World in Brief - The Economist Roundup

 

World in Brief

The Economist Roundup

Around 20 relatives of Israelis held hostage by Hamas stormed a parliamentary committee session in Jerusalem. Domestic dissent is growing: family members of the hostages have repeatedly rallied outside the home of Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. On Sunday Mr Netanyahu rejected an offer from Hamas to release hostages in return for his country’s complete withdrawal from Gaza. Some 130 people remain captive in Gaza.

 

America’s Federal Aviation Administration told airlines to check the door plugs on their Boeing 737-900 ER models. The model is similar to the 737 MAX 9, one of which shed a door plug during an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this month. The FAA had previously said that all 737 MAX 9s should remain grounded until Boeing provides further information.

 

Cameroon began the world’s first routine malaria vaccine programme for children. The vaccine has been developed by GSK, a British drugmaker; Cameroon’s government intends to administer it to 250,000 children in 2024 and 2025. Malaria kills around half a million children under the age of five in Africa each year, with the continent accounting for 95% of the world’s malaria deaths.

 

A landslide killed eight people and trapped dozens more in the mountainous Yunnan province of China on Monday. About 1,000 rescuers were sent out into freezing, snowy conditions. Later, near the border with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan at the other end of the country, a major 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Xinjiang region. Tremors led some in nearby Almaty, the Kazakh capital, to evacuate.

 

Canada introduced a two-year cap on new permits for international students. Marc Miller, the immigration minister, accused some institutions of increasing student intake to make money, leaving students with high fees and poor support while putting pressure on housing and health care. An estimated 360,000 permits will be approved in 2024, a 35% decrease from last year.

 

Bitcoin prices fell to their lowest level in over a month, as excitement over the newly-approved bitcoin exchange-traded fund in America faded. The price of Ethereum, another cryptocurrency, also fell. About $3bn has flowed into bitcoin ETFs since its approval in January. Meanwhile, other assets such as stocks and futures rallied upwards as investors remained optimistic about the American economy.

 

Japan’s inflation conundrum

The Bank of Japan will probably maintain its ultra-loose monetary policy when its January meeting concludes on Tuesday. Yet markets will be watching closely for any signals about changes to come later this year. Japan’s annual inflation rate has been above the BOJ’s 2% target for the past 21 months. Last year wage growth was the fastest in three decades, but did not keep pace with inflation.

Ueda Kazuo, the BOJ’s governor, wants to see the results of this spring’s shunto, or annual wage negotiations, before deciding whether and when to remove the bank’s negative interest-rate policy. But as inflation is falling, the BOJ will face less pressure to rush to the exit. The bank's quarterly outlook, also published on Tuesday, will offer an insight into what monetary policymakers think the coming years hold for Japan's economy.

China is quizzed on human rights

On Tuesday China faces its Universal Periodic Review, part of a years-long process through which UN member countries will assess its human-rights record. Representatives from three countries will grill a Chinese delegation on reports compiled by independent watchdogs, UN bodies and the country itself, before an assessment is presented to the UN Human Rights Council.

In many ways China’s government has grown more repressive since the previous UPR in 2018, and it has mostly avoided accountability for its human-rights violations. In 2022 the UN published a report stating that the country’s persecution of Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang, a region in the north-west, may constitute crimes against humanity.

The UPR process is largely toothless. China appeared to accept many previous recommendations—then ignored them. And the Jamestown Foundation, an American think-tank, has documented the increasing number of flattering questions posed by China-friendly countries during past reviews. Presenting evidence of human-rights abuses is important. But the UPR is unlikely to achieve much beyond that.

Talks between the EU and Egypt

On Tuesday officials from the European Union and Egypt meet in Brussels to discuss their “association agreement”, meant to encourage political and economic ties.

Top of the agenda is the dire economy in Egypt. The government has long talked about encouraging its moribund private sector and finding ways to draw in more foreign direct investment, not least by cutting state dominance of the economy. Don’t expect great progress. In the past couple of years it made meagre attempts to sell some stakes in big companies. Meanwhile foreign direct investment fell in 2023.

The two will also talk about efforts to limit migrant flows from Egypt to Europe. This year the EU will reportedly provide €87m ($95m) to toughen border surveillance in the north African country. That will have a limited effect because few Egyptians head to Europe directly from their own shores. Instead they travel via Libya. More will try to do so as the economy deteriorates.

Europe’s space agency aims high

Scientists, politicians and business leaders will gather in Brussels to talk about the main issues “faced by the European space ecosystem” at the 16th annual European Space Conference on Tuesday. That ecosystem has been growing. In January the European Space Agency announced that its budget for 2024 was €7.8bn ($8.5bn)—10% more than in the previous year.

Around 30% of that pot is earmarked for Earth observation, meaning that it will be used to maintain and enhance the constellation of satellites that the EU relies on for things like weather forecasting, environmental monitoring and defence. But the agency has big plans for the rest of the cash. Last week at Davos Josef Aschbacher, the ESA’s director-general, laid out this year’s priorities. They include guaranteeing the bloc’s access to space, a capability it has lost because of delays in upgrading its main launcher. Ariane 6, the ESA’s new launch system, is set to fly this summer.