Good morning. We’re covering Russia’s struggling military campaign, Australia’s halting recovery from bush fires and a Covid-19 protest at Peking University. Russia scales back its charge east After a series of military setbacks, Moscow now appears to be focusing on a narrow objective: widening its holdings in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas. But even there Russia may be forced to scale back its ambition to take most of eastern Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Russia still controls the wide swath of southern Ukraine it seized…
Tag: Supply Chain
China Is the Next Worry as Food Prices Soar
PINGGU, China — From village to village, the wheat crops in China have been inconsistent this season. One field on the flat plains east of Beijing was patchy, with knee-high emerald stalks in some spots while almost bald elsewhere, damaged by the torrential rains of last autumn. The next village over, a luxurious wheat crop was thriving after this spring’s bright sunshine and slow, soaking rains. China’s winter wheat harvest next month is one of the big uncertainties in a global economy already struggling with high commodity prices, particularly in…
Your Thursday Briefing: A Journalist Killed in the West Bank
Good morning. We’re covering the killing of an Al Jazeera journalist, China’s uncertain wheat harvest and rising religious violence in India. Journalist killed in the West Bank Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American journalist for Al Jazeera, was fatally shot in the head while reporting in the West Bank city of Jenin. Al Jazeera, citing Palestinian authorities, said Israeli forces shot her during a raid. The news network said it held the government and military accountable. Israel’s military said that it was not clear who shot her, and that it…
China’s Covid Policies Have European Companies Wary of Investing
A business group warned on Thursday that China’s “dynamic zero Covid” policies had left European companies considerably less willing to continue investing in the country. A survey by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China found that the tone among European businesses in the country had soured since January, when a survey found broad optimism and plans for further investment. “We had a double whammy in February and March with the Ukraine invasion and the Covid lockdowns, and it had an incredible impact,” said Joerg Wuttke, the chamber’s president.…
Biden Administration Begins $3 Billion Plan for Electric Car Batteries
The Biden administration plans to begin a $3.1 billion effort on Monday to spur the domestic production of advanced batteries, which are essential to its plan to speed the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy. President Biden has prodded automakers to churn out electric vehicles and utilities to switch to solar, wind and other clean energy, saying the transitions are critical to eliminating the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet. In the wake of surging energy prices caused largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, administration officials also have…
How the Supply Chain Crunch is Hurting California Farmers.
During a normal spring, the sight of orchards bursting with clusters of almonds is a boon throughout California’s Central Valley. Here is money growing on trees. Not this year. As Scott Phippen looks out on his orchard on a recent afternoon, he feels a sense of foreboding tinged with rage. His warehouse is stuffed with the leftovers of last year’s harvest — 30 million pounds of almonds stored in wooden and plastic bins stacked to the rafters, and overflowing into his yard. Orders assembled for customers sit in giant white…
China’s GDP Data Hint at Heavy Cost of its Zero Covid Strategy
BEIJING — Faced with its worst Covid-19 outbreak yet, China has been enforcing an expanding number of mass quarantines, strict lockdowns and border controls. The measures may yet work, but official data released on Monday show they are exacting a grim toll on the world’s second-largest economy. China’s economy expanded 4.8 percent in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year. That pace was barely faster than the final three months of last year, and it also obscured a looming problem. Much of that…
How Lockdowns in China Have Further Bogged Down the Supply Chain
BEIJING — China’s mounting Covid-19 restrictions are creating further disruptions to global supply chains for consumer electronics, car parts and other goods. A growing number of Chinese cities are requiring truck drivers to take daily Covid P.C.R. tests before allowing them to cross municipal borders or are quarantining drivers deemed to be at risk of infection. The measures have limited how quickly drivers can move components among factories and goods from plants to ports. Shanghai and other major Chinese cities have imposed lengthy, stringent lockdowns to try to control Covid…
Federal Reserve Walks a Tightrope Between Inflation and Recession
In an interview, James D. Hamilton, professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, and a leading expert on the economic effects of oil shocks, said they had “made major contributions to recessions over many decades.” At current oil price and supply levels, the effects of the Russian war “are fairly manageable for the American economy.” But Professor Hamilton pointed out that Russia’s oil, which amounts to about 10 percent of world production, could not be easily replaced if totally cut off — an outcome that he does…
Ukraine’s Russia Crisis Reveals the West’s False Sense of Energy Security
Russia’s belligerence against Ukraine is underscoring once again the inextricable link between national security and energy security. Today, Russia is flexing its energy dominance over a dependent Europe. But tomorrow, the danger may come from China and its control over the raw materials that are key to a clean energy future. The United States and its allies must ensure that doesn’t happen. In recent years America has been lulled into a false sense of energy independence. The shale revolution of the past decade has generated incredible supplies of vital natural…