World in Brief - The Economist Roundup

World in Brief

The Economist Roundup

March 30, 2024

Three UN observers and a translator were injured by a shell in southern Lebanon, drawing condemnation from António Guterres, the body’s secretary-general. The group had been patrolling the “Blue Line”, a buffer zone along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanon said an Israeli drone had been responsible; Israel denied this. Meanwhile, Egyptian media reported that talks between Israel and Hamas over a ceasefire in Gaza would restart in Cairo on Sunday.

Chinese manufacturing activity grew in March, the first such rise in six months. The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index was 50.8 this month, compared with 49.1 in February (anything over 50 denotes expansion). An increase in export orders explains the rise. Despite the positive news, China’s statistics agency warned that firms still face “insufficient market demand”.

Ukraine said that Russia launched 16 missiles and 11 drones in an overnight attack. The governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine said that one man died. Russia has increased air strikes recently as it seeks to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The country’s biggest energy firm, DTEK, said that five out of its six plants have been damaged or destroyed, causing an 80% reduction in capacity.

A car bomb killed at least seven people in northern Syria. The blast in Azaz, a town close to the border with Turkey, happened near a busy market. The Syrian Interim Government, an opposition group which opposes the rule of Bashar al-Assad, the country’s president, is based in the town. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

AT&T said that personal information of 73m of its current and former customers had been posted on the dark web. The telecoms firm said that social-security numbers were among the data that were leaked. It said it did not yet know the source of the breach and that the information appeared to be from 2019 or before.

Turks headed to the polls for local elections. Much of the focus will be on the race to become mayor of Istanbul, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party is looking to win back control. That vote looks likely to go to the wire. Elsewhere AK is expected to mostly prevail.

Cambridge University beat Oxford in both the women’s and the men’s annual boat races. Since 2000 Oxford has notched 13 wins in the men’s race, and Cambridge 11. One member of Oxford’s team said that some of his crew had suffered illness caused by E. coli. In recent days rowers had been warned against entering the River Thames after high levels of the bacteria were found in the water, linked to sewage discharges by water utilities.

Turkey’s not-so-local election in Istanbul

Most of the mayoral and municipal contests being held in Turkey’s 81 provinces on Sunday are about things like public transport and sanitation. But in some, especially Istanbul, the future of the country’s politics is at stake.

Ekrem Imamoglu won a shock victory five years ago and became Istanbul’s mayor. He held a narrow lead in the pre-voting opinion polls. Another win and he’d be a shoo-in as the opposition’s candidate in presidential elections in 2028. But Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, and his Justice and Development party are determined to recapture Turkey’s largest city, along with its $16bn budget and vast patronage networks. If Justice and Development’s mayoral candidate, Murat Kurum, wins it might also embolden Turkey’s autocratic leader, who has ruled the country for over two decades, to pursue his latest pet project. Mr Erdogan wants a new constitution, presumably to give himself another term. Whoever said all politics is local was clearly not Turkish.

Ethiopia’s tiger no longer roars

Not long ago Ethiopia’s tiger economy enjoyed world-beating growth rates and significant reductions in poverty. No longer. In December, it became the latest African country to default on a loan repayment—an aftershock of a devastating war in the Tigray region which ended in late 2022. With debt accumulating and foreign exchange reserves depleting, Ethiopian officials are racing to secure around $3.5bn from the IMF before a deadline set by some of the country’s creditors on March 31st.

If it lapses without cash from the fund, a deal to suspend debt payments until 2025 will be in jeopardy. So too might negotiations with commercial bondholders to reschedule a $1bn loan due in December. Officials hope the IMF will give them the space to continue much-needed economic reforms, and unlock funding from the World Bank and other concessional lenders. The stakes are high: with much of the country still mired in conflict, large parts are on the brink of famine.

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