Jake Maxwell Watts

What to watch for today

Measuring carbon dioxide emissions by where they occur is not terribly helpful, according to a study by an American research body, because countries easily fall into the habit of outsourcing their pollution to the developing world. China is doing it internally.

Chinese bloggers got on the wrong side of censors this week when they likened an image of Presidents Xi and Obama at the Sunnylands estate in California to a picture of the popular children’s cartoon characters Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. The image was swiftly deleted from the micro-blogging site Sina Weibo, almost as quickly as a photoshopped picture of Chinese leaders doing Gangnam Style.

The problem with hot money coming into developing countries is that when the tide reverses, it does so with destructive gusto. Since the financial crisis hit in 2008, first-world central banks have pumped over $12 trillion into the markets, most of which has headed straight for the developing world. Now it is leaving—and no one can quite agree why.

What to watch for today

A Chinese pig farm in central Hunan province is under investigation for using an alkaline solution to dissolve diseased pig carcasses and dumping the fluid into a local river. Netizens and officials alike are disgusted, and yes, it is indisputably gross. But the practice is not as dangerous as you might think—the United States has been doing it for years.

At least he didn’t fall asleep on the “9” key.

As the July 28 Cambodian general election draws near, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party is launching an attack against its opposition, drawing pointed criticism by the United States against a country with a booming economy but a fraught and fragile democracy.

What to watch for today

The rhetoric from politicians and clothing brands has not let up since the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed in Bangladesh, killing over 1,100 workers. But neither have exports. Garment shipments were up nearly 12% in May, from the year before, worth a total of $19.3 billion.

After three weeks of miserable performance, Japan’s Topix is up 5.21% and the Nikkei 4.94% today, thanks to some much-needed good news. The country’s current account surplus doubled from April last year and bank lending increased the most in May since 2009, while economic growth in the first quarter of this year was revised upward to 4.1%, from 3.5%.

Since the Guardian reported that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had sought refuge from US authorities in Hong Kong, the reaction of netizens worldwide has been one of confusion. Why would a man responsible for revealing the extent of US digital surveillance on the grounds of privacy and freedom of expression go to a special administrative region of China, where such values are consistently suppressed?

What to watch for today

The North and South Korean governments will meet on Sunday for diplomatic talks, the first since 2011. Pyongyang has done a swift about turn. Just two months ago it was threatening to start a nuclear war.

The timing for Barack Obama couldn’t be worse. Just as he meets for the first time to forge a new diplomatic relationship with his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, a series of exposes on the secret surveillance programs of the US National Security Agency has presented a major distraction and eroded America’s moral high ground.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Myanmar political icon, said on Thursday for the first time that she wants to be president. “If I pretended that I didn’t want to be president I wouldn’t be honest,” Suu Kyi said at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Myanmar’s capital Nay Pyi Taw. “And I would rather be honest with my people than otherwise.”

What to watch for today

UPDATED at 8:23 AM EST: Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi told CNBC that the SodaStream report is “totally and completely untrue.”

China received two strong signals of African resistance to its growing presence in the continent on Wednesday. In the central African state of Gabon, the government is preparing to wrest back control of oil assets (paywall) from three international companies when their contracts expire in 2015, including China’s Sinopec. Separately, Ghanaian authorities detained 124 Chinese workers suspected of illegal gold prospecting.

The western Chinese city of Chengdu hosts the Fortune Global forum of business leaders today. To the great delight of reporters covering the event, the Great Firewall has been temporarily ruptured: Facebook and Twitter are accessible.

What to watch for today

China published its annual report on the state of its environment yesterday, but don’t get too excited. As usual, the sensitive bits were labeled state secrets. Sadly, even the publicly available parts look bad.

Japan’s prime minister took the stage on Wednesday to announce the third pillar of his “Abenomics” suite of policies, designed to shake the country out of its decade-long economic slump . It didn’t go very well. The Nikkei rose more than 1% as he started speaking, then within minutes reversed its gain, and then it kept falling, eventually closing down 3.8%.

Apple and Samsung share 52% of worldwide smartphone sales, but as well as fighting each other they are facing at least three serious rivals from mainland China. In an effort to take on the rest of the world, those rivals are leveraging huge domestic demand—sales in China are expected to reach 240 million units in 2013, almost twice the number in the US.