A total of 120,000 Turkish construction companies are set to halt activities on June 9 to protest a skyrocketing rise in iron prices and a visible undersupply in the material. The protests are expected to last one month, according to sector representatives. Source Hurriyet Daily
Real Estate
A downturn in Greece’s property market deepened in the first quarter, as uncertainty over its bailout program and chronic weakness in its banking sector further eroded a traditional pillar of the country’s ailing economy. Source ekathimerini
Italy is giving away more than 100 historic castles, farmhouses and monasteries for free in an effort to breathe new life into its disused public buildings. Source CBS
U.S. homebuilding fell in March in February and manufacturing output dropped for the first time in seven months, further indications that economic growth braked sharply in the first quarter. The data last week showed the second monthly decline in retail sales in March as well a decrease in consumer prices. Source Reuters
China’s efforts to weed speculation out of the housing market seem futile as data show you ‘Can’t Beat the Real Thing’. Prices not only edged higher in more of the nation’s biggest cities during March, they did so at a faster pace too — a fearless challenge to government orders to stamp out speculation in red hot real estate markets. Source Asia Times
French politicians have cautioned construction-materials giant LafargeHolcim about the consequences of supplying cement for the 3000km wall that US President Donald Trump intends to build along the border with Mexico. Source Global Cement
China’s property sales surged in the first two months of the year despite government measures to cool the market, though growth in real estate investment showed signs of easing, according to official data on Tuesday. Property sales by area rose 25.1 percent year-on-year in January and February. Source: Reuters
United States Postal workers who deliver mail in some of Chicago’s more violent neighborhoods are threatening to halt their services after a mail carrier was shot in the city’s South Side earlier this month. Source New York Post
Ten people were killed and 35 others, including a 16-year-old boy, were injured by gunfire this weekend across Chicago.
The weekend, which lasted from 5 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday, was less deadly than the previous weekend, which saw 12 killed and 42 wounded during the same timeframe. Source Chicago Sun Times
An eventful arrest took place on Wednesday September 16, 2020 in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. While under arrest, police officers were assaulted. Two drew. =Inquiry tense, Wednesday, September 16, 2020 in the 10 th arrondissement of Paris . Agents Police busy to question a man was attacked and targeted by projectiles. Two policemen drew their service weapons. Source Actu.fr
The European Central Bank is considering an extension to its emergency quantitative easing program (PEPP) and the relaxation of its original bond-buying program (QE), according to the Financial Times and the MNI news agency. Source Ekathimerini
Protests have broken out across Egypt against the rule of General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
In Suez, Kafr El Dawwar, a city on the Nile Delta, Cairo, Alexandria and Aswan, demonstrators demanded Al-Sisi stand down.
Following security forces’ attack on demonstrators, the presidential residence in Aswan, Upper Egypt, was set on fire.
One video at another protest shows a police car retreating after anti-Sisi protesters threw stones at it. Source Middle East Monitor
- Editor of nationalist tabloid Global Times claims China’s death toll was ‘far smaller than India’s’
- It’s the first time state media has acknowledged any casualties in the incident, while Beijing has declined to say how many troops died Source South China Morning Post
The Turkish navy issued three new navigational telexes on Friday reserving areas of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. Source Ekathimerini
Taiwan has said it had to scramble fighter jets to track approaching Chinese aircraft that also crossed the sensitive mid-line of the Taiwan Strait, in an escalation of tensions as a top United States diplomat visited the self-ruled island in a move that angered Beijing. Source Al Jazeera
The Trump administration issued orders severely limiting the operations of the Chinese social media apps in the US. Downloads of the apps will be banned starting Sunday. TikTok has more than 100 million users in the US. Source Deutsche Welle
Democrats say the bill intends to strengthen the US medical supply chain, support new technologies like 5G and counter China’s ‘predatory economic behavior’
Senate Republicans released sprawling legislation to confront China in July. Source China Morning Post
The idea of population replacement suggests that ethnic Swedes will eventually become a minority in their own country due to low birth rates among the native population and mass immigration, due to either short-sighted policy decisions or deliberate measures taken by diversity-obsessed authorities. Several forecasts have projected that this will happen between 2040 and 2065, depending on the rate of immigration and demographic trends. Source Sputniknews
It is less than two months since U.S. President Donald Trump travelled to Texas to declare that the U.S. energy industry, laid low by this year’s oil price crash, was back on its feet. “We’re OK now,” the president told the assembled crowd.
But bankruptcy numbers released this week tell a different story. Another 16 upstream U.S. oil and gas companies — producers and service providers — hit the wall in August, the same number as in July, according to law firm Haynes and Boone. Source Financial Post
The Bank of Italy said Italy’s public debt hit a new high of 2,560.5 billion euros in July, up 29.9 billion with respect to June. Source Ansa
Austria has said it still supports the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, despite growing reservations about the project in parts of Europe following the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny. Source Radio Free Europe
The U.S. budget deficit hit an all-time high of $3 trillion for the first 11 months of this budget year, the Treasury Department said Friday.
The deficit from October through August is more than double the previous 11-month record of $1.37 billion set in 2009. At that time the government was spending large sums to get out of the Great Recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis. Source CBS
Baker Hughes reported on Friday that the number of oil rigs in the United States fell by 1 to 180.
The total number of active oil and gas rigs decreased for the week by 2, with oil rigs falling by 1 and gas rigs falling by 1.
Total oil and gas rigs in the United States are now down by 632 compared to this time last year. Source OilPrice
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects a $3.3 trillion budget deficit this year. That is to say, the federal government is spending almost double what it will collect in taxes. As a result, the CBO estimates that national debt will consume 98% of GDP, or nearly the total yearly output of the United States’ economy. This would make debt the largest share of GDP since 1945, following the massive spending of World War II. Suorce Main Wire
President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday a decade-long ban on oil drilling off the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina — a decision that surprised energy industry executives by reversing the administration’s earlier pledges to open those waters to exploration. Source Politico
Russia’s supply of natural gas to China via the Power of Siberia rose to 12 million cubic meters per day in July and August, from 10 million cubic meters supplied in June, Vladislav Borodin, director general at the gas giant’s unit Gazprom Transgaz Tomsk, said in the company’s corporate magazine. Source OilPrice
Investors gave Greece a fresh vote of confidence during Wednesday’s one-year treasury bill auction, as the Public Debt Management Agency borrowed without interest for the first time ever in a 52-week issue. Source Ekathemirini
The European Commission has found Italian €199.45 million support in favour of Alitalia to be in line with EU state aid rules. The measure aims at compensating the airline for the damages suffered due to the coronavirus outbreak. Source Eu Reporter
China’s vehicles sales in July increased 16.4% year on year to 2.1m units as stimulus measures from the government continued to drive broad recoveries in consumption and market vitality, industry data showed.
This was the fourth consecutive rise in monthly vehicle sales, according to data from China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). Source ICIS
