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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

Economic activity: Still no signs of acceleration
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 14 Oct 2019

Absent of any fiscal impulse (on the contrary, the ongoing fiscal consolidation is having a contractionary effect); and global growth still decelerating; and uncertainties (domestic and international) inhibiting investments, the only source of aggregate demand impulse is expansion of household co...

Politics: Rule of law increasingly in doubt
MEXICO · Report · 14 Oct 2019

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently held a new round of meetings with most of the main business chambers, councils and confederations clearly aimed at giving the impression that, in AMLO’s words, relations between his government and the private sector “could not be better.” But the he...

Government Capitulates and Eliminates Decree 883
ECUADOR · In Brief · 13 Oct 2019

After 12 days of violent confrontations, riots and several casualties, president Moreno held a negotiation meeting with CONAIE (Confederation of Indian Nationalities) in order to seek a solution to --what was already evident --an almost insoluble problem. The meeting counted with the mediation of...

Gulf weekly: Turkey invades Syria, Aramco IPO on track
GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 13 Oct 2019

​The political focus briefly shifted away from tensions with Iran as Turkey invaded Syria to combat Kurds and create a zone to resettle (mainly Arab) Syrian refugees. The Gulf states largely condemned the assault, in rare agreement with Iran. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s president is attempting mediatio...

Fidesz has lost Budapest and half of major cities yesterday
HUNGARY · In Brief · 13 Oct 2019

The five-yearly local government elections were held yesterday. Fidesz did clearly worse than expected. Although they won an impressive 63% of all seats in the 19 municipality councils outside Budapest, they got only 19 mayoral positions in the 47 major cities, including the position of the Budap...

Shares in Yandex plunge as Russia mulls foreign investment restrictions
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 13 Oct 2019

On October 11 Yandex shares lost USD 1 billion in value as Moscow considered a law limiting foreign investment in the tech sector. Yandex is one of Russia's most prominent internet companies. Shares in the company lost over 17% of their value in the first hour of trading on the Nasdaq on October ...

All about operation 'Peace Spring'
TURKEY · Report · 13 Oct 2019

Turkish Forces and their Syrian allies made swift progress against a weaker rival, but at considerable cost to Turkey’s international reputation. By Sunday, one of the two main targets, the town of Raz-al-Ain fell to Turkey, but 9 Kurdish individuals had reportedly been executed by the Free Syria...

Fernandez's defeat can lead to a political reconfiguration
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC · In Brief · 11 Oct 2019

The electoral board is preparing to declare, Gonzalo Castillo as presidential candidate of the PLD. The final count gave Castillo an advantage over former President Fernandez of just 1.4%. Fernández was simply overpowered by President Danilo Medina and his candidate, who seem to have used all the...

Peace in Ukraine is far from certain
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 11 Oct 2019

On October 10 the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said that Ukrainian warships captured by Russia in November might be returned immediately. This would be a confidence building measure towards peace.The Steinmeier Formula has sparked large scale protests in Ukraine. President Zelensky ...

​Understanding domestic politics: Successions, support, sects and settlers (part 1)
GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 11 Oct 2019

This is the first in our series of "Understanding the Gulf" background reports. Pending successions are creating uncertainties in Kuwait and Oman that have unsettled policymaking. Four states have partially-elected parliaments (all except Saudi and Qatar) but none have executive powers and so the...

SA law enforcement agencies start acting against corrupt politicians and business personalities
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 11 Oct 2019

One of the major reasons South Africa’s economy has been failing to improve for so long is because of low business confidence. This has not only been the result of policy uncertainty, but also the poor state of governance that prevailed, especially in the past decade as corruption became rampant....

​US sanctions bill has fangs, will it pass?
TURKEY · In Brief · 11 Oct 2019

All wars are lost by the poor. It is their houses which get bombed. They flee cities in thousands with their meager belongings on their weary shoulders, with their children sent to frontlines or the front of the firing squads.War in North East Syria is spreading its tendrils like a cancerous cell...

Russia and Iraqi oil
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 10 Oct 2019

On October 7 the US announced it was pulling troops out of Syria. Trump has reversed that decision temporarily but there is no doubt that the United States wants to withdraw from Syria sooner or later. Some Americans complained that a US withdrawal would leave the Kurds in Iraq vulnerable to atta...

Policy rates likely to move lower in the near future
ISRAEL · Report · 09 Oct 2019

We are revising our rate forecast from hold through 2020 to zero or possibly negative by mid-2020. We reached this assessment following the recent policy rate press conference, and revised BoI macro forecast (reflecting slower growth in 2020 of 3.0% and possibly lower rates, to 0.1% from the curr...

​HEADS UP: Military incursion appears imminent
TURKEY · In Brief · 09 Oct 2019

The chairman of Presidential Communications Commission Prof Fahrettin Altun tweeted a few hours ago that the Turkish military in conjunction with allied Syrian rebels will cross the Syrian border to the East of Euphrates to initiate the control of the safe zone ”soon”. Syrian Kurdish sources comp...

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