Flagship

ECB poised to cut rates

The European Central Bank is expected to cut interest rates today, the latest in a series of moves by Western officials to ease monetary policy. Traders will look for clues as to the ECB’s trajectory: Many are betting on at least one additional cut this year. The US Federal Reserve and Bank of England are widely anticipated to follow suit next week as growth ebbs and inflation slows to central banks’ target range. While the shift in policy will largely affect businesses and consumers in the West, developing nations — many of which borrow in dollars and euros to lure risk-averse investors — will also receive some respite on their loan repayments.

China’s finance crackdown

China is piling pressure on its finance sector, in part to curb alleged corruption, but analysts say the campaign risks harming the country’s already languid economy. Officials have arrested at least three senior investment bankers in recent weeks while firms have required staff to hand in their passports and seek approval for foreign travel, Bloomberg reported. Restrictions have also hurt venture capital investment, resulting in a sharp fall in new businesses being founded, according to the Financial Times — from over 51,000 in 2018, to barely 1,000 last year. The VC shakeup may yet be good for China, though, forcing young companies to prioritize profitability: “It’s healthy for the market in the long term,” the researcher Yaling Jiang wrote.

Pope concludes Asia-Pacific tour

Pope Francis concluded his 12-day tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania, a trip that drew throngs of devotees but which sidestepped the country that dominates the Vatican’s diplomatic priorities: China. The pontiff landed in Singapore, the final leg of the journey, after a visit to East Timor in which he led a mass attended by nearly half the nation’s population. Yet he did not visit China, with which the Vatican has reached something of a detente: Beijing and the Holy See agreed in 2018 to jointly appoint bishops. And though no pope has ever visited China, one was briefly in Hong Kong in 1970 while Francis last year was on the country’s doorstep during a visit to Mongolia.

Polaris Dawn spacewalk

The first-ever civilian spacewalk is scheduled to begin just as Flagship hits your inbox. The crew of Polaris Dawn will leave their capsule — several hours later than originally planned — at 05:58 Eastern time. They’ve already traveled further from Earth than any humans since the Apollo missions, and begun research into the impacts of space travel on bone loss and kidney function. Not everyone is pleased about the mission: One analyst pointed out that a Cold War treaty banned “non-governmental entities” operating in space without direct oversight of their governments. “This is a mission which violates Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty,” he told Al Jazeera.

War dims global nuclear hopes

Widespread efforts to expand the use of nuclear power globally might be derailed by the Ukraine war. Russian President Vladimir Putin told government ministers in a televised meeting that Moscow should consider restricting exports of commodities including uranium in retaliation for Western sanctions against the country: Russia is the world’s fourth biggest producer of uranium and accounts for nearly half of global enrichment capacity, according to Reuters. Meanwhile the chief executive of the world’s biggest uranium miner told the Financial Times the war was making it harder to supply Western utilities, many of whose countries have targeted tripling nuclear electricity capacity by 2050 in a bid to curb carbon emissions.

Britain’s struggling NHS

Britain’s National Health Service — a revered institution that politicians for decades have tried, fitfully, to modernize — is in “critical condition,” a new report warned. The NHS offers free health care to all Britons, but has struggled with limited budgets, an aging population, and a huge backlog from the pandemic. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will warn today that it must “reform or die,” the latest in a series of dire messages from the new government, ostensibly aimed at honestly setting out the stakes to voters but which analysts say also seeks to blame the prior Conservative government for Britain’s problems. That narrative has its downsides, however, risking making Starmer “look powerless,” one senior journalist argued in The New Statesman.

DRC mpox outbreak worsens

The mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is escalating as health workers report a shortage of equipment and medicines. The disease has killed at least 635 people in DRC this year, and while 200,000 doses of a vaccine have been delivered to Kinshasa, bad roads, the country’s ongoing conflict, and the vaccine’s need to be stored at sub-zero temperatures mean it has yet to make it to rural areas. Many of the cases are in babies, and resources at one clinic are so stretched that “patients are sleeping on the floor,” a doctor told the BBC. In better news, trials of the vaccine — made to combat the related smallpox virus — showed that even a single dose reduced the risk of infection by around 60%.

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nevada); Mark Ein, Venture Capitalist, Entrepreneur, and Limited Partner, Washington Commanders; and Lori Kalani, Chief Responsible Gaming Officer, DraftKings will join Semafor’s editors in Washington, DC on Sept. 19 for a discussion on the growth and trajectory of the US gaming industry.

Cholera deaths up

Cholera deaths went up by 71% worldwide in 2023, despite the disease being easily treatable. The increase in fatalities far outstripped the 13% rise in cases, The New York Times reported, as huge outbreaks swamped health care systems in countries that have not seen cholera in years. The World Health Organization called the situation “totally unacceptable” and a reflection of the rich world’s lack of interest in a disease that disproportionately strikes poorer countries. Access to clean water all but eradicates cholera, and treatment with cheap, simple oral rehydration solution can prevent death in cases, but floods and droughts in sub-Saharan Africa have forced thousands to crowd round a few water sources.

Easter Island’s ‘ecocide’ questioned

The population of Rapa Nui, the Chilean territory widely known as Easter Island, may not have collapsed before the arrival of European settlers as previously believed. Giant stone statues on the island led explorers to conclude that the small population was all that was left of a much larger civilization: The prominent biologist Jared Diamond used it as an example of “ecocide,” over-exploitation of resources leading to catastrophe. But new DNA evidence suggests that the population was always small, albeit advanced, with marine trade links to South America, 2,000 miles away, and that its numbers only fell thanks to disease and raiding after European contact. Diamond himself doubts the findings.

Swift’s backing boosts Harris

Taylor Swift’s endorsement of US Vice President Kamala Harris significantly boosted the latter’s chance of becoming president, betting markets suggested. The announcement was the latest music-related bad news for Donald Trump, who days earlier was sued by The White Stripes for using their music in a video. The music industry is an increasingly left-wing space: While Frank Sinatra once raised money for John F Kennedy and then for Ronald Reagan, musicians overwhelmingly back Democrats now. Neil Young, Celine Dion, and Beyoncé have all disavowed Trump’s use of their music. Other areas of public life are similarly one-sided: 99% of Hollywood’s political donations go to the Democrats, while in academia, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 10 to one.

• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Poland en route back from Ukraine.
• The annual Ig Nobel Prizes ceremony, celebrating improbable research, is held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• London’s Hayward Gallery unveils British-Indian artist Bharti Kher’s Target Queen installation.

Decline in the amount of coal power under development compared to a decade ago. Of the 604 gigawatts of coal capacity being built, 70% is in China, with a further 16% in India, according to analysis by the Global Energy Monitor. Coal is by far the highest-carbon fossil fuel, and recent diplomatic efforts have concentrated on accelerating its decline. Despite the largely promising trends globally, however — with more than 100 countries already coal-free or having established phaseout dates for 2040 or earlier — the amount of coal capacity proposed in the first six months of this year was double that of the figure that was shelved or canceled.

The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable. The author Tracy Chevalier chose it as one of her favorite historical novels set in Italy, telling Five Books that Constable explores Venice in particular with great depth: “She just describes it beautifully.” Buy it from your local bookstore.

• Kamala Harris baited Donald Trump into a debate on her terms.
• US closer to greenlighting Nvidia chips for Saudi Arabia.
• Low-profile New York publisher bids for Telegraph.