August, 2017

• 9 August

  Zuma’s survival puts ruling ANC in firing line

  Bloomberg While South African President Jacob Zuma has narrowly survived yet another a no-confidence motion, the vote will do little to shore up the public’s faith in his beleaguered African National Congress. On Tuesday, ruling party lawmakers rallied around Zuma to defeat the motion 198 to 177 — the eighth such vote the president has faced, but the first with ...

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• 9 August

  Venezuela ‘truth commission’ ready to hound regime opponents

  

  Bloomberg A Venezuelan assembly rewriting the nation’s constitution is intensifying a campaign of persecu- tion that already has sent opposition politicians into hiding, exile and prison. President Nicolas Maduro said the constituent assembly, which on Tuesday declared itself the nation’s supreme political authority, will strip legal immunity from the national assembly that has opposed him. Members of the so-called constituyente ...

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• 9 August

  Impeach me, please!

  

  No one is working harder for the impeachment of Donald Trump than Donald Trump. If we have learned anything about this president, it is that he has a compulsion to be the center of attention. He can’t bear being out of the limelight and will say almost anything—no matter how offensive, outrageous or dishonest it strikes millions of Americans—to keep ...

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• 9 August

  How the Democrats can sidestep disaster in 2020 nominations

  

  With Donald Trump’s approval ratings in the dumps, it’s no surprise that early maneuvering for the 2020 Democratic nomination is already fairly visible. Ed Kilgore assesses the field as some of the longer of the long shots get ready for visits to Iowa, and he raises the question of whether a very large field will be vulnerable to the kind ...

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• 9 August

  Zuma survives ouster vote but country sinks

  

  President Jacob Zuma has survived yet another attempt to oust him, beating back a no-confidence vote in South Africa’s parliament. A Pyrrhic victory for Zuma’s supporters in the ruling African National Congress, the outcome is a clear loss for the rest of the country. Tuesday’s vote was instigated by the opposition last spring, after Zuma fired his respected finance minister, ...

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• 9 August

  Actually, Republicans are standing up to Trump

  The diligence of congressional Republicans in holding Donald Trump’s presidency in check has so far inspired little confidence. Even some Republicans have been disappointed. “To carry on in the spring of 2017 as if what was happening was anything approaching normalcy required a determined suspension of critical faculties,” Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona wrote. “And tremendous powers of denial.” ...

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• 9 August

  Trump travel ban can’t be blessing in disguise for Cuba

  

  Andrea Jones-Rooy recently made a very interesting economic argument in the pages of FiveThirtyEight. She claimed that President Donald Trump’s proposal to reinstate a ban on Americans travelling to Cuba might actually help that island nation’s economy: Cuba is showing few signs of economic diversification: It is already suffering a domestic brain drain. … The government also still manages most ...

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• 9 August

  Snap isn’t interested in becoming Facebook

  

  Hey all, it’s Sarah. Snap’s earnings are this week, and investors are already anticipating bad news, thanks to a “never-ending doomsday narrative around Facebook’s perceived impact on Snapchat,” according to analyst Brian White of Drexel Hamilton. And it’s not just a narrative —it’s a fact that Facebook has been expertly copying Snapchat’s most popular features, just when the newly public ...

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• 9 August

  The past, present and future of US immigration

  

  White House policy adviser Stephen Miller’s prickly performance at a news conference last week to discuss new immigration legislation didn’t get the greatest reviews. But I actually kind of enjoyed his response to CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s charge (the quotes that follow are from CNN’s transcript of the briefing) that “what you’re proposing here, what the president’s proposing here does ...

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• 9 August

  Havens up amid N Korea threats

  

  Bloomberg A risk-off tone gripped markets on Wednesday, with gold, the Japanese yen and bonds rising as ten- sion grew between the US and North Korea. European stocks slumped following declines across most of Asia. The yellow metal headed for its largest increase in two months while the yen and Swiss franc posted the biggest gains among G-10 currencies after ...

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