The Times (June 29)
“Barring some unforeseen upset, in 20 days Andy Burnham will be prime minister. No other contender has so far emerged.” His suitability for the position, however, remains “wholly untested. Charm is not enough.” Before his looming “coronation… the country has three weeks to understand what Mr Burnham intends to do with the power so casually bestowed upon him by backbenchers desperate to draw a line under the reign of Sir Keir Starmer.”
Tags: Backbenchers, Burnham, Charm, Contender, Coronation, Desperate, Power, Prime minister, Suitability, Unforeseen, Untested, Upset
BBC (June 28)
“Europe’s unprecedented early summer heatwave may be responsible for hundreds of excess deaths.” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that over 1,300 deaths recorded since June 21 were likely linked to the unrelenting heat. Though the majority of the excess deaths were in France, the heat has been widespread. “Temperature records were broken across the continent again on Sunday – including in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic – as the extreme heat continued to move east.”
Tags: Czech Republic, Europe, Excess deaths, France, Germany, Heatwave, Poland, Records, Summer, Temperature, Unprecedented, Unrelenting heat, WHO
New York Times (June 27)
“Over the past 24 hours, prices have dipped below the levels not seen since Feb. 27, the eve of the war in Iran, when Brent crude settled at $72.48 a barrel.” The sharp drop is attributable to “increased optimism that a deal would be reached to enable more regular shipping flows through the strait.” And a lot of “oil coming through the strait is poised to hit the market all at once, putting downward pressure on prices.” The I.E.A. believes there could even be a glut next year as “global demand is expected to drop by almost five million barrels a day in the second quarter of 2026 partly because consumers scaled back their energy use during the conflict.”
Tags: Brent crude, Consumers, Dipped, Downward pressure, Energy use, Global demand, Glut, I.E.A., Iran, Market, Oil, Optimism, Prices, Shipping flows, Strait, War
The Guardian (June 26)
“Xi Jinping has hosted more than a dozen leaders this year, as ‘middle powers’ look beyond the US. China’s leader wants to promote his alternative to the current world order, and his efforts are being assisted by a capricious US.”
Tags: Alternative, Assisted, Capricious, China, Dozen leaders, Efforts, Hosted, Middle powers, U.S., World order, Xi
Reuters (June 24)
“The AI boom has led to the biggest upswing ever, as demand for memory created a huge bottleneck.” Micron Technologies, now worth $1.3 trillion, has benefited handsomely from this “as the company’s ballooning gross margin shows,” but the rise “is straining tech giants and investor credulity alike.” It won’t last forever. “Boom and bust cycles are built on human greed. It’s very hard to resist the urge to keep boosting production when times are good. Historical patterns suggest the memory shortage will likely end suddenly and hard.”
Tags: AI boom, Ballooning, Boom, Bottleneck, Bust, Credulity, Demand, Gross margin, Human greed, Investor, Memory, Micron, Production, Tech giants, Upswing
Barron’s (June 23)
“The latest heatwave sweeping across Europe is a stark reminder that it is the world’s fastest-warming continent, stretching into an Arctic that is heating at an even greater pace. Britain, France, Italy and Spain have issued red alerts and health warnings for much of their territory this week as the region endures its second heat episode since May.”
Tags: Arctic, Britain, Continent, Endures, Europe, Fastest-warming, France, Health warnings, Heatwave, Italy, May, Reminder, Spain. Red alerts, Stark
Fortune (June 22)
“The U.S. farm economy has been fighting one battle after another in recent years, but a new threat is on the horizon that evokes memories of one of the worst agricultural disasters ever.” U.S. farmers were left reeling from low prices, tariffs and most recently Trump’s Iran War, which sent the prices for fertilizer and fuel soaring. Bankruptcies have been rising and now they may face the existential “risk of a ‘mini-Dust Bowl’ as a rare Super El Niño looms.”
Tags: Agricultural disasters, Bankruptcies, Existential, Farm economy, Farmers, Fertilizer, Fuel, Iran war, Low prices, Mini-Dust Bowl, Reeling, Risk, Super El Niño, Tariffs, Threat, Trump, U.S.
South China Morning Post (June 21)
“China’s rapid transition to electric vehicles (EVs) has been widely hailed as an economic success story. But it is also creating a serious headache for the country’s local governments, which are tasked with maintaining one of the world’s largest road networks.” EVs accounted for fully 60% of last month’s new car sales, but the EV boom “is creating a growing fiscal black hole, as heavier electric cars send roadwork costs spiralling while simultaneously undercutting the tax revenues used to fund repairs.”
Tags: $60, China, Economic success story, EVs, Fiscal black hole, Fund, Governments, Headache, Heavier, Maintaining, New car sales, Rapid transition, Repairs, Road networks, Roadwork costs, Spiralling, Tax revenues, Undercut
Bloomberg (June 20)
President Trump admitted “the prospect of global economic collapse was a big reason he signed an interim peace deal with Iran. That admission exposes a key US weakness heading into the next round of talks with Tehran” and “eases the pressure for Iran to end the talks quickly.” Since there is little domestic support for continuing the fight and “a prolonged conflict could trigger the deepest global slowdown in 40 years,” the US is likely to confront increasing challenges in the negotiations.
The Times (June 18)
Donald Trump “promised to keep the US out of ‘dumb wars.’” This week he “ended one of America’s shortest wars with a deal that leaves an enemy regime in place in Iran, emboldened by its own survival, entrenched in defiance of the civilised world and even potentially enriched by the promise of boatloads of money to help rebuild its battered economy and war-making infrastructure.”
Tags: Battered economy, Civilised world, Deal, Defiance, Dumb wars, Emboldened, Enemy regime, Enriched, Entrenched, Iran, Money, Promised, Rebuild, Survival, Trump, U.S., War-making infrastructure
