Sunday,  Aug 2nd, 2020

China–United States trade war

ByteDance to divest U.S. TikTok operations TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has agreed to divest the app’s U.S. operations, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday. The report comes a day after President Trump said he would ban the popular app in the United States amid Washington’s concern over ByteDance’s data collection, which the Trump administration believes poses a national security threat. Under the proposed deal, Microsoft would take over U.S. operations. It’s unclear if Trump’s threat was little more than a negotiating tactic to force ByteDance into fully selling the app, rather than retaining a minority stake, as it had preferred. ByteDance’s apparent willingness to make that concession will test whether the president was bluffing. Source: Reuters

The Barakah nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates becomes operational following delays since 2017. It is the first commercial nuclear power station in the Arab world. (BBC)

A demonstration against coronavirus restrictions attended by thousands of people in Berlin, Germany, is terminated by police over “non-respect of hygiene rules”. Police say they launched legal action against the organisers. (Al Jazeera)

Officials say at least 86 people have died in recent days due to consuming toxic illegally-made alcohol in Punjab, India. Police are carrying out raids in the state, confiscating supplies of the suspected alcohol and have made 25 arrests. (BBC)

Top Democrats, White House conclude ‘productive’ coronavirus relief talks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) resumed coronavirus relief negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Saturday morning. The four negotiators met for several hours and while the talks didn’t result in anything tangible, Schumer and Meadows both said separately that it was the most productive meeting yet. Congress failed to reach an agreement Friday for the next iteration of the CARES coronavirus relief bill, ending the week of negotiations with frustration on all sides. Discussions will continue Sunday with staff-only meetings, before Pelosi, Schumer, Mnuchin, and Meadows return to the table Monday. Source:  Reuters

England pauses lockdown easing, French cases spike British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Friday it was time to “squeeze the brake pedal” on the easing of coronavirus lockdown restrictions in England after an increase in daily new cases for the first time since May. England’s chief medical officer, Prof. Chris Whitty, added that the country has “probably reached near the limit, or the limits, of what we can do in terms of opening up society.” Cases are also on the rise in other European countries, including France, which has seen more than 1,300 new infections per day for the last three days. At the beginning of July, the number of daily new cases in France had dropped to several hundred. It’s been suggested the recent spike is related to increased holiday travel. Source: The Guardian

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Sunday,  Aug 2nd, 2020

China–United States trade war

ByteDance to divest U.S. TikTok operations TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has agreed to divest the app’s U.S. operations, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday. The report comes a day after President Trump said he would ban the popular app in the United States amid Washington’s concern over ByteDance’s data collection, which the Trump administration believes poses a national security threat. Under the proposed deal, Microsoft would take over U.S. operations. It’s unclear if Trump’s threat was little more than a negotiating tactic to force ByteDance into fully selling the app, rather than retaining a minority stake, as it had preferred. ByteDance’s apparent willingness to make that concession will test whether the president was bluffing. Source: Reuters

The Barakah nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates becomes operational following delays since 2017. It is the first commercial nuclear power station in the Arab world. (BBC)

A demonstration against coronavirus restrictions attended by thousands of people in Berlin, Germany, is terminated by police over “non-respect of hygiene rules”. Police say they launched legal action against the organisers. (Al Jazeera)

Officials say at least 86 people have died in recent days due to consuming toxic illegally-made alcohol in Punjab, India. Police are carrying out raids in the state, confiscating supplies of the suspected alcohol and have made 25 arrests. (BBC)

Top Democrats, White House conclude ‘productive’ coronavirus relief talks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) resumed coronavirus relief negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Saturday morning. The four negotiators met for several hours and while the talks didn’t result in anything tangible, Schumer and Meadows both said separately that it was the most productive meeting yet. Congress failed to reach an agreement Friday for the next iteration of the CARES coronavirus relief bill, ending the week of negotiations with frustration on all sides. Discussions will continue Sunday with staff-only meetings, before Pelosi, Schumer, Mnuchin, and Meadows return to the table Monday. Source:  Reuters

England pauses lockdown easing, French cases spike British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Friday it was time to “squeeze the brake pedal” on the easing of coronavirus lockdown restrictions in England after an increase in daily new cases for the first time since May. England’s chief medical officer, Prof. Chris Whitty, added that the country has “probably reached near the limit, or the limits, of what we can do in terms of opening up society.” Cases are also on the rise in other European countries, including France, which has seen more than 1,300 new infections per day for the last three days. At the beginning of July, the number of daily new cases in France had dropped to several hundred. It’s been suggested the recent spike is related to increased holiday travel. Source: The Guardian

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Saturday,  August 1st, 2020

The United States government is expected to pay $2.1 billion to Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline to try to develop and deliver 100 million doses of their potential COVID-19 vaccine. (CNBC)

The World Health Organization reports a record increase in global COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, with the total rising by more than 292,000. (Reuters)

The number of COVID-19 deaths in Mexico reaches 46,688, surpassing the United Kingdom. The death toll in the country is the third-highest in the world. (Reuters)

Tokyo registers another record of new COVID-19 cases in a single day since the pandemic began, with 463 new cases. Governor Yuriko Koike says the city may need to declare its own state of emergency if the virus continues to spread. (The Japan Times)

Japan reports another record of more than 1,500 cases in a single day. (Kyodo News)

India surpasses Italy in COVID-19 deaths, becoming the fifth-highest. (India.com)

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Friday, July 31st, 2020

Former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, a 29-year-old student, is sentenced for nine years in a Russian penal colony for assaulting two police officers while drunk last year in Moscow. Reed’s father told reporters after the verdict he is planning to appeal directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Al Jazeera)

A court in Uganda sentences a poacher who killed a rare gorilla named Rafiki to 11 years in prison. Rafiki, a 25-year-old silverback who was the head of a gorilla group in the southwestern Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, was killed with a spear in early June. (Al Jazeera)

NASA launches Perseverance rover to Mars NASA on Thursday launched its Perseverance rover to Mars on an Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Perseverance will collect soil samples from Mars for return to Earth around 2031, as well as “search for signs of ancient microbial life,” according to NASA. “This is the first time in history where we’re going to go to Mars with an explicit mission to find life on another world — ancient life on Mars,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said. This is the third launch to Mars to take place this summer, with the first two being from China and the United Arab Emirates. Perseverance is expected to land in the Jezero Crater on Mars in February 2021. Source: CNN

Economy dips a record 32.9 percent in Q2 The U.S. GDP fell 9.5 percent in the second quarter from the first, and 32.9 percent year over year, Bureau of Economic Analysis data released Thursday indicates. That’s the sharpest decline the economy has seen since the 1940s, as even though the Great Depression’s economy dipped further, it was spread out over a longer period. The numbers are close to economists’ expectations of a 34.5 percent drop for the quarter. A massive 34.6 percent annualized drop in personal spending is largely to blame for the contraction, as it makes up about two-thirds of GDP determinations. At the same time, though, personal income rose 7.3 percent from Q1 to Q2, likely due to federal stimulus payments, unemployment benefit boosts, and PPP loans to businesses. Source: NBC News

Tropical Storm Isaias is expected to head towards Florida, prompting the state to close their COVID-19 test sites. (CNN)

Tokyo reports 367 new COVID-19 cases. It is the highest jump of new cases since the pandemic began. (Asahi Shimbun)

Japan reports a single day record high of 1,274 new COVID-19 cases. (The Japan Times)

India reports its largest single day record of 52,123 new cases of COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. (Anadolu Agency)

Mainland China reports 105 new COVID-19 cases and 96 of them are in Xinjiang. (Reuters)

Herman Cain dies a month after hospitalization for coronavirus Herman Cain, the businessman turned Republican politician and commentator, died Thursday after contracting COVID-19. He was 74. “We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight,” Dan Calabrese, the editor of Cain’s blog HermainCain.com, wrote in a Thursday morning post. Cain tested positive for COVID-19 after attending President Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was hospitalized earlier this month after having trouble breathing. He was considered especially at risk because he had survived cancer in the past. Cain led several food companies before shifting to politics, most notably Godfather’s Pizza. He is best known for his 2012 Republican run for president, where he pushed an ultra-simple “9-9-9” tax plan. Source: HermanCain.com

The End