The Weekly Wrap for Saturday, 27 July 2019

Talking points San Juan partied all night long after Rosselló quit. PHOTO: Rolling Stone Sustained protests helped oust Puerto Rico's governor Jeffrey Epstein was found unconscious and 'injured' in prison Iran hinted at a possible tanker-swap with Britain Police blocked fresh Hong Kong marches The 'Butcher of Beijing' passed away Amazon deforestation gets to a 'tipping point' under Bolsonaro Laughter in Kyiv as a comedian's party swept the election MRI tests confirmed brain damage in Havana embassy mystery A robotic arm named 'Luke Skywalker' helped amputees feel The world's oldest gorilla in captivity (Trudy) died aged 63 Deep Dive Google CEO Sundar Pichai remains a picture of serenity in the face of growing anti-trust investigations. PHOTO: Justin Sullivan. A slew of quarterly earnings reports have come in this week. Today we'll have a peek at how the FANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google) are doing. With a huge proportion of the world's digital population under their sway – and a combined market cap of $2.5 trillion – we certainly hope that the answer is "good". Google    Let's start with everyone's favourite search engine (no, not Bing). Google's parent company Alphabet didn't just post growth this week, it posted accelerating growth. Google's 19% revenue growth in Q2 (to a cool $38.9b), handily beat the 17% rise in Q1. Investors had been worried about Google's slowing growth over the previous four quarters. Little wonder then that shares in the internet giant leapt 9% following the announcement – an outcome that was also helped along by Google's $25b stock buy-back plan. And it's all thanks to you: the vast majority of Alphabet's revenue comes from Google's online ads division (that data we all share with Google helps prop up its other exciting-but-cash-intensive businesses, like Waymo and DeepMind).   Amazon    'The Everything Store' likewise clocked accelerating growth. Revenue rose a whopping 20% on the back of explosive growth in Amazon Prime subscriptions. However the company's quarterly profit of just (just!) $2.6b came in below expectations, a fact that was attributed to its investment in same-day deliveries. The logistical challenge of delivering 'everything' to 'anywhere' in the continental U.S. isn't just huge, it's also hugely expensive: Amazon's costs grew by 21%. Slowing growth (to 37%) in the company's Web Services division also contributed to the market's lacklustre response; competitors including Google and Microsoft are ramping up their own cloud operations in the hope of getting a bigger slice of that very, very lucrative pie. Amazon shares fell 1% following the announcement.   Facebook    Last year, Google copped a $5b fine from the European Union. This year it's Facebook who has just had to shell out $5b to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for its utter disregard for everyone's privacy. The FTC also forced CEO Mark Zuckerberg to create a special "privacy board" to try and steer the company onto a path of redemption.  But will the largest fine in the history of the FTC have any long-term effect on Facebook? Of course not. Facebook posted a Q2 profit of $2.6b on $16.9b in revenue (up 28%). The company is also sitting on $45b in cash. A staggering 2.7 billion people used Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger in the three months to June 30.  Zuckerberg's creations (and acquisitions) are well and truly beyond the reach of meaningful regulation.   Netflix    This is a slight cheat since Netflix actually released its earnings last week, but it evens out the fact that the big kahuna (Apple) won't drop its numbers until next week. And in any case, the results of the video streaming powerhouse were interesting enough to warrant inclusion. Netflix fell well short of its own guidance on net-member growth, but still hit its revenue targets. The company had expected to add 5 million new binge-watchers but instead conjured up a paltry 2.7 million. The company has blamed its half-baked result on a less-than-inspiring set of content, and on a growing threat from rivals. All up, its 151 million subscribers still delivered $4.9b in revenue which is nothing to sneeze at.   Tesla    Yes, yes, we know it doesn't really belong here, but just think of it as a bonus! Elon Musk's pride and joy announced this week that it had delivered a record 95,000 electric vehicles in Q2. However, that did not distract from the $400m losses the company incurred. The losses were more than twice what investors had expected to see. And to make matters worse, Tesla's Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel announced that he was stepping down. On the bright side, Tesla's balance sheet looked better than many had expected, with the company holding $5b in cash. That should allay concerns about it suddenly hitting a wall. Ultimately, thought, it's difficult to see how Musk will keep good on his promise to drive Tesla to break even in Q3 and then go up a gear into profitable territory the following quarter. The company's share price is down 26% since the start of the year. Worldlywise Prime Minister á la Vicky Pollard. PHOTO: Evening Standard Fool Britannia This week the 92,153 card-carrying members of Britain's Tory party installed a new resident in 10 Downing Street: Prime Minister Boris Johnson. We should take a moment to pause and recognise that for him this is the culmination of a lifetime's pursuit of the top job. The dog has caught the postman. But now what?  The new PM has decreed that he will (presumably by dint of grandiloquence) coerce Brussels into accepting a new Brexit deal; one without that pesky 'backstop'. It is, of course, a fiction. And the European Union was happy to immediately make that plain. There won't be a renegotiated deal because Boris (and it is Boris: traditional honorifics fail to get purchase on his person) doesn't want a deal. What Boris wants is for Britain to crash out of the EU without a deal so that he can then pin the ensuing chaos on Brussels. It's a miserable plan that will impact millions of people, but a smart one for him personally. And he's got the team to do it, having already exiled half of Theresa May's cabinet to cobwebbed oblivion on the Tory backbench. In their place are all manner of sycophants and malefactors – hard Brexiters to the last (quelle surprise). To get a measure of this cabinet, look no further than freshly scrubbed Home Secretary Priti Patel. Patel had been fired in 2017 for maintaining a secret diplomatic channel with Israel and for diverting British aid money into the illegally-occupied Golan Heights... to treat Al Qaeda fighters. Given her impeccable record of subjugating national interest to personal gain, there's little doubt that Boris and she will get along like a house (of Commons) on fire. The best of luck to them both. And to our readers in the UK. While we're on the topic of institutional decay: Robert Mueller III testified on Capitol Hill this week. In this seemingly-late hour of the American experiment, Mueller's moral rectitude seemed impractically anachronistic. He carried himself with dignity, but rather like the last silver service waiter in the era of Uber Eats. In largely monosyllabic terms he did as he had promised, by reiterating exactly what had been written in his report: that Russia illegally interfered in the 2016 US election, that Trump obstructed justice, and that the regulations of the Office of Legal Counsel prevented him from bringing charges against Trump for said obstruction. And so we're back at square one. The Democrats have a legal avenue (and arguably a moral responsibility) to impeach Trump. But they fear that a failed impeachment effort will cost them the next election. And so, at least for now, they continue to let a manifestly unfit person rule the land.  . PHOTO: Getty Paris is baking Paris has never been hotter than it was on Thursday. The mercury reached a height of 42.6°C in the late afternoon, although the temperature at street-level was several degrees higher thanks to those gorgeous five-story limestone apartments which turned into heat banks during the four-day heatwave. National records were also toppled in Holland, Belgium and Germany. In fact, several Western European cities – which do not have a high rate of residential air-conditioning penetration – were hotter than Dubai was on Thursday. The Low Countries are just not prepared for the summers to come. And if you had thought you could escape the "urban heat island" effect in Paris with a trip to Mont Blanc, you would have been sorely disappointed: the glaciers at the foot of the mountain are beating a hasty retreat. There's even a lonely sign marking where the glacier was in 1990. But at least it can still call itself a glacier. This week Iceland revealed its memorial to Okjökull; the first glacier lost to climate change. The plaque reads: A letter to the future: OK is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it. Ágúst 2019 415ppm CO2 The Best of Times Time to fill it with claret. PHOTO: Reuters Local hero Shane Lowry didn't just win the British Open. The Irishman brought glory, joy and – considering he was 66:1 odds – a hefty slice of winnings to the Emerald Isle.    Germany is doing it  In the first six months of the year, coal and nuclear power generation comprised 43.4% of total power generation. Wind, solar, biomass and hydro accounted for 47.3%. Sehr gut! The Worst of Times A performer protests female foeticide. PHOTO: Getty The village with no girls Indian authorities in Uttarkhand have opened an investigation after 132 villages reported an alarming birth statistic: over a three-month period 200 boys but no girls were born. In rural parts of India it is not uncommon for families to selectively abort female foetuses despite the practice being outlawed more than two decades ago. At the heart of the matter is the fact that the value of a child (particularly for impoverished families) is based on their earning potential: a boy can get a job and help alleviate financial woes, but a girl by contrast will inevitably cost the family money in the form of a dowry. One cannot begin to unpick the problem of female foeticide in India without first addressing the crushing pressure of intergenerational poverty and income disparity.   The province with no hope We are at a point now where the narrative about the war in Syria has been cleaved entirely from the reality on the ground. In fact the issue has almost receded from view in the West, aside from the odd memoir written by a journalist who returned home long ago. And still – despite the convincing victory of Syria, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah – the conflict persists, flattening towns and destroying lives in Idlib province. We urge you to look at this photo and learn its story. Weekend Reading Quote of the week "If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don't want to kill 10 million people." – Guess who!    Headline of the week How Jennifer Lopez's iconic Versace dress prompted the launch of Google Images – The Independent   Special mention Who else but Rutger Hauer, who passed away this week aged 75. If you haven't yet savoured his singular performance in Blade Runner (1982) – please make amends promptly.   Some choice long-reads The Economist contends that although the Russian bear and the Chinese panda share a forest, only one is king   Businessweek sits down with Elizabeth Warren to hear her radical plan for beating Trump, and   The Washington Post explores how major tech platforms outsource their dirty work of content moderation to the Philippines EDITOR'S NOTE: A show trial is underway in the Philippines against the crusading journalist and media proprietor Maria Ressa. Her news website Rappler publishes regular critiques of a government that is unrelenting in its commitment to base criminality. The charge of 'cyber-libel' is both a joke and a frightening contortion of the law. We hope for a fair ruling. In the meantime, you can support Maria and Rappler by becoming a member. Tom Wharton @trwinwriting