Know someone who would like this newsletter? Forward it to them.
The World
As a desperate U.S. effort to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan gained momentum, Taliban leaders rejected a suggestion from President Biden that American forces might remain past an Aug. 31 deadline to complete the operation, injecting fresh urgency into an already frantic process. State Department official said that some former Afghan military interpreters or other close U.S. allies, a designated priority group for evacuations, were being turned away from the airport by American officials in order to give priority to U.S. passport and Green Card holders in recent days. (New York Times)
Biden will come under pressure today from western allies who want the US-led evacuation from Afghanistan extended beyond August 31, while facing the humiliating prospect that the Taliban may veto the idea. At an emergency G7 meeting Biden will hear calls from allies including Boris Johnson, UK prime minister, and Emmanuel Macron, French president, to negotiate with the Taliban for an extension. But the move exposes the fragility of the west’s position in Afghanistan, as the world’s leading democracies in effect plead with the Taliban to allow them to carry on with their evacuation for a few more days. (Financial Times)
Britain is increasingly resigned to having to conclude its evacuation from Kabul by the end of the week after the Taliban warned that any delay in the withdrawal would cross a “red line.” (The Times)
Full federal approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for those 16 and older is opening the way for institutions like the military, corporate employers, hospitals and school districts to announce vaccine mandates for their employees. Within hours of the announcement, the Pentagon, CVS, the State University of New York system and the New York City school system, among others, announced that they would enforce mandates they had prepared to carry out but had made contingent on the F.D.A.’s action. (New York Times)
China hits zero Covid cases with a month of draconian curbs, while the Philippines reports record virus cases as Delta variant spreads. (Bloomberg, Reuters)
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed another 75 million to 80 million people in emerging Asian economies into extreme poverty last year, the Asian Development Bank said. The latest estimates on extreme poverty, defined as living below $1.90 per day, spells a setback to the region's sustainable development agenda. About 203 million people or 5.2% of the region's population lived in extreme poverty in 2017. Without the pandemic, those numbers would have fallen to an estimated 104 million people or 2.6% of the population in 2020. (Nikkei Asian Review)
The Chinese Communist party has warned thousands of officials in the city of Hangzhou, home of leading technology companies such as Jack Ma’s Alibaba, to root out any “conflicts of interest” they or their family members may have with local businesses. The statement was posted online by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party’s corruption watchdog, on Monday, two days after the city’s top party official was detained for “serious violations of discipline” — a phrase that is commonly used by Chinese authorities as a euphemism for corruption. (Financial Times)
The U.S. gets back to granting visas for Chinese students as numbers rebound to pre-pandemic levels. China is the largest source of international students in the US, with more than 380,000 active students in the country last year. Education consultants in China report continuing strict scrutiny by the US for postgraduate students in hi-tech, strategic or ‘sensitive’ fields. (South China Morning Post)
A range of western countries tightened economic sanctions against Belarus this month, one year after mass protests first roiled the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko. In response, Lukashenko turned again to Vladimir Putin, asking the Russian president for debt relief on a $1.5bn loan agreed with Moscow last year. As the west has sought to isolate Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader has put himself ever more in Putin’s debt. (Financial Times)
Ahead of becoming New York’s first female governor, Kathy Hochul selected two women to key posts in her cabinet: Karen Persichilli Keogh will become secretary to the governor, the highest-ranking appointed position in the state. Elizabeth Fine will serve as Hochul’s counsel. (New York Times)
Economy
U.S. factories and service providers reported sharply slower growth in August, the forecasting firm IHS Markit said in its surveys of purchasing managers. Its index of service-sector activity, the broadest segment of the economy, fell to 55.2 in August from 59.9 in July, hitting an eight-month low. An index of factory activity dropped to 61.2, a four-month low, from 63.4 in July. A reading above 50 suggests activity—as measured by sales, output, prices and other factors—is growing. (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. housing market remained strong in July, with sales of previously owned homes rising at a faster pace than the prior month as high prices prompted owners to put more properties on the market. Sales rose 2% in July from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.99 million, up from a revised 1.6% gain in June. July sales were up 1.5% from a year earlier. (Wall Street Journal)
The SEC has started to issue new disclosure requirements to Chinese companies seeking to list in New York as part of a push to boost investor awareness of the risks involved. Some Chinese companies have now started to receive detailed instructions from the SEC about greater disclosure of their use of offshore vehicles known as variable interest entities (VIEs) for IPOs; implications for investors and the risk that Chinese authorities will interfere with company operations. (Reuters)
Trading conditions in the $22tn US government bond market, a bedrock of the global financial system, have deteriorated as traders brace themselves for a key speech this week from Federal Reserve chief Jay Powell. Liquidity has worsened as a series of jerky price movements and uncertainty over Fed policy have kept investors from making big bets. Thin trading volumes, with many market participants out of the office in August, have exacerbated the problem. The recent liquidity drop comes as Powell is set to deliver a speech at the Jackson Hole summit this week, typically one of the biggest events on the year’s economic calendar. (Financial Times)
Investor familiarity with sustainable investing remains low: A quarter of investors say they have heard a lot (6%) or a fair amount (19%) about this type of investing. Another third have heard a little about it, while four in 10 have heard nothing. (Gallup)
Technology
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy will join tech executives at a White House meeting with President Biden tomorrow to discuss efforts by private companies to improve cybersecurity. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will also attend the White House cybersecurity event. The chief executives of other large tech companies, banks, energy companies and water utilities, including Google, IBM, Southern, and JPMorgan Chase have also been invited. (Reuters)
Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc has suspended its plans to launch in Britain and continental Europe, against the backdrop of a regulatory backlash at home over data privacy. Staff working on the planned launches have been told that they face possible redundancy and Didi has stopped hiring in Britain, pulling the launch plans for at least a year. (Reuters)
More than a thousand web apps mistakenly exposed 38 million records on the open internet, including data from a number of Covid-19 contact tracing platforms, vaccination sign-ups, job application portals, and employee databases. The data included a range of sensitive information, from people’s phone numbers and home addresses to social security numbers and Covid-19 vaccination status. The incident affected major companies and organizations, including American Airlines, Ford, the transportation and logistics company J.B. Hunt, the Maryland Department of Health, the New York City Municipal Transportation Authority, and New York City public schools. And while the data exposures have since been addressed, they show how one bad configuration setting in a popular platform can have far-reaching consequences. (Wired)
Apple confirmed that it already scans iCloud Mail for CSAM, and has been doing so since 2019. It has not, however, been scanning iCloud Photos or iCloud backups. (9to5Mac)
The swipe-up will be no more. Instagram is planning to retire the feature, which allows people to visit external webpages by swiping up, starting August 30th, according to a notification viewed by The Verge and confirmed by Instagram. Instead of the swipe-up link, Instagram says people will be able to use link stickers, which are exactly as they sound: tappable stickers in stories that take people to external websites. (The Verge)
Vox Media LLC is buying Punch, a cocktail website founded by Bertelsmann SE’s Penguin Random House, part of a bid to deepen its coverage of food and drinks. (Wall Street Journal)
Smart Links
Executives warn of growing container ship shortages. (Financial Times)
Poly Network says it has recovered all $610 million it lost in cryptocurrency heist. (Engadget)
Climate crisis made deadly German floods ‘up to nine times more likely.’ (The Guardian)
'Mutually assured destruction': Pelosi and centrists search for path out of standoff. (Politico)
China’s courts centre stage as defaults shake $17tn bond market. (Financial Times)