Day: December 1, 2021

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday criticized an “irresponsible” Russian test that endangered the International Space Station with debris, and the Biden administration laid out a new strategy for responsible use of space.

Harris convened the inaugural meeting of the National Space Council and asked members of the government body to promote responsible civil, commercial and national security-related behavior in space, where there are growing commercial interests and concerns about Chinese and Russian competition.

“Without clear norms for the responsible use of space we stand the real risk of threats to our national and global security,” Harris said.

She said Russia’s “irresponsible act” of testing anti-satellite technology last month created debris that endangered the International Space Station (ISS).

U.S. officials have fretted over rising security activity by Washington’s major rivals in space. China’s test of hypersonic weapons this year raised the prospect of an arms race over Earth-orbiting systems that could dodge current missile defenses.

Meanwhile, a growing number of companies, including SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, are seeking to usher in a new era of private commercial space flights following years of private firms working alongside the U.S. government’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in rocket launches.

President Joe Biden also signed an executive order on Wednesday adding the heads of the Education, Labor, Agriculture and Interior Departments as well as his national climate adviser to the National Space Council.

The administration also wants the group’s work to increase space climate data and enhance scientific-related efforts that could aid job creation and U.S. competitiveness, it said in a statement.

The National Space Council is separate from the U.S. Space Force military branch created under former President Donald Trump.

Source: Voice of America

Global factory activity accelerated in November although crippling supply bottlenecks remained, putting a cap on output and driving up the cost of raw materials, according to surveys published on Wednesday.

Towards the end of the month, the newly-detected Omicron coronavirus variant emerged as a fresh worry for policymakers, who are already trying to pilot recovering economies and tamp-down inflation.

The November surveys likely did not reflect the spread of the variant, which could add further pressure on pandemic-disrupted supply chains, with many countries imposing fresh border controls to seal themselves off.

“The Omicron variant…could be a game-changer: shortages of inputs and labor would worsen for manufacturers if Britain and other countries went into another lockdown,” said Samuel Tombs at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

IHS Markit’s final manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the euro zone nevertheless nudged up to 58.4 in November from October’s 58.3, shy of an initial 58.6 “flash” estimate but still comfortably above the 50 mark separating growth from contraction.

Supply chain issues have made it a sellers’ market for raw materials and the input prices index was only just below October’s record high and factories in the region passed on the rising costs to customers at the fastest rate in the survey’s history.

That suggests overall inflation in the bloc, which preliminary official data showed on Tuesday was a record high 4.9% last month, will continue to overshoot the European Central Bank’s 2.0% target putting pressure on the bank to act.

In Britain, outside the European Union and euro zone, more manufacturers than at any point in the last 30 years reported rising costs last month, underlining pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates.

The BoE will be the first major central bank to raise interest rates, possibly as soon as this month, a November Reuters poll predicted.

U.S. central bankers will discuss in December whether to end their bond purchases a few months earlier than had been anticipated, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday, leading to a sharp move higher in shorter-dated Treasury yields.

China breaks

China’s factory activity fell back into contraction in November, the private Caixin/Markit Manufacturing PMI showed, as soft demand and elevated prices hurt manufacturers.

The findings from the private-sector survey, which focuses more on small firms in coastal regions, stood in contrast with those in China’s official PMI on Tuesday that showed manufacturing activity unexpectedly rose in November, albeit at a very modest pace.

“Relaxing constraints on the supply side, especially the easing of the power crunch, quickened the pace of production recovery,” said Wang Zhe, senior economist at Caixin Insight Group, in a statement accompanying the data release.

“But demand was relatively weak, suppressed by the COVID-19 epidemic and rising product prices.”

Beyond China, however, factory activity seemed to be on the mend with PMIs showing expansion in countries ranging from Japan, South Korea, India, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Japan’s PMI rose to a near four-year high while in South Korea’s the PMI edged up.

India’s manufacturing activity grew at the fastest pace in 10 months in November, buoyed by a strong pick-up in demand. Taiwan’s manufacturing activity continued to expand and it was a similar picture in Indonesia.

Source: Voice of America