Bloomberg Businessweek-Asia Edition June 13, 2022

● Globally, more than 532m people have been infected with the coronavirus, at least 6.3 million have died, and over 12 billion vaccinations have been administered. Warmer weather in the Northern Hemisphere has led to a falling number of cases in many countries, but a new subvariant of the omicron strain has caused rising positivity rate in parts of Europe and the US. ● UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived a no-confidence vote. But the narrow victory in Parliament on June 6—211 Tory MPs backed their leader, but 148 voted to oust him—has left Johnson badly bruised, raising doubts about how long he can cling to power. ● A massive blaze that swept through an inland container depot in Chattogram, Bangladesh, on June 5 killed at least 41 people. Fighting the fire was…

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, no weapon has been more effective against Russian forces than the Javelin antitank missile. Drawing on a supply of about 7,000 US-made Javelins, Ukraine’s fighters have destroyed at least 400 Russian tanks and hundreds more armored vehicles. The weapon’s potency has helped foil President Vladimir Putin’s plans to overrun the country. There’s just one problem: The US stockpile is running out. The war has already consumed as much as one-third of the US military’s inventory of Javelins. Within months the Pentagon will be unable to deliver new ones without emptying its own supply. The war has also consumed one-quarter of the US inventory of Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles; Raytheon Technologies Corp., which makes the Stinger, says restarting production could take up to a…

▶ The US Open golf tournament takes place in Brookline, Mass., June 16-19. Tiger Woods has said he’ll skip the event to give his body more time to heal from last year’s car accident. ▶ NATO defense ministers meet in Brussels June 15-16. Sweden and Finland are set to join the alliance, but Turkey opposes the move for now, setting up a possible clash. ▶ June 14 will mark a supermoon, when the moon in its orbit is closest to the Earth. The last full moon of spring or the first of summer is traditionally called a strawberry moon. ▶ The SuperReturn International private equity conference kicks off in Berlin on June 14. With more than 3,000 guests and 200 speakers, it’s the industry’s biggest event. ▶ Vladimir Putin, whose Ukraine war has turned…

When campaigning for president, Joe Biden vowed to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah” over the brutal killing of a newspaper columnist. Once in the White House, he temporarily froze weapons sales to the kingdom over its war in Yemen. He also outlined a vision to make the US a renewable energy powerhouse, less reliant on an oil market where the Saudis hold so much sway. But with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine posing the biggest disruption to energy supplies in decades, the president is having to take a different tack, recalibrating an alliance that is increasingly critical to the global economy and that is at its most strained in years. With the oil market in turmoil, the world’s biggest exporter of crude once again has the leverage to make demands. It’s raking…

For centuries, a delectable steak or pork loin has been the preferred top of the food chain for diners as societies grew more affluent and improved their diets. No longer. In 2022 chicken consumption is expected to reach 98 million metric tons, double the amount eaten in 1999. That’s more than three times the growth rate of pork and 10 times that of beef, according to US government data. Global chicken consumption is on track to account for 41% of all meat-eating by 2030. And in less than a decade, for better or worse, humans will for the first time consume far more chicken than any other kind of protein. Thanks to genetics and other innovations, the cost of rearing chickens has been pushed down repeatedly over the years. Modern birds…

With representatives for operators of 29 West Coast ports and the 22,000 dockworkers who man them in talks, a familiar issue is looming over the bargaining table: automation. On one side, more than 70 terminal operators and ocean carriers represented by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) have long pitched modernization as a cure for global trade frictions such as the ones that led to shortages of everything from hospital gloves to air-conditioner parts over the past two years. Facing off against them is the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), which claims that relying more on machines than on human workers will further boost companies’ profits while killing well-paying union jobs. The two sides have been having the human-vs.-machine debate for at least six decades. But the current negotiations are drawing…