| Donald Trump's Iran policy hasn't made America tired of winning yet Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:11 PM PDT  Trump confusion and contradictions have not brought Iran back to make a new nuclear deal but have strengthened hard-liners on both sides: Our view
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| Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day Posted: 06 Aug 2019 03:40 PM PDT ![Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day]( "Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day") (Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every morning? Sign up here.Equity markets had smoother sailing thanks to reassuring words from the White House and PBOC. North Korea wants to hack your crypto account. And China ups the pressure on India's Kashmir decision. Here are some of the things people in markets are talking about today.Serenity NowAsian equity futures were mixed as U.S. stocks recovered somewhat from Monday's bloodbath, with all major indexes gaining more than 1%. The White House put an optimistic spin on the trade friction, with Larry Kudlow saying the administration still expects Beijing's negotiators to come to Washington for talks in September and will look at China's steps to support the yuan. Meanwhile, the PBOC reassured a number of foreign exporters the currency won't continue to weaken significantly. But the half-baked sell-off has traders worried the worst is yet to come. Trump and Xi's Big BetsDespite a market recovery, ties between the U.S. and China are at their lowest point in decades. A big part of the problem is that neither country's leader believes the other is serious about making a trade deal: China sees Trump as posturing ahead of the 2020 election, while U.S. officials think Xi is looking to wait him out for a better deal. Either way, the political space for compromise is diminishing as hardliners take center stage, prompting investors to weigh the potential economic fallout. As the world waits to see what comes next, here's why the U.S. made its latest move. Master HackerNorth Korea has mastered hacking into financial systems, stealing about $2 billion from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges for its nuclear weapons programs, a new UN report found. Pyongyang also has overseas representatives controlling bank accounts. Newly unsealed court documents show the U.S. is probing transactions involving three big Chinese banks that allegedly helped finance North Korea's nuclear program.Kashmir Tensions RiseBeijing criticized India's decision to withdraw the autonomous status of Kashmir, which borders China, accusing New Delhi of undermining the state's territorial sovereignty. (The region includes two areas that are controlled by China and claimed by India.) Pakistani PM Imran Khan said the move may lead to war, and the nation's army pledged to go to "any extent" to defend the people of the disputed state.Rate Cuts ComingNew Zealand and India will probably both cut rates by 25 basis points Wednesday, while the Bank of Thailand is expected to hold. The RBNZ is seeking to support the labor market and reduce upward pressure on the kiwi and may hint at further easing, economists said. The RBI's reduction will be its fourth in a row, amid calls from investors and the government to do more to boost growth.What we've been readingThis is what's caught our eye over the last 24 hours.Singapore Airlines picks a crucial fight against Emirates in India. Why Hong Kong's still protesting and where it may go. Bullard pushes back at suggestions that the Fed will cut rates. Hong Kong assets are turning toxic as the trade war and protests roll on. U.S. teachers and firemen fund the rise of China tech without knowing it. The market for personal translation devices is booming. How to spend $100,000 on a car while you're in line at the grocery store. To contact the author of this story: Peter Newcomb in New York at pnewcomb2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexandria Arnold at abaca3@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Kim sends missile 'warning' to S.Korea, US as tensions rise Posted: 06 Aug 2019 03:37 PM PDT  North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un says the country's latest missile launches were a warning to Washington and Seoul over their joint war games, state news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday, as tensions rise on the Korean peninsula. The latest launch by the nuclear-armed North came after the South Korean and US militaries began mainly computer-simulated joint exercises on Monday to test Seoul's ability to take operational control in wartime.
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| Iran president: If US wants talks, it must lift sanctions Posted: 06 Aug 2019 03:33 PM PDT  Iranian state TV said President Hassan Rouhani made the comments during a meeting with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Rouhani also reiterated that America's sanctions on his country are an act of "economic terrorism," the report said. Tensions have escalated since President Donald Trump last year withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and imposed new and harsher sanctions on Iran's oil and banking sectors.
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| Groups: Yemen airport closure 'death sentence' for thousands Posted: 06 Aug 2019 03:25 PM PDT  The Saudi-led coalition's closure of the airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, has prevented thousands of sick civilians from traveling abroad for urgent medical treatment, two international aid groups said in a joint statement. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE, the Sanaa airport's three-year closure has amounted to a "death sentence" for many sick Yemenis.
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| North Korea's Kim: missile test 'adequate warning' Posted: 06 Aug 2019 03:11 PM PDT ![North Korea's Kim: missile test 'adequate warning']( "North Korea's Kim: missile test 'adequate warning'") North Korea said Wednesday leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire demonstration of newly-developed short-range ballistic missiles he said were intended to send an "adequate warning" to the United States and South Korea over their joint military exercises. The announcement by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday came a day after South Korea's military said it detected the North firing two projectiles that were likely ballistic missiles into the sea. Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff alerted reporters to the launches minutes before the North's Foreign Ministry denounced Washington and Seoul over the start of their joint exercises on Monday.
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| In Trump-Xi Fight, Leaders Make Big Bets That May Backfire Posted: 06 Aug 2019 02:55 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. When Xi Jinping first met Donald Trump back in 2017, the Chinese leader said they had "a thousand reasons to make the China-U.S. relationship a success, and not a single reason to break it."Two years on, ties are at their lowest point in decades -- and they appear to be worsening by the day. Trump's threat to raise tariffs on all Chinese goods last week shattered a truce reached with Xi just weeks earlier, unleashing tit-for-tat actions on trade and currency policy that risk accelerating a wider geopolitical fight between the world's biggest economies.A big part of the problem is that neither leader believes the other is serious about making a deal: China sees Trump as posturing ahead of the 2020 election, while U.S. officials think Xi is looking to wait him out for a better deal. Either way, the political space for compromise is diminishing as hardliners take center stage, prompting investors to weigh the potential economic fallout."We are looking at a situation now that is a bit of a perfect storm," said Dennis Wilder, former senior director for Asia on the National Security Council who is now at Georgetown University. "Both have a great deal to lose in this high-stakes poker."Still, Trump's senior economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Tuesday told CNBC that the U.S. remains committed to resuming negotiations with Chinese officials in early September, as was previously planned before the latest escalation. And Trump himself tweeted on Tuesday that the economy is in a "strong position" with money "pouring into the United States for reasons of safety, investment and interest rates!"For Trump, the bet is that a hard-line stance on China will help him win another four years in the Oval Office. His administration has proudly trumpeted what it calls the most robust response in decades to a rising China, and most Democratic candidates agree with the need to stay tough on Beijing even if they don't agree with Trump's tariffs.While U.S. farmer and business groups have sounded the alarm over his latest escalation of trade tensions, the Federal Reserve's interest-rate cut last week -- and the prospect of more to come -- may give Trump some breathing space. And the president tweeted Tuesday that he'd support a fresh round of aid to farmers hurt by tariff increases, if necessary.The political calculations for Xi are harder to grasp, given the secretive nature of the Communist Party. But analysts say he's under pressure from senior leaders currently meeting in the seaside town of Beidaihe to get tougher as U.S. ties deteriorate, corporate giant Huawei Technologies Co. comes under attack and protests in Hong Kong spiral out of control.China's move on Monday to let the currency weaken past 7 yuan to the dollar and halt agricultural purchases marked a stark escalation in its response to Trump, which had been restrained for months. His administration labeled Beijing a currency manipulator in return.U.S. shares clawed back some recent losses on Tuesday after China took steps to contain the currency's slide. The S&P 500 Index rose 1.3%, though it remained well off the record high it reached just over a week ago.No Surrender"It is unlikely China will buckle to any further pressure as they are convinced dealing with the current U.S. administration means give them an inch and they want a foot," said Charles Liu, a former economic negotiator with the Chinese delegation at the United Nations and founder of Hao Capital. "There does not seem to be serious interest from the U.S. side of actually wanting to do a deal."The U.S. has a much different version of events.People within and close to the administration blame China's own hawks for scuttling key parts of a trade agreement in May, and say Xi failed to live up to promises to step up agriculture purchases after the leaders met almost six weeks ago at the Group of 20 summit in Japan. They insist Trump's threat of new tariffs last week was meant to bring China back to the negotiating table, and Beijing's retaliation showed Xi didn't want to reach a deal and would try to wait out Trump.Huawei RestrictionsTo some U.S. hawks, the breakdown in relations could provide an opportunity to tighten restrictions on Huawei, follow through on selling F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan and signal support for Hong Kong protesters. The U.S. has indicated it will base intermediate-range missiles in Asia -- something China warned against Tuesday -- and potentially take further action against Chinese students and scientists."Both sides are clearly looking at their tool kits to see how to respond both in terms of the underlying issues -- that is, trade and technology -- and from what the political optics are at home and abroad," said James Green, who until recently was the senior official from the U.S. Trade Representative in Beijing and is now a senior adviser at McLarty Associates.Xi, meanwhile, still has plenty of ammunition to use against Trump. He could take punitive action on U.S. business interests in China, undermine American efforts to isolate Iran and North Korea, and even take more drastic measures to block U.S. companies from recently opened sectors like finance.Even so, Xi must be cautious to ensure any retaliation doesn't backfire. A weaker yuan is a case in point: China doesn't want to risk surging capital outflows like those that took place in 2015, which drained hundreds of billions of dollars from foreign-exchange reserves. The risk of defaults would also grow for companies with dollar debts.Capital Flight"As we saw in 2015, if the expectation is destabilized, capital outflows would surge again and it will cause more harm than tariffs," said Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong.Despite the guardrails, the potential for miscalculation is high. Some former U.S. officials who worked on China trade issues said the administration overestimated its own leverage by refusing to gradually remove tariffs in exchange for reforms, a move that some see as leading to China's move to pull back from talks.For the business community, the threat of greater escalation is particularly worrying. Both nations must sit down and reach a deal that is as close as possible to reciprocity, said James McGregor, China chairman of APCO Worldwide, which advises foreign companies."The path forward will be dangerous and ugly if both sides don't get out of the ring and move to a negotiating table," he said. "This is real life -- not a reality show."(Updates with closing market prices in 10th paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Peter Martin in Washington at pmartin138@bloomberg.net;Shawn Donnan in Washington at sdonnan@bloomberg.net;Kevin Hamlin in Beijing at khamlin@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Brendan MurrayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| The Latest: Venezuela ambassador accuses US of wanting war Posted: 06 Aug 2019 01:49 PM PDT  Venezuela's U.N. ambassador is accusing the Trump administration of "sabotaging" talks between President Nicolas Maduro's government and opposition, saying Washington is trying to start a war. Ambassador Samuel Moncada said at a news conference at U.N. headquarters Tuesday that U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton made this clear earlier when he said: "We don't believe in dialogue.
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| Iran's Navy Would Get Smashed by America in a War Posted: 06 Aug 2019 01:24 PM PDT  The Iranian navy is about to get a little bit bigger. But it's still hopelessly outclassed by rival fleets. The naval imbalance could weigh on diplomatic and military strategies in Tehran, Washington, D.C. and other world capitals as tensions escalate in the Persian Gulf region.The navy in August 2019 announced it will return to service the frigate Damavand following 18 months of repairs. Damavand in January 2018 collided with a pier, killing two sailors and badly damaging the vessel.Damavand should rejoin the fleet before the end of 2019, the navy stated.Damavand is part of Iran's Caspian Sea fleet. The landlocked Caspian Sea borders Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Ships in the Caspian fleet realistically cannot play any direct role in a conflict on the Persian Gulf.Not that Damavand's disposition would make any difference either way in a shooting war on the Gulf. While technically one of Iran's newest warships, the four-year-old frigate is small, lightly-armed and likely obsolete compared to the major front-line vessels in the fleets of Iran's potential enemies."Small," "lightly-armed" and "likely obsolete" describes the entire Iranian navy. Tehran's fleet has fared badly in direct combat with the navies of larger powers.Damavand is one of three Moudge-class frigates in Iranian service. Four more reportedly are under construction. Iran operates one ship, Sahand, that is a slightly larger version of the Moudge class.
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| Chinese Banks Probed Over Aid to North Korea’s Nuclear Arms Posted: 06 Aug 2019 12:59 PM PDT ![Chinese Banks Probed Over Aid to North Korea's Nuclear Arms]( "Chinese Banks Probed Over Aid to North Korea's Nuclear Arms") (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is investigating hundreds of millions of dollars in financial transactions involving three big Chinese banks that allegedly helped finance North Korea's nuclear weapons program, according to an appeals court opinion unsealed Tuesday.The July 30 ruling upheld an earlier order by a Washington district-court judge directing the banks to comply with subpoenas for information about the transactions. The appeals court said prosecutors don't "currently" suspect the Chinese banks of knowingly breaking the law but that the banks "hold records that the United States government thinks may clarify how North Korea finances its nuclear weapons program."U.S. prosecutors suspect that a state-owned North Korean bank used a Chinese front company to export "hundreds of millions of dollars" in coal and other minerals, receiving revenue in U.S. dollars it could use to buy materials vital to the dictatorship's weapons program, according to the 44-page ruling.The U.S. has sought banking records from 2012 to 2017, suggesting the scheme spanned at least five years.If the government finds evidence that the banks willfully aided the operation, it could hit them with billions of dollars in fines "similar to those imposed against large European banks for Cuba, Iran and Sudan sanctions violations," said Brian O'Toole, a former CIA and Treasury Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council."That kind of action is preferable to sanctioning the Chinese banks," or freezing them out of the U.S. financial system, O'Toole said. "That would have broader systemic issues for U.S.-China trade, the Chinese economy and, by extension, the global economy."Read More: U.S. Gains in Fight With Chinese Banks on North Korea SanctionsThe case, a barbed thicket of legal and foreign relations issues between the U.S., China and North Korea, comes at a precarious time for all three. The U.S. and China are engaged in a fast-escalating battle over trade, currency and economic supremacy, even as President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un seem to be slipping back toward confrontation.Washington has hesitated to impose severe penalties over China's banking services to North Korea for fear of disrupting trillions of dollars in trade. With relations so rocky, that could now change.Meanwhile, a new United Nations report found that North Korea has perfected its technology for hacking into financial systems to shunt billions of dollars to its nuclear weapons program.The three banks, which haven't been identified in court papers, appear to be China Merchants Bank Co., Bank of Communications Co. and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co., all among China's top 10 banks by assets, based on a related asset-seizure case. They have issued statements saying they aren't under investigation for sanctions violations.Defense lawyers listed on the case declined to comment or didn't respond to requests for comment. It wasn't clear which lawyers were representing which banks.Read More: North Korea Hacks Banks, Cryptocurrencies for Funds, UN FindsThe lower-court judge, Beryl A. Howell, imposed a fine of $50,000 a day against each bank for failing to comply with the subpoenas. With the appeals court's decision upholding a contempt citation, the stiff fines are due to kick in Friday. The banks could seek a higher appeal, but that wouldn't automatically keep the fines suspended. The U.S. attorney's office in Washington said the fines will start on Friday and declined to comment further.The unsealed opinion, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, lays bare details of a national-security investigation that proceeded in secret for at least two years. Though it had been publicly hinted at in cryptic court rulings and related cases, the nature of the inquiry wasn't confirmed until Tuesday."The U.S. is putting these banks between a rock and a hard place," Jesse R. Morton, a specialist in money-laundering countermeasures at the Stout consulting firm in Atlanta, said in a recent interview. Prosecutors will respond aggressively if they find the lenders played a role like that of the Swiss banks that helped Americans evade taxes."When it comes to foreign banks that knowingly facilitate fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and a host of other crimes, the U.S. will take a heavy hand," he said.Read the unsealed opinion hereThe period under investigation constitutes the final years leading up to North Korea's first successful documented tests of nuclear weaponry and missile systems capable of delivering warheads, including an intercontinental ballistic missile launched in 2017.That year, U.S. prosecutors seized $1.9 million in bank accounts belonging to a Hong Kong company, Mingzheng International Trading Ltd., that it said operated as a front for North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank. It was one of at least four front companies used by North Korea to send and receive U.S.-dollar payments, according to court filings. The company is now defunct. That action, combined with the Treasury bans, were tied to the investigation now under way.The North Korean bank has been blacklisted from the U.S. financial system and would not have been able to freely make or receive dollar-denominated payments. Because of its stability, the dollar is the preferred currency for global business.The Chinese shell company had no legitimate business purpose beyond facilitating North Korean trade, authorities suspect, and made more than $100 million in U.S.-dollar payments on behalf of the North Korean bank in almost 700 transactions during a three-year period, the ruling said. It, too, has subsequently been blacklisted from the U.S. financial system.Read More: In Trump-Xi Fight, Leaders Make Big Bets That May BackfireIn declining to comply with the subpoenas, the banks in the case have said Chinese law prohibits them from producing client records in response to foreign government investigations.The court rejected that claim, finding that two of the banks, which have opened U.S. branches, agreed to abide by American law as a condition of doing business in the U.S. The same jurisdiction extended to the third bank, the panel said, because it was conducting transactions through a correspondent account at a U.S. bank.The banks also argued that the U.S. should seek the evidence it wants through a treaty governing legal assistance in criminal investigations between the two countries. The U.S. has said the agreement is essentially useless, with China failing to produce substantive evidence in response to 50 requests in the past decade. The appellate court agreed.The case was argued last month. Portions of the decision remain redacted.The case is In re Sealed Case, 19-5068, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.(Updates with analysis by O'Toole in fifth and sixth paragraphs.)To contact the reporters on this story: Christian Berthelsen in New York at cberthelsen1@bloomberg.net;Tom Schoenberg in Washington at tschoenberg@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter JeffreyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Huntsman to Step Down as U.S. Ambassador to Russia in October Posted: 06 Aug 2019 12:14 PM PDT ![Huntsman to Step Down as U.S. Ambassador to Russia in October]( "Huntsman to Step Down as U.S. Ambassador to Russia in October") (Bloomberg) -- Jon Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, said he'll resign later this year, a move that risks leaving open a key diplomatic post as tensions between the two countries continue to deteriorate.Huntsman, 59, and his wife Mary Kaye want to return to Utah "to reconnect with our growing family and responsibilities at home," according to a letter he sent to President Donald Trump on Monday. The former Utah governor said he's resigning effective Oct. 3, a little over two years after he was confirmed, to give enough time for a successor to take his place.But with U.S. lawmakers away until September, Trump is likely to have trouble naming and winning confirmation for a successor before Huntsman departs. Senators of both parties would probably press a nominee to strongly condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for interfering in U.S. elections. Trump has questioned official findings that Russia meddled in an effort to help him win in 2016.Huntsman's decision to resign was reported earlier Tuesday by the Salt Lake Tribune, which cited unidentified sources close to him as saying he's weighing another run for governor of Utah. Huntsman, who was governor from 2005 to 2009 and ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, ran for president in 2012 but bowed out six months after announcing his candidacy.New SanctionsDespite Trump's oft-stated desire to work with Putin, U.S.-Russia relations have continued to deteriorate. Last week, the administration announced new sanctions against Russia over a 2018 nerve-agent attack on a former Russian spy in the U.K. The U.S. also backed out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty after Trump accused Russia of deploying a missile that breached its terms.In the letter to Trump, Huntsman praised the hundreds of Americans who he said were working under "extremely difficult circumstances" to further U.S. interests in Russia. Trump provoked fury within the State Department when he thanked Putin in 2017 for expelling hundreds of U.S. diplomats "because now we have a smaller payroll." Trump later said he was being sarcastic."Though largely anonymous, your team in Mission Russia is first-rate and every American would be proud of their work," Huntsman wrote.A White House official said Trump had received Huntsman's resignation letter and the administration lauded his efforts to improve U.S.-Russia ties.\--With assistance from Justin Sink.To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Wadhams in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert, Joshua GalluFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| British firm Veripos sold technology to Burma military says UN report Posted: 06 Aug 2019 11:29 AM PDT  A United Nations report has revealed that a British company sold over £70,000 worth of navigation technology to the Biurmese army, which is accused of carrying out genocide and war crimes against the Rohingya. Aberdeen-based Veripos is one of 59 international firms identified in the six-month study. The army – known as the Tatmadaw – is accused by the UN of waging a two-year war of terror against the minority-Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state. The Buddhist-majority authorities in Burma, also known as Myanmar, view the Rohingya as illegal Bangladeshi migrants that have settled within their borders. This is despite many Rohingya calling Burma home for generations. The UN has called for senior military officials to face prosecution for carrying out mass killings, gang rapes and widespread arson in what it has described as "the gravest crimes under international law." Since the military crackdown against the Rohingya began in 2017, over 730,000 of the group are thought to have fled their homes to neighbouring Bangladesh. The latest UN study found that the Burmese army has been able to maintain its policy of ethnic cleansing thanks to its control over a business empire estimated to be worth more than £98 billion and purchases of military technology and equipment from abroad. It called for the assets of companies doing business with the military to be frozen as they risked contributing to further human rights violations. In addition to Veripos, state-owned firms from China, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, India, the Philippines and Israel had inked billion dollar deals with the military. They had supplied fighter jets, warships, ballistic missile systems, handguns and combat vehicles. Private companies from Belgium, France, Canada, Austria and Norway were also named by the UN. In a statement, Veripos told The Guardian: "Through an intermediary in Singapore, Veripos provided GPS products to the Myanmar Naval Hydrographic Center between 2014 and 2017 in compliance with applicable legislation and regulation. "Our products are used for civil marine applications, eg hydrographic survey. Veripos remains committed to the highest standards of ethical behaviour and will abide by any regulations provided by the United Nations as a result of this report."
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| UN Security Council, chief condemn Cairo terror attack Posted: 06 Aug 2019 11:06 AM PDT  The U.N. Security Council has condemned in the strongest terms "the cowardly terrorist act" in Cairo that killed at least 20 people and injured others. Council members said in a statement Tuesday that the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of Sunday's "reprehensible acts of terrorism" must be held accountable and brought to justice. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also strongly condemned "the terrorist attack," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
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| Iran Extends Goodwill Gestures to Its Enemies Posted: 06 Aug 2019 10:52 AM PDT  Faced with an unpredictable administration in the White House, former rivals in the Middle East are sitting together at the negotiating table. The United Arab Emirates, once eager to push Washington to confront Iran, is now working to diffuse tensions in the Persian Gulf.Emirati and Iranian officials sat down in Tehran last Wednesday for the first high-level bilateral talks since 2013, reportedly hammering out a memorandum of understanding between their respective militaries."What we are seeing is a process of reciprocal, tit-for-tat de-escalatory steps between the Emirates and Iran," said Randa Slim, founding director of the Initiative for Track II Dialogues at the Middle East Institute. She said the current moves are "reversible" measures aimed at "testing the waters of whether a shift in the relationship is possible."Iran and the United States have been steadily escalating since the Trump administration announced a "maximum pressure" campaign aimed at strangling the Iranian economy. On June 26, the two powers came close to war, after Iranian forces destroyed a U.S. surveillance drone. President Donald Trump was, in his words, "cocked and loaded" for a military strike that night, but changed his mind at the last minute.But the UAE has been surprisingly silent, refusing to blame Iran for a set of oil tanker explosions in May and June that U.S. officials called a campaign of Iranian sabotage.
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| Iran 'favours' talks despite Trump snub Posted: 06 Aug 2019 10:41 AM PDT  President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that Iran favours talks with the US if it lifts sanctions against the Islamic republic, despite his top diplomat turning down a meeting with US President Donald Trump. Rouhani said "peace with Iran is the mother of all peace" and "war with Iran is the mother of all wars" as he defended a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. "Iran favours talks and negotiations and, if the US really wants to talk, before anything else it should lift all sanctions," Rouhani said in remarks aired live on state television.
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| Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Just Lit the Fuse in Kashmir Posted: 06 Aug 2019 10:34 AM PDT  Suhaimi Abdullah/GettyNot three months after it won a second term in power—and only five since it rewrote the rules of engagement in South Asia in a balls-to-the-wall display of reckless one-upmanship—the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi is showing once again how willing it is to risk regional stability in its feverish pursuit of ideological ends.The status of Kashmir has been disputed between India and Pakistan since the partition of British India in 1947. Earlier this year, Modi ordered airstrikes against Pakistani targets after a suicide attack against a military convoy in the Kashmiri district of Pulwama killed 40 Indian soldiers. It was the largest such attack in decades and resulted in dogfights between the Paistaini and Indian air forces above the infamous Line of Control for the first time since 1971.Modi's India Landslide Should Scare the Sh*t Out of the Rest of UsWhat Modi and his government have done now, however, is arguably more momentous, and equally as dangerous. After building up India's troop presence in the region for the better part of a week, while simultaneously ordering Hindu pilgrims and foreign tourists to "curtail their stay" in light of unspecified terror threats, on Monday it split the state of Jammu & Kashmir into two new "Union Territories"—substantially less powerful entities to be controlled directly by Delhi. This was accomplished by a repeal of the Indian constitution's Article 370, which has granted Kashmir some modicum of autonomy since 1949. Along with Article 35A, which was introduced in 1954 and forbade non-Kashmiris from permanently settling or buying land in the region, it has long been a thorn in the side of Hindu nationalists and their vision of a unified and religiously homogeneous country.For Kashmiris, the majority of whom are Muslim, Article 370 represented a measure of insurance against, among other things, the communal hatred that Modi has stoked throughout his career in politics and which has become normalized (and expressed with ever-increasing violence) since he first came to power in 2014. The theories that had swirled around the troop buildup—including one suggesting India was nervous about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the heightened terrorist threat it might create on the Line of Control—ultimately were cut down to size by Occam's razor: this was, as it appeared, entirely about the Hindu nationalists' desire to bring about "Akhand Bharat," or Undivided India, which is to say an undivided India united by Hinduism.Hindutva Twitter predictably exploded—jubilantly, yes, but with no less poison on its fangs than usual. "From Kashmir to Kanyakumari," the bot army copy-and-pasted endlessly into the night, "India is one."Of course, not every Hindu nationalist is a bot. But when those who aren't, such as Pune-based author Shefali Vaidya, are tweeting the way she was last night, they might as well be. "Criticise the [government] on issues all we want," she wrote, "but can we now say that we will not doubt [Modi's] intentions and his commitment EVER?"In the short term, the government's decision, which was announced by Modi's home affairs minister and attack dog, Amit Shah, looks set to cause the restive valley to erupt in violence once again. Or at least looks set to cause it to erupt when Kashmiris actually find out what's been going on.At the same time as troops were being transferred to Kashmir from around the country, and as the region's leaders were being placed under house arrest (and in a few cases actually behind bars), internet access was being restricted to the point of total blackout.After 48 hours, it was still unclear how many Kashmiris actually knew what had been announced, so completely were they cut off from the world. Long denied the plebiscite on their future they were promised by U.N. Security Council Resolution 47 in 1948, they have once again been denied their voice. Their silence, as the saying goes, is deafening.The long-term prospects for the region are in some ways even more depressing. There have already been reports that, without 35A in place to prevent outside investment—in short, to prevent a land-grab—Modi's government is planning to host a so-called "investors' summit" in the region in two months' time.As euphemisms go, it's a pretty transparent one. "Me and the Bois [sic] on our way to buy properties in Kashmir," one Twitter wag commented late last night, tweeting a picture of Bollywood gangster-types marching like the reservoir dogs towards the camera, guns locked and loaded, suits seriously ill-fitting. For all the lip service paid by Shah to the idea that this measure will save—and is indeed designed to save—Kashmiri lives, it seems immediately and abundantly obvious that integrating Kashmir into India and integrating Kashmiris themselves are, as far as some people concerned, mutually exclusive priorities.Much like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a long-term nationalist struggle has been hijacked by religious zealots on both sides, and a lack of hope on the ground has transformed even the most peaceful members of the populace into front-line soldiers or voluntary human shields. As the activist Shehla Rashid told me last year, "People don't surrender now. They'd rather now die than surrender. In that respect, Kashmir has become a society with a death wish."The similarities between Kashmir and Palestine are even more striking in the wake of the Indian government's actions: Without Article 35A in place, we can reasonably expect an Israeli-style settlement program to take hold in Kashmir before too long, motivated by fanatical Hinduism in this case rather than the desire to reclaim the biblical lands of Samaria and Judea as in the case of the West Bank.A significant difference between the two conflicts is the relative lack of media coverage that Kashmir commands even today (despite the best efforts of journalists like The New York Times' Srinagar stringer Sameer Yasir and other local reporters). When They Want War, India and Pakistan Will Always Have KashmirIf there is hope, it lies with Kashmir's small but dedicated community of civil society activists—a number of whom, such as Rashid, were not in Kashmir when the internet went down and who have been speaking at the top of their voices ever since. They have vowed to challenge the government's announcement on constitutional grounds in India's Supreme Court. But one has to admit that there isn't much hope to be had there. Like Donald Trump in the United States, Modi has encouraged a tide of ethnic and religious hatred in India that has proven uncannily effective at washing away norms: supposedly sacred founding documents don't matter much these days and unleashed, validated, bloodthirsty voters don't seem very much to care.The worst may still be ahead. What is beginning in Kashmir today may not necessarily end there. There are plenty of states that Modi's government might wish to bring under tighter, more centralized control, plenty of constitutional provisions it might wish to do away with on a whim, and plenty of minorities—Dalits, Adivasis, the LGBTQ community, women—as easily scapegoated as Kashmiri Muslims.As the Indian journalist Rana Ayyub put it in a tweet last night, as Kashmir's silence began to grow louder than even the government's most fervent supporters: "It will be Assam next and then West Bengal and then the constitution and finally the democracy you cherish. I see you celebrating and wonder whether I should laugh at your ignorance or worry about your complicity."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Trump news: President's attack on immigrants in El Paso resurfaces, as he sues California over tax return law Posted: 06 Aug 2019 09:56 AM PDT  Donald Trump has insisted he is "the least racist person" after coming under renewed attack over his response to the devastating mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, a day after condemning the massacres at the White House without calling for tighter gun control legislation.In an open letter to the nation, 44th president Barack Obama called on Americans to "soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred" while his former vice-president and 2020 challenger Joe Biden criticised Mr Trump's use of white nationalist language and habit of speaking of migrants and Muslims in "subhuman terms".As the investigations into the killings continue and congresswoman Veronica Escobar says he is "not welcome" in El Paso ahead of his scheduled visit on Wednesday, the administration has designated China a currency manipulator and frozen assets belonging to the government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.US National Security Adviser John Bolton pressed his case Tuesday for sweeping action against Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro, warning foreign governments and companies that they could face retaliation in the US if they continue to do business with his socialist administration.Mr Bolton's comments came after the White House froze all Venezuelan government assets in the US late Monday, putting the country on a short list of US adversaries, including Cuba, North Korea and Iran that have been targeted by such aggressive financial measures."The Maduro regime now joins that exclusive club of rogue states," Mr Bolton said at a one-day conference in Peru of more than 50 governments aligned against Mr Maduro.The broad ban blocking companies and individuals from doing business with Mr Maduro's government and its top supporters took effect immediately and is the first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere since an asset freeze against General Manuel Noriega's government in Panama and a trade embargo on the Sandinista leadership in Nicaragua in the 1980s."We are sending a signal to third parties that want to do business with the Maduro regime: Proceed with extreme caution," Mr Bolton said. "There is no need to risk your business interests with the United States for the purposes of profiting from a corrupt and dying regime."While the order falls short of an outright trade embargo - notably, it spares Venezuela's still sizable private sector - it represents the most sweeping US action to remove Mr Maduro since the Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's rightful leader in January.Critically, it also exposes foreign entities doing business with the Maduro government to so-called secondary sanctions in the U.S. - a fact not lost on Maduro's government as it tries to rally support at home and abroad."The US has to understand once and for all that they aren't the owners of the world," Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said in a statement from Caracas. "Every country that has investments in the U.S. should be very worried because this sets a dangerous precedent against private property."Flanked by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, who the US has tried to woo into betraying Mr Maduro, the vice president said the sanctions would only bring more hardship on the Venezuelan people without weakening the socialist revolution.Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
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| Trump Imposes New Curbs on Venezuela to Force Maduro Out Posted: 06 Aug 2019 09:41 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump imposed further sanctions on Venezuela, freezing the government's assets in the U.S. and adding immigration restrictions in a move aimed at stepping up pressure on the regime of Nicolas Maduro.Property belonging to the Venezuelan government "may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in," Trump said in an executive order released late Monday by the White House. The U.S. will also block entry into the U.S. by any Venezuelan citizen determined to have assisted or acted on Maduro's behalf.Together, the moves put Venezuela on the same footing as countries like North Korea and Iran that the U.S. has sought to isolate from the rest of the world, and threaten nearly any company or person who deals with the country with exile from the international financial system.The measures "increase the business risk for anybody that has any prospect of doing business in the United States, if it keeps doing business the government of Venezuela," National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters in Lima on Tuesday. "That includes any foreign entity, government, corporation, person who contributes to keeping the Maduro regime in power."While the new order is sweeping in scope, it's unclear whether the new measures will have a significant impact since the vast majority of the Venezuelan government's income derives from oil and gold -- two areas where Maduro's regime already faces heavy sanctions.Bolton declined to say how Trump's latest move will affect companies such as Chevron Corp., which was just granted a three-month waiver allowing it to continue producing oil and gas in the country."Chevron has received a limited new license for 90 days and we're going to be continuously evaluating all activities in Venezuela," Bolton said. "I would say to the board of directors and shareholders of any American company, is it in your corporate culture to engage in commercial activity that supports a brutal dictatorship?"Chevron is reviewing the Trump order, said Kent Robertson, a company spokesman. "We continue to believe that we are a constructive presence in the country," he said via email.Unsuccessful EffortsTrump's order follows months of unsuccessful efforts to pressure Maduro into leaving office. Those include the U.S. recognition of Juan Guaido, the leader of Venezuela's national assembly, as the country's legitimate leader, and the imposition of sanctions on more than 100 Venezuelan individuals and entities including the state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA.Last week, Trump told reporters he was considering a blockade or quarantine of Venezuela. And White House officials have warned that Maduro had only a short window to voluntarily leave power or face stricter measures.Bolton is in Lima for a conference of nations that have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's rightful leader. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who's also expected to attend the meeting in Peru, last week outlined plans to rebuild Venezuela's financial institutions and infrastructure.More than 50 countries including the U.S. have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's interim president following Maduro's 2018 re-election, which was tainted by high voter abstention and claims of fraud. Guaido in April urged China, the world's largest oil importer, to also abandon support for Maduro.The threat of sanctions from the U.S. will likely deter many individuals and companies from doing business with the Venezuelan government going forward. Yet it's unclear whether countries with closer relations with Caracas -- including China and Russia -- will follow suit, potentially dulling the full impact of the new measures on the Venezuelan government."It's clear that the United States' government and its allies are betting on the failure of political negotiations taking place in Venezuela," the nation's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said in an emailed statement. "They fear what might come of them."Maduro's government and opposition officials representing Guaido started negotiations in May, sponsored by Norway, seeking to find a solution to Venezuela's political and economic crisis.Francisco Rodriguez, Torino Capital chief economist, said Trump's order essentially formalized a "a de facto ban on transactions between U.S. persons and the Venezuelan government." Most Venezuelan assets outside the country, he said, had already been seized by Guaido's allies.Still, he said, the order could make financial institutions even more wary of doing business in Venezuela and stir concerns about secondary sections with implications for the energy market."If the U.S. effectively levies the threat of secondary sanctions on oil sales to India, that could lead Venezuela to lose one of its two most important remaining oil markets," Rodriguez said.The new restrictions announced Monday contain some humanitarian exemptions. The measures will permit transactions that provide the Venezuelan people with "articles such as food, clothing, and medicine intended to be used to relieve human suffering," according to the executive order.On Monday, Bolton said Maduro's government is feeling the pressure of U.S. sanctions, and expressed optimism about prospects for a change in government that will make way for new elections. The U.S. is opposed to elections while Maduro remains in power, he said.In a series of tweets late Monday, Guaido praised the U.S. move."Anyone who wants to benefit from the crisis will be driven away," he wrote. "Every person, company, institution or nation that intends to do business with the regime will be, for the purposes of international justice, collaborating and supporting a dictatorship and will be subject to sanction."(Adds comment from Trump adviser from third paragraph. An earlier version corrected the spelling of national assembly leader's name in ninth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Patricia Laya, Alex Vasquez and Dan Murtaugh.To contact the reporters on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net;John Quigley in Lima at jquigley8@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Shepard at mshepard7@bloomberg.net, ;Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Walter BrandimarteFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| U.K. and EU Trade Blame Over Talks as No-Deal Brexit Risk Grows Posted: 06 Aug 2019 09:31 AM PDT ![U.K. and EU Trade Blame Over Talks as No-Deal Brexit Risk Grows]( "U.K. and EU Trade Blame Over Talks as No-Deal Brexit Risk Grows") (Bloomberg) -- Follow @Brexit, sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, and tell us your Brexit story. Michael Gove, the minister in charge of planning for a no-deal Brexit, blamed the European Union for failing to engage on a new agreement, deepening the diplomatic standoff between the two sides less than three months before the U.K. is due to leave the bloc."We will put all our energy into making sure that we can secure that good deal, but at the moment it is the EU that seems to be saying they are not interested," Gove told the BBC on Tuesday. "They are simply saying 'No, we don't want to talk.' I think that is wrong and sad. It is not in Europe's interests."Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made clear he won't sign up to a Brexit deal that includes the Irish border backstop, the fallback provision negotiated between Brussels and his predecessor, Theresa May, to ensure the U.K.'s land frontier with the EU remains open. The compromise is a red line for the bloc, a point underlined again on Tuesday by Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar."Our position is that the withdrawal agreement including the backstop is closed," Varadkar told reporters during a visit to Northern Ireland. "But there is always room for talks and negotiations," he said, adding that he is open to talks with Johnson at any time "without preconditions."Johnson has committed to quitting the bloc with or without an agreement on Oct. 31 amid warnings from economists and business groups of economic damage and disruption if the U.K. leaves without a deal.Growing Risk"The prospect of a no-deal Brexit is growing," Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told reporters in London following a meeting with Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid.But there's no sign either side is prepared to back down on the key backstop dispute. European Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that, while the EU is open to talks, the bloc's own stance "remains unchanged.""The deal we have achieved is the best possible deal, and we are always willing to add language to the political declaration, but we will not reopen the withdrawal agreement," Breidthardt said. "The commission does remain available over the coming weeks should the United Kingdom wish to hold talks and clarify its position in more detail, whether by phone or in person."Speaking later at a joint press conference with his Canadian counterpart in Toronto, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the U.K.'s preference is for a deal but the government is preparing to leave without one."Brexit is not just about risk management," Raab said. "It's also, and I think our prime minister has been very clear about that, about grasping the enormous opportunities of our new-found freedoms."\--With assistance from Thomas Penny and Peter Flanagan.To contact the reporter on this story: Stuart Biggs in London at sbiggs3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Thomas Penny, Alex MoralesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Irish finance minister believes UK would rather avoid no-deal Brexit Posted: 06 Aug 2019 09:19 AM PDT ![Irish finance minister believes UK would rather avoid no-deal Brexit]( "Irish finance minister believes UK would rather avoid no-deal Brexit") Britain would rather avoid leaving the European Union without a transition deal but is willing to contemplate it if necessary, Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said on Tuesday after talks with British counterpart Sajid Javid. "My view is that it (no-deal) is not (the UK government's) desired outcome," Donohoe said after what he described as constructive talks in London that focused on how to avoid Brexit leading to a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. "My view is they want to find ways to avoid a no-deal Brexit taking place but it is something they are willing to contemplate if they believe agreement (with the EU) cannot be reached," he told journalists, according to a recording provided by his ministry.
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| UN refugee agency says new Italian law could endanger lives Posted: 06 Aug 2019 09:18 AM PDT  The United Nations refugee agency expressed concern Tuesday that a new Italian law authorizing massive fines against the owners of private rescue ships could endanger the lives of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. A so-called "security decree" drafted by Italy's right-wing interior minister and given final parliamentary approval Monday raised the maximum fine for entering Italian waters without permission to 1 million euros ($1.1 million) from a previous 50,000 euros ($56,000). The law also allows for the arrest of captains who ignore orders to stay out of Italian ports and the immediate seizure of their boats by Italian naval authorities.
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| Iran's president warns war with Tehran would be 'mother of all wars' Posted: 06 Aug 2019 08:26 AM PDT  Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president, yesterday told the US that a war with his country would be "the mother of all wars", as Tehran announced joint naval patrols with Russia. An Iranian navy commander said that the drills would take place later this year after the neighbouring countries signed an agreement, according to the Iranian Fars news agency. Although Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi gave no details about the area where the drills would be held, he said in late July that manoeuvres could take place in the Strait of Hormuz. He said on Monday that "the situation in the Persian Gulf is absolutely calm," despite the fact that "the United States and the United Kingdom by their lies and bluff are trying to make this region look as unsafe and make it so". Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized British tanker Stena Impero near the Persian Gulf in July for alleged marine violations, two weeks after British forces captured an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar accused of violating sanctions on Syria. British Royal Navy's HMS Montrose, a Type 23 Frigate, performing turns during exercise "Marstrike 05", off the coast of Oman Credit: AFP Tensions have risen between Iran and the West since last year when Washington pulled out of an international agreement which curbed the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme in return for an easing of economic sanctions. "Peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, war with Iran is the mother of all wars," Mr Rouhani said at the foreign ministry yesterday/TUE. Mr Rouhani said he preferred the option of peace, saying talks were possible but only once all sanctions were lifted. But he also took on an uncharacteristic hardline rhetoric, challenging both the US and UK. "Wed downed your drone (US drone) with our own homegrown missile," he said. "Your friend (Britain) seized our ship but we did not let it go and captured their ship". Fuelling fears of a further escalation in tensions, he added: "A strait for a strait. It can't be that the Strait of Hormuz is free for you and the Strait of Gibraltar is not free for us," Mr Rouhani said. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has been sanctioned by the US Credit: AFP "Peace for peace and oil for oil," he said. "You cannot say that you won't allow our oil to be exported." Mohammed Javad Zarif, Iran's Foreign Minister, yesterday confirmed reports that he declined an offer from a US senator to meet Trump at the White House last month despite the threat of sanctions. The US imposed its sanctions against Mr Zarif on Wednesday, targeting any assets he has in America and squeezing his ability to function as a diplomat and Iran's chief negotiator. "I also said that while [Trump] may want [a] photo op, the US isn't interested in talks; rather, Iran's submission. That will never happen," he said on Twitter. "An example of US tactics: Threatening to designate somebody in two weeks unless he accepts your invitation to chat in the Oval Office."
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| Three Gorges Has Nothing on China-Backed Dam to Power Africa Posted: 06 Aug 2019 08:21 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- A dream of building the world's biggest hydroelectric project in the heart of Africa may be inching closer to reality.For decades, plans have been made and discarded to construct a series of hydroelectric power stations on Africa's second-longest river that would generate almost twice the power of the Three Gorges Dam in China, the world's largest. If completed, a Grand Inga Dam could go a long way to addressing one of the most debilitating obstacles to development across Africa from Nigeria to South Africa: electricity shortages."There's not a single place in the world where you find such a concentration of hydropower as here," Omer Kawende, an engineer with the national electricity company, said as he stood on a bridge at the site where swallows swooped under a misty sky. "This is absolutely exceptional."The problem? It's in Congo.A country two-thirds the size of Western Europe, Congo is one of the most difficult places on earth to get anything done. It's ranked 184th out of 190 countries in the World Bank's latest Doing Business report and regularly tops Transparency International's index of most corrupt nations. It's been brought to its knees by dictatorship, rebellions, and head-splitting bureaucracy since the end of Belgian colonial rule in 1960.Investors On BoardLate last year there was a sudden burst of activity around Grand Inga. Then-President Joseph Kabila signed an accord in October with two groups of Chinese and Spanish investors, who committed to funding technical studies before building and running an 11,050-megawatt facility called Inga III at a cost of $14 billion. The consortia, which include AEE Power Holdings SL and China Three Gorges Corp., also pledged to attract lenders and find buyers of the electricity elsewhere in Africa.That could be news of revolutionary import to Congo's 80 million people, who make do with about 1,500 megawatts, about as much as typically needed for a city of 1 million in industrialized nations. Grand Inga could single-handedly generate more than 40,000 megawatts upon completion.For now though, outages are a near-daily occurrence in the capital, Kinshasa, and in huge swathes of the country there's no power at all. About 19% of Congolese have access to electricity, the lowest percentage among African countries after Burundi, according to the World Bank.Poor MaintenanceTwo dams built on the same stretch of the Congo River more than three decades ago, Inga I and Inga II, still provide most of the nation's power but have often run below capacity due to poor maintenance, while rehabilitation has proved slow and costly."Every day the electricity comes and goes -- it's a bit like living in the village," said Yannick Tshiamala, a 33-year-old university graduate who helps his father run a barbershop and a car-repair business on an unpaved street in Kinshasa. "If you wake up in the morning without electricity, you have to figure out where to charge your phone and where to iron your clothes."All eyes are now on Kabila's successor, Felix Tshisekedi, who's vowed to connect half of the population to the national grid over the next decade. Inga III, his advisers say, is one of his priorities -- even though Tshisekedi hasn't confirmed he'll stick with the Spanish and Chinese consortia, which have yet to be awarded a concession contract."We're going at cruising speed," said Michel Eboma, Tshisekedi's chief adviser for mines and energy. "The president has the general interest of the people at heart, and Inga III aims at improving the life of the population."China's ApproachMuch will depend on China's attitude. While President Xi Jinping's government supports the project, he's increasingly working to ensure that his Belt and Road Initiative doesn't leave poorer nations with unsustainable debt. The uncertainty surrounding China's approach has caused dislocations in projects across Africa.In Kenya, construction of a flagship railway from the coast to Uganda was halted after China withheld some $4.9 billion in funding. In Zimbabwe, a giant solar project hit a cash shortfall after China's Export Import Bank backed out due to the government's legacy debts. In Ethiopia though, Chinese contractors were hired earlier this year to accelerate work on the long-delayed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which had been mired for years in design and management conflicts.Inga III "has to be a project that guarantees repayment of loans because the financial budget of the government is very limited," said Wang Tongquing, China's ambassador to Congo. "According to the information I have, the plans of this project are not yet very mature, above all the plan for the consumption of the electricity after construction."Not all Congolese are convinced that the dam will solve the nation's desperate lack of energy. In its current form, most of the power it will generate is meant for other countries.More than 30 civil-society leaders published an open letter to the president in March, saying Inga III risks loading Congo with debt and won't provide help for most of its people. They urged the government to focus on connecting rural areas to the grid. And, while parliament approved a bill five years ago to liberalize the energy sector, Congo still lacks an independent energy regulator.World Bank ActionDetractors also worry about an agency for Grand Inga that Kabila set up within the presidency to keep control of the project, prompting the World Bank in 2016 to cancel a $73 million grant for technical assistance."The need for electricity among the population is enormous and Inga III could -- I say could -- improve the situation," said Madeleine Andeka, one of the letter's signatories. "It's not bad in itself that we would supply power to mining companies and other countries, but I'm not sure how we would benefit as a host country."Today no country in the region is more interested in the development of Inga III than South Africa, which is struggling with power shortages from its aging coal-fired plants.In 2005, state power utility Eskom SOC Holdings Ltd. developed a $50 billion plan for both Inga III and Grand Inga, but it never got off the ground. South Africa has since signed a treaty with Congo to buy 2,500 megawatts from the facility and said last year it might double that amount.The African Union now wants to be involved too. Inga "must be a pan-African project" because more than 70% of its power will go to consumers outside Congo, said a spokesman for the organization's high representative for infrastructure development, Raila Odinga, who visited the site in May."We need to develop Inga as a continent and link it to the different power pools that already exist," Odinga said in comments sent by his office.Inga's potential was recognized as far as back as 1921, when the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the basin had a quarter of the world's hydroelectric potential.The construction of the first two dams, Inga I and Inga II, in the heady, post-independence years under then President Mobutu Sese Seko, generated power that lit up the capital and supplied the mining industry, Congo's only source of export revenue.Early SuccessWhile Inga I began operating in 1972 and was considered a success, Inga II required transmission lines over 1,100 miles of rainforest to reach the mines of Katanga province and loaded the country with massive debt as copper prices were plummeting in 1982.The slow collapse of Mobutu's dictatorial regime and a subsequent civil war paralyzed progress on Inga III. After peace returned in 2003, several investors lined up to work at Inga, only to get squeezed out or withdraw later. Just one dam has been completed since the 1980s -- a 150-megawatt plant built by China's SinoHydro Corp. But construction took three years longer than planned and transmission lines still haven't been built.While the nation awaits progress on Inga, some Congolese businessmen are forging ahead with plans for smaller dams. Among them is Yves Kabongo, chief executive officer of Great Lake Energy, who recently finalized a contract with PowerChina Ltd. for a 900-megawatt facility on the Congo River that's designed to supply the mining industry."Let's be realistic -- Inga III is a huge undertaking," Kabongo said. "It'll take years -- you need to reassure investors, you need to have a sound economy. We have projects that are much smaller and quicker to realize, because we're private citizens."(A previous version of this article was corrected to specify that the Congo River is Africa's second-longest.)(Updates with critics' concern in first paragraph under World Bank Action subsheadline.)To contact the reporters on this story: Pauline Bax in Kinshasa at pbax@bloomberg.net;William Clowes in Kinshasa at wclowes@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Karl Maier, Benjamin HarveyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| The Latest: Germany condemns North Korean weapons test Posted: 06 Aug 2019 08:05 AM PDT  Germany is condemning North Korea's latest test of short-range ballistic missiles, saying they are a violation of United Nations resolutions and urging the North to resume disarmament talks. North Korea continued to ramp up its weapons demonstrations by firing two presumed short-range ballistic missiles into the sea Tuesday while lashing out at the United States and South Korea for continuing military exercises that the North says could derail fragile nuclear diplomacy.
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| 1,800 dead as malaria 'epidemic' rages in Burundi: UN Posted: 06 Aug 2019 07:57 AM PDT  Malaria has killed more than 1,800 people in Burundi this year, the UN's humanitarian agency says, a death toll rivalling a deadly Ebola outbreak in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. In its latest situation report, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 5.7 million cases of malaria had been recorded in Burundi in 2019 -- a figure roughly equal to half its entire population. Of those cases, a total of 1,801 died from the mosquito-born disease in Burundi between January 1 and July 21, OCHA said.
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| UN accuses Yemeni forces of attacks against northerners Posted: 06 Aug 2019 07:54 AM PDT  The UN's human rights office on Tuesday accused southern Yemeni security forces of perpetrating "retaliatory attacks" against citizens from the country's north. "We have received information from multiple sources about arbitrary arrests and detention, forced displacement, physical assaults and harassment," spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement. Shamdasani said the alleged targeting of northerners is "apparent retaliation" for deadly attacks last week by jihadists and the Iran-aligned rebels.
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| EXPLAINER-Parliament vs prime minister: Can a no-deal Brexit be blocked? Posted: 06 Aug 2019 07:28 AM PDT ![EXPLAINER-Parliament vs prime minister: Can a no-deal Brexit be blocked?]( "EXPLAINER-Parliament vs prime minister: Can a no-deal Brexit be blocked?") British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set for a battle of wills with parliament over Brexit that will test the country's unwritten constitution. Parliament, where there is a small majority against a no-deal Brexit, can collapse Johnson's government by holding a no-confidence vote. An early election could elect a new government with a strategy to either delay Brexit or revoke the decision to leave the EU.
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| North Korea Warns U.S. Talks at Risk After Latest Missile Tests Posted: 06 Aug 2019 07:25 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Six weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump took his historic first steps into North Korea, talks with Kim Jong Un appear to be back on the verge of collapse.North Korea's foreign ministry renewed its threat to take a "new road" in negotiations with the U.S., saying Washington and Seoul would "pay a heavy price" if they continued to disregard the regime's warnings against holding joint military exercises. The statement Tuesday came less than an hour after North Korea fired a new volley of short-range ballistic missiles into the sea -- its fourth such weapons test in two weeks.While Trump has said the tests don't violate his agreements with Kim, they do constitute of breach of United Nations resolutions and threaten American troops stationed on the peninsula. Kim has given the U.S. until the end of the year to make a better offer in nuclear negotiations, and the foreign ministry statement said the allies' actions were making dialogue more difficult.Rachel Minyoung Lee, a Seoul-based analyst with NK Pro, said the statement "seems to lay the groundwork for backing out" of Kim's pledge to halt testing of nuclear weapons and longer-range missiles that can carry them to the U.S. mainland. "I am still skeptical that North Korea will start ICBMs and nuclear tests this year, but I don't think it's completely off the books," she said.No TalksTensions have steadily increased since Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot in North Korea on June 30 and agreed to restart working-level talks in two to three weeks. North Korea not only kept its top diplomats away from a chance to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Bangkok last week, but repeatedly tested missiles during his trip.The missiles launched Tuesday -- like other systems demonstrated recently -- appeared designed to evade allied defenses, flying low and fast before dropping into Korea's East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan. They originated in the western province of South Hwanghae, north of Seoul, and flew about 450 kilometers (280 miles) at almost seven times the speed of sound, South Korea's defense ministry said in a statement.Trump has downplayed the short-range launches saying last week that Kim "does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!"John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser, said on Fox News Tuesday that the North Korean launches appear to be "a testing series" to "get this missile fully operational." He said Trump and Kim "have an understanding that Kim Jong Un is not going to launch longer-range, intercontinental range ballistic missiles. And so I think the president's watching this very, very carefully."Sharpened SwordThe tests came ahead of a visit to Japan on Tuesday by Trump's new defense secretary, Mark Esper, who will later head to South Korea. The two U.S. allies have been locked in an escalating dispute over trade and their shared history that has sent relations between the two to their lowest level in decades.The North Korea foreign ministry spokesperson denounced U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises that kicked off Monday, even though the current drills were dramatically scaled back after Trump and Kim's first meeting last year. The statement described the exercises as an "undisguised denial and a flagrant violation" of its agreements with the allies, repeating North Korea's claim that Trump told Kim at the DMZ that he would halt the exercises altogether."The U.S. and South Korean authorities remain outwardly talkative about dialogue, but when they sit back, they sharpen a sword to do us harm," the foreign ministry said, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. But Bolton said the exercises are "largely computer-driven" rather than involving massive troop maneuvers. "North Korea has continued its exercises unabated, so they don't really have a lot to complain about," he said.(Updates with Bolton comments starting in eighth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Justin Sink.To contact the reporters on this story: Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.net;Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz, Larry LiebertFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Israeli minister says he met with 'high ranking' Emirati Posted: 06 Aug 2019 07:24 AM PDT ![Israeli minister says he met with 'high ranking' Emirati]( "Israeli minister says he met with 'high ranking' Emirati") Israel's foreign minister says he recently met with a "high ranking persona" from the United Arab Emirates to improve ties between Israel and Arab states. Israel Katz told a ministers' meeting on Tuesday that the two reached "substantial agreements," adding that he was working toward "transparent normalization and signed agreements" with Gulf states. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often boasted of improving ties with Arab states that share Israel's concerns about Iran.
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| GBP/USD: May Brexit End This Trade-Fueled Dead Cat Bounce? Posted: 06 Aug 2019 07:12 AM PDT ![GBP/USD: May Brexit End This Trade-Fueled Dead Cat Bounce?]( "GBP/USD: May Brexit End This Trade-Fueled Dead Cat Bounce?") GBP/USD has been recovering amid trade-related USD weakness. The chances of a no-deal Brexit are rising and may weigh on the pound. Tuesday's four-hour chart is mixed. The pound is recovering – but mostly ...
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| Libya intercepts 3 boats carrying 122 Europe-bound migrants Posted: 06 Aug 2019 06:49 AM PDT ![Libya intercepts 3 boats carrying 122 Europe-bound migrants]( "Libya intercepts 3 boats carrying 122 Europe-bound migrants") Libya's coast guard says it has intercepted 122 Europe-bound migrants off the country's Mediterranean coast in recent days. Spokesman Ayoub Gassim says Tuesday the migrants, including two women and a child, were on three boats and were intercepted in three different operations on Saturday, Sunday and Monday off the coast of the capital, Tripoli. Libya slid into chaos after the 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed long-ruling dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
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| Europe Needs to Calculate for the U.S. Military's Shortcomings Posted: 06 Aug 2019 06:44 AM PDT  "No, Sir!" replied James Mattis in 2017, when asked if the United States could fight two wars simultaneously. Thereby, he had made it unmistakably clear that America could not fight two major powers at the same time.While America's strategic limitations have not withered away, a serious debate about the implications has not occurred. This has to be recognized as an urgent problem. Putin's support for Trump during the 2016 election campaign, the latter's repeated questioning of NATO's Article 5, the new trade war against China and other crises, including Iran, have all generated news but obfuscated the most vital and simmering question of today: assuming that Mattis is right, how will the United States, if at all, address the empty strategic space created by its decidedly limited capacity to confront and, if necessary, fight China and Russia at the same time?At the moment, Congress views itself as a bulwark against any softening of U.S. policy regarding Russia. The suspicion that some lawmakers have about Trump's sympathetic relationship with Putin helps, to some extent, compensate for the loss of White House credibility in the eyes of European NATO partners. In fact, while the alliance has seen squabbles amongst its members about its cohesion and strategy throughout, today attaining such cohesion is about alienating the U.S. President from the Kremlin's leader. Whether or not Congress, or European allies for that matter, will be successful in that endeavor remains to be seen. But such is the central focus of transatlantic attention for now.
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| Kremlin Bites Back at Anti-Graft Leader Who Taunted Putin Allies Posted: 06 Aug 2019 06:23 AM PDT ![Kremlin Bites Back at Anti-Graft Leader Who Taunted Putin Allies]( "Kremlin Bites Back at Anti-Graft Leader Who Taunted Putin Allies") (Bloomberg) -- For years, opposition leader Alexey Navalny embarrassed Russia's leadership with YouTube videos exposing their lavish lifestyles and dubious wealth, and the Kremlin put up with it. Now President Vladimir Putin's patience appears to have run out.With Navalny in prison and riot police brutally detaining protesters in the largest numbers for years, Russian authorities are targeting his Anti-Corruption Foundation as part of efforts to crush a revived opposition movement. Investigative Committee allegations that unnamed fund employees laundered about 1 billion rubles ($15 million) came as at least 10 people arrested at the peaceful rallies face mass unrest charges that could see them jailed for up to 15 years.The dark irony of authorities seeking to brand Russia's most high-profile anti-graft campaigners as corrupt is lost on no one. It comes amid the harshest crackdown on dissent since Putin suppressed months of opposition protests against his return to the Kremlin in 2012 after four years as prime minister."Navalny wasn't dangerous until signs of mass social upheaval appeared," said Valery Solovei, a Moscow-based political scientist. "The authorities felt that by keeping an eye on him, they could successfully control the opposition," though he's seen as a threat now "because of the new-found appetite for street actions and the availability of protest infrastructure," Solovei said.Navalny and his foundation, employing a team of researchers and a drone, have gained millions of followers online for their video reports detailing the luxurious homes and lifestyles enjoyed by top officials and their families, extending far beyond what their modest state salaries could support. It's become a potent tool as ordinary Russians endure five years of declining living standards with no relief in sight.Duck HouseThe exposes reached as high as Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who was widely ridiculed after the foundation released videos showing a floating duck house in the grounds of one of his residences. Rubber ducks became symbols of protests against official corruption in dozens of cities that followed one 2017 report, seen 31 million times on YouTube. Medvedev denied Navalny's allegations that he spent money from a charitable fund to build palaces in Russia and abroad.Navalny, 43, was barred from running for president against Putin in the 2018 elections by what he has denounced as a politically-motivated fraud conviction. Shortly after being handed a five-year suspended sentence in the July 2013 embezzlement case relating to a timber company, Navalny was allowed to run for Moscow mayor against incumbent Sergei Sobyanin, a Putin loyalist, and received 27% of the vote. When the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Navalny hadn't got a fair hearing and ordered a new trial, a Russian judge simply re-convicted him.Navalny also received a suspended sentence in 2014 while his younger brother, Oleg, was jailed for three and a half years after they were convicted in a separate fraud trial involving the Russian branch of French cosmetics company Yves Rocher. Both men denied wrongdoing, and Navalny accused the Kremlin of effectively taking his brother hostage as punishment for his political activism.The money-laundering charges against the Anti-Corruption Foundation dwarf its yearly budget. It raised 58 million rubles ($891,000) from over 16,000 donors in 2018, according to its annual report. The non-profit avoids donations from abroad that would force it to register under Russia's strict "foreign agent" law.'Political Center'Navalny was jailed for 30 days last month for urging followers to join an unauthorized protest on July 27 against the exclusion of dozens of opposition candidates for Moscow city council elections in September. Many of those kept off the ballot have cut their political teeth at his foundation, including Lyubov Sobol and Ivan Zhdanov."The Anti-Corruption Foundation is, of course, not just a center for the fight against corruption, but also a political center," said Executive Director Vladimir Ashurkov, who fled to London in 2014 and received political asylum after Russia accused him of embezzling funds raised for Navalny's mayoral campaign. "Navalny, Sobol, Zhdanov and others are actively engaged in politics."With Putin's approval rating at the lowest since 2013, more than 20,000 people had attended an authorized protest a week earlier. This time, riot police detained about 1,400 people, the largest number since the 2012 protests.The next day, Navalny was briefly hospitalized after what his doctor called "a toxic reaction to an unknown chemical substance" that led the opposition leader to suggest he may have been poisoned. He suffered eye damage in 2017 when an assailant who was later linked to a radical pro-Putin group threw chemical dye in his face.Hunger StrikesMeanwhile, police cracked down on many of Navalny's allies, raiding homes, opening criminal cases and summoning them for interrogation. Prominent figures such as Ilya Yashin and Dmitry Gudkov, a former member of parliament, were jailed.By the time the opposition held fresh protests last week, the only high-profile opposition leader not in prison was Sobol, a prominent lawyer who's more than three weeks into a hunger strike in protest at the rejection of her candidacy. Zhdanov, who was jailed for 15 days on July 29, announced on Aug. 2 that he, too, was on hunger strike.When Sobol tried to attend Saturday's rally, police dragged her from a taxi and bundled her into a van that sped away to a police station. Hundreds more were detained during the day as riot police again flooded the streets of central Moscow in a show of force.The Moscow Prosecutor's office intensified the pressure on Tuesday, saying officials would seek to strip a couple of their parental rights for bringing their one-year-old son to the July 27 rally. Checks will also be made against others who brought children to unsanctioned protests, it said in a statement.While the authorities have repeatedly resorted to criminal charges against the opposition, Kremlin-linked figures have occasionally attempted to engage Navalny on his favored territory of social media, where he uses biting humor and pop-culture fluency to cast Russia's ruling elite as hopelessly out of touch.General Viktor Zolotov, who heads the 300,000-strong National Guard that reports directly to Putin, challenged Navalny to a duel in a video last year and threatened to beat him into "burger meat." Billionaire metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov hit back at the opposition leader in a response recorded on a staffer's iPhone aboard his 156-meter yacht.While many of those who took part in the unauthorized protests were young, an officially sanctioned demonstration called for this weekend will test how the broader Moscow public has interpreted the authorities' crackdown."They are simply using the same methods and approaches against Navalny that helped dim the protests' brightness previously," said Alexei Makarkin of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies. "But there's now a new generation that didn't live in the Soviet times who are less reverent to power and less afraid. Furthermore, there wasn't five years of stagnation in 2012."(Updates with Moscow prosecutors in 17th paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net;Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net;Stepan Kravchenko in Moscow at skravchenko@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Gregory L. WhiteFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump administration imposes total economic embargo against Venezuela Posted: 06 Aug 2019 06:09 AM PDT  Donald Trump has increased existing sanctions against Venezuela, freezing the government's assets as the US escalates an economic effort to force Nicolás Maduro out of power. The Venezuelan president's administration joins Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran on a short list of US adversaries who face similarly severe embargoes. "I have determined that is is necessary to block the property of the Government of Venezuela in light of the continued usurpation of power by the illegitimate Nicolas Maduro regime, as well as the regime's human rights abuses, arbitrary arrest and detention of Venezuelan citizens, curtailment of free press, and ongoing attempts to undermine Interim President Juan Guaido of Venezuela and the democratically-elected Venezuelan National Assembly," Mr Trump wrote in a Monday letter to congressional leaders. American citizens and companies will no longer be allowed to conduct any business with the Maduro administration and its allies, the Associated Press reported. While the country can maintain its private sector under the sanctions, foreign groups that conduct business with the Venezuelan government can also face economic punishments from the US.The US sanctions permit certain exceptions, including for food and medicine.The announcement arrived as leaders from dozens of countries met in Peru to discuss the crisis in Venezuela on Tuesday in a meeting aiming to "restore democracy" in the country. US National Security Adviser John Bolton represented the US at the meetings, along with US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross. Russia, China, Cuba and Turkey all declined to join the international meeting, and have expressed their support for the Maduro administration. Ahead of Tuesday's meeting, Mr Bolton said the US was planning to implement measures "that will show the determination that the United States has to get a peaceful transfer of power." The Trump administration supported Mr Guaido immediately after he announced his intention to become the next interim president of Venezuela, following an election last year in which Mr Maduro won another six-year term despite international groups saying it was an unfair and rigged process. "In its role as the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people, the National Assembly invoked the country's constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, and the office of the presidency therefore vacant," Mr Trump said in a statement at the time. "The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law," he added.Venezuela's economy has fallen further into economic collapse throughout the year after the US imposed an initial round of sanctions that severely limited the country's national oil company. The latest sanctions also include an economic freeze on US assets owned by over 100 officials and others close to the Maduro administration, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
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| Two Nuclear-Armed States Accuse India of Harming Sovereignty Posted: 06 Aug 2019 06:02 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- India's move to abolish the decades-long autonomy of Kashmir has drawn strong reaction from its neighbors, with China accusing New Delhi of undermining its territorial sovereignty and Pakistan's army vowing to go to "any extent" to stand by the Himalayan state.China's strongly-worded statement was most critical of the impact of India's actions on the mainly Buddhist region of Ladakh -- an area of strategic importance nestled between Tibet and Pakistan.Just two years after India and China's decades-long dispute flared up over a remote area of the Himalayas, and six months after the most serious military escalation between India and Pakistan in decades, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise move on Kashmir has inflamed tensions yet again.Beijing has always opposed India's inclusion of Chinese territory in the western section of the China-India border, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswomen Hua Chunying said in a statement Tuesday."The recent unilateral revision of domestic laws by the Indian side continues to undermine China's territorial sovereignty, which is unacceptable and will not have any effect," Hua said.India's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raveesh Kumar said Tuesday the creation of a new union territory of Ladakh was an internal matter. "So far as the India-China Boundary Question is concerned, the two sides have agreed to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement," Kumar said in a statement. "India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise."'We Will Retaliate'Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan said India's move may lead to a war, while its army pledged to go to "any extent'' to defend the people of the disputed state that's claimed in full by the two nuclear-armed nations."We will retaliate any attack" on part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan, Khan said at a meeting of parliament that was called to debate the move. "This is not a nuclear blackmail. The world will be responsible if it doesn't take action against India."Earlier, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi wrote a letter to the secretary general of the United Nations on the "critical situation", according to a tweet by the government on Tuesday. Pakistan's army said it "stands by the Kashmiris in their struggle to the very end. We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfill our obligations." It will not recognize the "sham" Indian efforts to revoke Kashmir's autonomy, spokesman General Asif Ghafoor said in a tweet after a meeting of top army commanders.India has accused Pakistan of using militant groups including Jamaat-ud-Dawa led by Hafiz Saeed, the suspected planner of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, of waging a proxy war in Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charges.Border IssuesChina, meanwhile, expressed serious concerns about the current situation in Kashmir."We call on India and Pakistan to peacefully resolve relevant disputes through dialogue," she said, noting China had urged India to "avoid any move that further complicates the border issue."India and China have long had border disputes in Ladakh, which was made a federally administered region along with the move to remove the special status to Kashmir in parliament on Monday. A two-week standoff ensued in September 2014 when Chinese troops advanced several kilometers into northern Ladakh.(Recasts throughout with Pakistan reaction from third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Dandan Li.To contact the reporters on this story: Archana Chaudhary in New Delhi at achaudhary2@bloomberg.net;Ismail Dilawar in Karachi at mdilawar@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Unni KrishnanFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump freezes all Venezuelan government assets in US ahead of Lima Group conference Posted: 06 Aug 2019 05:15 AM PDT  Delegates from some 60 countries will meet Tuesday in Lima to discuss the political crisis in Venezuela, as Washington steps up pressure for President Nicolas Maduro to step down. The conference comes a day after President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on all Venezuelan government assets in the United States and barred transactions with its authorities "in light of the continued usurpation of power" by the socialist leader. The meeting has been convened by the Lima Group, which includes a dozen Latin American countries and Canada and is helping to mediate in the crisis. Mr Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross are in the US delegation, which is expected to announce further punitive measures against Mr Maduro at the meeting in the Peruvian capital. The "sweeping steps" will have "a lot of potential consequences", Mr Bolton said, stressing that Mr Trump is committed to a transition of power in Venezuela. John Bolton is attending the conference where further punitive measures will be announced Credit: Rex The oil-rich South American nation, already struggling with widespread economic woes, was plunged into a political crisis when National Assembly head Juan Guaido declared himself interim president in January, accusing Mr Maduro of usurping power. Mr Guaido was recognised by dozens of nations, including the United States, but the efforts to oust Mr Maduro have stalled despite the international support and widespread discontent with the president, who has been able to cling to power with the backing of the military and support from Russia and China. Delegates from the government and the opposition camps have held talks, but Mr Bolton said Mr Maduro was "not serious." "We're at a point where we need to see less talk and more action," he said, adding that it is Washington's "intention that the transfer (of power) be peaceful." Venezuela has been in deep recession for five years. Shortages of food and medicine are widespread, and public services are progressively failing. Around a quarter of the country's 30 million people need aid, according to United Nations, while 3.3 million have fled the country since the start of 2016. The International Monetary Fund says inflation will hit a staggering one million percent this year while the economy will shrink by 35 percent.
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| The EU More Popular? Don't Kid Yourself Posted: 06 Aug 2019 05:08 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The European Union's popularity among its citizens has jumped to the highest level in a decade, just as trust in member states' governments is dropping. That should be a message to national leaders who are unwilling to share power or democratic legitimacy.Voters have become markedly more satisfied about the EU, according to the latest EU-commissioned Eurobarometer survey. About 45% see the bloc in a positive light and only 17% in a negative one, the highest net positive rating since 2009. A full 61% are optimistic about the union's future, and 56% – the most in 15 years – feel their voice counts in the EU.On a country-by-country level, the EU is doing remarkably well. In 23 of the 28 member states, perceptions of the bloc have improved in the last year; in 20, a majority of residents have a positive view of the union.Beyond this rosy picture, though, there are signs that the EU isn't doing everything right. It's well-known that the turmoil surrounding Brexit has made voters in other countries more appreciative of the EU's benefits. But in the U.K. itself, the proportion of people with a positive view of the bloc has dropped to 38% from 43% in the last year – the steepest drop of any member state. The EU's firmness in asserting the terms of any Brexit deal has clearly looked like arrogant inflexibility to many Britons. The European Commission hasn't done enough to sell its arguments to the voters it would very much like to keep within the union.Another sign of trouble is that immigration is still at the top of the list of voters' main concerns, three years after Europe's refugee crisis subsided. National debates have raged unabated, but nothing has happened at the EU level to calm them down. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she will prioritize immigration reform, but she is no closer to a deal on redistributing refugees throughout the bloc than outgoing President Jean-Claude Juncker.Juncker seems to have done little that has been noticed by voters. Among the benefits mentioned by Eurobarometer respondents, only one – "cheaper calls when using a mobile phone in another EU country" – emerged from his administration. Roaming charges were dropped in 2017, but the Commission first proposed the move in 2013, before he took the helm. He has made little progress on climate change, a subject which is, for the first time, voters' biggest concern after immigration.Perceptions of the EU are improving because the economic crisis has receded almost everywhere in Europe, because Brexit looks like an unattractive example to continentals, and because the U.S. has ceased to be the "shining city on the hill" under President Donald Trump. They aren't improving because the EU is doing something particularly right – and they remain vulnerable to the slightest downturn in growth.Had the survey been taken in July – after the election to the European Parliament – rather than before, it's unlikely so many people would have said their votes matter in the EU. The energetic campaign resulted in the first ever increase in turnout at a European election – but then national leaders turned around and rejected the candidates for the Commission presidency who had contested the election. Instead, French President Emmanuel Macron pushed through von der Leyen's nomination in backroom negotiations. Rather than set up an institutional battle, the European Parliament grudgingly approved her – but this process has been as undemocratic as any in the bloc's recent history.Essentially, national leaders have made sure they will remain the only decision-makers with democratic legitimacy in the EU. That, however, is clearly not what European citizens want – if only because, according to the Eurobarometer survey, they trust the EU more than their own leaders.The national leaders are a diverse, fractious group. They have been able to agree on less and less among themselves in recent years. With the Commission headed by a president whose power derives almost exclusively from them and a fragmented parliament sidelined, the bloc's culture of compromise and slow progress risks turning into a full-blown deadlock on every issue that could take the European project forward.It shouldn't be surprising, then, that voters want more democracy at the EU level – and more visible benefits to being part of the project.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iskander: The One Missile America and NATO Fears (And North Korea Loves) Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:59 AM PDT  The 9K720 Iskander-M—known in NATO parlance as the SS-26 Stone—is a potent short-range ballistic missile. While export versions of the missile have a range of 280 kilometers and payload of 480Kg, the weapons destined for domestic service have a range 500 kilometers, according to Global Security.(This first appeared in 2016 and is being reposted due to reader interest and breaking news that North Korea's latest missile is very similar to this weapon.)Other sources such as the Missile Threat Project, estimate that the domestic version of the Iskander has shorter range of about 400 kilometers and payload of about 700Kg. Either way, that means that the nuclear-capable Iskander-M complies with the limitations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Nonetheless, the missile effectively replaces the OTR-23 Oka (SS-23 Spider) nuclear-tipped ballistic missile—which was eliminated by the INF treaty.Recommended: Air War: Stealth F-22 Raptor vs. F-14 Tomcat (That Iran Still Flies)Recommended: A New Report Reveals Why There Won't Be Any 'New' F-22 Raptors
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| Pakistan PM Khan says plan to approach UN Security Council over Kashmir issue Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:52 AM PDT ![Pakistan PM Khan says plan to approach UN Security Council over Kashmir issue]( "Pakistan PM Khan says plan to approach UN Security Council over Kashmir issue") Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Tuesday the country was considering an approach to the United Nations Security Council after India stripped its portion of contested Kashmir of special status.
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| Irish PM says Brexit talks will go on for years, deal or no deal Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:46 AM PDT ![Irish PM says Brexit talks will go on for years, deal or no deal]( "Irish PM says Brexit talks will go on for years, deal or no deal") Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Tuesday that Britain and the European Union would be in talks for several years even if Britain walks away from the bloc without a withdrawal agreement. Some people I know have become weary of Brexit and may take the view that this should end on Oct. 31, with either a deal or no-deal," Varadkar told journalists in Hillsborough Castle near Belfast.
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| Gove says Britain deeply saddened by EU refusing to negotiate on Brexit Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:35 AM PDT ![Gove says Britain deeply saddened by EU refusing to negotiate on Brexit]( "Gove says Britain deeply saddened by EU refusing to negotiate on Brexit") Michael Gove, the British minister responsible for planning for a no-deal Brexit, said on Tuesday he was saddened the European Union was refusing to reopen discussions on a divorce deal but that Britain remained open to negotiate a new agreement. "I'm deeply saddened that the EU now seem to be refusing to negotiate with the UK," he told Sky News. "The prime minister has been clear: he wants to negotiate a good deal with the European Union and he will apply all the energy of the government and ensure that in a spirit of friendliness we can negotiate a new deal.
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| Myanmar says U.N calls for sanctions, arms embargo a bid to harm country Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:33 AM PDT ![Myanmar says U.N calls for sanctions, arms embargo a bid to harm country]( "Myanmar says U.N calls for sanctions, arms embargo a bid to harm country") Myanmar's foreign ministry on Tuesday denounced a United Nations report that urged world leaders to cut ties with military-linked companies and impose an arms embargo over the Rohingya crisis, saying it was intended to harm the country. A panel of U.N. experts urged world leaders on Monday to impose targeted financial sanctions on companies linked to the military and said foreign firms doing business with them could be complicit in international crimes. More than 730,000 Rohingya, members of a persecuted Muslim minority, fled Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighbouring Bangladesh amid a military-led crackdown in August 2017 that the U.N. and Western countries have said included mass killings and gang-rapes.
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| Trump freezes Venezuela gov't assets in escalation Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:32 AM PDT  The Trump administration froze all Venezuelan government assets Monday in a dramatic escalation of tensions with Nicolás Maduro that places his socialist administration alongside a short list of adversaries from Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran that have been targeted by such aggressive U.S. actions. The ban blocking American companies and individuals from doing business with Maduro's government and its top supporters, which takes effect immediately, is the first of its kind in the western hemisphere in over three decades, following an asset freeze against Gen. Manuel Noriega's government in Panama and a trade embargo on the Sandinista leadership in Nicaragua in the 1980s. While the order falls short of an outright trade embargo — notably, it spares Venezuela's still sizable private sector — it represents the most sweeping U.S. action to remove Maduro since the Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's rightful leader in January.
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| Analysis: North Korea's missile tests point to end of nuclear talks Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:03 AM PDT  North Korea's fourth weapons test in just under two weeks has not killed off the chance to reignite talks with the US over Pyongyang's nuclear and missiles programme but it does signal that the end of the diplomatic path is drawing closer. The rush of tests – including new short-range ballistic missiles – and the unveiling of a submarine that could potentially launch nuclear weapons have occurred despite a historic gesture by Donald Trump in late June to become the first sitting US president in history to step into the hermit kingdom. It reveals that despite being partial himself to grand displays of showmanship, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will not be placated by theatrics with little substance. While President Trump is keen to secure a major foreign policy win in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Kim also faces domestic pressure from sceptics doubting his decision last year to pursue nuclear diplomacy. After an embarrassing end to February's Hanoi summit, when Kim left empty-handed after failing to secure any concessions at all on punishing economic sanctions, the young despot cannot afford to lose any more face in front of his generals. Pyongyang's rhetoric accompanying its missiles tests makes clear that Kim wants not only to nail down meaningful security guarantees against invasion, but to be treated as an equal among leaders. North Korean missile ranges A statement on Tuesday after the latest dawn ballistic missiles tests was consistent with the regime's messaging so far – joint US-South Korea military drills and the build-up of South Korea's own arsenal, including the purchase of F-35A stealth fighter aircraft, is viewed as an unacceptable threat. North Korea has repeatedly stressed that it is not prepared to make all of the concessions with nothing in return. "There is no such law that one side might be allowed to walk away from its commitment and our side only should be bound by the commitment," it said on Thursday, in the latest variation of a well-trodden theme. North Korea experts have suggested Washington should paid closer heed to Pyongyang's words. Some argue a reciprocal, staged approach to nuclear disarmament would yield more meaningful results. Others go further – urging the US to ditch its push for "final, fully verified denuclearisation", and switch focus to accepting and managing relations with an already established nuclear state instead. While Trump's unconventional approach has yielded unprecedented relations between US and North Korean leaders that may yet lead to peace, analysts have warned that his administration is making several mistakes in its approach. Firstly, the repeated downplaying of short-range ballistic missiles – while not breaching a self-imposed North Korea moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests – is empowering Kim to build up a formidable arsenal that poses a considerable threat to the nearby region. Kim Jong-un | A history of executions - family, allies and rivals "Trump/Pompeo dismissed short-range missiles last week, maybe to pick their battles & focus on resuming negotiations, but they're still enabling Pyongyang to grow its arsenal & telling South Korea & Americans there that they don't matter," tweeted Duyeon Kim, adjunct senior fellow at the Centre for New American Studies. Experts also caution the Trump administration not to ignore Pyongyang's warnings of a larger escalation. Earlier this month, North Korea said it may call off its 20th month suspension of nuclear and ICBM tests, while Kim has set a very clear deadline – the end of this calendar year – for getting negotiations back on track. The US would dismiss these statements at its peril, write North Korea analysts Vipin Narang and Ankit Panda in a recent Foreign Policy article: "If North Korea's end-of-year deadline passes without a shift in the U.S. negotiating position, Kim may ring in the New Year with a bang."
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| UPDATE 1-EU open to Brexit discussions but prepared for no-deal - spokeswoman Posted: 06 Aug 2019 04:00 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-EU open to Brexit discussions but prepared for no-deal - spokeswoman]( "UPDATE 1-EU open to Brexit discussions but prepared for no-deal - spokeswoman") The European Commission is willing to discuss Brexit with Britain over the coming weeks, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. "The Commission does remain available over the coming weeks should the United Kingdom wish to hold talks and clarify its position in more detail, whether by phone or in person," the spokeswoman told a news briefing. Earlier on Tuesday a senior British government source said London was "ready and willing" to do a deal to leave the EU if Brussels renegotiated the agreement, denying that a no-deal Brexit was Prime Minister Boris Johnson's central plan.
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| Pakistan Army Will Go to ‘Any Extent’ Against India’s Kashmir Move Posted: 06 Aug 2019 03:56 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan's foreign minister wrote to the United Nations, while its army pledged to go to "any extent'' against India's move to revoke the autonomous status of Kashmir, that's claimed in full by the two South Asian nations.Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi wrote a letter to the secretary general of the United Nations informing him about the "critical situation" in Kashmir, according to a tweet by Pakistan government on Tuesday. Pakistan's army in a separate tweet said it "stands by the Kashmiris in their struggle to the very end. We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfill our obligations."India has accused Pakistan of using militant groups including Jamaat-ud-Dawa led by Hafiz Saeed, the suspected planner of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, of waging a proxy war in Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charges. A global anti-money laundering agency known as the Financial Action Task Force has placed Pakistan in a grey monitoring list following a push by the U.S. and European allies to get Pakistan to do more to combat militancy.Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, a professor at the School of Politics and International Relations at the Quaid-i-Azam University, said Pakistan cannot ignore the global pressure to end its alleged support for militancy."There is no need to create a proxy" and use militant organizations, he said from Islamabad. Pakistan should "go through the diplomatic and political channels and observe maximum restraint" on Kashmir.The army supports the government's rejection of the Indian move and it won't recognize the "sham" Indian efforts to revoke the autonomous status of the state, spokesman General Asif Ghafoor said in a Twitter message after a meeting of top army commanders. The nation's Parliament is meeting on Tuesday to debate the Indian move.While Qureshi is leading a Pakistani delegation to attend a meeting of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or OIC, in Jeddah to discuss the Indian move in Kashmir, Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke to top leaders of Turkey and Malaysia a day earlier telling them that New Delhi's move would "undermine" relations between the two countries.Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to revoke seven decades of autonomy to Kashmir has raised tensions with Pakistan as the south Asian neighbors have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over the disputed territory. The last conflict happened in February when Pakistan shot down an Indian fighter jet in a dogfight over Kashmir and took its pilot as prisoner. He was later released.(Updates to add military's comments in second paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Ismail Dilawar in Karachi at mdilawar@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Khalid Qayum, Abhay SinghFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Hajj trip may help Christchurch mosque victims heal Posted: 06 Aug 2019 03:26 AM PDT  The scars from the nine bullets the gunman fired into Temel Atacocugu run down his left side like knotty rope. After coming so close to dying nearly five months ago, Atacocugu feels he has been "reborn." And this week he plans to express his gratitude to God for being given the chance for a new life when he participates in the hajj, the holy Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The 44-year-old kebab shop co-owner is among 200 survivors and victims' relatives from the Christchurch mosque shootings who are traveling to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman.
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| UPDATE 1-North Korea says U.S. is inciting military tension Posted: 06 Aug 2019 03:14 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-North Korea says U.S. is inciting military tension]( "UPDATE 1-North Korea says U.S. is inciting military tension") North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of "inciting military tension" by holding joint exercises with South Korea and said Pyongyang would take measures to defend itself. Ju Yong Chol, a North Korean diplomat in Geneva, told the U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament that Pyongyang would have to "reconsider the major steps we have taken so far". "Although U.S. and South Korean authorities are playing every trick to justify this military exercise, they can neither conceal nor whitewash its aggressive nature in any manner," Ju told the forum.
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