Bloomberg Iceland faces politically tumultuous times after the conservative ruling party emerged weakened in a snap vote, with new parties entering parliament in the nation’s third election in four years. The Independence Party will win about 25.3 percent of the vote, down from 29 percent last year, a count of about 45 percent of the vote showed. Its closest challenger, ...
Read More »Russia’s worrisome push to control cyberspace
Russia’s cybermeddling in the 2016 US presidential election has been accompanied by what US and European experts describe as a worrisome Kremlin campaign to rewrite the rules for global cyberspace. A draft of a Russian proposal for a new ‘United Nations Convention on Cooperation in Combating Information Crimes’ was recently shown to me by a security expert who obtained a ...
Read More »Britain’s time to cut a Brexit deal with EU is running out
In view of the deepening Brexit gloom ahead of the meeting, last week’s amicable European Union summit was moderately encouraging: At least the talks didn’t break down. Both sides ought to understand, however, that when they meet next time, moving to actual trade negotiations is essential. Instead of negotiating the shape of their future trade arrangements, Britain and the EU ...
Read More »Think the US has a Facebook problem? Look to Asia
Along with its Silicon Valley brethren, Facebook is scrambling to respond to pressure from Congress about the flood of fake news and bogus political ads on its site. The deluge is also doing great damage, it’s worth pointing out, far from Washington. Facebook’s fastest-growing markets are in the developing world, where the problem of fake news is even more devilishly ...
Read More »The case for the US mission in Niger
If there is anything to be gained from President Donald Trump’s ‘disgraceful’ attack on the credibility of the widow of a US Special Forces soldier killed in Niger, it’s that Americans are finally becoming aware of the expanding US mission against extremist violence now spreading across the Sahel region of Africa. As Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford explained ...
Read More »Thomas Piketty’s theory of inequality gets dinged
People tend to like big, sweeping theories of economic history. When Karl Marx foretold a supposedly inevitable series of class conflicts and revolutions that would end in a communist utopia, the idea was so powerful that it inspired revolutions, alternative economic systems and wars. Other thinkers depicted economic history as the triumph of a particular culture, or the inevitable ascendance ...
Read More »Give India some credit for capital initiative
After three years of hand-wringing, India has finally done the right thing by its struggling banks. The 2.1 trillion rupees ($32 billion) capital infusion into state-run lenders announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday evening has been well received by rating companies, despite its unconventional structure. As much as 1.35 trillion rupees will come from banks’ own resources. The ...
Read More »China won’t have a typical ‘minsky moment’
Zhou Xiaochuan, the long-serving and respected governor of the People’s Bank of China, raised eyebrows last week when he cautioned that the country could have a ‘Minsky Moment’ if “we are too optimistic when things go smoothly.” Although he was right to warn against policy complacency and general economic overconfidence, particularly in the context of a growth model that still ...
Read More »Bond traders face their fears in week that may change everything
Bloomberg This week is fraught with peril for Treasuries traders, no matter if they’re bulls or bears. The next five trading days will bring a torrent of market-moving information: President Donald Trump is poised to finally announce his nominee to lead the Federal Reserve; US central bankers have an interest-rate decision to make; a House committee is set to release ...
Read More »Saudi Telecom beat, petchems lift Riyadh; rest of Gulf sluggish
Reuters Petrochemical stocks and an earnings beat by Saudi Telecom Co lifted Riyadh’s stock market on Sunday while other Gulf bourses were sluggish, once more ignoring a strong performance by Wall Street on the previous trading day. The Saudi stock index climbed 0.7 percent. Unusually, four of the 10 most active stocks were petrochemical producers after oil prices rose sharply ...
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