Category: Economy
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The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund has an ethics council that can exclude companies over weapons, environmental damage and human rights. Norway’s finance minister has put it on pause while the whole framework is reviewed. The report is due on 15 October, and almost nobody outside Norway is watching.
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China’s August customs data showed exports up sharply and a monthly surplus of about $119 billion, taking the annual figure past $800 billion. Analysts read the tariff shock as absorbed — but a headline export number cannot show at what price, or to whom.
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Regular petrol averaged $4.14 a gallon over the Labor Day weekend and diesel hit a record $5.85. Analysts point to the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz. The reserve is emptier than at any time since the early 1980s, and none of the available policy levers reach the actual cause.
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The USDA is moving about half its Washington staff to regional hubs. It tried a smaller version of this in 2019, and most of the affected specialists resigned rather than move.
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Illegal mining under Johannesburg is now cracking roads from below. The debate merges two separate problems: the syndicates that run the trade, and the people who are its cheapest input.
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Zimbabwe is clearing street traders from the pavements again. The traders return faster than the enforcement budget lasts — which is what happens when a country tries to police a labour market rather than replace it.
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DRAM is up 171 per cent in a year and DDR5 spot prices have quadrupled since last September. No factory burned down. AI accelerators use three times the wafer capacity, and the wafers went to them.
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Washington has asked European governments to repay American aid to Ukraine, in the same week its envoys went to Moscow without them. If alliance support is an advance to be recovered, every future guarantee carries an invoice.
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C$27.6 billion in Canadian retaliatory tariffs start on Monday, on top of 50 per cent American duties. No talks have resumed since 22 August. Retaliation is a tax a country levies on itself — and governments choose it anyway.
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Tyson shut its beef plant at Joslin, Illinois with effect the same day, ending about 2,500 jobs in a village of 56 people. The company blames a historic cattle shortage. The dates on the closure letter tell you something the statement does not.