World events 8 in a concentrated form, understandable
World events 8
With the US on track for a government shutdown, lawmakers in the House and the Senate made incremental progress on rival bills that have little chance of passage in both chambers.
To see important ads, turn off your ad blocker! Article continued below:President Joe Biden said it was time for House Republicans “to start doing their job” and resolve the impasse before a Saturday night deadline.
China.
The billionaire chairman of beleaguered property developer China Evergrande Group has been placed under police control, sources say.
The decision to put Hui Ka Yan under so-called residential surveillance is the latest sign that the saga at the world’s most indebted developer has entered a new phase involving the criminal justice system as the property crisis remains a drag on the economy.
World events 8, drones.
Overseas sales of Turkish combat drones are booming after their effectiveness was shown in fighting against Russia’s army in Ukraine.
Read this rare interview with drone maker Selcuk Bayraktar, who says a new generation of pilotless aircraft will “revolutionize” Turkey’s military influence from the Black Sea and the Caucasus to the eastern Mediterranean and the shores of North Africa.
Bolivia.
Evo Morales ruled Bolivia for 14 years before losing a referendum on term limits and ultimately fleeing the country in ignominy. Back from exile, Morales is now seeking to emulate Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and stage a comeback, but a return to the presidency won’t be easy.
IMF.
Egypt is intensifying talks with the IMF to unblock a $3 billion rescue deal that’s held up over state asset sales and the way the country manages its overvalued currency.
This week’s decision to hold presidential elections on Dec. 10-12 means another devaluation is now unlikely to happen in the coming weeks as authorities walk the line between unlocking a second IMF tranche and minimizing the price pain for Egypt’s 105 million population.
World events 8, Lina Khan.
US Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan stopped short of explicitly calling for a breakup of Amazon.com, but said in an interview that her agency would ask a judge to halt the company’s “illegal conduct” if its antitrust suit succeeds.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said pressure on the Kremlin’s “military-industrial complex” needs to be ramped up further and indicated his forces would continue to attack Russian targets.
Ilham Aliyev.
Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, offered to let the United Nations into Nagorno-Karabakh as the US pressed him over the exodus of Armenians from the region that’s approaching half of the declared population.
World events 8, tankers.
On a sunny day off the southern coast of Greece last week, two aging tankers nestled next to each other while one pumped oil to the other.
As Alaric Nightingale reports, the reason it didn’t show on global satellite tracking systems wasn’t a glitch, but a deliberate deception called spoofing that’s part of a sophisticated system to keep sanctioned Russian fuel flowing.
Estimates vary, but at least half of Moscow’s oil is thought to flow out through shadow-fleet tankers.
