August, 2019

• 26 August

  Trump-Abe trade deal helps US farmers, staves off auto tariffs

  

  Bloomberg The US and Japan agreed in principle on a trade deal that would slash Tokyo’s tariffs on American beef, and other agricultural products, while delaying for now the threat of additional levies on Japanese auto exports to the US. US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the agreement on Sunday on the sidelines of the ...

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• 26 August

  Tesla mulls potential German factory sites

  Bloomberg In its search for a potential factory location in Europe, Tesla Inc. examined areas in Germany’s state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rheinische Post reported. Tesla representatives also inspected possible sites in Lower Saxony, newspaper NWZ reported earlier in the week. In June, CEO Elon Musk called Germany “a leading choice for Europe” in a reply to a tweet asking if ...

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• 26 August

  Hydrogen’s plunging price boosts role as climate solution

  

  Bloomberg The cost of producing hydrogen gas with renewables is likely to plummet in the coming decades, making one of the most radical technologies for reducing greenhouse gases economical. That’s the conclusion of an analysis by BloombergNEF, which said the most abundant element is likely to play a growing role in reducing pollution from power producers and industry. The findings ...

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• 26 August

  US says South Korea’s exit from intel pact endangers troops

  

  Bloomberg The US said that South Korea’s decision to pull out of an intelligence-sharing deal with Japan endangers American troops — an usually blunt criticism of one of Washington’s closest allies. The Trump administration is disappointed in South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s announcement that his government would stop participating in the 2016 General Security of Military Information Agreement with Japan, ...

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• 26 August

  US silence on N-treaty may be ‘fatal’: Russia

  

  Bloomberg Calls on Donald Trump to start talks about the last remaining nuclear weapons agreement between Russia and the US remain unanswered, 18 months before it expires, increasing the risk of an unhindered arms race, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman. The consequences will be “quite fatal” if Russia and the US let lapse the 2010 New START treaty ...

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• 26 August

  Moscow says air tests found nuclear isotopes

  Bloomberg Russia said air tests found traces of nuclear isotopes after a deadly blast that killed five atomic scientists and caused a spike in radiation at a remote military facility. Barium-139, barium-140, strontium-91 and lanthanum-140 were found in a cloud of radioactive gases that drifted over the city of Severodvinsk following the explosion on a nearby offshore platform in the ...

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• 26 August

  Trump strikes conciliatory tone on Iran, blessing Zarif G-7 trip

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he knew that Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was heading to Biarritz, site of the Group of Seven summit, and supported French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to invite him amid growing signs of active diplomacy at work. The US leader pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, leaving Macron and his European allies ...

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• 26 August

  HK violence: China mulls army intervention

  

  Bloomberg Chinese state media gave one of its strongest warnings yet of a possible military intervention in Hong Kong, even though analysts said such a move remained a last resort. The unsigned commentary from the official Xinhua News Agency on Sunday came after the 12th straight weekend of unrest in Asia’s main financial hub, with violent clashes that saw demonstrators ...

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• 26 August

  Italy coalition talks stall as time short to avoid polls

  

  Bloomberg Attempts to avoid a snap election in Italy are now riding on the future of caretaker Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, as a deadline to reach a deal nears. Whether or not Conte stays in his job to lead a new alliance has become the main sticking point in talks between the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic ...

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• 26 August

  The great deficit gamble

  

  It’s getting harder and harder to write these budget columns, because it must be obvious to almost everyone by now that hardly anyone in Washington (or perh-aps any place) cares ab-out the budget deficits. The assumption is that we can raise spending and cut taxes forever — or until some crisis occurs that forces us to do involuntarily what we ...

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