The Economist - 31 August 2024

Год выпуска: August 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

SUDAN

Why its catastrophic war is the world’s problem

• A catastrophic conflict in Sudan could kill millions and spread chaos far beyond its borders: leader, page 9.
• The country could face the world’s worst famine in 40 years, page 15.
• The ripple effects of its war are being felt across three continents, page 17.

Bitcoin miners of Texas

• Why local Republicans are souring on crypto, page 19.

In praise of digital twins

• They are fast becoming part of everyday life: leader, page 11.
• How they are speeding up manufacturing, page 63.
• Scientists hope to simulate everything from human organs to the planet itself, page 64.
• Corporate twins will make it easier for firms to reap the benefits of Al, page 65.

Time to pay for blood plasma

• More countries should pay people for the precious liquid: leader, page 10.
• Reliance on America’s plasma grows, as other countries castigate its practices, page 59.

Nvidia envy

Could any firm live up to the frenzied expectations around the world’s top Al chipmaker? Schumpeter, page 55.

The world this week Politics

• Israeli warplanes bombed dozens of Hizbullah’s missilelaunch sites in southern Lebanon. The militia group fired at least 200 rockets towards northern Israel; most were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defence system. Both sides then moved to de-escalate a skirmish many feared could get out of hand. Meanwhile, Israeli troops rescued an Israeli Bedouin hostage from a tunnel in Gaza. He had been kidnapped during the Hamas attacks in October 2023. And at least ten Palestinians were killed in Israeli counter-terrorism raids in four cities in the West Bank.

A neglected conflict

• Sudan marked 500 days of a civil war that has directly killed perhaps 150,000 people and forced more than 10m to flee from their homes. Experts warn that if food supplies cannot get through, the country could suffer a famine worse than anything the world has seen since at least the 1980s.
• Nigeria received 10,000 doses of mpox vaccines. The west African country has not recorded any deaths from the disease. Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country worst hit by mpox, said there were still several procedures to follow before it would receive its first vaccines.
• Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he would present a plan to end Ukraine’s war with Russia to Joe Biden when they meet in September, and would share the details with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. The Ukrainian president said that the incursion of Ukrainian troops into Russia was part of the plan, which he thinks will improve Ukraine’s negotiating position. Ukraine claims to have taken 100 Russian settlements and captured 600 troops. Meanwhile, Russia pounded cities and energy facilities across Ukraine with hypersonic missiles and drones in one of its biggest assaults of the conflict so far.
• A man suspected of having links to Islamic State stabbed three people to death at a festival in Solingen, a town in Germany’s Rhineland. The attacker, a Syrian asylumseeker, eventually surrendered to the police.
• The Japanese government said it would protect the sovereignty of its airspace, after a Chinese reconnaissance plane flew around Japan’s Danjo islands, which lie in the East China Sea around 160km (100 miles) from Nagasaki. The defence ministry said it was the first time a Chinese military aircraft had entered Japanese airspace without permission.
• At least 73 people were killed in the Pakistani province of Balochistan when separatists launched their biggest offensive in years. The militants, who want independence for Balochistan, attacked police stations and motorways. Cars and buses were held up by assailants looking for workers from the province of Punjab, whom the separatists blame for taking local jobs; they shot dead over 20 workers.
• The UN high commissioner for human rights condemned the codification of “morality” rules in Afghanistan that, among other things, forbid women from speaking in public and force them to cover their faces and bodies. The rules had previously been set as guideline by the Taliban. The UN said the effect would be to “completely erase women’s presence in public”. Men must now grow a beard. Photographing living things is banned.
• In India police fired teargas and water cannon as protests grew in Kolkata against the rape and murder of a female doctor. The Trinamool Congress party, which controls the state government in West Bengal, blamed agitators from the Bharatiya Janata Party of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, for stirring up trouble. The BJP claims its critics are playing down the murder.
• Australia’s Labor government said it would cap the number of new international students at 270,000 from next year, subject to a vote in Parliament. In 2023 around 400,000 foreign students began courses in the country. The government hopes that capping the number of students will relieve pressure on housing. It noted that there has been a 50% rise in overseas students taking up vocational courses since 2019.

Stranger things

• Robert F. Kennedy junior dropped his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump for the White House. Mr Kennedy is a maverick, best known for claiming that a worm was found in his brain, and dumping a dead bear in Central Park. His daughter also claims that he sawed the head off a dead whale and stuck it on top of the family car.
• The special prosecutor investigating Mr Trump’s alleged attempt to overthrow the result of the 2020 election presented a slimmed-down version of the indictment that takes note of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity. A judge will soon hold a hearing on whether the case should go forward.
• Joe Biden’s policy of giving half a million illegal immigrants a path to American citizenship was put on hold by a federal judge. The policy applies to migrants who are married to American citizens. It was touted as the biggest presidential step on immigration in years when it was announced in June, but the judge thinks arguments that the executive had exceeded its powers warrant “closer consideration”.
• Venezuela’s top court “certified unobjectionably” the result of July’s presidential election, which Nicolas Maduro, the authoritarian incumbent, falsely claims to have won. The Organisation of American States dismissed the ruling, describing official vote tallies as “mathematical impossibilities”. The country’s attorney-general summoned Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition’s candidate, over the publication of figures showing that he won by a landslide.
• President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil named Gabriel Galipolo as the next head of the central bank. If the nomination is approved by the Senate Mr Galipolo, who is currently the bank’s director of monetary policy, will take up the post in January. Mr da Silva has criticised the central bank for keeping interest rates high, but Mr Galipolo, an ally of the president, is no dove. He has indicated rates might go up again to tame rising inflation.
• Much of Brazil was covered in smoke as forest fires raged across the country, with 2,700 fires in the state of Sao Paulo alone. Huge fires also blazed in the Amazon and the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland. Although droughts are partly to blame, police have arrested four people in Sao Paulo for suspected arson. The prices of raw sugar and coffee spiked as commodity-producing areas went up inflames.

The world this week Business

• French prosecutors issued preliminary charges against Pavel Durov, the boss of Telegram, for allegedly failing to tackle criminal activity taking place over the messaging app, which has 900m users worldwide. The arrest of Mr Durov in Paris came amid worsening relations between governments and social-media companies. In America Mark Zuckerberg accused the Biden administration of pressing Meta to censor certain content across its platforms about covid-19 during the pandemic. And Brazil’s Supreme Court threatened to shut down X in a row with Elon Musk, the platform’s owner.
• Nvidia published another impressive set of quarterly earnings. Revenue rose by 122%, year on year, to $30bn. But as that was below the 262% growth it registered in the prior quarter, its share price tumbled in early trading. Net profit of $16.6bn was up by 168%. The chipmaker’s earnings are being scrutinised by markets each quarter as a bellwether for the artificial-intelligence boom.
• Kioxia, a Japanese chipmaker that was spun out of Toshiba and is the world’s third-largest maker of flash-memory units, filed to list shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Aiming to raise at least $500m, it could be the biggest initial public offering in Japan this year.
• Investors took fright when PDD Holdings said slower economic growth in China would “inevitably” lead to falling sales and profits. Its share price tumbled by 29%, wiping $55bn off its market value. PDD operates the Pinduoduo and Temu e-commerce sites, shipping cheap goods that are made in China. The retailer had so far weathered the gloom of a depressed Chinese economy.

Accelerating nicely

• Despite a price war in its Chinese home market, BYD said revenue rose by 16% in the first half of 2024, year on year, and net profit by 24%. The maker of electric cars delivered 426,039 fully electric vehicles in the second quarter, up by 21% from a year earlier.
• The Canadian government decided to slap tariffs of 100% on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles, and a 25% duty on Chinese steel and aluminium. Following similar steps in America and the European Union, Canada said both industries were unfairly subsidised by the Chinese state. China said the measures would damage trade and co-operation between the two countries.
• Goldman Sachs won its appeal to the Federal Reserve over its result in this year’s stress tests. It is the first time that a bank has successfully challenged the findings of the annual exam.
• The ratio of capital to risk-weighted assets it is required to hold will now be slightly lower.
• Elliott Management, an activist hedge fund, raised the stakes in its proxy fight with Southwest Airlines by sending an open letter to other shareholders, in which it claimed that the board had failed to hold the chief executive and chairman accountable for the company’s woes, and that both men should go. Elliott plans to meet Southwest’s representatives on September 9th.
• Kroger and Albertsons went to federal court to lay out arguments for why their long-delayed $25bn merger should be allowed to proceed. The Federal Trade Commission wants to block the deal, claiming that the combination of the supermarket giants would result in higher prices for consumers and worse conditions for workers. The trial is expected to last three weeks.

Lost in space

• In a humiliating turn of events for Boeing, NASA decided not to bring back two astronauts from the International Space Station on the company’s Starliner space vehicle, and will instead use a SpaceX Dragon craft to return the pair to Earth. The astronauts travelled to the ISS in the Starliner, which experienced technical problems and is considered too risky for the crewed return voyage. The astronauts won’t come home until February; their eight-day mission will have lasted eight months. NASA insists they are not stranded.
• Paramount Global said its takeover by Skydance Media would now go ahead and should be completed in the first half of 2025. A late rival bid from a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman, a media magnate, was withdrawn just a week after it was submitted.
• Lego reported big jumps in revenue and operating profit for the first half of the year. The Danish maker of toy bricks has become evermore innovative with its play sets. It has long offered Disney- and Harry Potter- themed products, but it recently released a “Jaws” set, containing bricks for shark, boat and characters from the film. Lego is taking a bigger bite of the toy market, as its rivals report sinking sales.

скачать журнал: The Economist - 31 August 2024