Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.
Saudis spark oil price slump with vow to step up production
The FTSE 100 share index followed huge losses in the Asian and European markets on Monday by plunging 8.5% as trading opened, putting the London Stock Exchange on track for its worst one-day fall since 2008. That’s because the coronavirus panic already afflicting the global markets has been compounded by a 27% slump in the price of oil, after Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, said it would step up production beginning next month.
Barrelling downward. The decision by the Saudi state oil producer Aramco came in response to Russia’s refusal to join an Opec plan to cut oil supplies; it represents an attempt by the Saudis to drive rivals such as Russia and the US out of the shale oil market. Shale firms have high production costs and lose money when crude prices fall below $50 a barrel for more than a few months.
Leaked coronavirus quarantine plans spark chaos in Italy
Italy’s coronavirus death toll rose from 233 to 366 on Sunday, a rise of more than 50% in 24 hours. The country was then plunged into further chaos by a leak to the media of plans to quarantine more than 16 million people across its worst-affected northern regions. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has cordoned off the oil-rich municipality of Qatif, home to 500,000 people, mostly Shia Muslims. Many of the 230 confirmed coronavirus cases in the Gulf region had recently returned from religious pilgrimages to Shia-majority Iran.
China containment. The number of new Covid-19 deaths has continued to fall in China, with 22 reported on Sunday – the country’s lowest toll since the start of the crisis.
Low-wage workers. A lack of proper medical benefits and paid sick leave will leave millions of low-wage workers in the US vulnerable to the disease or its financial side-effects, as Michael Sainato reports.
Bernie Sanders tries to slow the Biden surge in Michigan
Bernie Sanders has asked for the backing of Elizabeth Warren and her progressive supporters, after Warren dropped out of the Democratic presidential race last week, leaving the Vermont senator as the sole standard-bearer for the party’s left wing. Sanders has sharpened his attacks against the new frontrunner, Joe Biden, in hopes of an upset at the Michigan primary on Tuesday. But Biden, for his part, warned against a primary “bloodbath” before the general election.
Kamala Harris. The California senator – whose own presidential campaign’s biggest moment was arguably a debate-stage attack on Biden – endorsed the former vice-president on Sunday.
Emissions fall as electricity producers shift to cleaner sources
Carbon emissions from the global electricity system fell by 2% in 2019, the steepest drop in three decades, according to a report by the climate thinktank Ember. But while some of that decline can be attributed to countries turning from coal to cleaner energy sources, the report says there were also one-off factors at play last year, including mild winters. “Progress is being made on reducing coal generation, but nothing like with the urgency needed to limit climate change,” the report says.
Coal plants. Coal generation in the US and Europe has halved since 2007 and, overall, power from coal plants fell by 3% last year. But China’s reliance on coal plants rose again: the country now accounts for half the world’s total coal generation.
Cheat sheet
The Hong Kong authorities have arrested 17 people and seized “significant quantities of homemade explosives” in connection to an alleged campaign to force the government to close its borders with China to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
North Korea has fired three unidentified projectiles into the sea off its eastern coast, the second missile test in two weeks.
Female asylum seekers staged a protest at the Turkish border demanding to be let into the EU on Sunday, just one of multiple worldwide demonstrations organised to mark International Women’s Day.
Alabama lawmakers will consider a bill that would lift the state’s ban on yoga in public schools. The ban was introduced in 1993 following complaints from parents that the practice endorsed a “non-Christian belief system”.
Must-reads
Alison Brie: ‘I’ve been inspired by all the women around me.’
In her new movie Horse Girl, the star of Community, Glow and Mad Men draws on her grandmother’s traumatic story for a tale of mental illness – and aliens. Her mother was “shaken” by the film, she tells Aaron Hicklin, “but she doesn’t seem upset with me about it.”
Will China’s Covid-19 monitoring become the new normal?
From upgraded facial recognition tech to hotlines for reporting those who may be infected, Chinese citizens are facing a new level of government intrusion amid the coronavirus crisis. Experts say it has given Beijing a perfect excuse to accelerate its mass surveillance program, as Lily Kuo reports.
Trump’s businesses rake in millions from 2020 campaign
The pro-Trump Super Pac America First Action has spent a total of more than $540,000 on events at the president’s own Washington DC hotel since 2017. The figures highlight just how the president and his allies are using Trump properties to woo big donors before the 2020 election, writes Peter Stone.
Why we’re addicted to mean online gossip about women
Katy Kelleher used to spend a lot of time reading snarky, even sadistic online comments about other women’s lives, particularly those who were outwardly successful and rather privileged. Until, she says, she realised it was making her anxious and unhappy.
Opinion
The overbearing control of China’s communist system has been undermining social trust for decades, says the artist and activist Ai Weiwei. By the time the coronavirus emerged, people’s immune system against lies had simply broken down.
Questions about a virus – what happened and why? – should be empirical questions that have determinable answers. But not in China, where the problem is not even lack of knowledge so much as lack of a system in which knowledge is possible.
Sport
Manchester United have secured their first Premier League double over Manchester City for a decade, with a 2-0 derby win over their crosstown rivals on Sunday, which inspired jubilant scenes of a sort rarely seen at Old Trafford in recent years.
The Indian Wells tennis tournament in California, which was set to begin on Monday, has been cancelled due to concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, its organisers have announced.
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