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贊助科科人一杯咖啡 https://pay.firstory.me/user/ckfzpluecnopd0800l0z70bv3 經濟學人每日濃縮逐字稿： https://www.economist.com/espresso A United Nations index of global food prices rose for the 12th consecutive month, its longest stretch in more than a decade. Since the pandemic began, a drought in Brazil has hit coffee and maize production. Output of vegetable oil in South-East Asia has also stagnated. Meanwhile, soaring meat consumption as China’s economy rapidly recovers has increased its demand for grain imports. NASA announced two new missions to study Venus, Earth’s closest planetary neighbour. America’s space agency said it was awarding around $1bn to develop the launches which would take place between 2028 and 2030. One will measure the composition of the Venusian atmosphere. The other would map the planet’s surface (which is hot enough to melt lead) to establish why it developed so differently from Earth’s. America responded to the imposition of digital-service taxes on its tech firms by levying tariffs on Austria, Britain, India, Italy, Spain and Turkey. That may have been more of a negotiating tactic than a genuine threat—Katherine Tai, America’s trade representative, said the tariffs would be suspended for six months to allow for multilateral discussions of tax arrangements. 日經亞洲每日疫情追蹤： https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Coronavirus-Free-to-read/Coronavirus-latest-Indonesia-cancels-hajj-pilgrimage-again Thursday, June 3 (Tokyo time) 6:00 p.m. Hong Kong's Department of Health has approved a government advisory panel's suggestion to lower the minimum age for the BioNTech vaccine from 16 to 12, citing phase-three clinical data. As of Thursday, about 14% of Hong Kong's population is fully vaccinated. 5:00 p.m. Indonesia has canceled the hajj pilgrimage for people in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation for a second year in a row due to concerns over the pandemic, the religious affairs minister says. For many Indonesians, the religious pilgrimage is a once-in-a-lifetime event, with the average wait time 20 years due to a quota system. "Due to the pandemic and for the safety of the pilgrims, the government has decided that this year it won't allow Indonesian pilgrims to go again," the minister said, adding Saudi Arabia had not opened access for the hajj. 4:00 p.m. Taiwan reports 583 domestic infections, including 219 cases added to recent days' totals as it reflects delays in reporting positive tests. The figure was an increase from 549 reported on Wednesday. 3:55 p.m. While Vietnamese Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long shocked the world on Saturday by hinting that a newly discovered variant could have contributed to outbreaks within the country, Kidong Park, the WHO representative in Vietnam, told Nikkei Asia on Wednesday, "There is no new hybrid variant in Vietnam at this moment based on WHO definition." Long had said the government uncovered "a new COVID-19 variant" that combines characteristics of two existing variants first found in India and the U.K. 1:50 p.m. India reports 134,154 cases in the last 24 hours, the seventh straight day with fewer than 200,000 infections, pushing the country's total to 28.44 million. Deaths rose by 2,887 to 337,989. Meanwhile, the health ministry says it has finalized a deal with domestic vaccine maker Biological-E and ordered 300 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, which is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials. "These vaccine doses will be manufactured and stockpiled by Biological-E from August to December 2021," the ministry said in a statement, adding an advance payment of 15 billion rupees ($205 million) will be made. 11:10 a.m. Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, has insisted the games must go ahead as planned despite the COVID-19 pandemic. "We cannot postpone again," she said in an interview with Japan's Nikkan Sports newspaper. The Olympian-turned-politician also rejected the possibility of canceling the games. 11:00 a.m. South Korea reports 681 cases, up from 677 a day earlier and bringing the country totals to 142,157 cases, with 1,968 deaths. 7:54 a.m. Taiwan's baseball association tweets that it is withdrawing from the final Olympic baseball qualifier in Mexico later this month -- an event the island was due to host itself before tighter COVID-19 border rules prompted a venue change. 5:01 a.m. A COVID-19 vaccine summit hosted by Japan and global vaccine alliance Gavi secures nearly $2.4 billion, filling a shortfall for delivering 1.8 billion vaccine doses to low-income countries. Japan said it will donate $800 million to the COVAX facility, in addition to the $200 million the country has already disbursed. Powered by Firstory Hosting

贊助科科人一杯咖啡 https://pay.firstory.me/user/ckfzpluecnopd0800l0z70bv3 經濟學人每日濃縮逐字稿： https://www.economist.com/espresso The World Health Organisation approved Sinovac Biotech’s covid-19 vaccine for emergency use. It recommends that CoronaVac, the Chinese-produced vaccine, be given to people aged 18 and over, with a second dose two to four weeks later. Over 430m doses of the vaccine have already been administered. WHO approval will allow it to be included in COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing scheme. Joe Biden visited Tulsa, Oklahoma, where hundreds of African-Americans were massacred by a white mob in 1921. At least 35 blocks of black-owned buildings—houses, businesses, a hospital and a school—were burned down. “For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness,” said the president. “My fellow Americans, this was not a riot, this was a massacre. Pope Francis made the most extensive changes to the Roman Catholic Church’s penal code in four decades. The sweeping reforms widened church law to criminalise the grooming of minors and broadened the definition of sexual abuse to include the exploitation of adults. Despite formally allowing women to administer communion and serve at the altar earlier this year, the Pope affirmed that they cannot be ordained. Canada’s economy continued to recover from the pandemic, with its GDP growing by 5.6% at an annual rate in the quarter ending in March. That was slightly below forecasts made by economists, but still healthy. The rise was buoyed by an increase in housing spending. Economic activity may slow in this quarter because of new lockdowns following a covid-19 wave. House prices in Britain rose by 11% over the past year, the fastest increase since 2014, according to Nationwide, a building society. Buyers seeking larger properties and a temporary suspension of property-transaction taxes have fuelled demand. Lower interest rates have also turbocharged the market, as in America, where the Case-Shiller national house-price index is rising at an annual rate of 13%. Katumba Wamala, Uganda’s former army chief and the current minister of transport, survived an assasination attempt. Four attackers on motorcycles shot at his car in Kampala, the capital. Mr Wamala was wounded in both shoulders; his daughter and driver were killed. Such incidents have become common in recent years in Uganda, where several prominent figures have been gunned down. 日經亞洲： https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Coronavirus-Free-to-read/Coronavirus-latest-Lonza-to-make-Moderna-vaccine-ingredients Wednesday, June 2 (Tokyo time) 3:34 p.m. Malaysia reports 7,703 new cases, bringing its total number of infections to 587,165. Malaysia is experiencing a corona surge, though cases have dipped since hitting a record on Saturday. 3:08 p.m. Taiwan reports 549 COVID-19 cases, including 177 added to the totals for recent days as it continues to readjust its infection numbers following delays in reporting positive tests. The total is up from 327 on Tuesday. 3:02 p.m. Swiss contract drug maker Lonza says that a new production line in the Netherlands will produce ingredients for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, part of the U.S. pharmaceutical's plan to significantly lift output. The line in Geleen will have the annual capacity to make ingredients for up to 300 million doses at 50 micrograms per dose, Lonza says. That is half the 100-microgram dose that Moderna has been delivering to date. Moderna and scientists at the National Institutes of Health have been trying to determine whether doses of the company's COVID-19 vaccine can be halved to double the supply. 1:16 p.m. India reports a daily rise in new coronavirus infections of 132,788 over the past 24 hours, while deaths rose by 3,207. The nation's tally of infections now stands at 28.3 million, while the death toll has reached 335,102, health ministry data showed. 12:24 p.m. Australia's Victoria state extends a snap COVID-19 lockdown for a second week in Melbourne in a bid to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious virus strain first detected in India, but it will ease some restrictions in other regions. Australia's second-most-populous state was plunged into lockdown last Thursday, initially until June 3, after the first locally acquired cases in three months were detected, infections rose steadily and those in close contact reached several thousand. "If we let this thing run its course, it will explode," state acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne. "This variant of concern will become uncontrollable, and people will die." 11:30 a.m. A shipment of coronavirus vaccines to North Korea via the global COVAX sharing program that was expected for late May has been delayed again amid protracted consultations, South Korea's Unification Ministry says. COVAX, which secures vaccines for poor countries, has said it will provide nearly 2 million doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine to North Korea. 9:30 a.m. Vietnam is allowing international flights to arrive in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City effective immediately, after a few days of suspension due to COVID-19, its aviation authority said on Wednesday. The country had initially banned incoming international flights to Hanoi's Noi Bai airport for a week starting Monday and to Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat airport until June 14. The aviation authority did not say why it is resuming flights earlier than planned, but most of the COVID-19 cases in the current outbreak are locally transmitted, not from international passengers. Powered by Firstory Hosting

贊助科科人一杯咖啡： https://pay.firstory.me/user/ckfzpluecnopd0800l0z70bv3 經濟學人每日報 https://www.economist.com/espresso 逐字稿： Chinese parents will soon be allowed to have a third child (see main stories). The move was one of a range of measures introduced by the Communist Party’s Politburo to manage the rapid ageing of China’s population. The party’s leadership also agreed to raise the retirement age and to improve pensions and health care for the elderly. The World Health Organisation will use the Greek alphabet to refer to variants of SARS-CoV-2. “Variants of concern” first detected in Britain (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.1.351), Brazil (P.1) and India (B.1.617.2) will be labelled Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta following the order in which they were first reported. The WHO hopes the system will lessen the stigma on countries detecting new strains. Peru changed the way it calculates covid-19 deaths. In the process its official mortality rate from the disease became the world’s highest, nearly tripling to 500 per 100,000 people. A lack of testing meant the disease had been dramatically undercounted in the country. The new figures are in line with its excess-death rate—an often more robust measurement which is rarely incorporated into official covid statistics. The OECD revised up its forecast for world economic growth this year from 4.2% to 5.8%. Expansion of 4.4% next year will bring GDP in most places back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022. The club of mostly rich countries advised governments to switch their efforts from emergency-stimulus schemes towards long-term investment programmes. Annual inflation in Germany reached 2.4% in May. Up from 2.1% in April, the figure was much higher than economists had forecast. The country’s central bank predicts that inflation “could temporarily reach 4%” at the end of the year, the highest level the country has seen since it adopted the euro in 2002. The yuan fell against other currencies after China’s central bank forced banks to hold a greater share of their foreign exchange in reserve. The increase, from 5% to 7%, in effect reduces the supply of dollars and other currencies in the country. The move is intended to rein in the yuan’s surging value, caused by a strong post-lockdown economic recovery. At least 50 people were killed in two attacks in Ituri province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Local officials blamed ADF, a Ugandan Islamist group with ties to ISIS that has been terrorising the region. In a bid to restore peace in early May President Felix Tshisekedi placed Ituri and the neighbouring province of North Kivu under martial law. 日經亞洲：https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-s-Japan-project-attracts-over-20-participant-companies TOKYO -- The Japanese government on Monday was set to finalize a plan in which it has enlisted Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to develop cutting-edge chipmaking technologies in Japan. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has been concerned about the Japanese semiconductor industry's declining position in the global market, which led it to seek TSMC's cooperation. TSMC, the world's biggest contract chipmaker, intends to bear around half the project's cost of about 37 billion yen ($337 million). Over 20 Japanese companies -- including Ibiden, which is strong in chip packaging -- will participate. The Japanese government -- which intends to establish a joint public-private sector concern to cooperate with TSMC -- expects the effort to pay off with improved international competitiveness for Japanese industry. Construction of a trial facility will begin this summer at the earliest at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture. Full-blown research and development work will begin as early as 2022. The chip industry is nearing limits in some crucial areas, including in the thinning of wires so semiconductors can have ever greater processing power. Now the Taiwanese company, which has led the global industry in miniaturization, is embarking on another strategy to make the more powerful and sophisticated chips of tomorrow -- cooperate with Japanese companies and harness their strengths in materials and manufacturing equipment. Part of TSMC's plan is to come up with so-called 3D packaging technology -- which vertically layers semiconductors -- and to do so in Japan. Ibiden is a global leader in packaging technology. Other companies participating in the project include Asahi Kasei, a materials maker known for its ultrathin wiring; Shin-Etsu Chemical, which makes a new heat-dissipating material; Nagase & Co., a molding materials specialist; and Shibaura Mechatronics, a manufacturing equipment producer. There is a significant advantage for Japan's atrophying semiconductor industry to collaborate with TSMC, and the Japanese government intends to partially finance the project by using a fund established to promote the development of next-generation semiconductors. It is likely that Japan is cooperating with TSMC on the condition that the Taiwanese company set up a manufacturing operation in Japan. Powered by Firstory Hosting

20210108 Wk 1 the Economist digest #科科咖啡館 2021直播第一發 The Economist經濟學人 https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/01/08/the-great-covid-19-race https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/01/09/why-the-crazy-upward-march-in-stock-prices-might-just-continue https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/01/09/who-should-get-the-jab https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/01/09/what-explains-bitcoins-latest-boom NHK https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210109/k10012805591000.html?utm_int=all_side_ranking-social_001 https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210109/k10012805651000.html?utm_int=all_side_ranking-social_004 https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210109/k10012805611000.html?utm_int=all_side_ranking-social_005 Powered by Firstory Hosting

[經濟日報] https://money.udn.com/money/story/5607/5041619 [FierceMed] Russia posts 91% efficacy for COVID-19 vaccine after jumping the gun to approval https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/russia-posts-91-efficacy-for-covid-19-vaccine-after-jumping-gun-to-approval [經濟學人] Janet Yellen will lead Joe Biden’s Treasury. What does she stand for? https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/11/24/janet-yellen-will-lead-joe-bidens-treasury-what-does-she-stand-for Powered by Firstory Hosting