The Economist - 6 July 2024

Год выпуска: July 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: 80

NO WAY TO RUN A COUNTRY

• Joe Biden and his party portray themselves as the saviours of democracy. Their actions say otherwise: leader, page 9.
• Democratic bigwigs are starting to call for the president to step aside, page 15.
• Mr Biden is fooling himself: Lexington, page 31.
• Even leaders who are spry for their age eventually lose their grip, page 16.
• One generation has dominated American politics for over 30 years, page 17.
• Boom!: A six-part podcast series about the generation that blew up American politics, page 19.

Bento-box economics

• The paradox of red-hot labour markets, falling demand and rising prices in Japan, page 20.

Imagining a war in Lebanon

• Hizbullah poses a grave threat to Israel, but a war now would be disastrous: leader, page 10, and analysis, page 35.

In its prime: Amazon at 30

• After an explosive 30 years, three factors will define the tech giant’s next decade: leader, page 10.
• As the e-empire enters middle age, it is stitching together its disparate parts, page 51.

Technology Quarterly: Spycraft

• The tools of the trade have changed and so has the world in which they are used, after page 38

The world this week Politics

• Joe Biden admitted that he had “screwed up” his debate with Donald Trump. The president’s disastrous performance has caused some Democrats to openly call for him to drop his re-election bid. Polls show a sizeable majority of Americans think he does not have the cognitive ability to serve as president. Mr Biden said he would not pull out and would contest November’s election. Senior Democrats, including Kamala Harris, the vice-president, and state governors rallied around the 8i-year-old.

Trump card

• America’s Supreme Court gave a mixed verdict on whether Donald Trump was immune from prosecution for his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election. In a 6-3 ruling the court separated a president’s official actions from his unofficial ones, finding that Mr Trump’s conversations with people in his administration were covered by immunity. His communications with private individuals and state officials were a grey area, the justices said, sending the issue back to the lower courts. It is now less likely that Mr Trump will ever be tried on those election charges. After the ruling, prosecutors agreed to postpone Mr Trump’s sentencing hearing for falsifying business records.
• Steve Bannon began his fourmonth prison sentence for refusing to answer a subpoena from a congressional committee investigating the events of January 6th 2021. Mr Trump’s former adviser held a rally shortly before his incarceration. “Victory or death,” he exclaimed to the crowd.
• More than 200 candidates from the centre and the left withdrew from the second round of the French parliamentary election to avoid splitting their vote in constituencies where they have a chance of beating the hard-right National Rally (rn). The united “republican front” is trying to stop the RN from gaining a majority in the election on July 7th. The RN came first with 33% of the vote in the first round.
• Ursula von der Leyen was endorsed by EU leaders for a second term as president of the European Commission. She now faces what is expected to be a tight confirmation vote in the European Parliament in mid-July. Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Estonia, has also to be confirmed as the EU’s top diplomat. Antonio Costa, who resigned as Portugal’s prime minister last year, is the new president of the European Council, for which he does not need parliamentary approval.
• Turkey arrested hundreds of people after Syrians were targeted in a spate of violence triggered by reports of a Syrian man sexually abusing a child. Cars and properties belonging to Syrians were set ablaze in Kayseri, in central Turkey, before the unrest spread to other cities. More than 3m Syrian refugees live in the country. Across the border in northern Syria locals responded by attacking Turkish troops, who maintain a big security presence in the area.
• Spain’s supreme court ruled that Carles Puigdemont, the de facto leader of Catalonia’s separatist movement, could not be granted amnesty for misuse of public funds, a blow to the Socialist government, which has promised the amnesty in return for Catalan support in parliament. The decision can be appealed against. The court held that other charges relating to the holding of an illegal independence referendum in 2017 were covered by the amnesty.
• Turnout hit a record low in the first round of Iran’s presidential election. Masoud Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old surgeon and reformist who has criticised the regime’s corruption and called for engagement with the West, came first. Saeed Jalili, a hardliner who seeks confrontation with America and engagement with Russia and China, came second. They face each other in a run-off on July 5th. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a stalwart of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is out of the race.
• Israel ordered Palestinians to leave Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, after rockets were reportedly fired into Israel from there. It was reported that Israeli strikes in response killed several people. Antonio Guterres, the UN’s secretarygeneral, said that “No place is safe in Gaza.” In April displaced Palestinians returned to Khan Younis after Israel withdrew its soldiers.
• An Israeli drone strike killed a senior Hizbullah commander, known as Abu Naameh, in southern Lebanon. The Iranian-backed militia responded by firing a barrage of rockets across the border at Israel. American negotiators have been trying to stop an all-out war from breaking out between Israel and Hizbullah. Around 70,000 Israelis have been forced to leave their homes in the border area.
• Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, appointed a cabinet containing members of the Democratic Alliance (DA), previously the main opposition party, averting worries that squabbles over ministerial positions might have torn apart the new coalition government. The African National Congress, Mr Ramaphosa’s party, still holds most key portfolios, including finance and foreign affairs. The DA and smaller parties control several troubled departments, including home affairs and agriculture.
• Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was re-elected for a second term as president of Mauritania, with 56% of the vote. At least three people were killed in clashes between protesters and the security forces after his main rival disputed the results. The electoral commission dismissed claims that the poll had been rigged.
• In India at least 121 people were killed during a stampede at a religious festival around 200km (125 miles) south-east of Delhi. Authorities said the event attracted 250,000 people when permission had been given for 80,000 to attend.
• A petition in South Korea to impeach the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been signed by im people so far. The document accuses Mr Yoon of corruption and failing to protect South Koreans from Japanese treated radioactive water, among other things. The petition crashed on the National Assembly’s website because of heavy demand. The deeply unpopular Mr Yoon lost a parliamentary election in April.

Battling Beryl

• A powerful category-five storm, Hurricane Beryl, ripped through the Caribbean, destroying property and killing at least seven people. On July 4th it was bearing down on the south-eastern coast of Mexico. There is no record of a category-five storm ever forming in the Caribbean so early in the year. Warmer sea temperatures, induced by climate change, mean that ever more energy is available to create powerful hurricanes.

The world this week Business

• Boeing agreed to buy Spirit AeroSystems, a maker of jet fuselages that Boeing hived off from its operations in Wichita in 2005, in an $8.3bn transaction. Reincorporating Spirit will help Boeing streamline its production process after a host of claims about shoddy workmanship. Spirit built the door panel that blew off a 737 MAX upon take-off in January. It also produces parts for Airbus. That business will be sold to the European aerospace company as part of the deal.
• Tesla delivered almost 444,000 electric vehicles in the second quarter. Although that was down by nearly 5% from the same period last year and was its second consecutive quarterly sales decline, the carmaker’s share price surged, as markets were expecting a bigger drop. BYD, a Chinese rival, increased its deliveries of pure battery EVs by 21%, to 426,000, so Tesla keeps its crown as the world’s biggest EV seller, for now.
• General Motors had its best sales quarter in America since the end of 2020, shifting 696,000 vehicles from April to June. Sales of EVs accelerated by 40%, year on year, to 21,900, though that still represents just 3% of GM’s total us sales.
• Japan’s Topix stockmarket index closed at a new high, beating the previous record set in December 1989. The Nikkei 225, which breached its 1989 peak in February, also hit new levels this week.
• The euro zone’s annual inflation rate dipped slightly in June, to 2.5%, though the growth of prices in services was still high at a rate of 4.1%. The European Central Bank is expected to keep interest rates on hold at its next meeting on July 18th, after cutting them a month ago.
• An Apple executive will join OpenAl’s board as an observer, according to reports. Microsoft has a similar arrangement with OpenAl, the developer of ChatGPT, a chatbot that uses generative artificial intelligence. Apple recently struck a deal with OpenAl to integrate ChatGPT into its new Apple Intelligence system.

The revolution’s energy

• Google’s annual assessment of its environmental impact revealed that its carbon emissions grew by 13% last year, to 48% above its 2019 baseline, mostly because of its expanding data centres and use of artificial intelligence. Google is still aiming to be net zero by 2030, a target it admits is “extremely ambitious”. There is a lot of “uncertainty around the future environmental impact” of Al, it said.
• ITER, an attempt by six governments and the European Union to build a fusion reactor in the south of France, announced another delay. It was supposed to open in 2025 (already a postponement of nine years). That has been moved a further nine, to 2034, with the first energyproducing reactions expected in 2039, and the cost rising from €20bn ($21.6bn) to €25bn. It looks increasingly likely that one of the many commercial fusion companies now in existence will beat it.
• The European Commission again flexed its new regulatory muscles under the Digital Markets Act, this time taking Meta to task over its “pay or consent” advertising model. European users of Meta’s platforms can either pay for an ads-free service or consent to having their data tracked. Meta’s response was that its advertising model complied with a ruling from “the highest court in Europe” and that it wanted a “constructive dialogue” with the commission.
• Nike’s share price failed to recover from the hammering it took after the sportswear company reported weak quarterly earnings and lowered its sales forecast for the year. The stock lost 20% of its value. Nike has been running behind trendy competitors, such as Hoka and On, in terms of sales growth.
• Walgreens Boots Alliance saw its share price take a similar dive after it slashed its profit forecast and announced more shop closures. The managing director of Boots, the British side of the pharmacy business, is stepping down. Walgreens had toyed with selling Boots, but none of the prospective buyers offered the right price.
• EU regulators approved Lufthansa’s bid for a 41% stake in ITA, Italy’s national carrier, which was created from the ashes of Alitalia. Rome’s Fiumi-cino airport will be the German airline’s sixth hub when the deal closes, giving it better access to Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

City of flights

• The Olympics is leading travellers to postpone their visits to Paris, according to Air France-KLM, which warned that traffic to and from the French capital was “laggingbehind” other European cities and would hurt its revenue from June to August. As 15m people are expected in the city for the games, this may in part be because French people are postponing their holidays until late August. “Paris will be unbearable,” one resident told the media.