May, 2019

• 6 May

  IBM-backed project creates Wi-Fi network for natural disasters

  

  Bloomberg From a cramped living room in Brooklyn, New York, a handful of young computer nerds have developed a new way to use technology to help save lives in natural disasters. They have designed tiny electronic nodes inside baseball-sized rubber casings that create a special Wi-Fi network spanning more than 100 square miles that can be used to connect victims ...

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• 6 May

  Israel, Gaza silence guns after worst fighting since 2014

  

  Bloomberg The familiar ritual came full circle. Israel and Gaza Strip fighters reached a truce after the most intense round of fighting since their 2014 war, and life on both sides of the border returned to normal on Monday. The violence, which claimed the lives of 27 Palestinians and four Israelis, had threatened to undo months of Egyptian-brokered efforts to ...

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• 6 May

  US warships sail again in disputed South China Sea

  

  Bloomberg Two US warships sailed near disputed islands in the South China Sea on Monday, challenging Beijing’s claims for the third time this year amid simmering trade tensions. The guided-missile destroyers USS Preble and USS Chung-Hoon passed within 12 nautical miles of Gaven and Johnson reefs, said Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet. The China-occupied ...

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• 6 May

  ‘Venezuelan troops trained rebels to fire rockets’

  

  Bloomberg Venezuelan soldiers loyal to embattled President Nicolas Maduro have trained members of South America’s most dangerous guerrilla force to use heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, according to Colombian authorities. National Liberation Army fighters were instructed in how to use the Russian-manufactured IGLA surface-to-air missile system, according to General Luis Navarro, Colombia’s top-ranking soldier. The Marxist force known as the ELN has ...

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• 6 May

  Cortizo ‘virtual winner’ in Panama vote

  

  Bloomberg Texas-educated businessman Laurentino Cortizo will almost certainly be Panama’s next president, after winning a contested vote count, the electoral authority said. Cortizo is the “virtual victor” of the election, after winning the preliminary vote count by a narrow margin, the authority said in a post on Twitter. The final official results are scheduled to be published on Thursday. Cortizo’s ...

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• 6 May

  Portuguese PM stakes re-election claim as biggest fiscal hawk

  

  Bloomberg Portuguese PM Antonio Costa prodded two opposition parties into supporting fiscal discipline, staking his claim as a champion of responsible budgets ahead of a national election on October 6. The maneuvering reduces the likelihood of political turmoil in a euro-area country that required a bailout in 2011 and gives additional signals about the terms on which parties will contest ...

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• 6 May

  Europe can’t recover from financial crisis

  

  If you read only one history of the global financial crisis and the turbulent decade that resulted, I recommend “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World,” by Columbia University historian Adam Tooze. Few authors are as capable of weaving together economics, policy and geopolitics into a coherent whole. Not only does Tooze cover every critical aspect of ...

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• 6 May

  Seoul doesn’t need IMF rescue

  

  South Korea doesn’t need another rescue from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but it is stuck and does need a new model. News hasn’t been great lately for the nation, sandwiched between slower growth in China and Japan. Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank last quarter in what was probably a shock, not just to economists who anticipated a small increase, ...

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• 6 May

  Four’s magic number for China’s lenders

  China’s banks doled out a fifth more loans in the first quarter than a year earlier, so profit increases shouldn’t be surprising. What’s striking is just how small – and similar – those gains are. The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., Bank of China Ltd., China Construction Bank Corp. and Bank of Communications Co. posted higher net income. ...

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• 6 May

  Hubris comes before an expensive fall in India

  The way the cost of financial misconduct has been rising globally, a $158 million fine may seem like loose change. However, the Securities & Exchange Board of India has delivered much more than a slap of the wrist with its disgorgement order against the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. over an algorithmic trading scandal. Including five years of interest ...

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