U$

Inflation Surprise Puts Onus on Fed to Hit Brakes Even Harder

ITS NOT WAGES ITS RENT INCREASES

Molly Smith

Tue, September 13, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- The US economy has shown surprising resilience in the face of the fastest inflation and interest-rate hikes in a generation. That means the Federal Reserve will have to stomp even harder on demand.

What started as a pandemic-driven supply shock has morphed into widespread inflation rooted just as much in resilient demand, underscored by unexpectedly high numbers that dashed hopes price gains were ebbing. While consumers are showing some signs of slowing, they’re still largely keeping up with persistent price pressures, powered by historic wage gains.

All told, the Fed has a much harder task on its hands than previously thought. If Americans won’t dial back spending further, odds favor the central bank becoming that much more aggressive to take more wind out of the economy’s sails with the goal of bringing inflation down.

“It tells you that it’s going to take a longer time, and will require higher rates -- and in macro language, maybe even require more demand destruction,” as in higher unemployment and slower growth, said Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Management. “It raises the probability of a recession.”

Consumer prices advanced by more than forecast in August, defying expectations for a monthly drop due to falling gasoline prices. Shelter, food and medical care were among the largest contributors to price growth, underscoring the breadth and severity of inflation with several categories posting record increases.

The S&P 500 fell more than 4% in the worst day since June 11, 2020, while Treasury yields and the dollar rose.

“My experience with inflation is that some of the components that were very strong in today’s report, they tend to be sticky and have a lot of inertia,” like rent, said Blerina Uruci, US economist at T. Rowe Price Associates. “So I would expect those to remain pretty strong in the coming months.”

The Atlanta Fed’s so-called sticky CPI measure rose 6.1% in August from a year ago, the biggest gain in 40 years. Meantime, the Cleveland Fed’s median CPI, which excludes categories with the largest price changes, increased by the most in data back to 1983.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, the so-called core CPI climbed 0.6% from July, double the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The core measure rose 6.3% from a year ago, the first acceleration in six months and near a four-decade high, the Labor Department’s report showed.

“The composition is even more troubling than the aggregate reading,” Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities, said in a note. “Outside of falling gasoline prices, inflation appears to be just as hot as ever, which means that the Fed still has plenty of work to do.”

It also means that the Biden administration and fellow Democrats have plenty of work to do, as the latest data may threaten what had been growing optimism in the party that they would hold their congressional majorities in November.

Fed Bets

Traders are now fully expecting the central bank to raise interest rates by another 75 basis points when policy makers meet next week, which would be the third-straight hike of that size. They’re also upping bets that officials will go bigger at their November gathering and see the tightening cycle peaking around 4.3% early next year -- more than a quarter-point higher than what was projected before the CPI report.

Chair Jerome Powell has communicated a stronger resolve to stamp out inflation since the Fed’s summit in Jackson Hole last month, signaling that the central bank is likely to keep raising interest rates and leave them elevated for a while. He’s stuck to that hawkish view and several of his colleagues also support hiking rates to a point that more clearly restricts demand.

Read more: Fed Seen Being Aggressive for Longer After US Inflation Surprise

Consumer spending, while slowing, hasn’t fallen off a cliff by any means. And with gasoline prices dropping more than 10% in August, Americans may even feel more emboldened to step up their discretionary purchases elsewhere.

Retail sales excluding gas and autos are projected to have risen last month, in data to be released later this week, which will factor into stronger growth overall. Those figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Powering much of this demand is a tight labor market, marked by robust job growth and historically low unemployment. Wage gains, though lagging inflation, are still extremely elevated, making the Fed’s job of reigning in demand even harder.

“The surprisingly strong core CPI in August -- when most thought lower gasoline prices would push down other prices as well -- indicates that wages have now become the top driver of inflation,” Bloomberg economists Anna Wong and Andrew Husby said in a report.

“With Fed officials already highly concerned about a potential wage-price spiral, the central bank is likely to keep hiking in the first half of 2023,” they said.

Gates Foundation on fighting the food crisis:

'Magic seeds' and drought-resistant chickens

Julie Hyman

Tue, September 13, 2022

Corn prices spiked earlier this year as the Russian invasion of Ukraine made the cornerstone crop more difficult to get. The crisis was particularly acute in areas of the world that needed it most, including sub-Saharan Africa — a region that relies on importing $23 billion of food a year.

And by 2030, according to a new report from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one-third of sub-Saharan Africa’s corn will be vulnerable to extreme heat that could slash yields.

The Gates Foundation Goalkeepers report also details ambitious solutions to help Africa, and other vulnerable regions, grow more of their own food.

“We have the tools and technologies to do that,” Mark Suzman, the foundation’s chief executive, told Yahoo Finance (video)  “That could actually help address the problem and turn these food-importing countries that often face starvation into robust, self-sufficient countries that can actually be exporters.”

A hawker prepares a cob of corn at his makeshift shop in Soweto, South Africa January 27, 2016. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo

The sixth-annual Goalkeepers report focuses on two of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): food security and gender equality. In 2015, 193 countries laid out 17 goals to achieve by 2030. That progress is lagging on almost all of them, but Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates write that they are encouraged by past success in the battle against HIV as an example of the triumph of human ingenuity.

“We believe it’s possible that one day we will look back at the data in this report the same way we look at the AIDS data from the turn of the millennium: in disbelief at how quickly and dramatically things turned around," the report states.

The foundation have funded corn crop researchers in Africa for more than a decade, and the report touts the promise of what Bill Gates calls “magic seeds” to help alleviate world hunger.

“Of course,” he writes, “the seeds weren’t actually magic, but by breeding select varieties of the crop, the researchers believed they could produce a hybrid maize that would be more resistant to hotter, drier climates. They succeeded wildly.”

That kind of agricultural technology is being put to work in other areas of the world, including India. Suzman said there are also opportunities in livestock development: The foundation has partnered with the government of Qatar to fund drought-resistant chickens to provide to farmers, providing a source of food as well as more sustainable livelihood.

(The 2022 Goalkeepers report)

The report also examines the potential for predictive modeling as climate change triggers increasingly more erratic and volatile weather patterns.

“Those are tools that are just coming online,” Suzman said. “We're helping create them as public goods, but they need to be accelerated and scaled. And we think that is because it is a little bit of an arms race, you know, climate change is getting worse and more challenging. But we think we can get ahead of that curve with these investments.”

On the gender equality side, the report finds that giving women digital financial tools was more successful than handing out physical money.

“Mobile payments give women more control over their money than a cash payment — because when money is deposited directly into her own online account, it’s harder for her husband or anyone else to claim it for themselves," Melinda French Gates stated in the report.

In Uganda, for example, the report finds, women who received digital microfinance loans re-invested the money into their business, earning 15% higher profits than those who got cash loans.

As of the end of 2021, the Gates Foundation had committed $6.7 billion to nearly 1,400 organizations.

U.S. emergency oil reserves tumble to lowest since 1984

The Bryan Mound Strategic Petroleum Reserve is seen in an aerial 

photograph over Freeport, Texas

By Arathy Somasekhar

Mon, September 12, 2022

HOUSTON (Reuters) -U.S. emergency crude oil stocks fell 8.4 million barrels last week to 434.1 million barrels, their lowest since October 1984, according to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) data released on Monday.

The release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the week ended Sept. 9 was the steepest draw since May. It comprised of about 6.3 million barrels of sweet crude and around 2 million barrels of sour crude.

President Joe Biden in March set a plan to release 1 million barrels per day over six months from the SPR to tackle high U.S. fuel prices, which have contributed to soaring inflation.

The Biden administration is weighing the need for further SPR releases after the current program ends in October, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Reuters last week. A DOE spokesperson later said the White House at that time was not considering new releases beyond the 180 million barrels.

The Biden administration is less likely to release barrels from the SPR after October if benchmark oil futures continue to drop. Last week, the 50-day moving average of U.S. and European prices both fell below the 200-day moving average, noted research analyst Paul Sankey said.

The SPR stocks also have declined due to sales from congressional mandates and Biden's price initiative. The oil is sold to qualified oil companies via online auctions, and prices set using a five-day average bracketing the date of delivery.

The DOE has proposed to replenish the SPR by allowing it to enter contracts to purchase oil in future years at fixed, preset prices. The administration said it believes the plan would help boost domestic oil production.

Biden Officials Weigh Buying Oil at Around $80 to Refill Reserves

Jennifer Jacobs, Saleha Mohsin and Annmarie Hordern
Tue, September 13, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- The US may begin refilling its emergency oil reserve when crude prices dip below $80 a barrel, according to people familiar with the matter.

Biden administration officials are weighing the timing of such a move, with an eye toward protecting US oil-production growth and preventing crude prices from plummeting, said the people, who asked not to be named sharing internal deliberations.

The discussions come as West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, plunged to almost $81 a barrel last week, its lowest level since January. While President Joe Biden in March ordered the release of an historic 180 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- an effort to tame skyrocketing oil and gas prices -- officials are now aiming to slow those releases to keep the market in check heading into the winter.

At the same time, officials are trying to reassure oil producers that the administration won’t let prices collapse amid intense volatility that’s fueled massive daily swings. Buying crude to refill the reserve, which is now at the lowest level since 1984 after a record drawdown last week, would be supportive for the market.

WTI pared losses to trade near $87 a barrel on the news on Tuesday.

White House and Energy Department communication staff didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Oil Closes Near 1-Week High as US Eyes Refill of Strategic Stock

Julia Fanzeres and Ilena Peng
Tue, September 13, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Oil settled close to a one-week high as news of a US plan to refill emergency crude reserves largely offset broader inflation concerns.

President Joe Biden’s administration is considering restocking the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when crude falls below $80 a barrel, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. The news revived West Texas Intermediate futures that had earlier dipped as low as $85 on bearish inflation data.

The White House has been releasing emergency reserves in recent months to plug supply gaps as war and geopolitical turmoil around the world disrupted traditional sources of crude.

“It may not be a catalyst for $100 crude but does offer a buffer to the downside risk that the market is worrying about,” said Rebecca Babin, a senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Management.

Earlier on Tuesday, prices fell alongside equities after the release of worse-than-expected inflation figures for August.

Crude prices earlier this month dropped to the lowest since January with the US dollar rallying to record highs as central banks prepared for more interest-rate hikes. Fundamental headwinds remain as Saudi Arabia told OPEC it raised crude production above 11 million barrels a day for the first time in more than two years, while investors are fretting about global consumption as top importer China battles virus outbreaks.

“We do not expect a sustained rally soon, but estimate the risk/reward outlook has improved again,” Morgan Stanley analysts including Martijn Rats and Amy Sergeant said in a note. “The oil market’s structural outlook remains one of tightness, but for now, this is offset by cyclical demand headwinds.”

Some leading banks have been scaling back oil-price expectations. Morgan Stanley reduced its Brent price forecasts for this quarter and next, according to a note, following a similar move by UBS Group AG earlier this week. JPMorgan Chase & Co., however, reiterated its call for $150 crude on Bloomberg TV, noting that China’s demand will revive once pandemic-related lockdowns are lifted, while international explorers aren’t investing enough to replace reserves.

Separately, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was “unlikely” the US and Iran would reach a new nuclear deal anytime soon, echoing recent comments from France, Germany and the UK, and pushing back the likelihood of any substantial increase in Iranian oil shipments in the near term.

Tech Workers Say Salaries Have Not Kept Pace With Inflation

Sabiq Shahidullah

Tue, September 13, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Most technology professionals say their pay isn’t keeping up with inflation, raising pressure on employers to meet growing demand for remote work.

Some 82% of employees living close to their place of work and 64.5% of remote workers noted a squeeze on their salaries, even as average pay in the industry increased from last year, according to a report from Hired, a marketplace for tech jobs. In the US, salaries rose 3.2% to $159,000.

The worst bout of inflation in the US for a generation has so far failed to derail the job market, bolstering workers’ power to demand remote or hybrid setups. Almost everyone surveyed by Hired said they’d start looking for a job immediately if they were denied an expected raise in the next six months.

“Expectations on salary, pay raises, and work flexibility remain sky high, placing the onus on employers to execute the right strategies to attract, hire, and retain top talent,” Josh Brenner, chief executive officer of Hired, said in the report published Tuesday.

Salaries for remote jobs are up $3,000 on average from a year earlier and are exceeding local pay in some cities -- for instance, in Chicago the gap is 6.2%. London proved to be an outlier, as local workers earn 3.6% more than remote employees.

Workers fleeing high-cost areas are driving up pay outside of the nation’s biggest tech hubs. Philadelphia saw the highest average increase, at 11.9%, while Dallas was second at 11.3%.

The country’s two centers of the industry both recovered from last year’s decline in average pay. The San Francisco Bay Area rose 3.7% to $174,063, the highest in the country, and New York gained 4.8%.

Hired surveyed more than 2,000 tech professionals from January 2019 to June 2022.

'It’s everyone. It’s all of us': More than half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck — even the wealthy are feeling the heat of continued inflation

Serah Louis

Mon, September 12, 2022 

Pushing yourself to save can be a challenge, but more and more consumers are tallying up their monthly expenses to find they have nothing left to save anyway.

A recent study shows 58% of Americans report living paycheck to paycheck in May, up from 54% the same month last year. Of those earning $50,000 to $100,000, about 62% were stuck in this cycle.

But it’s not just lower-income groups struggling to foot the bills, according to the report produced by payments and commerce platform PYMNTS and personal loans website LendingClub.

Taking even the researchers by surprise, 30% of people with incomes of $250,000 or more were living paycheck to paycheck as well.

Anuj Nayar, financial health officer at LendingClub, told Matt Nesto of PYMNTS that this was “a real eye-opener.”

“A year ago, when [people] heard the term paycheck to paycheck, they were thinking it’s low income, it’s subprime, all these people maybe in the lower income sphere. Actually, no. It’s everyone. It’s all of us,” says Nayar.

Paychecks are going up — but prices are too

There have been plenty of reports of wage gains over the past year; however, they haven’t kept pace with costs.

Nearly half of all paycheck-to-paycheck consumers say their salary only covers basic expenses, while some higher-income earners say paying for a family member’s expenses has proved a significant driver of financial distress.

This means there’s little left over at the end of the month for discretionary spending or savings.

And what is left over is also getting eaten away by record-setting inflation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index shows inflation hit a scorching 9.1% for the month of June.

Food at home was up over 12% for the year, while gas spiked by nearly 60%.

And though July’s 8.5% inflation rate was lower than June’s 9.1%, one month of moving in the right direction isn’t enough to stop pressing, said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. He added that this was no time to press “pause” or “stop” on inflation measures.

In July, the Fed raised the federal funds rate 75 basis points to 2.25-2.5%, the second hike in as many meetings.

If Powell’s brief speech at the end of July is anything to go off, a hike is likely coming in September, which could take the rate above 3%.

COVID encouraged bad spending habits

While low-income earners are facing the brunt of the effects, some middle- to high-income earners are also struggling.

“I think that COVID kind of warped everything financially,” says Rod Meloni, business editor at Local 4 News in Detroit and a certified financial planner.

Plenty of consumers who were still employed through the pandemic were able to use the time to hit pause on some of their usual expenses. For example, remote workers saved plenty on gas, work travel and lunches out.

But, Meloni counters, that doesn’t mean they put all that cash in savings. Many took it as an opportunity to spend on other things.

As the PYMNT study shows, people’s savings have taken a hit over the last year, too. For those struggling to meet their monthly bills, their average savings plummeted from $4,065 in May 2021 to $2,464 in May 2022.

And the end of restrictions and lockdowns this year has also encouraged people to spend hard to make up for lost time, causing expenditures on travel, dining in restaurants and other activities to surge.

“I think that we’ve sort of gotten out of the habit … of being intentional about what we're going to buy,” Meloni explains.

“And then when inflation ticks up and gas prices go up and groceries go up in unexpected ways — all of a sudden now, you have no discretionary spending left because you've not planned it.”

The issue is becoming even more pressing

For the chunk of paycheck-to-paycheck consumers whose salaries comfortably cover basic expenses, Meloni believes that part of the issue may be a lack of financial education — some people see overspending as the limit.

“I don't think it's anybody's fault, necessarily. It's just that we need to pass [financial literacy] on. And one of the larger problems is I think a lot of parents don't know.”

He suggests that people write down how much they spend each month and compare that number to how much money they’ve brought in. One of the best pieces of advice Meloni has ever received was to set 20% of your income aside as savings.

And for those making more than enough to meet their bills, it’s time to think more long term.

“I think that the notion that you have unlimited discretionary spending needs to be dispelled,” says Meloni. “I call it the hamster wheel … because the faster you spin the wheel, you get no farther ahead.”

Getting off the hamster wheel takes some planning. One of the best tools to help break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle is simple: creating a budget.

Budgeting for three to six months of expenses is key to preparing for emergencies like an unexpected job loss, says Meloni.

And there’s no better time than ever to take this on, with talk of a recession on the horizon.

“I think that we all need to start getting ready for what is coming … it absolutely is going to get tough,” says Meloni.

“And the only way to weather that storm is to gain control, understand what you've got, what you need and then come up with a battle plan to go up against it.”

Goldman Sachs is cutting free coffee as corporate America reels in pandemic perks with workers returning to the office


Sophie Mellor Mon, September 12, 2022

Michael Nagle—Bloomberg/Getty Image

As Labr Day weekend came to a close and bankers at Goldman Sachs shuffled back to the office on Tuesday morning for the mandatory return to a five-day in-office workweek, they found the free coffee cart, which usually sat in the lobby of the 200 West Street office, missing.

The days of the complimentary “grab and go” coffee station, brought in last year as an incentive to get people back into the office, are now over, the New York Post reports, as the banking giant strips away pandemic-era perks.

Sources at Goldman Sachs told the Post that management has a far stronger tool than coffee to get people back into the office anyhow: the threat of being fired.

“RIP to another pandemic perk for junior bankers,” one junior Goldman banker told the Post. “I’m sure the partners still don’t have to pay for their coffee—or anything in their fancy dining hall.”

Another blow to junior workers

Goldman Sachs is notorious for its aggressive push to get workers back into the office.

On Sept. 6, Goldman Sachs announced it would do away with all COVID-19 restrictions and said anyone was allowed to enter the office without a mask, regardless of vaccination or testing status.

Goldman CEO David Solomon previously called work from home an “aberration” and told Fortune, “I just don’t think the way we work in our business is that different than it was five years ago, and I don’t think it will be different five years from now.”

“The secret sauce to our organization is, we attract thousands of really extraordinary young people who come to Goldman Sachs to learn to work, to create a network of other extraordinary people, and work very hard to serve our clients,” Solomon said.

Goldman is hoping to go back to the way things were before the pandemic. Over the past two years, Goldman had also paused its annual year-end performance reviews, where the company would famously cut 5% of its bottom performing employees—but Goldman executives warned this practice would come back by the end of the year.

However, the aggressive push back to the way things were has been met with discontent, especially among junior bankers. According to the New York Post, six overworked first-year bankers quit together and walked out en masse in late August, with sources telling the paper that the atmosphere at the financial giant is at “an all-time toxic high right now.”
Doing away with perks

Beyond COVID measures and free coffee, Goldman is also ending free daily car rides to and from the office, which were introduced at the start of the COVID outbreak to help those who still wished to go into the office.

And it also isn’t the only company doing away with perks. Morgan Stanley has taken away free tickets to the U.S. Open tennis championship, which were once available to top performers at the bank.

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, told employees in March it was getting rid of free services like laundry and dry cleaning in the office and planned on pushing back the free dinner offering from 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

But as companies aggressively push to get employees back into the office, the best perk a company could offer may just be an option for hybrid work.

JPMorgan and BofA cautious on job cuts as Goldman layoffs loom

Lananh Nguyen and Saeed Azhar
Tue, September 13, 2022

NEW YORK (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, the two largest U.S. banks by assets, expressed caution about job cuts in contrast with Goldman Sachs, where hundreds of layoffs could start as early this month.

"You need to very careful when you have a bit of a downturn to start cutting bankers here and there because you will hurt the possibility for growth going forward," Daniel Pinto, president and chief operating officer of JPMorgan, told investors at a conference Tuesday. "If anything, in some environments like this, there may be some very, very top bankers that you could not access or hire in the past that now they're available to be hired."

That stance compares with plans by Goldman Sachs Group Inc, according to a source familiar with the matter, to cut jobs as early as this month after pausing the annual practice for two years during the pandemic. Goldman had a headcount of 47,000 at the end of the second quarter, a 15% jump from the previous year.

Wall Street bankers have become increasingly concerned about layoffs in the coming months. As the risk of recession looms and the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to curb inflation, deal markets have dried up.

JPMorgan's upbeat view underpins the company's approach to its workforce, said Lance Roberts, chief investment strategist and economist at RIA Advisors.

"We will see if JPMorgan is right in their more optimistic views, but history suggests that with the Fed actively hiking rates and reducing their balance sheet, the outlook is more cloudy with a chance of heavy rain," Roberts said.

Despite the investment-banking slowdown, Bank of America is currently satisfied with its staffing levels, the company's chief executive officer said on Monday.

"We're fine with our headcount," Brian Moynihan told Fox News in an interview. "I'm confident if we need to manage headcount when people leave us to go to other employers, we just won't fill all the jobs, but we're in good shape."

JPMorgan had to adjust salaries to deal with "way elevated" attrition in the first half of the year, bank President Pinto said. While attrition is still high, it's normalizing, he said. The bank had more than 278,000 employees at the end of the second quarter, up 7% from a year earlier.

Citigroup declined to comment on job cuts. Moelis & Co referred Reuters to July comments from its chief executive.

"The word goes out right around Labor Day to look at your headcount in a bad year," Ken Moelis said at the time. "It's just the way the cycle works."

(Reporting by Lananh Nguyen and Saeed Azhar; additional reporting by Niket Nishant and Mehnaz Yasmin; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS MINERAL

China Plans Three Moon-Mining Missions After Finding a Potential New Source of Energy

Tim Newcomb Mon, September 12, 2022

Photo credit: VCG - Getty Images

A 2020 mission brought back minerals to China, leading to the discovery of a phosphate mineral now named Changesite-(Y).


Earth-found phosphate helps plants grow, but the moon mineral’s columnar crystal properties aren’t yet known.


China’s three new missions to the moon are planned over the next 10 years.

China’s so excited about a new mineral it found on the moon that it’s not wasting any time. The country's National Space Administration plans to deploy three moon orbiters in the next 10 years to potentially mine more of this lunar mineral

China’s Chang’e-5 mission in 2020 brought back what the country’s scientists have announced as a new phosphate mineral in columnar crystal, dubbed Changesite-(Y). The mineral contains helium-3, which offers a potential future energy source. It appears China wants to explore this connection further, both with the announcement of three new orbital trips and the Bloomberg report that China hopes to build a moon-based international research station.

Discovering new minerals from the moon isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t common. The United States and Russia (as the Soviet Union) combined have discovered five novel minerals, but China’s addition to the group is the most recent. Separated from rock and soil samples and then analyzed at the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology, the Changesite-(Y) is unlike anything found on Earth.

The phosphate, which on Earth is key for plant growth, has columnar crystal formations with unknown properties. Finding phosphate on the moon, where the mineral prospers, was not surprising, but the columnar crystal form was new to scientists. The discovery of this form of phosphate could have ramifications for future moon-based farming. The mineral also contains helium-3, which has previously been identified as a possible future energy source, an intriguing prospect for scientists.

China is upping its moon-mining efforts; the next mission, the Chang’e-7, will reportedly focus on the search for water near the moon’s South Pole. It seems the search for more minerals could happen alongside the effort to discover the benefits of Changesite-(Y).

In recent decades, China’s space-related plans have ramped up exponentially. Along with the Chang’e-5 mission that returned to China in late 2020, the nation has built a space station and also landed its rover Zhurong on Mars in 2021.

These space efforts are not happening in conjunction with the United States but constitute another space race for the Americans. The two countries have sparred verbally over their national intentions, and the recent, seemingly successful efforts by the Chinese puts NASA’s upcoming but delayed Artemis missions in a more direct spotlight.

China plans three missions to the Moon after discovering a new lunar mineral that may be a future energy source


Jyoti Mann Sun, September 11, 2022

A full moon rises over Beijing in May.Getty Images

China aims to launch three moon missions over the next decade as part of its Chang'e lunar program.


China's National Space Administration won approval for the missions after it found a new mineral.



The mineral, Changesite-(Y), could be a future source of energy and was found in lunar samples.

China is aiming to launch three unmanned missions to the moon after discovering a new lunar mineral that could be an energy source in the future.

The space race between China and the US is accelerating after Beijing's National Space Administration got the go-ahead to launch three orbiters to the moon over the next 10 years, it announced on Saturday. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.

It comes a day after China became the third country to discover a new lunar mineral, which it called Changesite-(Y), according to Chinese state-controlled newspaper the Global Times.

China's Chang'e-5 mission retrieved samples from the moon in 2020 and it has been described by Global Times as a "phosphate mineral in columnar crystal" found in lunar rock particles. The mineral contains helium-3, which could be a future source of energy.

The discovery may put more pressure on the US to ramp up its efforts after its Artemis I moon mission was postponed for a second time.

Moon mining could be the next source of tension between the countries as NASA is also probing the moon's south pole where China plans to build a research station in conjunction with Russia.

China has accelerated its efforts in space exploration of late by building a space station, launching a number of missions to collect moon samples and putting a rover called Zhurong on Mars earlier this year to rival NASA.

The US remains the only country to put astronauts on the moon, with the last landing almost 50 years ago in the Apollo 17 mission, according to NASA's website.

The US Apollo 11 mission was the first to bring samples from the moon back to Earth in July 1969, with about 49 pounds (22 kilograms) of material from the moon's surface.

China's National Space Administration was contacted for comment.

China Tells Banks to Report Exposure to Conglomerate Fosun

Bloomberg News Tue, September 13, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Chinese authorities have told the nation’s biggest banks and state-owned  firms to start a round of checks on their financial exposure to Fosun, one of the country’s  largest non-state conglomerates, according to people familiar with the matter.

Multiple regulators including China’s banking watchdog and the local commission that oversees state investments in Beijing recently told institutions under their oversight to closely examine their Fosun exposure, said the people, asking not to be identified as the matter is private.

Fosun -- whose businesses span everything from Club Med to French fashion house Lanvin and the exclusive distributor of BioNTech SE’s Covid vaccine in Greater China -- didn’t receive any notice from authorities about the requests, a representative for the group said in a statement to Bloomberg. A subsequent query to the Beijing state asset regulator found the practice is part of its normal research and previously involved other companies, the representative said, adding that the group’s operations remain healthy and resilient to challenges.

Dollar bonds guaranteed by Fosun International Ltd., the group’s flagship, were on pace for their biggest declines since June as they dropped as much as 9 cents, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg. Shares closed down 4.1% in Hong Kong, near their lowest level since 2013.

While the regulators’ moves may not lead to any action, they underscore recent concerns among investors about Fosun’s financial strength. The group, co-founded by tycoon Guo Guangchang in 1992, was once among the nation’s most-prolific overseas acquirers but has seen its shares and dollar bonds tumble in recent months amid a record wave in defaults by Chinese borrowers. Fosun entities disclosed plans earlier in September to pare their stakes in the group’s publicly listed tourism and pharmaceutical units.

One person said Fosun is taking steps to dispose of assets for debt repayment. Cash holdings for Fosun International were 117.7 billion yuan ($17 billion) as of June 30 and total liabilities were 651 billion yuan, 40% of which was interest-bearing borrowings, according to its first-half report.

A Fosun onshore entity said Tuesday that all holders of a 2 billion yuan bond have requested early redemption of the note, with payment due on Friday.

Meanwhile, Guo said in a social-media post following visits to more than 20 countries that many of Fosun’s overseas units are now doing better than before the pandemic.

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently requested that commercial banks check their exposures to Fosun debt and understand potential liquidity risks, said two of the people familiar with the matter. Such action by the regulator doesn’t mean it wants lenders to change their financing toward Fosun, including outstanding loans, the people added.

The Beijing branch of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission asked local state-owned enterprises for details about their links to the Fosun group that include stock holdings, debt lending and guarantees, according to the people. They said the SASAC makes such information requests regularly to check on and understand firms’ risks, and that there’s no current plan to restrict SOE dealings with Fosun.

The CBIRC didn’t reply to requests for comment. Several calls to the Beijing SASAC went unanswered.

Moody’s Investors Service last month downgraded Fosun International, saying that asset sales would likely cut the size, diversification and transparency of the firm’s investment portfolio. Dollar bonds guaranteed by the company have been among China’s worst-performing high-yield notes the past three months according to a Bloomberg index. Longer-dated bonds are below 60 cents on the dollar, prices which typically signal distress.

Fosun in 2017 was among firms scrutinized by China’s banking regulator about overseas loans. The People’s Bank of China identified Fosun International -- along with China Evergrande Group and HNA Group Co. -- in 2018 as de facto “financial holding companies” that formed cross-border and cross-business alliances with accumulating risks.

China's New Space Station Has a Big Role to Play—Scientifically and Diplomatically

Jeffrey Kluger Mon, September 12, 2022 

CHINA-SPACE

The rocket carrying Chinas second module for its Tiangong space station lifts off from Wenchang spaceport in southern China on July 24, 2022. Credit - CNS/AFP via Getty Images

When the International Space Station (ISS) goes out of service in 2030, low-Earth orbit won’t be empty of cosmic labs. Already flying—if only partially constructed—is China’s two-module (soon to be three) Tiangong space station. Compared to the 16-module ISS, China’s orbiting platforms is a modest machine, but as Popular Science reports in a story that nicely frames China’s overall ambitions in space, Tiangong has a big role to play.

The station’s third module, known as Mengtian (“dreaming of the heavens”) measures 59 ft. (18 m) long and 14 ft. (4 m) wide and weighs-in at 20 metric tons. Set to launch before the end of 2022, it will join the Tianhe core module and the Wentian experiment modules, already in orbit.

More from TIME

Like the ISS, the T-shaped station will be equipped with a robotic arm. That could give Tiangong the capability to help service and support Xuntian, China’s first space telescope, scheduled to launch within the next two or three years. Xuntian will fly in low-Earth orbit, giving it more in common with the Hubble Space Telescope than the James Webb Space Telescope, except it will have a field of view up to 300 times greater than Hubble’s.

Meantime, while the U.S. and China don’t cooperate in space the way the U.S. does with Russia and 13 other space station partners, China is opening up the Wentian module to potential experiments other countries around the world might want to fly. All told, Wentian is expected to be capable of running over 1,000 experiments over the course of Tiangong’s yet-to-be-determined lifespan. That could make Tiangong as much a tool of diplomacy as of science.

The station is “very attractive to a lot of international partners that don’t have such comprehensive space programs,” Alanna Krowlikowski, a political scientist at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, told Popular Science. As the U.S. cedes the space station market to other players, China is ready to rush in.

UN members are considering action 

against China over its treatment of 

Uyghur Muslims, report says

Bethany Dawson

Sun, September 11, 2022 

Activists hold a demonstration against China's policies towards Uyghur Muslims in Jakarta, Indonesia on January 4, 2021.Siswono Toyudho/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

• The UN is facing the decision of how to respond to Chinese human rights violations of Uyghur Muslims.

• A recent UN report outlined human rights abuses, which include arbitrary imprisonment.

• China rejects the allegations and said action taken against the state will not work.

Multiple members of the UN Human Rights Council are considering bringing action against China over its treatment of Uyghur Muslims, Reuters reported.

Members of the UN committee are debating how to respond to UN report that said Uyghur people in China's Xinjiang region face persecution or imprisonment for acts including "rejecting or refusing radio and television" being "young and middle-aged men with a big beard," or "suddenly quit[ing] drinking and smoking."

The debate is intensifying now as a new term for the UN Human Rights Council starts on Monday, Reuters noted.

Some Western diplomats told Reuters that some democratic countries are considering their options for how they can respond to China, including a formal ruling or recommendation on China, which may involve an investigation into the State.

This would be the first time a resolution is brought on China for the first time in the 16-year history of the human rights council, Reuters noted.

The agenda for the council session — which runs from September 12 to October 4 — does not currently include any discussions about Uighurs, Reuters noted, which means that one of the 47 countries on the council will have to propose it.

And members are weighing the chance to hold China accountable against the potential effects of taking action during what is already a time of global crisis, the report said.

Tunahan Turhan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Some diplomats have criticized the possibility of not acting.

Speaking on a condition of anonymity to Reuters, one Western diplomat said: "If the majority decide it is not worth acting after the violations denounced in the [China] report, it would mean that the universalist vision of human rights is at stake and the legal order would be weakened."

Another said: "There's a cost of inaction, a cost of action and a cost of a failed attempt to act."

Zumrat Dawut told Insider her story of escaping from an internment camp for Uyghur Muslims. She said that in residential areas in Xinjiang, police monitor your at-home conversations and question any reference to Islam. People were seized if they had anything regarding their Muslim faith in their homes, she said.

She said she was taken to an internment camp where she was beaten, sterilized, and forced to deny the existence of Allah.

China has repeatedly denied any allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims.

It also rejected the UN report, saying it was "orchestrated and produced by the U.S. and some Western forces and is completely illegal and void," according to the Associated Press.

"It is a patchwork of false information that serves as a political tool for the U.S. and other Western countries to strategically use Xinjiang to contain China," Chinese ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in reaction to the report.

China has also attempted to quash the possibility of action being taken against the state.

China's Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Chen Xu said, according to Reuters: "The developing world will reject all anti-China initiatives initiated by Western countries."

"Any kind of anti-China effort is doomed to failure," he said.

The council agenda includes discussions on the wars in Ukraine and Ethiopia, and human rights abuses in Myanmar.