Newsweek (June 4)
Thirty years ago, “the brutal scenes of troops from the People’s Liberation Army firing live ammunition on civilians peaceably calling for political reforms at Tiananmen Square shocked the world.” The outside world’s response was largely based on the prevailing wisdom that economic development supports human rights. Today, “you’d be hard pressed to find any serious analysts who still believe economic prosperity has led to a more liberated China. Instead, China has been emboldened to infringe on the rights of its own people at home and abroad, cracking down on burgeoning civil society and activists, and undermining international human rights institutions as a means of subjecting its people under its control.”
Tags: Activists, Brutal, China, Civilians, Economic development, Emboldened, Human rights, Infringe, PLA, Political reforms, Tiananmen Square, Troops
Reuters (June 4)
“A Swedish-born anti-flying movement is spreading to other European countries.” The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is “shrinking its carbon footprint” and working to avoid stigma with a sustainability plan that “is among the most ambitious and globally focused of any industry.” Carbon emissions have roughly been halved for flights since 1990, “largely thanks to more fuel-efficient aircraft.” For the moment, however, “trains are benefiting from the anti-flight movement.”
Tags: Aircraft, Carbon footprint, Emissions, Europe, Fuel-efficient, IATA, Stigma, Sustainability, Sweden, Trains
Financial Times (June 3)
“There’s the potential for a big week for Japanese equities ahead if the gloom that hung over them in May persists into the first week of June.” President Trump’s trip to Japan lacked “clear reassurances for Japan on trade,” to say nothing of “clarity on how bad things could turn between the US and China.” Since Japanese stocks “are liquid and easily accessible,” they are “among the first to be sold when global funds become nervous and, as such, they fell heavily least week.”
South China Morning Post (June 3)
“US President Donald Trump’s trade wars have ‘progressed’ beyond the stage of simple tariff punches (painful though these can be) to attacks on the central nervous system of global technology trade networks—and that is going to be far more damaging to all concerned, including the US.”
Tags: Attacks, Damaging, Tariffs, Technology, Trade networks, Trade wars, Trump, US
Wall Street Journal (June 2)
“Climate-change activists are relentless, and in recent years they’ve been trying to take over corporate boardrooms. So it was good to see shareholders last week overwhelmingly vote down resolutions forcing Chevron and Exxon Mobil to hurt their business.”
Tags: Activists, Boardrooms, Chevron, Climate change, Exxon Mobil, Relentless, Resolutions, Shareholders, Vote
LA Times (June 1)
“For the U.S. and China, it’s not a trade war anymore — it’s something worse.” Though it’s still framed in terms of trade, “the conflict with China has widened beyond the original trade-based issues” and it “now threatens to become a far wider and more ominous confrontation,” potentially a clash of civilizations.
