Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-South African researchers are engaging in an effort to stop new mutations. They say that people with untreated HIV who get Covid may give the virus more chances to mutate, as it stays in their bodies longer.
-South Africa’s high rate of HIV infection has given the country an added urgency, and unique expertise, in trying to root out the evolving coronavirus.
-A Lab in Nebraska is tracking the spread of omicron in the US. More states are discovering cases of the new variant. Tracking its spread, experts say, is crucial to understanding what threat it poses.
-Oxford High School let Ethan Crumbley back into a classroom despite concerns about his behavior. First, a teacher found Ethan Crumbley searching online for ammunition. The next day, there was an alarming note on his desk: “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” School officials met with Mr. Crumbley, 15, and his parents, informing them that he needed to begin counseling within 48 hours. After his parents resisted bringing him home, administrators allowed him to stay in school.
-Republicans plan to carry their push to reshape the nation’s electoral system into next year, with Democrats vowing to oppose them but holding few options in GOP-led states.
Members of the special House committee investigating the Capitol riot are among those arguing for an overhaul of a more than century-old statute enacted to address disputed elections.
-US intelligence claim the Russians could be preparing to invade Ukraine. An invasion force could include 175,000 troops, but U.S. officials stress that President Vladimir V. Putin’s intentions remain unclear.
-An Israeli company’s spyware has been used to monitor the activities of US Embassy staff in some African capitals. The hack is the first known case of the spyware, known as Pegasus, being used against American officials.
-A cream cheese shortage is affecting N.Y.C. bagel shops. Supply chain problems have hit businesses across the US and now, they are even threatening to prevent the production of the quintessential New York treat.
The Belgian port city of Antwerp is struggling to manage a cocaine epidemic. The city has become the main port of entry into Europe for cocaine, which is being blamed for a surge of violence that has prompted some Belgian officials to call for a war on drugs.
FINANCIAL TIMES
-Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Joe Biden are set to hold a phone call next week amid heightened military tensions on the border between Russia and Ukraine, with Washington warning that Moscow could launch an invasion in early 2022.
The two leaders will discuss this matter following a meeting this week of US and Russian diplomats, where warnings were traded about the military situation on the border.
-South African epidemiologists were becoming alarmed by a rapid rise in Covid cases in Gauteng province, including in Johannesburg and Pretoria. They immediately linked this sudden surge to the appearance of a hyper-mutated new variant, which scientists called B.1.1.529 and the World Health Organization then named Omicron.
-Valérie Pécresse, who heads the Ile-de-France region around Paris, has been chosen as the candidate of the conservative Les Républicains party in next year’s French presidential election.
-French President Emmanuel Macron brokered a call on Saturday between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon’s leaders to end a diplomatic dispute that led to the imposition of sanctions on Beirut by Gulf States. Macron, the first western leader to visit the kingdom since the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, pushed for the call during a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, during a tour intended to underline France’s influence in the region.
-A sharp drop in the US unemployment rate has set the stage for the Federal Reserve to accelerate the scaling back of its stimulus program this month, economists said, giving it greater flexibility to raise interest rates sooner next year if necessary.
-When Major League Baseball locked out its players as the clock struck midnight on Thursday, its ninth work stoppage in more than a century, it was as if the game’s biggest stars just disappeared.
-More than a month after a coup, the soft-spoken Abdalla Hamdok was reinstated through what he called a “workable agreement” with the army to avoid “a catastrophic situation”. Dozens have been killed in mass protests against the military takeover. But far from quelling anger at the coup, Hamdok’s deal with the generals has jeopardized support for the technocrat.
-Investors retreated from US stocks on Friday, dumping shares in large technology companies and sending the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index sharply lower.
-Financial markets have been whipsawed over the past week, with the Omicron coronavirus variant sweeping the globe just as the Federal Reserve signaled its willingness to accelerate US monetary policy tightening.
-France has secured its biggest overseas order for its Dassault Rafale combat jet with the United Arab Emirates as President Emmanuel Macron looks to deepen ties with an important Middle Eastern ally.
-Evergrande chair Hui Ka Yan was summoned by Chinese government officials on Friday after the property developer warned it might not be able to meet its financial obligations and that it planned to restructure its offshore debt.
-Having spent months making excuses about stock shortages to American consumers, retailers are now trying to lure them back into the store or on to the website with promises of extended sales, discounts and faster deliveries. But it seems the buying public are no longer so interested.
-US job growth slowed in November while the unemployment rate fell to its lowest since the pandemic began, painting a complex picture of the labor market’s recovery as the Federal Reserve moves to consider whether to speed up its withdrawal of stimulus support.
-A top Federal Reserve official has warned that the Omicron coronavirus variant threatens to fuel soaring inflation in the US by putting further pressure on supply chains and worsening worker shortages.
NEW YORK POST
-“President Biden is having a series of worrisome episodes that seem to be a mix of his trademark plagiarism (adopting episodes from other public figures’ lives as his own in addition to appropriating their words) and what we sometimes euphemistically call a ‘senior moment.’”
-China’s Communist leaders offered an acid denunciation of western-style democracy in advance of President Biden’s two-day democracy summit next week.
Democratic systems, like those in the United States, are “doomed to fail,” top Chinese officials said.
-President Joe Biden vowed the U.S. would make it “very, very difficult” for Russia to take military action in Ukraine. The commander-in-chief’s comments came amid fears of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine early next year. New findings from US intelligence estimated 175,000 troops would be involved, according to the Washington Post, which cited an intelligence document and U.S. officials.
-The current market is “even crazier than the dotcom era” and China made the right call when it banned cryptocurrencies, according to Warren Buffett’s right-hand man Charlie Munger.