| Turkish forces say they've captured key Syrian border town Posted: 12 Oct 2019 02:16 PM PDT  Turkey's military said it captured a key Syrian border town under heavy bombardment Saturday in its most significant gain since an offensive against Kurdish fighters began four days ago, with no sign of relenting despite mounting international criticism. Turkish troops entered central Ras al-Ayn, according to Turkey's Defense Ministry and a war monitor group. The ministry tweeted: "Ras al-Ayn's residential center has been taken under control through the successful operations in the east of Euphrates" River.
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| UK remains a long way from Brexit deal -BBC citing PM's office Posted: 12 Oct 2019 02:04 PM PDT ![UK remains a long way from Brexit deal -BBC citing PM's office]( "UK remains a long way from Brexit deal -BBC citing PM's office") Britain remains a long way from getting a final Brexit deal and the next few days will be critical if it is to agree departure terms with the European Union, the BBC cited a source at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office as saying. Negotiators for Britain and the EU have entered intense talks over the weekend to see if they can break the Brexit impasse after Johnson and his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar held talks this week and agreed they could see a pathway to a possible deal.
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| 9 members of same family killed in attack in Egypt's Sinai Posted: 12 Oct 2019 01:47 PM PDT ![9 members of same family killed in attack in Egypt's Sinai]( "9 members of same family killed in attack in Egypt's Sinai") EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) — A shell hit a truck carrying civilians in Egypt's restive northern Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, killing at least nine people of the same family, security officials and medics said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the shelling, which struck the family while they were returning home from their olive farm, according to two residents in the town. Separately, officials say seven security forces were wounded when two explosive devices hit armored vehicles in Bir al-Abd and the town of Rafah, along the border with Gaza.
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| The Latest: France halts some arms exports to Turkey Posted: 12 Oct 2019 01:27 PM PDT  France is halting exports of any arms to Turkey that could be used in its offensive against Kurds in Syria, and wants an immediate meeting of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State extremists. France's defense and foreign ministries made the announcement in a statement Saturday reiterating opposition to the Turkish military operation, which is facing growing international condemnation.
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| Saudi king approves U.S. military deployment -SPA Posted: 12 Oct 2019 12:27 PM PDT ![Saudi king approves U.S. military deployment -SPA]( "Saudi king approves U.S. military deployment -SPA") Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince have approved the deployment of additional U.S. troops and equipment, after an attack last month on the kingdom's oil facilities, state news agency SPA reported on Saturday. The United States announced a deployment of about 3,000 troops to the Gulf state, including fighter squadrons, an air expeditionary wing and air defense personnel, amid heightened tensions with Saudi's arch-rival Iran. President Donald Trump said the Saudis had agreed to pay for the deployment.
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| UPDATE 1-Iran says ready for talks with Saudi, with or without mediation Posted: 12 Oct 2019 11:23 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Iran says ready for talks with Saudi, with or without mediation]( "UPDATE 1-Iran says ready for talks with Saudi, with or without mediation") DUBAI/ISLAMABAD, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Iran is prepared to hold talks with regional rival Saudi Arabia with or without the help of a mediator, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, ahead of a visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Asked about reports that Khan, due to arrive in Iran on Sunday, may try to mediate between Tehran and Riyadh, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said: "I am not aware of any mediation," according to state broadcaster IRIB.
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| Iranian official says oil tanker attack won't go unpunished Posted: 12 Oct 2019 11:02 AM PDT  A senior Iranian security official said Saturday that an attack on one of the country's oil tankers won't go unpunished, the official IRNA news agency reported. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said a day after two missiles struck the Iranian tanker Sabiti as it traveled through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia that "vicious behavior in international waterways will not go without a response." He didn't elaborate. The mysterious attack, which came amid months of heightened tensions at sea across the wider Mideast, damaged two storerooms aboard the tanker, Iranian officials said.
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| Trump Repeatedly Pressed Tillerson to Intervene in Zarrab Case Posted: 12 Oct 2019 10:36 AM PDT ![Trump Repeatedly Pressed Tillerson to Intervene in Zarrab Case]( "Trump Repeatedly Pressed Tillerson to Intervene in Zarrab Case") (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump repeatedly pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for help getting a criminal case dropped against a client of Rudy Giuliani, long after the top U.S. diplomat made clear he felt the idea was inappropriate, said two people familiar with the matter.Tillerson grew increasingly frustrated with the president's multiple requests in 2017 that he pressure the Justice Department or agree to a broader political bargain being put forward by Giuliani, according to the people.Through much of the year, Giuliani floated a plan to swap Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian gold trader, for Andrew Brunson, a U.S. evangelical pastor being held in Turkey.Tillerson insisted that the case against Zarrab, which was before the Southern District of New York, was a matter for the courts and should be allowed to run its course. His refusal left Trump increasingly frustrated, and there was deep friction between the two over the issue, one of the people said.Objections RegisteredOn Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Trump pressed Tillerson in an Oval Office meeting in the second half of 2017 to help get the case against Zarrab dropped. After the encounter, Tillerson pulled then-Chief of Staff John Kelly aside in a hallway and reiterated his objections, saying the request was illegal.The New York Times later reported that Giuliani and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who were both working for Zarrab, made their case in a prior meeting with Trump and Tillerson in early 2017, months after Trump's inauguration.Another person familiar with the events at the time said Giuliani even showed up unannounced at the Justice Department and requested a meeting with top officials to discuss the case. The Department never seriously considered the idea of the prisoner swap, the person said.Read More: U.S. Inquiry Into Turkish Bank Inflamed Erdogan, Then Went QuietThe latest reporting shows that the specific episode wasn't isolated and that the president remained concerned with the Zarrab case, which was a high priority for both Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Swap SoughtIn a phone interview earlier this week, Giuliani -- who became one of Trump's personal lawyers in April 2018 -- initially denied he'd ever raised Zarrab's case with the president, but later said he might have done so. He acknowledged he spoke with U.S. officials as part of his effort to arrange a swap of Zarrab for Brunson, who was eventually freed in 2018.Zarrab was being prosecuted on charges of evading U.S. sanctions against Iran's nuclear program. He'd hired Mukasey and Giuliani, who's said he reached out repeatedly to U.S. officials to seek a diplomatic solution for his client outside the courts.After his arrest in Miami in early 2016, prosecutors alleged Zarrab had "close ties" with Erdogan. They accused him of using his network of companies to move money through the U.S. financial system with the goal of helping Iran evade sanctions as the U.S. was stepping up economic pressure on Tehran.Read More: Trump Urged Top Aide to Help Giuliani Client Facing DOJ ChargesZarrab later pleaded guilty and testified against Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who headed international banking at state-owned Turkiye Halk Bankasii AS, known as Halkbank. Zarrab said Erdogan knew of and supported the laundering effort on behalf of Iran. Erdogan and other senior Turkish officials repeatedly rejected the accusations, saying they were fabrications.Atilla was eventually convicted of helping Iran evade economic sanctions on billions of dollars of oil revenue and served 28 months in U.S. prison.Tillerson, the former chief executive officer of oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp., was fired by Trump in a March 2018 tweet. At a forum with Bob Schieffer of CBS News in December, he said the president frequently asked him to do things that were illegal, adding that "he got really frustrated when we'd have those conversations."Trump hosted Brunson in the Oval Office in October 2018 when the American returned to the U.S. after almost two years in a Turkish prison. The pair will be together again on Saturday, when Trump attends the "Value Voters Summit" in Washington for a dinner in Brunson's honor.\--With assistance from Jennifer Jacobs.To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Wadhams in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, ;Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| UPDATE 2-DUP's Dodds says N.Ireland must stay in full UK customs union- Repubblica Posted: 12 Oct 2019 09:14 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-DUP's Dodds says N.Ireland must stay in full UK customs union- Repubblica]( "UPDATE 2-DUP's Dodds says N.Ireland must stay in full UK customs union- Repubblica") A mooted eleventh-hour solution to the deadlock over Brexit cannot work because Northern Ireland must remain in a full United Kingdom customs union, the deputy leader of the province's key political party said on Saturday. With the Oct 31 deadline for a new Brexit divorce deal looming, an EU diplomat and an official said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has proposed keeping Northern Ireland in some form of EU customs partnership as well as a UK customs union.
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| Indian Prime Minister Modi picks up trash from beach Posted: 12 Oct 2019 08:28 AM PDT  As part of his cleanliness drive, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi picked up trash Saturday from a beach in the southern temple town where he hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping. Modi released a short video on Twitter showing him walking barefoot in the sand, collecting the trash in a bag on Saturday morning in Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu state. Modi launched a "Clean India" campaign after he became prime minister in 2014.
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| WTO Chief Says No Exceptions for UK-EU Trade in Hard Brexit Posted: 12 Oct 2019 08:19 AM PDT ![WTO Chief Says No Exceptions for UK-EU Trade in Hard Brexit]( "WTO Chief Says No Exceptions for UK-EU Trade in Hard Brexit") (Bloomberg) -- Want the lowdown on European markets? In your inbox before the open, every day. Sign up here.In the event of a no-deal Brexit there will be no special rules for trade between the U.K. and the European Union, the World Trade Organization's director-general Roberto Azevedo said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. A trade without customs duties would only be possible, if customs would be removed for all other trading partners, too, he said.Azevedo also asked the 164 WTO member countries to cooperate more constructively, saying that the world trade system is in its worst crisis since the 1930s. The WTO is the last institution "that separates us from the law of the jungle" he said.To contact the reporter on this story: David Verbeek in Frankfurt at dverbeek1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Schaefer at dschaefer36@bloomberg.net, James LuddenFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Islamic State Rears Its Head, Adding to Chaos as Turkey Battles Kurds Posted: 12 Oct 2019 08:09 AM PDT  CEYLANPINAR, Turkey -- The Turkish invasion of Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria raised new fears of a resurgence of the Islamic State on Friday, as five militants escaped from a Kurdish-run prison and the extremist group claimed responsibility for a bomb that exploded in the regional capital.As Turkish troops launched a third night of airstrikes and ground incursions, Kurdish fighters said they had thwarted a second attempt to break out of a detention camp for families of Islamic State members.The moves compounded a mounting sense of turmoil in northeast Syria, where tens of thousands of residents were reported fleeing south. The Turkish government said its troops had advanced 5 miles inside part of the country. Several major roads had been blocked and a major hospital abandoned.Since Wednesday, Turkish forces have pummeled Kurdish-held territory with airstrikes and sent in ground troops, trying to seize land controlled by a Kurdish-led militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces. That militia fought alongside U.S. troops in the recent war against the Islamic State.The campaign began after President Donald Trump suddenly ordered U.S. troops to withdraw from the area, giving implicit approval to Turkey's long-anticipated attack on the Kurdish-led militia.Trump's decision was widely criticized, including by his Republican allies in the United States, who said it was a betrayal of an ally -- the Kurds -- that could cause a re-emergence of the Islamic State.The White House -- concerned that Congress would pursue bipartisan sanctions legislation against Turkey -- said Trump would sign an executive order giving the Treasury Department new powers to punish officials in Turkey if its military targeted ethnic and religious minorities."We hope we don't have to use them," said Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary. "But we can shut down the Turkish economy if we need to."Since pulling out, U.S. officials have expressed growing concern at the direction the Turkish incursion has taken, with officials warning Friday that the United States would respond forcefully if Islamic State fighters were allowed to escape from prisons in the area.On Friday afternoon, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey vowed to continue the campaign."The West and the U.S., together they say, 'You are killing the Kurds'," said Erdogan in a speech. "Kurds are our brothers. This struggle of ours is not against Kurds. It is against terror groups.''The Turkish government has framed the campaign as a counterterrorist operation because the Kurdish-led militia has close ties with a banned Turkey-based guerrilla movement that has waged a decadeslong struggle against the Turkish state.Erdogan has promised that the fight against the Islamic State will continue and that his forces and their allies will continue to guard any captured militants in Kurdish-held prisons.But the operation has already proved highly disruptive to efforts to keep the Islamic State at bay. Although U.S. and Kurdish forces have defeated Islamic State militants in northeastern Syria, the group has sleeper cells in the region that could use the turmoil to retake the land they controlled in the early years of the Syrian civil war.And the Kurdish militia has diverted soldiers to fight the invasion and abandoned joint operations with U.S. troops as it prioritizes the defense of its land.On Friday, a car bomb exploded on a residential street in Qamishli, the de facto capital of the Kurdish-held region -- a rare act of Islamic State terrorism in a city that was relatively free of trouble before the Turkish assault began.The Turkish bombardment has also endangered the security of several Kurdish-run prisons for Islamic State militants, with at least three in the vicinity of continuing Turkish airstrikes. It is widely feared that in the chaos, Islamic State fighters will escape captivity, as the five did Friday.Kurdish authorities said shells had reached two Kurdish-controlled displacement camps, prompting officials to move some of their 20,000 inhabitants farther south.One of the camps, in Ain Issa, has hundreds of relatives of Islamic State fighters, heightening fears over the effect that the Turkish invasion will have on the fight against the militant group.Kurdish forces also released video of a third camp, which they said showed an effort to escape by members of Islamic State families.A second video, seen by The New York Times, appeared to show prisoners trying to escape a Kurdish-controlled jail after it was hit by an airstrike.While the Turkish airstrikes have hit targets along most of the 300-mile-long Kurdish-held territory, the ground battle has focused on two small but strategically located Syrian border towns, Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ain.Turkish troops and their Syrian Arab allies have captured a cluster of villages around the two towns, which lie in the center of the Kurdish region. The troops have in one place established a front line 5 miles from the Turkish border, the Turkish vice president, Fuat Oktay, said Friday evening, according to Turkish media.Their presence has prompted 100,000 residents to flee south, according to U.N. estimates, and forced the evacuation of a major hospital in Tel Abyad that was run by Doctors Without Borders, an international medical charity.A second hospital, in Ras al-Ain, was also evacuated, according to a separate report by the Rojava Information Center, an information service run by activists in the region.Turkish mortar shells also landed close to U.S. troops near the city of Kobani on Friday, prompting a complaint from the U.S. military, the Turkish Defense Ministry confirmed. No one was killed. Turkish officials said the Americans had not been targeted, though the Pentagon said Turkey had known that U.S. forces were in the area.At least 54 Kurdish fighters have been killed since Wednesday, along with 42 from the Turkish-backed force, according to tolls compiled by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a conflict monitor based in Britain.Turkish towns north of the border have also been affected, as Kurdish fighters have returned fire.Since fighting began Wednesday, at least 17 civilians, including four children, have been killed in Turkish border towns. At least four Turkish soldiers have died in the fighting, according to Turkish officials.An entire Turkish border town -- Ceylanpinar -- was evacuated, after two girls were killed in a rocket strike Thursday and two people were seriously wounded Friday.Ceylanpinar was largely deserted Friday afternoon, with shops shuttered and only stray dogs and a few men slipping out to chat or buy cigarettes."Our city is a ghost town," complained Musa Sahman, 70, who sells a local raw meat delicacy but had no customers. "Our government is fighting for Syria, but we don't have any business."But the damage has been far worse on the Kurdish side, where 60 civilians have died since Wednesday, according to the Kurdish Red Crescent.The U.S. decision to ally with Kurdish militias set the stage for Turkey's invasion this week.By capturing land previously held by the Islamic State, Kurdish fighters were then able to create an autonomous statelet that spans roughly a quarter of all Syrian territory and is effectively independent of the central Syrian government in Damascus.But this dynamic has been chastening for Syria's northern neighbor, Turkey, which views the central figures in the autonomous Kurdish region as hostile actors with strong connections to a violent Kurdish nationalist group inside Turkey itself.Turkey's military campaign has come hand in hand with a crackdown on criticism inside Turkey.The state-run media authority warned that it would "silence" any outlet deemed to have published material damaging to the offensive. Two editors at separate independent news websites were briefly detained, their outlets reported."We will never tolerate broadcasts that will negatively affect our beloved nation and glorious soldiers' morale and motivation, that serves the aim of terror, and might mislead our citizens with faulty, wrong and biased information," the media authority said in a statement.The Turkish incursion has prompted a mixed reaction from the 3.6 million Syrian refugees sheltering in Turkey.Some fear they will end up being deported to the areas recaptured by Turkish forces in northern Syria, despite having no ancestral links there. Others from the areas of northern Syria currently under attack said they welcomed the campaign.In Turkey, on a hilltop overlooking the Syrian border and the town of Tel Abyad, a lone Syrian man, Mehmet Huseyn, 45, crouched in the shade of a rusting water tank, scanning the horizon for signs of movement.His brother and family were in his home village, 6 miles beyond the ridgeline, while he had been working as a farm laborer in Turkey for four years to support his family of seven, he said."Our village is there," he said. "I am looking in case they leave and we can return home."But it pained him to see more war visited on his home. "Our insides are burning," he said. "We love our land and we love our country."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Turkish forces reportedly capture Syrian border town, ISIS fight is reportedly put on hold Posted: 12 Oct 2019 07:18 AM PDT ![Turkish forces reportedly capture Syrian border town, ISIS fight is reportedly put on hold]( "Turkish forces reportedly capture Syrian border town, ISIS fight is reportedly put on hold") The Turkish military and a Syrian war monitor said Turkish forces have captured Ras al-Ayn, a key Syrian border town, on Saturday as part of Ankara's offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters after U.S. troops pulled back from the area.The fighting is reportedly ongoing and Syrian Kurdish forces appear to be holding out in some parts of the town. Turkey considers Kurdish forces a national security threat due to the longstanding independence movement among many Kurdish people, who are spread across four different countries in the region.More broadly, U.S. and Kurdish officials have said the Turkish incursion has made the U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces' fight against the Islamic State in the region much more difficult, which was a common prediction among President Trump's critics when he announced he was ordering U.S. troops out of the region. Hundreds of fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have reportedly been relocated to the front lines against Turkey and away from anti-ISIS operations.Meanwhile, the Pentagon confirmed the U.S. is sending 3,000 more troops to Saudi Arabia, a move considered to be a deterrent against Iran, despite Trump promising to put a stop to the U.S.'s "endless wars" in the region. Trump administration officials argued that the presence of defensive troops in Saudi Arabia is different from actively engaging in a conflict in Syria. Read more at The Associated Press and The Washington Post.
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| Iran says ready for talks with Saudi, with or without mediation Posted: 12 Oct 2019 07:15 AM PDT ![Iran says ready for talks with Saudi, with or without mediation]( "Iran says ready for talks with Saudi, with or without mediation") Iran is prepared to hold talks with regional rival Saudi Arabia, with or without the help of a mediator, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, ahead of a visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Asked about reports that Khan, due to arrive in Iran at the weekend, may try to mediate between Tehran and Riyadh, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said: "I am not aware of any mediation," according to state broadcaster IRIB. "Iran has announced that, with or without a mediator, it is always ready to hold talk with its neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, to get rid of any misunderstandings," Mousavi added.
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| Anger Over Syria, Trump’s Impeachment Saga: Weekend Reads Posted: 12 Oct 2019 04:26 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.As the impeachment crisis worsens for U.S. President Donald Trump, it seems all roads lead to his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is now embroiled in scandals stretching from Ukraine to Iran.In northeastern Syria, terrified civilians are trying to work out the safest way to flee as Turkish forces entered towns along the frontier between the two countries, just days after Trump said U.S. troops in the area wouldn't stand in the way of Ankara's military offensive.Another conflict causing ripples throughout the world — the trade war — is showing a flicker of hope. After months of escalation, Trump offered a tacit embrace of something he has resisted for months: A partial deal. Dig deeper into these issues and take a look at some of Bloomberg's most compelling political photos from the past seven days.Trump Urged Top Aide to Help Giuliani Client Facing DOJ ChargesFueling long-standing concerns about Trump's governing style, it's emerged he pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to persuade the Justice Department to drop a case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Giuliani. Tillerson refused, while others were shocked by the request, Nick Wadhams, Saleha Mohsin, Stephanie Baker and Jennifer Jacobs report.Turkey Gears for High-Risk War Against a Familiar Foe in SyriaTurkey's armed forces face a familiar opponent as they launch a major offensive in northeastern Syria. As Selcan Hacaoglu and Marc Champion write, they've been fighting versions of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, for 35 years.Trump Mines Weak Spots in Foreign Leaders for Battles at HomeHe might be working to salvage his presidency, but Trump can still smell weakness in others. In his efforts to discredit his domestic enemies, he's solicited help from Ukraine's rookie president, a collapsing Italian government, an Australian battling China and Boris Johnson of Brexit-divided Britain, John Follain, Volodymyr Verbyany and Jason Scott report.When This $2 Trillion Market Turns, Start Worrying About BrexitFor post-Brexit Britain, the kindness of strangers and their money will be more vital than ever, Anooja Debnath and John Ainger write. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has amped up his rhetoric that the U.K. will leave the European Union at the end of this month — even if there is no basis for a future relationship.The Plane Crash That Helped a European Leader Take Over a NationThe news that a Polish air force plane had crashed in dense fog in April 2010 transfixed a nation. Among the dead were Poland's president, his wife and dozens of top officials. The repercussions from that transformed the country from one of Europe's great successes into one of its biggest renegades. Marek Strzelecki and Rodney Jefferson report.Trump's China Deal Yields Plenty of Questions, and CriticsWith the partial agreement with China he announced yesterday, Trump is back in dealmaker mode after months of escalation. But as Shawn Donnan reports, that doesn't mean the new grand bargain he once promised with Beijing is any more than a small step closer to reality, or that a curtain is being drawn on the uncertainty his trade wars have brought to the global economy.Moment of Truth on China Is Coming for Rest of Corporate AmericaLong before Daryl Morey's fateful tweet — the one that set the NBA on a collision course with China — the nation had a history of employing economic might to twist corporate arms in Asia. As Matt Townsend reports, it was one of China's most aggressive efforts yet to bend a western company to its will.Stay Radical or Get Pragmatic? AMLO's Party Has to Decide For most of its five short years in existence, Mexico's Morena party has revolved around one politician: Andrés Manuel López Obrador. AMLO, as he's known, was elected president in a landslide last July. Now his leadership is at a crossroads, Eric Martin writes.GM's Electric Future Means Prosperity for One Michigan Town, Disaster for AnotherEvery decade or so, GM undergoes a transformation to ensure the company's long-term survival, write Bryan Gruley and David Welch. Invariably, these makeovers turn some communities into winners and others into losers — in this case, they're separated by just 35 miles.Two Mammoth Power Plants Are Sinking Eskom and South AfricaSouth Africa's economy was roaring along in 2007, on the back of the global commodities boom, when power shortages struck bringing mines and smelters to a halt. State power utility Eskom Holdings swiftly opened the spending taps, but botched implementation of the expansion plan has haunted the country ever since, write Paul Burkhardt and Michael Cohen.And finally ... The Arctic is emerging as a potential geopolitical flashpoint for the U.S., Russia and China as shipping routes get unblocked, Marc Champion writes. Melting ice is opening access to new energy resources faster than predicted, and it's prompting a nascent great power struggle as the political and economic map of the world is transformed. \--With assistance from Muneeza Naqvi.To contact the author of this story: Ruth Pollard in New Delhi at rpollard2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges Posted: 12 Oct 2019 03:38 AM PDT ![Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges]( "Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges") An Egyptian court has sentenced six people to death on terror-related charges for carrying out a militant attack outside a hotel near the famed Giza Pyramids. The Giza criminal court on Saturday also sentenced eight defendants to life in prison on similar charges that include attacking security forces, and possession of weapons and explosives.
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| 'Nine civilians executed' as Kurds accuse US of 'leaving us to be slaughtered' Posted: 12 Oct 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Pro-Ankara fighters taking part in a Turkish offensive on Kurdish-held border towns in northeastern Syria have "executed" nine civilians, a monitor said on Saturday. "The nine civilians were executed... in the south of the town of Tal Abyad," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Kurds said in a statement that a female Kurdish party official and her driver were among those killed. It also emerged that the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had warned the US that "You are leaving us to be slaughtered." CNN reported that Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told the Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, William Roebuck: "You are not willing to protect the people, but you do not want another force to come and protect us. You have sold us. This is immoral." He added: "I need to know if you are capable of protecting my people, of stopping these bombs falling on us or not. I need to know, because if you're not, I need to make a deal with Russia and the regime now and invite their planes to protect this region." The comments were contained in an internal US government readout of a meeting on thursday, which was obtained by CNN. France said on Saturday it has suspended all weapon sales to Turkey and warned Ankara that its offensive in northern Syria threatened European security. "In expectation of the end of this offensive, France has decided to suspend all plans to export to Turkey weapons that could be used in this offensive. This decision is with immediate effect," a joint statement from the foreign and defence ministries said. It said that European Union foreign ministers would coordinate their position on Monday at a meeting in Luxembourg Turkey claimed its forces had seized control of the Syrian border town of Ras al Ain town on Saturday, as the country's offensive against a Kurdish militia in the region entered its fourth day. "As a result of successful operations within the scope of Operation Peace Spring, the town of Ras al-Ain to the east of the Euphrates has been brought under control," the Turkish defence ministry wrote on Twitter. But Kurdish authorities denied the town had fallen to the Turks, saying fighting was continuing. "Ras al-Ain is still resisting and clashes are ongoing," said an official of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. An AFP correspondent in the area said Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels had entered the town but had yet to capture it. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) also reported that the town, a major target of the Turkish offensive, had yet to be completely taken. Turkish residents watched the fierce battle for the town from across the border Credit: Ozan Kose/AFP SOHR said the civilian death toll resulting from Turkey's offensive into northern Syria had now risen to 30. The Kurdish-led administration in northeastern Syria said that 191,069 people had so far been displaced as a result of Turkish military operations. The United Nations on Friday gave a figure of 100,000. The United States has ramped up its efforts to persuade Turkey to halt the offensive against the US-backed Kurdish YPG forces, saying Ankara was causing "great harm" to ties and could face sanctions. Turkey launched its incursion after US President Donald Trump spoke by phone on Sunday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and withdrew US troops who had been fighting alongside Kurdish forces. Kurdish officials say the offensive has forced almost 200,000 people to flee their homes Credit: Rodi Said/Reuters There has been fierce international criticism of the assault and concern about its humanitarian consequences. . Mr Erdogan has dismissed the backlash over the operation and said on Friday evening that Turkey "will not stop it, no matter what anyone says". Thick plumes of smoke rose around Ras al Ain, one of two Syrian border towns targeted in the offensive, on Saturday as Turkish artillery pounded the area, said a Reuters reporter across the frontier in the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar. Intense gunfire also resounded from within Ras al Ain while warplanes could be heard flying overhead. It was quieter at Tel Abyad, the operation's other main target some 120 km (75 miles) to the west, with only occasional shelling heard in the area, another Reuters reporter said. Pro-Turkish Syrian fighters claim to have captured 18 villages in the four days of fighting Credit: Nazeer al-Khatib/AFP The Turkish-backed Syrian rebels said earlier they had cut the road which connects Ras al Ain and Tel Abyad and had captured 18 villages since the operation began. On Friday, the Pentagon said US troops came under artillery fire from Turkish emplacements though none of its soldiers were wounded near the Syrian border town of Kobani, 60 km (37 miles) west of the main area of conflict. Turkey's Defence Ministry said its forces did not open fire at the US base and took all precautions to prevent any harm to it while it was responding to fire from a nearby area by the Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara regards as a terrorist group.
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| Xi, Modi Agree on New Trade Mechanism at Seaside Talks in India Posted: 12 Oct 2019 03:02 AM PDT ![Xi, Modi Agree on New Trade Mechanism at Seaside Talks in India]( "Xi, Modi Agree on New Trade Mechanism at Seaside Talks in India") (Bloomberg) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to set up a new mechanism to discuss trade during two days of informal talks in southern India that were aimed at re-calibrating strained ties between the nations.India raised its concerns about the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Indian foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale told reporters Saturday in the seaside town of Mamallapuram. The contentious issues of China's Huawei 5G network and India's decision to revoke the special autonomous status of Kashmir were not discussed, Gokhale said.The talks between the leaders of the world's two most populous countries came amid border disputes and trade tensions. China is India's second-largest trading partner with current two-way trade of $87 billion, and the two sides have targeted $100 billion in trade by 2020.Modi told Xi that "it is important that RCEP is balanced -- that a balance is maintained in trade in goods, trade in services and investments," Gokhale said. Xi said China "is ready to take sincere action" on trade and "to discuss in a very concrete way how to reduce the trade deficit," Gokhale said.Chinese vice premier Hu Chunhua and Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will lead the new mechanism which seeks to smooth concerns in the trade relationship that's currently skewed in China's favor. The countries agreed on a partnership to create more jobs in manufacturing and will deepen defense communication, Gokhale said.India is under increasing pressure to decide whether it will be a part of the RCEP -- which aims to create the world's largest trading bloc -- as China seeks to conclude the negotiations by November. India's primary concern is the pact may lead to an influx of cheap Chinese goods, which could further widen New Delhi's nearly $55 billion trade deficit with Beijing.Both RCEP and India need each other, said Amitendu Palit, senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, noting New Delhi was expected to table a final series of offers and requests on market access at the last ministerial meeting on the trade deal."These are likely to cover its concerns on opening up sensitive sectors like dairy and steel, through appropriate import safeguards and long phase-out of tariffs," Palit said in an email Saturday. "Much of India's concerns at RCEP have been driven by fears of Chinese imports. It is therefore not accidental that the Modi-Xi summit is taking place at a time when the RCEP is heading for a finish."This is the second straight "informal" meeting between the leaders, after their interaction in Wuhan, China in April last year.It comes as China navigates a trade war with the U.S. and months-long protests in Hong Kong, while India is trying to revive an economy that's seeing the slowest expansion in six years. New Delhi had also previously expressed annoyance over China's support of neighbor and rival Pakistan regarding India's actions in Kashmir, a region both Islamabad and New Delhi claim.(Updates with analyst comment in seventh, eighth paragraphs)To contact the reporters on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in Chennai at bpradhan@bloomberg.net;Archana Chaudhary in New Delhi at achaudhary2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Atul PrakashFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi bank on chemistry as they talk trade and terrorism Posted: 12 Oct 2019 02:30 AM PDT  Kicking off their informal summit in Chennai, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi banked on their personal chemistry in an attempt to iron out recent wrinkles in relations between the two countries.The first part of the Chinese leader's visit, on Friday evening, stretched on for much longer than scheduled. A one-on-one dinner between the two leaders, originally expected to take an hour, lasted nearly 2½ hours.Indian foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale, briefing the media late on Friday night, said that the talks mostly revolved around trade and terrorism."The two leaders spoke on issues of trade, investment and on enhancing both the trade values as well as trade volumes in order to bridge the trade deficit between the two countries," Gokhale said.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) and Chinese President Xi Jinping visit the Vaan Irai Kal in Mamallapuram on Friday. Photo: PTI via dpa alt=Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) and Chinese President Xi Jinping visit the Vaan Irai Kal in Mamallapuram on Friday. Photo: PTI via dpaXi and Modi also discussed "similar challenges that they both face on account of terrorism and radicalisation", the foreign secretary added. "Both leaders had a general sense that terrorism was a common challenge and that they will work together to overcome it."The Indian government has recently postured aggressively on cross-border terrorism, placing the blame on Pakistan, a close Chinese ally. It remains to be seen whether either side raised the topic of Kashmir, an issue that remains hotly contested by both countries.Gokhale declined to elaborate on the conversations and did not take questions, saying that the talks were ongoing.Earlier in the evening, the summit saw plenty of photo opportunities and warm optics as Xi and Modi walked around the monuments in the coastal town of Mamallapuram in southern Tamil Nadu.Modi gave Xi a personal tour, a gesture that recalled their previous informal summit last April, when the Chinese president took his Indian counterpart on a tour of Hubei Museum in Wuhan.The leaders spoke at length on Friday evening unaccompanied apart from their interpreters.After visiting two monuments, they sat down to sip coconut water, then toured a third monument and watched a 30-minute cultural performance.China's President Xi Jinping and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi talk during their visit to the Shore temple in Mamallapuram on the outskirts of Chennai on Friday. Photo: India's Press Information Bureau via Reuters alt=China's President Xi Jinping and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi talk during their visit to the Shore temple in Mamallapuram on the outskirts of Chennai on Friday. Photo: India's Press Information Bureau via Reuters"The two leaders spent quality time, spending over five hours together of which all the time, except the 30 minutes of the cultural performance, were spent one-on-one ..."Today's visuals and the tour reflect the personal rapport between the two leaders, built over 17 meetings and two summits that the two leaders have had since PM Modi took office in 2014," Gokhale said.The two leaders are slated to meet for three hours on Saturday, on the second and concluding leg of the summit.This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| Donald Trump’s Wildcat Foreign Policy Is Killing the State Department Posted: 12 Oct 2019 02:02 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily BeastIn late 2017, President Donald Trump asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson a simple question: can you make a problem go away? Trump's problem was an indicted Turkish-Iranian gold trader named Reza Zarrab. More precisely, the problem was Zarrab's lawyer, the president's close friend Rudy Giuliani.Investigators suspected Zarrab was working on behalf of the Turkish government's state-owned bank Halkbank as part of a massive scheme to funnel billions of dollars into Iran in contravention of American economic sanctions. They wanted Zarrab to spill what he knew. Giuliani was in a panic.Trump bluntly asked Tillerson to pressure the Department of Justice into ending its investigation of Zarrab. Tillerson flatly refused, even raising his concerns about the criminality of Trump's request with then-Chief of Staff John Kelly. And yet, faced with a clear order to obstruct a federal investigation, neither Tillerson nor Kelly took any steps to report Trump's request.'Angry' Rex Tillerson Says Jared Kushner Hijacked U.S. Foreign PolicyZarrab's case wasn't even the first time Trump tried to push Tillerson into breaking the law for Trump's own benefit. Speaking with Bob Schieffer last year, Tillerson said, "So often, the president would say 'Here's what I want to do and here's how I want to do it,' and I would have to say to him, 'Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can't do it that way. It violates the law, it violates treaty, you know, and he just, he got really frustrated when we'd have those conversations."Since the earliest days of his presidency, Trump has attempted to circumvent and weaken the policymaking and legal frameworks that provide accountability to federal acts. And no pillar of the federal government has received more of Trump's concentrated disdain than the State Department, once the American government's most venerable institution. Trump's wildcat-style diplomacy collided with the State Department almost immediately—and as Trump has succeeded in hobbling State, so has he hobbled the most effective checks on his self-dealing and corruption. Career FSOs, some with more than 20 years of professional service navigating the pitfalls and traps of international diplomacy, are speaking out against Trump's brash, just-wing-it brand of diplomatic negotiations. They remark with concern that Trump's persecution of his own diplomats saps our pool of talented officers while weakening American messaging abroad. "I watched the administration lurch even further these past two years toward a worldview characterized by bigotry, fear and small-minded chauvinism," wrote 11-year Foreign Service veteran Bethany Milton in a New York Times op-ed explaining her sudden resignation. "What of the administration's policies is there left to defend to foreign audiences?" Milton isn't alone in her defeatism. Long-time diplomat Chuck Park wrote in The Washington Post that he could "no longer justify being a part of Trump's 'complacent state.' Others have followed suit. As a result, the once prestigious Foreign Service has atrophied both within and without: in 2010, nearly 23,000 Americans took the Foreign Service Officer Test. By 2018, fewer than 9,000 applied. Nowhere is the collapse of the State Department more visible than in the rise of the Trumpian "pseudo-diplomat," normally a close Trump friend or family member with no formal government job, dispatched in secret to conduct opaque "negotiations" with a raft of questionable foreign leaders. Since 2017, a greater share of key diplomatic efforts are undertaken not by trained envoys bound by State Department regulations, but by amateurs more willing to give the president his way. Rudy Giuliani's shady attempt to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine fits the bill. So does Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's much-mocked attempts to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and solve American immigration standoffs with Latin American nations. At the United Nations General Assembly last month, America's most visible diplomat wasn't U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Kelly Craft—it was on-again-off-again foreign adviser Ivanka Trump, who had already caused controversy after trying to elbow her way into a high-level G20 discussion between French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of Britain, Canada and the International Monetary Fund. It didn't go well. None of Trump's rogue diplomacy would be possible without a Secretary of State willing to allow dangerously unaccountable individuals to pursue their often contradictory goals. In Secretary Mike Pompeo, Trump finally found a yes-man par excellence. Pompeo Pushed Out His Own Ukraine Rep to Squash a Growing ScandalPompeo proved his loyalty early, working alongside Trump to protect Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman from the consequences of murdering and dismembering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. More recently, he's refused to cooperate with the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry, and he also failed to raise any red flags during Trump's impeachable conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Instead of leaning on the full force of the State Department to bring forth the truth of Khashoggi's murder, Trump demanded silence from Pompeo and career diplomats. Instead of a meaningful investigation led by career civil servants and the American intelligence community, Trump dispatched Kushner—again, outside of normal diplomatic accountability channels—to privately calm the Saudis.Once the driver of American foreign policy, senior State Department officials now learn of conversations with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un or Russian President Vladimir Putin through Trump's public "Twitter diplomacy." Former Secretary Tillerson didn't even know he'd been fired until he skimmed the president's social media accounts. Freed from the protocols and restrictions of official foreign policy by a complacent Pompeo and enablers in the Senate, Trump is now free to dispatch his vast network of supplicants in pursuit of self-dealing on a truly global scale.The collapse of America's Department of State is a global tragedy, the full cost of which we may not see for a decade. Trump has no intention of stopping his end-run around State—on the contrary, State's newfound weakness represents one of Trump's few measurable personal victories as president. He takes no small glee in acknowledging that those who stood against him are gone, and his personal diplomatic corps—Giuliani, the Trump children, various Eastern European go-betweens—stands unchallenged on the international stage.There is still a chance for American institutions to stop the decay from Trump's wanton corruption. On Thursday morning, two of Rudy Giuliani's top associates were arrested for campaign-finance violations related to Giuliani's opaque, Trump-directed Ukraine dealings. There are even signs Republican lawmakers are growing concerned at Giuliani's inability to explain his role in the White House. Impeachment increasingly looks like the only viable remedy to such an advanced public cancer.In 2017, Giuliani and Trump found themselves stymied by Rex Tillerson and John Kelly as they tried to make the Reza Zarrab case disappear. Now the opposition figures have been purged. Giuliani and Trump stand astride the ruins of America's foreign policy and intelligence gathering institutions. The Senate has a choice: hold Trump and his band of foreign policy brigands accountable, or preside over the death of American soft power abroad. This is our last opportunity to make the right choice.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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| What's on the Table in Those Brexit Talks Posted: 12 Oct 2019 01:30 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- No news can be good news sometimes. The logic of past Brexit negotiations suggests that the less we hear about what's happening in intensive Brussels talks, the greater the chance that those talks are getting somewhere. Once the details start to leak and the anonymous briefings start, what's left tends to be dead on arrival.Yet even with scant details on the new negotiations between the Brits and the EU, or what concessions either side might have made to activate them, it's possible to draw some conclusions about what's being discussed.First, what it doesn't mean. The quiet luxury wedding venue in Cheshire, where U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar on Thursday (discovering a "pathway to a possible deal") is a long way from the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, or wherever the nitty-gritty of any possible Brexit deal might be thrashed out. As my colleague Lionel Laurent wrote on Friday, negotiations don't mean an agreement is a sure thing; there are many degrees of separation between the parties.Any deal must satisfy three requirements if it's going to fly politically in the U.K. and the EU. It must let Johnson bring Britain out of the bloc by Oct. 31 or very soon after, as he has promised his supporters. Second, Northern Ireland must be deemed part of the U.K. customs territory for any future trade deals struck by Britain. Third, an agreement would have to avoid customs checks in Ireland that would threaten either the Good Friday peace settlement or the EU's single market rules.Once a deal ticks those seemingly contradictory boxes, it must also pass muster with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. The DUP leader Arlene Foster gets very twitchy about anything that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. Without her support of any compromise agreement, it will be very difficult for hardline Brexiters in Johnson's ruling Conservative Party to back a deal. That means Johnson would have to rely on Labour MPs if a deal came to a parliamentary vote, although he'd be unlikely to put his initials on one without some assurance of support from his own side.The window in which to sell any agreement would be small. If, as many suspect, Johnson is considering a variation on part of his predecessor Theresa May's maligned Chequers deal — a "customs partnership" with the EU but that includes only Northern Ireland rather than her plan to include the whole of the U.K. — agreement would be difficult to secure and implementation would be messy. It would also be ironic since Johnson resigned over May's plan and the EU rejected it out of hand. There's nothing in Johnson's past that suggests he's a slave to his positions, quite the contrary. He's perfectly happy, shamelessly so at times, of changing with the wind if it delivers political victory. By contrast, everything in the DUP's history suggests that it doesn't budge even when the case for doing so is compelling. It says it won't accept Northern Ireland staying in the EU's customs union.Ireland's own position is delicate too. Any Varadkar concessions would need to be less onerous than the cost to Ireland of accepting no deal. Each side will be doing rapid calculations of whether a deal works better than the ugliest alternatives. You can see why there's been an 11th hour push, though. If Varadkar and Johnson hadn't found their "pathway," there wouldn't have been much to discuss at next week's EU council meeting other than an extension to the Halloween Brexit date.That would have been grim for Johnson, who's been forced by his own parliament to seek an extension if he can't strike a deal. For someone who won the Conservative leadership on a promise of leaving on Oct. 31, "no ifs or buts," having to ask for a delay is an unappetizing prospect.On the EU side, they'd no doubt rather get this done and move on to other things before a new European Commission takes its seat and before a new budget is voted on next year; especially if they can avoid chucking Dublin under a bus.Even though the two sides haven't yet entered the famed negotiating "tunnel," where they pore over the draft legal text of an agreement, at least they appear to be struggling toward the light. That doesn't mean they'll get there. But the alternatives of an eternal Brexit process (or no deal) are far darker places.To contact the author of this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Boris Johnson’s Tories Have 6 Point Lead Over Labour, Poll Shows Posted: 12 Oct 2019 12:20 AM PDT ![Boris Johnson's Tories Have 6 Point Lead Over Labour, Poll Shows]( "Boris Johnson's Tories Have 6 Point Lead Over Labour, Poll Shows") (Bloomberg) -- The U.K.'s ruling Conservatives have a 6 point lead over the opposition Labour Party and Boris Johnson is more than twice as popular as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a future prime minister, a ComRes poll for the Express newspaper showed.The Tory party attracted 33% of voting intentions in a snap general election, compared with 27% for Labour, 18% for the Liberal Democrats and 12% for the Brexit Party.Johnson would be the best prime minister according to 38%, while 17% said Corbyn and 12% said Jo Swinson of the Liberal Democrats.ComRes surveyed 2,018 people on Oct. 9-10.To contact the reporter on this story: James Amott in London at jamott@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.net, Sara Marley, Amanda JordanFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Tanker War: Back in 1988, Tensions Between Iran and America Led to a Clash Posted: 12 Oct 2019 12:00 AM PDT  Influencing public perceptions of Iran's navy to this day.
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| Rudy Giuliani is Donald Trump’s real secretary of state Posted: 11 Oct 2019 11:00 PM PDT  Giuliani wanted to be tapped as America's top diplomat, and it looks like he got more than he bargained for: congressional scrutiny and the media's glare'Giuliani is learning, as others have before, there is no brass ring when it comes to Trump.' Photograph: Charles Krupa/APFrom the looks of things, Rudy Giuliani has been the real secretary of state from Day One of the Trump administration. From Ukraine to Turkey to Iran to Foggy Bottom, Giuliani has left his mark. Who cares if Mike Pompeo now sits in the same office once occupied by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry."America's Mayor" has emerged as the Zelig of the Trump presidency, appearing anywhere and everywhere, the only thing missing being feathers sprouting from his head. As to whether Giuliani has truly served the presidency's true interests, as opposed to simply playing Trump's TV lawyer, that's a whole other story.On Thursday, the justice department charged Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two of Giuliani's clients who are embroiled in Ukraine and the hunt for Hunter Biden, with felony campaign finance violations and conspiracy.For good measure, the trio, Giuliani, Parnas and Fruman, have already announced that they would refuse to cooperate with the House's impeachment inquiry. Apparently, Giuliani's grasp has finally exceeded his reach.But it doesn't end there. On Wednesday Bloomberg reported that Trump had pressed Rex Tillerson, who at the time was nominally secretary of state, to push the justice department into killing an investigation into Reza Zarrab, a Giuliani client, for allegedly violating sanctions designed to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. Specifically, in a February 2017 Oval Office meeting, Trump had invited Giuliani, and Michael Mukasey, Bush 43's attorney general and a former federal judge, to lobby Tillerson on that score.Ultimately, Tillerson declined to lend a hand, Giuliani would fill our television screens, Zarrab would be prosecuted and convicted, and Mukasey's son, Marc, would come to represent Trump in his bids to keep his tax returns shrouded. There was something for everyone – think family business.Way back when, Mukasey had served as a mentor to Giuliani, and at the 2016 Republican convention, Mukasey had trashed Hillary Clinton – after first playing never-Trumper: "For a hint of why a Donald Trump presidency would imperil our national security …" Not any more, time flies.Along with supreme court justice, secretary of state was the job Rudy coveted, and it was the job Trump wanted to give him but didn't or couldn't, according to Michael Wolff's 2018 blockbuster, Fire & Fury: "The resistance to Giuliani from the Trump circle derived from the same reason Trump was inclined to give him the job – Giuliani had Trump's ear and wouldn't let go."For good measure, Wolff volunteered: "There were also whispers from the staff 'about his health and stability.'" To be sure, they were the same whispers that were echoed at a pre-inaugural lunch held at a Manhattan steakhouse by veterans of Giuliani's time at city hall, and those with significant ties to the current administration.More than once Giuliani's antics have left Trump's backers with a sense of agita. Last month, as the winds of impeachment began to blow strong, Giuliani did an about-face on cable in a matter of moments. After saying that he didn't ask Ukraine to investigate Biden, Giuliani quickly reversed course and told CNN's Chris Cuomo that he actually had.> Like Trump, Giuliani can engender a sense of disappointment and disgust among those who know him bestJust days later, a letter accompanying a congressional subpoena to Giuliani used his own words against him: "For example, on September 19, 2019, you admitted on national television that you personally asked the government of Ukraine to target Vice President Biden. During an interview on CNN, Chris Cuomo asked you, "So, you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?' You responded, 'Of course I did.'"Like Trump, Giuliani can engender a sense of disappointment and disgust among those who know him best. Ken Frydman, a New York-based public relations whiz and a veteran of Giuliani's 1993 mayoral race, recently wrote: "The man I worked for in 1993 is not the man who now lies for Donald Trump."Frydman isn't alone. As another Giuliani alumnus told the Guardian, "There is tremendous disappointment that a man we once greatly admired and who was worthy of that admiration has become a lapdog to a conspiracy theorist president." The aide explained: "It's heartbreaking in so many ways because – at his core – for better or worse, Rudy was always his own man. Sadly, he no longer is."Maybe. Or not.But Giuliani is learning, as others have before, there is no brass ring when it comes to Trump. Giuliani wanted to be tapped as secretary of state, and it looks like he got more than he bargained for. Globetrotting has begotten congressional scrutiny and the media's glare.Once remembered as a face of courage amid the ruins of 9/11, Giuliani has now been forced to lawyer up as the prospect of impeachment tightens it grip around Trump and his minions. As the saying goes, answered prayers are the most dangerous. * An attorney in New York, Lloyd Green was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush's 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
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| Deadly protests set stage for Iran, US tug-of-war over Iraq Posted: 11 Oct 2019 09:06 PM PDT  Iraq's deadliest wave of protests since the 2003 ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein has made the country vulnerable to a battle for influence between its two main competing allies, the United States and Iran, analysts say. The anti-government protests that erupted on October 1 echoed the demands that young Iraqis have made over recent years. "Without this context, Iran would not have intervened," Iraqi political analyst Munqith Dagher said.
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| Bill Maher Fails to Challenge The Federalist Publisher (and Mr. Meghan McCain) Ben Domenech Posted: 11 Oct 2019 07:58 PM PDT  HBOOn Friday night, Bill Maher granted a very large platform to Ben Domenech, the co-founder of far-right publication The Federalist. For the blissfully uninitiated, The Federalist is a strange, hyper-conservative website that's privately funded (and refuses to disclose who financially backs it), and has published a number of conspiracy theories, a gross op-ed defending Roy Moore preying on teenagers, and had a tag for articles called "Black Crime," among other offenses. And Domenech, whose father Douglas served in the George W. Bush administration (and helped land his son a job in it), was not only fired from the Washington Post for plagiarism, but recently unleashed a bizarre homophobic rant against Seth Meyers for the cardinal sin of challenging his wife Meghan McCain on her distortions regarding Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN.). Anyway, Maher, who's welcomed everyone from performance artist Milo Yiannopoulos to Ben Shapiro onto his popular HBO program, had Domenech on Real Time tonight. Bill Maher Brands Rudy Giuliani 'America's Traitor' Over Trump-Ukraine Whistleblower ScandalBill Maher Gets Played By Conservative Troll Ben ShapiroAnd it went about as expected. Domenech was on the panel portion of the program and, sporting a shiny suit, kicked things off with a strange argument regarding the potential impeachment of President Trump. "First off, you can impeach for anything. You can impeach because you don't like his hair. The Republicans could've impeached Barack Obama because they didn't like his tan suit," Domenech puzzlingly claimed, adding that the Democrats run "a real risk" if the impeachment process goes into an election year. Maher didn't push back—leaving it to NBC News journalist/Hunter S. Thompson cosplayer John Heilemann, who brought reason back into the equation, saying, "You can't impeach someone based on the color of their hair because there's no reasonable legal theory under which the color of someone's hair constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor." "How come every zany thing he does happens to be the thing that Putin would like?" asked Maher, referring to Trump's announcement that he's pulling U.S. troops out of northern Syria and abandoning America's Kurdish allies. Silence from Domenech, naturally. At no point in the night did Maher question Domenech about, say, who funds The Federalist or his site's history of publishing offensive—and at times, downright egregious—material; rather, he legitimized this lie-peddler and granted him millions of new eyeballs. And for what? Meghan McCain's Husband Ben Domenech Goes on Unhinged Homophobic Rant Against 'Cuck' Seth MeyersRead 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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| U.K. Queen’s Speech to Unveil Patel’s Extradition Bill, Sun Says Posted: 11 Oct 2019 06:04 PM PDT ![U.K. Queen's Speech to Unveil Patel's Extradition Bill, Sun Says]( "U.K. Queen's Speech to Unveil Patel's Extradition Bill, Sun Says") (Bloomberg) -- Queen Elizabeth II's speech in Britain's Parliament on Monday will unveil Home Secretary Priti Patel's Extradition Bill, the Sun reported, without saying where it got the information.The law would give new powers to police to make arrests and extradite more quickly people who are the subject of Interpol red notices, without going through the courts, the newspaper reported. It would also replace many of the powers that police currently have under the European Arrest Warrant system, which would end in the event of a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31.To contact the reporter on this story: Linly Lin in London at llin153@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sebastian Tong at stong41@bloomberg.net, Siraj Datoo, Linus ChuaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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