Argentina teeters, protests rage, glaciers melt: Weekend Reads

[Balance of Power]( From [Bloomberg Politics]( [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]( [Twitter Share]( [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]](  Argentina is teetering on the edge of an economic abyss while its neighbor Chile is watching its glaciers melt at an alarming rate, and China is massing its troops on the border with Hong Kong. Dive into these and other stories that chronicle the week’s major political events with the latest edition of Weekend Reads. — [Ruth Pollard]( Social and political organizations march in Buenos Aires protest under the slogan of "united, we walk for peace, bread, land, roof and work" against "the politics of hunger and exclusion from the national government.” Click [here]( for more of Bloomberg’s most compelling political photos. Photographer: NurPhoto [What Life at Center of Chaos Looks Like for Argentine Businesses]( After two sovereign defaults this century, small business owners in Argentina are well versed in navigating times of crisis. But even they were left floundering by the latest rout. With presidential elections still 10 weeks away, they're wondering how much worse it can get. [Jonathan Gilbert](, [Jorgelina do Rosario]( and [Patrick Gillespie]( report. [Macron’s Quiet Summer May Turn to Anger as Voters Return to Work]( President Emmanuel Macron has spent three weeks in the Cote d’Azur, south of France, alternating between the beach and preparing for a delicate G-7 summit on Aug. 24. While Macron himself doesn’t face voters until 2022, [Gregory Viscusi]( reports any turbulence would be an unwelcome backdrop for local elections that are essential for developing his three-year-old party. [Xi’s Dilemma: Send Forces Into Hong Kong, or Wait Out Protesters]( There’s signs China is preparing to mobilize mainland forces to quell the weeks-long uprising in Hong Kong. The question now is whether President Xi Jinping will actually do it. The protesters, meanwhile, have raised the stakes with actions to inflict economic pain as they push for leader Carrie Lam’s resignation and other demands to loosen Beijing’s grip on the city. [Hong Kong’s Massive Protests Raise Ominous Questions About 2047]( When the U.K. agreed to return Hong Kong to China, “One country, two systems,” was shorthand for Beijing’s pledge to maintain the city’s character for 50 years — and the possibility that by the time 2047 rolled around, the systems would have converged. But as [Matthew Campbell]( reports, that’s now unlikely. [It’s Democracy vs. the Hackers as the 2020 Election Approaches]( The front line to protect the integrity of the U.S. presidential election is in a Springfield strip mall, next to a Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant. As [Kartikay Mehrotra]( and [Alyza Sebenius]( report, it’s there that a couple dozen bureaucrats, programmers, and security experts are working to prevent a replay of 2016, when Russian hackers breached voter registration rolls. Australia — the world’s second-biggest coal exporter — is increasingly a flash point in the battle against carbon emissions. But Pacific Island leaders are [pushing back](, calling on Canberra to ditch its commitment to coal. Fiji is leading the attack, with the New Zealand prime minister’s backing. [Protests Pop Up Across Russia as Putin’s Popularity, Economy Dip]( Yevgeny Dubinin had never been to a demonstration before. But he was so angry authorities had refused to register opposition candidates in Moscow’s city council election that he couldn’t sit at home. The protest-arrest cycle represents the biggest public challenge to Vladimir Putin’s two-decade rule since in 2012, [Irina Reznik]( and [Ilya Arkhipov]( write. [Where America Flirted With Its Own Chernobyl]( The Three Mile Island accident four decades ago turned the U.S. against nuclear energy. Now the complex is closing just as some say it still has a role to play, writes [Will Wade](. Today, nuclear energy is at the center of a complicated debate — while cheap gas has upended the economics of operating reactors, questions about whether to shut one down involve more than the bottom line.  Some modern screens and telephones have been installed in the control room at Three Mile Island, but many of the systems are similar to what was in place in 1979. Although the plant will no longer be producing electricity, it’s certain to remain part of nuclear energy conversation for years to come. Photographer: Michelle Gustafson/Bloomberg [Gaza Needs Cement to Rebuild, But Israel Dominates the Market]( Gaza needs concrete, and lots of it. In the 2014 war, some 11,000 housing units were destroyed, and an additional 160,000 sustained damage — affecting more than a quarter of the families in the territory. As [David Rocks]( and [Yaacov Benmeleh]( write, Israeli-Palestinian politics have hampered the pace of recovery. [The Walls Are Closing In on Cyril Ramaphosa]( When Cyril Ramaphosa succeeded Jacob Zuma as South Africa’s president, he promised a “new dawn” after nine years of misrule that hobbled the economy. But as [Michael Cohen]( reports, 18 months later, hopes have dissipated that the former labor union leader can orchestrate a turnaround. [Modi Has Limited Options to Boost Economy in Locked Down Kashmir]( Prime Minister Narendra Modi says his move to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy is about boosting its economy. But as [Archana Chaudhary]( and [Bibhudatta Pradhan]( report, observers say it will take more than rhetoric to bring investments to a state that’s lost more than 42,000 lives to conflict in the last three decades. [And finally]( … Chile has one of the world’s largest reserves of fresh water outside the north and south poles. But its abundant glaciers are melting fast, with the ice mass now retreating one meter per year, [Laura Millan Lombrana]( reports. The formations also happen to cover some of the massive copper deposits that make Chile the world’s largest producer of the metal — and uncovering those minerals also threatens to hasten the glaciers’ demise.  The Andina and Los Bronces copper mines in the Andes. Melting glaciers are not just an ecological disaster, they’re becoming an economic and political dilemma for the government of Latin America’s richest nation. Photographer: Tomas Munita/Bloomberg   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Politics newsletter Balance of Power. You can tell your friends to [sign up here](.  [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022