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China, India reach border deal

China and India reached a deal over their disputed border to help defuse a four-year military standoff marked by violent skirmishes, the Indian foreign minister said Monday. The pact could improve relations between the world’s two most populous countries and comes just ahead of the BRICS summit in Russia, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The summit, which aims to counter the West-led world order, could advance efforts to anoint an alternative to the US dollar, Foreign Policy wrote. But the only viable option under discussion is the Chinese yen, prompting one analyst to ask: “Do we think that India is going to want a world where the renminbi is the dominant currency in Asia?”

Gold price rise reflects shift away from dollar

The ever-increasing price of gold may represent a deliberate effort to move the global financial system away from the dollar. An ounce of gold is worth almost 40% more on international markets than a year ago, with the price of the precious metal appearing to have “decoupled from its traditional historical influencers,” Mohamed El-Erian, the former CEO of investment firm Pimco, wrote in the Financial Times. Much of the increase has been driven by central banks, which, El-Erian suggested, may be exploring alternatives to the US-centric, dollar-based payments system that has dominated since World War II: “What is at stake here is not just the erosion of the dollar’s dominant role but also a gradual change in the operation of the global system.”

India bomb threats hurt airline budgets

A spate of bomb threats targeting Indian airlines — at least 90 in the last week — is wreaking financial havoc on the industry. The flood of hoaxes from social media accounts have led to diversions, delays, and cancellations — with airlines having to shoulder the substantial costs. “This is a sort of financial terrorism against airlines and should be dealt with severely,” one senior airline official told The Times of India. Authorities haven’t released a possible motive or details of those responsible. The chaos has disrupted one of the world’s fastest-growing commercial aviation markets: India has 700 passenger planes in service, and an order backlog of 1,700.

Harris fundraising breaks records

Kamala Harris raised $1 billion faster than any other US presidential candidate in history, hitting the milestone figure in just three months, new campaign finance records show. The vice president is solidly leading Donald Trump in the race for cash, largely thanks to smaller donors, even as the contest remains deadlocked two weeks before Election Day. Harris has also significantly outspent Trump on ads and other campaign expenses. The stakes of the election are intensifying campaign finance operations: Billionaire Elon Musk, one of the biggest GOP donors this election season, began awarding $1 million per day to a voter who pledges support to Musk’s pro-Trump super PAC, a strategy that some experts believe could violate election laws.

Solar, wind energy in China going to waste

China leads the world in renewable energy generation, but an increasing amount of that power may go to waste if electrical grids cannot keep up, a Beijing-based business news site wrote. China’s energy resources are concentrated in more rural areas far from its population centers, and local grids don’t have the capacity to accommodate surging wind and solar power generation, Caixin reported. The country is developing more ultra-high-voltage transmission lines to move power to the cities, but experts say their construction has been slow, leading to more clean power wastage. At the same time, total electricity demand in China is outpacing wind and solar power generation: Coal remains king.

Droughts threaten hydropower output

Climate change is reducing hydropower output around the world, limiting the efficacy of the world’s largest source of clean energy and threatening decarbonization efforts. Droughts in China, Europe, the US, and Latin America have slowed hydropower’s annual growth rate over the last five years to less than one-third of the 4% required by net-zero scenarios, an International Energy Agency report said. The shortfall is pushing some countries to return to other, more polluting forms of energy, OilPrice.com reported: China saw a significant return to coal during droughts in 2022, and Zambia is building a new coal plant to make up for dips in hydroelectricity generation, which makes up 85% of its energy mix.

AI-driven data centers boom

The artificial intelligence boom has led to triple the number of new data centers being announced in the US in the first half of 2024 compared with the same period last year. Spending on new server farms by tech giants Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft is expected to hit $178 billion next year, the Financial Times reported, citing an energy data firm’s report, with Texas, Virginia, and Georgia seeing the most growth. The data centers are energy-intensive, leading developers to rush both to build new energy sources and to link them to the grid: The analysis found a huge backlog of centers still waiting to gain access to electricity. Increased electrification in the economy is more broadly driving demand for power, notably battery charging for electric vehicles.

Bill Nelson, Administrator, NASA; Lauren Riley, Chief Sustainability Officer, United Airlines; Jay Carney, Global Head of Policy and Communications, Airbnb; Ana Maria Prieto, Head of Payment Systems, Colombian Central Bank; Abdulmajid Nsekela, CEO, CRDB Bank; and April Miller Boise, EVP and Chief Legal Officer, Intel, will join the Fall Edition of Semafor’s World Economy Summit. Hosted in the Gallup Great Hall and spanning four sessions over two days – Oct. 24 and 25 – Semafor will feature on-the-record interviews on the state of global finance, the future of technology, digital payment infrastructure, and sustainability. RSVP for the World Economy Summit here.

AirPods hearing aid tech draws cheers

Apple’s new hearing aid technology is being billed in early reviews as a potential game-changer for accessibility. A software update starting next week will allow owners of the AirPods Pro 2 to test for hearing loss and use the earbuds as personalized hearing aids — making the tech cheaper than many over-the-counter devices. People with mild to moderate hearing loss who tested the tech reported they could hear conversations better in crowded settings: “I’m not used to being able to hear this clearly,” said a 27-year-old with genetic hearing loss. The Apple test alone “can reveal potentially life-changing insights,” a Wall Street Journal tech columnist wrote.

Turkish cleric accused of coup attempt dies

A Turkish cleric accused of planning a failed coup to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan died aged 83. Fethullah Gülen — the spiritual leader of a group promoting a moderate brand of Islam that later became a widespread political movement — had been in self-exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. He was once a political ally of Erdoğan, but the relationship fell apart in 2014. Two years later Erdoğan branded Gülen a terrorist for allegedly masterminding a short-lived putsch that led to 250 deaths and that was seen as “a turning point in modern Turkish history,” Al Jazeera wrote. Turkish authorities had accused the US of harboring Gülen — who denied the coup accusations — and his death removes a thorny issue in the countries’ relations, a Turkish journalist said.

Seoul invests in fighting loneliness

Seoul is putting $326 million toward combating the scourge of loneliness and preventing the growing number of “lonely deaths.” The new initiative in the South Korean capital plans to set up a 24-hour hotline for people feeling isolated, expand one-on-one mental health counseling services, and open four locations next year where people can have meals and talk to others, The Korea Herald reported. The city also wants to work with food delivery platforms to assess customers’ isolation risks, because single-person households are more likely to stay in and order meals to their door. The economic implications of isolation are worrying officials in a country that also has an aging population and a plummeting fertility rate.

Oct. 22:

• ASML’s chief executive speaks at the Bloomberg Tech London summit.
• Slovak, Hungarian, and Serbian leaders meet in Komárno, Slovakia, to discuss illegal migration.
• Comedy special Hasan Minhaj: Off With His Head premieres on Netflix.

A Welsh-language soap opera celebrates its 50th birthday this month. Wales has been ruled from London since 1284 AD, and the ancient Celtic tongue was largely displaced by English, until the 20th century brought a deliberate revival. As part of that effort, the BBC released Pobol y Cwm (People of the Valley) in 1974, a show depicting life in a fictional Welsh village called Cwmderi. It is now the British public broadcaster’s longest-running TV soap opera, thanks to its mission of providing pure entertainment, with “no preaching about the state of the Welsh language, the evils of drugs, the dangers of sex, or theological dogma,” a professor at Aberystwyth University wrote for The Conversation.

• What ex-general Prabowo Subianto’s presidency could mean for Indonesia.
• Elite French university Sciences Po revives mandatory entrance test.
• ADNOC’s hydrogen dreams hinge on ammonia.