Washington Post (November 5)
“While accompanied by the rhetoric of reform,” the purge in Saudi Arabia “resembles the approach of authoritarian regimes such as China. President Xi Jinping has used a similar anti-corruption theme to replace a generation of party and military leaders and to alter the collective leadership style adopted by recent Chinese rulers.” It remains to be seen whether the Crown Prince who’s pulling the strings, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has bitten off too much or if he will succeed with this “very risky power play.”
Tags: Anti-corruption, Authoritarian, China, Crown Prince, MBS, Power play, Purge, Reform, Regimes, Rhetoric, Risky, Saudi Arabia, Xi
LA Times (November 4)
“The global climate is in trouble, worsening faster than experts believed only two years ago, and ambitious international steps to address the problem have been insufficient thus far.” Since the Trump administration isn’t going to tackle this critical challenge, “the rest of us need to step up.”
Tags: Challenge, Climate change, Critical, Experts, Global, Insufficient, Trump, U.S., Worsening
Reuters (November 3)
“The Bank of England’s first rate rise in over a decade is for now at least a ‘one and done’ move, according to economists in a snap Reuters poll who said the next increase won’t come until after Brexit in March 2019.”
Tags: BOE, Brexit, Economists, Increase, One and done, Rate rise, Snap poll
The Economist (November 2)
“On some measures, Japan’s labour market is as tight as it has been since the 1970s. America’s jobless rate, at 4.2%, is the lowest for over 16 years. Inflation has nevertheless been surprisingly weak. In other words, the trade-off between unemployment and inflation, known as the Phillips curve, has become less steep.”
Tags: Inflation, Japan, Jobless rate, Labor, Phillips curve, Surprising, Tight, Trade-off, U.S., Unemployment, Weak
Chicago Tribune (November 1)
“So the pattern established oceans away now visits America,” specifically New York, where “terror by the ton” disrupted what should have been a delightful Halloween. “We don’t know if this suspect was heeding an Islamic State call to attack trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Or if only his own twisted thinking drove him,” but we have “seen enough of these car and truck attacks—in London, Nice, Stockholm, Berlin—to know they are all but impossible to predict or prevent.”
Tags: Berlin, Halloween, London, New York, Nice, Predict, Prevent, Stockholm, Terror, Truck attacks, Twisted, U.S.
CNN (October 31)
U.S. “lawmakers should be conducting a serious audit of our nation’s intelligence and cybersecurity capacities and strengthening areas of weakness to ensure our country is well-equipped to withstand future efforts from state actors, like Russia, to disrupt our democratic processes…. We’ve seen these efforts underway in Europe for years, and should learn from and even improve upon what they are already doing.”
Tags: Audit, Cybersecurity, Democratic processes, Disrupt, Europe, Intelligence, Lawmakers, Russia, U.S., Weakness
