One by one, some of the most important people in corporate America lined up to criticize the president of the United States. Though many of them didn’t utter Donald Trump’s name, they didn’t need to. Everyone knew they were talking about Trump’s repugnant “both-sides-are-bad” response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend. “What we saw there was domestic ...
Read More »Protest is legal, intimidation is not
Morally, the only proper reaction to last weekend’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia, is outrage. Legally, the analysis has to be more nuanced. To help prevent further violence while preserving freedom of speech, we need to distinguish three categories, all of which seem to have been in play in Charlottesville: terrorism, peaceful protest and provocative action aimed at producing street violence. ...
Read More »Even EU regulators can’t prevent food scandals
Remember that Chinese pet food, laced with melamine, that caused kidney failure in the family European pooch? The horse meat passed off as beef burgers in Britain? Now tainted Dutch eggs are making diners uneasy. There’s something especially creepy about recurring food scandals, even the ones that don’t pose a huge threat to public health. The latest, involving millions of ...
Read More »Trump’s cabinet must put country above president
The exodus of chief executive officers from two of President Donald Trump’s advisory councils led him to disband the panels. That’s no great loss: The councils mostly served political rather than policy purposes. But for those who serve in the highest ranks of government, the issue is different, and quitting is not the answer. It’s hard to fault anyone for ...
Read More »The dubious demolition policy Israel can’t quit
On April 6, Israeli army Sargent Elchai Taharlev, 20, was standing by a bus stop in the West Bank, when a car driven by a Palestinian purposely veered off the road and killed him. Two months later, Hadas Malka, 23, was standing guard with the border police outside the Old City of Jerusalem when she was killed by three Palestinians ...
Read More »Emmanuel Macron’s first stab at reforming French economy is rolling along
It’s vacation time in France, and the fleets of buses plying the nation’s highways suggest President Emmanuel Macron’s earliest effort to shake up the economy is catching on. Cheaper and less glamorous than France’s celebrated high-speed trains, buses are hauling ever more travellers. That’s after Macron, then the economy minister, pushed through a law two years ago allowing passenger buses ...
Read More »Some US ex-spies don’t buy the Russia story
In 2003, when a number of former intelligence professionals formed a group to protest the way intelligence was bent to accuse Iraq of producing weapons of mass destruction, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a sympathetic column quoting the group’s members. In 2017, you won’t read about this same group’s latest campaign in the big US newspapers. The Veteran ...
Read More »Global stock markets mixed as focus shifts to central bankers
Bloomberg Stocks struggled for traction at the start of a week set to be dominated by the gathering of central bankers at Jackson Hole amid growing unease about persistent low inflation. Euro-region bonds gained with Treasuries, while the dollar edged lower. The Stoxx Euro 600 Index declined on thin trading volumes as declines in banks and car makers offset gains ...
Read More »REITs shine in Saudi, trading volume shrinks in Qatar
DUBAI / Reuters Real estate investment trusts were some of the top gainers on Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange on Monday, a day before the listing of a new trust, but bourses in the region were generally sluggish, especially Qatar. All four listed REITs were among the 10 most heavily traded shares in Riyadh, where the main index edged up 0.2 ...
Read More »Yellen, Draghi head to ‘Jackson Hole’ with prices missing goal
Bloomberg As the world’s top central bankers gather in Wyoming this week, their relief about a stronger global economy will be tempered by a growing unease that inflation remains inexplicably low. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi will be among the officials addressing this year’s installment of the annual conference hosted by the Kansas ...
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