June, 2019

• 26 June

  Khamenei scorns talks after being sanctioned by Trump

  

  Bloomberg Iran’s supreme leader scorned the idea of negotiations to ease his country’s tense standoff with the US in his first comments since being sanctioned by Donald Trump. “If we agree in negotiations to their demands, they will make the nation miserable,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, arguing Washington was attempting to strip Iran of its economic and defense capabilities. “And ...

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• 26 June

  Ethiopian PM vows to press ahead with his reform agenda

  

  Bloomberg Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed vowed to press ahead with his reform agenda, saying he won’t be deterred by attacks on the country’s leadership. “We will learn from the obstacles to prevent it from happening again,” Abiy said in a statement posted on his office’s Twitter account. “We will not steer away from our reforms, not even for a ...

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• 26 June

  US close to draft deal with Taliban: Pompeo

  

  Bloomberg Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a visit to Afghanistan that the US is close to finishing a draft deal with the Taliban to ensure the country doesn’t become a terrorist haven, paving the way for talks on withdrawing American troops after 18 years of war. Pompeo made the remarks from the US embassy in Kabul during the ...

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• 26 June

  Brazil top court postpones decision to release Lula

  

  Bloomberg Brazil’s Supreme Court postponed a decision on whether to release former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from jail while rejecting other requests that could have freed him temporarily. Five justices from the second chamber of the nation’s Supreme Court initially ruled against a habeas corpus for the former president, who has been imprisoned since April last year. A ...

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• 26 June

  No-deal Brexit takes centre stage in battle to be UK PM

  

  Bloomberg Boris Johnson toughened his Brexit rhetoric with a “do or die” pledge to leave the European Union on October 31 as Jeremy Hunt, his underdog rival to become UK prime minister, battled to persuade Tory party members the strategy is flawed. The front-runner challenged Hunt to match his commitment to leave “come what may” in a letter posted on ...

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• 26 June

  How to make the G-20 summit matter more

  

  This week’s G-20 summit in Japan will showcase both what’s best and most frustrating about this once-promising construct for coordinating global policy. A simple institutional fix could address many of the problems. All that’s required is some bold leadership on the multilateral stage. Founded in 1999 to include 19 countries and the European Union, the G-20 was the result of ...

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• 26 June

  Global tech is weaker than it looks

  

  Ten months ago, I warned that storm clouds were brewing over the global technology industry. The situation today is much worse. Back then, a US-China trade war was more risk than reality, Apple Inc.’s pending iPhone update held promise, and central banks were still in tightening mode. Yet inventories at the end of June 2018 had climbed to the highest ...

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• 26 June

  Mercedes isn’t looking too reliable these days

  When Volkswagen AG admitted rigging diesel emission tests in September 2015, its German rival Daimler AG sounded pretty dismissive in defending the compliance of its own Mercedes-Benz vehicles. “We categorically deny the accusation of manipulating emission tests regarding our vehicles,” the luxury car giant said. If Daimler shareholders concluded from that statement that the company wouldn’t have to recall any ...

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• 26 June

  Mario Draghi can leave one last monetary gift

  Mario Draghi has worked nothing short of monetary miracles over his eight-year term as European Central Bank (ECB) President through a sequence of unconventional policy interventions. As we count down the days to Draghi’s departure, expectations are building once again that he will be able to pull one final rabbit out of the hat. Whether long-term loans to banks, a ...

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• 26 June

  Global population could peak sooner than we think

  

  Since the days of Thomas Malthus, we’ve worried that overpopulation is about to overwhelm our planet. Those fears haven’t gone away. A further two billion people will be added to the current world population of 7.7 billion by 2050, the United Nations Population Division said in a report. Numbers will still be rising as the total approaches 11 billion people ...

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