| UN investigator regrets no probe of chain to Khashoggi slay Posted: 25 Oct 2019 05:19 PM PDT ![UN investigator regrets no probe of chain to Khashoggi slay]( "UN investigator regrets no probe of chain to Khashoggi slay") A U.N. independent investigator said Friday that she regrets that neither Saudi Arabia nor the U.N. secretary-general and U.N. decision-making bodies have taken steps to criminally investigate "the chain of command" behind the Saudi operation that led to last year's execution of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
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| Protests rattle the postwar order in Lebanon and Iraq Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:44 PM PDT  Tens of thousands of people, many of them young and unemployed men, thronged public squares and blocked main streets Friday in the capitals of Iraq and Lebanon in unprecedented, spontaneous anti-government revolts in two countries scarred by long conflicts. Demonstrators in Iraq were beaten back by police firing live ammunition and tear gas, and officials said 30 people were killed in a fresh wave of unrest that has left 179 civilians dead this month. In Lebanon, scuffles between rival political groups broke out at a protest camp, threatening to undermine an otherwise united civil disobedience campaign now in its ninth day.
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| Treasury Promises "Transparency" For Humanitarian Aid To Iran Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:01 PM PDT ![Treasury Promises]( "Treasury Promises") The U.S. Treasury Department on Oct. 25 said it has established a new "mechanism" to ensure that financial transactions and commercial exports to Iran involving humanitarian aid are not siphoned off to support Iranian weapons programs or terrorist groups. The mechanism, which promises "transparency" for continued humanitarian trade with Iran, will be developed by Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
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| Esper: US troops, armored vehicles going to Syria oil fields Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:23 PM PDT  The United States will send armored vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to keep oil fields from potentially falling into the hands of Islamic State militants, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday. It was the latest sign that extracting the military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump is making it out to be.
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| US seeks data on Iran humanitarian sales Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:21 PM PDT  The United States on Friday asked foreign governments to submit detailed reports on humanitarian exports to Iran, a step observers said could have a chilling effect and cast a pall over European efforts to allow trade. President Donald Trump's administration, which has cast Tehran's clerical regime as enemy number one, announced a new "humanitarian mechanism" which it said would help the Iranian people by facilitating "legitimate" trade. As it announced the initiative, the Treasury Department also said it was blacklisting Iran on charges of money laundering under the 2001 Patriot Act, effectively forbidding all US transactions with Iranian banks.
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| Renewed anti-government protests in Iraq leave 42 dead Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:20 PM PDT  Renewed anti-government protests across Iraq left more than 40 people dead on Friday through tear gas, live rounds and fires, a watchdog and security sources told AFP. Rallies had been set to resume on Friday, with a range of actors from Iraq's highest Shiite authority to the United Nations urging restraint.
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| Kurd facing deportation decries US troop withdrawal in Syria Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:16 PM PDT ![Kurd facing deportation decries US troop withdrawal in Syria]( "Kurd facing deportation decries US troop withdrawal in Syria") A Michigan restaurateur and Kurdish immigrant who has faced deportation to Turkey for more than a decade is publicly criticizing President Donald Trump's decision to pull about 1,000 U.S. soldiers out of Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria. Ibrahim Parlak fled southern Turkey decades ago and sought asylum in the United States. Parlak has hosted a vigil at his restaurant, joined a protest near the Turkish consulate in Chicago and appeared on multiple news outlets decrying Trump's move.
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| UN chief urges world leaders to listen to protesters' issues Posted: 25 Oct 2019 12:20 PM PDT  The U.N. chief told reporters that "disquiet in peoples' lives" has sparked demonstrations around the world from the Middle East to Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. "The world is also wrestling with the negative impacts of globalization and new technologies, which have increased inequalities within societies," Guterres said.
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| Government Loophole Gave Oil Companies $18 Billion Windfall Posted: 25 Oct 2019 12:18 PM PDT  The U.S. government has lost billions of dollars of oil and gas revenue to fossil-fuel companies because of a loophole in a decades-old law, a federal watchdog agency said Thursday, offering the first detailed accounting of the consequences of a misstep by lawmakers that is expected to continue costing taxpayers for decades to come.The loophole dates from an effort in 1995 to encourage drilling in the Gulf of Mexico by offering oil companies a temporary break from paying royalties on the oil produced. However, the rule was poorly written, the very politicians who originally championed it have acknowledged, and the temporary reprieve was accidentally made permanent on some wells.As a result, some of the biggest oil companies in the world, including Chevron, Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil and others, have avoided paying at least $18 billion in royalties on oil and gas drilled since 1996, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that works for Congress. The companies, which hold government leases to drill in the Gulf, continue to extract oil and gas from those wells while not being required to pay royalties, a right the industry has gone to court to defend.Roughly 22% of oil production from federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico was royalty-free in 2018 because of the loophole, the Interior Department said.The National Ocean Industries Association, which represents the offshore industry, defended the arrangement. "There was no mistake in the law," said Nicolette Nye, vice president at the association. If not for the law, she said, "we likely would not be producing U.S. oil offshore in record amounts today."But the program's original architect said he was surprised by the outcome. "That wasn't our intent," said J. Bennett Johnston, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana who had pushed for the original reprieve on royalties. "There should have been a provision that said it didn't apply above a certain threshold" for oil prices, he said.The loophole continues to cut into federal coffers. Royalties from offshore oil and gas are a significant source of revenue, bringing in almost $90 billion from 2006 through 2018, according to the agency.Frank Rusco, a director of the GAO's Natural Resources and Environment team and the report's author, said the findings are an extreme example of the Department of Interior failing to ensure that American taxpayers received a fair market value for the oil and gas extracted from public property."These leases sold 20 years ago might keep producing for decades. The amount of forgone royalties is going to continue to increase," Rusco said. "It's a strong case for Interior to review how it collects revenues on oil and gas."The Interior Department said it "takes seriously" its responsibility to ensure that the American public receives a fair value for public resources. Still, some parts of the report "do not paint a representative picture" of the agency's efforts, Casey Hammond, acting assistant secretary for land and minerals, said in the agency's response, which was also released Thursday.Department data shows that Chevron holds the most royalty-free leases in the Gulf, followed by Anadarko (now a part of Occidental Petroleum), Norway's Equinor and Shell. Exxon Mobil, BP and CNOOC, China's state-run offshore oil and gas company, also own royalty-free leases, the data shows.Chevron declined to comment. Shell, Occidental, BP, Exxon and Equinor referred queries to the oil industry group, the American Petroleum Institute. Calls to CNOOC's Houston offices went unanswered.Ben Marter, a spokesman for the API, said companies "took Congress at its word," and any attempts to revisit the issue would be "engaging in a dangerous game of bait-and-switch."The report of the windfall to oil companies comes as the Trump administration has moved to further reduce the cost of offshore drilling for the industry, proposing to significantly weaken safety rules put in place after the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. President Donald Trump also earlier pushed to expand new offshore oil and gas drilling, though that plan was put on hold after being challenged in court.The fossil fuel industry is facing heightened scrutiny on several fronts. The United Nations has warned that oil and gas production must decline substantially in the coming years if humanity is to avoid the worst effects of climate change worldwide, including more severe flooding, droughts and sea level rise. And Exxon Mobil this week is fighting charges in a New York City courtroom that the company lied to shareholders about the costs and consequences of global warming.This week at a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Exxon and other oil giants came under further attack."Major oil and gas companies, whose products are substantially responsible for global greenhouse emissions and the resulting climate emergency we now face, had early and repeated knowledge of the climate risk," Sharon Y. Eubanks, who formerly directed tobacco litigation at the Department of Justice, told the committee. "They chose to mount a campaign of disinformation and denial."Exxon has said that the company has long acknowledged climate change is real and has called the charges "meritless" and "unconnected from the truth."The oil industry revenues detailed in Thursday's report are a product of a very different era in America.Today, thanks to the fracking boom, the United States is the largest oil producer in the world. But back in the late 1990s -- when the country was heavily reliant on oil imports -- the federal government wanted to boost American energy independence by encouraging more exploration in the Gulf. And since oil prices were low, Washington tried to make it worthwhile for oil companies by offering a brief reprieve on the royalties.In 1995, Congress, working with oil executives, passed a law allowing companies that bid for new offshore leases to avoid paying the standard 12%, or share of sales, on the oil and gas those leases eventually produced. The Interior Department leases tens of millions of acres of ocean territory to oil producers in exchange for an upfront bid for the lease, followed by royalties.Supporters of the law argued that not only would the incentive reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, but that it would in fact generate money for the government by prompting producers to bid higher prices for new leases.But the new regulations omitted a crucial clause that had been supported by both Republicans and Democrats: that if average prices for oil and gas climbed above a certain threshold, companies would be responsible for paying the royalties. In 2006, when the federal government tried to impose royalties, an oil producer sued and won."It's unfortunate," said John Northington, who was an adviser at the Energy Department at the time of the initial lawmaking. "The legislation wasn't clear about there being a price threshold. But it was never the intent that everybody get a free ride forever."The GAO report lays out the long-lived consequences.The report says that waiving royalties between 1996 and 2000, the final year royalty-free leases were offered, likely increased bidding for offshore leases by almost $2 billion. But forgone royalty revenue has been nine times greater, adding up to $18 billion through the end of 2018, the report found.Because most of the leases are still producing oil, the financial benefits for oil companies will ultimately be higher, the report adds."This is handing out public money to special interests that don't need them, don't deserve them and aren't paying their fair share," said Raul M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., chair of the House Natural Resources Committee. "Our laws and standards need to reflect the fact that public resources are there for the benefit of the public."The GAO report recommends that Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees offshore leases, enlist a third-party expert to assess whether government valuations of oil and gas resources is sound. The Interior Department has pushed back against some of the report's findings and recommendations, including the need for a third-party examination.Billy Tauzin, a former Louisiana congressman who sponsored the 1995 bill as a Republican, stood by its original intentions. "It was a deepwater incentive. It's enormously risky and expensive, and drilling correctly and well requires much more than the initial investment," he said.Still, "the idea was to say we want to incentivize companies when oil prices are low," he added. "But if the prices go up to a certain level, you don't need the relief."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| UN chief: It's time to start discussing 'end game' in Syria Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:28 AM PDT ![UN chief: It's time to start discussing 'end game' in Syria]( "UN chief: It's time to start discussing 'end game' in Syria") U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the Turkish offensive and current cessation of fighting in northeast Syria show it's time to start seriously discussing an "end game" to the eight-year war in Syria.
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| Hizbollah leader warns of civil war after days of Lebanon protests Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:21 AM PDT  The leader of Hizbollah on Friday warned Lebanon that nationwide protests calling for the overthrow of the government could lead to chaos and civil war. Hassan Nasrallah praised protesters for achieving "unprecedented" economic reforms but also suggested foreign intervention had a role in the demonstrations. Over a quarter of Lebanon's population are reported to have taken to the streets in anti-corruption protests over the past week. Hizbollah supporters have in recent days organised counter-attacks on the protests, which have so far remained largely free of sectarian division. The powerful Shiite group, which is backed regionally by Iran, is in coalition with the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Speaking to the nation for the first time on day nine of the mass protests, Nasrallah warned that he had "intelligence" of foreign "conspiracies" to drag Lebanon into civil war. Lebanon has been swept by more than a week of nationwide protests against the political elite Credit: AFP The leader claimed that the protests had started spontaneously, but were now being funded and organised by local and foreign actors who were exploiting the naivety of protestors. His speech echoed those given earlier this week by Mr Hariri and Michel Aoun, the country's president. On the streets, protesters appeared unmoved. "All of them means all of them" they chanted, in reference to the demand for the country's entire cabinet to be replaced. For the second day, security forces had to create human walls between the protestors and Hizbollah supporters in attempts to stop scuffles. "We are not going to stop our protests until we get what we want. We have been suffocated in these conditions for years. They have to go. All of them means all of them," said Hieba, a 42-year-old restaurant owner.
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| Lebanon Hezbollah warns protests could lead to chaos, war Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:12 AM PDT  The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah group said Friday that nationwide protests against the country's political class have been exploited by foreign powers and were no longer spontaneous, warning they could drag the country toward civil war. Hassan Nasrallah's comments came shortly after his supporters clashed with anti-government protesters in central Beirut.
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| Eagle nearly bankrupts Russian tracking programme with roaming text messages Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:05 AM PDT  A steppe eagle has nearly bankrupted a Russian bird-tracking programme with roaming text messages after he flew to Iran and began transmitting backlogged GPS data. Scientists from the Siberian Environmental Centre were forced to turn to crowdfunding, with donations flooding in since the story made national news. Named "Min" after his birthplace near the city of Minusinsk, the steppe eagle was fitted with a GPS tracker powered by a miniature solar panel in 2018. A project by the Russian Raptor Research and Conservation Network is tracking 13 of the endangered eagles to better understand what threats they face during their migration south to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Outfitted with a mobile phone card, the tracker takes an eagle's location 12 times a day and texts the coordinates to the researchers' number in four messages. If the bird is outside mobile coverage area, as is often the case, it stores the data to text once it comes back in range. After spending most of this summer out of coverage in western Kazakhstan, Min flew to Iran so quickly earlier this month that his tracker still couldn't get a mobile connection. Once he landed near a rubbish dump in Iran, it began sending hundreds of text messages of GPS data, costing the programme's shoestring budget up to 7,000 roubles (£85) a day. Each text from Iran is priced at 49 roubles, about 25 times more than in Russia and three times more than in Kazakhstan. Min was born near the city of Minusinsk in Russia Credit: Yelena Shnaider/Telegram Min's data quickly used up all the researchers' phone credit, which had already been depleted by three other eagles that flew to Iran, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, SibEco Centre ornithologist Yelena Shnaider told The Telegraph. The researchers even had to take out a loan. "He wasn't in touch all summer … We were happy to get a text from him," she said. "We had expected to get it from Kazakhstan but suddenly he's in Iran, and we started to get his summer locations at three times the price." "But Min's a good boy, about a week ago he left Iran and went to Saudi Arabia where it's cheaper," she added. Since she called on supporters to "put money on the eagle's phone," more than 250,000 roubles (£3,000) have been raised, enough to track all 13 birds through the end of the year. Featured on the flags of Egypt and Kazakhstan, the steppe eagle can have a wingspan of more than seven feet and preys upon small mammals and birds in the plains and deserts of Eurasia. It was once found as far west as Ukraine, but its numbers have plummeted in recent years. The species was updated to critically endangered on the IUCN red list in 2015, thanks in part to Russian tracking programmes. The programme is tracking 13 steppe eagles to better understand threats to the critically endangered species Credit: Yelena Shnaider/Telegram During a long yearly migration south to countries in Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, the bird often comes across dangerous power lines or poison traps that farmers put out for wolves and other predators. Not above scavenging from carcasses, it is also highly vulnerable to the veterinary drug diclofenac, which has already killed off 99 per cent of India's white-rumped vulture population. Tracking the steppe eagles will help environmentalists identify problem areas, Ms Shnaider said. Farmers can be fined for putting out illegal poisons, and companies can be pressured to put bird protecting insulation around power lines. "During wintering and migration the steppe eagle meets many dangers, and we can't neutralise these dangers across its whole range, but we can focus our efforts on concrete points," she said. "The main threats are poison and electrocution and illegal hunting, too."
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| UN chief backs OAS audit of Bolivia election results Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:16 AM PDT ![UN chief backs OAS audit of Bolivia election results]( "UN chief backs OAS audit of Bolivia election results") Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the United Nations supports an audit of Bolivia's election results to be done by the Organization of American States following protests claiming fraud in the vote count. Guterres said the U.N. is ready to provide any assistance the OAS needs.
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| The Latest: 23 killed in Iraq anti-government demonstrations Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:11 AM PDT  Iraqi security officials say at least 23 people have been killed in protests in Baghdad and across provinces in the country's Shiite-dominated south. The officials say the dead include eight protesters who were killed in Baghdad. The remaining deaths were distributed across the provinces of Basra, Nasiriyah, Misan and Muthanna in southern Iraq.
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| Hezbollah Followers Fill Streets to Oppose Protest Demands Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:05 AM PDT ![Hezbollah Followers Fill Streets to Oppose Protest Demands]( "Hezbollah Followers Fill Streets to Oppose Protest Demands") (Bloomberg) -- Followers of Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah took to the streets Friday, waving the armed movement's yellow flags and defending its leader against criticism after nine days of nationwide protests demanding the ouster of the political elite.In a televised speech, Hassan Nasrallah said the revolt was being exploited by political parties and unspecified foreign embassies and agencies, and could drag the country into chaos and civil war."Today the situation in Lebanon has become a regional, political and international target that is employing local groups. It's no longer about a popular movement, protests, health and employment demands, corruption," he said, questioning how protesters were funding their movement. Nasrallah called on his supporters not to engage demonstrators, after several were hurt in scuffles.As his speech ended, groups of apparent Hezbollah supporters who had been arguing and fighting with protesters began to leave the main centers. However, in the southern suburbs of Beirut -- Hezbollah's stronghold -- and the city of Tyre, large numbers of people on motorbikes took to the streets in his support.Hezbollah's show of strength and the appearance of party flags is a turning point in Lebanon's uprising, which had transcended for the first time the sectarian and party divisions that tend to dominate Lebanese politics.Hezbollah, which has both political and military wings, performed well in the last elections and is part of the largest coalition in parliament and in the government. A Shi'ite Muslim movement supported by Iran, it led for years the fight against Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000, and later fought a war against it in 2006. The group also dispatched fighters to neighboring Syria to defend President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran and its Lebanese proxy, during that country's eight-year-old civil conflict.Saudi Arabia Isn't Rushing to Bail Out Beirut Because of IranNasrallah called on the so-far leaderless street movement to name its representatives and answer the president's invitation Thursday for a dialogue to end the crisis that has paralyzed the country. Main thoroughfares have been blocked by demonstrators and banks and schools have been shut since the revolt broke out last week over proposed tax increases. President Michel Aoun's first address to the nation since the protests was met with disappointment on the streets where many were calling for concrete measures.Nasrallah urged the Lebanese public not to dismiss the government's zero-tax reform plan unveiled earlier this week to address key economic demands and avert a financial crisis. He has opposed calls for the government to resign and hold early elections, saying the economic situation was too fragile."A vacuum will lead to chaos," he said.Lebanon Pledges Bank Tax as Part of Sweeping Drive to End UnrestTo contact the reporters on this story: Lin Noueihed in Beirut at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net;Dana Khraiche in Beirut at dkhraiche@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Mark WilliamsFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| If Iran Gets A Nuclear Weapon, Donald Trump Is To Blame Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:00 AM PDT  U.S.-Iran relations are moving in the wrong direction.
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| Russia says it sent hundreds of additional troops to Syria Posted: 25 Oct 2019 09:46 AM PDT  Russia has sent hundreds of additional troops to Syria to help patrol the country's Turkey-Syria border after a deal between Moscow and Ankara, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday. The ministry said about 300 military police have arrived in Syria to patrol the northeastern areas along the border with Turkey and oversee the pullout of Syrian Kurdish fighters from there. After Turkey invaded northeastern Syria this month, an offensive enabled by President Donald Trump's abrupt pullout of U.S. troops, Moscow and Ankara struck a deal splitting control of northeastern Syria.
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| UPDATE 2-U.S., China "close to finalizing" part of a Phase One trade deal: USTR Posted: 25 Oct 2019 09:45 AM PDT  Washington and Beijing are working to agree on the text for a "Phase 1" trade agreement announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 11. Trump has said he hopes to sign the deal with China's President Xi Jinping next month at a summit in Chile.
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| Serbia Is Signing a Deal With Russia’s Answer to the EU Posted: 25 Oct 2019 09:37 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. Serbia signed a trade pact with Russia's answer to the European Union, doubling down on its strategy of dual East-West allegiances as the western bloc drags its feet on expanding into the Balkans.The agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union, or EEU, has raised alarm among officials in the EU, which has for years coaxed the continent's most volatile region closer into its orbit while refraining from finalizing memberships. But it bolsters the approach of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who has vowed to lead the country of 7 million into the EU while maintaining strong ties with his close ally Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who helped create the EEU in 2015.While the agreement offers little economically -- Serbian trade with the EU eclipses that with the five ex-Soviet EEU members -- it's a reminder that Western inaction leaves the door open for Russian and Chinese influence."The EU may want to help the region, but that is different to bringing the Balkans into its own house," said Timothy Less of the U.K. based Centre for Geopolitics and Grand Strategy. "The EU no longer has a viable plan for stabilizing the Balkans, meaning others are having to solve the problems left unfinished by the Europeans."Under the agreement, signed by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, Serbia will broaden existing trade pacts with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to add the EEU's other two members, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, after negotiating tariff-free sales of cheese, fruit brandies and cigarettes to the combined markets of 180 million people.Vucic's balancing act may have been vindicated last week, when French President Emmanuel Macron thwarted a push to offer Serbia's Balkan peers North Macedonia and Albania dates for starting membership talks, insisting that the whole enlargement process slow down.Faced with uncertainty, the western Balkan states have already committed to creating their own common market while waiting to join the EU. Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia have announced plans to bolster trade and harmonize incentives for investors, a rare show of unity after the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s. They also invited Montenegro, Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina to join."We agreed to start working for ourselves, for our region," Vucic said at the United Nations last month. "Everything we can do ourselves, we should and not leave it to others."The EU has warned that Serbia must drop any free trade pacts it has with third countries when it joins. But that will be a way off after the European Commission said it won't open its doors to the next potential new member until around 2025.Pragmatic PartnersThat gives Vucic more time to strengthen ties with other political powers, a strategy that he's pursued since taking control of the government in 2014. He has since offset his goal of EU entry by refusing to apply the bloc's sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.He has also accepted the gift of Russian fighter jets and other weapons and repeatedly visited Putin in Moscow. Now he's hosting Russian troops for joint military drills, including S-400 long-range surface-to-air missiles, an advanced anti-aircraft defense system that Russia has also sold to NATO-member Turkey.The Trade Ministry in Belgrade sees exports to Russia, which makes up about 90% of Serbia's $1.1 billion in sales to the EEU, rising by 50% in three years. By comparison, Serbia sells $13 billion in goods to the EU, a discrepancy that highlights the political, rather than economic, importance of the deal with the Russian-led trade area."Free trade agreements are not a bad thing, but signing a free trade agreement without any parallel progress toward the EU is not a good signal," said Miroljub Labus, former Yugoslav and Serbian deputy prime minister from 2000 to 2006. "Still, it's a win-win agreement for both Russia and Serbia."(Updates documents signed in Moscow)To contact the reporters on this story: Misha Savic in Belgrade at msavic2@bloomberg.net;Gordana Filipovic in Belgrade at gfilipovic@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Irina Vilcu at isavu@bloomberg.net, Melodie WarnerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| US eases regulations blocking food, medicine sales to Iran Posted: 25 Oct 2019 08:20 AM PDT ![US eases regulations blocking food, medicine sales to Iran]( "US eases regulations blocking food, medicine sales to Iran") The U.S. is taking steps to ease sales of food and medicine to Iran amid stringent sanctions imposed on the country by the Trump administration. The Treasury Department says it has created a way to ensure humanitarian aid can continue despite the administration's effort to isolate the Islamic Republic. The move announced Friday addresses concerns by aid groups and others that sanctions prevented shipments of food and medicine that were traditionally allowed to countries under sanctions.
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| The Latest: Hezbollah chief asks supporters to exit protests Posted: 25 Oct 2019 07:36 AM PDT  The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah has called on his supporters to leave anti-government protests to avoid friction and seek dialogue instead. Hassan Nasrallah spoke Friday shortly after his supporters clashed with protesters in central Beirut, rejecting that demonstrators equate him with corrupt politicians.
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| Saudi Arabia Isn’t Rushing to Bail Out Beirut. The Reason Is Iran Posted: 25 Oct 2019 05:59 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- This week's bulletin from the Saudi government congratulated the new Japanese emperor, condemned a truck bombing in Afghanistan and noted discussions with Brazil over intellectual property rights.Conspicuous by its absence was a country where Saudi Arabia has wielded influence for decades and where protests against the political establishment have turned into the stirrings of another Middle East revolution.The official silence in the Arab world over the unrest that's rocked Lebanon for more than a week could have come from Napoleon's playbook of not interfering when your enemy is in the process of destroying itself. Demonstrators in Beirut and other Lebanese regions have united against a regime dominated by Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries label as terrorist and have long tried to undermine.One Gulf official, who declined to be identified by name when talking about sensitive foreign policy, said tight lips are deliberate even as Saudi and other Gulf commentators and television channels salute the protesters. What's more, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is being refused financial help to avoid money going to Hezbollah via the government, according to the official and two more people familiar with the matter.Anger over economic hardship and allegations of corruption have been a hallmark of Lebanon for years. This time, though, politicians of all religions and stripes have been engulfed, including Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was considered an untouchable icon.QuicktakeLebanon's Unrest UnexplainedChants of "all of them means all of them" calling for a blanket dismissal of the country's power brokers have risen from Sunni Muslim hotbeds Tripoli and Akkar in the north, Hezbollah-controlled cities of Baalbek in the east and Nabatiyyeh in the south and mainly Christian areas in central Beirut."What's happening is a gift from heaven for Saudi Arabia and other countries in their proxy war with Iran," said Sami Nader, head of the Levant Institute in Beirut. Keeping out of it, though, is key, he said. "It's obvious that Hezbollah is the first loser here so any sign there's a regional power trying to hijack the movement will polarize the protest and divide it along sectarian lines."Like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have also refrained from issuing official statements or the usual pleas for calm, limiting their actions to evacuating their citizens from Lebanon.The three monarchies have until recently been key in providing bailouts and financial help when Lebanon's economy teetered on the brink of collapse. Lebanon is one of the most indebted countries in the world, and its attempts before the protests began to get fresh sources of funding have floundered.Prime Minister Hariri visited Abu Dhabi a few weeks ago and got no support, the Gulf official said. By contrast, when unrest broke out in Sudan and its leader was toppled, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia pledged $3 billion to head off any chaos.The Gulf allies largely stood on the sidelines over Lebanon for two key reasons, the people familiar with their strategy said. Hariri has not carried out any of the reforms demanded by donors to begin releasing money pledged at a conference in 2018 and Hezbollah's entrenched influence, they said."In a way, you bail out Lebanon, you bail out Hezbollah," said Shafeeq Ghabra, a political science professor at Kuwait University.The militant group is Iran's biggest success at exporting the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It has mobilized thousands of men to fight Israel and, more recently, mainly Sunni rebels in Syria. At home in Lebanon, it's more powerful than the U.S.-equipped army. The organization also has a network of charities providing social aid and affordable health care that its Shiite supporters benefit from. It won its first legislative seat in Sunni-dominated Beirut in 2018 as Hariri, the pro-Saudi Sunni premier, failed to curb its influence. He was brought to Riyadh to face Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later that year. Nasrallah urged protesters on Oct. 19 to express their opinions politely, adding with a smile, "Curse me, there's no problem." In a veiled threat to Hariri and his allies, Nasrallah said those who try to flee their responsibilities after years in power should be put on trial.The group, though, has been under financial strain as U.S. sanctions on Iran tightened. Breaking a taboo, members of Hezbollah's Shiite base accused Nasrallah and his lawmakers in Parliament of covering up endemic corruption, wasting resources on fighting in Syria and ignoring people's welfare and needs.While Gulf governments have refused to comment publicly, the dissent wasn't lost on commentators."The wall of fear has broken: the Lebanese street opens fire on Nasrallah," declared a front-page headline this week in Okaz, a Saudi newspaper close to the government. "The Hezbollah movement saw rare demonstrations criticizing the party and leader Nasrallah," said another in Saudi Gazette.Gulf citizens also have been effusive in their praise for a campaign that has brought both light-hearted and iconic moments: a woman kicking an armed guard in the groin, a DJ entertaining crowds in a conservative city, hairdressers giving free cuts and demonstrators hugging tearful soldiers overcome with emotion."In all revolutions, protesters are grim while their governments make fun of them, except for the protests in Lebanon," Kuwaiti talk-show host Jaafar Mohammed said on AlShahed television.Lebanon was ripped apart by a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990 with a fragile peace. Sectarian tension between communities of Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Christians has never been far away.Hariri came up with a new financial package for the country that includes slashing the salaries of current and former ministers and parliamentarians by half. President Michel Aoun on Thursday said changes to the political system, though, should come through institutions and not protest.On the official level, Gulf countries have not abandoned Lebanon, said one of the people familiar with their thinking. They will help any government that can be a credible partner, is serious about reform and has the guts to curb Hezbollah's influence in the country, the person said. In 2016, Saudi Arabia scrapped $3 billion in military aid and $1 billion for the police, blaming Hezbollah's prominent role."They want to see where things are heading and they don't want to preempt any development," said Emirati political science professor Abdulkhaleq Abdulla. "It's not the time to take any official position except just to be there, watch and monitor things very closely until things become clear."To contact the authors of this story: Donna Abu-Nasr in Riyadh at dabunasr@bloomberg.netFiona MacDonald in Dubai at fmacdonald4@bloomberg.netAlaa Shahine in Dubai at asalha@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Rodney Jefferson at r.jefferson@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| France Alone in Rejecting Three-Month Extension: Brexit Update Posted: 25 Oct 2019 05:24 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.France was the only country which didn't support granting a Brexit extension until the end of January at a meeting of European Union ambassadors, two diplomats said, pushing instead for a one-month delay to Nov. 30 at the latest. The bloc put off a decision until after British politicians vote Monday on Boris Johnson's proposal for an early general election.In a pooled interview, Johnson contradicted comments by Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid that the U.K. will not meet the prime minister's "do or die" pledge to leave the EU on Oct. 31. The premier said the U.K. could and should leave by the current deadline.Key Developments:EU agrees in principle to extension but aims to make decision on length by Tuesday. France is alone in rejecting three-month delayJohnson proposes Dec. 12 for general election, but needs two-thirds majority in Parliament for it to take place; vote scheduled for Monday in the House of CommonsOpposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says threat of no-deal Brexit must be removed before he'll back a snap pollPound falls 0.2%Election Vote Going Ahead, Official Says (1:15 p.m.)Boris Johnson plans to press ahead with a vote on an election on Monday regardless of whether the EU has replied to his request for a delay -- and even if Labour says it will oppose the motion, a senior government official said.The government wouldn't bring back its Brexit legislation if it loses the vote, even if Parliament agreed to a strict timetable to debate it, the official said. That's because of the risk that Members of Parliament will either seek to delay its progress further or attach amendments meaning the government has to reopen negotiations with Brussels, the person said.Johnson: Corbyn, EU, Parliament Key to Next Steps (1 p.m.)In a pooled interview to broadcasters, Boris Johnson doubled down on his remarks from Thursday: he'll only give members of Parliament more time to debate his Brexit legislation if they agree to an election on Dec. 12. Johnson also said his government would continue to push its domestic agenda."What we don't do is engage in pointless Brexitology in Parliament, when Parliament is simply committed to delay" the U.K.'s departure from the European Union, Johnson said.The premier also called on opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to "man up" and face the electorate. He said it's still possible for the U.K. to leave the European Union on schedule on Oct. 31, contradicting remarks earlier by Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid. But Johnson said it's up to the EU.France Stands Alone Over Extension (12:30 p.m.)France was the only country which didn't support granting a Brexit extension to the end of January at Friday's meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels, according to two diplomats familiar with the discussions. France wanted the bloc to grant an initial extension to Nov. 30 at the latest, they said.France's position is that granting an extension that is too long would take the pressure off British politicians to ratify the divorce agreement, one of the diplomats said. An EU summit to discuss the length of extension may become unavoidable if France continues to oppose an extension to the end of January, the second diplomat said.Earlier, the EU said it wanted a decision made without a summit. A spokesman for the French government in Brussels didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.EU Non-Decision Meant to Put Onus on MPs (12:15 p.m.)By deferring its decision to delay Brexit, the European Union is still holding out hope that it can pressure U.K. Members of Parliament to back the divorce deal in the next week or so. That, along with the contradictory impulse of not wanting to be seen interfering in British politics, means diplomats have given themselves to Tuesday to reach a conclusion.They know that by then, Parliament will have held a vote on whether to hold an election and the picture about what happens next might be clearer. The EU doesn't want to convene a summit to sort this out, though it hasn't completely ruled this out. It also hasn't definitely decided to give the three-month extension beyond Oct. 31 -- though that's by far the most likely outcome.Much of this comes down to Emmanuel Macron. Far more than any other EU leader, the French President wants to help Johnson get this deal through as soon as possible, and thinks the way to do this is to keep Parliament guessing for as long as possible about how the bloc is going to behave.Johnson to Pursue Domestic Agenda With 'Vigor' (12 p.m.)Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman contradicted reports the government's sole focus will now be on pushing for a general election, suspending all other work. While the government will halt its Brexit legislation, work on its domestic agenda will continue, James Slack said."He will continue to do all that he can to break the Brexit deadlock, because the country wants Brexit to be resolved," Slack told reporters in London on Friday. "At the same time, the prime minister has a dynamic and ambitious domestic agenda, and he will continue pursuing that with full vigor."EU Wants Flexible Extension: Diplomat (11:45 a.m.)The prevailing view among the remaining 27 European Union member states points to a flexible Brexit extension until the end of January, an EU diplomat said in a text message to reporters following the meeting. That means the U.K. could leave the bloc earlier if Prime Minister Boris Johnson can persuade Parliament to ratify his divorce deal.Corbyn: No Election Until No-Deal Split Ruled Out (11:30 a.m.)Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he won't allow a general election until Prime Minister Boris Johnson personally rules out a no-deal exit -- even if the European Union does grant the three-month extension that the U.K. has requested."We've got to get no deal taken off the table first because it would be catastrophic for jobs and businesses in Britain; it would be very damaging in Northern Ireland," Corbyn told ITV in an interview.He said Labour would vote for the election if an extension is granted, "providing the prime minister comes to parliament on Monday and makes it absolutely clear he is going to make sure that there is no crash out," Corbyn said. "Because his deal includes the possibility of a no-deal exit."EU Is Not Planning Summit for Extension Decision (11:20 a.m.)Mina Andreeva, chief spokeswoman for the EU Commission, told reporters in Brussels the European Union wants to agree to a Brexit extension in writing rather than calling a summit."What I can tell you is that the EU27 have agreed to the principle of an extension and work will now continue in the coming days," she said. "The intention is to take this decision by written procedure."EU Defers Decision on Length of Extension (11:15 a.m.)European Union government envoys in Brussels deferred a decision on the length of a Brexit extension, according to diplomats familiar with a meeting in Brussels on Friday.While all 27 member states reiterated that an extension should be granted, the bloc wants to wait for more clarity from the U.K before making a call, one of the diplomats said. The ambassadors in Brussels plan to take a decision by Tuesday, the person said, asking not to be named discussing a private meeting.Delay Must Be in Place Before Election: Gyimah (9:45 a.m.)Boris Johnson's bid for a snap election -- just a week after he agreed a Brexit deal with the European Union -- is a stunt "to distract from the fact that he failed to deliver Brexit on Oct. 31 do-or-die,'' former Conservative Member of Parliament Sam Gyimah told Bloomberg TV.Gyimah, who now sits as a Liberal Democrat, said any extension offered by the EU will need to be "fully implemented'' before his party will consider backing a general election. Trust in Johnson is so low that it would be unacceptable to risk the premier crashing the U.K. out of the bloc without a deal, Gyimah said.Johnson's demand that Parliament should back a Dec. 12 election and pass his "lousy deal'' with the EU before it is dissolved for the election is "bizarre'' and intended to avoid scrutiny, Gyimah said."If accepting an election also means we're accepting a ridiculous timetable, in which he holds a gun to Parliament's head to get the deal through, that would be unacceptable,'' he said. "There is no trust between Parliament and the Johnson government.''Labour MPs Split Over Pre-Brexit Election (8:50 a.m.)Labour backbencher Peter Kyle said he won't back an election because going to the polls with Brexit unresolved would poison the vote."I would absolutely not vote for a general election until this stage of Brexit is resolved," Kyle told BBC radio. He said the "overwhelming majority" of his Labour colleagues are of the same opinion, and that if they accede to Johnson's demand, "he can pull the legislation at any point if he doesn't get what he wants, and then we'll go into an election with no legislation, facing no deal again."Illustrating the split in Labour, Brexit-backer Kate Hoey said it's time for an election as the Conservatives are unable to govern. But she agreed with Kyle's verdict that "there may well be" a majority in Labour opposed because MPs representing Leave-supporting districts don't want to face electorates who think the party has been thwarting Brexit."It is that ridiculous expression of turkeys voting for Christmas," she said. "That is coming into it."Javid: Govt Can't Rule Out No-Deal Exit (8:35 a.m.)Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid told BBC radio the government can't rule out a no-deal Brexit -- suggesting opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn won't be given the reassurance he needs to vote for a general election on Monday.Technically, Javid is right. As things stand, without a deal agreed by Parliament, the U.K. is set to crash out of the bloc on Oct. 31 -- unless the EU agrees to its request for an extension.Javid Ditches Oct. 31 Brexit Deadline (8:15 a.m.)Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid said Parliament's demand for an extension made it impossible for the government to deliver Brexit by the current Oct. 31 deadline."We have to accept we won't be able to leave on Oct. 31," Javid told the BBC, adding that the government had done "everything possible" to do so.Javid also warned that if Members of Parliament defy Boris Johnson's demand for an early election, the government would simply keep trying."If they don't then we will keep bringing back to Parliament a motion to have an election," he said. "And we will keep doing that again and again."Javid also confirmed the government's budget statement scheduled for Nov. 6 has been canceled.Labour Says It's Ready But Won't Accept Election (Earlier)The main opposition Labour Party is ready for a general election but won't yet vote for one, its home affairs spokeswoman Diane Abbott told BBC radio on Friday. She said Labour has both the money and the will for the campaign.Leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Thursday that his decision on backing Boris Johnson's bid for a snap poll depends on the length of a Brexit extension granted by the European Union -- and on the prime minister taking a no-deal departure off the table. On Friday, Abbott went further, suggesting a law may need to be passed to rule it out."We would want to be absolutely certain of that because we've said for some time that crashing out of the EU without a deal would be catastrophic," Abbott said. "We'd want to have an explicit commitment that no deal is off the table and that might mean further legislation in Parliament."Earlier:Boris Johnson's Election Bid Casts Doubt Over EU Brexit DelayThe U.K. Heads Toward a Winter Election (Maybe): Brexit BulletinMark Carney Has His Hands Full No Matter How Brexit Goes\--With assistance from Anna Edwards, Thomas Penny, Mark Williams, Tiago Ramos Alfaro, Jonathan Stearns, Nikos Chrysoloras and Jessica Shankleman.To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net;Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.net;Alexander Weber in Brussels at aweber45@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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| Trump might leave 500 troops in Syria, send in tanks, to guard oil fields Posted: 25 Oct 2019 05:15 AM PDT ![Trump might leave 500 troops in Syria, send in tanks, to guard oil fields]( "Trump might leave 500 troops in Syria, send in tanks, to guard oil fields") President Trump is considering leaving about 500 U.S. troops in Syria and sending in dozens of battle tanks and other military equipment to help guard oil fields currently held by Kurdish forces, The Wall Street Journal reports. "The evolving plan underscores the ongoing security threats in Syria and, potentially, White House sensitivity to a congressional rebuke," The Washington Post adds. "It also highlights that the U.S. mission appears to be shifting from one focused on fighting the Islamic State to at least partly keeping the country's own government from possessing all its oil fields."Trump tweeted Thursday that "we will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!" But Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said after a small White House briefing that "we will leave troops there to make sure that Iran does not, Russia doesn't get, Assad doesn't get those oil wells."Trump started shifting from his Oct. 6 decision to withdraw all 1,000 U.S. troops to protecting the oil fields after an Oct. 8 meeting with retired Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News analyst, and an Oct. 14 follow-up meeting with Keane and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), NBC News reports. They showed Trump a map and argued that Iran would get the oil if the U.S. left, rather than focusing on "Russia, which officials say is far more capable and likely to make moves to harness the oil." Trump soon started talking publicly about a need to "secure the oil."Trump also apparently views his oil field protection plan as a boon to the Kurds amid bipartisan complaints he abandoned the key U.S. ally. "We'll work something out with the Kurds so that they have some money, so that they have some cash flow," Trump said on Monday. "Maybe we'll get one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly." On Thursday he tweeted: "Perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region!" Such an exodus, The Guardian notes, would entail "a population transfer from the Kurdish areas along the border with Turkey southwards to the almost entirely Sunni Arab area of Deir al-Zour."
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| N. Korea wants discussions on removing S. Korean facilities Posted: 25 Oct 2019 05:13 AM PDT  Kim's comments published by North Korea's state media on Wednesday came after months of frustration in the North over the South's refusal to defy U.S.-led international sanctions and resume South Korean tours at the site. Lee Sang-min, spokesman of Seoul's Unification Ministry, said North Korea sent letters addressed to South Korea's government and the Hyundai business group demanding that the South Koreans come to Diamond Mountain at an agreed-upon date to clear out their facilities.
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| Serbia’s Russian Flirtations Are Just That Posted: 25 Oct 2019 05:02 AM PDT ![Serbia's Russian Flirtations Are Just That]( "Serbia's Russian Flirtations Are Just That") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- On Friday, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic went to Moscow to sign a free trade deal with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Russian President Vladimir Putin's hapless European Union clone. It's an economically insignificant deal for both sides, but it's meant as a pointed reminder to the EU and the U.S. that when it comes to the Balkans, Western institutions are not the only game in town.The truth of the matter, however, is that they are. Though Putin's offer of mediation and support to foreign regimes is finding takers in the Middle East and, increasingly, in Africa, Russia has much less to offer Balkan countries than even Turkey or China, let alone the EU. Secure in that knowledge, EU leaders won't worry too much about Serbia, a candidate for accession to the bloc, going rogue. The economic background of the Serbian deal with Russian's answer to the EU is lackluster. The Balkan nation already has free trade agreements with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the three biggest economies in the EEU, a bloc built by Moscow as an EU alternative for post-Soviet nations. The new agreement extends the cooperation to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, neither of them a top 50 trading partner for Serbia nor a candidate for vastly increased trade volumes. (Armenia, for example, specializes in liquor and tobacco exports, but they are also among Serbia's specialties.) For Russia, too, Serbia is relatively unimportant as an economic partner: The country generated $2.1 billion in trade turnover last year, 0.3% of Russia's total. Most notably, Serbia, which didn't follow the EU in imposing Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, serves as a replacement supplier of fruit and vegetables, totaling $256 million last year.This is, in other words, not the kind of watershed choice that Ukraine faced in late 2013 between EEU membership and an association deal with the EU. Both Russia and the EU were equally big trading partners for the country. The dilemma was so fateful and feelings about it so intense in Ukraine that then President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed months after refusing, under Russian pressure, to sign the EU deal.Still, Serbia's trade agreement is an act of mild rebellion. The EU doesn't recognize the Russia-led trade bloc as a negotiating partner, demanding that Russia first follow the Minsk agreements on pacifying eastern Ukraine. As Serbia worked on the deal, it received repeated warnings from the EU that this represented an unwelcome detour from the European path. As Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak put it, "If you are serious about your European orientation then obviously you make political decisions that bring you closer to it. This is not one of them."Serbia has been told again and again that it'll have to terminate any free trade deals when it joins the EU. This is understood in both Belgrade and Moscow. But when is that, exactly? Serbia's accession negotiations started in 2014, and there's still no end in sight. This year's EU report on Serbia's progress indicates that there's still much to be done in every area the parties are discussing. The EU is unhappy with President Aleksandar Vucic's domineering political style. The normalization of Serbia's relations with Kosovo remains a thorny issue. Besides, there's no reason for the Serbs to expect an open arms welcome even if they do everything the EU wants from them: French President Emmanuel Macron's opposition to starting accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania underscores his desire to slow down EU enlargement. So Serbia flirts with Russia to show it has an alternative while the EU drags its feet. The trade deal is only part of it. Vucic has also made a show of expanding military cooperation with Russia. On Thursday, the Russian defense ministry announced Russia's advanced anti-aircraft systems, the S-400, had been delivered to Serbia for a joint exercise. Besides, Russia has gifted to Serbia six MiG-29 fighter planes, 30 tanks and 30 armored vehicles. But Serbia buys Russian weapons, too; they make up almost half of Russia's exports to the Balkan nation, totaling $490 million in 2018.For the Kremlin, too, all this is a way to thumb its nose at Europe and the West in general. As Balkan nations seek EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership, Moscow is doing its best to show an alternative is available — not just to Serbia, but to North Macedonia, another nation where a Slavic majority is relatively Russia-friendly.These efforts are mostly for show, however, because no country can match the EU's combined economic pull. Italy's turnover with Serbia is 56% higher than Russia's, and that's just one EU member state. Last year, Serbia's foreign direct investment inflow from the EU reached 2.1 billion euros ($2.3 billion), about 60% of the total, compared with less than 7% from Russia and China each. There will be Russian weapons sales and natural gas exports and Chinese attempts to increase influence through infrastructure projects including a high-speed railroad, but Serbia's economic alignment with these countries can never match that with its European neighbors.No wonder Serbia chose a free trade deal with the EEU rather than seeking full membership. According to a recent poll, only 17.6% of Serbs would like their country to join this bloc, while 47.6% favor EU membership and 34.8% are for total neutrality.The EU shouldn't worry too much, and the Kremlin shouldn't get too excited: Serbia's path leads into the EU, even if, as with many other recent accessions, the going is excruciatingly slow.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Melissa Pozsgay at mpozsgay@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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| Serbia’s Russian Flirtations Are Just That Posted: 25 Oct 2019 05:02 AM PDT ![Serbia's Russian Flirtations Are Just That]( "Serbia's Russian Flirtations Are Just That") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- On Friday, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic went to Moscow to sign a free trade deal with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Russian President Vladimir Putin's hapless European Union clone. It's an economically insignificant deal for both sides, but it's meant as a pointed reminder to the EU and the U.S. that when it comes to the Balkans, Western institutions are not the only game in town.The truth of the matter, however, is that they are. Though Putin's offer of mediation and support to foreign regimes is finding takers in the Middle East and, increasingly, in Africa, Russia has much less to offer Balkan countries than even Turkey or China, let alone the EU. Secure in that knowledge, EU leaders won't worry too much about Serbia, a candidate for accession to the bloc, going rogue. The economic background of the Serbian deal with Russian's answer to the EU is lackluster. The Balkan nation already has free trade agreements with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the three biggest economies in the EEU, a bloc built by Moscow as an EU alternative for post-Soviet nations. The new agreement extends the cooperation to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, neither of them a top 50 trading partner for Serbia nor a candidate for vastly increased trade volumes. (Armenia, for example, specializes in liquor and tobacco exports, but they are also among Serbia's specialties.) For Russia, too, Serbia is relatively unimportant as an economic partner: The country generated $2.1 billion in trade turnover last year, 0.3% of Russia's total. Most notably, Serbia, which didn't follow the EU in imposing Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, serves as a replacement supplier of fruit and vegetables, totaling $256 million last year.This is, in other words, not the kind of watershed choice that Ukraine faced in late 2013 between EEU membership and an association deal with the EU. Both Russia and the EU were equally big trading partners for the country. The dilemma was so fateful and feelings about it so intense in Ukraine that then President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed months after refusing, under Russian pressure, to sign the EU deal.Still, Serbia's trade agreement is an act of mild rebellion. The EU doesn't recognize the Russia-led trade bloc as a negotiating partner, demanding that Russia first follow the Minsk agreements on pacifying eastern Ukraine. As Serbia worked on the deal, it received repeated warnings from the EU that this represented an unwelcome detour from the European path. As Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak put it, "If you are serious about your European orientation then obviously you make political decisions that bring you closer to it. This is not one of them."Serbia has been told again and again that it'll have to terminate any free trade deals when it joins the EU. This is understood in both Belgrade and Moscow. But when is that, exactly? Serbia's accession negotiations started in 2014, and there's still no end in sight. This year's EU report on Serbia's progress indicates that there's still much to be done in every area the parties are discussing. The EU is unhappy with President Aleksandar Vucic's domineering political style. The normalization of Serbia's relations with Kosovo remains a thorny issue. Besides, there's no reason for the Serbs to expect an open arms welcome even if they do everything the EU wants from them: French President Emmanuel Macron's opposition to starting accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania underscores his desire to slow down EU enlargement. So Serbia flirts with Russia to show it has an alternative while the EU drags its feet. The trade deal is only part of it. Vucic has also made a show of expanding military cooperation with Russia. On Thursday, the Russian defense ministry announced Russia's advanced anti-aircraft systems, the S-400, had been delivered to Serbia for a joint exercise. Besides, Russia has gifted to Serbia six MiG-29 fighter planes, 30 tanks and 30 armored vehicles. But Serbia buys Russian weapons, too; they make up almost half of Russia's exports to the Balkan nation, totaling $490 million in 2018.For the Kremlin, too, all this is a way to thumb its nose at Europe and the West in general. As Balkan nations seek EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership, Moscow is doing its best to show an alternative is available — not just to Serbia, but to North Macedonia, another nation where a Slavic majority is relatively Russia-friendly.These efforts are mostly for show, however, because no country can match the EU's combined economic pull. Italy's turnover with Serbia is 56% higher than Russia's, and that's just one EU member state. Last year, Serbia's foreign direct investment inflow from the EU reached 2.1 billion euros ($2.3 billion), about 60% of the total, compared with less than 7% from Russia and China each. There will be Russian weapons sales and natural gas exports and Chinese attempts to increase influence through infrastructure projects including a high-speed railroad, but Serbia's economic alignment with these countries can never match that with its European neighbors.No wonder Serbia chose a free trade deal with the EEU rather than seeking full membership. According to a recent poll, only 17.6% of Serbs would like their country to join this bloc, while 47.6% favor EU membership and 34.8% are for total neutrality.The EU shouldn't worry too much, and the Kremlin shouldn't get too excited: Serbia's path leads into the EU, even if, as with many other recent accessions, the going is excruciatingly slow.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Melissa Pozsgay at mpozsgay@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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| European power exchanges plan day-ahead auctions for UK if no-deal Brexit Posted: 25 Oct 2019 04:49 AM PDT  European power exchanges operating in Britain plan separate day-ahead interconnector capacity auctions from Nov. 1 if the UK exits the bloc at the end of this month without a divorce deal, operator Nord Pool said on Friday. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, Britain would no longer be coupled to European power markets. Britain's two market operators are Nord Pool and EPEX SPOT.
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| UPDATE 1-UK PM Johnson will pursue domestic agenda even if lawmakers reject election Posted: 25 Oct 2019 04:15 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-UK PM Johnson will pursue domestic agenda even if lawmakers reject election]( "UPDATE 1-UK PM Johnson will pursue domestic agenda even if lawmakers reject election") British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will push ahead with plans to leave the European Union and with the government's domestic agenda even if lawmakers fail to back a snap election, his spokesman said on Friday. On Thursday, a government spokesman said that if opposition parties do not agree to an election early next week then the government would do the "bare minimum". On Friday, Johnson's spokesman said the Prime Minister "will do all that he can to break the Brexit deadlock because the country wants Brexit to be resolved.
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| UN human rights chief sends team to Chile amid unrest Posted: 25 Oct 2019 04:10 AM PDT  The United Nations' human rights chief is sending a three-member team to Chile to examine allegations related to security authorities' use of force and reported crimes by others, her office said Friday. At least 18 people have died in turmoil that has swept Chile, where unrest that began as a protest over an increase in subway fares has morphed into a larger movement over growing inequality. According to Chile's human rights watchdog, more than 2,000 people have been detained and over 500 injured.
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| 10 things you need to know today: October 25, 2019 Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:49 AM PDT ![10 things you need to know today: October 25, 2019]( "10 things you need to know today: October 25, 2019") 1.Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday introduced a resolution seeking to condemn House Democrats for their impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the investigation was "inconsistent with due process as we know it." He called for House Democrats to hold a formal vote to open the inquiry and give the "same rights to Trump as Clinton and Nixon" had when they faced impeachment inquiries. Graham argued that Democrats should stop holding closed-door hearings concealing testimony on Trump's potential wrongdoing in pushing Ukraine to investigate his political opponents. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told Republicans to go after facts "rather than stomp feet in a fit of staged political theater." [USA Today] 2.The late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) was honored in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. Cummings, who died Oct. 17 at age 68, became the first African-American to lie in state on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of lawmakers filled the hall as the casket was carried in. Thousands of people then filed past to pay their respects to Cummings, the son of sharecroppers who rose to become chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in her remarks that Cummings was "a master of the House." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Cummings did not just represent his home city, Baltimore, "he embodied it." The civil rights icon will be honored again in a Friday funeral in Baltimore, where he will be eulogized by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. [Politico, USA Today] 3.The White House delayed a decision on restoring some of Ukraine's trade privileges in August, at the same time it was withholding $391 million in military aid and security assistance, The Washington Post reported Thursday, citing people briefed on the matter. Then-National Security Adviser John Bolton reportedly told White House Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that President Trump would oppose any trade decision that would benefit Kyiv, so Lighthizer withdrew the recommendation to make the move. "It was pulled back shortly before it was going to POTUS' desk," one administration official said. "Bolton intervened with Lighthizer to block it." A House impeachment inquiry is investigating whether Trump's administration wrongfully pressured Ukraine to investigate Trump's political rivals. Bolton and the White House declined to comment. [The Washington Post] 4.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday dropped his vow to lead the U.K. out of the European Union at the end of October with or without an approved Brexit deal, two days after Parliament rejected his call to fast-track approval of his new Brexit deal. Johnson instead called for an early election in December, saying it was now the only way to break the impasse over Brexit. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that as long as the EU signs off on the latest Brexit delay and Johnson agrees to rule out a potentially disastrous no-deal Brexit, "we absolutely support a general election." [The Associated Press, BBC News] 5.Attorney General William Barr's administrative review of the origins of the Russia election-meddling inquiry has developed into a criminal investigation, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter. The change will give the prosecutor in charge of the review, John Durham, the authority to subpoena witnesses and documents. He also will be able to convene a grand jury and file criminal charges, the Times reported. Democrats and some former law enforcement officials have accused Barr of using the Justice Department to benefit President Trump politically. The attorney general's reliance on Durham, a respected veteran prosecutor, could insulate Barr against those allegations. [The New York Times, Reuters] 6.Twitter shares plunged by nearly 21 percent on Thursday after the microblogging site posted third quarter revenue and profit that fell short of expectations. Revenue climbed to $824 million, a 9 percent increase from a year earlier but below the $874 million analysts expected, according to Refinitiv. Profit plummeted by 95 percent to 5 cents a share, down from $1.02 a year earlier. Twitter chalked up the disappointing quarter to low summer ad demand, product glitches, and other advertising problems. "Unfortunately we had some missteps," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said during a call with analysts. He said, however, that the advertising problems had been pinpointed and fixed, as have other issues that dogged the company in recent years. "We have a lot more agility," Dorsey said. [The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal] 7.The Trump administration told a federal court on Thursday that it separated 1,556 more migrant children from their parents than previously reported. In response to the American Civil Liberties Union's court-approved demand for more information, the federal government told the U.S. district court in San Diego that the additional families were forcibly separated before the full implementation of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" border policy. The new figure brings the total number of family separations to at least 4,300 before a judge ordered the practice halted. Previous administrations only separated migrant children from their parents in cases where their safety was at risk. [CBS News] 8.Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) announced Thursday that he was dropping out of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. "After seven long months of hard work, I'll be returning home to my family and friends and community in Ohio to run for reelection for my congressional seat," he said. He will be trying for a ninth term in the House. Ryan tried to sell himself as the best Democrat to woo working class and Rust Belt voters away from President Trump. His campaign didn't pick up any momentum, however, and he failed to qualify for the party's third and fourth debates. With Ryan out, there are 17 candidates left in the Democratic primary field. [The Washington Post, NPR] 9.Wildfires erupted in Northern California wine country and in other parts of the state on Thursday. The Kincade fire, fueled by wind gusts exceeding 70 miles per hour, quickly burned more than 16,000 acres in northern Sonoma County, racing through oaks and vineyards. Firefighters scrambled to contain the blaze as hot, windy, dry conditions threatened to fuel it this weekend. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has cut power to hundreds of thousands of Californians to prevent electrical lines hit by high winds from starting more fires. It was not immediately clear whether electrical lines contributed to the Sonoma County fire, although PG&E told state regulators that transmission-tower equipment broke near the point where the fire started, near Geyserville in northeastern Sonoma County. [Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle] 10.Indonesian investigators said Friday in a final report that design flaws, pilot handling of new systems, and regulatory failings contributed to the October 2018 crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max jet that killed 181 people. Indonesia's transportation-safety regulator cited nine factors in the crash. "If one of them was not occurring on that day, the accident may not have happened," said Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee. Investigators focused on a flight-control feature designed to prevent the aircraft from stalling. A faulty censor caused the feature to mistakenly point the jet's nose down, a problem also blamed for the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane in March of this year. Boeing made software changes to the new jets to fix the problem, but they remain grounded. [The Washington Post]
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| Bolsonaro Meets China’s Xi in Bid to Balance Ties With U.S. Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:39 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro met Chinese leaders including Xi Jinping in Beijing, as the Latin American leader looks to balance his tilt toward the U.S.At a forum in Beijing on Friday, Bolsonaro said that China and Brazil "were born to walk together" and the two governments are "completely aligned in a way that reaches beyond our commercial and business relationship." At the same event, Vice Premier Hu Chunhua said that China was willing to increase its imports of agricultural and industrial goods from Brazil, and the two nations can also deepen cooperation in areas such as infrastructure.Later, Bolsonaro met Xi as part of a three-day state visit to the Chinese capital. He also met with Premier Li Keqiang and National People's Congress Chairman Li Zhanshu, the No. 2 and No. 3-ranked members of the ruling Communist Party. Xi said that China's plan to develop relations with Brazil from a "strategic and long-term perspective" has not changed and prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation will get even better, CCTV reported.Bolsonaro arrived in Beijing on Thursday facing a looming question of whether Brazil should allow Huawei Technologies Co. to build its 5G network. The decision risks upsetting the delicate balancing act Bolsonaro has so far managed between China and the U.S., its first- and second-biggest trading partners.Xi is expected to pay a reciprocal visit to Brazil next month while in South America for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meetings in Chile. China's vast appetite for commodities helped drive up total trade between the two countries to $113 billion in 2018 and the South American nation is its eighth-biggest trading partner.Agricultural GoodsChina will probably grant more approvals in the coming weeks for Brazilian meat plants to export to the Asian nation, Brazilian Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina said in a video posted on her Twitter account Thursday. China last month granted permission to 25 additional Brazilian beef, pork and poultry plants to ship to the Asian country, raising the number of approved facilities to 89.While the Brazilian president was accompanied by his foreign and agriculture ministers for this week's state visit, members of his economic team are set to come at a later date. "The absence of senior economic advisers suggest there won't be any major announcements besides a possible increase in commodity deals," said Hussein Kalout, a Harvard University political scientist and one of Brazil's leading scholars on international relations.Around 40% of Brazilian exports, mostly commodities, head to China. Chinese companies also invest heavily in Brazil, which is seeking foreign investors to participate in its privatization program to accelerate its sluggish economic growth.Huawei DecisionBolsonaro has long been a fan of U.S. President Donald Trump and he expressed skepticism over Beijing's investment prior to his election victory last year, saying the Chinese were allowed to "buy in Brazil, but not buy Brazil." Bolsonaro, however, has since toned down some of his criticism and adopted a pragmatic approach.In May, he sent Vice President Hamilton Mourao to smooth over any awkwardness with Beijing. While there, Mourao met with Huawei's billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei and said that Brazil had no intention of restricting the firm's activities in the country. The company has been active in Brazil for over 20 years.Huawei's bid to build Brazil's 5G network is widely expected to be discussed, although Bolsonaro told journalists in Japan on Tuesday that the issue wasn't on his radar. Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo recently said Brazil would choose its 5G partner soon.After China, Bolsonaro is also set to visit the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, where he'll seek further investments from local sovereign funds in renewable energy, defense and infrastructure. Brazil also seeks to calm Arab countries' anxieties over its unabashed support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.(Updates with Xi, Bolsonaro meeting in second paragraph.)\--With assistance from Bruce Douglas, Tatiana Freitas and Sofia Horta e Costa.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Peter Martin in Beijing at pmartin138@bloomberg.net;Simone Iglesias in Brasília at spiglesias@bloomberg.net;Samy Adghirni in Brasilia Newsroom at sadghirni@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, ;Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Sharon ChenFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:30 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every morning? Sign up hereAnother spanner in the Brexit works, Amazon disappoints, and the U.S. starts a spy hunt. Here are some of the things people in markets are talking about today.Brexit knotsThe European Union is considering how long to delay the U.K.'s departure from the bloc, but Boris Johnson's bid for a snap general election is complicating matters. The British Prime Minister needs two-thirds of members of Parliament to back his plan, but his main political rival, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, said Thursday he wants to see if the EU offers the extension before he decides. Unfortunately, in a twist Joseph Heller himself would be proud of, the EU is said to be waiting for clarity from the U.K. before it makes its own decision. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid said it's now impossible for the government to meet the current Oct. 31 deadline.Delivery failAmazon.com Inc. cast a pall over earnings season as the effort to get packages from warehouse to doorstep in a single day led to its first year-over-year quarterly profit decline since 2017. Results elsewhere were mixed. Third-quarter income jumped at Barclays Plc, but Anheuser-Busch InBev NV blamed a drop in beer shipments in China and the U.S. as profit growth stumbled. Companies reporting today include Verizon Communications Inc., Nielsen Holdings Plc, Charter Communications Inc. and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.Spy gamesAs the presidential impeachment inquiry drags on, the U.S. Justice Department is said to have opened a criminal investigation into whether Donald Trump or his 2016 campaign was illegally spied upon. The president has long alleged that the investigation into Russian interference in the election was politically motivated. On another front, Trump also moved to shield his financial records from Congress. The president's lawyers asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a ruling upholding a subpoena ordering his accountants to provide the documents to lawmakers.Markets mixedOvernight the MSCI Asia Pacific Index was little changed while Japan's Topix index closed 0.3% higher as the outlook for chipmakers was seen to be improving. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index was down 0.3% at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time with investors weighing mixed earnings. S&P 500 futures pointed to a slightly higher open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 1.771% and gold nudged up. Coming up…The University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index at 10:00 a.m. is expected to hold close to last month's level. At 1:00 p.m., the Baker Hughes rig count is due, while the U.S. Treasury gives its federal budget debt summary at 2:00 p.m. The ECB's Francois Villeroy de Galhau speaks in Paris at 10:30 a.m.What we've been readingThis is what's caught our eye over the last 24 hours.Tech can't get out of the market's way. How the world uses U.S. antitrust enforcement. SoftBank's Vision fund planning writedown of over $5 billion. Citi sets stage for first female CEO. Mark Carney has his hands full no matter how Brexit goes. Just miles from Trump's Scottish golf course lies an oasis for refugees. A new way of creating an invisibility shield.To contact the author of this story: Yakob Peterseil in London at ypeterseil@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Samuel Potter at spotter33@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| EU agrees Brexit extension needed, set no new date, next meeting Mon Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:22 AM PDT ![EU agrees Brexit extension needed, set no new date, next meeting Mon]( "EU agrees Brexit extension needed, set no new date, next meeting Mon") European Union ambassadors on Friday agreed in principle to delay Brexit, but set no new date, European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said. An EU official added after the meeting of the 27 national envoys from countries that will stay in the EU after Britian leaves to discuss London's request to postpone Brexit beyond Oct 31 that there was full agreement on the need for an extension.
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| Thought Brexit Mess Couldn't Get Worse? It Has Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:13 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.Just when you thought Brexit couldn't get any more intractable, it's plunged further into the absurd.Frustrated by Parliament from leaving the European Union on Oct. 31, Boris Johnson's drive to break the deadlock with an election relies on the same lawmakers to go along with him.But the main opposition Labour Party isn't rolling over. Its leader Jeremy Corbyn says his decision depends on the length of a Brexit extension expected to be granted by EU governments. EU officials say they require clarity from London and today deferred a decision until after Parliament votes on Monday."It's our duty to end this nightmare," Johnson told Corbyn in a letter. The premier plans to suspend all efforts at legislating in the "zombie Parliament" and press relentlessly for a fresh ballot.That offers no guarantee of resolution. Johnson's Conservatives lead Labour in polls, but Brexit has shredded the fabric of party politics, making the outcome unpredictable.The country is in a febrile mood. New research by the Future of England Survey, meanwhile, showed most voters on both sides of the Brexit debate think violence against MPs is a price worth paying and expect protests in which people will be badly injured.The survey's co-director, Professor Richard Wyn Jones, said he was genuinely shocked by the findings — all the more so since fueling further division may be a deliberate campaign strategy.Global HeadlinesMerkel's crutch | Germany's Social Democrats might have control of the treasury in Europe's biggest economy, but the political cost of propping up Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat-led group has been eroding their support for years. Tomorrow the party will release the results of the first round of a leadership election that includes a raft of candidates who want to pull out of the coalition and bring Merkel's chancellorship to an early conclusion.Spy probe | The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether Donald Trump or his 2016 presidential campaign was illegally spied upon, Chris Strohm reports. Trump and his allies have long argued that the investigation into Russian meddling in the election originated with false accusations and was politically motivated.Mixed message | In a high-profile speech on China, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence criticized Beijing over the Hong Kong protests and slammed the NBA and Nike for abandoning principles in pursuit of the Chinese market. Pence offered an olive branch on trade, drawing praise from Chinese state media, but his other comments prompted an angry rebuke from former NBA All-Star Charles Barkley, who said: "Vice President Pence needs to shut the hell up."Testing times | The rush of a sweeping national mandate may be wearing off for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. This week, against the backdrop of the slowest economic growth in six years and the highest unemployment in more than four decades, the BJP lost seats in votes for the assemblies of two crucial states.Melon malfeasance | Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suffered the first departure from his six-week-old cabinet when Economy Minister Isshu Sugawara resigned over allegations his office made illegal contributions to constituents in the form of funeral offerings and gifts of pricey melons. Abe quickly apologized and named a ruling-party veteran as a replacement.What to WatchSerbia will sign a trade pact today with Russia's answer to the European Union, doubling down on its strategy of dual East-West allegiances as the western bloc drags its feet on expanding into the Balkans. Bolivian President Evo Morales took enough votes in the Oct. 20 election to win a fourth term, but opponents are disputing the result and the EU and the Organization of American States called for a second round. Botswana's ruling party won Wednesday's elections to extend its 53-year-old hold on power and ensure Mokgweetsi Masisi remains as president.Pop quiz, readers (no cheating!). Which Democratic presidential candidate's campaign hired two people who were recommended by Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerburg? Tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net. And finally ... Italy's Five Star Movement has had few more loyal supporters than Michele Spellucci, but now the 37-year-old farmer has had enough. Angered by the party's decision to field a joint candidate with the Democratic Party — the establishment force Five Star once criticized as corrupt but which it now rules alongside in the national government — Spellucci won't be giving them his vote in Sunday's regional election in Umbria. That's significant, as the ballot will be a gauge of whether the ruling partnership in Rome has legs to be replicated at a local level. \--With assistance from Jon Herskovitz, Muneeza Naqvi, Iain Marlow and Ben Sills.To contact the author of this story: Alan Crawford in Berlin at acrawford6@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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| RPT-EU agrees Brexit extension needed, sets no new date, next meeting Mon Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:09 AM PDT ![RPT-EU agrees Brexit extension needed, sets no new date, next meeting Mon]( "RPT-EU agrees Brexit extension needed, sets no new date, next meeting Mon") European Union ambassadors on Friday agreed in principle to delay Brexit, but set no new date, European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said. An EU official added after the meeting of the 27 national envoys from countries that will stay in the EU after Britian leaves to discuss London's request to postpone Brexit beyond Oct 31 that there was full agreement on the need for an extension.
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| Why Would Jeremy Corbyn Help Boris Johnson Now? Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:50 AM PDT ![Why Would Jeremy Corbyn Help Boris Johnson Now?]( "Why Would Jeremy Corbyn Help Boris Johnson Now?") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Britain moved a step closer to a general election on Thursday night. Or else it moved closer to even more debilitating parliamentary gridlock. It's so uncertain that European Union leaders aren't even sure about what length of extension to the Brexit deadline they should offer.It's ironic that the man who can break the deadlock is the opposition Labour Party's Jeremy Corbyn, one of the least decisive political leaders around. Prime Minister Boris Johnson needs Labour's support to get a general election approved by the House of Commons. Corbyn shouldn't submit to a gun to Parliament's head as it debates the most important legislation before it in a generation (indeed, there are indications that Labour lawmakers will refuse Johnson's invitation).In a letter to Corbyn on Thursday evening, Johnson proposed the following: the government will give Parliament an extra week to try to pass the prime minister's Brexit deal, and in return Corbyn would support a general election on Dec. 12, whether or not the deal passes. In other words, just as Parliament has found a majority that supports the principle of a Brexit deal, Johnson wants to pull the plug.If Corbyn refuses, the implied threat is that the government will withdraw the Brexit legislation and spend its days telling voters that Britain's lawmakers are preventing it from honoring the 2016 Brexit referendum. Eventually there will have to be an election and the Conservatives would hope to capitalize on the anger of a thwarted electorate.Corbyn is no doubt tempted. He would like an election as well, but has said it would depend on Johnson taking a no-deal Brexit off the table. That's important, but even if Downing Street met that demand there's good reason to ask for more. The terms of Johnson's deal deserve proper, careful scrutiny, however painful the process. It's hard to believe a week would be enough. Tactically too, why do Johnson's bidding? He wants an election because he thinks he can trounce Corbyn.Of course, Johnson's camp is implying he'll pull the Brexit withdrawal bill if Corbyn refuses an election, but we've had similar threats from No. 10 and they've evaporated on contact with reality. Is Johnson really going to sit on his hands for months on end? It's easy to see why the prime minister doesn't want to hang around Parliament much longer. Lawmakers voted to keep his deal alive on Tuesday, but plenty of those who did so want to amend it, by attaching a confirmatory referendum or by seeking to keep Britain in the EU's customs union. Such changes would be unacceptable to the hardline Brexiters in Johnson's party.Given the Conservatives' widening lead in the polls, why jump through these perilous parliamentary hoops when winning an election would smooth the path to the deal's approval and much more besides? And there are risks to waiting. The more his deal gets unpacked, the more it might feel like one of those Christmas presents that looks impressive out of the box but stops working a few days later.It's in Corbyn's interests to ensure the deal receives proper parliamentary examination. If the deal dies in Parliament, Labour will have helped expose its defects and appeared constructive in at least taking it seriously. If the deal passes in some form, that wouldn't be the worst thing for Labour, which is split on its Brexit policy because of trying to placate supporters in remainer cities and leave-voting industrial regions.Having the Conservatives resolve the Brexit deal would let Labour's lawmakers reunite and focus on the critical next stage: a free trade agreement with the EU. Those Labour Brexiters in the north of the country, who might have held their nose and voted Conservative (or Brexit Party) to get a deal, could return to the Labour fold. This would also let the party get back to talking about domestic policy, where Corbyn vastly outperformed expectations in the last general election in 2017. His deep unpopularity will be harder to reverse this time around, of course. And in Johnson he'd be up against a strong campaigner. (Pollster John Curtice says current polls give the Tories a majority of about 20 seats). There have been mutterings in the Labour hierarchy about replacing Corbyn with a less toxic leader, though that's unlikely if there's an election soon.He's certainly squandered the goodwill from the last election. Brexit hasn't helped, as the opposition parties have been unable to articulate what they wanted instead of the deals on offer. Johnson, by contrast, has turned a weak hand and no parliamentary majority into a position of strength. So strong that it doesn't make sense for Corbyn to help him out right now.(Corrects spelling of John Curtice.)To contact the author of this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Why Would Jeremy Corbyn Help Boris Johnson Now? Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:50 AM PDT ![Why Would Jeremy Corbyn Help Boris Johnson Now?]( "Why Would Jeremy Corbyn Help Boris Johnson Now?") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Britain moved a step closer to a general election on Thursday night. Or else it moved closer to even more debilitating parliamentary gridlock. It's so uncertain that European Union leaders aren't even sure about what length of extension to the Brexit deadline they should offer.It's ironic that the man who can break the deadlock is the opposition Labour Party's Jeremy Corbyn, one of the least decisive political leaders around. Prime Minister Boris Johnson needs Labour's support to get a general election approved by the House of Commons. Corbyn shouldn't submit to a gun to Parliament's head as it debates the most important legislation before it in a generation (indeed, there are indications that Labour lawmakers will refuse Johnson's invitation).In a letter to Corbyn on Thursday evening, Johnson proposed the following: the government will give Parliament an extra week to try to pass the prime minister's Brexit deal, and in return Corbyn would support a general election on Dec. 12, whether or not the deal passes. In other words, just as Parliament has found a majority that supports the principle of a Brexit deal, Johnson wants to pull the plug.If Corbyn refuses, the implied threat is that the government will withdraw the Brexit legislation and spend its days telling voters that Britain's lawmakers are preventing it from honoring the 2016 Brexit referendum. Eventually there will have to be an election and the Conservatives would hope to capitalize on the anger of a thwarted electorate.Corbyn is no doubt tempted. He would like an election as well, but has said it would depend on Johnson taking a no-deal Brexit off the table. That's important, but even if Downing Street met that demand there's good reason to ask for more. The terms of Johnson's deal deserve proper, careful scrutiny, however painful the process. It's hard to believe a week would be enough. Tactically too, why do Johnson's bidding? He wants an election because he thinks he can trounce Corbyn.Of course, Johnson's camp is implying he'll pull the Brexit withdrawal bill if Corbyn refuses an election, but we've had similar threats from No. 10 and they've evaporated on contact with reality. Is Johnson really going to sit on his hands for months on end? It's easy to see why the prime minister doesn't want to hang around Parliament much longer. Lawmakers voted to keep his deal alive on Tuesday, but plenty of those who did so want to amend it, by attaching a confirmatory referendum or by seeking to keep Britain in the EU's customs union. Such changes would be unacceptable to the hardline Brexiters in Johnson's party.Given the Conservatives' widening lead in the polls, why jump through these perilous parliamentary hoops when winning an election would smooth the path to the deal's approval and much more besides? And there are risks to waiting. The more his deal gets unpacked, the more it might feel like one of those Christmas presents that looks impressive out of the box but stops working a few days later.It's in Corbyn's interests to ensure the deal receives proper parliamentary examination. If the deal dies in Parliament, Labour will have helped expose its defects and appeared constructive in at least taking it seriously. If the deal passes in some form, that wouldn't be the worst thing for Labour, which is split on its Brexit policy because of trying to placate supporters in remainer cities and leave-voting industrial regions.Having the Conservatives resolve the Brexit deal would let Labour's lawmakers reunite and focus on the critical next stage: a free trade agreement with the EU. Those Labour Brexiters in the north of the country, who might have held their nose and voted Conservative (or Brexit Party) to get a deal, could return to the Labour fold. This would also let the party get back to talking about domestic policy, where Corbyn vastly outperformed expectations in the last general election in 2017. His deep unpopularity will be harder to reverse this time around, of course. And in Johnson he'd be up against a strong campaigner. (Pollster John Curtice says current polls give the Tories a majority of about 20 seats). There have been mutterings in the Labour hierarchy about replacing Corbyn with a less toxic leader, though that's unlikely if there's an election soon.He's certainly squandered the goodwill from the last election. Brexit hasn't helped, as the opposition parties have been unable to articulate what they wanted instead of the deals on offer. Johnson, by contrast, has turned a weak hand and no parliamentary majority into a position of strength. So strong that it doesn't make sense for Corbyn to help him out right now.(Corrects spelling of John Curtice.)To contact the author of this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Swiss indict 2 men accused of recruiting people for IS Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:21 AM PDT ![Swiss indict 2 men accused of recruiting people for IS]( "Swiss indict 2 men accused of recruiting people for IS") Swiss prosecutors have indicted two men accused of recruiting people for the Islamic State group. Both lived in northeastern Switzerland, and their names weren't provided. The main suspect, a Swiss-Italian dual citizen, allegedly traveled to IS-controlled territory in Syria and on his return recruited several people for the group.
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| Yemeni officials: Government, separatists reach initial deal Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:18 AM PDT ![Yemeni officials: Government, separatists reach initial deal]( "Yemeni officials: Government, separatists reach initial deal") Yemen's internationally-recognized government and southern separatists have reached an initial agreement to end their infighting in the country's south, Yemeni officials said Friday. The two — forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and separatists known as the Southern Transitional Council — are ostensible allies in the Saudi-led coalition's war against Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels. The Houthis in 2014 overran major parts of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, pushing out Yemen's internationally recognized government and ushering in the civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people.
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| EU might grant Brexit extension on Friday, but with no date set yet -official Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:24 AM PDT ![EU might grant Brexit extension on Friday, but with no date set yet -official]( "EU might grant Brexit extension on Friday, but with no date set yet -official") European Union governments may agree in principle on Friday to Britain's request for an extension of the Brexit deadline, but keep the length of the delay open until next week, senior EU official said. The British parliament is set to vote on Monday whether to have a snap election on Dec. 12.
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| EU Courts Ready for Halloween Brexit Even If Boris Johnson Isn’t Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:17 AM PDT ![EU Courts Ready for Halloween Brexit Even If Boris Johnson Isn't]( "EU Courts Ready for Halloween Brexit Even If Boris Johnson Isn't") (Bloomberg) -- It seems European Union judges were the only ones who took Prime Minister Boris Johnson seriously when he said he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than ask for a Brexit extension.Even as the U.K.'s departure now looks set to drag on well beyond Oct. 31, the EU's top courts will take the unusual step of working on Halloween -- handing down rulings and opinions in about half a dozen cases, with at least four having links to the U.K.The institution, much maligned by Leave supporters, "constantly monitors developments concerning the Brexit process and will take all necessary measures to guarantee a proper treatment of all cases that are likely to be affected," said Juan-Carlos Gonzalez, head of the court's press service in Luxembourg.Normally a holiday, Oct. 31 was bolted on to the EU court's public agenda earlier this week. Since then, six cases have been added, one of which concerns a challenge by EU regulators against the U.K. over aluminum imports. Three others -- while not affecting the U.K. specifically -- will be handled by Eleanor Sharpston, the British advocate general at the top EU court, whose job was plunged into doubt by the 2016 Brexit referendum.Despite the frenetic preparations, some cases won't be ready in time for Halloween. These include London's appeal of an order by EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager to claw back millions of pounds of allegedly illegal tax breaks from multinationals.In the meantime, the clearing of the decks will give remaining judges more time to ponder what Johnson's Brexit deal would mean -- if it's ever backed by the British Parliament.To contact the reporter on this story: Stephanie Bodoni in Luxembourg at sbodoni@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Peter Chapman, Stuart BiggsFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| EU officials doubtful of Brexit extension decision on Friday Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:13 AM PDT ![EU officials doubtful of Brexit extension decision on Friday]( "EU officials doubtful of Brexit extension decision on Friday") European Union governments are unlikely to decide on Friday whether to grant Britain's requested for an extension of the Brexit deadline and will probably postpone decision until Monday, senior EU diplomats said. The British parliament is to vote on Monday whether to have an election on Dec 12, which would be the kind of major political development the EU has long said would be the necessary justification for a third extension of the Brexit deadline.
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| US sends reinforcements to Syria to protect oil fields Posted: 25 Oct 2019 12:41 AM PDT  The US is sending reinforcements into Syria to secure the oil fields, the Defence Secretary confirmed on Friday, in a reversal of plans to fully withdraw from the conflict. "We are now taking some actions... to strengthen our position at Deir ez zor, to ensure that we can deny ISIS access to the oil fields," Mark Esper told reporters during a press conference, using an acronym for Islamic State. "We are reinforcing that position, it will include some mechanized forces," Esper said. Mechanized forces usually include tanks and other military assets. "We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!" President Trump tweeted on Thursday. The White House is reportedly considering options for leaving 500 US troops in the country and sending dozens of battle tanks, as well as other heavy military equipment, to protect the US troops stationed near SDF-controlled oil fields. Oil fields in Northeast Syria Defence officials told CNN that the move is likely to happen "relatively soon". Oil fields across Syria and Iraq were a key source of income for Isil. In 2015 the US Treasury Department estimated that the group made nearly $500 million per year from producing and exporting oil. Mr Esper said that the troops currently protecting the unspecified oil fields are there "to deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities." However, it is likely that the decision to "secure the oil" is to stop the Assad regime reclaiming the sought-after territory, rather than the remnants of Isil. "Things have been heading in the direction of Assad and Russia taking control of the oil fields in the area," said Lina Khatib, head of the MENA programme at Chatham House. "For the US, having control of the oil fields translates into being able to pressure Iran economically. There is Iranian militia presence in the areas around the oil fields in Deir Ezzor. Were the Assad regime and Russia to advance in that area, it opens up opportunities for these Iran backed groups to also get access to oil revenue which would go against US maximum pressure policy on Iran." The modification of US objectives in Syria comes as their abandoned allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are accusing Turkey of violating the ceasefire process that has been in place since Tuesday. The spokesperson for the SDF, Mustafa Bali, said on Thursday that Turkey had launched offensives in three villages with "large number of mercenaries and all kinds of heavy weapons".
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| RPT-China to ask U.S. to remove tariffs in exchange for ag buys in talks Friday-sources Posted: 24 Oct 2019 11:59 PM PDT Top U.S. and Chinese trade officials will discuss plans on Friday for China to buy more U.S. farm products, but in return, Beijing will request cancellation of some planned and existing U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, people briefed on the talks told Reuters. Robert Lighthizer, the United States Trade Representative, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will speak by telephone Friday, their latest attempt to calm a nearly 16-month trade war that is roiling financial markets, disrupting supply chains and slowing global economic growth. The two sides are working to try to agree on a text for a "Phase 1" trade agreement announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 11, in time for him to sign it with China's President Xi Jinping next month at a summit in Chile.
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| Brexit Bulletin: In the Bleak Midwinter Posted: 24 Oct 2019 11:31 PM PDT  Brexit is (still) 6 days away.(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.Today in Brexit: Johnson wants a winter election. His opponents aren't keen.What's happening? We've been here before. Yesterday, Boris Johnson demanded an election — this time on Dec. 12 — and the main opposition party indicated it wouldn't let him. It raises the prospect of a prime minister effectively taken hostage by Parliament, which won't allow him go to the country on his own terms. Six days before the U.K. is due to leave the European Union, without a Brexit deal passed or delay guaranteed, the stakes couldn't be higher.Labour's position isn't completely clear. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said he needs to know how long a Brexit delay the EU will grant before making a final decision whether to back the election request. That's put him at odds with much of his own party, many of whom believe Corbyn should completely rule out Johnson's plan. Many in his shadow cabinet believe a winter election before Brexit is resolved would be a disastrous mistake, the Times reports.The situation is complicated further by the EU. Diplomats from the bloc's 27 remaining countries were due to decide this morning on the length of a Brexit delay (the most likely option being Jan. 31, with early exits possible if the deal is passed). However, last night officials indicated they may now wait until after the weekend because, unfortunately for Corbyn, they want clarity from the U.K. rather than the other way round.For Johnson, the tactic is connected to the purity of Brexit. He's worried that without an election, scrutiny of the deal he obtained from the EU this month could drag out to fill a full three-month extension period. Johnson doesn't want opponents to amend it in ways he finds unacceptable. Yet since becoming prime minister three months ago, he's also twice failed to win the two-thirds majority needed for an early national vote. Chancellor Sajid Javid said this morning that the government will keep trying to secure an election.There's still a long way to go. Much could change today and over the weekend. Depending on who you believe, Johnson is either "playing clever politics" (that's the Conservative-backing Daily Telegraph) or it's a "stunt" (the Guardian.)Today's Must-ReadsAn oasis for refugees a stone's throw from Donald Trump's golf course is a symbol of how Scotland is diverging from the rest of Britain, writes Bloomberg's Caroline Alexander. Johnson's proposal for Northern Ireland's closer alignment with EU could ultimately lead to a reunified Ireland, the Financial Times reports. What does Boris Johnson really think? The Times has analysed 350,000 words of his newspaper columns to work out his obsessions.How are we doing? Today is your last chance to tell us what you think of the Brexit Bulletin. Please take a few minutes to fill in our survey.Brexit in BriefProgram Passed | It was easy to miss amid Johnson's election call, but he actually won something yesterday. Parliament voted to approve the government's legislative agenda by 310 to 294 votes. The Queen's Speech set out out 26 bills the government wants to introduce, including seven pieces of Brexit related legislation and an environment bill.Carney Cautious | "Entrenched uncertainty about the future of the trade relationship" between the U.K. and EU "is having a consequence for business investment," Bank of England Governor Mark Carney says in the latest edition of Bloomberg Businessweek. "We think the level is about 25% below where it would have been otherwise." It's part of a wider interview with Carney by Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua.Violent Britain | A majority of voters in England, Wales and Scotland believe that the possibility of some level of violence against members of parliament is a "price worth paying" in order to get their way on Brexit, according to a survey by Cardiff University and the University of Edinburgh. Blame Game | European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker yesterday attacked the "lies Boris Johnson and others" spread during the Brexit referendum campaign and used strong language to say it wasn't true that the commission was to blame for Britain leaving the EU, the Telegraph reports. Juncker, who is stepping down before the end of the year, said Brexit could have destroyed the EU and split Europe forever.Soft Impact | The U.K. lost its top spot in an index of global "soft power" compiled by communications agency Portland. Brexit uncertainty saw the U.K. deposed by France, but the country was still praised for its "world-class" cultural institutions, as well as its tech sector and diplomatic network.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: Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Kay at ckay5@bloomberg.net, Adam BlenfordFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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