| UK PM to set out domestic agenda amid election talk Posted: 26 Jul 2019 05:32 PM PDT  New British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out his domestic agenda in a speech in Manchester on Saturday, after trying to dampen speculation he could call an early election. Johnson will focus on health, education and infrastructure, after EU leaders rebuffed his calls to renegotiate the Brexit deal struck by his predecessor Theresa May last year. The former mayor of London, who only took charge on Wednesday, has promised to take Britain out of the EU by the latest deadline of October 31 -- deal or no deal.
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| Nazi Salute in Dresden Shows Cracks With Merkel and Germany’s Establishment Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:59 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Angela Merkel was expecting a friendly chat with business women when she visited Dresden earlier this month. Instead, far-right protesters jeered the German Chancellor's arrival.Hundreds of demonstrators from the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, a group known as Pegida, gathered in the historic city to voice their anger at Merkel and her decision to welcome over a million refugees since 2015. One threw a bottle at a journalist, another gave a Nazi salute, while a third denied the Holocaust, a criminal offense in Germany. A poster bearing Merkel's image read: Terrorists Welcome.Despite nearly a decade of consistent economic growth, there's growing fatigue with Merkel and the ruling parties, particularly in the former communist East, which has undergone decades of social and economic change. The region that saw massive right-wing protests last year is now back in focus as voters in three states go to the polls this fall. In two of them – Saxony and Brandenburg – Merkel's Christian Democrats and their junior partner, the Social Democrats, may lose for the first time since reunification in 1990 – to the upstart Alternative for Germany, or AfD. That could not only implode her fragile coalition but upend a political landscape dominated by two parties since World War II."That is the writing on the wall for the traditional parties," Josef Janning, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview. "This will shake up the system."Merkel's coalition is already hanging by a thread, with many Social Democrats saying they need to abandon government and return to their roots to stem the hemorrhaging of support in opinion polls. Disagreements, whether on defense or climate, surface daily within the coalition and a poor showing in the East could give the SPD the final push to jump ship.Ground ZeroMerkel and her Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, have also suffered massive losses in the former East, where the trained physicist grew up and where the right-wing AfD party now has found fertile territory with an ideology that overlaps that of Pegida.Martin Modschiedler, a CDU lawmaker seeking re-election to Saxony's state legislature, says the anti-immigration rage that has greeted Merkel caps a three-decade feeling of displacement since the collapse of East Germany. He drew a parallel with the social convulsions of the late 1960's in the West – and said much of the frustration was aimed at Merkel as steward of the political system."There's a sense of upheaval here, that people say 'we don't want to have Mrs. Merkel anymore'," Modschiedler, 52, said in an office overlooking the Elbe River. "We're doing fine, we have everything, but people for some reason have fears that it may not stay this way."Such grievances have been harnessed by the AfD, which began in 2013 as an anti-euro party but gained new steam with the refugee crisis. In Saxony, the AfD is neck-in-neck with the CDU each with 26% support, according to a July 2 Infratest poll. In Brandenburg, the latest Insa poll shows the AfD and the Social Democrats in the lead with 19% each, and the Greens, the CDU and anti-capitalist Left party in close pursuit. While the AfD may not find coalition partners to govern with, its strength makes coalition-building difficult and reflects deep seated frustration.Protest Vote"Voting for the AfD is mostly a matter of protest," Heidi Schubert, a school teacher said in a Dresden cafe. "When you hear the sort of things they say, there's a lot of talk about 'those up there'," she said in reference to how AfD supporters see a perceived political elite.While Merkel isn't conservative enough for many in the East, she's not progressive enough for many in the West, particularly when it comes to environmental issues. There, the Greens have made massive gains following months of protests by students demanding more government action to curb greenhouse emissions. Nation-wide the SPD and the CDU together have around 40% support, a drop of 26 percentage points in six years. Meanwhile the Greens and AfD more than doubled their backing to 24% and 12%, respectively, polls show.Back in Saxony, Merkel did her part in trying to revert the trend by building bridges and confidence. In the town of Goerlitz along the border to Poland she gave workers a pep talk at a Siemens AG turbine plant she lauded as a symbol for recovery and innovation after it risked being closed in 2017.In Dresden too on July 15, Merkel sought to sow peace and understanding as right-wing radicals protested outside, dishing out advice to the female entrepreneurs on how to deal with change and on the need to compromise.But mistrust of politicians from traditional parties runs deep in the region. Merkel's heir-apparent, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who became CDU chief last year and defense minister this week, is already off on the wrong footing, says Modschiedler from her CDU party. "She isn't really viewed as a good thing."\--With assistance from Karl Maier.To contact the author of this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Raymond ColittCaroline AlexanderFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump Signs Deal With Guatemala to Limit Asylum Claims in U.S. Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:07 PM PDT ![Trump Signs Deal With Guatemala to Limit Asylum Claims in U.S.]( "Trump Signs Deal With Guatemala to Limit Asylum Claims in U.S.") (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. reached a deal with Guatemala to stop migrants from other parts of Central America from claiming asylum in the U.S., President Donald Trump said, and will instead force them to file a claim in Guatemala, a nation that one refugee advocacy group said is neither safe nor able to handle the task.Trump told reporters on Friday during a surprise event at the White House that Guatemala would sign a "safe-third-country" agreement requiring migrants from points south, such as Honduras and El Salvador, to claim asylum in Guatemala instead of continuing to the U.S. border. Trump had earlier accused Guatemala of backing out of a deal."We are doing a very important signing, it's a historic asylum or safe-third-country agreement between our two countries," Trump said. "This landmark agreement will put the coyotes and the smugglers out of business."The agreement comes as the Trump administration is seeking to crack down on migrants crossing into the U.S. along the border with Mexico, one of the president's 2020 campaign themes.Advocacy group Refugees International called the agreement "very alarming."'No Way Safe'"Guatemala is in no way safe for refugees and asylum seekers, and all the strong-arming in the world won't make it so," said President Eric Schwartz. "This agreement also violates U.S. law and will put some of the most vulnerable people in Central America in grave danger."Acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said that the deal means that asylum claimants from Honduras and El Salvador, who have to pass through Guatemala to reach Mexico and then the U.S., now must file a claim in Guatemala -- essentially, saying the U.S. considers Guatemala a safe country, even as thousands flee its borders as well."This is a return to the appropriate approach under international law to protecting asylum seekers at the earliest possible point in their journey," he said in the Oval Office. "They can make a protection claim if they would like in Guatemala. If they arrive in the U.S. not having availed themselves of that opportunity, they'll be returned to Guatemala."As of 2017, Guatemala was the second-largest source of asylum claimants internationally, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.The U.S. State Department said in a 2018 report that "migration and police authorities lacked adequate training concerning the rules for establishing refugee status" in Guatemala, and that the UNHCR has reported that "identification and referral mechanisms for potential asylum seekers were inadequate" in the country.Human rights concerns in the country included life-threatening prison conditions, widespread corruption, use of child labor, human trafficking and mistreatment of LGBT persons.Trump continues to thank Mexico for curbing migration flows, and McAleenan said Friday that the number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is on pace to drop 22% in July from the previous month, the second consecutive monthly drop.Numbers typically fall in the summer, due to warm weather. It's unclear what impact Trump's deal in June -- which avoided a round of tariffs imposed by the U.S. -- is so far having.Schwartz said it's not clear exactly what the agreement does because of a provisional ruling by Guatemala's constitutional court against a third-country deal, but the nation's Minister of Government, Enrique Degenhart, downplayed the significance of that ruling during the Oval Office event."What the court said, which is provisional injunction, was basically define the process that has to be followed," the minister said, after signing the agreement. The U.S. has yet to release details of the accord. "I would say that Guatemala is definitely clear on the responsibility it has. We are clear that we have to make changes, and the way to do it is working together with our best ally."On Wednesday, Trump had accused Guatemala of backing out of a safe-third-country agreement and said he was considering "very severe" consequences, which could include tariffs.Guatemala's dollar bonds slumped the most in 14 months on Tuesday after Trump said in tweets that his administration was examining measures that could include tariffs, fees on remittances from Guatemalans in the U.S. or other sanctions. The president noted he had already ended much U.S. foreign aid to the country because of large numbers of Guatemalans who have migrated to the U.S. during his presidency.(Updates with advocacy group starting in fifth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump says N.Korea missile tests no threat to US Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:06 PM PDT  President Donald Trump on Friday brushed off the bellicose language accompanying North Korea's latest short-range missile test, saying it referred to ally South Korea, not the United States. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called two missiles fired Thursday under his personal supervision a "solemn warning" to the South over planned military drills with the United States. Trump, who has invested heavily in a relationship with Kim, widely seen as one of the world's most repressive dictators, was unconcerned.
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| Trump says he's not bothered by short-range NK missile tests Posted: 26 Jul 2019 02:39 PM PDT ![Trump says he's not bothered by short-range NK missile tests]( "Trump says he's not bothered by short-range NK missile tests") President Donald Trump says he's not bothered by North Korea's decision to fire two short-range missiles this week that rattled its Asian neighbors. When a reporter asked him about the missile tests, Trump said Friday that "short-range" was the most important word. The missile tests come as U.S. and North Korean officials struggle to set up nuclear weapons talks after a recent meeting on the Korean border between Kim and Trump that seemed to provide a step forward in stalled negotiations.
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| Court says Turkey violated petition-signing scholars' rights Posted: 26 Jul 2019 02:36 PM PDT |
| Trump Says China May Delay Trade Deal Until After 2020 Elections Posted: 26 Jul 2019 01:31 PM PDT ![Trump Says China May Delay Trade Deal Until After 2020 Elections]( "Trump Says China May Delay Trade Deal Until After 2020 Elections") (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said China may wait until after the 2020 U.S. presidential election to sign a trade agreement because Beijing would prefer to reach a deal with a Democrat."I think that China will probably say, 'let's wait,'" Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. "When I win, like almost immediately, they're all going to sign deals."U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are set to travel to China Monday for the first high-level, face-to-face trade negotiations between the world's two biggest economies since talks broke down in May.The White House confirmed Wednesday an earlier Bloomberg News report that senior officials will be in Shanghai next week to cover a range of issues including intellectual property, agriculture and the trade balance.Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the Group of 20 summit in Japan last month and declared a tentative truce in their year-long trade war. The leaders directed their negotiators to resume trade talks. Since then Mnuchin, Lighthizer and their Chinese counterparts have spoken by phone.To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu, Justin BlumFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Russia raids campaign offices of opposition politicians Posted: 26 Jul 2019 12:40 PM PDT  Russian police on Friday extended a crackdown on the opposition by raiding the offices of independent politicians on the eve of a high-profile protest rally. On Friday evening, allies of President Vladimir Putin's top opponent Alexei Navalny said police had searched their campaign headquarters. The latest raids come as opposition politicians prepare to stage an unauthorised rally outside the mayor's offices on Saturday, incensed by officials' refusal to allow them to take part in local elections in September.
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| 'Unprecedented': more than 100 Arctic wildfires burn in worst ever season Posted: 26 Jul 2019 12:08 PM PDT  Huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska are producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from spaceThe Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space.The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have burned in the Arctic circle. In Russia, 11 of 49 regions are experiencing wildfires.The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations' weather and climate monitoring service, has called the Arctic fires "unprecedented".The largest blazes, believed to have been caused by lightning, are located in Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Buryatia. Winds carrying smoke have caused air quality to plummet in Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia.In Greenland, the multi-day Sisimiut blaze, first detected on 10 July, came during an unusually warm and dry stretch in which melting on the vast Greenland ice sheet commenced a month earlier than usual.In Alaska, as many as 400 fires have been reported. The climatologist Rick Thomas estimated the total area burned in the state this season as of Wednesday morning at 2.06m acres.Mark Parrington, senior scientist with the Climate Change Service and Atmosphere Monitoring Service for Europe's Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, described the extent of the smoke as "impressive" and posted an image of a ring of fire and smoke across much of the region.Thomas Smith, an environmental geographer at the London School of Economics, told USA Today fires of such magnitude have not been seen in the 16-year satellite record.The fires are not merely the result of surface ignition of dry vegetation: in some cases the underlying peat has caught fire. Such fires can last for days or months and produce significant amounts of greenhouse gases."These are some of the biggest fires on the planet, with a few appearing to be larger than 100,000 hectares," Smith said."The amount of [carbon dioxide] emitted from Arctic circle fires in June 2019 is larger than all of the CO2 released from Arctic circle fires in the same month from 2010 through to 2018 put together."In June alone, the WMO said, Arctic fires emitted 50 megatonnes of CO2, equal to Sweden's total annual emissions.
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| Libya transfers migrants rescued from year's worst shipwreck back to bombed detention centre Posted: 26 Jul 2019 11:40 AM PDT  Libyan authorities on Friday transferred dozens of migrants rescued from this year's worst Mediterranean shipwreck to a detention centre near Tripoli that was hit by an airstrike earlier this month, ignoring protests from the United Nations. The much-criticised move came as Libya's coastguard recovered scores of bodies in ongoing search operations, the day after up to 150 people, including women and children, were feared drowned when their boats capsized in the Mediterranean Sea. A top UN official described Thursday's shipwreck as "the worst Mediterranean tragedy" so far this year. The Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency in the Libyan capital said that up to 350 migrants were onboard the boats that capsized on Thursday off the town of Khoms, around 75 miles east of Tripoli. The migrants include nationals from Eritrea, Egypt, Sudan and Libya, the agency said. Libyan officials said more than 130 migrants have been rescued since Thursday. Those not hospitalised were transferred to different detention centres, including Tajoura, located near the front lines of the fighting between rival Libyan factions. One of the survivors, from Eritrea, said most of the migrants on his boat were women, he said, and most of them drowned. The Tajoura detention centre was hit by an airstrike on July 3 that killed more than 50 people and raised new concerns over the treatment of migrants in Libya. Charlie Yaxley, a UNHCR spokesman, objected on Thursday to transfers to Tajoura, saying, "this has to stop" and that the place should be closed. "Our joint-call to close Tajoura detention center does not seem to be heard. This is putting intentionally the life of these people at risk," Vincent Cochetel, the refugee agency's special envoy for the Central Mediterranean tweeted on Friday. The UN migration agency said later on Friday that the 84 migrants were turned back from the detention centre, and that they were instead being "released gradually" into the town of Tajoura. Amnesty International called on EU leaders to reverse their decision to halt migrant rescues in the Mediterranean. The rights group appealed to European nations to change "their approach to a humane one which saves lives and doesn't condemn those who survive to detention in Libya". The European Union has partnered with conflict-torn Libya to prevent migrants from making the maritime journey to Europe. Rights groups say those efforts have left migrants at the mercy of brutal armed groups or confined in squalid detention centres that lack adequate food and water.
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| Iran Fueling Fix Calms Brazil Exporters Reliant on Mideast Posted: 26 Jul 2019 11:03 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- A dispute over fueling Iranian ships stranded off the coast of Brazil is putting the spotlight on the South American agricultural giant's approach to the Middle East, a major buyer of Brazilian corn, sugar and poultry.President Jair Bolsonaro has shifted Brazil's traditionally neutral foreign policy position to be more aligned with the U.S. and Israel. One of his first announcements after winning elections last year was an intention to move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. While that irked Brazilian companies that depend on Middle East markets, events over the past few days intensified their unease.State-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA refused to refuel two Iranian ships for fear of U.S. sanctions, sparking threats from Iran to halt imports. While Petrobras, as the oil company is known, is now complying with a court order to proceed with fueling, trade concerns linger.Iran is the fourth-biggest importer of Brazilian agricultural goods, accounting for a third of all of the nation's corn shipments. The Middle East bought $7.2 billion, or 8.5%, of agriculture exports from Brazil last year."Having this issue solved is good news to us," Sergio Mendes, general director at the grain-export group Anec, said by telephone. "The vast majority of Brazil's grain production goes to Asia and the Middle East. Trade relations have nothing to do with politics."Brazil should try to reconnect with the region, said Ali Ahmad Saifi, executive director at CDIAL Halal, a company that accounts for about 60% of all the chicken that's certified in the country in accordance to Islamic law.President Bolsonaro is planning to visit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in October."Brazil has the opportunity to keep great relationships with everyone," Saifi said. "We don't need to import foreign problems."(Updates to add Qatar is confirmed on Brazil's visit to Middle East in October)\--With assistance from Sabrina Valle, Gerson Freitas Jr. and Samy Adghirni.To contact the reporter on this story: Tatiana Freitas in São Paulo at tfreitas4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Attwood at jattwood3@bloomberg.net, Millie MunshiFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Mexico says killing of Israelis linked to money laundering Posted: 26 Jul 2019 10:43 AM PDT |
| Has U.K.'s Johnson Set Preconditions for Resuming Brexit Talks? Posted: 26 Jul 2019 10:17 AM PDT ![Has U.K.'s Johnson Set Preconditions for Resuming Brexit Talks?]( "Has U.K.'s Johnson Set Preconditions for Resuming Brexit Talks?") (Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson has made clear he wants to renegotiate the Brexit deal secured by his predecessor, Theresa May. But has Britain's new prime minister made it a precondition for talks with the European Union?Johnson told French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in phone calls that he wants to reopen the withdrawal agreement with the EU and remove the backstop provision for the Irish border, which is hated by Brexiteers. After the EU rejected the demands, Johnson's spokesman, James Slack, suggested there's little point to talks unless the bloc accepts the U.K. position."Obviously the key point is the withdrawal agreement is not going to pass this Parliament, so that is going to mean reopening the withdrawal agreement," Slack told reporters on Friday. "We are very ready and will be energetic in beginning talking, but we're also clear-eyed about what needs to happen."Slack batted away questions about whether reopening negotiations on the withdrawal agreement and dropping the backstop amounted to U.K. preconditions. "We are ready to begin talking, but are clear what the basis for those discussions needs to be," he said. Asked if the two sides were trying to schedule talks, he said: "I don't have a date to point you toward."Johnson himself hasn't called his demands a precondition for talks, and a member of his team also said it wasn't the case. What's clear, though, is that there's no sign of rapprochement with the EU. The question is whether that will change as the Oct. 31 deadline draws nearer.The British prime minister "seems to have made a deliberate decision to set Britain on a collision course with the European Union and with Ireland," Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney said Friday. "Only he can answer the question as to why he is doing that."\--With assistance from Dara Doyle.To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas PennyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Pompeo says willing to go to Iran as he calls on UK to join naval force in Gulf Posted: 26 Jul 2019 10:11 AM PDT  The US secretary of state said on Friday he was willing to travel to Iran for talks, as reports emerged that the regime had test-fired a medium-range missile. Mike Pompeo, who has taken a hard line against Tehran as part of a US maximum-pressure policy, also challenged Boris Johnson to overturn his predecessor's decision not to join a US operation to protect ships from Iranian attacks. "Sure. If that's the call, I'd happily go there," he told Bloomberg. "I would welcome the chance to speak directly to the people." Tensions between Iran and the US have ratcheted up since last year, when President Donald Trump withdrew America from the nuclear deal, saying it was not strong enough. Mr Trump and Iranian leaders have both publicly said talks were possible, but the prospect for dialogue appeared to recede on Wednesday when the top military adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran would not negotiate with Washington under any circumstances. British Royal Navy's HMS Montrose, a Type 23 Frigate, performing turns during exercise "Marstrike 05", off the coast of Oman Credit: AFP As Mr Pompeo made his offer, it emerged that the regime had Wednesday night tested what appeared to be a medium-range ballistic missile, according to a US defence official quoted in US media. The Shahab-3 missile was launched from the southern coast of Iran and landed east of Tehran. It flew about 680 miles and stayed inside Iran for the entire flight. Missile launches are not a violation of the nuclear deal that Iran signed in 2015 with the US and other world powers, including the UK. President Trump, however, wants to see Tehran's missile programme curbed as part of a new deal he wants to hammer out with the Iranian regime. Mr Pompeo also called on Britain and other nations to join a maritime force to guard oil tankers sailing through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. Theresa May and her foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt rejected an offer from the US to join Operation Sentinel before leaving office, choosing instead to join a separate European protection force. The decision has faced criticism after the British tanker Stena Impero was seized by Iran, triggering questions about whether enough had been done to ensure protection. "Every country that has an interest in ensuring that those waterways are open and crude oil and other products can flow through the Strait of Hormuz needs to participate," Mr Pompeo said, adding that Washington had already asked Japan, France, Germany, South Korea, Australia and other nations. Mr Pompeo discussed Iran during a call on Thursday with his new UK counterpart, Dominic Raab, who has been appointed Foreign Secretary by Mr Johnson. It remains unclear whether a Johnson government will substantially change the approach to Iran adopted during Mrs May's premiership. A senior diplomat in Japan, Washington's key Asian ally, said that Tokyo was not in a position to decide if or how it could join any maritime force until the US provided a blueprint of how such an operation would work. Meanwhile, Iran and the UK are still locked in a stand-off over the fate of two impounded ships. However, Tehran on Friday released nine Indian crew members from a Panama-flagged tanker they seized on July 14 for allegedly smuggling Iranian fuel.
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| Ex-Host Krystal Ball: MSNBC’s Russia ‘Conspiracies’ Have Done ‘Immeasurable Harm’ to the Left Posted: 26 Jul 2019 09:46 AM PDT  A former longtime MSNBC anchor lashed out this week at her former employer over its coverage of the Russia investigation.In a Thursday segment on The Hill's online streaming service, Krystal Ball, the former host of MSNBC's now-cancelled midday show The Cycle, admonished the network for its incessant coverage of the Russia investigation. "MSNBC built segment after segment, show after show on building anticipation for a big reveal when we would learn the true depths of Trump's fealty and direct conspiracy with Putin," she said.She later argued that the network's left-leaning anchors and personalities have wasted their time making Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe the primary focus of MSNBC coverage over the past several years—in effect diverting attention away from policy issues like health care and wages. As Ball spoke, an over-the-shoulder graphic blared "Immeasurable Harm.""Consider this whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats chances at winning the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up," Ball declared."Trump really is the crook that we said all along," she continued, "but by trying to make this spectacular case, we set the bar unimaginably high and made Trump's actual corruption, broken promises, and casual cruelty seem ordinary by comparison."Elsewhere in the six-minute monologue, Ball accused MSNBC of cynically following the Russia story in pursuit of ratings, making journalistic compromises along the way.She directly criticized hosts like Rachel Maddow ("You've got some explaining to do," Ball said to her) and on-air analysts like Mimi Rocah (a Daily Beast contributor) for leading viewers to believe that there was a strong possibility that Trump and his family would be indicted. Ball also suggested that the "fevered speculation" of guests like New York columnist Jonathan Chait and former British MP Louise Mensch would have been more at home on conspiracy network Infowars."Russia conspiracy was great for ratings among the key demographic of empty nesters on the coasts with too much time on their hands," said Ball, who now hosts an inside-baseball streaming political talk show for The Hill.This is not the first time Ball has knocked her former employer.During a segment on her program last year, Ball criticized the cancellation of former host Ed Schultz's show following his death."I find it really ironic that they took this incredibly pro-working-class voice off the air right before the Trump era when obviously you had a lot of working class voters who didn't feel like they had a home in the Democratic party any more," she said.MSNBC declined to comment. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| New U.K. Prime Minister Johnson Faces Same Old Brexit Problems Posted: 26 Jul 2019 09:29 AM PDT ![New U.K. Prime Minister Johnson Faces Same Old Brexit Problems]( "New U.K. Prime Minister Johnson Faces Same Old Brexit Problems") (Bloomberg) -- Less than 24 hours after Boris Johnson walked into 10 Downing Street, some of his Brexiteer supporters were already worried he was going to betray them.One senior member of the European Research Group, a caucus of Tory MPs pushing for a hard Brexit, said he is concerned the new prime minister is adopting a "lipstick on a pig strategy'' -- trying to bring back the Brexit deal his predecessor negotiated with European Union with cosmetic changes to get it through Parliament. Brexiteers hate the agreement, which they argue keeps the U.K. too closely aligned to the bloc.Johnson has publicly ruled out that approach, and did so again on Thursday. He told the House of Commons -- which rejected Theresa May's deal three times -- that he'd demand significant changes from Brussels. Specifically, he wants to remove the Irish backstop, the provision designed to keep the Irish border open after Brexit, setting him on a collision course with the EU and increasing the risk that Britain leaves without a deal on Oct. 31.The prime minister told French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in phone calls he wants the negotiation on the withdrawal agreement reopened and the backstop removed, according to his office. Johnson's spokesman, James Slack, suggested there's little point to talks unless the EU accepts that position, though he stopped short of saying it is a precondition. The bloc has already rejected the demands.'Lipstick'Despite Johnson's insistence that May's deal is dead, at least one cabinet member privately advocates the "lipstick" tactic.The first public sign of trouble for Johnson came when Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the ERG, refused a government position on Thursday evening. The prime minister had invited him to return to the Brexit department, which he quit last year in protest at May's strategy."With regret, I have turned down a ministerial job,'' Baker said on Twitter, noting the position risked repeating his "experience of powerlessness'' after he realized the Brexit department had been sidelined by the prime minister. Though Baker said he has "total confidence'' Johnson will deliver Brexit by Oct. 31, he also signed off with a warning: "Disaster awaits otherwise.''Johnson's first actions in office have been seen by many as signaling a plan to pursue a no-deal Brexit, possibly holding an election first. They point to his appointment of hardline Brexit supporters Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Jacob Rees-Mogg to top jobs. Dominic Cummings, mastermind of the 2016 campaign to get Britain out of the EU, will help run his office.Economic HitThose who fear a no-deal departure argue that to leave the EU without any agreements risks economic damage, driving away investment, and short-term shortages of critical supplies in the U.K.It's also a potentially painful outcome for Ireland.The prime minister's comments so far on Brexit have been "unhelpful," Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Friday. "He seems to have made a deliberate decision to set Britain on a collision course with the EU and Ireland in relation to the Brexit negotiations. Only he can answer the question as to why he is doing that."But those in the ERG with doubts about Johnson interpret developments differently. Raab and Rees-Mogg, they note, did vote for May's deal in the end. They say that Patel -- who refused to back it -- might still prefer to compromise rather than resign from her prestigious home secretary post. As for Cummings, he marginalized ERG members from the 2016 Brexit campaign and has regularly criticized their arguments.Later Thursday, another ERG member, Mark Francois, fired a warning shot. "If there were any attempt to revive the withdrawal agreement, even without the backstop, the ERG would vote against it," he told the BBC's Newsnight.At the top of Baker's Twitter feed on Friday morning was a four-week-old post from Johnson's leadership campaign, stating that "the current Withdrawal Agreement is dead." Baker and his colleagues are determined to hold Johnson to it.(Updates with Johnson's spokesman in fourth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Dara Doyle.To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net;Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas PennyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| EU partners warn Johnson against Brexit 'provocations' Posted: 26 Jul 2019 09:29 AM PDT  Britain's European partners Friday warned Boris Johnson that his hardline Brexit stance was putting the UK on a "collision course" with the EU and called on the new premier to avoid "provocations". Johnson is planning meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the next few weeks, officials said Friday, as the British premier insists he will renegotiate the UK's divorce accord with the European Union. Macron extended the invitation to Johnson in a call late Thursday from his official summer vacation residence in the south of France, where he is expected to stay for the next three weeks, said an aide.
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| Will China Invade Hong Kong? Or Taiwan Instead? Posted: 26 Jul 2019 09:24 AM PDT  Bloomberg/GettyXi Jinping's choices on Hong Kong are all atrocious, so the Chinese ruler could just enlarge the problem and cause an incident elsewhere. An audacious act would not be out of character for Xi.For many, an invasion of Taiwan or some other belligerent act seems inconceivable, but the events of the last few weeks have been nothing short of extraordinary. Unfortunately, anything can happen now. Hong Kong Isn't Burning, but Its People Are on FireBeijing made headlines on Wednesday when Wu Qian, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman, called last weekend's protests in Hong Kong "absolutely intolerable" and suggested China might send in troops, pointing out that the Basic Law, Hong Kong's "mini constitution," allowed the Hong Kong government to request the assistance of the Chinese military. Since April, there have been large-scale protests in the territory, a special administrative region of the People's Republic. The demonstrations started over an extradition bill, sponsored by Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam. The bill would permit fugitives to be sent to, among other jurisdictions, mainland China. Last weekend, the number of demonstrators was significantly less than in June but the nature of the disturbances was of far greater concern for Beijing. The seventh straight weekend of protests saw young demonstrators deface the emblem of the People's Republic, hung on the side of the central government's liaison office, and spray paint graffiti on the building.Moreover, it was evident by Monday and Tuesday that many Hong Kongers supported—or at least tolerated—the vandalism directed against the central government.And if that were not bad enough, Beijing must have realized it could no longer rely on the Hong Kong police to maintain order. The police, for instance, on Sunday had allowed thugs, dressed in white shirts, to indiscriminately assault dozens of passengers in a Mass Transit Railway station in Yuen Long, in the New Territories, the northern part of Hong Kong. News of the impending attack had been spread by social media, so the failure of the police to prevent it was deeply troubling. In fact, the police had abandoned the site of the attack, allowing gang members, thought to be from the pro-Beijing Heung Yee Kuk association, to go on their violent spree. Many of the goons did not wear masks, suggesting they were acting without fear of the police.Wednesday, the Hong Kong government's Security Bureau said it did not need the help of the local garrison of the People's Liberation Army. Xi Jinping is not the type of leader to allow events to take their course in unfavorable directions, so it's unlikely he is content with the deteriorating situation in Hong Kong.Xi knows that people on the mainland do not sympathize with the Hong Kong protestors, but he is undoubtedly worried that those demonstrators, who forced a concession from Lam by "suspending" consideration of the extradition bill, will inspire mainland people to protest about their other grievances. On July 7, Hong Kong protestors congregated near both a mall and a high-speed rail station frequented by Chinese tourists. At about the same time, youthful protesters in Hong Kong used AirDrop to share protest posters written in the simplified characters used in the mainland, thereby targeted Chinese tourists.At about the same time, mainland citizens in Wuhan participated in large-scale protests. Hong Kong activists have linked the Wuhan and Hong Kong demonstrations in messages directed at mainland tourists.'Triad' Thugs Use Clubs to Punish Hong Kong's Pro-Democracy Protesters. But That's Not Gonna Stop Them.The concern of contagion is almost certainly why early this week Beijing went from trying to eradicate Hong Kong news in the mainland to showing images of the defacement of the central government emblem, an attempt to discredit the Hong Kong protesters.And Beijing attempted to stir up emotions. That suggests Xi does have one other option. If he feels the situation in Hong Kong is no-win for him—and given the trend of events how could it not be?—the Chinese leader could cause mischief abroad in hopes of creating internal unity. He did, after all, have Wu, the military spokesman, make unprovoked threats against Taiwan on Wednesday. "If anyone dares to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese military would not hesitate to go to war," he said (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-takes-aim-at-us-taiwan-in-new-military-blueprint/2019/07/24/38168b14-adbf-11e9-9411-a608f9d0c2d3_story.html?utm_term=.2aa761eb4dca).Apparently someone in the Pentagon is worried. The USS Antietam, a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, sailed through the Taiwan Strait right after the provocative Chinese Defense Ministry pronouncements on Hong Kong and Taiwan. Everyone needs to be concerned about what Xi does next.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| US officials: Iran test-launched a medium-range missile Posted: 26 Jul 2019 09:23 AM PDT  Iran test-launched a medium-range ballistic missile inside its borders, U.S. officials said Friday, defying Trump administration demands that it curtail the weapon program and demonstrating its intent to further push back against U.S. sanctions. The test came amid heightened tensions between Iran and the West, mainly over the safety of commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. A White House spokesman called the test launch an example of Iran "acting out" as a result of intense pressure from U.S. economic sanctions.
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| Trump and Boris Johnson agree to start free trade deal talks immediately after Brexit, Downing Street says Posted: 26 Jul 2019 09:10 AM PDT  Boris Johnson and Donald Trump have agreed to begin free trade talks as soon as the UK leaves the European Union, according to Downing Street.The two world leaders spoke during a call on Friday evening, in which Downing Street said the men discussed the "unparalleled" trade opportunities offered by Brexit."They agreed that Brexit offers an unparalleled opportunity to strengthen the economic partnership between the UK and United States," a Downing Street spokesperson said."The leaders both expressed their commitment to delivering an ambitious free trade agreement and to starting negotiations as soon as possible after the UK leaves the EU."They also spoke about current tensions with Iran, which represents Mr Johnson's first diplomatic challenge as prime minister.The spokesman said the pair discussed the need to "work together and with partners to address their [Iran's] destabilising behaviour in the Gulf".Downing Street claimed Mr Trump used the call to "congratulate" Mr Johnson on his new role.The spokesman added: "They discussed the important relationship between our countries and the president's successful state visit to the UK last month."They ended by looking forward to seeing each other at the G7 Summit in Biarritz next month."The news comes days after Mr Johnson officially assumed the role of prime minister, setting off a political bloodletting that saw 15 senior ministers in Theresa May's former cabinet resigning or being sacked.Standing outside of No 10 shortly after becoming prime minister, Mr Johnson denounced "the doubters, the doomsters, and the gloomsters" of Brexit, and pledged to move quickly to remove the country from the economic alliance with Europe, "no ifs or buts"."After three years of unfounded self-doubt, it is time to change the record," Mr Johnson said during a defiant and stinging rebuttal of Ms May's leadership, though one that did not mention his successor by name.He has pledged to pull the UK out of the EU by the 31 October.
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| Diplomatic Drawdown: Why America Has an Ineffective Department of State Posted: 26 Jul 2019 08:36 AM PDT  Earlier this year the Trump administration, while stoking an atmosphere of crisis with Iran, withdrew "nonemergency" personnel from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. It is unclear what specific development, if any, triggered this move. Insofar as the administration was contemplating a military attack on Iran and given the certainty that in response to any such attack Iran would strike back at U.S. interests, it may have been prudent to evacuate Americans from the neighboring state of Iraq. But skepticism is appropriate regarding this White House's interpretation of security hazards in that part of the world. During violent disturbances last September in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, some mortar rounds striking in the neighborhood of the U.S. consulate were enough for National Security Advisor John Bolton to tell the Pentagon to draw up plans to attack Iran. The consulate was unharmed—the shells fell harmlessly in a vacant lot. It was the Iranian consulate in Basra that was set afire during the same disturbances.
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| Libya Hit Haftar Forward Airbase After Receiving Turkish Drones Posted: 26 Jul 2019 08:18 AM PDT ![Libya Hit Haftar Forward Airbase After Receiving Turkish Drones]( "Libya Hit Haftar Forward Airbase After Receiving Turkish Drones") (Bloomberg) -- Libya's internationally-recognized government said it conducted airstrikes for the first time against the main forward airbase for eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar, destroying a hangar containing drones and a Russian-made military transport plane.The strike on the airbase in Jufra, Haftar's central Libyan staging ground for a three-month offensive on Tripoli, came days after the strongman's forces announced a renewed attempt to seize the capital in a battle that has stalled at the city's outskirts and drawn in increasing foreign intervention.The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord was not known to have aircraft capable of conducting precision nighttime strikes. It has improved its capabilities with the receipt of armed Turkish Bayraktar drones in recent weeks, according to three senior GNA officials, who asked not to be named because the weapons supplies aren't public. Libya has been under a United Nations arms embargo since 2011.Bayraktar, the drone company, is owned by the family of a son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Officials at the company declined to comment when reached by Bloomberg. Facing opposition criticism in parliament for alleged arms shipments to Libya, Emrullah Isler, Erdogan's envoy to the country, said earlier this month that Turkey supports the legitimate, UN-backed government in Tripoli, without elaborating.On the other side of the battle, Haftar's forces have been supported by U.A.E-owned and Chinese-made Wing Loong drones, according to two Western diplomats.The strike on the Jufra airbase destroyed "a hangar containing drones and an Ilyushin 76 transport plane used to supply the armed groups," the GNA military statement said, referring to Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army.Libya splintered in the aftermath of the NATO-backed overthrow of dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011. Haftar's eastern-based forces swept through the south earlier this year before setting their sights on the capital.To contact the reporter on this story: Samer Khalil Al-Atrush in Cairo at skhalilalatr@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Benjamin Harvey at bharvey11@bloomberg.net, Mark WilliamsFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| ‘Fox & Friends’ Hosts Laugh as Brian Kilmeade Says Trump Has ‘Policy of Underreacting’ Posted: 26 Jul 2019 08:15 AM PDT  Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade caused his fellow co-hosts to burst out laughing on Friday morning when he claimed that President Donald Trump has a "policy of underreacting" when it comes to foreign policy.At the top of Friday's broadcast of Trump's favorite morning show, the Fox & Friends crew quickly discussed the recent missile tests by North Korea, which come on the heels of the dictatorship sharing photos of Kim Jong Un inspecting what appears to be a large submarine. North Korea has called the tests a "solemn warning" to South Korean "warmongers."With the reclusive nation vowing to hold more missile tests as the United States attempts to hold more talks over denuclearization, Kilmeade wondered why America was the only country with "skin in the game," calling on other nations to ramp up pressure. Co-host Steve Doocy, meanwhile, tried to place a positive spin on the latest news. "This was more pressure stuff we have seen from both sides in the past," he stated. "What's interesting about this time is there is no belligerent to talk from North Korea towards the United States as we have seen repeatedly."Kilmeade, apparently forgetting about Trump's infamous "fire and fury" rant against North Korea or his recent assertion that he could wipe out Afghanistan in a week, praised the president's supposedly understated way of handing diplomacy."The president has this policy of underreacting," he said, immediately eliciting laughs and smiles from Doocy and co-host Ainsley Earhardt."That's news," Doocy deadpanned as Earhardt giggled."I know," Kilmeade reacted with a laugh, realizing how he had just described the famously thin-skinned commander-in-chief."Some things he overreacts and some things he underreacts," the pro-Trump host concluded as his colleagues chuckled.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| North Korean economy shrinks at fastest rate in 21 years under US sanctions and drought Posted: 26 Jul 2019 07:57 AM PDT  North Korea's economy shrank in 2018 by the most in 21 years after being hit by punishing sanctions to curb its nuclear weapons programme and after drought damaged its farming sector, South Korea's central bank revealed on Friday. The gloomy financial news followed a stark warning last week from the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies that rates of malnutrition and disease are increasing because of the poor harvest. The impact of natural and political crises will compound pressure on Kim Jong-un's regime to move forward with denuclearisation talks with the US and growing frustration about the worsening economy could help fuel an escalation of tensions in the absence of any progress. The bank's estimates showed that North Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 4.1% last year in real terms, the worst since 1997 and the second consecutive year of decline after a 3.5% fall in 2017. North Korea's international trade fell 48.4% in value in 2018 as toughened international sanctions cut exports by nearly 90%, the worst loss in exports since the central bank started publishing data nearly 30 years ago. "Sanctions that were added and strengthened in 2017 had a severe impact as drought hurt the farming sector, which accounts for more than 20% of output," Park Yung-hwan, said head of the Bank of Korea's National Accounts Coordination Team, according to Reuters. International food aid has been given to the Pyongyang Children's Foodstuff factory Credit: Eddie Mulholland/The Telegraph North Korea does not disclose any statistics on its economy, but the South Korean central bank has been publishing estimates since 1991. However, last November, Ri Gi Song, one of the country's leading economists admitted to the Telegraph that harsh US-led sanctions were slowing down the reclusive state's economic progress. "Frankly, if there were no sanctions our development pace would be much faster than now," said Mr Ri, a professor at the Pyongyang Institute of Social Sciences professor and government adviser. His admission offers some context to Pyongyang's growing impatience over the slow pace of negotiations with the US and South Korea over the dismantlement of its nuclear weapons facilities. North Korea has demanded an easing of sanctions before continuing with disarmament talks, but the US is unwilling to step back from its "maximum pressure" strategy unless Pyongyang moves first. The impasse led to the collapse of a summit between Kim and Donald Trump, the US president, in Hanoi in February, and although the two leaders met briefly on the border between South and North Korea in June, talks have not resumed since. Drought has also hit the farming sector Credit: Eddie Mulholland/The Telegraph The recent troubles have hit an economy already functioning badly because of inefficiencies and isolation, but the elites of the country's 25 million population are unlikely to feel the pinch. Last week a report by the Washington-based Centre for Advanced Studies (C4ADS) revealed that North Korea used a complex series of schemes to import at least $191 million worth of luxury goods from 2015 to 2017, sourced from "as many as 90 countries" in breach of United Nations sanctions. Meanwhile, the North's poor are bearing the brunt of the country's pariah status over its costly pursuit of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US. "We are already seeing the impacts of this drought on vulnerable people," Mohamed Babiker, head of the IFRC's office in North Korea, said in a statement last week. "Rates of malnutrition and water borne diseases like diarrhea and colitis are on the rise." South Korea's intelligence agency also briefed parliamentarians rainfall in North Korea has fallen by more than 30% this year from a year before, deepening its cash crunch. "North Korea is expected to exhaust its crop reserves earlier than usual this year," Lee Eun-jae, one of those briefed, later told reporters.
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| UK PM Johnson tells Germany's Merkel: The backstop has to go Posted: 26 Jul 2019 07:45 AM PDT ![UK PM Johnson tells Germany's Merkel: The backstop has to go]( "UK PM Johnson tells Germany's Merkel: The backstop has to go") British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday that the only way to reach a deal on Brexit is to abolish the so-called Irish backstop, a spokesman for Johnson said in a statement. "He said the only solution that would allow us to make progress on a deal is to abolish the backstop.
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| EU partners warn Johnson against Brexit provocation Posted: 26 Jul 2019 07:37 AM PDT  European partners Friday warned Boris Johnson that his hardline Brexit stance was putting the UK on a "collision course" with the EU and called on the new British premier to avoid "provocations". Johnson plans for meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the next few weeks, officials said Friday, as the British premier insists he will renegotiate the UK's divorce accord with the European Union. Macron, who has said he is happy to be considered the "bad guy" in the Brexit negotiations, is set to be a key figure during the tricky and potentially bad-tempered talks in the months ahead.
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| GBP/USD: Slide Below Yearly Lows Remains A Distinct Possibility Posted: 26 Jul 2019 07:26 AM PDT ![GBP/USD: Slide Below Yearly Lows Remains A Distinct Possibility]( "GBP/USD: Slide Below Yearly Lows Remains A Distinct Possibility") Persistent fears of a no-deal Brexit continue to cap any attempted up-move. The prevalent USD bullish sentiment further adds to the bearish pressure. The GBP/USD pair built on the previous session's rebound from weekly lows and gained some follow-through traction on Thursday, albeit once again failed to find acceptance above the key 1.2500 psychological mark.
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| Libya's coast guard recovers dozens of bodies of migrants Posted: 26 Jul 2019 07:25 AM PDT  Libya's coast guard recovered dozens of bodies of Europe-bound migrants who perished at sea as search operations continued Friday, a day after up to 150 people, including women and children, went missing and were feared drowned after their boats capsized in the Mediterranean Sea. Also Friday, Libyan authorities transferred dozens of migrants rescued from the disaster to a detention center near Tripoli that was hit by an airstrike earlier this month despite U.N. objections to such a move, the U.N. refugee agency said. The migrants include nationals from Eretria, Egypt, Sudan and Libya, the agency said.
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| No Oil? Then Don’t Use Debt to Grow Posted: 26 Jul 2019 06:07 AM PDT ![No Oil? Then Don't Use Debt to Grow]( "No Oil? Then Don't Use Debt to Grow") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- A decade after the international financial crisis and local political upheavals, many of the non-oil exporting nations in the Middle East and North Africa are undergoing a process of redefinition of how they are linked with the global economy. It is not going well. Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan are becoming more dependent on external borrowing than on foreign direct investments compared to the pre-2008 period. This is visible with declining ratios of FDIs to GDP, in contrast with increasing ratios of foreign debt to GDP and total exports. Growth through debt rather than investment will have a long-term negative and sustainable impact on the ability of these nations to develop their economies. They will have a hard time servicing their external obligations and will likely miss opportunities for attracting badly needed foreign investments for growth and employment generation.Foreign debt witnessed an unmistakable leap in all four countries. In Egypt, the ratio of external debt to GNI more than doubled from 17% in 2010 to 36% in 2017. The change was as pronounced in Tunisia, were the ratio jumped from 54% to 83%. In Morocco and Jordan, the ratios changed as well from 65% and 29.6%, to 47% and 75%. The ratio of external debt to total exports of goods, services and primary incomes was even more dramatic for all four countries. This is a proxy of the capacity of these economies to service their growing external obligations. Between 2010 and 2017, the ratio increased from 75%, 99.6%, 97.6% and 125% for Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan re2spectively, to 190%, 178%, 125% and 198% in 2017. All the figures exceed the 77% limit that, in the World Bank's reckoning, foreign debt has a negative impact on growth. Even though the overall levels of foreign indebtedness are not yet as high as the late 1980s and early 1990s, the rate at which external borrowing has been climbing is alarming. In contrast, the ratio of FDI net inflows to GDP has declined dramatically since the financial crisis of 2008.The 2008 worldwide financial meltdown and a contraction in global trade took a heavy toll on FDI in these economies. This was followed a couple of years later with the Arab Spring popular uprisings that unleashed longer-term dynamics of civil war, state collapse and mass population displacement.Egypt and Tunisia were directly affected by the uprisings even though neither witnessed state collapse or protracted civil strife. Morocco and Jordan were more stable internally—Morocco even managed to initially benefit from the turmoil in Tunisia and Egypt and attract more foreign investors fleeing uncertainty in the two neighboring countries. However, Morocco and Jordan were not immune to the broader regional and global contexts. In the case of Morocco, the international economic slowdown and the recession in the Eurozone exacerbated many of the country's structural financial and economic weaknesses. The Jordanian economy was hit by the collapse of oil prices—in the presence of strong rentier links to the oil-rich Arab states—and the security and political hazards tied to the civil wars in Syria and Iraq. The relative political stabilization in all four countries as of 2014/2015 did not allow them much room for full-fledged recovery due to the global economic slowdown. This made it harder for all of them to achieve export-led growth and attract FDI, leaving them with foreign borrowing as the only viable option. Foreign debt accounts for much of the apparent recovery, as expressed in growth rates. How to fix this? In the current global climate, it may be too much to count on expanding exports or more FDI. International capital markets are unstable and global trade is contracting. Governments should instead target local investment in brick-and-mortar sectors that can deliver real growth, create jobs and possibly reduce the dependency on some imports. These countries should also make better use of the net inflows of capital they have received for years in the form of remittances. Instead of channeling them into non-tradable sectors like real-estate, as has been often the case, they should be used to finance investment in more productive sectors that could eventually improve chronic balance of payments problems. The governments of these countries should also work to upgrade regional linkages that have existed within the Arab world for decades. These ties have tended to be informal rather than institutional, and confined to flows of labor and capital rather than trade in goods and services. There are already efforts to tighten political ties with the Arab oil-rich nations, manifested in the formation of a regional block against Iran. These should be accompanied by trade-oriented regional integration, opening markets in oil-rich countries. There might be room also for adding a regional dimension to plans for industrial diversification by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, by coordinating flows of investment and technology and skill transfers in sectors like petrochemicals and hi-tech services. Such measures would generate growth and employment for poorer allies and cement regional geopolitical arrangements.(Corrects debt ratios for Morocco and Jordan in the fourth paragraph.)To contact the author of this story: Amr Adly at amradly82@gmail.comTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Bobby Ghosh at aghosh73@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Amr Adly is an assistant professor at the American University in Cairo. He is the author of "State Reform and Development in the Middle East."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Cyprus court frees 5 Israelis, keeps 7 in hotel rape probe Posted: 26 Jul 2019 06:04 AM PDT  A Cyprus court has extended the detention of seven Israeli teenagers out of the 12 who were arrested as suspects in the rape of a 19-year-old British woman. The court ordered the suspects on Friday to remain in police custody for another six days to give investigators time to finish looking into the woman's reported rape at a hotel in the resort town of Ayia Napa. Defense lawyer Nir Yaslovitzh says the other five suspects were released from custody on Thursday and have returned to Israel.
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| Bolsonaro Can’t Cry Fake News on the Amazon Posted: 26 Jul 2019 06:00 AM PDT ![Bolsonaro Can't Cry Fake News on the Amazon]( "Bolsonaro Can't Cry Fake News on the Amazon") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Women, homosexuals, northeasteners—scientists. The list of constituencies slighted by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has just grown longer.His latest target: The National Institute for Space Research, known as INPE, which recently warned that forest destruction in the Amazon basin had spiked. Bolsonaro cast doubt on satellite images pointing to a 68% increase in rain-forest felling in the first two weeks of July compared to the same period a year ago, essentially dismissing the numbers as fake science, and suggested that INPE director Ricardo Galvao was in league with nongovernmental organizations.Galvao hit back, slamming Bolsonaro for tarring Brazilian science and comparing his statements to "the joke of a 14-year-old unbefitting a president." That's hardly surprising for Brazil's offender-in-chief, whose partisan homies delight in his every off-color quip and ad hominem assault. Yet by dissing INPE, Bolsonaro inadvertently shone a welcome spotlight on the country's signature geographical research academy, and by extension the entire Brazilian scientific community toiling to rescue the Amazon.Brazil, perhaps justifiably, is known for its heavy environmental footprint, starting with the razing of the world's largest tropical rain forest. What's less visible and remains mostly unsung is the country's prowess in tracking forest destruction and converting the data into crucial policy tools for conservation and environmental law keeping.Over the last three decades, Brazil has become the benchmark for monitoring land-use change. Culling images captured by international satellites, teams of analysts at INPE produce daily alerts of hot spots (flagging real-time slash-and-burn farming, for example) in the rain forest. A separate program plots change in forest cover by comparing snapshots every 15 to 20 days, the time it takes for the orbiting satellite to return to the same position.That data is uploaded to the internet and sent to federal and regional environmental authorities, who crosscheck with rural property maps. In this way, officials can see who is cutting down forests, determine if the felling is illegal and dispatch inspectors or environmental police to trouble spots. Anyone can access the database and so hold authorities to account. Some 95% of the system's early warnings flag actual forest destruction, former national forest service director Tasso Azevedo told me.INPE's monitoring tools helped Brazil generate the first comprehensive deforestation maps in the tropics. Its stream of images and forest cover maps feeds geographical data bases and has inspired at least 10 other climate research initiatives across the globe, from Japan's Forest Early Warning System in the Tropics to the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discovery laboratory. "Other countries have adopted pieces of the Brazilian program, but no one has a system as complete," said Azevedo, who now coordinates the climate change think tank Mapbiomas. "That's turned Brazil into one of the most monitored ecosystems in the world." One of the ironies of the Bolsonaro imbroglio is that INPE helped boot up a new generation of earth-monitoring tools, enhanced by cheaper and more powerful satellites, by which scientists and citizens can easily cross-check their findings and eliminate false positives. "In the days of multiple remote sensing monitoring systems, the INPE conclusion will be easily confirmed by independent sources," longtime Amazon scholar Tom Lovejoy, senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation, told me.Think tanks such as Mapbiomas and the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon) leverage and then refine INPE data to zoom in on Amazonian hot spots, issuing regular bulletins for local government and civic groups. Azevedo is bringing Brazil's forest monitoring tools to Indonesia, Argentina and Paraguay.Contrary to the partisan cant in Brasilia, this arrangement was not the work of tree-huggers or academics. Rather, it dates to the days of military government, when the ruling generals saw occupying the Amazon basin and its trove of gold, iron ore, timber and arable soils as a keystone to Brazilian manifest destiny. So as farmers, ranchers, miners and road-builders pushed deeper into the South American tropical frontier, scientists were close on their heel and tracking their progress through images captured from orbiting satellites.Another irony for a government with a soft spot for all things military: the armed forces' frontier zeal gave rise to the defense ministry's own satellite monitoring program, which has consistently confirmed INPE's findings of rising deforestation.The forest watch grew more urgent in the late 1980s and 1990s, as the rush to the Amazon frontier brought havoc and lawlessness and collided with the rising global green agenda. Even as Brazilians trampled the rain forest, the scientists refined their watch. Crunching INPE's numbers, rain-forest watchdogs can now pinpoint destruction on patches no larger than half a football pitch.Such precision helped the authorities flag and catch violators. And better policing, along with protecting indigenous lands, expanding nature preserves and binding soy farmers to promises not to clear cut forest to sow their fields, contributed to Brazil's sharp reduction in deforestation from 2004 to 2012.The historic decline allowed Brazil to briefly shed its reputation of environmental villain by beating its international commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 2020. Yet suddenly, under Bolsonaro, to whom such safeguards and science are speed bumps to progress, those gains are now in jeopardy.The problem is not just obscurantism, but the self-harm that science denial can inflict on Brazil and beyond. "Studies show that the Amazon forest stores more carbon than the world's reserves of fossil fuels," Imazon senior researcher Adalberto Verissimo told me. "If we drop our guard and allow the rain forest carbon to empty into the atmosphere, the whole planet pays the price, including Brazil."There's still time for Brazil to swerve from danger. Professionals in Brasilia convinced Bolsonaro to drop his campaign cant against China, so preserving relations with the country's largest trade partner, and dissuaded foreign policy ideologues from ditching Brazil's commitments to global governance. Reformers in congress salvaged pension reform from government dithering. So, too, cooler heads can still prevail in the Amazon by promoting good environmental stewardship. "Brazil has shown it can produce soybeans, iron ore and sugar cane for ethanol and still control deforestation and keep carbon emissions low," Verissimo said. "Markets want goods that don't trash the environment." Look no further than the newly inked agreement between the South American common market Mercosur and the European Union, which commits Brazil to containing deforestation.Brazil needs science to show how to conserve the environment, not to look the other way.To contact the author of this story: Mac Margolis at mmargolis14@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for Newsweek and is the author of "The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Bolsonaro Can’t Cry Fake News on the Amazon Posted: 26 Jul 2019 06:00 AM PDT ![Bolsonaro Can't Cry Fake News on the Amazon]( "Bolsonaro Can't Cry Fake News on the Amazon") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Women, homosexuals, northeasteners—scientists. The list of constituencies slighted by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has just grown longer.His latest target: The National Institute for Space Research, known as INPE, which recently warned that forest destruction in the Amazon basin had spiked. Bolsonaro cast doubt on satellite images pointing to a 68% increase in rain-forest felling in the first two weeks of July compared to the same period a year ago, essentially dismissing the numbers as fake science, and suggested that INPE director Ricardo Galvao was in league with nongovernmental organizations.Galvao hit back, slamming Bolsonaro for tarring Brazilian science and comparing his statements to "the joke of a 14-year-old unbefitting a president." That's hardly surprising for Brazil's offender-in-chief, whose partisan homies delight in his every off-color quip and ad hominem assault. Yet by dissing INPE, Bolsonaro inadvertently shone a welcome spotlight on the country's signature geographical research academy, and by extension the entire Brazilian scientific community toiling to rescue the Amazon.Brazil, perhaps justifiably, is known for its heavy environmental footprint, starting with the razing of the world's largest tropical rain forest. What's less visible and remains mostly unsung is the country's prowess in tracking forest destruction and converting the data into crucial policy tools for conservation and environmental law keeping.Over the last three decades, Brazil has become the benchmark for monitoring land-use change. Culling images captured by international satellites, teams of analysts at INPE produce daily alerts of hot spots (flagging real-time slash-and-burn farming, for example) in the rain forest. A separate program plots change in forest cover by comparing snapshots every 15 to 20 days, the time it takes for the orbiting satellite to return to the same position.That data is uploaded to the internet and sent to federal and regional environmental authorities, who crosscheck with rural property maps. In this way, officials can see who is cutting down forests, determine if the felling is illegal and dispatch inspectors or environmental police to trouble spots. Anyone can access the database and so hold authorities to account. Some 95% of the system's early warnings flag actual forest destruction, former national forest service director Tasso Azevedo told me.INPE's monitoring tools helped Brazil generate the first comprehensive deforestation maps in the tropics. Its stream of images and forest cover maps feeds geographical data bases and has inspired at least 10 other climate research initiatives across the globe, from Japan's Forest Early Warning System in the Tropics to the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discovery laboratory. "Other countries have adopted pieces of the Brazilian program, but no one has a system as complete," said Azevedo, who now coordinates the climate change think tank Mapbiomas. "That's turned Brazil into one of the most monitored ecosystems in the world." One of the ironies of the Bolsonaro imbroglio is that INPE helped boot up a new generation of earth-monitoring tools, enhanced by cheaper and more powerful satellites, by which scientists and citizens can easily cross-check their findings and eliminate false positives. "In the days of multiple remote sensing monitoring systems, the INPE conclusion will be easily confirmed by independent sources," longtime Amazon scholar Tom Lovejoy, senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation, told me.Think tanks such as Mapbiomas and the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon) leverage and then refine INPE data to zoom in on Amazonian hot spots, issuing regular bulletins for local government and civic groups. Azevedo is bringing Brazil's forest monitoring tools to Indonesia, Argentina and Paraguay.Contrary to the partisan cant in Brasilia, this arrangement was not the work of tree-huggers or academics. Rather, it dates to the days of military government, when the ruling generals saw occupying the Amazon basin and its trove of gold, iron ore, timber and arable soils as a keystone to Brazilian manifest destiny. So as farmers, ranchers, miners and road-builders pushed deeper into the South American tropical frontier, scientists were close on their heel and tracking their progress through images captured from orbiting satellites.Another irony for a government with a soft spot for all things military: the armed forces' frontier zeal gave rise to the defense ministry's own satellite monitoring program, which has consistently confirmed INPE's findings of rising deforestation.The forest watch grew more urgent in the late 1980s and 1990s, as the rush to the Amazon frontier brought havoc and lawlessness and collided with the rising global green agenda. Even as Brazilians trampled the rain forest, the scientists refined their watch. Crunching INPE's numbers, rain-forest watchdogs can now pinpoint destruction on patches no larger than half a football pitch.Such precision helped the authorities flag and catch violators. And better policing, along with protecting indigenous lands, expanding nature preserves and binding soy farmers to promises not to clear cut forest to sow their fields, contributed to Brazil's sharp reduction in deforestation from 2004 to 2012.The historic decline allowed Brazil to briefly shed its reputation of environmental villain by beating its international commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 2020. Yet suddenly, under Bolsonaro, to whom such safeguards and science are speed bumps to progress, those gains are now in jeopardy.The problem is not just obscurantism, but the self-harm that science denial can inflict on Brazil and beyond. "Studies show that the Amazon forest stores more carbon than the world's reserves of fossil fuels," Imazon senior researcher Adalberto Verissimo told me. "If we drop our guard and allow the rain forest carbon to empty into the atmosphere, the whole planet pays the price, including Brazil."There's still time for Brazil to swerve from danger. Professionals in Brasilia convinced Bolsonaro to drop his campaign cant against China, so preserving relations with the country's largest trade partner, and dissuaded foreign policy ideologues from ditching Brazil's commitments to global governance. Reformers in congress salvaged pension reform from government dithering. So, too, cooler heads can still prevail in the Amazon by promoting good environmental stewardship. "Brazil has shown it can produce soybeans, iron ore and sugar cane for ethanol and still control deforestation and keep carbon emissions low," Verissimo said. "Markets want goods that don't trash the environment." Look no further than the newly inked agreement between the South American common market Mercosur and the European Union, which commits Brazil to containing deforestation.Brazil needs science to show how to conserve the environment, not to look the other way.To contact the author of this story: Mac Margolis at mmargolis14@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for Newsweek and is the author of "The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| The Seas Are Unsafe in a Transactional World Posted: 26 Jul 2019 04:59 AM PDT ![The Seas Are Unsafe in a Transactional World]( "The Seas Are Unsafe in a Transactional World") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The seizure of a number of ships in recent months tells an uncomfortable story. In today's multi-polar world, countries can grab other nations' vessels and get away with it.It's not just Iran's detention of the U.K.-flagged Stena Impero in retaliation for the seizure of one its own tankers by Britain. In recent months, other incidents have occurred that had nothing to do with smuggling or fishing disputes, the standard reasons for vessels to be stopped and held by governments. These detentions are geopolitical in nature.In November, Russia grabbed three small Ukrainian naval vessels that tried to break through its de facto blockade of the Kerch Strait, a barrier intended to defend an expensive bridge Moscow has built to annexed Crimea. It continues to hold the Berdyansk, Nikopol and Yeni Kapu and their crews – despite an order from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to release them. Moscow disputes the tribunal's jurisdiction and maintains that the vessels crossed the border illegally.On Thursday, Ukraine retaliated by seizing the Nika Spirit, a Russian oil products tanker. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the same vessel was used to block the three ships' passage under the Crimea bridge.Then there's the seizure of the North Korean bulk carrier Wise Honest by the U.S. in May, the first ever over alleged violations of international sanctions on the dictatorship.Kim Jong Un's regime hasn't retaliated because it wants to get the Wise Honest back rather than escalate the row. The cargo ship is North Korea's second biggest, and losing it is a major blow to the country's shaky economy.Meanwhile, there has been talk in the U.S. about trading the Wise Honest for USS Pueblo, the spy ship North Korea captured in 1968. Its crew was returned to the U.S. after 11 months in captivity; some of it are now pushing for the swap. And last week, a U.S. federal court approved the Wise Honest's sale to pay compensation to the family of American student Otto Warmbier, who died after being imprisoned in North Korea. These ship seizures all have something in common: Military or diplomatic advantages that mean one side feels it can act with impunity.Obviously, Iran could do nothing to prevent the U.K. from grabbing the Grace 1 near Gibraltar. But Britain, too, simply didn't have the naval power in the Persian Gulf to stop Iran from trying to take one its ships. Its depleted navy has a single frigate in the region, which cannot be everywhere at the same time. The U.S. theoretically, has the resources to stop Iran from hunting British ships, but has chosen not to interfere.Ukraine lacks the naval power to stop Russia from claiming the Kerch Strait as its own, just as it lacks the military clout to take back Crimea. While Western countries have loudly demanded that Russia free the Ukrainian ships and sailors, there's nothing they can do to force Moscow to comply without creating an unnecessary escalation and perhaps harming Ukraine.But then, Russia, for its part, can't start an all-out war with Ukraine over a tanker built in 1989. The costs would clearly outweigh the benefits; besides, just to be on the safe side, Ukraine has let the crew go after treating it with the utmost politeness. Russia only threatened "consequences" if its sailors are held hostage. In the U.S.–North Korea case, if the Wise Honest is sold for the benefit of Otto Warmbier's family, Kim's regime conceivably could strike back. If that were to happen, the U.S.'s options would be limited since North Korea is a nuclear power now.International rules, such as multilateral sanctions or the Law of the Sea, are nothing without reliable enforcement. But these seizures reveal unsteady balances that make enforcement difficult at best. Rogue actors, such as Iran, North Korea and the Putin regime in Russia, or merely opportunistic ones, as in the cases of Ukraine and, yes, Trump's U.S., can grab others' property and people, too, in order to set up trades and bolster their weak diplomatic positions. Exchanges of ships and hostages are too distasteful and too fraught with consequences to contemplate, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Bobby Ghosh recently wrote in reference to the Iran-U.K. situation. I would argue, however, that they may be necessary where captured crews are involved; Ukraine, for example would be entirely justified in finding Russian prisoners to trade for its sailors. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's reluctance to accept anything but their unconditional release can only prolong their suffering. In the Iran-U.K. case, the sailors aren't nationals of the two countries involved, and they shouldn't be subject to any horse-trading. Both sides should just let them go home. In the U.S.-North Korea dispute, the Wise Honest's crew wasn't held.When it comes to the hardware, at least two swaps – between the U.S. and North Korea and between Ukraine and Russia – would likely create win-win situations for all sides without creating potential for any further tit-for-tat seizures. But within a broader global context, they would send the wrong signal: That the global order is a free-for-all, in which the only solutions are transactional rather than dictated by universally accepted rules.In any case, the shipping industry should take note: Without adequate protection, ships can easily turn into geopolitical chips when they sail into waters where their countries' adversaries can use force with relative impunity.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Hong Kong Protests Become a Global Problem Posted: 26 Jul 2019 04:57 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Tensions between Hong Kong and the government in Beijing are increasingly spilling outside China's borders.China's foreign ministry this week accused the U.S. of being a "black hand" behind protests that have rocked Hong Kong since early June, while Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urged Beijing to "do the right thing." An encounter at an Australian university between supporters and critics of the Hong Kong demonstrators ended with punches being thrown.With no end to the protests in sight -- hundreds of people staged a sit-in at Asia's busiest airport Friday -- the dispute over Hong Kong's future risks dragging in parties from all over the world. That could include diplomats, tourists, universities and multinational businesses caught up in the territory's tinderbox political climate.For the Trump administration and the Communist Party in Beijing, the issue has become one of many flash points ranging from trade to technological dominance to corporate espionage. The debate over Hong Kong is getting more heated, just as U.S. negotiators prepare to restart trade talks next week in Shanghai.There are "signs of foreign forces behind the protests," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters Tuesday in Beijing. "I wonder if these U.S. officials can truthfully answer to the world the role the U.S. has played in recent events in Hong Kong."The accusation of meddling was rebutted by Harvey Sernovitz, a spokesman for the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong."This is a ridiculous statement," he said on Wednesday. "The ongoing demonstrations in Hong Kong reflect the sentiment of the people of Hong Kong and their broad concerns about the erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy."Still, Donald Trump has indicated he does not want the Hong Kong protests to interfere with the broader relationship with China, particularly his personal rapport with President Xi Jinping. Trump has said several times in recent months that Hong Kong's affairs are a matter for Beijing.Earlier this week he said Xi had "acted responsibly, very responsibly -- they've been out there protesting for a long time." He told reporters at the White House he hoped Xi would "do the right thing," adding that China could stop the protests "if they wanted."Pompeo, who has slammed China in recent months for alleged abuses against the Uighur Islamic minority population of Xinjiang, urged all sides to avoid violence."We hope that the protests will remain peaceful," Pompeo told Bloomberg Television Thursday.At the University of Queensland in Brisbane on Wednesday, rival groups faced off over the situation in Hong Kong, with one side singing pro-China songs and the other chanting "free Hong Kong." Footage posted on Twitter showed protesters hurling verbal abuse as police tried to restore calm, while two people exchanged punches.The Chinese consulate in Brisbane issued a statement Thursday praising students for staging "a voluntary patriotic rally in response to two consecutive anti-China and secessionist protests held at the university campus," according to a website run by the Communist Party's Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid.Further ProtestsThe Hong Kong protests have also resonated in Taiwan, a democratically-run island that China considers a province. President Tsai Ing-wen said last month that people in Hong Kong people have the right to pursue their way of life and system they want.For now, differences of opinion over Hong Kong haven't prevented China from cooperating with its critics on other issues.Boris Johnson, the U.K.'s new prime minister, told Phoenix Television his country was "very pro China." Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told Johnson in a congratulatory letter that he's willing to expand bilateral cooperation in all sectors and push for steady development in a "golden era" of ties, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.The warm words came less than a month after officials openly accused each other of behaving inappropriately toward Hong Kong, which was a British colony before its handover to China in 1997.More opportunities for tensions to escalate could come this weekend. Protest groups are seeking to hold a demonstration on Saturday in the same area where unidentified groups of men attacked people at a train station in the northwestern suburb of Yuen Long on July 21. Police have withheld approval for the protest, but organizers insist they'll go ahead.(Updates with Trump comments, Taiwan context.)To contact the reporter on this story: Enda Curran in Hong Kong at ecurran8@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tracy Alloway at talloway@bloomberg.net, Michael PattersonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Saudi Arabia suspends visas to people from Congo over Ebola Posted: 26 Jul 2019 04:55 AM PDT ![Saudi Arabia suspends visas to people from Congo over Ebola]( "Saudi Arabia suspends visas to people from Congo over Ebola") Saudi Arabia has stopped issuing visas to people from Congo while citing the Ebola outbreak there, even as the World Health Organization recommends against travel restrictions. Some Muslims in Congo had planned to take part in the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia next month. A letter from the Saudi foreign ministry to Congo's embassy in Riyadh, obtained by The Associated Press and dated Wednesday, says the kingdom made the decision to protect pilgrims and others.
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| Russia Cracks Down on Opposition Amid Tensions Ahead of Protests Posted: 26 Jul 2019 04:14 AM PDT ![Russia Cracks Down on Opposition Amid Tensions Ahead of Protests]( "Russia Cracks Down on Opposition Amid Tensions Ahead of Protests") (Bloomberg) -- Russian authorities summoned opposition Moscow city council candidates for questioning after a series of raids on the homes of activists ahead of planned protests in the capital on Saturday.The crackdown signals a reversal of a low-key approach adopted by the Kremlin toward opposition actions in recent months. It follows a 30-day jail sentence handed to opposition leader Alexey Navalny on Wednesday for urging followers to join the unauthorized protest outside Moscow city hall against the exclusion of dozens of opposition candidates from September's elections.Lyubov Sobol, who's been on hunger strike for two weeks over the rejection of her candidacy, said on Twitter Friday that the Investigative Committee had called her in without explanation. Security guards carried her out of Moscow's election commission building on the couch she was sitting on late Thursday after she refused to leave during a protest.Dmitry Gudkov, another opposition candidate denied registration for the elections, said that he also had been summoned Friday by a detective who "promises me a surprise."Investigations have been opened against 15 organizers of Saturday's protest after they ignored warnings that it lacked official approval, Moscow city prosecutor's office said on its website. Police issued a warning to the public not to attend the event, saying they'll take "all necessary measures" to maintain order."This open and shameless attempt by the Russian authorities to intimidate the opposition" must end, Amnesty International's Oleg Kozlovsky said in a statement. "It is outrageous that the Russian authorities feel so emboldened in preventing opposition voices from being heard."More than 20,000 people attended an authorized protest in the capital last Saturday. With President Vladmir Putin's approval rating at the lowest since 2013 after five years of falling living standards, the authorities have this year made several concessions to mass movements across the country.Protesters succeeded in overturning plans to build a church in a popular downtown park in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. When widespread outrage erupted last month over the arrest of a Moscow investigative journalist on trumped-up drug charges, the Interior Ministry ordered police to drop the case and dismissed several officers.To contact the reporter on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net, Scott Rose, Tony HalpinFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Turkey determined to destroy 'terror corridor' in Syria Posted: 26 Jul 2019 04:09 AM PDT  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday his country is determined to destroy "to pieces" what he called a "terror corridor" in northern Syrian — regardless of whether or not Turkey and the United States agree on the establishment of a safe zone. Officials from the U.S. and Turkey have been holding talks for a safe zone east of the river Euphrates to address Turkey's security concerns stemming from the presence of Kurdish fighters in the region. Turkey views Kurdish fighters — who have battled the Islamic State group alongside U.S. forces — as terrorists, allied with a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.
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| Vote Corbyn, Stop Brexit: How Labour Plans to Take On Johnson Posted: 26 Jul 2019 04:07 AM PDT ![Vote Corbyn, Stop Brexit: How Labour Plans to Take On Johnson]( "Vote Corbyn, Stop Brexit: How Labour Plans to Take On Johnson") (Bloomberg) -- Top officials in Britain's main opposition Labour Party are preparing a dramatic policy to campaign to reverse the 2016 Brexit vote and keep the U.K. inside the European Union, if a snap election is held in the months ahead.Labour's manifesto for an election is being drafted already and is likely to promise another referendum on EU membership with the party campaigning for remain, people familiar with the matter said. The party plans a summer-long campaign against new Prime Minister Boris Johnson to capitalize on public fears over the impact the no-deal Brexit he's threatening would have on jobs and state-run services such as health care.While it's yet to be agreed by Labour's ruling authorities, the pledge to remain would be rolled out if Johnson is forced into an emergency poll because he can't get his Brexit plan through a deadlocked Parliament, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential matters.PolarizationTurning Labour into the anti-Brexit party would complete the polarization of U.K. politics and the fact it is on the cards highlights how unstable Britain's political situation is. The prospect of an election -- and then a second Brexit referendum -- leaves businesses facing many more months or even years of uncertainty.Three years after the U.K. narrowly voted to leave the EU in a referendum, the country is no closer to reaching a negotiated divorce settlement that's acceptable to both its own Parliament and the bloc.As time runs out before the Oct. 31 deadline for exiting the bloc, Johnson is hardening the government's position and putting the country on a war footing for a no-deal rupture.The new prime minister has packed his cabinet and top team with leading pro-Brexit campaigners and fired moderate ministers who oppose leaving the bloc without an agreement, because they fear the economic damage that would follow.Yet with a majority in Parliament of just two, Johnson faces a huge battle to get any exit strategy he puts forward through a vote in the House of Commons. His predecessor Theresa May tried and failed three times to get her deal passed and was ultimately forced to resign.Early ElectionParliamentary stalemate could force the U.K. into an early election, potentially this fall, one of the people said. The next scheduled vote is in 2022.Labour's manifesto position is not yet certain, but party officials now believe Johnson's stance gives them a huge opportunity to cash in on public fears over the impacts of a messy break from the EU. The party's proposed new stance will need to be approved by party leader Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet team, and other senior officials.Corbyn plans to use the summer to launch a major assault on Johnson over his threat of a no-deal Brexit, one of the people said. That's because the party's private polling shows a large sector of voters fear Johnson will recklessly pursue that outcome before potentially putting the U.K.'s National Health Service up for sale in a hasty trade deal with the U.S.Johnson has promised he will never open the state-run, free NHS up to US companies but Corbyn used the idea to attack him when the pair clashed face-to-face for the first time in Parliament on Thursday.U.S. Trade DealCorbyn asked Johnson "to rule out the NHS being part of any trade deal" with Donald Trump's administration, warning of fears that the U.K. would become a "vassal state to Trump's America."Until now, Labour has been wary of backing remain because of the risk of alienating pro-Brexit voters in its traditional heartlands in northern and central England. But recent party research suggest the losses would be far fewer than previously feared, according to one person involved in the process.Labour has more to gain from cashing in on the fears of moderate voters in the center-ground over Johnson's hardline stance towards leaving without a deal, the person said.In Parliament on Thursday, Corbyn repeated Labour's existing Brexit policy -- to oppose any deal Johnson's Tory government puts forward and to campaign for remain if Johnson calls another referendum on a deal, or a no-deal split. "No deal means no steel, no car industry, food prices rising dramatically and huge job losses," Corbyn said.To contact the reporters on this story: Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.net;Emma Ross-Thomas in London at erossthomas@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Alex Morales, Andrew AtkinsonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| No-deal Brexit threatens UK car production, industry warns PM Johnson Posted: 26 Jul 2019 04:06 AM PDT ![No-deal Brexit threatens UK car production, industry warns PM Johnson]( "No-deal Brexit threatens UK car production, industry warns PM Johnson") A no-deal Brexit is an existential threat to the British car industry and would risk output, a British car industry body warned new Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday. The Chief Executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) Mike Hawes wrote to Johnson on Friday. "We are highly integrated with Europe and a no-deal Brexit would result in huge tariff costs and disruption that would threaten production, as well as further undermining international investors' confidence in the UK," Hawes said in the letter.
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| Hong Kong Protesters Bring Their Fight to the City’s Airport Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:54 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Hundreds of protesters staged a sit-in at Hong Kong's international airport Friday, the first of three days of demonstrations against the city's China-backed government after clashes last weekend.Swarms of people wearing the black shirts favored by protesters sat on the ground of Terminal 1's arrivals hall, holding signs and chanting "Free Hong Kong! Free Hong Kong!" and other slogans as crowds watched. Cathay Pacific Airlines Ltd.'s flight attendants' union encouraged aviation industry staff to participate and said it would set up a specific area for its members. As of 6 p.m. there were no major service disruptions.Aviation workers passed around a petition to the government protesting tear gas and street fighting that rocked parts of the city Sunday. Staff from the airport authority, various airlines, restaurants and shops lined up to sign it. Protesters greeted arriving passengers with signs reading "Final Destination Hong Kong to Freedom" and "Welcome to Hong Kong, a city run by police & gangsters."The protest was the first in a series as the former British colony enters its eighth-straight weekend of unrest sparked by now-suspended legislation that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. The movement has swelled into a wider anti-government campaign that includes demands for Chief Executive Carrie Lam's resignation and an inquiry into excessive use of force against protesters.The protest at Asia's busiest international airport underscores the economic risk of continued unrest, with local retailers bracing for a single-to-double-digit drop sales as demonstrations keep tourists out of shops. In recent weeks, the protests have spilled over from government districts to malls and railway stations, impacting more ordinary residents.The protesters, which have continued despite government apologies and promises not to pass the extradition bill, have rallied around the cause of demonstrators and bystanders attacked by stick-wielding mobs Sunday in the northwestern suburb of Yuen Long. Many vowed to return to the area for a rally against the violence Saturday, even though police had withheld permission citing fears of more clashes."The protest is a way to show that Hong Kong people have had enough of this and hope the government will stop the violence," Marco Chan, a 23-year-old legal analyst. "For those of my friends who decide to go, they think that what happened in Yuen Long last week is too outrageous for them not to step up and show how angry they are."Chan said he expected to be joined at the demonstration by his pro-establishment father who was outraged by what he saw as an inadequate police response. At least 45 people were injured in the attacks.Authorities later arrested a dozen men, including at least nine with suspected links to the city's notorious triad gangs who have long had a large presence in the area. Police Commissioner Stephen Lo has defended officers' conduct in Yuen Long, saying those who had arrived on scene were outnumbered and not properly equipped to respond.Who Are Triads and Are They Behind Hong Kong Attacks?: QuickTakeThe city's No. 2 official, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung, urged Hong Kong residents to "to express their demands in a peaceful and rational way" in a rare news conference before Saturday's march. He said the government took "a very serious attitude" toward the possibility of violence and said, "We cannot rule out the possibility of large number of people turning up."The outbursts of violence, including clashes between police and protesters near China's liaison office in the city on Sunday, have put pressure on Chinese President Xi Jinping to find a solution. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urged China in a Bloomberg Television interview Thursday to "do the right thing" in Hong Kong and called on all parties to avoid violence. China's foreign ministry had earlier urged the U.S. to remove its "black hand" from the city.The Chinese government "would like to make sure there are reasons in Hong Kong to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China," Kevin Lai, chief economist for Asia ex-Japan at Daiwa Capital Markets Hong Kong Ltd., said in a note Friday. "Having another 1 million people taking to the streets on October 1 would be undesirable for the party."On Sunday, protesters also plan to march from centrally located Chater Garden on Hong Kong Island toward the western neighborhood of Sheung Wan. That will bring them close to China's local government office, where a vandalism during a rally last week prompted warnings from Beijing.The protests are "not only expressing grievances, but also showing that we don't support any illegal violence in our society and also that the social order cannot be ignored by the police force in Hong Kong," said opposition lawmaker Au Nok-hin. "The violence happened last weekend in Yuen Long has had a very great impact on Hong Kong society."\--With assistance from Kyunghee Park, Stephen Engle, Dominic Lau, Justin Chin and Stephen Tan.To contact the reporters on this story: Kari Lindberg in Hong Kong at klindberg13@bloomberg.net;Sebastian Chau in Hong Kong at schau30@bloomberg.net;Iain Marlow in Hong Kong at imarlow1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Karen LeighFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| UPDATE 2-Europe's record heatwave threatens Greenland ice sheet Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:41 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-Europe's record heatwave threatens Greenland ice sheet]( "UPDATE 2-Europe's record heatwave threatens Greenland ice sheet") The hot air that smashed European weather records this week looks set to move towards Greenland and could cause record melting of the world's second largest ice sheet, the United Nations said on Friday. Clare Nullis, spokeswoman for the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, said the hot air moving up from North Africa had not merely broken European temperature records on Thursday but surpassed them by 2, 3 or 4 degrees Celsius, which she described as "absolutely incredible". "According to forecasts, and this is of concern, the atmospheric flow is now going to transport that heat towards Greenland," she told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva.
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| Turkey May Rethink Boeing Plane Orders, Erdogan Says Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:34 AM PDT ![Turkey May Rethink Boeing Plane Orders, Erdogan Says]( "Turkey May Rethink Boeing Plane Orders, Erdogan Says") (Bloomberg) -- Turkey's president said his government may have to "rethink" existing orders for Boeing Co. airplanes worth about $10 billion, in comments that reflect the country's strained ties with the U.S.Turkey's hesitation on the Boeing order adds to tension created when the country ordered a missile defense system from Russia, spurning an offer for Ankara to buy U.S. air-defense missiles."I've told Mr. Trump in Osaka that even if Turkey's not buying Patriots, it's buying Boeings. We're good customers," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday in Ankara, referring to Raytheon's Patriot systems. "But if it goes on like this, we'll have to rethink about this issue."Erdogan spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G-20 summit, during which he reminded him of existing orders for 100 Boeing jets by Turkish Airlines, the nation's flagship carrier where the government holds a 49% stake. Turkey has since begun receiving the S-400 missile defense systems from Russia, which the U.S. has long said is incompatible with the its role as a NATO member and purchases of U.S. F-35 fighter jets.READ: Pompeo Urges Turkey Not to Make Russian S-400 'Operational'Turkish Airlines in March 2018 said it'll buy 25 of Boeing's 787-9 jets, scheduled for delivery by 2023. In 2013, it had announced a decision to purchase 75 of the 737 MAX jets, the grounded airplanes involved in two fatal crashes. Five of these were delivered in the first quarter this year, with the rest set to be delivered by the end of 2023.(Updates with details throughout.)To contact the reporter on this story: Taylan Bilgic in Istanbul at tbilgic2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Paul Abelsky, Constantine CourcoulasFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| UK PM Johnson set out Brexit position to France's Macron Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:29 AM PDT ![UK PM Johnson set out Brexit position to France's Macron]( "UK PM Johnson set out Brexit position to France's Macron") British Prime minister Boris Johnson spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday night, Johnson's spokesman told reporters, saying the new British leader used the call to set out his position on Brexit. "When the prime minister has these conversations with fellow leaders and the discussion moves on to Brexit, he will be setting out the same message which he delivered in the House of Commons yesterday," the spokesman told reporters on Friday.
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| EU’s Lending Arm Plans to Phase Out Fossil-Fuel Funding Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:20 AM PDT ![EU's Lending Arm Plans to Phase Out Fossil-Fuel Funding]( "EU's Lending Arm Plans to Phase Out Fossil-Fuel Funding") (Bloomberg) -- The European Investment Bank plans to stop funding fossil fuels starting in 2021 as Europe steps up the fight against climate change, according to a draft of the EIB's new energy strategy.The Luxembourg-based EIB, the European Union's lending arm, aims to increase support for clean-energy projects as the EU crafts stronger policies to counter the more frequent heat waves, storms and floods tied to global warming, says the draft document seen by Bloomberg and due to be published later on Friday. Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas are leading contributors to climate change."The bank will phase out support to energy projects reliant on fossil fuels: oil and gas production, infrastructure primarily dedicated to natural gas, power generation or heat based on fossil fuels," the document says. "These types of projects will not be presented for approval to the EIB board beyond the end of 2020." The bank's board is due to discuss the plan in September.The EIB, which has invested in the energy industry for the past six decades, is gearing up to play a bigger role in spurring low-carbon technologies because the EU is pushing to enact the landmark 2015 United Nations agreement to fight global warming after the U.S. last year turned its back on the accord.Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming president of the European Commission, the 28-nation EU's executive arm, vowed last week to turn parts of the EIB into a "Climate Bank" in a bid to unlock 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) of investment over the coming decade.The EIB's financing of climate-action projects amounted to 16.2 billion euros last year, or 30% of its lending, according to the bank. To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net;Ewa Krukowska in Brussels at ekrukowska@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, ;Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Peter Chapman, Richard BravoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Ireland says UK PM Johnson "very unhelpful" on Brexit Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:16 AM PDT ![Ireland says UK PM Johnson "very unhelpful" on Brexit]( "Ireland says UK PM Johnson \"very unhelpful\" on Brexit") Ireland's foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's approach to Brexit talks was "very unhelpful" and would not lead to an agreement. Johnson told Britain's parliament on Thursday that he did not want to retain the so-called post-Brexit 'backstop' that would preserve an open border between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland in the event of longer-term trade talks collapsing. "The statements of the British Prime Minister yesterday in the House of Commons were very unhelpful to this process," Coveney told reporters on Friday after meeting Britain's new secretary of state for Northern Ireland in Belfast.
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| Italy’s Broken Vote System Spreads Through Europe Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:11 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every day? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.Matteo Salvini had everyone convinced that he was about to torpedo Italy's bickering ruling coalition this week.The man who's essentially running the country had flirted with the idea before, but as John Follain reports, it was on July 18 that the deputy prime minister came the closest yet to the taking the plunge.Over stuffed Casoncelli pasta and Bresaola salted beef, a tense-looking Salvini asked his League Party lieutenants what was the point in carrying on if he couldn't push key policies through? He eventually pulled back from the brink, but the account speaks volumes not just about him, but the state of European politics.Once-a-year elections used to just be a wacky Italian phenomenon. No more. From Brexit-addled Britain to Catalonia-weary Spain, broken electoral systems are emerging as a defining feature in Europe.Spaniards have voted three times in four years and could do so again unless Pedro Sanchez can somehow get a smaller party to play ball. In the U.K., the Conservatives have a barely-functioning majority that will make life difficult for new Prime Minister Boris Johnson.In short, don't be surprised if all three countries lurch to early elections by the year's end.Global Headlines Pompeo interview | U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told Bloomberg that the door remains open for diplomacy with North Korea — even though it launched short-range missiles early yesterday — and that he hopes working-level talks between the two countries will begin in the next month or so.Pompeo also said he'd be willing to travel to Tehran to address the Iranian people amid rising tensions with Donald Trump's administration. He urged Turkey not to make the S-400 missile defense system it purchased from Russia "operational" as Trump holds off on new sanctions. And he called on China to "do the right thing" in dealing with protests in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, North Korea's economy appears to have shrunk last year by the most since the peak of its 1990s famine.Parallel movements | Hong Kong's black-shirted anti-government protesters are drawing comparisons with another group on the opposite side of the world: France's Yellow Vests. Both are hard to pin down, determined, prone to evolve — and their demonstrations could drag on indefinitely.Hundreds of protesters are staging a sit-in at Hong Kong's international airport, the first of three days of demonstrations after clashes last week sparked fears more violence could erupt.Deadlock looms | The European Union wasted little time in telling Johnson that a change of face in Downing Street would not mean a change of heart in Brussels. The new prime minister wants to reopen the Brexit deal thrashed out by his predecessor, something the bloc again refused to do. It's not clear how Johnson can break the impasse, or even if he wants to: He's promised to "turbo charge" preparations for leaving without an agreement.Bitter politics | On her first day on the job, Puerto Rico's governor-in-waiting was embroiled in an investigation of her conduct as the commonwealth's chief law-enforcement officer. Wanda Vazquez is facing accusations she ignored evidence of possible corruption in the disbursement of hurricane aid, allegations that reflect the bankrupt island's bitter and personal politics.Granite State showdown | New England Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will face off early next year in New Hampshire's Democratic primary with a huge prize at stake: the claim to the party's progressive mantle. Whoever loses could find a path to the nomination difficult to chart.Click here to read about the Democratic contenders' renewed opposition to the death penalty after the government announced it would resume executions following a 16-year hiatus. Tale a closer look at Democrats' efforts to recruit candidates to help them win control of the Senate next year. And learn more about the details of candidate Kamala Harris's proposal to invest $60 billion in historically black colleges in Bloomberg's daily Campaign Update.And finally ... House Democrats hoping their presidential probes would gain the type of traction that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation 45 years ago have been sorely disappointed. Now they're invoking a Nixon-era precedent in their attempts to get hold of Trump's tax returns. Newly released documents show the Internal Revenue Service immediately complied with a request for Nixon's returns from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. \--With assistance from Kathleen Hunter, Katherine Rizzo, Stuart Biggs and Karen Leigh.To contact the author of this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in London at fjackson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Winfrey at mwinfrey@bloomberg.net, Rosalind MathiesonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Saudi king hosts 200 from Christchurch shootings for Hajj Posted: 26 Jul 2019 02:53 AM PDT  Aya Al-Umari said she feels like her brother will be accompanying her and will constantly be in her prayers when she travels to Mecca next month to take part in the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Al-Umari is one of 200 relatives and survivors from the Christchurch mosque shootings who are traveling to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman. The Saudi ambassador to New Zealand, Abdulrahman Al Suhaibani, on Friday said farewell to the pilgrims at the Al Noor mosque, one of two mosques where a gunman killed 51 people in March.
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| More than 400,000 displaced in northwest Syria in 3 months: UN Posted: 26 Jul 2019 02:19 AM PDT  More than 400,000 people have been displaced in northwestern Syria over the past three months, the UN said Friday, as the government presses an intensified bombardment of the rebel-held region. "More than 400,000 people have been displaced since the end of April," said David Swanson of the United Nations humanitarian affairs agency OCHA. It covers nearly all of Idlib and parts of neighbouring Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces.
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| Shadow force: The secret history of the U.S. intelligence community's battle with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Posted: 26 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  Many countries have military and intelligence agencies that operate abroad, but few are as far-reaching or prolific as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
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| Sterling edges lower after EU says Brexit deal only possible one Posted: 26 Jul 2019 01:47 AM PDT ![Sterling edges lower after EU says Brexit deal only possible one]( "Sterling edges lower after EU says Brexit deal only possible one") The British pound edged lower on Friday, weighed down by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker telling new British Prime Boris Johnson that a deal agreed forged by his predecessor was the best and the only Brexit agreement. Juncker told Johnson on Thursday that the European Union would analyse any ideas put forward by Britain, provided they were compatible with the withdrawal agreement. Johnson this week has repeated his pledge to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement and promise to take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal.
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