The world's debt is rising to unprecedented levels. While politicians and the general public have seemingly lost interest, capital markets are beginning to show signs of strain, financial experts say.
Driving the news: Global debt surged by $7.5 trillion in the first half of the year, hitting a new record of more than $250 trillion, according to data released Thursday from the Institute of International Finance.
Libya’s crippling “proxy war” will doom the country to become “a haven for terrorists and extremists” absent support from the U.S., the interior minister for the country’s UN-backed government tells Axios.
Between the lines: The U.S officially supports the government in Tripoli, but has played no part in the current civil war beyond calls for a political solution. Meanwhile, Russian mercenaries are bolstering renegade Gen. Khalifa Haftar's offensive and dramatically changing the nature of the war, Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha told Axios Thursday evening in Washington.
A bipartisan commission recommended people stop referring to China's Xi Jinping as "president" and instead to call him by his party title, "general secretary," the group wrote in its annual report, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Why it matters: The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission reported on Thursday that characterizing Xi as "president" implies he was democratically elected. But the leader's position is the result of "an internal power contest in the Chinese Communist Party," the Journal writes.
The Chinese government is set to eliminate restrictions on foreign ownership of fund management firms in 2020, opening up major opportunities for U.S. and other global firms to capture potentially trillions of dollars in new assets, according to new research from Deloitte.
Why it matters: The Chinese government has been taking steps in recent years to liberalize its capital markets and attract investment.
Israeli and Palestinian officials reached a ceasefire on Thursday following days of deadly cross-border fighting that began after Israel killed a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander in an airstrike.
The latest: An Israel Defense Forces(IDF) spokesman confirmed the ceasefire in Gaza had come into effect. Israeli officials said earlier that forces had "achieved all the goals of its military operation."
Americans continue to rely on their credit cards, while the rest of the world rapidly moves toward mobile payments.
The big picture: China is the clear leader, with nearly half of the population paying for goods with their phones. But the fastest growth in the adoption of e-payments is happening in India.
