The Economist - 1 June 2024

Год выпуска: June 2024

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

MEET AMERICA’S MOST DYNAMIC POLITICAL MOVEMENT

• Will abortion swing America's election? Meet the most dynamic new movement in American politics: leader, page 7.
• The Dobbs decision has set off a wave of activism that could help Joe Biden in November: briefing, page 12.

Three women who will shape Europe

• Ursula von der Leyen, Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen encapsulate the dilemma of how to handle populism as Europe votes: leader, page 8.
• The elections threaten its ability to get things done at a time of rising insecurity, page 39.
• Populists are pushing their way into the mainstream, page 41.

Boomers: loaded and stingy

• Even the surprising frugality of the old may not bring long-term interest rates down: leader, page 9, and analysis, page 57.

Generation rent goes global

• Many politicians' ideas to help tenants will actually make things worse, page 49.

The stakes in Mexico’s election

• The next president has the chance to transform Mexico and redefine its relationship with the United States, page 21.

The world this week Politics

• At least 45 people were killed in Rafah after an Israeli air strike hit a tent camp. Israel said it was targeting two Hamas commanders and that the other deaths were caused by secondary explosions. Palestinians claimed large bombs hit an area fordisplaced people. America said Israel’s actions did not cross the administration’s red lines and would not trigger a change in policy. Meanwhile, Hamas launched a rocket attack on central Israel, including Tel Aviv, for the first time in months.
• The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to limit its military offensive in Rafah and cease any operations that may cause widespread civilian deaths and suffering.
• An Egyptian soldier was killed, apparently by accident, in an incident involving the Israel Defence Forces and the Egyptian army in the border area near Rafah. Both sides are investigating the event. A few days later Israel took full operational control of the Philadelphi corridor, a strip ofland between Gaza and Egypt, which Hamas uses to smuggle weapons. Israel found 20 tunnels crossing into Egypt near the corridor and 82 shafts.
• A temporary pier built by America off the coast of Gaza to receive supplies of aid was damaged in rough seas. America said it would need to be taken to Israel for repair.
• Early projections based on about 10% of votes counted suggested that the African National Congress might lose its parliamentary majority in South Africa’s election. This would probably require it to form a coalition with an opposition party. Stockmarkets and the currency fell.
• Peru’s attorney-general’s office filed a formal complaint against Dina Boluarte, the president, regarding the provenance of luxury watches she is fond of wearing. Ms Boluarte denied any wrongdoing in the scandal, dubbed Rolexgate, though Congress may act on the complaint.
• Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, reshuffled his cabinet, naming Guillermo Francos as his new chief of staff. Mr Francos is seen as assertive and energetic, characteristics he will need to persuade Congress to approve Mr Milei’s wide-ranging economic reforms.
• In Haiti the governing council named Garry Conille as prime minister. MrConille held the office for seven months from 2011 to 2012. He has an extensive background in development, experience he will need in office as a multinational security force, led by Kenya, prepares to deploy troops in the country to help end months of violent chaos fomented by criminal gangs.

EU aren’t allowed in

• Venezuela’s electoral commission said it would not allow observers from the European Union into the country to monitor a presidential election in July. The head of the commission said this was because of “genocidal” sanctions the EU has imposed on Venezuela.
• Observers from Latin America, the Caribbean and other regions will be granted entry.
• Six months after a general election, Dick Schoof was chosen to be prime minister of the Netherlands by the new coalition government, which is headed by the hard-right Party for Freedom (pw). Before his new job Mr Schoof was the most senior official in the Justice Ministry and he is a former chief of the Dutch domestic intelligence service. He will oversee a coalition consisting of the PW, conservative-liberals, centrists and a populist farmers’ party. The new government has pledged to reduce immigration.
• A meeting of foreign ministers in the European Union reportedly called on Hungary to stop blocking aid to Ukraine, including a new €6.6bn ($7.2bn) package of measures. Lithuania’s foreign minister accused the pro-Russian Hungarian government of systematically undermining the EU’s foreign policy.
• Meanwhile, Sweden said it would supply Ukraine with two early warning and control aircraft to bolster air defences. Belgium promised to provide Ukraine with 30 F-16 fighter jets by 2028, but for use only within Ukrainian territory. Volodymyr Zelensky has become frustrated with the conditions that some donors put on the deployment of their weapons. But France has joined a number of NATO members calling for a policy shift to allow the arms to be used against targets in Russia. Vladimir Putin warned that this would “lead to serious consequences”.
• A Russian guided bomb killed at least 16 people at a DIY store in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, where Russia has intensified its assault. An earlier missile strike killed seven people at a printing house that produced half of Ukraine’s textbooks. Russia claimed to have captured two more villages, one in the Kharkiv region and one in Donetsk.
• In Hong Kong’s largest national-security trial, 14 prodemocracy activists were convicted of conspiracy to commit subversion. Their crime was to have held an unofficial primary election in 2020 to improve their chances of winning control of the local legislature. Another 31 defen dants pleaded guilty. Two were acquitted. Amnesty International described it as “a neartotal purge of the political opposition”
• Estimates of the death toll from a landslide in a remote part of Papua New Guinea ranged from the mid-hundreds to 2,000. Thousands of people were being prepared for evacuation amid fears of another landslide.

Respect your majesty

• Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister of Thailand, is to be indicted for remarks he made about a former king. He must appear in court to answer charges that he broke the kingdom’s lese-majeste laws, which forbid even mild criticism of the monarchy. Mr Shinawatra is accused of insulting the then king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, in an interview with Korean media nine years ago. He denies it.
• Taiwan’s government rejected a series of contentious procedural reforms pushed through parliament by opposition parties. The cabinet feared the law could be unconstitutional and said it would send it back to parliament to reconsider. Thousands of people took to the streets in protest against the measures that would curb the president’s powers.
• Temperatures in Delhi approached 50°C (122°F), the highest everin the Indian capital. Officials said a severe heatwave would continue across much of north India, with little respite at night, and warned that people may suffer from heat stroke.

The world this week Business

• ConocoPhillips agreed to buy Marathon Oil in a deal they valued at $22.5bn, making it the latest energy mega-merger in America. Oil and gas companies are consolidating in order to cut costs and boost their footprints. Marathon owns assets in Eagle Ford in Texas, Bakken in North Dakota, Permian in New Mexico and Texas, and in Oklahoma.
• Shareholders in Hess, an energy exploration company, approved a controversial $53bn takeover by Chevron. Hess holds a 30% stake in a big oilfield project off the coast of Guyana. Chevron’s offer has been challenged by ExxonMobil, which owns a 45% stake in the Guyana project and claims it has the right to negotiate with Hess about the asset. ExxonMobil has started an arbitration process. ISS, a proxy-advice firm, had recommended that shareholders abstain from voting while arbitration was ongoing.

Wall Street is watching

• ExxonMobil easily won the support of shareholders at its annual general meeting, fending off a challenge from green investors. Some influential shareholders, including CalPERS, a big public-pension fund in California, are angry that the company is pursuing its lawsuit against two greeninvestment firms over their proposed resolution to force it to speed up cuts to emissions. The resolution had been withdrawn, but Exxon argues that such proxy votes are increasingly harmful to its business.
• BHP’s proposed takeover of Anglo American collapsed, after Anglo rejected an extension of a deadline for talks and said BHP’s offer remained “unattractive”. One of Anglo’s concerns was that ВНР would spin off mining assets in South Africa.
• Elon Musk’s artificial-intelligence startup, xAI, raised $6bn from investors, making it one of the most valuable competitors to OpenAl, despite being founded just a year ago. The venture is backed by investors in Saudi Arabia and Dubai and by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, two venture-capital firms. Grok, xAI’s chatbot, is already integrated with X, Mr Musk’s social-media platform.
• The NASDAQComposite hit another record, closing above the 17,000 mark for the first time. The tech-heavy share index was boosted by the euphoria that greeted Nvidia’s latest stellar earnings. The Al chipmaker’s share price has risen by more than 20% in a week, giving it a market value of more than $2.8trn, not far behind Apple.
• El Al. Israel’s biggest airline, reported a big jump in quarterly profit. The carrier has seen a huge demand for its flights as some other airlines avoid Israel during the war with Hamas. El Al’s boss said it was stretched to capacity.
• The holding company of Daniel Kretinsky, a Czech businessman, reached an agreement to buy Britain’s Royal Mail for£5-3bn ($6.6bn). The offer to acquire the 500-year-old postal service comes amid campaigning in Britain’s election, which is expected to be won by Labour. It will scrutinise promises by Mr Kretinsky to recognise the postal-workers’ union and to deliver post anywhere in the country at the same cost to customers.

Is it really “a new beginning”?

• The prime ministers of China and Japan and the president of South Korea held a summit, where they pledged to restart talks on creating a trilateral free-trade agreement. The three men also agreed to co-operate on export controls. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, did not attend, raising questions about whether he was fully behind the proposals.
• Meanwhile, China launched the third phase of its state-backed “Big Fund” to invest in semiconductors. The latest stage has raised $47bn from government departments and Chinese banks. The first phase was launched in 2014 and the second in 2019.
• Workers at Samsung Electronics are to down tools in industrial action for the first time. A union representing a fifth of the workforce wants all its members to take a day of paid leave on June 7th, and is threatening to hold a full strike unless the South Korean company agrees to its demands on pay and bonuses. In 2020 Samsung reversed its policy of discouraging unions from organising in its factories, amid growing scrutiny of its management practices.
• “Dungeon & Fighter” reportedly generated $140m in revenue in the week after its release in China, one of the country’s biggest money-spinning debuts for a mobile game. Tencent, the publisher of “D&F”, had to postpone the launch in its home market when the government withheld the approval of new licences during its crackdown on the tech industry. The game, which was developed in South Korea, is wildly popular else where.

скачать журнал: The Economist - 1 June 2024