| 2 kicked out of National Guard over white supremacist ties Posted: 26 Dec 2019 03:57 PM PST ![2 kicked out of National Guard over white supremacist ties]( "2 kicked out of National Guard over white supremacist ties") Two men have been kicked out of the Army National Guard after liberal activists uncovered their membership in a religious group with white supremacist ties. Brandon Trent East told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Alabama National Guard sent him a separation notice on Dec. 14. A spokeswoman for the Georgia National Guard said Dalton Woodward is no longer a member.
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| China, Russia and Iran to hold joint naval drills Posted: 26 Dec 2019 01:24 PM PST  China, Iran and Russia will hold joint naval drills starting on Friday in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman, China's defence ministry said on Thursday, amid heightened tension in the region between Iran and the United States. China will send the Xining, a guided missile destroyer, to the drills, which will last until Monday and are meant to deepen co-operation between the three countries' navies, ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a monthly news briefing. The drill was a "normal military exchange" between the three armed forces and was in line with international law and practices, Wu said. "It is not necessarily connected with the regional situation," he said, without elaborating. The Gulf of Oman is a particularly sensitive waterway as it connects to the Strait of Hormuz - through which about a fifth of the world's oil passes - which in turn connects to the Gulf. The drills are also coming at a time of fraught tensions between the United States and Iran. Friction has increased since last year when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with six nations and re-imposed sanctions on the country, crippling its economy. Washington has proposed a U.S.-led naval mission after several attacks in May and June on international merchant vessels, including Saudi tankers, in Gulf waters which the United States blamed on Iran. It denies the accusations. Tension has risen in the region not only over Iran's disputed nuclear program but also over a September attack on Saudi oil facilities blamed on Iran by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Iran also denies involvement. The Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman are key areas for international trade and maintaining security in the waterways is an important task, Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for Iran's armed forces, said on Wednesday, according to the official IRNA news agency. "This drill will take place for supporting and increasing experience in the security of international trade in the region," he said. China has close diplomatic, trade and energy ties with Iran. But China also has good relations with Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia, meaning it has long had to tread a fine line in a part of the world where it has traditionally exerted far less sway than the United States, Russia, France or Britain. Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to visit Saudi Arabia next year as it is the host of the 2020 G20 summit.
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| Trump sends warning to Assad and his allies against Syrian military offensive Posted: 26 Dec 2019 01:01 PM PST  President Donald Trump issued a Twitter warning Thursday to Syrian strongman President Bashar al Assad and his backers Russia and Iran amid their assault on the last rebel stronghold in the war-torn country. It's at least the third time Trump has urged Assad and his allies to halt an operation on the Idlib province since last fall, as Assad tries to use his military to retake the country after nearly nine years of war.
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| Sudan's Christians enjoy holiday amid hope for new freedoms Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:44 AM PST  The Sudanese Christian marchers weaved through bustling markets and traffic-clogged streets wearing "I Love Jesus" T-shirts or colorful traditional robes known as thobes. The marching group from the Bahri Evangelical Church was small, but the symbolism of the moment loomed much larger. The March for Jesus holiday tradition had been suspended in recent years under authoritarian President Omar al-Bashir, whose government was accused of harassing and marginalizing Christians and other religious minorities.
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| French, Australian academics jailed in Iran on hunger strike Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:34 AM PST ![French, Australian academics jailed in Iran on hunger strike]( "French, Australian academics jailed in Iran on hunger strike") A French-Iranian researcher locked up in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison has gone on a hunger strike along with an academic and co-prisoner from Australia, a rights group said. The hunger strikes by Iranian-born French researcher Fariba Adelkhah and Kylie Moore-Gilbert were revealed by the Center for Human Rights in Iran. An open letter was sent to the U.S.-based Center for Human Rights in Iran signed with the names of the two women after it was received "by a source with contacts inside the prison," the center said in a Christmas Eve statement.
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| Russia starts testing its own internal internet Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:31 AM PST  Russia has begun testing a national internet system that would function as an alternative to the broader web, according to local news reports. The internet, of course, is made up of a global web of infrastructure that must interface physically, virtually and, increasingly, politically with the countries to which it connects. Russia has increasingly leaned toward that approach, with President Putin signing a law earlier this year there, Runet, which would build the necessary infrastructure to maintain, essentially, a separate internal internet should such a thing become necessary (or convenient).
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| Massive redwood tree falls, kills hiker in California park Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:23 AM PST  A huge redwood tree fell and killed a man visiting Muir Woods National Monument in California on Christmas Eve, authorities said Thursday. Subhradeep Dutta, 28, of Edina, Minnesota, died while walking on a marked dirt trail with two other people in the park north of San Francisco famous for its towering trees, according to the Marin County coroner's office and a spokesman for the park. Dutta was pinned by the trunk of the 200-foot-tall (61-meter-tall) tree and died at the scene.
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| Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he will send troops to Libya as proxy war fears mount Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:16 AM PST  Turkey could send troops to support Libya's embattled UN-backed government as early as next month, President Tayyip Erdogan declared on Thursday, in a move that will fuel fears that the country's civil conflict is turning into a proxy war between regional powers. Libya's internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), based in Tripoli, has been fending off a months-long offensive against the capital by General Khalifa Haftar, a renegade field marshal whose forces have received support from Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey has emerged as a key backer the GNA since the battle began in April, and is already believed to have supplied weapons to the GNA. Last month, Ankara signed two separate accords with the GNA, led by Fayez al-Serraj, one on security and military cooperation and another on maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean. The maritime deal ends Turkey's isolation in the East Mediterranean and paves the way for an offshore energy exploration program that has alarmed neighbours including Greece. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would ask parliament to approve sending troops to Libya in January Credit: MURAT KULA/AFP The military deal is designed to shore up Turkey's lone ally in the region, Tripoli, which is surrounded by Gen Haftar's forces. "Since there is an invitation (from Libya) right now, we will accept it," Mr Erdogan told members of his AK (Justice and Development) Party in a speech. "We will put the bill on sending troops to Libya on the agenda as soon as parliament opens." The legislation would pass around January 8-9, he said, opening the door to deployment. However, it was unclear what specific invitation Mr Erdogan was referring to, as the interior minister in the Tripoli-based government, Fathi Bashagha, suggested in comments to reporters in Tunis that no such official request had yet been made. "If the situation escalates and then we have the right to defend Tripoli and its residents... we will submit an official request to the Turkish government to support us militarily so we expel the ghost of mercenary forces," Mr Bashagha said on Thursday. Gen Haftar's forces were not immediately available for reaction to Mr Erdogan's comments. Ankara has flagged the possibility of a military mission in Libya for several weeks. Such a deployment would further stretch its armed forces less than three months after it launched an incursion into northeastern Syria against a Kurdish militia. Turkey has already sent military supplies to the GNA despite a United Nations arms embargo, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters last month. The same report said a foreign air force, thought to be that of the UAE or Egypt, had been carrying out airstrikes in support for Gen Haftar's forces. Mr Erdogan visited Tunisia on Wednesday to discuss support for a possible ceasefire in Libya. On Thursday, he said Turkey and Tunisia had agreed to support the GNA.
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| Iran shuts down internet again as government protests resume Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:04 AM PST  Iran wants to make sure what happens in its country stays there.As Iranians prepared to launch another round of anti-government protests on Thursday, the government appeared to start shutting down internet and mobile service to seemingly block protesters' messages from reaching the rest of the world. Internet monitoring service NetBlocks reported an internet outage starting at 6:30 a.m., and Reuters reported it "appear[ed] to be spreading."Iranians gathered Thursday to continue protesting rising gas prices, which influence price hikes across the economy. They also commemorated the estimated 1,500 people who had been killed in previous protests against the government. Reuters recently made that estimate via government sources, and it's about five times as high as the toll Amnesty International has predicted. In at least one case, The New York Times' Farna Fassahi reported that a family mourning the death of protester Pouya Bakhtiari was blocked from visiting his grave, and that some of his family members were arrested.> IranProtests > Pouya Bakhtiari's grave is encircled by security forces. Entrance to cemetery blocked, family ordered out & several people arrested. Helicopters hover above. His parents are in jail. pic.twitter.com/cxd5MdeHq8> > -- Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) December 26, 2019Reporter Yashar Ali, who has family in Iran, tweeted that he'd messaged several of his relatives to check in, but none of his messages were received. > Iranian authorities have shut down or slowed down internet/mobile services in certain parts of the country. > > None of the messages I've sent to relatives have gone through. > > I tried a younger relative who is always glued to their phone. Messages haven't been delivered. > > pic.twitter.com/aArT36gc6u> > -- Yashar Ali (@yashar) December 26, 2019More stories from theweek.com The most consequential politician of the decade 'Fairytale of New York': How a soused Irish punk band created the greatest Christmas song of all time Trump vs. Palpatine
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| Trump warns of 'carnage' in rebel stronghold in Syria Posted: 26 Dec 2019 10:56 AM PST  President Donald Trump is speaking out against the "carnage" involving thousands of civilians in a rebel stronghold in Syria. The tweet refers to an intense air and ground bombardment by government forces in southern and eastern Idlib province, the last rebel-held bastion in the country.
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| Almost quarter of a million flee homes in Syria's rebel-held Idlib as bombing intensifies Posted: 26 Dec 2019 10:49 AM PST  Nearly a quarter of a million people have fled their homes in the last-remaining Syrian rebel stronghold of Idlib to escape a Syrian and Russian offensive on the area. Air strikes and shelling this month have sparked a mass exodus that aid workers warn could lead to one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of Syria's eight-year civil war. US President Donald Trump yesterday called for the governments in Moscow, Damascus and Tehran to stop the violence. "Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands" of civilians in the northwestern province, Mr Trump tweeted, adding: "Don't do it!" The Syrian Response Coordination Group, a relief group active in the north west of the country, said 216,632 people have fled towards the closed Turkish border since the beginning of December. Exodus from Idlib to nowhere. Turkey has blocked the border. If these creatures in the cars were dogs, the world would have more mercy. What happened to the right of civilians to flee to safety?! @cnni@BBCWorld@realDonaldTrump@UNHumanRights@antonioguterresMerryChristmaspic.twitter.com/pNSvr7zCYn— Dr. Zaher Sahloul (@sahloul) December 24, 2019 The group called on other relief agencies to help the displaced amid cold weather and heavy rain. In recent weeks, tent settlements for displaced people have suffered from flooding, adding to their misery. Footage circulating this week has shown cars and trucks in a long line of traffic trying to leave the city of Maaret al-Numan for towns and villages further north, carrying blankets, mattresses and valuables. Pictures from inside the city show areas of major destruction where only a few buildings appear to be left standing. Maaret al-Numan has come under heavy bombardment from Russian and Syrian forces in recent weeks as they seek to extend an offensive that originally began in Spring. The city sits on a key highway linking the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, which has been in opposition hands since 2012, making it an important strategic objective for President Bashar al-Assad's forces. Fared al-Hor, an activist from Idlib, told the Telegraph the situation was worse than at any time before. "I left my city [Maaret al-Numan] yesterday. Now I am with my family in Salqin, on the Syrian-Turkish border," he said via What'sApp messenger. A drone picture taken on December 23 shows empty streets and damaged buildings in the town of Maaret al-Numan in the northwestern Idlib province Credit: AFP "It is very very bad. Some people don't even have I am thinking about traveling to Turkey, my younger sister Marwa and I, but I cannot find a way now." Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's president, has said the border will remain closed and warned that his country, which hosts more refugees than any other in the word, will not be able to absorb any more fleeing northwest Syria. Idlib, which is largely under the control of Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, is home to some 3.5 million people, many of whom had been displaced by fighting in other areas. The Russian and Syrian bombing campaign against the rebel pocket in Idlib began in April and has killed more than 1,400 people, 100 of them in the last week. Dareen Khalifa, a Syria analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the Syrian and Russian offensive on Idlib has made slow progress, "so now they are overcompensating by using devastating levels of air force." "If the regime continues and if the rebels don't surrender, this will mean the worst humanitarian disaster we've seen in Syria," she said.
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| California jails use kinder approach to solitary confinement Posted: 26 Dec 2019 10:46 AM PST  An inmate in solitary confinement at a California jail was refusing to leave his cell. The jailers' usual response: Send an "extraction team" of corrections officers to burst into the cell and drag him out. More than a quarter of U.S. states and numerous smaller jurisdictions are looking for ways to reduce the use of solitary confinement, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, which encourages alternatives to a practice behavioral experts say is dehumanizing and can worsen mental illness.
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| Russian police raid Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption foundation in New Year crackdown on opposition Posted: 26 Dec 2019 10:42 AM PST  Russian authorities on Thursday stepped up the pressure on the country's opposition by raiding the office of a protest leader and his team. Alexei Navalny, who has been the driving force behind major anti-government protests in recent years, live streamed a video from his office as law enforcement officers cut through the front door with an electric saw on Thursday morning. A video released by Mr Navalny's YouTube channel showed several masked masked men gather the foundation's employee in a room with a Christmas tree and a disco ball and tell them: "Put your face to the wall! Stay where you are!" The officers then disabled CCTV cameras. The raid on Mr Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation in Moscow was one of several this year and came just a few days after one of his allies was detained and sent off for military service at a remote Arctic base. Both incidents appear to be the latest steps in an unusually vigorous crackdown on opposition movements by the Kremlin. A still image shows the moment police officers disabled security cameras in the office of Alexei Navalny's anti corruption foundation Credit: Anti-Corruption Foundation/VIA REUTERS Mr Navalny, who made his name thanks to investigations into official corruption, said on Thursday that the raid was timed to disrupt his weekly YouTube show, which was to be streamed live in the evening. "They clearly chose this day because I have a show tonight," tweeted Mr Navalny, whose show last week garnered more than 1.4 million views on YouTube. Police and investigators have raided Mr Navalny's offices several times this year. Each time, they would seize the team's equipment including cameras used for streaming YouTube shows. Mr Navalny's foundation has ask supporters to donate money to buy new equipment to replace items the investigators seized and failed to return. Leonid Volkov, one of Mr Navalny's key allies, on Thursday described the raid as a "robbery." Several hours later, he said that the bank account that the foundation uses for collecting donations had been blocked. Mr Navalny and his associates joked on Thursday about the raid, which came few days before New Year's Eve, Russia's biggest annual holiday. Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an exhibition match of the Night Hockey League on an ice rink at Red Square Credit: ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP Nikolai Lyaskin, an employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, tweeted about the video of the sparks flying off the electric saw cutting through the office door with the caption: "New Year's Eve fireworks." The raid was connected to a 2017 court ruling that ordered Mr Navalny to take down a viral YouTube video of his investigation into Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's alleged secret wealth. The 50-minute film, which triggered a wave of nationwide protests in spring 2017 has been watched more than 32 million times, is still available on Mr Navalny's YouTube channel. Earlier this week an ally of Mr Navalny was detained and sent off to serve at a top secret military base in the Arctic. He had been appealing against his military conscription. Ruslan Shaveddinov, 23, disappeared on Monday after police broke into his flat and took him in for questioning. The military later said he had been sent to serve on Novaya Zemlya, a remote archipelago in the Arctic ocean which is home to a top secret missile defense installation and was one of the Soviet Union's main nuclear testing grounds during the Cold War. Ruslan Shaveddinov was conscripted into the army and sent to a remote base in the Arctic Credit: Facebook President Vladimir Putin hit the skating ring on Red Square late Wednesday evening for an exhibition ice-hockey game with NHL stars, scoring most of his team's goals. Speaking at a gala performance for the country's top officials at Moscow's legendary Bolshoi Theatre on Thursday evening, President Putin said that Christmas and New Year's Eve "are full of hopes of new achievements in the new year" and wished everyone happy holidays. He did not comment on the raids at Mr Navalny's office. Mr Putin previously dismissed suggestions that the Kremlin uses law enforcement agencies and courts to go after its opponents. Also on Thursday, Russian special forces detained an investigative journalist for a prominent opposition newspaper. Novaya Gazeta said investigators called on the home of its special correspondent Yulia Polukhina at 6 o'clock in the morning on Thursday and searched it for about four hours before taking Ms Polukhina for questioning. The mother of two had no access to the lawyer and was released in the late afternoon, the paper said. Investigators later said that Ms Polukhina, who has covered criminal activities in separatist-held eastern Ukraine, was questioned about a criminal gang from that area.
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| Daycare owner arrested after kids found behind false wall Posted: 26 Dec 2019 10:39 AM PST  A Colorado woman accused of hiding 26 children behind a false wall at her daycare center was arrested for investigation of misdemeanor child abuse, police said Thursday. Carla Faith, 58, was arrested Monday in Colorado Springs on suspicion of two counts of reckless child abuse without injury and a single count of trying to influence a public servant, the El Paso County court records show. Three employees — Katelynne Nelson, 31, Christina Swauger, 35, and Valerie Fresquez, 24 — were arrested on related charges.
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| Lebanese protest bank policies amid severe crisis Posted: 26 Dec 2019 08:55 AM PST  Dozens of protesters staged a sit-in outside the central bank and the Lebanese Banks' Association building Thursday to protest the banks' policies amid unprecedented capital controls. The protesters called on citizens to stop paying their loans and taxes and demanded that loan payments be rescheduled after amending interest rates. Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh told reporters Thursday the bank would investigate all bank transfers that took place in 2019, referring to recent reports that senior politicians were allowed to transfer money abroad even as they imposed unprecedented restrictions on transfers and withdrawals by rank-and-file depositors.
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| Police release teen suspect in Barnard student's killing Posted: 26 Dec 2019 08:25 AM PST  A 14-year-old boy suspected of fatally stabbing a Barnard College freshman was released from police custody on Thursday, mere hours after New York City police said he had been located following a two-week manhunt. Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted that finding the suspect "was a significant development in the investigative process," but that the youth had since been released to the custody of his lawyers. Harrison didn't say why the boy was released.
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| To overcome travel ban, some Americans taking cases to court Posted: 26 Dec 2019 07:46 AM PST  Mohammed Hafar paced around the airport terminal — first to the monitor to check flight arrivals, then to the gift shop and lastly to the doors where international passengers were exiting. At last, out came Jana Hafar, his tall, slender, dark-haired teen daughter who had been forced by President Donald Trump's travel ban to stay behind in Syria for months while her father, his wife and 10-year-old son started rebuilding their lives in Bloomfield, New Jersey, with no clear idea of when the family would be together again.
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| Putin Escalates Arms Race with U.S. and Says Russia Has Developed Hypersonic Missiles for Nukes Posted: 26 Dec 2019 06:50 AM PST  Vladimir Putin Says Russia Deployed Hypersonic Weapons
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| Pennsylvania dioceses offer $84M to 564 clergy abuse victims Posted: 26 Dec 2019 06:42 AM PST  Pennsylvania's Roman Catholic dioceses have paid nearly $84 million to 564 victims of sexual abuse, a tally that's sure to grow substantially in the new year as compensation fund administrators work through a backlog of claims, according to an Associated Press review. Seven of the state's eight dioceses launched victim compensation funds in the wake of a landmark grand jury report on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. To date, the average payout across all seven dioceses has exceeded $148,000 — a fraction of what some adult victims of childhood abuse might have expected from a jury had they been permitted to take their claims to court.
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| Iraq President Saleh Submits Resignation to Parliament, Jazeera Reports Posted: 26 Dec 2019 06:06 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Iraqi President Barham Saleh offered to resign as weeks of deadly anti-government protests show no sign of abating.The president is being torn in opposite directions by politicians who want him to name a prime minister from their ranks and demonstrators who reject any establishment candidate.Adel Abdul-Mahdi stepped down as prime minister last month as protests raged over government corruption, poor services and Iran's sweeping political influence. Mahdi remains in office until a successor is found.Protesters rejected one nominee, and Saleh rejected the candidacy of a second, Assad Al-Edani of the Al-Binaa political bloc. In a letter to the Iraqi parliament speaker on Thursday, he said the new prime minister must be someone who can unify rather than divide the nation."Out of an eagerness to spare blood and preserve civil peace, I apologize for not naming Edani prime minister," the letter continued. "I am ready to submit my resignation to parliament."About 500 people have died and more than 20,000 have been wounded in clashes between security forces and protesters since Oct. 1, according to the independent Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights.To contact the reporter on this story: Khalid Al-Ansary in Baghdad at kalansary@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Shaji Mathew at shajimathew@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Michael GunnFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Afghan war caused 100,000 civilian casualties in last decade: UN Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:56 AM PST  More than 100,000 Afghan civilians have been killed or injured over the past decade, the United Nations reported Thursday, as it renewed calls to end the bloody 18-year conflict. The announcement comes as the Taliban and US continue to hold talks aimed at drawing a close to America's longest war, after the negotiations were called off in September by President Donald Trump due to insurgent attacks. "I recognize with extreme sadness that civilian casualties recently surpassed 100,000 in the past 10 years alone, from the time the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) began systematic documentation of civilian casualties," Tadamichi Yamamoto, the UN special representative in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
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| The daily business briefing: December 26, 2019 Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:44 AM PST ![The daily business briefing: December 26, 2019]( "The daily business briefing: December 26, 2019") 1.Holiday sales rose this year despite a short holiday season, according to a Mastercard report released Wednesday. Record online sales, up 19 percent from last year, helped lift the total. Aggressive discounts also helped. "E-commerce sales hit a record high this year with more people doing their holiday shopping online," said Steve Sadove, senior adviser for Mastercard. "Due to a later than usual Thanksgiving holiday, we saw retailers offering omnichannel sales earlier in the season, meeting consumers' demand for the best deals across all channels and devices." The holiday shopping season, which can account for 40 percent of annual sales, runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas. This year it was six days shorter than last year, because Thanksgiving fell on Nov. 28 in 2019 and Nov. 22 in 2018. [Reuters] 2.President Trump told reporters that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be getting together soon to sign the "phase one" agreement to ease the U.S.-China trade war. "We will be having a signing ceremony, yes," Trump said. "We will ultimately, yes, when we get together. And we'll be having a quicker signing because we want to get it done. The deal is done, it's just being translated right now." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Wednesday that negotiators from the world's two largest economies are talking to finalize the agreement they reached this month. "Both sides' economic and trade teams are in close communication about detailed arrangements for the deal's signing and other follow-up work," Geng said. [Reuters] 3.U.S. stock futures edged higher early Thursday as trading was set to resume after the Christmas holiday. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq were up by about 0.1 percent. Wall Street has set a string of records in a year-end rally fueled by reports of progress toward ending the U.S.-China trade war. The S&P 500 is up by 2.6 this month and by 28.6 percent this year. Stocks were mixed in a shortened session on Christmas Eve, with the S&P 500 flat, while the Dow was slightly lower and the Nasdaq slightly higher. Markets remained closed for the holidays in Europe, Australia, and Hong Kong. [CNBC] 4.Spectrum Pharmaceuticals shares plunged by 17 percent in pre-market trading on Thursday after the company said a lung-cancer treatment trial missed a key goal. In the phase-two trial evaluating poziotinib treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, the response rate for previously treated patients fell short of expectations. CEO Joe Turgeon said, however, that "the positive signals observed for this cohort provide support for the continued clinical evaluation of poziotinib in this patient population with significant unmet medical need." The company also said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had agreed to review its Biologics License Application for Rolontis, a treatment for neutropenia, a chemotherapy-induced low white blood cell count. [MarketWatch] 5.Another shopping rush begins Thursday as stores reopen for post-Christmas sales and gift returns. Sixty-eight percent of Americans who responded to the National Retail Federation's annual December holiday consumer survey said they would probably shop in the week after Christmas. Forty-nine percent said they would be targeting sales, while 27 percent said they planned to spend gift cards. Fifty-five percent said they expected to return gifts within a month. "If you're returning a gift this year, I recommend waiting until after January 1 to avoid the after-Christmas sales rush," said Sara Skirboll, RetailMeNot shopping and trends expert. [USA Today]More stories from theweek.com The most consequential politician of the decade 'Fairytale of New York': How a soused Irish punk band created the greatest Christmas song of all time Trump vs. Palpatine
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| State officials are at the core of 2020 election security Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:29 AM PST  Inside a hotel ballroom near the nation's capital, a U.S. Army officer with battlefield experience told 120 state and local election officials that they may have more in common with military strategists than they might think. Until then, the job of local election officials could had been described as akin to a wedding planner who keeps track of who will be showing up on Election Day and ensures all the equipment and supplies are in place.
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| Slave cemetery poses questions for Florida country club Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:27 AM PST  The rumors swirled for decades: A dark history long lay buried under the grassy knolls and manicured lawns of a country club in Florida's capital city. Over the years, neat rows of rectangular depressions along the 7th fairway deepened in the grass, outlining what would be confirmed this month as sunken graves of the slaves who lived and died on a plantation that once sprawled with cotton near the Florida Capitol. The discovery of 40 graves — with perhaps dozens more yet to be found — has spawned discussion about how to honor those who lie in rest at the golf course.
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| Iraq president offers to quit after rejecting PM nominee Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:18 AM PST  Iraq's president refused on Thursday to designate a prime minister candidate nominated by the Iran-backed parliamentary bloc and offered to resign, plunging the country into further political uncertainty amid nearly three months of unprecedented mass protests. Al-Eidani's name was proposed on Wednesday by the Fatah bloc, which includes leaders associated with the Iran-supported paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces. Demonstrators first took to the streets on Oct. 1 to call for the overthrow of Iraq's entire political class over corruption and mismanagement.
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| Court rules Turkey violated freedoms by banning Wikipedia Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:49 AM PST ![Court rules Turkey violated freedoms by banning Wikipedia]( "Court rules Turkey violated freedoms by banning Wikipedia") Turkey's highest court on Thursday ruled in favor of Wikipedia, saying the Turkish government's two-year ban on the online encyclopedia constitutes a violation of freedom of expression, the state-run news agency reported. Turkey blocked Wikipedia in April 2017, accusing it of being part of a "smear campaign" against the country, after the website refused to remove content that allegedly portrayed Turkey as supporting the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations.
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| The Year of Batshit Crazy at One America News, Trump’s New Favorite Cable-News Channel Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:17 AM PST  In 2019, the competition to become the cable news president's favorite outlet found an unlikely new frontrunner: One America News Network.The decidedly far-right "news" channel, founded in 2013 by Robert Herring Sr., has long resided on the fringes of cable TV. Prior to President Donald Trump's 2016 election, it was probably best known as the launching pad of current Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren's career. Prior to her leaving OAN in 2015, Lahren gained notoriety—and brought the upstart network attention—with the viral, bite-sized video screeds that have since become her trademark.With Trump's election, OAN saw an opportunity to fully embrace all things Trump, seeking to outdo Fox News, Fox Business Network, and other conservative outlets in its sycophantic coverage of the Trump presidency in order to curry favor with the president as his most reliable booster. In the early days of the Trump era, however, the president—and most everyone—largely ignored the network. While occasionally expressing appreciation for its devotion to the Trump spin, the president also mocked the channel for its low-budget graphics and presentation, coming away unimpressed with its on-air product.In the past year, though, Trump has seemingly come around on OAN, appearing to view it as a much friendlier and more malleable alternative to Fox. Throughout 2019, the president used OAN as a cudgel whenever he felt jilted by insufficient loyalty from Fox's newsdesk, often publicly embracing OAN in an apparent effort to send a message to Fox News."Watching Fake News CNN is better than watching Shepard Smith, the lowest rated show on @FoxNews," the president tweeted in August. "Actually, whenever possible, I turn to @OANN!"With a much brighter spotlight shining down on this previously obscure station, and the possibility that Trump will turn to them more and more as he approaches a contentious 2020 election, here is a primer on OAN's biggest personalities—via the more insane highlights of the past year.Towards the end of 2018, Herring signaled to Trump that his network would always have his back, especially when Fox News' coverage even remotely disagreed with the president. After the White House revoked CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's press credentials, and Fox announced it would back CNN's lawsuit to regain Acosta's press pass, Herring went full contrarian and said One America News would join Trump's side of the legal battle. At the same time, Herring revealed an overt jealousy of Fox's close relationship with the president."Acosta's actions are stopping our people from getting their questions answered, so that we can give our audience the real news direct from our President," the OAN chief's statement read. "Can't believe Fox is on the other side, but they have direct communication to the President. We are lucky if we get a five minute interview once a quarter."As Trump began signal-boosting OAN more and more throughout the early part of 2019, however, the far-right channel came up with some alternative, "edgy" programming to appeal to the Trump supporter who just can't stand all the Trump-skewering on Saturday Night Live and Last Week Tonight. Headlines Tonight with Drew Berquist, a Saturday night "comedy" show,debuted in the spring to instant online mockery. A knockoff of Fox's 2007 failed attempt at humor, The 1/2 Hour News Hour, this unapologetically lame program imagined Mike Huckabee-like hokey humor in a lower-budget Daily Show setting. But, as with its Fox counterpart, the show quickly came and went.On a more serious note, however, One America News spent much of 2019 peddling dangerous conspiracies and, at times, foreign propaganda. The network's pandering to the craziest corners of the internet, meanwhile, made OAN hell to work at, according to former employees.The Hell of Working at Trump's New Favorite NetworkIn May, OAN ran a segment claiming that dozens of members of the humanitarian group Syrian Civil Defense—also known as the White Helmets—had confessed to faking chemical weapons attacks in order to frame Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad."At least 40 members of the terrorist-linked White Helmets have admitted they staged fake chemical attacks to provoke retaliation against the Syrian Government," OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp reported. "Members of the group, who won an Oscar for their Netflix documentary, came out in recent interviews for a study presented to the United Nations and confessed they had in fact faked the attacks."As reported by The Daily Beast, this smear of the White Helmets was tied to a Kremlin disinformation campaign seeking to discredit the group and clear of wrongdoing Assad, who is propped up by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White Helmets have been the scourge of both Russia and Syria as the group's volunteers have provided horrifying footage of Assad's use of chemical weapons on Syria's civilian population.Not just content with simply airing Russian disinformation, One America News actually employs a Kremlin-paid propagandist. Kristian Brunovich Rouz has been reporting for OAN since August 2017 while simultaneously working for Sputnik, the Russian state-owned news site that the U.S. intelligence community found played a pivotal role in Russia's 2016 election interference.Rouz's reporting on OAN has straddled the line between standard right-wing conspiracy mongering—George Soros being a Nazi collaborator, Hillary Clinton funding antifa—to full-on Kremlin propaganda, including trutherism on Syrian chemical weapons attacks.This past fall, for instance, OAN dispatched Rouz to claim a British report investigating Russian interference in the U.K. elections was nothing more than another "Russia hoax" perpetrated by liberals.Trump's New Favorite Channel Employs Kremlin-Paid JournalistOAN, meanwhile, has taken issue with accusations that they are disseminators of Russian propaganda. After MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow referenced The Daily Beast's report revealing Rouz had been paid by Sputnik to claim that "the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really, literally is paid Russian propaganda," One America News filed a $10-million lawsuit against Maddow. In its suit, OAN noted that Rouz was just a freelancer with Sputnik while Rouz insisted he had "never written propaganda, disinformation, or unverified information."* * *Rouz is far from the only controversial figure working at the ultra-conservative network. One of the channel's weekday personalities is none other than notorious pro-Trump internet troll Jack Posobiec. Prior to catching on with OAN, Posobiec gained notoriety for relentlessly pushing (comically) false information and conspiracies while associating himself with the alt-right.One of the earliest and biggest propagators of the insane Pizzagate conspiracy claiming high-ranking Democratic officials run a child-sex ring out a D.C.-area pizzeria, Posobiec also was a central figure in terms of pushing the discredited Seth Rich conspiracy theory. Among his more infamous antics: Days after Trump's election, in Nov. 2016, Posobiec attempted to discredit anti-Trump protesters by planting a "Rape Melania" sign in a demonstration, something he denies involvement in.Besides repeatedly pushing the debunked notion that Rich, a former DNC staffer, was murdered for providing Clinton-related emails to WikiLeaks, Posobiec hired a couple of neo-Nazi brothers to work on a Rich documentary. In 2018, Jeffrey Clark, one of the brothers, was arrested on weapons charges amid accusations he was planning a race war alongside his brother Edward, who committed suicide hours after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.The Clark brothers aren't the only ties Posobiec has had with white nationalism. He's been pictured with notorious white supremacist Richard Spencer, whom he once described as "indispensable." Throughout the 2016 election, he repeatedly shared social media posts containing the white supremacist code 1488, which references the Fourteen Words. Posobiec also utilized the anti-Semitic triple-parentheses meme in an Oct. 2016 tweet.Since joining OAN, Posobiec has continued to embrace his inner troll while playing footsie with the fever swamp. In October, for instance, Posobiec signaled to the cultish believers in the crazed QAnon conspiracy, tweeting: "How can the left say they believe the whistleblower but not believe QAnon?" Weeks later, during the impeachment hearings, Posobiec took issue with National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's heritage, wondering: "Why are there so many non-US-born people working in our Intel and State Department?"* * *OAN's chief White House correspondent, meanwhile, is former infomercial bra saleswoman Emerald Robinson, who has become a lightning rod for controversy over her batty tweeting habits. At one point, she declared that the arrest of serial sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein proved the farcically dumb Pizzagate conspiracy theories to be actually correct.Robinson, who appeared in several B-movie and crime docudrama extra roles before becoming a far-right pundit, once wrote that black NFL players protesting against police brutality were "Rococo Marxists and millionaire Black Panther athletes." She also penned a column trashing the "low-testosterone, dilettantish strain" of "intellectual" conservatives, claiming the "Never Trump intellectual crowd" are "Jewish and agnostic" while "the Republican Party is overwhelmingly Caucasian and Christian."The OAN correspondent spent much of 2019 firing off unhinged Islamophobic online rants at other members of the media, earning her an endorsement from white-nationalist publication VDARE. In one such tweet, which she eventually deleted, Robinson ranted at CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) "is an al-Qaeda supporting Somali gangster who has committed immigration fraud, marriage fraud, and campaign finance violations!""Seriously: are you an apologist for Islamist terrorist supporters?" Robinson concluded.She's also teamed up online with Posobiec, most notably when it comes to making baseless accusations about Fox News in obvious attempts to curry the president's favor. One standout example occurred in October after a Fox News poll showed the majority of Americans supported impeachment. "Here's what is happening," Robinson tweeted. "Paul Ryan at Fox News hires a polling firm run by liberal activists. They call many Dems & very few Republicans. Liberal media puff up the phony poll numbers non-stop. GOP senators say 'Trump's numbers are bad.' It's cover for GOP to impeach Trump.""Why would Fox News treat their viewers like that?" Posobiec helpfully replied.The impeachment inquiry, which originated with an anonymous whistleblower filing a complaint to the intelligence community's inspector general about Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, resulted in conservative media and Trump supporters pushing for the outing of the man alleged to be the whistleblower. OAN went further than other right-wing outlets when it came to giving personal information about the person.In a series of on-air reports, OAN national political reporter Neil McCabe went to the home of the alleged whistleblower's parents, asking a man in the driveway if the whistleblower was home. The man eventually took McCabe's business card. In a later segment, the OAN reporter went to the purported whistleblower's apartment building in an effort to capture the person on video, showing details of the building lobby and entrance on-screen. (Both videos have since been taken down.)* * *It has been the network's association with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, however, that has planted OAN directly in the middle of domestic and international political intrigue—and likely signals a deepened relationship with Trumpworld that might only intensify in an election year.Giuliani, whose Ukrainian dirt-digging operation is at the heart of the president's impeachment, teamed up with the network to produce a series of specials in which he traveled to Europe to interview former and current Ukrainian officials who've been critical of Biden and Democrats.The specials were hosted by Chanel Rion, a One America News personality who has long been a purveyor of nutty conspiracy theories. Rion, who recently had to walk back a report that former FBI lawyer Lisa Page had an affair with former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, is also a political cartoonist, anti-feminist children's book writer and—almost as if it's a prerequisite to working at OAN—a Seth Rich and Pizzagate truther.Giuliani and Rion's "investigation" featured a motley crew of witnesses, with little to no credibility, who have long been pushing bizarre, unfounded conspiracies and questionable accusations in an effort to smear their political opponents. Furthermore, OAN went as far as attempting to secure a visa for former Ukrainian parliamentarian Oleksandr Onyshchenko to travel to the United States in the network's bid to dig up more Biden dirt on Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas company the ex-veep's son Hunter worked at. Before they could get him a visa, however, German authorities arrested Onyshchenko on a warrant from Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutors."I can confirm that One America News Network did attempt to secure a number of visas for former Ukrainian officials to travel to the United States, including Olekesandr Onyshchenko," OAN president Charles Herring said at the time. "One America News Network made the request prior to Mr. Onyschchenko being detained. One America News investigative efforts have cost in excess of $100,000 to date."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Organizers say Gaza protests to be scaled back in March Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:05 AM PST  The organizers of the weekly Palestinian demonstrations along the Gaza Strip's frontier with Israel said Thursday that they will significantly scale down the gatherings early next year. The announcement by the organizing committee of Gaza's Great March of Return is the latest sign that Gaza's Hamas rulers are trying to maintain calm in hopes of strengthening unofficial "understandings" with Israel that would ease a crippling 12-year blockade of the coastal territory. The committee said the demonstrations will only take place once a month, beginning in March, the second anniversary of the protests.
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| Masked Russian Police Raid Opposition Leader Navalny’s Office Posted: 26 Dec 2019 03:15 AM PST ![Masked Russian Police Raid Opposition Leader Navalny's Office]( "Masked Russian Police Raid Opposition Leader Navalny's Office") (Bloomberg) -- Police dragged away Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny on Thursday during a raid on the Moscow offices of his Anti-Corruption Foundation in a continuing crackdown on critics of President Vladimir Putin, later releasing him."They took Alexey away by force," Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh said on Twitter. The police action, involving masked officers in helmets, appeared to be aimed at preventing Navalny's organization from airing a regular evening program Thursday that got 1.4 million views the previous week, said Leonid Volkov, an aide to the opposition leader."They chose this day, obviously, because I was due to be appearing live on a broadcast," Navalny said, adding that there were no arrests. He broadcast the raid live on Twitter.Another Navalny ally, Ruslan Shaveddinov, 23, was conscripted for compulsory military service in a remote Arctic base earlier this week. Authorities flew him to Novaya Zemlya after breaking into his Moscow apartment on Monday, in what supporters denounced as a state abduction reminiscent of Soviet times.Putin in mid-2019 faced the biggest protests since his return to the presidency in 2012 over the refusal to register opposition candidates for local elections in Moscow. In addition to sweeping arrests and jail sentences for protest participants, Russia targeted Navalny's foundation with a money-laundering investigation and listed it as a "foreign agent."To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Henry MeyerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Tennessee boy, 11, gets new mechanical hands for Christmas Posted: 26 Dec 2019 03:12 AM PST ![Tennessee boy, 11, gets new mechanical hands for Christmas]( "Tennessee boy, 11, gets new mechanical hands for Christmas") A Tennessee boy born without functioning hands asked Santa for a new pair last year, and his community came together this Christmas to make the gift possible. Gavin Sumner, 11, was gifted his new prosthetic hands Monday at the Montgomery County Mayor's Office in Clarksville during a ceremony he didn't know was organized just for him, The Leaf-Chronicle reported. When met with Gavin's request last year, his mom, Kori Sumner, posted a plea for help on Facebook that was ultimately answered by Anthony Economos with Bedstone Creative.
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| UN condemns attack that killed 17 civilians in north Yemen Posted: 26 Dec 2019 02:44 AM PST  The United Nations has condemned the shelling of a busy market that killed at least 17 people earlier this week in northern Yemen, a region which has been under control of Yemen's Iran-backed rebels known as Houthis. The office of the U.N. human rights coordinator in Yemen did not say who was behind the attack. Thousands of Yemeni civilians have died in airstrikes.
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| Christmas typhoon leaves 20 dead in Philippines Posted: 26 Dec 2019 02:29 AM PST  A strong typhoon that barreled through the central Philippines left at least 20 people dead and forced thousands to flee their homes, devastating Christmas celebrations in the predominantly Catholic country. Typhoon Phanfone stranded many people in sea and airports at the peak of holiday travel, set off landslides, flooded low-lying villages, destroyed houses, downed trees and electrical poles and knocked out power in entire provinces. One disaster response officer described the battered coastal town of Batad in Iloilo province as a "ghost town" on Christmas Day.
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| Storm topples wall, graves in old Jewish cemetery in Beirut Posted: 26 Dec 2019 02:01 AM PST  A severe storm, carrying heavy rain and strong winds, toppled an old wall and several graves at a Jewish cemetery in the Lebanese capital on Thursday. The cemetery in Beirut's Sodeco district, which dates back to the early 1820s, is Beirut's only Jewish cemetery and has been closed to the public for many years.
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| Erdogan: Turkey lawmakers to vote on sending troops to Libya Posted: 26 Dec 2019 01:53 AM PST  Turkey's president said Thursday that the U.N.-supported government in Libya has asked Ankara to send troops to help authorities in Tripoli defend the city from an offensive by rival forces. Turkish lawmakers could vote as early as next week on the move, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, adding that his government will submit a bill to allow for the deployment of Turkish forces to Libya. Speaking to his ruling party's officials, Erdogan said the Tripoli government of Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj "invited" Turkey to send troops under a military cooperation agreement signed recently between the two.
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| Thousands in Asia marvel at 'ring of fire' solar eclipse Posted: 26 Dec 2019 01:52 AM PST  People along a swath of southern Asia gazed at the sky in marvel on Thursday at a "ring of fire" solar eclipse. The so-called annular eclipse, in which a thin outer ring of the sun is still visible, could be seen along a path stretching from India and Pakistan to Thailand and Indonesia. Authorities in Indonesia provided telescopes and hundreds of special glasses to protect viewers' eyes.
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| Asian Markets Surge, Dollar Rises Against Yuan, Yen, As US-China Deal Close To An End Posted: 26 Dec 2019 01:03 AM PST ![Asian Markets Surge, Dollar Rises Against Yuan, Yen, As US-China Deal Close To An End]( "Asian Markets Surge, Dollar Rises Against Yuan, Yen, As US-China Deal Close To An End") The U.S. dollar traded up against the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan on Thursday, as the governments of both countries that they are close to signing the first phase of the trade deal. President Trump, on Tuesday, said that he would hold a "signing ceremony" with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. "We will be having a signing ceremony, yes," Trump said, according to Reuters.
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| Indonesia, Thailand mark 15th anniversary of massive tsunami Posted: 26 Dec 2019 12:54 AM PST  The massive Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra island. Indonesia's Aceh province, which was closest to the earthquake, was hit first and hardest. More than 170,000 people died in Indonesia alone, about three-quarters of the overall death toll.
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| Taliban target Afghan army in country's north, kill 6 troops Posted: 25 Dec 2019 11:49 PM PST ![Taliban target Afghan army in country's north, kill 6 troops]( "Taliban target Afghan army in country's north, kill 6 troops") A powerful suicide car bombing targeted an Afghan army compound in the country's north on Thursday morning, killing six Afghan soldiers, the defense ministry said. Shortly after the bomber detonated his car laden with explosives outside the small military base in Balkh province, a group of insurgents stormed into the compound, setting off a shootout with Afghan forces. The defense ministry said in a statement that three Afghan soldiers were also wounded in the explosion and the ensuing "terrorist attack." The provincial governor's spokesman, Munir Farhad, said fighting inside the compound continued for hours before the attackers were repelled.
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| Israel's embattled Netanyahu wins landslide in primary Posted: 25 Dec 2019 11:02 PM PST  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday scored a landslide victory in a primary race for leadership of the ruling Likud party, giving the embattled leader an important boost ahead of the country's third election in less than a year. The strong showing by Israel's longest-serving leader could give him another opportunity to form a government following the March election, after falling short in two previous attempts this year. "A giant victory," Netanyahu tweeted early Friday, just over an hour after polls closed.
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| Russia claims it has successfully tested its own internet Posted: 25 Dec 2019 11:02 PM PST  Russia has ramped up the balkanization of its technology and infrastructure over the past few months. The government's "sovereign internet" law -- which allows content to be blocked in an "emergency situation" -- took effect in November, and President Vladimir Putin recently signed a law that bans the sale of devices without pre-installed Russian apps. Today, Russia's Ministry of Communications announced that it has successfully tested a countrywide alternative to the internet, according to the BBC. How this network functions isn't clear, but the Ministry of Communications claims that users didn't notice any changes to their typical web use during the testing phase.
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| MBS Is the Prince of Mixed Messages Posted: 25 Dec 2019 11:00 PM PST ![MBS Is the Prince of Mixed Messages]( "MBS Is the Prince of Mixed Messages") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a reformer or a reactionary? The answer, maddening to those who love him as much as to those who loathe him, is that Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler might just be both those things.In a year when he was under especially close international scrutiny, thanks to the grotesque late-2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the prince — arguably the Middle East's most important figure — gave free rein to both sides of his public persona, presiding over both reform and repression. It did nothing to alter the impression of MBS, as he is commonly known, as a man who wants to have his cake as well as eat it.The duality was on display in his interview with PBS's "Frontline," when he both acknowledged and averted responsibility for Khashoggi's killing: It had happened "under my watch," he allowed, but then sought to deflect blame by saying he couldn't know what all 3 million government officials were doing at any given time. A secretive Saudi investigation, followed by opaque court proceedings, led to sentences being handed down this week — but nobody was persuaded that justice had been done. For the record, the United Nations rapporteur who investigated the murder said Prince Mohammed "has a responsibility in relationship to the killing" and the CIA believes he gave the order.There was an air of equivocation, too, in MBS's program of social reforms, where two steps forward in some areas — such as the relaxation of guardianship laws for women and regulations requiring gender-specific entrances in restaurants — were accompanied by a step back in others. The arrest of intellectuals in late November echoed last year's shocking detention of women's rights activists, just weeks before the prince lifted a ban on women driving.So Saudis can revel in such previously proscribed enjoyments as rock concerts, but actually asking for freedoms remains a precarious proposition. In the country's other major story of the year, the prince was on the receiving end of mixed messages. The initial public offering of Saudi Aramco was the marquee project of MBS's Vision 2030 plan, and he invested a great deal of personal prestige in achieving a $2 trillion valuation on the kingdom's cash cow. Although he had been persuaded by a battery of international bankers that this target was attainable, foreign investors mustered only lukewarm enthusiasm. In the end, Aramco had to shrink the size of its offering, even as it leaned on the kingdom's richest citizens to get close to the prince's target.If there was one area in which MBS demonstrated a change in behavior, it was in the realm of foreign policy, and even there, it was as much about what he didn't do as what he did — the virtue of omission more than of commission. Saudi Arabia did not reprise its 2018 diplomatic contretemps with Canada, or its 2017 row with Germany. Both of those spats were the product of Saudi overreaction to mild criticism. This year, MBS reacted with reassuring caution to a far greater provocation: Iran's attack on Saudi oil installations, which cut the kingdom's output by half. It might be that MBS was held back from an aggressive retaliation by uncertainty over whether the U.S., his main ally, would join another war in the Middle East — or the certainty that the Islamic Republic would.Cold political reality may also explain efforts to end one of MBS's earlier follies, the Saudi-led war against Houthi rebels in Yemen; in its fifth year, the assault has yielded nothing by embarrassment for the prince. At year's end, there was hope that the blockade on Qatar, another of the prince's missteps, might be walked back. Perhaps MBS has finally realized that the smaller kingdom cannot be bullied into submission. Realism is a sign of maturity; the region as a whole will benefit from more of it in 2020. MBS's biggest foreign-policy challenge in the new year will be to reckon with a belligerent Iran. His spine may be stiffened by the deployment of more U.S. military personnel to "assure and enhance the defense of Saudi Arabia," but he must know that President Donald Trump will have little appetite for a new war in an election year. A diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran is hard to imagine, but Riyadh might settle for a tense standoff, so long as there are no more attacks on its oil installations or shipping. At home, it is time for the prince to go back to the economic basics of his Vision 2030 plan: to make the kingdom less reliant on oil revenue, and wean its people away from government employment and generous subsidies. Next year's budget is, typical of MBS's year, a mixed bag: the promise of spending curbs and a widening deficit. Which MBS will we get in 2020? Chances are, both.To contact the author of this story: Bobby Ghosh at aghosh73@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Bobby Ghosh is a columnist and member of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| MBS Is the Prince of Mixed Messages Posted: 25 Dec 2019 11:00 PM PST ![MBS Is the Prince of Mixed Messages]( "MBS Is the Prince of Mixed Messages") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a reformer or a reactionary? The answer, maddening to those who love him as much as to those who loathe him, is that Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler might just be both those things.In a year when he was under especially close international scrutiny, thanks to the grotesque late-2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the prince — arguably the Middle East's most important figure — gave free rein to both sides of his public persona, presiding over both reform and repression. It did nothing to alter the impression of MBS, as he is commonly known, as a man who wants to have his cake as well as eat it.The duality was on display in his interview with PBS's "Frontline," when he both acknowledged and averted responsibility for Khashoggi's killing: It had happened "under my watch," he allowed, but then sought to deflect blame by saying he couldn't know what all 3 million government officials were doing at any given time. A secretive Saudi investigation, followed by opaque court proceedings, led to sentences being handed down this week — but nobody was persuaded that justice had been done. For the record, the United Nations rapporteur who investigated the murder said Prince Mohammed "has a responsibility in relationship to the killing" and the CIA believes he gave the order.There was an air of equivocation, too, in MBS's program of social reforms, where two steps forward in some areas — such as the relaxation of guardianship laws for women and regulations requiring gender-specific entrances in restaurants — were accompanied by a step back in others. The arrest of intellectuals in late November echoed last year's shocking detention of women's rights activists, just weeks before the prince lifted a ban on women driving.So Saudis can revel in such previously proscribed enjoyments as rock concerts, but actually asking for freedoms remains a precarious proposition. In the country's other major story of the year, the prince was on the receiving end of mixed messages. The initial public offering of Saudi Aramco was the marquee project of MBS's Vision 2030 plan, and he invested a great deal of personal prestige in achieving a $2 trillion valuation on the kingdom's cash cow. Although he had been persuaded by a battery of international bankers that this target was attainable, foreign investors mustered only lukewarm enthusiasm. In the end, Aramco had to shrink the size of its offering, even as it leaned on the kingdom's richest citizens to get close to the prince's target.If there was one area in which MBS demonstrated a change in behavior, it was in the realm of foreign policy, and even there, it was as much about what he didn't do as what he did — the virtue of omission more than of commission. Saudi Arabia did not reprise its 2018 diplomatic contretemps with Canada, or its 2017 row with Germany. Both of those spats were the product of Saudi overreaction to mild criticism. This year, MBS reacted with reassuring caution to a far greater provocation: Iran's attack on Saudi oil installations, which cut the kingdom's output by half. It might be that MBS was held back from an aggressive retaliation by uncertainty over whether the U.S., his main ally, would join another war in the Middle East — or the certainty that the Islamic Republic would.Cold political reality may also explain efforts to end one of MBS's earlier follies, the Saudi-led war against Houthi rebels in Yemen; in its fifth year, the assault has yielded nothing by embarrassment for the prince. At year's end, there was hope that the blockade on Qatar, another of the prince's missteps, might be walked back. Perhaps MBS has finally realized that the smaller kingdom cannot be bullied into submission. Realism is a sign of maturity; the region as a whole will benefit from more of it in 2020. MBS's biggest foreign-policy challenge in the new year will be to reckon with a belligerent Iran. His spine may be stiffened by the deployment of more U.S. military personnel to "assure and enhance the defense of Saudi Arabia," but he must know that President Donald Trump will have little appetite for a new war in an election year. A diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran is hard to imagine, but Riyadh might settle for a tense standoff, so long as there are no more attacks on its oil installations or shipping. At home, it is time for the prince to go back to the economic basics of his Vision 2030 plan: to make the kingdom less reliant on oil revenue, and wean its people away from government employment and generous subsidies. Next year's budget is, typical of MBS's year, a mixed bag: the promise of spending curbs and a widening deficit. Which MBS will we get in 2020? Chances are, both.To contact the author of this story: Bobby Ghosh at aghosh73@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Bobby Ghosh is a columnist and member of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Kashmir border shootings kill 2 Pakistani, 2 Indians Posted: 25 Dec 2019 10:57 PM PST ![Kashmir border shootings kill 2 Pakistani, 2 Indians]( "Kashmir border shootings kill 2 Pakistani, 2 Indians") Pakistan and India traded fire in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, with the latest exchang es killing two Pakistani troops, an Indian soldier and a civilian woman, officials on both sides said Thursday. The Pakistani military said in a statement that its troops came under attack Wednesday in the Dewa area, where the two soldiers died, and returned fire. In India, army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia said an Indian soldier was killed when Pakistani forces targeted their positions Wednesday in the area of Rampur, in the Indian-administered Kashmir.
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| Putin’s Grand Gas Project Makes Sense Now Posted: 25 Dec 2019 10:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- In the space of just a few momentous weeks, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most ambitious projects — a Russian natural gas export system to match the new geopolitical reality rather than the Cold War-era one — has taken its final shape. It will probably last, without major change, until the end of Russia's run as a top energy exporter. The finishing touches to the project, begun in 2001 with the construction of the Blue Stream pipeline to Turkey, include the launch of the Power of Siberia pipeline to China on Dec. 2, last week's U.S. sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, a new gas transit deal with Ukraine and the commissioning of the TurkStream pipeline, planned for January.External pressure and market circumstances have helped shape the new Russian gas export system so that it can't really be used as a sinister tool of Putin's rogue foreign policy. Meanwhile, it's structured in a such a way that post-Putin Russia will still be able to maintain its energy market share and use it as a basis for useful trade partnerships. That makes it a positive part of Putin's legacy, if not entirely thanks to Putin.Problems Inherited and Self-MadeRussia inherited contracts from the Soviet Union to supply natural gas to Europe, one of the biggest sources of hard currency for Russia's reeling post-Communist economy. But the Soviet pipelines were laid across Ukraine and Belarus, which were part of the empire. But they became independent nations that demanded transit fees and low-priced energy supplies in exchange for maintaining Russia's energy supplies to Europe, or rather, to its ex-Communist part, where Russia and everything that came from it were newly unpopular.At the same time, gas suppliers in Central Asia and Azerbaijan presented a competitive threat: It was relatively easy for them to pipe gas to Turkey, which could deliver it further to Europe.In the 2000s, when Putin and his advisers nurtured the notion of Russia as an "energy superpower," it became clear to Kremlin strategists that they needed more flexibility to increase supplies and get more economic leverage over neighbors in Europe and Asia. Blue Stream, laid across the bottom of the Black Sea to the Turkish port of Samsun and opened in 2003, was the opening move of the Putin gas game.But Blue Stream's capacity of 16 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year was dwarfed by the roughly 180 billion cubic meters the Soviet-built pipelines could export to Europe via Ukraine and Belarus. It helped Russia compete in Turkey, but didn't solve the bigger problem of Russia's dependence on Ukraine and Belarus. The share of European natural gas imports that came from Russia kept falling.In 2011, Russia obtained full control over the Belarussian gas transit system in exchange for discounted gas supplies. But Ukraine remained firmly in control of its pipelines, which accounted for the lion's share of Russia's export capacity.Putin wanted more direct access to southern and western Europe. He wanted to be able to bypass Ukraine, for both economic and political reasons. The Ukrainian pipeline system, run by National JSC Naftogaz Ukraine, was falling into disrepair, and Gazprom, the Russian export monopoly for pipeline gas, feared it might have to invest in fixing it without having much influence over its operation. At the same time, Putin wanted leverage over the Ukrainian government to keep it in Moscow's orbit. Twice in the 2000s, Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine to try to bring it to heel, but without alternative export routes, such tactics were unsustainable.In 2012, Russia made another major move with the opening of Nord Stream, stretching across the bottom of the Baltic Sea to northern Germany. With a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters a year, it boosted Russia's share of European imports. At the same time, Russia was planning a major pipeline to southern Europe, South Stream, across the Black Sea to Bulgaria. From there it would branch out to carry gas to Greece, Italy, Serbia and on to central Europe. The 2014 Crimea annexation made it imperative for Putin to redraw the gas export map. Now, Ukraine wasn't just an inconvenient partner, it was an adversary, and bypassing it became a geopolitical necessity for Putin. Europe, too, was more worried than ever about increasing gas exports from Russia, which could use it to expand its political influence. The European Union scuppered South Stream in late 2014 by putting pressure on Bulgaria. Plans to expand Nord Stream by laying two parallel strings of pipe, known as Nord Stream 2, also became politically toxic, especially given U.S. resistance to that project: In Washington, fears of increased Russian leverage over Germany were compounded by the desire to supply more U.S. liquefied natural gas to Europe.Art of the PossibleThe way Russia altered its gas export plans in the last five years reflects a major shift in its geopolitical thinking. Putin's anti-Western partnerships with key authoritarian regimes — those of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Chinese President Xi Jinping — had to be backed up with gas pipelines. At the same time, Putin wanted to maintain a lifeline to Germany, with its history of regime-agnostic Ostpolitik; Putin, a German speaker and a former Soviet intelligence agent in East Germany, sees Russia's relationship with Europe as one with Germany first, even if Chancellor Angela Merkel is one of the continent's least Putin-friendly leaders.So South Stream mutated into TurkStream, a pipeline with a planned capacity of 31.5 billion cubic meters running to the western part of Turkey, from where gas will flow to the Balkans. It was first filled with gas in late November, and Putin and Erdogan plan to inaugurate it on Jan. 8.The pipeline to China, Power of Siberia, which should be delivering 38 billion cubic meters of gas a year by 2024, opened early this month, with Putin and Xi watching via video link. It runs from Gazprom's deposits in Eastern Siberia, too far from Europe for deliveries to make economic sense.At the same time, Russia has made a point of competing with the U.S. and Middle Eastern suppliers on the new and fast-expanding European market for liquefied natural gas. Novatek PJSC, a private company in which state-owned Gazprom is a minority shareholder along with France's Total SA, started exporting from its enormous LNG facility on the Yamal Peninsula in 2018, and this year it approved a $21 billion investment in a second LNG plant. (Gazprom and Rosneft, another state company, have their own LNG capacity, but mostly for export to Asian markets). In the third quarter of 2019, Russia was the EU's second biggest LNG supplier after Qatar, with 15% of imports; the U.S. was fourth, with 12% — although data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that the U.S. has overtaken Russia more recently.All these developments make it almost inevitable that Russian natural gas exports will keep increasing as spare production capacity keeps shrinking. Though vessels laying pipe for Nord Stream 2 and their owners have been sanctioned by the U.S., and Swiss contractor Allseas has suspended work on the project to avoid falling afoul of the U.S. government, that pipeline will be completed, too. Gazprom and one of its Russian contractors have pipe-laying vessels of their own. Though they'll move slower than the bigger one provided by Allseas, Peter Beyer, the German government's coordinator for trans-Atlantic issues, said in a radio interview on Monday that the government expected Nord Stream 2 to be operational in the second half of 2020. The delay has forced Russia to do a better deal with Ukraine than it would have been able to negotiate had there been no Nord Stream 2 sanctions. To replace the transit deal that runs out at the end of this year, Russia was trying to sign a mere one-year extension. Ukraine and the EU, which mediated the talks, were fighting for a 10-year contract that would spell out a minimum amount of gas for Gazprom to pump every year. Ukraine gets about $3 billion a year in transit fees from Gazprom, and it would develop a major hole in its budget without the funds.Russia agreed to a five-year deal with a minimum of 65 billion cubic meters to be supplied in 2020 (slightly less than this year's projected imports) and 40 billion cubic meters in the following years. Both sides compromised on outstanding litigation that arose from the two countries' previous tumultuous relationship as partners in the natural gas business. Gazprom agreed to pay Naftogaz the $3 billion it had won in an arbitration case, and Naftogaz agreed to drop lawsuits seek an additional $8 billion and to refrain from filing any others.Other compromises may have been reached, too. It's been reported in Ukraine that Russia might resume direct supplies of gas for Ukraine's own needs — something unthinkable under former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's government, when Ukraine was buying Russian gas in the EU rather than deal with the invader of Crimea. Russia is denying that direct supplies are part of the deal, but current Ukiraine president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is more pragmatic than Poroshenko was and eager to end the armed conflict Russia has instigated in Ukraine's eastern regions. The new gas deal, described by the EU official who brokered it as a win-win solution for both sides, shows that Putin, with his transactional approach to foreign policy, values Zelenskiy's willingness to bargain and compromise. As a result, Ukraine will remain an important pillar of the new Russian gas export scheme at least for the next five years. Though Putin didn't originally want that, making every effort to establish gas supply channels that go around it, Russia's resulting export system is remarkably balanced. It links Russia to China, Turkey, southern, northern and eastern Europe. All these markets are competitive, especially in Europe, where the EU has cracked down on Gazprom's earlier attempts at monopoly pricing.Putin may have made and changed his plans for export channels in hopes of geopolitical leverage. This — and the big infrastructure contracts for Kremlin cronies that came with the pipeline buildout — helped justify the tens of billions of dollars invested in the pipeline and LNG projects. Gazprom's capital expenditure has averaged $6.4 billion per quarter in the last five years, some 23% of the average quarterly revenue over the same period. The company has remained profitable throughout, but it has more than doubled its debt load since 2013, while revenue has increased by a projected 40% this year compared with 2014.Now that the infrastructure mostly is in place and the deposits needed to feed it are either online or coming online in the near future, the marginal cost of exporting gas will be relatively low, and Russia is guaranteed a solid export revenue stream in a fast-changing global gas market. That's important for a country that exported $49.1 billion worth of natural gas in 2018 and collected some 7% of its budget revenues from the gas industry. Russia's export partners, of course, eventually move to phase out fossil fuels. That, however, won't be happening anytime soon, as both Europe and China will need more gas as they replace coal. Russia is projected to account for around a third of the EU's gas supply at least until 2040. Putin will be gone by then, but Russia's energy trade will be more diversified than when he came to power. More benign Russian governments will be able to use it as a basis for good neighborly relations rather than as an instrument of pressure. The results of Putin's grand project show how multiple players — Putin the ambitious authoritarian, his situational allies such as Erdogan and Xi, his adversaries such as the U.S., his reluctant partners such as the EU and his victims such as Ukraine — can combine efforts to build something worthwhile. To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Robert Burgess at bburgess@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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| U.S. Buckles in South Korea Troop-Funding Talks, Chosun Says Posted: 25 Dec 2019 06:09 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Days before a troop-funding deal was set to expire, the U.S. has dropped its demand that South Korea pay five times more to host its military personnel after receiving assurances Seoul would purchase more American weapons, a newspaper report said.The Trump administration also likely eased up after South Korea indicated it would step up its presence in the Strait of Hormuz, helping U.S. efforts to protect oil flows in the region, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Thursday, citing an unidentified diplomatic source. The increase now may be about 10-20% above the current level of nearly $1 billion, it said.South Korea's foreign ministry declined to comment on the report.Last month, U.S. negotiators walked out of a meeting on troop funding in Seoul after South Korea balked at the five-fold increase seen as exorbitant by many in the country. The breakdown at that time raised questions about one of the U.S.'s closest military alliances and a key piece of the Pentagon's strategy for countering North Korea and a rising China. The two sides resumed talks in December.U.S. Walks Out of Military Cost-Sharing Talks With South KoreaEven though the deal known as the Special Measures Agreement technically expires at the end of this year, both sides are likely to agree to some sort of temporary extension as they negotiate, allowing for the continued operations of the about 28,500 U.S. military personnel positioned on the peninsula.The talks with South Korea could affect other countries that host U.S. troops, as the Trump administration is seeking funding increases from other American allies.Trump Price Tag for Troops in South Korea Clouds Esper TripTrump, arguing that South Korea is rich and should pay more for U.S. protection, has demanded Seoul contribute about $5 billion for hosting U.S. troops. The price tag originated with the White House, according to people familiar with the matter, and administration officials justify it by saying it reflects the costs South Korea would incur if it takes operational control of combined U.S.-South Korean forces in the case of a conflict.The request for more money hasn't sat well in South Korea, where many in President Moon Jae-in's progressive camp and opposition conservatives have come out against the demands. Moon, facing a sagging support rate, may not want to make any major concessions that further dent his popularity ahead of an election for parliament next year.To contact the reporter on this story: Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz, Gearoid ReidyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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