BBC News Briefing

16 May, 2024

Jules Darmanin

Hello. Today we're looking into Bidenomics with our economics editor Faisal Islam, who tells us why the massive wave of investments pushed by the White House is driving an unusual economic boom in the United States. Angela Henshall is covering Mozambique, where illicit rosewood trade to China is funding Islamist insurgents. Also in your newsletter: Madagascar, Algeria and Buckingham Palace.

GET UP TO SPEED

A third day of testimony is ending for Michael Cohen in a New York courtroom, where Donald Trump's team has been relentlessly grilling the ex-president's former lawyer. Our live page has all the details.

The United Nations has revised down the figure it publishes for the proportion of women and children killed in Gaza, although the number of reported deaths in the Strip is still standing above 35,000. BBC Verify explains the change.

Omar bin Omran, an Algerian man who had been missing for 26 years, has been found alive in his neighbour's cellar.

AT THE SCENE

Covington, Georgia

The US's strange economic boom

An aircraft with four horizontal blades in front of a large American flag in a hangar.

Archer Aviation says it will bring an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to market in 2025. Credit: Getty Images

Unemployment in the US is at its lowest rate for 50 years, defying all expectations thanks to massive investments - and borrowing - driven by President Joe Biden's policies. Our long read explores how the Bidenomics gamble will transform the world economy, whether or not it pays off.

Faisal Islam, economics editor

Covington is best known as the small town where the Vampire Diaries was filmed, but it is now the site of a factory for Archer Aviation, which will be completed this year. It plans to mass-produce what it describes as flying cars, though the model I saw looked more like a giant drone-copter, with a dozen propellers and wheels. Across town, the ground has been prepared for a factory for electric trucks. Once finished, it's expected to produce thousands of $100,000 trucks every year. On the Georgia coast, within a year a brand new Hyundai "meta factory" for electric cars and batteries will start production, with plans to produce half a million cars a year.

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Yet at the local Scoops ice cream parlour, both locals and tourists say they don't feel they are living through a boom. Prices remain high. Families are depending on their credit cards. This is an industrial boom, taking place in factories and not something people have noticed in their everyday lives. "It's not terrible," one customer told me. "I mean, we adjust to it, the cost of everything, and you just kind of move on.”

Read in full

Listen: The president has fired “a bazooka” of money into the economy. Will voters reward him? Faisal Islam lays out the stakes on the BBC's Global Story podcast.

Cooling down: Inflation has slowed in April, after a streak of higher-than-expected price hikes had stoked concerns about the world's largest economy.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

The timber trade fuelling an insurgency

Rosewood logs amassed in front of a warehouse with signage in Chinese.

Mozambique was China's top African supplier of rosewood, called "hongmu" in Chinese. Credit: Environmental Investigation Agency

Rosewood is the world's most-trafficked wildlife product, surpassing ivory and reptiles. In war-torn Mozambique, smuggling of protected timber to China is helping to fund a brutal Islamist insurgency as well as a large criminal network in the north of the country - specifically the Cabo Delgado province.

Angela Henshall, BBC News

What is rosewood?

Rosewood is a catch-all trade term for a wide range of tropical hardwoods that are highly prized for luxury furniture in China. Mozambique’s rosewood is protected under an international treaty, meaning only very limited trade that does not threaten the species is allowed.

What has been happening in Mozambique?

A four-year undercover investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency (an NGO that campaigns against alleged environmental crime) has revealed that poor management of officially sanctioned forest concessions, illegal logging and corruption among port officials is allowing the trade to expand unchecked in insurgent-controlled areas. The report estimated the insurgent's revenue amounted to $1.9m a month.

What's the situation in Cabo Delgado?

Insurgent activity has led to one of Africa’s most significant displacement crises, with more than a million people forced to leave their homes. The insurgents target civilians, carrying out massacres, beheadings, rapes and kidnappings. The authorities are struggling to reinforce laws designed to protect Cabo Delgado’s most vulnerable people, let alone those designed to protect its environment and forests.

Read in full

More on the insurgents: Back in 2021, our security correspondent Frank Gardner looked into why it was so difficult to defeat Islamic State militants in Cabo Delgado.

A spike in violence: More than 70 children were missing following jihadist attacks earlier this year, authorities said in March.

THE BIG PICTURE

The regal power of photography

A contact sheet shows multiple black-and-white photographs of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret.

Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret laugh and talk during a shoot to mark their mother's 80th birthday. Credit: Iconic Images

A new exhibition in Buckingham Palace shows previously unseen photographs of the British Royal Family - telling its story over the past century. The collection shows how the public perception of the monarchy has been shaped by photography, picture by picture.

Take a look

FOR YOUR DOWNTIME

Reinventing urban spaces

A demand for smaller offices offers an opportunity to reimagine the city centre.

Here's how

And finally... in Madagascar

The island nation off the south-eastern coast of the African continent can claim to be the cradle of the baobab tree. Through DNA analysis, researchers were able to identify that the first of these majestic trees arose in Madagascar 21 million years ago. They are now calling for their preservation.

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– Jules

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