Bloomberg United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called on the Venezuelan government to release political prisoners. “I call on the authorities to free all those who are detained for peacefully exercising their civil and political rights,†Bachelet said via webcast before departing Venezuela after a three-day visit. The UN will leave two officials in Caracas to provide ...
Read More »As Johnson aims for power, Tories plot against no-deal Brexit
Bloomberg In the coffee shops of Britain’s parliament, the political conversation has already turned to the question that will define the country’s immediate future: Can Boris Johnson be stopped from pursuing a no-deal Brexit? The options under discussion for Conservative politicians who want to avoid a no-deal split from the European Union are dramatic. They include quitting the party and ...
Read More »Malaysia calls for justice for Rohingyas
Bloomberg Malaysia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Saifuddin bin Abdullah has called for justice to be brought to the perpetrators of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, the ministry wrote in a tweet. The social media post was sent during a regional summit in Bangkok. Southeast Asian leaders have faced pressure to take a tougher stance on Myanmar ahead of the annual ...
Read More »HK protesters disperse after police HQ blockade
Bloomberg Thousands of demonstrators who surrounded Hong Kong police headquarters dispersed peacefully after they had blocked all entrances to the building for 15 hours as part of ongoing protests over a proposed China-backed extradition bill. Protesters began converging on the police complex in the Wan Chai district after moving over from the nearby central government building, which Chief Executive Carrie ...
Read More »All the budget deficits are not created equal
The US budget deficit is now almost $740 billion, the Treasury Department reported last week, prompting a new round of familiar criticism of 2017’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act: The law’s huge tax cuts were irresponsible, as were Republicans’ sloppy and at times deliberately misleading assertions that the law would pay for itself. That criticism is understandable, but it elides ...
Read More »Can this gold rally truly continue?
For the past six years, there’s been no number more filled with dread for gold bulls than $1,350 an ounce. Barring a few brief spikes, the metal has struggled to break through that level ever since it came off its run-up to $1,900 between 2011 and 2013. This matters, because an asset that has few fundamental factors driving its performance ...
Read More »Facebook’s Libra is a good idea with a lot of risks
Say this for Facebook Inc.: It doesn’t lack ambition. The company unveiled plans to issue a digital currency, called Libra, sometime next year. Using a blockchain-like data system, and anchored by a basket of low-risk financial assets, its ambition is to be bitcoin without the problems. Or, as Facebook modestly puts it, “a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that ...
Read More »The Fed stands pat while big questions still loom
On June 19, as most investors expected, the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged for now, but said the case for cuts later in the year is stronger than before. That judgment looks reasonable, all things considered. Right now, the US economy is at or close to full employment, growing at a satisfactory rate, with inflation close to the Fed’s ...
Read More »Can India expand GDP to $5trn in five years?
A few days ago, when talking to an the assembled chief ministers of India’s states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that he wanted India to be a “$5 trillion economy†by 2024, when he once again faces reelection. This would, he said, be “challenging, but achievable.†Modi could never be accused of lacking ambition, but the fact is that getting ...
Read More »Foxconn game of thrones looms as its king is abdicating
On June 11, for the first time in history, Foxconn Technology Group held an investor relations conference for its flagship company. That’s the good news. The bad news is what the moment portends: The world’s largest electronics manufacturer is about to be left without a CEO. It took founder Terry Gou’s pending departure from Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. to ...
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