Factories shuttered amid the worldwide economic lockdown have put global coal usage on track to fall to its lowest level in more than 70 years, with prices touching a four-year low. The plunge has been especially pronounced in Europe, where the U.K. recently went a record-breaking 24 days without using any coal at all. In...
Tag: may 12 2020
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INTERNET AD REVENUES CLIMB, CONFOUNDING EXPECTATIONS
Facebook and Google reported stronger-than-expected ad sales in this year’s first quarter. Analysts had expected sales to plummet as businesses closed or scaled back activity during the global economic paralysis. Three-quarters of advertisers and media buyers expected the media market to be worse than that of the Great Recession, according to a March survey by...
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RENEWABLE ENERGY ONLY FUEL FORECAST TO GROW THIS YEAR
Worldwide energy demand could shrink as much as 6 percent this year, according to the International Energy Agency, which cited a “staggering decline across all the fuels… except renewables,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director. As demand for other fuel sources withered, renewable power’s market grew during 2020’s first quarter. The drop in energy...
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AFRICA
The sudden absence of tourists has halted income for 8,000 workers who depend on visitors to Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, a home for the continent’s endangered species. The loss of tourists is coupled with national and local governments’ need to cut costs while dedicating resources to coping with the virus. As a result, many...
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MIDDLE EAST
Oil Price Crash Stalls Saudi Reforms The plans of Saudi Arabia’s ruling prince to wean the country’s economy from oil and modernize some aspects of its society have been blocked by the unprecedented oil price crash this year. The country is a welfare state with almost half the population receiving a monthly stipend. Electricity, gasoline,...
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ASIA
Turkey Gambles Interest Rate Cuts Against Currency Stability Turkey’s central bank has cut its key interest rate for the eighth time in less than a year. The 1-percentage point cut was twice as deep as analysts expected and puts the new rate at 8.75 percent. The cut supports president Recip Erdoğan’s strategy of using cheap...
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CHINA
Belt and Road Partner Nations Ask for Bailouts China’s Belt and Road project is an attempt to extend the country’s economic domination to more than half of the world: the country made low-interest loans to 138 nations, most of them poor, to build roads, railways, ports, and other infrastructure that would bind the countries more...
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EUROPE
Europe’s Economy on Track for 7.7-Percent Contraction, 9-Percent Jobless Rate Europe’s economy will contract by 7.7 percent this year and unemployment could linger at 9 percent unless the European Commission, or EC, takes “decisive joint action” to stop the damage, according to the commission’s spring economic forecast. Otherwise, the situation will worsen, warned Paolo Gentiloni,...
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COVID-UP NOTES
Trump Asserts “National Emergency”, Fed Control Over Electric Utility Purchases In a 1 May executive order declaring a national emergency, Donald Trump has given the U.S. defense department the authority to oversee electric companies’ purchases of electronic equipment. The order grows out of a view widely shared among U.S. intelligence agencies that adversaries such as...
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AMONG THE WEAKEST OF THE WEAK
Restaurant Supplier’s Performance Bodes Ill for Sector Sysco, which supplies food to restaurants, schools, hospitals, and other institutions, has dispensed with a third of its employees after seeing sales fall 6.5 percent in its most recent quarter, the worst performance in 11 years. In mid-March, as economic lockdowns were being imposed, sales were down as...