August, 2019

• 14 August

  Australia rejects calls by Pacific Island countries to ditch coal

  

  Bloomberg Australia is pushing back against calls from Pacific Island leaders to ditch its commitment to coal mining to help combat climate change, saying its neighbours need to respect the country’s reliance on the industry. The world’s second-biggest coal exporter is increasingly a flash point in the battle against carbon emissions after Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government was reelected in ...

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• 14 August

  China sticking to September US trade talks after tariff delay

  

  Bloomberg Chinese officials are sticking to their plan to visit Washington in September for face-to-face trade meetings, people familiar with the matter said, signaling that talks remain on track for now despite an abrupt escalation in tariff threats this month. The US on Tuesday delayed the imposition of some new tariffs after top negotiators spoke on phone, with President Trump ...

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• 14 August

  Oil dips as rising storage offers no relief amid market panic

  

  Bloomberg Oil tumbled the most in a week as global financial markets swooned and swelling US crude stockpiles reinforced fears about an economic slowdown. Futures slipped more than 5% in New York, joining a slide in equities. American crude inventories registered a surprise increase for the second straight week, US data showed on Wednesday, although gasoline demand was also healthy. ...

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• 14 August

  India seeks used cooking oil to cut energy imports

  

  Bloomberg India has a plan to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of reducing the country’s dependence on energy imports, and it starts in the kitchen. Three main state-run fuel retailers — Indian Oil Corp., Bharat Petroleum Corp. and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. — are looking to turn used cooking oil that might otherwise be discarded into biodiesel fuels. The retailers ...

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• 14 August

  HK airport beatings highlight protesters’ fears running wild

  

  Bloomberg The beatings of two men during a tense rally at Hong Kong’s airport highlights protesters’ growing fear of mainland intervention, as well as the risk that demonstrators’ violent tactics could undermine support for their movement. An otherwise peaceful sit-in at Hong Kong International Airport turned ugly when protesters attacked and detained a man they suspected of being a security ...

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• 14 August

  Pakistan urges UN Security Council to meet on Kashmir

  

  Bloomberg Pakistan called on the United Nations Security Council to convene an urgent meeting on India’s decision to revoke autonomy for the disputed Muslim-majority state of Kashmir, a move it says could spark a new conflict between the two South Asian nuclear powers. India’s recent actions “pose a threat to international peace and security, willfully undermine the internationally recognised disputed ...

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• 14 August

  UK gears up for Brexit-driven election

  

  Bloomberg Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s staff talk about an imminent general election as though it were a fact, and a Conservative politician accidentally published a draft email about his “GE2019 team.” But amid growing expectations that the next chapter in the UK’s political crisis will see the country go to the polls, it’s still not clear how it will happen. ...

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• 14 August

  Tunisian authorities approve 26 presidential candidates

  

  Bloomberg Tunisian authorities said 26 people, including the prime minister, two women and a moderate radical, have preliminary approval to run in next month’s presidential election. The varied line-up, which features former Defense Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi, the deputy head of the radical Ennahda Party, Abdelfattah Mourou, and premier Youssef Chahed, was announced Wednesday by Nabil Baffoun, head of the Independent ...

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• 14 August

  Modi’s options for Jammu & Kashmir’s economy are limited

  

  Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi says his move to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy is about boosting its economy. But observers say it will take more than rhetoric to bring in investments and ensure jobs in the territory that’s lost more than 42,000 lives to conflict over the last three decades. The state’s economy, dependent mostly on farming, handicrafts and tourism, may ...

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• 14 August

  Is the economy turning against Donald Trump?

  

  To have a recession or not — that is the question. It also encompassed last week’s most important political news, notwithstanding all the public attention understandably focussed on the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. There is growing evidence of a possible recession. If one materialises, President Trump could lose his most powerful argument for reelection: a strong economy. ...

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