreds more workers were reported to have left Twitter after Mr Musk imposed a deadline to sign up to “long hours at high intensity”.
• Mr Musk also faces problems at Tesla. The electric carmaker issued yet another recall, this time of 321,000 vehicles over a software glitch in their taillights. It is the 19th recall so far this year. Tesla’s stock has fallen by almost 55% since December, wiping some $90bn from Mr Musk’s fortune (he is still worth $180bn).
• hp announced big job cuts, joining other tech companies that are reducing costs in a worsening post-pandemic environment. The computerand printer-maker is slashing 10% of its workforce amid a slump in demand for pcs. Its chief executive said it would be “prudent” to assume that business will not pick up next year. Dell, meanwhile, recorded a big drop in sales of pcs to consumers and companies.
• Another set of disappointing earnings from Zoom sent its share price sliding again. The stock is down by more than 55% this year. The videoconferencing platform faces increasing competition for new customers amid signs that companies are curtailing spending on new it.
• Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors in Thera-nos, a blood-testing startup that was once the darling of Silicon Valley. Ms Holmes, who is pregnant, was found guilty in January. She is due to start her sentence in April.
• The sale of Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House collapsed, following a judge’s decision in October to block the deal on antitrust grounds. Simon & Schuster’s owner declined to join an appeal against the ruling.
• Britain’s public sector net borrowing came in at £13.5bn ($16.1bn) in October, down from September’s figure but up sharply from the same month last year. The government’s mini-budget on November 17th increased the tax burden on workers and businesses and laid out a plan to cut spending in order to reduce public sector net debt as a share of gdp, but only after the next election, which is due to be held no later than January 2025.
• The oecd’s latest outlook said that inflationary pressures have intensified. It noted that higher interest rates were starting to pay off in some countries, notably the United States and Brazil, but warned that most big economies needed to continue tightening monetary policy to “lower inflation durably”.
• In Spain the government approved a number of measures to help low-income mortgage holders cope with soaring costs. The package includes a five-year grace period during which poorer households can pay lower interest on their home loan. One consumer group reckons this will mean homeowners who take up the offer will pay more interest in the long run.

Sun, sea, and vodka

• International tourism is on course to reach 65% of prepandemic levels in 2019 by the end of this year, according to the World Tourism Organisation. More than 700m people visited another country in the first nine months of 2022, up by 133% on the same period in 2021. Countries in Europe were the most visited; over the summer arrivals there reached 90% of prepandemic levels. Destinations with notable increases of tourists include Turkey (possibly because it is one of the few European countries that now welcomes Russians) and Serbia (ditto).