Weekend News Items.
24 August 2019. By John Ellis.
1. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has just completed three weeks of radiation treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the U.S. Supreme Court disclosed Friday. The radiation therapy, conducted on an outpatient basis, began Aug. 5, shortly after a localized cancerous tumor was discovered on Ginsburg's pancreas. The treatment included the insertion of a stent in Ginsburg's bile duct, according to a statement issued by the court.
2. President Trump said he “hereby ordered” U.S. companies doing business in China to explore relocating their operations and stiffened tariffs on Chinese imports after Beijing unveiled its own new levies on American goods, the latest twists in a trade war rattling investors and confounding central bankers. Mr. Trump tweeted late Friday afternoon he would raise the tariff rate on existing and planned tariffs by 5 percentage points. Tariffs already in place on about $250 billion of Chinese goods will rise to 30% Oct. 1. Tariffs planned to take effect September 1 and December 15 on a further roughly $300 billion will rise to 15%, officials said.
3. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave his most forceful warning yet about the risks to the U.S. economy from escalating trade tensions and the limits to the central bank’s ability to cushion any fallout. Mr. Powell, in a widely anticipated speech here Friday, signaled the central bank would follow its rate cut last month, its first in more than a decade, with an additional reduction soon. But he stopped short of saying how much stimulus the Fed might provide beyond that. Instead, he cautioned that the Fed’s tools weren’t well suited to counter rising business and investor anxieties over the intensifying trade war between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
4. President Trump reacted furiously on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke about the trade war with China and economic risks to the United States, asking whether his appointee to the U.S. central bank was a greater "enemy" than China's leader Xi Jinping. "As usual, the Fed did NOTHING! It is incredible that they can 'speak' without knowing or asking what I am doing, which will be announced shortly," Trump wrote on Twitter. We have a very strong dollar and a very weak Fed. I will work 'brilliantly' with both, and the U.S. will do great. "My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?"
5. Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, has said that the world’s reliance on the US dollar “won’t hold” and needs to be replaced by a new international monetary and financial system based on many more global currencies. In a speech at the annual Jackson Hole gathering of central bankers in the US, he called for the IMF to take charge of a new system of currencies, insuring emerging economies from destructive capital outflows in dollars and removing their need to hoard US currency. In the longer term the IMF could “chang[e] the game” by building a multipolar system, he said. A transcript of Mr. Carney's speech is here and is well worth reading.
6. China today said it would continue fighting the trade war with the US “until the end” after the two sides slapped further tariffs on each other’s goods. A sharply worded commentary by official mouthpiece People’s Daily said China has the strength to continue the dispute and blamed Washington for sacrificing the interest of its own people. Published under the pseudonym “Wuyuehe”, the piece described the latest tariff measures by the US as “barbaric.”
7. The vast majority of fentanyl arriving in the U.S. comes from foreign sources, mainly from China, according to drug-enforcement officials. While much of it is routed through Mexico, U.S. buyers also purchase fentanyl online from labs in China and have it shipped to them. They have relied on the U.S. Postal Service as well as United Parcel Service and FedEx, according to authorities. On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned three Chinese nationals and a pharmaceutical company for running an alleged narcotics trafficking operation that, according to officials, has contributed to the U.S. opioid crisis. Officials cited the use of express mail and the Postal Service.
8. Protesters in helmets and gas masks squared off with riot police Saturday, as tear gas engulfed the industrial neighborhood of Kwun Tong and Hong Kong’s protests took a confrontational turn after nearly two weeks of relatively peaceful turnouts. In a 12th weekend of protests, demonstrators took a more aggressive approach by blocking roads, surrounding the police station and sawing down at least one video-surveillance pole, which protesters said authorities could use to spy on them and invade privacy.
9. Security forces used tear gas against stone-throwing local residents in Indian Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar on Friday, after a third straight week of protests in the restive Soura district despite the imposition of tight restrictions.Since early August, Indian authorities have arrested or confined hundreds of local political leaders, activists, businessmen, students and teachers to their homes, according to local politicians, police and the United Nations’ Human Rights Council.
10. North Korea fired two apparent ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on Saturday morning, the Japanese government and South Korean military said, a day after Seoul severed a key intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo. The Japanese Defense Ministry said the weapons were “apparently ballistic missiles,” adding that the launch did not affect Japan’s security and that the missiles did not land in the country’s exclusive economic zone.
11. Iran has test-fired a new missile, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Major General Hossein Salami, said on Saturday, according to the Tasnim news agency. “Our country is always the arena for testing a variety of defense and strategic systems and these are non-stop movements towards the growth of our deterrent power,” Salami said. “And yesterday was one of the successful days for this nation.” He did not provide any additional information about the missile.
12. U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton is seeking to scuttle the pending Chinese acquisition of a Ukrainian aerospace company on grounds that it will give Beijing vital defense technology, according to senior U.S. administration officials familiar with the matter. Mr. Bolton’s personal interest and involvement in the deal, acknowledged by the senior administration officials, underscores the growing importance of this case to the U.S. national-security establishment.
13. As an ecological disaster in the Amazon escalated into a global political crisis, Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, took the rare step on Friday of mobilizing the armed forces to help contain blazes of a scale not seen in nearly a decade. The sudden reversal, after days of dismissing growing concern over hundreds of fires raging across the Amazon, came as international outrage grew over the rising deforestation in the world’s largest tropical rain forest. European leaders threatened to cancel a major trade deal, protesters staged demonstrations outside Brazilian embassies and calls for a boycott of Brazilian products snowballed on social media.
14. David Koch, the billionaire industrialist and philanthropist whose support for conservative causes and candidates helped reshape U.S. politics in recent decades, died Friday at the age of 79. The family of Mr. Koch said in a statement, “While we mourn the loss of our hero, we remember his iconic laughter, insatiable curiosity, and gentle heart.” Koch Industries Inc. said that Mr. Koch, who gave more than $1 billion to charitable causes, fought various illnesses over many years.
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Quick Links: CRISPR cuts turn gels into biological watchdogs. Put out Amazon rainforest fire or lose trade deal, Macron tells Brazil. Italy's latest political crisis grinds on. Bolivia's vital forests are burning out of control, too. Analysts expect Uber Eats to lose money on every order for at least the next five years. High schools and universities in South Korea now offer esports in the classroom.
Political Links: Hong Kong protesters hold hands. British consulate worker held in mainland China finally released. China accuses US of using fentanyl as a political weapon. takes Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) ends 2020 presidential campaign. Gerard O'Neill, founding member of The Boston Globe's Spotlight Team, has died. The Financial Times profiles Dina Powell of Goldman Sachs.