| Analysis: Trump's 'success' in Syria cedes region to Russia Posted: 24 Oct 2019 03:04 AM PDT  In remarks at the White House, Trump made the case that American administrations before him wasted too much money and blood on sectarian and tribal fighting in which the U.S. had no place meddling. "We have spent $8 trillion on wars in the Middle East, never really wanting to win those wars," Trump said Wednesday.
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| Democrats Start to Sense Impeachment Checkmate Posted: 24 Oct 2019 02:58 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.In the words of one Democratic impeachment investigator, there's now "smoking gun sitting on top of smoking gun."Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin's description of the House probe following U.S. diplomat William Taylor's explosive testimony explains why the pace of the inquiry has accelerated, with several Democrats saying they now expect closed-door witness interviews to conclude in about two weeks. That would be followed by public hearings.Taylor and other witnesses have sketched out back-channel outreach to Ukraine by Trump and his closest advisers that appears to have focused on leveraging U.S. foreign policy to dig up dirt on 2020 rival Joe Biden.Moving to the public hearing stage could help blunt the Republican criticism of the "Soviet-style" closed-door proceedings. To make their point, about two dozen GOP House members stormed the secure hearing room yesterday, delaying the questioning of a Pentagon official for more than five hours.As Billy House writes, open sessions also would give Democrats a way to build public support, with polls already moving in favor of impeachment.Another potential bombshell looms in the form of Trump's ousted national security adviser, John Bolton, who's likely to be called to testify.And no one — including the president — can be sure what he'll say.Global HeadlinesFork in the road | Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren are pitching prominent Democrats on different paths to winning voters the party lost to Trump in 2016: He says he can recreate the Obama coalition, while she says her anti-corporate-greed message will appeal to struggling Americans. The choice is intensifying a clash over the party's future along ideological and generational lines.Alberto who? | Alberto Fernandez has never served as governor, mayor or even congressman, but he's still the firm favorite to win Argentina's presidential election on Sunday. And that likelihood has investors petrified. Patrick Gillespie and Jorgelina do Rosario profile the backroom operator whose Peronist ticket with Cristina Kirchner looks poised to unseat President Mauricio Macri.Olive branch | Indonesian President Joko Widodo has drafted a former rival into his cabinet as a bulwark against further backlash over his second-term agenda. Ex-military chief Prabowo Subianto might help Jokowi push through reforms to bolster an economy growing at its slowest pace in two years, but his reputation as a maverick may bring him into conflict with the government.Building bridges | Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean Premier Lee Nak-yon agreed to ease a feud between their countries that has spilled into trade and security. After their highest-level meeting in more than a year, both sides made statements expressing a desire to mend ties. The neighbors are each other's third-largest trading partners, and neither can afford an economic fight as global growth cools.Chile message | Deadly anti-government unrest in Chile triggered by a 4-cent hike in subway fares is flashing a warning sign in Latin America's biggest economy. Brazil's acting president, Hamilton Mourao, tells Bloomberg's Walter Brandimarte and Rosalind Mathieson that the turmoil is a reminder to the region's leaders that they must care for the most vulnerable, even as they seek to maintain fiscal discipline through government austerity.What to WatchBoris Johnson canceled a cross-examination by senior members of Parliament, as speculation mounted the U.K. prime minister will again try to force an election to break the Brexit deadlock. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to deliver a major speech on Trump administration policy toward China. South Africa's official opposition party is in chaos after its leader and another top official quit yesterday amid infighting over appointments and policies and a loss of electoral support.Tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.And finally ... When the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded in 1986, Viktor Ivkin was just meters away from the main control room. He suffered severe radiation burns but survived and returned to work as a "liquidator," charged with cleaning up the disaster. Bloomberg TicToc meets him as he returns to where it happened 30 years later to talk about that night, the HBO show recounting it, and what he wants people to know about the plight of liquidators. \--With assistance from Ruth Pollard and Alan Crawford.To contact the author of this story: Kathleen Hunter in London at khunter9@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Winfrey at mwinfrey@bloomberg.net, Karl MaierFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Without help from US, UN climate fund struggles to meet goal Posted: 24 Oct 2019 01:37 AM PDT  Rich countries gathered Thursday in France to discuss replenishing an international fund that is meant to help poor nations tackle climate change, but which is falling short of its targets because the U.S. has stopped contributing. The two-day meeting in Paris aims to replenish the Green Climate Fund, which has spent much of the $7 billion it received from governments in the past five years. Governments agreed at a U.N. climate summit in 2015 to raise $100 billion each year by 2020 to help developing countries reduce their emissions and cope with the inevitable impacts of global warming, such as sea level rise and droughts.
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| Trump’s Cynical Surrender of Syria Marks an End to Humanitarian Interventions Posted: 24 Oct 2019 01:14 AM PDT  Bulent Kilic/GettyDiscussions about the United States' withdrawal from eastern Syria pay scant attention to the 200,000 civilians forced to flee their homes by a Turkish invasion that was kicked off by the Trump administration's Oct. 6 surprise announcement of a troop pullout. When U.S. Special Envoy to Syria James Jeffrey spoke at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday his responses did not convey much empathy or interest in the lives disrupted by U.S. policy decisions and the actions of Ankara. And when President Donald J. Trump couched his announcement Wednesday that such sanctions as he'd threatened against Turkey would be lifted, he claimed credit for saving thousands of Kurdish lives but, as so often appears to be the case, that was all about him, not about them.Trump Announces New Syria Plan: Blood for OilThe growing cynicism in the U.S., especially in the administration that mocked Syrian suffering as comparable to kids fighting on a playground, is in stark contrast to previous American presidencies a generation ago. President Bill Clinton articulated a moral necessity behind intervening in Haiti in 1994. It blended democracy and human rights as cornerstones of U.S. interests. George H.W Bush's "new world order" speech in 1990 hit similar themes. He spoke of a "historic period of cooperation… a new world order can emerge, a new era freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace."The two-week period between Trump's decision to withdraw from part of Syria on Oct. 6 and the deal between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 22 was underpinned by relative silence among Western and democratic governments towards the humanitarian needs in eastern Syria. Aid groups left eastern Syria as the U.S. wrapped up its bases, ostensibly because the Assad regime was returning and they would need to shift operations through Damascus. While European countries did seek to stop arms sales to Turkey and European Council President Donald Tusk condemned Turkey's invasion, little was done to help those fleeing, until they could get to Iraq where refugee camps were set up outside Bardarash in the Kurdistan region. The U.S., which played a key role in eastern Syria for five years, showed disregard for the civilians that U.S. forces had worked among. It was emblematic of a wider international collective shrug for the lives of people in eastern Syria blithely brushed aside as Turkey, Russia and Assad carved up the area.There would be no humanitarian intervention in eastern Syria. Countries have disabused themselves of that 1990s-era hallmark of conflicts such as the Balkans, or Somalia, where Western governments sought to stop abuses and ethnic cleansing. Except for Germany's too-little-too-late suggestion of an "international security zone" to be run with Turkey and Russia in eastern Syria there was little discussion about doing much about Turkey's operation. Turkey told the United National General Assembly in September that it would take over a swath of northern Syria and repopulate it with Syrian refugees, regardless of whether the refugees were from these mostly Kurdish areas or not. Where did Turkey derive the right to take over northern Syria? International law, under Article 2 of the U.N. Charter, frowns upon threats of the use of force. Article 51 spells out the right for "self-defense," but Turkey's claims of "security concerns" showed no evidence of any attacks on Turkey from areas controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in northern Syria. Nevertheless Turkey asserted that it faced a "terrorist" threat and would launch its operation on Oct. 9. If Europe or others objected, Turkey threatened to send millions of refugees to Europe, the same refugees Ankara was asserting it would re-settle in the "safe zone" it planned to take over.Turkey's ambitions were as transparent as they were Orwellian, describing as "terrorists" the SDF which never launched terror attacks on Turkey, and calling an area that 200,000 people were driven from by bombing a "safe zone." Yet there was no international action against Turkey. The U.S., which had forces on the ground, opened the airspace to Turkey bombing the SDF, which the U.S. was still partnered with to fight the so-called Islamic State. Russia and Turkey appeared to partition eastern Syria on October 22 without the say of local people or the Syrian regime.Is this a new international norm in which assertions of "security concerns" mean countries can take over neighboring countries and redraw ethnic and demographic boundaries? Increasingly the new world order symbolized by the October 2019 crisis in Syria can be compared with China's treatment of the Uighurs, India's revocation of Kashmir's special status in September, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar, Saudi Arabia's campaign in Yemen, the Assad regime's abuses since 2011, Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, Israel's continuing impunity in the occupied Palestinian territories, and other actions.These are linked by a notion that great power politics means "might makes right." Powerful countries can do what they want. This is in contrast to the notions of international law put in place in the 20th century after the Holocaust and colonialism. In general those laws sought to learn lessons from the way authoritarians such as Hitler had preyed on small weak states and peoples, and prevent recurrences.The foundation of international human rights found in the Geneva Conventions or Universal Declaration of Human Rights, even if they were frequently violated, were a benchmark for more than a century. The Syrian conflict symbolically looks to end this norm by leaving us a Hobbesian world where we barely pay lip service to human rights issues. Only 14 years after countries signed on to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) commitment at the U.N., which was supposed to prevent genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing, it seems it has been thrown out the window. Powerful Western countries with armed forces in eastern Syria, including the U.S., U.K. and France, handing over responsibility to Russia, Turkey and the Syrian regime is a milestone. Contrast it with the lofty values, at least paid lip service to, that sent a coalition to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. Operation Provide Comfort, which helped Kurds fleeing abuses in Iraq, was an outgrowth of that war. Operation Provide Promise followed in the Balkans, aimed at providing humanitarian aid. Other U.S.-led and international operations followed, including Uphold Democracy in 1994, Deliberate Force in 1995 and Allied Force in 1999 in Kosovo.This world of 2019, 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, now seems set to reverse all of the notions of human rights and international law that appeared so important for generations. Fatigue over wars in the Middle East, rising populism and isolationism and the ascendance of non-Western, more authoritarian states is challenging these notions. The Syrian civil war, especially the last days of U.S. involvement, should be seen as a bookend to a more idealized world. That the U.S. could so easily walk away from a peaceful region and watch 200,000 people be uprooted without a Security Council meeting or humanitarian aid being organized is extraordinary. Washington didn't even set up camps for the 7,000 mostly Kurdish civilians fleeing into Iraq in mid-October. France took in one burn victim from eastern Syria; the U.S. took none, despite the fact the U.S. had spent years training up to 100,000 members of the SDF. In this new world order vulnerable minorities and small states should take note: No one is coming to help them. The people of Syria have learned that in spades.The Kurds Gave Their Lives to Defeat the Islamic State. Trump Just Pissed It All Away.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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| Rights group: Record number of Jerusalem home demolitions Posted: 24 Oct 2019 01:10 AM PDT ![Rights group: Record number of Jerusalem home demolitions]( "Rights group: Record number of Jerusalem home demolitions") Israeli authorities have demolished at least 140 Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem this year, a rights group said Thursday, the highest annual number since it began keeping records in 2004. The demolition of homes built without permits comes amid a major increase in Jewish settlement activity both in east Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank since President Donald Trump took office. The Israeli rights group B'Tselem said 238 Palestinians have lost their homes this year, including 127 minors.
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| The Man Who Would Be Argentina’s President Terrifies Investors Posted: 24 Oct 2019 01:00 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Versión en EspañolAlberto Fernandez's march to the threshold of Argentina's presidency began in the upstairs room of a Buenos Aires bar.It was February of last year, late summer in the southern hemisphere, when the law professor and onetime presidential chief of staff convened members of his recently formed think tank, Grupo Callao, to weigh the political options.Early 2018 was an inauspicious time to even consider challenging the incumbent: President Mauricio Macri was basking in the glow of a mid-term electoral victory while preparing for a spell in the international limelight as host of the Group of 20 nations. Even the economy, Argentina's perennial Achilles Heel, was showing signs of recovery in response to Macri's market-friendly reforms.One Country, Eight Defaults: A Look at the Argentine Debacles Over "picadas"—cheese and charcuterie plates that Argentines nibble on for hours—Fernandez outlined a strategy to his colleagues seated at a long table in the bar's secluded upper level. His plan was to unite Peronism, Argentina's dominant political movement that traditionally favors workers over business owners, which had fragmented in recent years. And that would mean reconciling with his longtime foe, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the former president.Eighteen months later, Fernandez trounced Macri in a primary vote, and pretty much everyone in Argentina expects him to do so again in the official presidential election on Oct. 27. The likely key to that success—and the source of Fernandez's biggest potential dilemma—is the improbable inclusion of Kirchner on the ticket as his deputy, not his boss.This story of how Fernandez brought Argentina to this point is based on interviews with his senior campaign staff, close friends and former government leaders, some of whom asked not to be named discussing the presidential candidate. Fernandez didn't respond to interview requests made through his spokesman.Fernandez's ascent is an audacious political gambit that nevertheless has investors and Argentina's creditors, not least the International Monetary Fund, bracing for turmoil. They question Kirchner's influence: During her eight-year tenure, she implemented currency controls, kept the country in default and faked economic data, cutting Argentina off from global markets. With those memories still fresh, the peso plunged 26% in August after Fernandez's primary victory and sovereign bonds suffered a historic collapse. For Macri's opponents, a Fernandez-Kirchner government can't come soon enough. The question remains, however, which path Fernandez, the ultimate political insider, will take if he makes it to the presidential palace—and Kirchner's role in his decisions.Kirchner hasn't yet asked Fernandez to let her choose a single minister, according to one senior campaign official, who insisted that Fernandez will control policy."Alberto will be in charge of the government," said Jorge Arguello, Argentina's former ambassador to the United Nations and Fernandez's friend of 40 years. "He's learned how to build up power." One indication of his direction is offered by the Grupo Callao, named after Avenida Callao, a main artery of the capital that runs past Congress and Fernandez's personal office. Its original members are emerging as his top aides on the road to the presidency. Among them are campaign chief Santiago Cafiero, whose grandfather served as Juan Peron's trade minister and whose father was ambassador to the Vatican during Cristina Kirchner's administrations. Santiago recruited Matias Kulfas and Cecilia Todesca, two former central bank officials, who now spearhead Fernandez's economic team.Analysts say Fernandez will be more moderate than investors fear. Yet his economic agenda still presents a challenge: He says he will raise salaries, lower interest rates, ease inflation and aim for fiscal and trade surpluses, all while growing the economy. He won't default on the nation's debt, but instead plans to renegotiate with private creditors and separately with the IMF over the record $56 billion bailout Macri requested.Graphic: Argentines Eye Swing From Free Market to Protectionist Policies"What I think he's saying is that reaching those objectives can't come at the cost of rising poverty and unemployment," said Miguel Pesce, a former central bank vice president who's known Fernandez for over 15 years.Born in the City of Buenos Aires, Fernandez, 60, is a pragmatist who knows Argentina's bureaucracy inside out and listens to policy makers across the spectrum, without grasping onto ideology. It's part of his man-for-all-seasons persona. Fernandez plays guitar—he named his dog "Dylan" after the musician—loves soccer, writes poetry and idolizes Walt Whitman. Once married and divorced, Fernandez's partner is a 38-year-old journalist and actress, Fabiola Yanez. He has one adult son, Estanislao, who moonlights as a drag queen. Fernandez's campaign promises to focus on the poor and marginalized, yet he lives in a high-rise block in the capital's most chic neighborhood.His introduction to politics was as a student activist at the University of Buenos Aires during Argentina's military dictatorship. He worked in government in the mid-1980s after the return to democracy, then landed an economic post in President Carlos Menem's administration. But by 1995, Fernandez was fed up with Menem and quit. It was a pattern he would repeat under the Kirchners. Fernandez started a roundtable with husband and wife Nestor and Cristina Kirchner in 1998, five years before Nestor won the presidency. He took a leap of faith, since at the time Nestor was a little-known governor from a remote province in distant Patagonia. The two became close, and Nestor appointed Fernandez as first his campaign chief and later, chief of staff. Fernandez gained a reputation which he still holds today for having a short temper. He adopted the president's centralized power structure—only meeting one-on-one with ministers and never holding cabinet meetings."Alberto likes to keep everyone spread out," said Eduardo Valdes, a friend from college who introduced him to the Kirchners in 1997. "Nobody knows what he said to the other one." Fernandez held the post all through Kirchner's four-year term. But when Nestor stepped aside for Cristina, Fernandez remained in his position for just six months before resigning after she tried to raise export tariffs, sparking a crisis between the government and farmers. He left with a reputation as a skilled negotiator operating largely out of sight of the public—and a festering rift with Cristina. Fernandez went on to support Kirchner's political opponents and berate her leadership."I really struggle to find one commendable element of Cristina's second term in office," he said in a 2015 TV interview.The reconciliation that could change Argentina was confirmed on a bone chilling May evening in Buenos Aires, as thousands gathered in the driving rain to hear Cristina speak publicly for the first time in months. Kirchner, by now more than three years removed from her presidency and the subject of myriad corruption allegations, was presenting her memoir, "Sincerely." Fernandez sat in the front row.Her supporters hung to Kirchner's every word, hoping she'd announce another bid to become president. Instead, she planted the seeds for a political twist nobody saw coming. Kirchner thanked Fernandez for giving her the idea to write the book. In doing so, she was raising the curtain on their joint campaign: 10 days later, it was Kirchner who announced that she'd be running for deputy with Fernandez as the lead candidate. Speculation has swirled as to the reason for their rapprochement. According to friends and campaign officials, the two began to talk again and slowly heal their divide after Kirchner suffered two stinging electoral defeats, forcing her to rethink her strategy. If the game plan proves a winning one on Sunday, Fernandez still faces a daunting task balancing competing demands from Kirchner's core populist base for more social spending with those of Argentina's creditors. What's more, he must do so having never served as a governor, mayor or even congressman."The issue isn't that Alberto isn't known abroad—in Argentina they don't know Alberto," said Camila Perochena, a political science professor at University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires. "It's really hard to predict what a person is going to do when he was never the front man, but the politician behind the scenes." To contact the authors of this story: Patrick Gillespie in Buenos Aires at pgillespie29@bloomberg.netJorgelina Do Rosario in Buenos Aires at jdorosario@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Samantha Bee runs down the man who 'created the Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory' Posted: 24 Oct 2019 12:27 AM PDT ![Samantha Bee runs down the man who 'created the Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory']( "Samantha Bee runs down the man who 'created the Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory'") "Yesterday, the U.S.'s top diplomat in Ukraine testified to Congress that the quid, it was oh so pro quo," Samantha Bee said on Wednesday's Full Frontal. The diplomat, William Taylor, gave "the strongest evidence we've seen that [President] Trump really did pressure Ukraine to investigate his rivals since Mick Mulvaney went on TV and admitted it.""For those who are a little confused by the Biden-Ukraine 'controversy' that Trump was supposedly investigating, let's do a comprehensive explainer of the whole scandal," Bee said. She kept it brief: "It's bulls--t. Explainer over." Former Vice President Joe Biden isn't above reproach on some issues, "but the Ukraine story is not one of them," she said. "So where did Trump get this crazy idea?" Peter Schweizer, a right-wing author whose latest book "created the Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory that Trump is obsessed with," Bee explained."So who the hell is Peter Schweizer, and how does he keep Schweizing us?" Bee asked -- and answered. A longtime associate of Steve Bannon, Schweizer "devised a clever way to use the mainstream media against liberal politicians: Just gather a bunch of provocative but unrelated facts about a Democrat and pretend they point to a nefarious plot that's completely unsupported by those facts, then, instead of feeding them into the right-wing media fever swamp, feed them to respectable mainstream outlets that, in their desperate quest for balance, will investigate, promote, and legitimize the story, allowing it to spew all over the news ecosystem."Schweizer did it with Hillary Clinton in 2016, "and now the media are falling for the same scam all over again," Bee said. "The good news is that this time his scheme backfired and it may lead to Trump's impeachment. The bad news is that he probably has further plans for 2020," like "a book suggesting that Elizabeth Warren owns a condo in North Korea" or something. She tried out a Schweizer of her own, and if you don't mind some scattered NSFW language, watch below.
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| Cristina's comeback: Fernández de Kirchner set for dramatic return as Argentina's No 2 Posted: 24 Oct 2019 12:01 AM PDT  She was vilified when she left office in 2015 – but polls say the former president and Alberto Fernández are likely to oust Mauricio MacriPolls say Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and presidential candidate Alberto Fernández (no relation), could win by as much as 19 percentage points. Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/APWhen she left office in 2015, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was vilified by her opponents as a corrupt populist who had bankrupted Argentina during her two-term presidency.She was painted as a sore loser, who even refused to participate in the ceremony in which tradition demanded she present her successor Mauricio Macri with the presidential baton and sash."I was Cristina, the arrogant 'bitch', the authoritarian populist," wrote the former president – commonly referred to as Cristina Kirchner in Argentina – in a memoir earlier this year.Meanwhile, she was entangled in a string of court cases involving accusations of bribery, money laundering, corruption and allegations that she had helped cover up Iran's involvement in a terrorist bombing that prosecutor was investigating.But in what could be one of the most incredible comebacks in Argentina's political history, Fernández de Kirchner seems to be on the brink of returning to office as vice-president – and potentially the real power behind the throne.Polls before Sunday's election predict that the former president and her running mate, Alberto Fernández (no relation), could win by as much as 19 percentage points.They are facing incumbent Macri, who took power in 2015 pledging "zero poverty" and denouncing the allegedly rampant corruption during the 12-year rule of Fernández de Kirchner and her late husband and presidential predecessor, Néstor Kirchner.But so dismal was Macri's economic mismanagement that voters appear willing to turn a blind eye to Fernández de Kirchner's many court appearances, the arrest of her former cabinet members, and even the discovery of $4.6m in cash in a safety deposit box belonging to her 29-year-old daughter. (No verdict has been reached in any the court cases she is involved in, and as a sitting senator, Fernández de Kirchner remains immune to prosecution.)Under Macri, the peso has plunged, , inflation rocketed to 56% per year, and the percentage of the population living below the breadline has risen from 29% to 35%.A recent survey showed that 56.9% of voters believe the economy would deteriorate even further should Macri continue in office, while 59.5% expect it could improve under Fernández. The survey, by the CEOP pollster, predicts Fernández will beat Macri by 50.5% to 31.2% this Sunday.Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with presidential candidate Alberto Fernández. Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/APMacri also seems to have underestimated Fernández de Kirchner's deep hold on the political imagination of many Argentinians. She dominates social media and seems to represent a modern-day version of Eva Perón, Argentina's unofficial patron saint of the poor, the charismatic wife of President Juan Perón.Like Evita, Fernández de Kirchner has earned first-name recognition in Argentina; she also championed the poor with social aid programs while remaining a self-confessed slave to fashion.The former president is a talented public speaker who made weekly national addresses in office. Macri, meanwhile, is an often graceless speaker, whose wooden delivery did not help when announcing unpopular government measures such as massive tariff hikes.He has also earned the dislike of many female voters for his reflexive sexism, and his support for Argentina's anti-abortion movement, which prevented the passage of a law legalising abortion during his presidency."Cristina represents an empowered woman," said Samanta Casareto, professor of history at Buenos Aires University. "For a whole generation she signifies the vindication of social rights that had been deliberately set aside."In a radio interview last week, Macri said Fernández de Kirchner's economic policies were like "handing over the administration of the house to your wife, and your wife, instead of paying the bills, uses the credit card, and uses it and uses it, until one day they come to mortgage your house".Such comment encapsulate the mindset of a "machirulo" – a recent coinage by Argentina's feminists for a sexist bigot who disrespects women.After the disastrous radio interview, Fernández de Kirchner responded rapidly with a tweet: "See?!! I told you he was a machirulo."Fernández de Kirchner also displayed superior political acumen when she chose not to run for president, instead handing the nomination to the moderate Fernández, a mild-mannered, moderate Peronist who served as cabinet chief in Néstor Kirchner's administration.> Vieron?!! Yo les dije que era un machirulo �� https://t.co/WgOFSTB338> > — Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) October 15, 2019The surprise move effectively disarmed Macri's strategy to portray the election as a choice between a safe pair of hands (himself) and a power-hungry, polarizing woman who was relishing the prospect of a return to the highest office in the land.Although Fernández de Kirchner is likely to call the shots, analysts say that the promise that her fiery spirit will be tempered by Fernández's even keel seems to have appealed to middle-class voters disenchanted with Macri.Fernández has assured voters he would steer an even course in economics, seeking a friendly agreement with the IMF and avoiding the return of the kind of currency controls imposed during Fernández de Kirchner's government.His promise is meant to assuage the doubts of middle-class voters in a country where banks offer dollar accounts to protect savings from Argentina's perennial inflation.Brazil's rightwing president, Jair Bolsonaro, has described Fernández de Kirchner, and her running mate as "leftwing bandits" and warned that her likely return to office means "Argentina is starting to head in the direction of Venezuela."But the election comes at a time of political turmoil across Latin America – much of it fueled by popular rage at austerity measures and income inequality.Ecuador saw two weeks of violence over the cancellation of fuel subsidies. Across Argentina's northern border, the Bolivian Evo Morales's controversial bid for a fourth term as president has prompted allegations of voter fraud, while to the west, Macri's close ally, Chile's President Sebastián Piñera, has been accused of violently suppressing protests over poverty and inequality.In a radio interview on Wednesday, Fernández de Kirchner's running mate accused Macri of downplaying the deaths and violence in Chile. "People reacted because it's the most unequal country in Latin America. And inequality is like sitting on a bucket of petrol, if a spark falls, you blow up."
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| Brexit Bulletin: The Waiting Game Posted: 23 Oct 2019 11:34 PM PDT  Brexit is (officially) 7 days away.(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.Today in Brexit: Boris Johnson is being forced to wait for the EU to set the length of an extension he never wanted.What's happening? Boris Johnson's Brexit plans remain stuck in limbo. Officials in Brussels are leaving him hanging on as they debate whether to grant a third extension to the U.K.-EU divorce process.EU ambassadors agreed in Brussels last night that they should accept the British prime minister's request for more time, which Johnson says is really Parliament's delay, not his. But there's no consensus yet on how long he will get. While many other countries want to give the U.K. the three months it has asked for, the French, led by President Emmanuel Macron, are pushing for a tight deadline of Nov. 15.While Macron's stance may ultimately help the British premier to use the specter of a no-deal split into pressuring MPs into backing his calls for a fast-track approval process, the reality among officials in Brussels is that no one wants to be blamed for triggering a chaotic rupture with the U.K., Bloomberg's Ian Wishart and Alex Morales report. "There's no chance that we don't give them a chance," Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said yesterday. "We'll write 'postpone', and 'postpone' and 'postpone', and we'll keep on like that for another 90 to 100 years."Ambassadors resolved to reach a decision when they meet again Friday, and a three-month extension would likely put the U.K. on course for an early general election. Johnson hosted his arch-rival, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, for talks in Parliament on a new timetable for MPs to debate and scrutinize the Brexit deal, and Corbyn reiterated that Labour would back an election once the threat of a no-deal Brexit has been removed, according to an opposition spokesman. Johnson could make a new attempt to trigger an election as early as Thursday, the Times reported. Today's Must-ReadsWith Brexit remaining as elusive as ever, companies have little choice but to prepare for any outcome. We're tracking what firms have done, or are planning to do, to prepare. The U.K. needs some Brexit honesty and another referendum, according to the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.Members of Johnson's top team are at war with one another over whether to seek an election or continue pushing his deal through Parliament, according to BuzzFeed News.How are we doing? Time is running out to tell us what you think of the Brexit Bulletin. Please take a few minutes to fill in our survey.Brexit in BriefJohnson Cancels | Johnson pulled out of Thursday's scheduled appearance before a parliamentary scrutiny hearing at the eleventh hour yesterday, citing the need to focus on Brexit. The prime minister, who was due to give evidence to the Liaison Committee of senior MPs at 10 a.m., canceled the appointment via a handwritten note to its chair, who quickly vented her frustrations on Twitter. Javid Presses Ahead | One government appearance that will be going ahead amid the potential delay looks to be the budget, with Chancellor Sajid Javid confirming on ITV's Peston show last night it is on track for Nov. 6.Branson Defiant | Billionaire U.K. entrepreneur Richard Branson said opponents of Brexit should hold out for a second referendum and not be seduced into backing Johnson's revised deal. Concern about avoiding a no-deal split combined with a sense of fatigue surrounding the Brexit debate risks eroding political and public opposition to the schism, the Virgin Group founder said Wednesday in an interview.Services Concern | The value of U.K. services exports fell in the second quarter, driven by a decline in trade to the EU, official figures showed Wednesday. Overseas sales in the nation's dominant sector decreased to £72.2 billion ($93.3 billion) in the three months through June, with those to the EU dropping by £1.7 billion.On the Markets | Investor hopes for either clarity or closure on Brexit have lifted British stocks, credit and the pound in recent weeks. But with neither scenario materializing, a few nerves are starting to show, Bloomberg's Samuel Potter and Michael Msika report.Coining It | The prospect of another Brexit delay means a small batch of special 50p coins minted to commemorate the Oct. 31 exit day look set to be become collectors' items, according to the Telegraph. At least 1,000 of the coins bearing that date have already been created as part of a trial, and could quickly be highly sought after items if an extensions renders them incorrect.Want to keep up with Brexit?You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter, and listen to Bloomberg Westminster every weekday. It's live at midday on Bloomberg Radio and is available as a podcast too.Share the Brexit Bulletin: Colleagues, friends and family can sign up here. For full EU coverage, try the Brussels Edition.For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close.To contact the author of this story: David Goodman in London at dgoodman28@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Adam Blenford at ablenford@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Dubai loosens liquor laws as UAE alcohol sales suffer drop Posted: 23 Oct 2019 11:10 PM PDT  Dubai has loosened its liquor laws to allow tourists to purchase alcohol in state-controlled stores, previously only accessible to license-holding residents, as the United Arab Emirates saw the first drop in alcohol sales by volume in a decade. The new laws, which also let visitors to skyscraper-studded Dubai obtain liquor permits themselves for the first time, come amid a widening economic downturn affecting this oil-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula. "The United Arab Emirates is facing tough challenges, as changes in both consumers' buying behavior and demographics started to have an effect," the market research firm Euromonitor International said in a recent report.
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| Hillary Clinton called me a 'Russian asset'. The establishment is losing its grip Posted: 23 Oct 2019 11:01 PM PDT  The McCarthyist smear against the Green party shows the lengths to which Clinton will go to blame others for her 2016 defeat'We're seeing the disturbing US descent into McCarthyism. Photograph: Lou Rocco/American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. via Getty ImagesLike her attack on Tulsi Gabbard, Hillary Clinton's accusation that I am a "Russian asset" is a ludicrous, unhinged conspiracy theory with no basis in fact. It's also an attempt to deflect attention from the role of Clinton's campaign in her own defeat. This desperate blame game is not an encouraging sign that the Democratic party will muster a winning strategy to oust the disastrous Trump administration in 2020. Equally alarming, the Clinton camp's attempts to shift responsibility for their electoral failure to "Russian assets" has fueled a new era of McCarthyism - a toxic brew of warmongering, political repression and censorship now poisoning our public discourse.By continuing to blame everyone else for their loss, the Clinton camp is suppressing serious reflection on the problems with their own campaign. These ranged from the "Pied Piper" strategy of urging media allies to elevate Donald Trump to front-runner status, to the sabotage of Bernie Sanders by Clinton surrogates in the DNC.The deflection strategy also seeks to cover over a key factor in Clinton's loss: her record of serving Wall Street, promoting corporate trade deals that hurt working people, and supporting endless war and regime change disasters.Confronting the real reasons for Clinton's loss would open a much-needed conversation about why the Democratic establishment opposes progressive policies that are broadly popular - such as Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free public higher education, and other programs to improve working people's lives. They would have to reckon with the unpopularity of their disastrous foreign policy of global military domination. These discussions would threaten not only the mega-donors funding the Democratic party machine, but also the power of the Clinton-Obama neoliberals who made their careers serving those donors.So instead the Clintonites blame their defeat on Russia and smear their opponents as "Russian assets". This is classic McCarthyism, recalling a shameful period of paranoid hysteria and political repression.Clinton's smear builds on a relentless attack begun the week of the 2016 Green nominating convention. At that time, Democratic operatives and media allies began obsessively promoting pictures and videos from an international media conference I had attended in Russia in 2015, intentionally taking them out of context to claim I was there supporting Putin. In reality, the Moscow trip was part of an international tour to share my message of peace and climate action with media and government officials from many nations. The campaign to associate me with Putin escalated after the election, when media outlets and pundits who ignored our press releases and social media posts from December 2015 about the Moscow trip began circulating a single picture stripped of all context, implying that I was up to something secretive and nefarious in Russia. That picture, taken at the conference gala dinner when Vladimir Putin briefly sat at my table before giving a speech, has launched a thousand conspiracy theories.Even the recount effort I initiated to investigate potential hacking or other problems in the 2016 election was accused of being a scheme funded by Russia to undermine faith in the election. All these allegations have long since been debunked, by media outlets that actually looked into the accusations instead of simply repeating them, and by a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation that failed to turn up a single lead to explore.Since then, the Green party and our campaign have been targeted by a barrage of disinformation arguing that Green voters, especially African-Americans, were duped by a Russian social media campaign. While the attempt by any nation to interfere in others' elections is reprehensible, the much-hyped Russian troll farm was a relatively minor player on the social media battlefield: minimally-funded, with juvenile posts that were mostly unrelated to the election, and lacking tools like micro-targeting or data-mining used by sophisticated operations like Cambridge Analytica. Investigative journalists like Adrian Chen and Aaron Mate have raised the possibility that the troll farm was primarily a clickbait factory, rather than an electoral influence campaign. There's no evidence these posts had any impact whatsoever in the 2016 election. The claim that people voted Green because they were tricked by a handful of such posts is an insult to voters' intelligence.In spite of the hype about Russian interference, polls consistently show this issue barely registers as a concern compared to the crises Americans face in their everyday lives. Meanwhile, 70% of voters are angry at the bipartisan status quo that's thrown working people under the bus.Hillary Clinton has every reason to worry about the establishment's grip on power. Her desperate "Russian asset" smears will not hold back the rising tide of discontent. But they have lifted the veil on the disturbing US descent into McCarthyism. Let's hope this will be a wake up call, triggering a much needed rethinking of the atmosphere of political repression that now threatens our democracy. * Jill Stein was the Green party presidential candidate in the 2016 elections
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| China’s Biggest Meeting of Year Gives Leaders Opportunity to Talk Hong Kong Protests Posted: 23 Oct 2019 10:59 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- China's ruling Communist Party will hold its most important gathering of the year from October 28 to 31, state-run Xinhua News Agency said, giving its leadership an opportunity to discuss issues such the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.The plenum -- a full meeting of the Communist Party's Central Committee -- is a venue to pass decisions on major topics and involves more than 200 party leaders from the government, military and state-owned enterprises. The committee will discuss key issues related to maintaining and improving China's socialist system and national governance, Xinhua reported in August.While the meeting comes at a point in the party's five-year political cycle that's usually reserved for setting economic policies, the earlier Xinhua report suggested an agenda that was more political. On Tuesday, a front page commentary on the People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece, reviewed the progress in judicial reform and the law-based governance since the last Fourth Plenum of The Central Committee in 2014 during Xi Jinping's first term. Such long format commentary is usually seen ahead of the the party's major political events.The plenum will be the fourth Central Committee conclave since Xi secured a second term as the party's general secretary in October 2017. The committee hasn't convened since recommending an end to the constitutional limits on Xi's tenure in February 2018. The party hasn't gone so long without such a meeting since late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping launched his "Reform and Opening Up" campaign more than 40 years ago.Policy makers are also grappling with a trade war with the U.S., which has exacerbated an economic slowdown as both sides levy tariffs on each other's goods. Data released last week showed an economy expanding at just 6%, the slowest in almost three decades, though there were also signs things could be stabilizing, including corporate demand for long-term credit picking up and growth in auto sales contracting less. The two sides are also moving closer toward a partial deal that could alleviate tensions.The early hints of stabilization give the authorities a chance to debate some long-term issues at the meeting, such as a graying population and the merits of freer internal migration of labor. These reforms could be more important than imminent policy loosening in ensuring a steady performance of the economy in the longer term.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Dandan Li in Beijing at dli395@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Sharon Chen, John LiuFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iranian Mayhem Is About to Get Worse Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:30 PM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Back in 2015, desperate to reach a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program, U.S. negotiators made a fateful concession: The UN's conventional-arms embargo on Iran, they agreed, would be lifted in five years.The costs of that concession, one of the worst mistakes of those negotiations, are about to come due. The embargo is set to expire on Oct. 18, 2020 — and if it does, the situation in the Middle East is likely to get even worse.The concession wasn't to Iran so much as to China and Russia, two great-power rivals that participated in the nuclear negotiations. In the 1990s, China and Russia sold Iran a variety of weapons systems, which the Iranians then reverse-engineered. By this time next year, America's two most potent geopolitical rivals will have a green light to sell advanced missiles to the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.It would be bad enough if Iran kept those weapons for itself. But if past is prelude, there is a good chance Iran's numerous proxies in the Middle East will benefit as well.Last week, in little-noticed testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the U.S. special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, shared information from newly declassified U.S. intelligence assessments.Since mid-2017, he said, Iran has "expanded its ballistic missile activities to partners across the region." That includes Hezbollah, Palestinian terrorist groups and, as of mid-2018, Shia militias in Iraq. The new intelligence also finds that Iran has increased its support of Hezbollah by helping to expand the group's ability to produce its own rockets and missiles. Finally, Hook said, the U.S. intelligence community now believes Iran is developing "missile systems and related technology solely for export to its regional proxies."Taken together, this information underscores not only the need to extend the United Nations arms embargo, but also the limits of the current U.S. strategy of "maximum pressure." While crippling sanctions on Iran have made it much harder for groups such as Hezbollah and Shiite militias to pay salaries, they have not put a dent in Iran's broader quest to arm those proxies with weapons capable of hitting U.S. allies. The world learned this firsthand in September, when an Iranian missile destroyed a crude oil processing facility deep inside Saudi Arabia.Since that attack, neither the U.S. nor Saudi Arabia has responded with an overt military strike. Earlier this month an Iranian oil tanker exploded in the Red Sea, but no country has claimed credit. Meanwhile, the U.S. retreat from northeastern Syria this month will potentially give Iran and its proxies more influence inside that failed state.This geopolitical picture, combined with the new intelligence about Iran, makes the need for extending the arms embargo on Iran all the more urgent. Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me Wednesday that the U.N. arms embargo makes it much easier for the U.S. and its allies to devise the legal predicate to interdict weapons shipments to and from Iran.The real danger, though, is that both China and Russia possess technology that will make Iran's already formidable military production even better. Taleblu pointed to a Chinese and Russian cruise missile that can be disguised in a cargo ship's container. If Iran can upgrade its arsenal, he said, it would be "the greatest missile power in the Middle East."The problem for the U.S. is that any extension of the arms embargo would require agreement from both China and Russia, either of which can veto resolutions at the UN Security Council. This places President Donald Trump's administration in a position similar to that of its predecessor. Between 2013 and 2015, Barack Obama's administration needed Chinese and Russian support for a final deal with Iran because it believed the crippling sanctions that compelled Iran to negotiate would be toothless otherwise. And one cost of this multilateral diplomacy was the expiration of the UN arms embargo.Now it's up to Hook and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to make the case to China and Russia to forgo weapons sales to Iran for the sake of broader Middle East stability. To say that's a long shot would be an understatement.To contact the author of this story: Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Boris Johnson Should Come Clean on His Brexit Deal Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:01 PM PDT ![Boris Johnson Should Come Clean on His Brexit Deal]( "Boris Johnson Should Come Clean on His Brexit Deal") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The U.K. Parliament has approved, in principle, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's exit deal with the European Union, but has refused to let him rush it into law. The question is where to go from here.An election could be in the offing — or, because calling one would require the parliamentary majority that Johnson lacks, maybe not. Even if the bill survives lawmakers' scrutiny and eventually passes, Johnson would face grueling new talks with the EU about the future trading relationship.One certainty is that Britain will need more time. To an exasperated electorate, it may seem like the 1,217 days since the referendum has been time enough to work things out. But trade deals with the EU typically take years to complete (seven in Canada's case); Johnson plans to have this one concluded and ratified in just 14 months. That simply won't happen. Without a longer so-called transition period, another no-deal exit will loom. Johnson's deal, if it moves forward, should be amended to allow more time for these further talks.More important, it should also be amended to put Britain's choice about its future in Europe back to voters in a second referendum. Granted, this would delay matters further. But it would confer democratic legitimacy on the course Johnson has set, give voters clarity that the first ballot lacked, and ease the negotiating process to follow.The government, for its part, needs to be more transparent about exactly what its intentions are. Johnson is proposing a decidedly hard form of Brexit: He plans to leave the EU's customs union and diverge from its single-market regulations, replacing a once seamless economic relationship with a bare-bones free-trade deal. Even done wisely, this process would add significant barriers to trade; done rashly, it could be a disaster for businesses.In any event, the public deserves an honest accounting. A government analysis of the deal published this week is silent on just about every relevant expense, and no wonder: Even on optimistic assumptions, the added costs of new restrictions on trade with Europe could be immense — to say nothing of the complex system of checks and rebates that Johnson proposes for Northern Ireland. One recent analysis suggests that the total hit to public finances could exceed $60 billion a year, with all the added austerity that implies.Less tangible costs will also need to be confronted head-on. The new trade system for Northern Ireland, for instance, may pose grave political risks. By ensuring that Great Britain and Northern Ireland diverge in key respects, it has left unionists feeling defensive, betrayed or worse. By allowing a simple majority to determine if the North exits the arrangement, it has undermined the principle of cross-community consent that has helped keep the peace there for more than 20 years.The full consequences of these momentous decisions are anyone's guess. But one thing is clear: Johnson's insistence that the agreement will simply "get Brexit done" couldn't be further from the truth. Brexit may never be done. If a deal passed Parliament tomorrow, it could entail years more of tortured negotiation, unhappy trade-offs, rising complexity, worsening friction and pervasive uncertainty, with no particular end date in sight.Voters may yet judge that all this is worth it for the added sovereignty that Johnson's deal notionally affords. But the choice should be theirs.\--Editors: Timothy Lavin, Clive Crook.To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg Opinion's editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net, .Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Boris Johnson Should Come Clean on His Brexit Deal Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:01 PM PDT ![Boris Johnson Should Come Clean on His Brexit Deal]( "Boris Johnson Should Come Clean on His Brexit Deal") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The U.K. Parliament has approved, in principle, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's exit deal with the European Union, but has refused to let him rush it into law. The question is where to go from here.An election could be in the offing — or, because calling one would require the parliamentary majority that Johnson lacks, maybe not. Even if the bill survives lawmakers' scrutiny and eventually passes, Johnson would face grueling new talks with the EU about the future trading relationship.One certainty is that Britain will need more time. To an exasperated electorate, it may seem like the 1,217 days since the referendum has been time enough to work things out. But trade deals with the EU typically take years to complete (seven in Canada's case); Johnson plans to have this one concluded and ratified in just 14 months. That simply won't happen. Without a longer so-called transition period, another no-deal exit will loom. Johnson's deal, if it moves forward, should be amended to allow more time for these further talks.More important, it should also be amended to put Britain's choice about its future in Europe back to voters in a second referendum. Granted, this would delay matters further. But it would confer democratic legitimacy on the course Johnson has set, give voters clarity that the first ballot lacked, and ease the negotiating process to follow.The government, for its part, needs to be more transparent about exactly what its intentions are. Johnson is proposing a decidedly hard form of Brexit: He plans to leave the EU's customs union and diverge from its single-market regulations, replacing a once seamless economic relationship with a bare-bones free-trade deal. Even done wisely, this process would add significant barriers to trade; done rashly, it could be a disaster for businesses.In any event, the public deserves an honest accounting. A government analysis of the deal published this week is silent on just about every relevant expense, and no wonder: Even on optimistic assumptions, the added costs of new restrictions on trade with Europe could be immense — to say nothing of the complex system of checks and rebates that Johnson proposes for Northern Ireland. One recent analysis suggests that the total hit to public finances could exceed $60 billion a year, with all the added austerity that implies.Less tangible costs will also need to be confronted head-on. The new trade system for Northern Ireland, for instance, may pose grave political risks. By ensuring that Great Britain and Northern Ireland diverge in key respects, it has left unionists feeling defensive, betrayed or worse. By allowing a simple majority to determine if the North exits the arrangement, it has undermined the principle of cross-community consent that has helped keep the peace there for more than 20 years.The full consequences of these momentous decisions are anyone's guess. But one thing is clear: Johnson's insistence that the agreement will simply "get Brexit done" couldn't be further from the truth. Brexit may never be done. If a deal passed Parliament tomorrow, it could entail years more of tortured negotiation, unhappy trade-offs, rising complexity, worsening friction and pervasive uncertainty, with no particular end date in sight.Voters may yet judge that all this is worth it for the added sovereignty that Johnson's deal notionally affords. But the choice should be theirs.\--Editors: Timothy Lavin, Clive Crook.To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg Opinion's editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net, .Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| North Korea urges US to act wisely through year-end deadline Posted: 23 Oct 2019 08:27 PM PDT  North Korea on Thursday accused U.S. officials of maintaining hostility against Pyongyang despite a "special" relationship between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump and urged Washington to act "wisely" through the end of the year. The statement issued by Foreign Ministry adviser Kim Kye Gwan was clearly referring to an end-of-year deadline set by Kim Jong Un for the Trump administration to offer mutually acceptable terms for a deal to salvage their diplomacy.
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| EU Keeps Boris Johnson Waiting Over Length of Brexit Extension Posted: 23 Oct 2019 08:00 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Follow @Brexit, sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, and tell us your Brexit story. The European Union left Boris Johnson hanging on Wednesday night as officials in Brussels debated whether to grant him a third extension to the Brexit process.EU ambassadors meeting in the Belgian capital agreed that they should accept the British prime minister's request for more time but couldn't settle on how long he will get, according to officials familiar with the discussions. The French are pushing for a tight deadline of Nov. 15 while many other countries want to give the U.K. the three months it has asked for. Ambassadors resolved to reach a decision when they meet again Friday.Johnson was forced by U.K. law to request a Brexit extension on Saturday after he failed to win the backing of lawmakers in Westminster in time for the U.K. to leave as planned on Oct. 31. Yet French President Emmanuel Macron's stance may ultimately help the British premier to pressure MPs into backing his calls for a fast-track approval process.Macron had suggested he is against another extension, potentially forcing Britain out of the EU without the safety net of a deal next week -- though he made the same threats last time the issue was up for discussion so no one in Brussels thinks he'll follow through with it.Read More: How Businesses Are Preparing for Brexit, Deal or No DealAll the same, Johnson is playing up the French stance in his own lobbying efforts. On Wednesday he pointed to Macron's threats in his talks with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, though Corbyn is still resisting calls for an accelerated process.A short extension to Nov. 15 could help Johnson to concentrate minds in Parliament as MPs concerned about a no-deal departure rally to pass his deal. A longer extension opens the way for a general election before Brexit is delivered -- though there are divisions in both main parties over the timing.The reality among officials in Brussels is that no one wants to be blamed for triggering a chaotic rupture with the U.K., and no one believes that Macron is ready to be yet either. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said the EU will keep providing extensions to avoid the risk of a no-deal Brexit."There's no chance that we don't give them a chance," Borissov said in a TV interview. "We'll write 'postpone', and 'postpone' and 'postpone', and we'll keep on like that for another 90 to 100 years."Johnson on Tuesday won approval in the House of Commons for the general principles of his Brexit deal -- the first time the lower chamber has signaled it will vote for an agreement to take the U.K. out of the EU. But 15 minutes later, the same members of Parliament rejected his accelerated timetable for pushing the legislation through Parliament in time for the current Oct. 31 deadline.That's left the U.K. waiting on the EU decision, with the government stepping up preparations for a no-deal departure. Johnson on Wednesday canceled a scheduled appearance on Thursday before a panel of key lawmakers citing the need to focus on Brexit.Since the votes, Johnson has had phone calls with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Council President Donald Tusk. According to his office, he's reiterated his message that Britain "should" leave the bloc on Oct. 31."I think it would be still very much in the best interests of this country and democracy to get Brexit done by Oct. 31," Johnson told the House of Commons on Wednesday. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid said in an ITV interview that the government is working to that deadline still, even if Parliament has "to sit on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, sit every hour of the day."But if the EU offers the requested extension, Johnson is obliged by law to accept it.If the EU does grant an extension to the end of Jan. 31, the U.K. will likely be headed for an early general election. Parliament has twice rejected attempts by Johnson to force a national ballot, but Corbyn has repeatedly said that once a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31 has been ruled out, Labour will be ready to let him dissolve Parliament.Johnson told the Commons on Tuesday that if forced into a lengthy extension to the Brexit deadline, he'd seek again to call an early election; and the Times reports he's ready to do so on Thursday or Monday.\--With assistance from Viktoria Dendrinou, Nikos Chrysoloras and Jonathan Stearns.To contact the reporters on this story: Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.net;Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Edward EvansFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| UN expert: Iran executes children in violation of rights law Posted: 23 Oct 2019 05:42 PM PDT ![UN expert: Iran executes children in violation of rights law]( "UN expert: Iran executes children in violation of rights law") Iran executed seven child offenders last year and two so far this year even though human rights law prohibits the death penalty for anyone under age 18, a U.N. independent human rights expert said Wednesday. Javaid Rehman also told the U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee that he has "credible information" there are at least 90 child offenders currently on death row in Iran.
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| Syria's Assad gets a prize with US withdrawal, Russia deal Posted: 23 Oct 2019 04:22 PM PDT  Once again, Syrian President Bashar Assad has snapped up a prize from world powers that have been maneuvering in his country's multi-front wars. Without firing a shot, his forces are returning to towns and villages in northeastern Syria where they haven't set foot for years. Assad was handed one victory first by U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw American troops from northeastern Syria, analysts said.
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| UN expert calls for ban on Israeli products from settlements Posted: 23 Oct 2019 02:47 PM PDT  Israel is deeply opposed to the Palestinian-led international boycott movement, which it views as an attack on its very existence. Supporters of the boycott say it is a non-violent way of protesting Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
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| N.Korea's Kim Jong Un and Trump have 'special' relationship, but U.S. political circles hostile - KCNA Posted: 23 Oct 2019 02:18 PM PDT ![N.Korea's Kim Jong Un and Trump have 'special' relationship, but U.S. political circles hostile - KCNA]( "N.Korea's Kim Jong Un and Trump have 'special' relationship, but U.S. political circles hostile - KCNA") North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump continue to have close relations and trust, with Kim calling the relationship "special," North Korea's state news agency KCNA said on Thursday. In a statement under the name of Foreign Ministry adviser Kim Kye Gwan, KCNA said that contrary to Trump, "Washington political circles and DPRK policy makers of the U.S. administration are hostile to the DPRK for no reason," using North Korea's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
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| Diplomat Snared in Ukraine Scandal Needs to Stay in the Job Posted: 23 Oct 2019 01:02 PM PDT ![Diplomat Snared in Ukraine Scandal Needs to Stay in the Job]( "Diplomat Snared in Ukraine Scandal Needs to Stay in the Job") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- It was William Taylor who got the U.S. government to spell "Kyiv" the way Ukrainians do — not "Kiev," Russian style — more than a decade before major U.S. media made the switch. He's a rare beast in the U.S.: a bona fide Ukraine expert. It would be best for both the U.S. and Ukraine for him to keep his job as the top U.S. diplomat in Kyiv regardless of what happens next in the impeachment inquiry, in which Taylor has become embroiled.Taylor first served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine between 2006 and 2009. He didn't just work in that role for two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who pursued vastly different foreign policies. He also caught Ukraine during a messy, critical period, and did a good job trying to understand it. I'm saying this with some confidence because a fair number of Taylor's cables to Washington were published by WikiLeaks in 2010, long before that resource became notorious for its role in revealing U.S. Democrats' stolen emails during the 2016 presidential election campaign. In the final days of 2004, Viktor Yushchenko was elected president of Ukraine, defeating Viktor Yanukovych in an additional round of voting forced by powerful street protests, the so-called Orange Revolution. Taylor wasn't there when it happened, but he later became ambassador to Yushchenko's Ukraine, during which hopes of an economic and cultural revival modeled on the country's Eastern European neighbors were killed by corruption and mismanagement. Yushchenko's term was a key period for understanding what's wrong with post-Soviet Ukraine.Taylor made an effort to do that. He traveled widely, listening to complaints of neglect from pro-Russian politicians in Crimea and taking in western Ukraine's European aspirations. He met with Yushchenko's inept ministers and reported their inconsistent meanderings with a healthy dose of skepticism. He picked the brains of former presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, both still knowledgeable about Ukrainian politics today. He held frank conversations with oligarchs — notably energy middleman Dmytro Firtash, who now is fighting extradition to the U.S. in Vienna and whose lawyers have fed presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani some of the ammunition for his attacks on former Vice President Joseph Biden.Taylor's time in Kyiv was marked by an open conflict between Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was harboring her own presidential ambitions. Taylor's cables tracked the minutiae of their struggle — perhaps too closely. I followed the dogfight as a journalist and I can't recall all the twists and turns described in the cables. But one nugget from Taylor's conversation with a Ukrainian envoy to Russia was still relevant in the run-up to the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. The Ukrainian diplomat, Taylor reported, said "the Kremlin wants a 'regency' — someone in power in Kyiv who is totally subservient. He noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'hates' Yushchenko and has a low personal regard for Yanukovych, but apparently sees Tymoshenko as someone, perhaps not that he can trust, but with whom he can deal." (Tymoshenko came in third in the 2019 election, and is a senior legislator today.) Unlike many analysts talking and writing about Ukraine today, Taylor understands that the relationship between Putin and Yanukovych was far from a bromance.Taylor's work as ambassador focused on energy issues. During his tenure, Russia cut off natural gas to Ukraine, to punish Yushchenko for his pro-European stance and to extract a higher price. Meanwhile, U.S. companies were vying for the right to supply and service Ukraine's nuclear power plants, displacing Russian competitors. Taylor became an expert on Ukrainian energy issues, writing in a sober dispatch in 2008: "A lack of political will, shortsightedness, bad policies, a shortage of capital and distrust of foreign investment, combined with a negotiating partner that has proven to be far savvier than its Ukrainian counterparts, have prevented Ukraine from reducing its dependence on Russia."After he left Ukraine in 2009, Taylor kept following events there. He'd seen the Ukrainian hope-to-dejection cycle under Yushchenko, so it was easy for him to understand what happened under President Petro Poroshenko, the oligarch who won the presidency in 2014. He also knew how rotten Ukraine's political elite was, which made him cautiously optimistic about the election of the comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy as president this spring. Sent back to Ukraine by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the stand-in top U.S. diplomat after Zelenskiy's victory, Taylor hit the ground running. In his testimony to Congress on Tuesday, he explained that he discovered a "highly irregular" channel of "U.S. policy-making and implementation" on Ukraine, through which some Donald Trump appointees were trying to push Zelenskiy into opening investigations into Biden and putative Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. As the Ukraine expert he is, he knew that such meddling would be extremely counterproductive for Zelenskiy and his prospects of turning Ukraine around. Taylor knew Zelenskiy had made an election promise not to interfere with criminal investigations, and he understood that the Ukrainian leader would need bipartisan support in the U.S. — something he'd ruin by taking sides.So Taylor fought for the U.S. to stick to a policy tenet he formulated just before he left Kyiv in 2009:Ukrainian-American relations don't depend on any personality. They don't depend on the personality of George Bush, they don't depend on the personality of Viktor Yushchenko, they depend on common interests and common values.That's how he ended up a key witness to a U.S. political scandal. To me, though, the most important part of his testimony to impeachment investigators in Washington on Tuesday came at the very end. Taylor urged legislators to separate the Ukraine-related scandal in Washington from U.S. policy toward the post-Soviet nation. "There's another Ukraine story — a positive, bipartisan one," he said — the story of an emerging nation that has a lot in common with the U.S. in both spirit and values."It is this second story that I would like to leave you with today," Taylor said. He's so right that Pompeo would be hard put to find a better person to fill Taylor's shoes in Kyiv — no matter what conflicting partisan emotions his testimony may have excited.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@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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| Diplomat Snared in Ukraine Scandal Needs to Stay in the Job Posted: 23 Oct 2019 01:02 PM PDT ![Diplomat Snared in Ukraine Scandal Needs to Stay in the Job]( "Diplomat Snared in Ukraine Scandal Needs to Stay in the Job") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- It was William Taylor who got the U.S. government to spell "Kyiv" the way Ukrainians do — not "Kiev," Russian style — more than a decade before major U.S. media made the switch. He's a rare beast in the U.S.: a bona fide Ukraine expert. It would be best for both the U.S. and Ukraine for him to keep his job as the top U.S. diplomat in Kyiv regardless of what happens next in the impeachment inquiry, in which Taylor has become embroiled.Taylor first served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine between 2006 and 2009. He didn't just work in that role for two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who pursued vastly different foreign policies. He also caught Ukraine during a messy, critical period, and did a good job trying to understand it. I'm saying this with some confidence because a fair number of Taylor's cables to Washington were published by WikiLeaks in 2010, long before that resource became notorious for its role in revealing U.S. Democrats' stolen emails during the 2016 presidential election campaign. In the final days of 2004, Viktor Yushchenko was elected president of Ukraine, defeating Viktor Yanukovych in an additional round of voting forced by powerful street protests, the so-called Orange Revolution. Taylor wasn't there when it happened, but he later became ambassador to Yushchenko's Ukraine, during which hopes of an economic and cultural revival modeled on the country's Eastern European neighbors were killed by corruption and mismanagement. Yushchenko's term was a key period for understanding what's wrong with post-Soviet Ukraine.Taylor made an effort to do that. He traveled widely, listening to complaints of neglect from pro-Russian politicians in Crimea and taking in western Ukraine's European aspirations. He met with Yushchenko's inept ministers and reported their inconsistent meanderings with a healthy dose of skepticism. He picked the brains of former presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, both still knowledgeable about Ukrainian politics today. He held frank conversations with oligarchs — notably energy middleman Dmytro Firtash, who now is fighting extradition to the U.S. in Vienna and whose lawyers have fed presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani some of the ammunition for his attacks on former Vice President Joseph Biden.Taylor's time in Kyiv was marked by an open conflict between Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was harboring her own presidential ambitions. Taylor's cables tracked the minutiae of their struggle — perhaps too closely. I followed the dogfight as a journalist and I can't recall all the twists and turns described in the cables. But one nugget from Taylor's conversation with a Ukrainian envoy to Russia was still relevant in the run-up to the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. The Ukrainian diplomat, Taylor reported, said "the Kremlin wants a 'regency' — someone in power in Kyiv who is totally subservient. He noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'hates' Yushchenko and has a low personal regard for Yanukovych, but apparently sees Tymoshenko as someone, perhaps not that he can trust, but with whom he can deal." (Tymoshenko came in third in the 2019 election, and is a senior legislator today.) Unlike many analysts talking and writing about Ukraine today, Taylor understands that the relationship between Putin and Yanukovych was far from a bromance.Taylor's work as ambassador focused on energy issues. During his tenure, Russia cut off natural gas to Ukraine, to punish Yushchenko for his pro-European stance and to extract a higher price. Meanwhile, U.S. companies were vying for the right to supply and service Ukraine's nuclear power plants, displacing Russian competitors. Taylor became an expert on Ukrainian energy issues, writing in a sober dispatch in 2008: "A lack of political will, shortsightedness, bad policies, a shortage of capital and distrust of foreign investment, combined with a negotiating partner that has proven to be far savvier than its Ukrainian counterparts, have prevented Ukraine from reducing its dependence on Russia."After he left Ukraine in 2009, Taylor kept following events there. He'd seen the Ukrainian hope-to-dejection cycle under Yushchenko, so it was easy for him to understand what happened under President Petro Poroshenko, the oligarch who won the presidency in 2014. He also knew how rotten Ukraine's political elite was, which made him cautiously optimistic about the election of the comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy as president this spring. Sent back to Ukraine by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the stand-in top U.S. diplomat after Zelenskiy's victory, Taylor hit the ground running. In his testimony to Congress on Tuesday, he explained that he discovered a "highly irregular" channel of "U.S. policy-making and implementation" on Ukraine, through which some Donald Trump appointees were trying to push Zelenskiy into opening investigations into Biden and putative Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. As the Ukraine expert he is, he knew that such meddling would be extremely counterproductive for Zelenskiy and his prospects of turning Ukraine around. Taylor knew Zelenskiy had made an election promise not to interfere with criminal investigations, and he understood that the Ukrainian leader would need bipartisan support in the U.S. — something he'd ruin by taking sides.So Taylor fought for the U.S. to stick to a policy tenet he formulated just before he left Kyiv in 2009:Ukrainian-American relations don't depend on any personality. They don't depend on the personality of George Bush, they don't depend on the personality of Viktor Yushchenko, they depend on common interests and common values.That's how he ended up a key witness to a U.S. political scandal. To me, though, the most important part of his testimony to impeachment investigators in Washington on Tuesday came at the very end. Taylor urged legislators to separate the Ukraine-related scandal in Washington from U.S. policy toward the post-Soviet nation. "There's another Ukraine story — a positive, bipartisan one," he said — the story of an emerging nation that has a lot in common with the U.S. in both spirit and values."It is this second story that I would like to leave you with today," Taylor said. He's so right that Pompeo would be hard put to find a better person to fill Taylor's shoes in Kyiv — no matter what conflicting partisan emotions his testimony may have excited.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@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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| The Latest: Russian assures security of civilians at border Posted: 23 Oct 2019 12:50 PM PDT  Russia's defense minister has spoken to the Kurdish military chief to discuss the Russian military patrols in northeastern Syria. Russia and Turkey on Tuesday struck a deal to share control of northeastern Syria, halting the Turkish offensive against the Kurds that was launched on Oct. 9. The deal allows Turkey to retain control of the area it has overtaken in the assault, while Russian and Syrian troops will control the rest of the Turkey-Syria frontier.
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| U.K.’s Johnson Pulls Out of Parliamentary Scrutiny Hearing Posted: 23 Oct 2019 12:24 PM PDT ![U.K.'s Johnson Pulls Out of Parliamentary Scrutiny Hearing]( "U.K.'s Johnson Pulls Out of Parliamentary Scrutiny Hearing") (Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson at short notice pulled out of a Parliamentary scrutiny hearing in which he was due to answer questions from a panel of senior Members of Parliament who chair House of Commons Committees.The U.K. prime minister had been due to give evidence to the Liaison Committee at 10 a.m. on Thursday, but he wrote to the panel's chair, Sarah Wollaston, Wednesday to cancel."I am afraid I must now focus on delivering Brexit in the difficult circumstances in which we now find ourselves," Johnson said in a handwritten letter posted on Twitter by Wollaston. He suggested postponing the appearance until he has been in office "for 5 or 6 months," in line with the first appearance before the committee of his three immediate predecessors.It's the third time Johnson has postponed or cancelled an appearance before the committee, and comes after the House of Commons on Wednesday refused to endorse his plan to rush Brexit legislation through in time to take the U.K. out of the European Union on Oct. 31. That's left him waiting on the EU's verdict on whether to concede the three-month extension to Brexit that Parliament forced him to request.Wollaston replied to the premier that she is "astonished" at the short notice of the cancellation, and accused him of "refusing to face detailed scrutiny." She said in a letter to the premier that as well as Brexit, the panel had planned to ask him about climate change, health and social care.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, Robert JamesonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Richard Branson Urges Brexit Opponents to Stand Firm Against Latest Deal Posted: 23 Oct 2019 12:21 PM PDT ![Richard Branson Urges Brexit Opponents to Stand Firm Against Latest Deal]( "Richard Branson Urges Brexit Opponents to Stand Firm Against Latest Deal") (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire U.K. entrepreneur Richard Branson said opponents of Brexit should hold out for a second referendum and not be seduced into backing Prime Minister Boris Johnson's revised deal with the European Union.Concern about avoiding a no-deal split combined with a sense of fatigue surrounding the Brexit debate more than three years after the original vote to quit the bloc risks eroding political and public opposition to the schism, the Virgin Group founder said Wednesday in an interview."There is a danger that people are so fed up with it that they choose the deal on offer as the lesser of two evils," Branson said on a Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. flight to Tel Aviv. "I can see why, but by far the best thing for the British economy and jobs would be another referendum." In the event of a new poll a majority would most likely choose to reverse the 2016 decision, he predicted.At a press conference in Israel, Branson later described Brexit as the worst thing to happen to Britain and Europe since World War II. Returning to the EU fold would safeguard growth and employment and "send the pound roaring back up," he said.Branson said Virgin Atlantic has already been impacted by Brexit as a result of the decline in the pound, which has eaten into margins since a major component of costs -- including fuel and planes -- is dollar-denominated.Britons are also traveling less as sterling's purchasing power is reduced, while the Virgin Money banking arm has seen a contraction in business, Branson said. Johnson was forced by U.K. law to request a Brexit extension on Saturday after he failed to win the backing of lawmakers in time for the U.K. to leave as planned on Oct. 31. On Tuesday, Johnson won approval in the House of Commons for the general principles of his Brexit deal -- the first time the lower chamber has signaled it will vote for an agreement to take the U.K. out of the EU. But Parliament rejected his accelerated timetable for pushing the legislation through Parliament in time for the current deadline at the end of the month.Branson confirmed that his Virgin Galactic space-launch venture will hold an initial public offering in New York on Monday.To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Jasper in London at cjasper@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Benedikt KammelFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| In Egypt, 8 dead after chaotic day of heavy rains, flooding Posted: 23 Oct 2019 12:20 PM PDT  People captured images of Tuesday's downpours and flooding on their mobile phones, posting images on social media, including scenes of cars submerged by flood waters. The Civil Aviation Ministry said that terminal was only being used by a private carrier for one or two flights a day and shared photos of it after it was cleaned up.
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| Kim Orders 'Shabby' South Korean Hotels in Resort Town Destroyed Posted: 23 Oct 2019 12:00 PM PDT  SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea said Wednesday that its leader, Kim Jong Un, had ordered the demolition of South Korean hotels and other buildings in a resort complex that the two countries once operated together.The resort town at Diamond Mountain, or Kumgang, just north of the inter-Korean border, opened in 1998, at a time of reduced tensions between the Koreas. Until it was closed during a dispute in 2008, it served as a major source of foreign currency for the cash-starved North, frequently hosting South Korean tour groups.Kim said during a recent visit that the South Korean facilities were "shabby" and lacked "national character," comparing them to "makeshift tents in a disaster-stricken area," the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday.Kim has pressed South Korea to reopen the complex since last year, when he first met with the South's president, Moon Jae-in. But the South said it could only consider doing so as part of a broader agreement between the United States and North Korea to end the North's nuclear weapons program.Kim called for "building new modern service facilities our own way that go well with the natural scenery of Mount Kumgang." He also criticized what he called "the mistaken policy of the predecessors" -- a reference to his father, Kim Jong Il, the North's previous dictator -- for the decision to "rely on others" for the resort project, meaning the South.Such criticism of the ruling Kim family's policies would be a capital crime for most North Koreans. But since he took power in 2011, Kim Jong Un has often broken that tradition, notably by criticizing state-run factories and construction projects as unproductive, as he has tried to rebuild his country's economy.A key element of Kim's plan for building a "self-reliant" economy, in the face of international sanctions over his nuclear program, is developing tourism along its scenic east coast and near Mount Baekdu along the Chinese border. Tourism is excluded from the sanctions that the United Nations has imposed on the North.The Diamond Mountain resort was Kim Jong Il's major effort in the tourism sector. He gave the South Korean conglomerate Hyundai the right to build and run a resort town there, in a joint venture with his totalitarian government. Starting in 1998, Hyundai built or renovated hotels, port facilities, restaurants, spas, a concert hall and a golf course at the scenic spot.Nearly 2 million South Korean tourists visited before it was closed, helping North Korea earn hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when was struggling to recover from a devastating famine.Diamond Mountain was one of the most visible symbols of an era of inter-Korean cooperation that ended in 2008, when a new, conservative government took power in Seoul. That government, led by President Lee Myung-bak, suspected that the tourist revenue was going to the North's nuclear weapons development. It pulled Hyundai out of the project after a North Korean security guard shot and killed a South Korean tourist who apparently had wandered into a restricted area.Since then, North Korea has occasionally threatened to confiscate and liquidate the shuttered South Korean properties at Diamond Mountain, whose value has been estimated at $400 million. The resort has occasionally been used to host reunions of families separated during the Korean War.North Korea has recently invited tourists from China and other countries to the mountain for hiking trips, according to news reports.On Wednesday, Lee Sang-min, a spokesman for the South's Unification Ministry, said South Korea hoped to hold discussions with North Korea to defend its property rights at the resort. Hyundai said it was closely watching for further developments.But Kim indicated that North Korea was no longer interested in letting South Koreans run the facilities again, although they would be welcome to visit."He said that we will always welcome our compatriots from the South if they want to come to Mount Kumgang, after it is wonderfully built as the world-level tourist destination," the North Korean news agency said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Former top general gets a shot at forming Israeli government Posted: 23 Oct 2019 11:19 AM PDT  Israel's former military chief Benny Gantz was tasked Wednesday with forming the next government, but he has few options after last month's elections left him in a near tie with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was given the first opportunity to form a government after assembling a large right-wing bloc but announced this week that he had failed to build a 61-seat majority. Gantz faces similarly steep odds, raising the possibility that Israel will hold a third election in less than a year.
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| Putin aims to boost Moscow's clout with Russia-Africa summit Posted: 23 Oct 2019 11:16 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin courted dozens of leaders of African nations Wednesday at the first-ever Russia-Africa summit while a pair of nuclear-capable bombers made an unprecedented visit to the continent, reflecting Moscow's new push for clout. Speaking at the two-day summit attended by leaders of 43 of Africa's 54 countries, Putin hailed the continent's "enormous potential for growth" and negotiated deals to tap its riches including diamonds, uranium and oil. Putin said Russia's annual trade with African nations doubled in the last five years to exceed $20 billion, and expressed confidence that it could double again "as a minimum" in the next four or five years.
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| EU backs Brexit delay as Johnson eyes election Posted: 23 Oct 2019 11:15 AM PDT  European Union members backed a plan to postpone Brexit on Wednesday but have yet to agree on how much longer to give London to resolve its political crisis. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is struggling to persuade British MPs to quickly ratify the divorce accord he struck with EU leaders last week, and is pushing for a snap election. Johnson spoke to European Council president Donald Tusk on Wednesday and, according to a European source, he told him he does not want to delay Brexit beyond October 31.
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| Germany’s NATO Allies Give Tentative Welcome to Syria Peace Plan Posted: 23 Oct 2019 10:56 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Germany's NATO allies offered encouragement to Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer's call for an international force to stabilize the situation in northern Syria.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the U.S. ambassador to the organization, Kay Bailey Hutchison, both welcomed the proposal on Wednesday in Brussels when previewing an Oct. 24-25 meeting of the alliance's defense ministers. Hutchison signaled that the German initiative would require European troops on the ground to make it work.Kramp-Karrenbauer's suggestion is "certainly a positive," Bailey Hutchison told reporters. "If the Turks will ask for more help from the international community, I think the Europeans can step forward."The response in Brussels was very different to the reaction in Berlin, where the plan was sprung on many of Chancellor Angela Merkel's allies with little warning earlier this week and was greeted with barely veiled contempt by the junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats."I find it somewhat unusual – and I don't think it should become the way the cabinet works," Social Democratic caucus leader Rolf Muetzenich told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday. "I do think that Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer should learn a little from the discussion that she's confronted in the past few hours."Kramp-Karrenbauer, known as AKK in Germany, said an internationally agreed security zone would defuse the fighting in northern Syria and allow the focus to return to fighting the Islamic State and allowing displaced Kurds to return. It's not clear how the plan would overlap with Turkey's proposed security zone, designed to be off-limits to U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. Turkey is seeking to clear a swath of territory along its border with Syria currently occupied by Kurds."This will certainly be discussed during our meeting," Stoltenberg told a news conference. "And I expect AKK to share her thoughts with the other allies.''The idea has the backing of the chancellor, but the idea of a military venture in the Middle East puts AKK on risky terrain with a German public that has been broadly resistant to such entanglements since World War II.The defense minister late on Wednesday suggested that Russia and Turkey alone couldn't be left to control northern Syria and that the European Union had a type of moral obligation to become involved. "I cannot say that this initiative will be successful in the end," she said at an event in Erfurt. "But I would blame myself if I wouldn't at least give it a try."AKK herself has been struggling to establish her authority since being chosen to succeed Merkel as head of the Christian Democrats last year. Two months ago she asked Merkel for the defense minister's job in an effort to boost a slide in her approval ratings and her plan for an internationally-monitored security zone in northern Syria was the latest in a series of interventions that have irritated people in Berlin.Dim ViewFor now, her party is closing ranks behind her. Merkel, who earlier this year took a dim view of the new CDU leader's performance, backed her defense minister in a closed-door meeting with lawmakers in Berlin, according to two people present. A similar security-zone proposal was raised in 2016 during the siege of Aleppo, Merkel said. AKK even drew a round of applause.But earlier in the day, officials in Merkel's coalition were scrambling to figure out what was being announced.Syria was discussed at length at a Sunday evening meeting of coalition leaders, including the CDU, their Bavarian allies in the Christian Social Union and the Social Democrats. But AKK made no mention of such a plan at the time, CSU caucus leader Alexander Dobrindt said. He himself learned of the initiative only Tuesday morning.Germany Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, another Social Democrat, complained that he was informed via text message."We would like to know what Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer's ideas look like concretely, because we're getting a lot of questions from abroad on what the German position is," Niels Annen, Germany's deputy foreign minister and a Social Democrat, told ZDF. "We need to answer that."(Adds AKK comment in ninth and tenth paragraphs.)\--With assistance from Caroline Alexander.To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net;Arne Delfs in Berlin at adelfs@bloomberg.net;Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Raymond ColittFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump lifts sanctions on Turkey, says cease-fire permanent Posted: 23 Oct 2019 10:42 AM PDT  President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will lift sanctions on Turkey after the NATO ally agreed to permanently stop fighting Kurdish forces in Syria and he defended his decision to withdraw American troops. "We're getting out," Trump said at the White House, asserting that tens of thousands of Kurdish lives were saved as the result of his actions. The president, who campaigned on a promise to cease American involvement in "endless wars," took a victory lap as he lopped the American presence inside Syria in less than a year from about 2,000 troops to a contingency force in southern Syria of 200 to 300.
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| Russian forces deploy at Syrian border under new accord Posted: 23 Oct 2019 10:42 AM PDT  Russian military police began patrols on part of the Syrian border Wednesday, quickly moving to implement an accord with Turkey that divvies up control of northeastern Syria. The Kremlin told Kurdish fighters to pull back from the entire frontier or else face being "steamrolled" by Turkish forces. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan echoed those warnings, saying his military would resume its offensive against Kurdish fighters if the new arrangements are not carried out.
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| The Latest: Gantz tasked with forming Israeli government Posted: 23 Oct 2019 10:19 AM PDT  Israel's president has tasked former military chief Benny Gantz with forming the next government after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to assemble a 61-seat majority coalition. The two rivals were deadlocked following last month's elections, with neither able to easily form a majority coalition, raising the possibility of an unprecedented third election in less than a year. President Reuven Rivlin formally granted the mandate to Gantz late Wednesday, giving him 28 days to form a government.
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| Byzantine church to mystery martyr unearthed near Jerusalem Posted: 23 Oct 2019 10:14 AM PDT  Israeli archaeologists have revealed an elaborately decorated Byzantine church dedicated to an anonymous martyr that was recently uncovered near Jerusalem. The Israel Antiquities Authority showcased some of the finds from the nearly 1,500-year-old structure on Wednesday after three years of excavations. The findings will be exhibited at Jerusalem's Bible Lands Museum.
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| No EU decision yet on Brexit delay, 3 months looks likely - diplomats Posted: 23 Oct 2019 10:02 AM PDT ![No EU decision yet on Brexit delay, 3 months looks likely - diplomats]( "No EU decision yet on Brexit delay, 3 months looks likely - diplomats") Ambassadors of the 27 EU member states that will remain after Britain leaves the bloc made no decision on London's request for a Brexit delay at a meeting on Wednesday but will meet again to discuss the issue on Friday, three senior EU diplomats said. The diplomats said the envoys were keen to come to a decision on the extension of Britain's exit deadline from Oct. 31 by "written procedure" to avoid holding an emergency summit of leaders.
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| Trump claims he saved lives of 'thousands' in Syria as he declares end of US involvement in the war Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:54 AM PDT  President Donald Trump has claimed the US had saved the lives of "thousands" in Syria and took credit for the ceasefire, in a bombastic speech declaring the end of American involvement in the war. "This is an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else," he said, addressing reporters at the White House a day after Turkey and Russia brokered a deal for Kurdish-held north-east Syria without the US president. Mr Trump green-lit a Turkish-led offensive along the Syrian border two weeks ago, effectively abandoning Kurdish partners who had helped to defeat Islamic State. International condemnation followed as hundreds of thousands of civilians fled the fighting and more than 80 Syrian civilians were killed. Russian military vehicles entering the city of Kobani on the border with Turkey. VOApic.twitter.com/6was7YmHaK— Sirwan Kajjo (@SirwanKajjo) October 23, 2019 Mr Trump imposed sanctions on Ankara in response to its offensive moves, but announced in his speech that these would be lifted if the ceasefire held. "We've avoided another costly military intervention, many thousands of people could have been killed," he said, flanked by Mike Pence, Vice President, and Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State. "Turkey, Syria and all forms of the Kurds have been fighting for centuries. We have done them a great service, a great job for all of them," he said, declaring the US was done fighting others' wars. "We're getting out. Let's someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand." He promised in the future to only deploy American troops into battle when the US's national interests are at stake, and only when there was a plan to win. "We will only win," he said. His claims of success bore little resemblance to the reality on the ground, however, and were likely intended for his base at home to whom he had promised an end to "endless wars". The US president's announcement came a day after a deal was struck between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin to "facilitate the removal" from the border region of Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters. Russian President Vladimir Putin receives Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi Credit: Getty The agreement will also see Turkey preserve a so-called "safe zone" inside Syria about 75 miles long and 20 miles deep. Turkey's defense ministry said that the withdrawal from the buffer zone would mean that there was "no further need to conduct a new operation," preventing a feared humanitarian catastrophe. The deal effectively redraws the map of northern Syria and ends nearly six years of autonomy carved out by the local Kurdish administration. Russian and allied Syrian government forces began patrolling for the first time yesterday in towns US forces were once stationed. Humvees bearing Russian flags were filmed driving into Kobane, marking the first pro-regime presence in the area in more than seven years. The talks, which took place in Mr Putin's dacha in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, confirmed Moscow's position as powerbroker in Syria. A convoy of Russian military vehicles drives toward the northeastern city of Kobane Credit: AFP "The United States has been the Kurds' closest ally in recent years. (But) in the end, it abandoned the Kurds and, in essence, betrayed them," Dmitri Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said pointedly on Wednesday. "Now they (the Americans) prefer to leave the Kurds at the border (with Turkey) and almost force them to fight the Turks." Or as Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, put it: "When you are present on the ground, then you are also present on the negotiating table." The US, which did not have a seat at the table for Tuesday's talks, has been shut out of decision-making and left with little leverage to demand assurances for its former Kurdish partners. Mark Esper, US secretary of defence, meanwhile, was in Baghdad on Wednesday meeting with Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to manage the fallout of their quick retreat. The US withdrew the bulk of its some 1,000 troops from Syria on Monday, greeted on the way out by Kurdish residents throwing rotten fruit and holding up signs reading: "We will not forget this betrayal". The Pentagon had announced the troops were expected to move to western Iraq to continue the campaign against Islamic State and "to help defend Iraq". But it appeared the move was not first approved by Baghdad, which issued a statement saying they did not have the right to remain in the country. Mr Esper was told he had 30 days to remove the troops.
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| Donald Trump declares Syria ceasefire permanent and lifts Turkey sanctions Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:49 AM PDT  * 'Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand' * US special envoy reports Turkish 'war crimes' to CongressDonald Trump is flanked by Vice-President Mike Pence, left and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, while announcing the lifting of sanctions on Turkey at the White House. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesDonald Trump has announced that the US will lift sanctions on Turkey, taking credit for a ceasefire deal that should end Ankara's attack on Kurdish-led forces – at the price of ending the Kurds' dream of local autonomy.The US president, who has come under withering criticism for abruptly withdrawing US troops – and paving the way for a deadly Turkish offensive against the Kurds – said on Wednesday that a "small number" of US troops would remain in Syria's oilfields.In a televised address on Wednesday, Trump emphasized that US troops were "safe" and said America would leave other powers to fight each other in the region.He added: "Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.Wednesday's announcement came as Russian troops expanded their presence across north-eastern Syria, the result of an agreement between Ankara and Moscow.Just a week ago, Trump announced a series of financial punishments on Ankara – including the reimposition of 50% tariffs on Turkish steel – after Turkey launched its attack on Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria.That offensive began hours after a phone call between Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in which the Turkish president, informed Trump of his plans, and understood the US president to give a green light."The government of Turkey informed my administration that they would be stopping combat and their offensive in Syria, and making the ceasefire permanent," Trump said."I have, therefore, instructed the secretary of the Treasury to lift all sanctions imposed October 14," he added."How many Americans must die in the Middle East in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts?" Trump said. "I am committed to pursuing a different course, one that leads to victory for America."Who is in control in north-eastern Syria?Until Turkey launched its offensive there on 9 October, the region was controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which comprises militia groups representing a range of ethnicities, though its backbone is Kurdish. Since the Turkish incursion, the SDF has lost much of its territory and appears to be losing its grip on key cities. On 13 October, Kurdish leaders agreed to allow Syrian regime forces to enter some cities to protect them from being captured by Turkey and its allies. The deal effectively hands over control of huge swathes of the region to Damascus.That leaves north-eastern Syria divided between Syrian regime forces, Syrian opposition militia and their Turkish allies, and areas still held by the SDF – for now.On 17 October Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, agreed with US vice-president Mike Pence, to suspend Ankara's operation for five days in order to allow Kurdish troops to withdraw. The following week, on 22 October, Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin agreed on the parameters of the proposed Turkish "safe zone" in Syria.How did the SDF come to control the region?Before the SDF was formed in 2015, the Kurds had created their own militias who mobilised during the Syrian civil war to defend Kurdish cities and villages and carve out what they hoped would eventually at least become a semi-autonomous province. In late 2014, the Kurds were struggling to fend off an Islamic State siege of Kobane, a major city under their control. With US support, including arms and airstrikes, the Kurds managed to beat back Isis and went on to win a string of victories against the radical militant group. Along the way the fighters absorbed non-Kurdish groups, changed their name to the SDF and grew to include 60,000 soldiers.Why does Turkey oppose the Kurds?For years, Turkey has watched the growing ties between the US and SDF with alarm. Significant numbers of the Kurds in the SDF were also members of the People's Protection Units (YPG), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) that has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for more than 35 years in which as many as 40,000 people have died. The PKK initially called for independence and now demands greater autonomy for Kurds inside Turkey.Turkey claims the PKK has continued to wage war on the Turkish state, even as it has assisted in the fight against Isis. The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, the UK, Nato and others and this has proved awkward for the US and its allies, who have chosen to downplay the SDF's links to the PKK, preferring to focus on their shared objective of defeating Isis.What are Turkey's objectives on its southern border?Turkey aims firstly to push the SDF away from its border, creating a 20-mile (32km) buffer zone that would have been jointly patrolled by Turkish and US troops until Trump's recent announcement that American soldiers would withdraw from the region.Erdoğan has also said he would seek to relocate more than 1 million Syrian refugees in this "safe zone", both removing them from his country (where their presence has started to create a backlash) and complicating the demographic mix in what he fears could become an autonomous Kurdish state on his border.How would a Turkish incursion impact on Isis?Nearly 11,000 Isis fighters, including almost 2,000 foreigners, and tens of thousands of their wives and children, are being held in detention camps and hastily fortified prisons across north-eastern Syria.SDF leaders have warned they cannot guarantee the security of these prisoners if they are forced to redeploy their forces to the frontlines of a war against Turkey. They also fear Isis could use the chaos of war to mount attacks to free their fighters or reclaim territory. On 11 October, it was reported that at least five detained Isis fighters had escaped a prison in the region. Two days later, 750 foreign women affiliated to Isis and their children managed to break out of a secure annex in the Ain Issa camp for displaced people, according to SDF officials.It is unclear which detention sites the SDF still controls and the status of the prisoners inside.Michael SafiSome troops would remain in Syria's oilfields, Trump said. "We have secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of US troops will remain in the area where they have the oil."As Trump was speaking, his special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, told the US Congress that American forces had seen "several incidents of what we consider war crimes" by Turkish forces, during the recent attack on the Kurds.Jeffrey also said that "over 100" Islamic State prisoners had escaped during the Turkish offensive and "we do not know where they are."Earlier on Wednesday, Syrian and Russian media showed footage of Russian military police vehicles on the outskirts of the important towns of Manbij and Kobani, one day after Erdoğan, met Vladimir Putin in Sochi.A statement carried on Russia's Interfax agency said Russian patrols had already begun inside Manbij, a town that until two weeks ago was a key US base in the region.The deal was hailed as a "big success" by Trump, although his critics say it cements Russia's role as prime powerbroker in the Middle East.In an earlier tweet, the US president claimed the Kurds were safe and Isis prisoners secured.> Big success on the Turkey/Syria Border. Safe Zone created! Ceasefire has held and combat missions have ended. Kurds are safe and have worked very nicely with us. Captured ISIS prisoners secured. I will be making a statement at 11:00 A.M. from the White House. Thank you!> > — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019Turkish troops, allied Syrian rebel proxies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and soldiers belonging to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, are now all present in the border zone, with Russia the only negotiating force between them.The talks on Tuesday between Erdoğan and the Russian president defined the contours of Turkey's long-proposed border "safe zone": Turkish troops in the area seized since the offensive began on 9 October will remain in situ, and Russian soldiers and the Syrian army will control the rest of the frontier.Moscow and Damascus will supervise the removal of Kurdish fighters and weaponry to the depth of 18 miles (29km) from their current positions on the border before 26 October, after which joint Russian-Turkish patrols will begin across the entire border area to a depth of six miles, with the exception of the de facto Kurdish capital, Qamishli.On Wednesday, the Russian ministry of defence published a map showing 15 planned border observation posts that will be manned by the Syrian regime.The deal in effect redraws the map of northern Syria and ends five years of semi-autonomy carved out by the local Kurdish administration and its military forces, after Kurdish officials reached an agreement with Assad, their former enemy, for military reinforcements to fend off the Turkish attack.However, the fate of local military councils set up by the SDF in border towns previously under their control and what happens to the SDF's non-Kurdish units remains unclear. The SDF and Kurdish politicians are yet to comment on the Sochi deal.It is believed they will retain control of the approximately 90,000 men, women and children with links to Islamic State being held in Kurdish-run prisons and detention camps.Turkish officials including Erdoğan threatened on Wednesday that Ankara would resume the offensive if neither Russia nor the US guaranteed the total withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from the border region.Ankara says the YPG is indistinguishable from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades. Erdoğan said Putin responded by saying he would not let that happen.The border towns of Ras al-Ayn and Tel Abyad, which have experienced fierce fighting, remained quiet on Wednesday, one day after a separate, poorly observed US-brokered ceasefire expired.Erdoğan is scheduled to visit the White House next month.At least 120 Syrians have died and 176,000 people have fled their homes over the last two weeks of violence, with 20 Turkish civilian deaths on the other side of the border.
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| Russia steps up its presence in north-east Syria after Turkey deal Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:46 AM PDT  More Russian troops arrive in border region as Donald Trump hails situation as a 'big success'A convoy of Russian military vehicles drives towards the north-eastern Syrian town of Kobane. Photograph: AFP via Getty ImagesRussian troops have expanded their presence across north-eastern Syria, the result of an agreement between Ankara and Moscow that should end Turkey's attack on Kurdish-led forces at the price of ending the Kurds' dreams of local autonomy.Syrian and Russian media showed footage of Russian military police vehicles on the outskirts of the important towns of Manbij and Kobani on Wednesday, one day after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, met Vladimir Putin in Sochi.A statement carried on Russia's Interfax agency said Russian patrols had already begun inside Manbij, a town that until two weeks ago was a key US base in the region.The deal was hailed as a "big success" by Donald Trump, although his critics say it cements Russia's role as prime power broker in the Middle East after the US president's announcement that American special forces would withdraw from the area.Who is in control in north-eastern Syria?Until Turkey launched its offensive there on 9 October, the region was controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which comprises militia groups representing a range of ethnicities, though its backbone is Kurdish. Since the Turkish incursion, the SDF has lost much of its territory and appears to be losing its grip on key cities. On 13 October, Kurdish leaders agreed to allow Syrian regime forces to enter some cities to protect them from being captured by Turkey and its allies. The deal effectively hands over control of huge swathes of the region to Damascus.That leaves north-eastern Syria divided between Syrian regime forces, Syrian opposition militia and their Turkish allies, and areas still held by the SDF – for now.On 17 October Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, agreed with US vice-president Mike Pence, to suspend Ankara's operation for five days in order to allow Kurdish troops to withdraw. The following week, on 22 October, Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin agreed on the parameters of the proposed Turkish "safe zone" in Syria.How did the SDF come to control the region?Before the SDF was formed in 2015, the Kurds had created their own militias who mobilised during the Syrian civil war to defend Kurdish cities and villages and carve out what they hoped would eventually at least become a semi-autonomous province. In late 2014, the Kurds were struggling to fend off an Islamic State siege of Kobane, a major city under their control. With US support, including arms and airstrikes, the Kurds managed to beat back Isis and went on to win a string of victories against the radical militant group. Along the way the fighters absorbed non-Kurdish groups, changed their name to the SDF and grew to include 60,000 soldiers.Why does Turkey oppose the Kurds?For years, Turkey has watched the growing ties between the US and SDF with alarm. Significant numbers of the Kurds in the SDF were also members of the People's Protection Units (YPG), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) that has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for more than 35 years in which as many as 40,000 people have died. The PKK initially called for independence and now demands greater autonomy for Kurds inside Turkey.Turkey claims the PKK has continued to wage war on the Turkish state, even as it has assisted in the fight against Isis. The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, the UK, Nato and others and this has proved awkward for the US and its allies, who have chosen to downplay the SDF's links to the PKK, preferring to focus on their shared objective of defeating Isis.What are Turkey's objectives on its southern border?Turkey aims firstly to push the SDF away from its border, creating a 20-mile (32km) buffer zone that would have been jointly patrolled by Turkish and US troops until Trump's recent announcement that American soldiers would withdraw from the region.Erdoğan has also said he would seek to relocate more than 1 million Syrian refugees in this "safe zone", both removing them from his country (where their presence has started to create a backlash) and complicating the demographic mix in what he fears could become an autonomous Kurdish state on his border.How would a Turkish incursion impact on Isis?Nearly 11,000 Isis fighters, including almost 2,000 foreigners, and tens of thousands of their wives and children, are being held in detention camps and hastily fortified prisons across north-eastern Syria.SDF leaders have warned they cannot guarantee the security of these prisoners if they are forced to redeploy their forces to the frontlines of a war against Turkey. They also fear Isis could use the chaos of war to mount attacks to free their fighters or reclaim territory. On 11 October, it was reported that at least five detained Isis fighters had escaped a prison in the region. Two days later, 750 foreign women affiliated to Isis and their children managed to break out of a secure annex in the Ain Issa camp for displaced people, according to SDF officials.It is unclear which detention sites the SDF still controls and the status of the prisoners inside.Michael SafiThe US president was planning to make a fresh statement on the issue on Wednesday morning. In an earlier tweet he claimed the Kurds were safe and Isis prisoners secured.> Big success on the Turkey/Syria Border. Safe Zone created! Ceasefire has held and combat missions have ended. Kurds are safe and have worked very nicely with us. Captured ISIS prisoners secured. I will be making a statement at 11:00 A.M. from the White House. Thank you!> > — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019Turkish troops, allied Syrian rebel proxies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and soldiers belonging to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, are now all present in the border zone, with Russia the only negotiating force between them.The talks on Tuesday between Erdoğan and the Russian president defined the contours of Turkey's long-proposed border "safe zone": Turkish troops in the area seized since the offensive began on 9 October will remain in situ, and Russian soldiers and the Syrian army will control the rest of the frontier.Soldiers with a Russian military police vehicle in Kobani. Photograph: AFP via Getty ImagesMoscow and Damascus will supervise the removal of Kurdish fighters and weaponry to the depth of 18 miles (29km) from their current positions on the border before 26 October, after which joint Russian-Turkish patrols will begin across the entire border area to a depth of six miles, with the exception of the de facto Kurdish capital, Qamishli.On Wednesday, the Russian ministry of defence published a map showing 15 planned border observation posts that will be manned by the Syrian regime.The deal in effect redraws the map of northern Syria and ends five years of semi-autonomy carved out by the local Kurdish administration and its military forces, after Kurdish officials reached an agreement with Assad, their former enemy, for military reinforcements to fend off the Turkish attack.However, the fate of local military councils set up by the SDF in border towns previously under their control and what happens to the SDF's non-Kurdish units remains unclear. The SDF and Kurdish politicians are yet to comment on the Sochi deal.It is believed they will retain control of the approximately 90,000 men, women and children with links to Islamic State being held in Kurdish-run prisons and detention camps.Turkish officials including Erdoğan threatened on Wednesday that Ankara would resume the offensive if neither Russia nor the US guaranteed the total withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from the border region.Erdoğan asked Putin what would happen if the People's Protection Units (YPG), the largest and most important unit within the SDF, put on Syrian army uniforms in order to stay in the border area, according to Hürriyet newspaper.Ankara says the YPG is indistinguishable from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades. Erdoğan said Putin responded by saying he would not let that happen.The border towns of Ras al-Ayn and Tel Abyad, which have experienced fierce fighting, remained quiet on Wednesday, one day after a separate, poorly observed US-brokered ceasefire expired.Trump tweeted: "Safe Zone created! Ceasefire has held and combat missions have ended. Kurds are safe and have worked very nicely with us. Captured ISIS prisoners secured."Erdoğan is scheduled to visit the White House next month.The deal was greeted more cautiously by the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who said the need for a political solution in north-east Syria would be discussed by defence ministers in Brussels on Thursday.At least 120 Syrians have died and 176,000 people have fled their homes over the last two weeks of violence, with 20 Turkish civilian deaths on the other side of the border.
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| Trump Announces New Syria Plan: Blood for Oil Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:29 AM PDT  REUTERSPresident Donald Trump announced Wednesday he's keeping a small U.S. force in northeastern Syria, even as he declaimed responsibility for fighting the so-called Islamic State there."Let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand," Trump said from the Oval Office, in what sounded like a victory speech over an outcome negotiated between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Ratifying the Turkish invasion that began Oct. 9 and has displaced what UNICEF estimates as 80,000 children, Trump announced he will permanently lift "all sanctions imposed" on Turkey. The decision ensures Erdoğan will face no consequences for its invasion of northeastern Syrian areas previously held by Kurdish forces fighting alongside the United States. The U.S. military command, which has been taken by surprise by a wrenching month of withdrawal decisions, did not immediately comment. But a U.S. official familiar with Syria planning, who was not authorized to speak to reporters, said that servicemembers will stay at bases near the Deir az-Zour oil fields, where they have been partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The other enduring U.S. base in the war-torn country, known as al-Tanf, is in the southeastern Syrian desert, far from the oil fields and pipelines that Trump claimed as the residual mission for the U.S. in Syria. The official said the residual force is likely to be fewer than 400 U.S. troops, spread between Deir az-Zour and al-Tanf, down from the 1000 there at the beginning of the month. But U.S. planners are racing to keep up with a torrid pace of presidential announcements that they must translate into policy. "We will be deciding what to do with [the oil] in the future," Trump declared. Using U.S. forces to claim another nation's oil is likely to prompt backlash, though it is unclear whether Trump's pronouncements, an echo of his campaign rhetoric, will translate to actual American policy.After Trump gave Erdoğan a green light to invade on Oct. 6, the administration, facing substantial political opposition, has attempted after the fact to portray itself as opposing the incursion. Last week, Vice President Mike Pence and other senior administration officials in Ankara announced a ceasefire that ratified all of Turkey's military goals: clearing the Kurds out of a 20-mile-deep area away from the Turkish border. The vice president said that while the ceasefire held, the Turks would enjoy a reprieve from the sanctions the U.S. placed on Turkey post-invasion. Trump claimed victory out of the five-day durability of the ceasefire, something that resulted from a deal reached Tuesday by Erdoğan and Putin for joint Turkish-Russian patrols in an area that effectively redraws the Turkish-Syrian border. Yet Trump presented this fait accompli as "an outcome created by us, the United States, and no other nation." He praised Erdoğan as "a man I have gotten to know very well" and referenced an invitation to the White House that he first extended to his Turkish counterpart days before the offensive began. It was not the only unreality in Trump's brief speech. He claimed all ISIS fighters had been recaptured, said the U.S. has been in Syria for "almost ten years" instead of the four years it has been there, portrayed the conflict between Kurds and Turks as ancient instead of political and glossed over the horrific scenes of violence against Kurds that resulted from the Turkish invasion. Trump's posture on Wednesday was to wash his hands of whatever ISIS resurgence results. "Now Turkey, Syria and others in the region must work to make sure ISIS doesn't regain any territory," he said. "It's their neighborhood."Even though he made no effort to explain when the new, plunder-driven goals of the U.S. in Syria will be satisfied, permitting an actual withdrawal, Trump contended that he had reoriented the U.S. military out of a generation of conflict in the Middle East that has agonizingly produced neither peace nor victory.With "a clear objective, a plan for victory and a path out of conflict," Trump said, the U.S. will now "only win—our whole basis has to be the right plan, we will win, no one can beat us." 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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| Johnson Stuck in Limbo as He Awaits EU Decision: Brexit Update Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:24 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.Boris Johnson said French President Emmanuel Macron could veto another extension to the Brexit deadline, potentially forcing the U.K. out of the bloc with no deal in eight days' time.According to a spokesman for the U.K. opposition, Johnson made the remark during a private meeting with Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who raised doubts about the scenario.Johnson is stuck and Brexit is in limbo. The prime minister held fruitless talks with Corbyn after failing to persuade Parliament to rush his Brexit deal into law. Now he must wait for the European Union to decide whether to agree to his reluctant request for a three-month delay. Donald Tusk is keen on pushing the deadline back to Jan. 31, and EU ambassadors will meet later.Key Developments:German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas hints a Brexit extension could come with conditionsEU27 ambassadors meet to discuss U.K.'s request for a delay; a special leaders' summit could be held on Oct. 25 or Oct. 28Opposition Labour Party willing to back election if risk of no-deal Brexit is removedJohnson insists he wants U.K. to leave on Oct. 31, but fails to reach deal with Corbyn on a new timetable ratify Brexit dealMust Read: What If Macron Blocked a Brexit Delay? His Reasons to Be TemptedBrexit Twists Point to Election. Here's How It Works: QuickTakeEU Will Keep Extensions Coming, Bulgarian PM Says (5 p.m.)Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said the EU will keep providing extensions to avoid the risk of a no-deal Brexit."There's no chance that we don't give them a chance," Borissov said in a TV interview. "Imagine what will happen to the visa regime. And to the customs union, to the common market."The Bulgarian prime minister added that his U.K. counterpart is suffering the same fate as his predecessor."I think my friend Theresa May is the happiest person now, because what Boris Johnson used to do to her, he now suffers the same in full," Borissov said. "We'll write 'postpone', and 'postpone' and 'postpone', and we'll keep on like that for another 90-100 years."Johnson Tells Merkel U.K. Should Leave Oct. 31 (4:25 p.m.)Boris Johnson spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday to reiterate his view that Brexit should not be delayed, according to the prime minister's spokesman. The two leaders spoke for 10 minutes by phone, James Slack said, declining to say what Merkel told Johnson.The prime minister's view is that Brexit on Oct. 31 is still possible, Slack told reporters in London. He said Parliament has handed control of the next stage of the process to the European Union by voting down Johnson's timetable to debate his Brexit bill.In addition to calls with Merkel and EU Council President Donald Tusk (see 1:15 p.m.), Johnson spoke to his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar on Tuesday night, Slack said.EU Won't Make Delay Decision Today: Officials (4 p.m.)The European Union's 27 remaining countries won't decide on a Brexit delay when their ambassadors meet in Brussels later on Wednesday, two EU officials said.European Council President Donald Tusk will probably make a decision on Friday -- either on the length of the delay or, if there's no consensus within the EU, to call a summit of leaders, the officials said.Tusk is consulting heads of government in the bloc and the most likely option remains to extend until Jan. 31 with the ability to leave earlier, according to the officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.How Brexit Could Be Done by End-November: MPs (3:15 p.m.)Boris Johnson could get Brexit done by the end of November if he were willing to negotiate a new legislative timetable, according to two pro-European Members of Parliament who were expelled from the Conservative Party by the premier for opposing his strategy.Both MPs, who asked not to be named, said that six days of debate in the House of Commons would suffice, with a similar period in the House of Lords. Both also said they'd back an amendment to keep the U.K. in a customs union with the European Union -- something Johnson opposes because it curtails Britain's ability to strike its own trade deals.These MPs are among the staunchest opponents of Johnson's attempt to ram through the bill. Their proposal suggests Johnson may not have to wait too long to get his deal done, if he were willing to give MPs six days to debate it, instead of the three he originally offered.Johnson Sees Possible France Veto: Labour (1:45 p.m.)Boris Johnson told Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in their meeting Wednesday that French President Emmanuel Macron could veto a Brexit extension, and asked Corbyn how he would respond. Corbyn expressed his doubt about that scenario, according to a Labour Party spokesman.Corbyn also reiterated to the prime minister that Labour would back a general election once the threat of a no-deal Brexit has been removed, the spokesman said.Earlier, a spokesman for the prime minister said he didn't expect further talks with Labour on a new timetable for the government's Brexit bill after Parliament rejected Johnson's accelerated schedule on Tuesday (see 12 p.m.).EU Leaders May Meet on Extension: Varadkar (1:35 p.m.)EU heads of state may meet as soon as Friday to decide on the U.K.'s request for a Brexit extension until January, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said in Parliament in Dublin. The meeting may take place on Monday if the leaders don't all immediately agree to extend, he said.The new withdrawal agreement negotiated by Boris Johnson will not be changed, Varadkar said, adding that even if the deal is approved, the transition period may need to be extended beyond the end of 2020.Varadkar, who spoke to Johnson by phone on Tuesday night, said the U.K. leader was "very pleased" to have a won a vote on his deal in the London Parliament but "concerned" his timetable to get his plan approved had been defeated.Tusk tells Johnson He's Recommending Delay (1:15 p.m.)European Council President Donald Tusk told Boris Johnson in a phone call that he will be recommending to the other 27 member states that they should grant the prime minister's request for an extension."I gave reasons why I'm recommending the EU27 accept the U.K. request for an extension," Tusk wrote on Twitter.Johnson, who wrote to the EU to ask for a delay on Saturday evening after losing a vote in Parliament, told Tusk he "continues to believe that there should be no extension," his spokesman James Slack told reporters in London. A further delay would not be in the interests of either side, Slack said.EU Ambassadors to Discuss Extension (12:45 p.m.)Ambassadors from the EU's other 27 governments will meet in Brussels at 5:30 p.m. local time to discuss the U.K.'s request for a Brexit delay.They can't make the final decision -- that will have to come from EU Council President Donald Tusk on behalf of all the leaders -- but they will give a sense of what the EU's response will be.It could be that the decision is a formality, or Tusk will have to convene a summit. Oct. 28 has been penciled in for that meeting, but most EU officials hope it won't be necessary.Johnson Still Wants Brexit on Oct. 31 (12:40 p.m.)Boris Johnson told Parliament he still wants to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31, though he offered no path to achieving this goal.Asked by former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke to set out a new compromise timetable to get his Brexit bill through Parliament, Johnson said it would depend on how the EU responds to the request for a Brexit delay that he sent to the bloc on Saturday night."I think it would be still very much in the best interests of this country and democracy to get Brexit done by Oct. 31," Johnson said.Deal 'a Great Advance,' Johnson Says (12:15 p.m.)Johnson defended his deal with the EU and urged the opposition to enable him to push it through Parliament."I believe the union is preserved and we are able to go forward together as one United Kingdom and do free trade deals that have been impossible under previous deals," Johnson told MPs in the House of Commons. "This is a great advance for the whole of the U.K. and we intend to develop that with our friends in Northern Ireland.""I do think it's a great shame the House willed the end but not the means" in Tuesday night's votes, Johnson said. He urged Labour's Jeremy Corbyn to "get Brexit done" and accused him of having "no other purpose in seeking to disrupt Brexit than seeking a second referendum."Johnson Meets Corbyn for Talks on Exit Law (12 p.m.)The premier hosted his arch rival, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, for a discussion in Parliament aimed at seeing whether there is any hope of agreeing a new timetable for MPs to debate and scrutinize the Brexit deal.Johnson was thwarted on Tuesday night when the House of Commons refused to allow him to rush his deal through Parliament and into law on a fast-track program. According to an official from Johnson's Conservative party, Corbyn did not propose anything other than more delays and a referendum.A Labour Party spokesman said: "Jeremy Corbyn reiterated Labour's offer to the prime minister to agree a reasonable timetable to debate, scrutinize and amend the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, and restated that Labour will support a general election when the threat of a no-deal crash out is off the table."France Waits To See How Long U.K. Needs (11.55 a.m.)France thinks the U.K. Parliament should be able to scrutinize the Brexit legislation in a matter of days and wants to wait for Johnson's view on that before deciding how long to delay the exit date, according to a French official. The French believe a maximum of 15 days should be given, the official said, rather than the full three months to Jan. 31 that Johnson reluctantly requested.This contradicts the thinking in many European capitals, as suggested in a tweet last night by EU Council President Donald Tusk, that the EU should grant the U.K. a three-month delay, with the ability to end the extension early.Government Wants New Timetable for Bill: Smith (11:45 a.m.)Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith, also a former chief whip, suggested the government's priority is to propose a new legislative timetable for the government's Brexit bill after the House of Commons rejected an accelerated schedule on Tuesday.Speaking to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Smith said he hopes to get a so-called program motion "that is to the satisfaction of a majority of people in this House and resolve this situation." He also said he thought last night's votes were the "beginning of the end of this chapter."Nothing Agreed at Johnson-Corbyn Meeting: BBC (11:40 a.m.)The BBC said "nothing was agreed" at the reported meeting between Boris Johnson and Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn (see 11:30 a.m.) on a new timetable for the prime minister's Brexit bill.Johnson, Corbyn Discuss New Timetable: Times (11:30 a.m.)Boris Johnson and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn are meeting to discuss a new timetable for the prime minister's Brexit bill to be debated in the House of Commons, the Times newspaper reported on Twitter, without saying where it obtained the information.Varadkar Backs Brexit Extension (11 a.m.)Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar appeared to back a flexible extension to the Brexit process, after speaking to European Council President Donald Tusk. Varadkar confirmed his support for a delay, while both men noted that it would still be possible for the U.K. to leave before Jan. 31 if the withdrawal agreement is ratified before then, according to an Irish government statement.Fundamental Changes Needed: DUP's Wilson (10:50 a.m.)Sammy Wilson, Brexit spokesman for the Democratic Unionist Party, reiterated that his party would not support the withdrawal agreement in it's current form, calling parts of it "unpalatable and unacceptable."Wilson told RTE radio he would use a Brexit extension to persuade the U.K. government "to change its position" on the deal which he said would change Northern Ireland's constitutional position within the U.K."It's very difficult to take at face value" assurances Johnson made in Parliament about light touch rules around movement between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, he said, adding his party would support a move by the prime minister to hold a general election.Maas Indicates Delay May Come With Conditions (10 a.m.)A Brexit extension to Jan. 31 shouldn't simply be given by the European Union, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Wednesday, raising the prospect it may come with conditions. "We have to know: What is the basis for it? What will happen by then? Will there be an election?" Maas said to broadcaster N-TV."Above all we have to know what the British are planning and what Johnson is planning. At the moment that's once again completely unclear," Maas said. A short extension of two or three weeks to get approval in Parliament, on the other hand, is "less of a problem."Labour Wants Election Once EU Sets Delay (9:45 a.m.)Richard Burgon, Labour's justice spokesman, said the main opposition party would back a general election as soon as the European Union agrees an extension, and as long as that extension is for more than just a few weeks.Burgon also said Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's offer to work with the government to come up with a "reasonable" alternative timetable for scrutinizing the Brexit bill still stands."Until a general election is called we'll carry on making that offer, to try and improve that bill to make it closer and closer to what we would call a credible Leave option," he said.Extension Needed to Break Impasse: Duncan-Smith (Earlier)Iain Duncan Smith, a hard-line Brexiteer and former leader of the Conservative Party, said he'd rather have an election than extend the timetable for passing the Brexit bill.If the EU grants a three month extension, then Parliament would take up all of that time and would hang amendments on it "like a Christmas tree," he told Bloomberg TV.Earlier:Boris Johnson Eyes Election After Parliament Forces Brexit DelayJohnson Faces Extension Rebellion After Defeat: Brexit BulletinBrexit Has the British Fleeing to Europe: Leonid Bershidsky\--With assistance from Tim Ross, Anna Edwards, Helene Fouquet, Jessica Shankleman, Patrick Donahue, Greg Ritchie, Peter Flanagan and Slav Okov.To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net;Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@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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| As Kremlin scrambles for Africa, Putin praises ties at major summit Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:10 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hosted a major summit aimed at reviving Russia's influence in Africa, telling leaders from the continent he would seek to double trade in the coming years. All 54 African states were represented at the first Russia-Africa Summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, with Putin meeting leaders for bilateral talks throughout the day. Trade between Russia and Africa has more than doubled in the past five years to more than $20 billion, Putin said, adding that some consider this "a good figure".
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| What If Macron Blocked a Brexit Delay? His Reasons to Be Tempted Posted: 23 Oct 2019 09:01 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Emmanuel Macron is playing the tough guy on Brexit again.As the European Union discusses whether to give Prime Minister Boris Johnson the Brexit delay he has asked for but doesn't really want, the French president has signaled he's ready to block it.With any postponement of the U.K.'s departure needing the unanimous support of EU leaders, the man in the Elysee Palace has the power to dictate Britain's future."The Oct. 31 deadline must be met," Macron said at the conclusion of last week's EU summit. After Tuesday's vote in the House of Commons, it almost certainly won't be met.His junior European affairs minister, Amelie de Montchalin, said on Wednesday that France wouldn't block a short extension of five to 10 days -- but what if Johnson and other EU leaders asked for more time to negotiate?With Angela Merkel -- much more open than Macron to a Brexit delay -- moving toward the end of her time as German chancellor, the French leader is looking to take over the mantle of Europe's de facto chief. He has already opposed other EU countries on enlargement and the bloc's budget.Brexit fatigue is rampant across the EU and governments are beginning to resent how much time and energy is being spent on the subject. Macron could view this as the opportunity to show he can move things on.As French presidents have found since Charles de Gaulle twice blocked the U.K.'s bid to join the EU in the 1960s, being tough on Britain can play well at home, too. Macron's poll ratings have dipped since he saw off contenders from the established parties to win the election in 2017.For Johnson, Macron is becoming an unlikely ally. Any prospect of a delay helps the prime minister persuade politicians in London they should back his Brexit deal immediately. Johnson told opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in a meeting on Wednesday that Macron could wield the veto, a Labour Party spokesman said.We've been here before. Macron was just as belligerent before the decision to delay Brexit in April and, while the extension ended up being shorter than many governments were hoping for, it was still approved.EU officials in Brussels say they can't see any likelihood of Macron following through on his threat. For one thing, it could lead to a no-deal Brexit that would harm French citizens, especially in areas of the country that Macron is trying to woo. But it's still a tempting possibility for him.(Corrects de Montchalin's title in fourth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Edward Evans, Paul SillitoeFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Will loyalists turn against Trump after Bill Taylor’s game-changing testimony? Posted: 23 Oct 2019 08:46 AM PDT  Diplomat added significant ballast to the allegation Trump was trying to extort Ukraine into ginning up bad news about Biden * What Bill Taylor's impeachment inquiry testimony tells usDonald Trump listens as Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaks to the press during a meeting in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly on 25 September. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesThe impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump has heard some extraordinary testimony over the last month. From the first mention of Trump's desired "deliverable" from Ukraine, successive layers of witnesses and documents have added to an indictment of the president's conduct that only gets heavier, as Trump howls his defenses to the wind.On Tuesday, things got even worse for Trump – much worse, as many saw it.For almost 10 hours, William Taylor, a former military officer and career diplomat with the rank of ambassador under the last four presidents, spoke with congressional investigators about how the Trump administration has been conducting a two-track foreign policy in Ukraine, where Taylor is in charge of the US embassy.We don't yet know most of what was said. The current public record of the closed-door testimony comprises only a copy of Taylor's 15-page opening statement – and the spectacle of the ashen faces of members of Congress as they filed out from the hearing."This testimony is a sea change," congressman Stephen Lynch told reporters.In his testimony, Taylor explained his discovery of an "irregular, informal policy channel" by which the Trump administration was pursuing objectives in Ukraine "running contrary to the goals of longstanding US policy". What the "informal channel" wanted – and briefly obtained, Taylor said – was for the Ukrainian president to agree to go on CNN to announce an investigation of Joe Biden, whom Trump sees, perhaps mistakenly, as a top 2020 threat.Bill Taylor, acting ambassador to Ukraine, testified of 'an informal policy channel' by which the Trump administration was pursuing objectives in Ukraine. Photograph: Alex Wroblewski/Getty ImagesThe Trump administration held up "much-needed military assistance" to Ukraine in an effort to extract the Ukrainian statement, Taylor said. "More Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without the US assistance," he noted.In a process scrambled so far by misleading Trump tweets and relying in part on anonymous witnesses, the testimony of Taylor, a Vietnam veteran respected in both parties with 50 years of public service behind him, landed as a potential game-changer. It was just the kind of testimony that seemed to answer even the most stubborn demands of Trump loyalists such as Senator Lindsey Graham for additional, definitive proof that Trump was turning the broad power of his office to his own narrow devices."If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing," Graham said at the weekend.The senator denied in a Fox News appearance Tuesday that Taylor had delivered such evidence. But Taylor added significant ballast to the allegation that Trump was attempting to extort Ukraine into ginning up bad news about Biden.What Taylor added was a careful stitchwork of detail, describing who was working to extort the Ukrainians, how they were going about it, how their aims clashed with stated US policy, how the Ukrainians responded, and what people said to him about it at the time.Taylor made clear he has the memos and other records to back up his story. And he exposed the slapstick clumsiness of the Trump flunkies working the "informal channel" – notably Gordon Sondland, the hotelier and Trump mega-donor turned ambassador."Ambassador Sondland tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman," Taylor testified. "When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check."But "the explanation made no sense", Taylor argued. "The Ukrainians did not 'owe' President Trump anything, and holding up security assistance for domestic political gain was 'crazy'."Reaction to Taylor's testimony generally fell between shock and dumbfoundedness. "I cannot overstate how damaging this Ambassador Taylor testimony is to Trump," tweeted Neal Katyal, the former acting solicitor general."Taylor's statement is a completely devastating document," wrote Susan Hennessey, the executive director of the Lawfare site. "I know they will find a way but it's just impossible to imagine how Republicans in Congress will be able to defend this. It is well beyond what most assumed was the worst-case scenario."The White House issued a statement Tuesday night impugning Taylor, a Trump appointee, as part of a cadre of "radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the constitution". But the taller the evidence against him, the smaller Trump's protests seemed.Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar, a presidential candidate, challenged Republicans to take a stand. "After Diplomat Taylor's testimony you can no longer question whether this happened," she tweeted. "The question is if you choose to follow the law or be part of the cover-up."Trump huddled Tuesday night with members of his legal team, the Wall Street Journal reported, and he urged congressional Republicans to do more to rebut the impeachment inquiry. But there were reportedly no talking points, and no one knew quite what they were supposed to say, or whom to take that direction from.Notably absent from the meeting of Trump's advisors was Rudy Giuliani, whom Taylor describes as running the shadow operation in Ukraine. "The official foreign policy of the United States was undercut by the irregular efforts led by Mr Giuliani," Taylor said. He described a seemingly free hand for Giuliani, whose foreign clients include or have included Ukraine-based antagonists of current and former US officials, to open and close diplomatic channels and to direct US policy as he pleased.One of the weightiest impacts of Taylor's testimony might have to do with the senior US officials it names. Taylor took his concerns about Trump's alleged attempt to extort Ukraine, he said, to both national security adviser John Bolton and to secretary of state Mike Pompeo. Bolton, who has since resigned, reacted with outrage and frustration.Pompeo, who is eyeing a US Senate bid in his home state of Kansas, apparently greeted Taylor's warning with silence."This is not the story of corruption in Ukraine," tweeted the political strategist David Axelrod. "It's the story of corruption at the highest levels of the US government. It's the story of extortion, with US military aid to a besieged ally held hostage to the president's personal political project."Trump's critics say the story is plain: that the president twisted the immense powers of his office to personal ends, in betrayal of constitution and country. When it comes time to prove it, Taylor's testimony is likely to be front and center.
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| Turkey's Halkbank may face sanctions if it fails to appear in U.S. court Posted: 23 Oct 2019 08:35 AM PDT ![Turkey's Halkbank may face sanctions if it fails to appear in U.S. court]( "Turkey's Halkbank may face sanctions if it fails to appear in U.S. court") A U.S. district judge on Wednesday ordered Turkey's majority state-owned Halkbank to appear in court on Nov. 5 and warned that he may sanction the bank if it fails to show up. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Oct. 16 charged the state-owned lender with taking party in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. Halkbank declined to comment on the order.
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| Yemen rebels, government set up joint positions in key port city Posted: 23 Oct 2019 08:04 AM PDT  Yemen's government and Huthi rebels have set up joint observation posts as part of de-escalation moves in the flashpoint city of Hodeida, a move the United Nations welcomed on Wednesday. The world body's envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths wrote on Twitter that the establishment of the four positions along frontlines in the key port city, and the deployment of liason officers, were positive moves.
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| Albania says it's discovered an Iranian paramilitary network Posted: 23 Oct 2019 07:37 AM PDT ![Albania says it's discovered an Iranian paramilitary network]( "Albania says it's discovered an Iranian paramilitary network") Albanian police said on Wednesday they have discovered an Iranian paramilitary network that allegedly planned attacks in Albania against exiled members of an Iranian group seeking to overthrow the government in Tehran. Police chief Ardi Veliu said the foreign wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guard operated an "active terrorist cell" targeting Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, group members in Albania. It also said the network was allegedly linked with organized crime groups in Turkey and used a former MEK member to collect information in Albania.
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| Tigers Goes Dutch With Rotterdam Mega-Hub Posted: 23 Oct 2019 07:37 AM PDT ![Tigers Goes Dutch With Rotterdam Mega-Hub]( "Tigers Goes Dutch With Rotterdam Mega-Hub") Tigers will open a new mega-hub in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in April 2020 to meet rising customer demand from the e-commerce sector and the growing need for dual-hub European logistics systems as Brexit looms. Shippers have been relocating distribution and storage capacity to continental Europe ahead of the U.K.'s expected exit from the European Union (EU). Shahar Ayash, Tigers' managing director for U.K. and Europe, told FreightWaves it was a two-way trend.
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