2021年10月29日星期五

Friday Briefing: Trump's real-estate empire pays the price for poisonous politics

Friday, October 29, 2021

by Linda Noakes

Sponsored by   Toshiba

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Here's what you need to know.

Apple is hit by supply chain woes, the Taliban push to unlock Afghan billions abroad, and North Koreans turn to eating swans

Today's biggest stories

Former U.S. President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, October 18, 2021. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

U.S.

Former U.S. president Donald Trump’s slashing rhetorical style and divisive politics allowed him to essentially take over the Republican Party. His supporters are so devoted that most believe his false claim that he lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud. But the same tactics that have inspired fierce political loyalty have undermined Trump’s business.

President Joe Biden was dealt a setback as the House of Representatives abandoned plans for a vote on an infrastructure bill with progressives seeking more time to consider his call for a separate $1.75 trillion plan for climate measures, preschool and other social initiatives. Negotiating from the left, Pramila Jayapal is now at the center of Biden's agenda.

Felicia Moore, Atlanta's city council president, vows to hire 250 police officers to help combat her city's rising crime rate if she is elected mayor next week. Her most prominent Democratic rival, former Mayor Kasim Reed, wants to go even further, putting 750 more officers on the streets. We look at how Democratic cries to 'defund the police' are fading.

A criminal complaint charging former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo with a misdemeanor sex offense was filed in a court in Albany, the state capital, the first prosecution stemming from a misconduct scandal that led to his resignation.

U.S. traffic deaths soared by 18.4% in the first six months of 2021 from the same period a year earlier, for the most deadly first half on American roads since 2006.

Monsignor Leonardo Sapienza receives President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden as they arrive at the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, October 29, 2021. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

WORLD

Leaders of the 20 richest countries will recognize the existential threat of climate change, a draft communique seen by Reuters shows, as Pope Francis said the COP26 summit must give future generations "concrete hope" by matching words with deeds.

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party and prime minister Fumio Kishida are likely to take a bruising in the weekend's lower house election, though the coalition government should safely retain power, opinion polls showed. In Okinawa - long a bastion of the pacifist opposition - the LDP's harder line on China and proactive security policy is helping it win over younger voters.

Afghanistan's Taliban government is pressing for the release of billions of dollars of central bank reserves as the drought-stricken nation faces a cash crunch, mass starvation and a new migration crisis.

From printing coupons as replacement cash to breeding ornamental black swans to eat, North Korea is being forced to innovate to handle economic woes and food shortages as anti-pandemic border lockdowns drag on, reports suggest.

Mexico said it would give humanitarian visas to children and pregnant women in a migrant caravan moving north from southern Mexico, adopting a softer approach to the task of containing migrant flows than at times taken recently.

BUSINESS

Developer China Evergrande Group has made an interest payment for an offshore bond before a grace period expired, narrowly averting a catastrophic default for the second time in a week. Meanwhile, Kaisa Group Holdings is seeking buyers for its Hong Kong-listed property management unit and two residential sites in the city as it scrambles to meet a wall of debt repayments.

The euro zone economy continued to boom over the summer as activity rebounded after coronavirus lockdowns but inflation is also blowing past expectations, leaving the European Central Bank with a growing policy headache.

Supply chain woes cost Apple $6 billion in sales during the company's fiscal fourth quarter, which missed Wall Street expectations, and Chief Executive Tim Cook said that the impact will be even worse during the current holiday sales quarter.

Daimler reported a higher quarterly profit despite a 30% drop in Mercedes-Benz unit sales due to a global semiconductor chip shortage, as it focused on more profitable luxury cars and cut costs, and said it should meet its 2021 profit targets.

Investors clamoring for Robinhood Markets to host shiba inu, a meme-inspired cryptocurrency that has soared in value this month, may need to bide their time as the app-based brokerage says it is in no hurry to list new currencies. Shiba inu is a spinoff of dogecoin, itself born as a satire of a cryptocurrency frenzy in 2013, and has almost no practical use.

Quote of the day

"A name change doesn't suddenly erase the systemic issues plaguing the company"

Mike Proulx

Research director at market research firm Forrester

Facebook changes name to Meta as it refocuses on virtual reality

Video of the day

Can we stop solar flares derailing driverless cars?

The race is on to stop a storm on the surface of the sun from bringing down the internet or knocking out the control system of driverless cars on Earth.

And finally…

Japanese start-up designs wind turbine that can harness typhoon energy

The turbine works in cyclonic conditions, which typically shut down most wind installations, turning them into a potential energy source.

Sponsored by Toshiba

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