Новости за 07.05.2020

WHEN OIL supply threatened to overwhelm storage tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma, in April, the pain was felt as far as Chongqing. Retail investors in the Bank of China’s oil bao, or “treasure”, a speculative vehicle linked to crude futures, took a hit as the May contract for West Texas Intermediate settled at an astonishing -$37.63 a barrel on April 20th. The market’s gyrations have led to consternation in China—regulators have reportedly called for an investigation—and revealed unexpected victims. Читать дальше...

EMERGING MARKETS have long resented quantitative easing (QE). When America’s Federal Reserve began its third round of asset purchases in 2012, Guido Mantega, then Brazil’s finance minister, accused it of starting a “currency war”. In 2013 Raghuram Rajan, then the chief economic adviser to India’s government, expressed his displeasure in the manner of Winston Churchill: “Never in the field of economic policy has so much been spent, with so little evidence, by so few.”

IN TIMES OF financial plenty credit ratings go largely unnoticed. In downturns, though, they attract more scrutiny—and are often found wanting. The dotcom crash of 2000-01 exposed ratings of some erstwhile corporate stars, including Enron, as nonsense. Worse was to come in the financial crisis of 2007-09, which the three big rating agencies—Moody’s, S&P and Fitch—helped cause by trading reputation for profit and giving implausibly high marks to securitised mortgages. An official report on... Читать дальше...

IF MONEY-LOSING banks are a source of concern, then surely losses by central banks—the bankers for banks—must be especially disconcerting. The tumbling value of assets held by the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank seems a sure sign that central bankers have behaved recklessly and put their economies at risk. Anxiety about bond-buying in Germany, where on May 5th the constitutional court suggested that it might block the Bundesbank from participating in the European Central Bank’s asset-purchase programmes (see article)... Читать дальше...

SHAREHOLDER BATTLES pit managers against investors at crowded annual meetings. Amid covid-19 the one between the bosses of Lagardère, an ailing conglomerate, and a few irate owners happened largely behind closed doors. On May 5th an activist hedge fund’s bid to topple the scion running the erstwhile blue chip was foiled by l’establishment. The reprieve may prove short-lived.

Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub

Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub

TWO MILLENNIA after the ancient Egyptians dropped their solar deity, Ra, their descendants are rediscovering the power of the sun. In the southern desert, half an hour’s drive from Aswan, Egypt is putting the finishing touches to Benban, one of the world’s largest solar farms (pictured). Its 6m panels produce 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of energy, enough to power over 1m homes. “In a decade we’ll still need oil for plastics and other petrochemicals, but not for energy,” says Rabeaa Fattal, a Dubai-based investor in Rising Sun... Читать дальше...

ON MARCH 13TH Carlos Henríquez Cortez returned to El Salvador from a two-day business trip in Guatemala. The 67-year-old engineer planned to quarantine at home. He knew that, to control the spread of covid-19, the government was holding returning travellers and visitors in “containment centres”. The elderly were exempt, or so Mr Henríquez thought. Airport guards detained him anyway. His containment centre had no toilet paper or space for social distancing, he told his wife. Mr Henríquez developed a fever. Читать дальше...

Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub

STUCK AT HOME during Ramadan because of covid-19, Turks at least have something new to argue about. In a sermon marking the start of the holy month on April 24th, Ali Erbas, the country’s top religious official, proclaimed that Islam condemned homosexuality “because it brought illnesses and generational decay”.

WHEN HE BECAME president of El Salvador last year, Nayib Bukele promised change. A millennial who knows that a selfie is worth 1,000 words, he broke the grip of the two parties that had governed since the end of a civil war in 1992. On their watch El Salvador’s murder rate became the world’s highest and Salvadoreans left the country in droves. Three of the past four presidents have been charged with corruption. “You bastards, return what’s been stolen!” Mr Bukele demanded before the election.... Читать дальше...

Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub

Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub

Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub

The Macomb County man arranged for 400 meals from a restaurant, Villa Penna, for staff at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital.

A NEW TELEVISION drama is gripping the Philippines. Its protagonists include ABS-CBN, a giant broadcaster, and President Rodrigo Duterte. The story begins back in 2016, when ABS-CBN did not air some adverts backing Mr Duterte’s campaign for president, noting that others had booked the slots first. He has held a grudge ever since, compounded by the network’s damning reports on his blood-drenched campaign against drugs. Matters came to a head on May 5th. The National Television Commission (NTC)... Читать дальше...

THE PHONE rings and a doctor picks up. “Sir, we’ve run out of ventilators. What do we do when more patients come?” Soon after, a grim medic explains that the disease they are battling kills three in four victims. There is no vaccine or treatment.

WHEN HE STEPPED down abruptly as president of Kazakhstan last year after 30 years in power, Nursultan Nazarbayev appeared to take out an insurance policy. As stipulated in the constitution, he was succeeded by the speaker of the Senate, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who was later affirmed as president in a rubber-stamp election. To replace Mr Tokayev as speaker, the Senate chose none other than Dariga Nazarbayeva, the outgoing president’s daughter. Should Mr Nazarbayev for some reason feel let down by Mr Tokayev... Читать дальше...

THE OFFICIAL in charge of the Afghan government’s response to covid-19 in a rural district near the city of Herat recently received a dressing-down by phone. The caller berated him for the lack of masks at a particular clinic. Local bureaucrats needed to get their act together quickly, the caller instructed. The man delivering the rebuke was not some big cheese from the ministry of health in Kabul, however, but a member of the Taliban, the rebels who have been trying to overthrow the government since 2001... Читать дальше...

GROWING UP IN Morris Heights, a poor neighbourhood in the Bronx where violence was omnipresent, Joel Cabrera thought his future would be either “death or jail, because that’s what the outcomes are here”. Middle school was like “a juvenile-detention facility”. High school did not interest him enough to finish. Had he stopped there, he would have faced a life on the edge of penury. Among high-school dropouts nationwide, average earnings are only $600 a week. To avoid that, Mr Cabrera enrolled in courses offered at his local community college. Читать дальше...

BACK AT THE beginning of April, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report, based on a survey of hospital administrators across America, showing that hospitals were struggling to obtain covid-19 tests, personal protective equipment (PPE) and routine supplies such as loo paper. This did not please the president. At a press conference the same day, he mused, “It’s wrong…Where did he come from—the inspector general (IG)? What’s his name?” Her name was Christi Grimm... Читать дальше...

GIVING OFFENCE is Steve King’s stock-in-trade. The congressman for Iowa’s fourth district has suggested heaven is off-limits to gay people, spoken up for white supremacy and posed with Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders and other far-right populists. He has likened immigrants to animals. Many are smugglers, he once said, adding that migrant men have “calves the size of cantaloupes” from lugging bales of drugs. A decade before Donald Trump proposed walling up the border, Mr King was America’s leading xenophobe. Читать дальше...

MOST AMERICANS would like to abolish the electoral college, the idiosyncratic institution that picks presidents six weeks after election day. Twice this century, candidates who received more votes in the nationwide tally watched their rivals move into the White House the next January. But in 2016, when Hillary Clinton, the popular-vote winner, was vanquished by Donald Trump, another electoral-college flashpoint came to light.

EVER SINCE Apple and Google announced that they would tweak their smartphone operating systems to help digital contact-tracing, governments have been changing their approaches. Germany went along with the tech giants on April 26th, having initially been opposed. Singapore, which built the world’s first nationwide contact-tracing app, is rebuilding atop Google’s and Apple’s technology.