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The World
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, plans to meet Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in a controversial visit that has triggered concern about a possible military response from China. Three people familiar with the situation said Pelosi would meet Tsai in Taipei as part of a wider visit to Asia that began in Singapore on Sunday. Pelosi did not include Taiwan on her official itinerary — which includes also Japan, South Korea and Malaysia — over security concerns, but the Financial Times first reported that she would be the first speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years. (Financial Times)
White House warns China not to overreact to potential Pelosi visit to Taiwan. (Washington Post)
China said that it would take “firm and strong measures” in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s expected arrival in Taiwan, as a war of words over the latest flashpoint in US-China relations escalated. (South China Morning Post)
This Is Why China Is So On Edge About Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan: Nancy Pelosi made a mark with China’s rulers early on in her political career, when she held up a pro-democracy banner on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. More than 30 years later, she’d be coming full circle by visiting Taiwan. As House speaker she’s second in line of succession to the US presidency. That would make her trip to the democratically-ruled island, which China regards as its sovereign territory, an affront to Beijing. (Bloomberg)
Liz Truss is only five percentage points ahead of Rishi Sunak in the race to succeed Boris Johnson, private polling suggests. The survey, which concluded early last week, has support for Truss on 48 per cent compared with 43 per cent for the former chancellor, with 9 per cent of those questioned undecided. (The Times)
The first ship to carry Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea since Russia invaded Ukraine five months ago left the port of Odesa for Lebanon on Monday under a safe passage deal described as a glimmer of hope in a worsening global food crisis. The sailing was made possible after Turkey and the United Nations brokered a grain and fertiliser export agreement between Russia and Ukraine last month - a rare diplomatic breakthrough in a conflict that has become a drawn-out war of attrition. (Reuters)
Kosovo's authorities moved to ease mounting tensions by delaying an order on vehicle license plates and identity cards that triggered riots among minority Serbs. Following the postponement of the measures, Serbs in North Kosovo removed barricades they had previously put up along two border crossings between the neighboring countries. (Deutsche Welle)
Facing Labor Shortages, Pella Reinvents the Company Town in Rural Iowa: The maker of doors and windows is spending $30 million hoping to get people to move to its headquarters; ‘We just didn’t have the amenities’. The company and its controlling shareholders—members of the founding Kuyper family and its descendants—set out to change that. They have spent tens of millions of dollars in the past three years on housing, child-care centers, restaurants and an indoor entertainment center, among other things, to retain and attract new workers. More spending is on the way. (Wall Street Journal)
What Remote Work Debate? They’ve Been Back at the Office for a While. Cubicles are largely empty in downtown San Francisco and midtown Manhattan, but workers in America’s midsize and small cities are back to commuting. (New York Times)
Economy
Merger activity has slowed dramatically after a record year in 2021, and some deal makers are bracing for an even quieter second half. In the U.S., about $1 trillion of deals had been struck in 2022 through late July, according to Dealogic. That is the lowest in five years—excluding 2020, when deal making ground to a halt at the outset of the pandemic—and a nearly 40% drop from the same period in 2021. Globally, some $2.4 trillion of deals were announced, representing a roughly 30% decrease. The total number of transactions also was down. (Wall Street Journal)
People Start Buying More Essentials at Dollar Stores: Americans are relying more on dollar and discount stores for groceries. Average spending on grocery products at discount chains increased 71% from October 2021 to June 2022. (Wall Street Journal)
German retail sales fell at the largest annual rate since records began in 1994, highlighting the scale of the economic challenges facing the eurozone’s largest economy. Retail sales volumes dropped 8.8 per cent in June compared with the same month last year. (Financial Times)
Hong Kong’s economy has slipped into its second recession in three years as tough Covid-19 restrictions battered the Chinese territory’s reputation as an international financial centre. Official data released on Monday showed that the city’s gross domestic product contracted 1.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2022, after a 3.9 per cent decline in the first three months. The fall exceeded a forecast decline of 0.2 per cent, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. (Financial Times)
Coal prices are soaring and global coal consumption is expected to return to record levels reached almost 10 years ago as the global energy supply crunch continues. While investors in coal stocks are having a field day thanks to high coal prices, curbs on carbon emissions are taking a backseat as markets and governments scramble to stock up on traditional energy supply amid bottlenecks caused by the Ukraine war, analysts say. (CNBC)
Technology
Chipmakers battle for slice of US government support: The long wait for legislation to boost the US’s position in global semiconductor manufacturing is almost over. The scramble among companies to get their hands on the billions of dollars it unleashes is only just beginning… Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, said the act may be “the most important piece of industrial policy” in the US since the second world war. It is designed to reverse a decline in the US share of global chip manufacturing to 10 per cent from 38 per cent in 1990. (Financial Times)
Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan remain dominant players in global microchip production, which also allows them to control half of the worldwide export market. Numbers from the UN Comtrade database show that Greater China’s exports of microchips totaled just under $400 billion in the pandemic year of 2020 - the latest for which full data is available. The United States exported semiconductors worth around $44 billion the same year, much less but still the seventh-highest in the world in a market that is dominated by Asia. In 2021, exports out of Greater China rose again to approximately $522 billion, while those out of the U.S. were up to around $53 billion. (Statista)
Amazon said its carbon footprint grew 18% in 2021, as the company’s rapid growth during the pandemic overwhelmed nascent efforts to cut its contribution to the emissions warming the planet. The world’s largest online retailer emitted 71.54 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent last year, Amazon disclosed on Monday in an updated edition of its sustainability report. That’s up about 40% since the company first disclosed the figure, with data from 2019. (Bloomberg)
Pinterest Reports Lowest Revenue Growth in Two Years. (Wall Street Journal)
Smart Links
Wave of corporate exits — Boeing, Caterpillar and Citadel — sends chill through Chicago’s business elite. (Financial Times)
England just had its driest July since 1935. (CNBC)
Majority Of Americans Rate Online Education Same Or Better Than In-Person. (Forbes)
China mortgage strikes threaten property sector's house of cards. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Why US gas can't solve Europe's energy crisis. (Deutsche Welle)
Pinterest Reports Lowest Revenue Growth in Two Years. (Wall Street Journal)