Wall Street Journal (March 10)
“The Venezuelan dictatorship is trying to use a nationwide power outage against its political opposition by claiming sabotage.” A more plausible reason is “the colossal failure… to invest in the country’s decrepit hydroelectric plants…. The blackout and the chaos that has ensued is a metaphor for the catastrophe known as Venezuela. Every aspect of the nation’s infrastructure, physical and institutional, has broken down.”
Tags: Blackout, Broken down, Chaos, Colossal failure, Dictatorship, Hydroelectric, Infrastructure, Power outage, Sabotage, Venezuela
The Economist (March 9)
Interest in Africa is booming. “Outsiders have noticed that the continent is important and becoming more so, not least because of its growing share of the global population (by 2025 the UN predicts that there will be more Africans than Chinese people). Governments and businesses from all around the world are rushing to strengthen diplomatic, strategic and commercial ties. This creates vast opportunities. If Africa handles the new scramble wisely, the main winners will be Africans themselves.”
Tags: Africa, Booming, Businesses, China, Diplomatic, Governments, Population, Strategic, UN
MarketWatch (March 8)
“Car makers are facing a perfect storm of trade tariffs, slumping demand in the crucial Chinese market, and a backlash against diesel, which are together having a seismic effect on businesses. A shift toward electric and autonomous vehicles has not helped. They require vast investment and a different way of thinking.” Instead of the usual “corporate grins” at the Geneva Motor Show, there is “a collective grimace.”
Tags: Backlash, Car makers, China, Diesel, EVs, Geneva Motor Show, Grimace, Investment, Perfect storm, Slumping demand, Trade tariffs
Washington Post (March 8)
“Thursday’s about-face sounded alarms about a global slowdown that caught officials off guard.” On Thursday, the ECB “unveiled a new economic rescue package, citing a darkening outlook driven by a slowdown in China, fears that the United Kingdom will make a chaotic exit from the European Union and aftershocks from President Trump’s tariff wars.”
Tags: About-face, Alarms, Brexit, China, ECB, EU, Global slowdown, Rescue package, Tariff wars, Trump, UK
New York Times (March 7)
“Canadians can be corrupt, too…. The scandal now enveloping Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—a bilingual, feminist, pro-multicultural liberal who embodies much of what we like to celebrate in our national character” reveals the “darker side to Canada’s smallness.” Things are often too cozy. The nation that comes off as quaint, friendly and cute has a “tiny network of political, business and intellectual elite” that is too “insular and concentrated.”
Tags: Bilingual, Canada, Corrupt, Cozy, Elite, Feminist, Insular, Multicultural, Quaint, Scandal, Trudeau
WARC (March 5)
“The vexed issue of ad frequency…has become more problematic with the proliferation of channels, shorter attention spans and active ad avoidance by consumers.” While overcoming ad-avoidance remains a challenge, there is clearly “a cost to excessive frequency.”
Tags: Ad avoidance, Ad frequency, Attention spans, Channels, Consumers, Problematic, Proliferation, Vexed
Chicago Tribune (March 5)
“Win a small tariff battle, lose the trade war. That’s our Midwestern perspective on President Donald Trump’s antagonistic, suspicious approach to global trade.”
Tags: Antagonistic, Lose, Midwest, Perspective, Suspicious, Tariff battle, Trade war, Trump, Win
Bloomberg (March 3)
The submission of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “long-awaited final report…will be only the start of an explosive chain of events. There will be a struggle in Congress, on cable TV and social media and probably in the courts over how much must be disclosed. There also will be an epic political fight over whether the findings implicate President Donald Trump in wrongdoing that may even merit his impeachment.”
Tags: Congress, Courts, Epic, Explosive, Fight, Impeachment, Mueller, Report, Struggle, Trump, Wrongdoing
The Economist (March 2)
“Japan’s plan to let in more low-skilled migrants is half-baked. The rules are too woolly and too onerous, and support for new arrivals too scant.”
Tags: Half-baked, Japan, Low-skilled, Migrants, Onerous, Plan, Rules
CNN (March 1)
The lack of an agreement with North Korea, as well as Trump’s other disappointments are dimming “the mystique central to his political appeal as an instinctive deal maker who can get his way through bluffing, charm and lightning business reflexes.” The reality couldn’t be more different. “In fact, Trump has shown more proficiency in breaking deals than making them after pulling the US out of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris global climate pact and abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive multilateral trade deal.” His presidency is turning into “the art of the no deal.”
Tags: Appeal, Disappointments, Iran, Mystique, No-deal, North Korea, Paris, TPP, Trump, U.S.
