Pass this to Gilberto, would you
Recently: Is the world moving off the dollar? Nicholas Mulder on where it’s slipping—and why the U.S. financial industry has so much riding on it.
Today: Sudan’s army fills chlorine bombs from a water plant the Red Cross supplied in Omdurman. … The FBI answers the Saudi question twice in two months, both ways. … &c.
For members—from the weekend despatch: Is September 11 still an open case? Standpoints from Terry Strada, Dan Christensen, and Gerald Posner. … &c.
+ New music from Trentemøller …
Developments / global
For the record
A Chinese embassy attaché crossed a Seoul conference room on September 8, mid-answer, to hand the Philippines’ defense secretary, Gilberto Teodoro Jr., a note. The note referred to the 2016 ruling of a tribunal in The Hague that the water within 200 nautical miles of the Philippine coast is not China’s, calling the ruling “illegal, null and void.” Teodoro read it out—adding, “Of course, because you lost.” Why would a Chinese attaché do this? Since November 2022, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, 18 governments have gone from acknowledging the ruling to demanding China obey it—something only two did in the six years before. The note ran to two paragraphs, in pen.
Growth without jobs
South Korea sold a record US$35 billion abroad in September’s first 10 days, 83 percent more than a year earlier. Its factories employed 38,000 fewer people in August than a year before, the 26th monthly fall in a row. How are these two things happening at once? Semiconductors made up US$16.5 billion of those sales, up 270 percent. According to the Bank of Korea’s numbers, every US$1 million in chip sales puts 3.2 people to work; the same money across manufacturing, 6.8. Kim Jung-sik of Yonsei University points out that, say, shipbuilding is an industry that brings its suppliers up with it; chips have “relatively weak links of that kind”—meaning the business South Korea does best needs the fewest South Koreans.
Taken from Al-Manara
Somebody handed the New York Times and the Washington Post nearly 150 documents, images and recordings from inside Sudan’s army. They describe a bomb packed with explosives and about 15 kilograms of chlorine gas; a test in the desert in July 2024; and nearly 300 of the bombs manufactured by that October. So where did the chlorine come from? Brigadier General Tariq Hussain, who ran the program, answers on a recording: “Al-Manara has some of those cylinders, and we took them from there.” Al-Manara treats Omdurman’s water. The Red Cross gave it 30 cylinders in 2023; the aid group CARE, another 35; UNICEF, more. All of it intended for treating drinking water. Sudan’s military calls the entire dossier “baseless.”
No further action
In New York on Friday, relatives read the 2,977 names of the September 11 dead for the 25th time. Terry Strada, whose husband Tom died on the North Tower’s 104th floor, told four former U.S. presidents that Washington “chose to protect the Saudis.” Has it? Dan Christensen of the investigative site Florida Bulldog found the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation answering the question of Saudi involvement both ways. Its May 2021 memo closed the reinvestigation. Its report two months later described a “militant network that was created, funded, directed and supported by” Saudi Arabia—where 15 of the 19 hijackers came from. The kingdom is citing the May 2021 memo in its defense to the families’ suit. A U.S. federal court will hear the Saudis’ appeal on October 7. … See “The suspects still in Riyadh,” in the weekend despatch.
Meanwhile
British MPs vote down the assisted-dying bill they passed last year, 286 to 270. … Algeria breaks off relations with the U.A.E., giving the Emirati ambassador 48 hours to leave. … Houthi fighters take the Yemeni port of Mokha and move on Perim, the island in Bab al-Mandab, the strait into the Red Sea. … The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak reaches 6,942 cases and 3,349 deaths. … & At Saqqara in Egypt, archaeologists open the 4,400-year-old tomb of Younmin, who heard petitions and complaints on behalf of the pharaoh; the paint is still on the walls.
Thoughts? concierge@thesgnl.com.
The weekend despatch
‘Tell the Saudis to stop lying’
Is September 11 still an open case? Standpoints from Terry Strada, Dan Christensen, and Gerald Posner.
Features
- Why does the U.S. government keep so many secrets from the American people? Matthew Connelly on how official classification has gone out of control.
- Is the world moving off the dollar? Nicholas Mulder on where it’s slipping—and why the U.S. financial industry has so much riding on it.
Books
- Who really controls the greenback? Brendan Greeley, The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World’s Most Powerful Money.
Music
- What’s Mew?
- & New tracks from Trentemøller, Djrum, Karol G, Arab Strap, & Clark.
+ Weather report
- A stalled front over central Japan drops more water on Nagoya in 60 minutes than the city has seen in 136 years of measuring—and twice as much as its storm drains were built for …
Can’t hear yourself think?
The David Lynch Foundation helps bring calm to veterans, students, and communities in need.
Music
‘Terrified’
The Danish producer and composer Anders Trentemøller has become Copenhagen music royalty, and for his upcoming self-titled album, he’s called in another local eminence to sing with him …
