| Fox, Marvel Executives Among Guests at State Dinner for Morrison Posted: 20 Sep 2019 06:01 PM PDT ![Fox, Marvel Executives Among Guests at State Dinner for Morrison]( "Fox, Marvel Executives Among Guests at State Dinner for Morrison") (Bloomberg) -- Fox Corp. Chief Executive Officer Lachlan Murdoch and Marvel Entertainment Chairman Isaac Perlmutter were among those attending President Donald Trump's second State Dinner on Friday, in honor of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.The guest list included a number of conservatives from government and businesses. Perlmutter and his wife, Laura, who also attended, are Trump supporters, and Murdoch's Fox News is a favorite of the president's.Guests also included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Shemara Wikramanayake, CEO of Australian financial services giant Macquarie Group Ltd. Golfer Greg Norman, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy attended as well.The president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was there as well, after spending two days defending Trump amid questions over whether he put inappropriate pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden.The dinner followed a day of meetings and a joint press conference with Morrison, a like-minded conservative leader.Morrison and his wife were welcomed Friday morning in a ceremony that included nearly 500 U.S. armed forces members.Before the dinner, Trump toasted Morrison. "May our heroes ever inspire us," Trump said.Friday's menu includes a vegetarian ravioli served with a lemon-cheese emlusion and roasted and fileted Dover Sole. The White House is serving an apple tart with ice cream for desert, and wines from the Spring Mountain vineyard in Napa Valley in California and Argyle Winery in Oregon.The only other State Dinner Trump has hosted was for French President Emmanuel Macron in April 2018. The last time an Australian leader received such a welcome in Washington was in 2006 when John Howard was hosted to a State Dinner by his close friend George W. Bush.Topics of discussion between Trump and Morrison included China trade and Australian assistance countering Iran as the U.S. weighs a response to the recent attack on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities that American officials have blamed on the Islamic Republic. The leaders also planned to discuss joint efforts to address North Korea's nuclear weapons program.(Updates with Trump comment in seventh paragraph.)\--With assistance from Josh Wingrove.To contact the reporters on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net;Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Kevin WhitelawFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Yemen rebels say they're halting attacks on Saudi Arabia Posted: 20 Sep 2019 05:57 PM PDT ![Yemen rebels say they're halting attacks on Saudi Arabia]( "Yemen rebels say they're halting attacks on Saudi Arabia") Yemen's Houthi rebels said late Friday night that they were halting drone and missile attacks against Saudi Arabia, one week after they claimed responsibility for a strike that crippled a key oil facility in the kingdom. The U.S. and the Saudis blamed the Sept. 14 attack on Iran, which backs the Houthi rebels fighting a Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen. Iran denies any responsibility.
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| The Latest: Hundreds march for climate action in Los Angeles Posted: 20 Sep 2019 05:54 PM PDT  "It is time for us to have our 100% zero emission buildings, our 100% zero emission electricity, and our 100% zero emission transportation," he said. Garcetti praised the students who skipped classes, saying: "Do we want to look back at this day and tell our students they should stay in school?
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| DNC’s August Fundraising Lags Far Behind GOP’s: Campaign Update Posted: 20 Sep 2019 05:44 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The Democratic National Committee raised $7.9 million in August and ended the month with $8.2 million cash on hand, according to its latest filing with the Federal Election Commission.The DNC's totals lagged far behind its GOP counterpart, which raised $23.5 million in the same period, and had $53.8 million in the bank at the end of August. The party holding the White House usually has an advantage in fundraising.Small-dollar donors, those giving $200 or less, contributed $2.8 million of the DNC's total. The party also got $3.1 million from deeper-pocketed donors, and $1.2 million for accounts that can only be used to pay for its nominating convention, legal expenses or party building.The DNC ended the month with debts of $7.3 million compared with none for the GOP.Gillibrand Relaunches PAC for Female Candidates (4:52 p.m.)Kirsten Gillibrand's presidential campaign may be over, but she still wants to advocate for women.Her campaign said she would relaunch her Off the Sidelines PAC, which she founded eight years ago to help elect women at all levels of government. During her run for president, the PAC became mostly dormant, but now she is committed to raising at least $1 million for female candidates."Setting that example is a responsibility I take seriously," Gillibrand said in a statement, referring to setting an example for young girls interested in politics, "so while my presidential campaign may have ended, I've never felt more clarity of purpose." -- Emma KineryTrump Call Could Be 2020 Echo of Clinton Emails (3:15 p.m.)Has Donald Trump found the 2020 equivalent of Hillary Clinton's emails?The details of a whistle-blower complaint from the intelligence community about the White House remain murky, but some of the details may suggest a reprise of the scandal over Clinton's improper use of a private email server during the 2016 election. Trump repeatedly suggested she had deleted a huge trove of emails to cover up wrongdoing. This time, the target could be Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden via the dealings of his son, Hunter, in Ukraine.According to reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post, the whistle-blower complaint partly involves a phone call in which Trump made some kind of commitment to a foreign leader that involves Ukraine. In tweets, Trump maintained that the call was a "perfectly fine and respectful conversation" and referred to "'highly partisan' whistle-blowers."And speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump said "it doesn't matter" if he asked Ukraine to look into Biden and argued it should be done regardless. "Someone ought to look into Joe Biden," he said.To add to the intrigue, Trump lawyer and confidant Rudy Giuliani told CNN on Thursday that he had asked the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into Hunter Biden's business dealings in that country. "Of course I did," he said Thursday.For months, Trump has argued that Biden improperly pressured Ukraine's top prosecutor to drop an investigation into a company that Hunter Biden was involved in. There's no evidence to back up that assertion, and the current prosecutor has said that he does not "see any wrongdoing" by either Biden.In tweets, Trump maintained that the call was a "perfectly fine and respectful conversation" and referred to "'highly partisan' whistle-blowers." And anyway, Giuliani argued in a tweet, there would be nothing wrong with telling Ukraine's president "he better investigate corruption that affects US." -- Ryan Teague BeckwithBernie Sanders Going All-Out to Win Iowa Caucus (1:46 p.m.)Bernie Sanders is going all out in Iowa in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.Sanders lost the state to Hillary Clinton by the slimmest of margins in 2016 -- 49.6% to 49.9%. This time, he says his campaign has so far made 1 million contacts with Democratic voters in Iowa.His campaign says it is using an army of 25,000 organizers and volunteers who have phoned and texted voters, or knocked on their doors. In addition, the campaign said it held more than 1,300 organizing events with Iowa supporters. In the next five days, Sanders' backers are hosting more than 165 parties, where volunteers will train with campaign field staff in preparation for the Feb. 3 caucuses.On Saturday, Sanders will begin a four-day swing across the state dubbed the "Bernie Beats Trump tour." It will take him to four counties that went for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, then flipped to Trump in 2016. Sanders aims to show that he can bring voters who have turned on the Democrats back into the fold.Recent Iowa polls have shown frontrunner Joe Biden with a double-digit lead over his closest rivals, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are trading off for second place depending on the poll. An average of recent polls by Real Clear Politics had Biden with 28.5% support in the state, while Warren had 18% and Sanders had 17.5%. -- Laura LitvanU.S. Ready to Repel Cyberattacks in 2020 (5:00 a.m.)Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the American military is preparing to repel foreign governments' attempts to interfere with the 2020 elections."Our adversaries will continue to target our democratic processes," he said at a conference hosted by the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Thursday. "We must remain adaptable and continue to advance our capabilities. This is already happening in preparation for the 2020 elections."Esper did not specify which countries might be involved in the cyberattacks, but then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned early this year that adversaries view 2020 as an "opportunity to advance their interests" and may seek to hack election systems. And a Trump administration official said in June that Russia, China, and Iran are already trying to manipulate U.S. public opinion before 2020."Influence operations against the American public are now possible at a scope and scale never before imagined," Esper said. "The Department of Defense has an important role in defending the American people from this misinformation, particularly as it pertains to preserving the integrity of our democratic elections."Kevin McAleenan, the Department of Homeland Security's acting director, warned that the threat has intensified since the last presidential election. He said at the conference that "2018 was maybe a playoff game, 2020 is the Super Bowl with election security." -- Alyza SebeniusCOMING UPMSNBC will host a climate change forum for a second day Friday featuring Cory Booker, Steve Bullock, Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer and Republican primary challenger Bill Weld. Michael Bennet, Julian Castro, John Delaney, Tim Ryan, Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang spoke Thursday.The United Food and Commercial Workers union will host forums in Iowa and Michigan with Democratic presidential candidates on Sept. 29 and Oct. 13. Bennet, Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have confirmed that they will attend.\--With assistance from Alyza Sebenius, Laura Litvan, Ryan Teague Beckwith and Emma Kinery.To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Allison in Washington DC at ballison14@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max BerleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| US to send troops to Saudi Arabia, hold off on striking Iran Posted: 20 Sep 2019 05:15 PM PDT  The Pentagon on Friday announced it will deploy additional U.S. troops and missile defense equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as President Donald Trump has at least for now put off any immediate military strike on Iran in response to the attack on the Saudi oil industry. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Pentagon reporters this is a first step to beef up security and he would not rule out additional moves down the road.
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| Trump orders additional air defense troops to Saudi Arabia Posted: 20 Sep 2019 05:13 PM PDT  President Donald Trump has approved a "modest deployment" of American troops and air and missile defense systems to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of last weekend's attack on Saudi oil facilities that the U.S. has blamed on Iran, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced at a hastily called Pentagon press conference on Friday night. Trump's decision to deploy troops to Saudi Arabia followed a high-level national security meeting at the White House on Friday afternoon.
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| 'I want a future': Global youth protests urge climate action Posted: 20 Sep 2019 04:51 PM PDT  Young people afraid for their futures protested around the globe Friday to implore leaders to tackle climate change, turning out by the hundreds of thousands to insist that the warming world can't wait any longer. Marches, rallies and demonstrations were held from Canberra to Kabul and Cape Town to New York. Days before a U.N. climate summit of world leaders, the "Global Climate Strike" events were as small as two dozen activists in Seoul using LED flashlights to send Morse code messages and as large as mass demonstrations in Australia that organizers estimated were the country's largest since the Iraq War began in 2003.
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| Activist: Egyptian authorities arrest brother to silence me Posted: 20 Sep 2019 04:44 PM PDT  The U.S.-based Egyptian activist whose Facebook page helped ignite the 2011 pro-democracy uprising said authorities have arrested his brother in Cairo. Wael Ghonim, a computer engineer, said his recent criticism of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi prompted authorities to retaliate by detaining his brother. Ghonim alleged that the Egyptian Embassy in Washington warned him the day before the arrest.
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| AP Photos: Youths worldwide call for action on climate Posted: 20 Sep 2019 04:34 PM PDT  Throughout the world Friday, young people banded together to demand that world leaders headed to a United Nations summit in New York step up their efforts to combat climate change. The demonstrations , held from Canberra to Kabul to Paris to New York, were inspired in part by the activism of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg , who over the past year has staged weekly demonstrations urging governments to take action to save the environment. The world has warmed about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) since before the Industrial Revolution, and scientists have attributed more than 90 percent of the increase to emissions of heat-trapping gases from fuel-burning and other human activity.
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| UPDATE 2-United States sending troops to bolster Saudi defenses after attack Posted: 20 Sep 2019 04:33 PM PDT ![UPDATE 2-United States sending troops to bolster Saudi defenses after attack]( "UPDATE 2-United States sending troops to bolster Saudi defenses after attack") U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday approved sending American troops to bolster Saudi Arabia's air and missile defenses after the largest-ever attack on the kingdom's oil facilities, which Washington has squarely blamed on Iran. The Pentagon said the deployment would involve a moderate number of troops - not numbering thousands - and would be primarily defensive in nature. It also detailed plans to expedite delivery of military equipment to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
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| The Latest: US to deploy more troops to Saudi Arabia, UAE Posted: 20 Sep 2019 03:54 PM PDT  The Pentagon says the U.S. will deploy additional troops and military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to beef up security, as President Donald Trump has at least for now decided against any immediate military strike on Iran in response to the attack on the Saudi oil industry. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says this is a first step, and he is not ruling out additional moves down the road.
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| Whistle-Blower Fight Puts Focus on Trump’s Pressure on Ukraine Posted: 20 Sep 2019 03:36 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The fight over a mysterious intelligence whistle-blower complaint is shining new attention on Democratic accusations that Donald Trump has improperly implored the Ukrainian government to investigate one of the president's main political opponents -- Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden.Trump held a phone call on July 25 with Ukraine's new president, where he pressed Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden's son, according to a person familiar with the call.The whistle-blower from the intelligence community, who hasn't been publicly identified, raised concerns about Trump's interactions with a foreign leader. The complaint includes references to Trump's phone call with Zelenskiy, according to the Washington Post.Biden condemned the reports and called on Trump to release the transcript of the Zelenskiy phone call and stop blocking information about the whistle-blower."It means that he used the power and resources of the United States to pressure a sovereign nation -- a partner that is still under direct assault from Russia -- pushing Ukraine to subvert the rule of law in the express hope of extracting a political favor," Biden said Friday in a statement. "Such clear-cut corruption damages and diminishes our institutions of government by making them tools of a personal political vendetta."Trump earlier in the day dismissed the entire controversy as partisan and said he didn't know the details of the complaint."It's just another political hack job," Trump said Friday at the White House when he was asked about his conversation with Zelenskiy. "It doesn't matter what I discussed, but I'll tell you this, somebody ought to look into Joe Biden's statement."The Zelenskiy call, which came one day after Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified to Congress about his investigation into Trump and Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, has prompted Democrats to accuse the president of seeking help from a foreign country for his 2020 re-election bid."If this isn't impeachable abuse of power, what is?" Democratic Representative Jared Huffman wrote Friday on Twitter. "I'm sick of the parsing, dithering & political overcalculating. We are verging on tragic fecklessness. Time to do our job!"The fight by Democrats for access to the whistle-blower complaint has provoked the latest clash between congressional committees pursuing investigations of Trump and his administration and a White House that largely refuses to cooperate.Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community's inspector general, told the House Intelligence panel in a closed-door briefing Thursday that the whistle-blower's complaint focused on a specific sequence of events, according to a person in the room. Atkinson wouldn't say whether those events involved Trump.The reports of a "reliable whistle-blower complaint regarding the president's communications with a foreign leader raise grave, urgent concerns for our national security," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Friday. "We must be sure that the president and his administration are conducting our national security and foreign policy in the best interest of the American people, not the president's personal interest."Ukraine QuestionsThree congressional committees are investigating whether Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine as leverage to reopen an investigation into a company linked to Biden's family. Trump didn't directly link the two issues in the July phone call, but pressed Ukraine's president to work with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, on the probe, the Wall Street Journal reported.The committees announced their investigation on Sept. 9, the same day Schiff said the inspector general informed Congress of the existence of the whistle-blower complaint.Giuliani said Thursday night on CNN that he urged the Ukrainian government to investigate corruption, "and I'm proud of it." He said he didn't know whether Trump had talked to Ukraine's president about the issue but even if so "it doesn't mean a damn" that a president would inquire about evidence of corruption."I don't know if he did, and I wouldn't care if he did," Giuliani said. "He had every right to do it if he was the president of the United States."Ukraine's prosecutor general said in May that he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of one of the country's biggest gas companies.Withholding InformationRepresentative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has accused Trump administration officials of improperly withholding information about the complaint from congressional investigators, and he warned Trump that Congress would protect the whistle-blower.Schiff and three other Democratic committee chairmen said in a statement Friday that Trump's attack on the whistle-blower as a "political hack job" contradicts the inspector general's conclusion that the allegations raise an "urgent concern." The lawmakers said Trump's "brazen effort to intimidate this whistle-blower risks a chilling effect on future whistle-blowers, with grave consequences for our democracy and national security."A next step in the whistle-blower investigation is set for Sept. 26, when Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is scheduled to testify publicly before the House Intelligence panel after initially resisting demands to do so. Maguire is also expected to meet at some point next week with the Senate Intelligence Committee.Jason Klitenic, the general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, had told Schiff in a letter on Tuesday that the law didn't require that the complaint be turned over to Congress based on guidance by the Justice Department.Trump earlier Friday denied any wrongdoing and accused the whistle-blower of being "highly partisan," without substantiation.The dispute comes as Trump is weighing how to respond to an attack on Saudi oil facilities that U.S. officials have blamed on Iran. It became public during the same week that Trump selected a new national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, after ousting John Bolton.(Updates with Biden statement starting in fourth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Daryna Krasnolutska.To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;Jordan Fabian in Washington at jfabian6@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, ;Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Larry LiebertFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| China Scraps U.S. Farm Tour, Stoking Pessimism on Trade Deal Posted: 20 Sep 2019 03:35 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- A Chinese trade delegation canceled a planned visit to farms in the U.S. heartland, driving down stock indexes as investors turned pessimistic on progress toward resolving the two nations' trade war.The cancellation came only about an hour after President Donald Trump said he wasn't interested in "a partial deal" with China based on Beijing increasing its purchases of U.S. agricultural products. U.S. and Chinese officials held negotiations this week and are aiming for a high-level meeting around Oct. 10.The S&P 500 Index, which had been up for the day, turned down following news of the canceled farm trip -- dropping as much as 0.7% within minutes. The Nasdaq Composite slumped as much as 1.2%.The decline marks the latest whipsaw for markets that have been roiled repeatedly by the conflict between the world's two largest economies. Hope for a deal, which all but evaporated when talks broke down in May, was rekindled over the summer as both sides pledged to reopen talks. But in August, Trump said he would ratchet up tariffs on Chinese imports; then last week he delayed an increase scheduled for Oct. 1.'Goodwill' GestureU.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said said Thursday that the Chinese delegation's farm tour represented a "goodwill" gesture by Beijng.But on Friday, the Montana Farm Bureau Federation said it was told by the Chinese embassy that the delegation "had an adjustment of their agenda" and would return to China earlier than planned. The Nebraska Department of Agriculture, which also had planned to host the delegation, confirmed their visit was canceled, too.U.S. farming has become a main target for Beijing, where leaders are cognizant of the political importance of rural American to Trump's re-election. China's retaliatory tariffs on everything from American apricots to soybeans crimped demand at a time when producers have also suffered from extreme weather.But Trump told reporters in a meeting with Australian President Scott Morrison on Friday that the dispute won't damage his 2020 bid for re-election. He said he wouldn't relent without reaching a "complete deal" with China.Trump said that while he has an "amazing" relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, right now they're having "a little spat.""I think the voters understand that," the president added. "I don't think it has any impact on the election."Bad-Faith AccusationsNevertheless, Trump said it would probably be "positive" for his re-election prospects if the two countries can reach a deal.U.S. and Chinese negotiators held "productive" talks on Thursday and Friday in Washington, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said in a statement. The U.S. is looking forward to hosting "principal-level" negotiations in October, according to the statement. Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said recent developments have created a "positive atmosphere" surrounding the standoff, which has been fueled by accusations of bad faith from both sides.But Trump's remarks Friday tempered any optimism that a partial deal may break the impasse. Administration officials previously have discussed offering an interim trade agreement to China that would delay and even roll back some U.S. tariffs in exchange for Chinese commitments on intellectual property and agricultural purchases.A limited deal would likely jolt markets and ease the economic burden caused by the conflict as Trump ramps up his 2020 re-election campaign. The president has repeatedly denied that the tariffs have hurt the U.S. economy, saying China is bearing the burden.(Updates with comment from USTR in second paragraph under Bad-Faith Accusations subhead)To contact the reporters on this story: Mike Dorning in Washington at mdorning@bloomberg.net;Jordan Fabian in Washington at jfabian6@bloomberg.net;Mario Parker in Chicago at mparker22@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua GalluFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| The Latest: Greek refugee camp unable to house new arrivals Posted: 20 Sep 2019 03:33 PM PDT  The Ocean Viking had assisted Maltese authorities and pulled the migrants from an overcrowded wooden boat on Thursday in international waters. The Ocean Viking initially counted 36 people but corrected the number to 35 after the Friday transfer. Malta has refused to take the remaining people, arguing they were found in international waters where Libya has search and rescue duties.
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| U.N. aviation agency head says open to meeting climate activist Greta Thunberg Posted: 20 Sep 2019 03:17 PM PDT ![U.N. aviation agency head says open to meeting climate activist Greta Thunberg]( "U.N. aviation agency head says open to meeting climate activist Greta Thunberg") The secretary general of the U.N. aviation agency said on Friday she is open to meeting with Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who will lead a Montreal climate protest next week in part targeting emissions from flights. Thunberg, who sailed across the Atlantic from Britain to the United States in a zero-carbon emissions boat to protest air travel emissions, is being courted by some environmentalists and European politicians to address a global gathering at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) when she heads a Sept. 27 climate protest. While no formal request has been made to bring Thunberg to the agency's triennial assembly that kicks off on Tuesday, ICAO Secretary General Fang Liu said she would meet Thunberg if the 16-year-old activist's schedule permits it.
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| UPDATE 1-UK Labour Party officials attempt to oust deputy leader over Brexit Posted: 20 Sep 2019 02:58 PM PDT ![UPDATE 1-UK Labour Party officials attempt to oust deputy leader over Brexit]( "UPDATE 1-UK Labour Party officials attempt to oust deputy leader over Brexit") Britain's opposition Labour Party was plunged into fresh turmoil over Brexit on Friday as a key ally of leader Jeremy Corbyn attempted to have his deputy leader sacked on the eve of the party's annual conference. At a meeting of Labour's National Executive Committee, Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum, a Corbyn-supporting grassroots movement, proposed a motion to abolish the post of deputy leader, currently held by Tom Watson, citing his disloyalty over Brexit, according to two party officials.
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| Yemen rebels announce plan to halt attacks on Saudi Arabia Posted: 20 Sep 2019 02:46 PM PDT  Yemen's Huthi rebels unexpectedly announced late Friday that they planned to halt all attacks on Saudi Arabia as part of a peace initiative to end their country's devastating conflict, five years after they captured the capital Sanaa. The announcement comes after a wave of drone strikes last weekend on Saudi oil installations knocked out half of the kingdom's production and sent shock waves through energy markets. Yemen's conflict has since killed tens of thousands of people -- most of them civilians -- and driven millions more to the brink of famine in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
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| PHOTOS: Climate change protests around the globe Posted: 20 Sep 2019 02:34 PM PDT  A wave of climate change protests swept the globe Friday, with hundreds of thousands of young people sending a message to leaders headed for a U.N. summit: The warming world can't wait for action.
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| UK PM Johnson to meet European leaders in New York in push for Brexit deal Posted: 20 Sep 2019 02:30 PM PDT ![UK PM Johnson to meet European leaders in New York in push for Brexit deal]( "UK PM Johnson to meet European leaders in New York in push for Brexit deal") British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will hold talks with European leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York next week as part of his push to secure a Brexit deal by the end of October. Johnson is due to meet Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, European Council President Donald Tusk, French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Angela Merkel on Monday and Tuesday, a senior UK official said.
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| Ukrainian Official: Trump Wants Dirt ‘To Discredit Biden’ Posted: 20 Sep 2019 02:25 PM PDT  Mark Makela/REUTERSKYIV—Ukraine is ready to investigate the connections Joe Biden's son Hunter had with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, according to Anton Geraschenko, a senior adviser to the country's interior minister who would oversee such an inquiry. Geraschenko told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview that "as soon as there is an official request" Ukraine will look into the case, but "currently there is no open investigation.""Clearly," said Geraschenko, "Trump is now looking for kompromat to discredit his opponent Biden, to take revenge for his friend Paul Manafort, who is serving seven years in prison." Among the counts on which Manafort was convicted: tax evasion. "We do not investigate Biden in Ukraine, since we have not received a single official request to do so," said Geraschenko.His remarks last week came amid widespread speculation that U.S. President Donald Trump had made vital U.S. military aid for Ukraine contingent on such an inquiry, but had tried to do so informally through unofficial representatives, including his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Giuliani's adviser on Ukraine, Sam Kislin. Trump Whistleblower Saga Threatens to Blow Up 2020 CampaignBut Geraschenko spoke before the appearance of a Washington Post story on Thursday that implied that an intelligence community whistleblower may have reported that the untoward quid pro quo was put forth directly by Trump in a phone call with Ukraine's newly elected president last July. Geraschenko reconfirmed his statements in a phone call on Friday.The U.S. administration has thus far blocked efforts by Congress to learn precisely what the whistleblower reported, which Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson deemed an "urgent matter" while offering no details. The Post, citing two sources, said the allegation involved a "promise" made to a foreign leader. Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 to congratulate him on his election. According to the official readout on Ukraine's presidency website, "Donald Trump is convinced that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve image of Ukraine, complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA." Toward the end of August, the White House reportedly was considering whether to block $250 million of funds to support Ukraine's military in its war against Russian-backed separatists. On Sept. 12, however, that funding was released, and even increased. Congressional pressure played a role, and it is unclear whether the whistleblower's reported "promise" allegations, made soon after the Zelensky phone call, did as well. (On Friday, Zelensky's office announced that he will meet with Trump next week.)What's certain is that American and Ukrainian politics are closely connected these days, and on Thursday evening Giuliani admitted he had asked officials in Ukraine to investigate Biden. Giuliani told CNN's Chris Cuomo in a contentious interview that there is nothing wrong with pressing for an investigation into corruption.Others might call this whole affair a matter of political—indeed, geopolitical—extortion.At a minimum, Giuliani's pressure has been interpreted here as weakening this country's institutions by pressing them to dig for dirt on Trump's most important Democratic challenger. Ukraine's law enforcement agencies believe that it is up to U.S. investigators to ascertain, specifically, whether Biden's son had any missed U.S. tax payments on income from Ukraine. Hunter Biden actually took a job with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holding in 2014 and worked there for five years, then quietly quit in April, soon after his father announced his presidential candidacy. It is unclear how much money Burisma paid Hunter Biden in total. Whatever it was, he may rue the work, given the political cost.Ex-MP Serhiy Leshchenko, the Ukrainian pro-Western politician and corruption fighter, has been in the epicenter of the scandal since Giuliani mentioned his name as one of "the enemies of Donald Trump and the USA." The Trump attorney continued to criticize Ukraine's leadership by saying that Ukraine's president "is surrounded by people who are the enemies of the president [Trump] and people who are clearly corrupt."Any word of criticism pronounced by such influential Americans may be damaging to careers here. As a result of Giuliani's statements, Leshchenko has lost a promising role on Zelensky's team. "Both the United States and Ukraine are throwing Biden's case at each other like a hot potato, pushing each other to begin investigating Biden," Leshchenko told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. "I totally understand, and I don't want to be in the way, since Zelensky clearly does not want to quarrel with Trump. The United States is our main strategic partner and I value that." Earlier this month, President Zelensky publicly thanked Trump for releasing the military aid vital for his country. Zelensky spoke at the annual Yalta European Strategy conference, which this year had a symbolic title: Happiness Now. Ukraine elected Zelensky and his supporters in parliament by a landslide earlier this year, largely in response to the alleged corruption of his predecessor and amid hopes the former comedian-turned-politician could end the war with separatists that has killed more than 13,000 people.To bring an end to the carnage, Zelensky needs strong international support. He hopes to strike a peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin with backing from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron at a so-called Normandy Four meeting later this month. Russia and Ukraine recently swapped prisoners, a positive sign, but Zelensky has offered no clues on possible concessions. He demands, as did his predecessor, that Russia return the annexed Crimean peninsula to Ukraine, a non-starter for Putin.The Trump administration eventually released $390 million in military aid to Ukraine, $140 million more than the amount Kyiv had expected before the administration suspended the funds for "review" last month.Russia and Ukraine Swap Prisoners in a Victory for Diplomacy"For now, we would like America to support us more, and not only with money but also with the newest weapons in our war against the aggressor, the Russian Federation," Geraschenko, the adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, told The Daily Beast. "We want a status as NATO's special partner, allowing us to buy any weapons in the U.S., including the newest anti-aircraft rockets to defend our country in case Russia decides to attack from the air; our technology is more than 40 years old."Zelensky's team is struggling to overcome war, poverty, and corruption. Clearly, the idea of helping politicians of foreign states win elections is not a part of his public agenda. "This is a very special stage in Ukraine's development: We have completely changed this year, our mentality has changed, we realize that the entire world is watching us right now," Roman Truba, head of the State Bureau of Investigations, said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast.Truba's agency neither investigated Biden's son nor Burisma Holding. There were no signs of illegality in Biden's work in Ukraine, he said. "The State Bureau of Investigations should be an independent institution. I wish we would become as highly qualified, equipped with all modern technologies, and professional as the FBI."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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| UK Labour Party officials attempt to oust deputy leader over Brexit Posted: 20 Sep 2019 02:14 PM PDT ![UK Labour Party officials attempt to oust deputy leader over Brexit]( "UK Labour Party officials attempt to oust deputy leader over Brexit") An ally of British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn attempted to have his deputy sacked on Friday as the Labour Party's divisions over Brexit went back on display on the eve of its annual conference. At a meeting of Labour's National Executive Committee, Jon Lansman proposed a motion to abolish the post of deputy leader, currently held by Tom Watson, citing his disloyalty over Brexit, according to two party officials.
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| Trump announces sanctions but says won't strike Iran Posted: 20 Sep 2019 02:01 PM PDT  US President Donald Trump on Friday announced new sanctions on Iran that he said were the toughest-ever against another country but indicated he did not plan a military strike, calling restraint a sign of strength. The Treasury Department renewed action against Iran's central bank after US officials said that Tehran carried out weekend attacks on rival Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, which triggered a spike in global crude prices. "We have just sanctioned the Iranian national bank," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
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| Greek island refugee camp too crowded to house newcomers Posted: 20 Sep 2019 01:26 PM PDT  A perpetually overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos can't accommodate any more newly arrived asylum-seekers after the number of people already housed exceeded the camp's intended capacity by 400%, authorities said Friday. Migrants who made it to Lesbos were sleeping in the open or in tents outside the Moria refugee camp, and the population inside has reached 12,000, two regional officials told The Associated Press. Some newcomers were being taken to a small transit camp run by the United Nations' refugee agency on the island's north coast.
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| Analyst: Expect Upward Trend In Pound Sterling As Britain Preps To Leave EU Posted: 20 Sep 2019 01:24 PM PDT ![Analyst: Expect Upward Trend In Pound Sterling As Britain Preps To Leave EU]( "Analyst: Expect Upward Trend In Pound Sterling As Britain Preps To Leave EU") On Thursday, Juncker said a new Brexit deal could still be reached by the deadline, according to the BBC. The pound sterling should continue on an upward trend, said Marc-André Fongern, an FX and macro strategist at MAF Global Forex.
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| Aramco reps describe missiles and fires as facilities were attacked Posted: 20 Sep 2019 01:20 PM PDT ![Aramco reps describe missiles and fires as facilities were attacked]( "Aramco reps describe missiles and fires as facilities were attacked") When 18 drones slammed into the world's biggest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia last Saturday, the roughly hundred workers on weekend night shift leapt into action to confront the blazes that had erupted. Six days after the assault, which hit at the heart of the Saudi energy industry and intensified a decades-long struggle with arch-rival Iran, state oil giant Aramco opened the sites to the world's media on Friday to observe the damage as well as repair efforts. Riyadh and Washington blame the attack on Iran, which denies any involvement, and dismissed a claim of responsibility by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis.
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| Climate Protesters From Paris to New York Rally to Save Planet Posted: 20 Sep 2019 01:19 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Tens of thousands of people around the world demonstrated to demand action on climate change as a global movement backed by 16-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg got under way Friday.Students skipped school and workers walked off jobs to participate in the rallies. In a central Sydney park, protesters held up homemade signs with slogans such as "You're Burning our Future" and "There Is No Planet B." In Berlin, demonstrators gathered by the landmark Brandenburg Gate, just a few steps from where Chancellor Angela Merkel's government hammered out a 54 billion-euro ($60 billion) climate-protection package.Thousands gathered in New York, Toronto, Johannesburg, Warsaw and many more cities around the globe -- eager to add their voices to a movement fueled by youthful angst about rising temperatures."This is about the future of our planet," said Laura Lazzarin, an Italian national living in Berlin who joined demonstrators near the Brandenburg Gate. "We can't go on like this, and politicians must realize that."GlobalClimateStrike in London are urging political leaders to take action on the climate crisis CoveringClimateNow pic.twitter.com/2uCxa7jBLp— Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) September 20, 2019 Protesters joining the Global Climate Strike movement want governments to treat global warming as an emergency, slash subsidies for fossil fuels, and switch economies to 100% renewable energy as soon as possible. They're part of a worldwide series of demonstrations that organizers say will take place in 150 countries on Friday and on Sept. 27."As we deal with devastating climate breakdown and hurtle towards dangerous tipping points, young people are calling on millions of us across the planet to disrupt business as usual by joining the global climate strikes," according to a statement on the organizers' website.The movement has taken hold in Europe, where climate has been catapulted to the top of the political agenda. The European Union should walk away from fossil fuels, the bloc's energy chief told Bloomberg TV this week after a record spike in oil prices. A total of 93% of Europeans see global warming as a serious problem, according to a recent survey by the European Commission.In front of the Brandenburg Gate, three protesters dressed in black stood on top of melting ice blocks with nooses around their necks as hundreds of people gathered around them, carrying home-made placards, blowing whistles and chanting "We are here, we are loud, because you're stealing our future."In Paris demonstrators -- a large number of whom were students -- marched from Place de la Nation, carrying placards with slogans like "our house is on fire" and "time to act."In Poland, home to 33 of the EU's 50 most polluted cities, more than 60 climate protests were held Friday. At the biggest gathering in Warsaw, more than a thousand demonstrators called for the government to curb its dependence on coal, which is burned to produce more than 80% of the country's electricity.PrayforAmazon. We should stop buying the beef that's being imported from Brazil to Hong Kong."Climate activists gathered in Hong Kong, demanding world leaders to address global warming ClimateStrike GlobalClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/xfA2Gk0llB— Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) September 20, 2019 "The government is doing too little and this needs to be changed," said Dionizy Debski, a high school student from Warsaw.Click here for TicToc's ongoing coverage of the global climate protestsThe movement -- inspired by the braided Swedish teenager Thunberg who started weekly school walkouts last year -- has gone global, drawing parallels with other protests like the Civil Rights struggle and anti-apartheid demonstrations.Friday's protests come ahead of United Nations events, including the first Youth Climate Summit on Saturday and the Climate Action Summit of government, corporate and other leaders on Sept. 23 in New York. Thunberg, who founded the "Fridays for Future" protest group, captured media attention by sailing across the Atlantic to address the youth event, rather than traveling by plane -- doing her bit to cap emissions.The climate campaign has spurred some companies into action. Germany's Volkswagen AG, the world's biggest automaker, pledged to make more electric cars and become climate-neutral by 2050.Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos vowed Thursday to wean his company off fossil fuels by 2030. He also announced the formation of a new organization -- the Climate Pledge -- amid a steady drumbeat of criticism from activists and his own employees over Amazon's dependence on fossil fuels.GlobalClimateStrike rally.Protesters are urging leaders to address global warming and put an end to the age of fossil fuels CoveringClimateNow pic.twitter.com/jGfAI7Bnse— Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) September 20, 2019 Despite that pledge, Amazon employees around the world walked off the job on Friday, in offices from Poland to South Africa and Ireland.In Seattle, hundreds of workers, joined by colleagues from Google and other tech companies, rallied in front of the biospheres at the heart of Amazon's headquarters.Weston Fribley, an employee and organizer of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, said Bezos's pledge was "just the beginning." The plans, he said, "must be implemented." He also repeated the group's call for Amazon to end its sales to fossil fuel companies.On Thursday, Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai made his own announcement, saying Google had agreed to buy 1.6 gigawatts of wind and solar power, describing it as a record purchase of renewable energy by a single company.Google Makes Biggest Clean Energy Purchase Ever by a CompanyIn Australia, the campaign has the backing of high-profile business leaders such as the billionaire co-founder of enterprise software company Atlassian Corp., Mike Cannon-Brookes. Atlassian was among hundreds of Australian employers, including law firm Slater & Gordon Ltd. and real-estate portal Domain Holdings Australia Ltd., that allowed workers to take time off to attend the rallies.The call to action has resonated across Europe, which has suffered from increasing bouts of drought and wildfires, and in Australia -- the world's driest inhabited continent that derives the bulk of its energy from burning coal.For all the support the campaign is deriving, however, there are pockets of opposition. In Germany, the far-right AfD party slammed the government's climate measures, citing escalating costs. Merkel's government is "mercilessly squeezing its citizens for an ideology," its co-leader Alice Weidel said in a Twitter post.(Updates with Amazon workers protest.)\--With assistance from Maciej Martewicz, Helene Fouquet and Matt Day.To contact the reporters on this story: Bruce Einhorn in Hong Kong at beinhorn1@bloomberg.net;Thuy Ong in Sydney at hong35@bloomberg.net;Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Vidya Root, Eric PfannerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Latest US Sanctions Take Aim At Iran's Banks Posted: 20 Sep 2019 01:01 PM PDT ![Latest US Sanctions Take Aim At Iran's Banks]( "Latest US Sanctions Take Aim At Iran's Banks") The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned the Central Bank of Iran and National Development Fund of Iran in retaliation for Iran's alleged involvement in multiple drone-operated missile strikes against several Saudi Arabian oil facilities on Sept. 14. Also sanctioned is Iran-based company Etemad Tejarate Pars, which OFAC called a shell for concealing military purchases for Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.
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| Minibus bombing outside Iraq's Karbala kills 12, injures 5 Posted: 20 Sep 2019 12:54 PM PDT ![Minibus bombing outside Iraq's Karbala kills 12, injures 5]( "Minibus bombing outside Iraq's Karbala kills 12, injures 5") A bomb exploded on a minibus packed with passengers outside the Shiite holy city of Karbala Friday night, killing 12 people and wounding five others, Iraqi security officials and the state news agency said. This was one of the biggest attacks targeting civilians since the extremist Islamic State group was declared defeated inside Iraq in 2017. The explosion occurred as the bus was passing through an Iraqi army checkpoint, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of Karbala in the direction of the town of al-Hilla.
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| Trump scolds Europe over captured Islamic State fighters Posted: 20 Sep 2019 12:39 PM PDT  President Donald Trump is warning European nations to take back citizens who joined the Islamic State and are now being held prisoner in Syria and Iraq. Trump told reporters Friday at the White House that the U.S. did Europe a "tremendous favor" by leading the fight to force the Islamic State from the last of the territory it held in Syria.
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| Inside the Saudi oil plants hit in drone attack blamed on Iran Posted: 20 Sep 2019 12:35 PM PDT  Workers at the Abqaiq Aramco oil plant in eastern Saudi Arabia heard the first missile land just after 3.50am. The overnight team thought it was an explosion caused by a malfunction - extremely rare but not unheard of at the world's largest oil processing plant. By strikes two, three, and four, they were in no doubt as to what was happening. This was a deliberate, targeted hit. They grabbed their gas masks and ran first to the stabilisation columns - one of the most vital parts of the facility - which were on fire. "The terrorist strikes were still going on when the first team arrived," said Khaled al-Ghamdi, operations manager at Abqaiq. "The first hour is known as the golden hour and they knew they had to try to get a handle before it burned out of control." Some 150 miles away at the exact same moment, a combination of missiles and drones struck a second processing site at Khurais. Saudi Aramco bosses were woken in the middle of the night to be told the news. By sunrise on Saturday the damage to both plants was clear. Whoever was responsible had managed to cripple the kingdom's oil production, halving it from more than five million barrels per day to just two overnight. Oil prices rocketed to record highs - higher even than at the start of the Islamic revolution of 1979 and during the Arab-Israeli war oil embargo. As one official in Riyadh put it to the Telegraph, "such an attack on Saudi's oil industry is like a knife through its beating heart." Saudi Arabia has suffered a number of much smaller-scale and much less consequential attacks in the past few months, almost exclusively at the hands of Iran-backed Houthis which the kingdom is fighting in neighbouring Yemen. The militia did claim the latest strikes - but they were met with widespread scepticism. There was visible damage caused to Abqaiq plant's oil stablised columns, caused either by a missile or a drone strike Credit: Julian Simmonds for The Telegraph Instead, last weekend's strikes brought the long-running shadow war between Saudi Arabia and Iran out into the open. If US intelligence is to be believed, this was the first major attack by Iran, from Iran, on its foe. So unexpected was it that Tehran might direct and deliver its own assault, Saudi Arabia's anti-missile defence system was facing south towards Yemen rather than north towards Iran and Iraq. Tehran is suspected of sending its missiles a circuitous route round the northern Persian Gulf through Iraqi air space, which allowed it to successfully evade sophisticated Saudi radars. All eyes are now on Saudi Arabia, which cannot leave the attack unanswered but also knows confrontation with Iran must be avoided at all costs. Saudi Aramco put on a press tour of the two sites on Friday - a rare exercise in transparency for a hermit kingdom not known to open its doors to journalists. Riyadh is clearly keen to drum up support for any coordinated response against Iran. It has already shared much of its evidence with the US and plans to present it at the United Nations General Assembly in the coming week. At least five Aramco stabilisation towers were damaged in Saturday's attack. The site's operation manager said they should be back to full output by the end of the month Credit: Julian Simmonds for The Telegraph Visiting the ruined sites it was immediately clear the strike had been clearly planned and cleverly executed, a raid far beyond the capabilities of the Houthis. At Khurais, cranes had been erected around two burnt-out stabilisation columns, which form part of oil-gas separation units. At Abqaiq, gaping holes were being mended in spherical "three-phase separators", which perform the crucial function of separating fluids into gas, oil and water. Parts are being urgently shipped from as far away as the US and Europe. Experts who looked at the Telegraph's photographs from the site suggested that the scale of the attack had probably been underplayed. "The pinpoint precision of the drone strikes is astonishing and the fact that those specific areas were targeted indicates the attackers knew where to strike for maximum effect," said one former Aramco employee with knowledge of the plants. There are 11 large spheroids, of which it appears at least seven have been struck, they said. "If all these vessels are disabled completely, operations at Abqaiq would have come to a grinding halt." Under its de facto young ruler Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has been trying to open up to the world. That Friday's tour even happened is the clearest sign of that to date. The Khurais oil plant in Saudi Arabia, showing damaged pipes from an oil stabiliser Credit: Julian Simmonds forThe Telegraph While MBS brushed off the brutal murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the mass jailing of women rights activists, his failure to protect the country in the most fundamental way will be an embarrassment of a different magnitude for the proud prince. Next year Riyadh is hosting the G20 summit. The kingdom will need to instill confidence that it will be able to protect such important visiting delegates from any possible future attack. "You can see, there is a lot of damage," said Mr Ghamdi, the manager at Abqaiq, pointing to a scorched stabiliser. "But we have some of the best teams in the world. Within seven hours the fires were extinguished. Within 24 hours we brought production back to 30 per cent." Around 1,100 Aramco employees work at the Abqaiq plant on a normal week, but until the company manages to restore normal output - which they estimate to be by the end of the month - they have 6,000 working 24/7. Any cover up would have seriously eroded trust in Saudi Arabia, not just of its allies but of investors ahead of a much-anticipated international public offering for the state-owned Aramco - billed as the world's largest ever IPO. "Yes, the attack happened," said Mr Ghamdi, "but had it been any other country that would have been it [for the industry]. We must remember that Saudi is strong. The world should know that."
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| Iran central bank head says new sanctions show U.S. failure Posted: 20 Sep 2019 12:14 PM PDT  Iran's Central Bank governor said on Friday a U.S. move to sanction the bank for a second time on new grounds showed Washington had failed to find new ways to pressure Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. The United States on Friday imposed another round of sanctions on Tehran, including on Iran's central bank and a development fund, following last week's attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia that Riyadh and U.S. officials have blamed on Iran. "The U.S. government's re-boycott of the Central Bank shows that they have come up empty-handed in finding new ways to pressure Iran," said Abdolnaser Hemmati, whose bank was already blacklisted by Washington.
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| As Taiwan Loses Influence, China Gains Ground in Race With U.S. Posted: 20 Sep 2019 12:08 PM PDT ![As Taiwan Loses Influence, China Gains Ground in Race With U.S.]( "As Taiwan Loses Influence, China Gains Ground in Race With U.S.") BEIJING -- In its contest with the United States for influence in the Pacific, China is quickly gaining momentum.For the second time this week, a Pacific island nation has decided to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing, severing ties with Taiwan, a close U.S. ally. The move by the nation, Kiribati, on Friday came despite intense lobbying by American officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited the South Pacific only a month ago.Though small and sparsely populated, Kiribati and the other nation to switch sides, the Solomon Islands, lie in strategic waters that the United States and its allies have dominated since the end of World War II. Now they have become attractive targets for China's rising geopolitical ambitions, economically and militarily, under the country's leader, Xi Jinping."The U.S. and its allies are losing ground in the region," Adam Ni, a China researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, wrote in an email on Friday. "This is a region in which China is increasingly playing a more prominent role. Regional countries are trying to navigate between a more self-assured and assertive Beijing and a Washington that is still scrambling for an effective regional strategy."Beijing celebrated its diplomatic coup this week, but it also risks a backlash, both in Taiwan and in its relations with the United States, which are already badly strained by the trade war and rising suspicion of China's global ambitions.The developments have also added to fears about China's domineering presence in the Pacific. Chinese investments in logging in the Solomon Islands, for example, are already threatening to exhaust that country's once pristine rainforests.China's bare-knuckle tactics, though, might be proving effective in the short term.Kiribati, an archipelago straddling the Equator, and the larger Solomon Islands both appear to have been lured by the promise of greater economic investment that, apparently, the United States and Taiwan can no longer be sure to match.The election of a new prime minister in Tuvalu, another small nation in the Pacific, has raised the prospect that it, too, may join the tilt toward Beijing.The immediate loser of the diplomatic reshuffling this week was Taiwan's current government. As of Friday, the democratic, self-governing island was recognized as an independent nation by only 14 countries and the Vatican. China's ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan as its territory, despite having never controlled it.Taiwan has faced intensifying economic and diplomatic pressure from China ever since the 2016 election of its president, Tsai Ing-wen, whose campaign for re-election in January could now face a significant setback.But there are some signs that China's efforts to isolate Taiwan are building support for Tsai's government, not eroding it. The same goes for Beijing's unwavering support for the government and the police in Hong Kong, where the "one country, two systems" governing model -- which Xi has dangled as an incentive to Taiwan to unify with the People's Republic of China -- has been severely tarnished by the continuing unrest there.Even before those protests, however, polls in Taiwan showed negligible support for unification with China under any arrangement."China's suppression of Taiwan in the international arena cannot change the indisputable fact of Taiwan's existence, nor can it coerce the Taiwanese people into abandoning their democratic and free way of life," Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Friday, which criticized Kiribati and Beijing with equal intensity.The statement accused Kiribati's president, Taneti Maamau, and his governing party of holding "highly unrealistic expectations regarding China." It claimed that Maamau had sought a donation, to be used for the purchase of commercial aircraft, rejecting Taiwan's offers to provide loans to purchase them.Kiribati -- a former British colony composed of 33 coral atolls and reef islands, scattered across a swath of the Pacific Ocean about twice the size of Alaska -- informed Taiwan of its intent to sever relations, but it did not immediately announce its intention to recognize Beijing. That is expected soon. Repeated calls to the president's office were not answered.The country has a gross domestic product of less than $200 million and earns much of its income by charging fees to foreign fishing fleets that operate in its waters. The value of fishing in Kiribati-controlled waters was worth over $1 billion per year in 2014, nearly as much as the entire catch in waters owned by all the other Pacific island countries and territories, according to a study financed by the Australian government.That alone would attract China, which is desperate to meet its enormous demand for seafood.For countries that align themselves with Beijing, the dividends can be swift. A subsidiary of China Railway Group, a construction conglomerate whose major shareholder is a state company, signed an $825 million contract with the Solomon Islands for a gold-mining project on Monday, the same day the country switched its recognition policy."Principle cannot be bought," a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Geng Shuang, said Friday, responding to Taiwan's criticism.He said that international support for the People's Republic as the sole nation representing all of China was "unstoppable" and that severing ties with Taiwan "would surely bring unprecedented opportunities for the development of Kiribati."Taiwan is governed by the Republic of China, which based itself in Taiwan after losing a bloody civil war to Mao Zedong's Communist forces in 1949.Both Taipei and Beijing claimed to be the rightful ruler of both sides of the Taiwan Strait until the 1990s, when Taipei effectively abandoned its goal of retaking China. To this day, neither government will maintain diplomatic ties with countries that recognize the other.Although the United States switched its official recognition to China in 1979, it maintains close economic and military ties with Taiwan. That includes arms sales, most recently a package of $8 billion for 66 F-16 fighter jets.Bonnie S. Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who visited Taiwan this week, said the luring away of two more allies was retaliation for the latest arms sales. "Poaching another of Taiwan's diplomatic allies (or two?) was deemed the proportionate response," she wrote in an email.The defections are already rippling through domestic politics in Taiwan, where presidential and legislative elections are less than four months away. Ni and other analysts said they believed that was Beijing's intention, at least in part.Since Tsai's election in 2016, Beijing has persuaded seven countries to stop recognizing Taiwan as an independent nation. She faces a re-election race against Han Kuo-yu, the populist mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan's third largest city. Han is the new standard-bearer of the Kuomintang, a party which, despite a history of fighting the Communists in China and being one of Washington's most fervent Cold War allies, now generally favors closer relations with Beijing.Han's campaign released a statement earlier this week calling on Tsai to "find concrete steps to stop the domino effects of allies' diplomatic de-recognition," while also criticizing Beijing.The United States has watched China's moves with concern but has seemed unable to stop them. At a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, David R. Stilwell, the State Department's assistant secretary for East Asia and the Pacific, criticized "China's actions to bully Taiwan through economic coercion, squeezing Taiwan's international space and poaching diplomatic partners."He added that China's military modernization and increasing operations in the Pacific were "clearly intended not only to deter U.S. efforts to sustain our forward presence in the region, but to signal to other countries, and to the authorities on Taiwan, that they are under direct threat."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| How Iran could threaten Trump’s reelection Posted: 20 Sep 2019 11:52 AM PDT  If Iran could crimp oil production in the weeks prior to the 2020 election, it would push gas prices up and cause Trump a problem with voters.
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| The Latest: Yemen rebels halting attacks on Saudi Arabia Posted: 20 Sep 2019 11:51 AM PDT  The Iran-backed Houthis have claimed recent attacks on key Saudi oil facilities. The decision was announced Friday night by Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi's supreme political council, which runs rebel-held areas in Yemen.
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| Nikki Haley moves back to SC, fuels political speculation Posted: 20 Sep 2019 11:17 AM PDT  Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is moving back to her native South Carolina, re-establishing a home base and also fueling speculation that a return to politics is next on her to-do list. The 47-year-old former South Carolina governor, who left office in 2017 to join the Trump administration, closed Friday on a home on Kiawah Island, according to Alex Malloy, a spokeswoman for Kiawah Island Real Estate, which operates on the tony golf community near Charleston. Haley's office confirmed the purchase, saying the family would be splitting time between South Carolina and New York until their son graduates from high school next spring.
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| Trump to send US troops to Saudi Arabia following attacks on oil facilities Posted: 20 Sep 2019 11:01 AM PDT  Donald Trump is dispatching additional forces to Saudi Arabia following the attack on oil facilities that the US has blamed on Iran.A week after Saudi oil facilities at Khurai and Abqaiq were attacked and damaged, an operation Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for and which temporarily halved the kingdom's oil production, the Pentagon announced it was be deploying a "moderate" number of troops primarily "defensive in nature".
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| Syrian activists: Anti-govt protests held in oil-rich east Posted: 20 Sep 2019 10:41 AM PDT ![Syrian activists: Anti-govt protests held in oil-rich east]( "Syrian activists: Anti-govt protests held in oil-rich east") Syrian opposition activists say anti-government protesters have captured at least two army checkpoints in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the protests occurred in government-held areas close to those controlled by U.S.-backed fighters on the east bank of the Euphrates river. It said the protests began after Friday prayers.
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| UPDATE 1-Trump Asia expert to become new deputy national security adviser-sources Posted: 20 Sep 2019 10:39 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Trump Asia expert to become new deputy national security adviser-sources]( "UPDATE 1-Trump Asia expert to become new deputy national security adviser-sources") Matt Pottinger, the White House's senior Asia adviser, is expected to become the top deputy for U.S. President Donald Trump's new national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, two senior administration officials said on Friday. Pottinger, who is likely to take up his new post of deputy national security adviser within days, is a former journalist and ex-U.S. Marine who has helped forge China and North Korea policy since Trump took office in January 2017.
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| Hezbollah tells Saudi Arabia to stop Yemen war Posted: 20 Sep 2019 10:30 AM PDT  The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Friday called for Saudi Arabia to stop its war in Yemen, or else face more attacks on its soil. The U.S. accuses Iran of being behind recent drone-and-cruise-missile attacks that knocked out more than half of Saudi Arabia's daily crude oil production. Saudi Arabia has said "Iranian weaponry" was used.
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| Shippers Must Foot The Bill For Post-Saudi Fuel Hikes Posted: 20 Sep 2019 10:13 AM PDT ![Shippers Must Foot The Bill For Post-Saudi Fuel Hikes]( "Shippers Must Foot The Bill For Post-Saudi Fuel Hikes") Shippers should be prepared to swallow the full cost of heightened fuel prices following drone attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities last weekend. With global crude oil prices surging as Saudi Arabia attempts to get capacity back online, and fears growing of further conflict in the Middle East after Iran warned that any attack on it by the U.S. or Saudi Arabia would spark an "all-out war," fuel costs have soared. The Global 20 Ports Average price of IFO380 intermediate bunker fuel spiked to $502 per metric ton on Sept. 17, according to Ship&Bunker.
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| Trump Aide Pottinger Likely to Be Named O’Brien’s Deputy Posted: 20 Sep 2019 10:07 AM PDT ![Trump Aide Pottinger Likely to Be Named O'Brien's Deputy]( "Trump Aide Pottinger Likely to Be Named O'Brien's Deputy") (Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump's top national security adviser Robert O'Brien is likely to select an Asia expert on the National Security Council, Matt Pottinger, as his top deputy, according to two people familiar with the matter.Pottinger has been deeply involved in U.S. talks with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program and helped to plan Trump's meetings with the country's leader, Kim Jong Un. The people familiar with Pottinger's likely promotion asked not to be identified because the appointment hasn't been announced.Trump told reporters on Friday that O'Brien "just picked a deputy, who's in the administration, you all know him," but didn't identify Pottinger.Pottinger is a former reporter who covered China for the Wall Street Journal. He left journalism to join the U.S. Marines, and was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.He went to work for the NSC in 2017 and was appointed as the Asia director.(Updates with biographical information in final two paragraphs.)To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Joshua GalluFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Climate change will grab globe's focus with summit, strikes Posted: 20 Sep 2019 10:03 AM PDT  Get ready to hear about global warming — or the "climate emergency " as the United Nations is calling it. In the next week, there will be climate strikes, climate summits, climate debates, a dire climate science report, climate pledges by countries and businesses, promises of climate financial help and more between now and next Friday. "We're about to start an extraordinary series of events over the next few days," said Rachel Kyte, special representative on sustainable energy for the United Nations secretary-general.
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| Five climate change protesters arrested as Britain braces for weekend of chaos Posted: 20 Sep 2019 10:00 AM PDT  Climate change is one of the greatest threats to global health, experts warn Teachers warned not to let children walk out on 'climate strike' Amazon orders 100,000 electric delivery vans as it pledges to be carbon neutral by 2040 Why Australia, the US and Japan are banned from speaking at the UN's flagship climate summit Police have arrested climate change protesters who were illegaly blocking Lambeth bridge after a day of global action, believed to be the largest climate protest in history. So far, five protesters have been taken into custody for breaching public order conditions that restricted the gathering to the Millbank area. In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: "Lambeth Bridge has been occupied by protestors. You are free to leave and we encourage you to do so, because this assembly is in breach of the S14 conditions and you are liable to arrest." The large group was forced off the bridge by police who arrived in vans from Westminster and were then escorted along Lambeth Road and made to disperse. One police insider said that it was "massively peaceful, considering the number of people attending." Looks like they're dancing their way into a kettle ... ClimateStrikepic.twitter.com/fmw9hBEvpb— Lizzie Roberts (@lizrob92) September 20, 2019 Hundreds of thousands of people led by school children took part in protests across the UK, calling for urgent action to tackle climate change. Children and students walked out of lessons and lectures and were joined by parents, campaigners and workers as part of global climate strikes which look set to be the largest environmental protests in history once the figures are confirmed. Organisers claim that around 100,000 people took part in a rally in central London, with more than 20,000 thought to have marched in Edinburgh and 10,000 in Brighton as crowds flocked on to the streets around the UK. In London, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told the youngsters in the crowd that "you and a whole generation have brought the issue centre stage and I am absolutely delighted about that". He criticised US President Donald Trump for his failure to act on climate change and had a message for Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro that he wanted to work with him to preserve and protect the Amazon rainforest. Protesters are beginning to gather ahead of the UK Student Climate Network's Global Climate Strike at Millbank in London Credit: Gareth Fuller/PA Green Party politician Caroline Lucas was also present and told the PA news agency: "It feels like there is a real uprising. It feels like there is a real sense from young people in particular that they simply won't wait any longer. "It is their future that is at stake and our generation, my generation is responsible for not having done nearly enough to address that. "They have enormous moral authority when they tell us that." Some of Friday's first protests were held in Australia, where an estimated 300,000 people gathered at more than 100 rallies calling for action to guard against climate change, with further demonstrations held across parts of Asia. Protesters joining the climate strikes in Britain enjoyed a day of unseasonably warm weather as they called on businesses and politicians to cut emissions. Children and young people across the country walked out of lessons and lectures, with thousands of workers joining them. Police arrest a protester after issuing a section 14 notice at an Extinction Rebellion gathering Credit: Thomas Bowles In Westminster, the protests started at 11am, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn set to address crowds this afternoon. But the Department for Education has echoed teachers unions in warning that whilst they "encourage constructive engagement" it shouldn't "come at the expense of our children's education or excessive disruption". Teachers were told that if they encouraged students to attend or fail to record absences they put themselves at risk of legal or disciplinary action. Many teachers appeared to ignore the warnings. The protests are part of a snowballing movement sparked by teenage activist Greta Thunberg's school strikes outside the Swedish parliament. What happened in Britain today? The UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN) says more than 200 events were planned to take place across the UK, with - for the first time - adults being encouraged to join the youngsters as they strike. Among the many trade unions throwing their weight behind the strikes are the TUC Congress, the University and College Union and Unite. Some businesses actively supported their workers to take action, with outdoor clothing company Patagonia closing stores and offices globally, and taking out adverts to support the strikers. The Co-operative Bank has also teamed up with Unite to support its workforce to take part in the climate strikes. But business, energy and clean growth minister Kwasi Kwarteng said he could not endorse children leaving school to take part. Business, energy and clean growth minister Kwasi Kwarteng said he could not endorse children leaving school to take part Credit: Victoria Jones/PA He told BBC Breakfast on Friday that he supports the "energy and creativity" of students, but said time spent in school is "incredibly important". When asked if the Government is listening to the young protesters, he added: "Their voices are being heard. "What I do support is their energy, their creativity, and the fact that they have completely mastered these issues and take them very seriously. "I am not going to endorse people leaving school because I think education, time spent in school, is incredibly important." Why have people been arrested? The Met police has issued strict instructions that restricts protests to a small area of Westminster. In order to impose this condition, the Met required evidence that the procession may result in serious disruption to communities in London. Latest intelligence reports suggest that such serious disruption is an objective of this protest and is likely to occur, and as such, conditions have been imposed. The conditions imposed under Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 stipulate that: - Any assembly by organisers, members, participants, associates, supporters and sympathisers of "Global Climate Strike" (whether or not they are members of this group) must take place in Millbank and Abingdon Street London, SW1P, from the stage area on South of Dean Stanley Street, to the junction of Abingdon Street with Parliament Square. - Assembly cannot take place in any other part of London. - Any assembly must conclude at 15:30hrs on Friday, 20 September. Arrests have been made this morning and this afternoon at the protests Credit: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire The Gold commander for the event, Commander Dave Musker, said: "We respect the right to protest; however, what we will not tolerate are protestors committing criminal offences and disproportionately stopping people going about their lawful business in London. "Anyone who knowingly fails to comply with these conditions or incites others to fail to comply will be committing an offence and will be liable to arrest. I will not allow the actions of a few to seriously hinder the day-to-day activities of the vast majority of Londoners, or visitors. The cumulative impact of these protests has been very significant in terms of serious disruption. "I have a proportionate policing operation in place and we will be proactive in ensuring any impact on our communities is minimised; anyone who is intent on violence is dealt with swiftly and robustly. "A designated area has been agreed for the protests to take place in and I urge those attending the Global Strike Youth 4 Climate protests to comply with the law and do so in that location." What disruption is expected in the coming days? On Saturday Extinction Rebellion plan to blockade the Port of Dover for four hours. The "No Food on a Dying Planet" action at the Kent port is expected to be mirrored across the Channel by other Extinction Rebellion groups. On Sunday, as the Labour Party conference gets underway in Brighton, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that more than 20km of road in central London will be shut along with a further 340 streets which will be turned into "play areas". But the move has been criticised as a "PR stunt" which will cost £1million which could have been invested in "proper measures to improve air quality". On the Ground in London, with Lizzie Roberts Our reporter Lizzie Roberts is on the streets of Westminster following the demonstration. She's been talking to students and teachers who have joined in. I'm reporting the London ClimateStrike. These kids from John Stainer school have come to "exercise their democratic right" said headteacher Sue Harte. pic.twitter.com/0JWsQPLW5U— Lizzie Roberts (@lizrob92) September 20, 2019 She writes: A London primary school, John Stainer of Brockley, has accompanied over 100 children to the climate strike. Headteacher Sue Harte said the children, aged 4-11, are exercising their democratic right as part of their British values. She said: "Our school council has been learning about democracy they are exercising their democratic right to protest, lots of other kids have come with their parents. That's one of the British values it's an important part of their education. "With staff we brought the school council of 16 students but there are nearly 100 others being brought with their parents. "I think they (schools which don't allow kids to protest) should realise that they could let the children exercise their democratic rights under British values. I expect that might change as these protests keep happening. "The issue won't go away and the children want to exercise their democratic right so who am I to stop them? "Obviously it has to be done safely but who am I to stop them?" Kelly Devereux, from Serbiton, took her six year old son to the protest despite the school saying it would be recorded as an "unauthorised absence". She said: "They said it was an unauthorised absence and we should have given two weeks notice, which is a bit po-faced if you ask me. "It's really important, but he went to school first thing and then we took him out. "I feel that education is obviously very important and by taking children out of school on a Friday shows this protest is very important." Protests around the UK This, from Sheffield: Sheffield, you have done me proud sheffieldSheffieldissuperClimateStrikeClimateChangeYouthStrike4ClimateYS4C@Strike4Youthpic.twitter.com/QVTeYxZeR3— RooRooS (@PolaRooS) September 20, 2019 This from Canterbury: ClimateChange gathering outside Canterbury Cathedral. pic.twitter.com/TGbPYUGjZT— Simon Jones (@SimonJonesNews) September 20, 2019 And this from Bristol: Thousands now marching through the centre of Bristol ClimateStrikepic.twitter.com/O98aPpOEnE— Andy Davies (@adavies4) September 20, 2019 Protests around the world The first large-scale protests of Friday's "global climate strike" took place in Sydney and Canberra, with demonstrators calling on leaders in Australia, the world's largest exporter of coal and liquid natural gas, to take more drastic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Similar rallies are planned for around the world, with 800 events set to take place in the US and 400 in Germany. The protests come ahead of a climate summit at the UN next week convened by secretary-general Antonio Guterres to urge countries to up their climate efforts. Much steeper measures are needed across the globe to prevent temperature rises of more than 1.5C (2.7F) or 2C (3.6F) to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. As if to underline the urgency of the issue, the mercury is set to hit 26C (78.8F) in parts of Britain this weekend - 8C above the average for the time of year. People display placards during a rally as part of a global climate change campaign at Sanur beach on Indonesia's resort island of Bali Credit: AFP India, by Joe Wallen The protests were not restricted to the West, however, and more than 2,000 students and school-children took to the streets in Delhi to demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi declare an immediate climate emergency in India. While the Indian economy has ballooned in recent years - the International Monetary Fund now ranks it as the fifth largest in the world - this rapid development has come at a cost. Nine out of the ten most polluted cities in the world are in the country and the Indian Government's think tank Niti Aayog predicts that 21 major cities will run out of drinking water by 2020. The peaceful march set off from the Lodhi neighbourhood of the city with protesters, some as young as nine-years-old, chanting slogans such as "We are unstoppable, another world is possible" and "There is no Earth B" and holding placards. "We are not really doing anything to save our water resources, we are polluting our water resources and without water there is no life on Earth possible," said protester Shipra Sarangi, 19. "We have some demands that the Indian Government should start using more renewable resources and stop using fossil fuels." The procession ended outside the office of the Ministry for Climate Change where the marchers held a sit-in stopping traffic in Lodhi. Chit Dubey founded Extinction Rebellion India in November 2018 and he said today was historic as it was the first time so many young Indians had taken to the streets to demand action over climate change. "It seems this movement is going to grow bigger and bigger over the next few months because the youth of India are not going to sit silently and the energy was amazing today," he said. "We are hoping to increase from 2,000 to 20,000 to 100,000 people and more." Dubey will deliver a letter stating the group's concerns to the office of Prime Minister Modi tomorrow Asia, by Nicola Smith The Global Climate Strike has been spreading from the Pacific across Southeast Asia after kicking off in Kiribati, a tiny group of 32 atolls and former British protectorate in Micronesia. With sea levels rising, many believe huge areas of Kiribati will be inundated within 25 years. Local children took time out to hold up signs saying "we are not sinking, we are fighting." In low-lying Vanuatu in the South Pacific, the deputy minister spoke directly to the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and New Zealand as countries "to blame for this threat to our survival" as hundreds took to the streets of Port Vila with colourful banners. Children in the Solomon Islands arrived by boat to protest, wearing traditional grass skirts and carrying wooden shields in solidarity with the global movement. Students attend a climate change protest in Marovo Island, Solomon Islands Credit: Reuters The protests built up momentum across Asia, from the Philippines and Singapore to Thailand and Indonesia. In Bangkok, which lies just 1.5 metres above sea level, about 200 protesters marched to the Ministry of Environment to deliver a letter calling on the government to declare a climate emergency. Locals in the Indonesian region of Kalimantan focussed on the hazardous air that has been caused by weeks of forest fires, and which have caused breathing and eye problems both at home and in neighbouring Malaysia. Australia, by Giovanni Torre In Australia, more than 300,000 students gathered around the country including state capitals and outback towns like Alice Springs. Kaelin Abrahams, a Year 11 student from North Albany High School, was a leading organiser of the strike and rally in Perth, Western Australia. He told The Telegraph that young people are motivated by the "existential threat" climate changes poses. "This is the greatest threat humanity has faced. It is a threat to us as a species and also a threat to biodiversity, to all life." The 16-year-old said that his generation had "the most to lose" from unmitigated climate change. Protesters push an inflatable globe into the air while holding placards and banners during the Global Climate Strike demonstration at the Domain in Sydney Credit: David Gray/Bloomberg The Perth rally more than doubled in size from the equivalent action six months earlier, with at least 10,000 people rallying in the heart of the capital. Melinda Tupling, a teacher at an international school in Perth, organised for a strike at her school - with the blessing of their director of studies. "The majority of the students went to the strike and we marched together in the rally, it was brilliant," she said. "The students described it as inspiring, epic, fascinating, empowering. They are all adult students from around the world studying English here in Perth." Who is Greta Thunberg? Until last summer, the name Greta Thunberg was relatively unknown outside her family and friends in Sweden. The eldest of two girls, she is the daughter of actor Svante Thunberg and Malena Ernman, a well-known opera singer who came 21st in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. (She is also distantly related to Svante Arrhenius, the first scientist to predict that carbon emissions would lead to warming.) Growing up with the family's two labradors, Moses and Roxy, near the capital, Thunberg was academically sound but quiet, and became interested in the subject of climate change when she was just nine. Images of melting ice and polar bears in peril became stuck in Thunberg's mind. At 11, she was uninterested in mobile phones or the trends other children followed, and her sadness turned to a crippling depression; stopping her from going to school, eating and – aside from family and one particular teacher at school – speaking. At around the same time, she and her younger sister, 13-year-old Beata, were diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, ADHD and other conditions. Thunberg says that her autism has helped helped her to focus on doing something about the subject that caused her depression. The global phenomenon | Greta Thunberg By last summer, Thunberg's focus had outgrown the home. Frustrated by what she saw as weak-to-non-existent policies on climate change from the Swedish government, and provoked by the summer heatwave, she resolved to skip school and sit alone, every Friday, on the cobblestones in front of the country's parliament. "I am doing this because you adults are s****** on my future," said the leaflets she handed out to passersby. Students in other countries followed, including the UK, and soon tens of thousands of teenagers had joined the strike. Thunberg was invited to the United Nations climate conference and the World Economic Forum, in Davos. At the latter, she told a roomful of business leaders that their financial success had "come with an unthinkable price tag" for the planet. She has met Pope Francis and Jean-Claude Juncker, earned endorsements from Barack Obama and Leonardo DiCaprio, and been touted for the Nobel Peace Prize. "All my life I've been invisible, the invisible girl in the back who doesn't say anything," she said last year. No longer: "From one day to another, people listen to me."
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| Cuba: diplomat expulsions, gas crisis part of US offensive Posted: 20 Sep 2019 09:48 AM PDT  Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said Friday that the U.S. expulsion of two Cuban diplomats and energy shortages across the island are part of a Trump administration offensive that will fail to force concessions by his government. Rodríguez told reporters that Cuba was weighing its response to the expulsion of two diplomats posted to Cuba's permanent mission to the United Nations.
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| Trump to snub climate summit for religious freedom meeting at UN Posted: 20 Sep 2019 09:37 AM PDT  Exclusive: Senior UN official confirms White House booked a room so Trump can attend a gathering in same building as the summitDonald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty ImagesDonald Trump is set to attend the United Nations headquarters during Monday's key summit on the climate crisis – but will be there to take part in a meeting on religious freedom instead.A senior UN official confirmed to the Guardian that the White House has booked one of the large conference rooms in the New York headquarters on Monday so that the president can address a gathering on religious freedom.climate boxThe move is likely to be seen as a blatant snub to the UN climate summit, to be held in the same building on the same day. Leaders from around the world, including the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson; France's president, Emmanuel Macron; and India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, are expected at the summit as part of a major UN push to heighten the response to the escalating climate crisis.UN sources said the booking of the room was relatively last minute and will cause some logistical issues given the major security operation that accompanies the US president wherever he goes. But a senior UN official said they were "not panicked" given the large organizational capacity of the UN general assembly."No one was really expecting the president to come to the climate summit," the official said. It's understood that senior UN staff have realistic expectations of Trump and do not expect him to engage on the climate crisis, even for a summit held in his home town. Trump has vowed the US will withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement."He'll clog up the whole system," said Mary Robinson, former Irish president and ex-UN high commissioner for human rights. "He won't go to the climate summit and he wants the distraction factor, I suppose."Even if Trump were to attend it is unlikely he would have been called to the podium to speak. Representatives from about 60 countries are expected to address the UN on Monday on the further commitments they are making to slash greenhouse gas emissions and deal with the flooding, storms and other impacts of global heating.The speakers will outline "only the best plans, only the most committed leaders will be on the stage", according to Luis Alfonso de Alba, the UN's special envoy for the climate summit.Still, Trump's presence in the UN building, at a time when climate protests swept around the world on Friday, will prove provocative. "Not participating and yet showing up at the building is throwing down a gauntlet," said David Waskow, director of the International Climate Initiative at the World Resources Institute."It's most importantly a snub to the young people pleading for action on climate change. Donald Trump has made very clear internationally and domestically he has no interest in the science or this issue. It's up to the rest of the world to get on with its business."The Guardian has contacted the White House for comment.
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| 'All-out war' would decimate Iran's economy, cause oil prices to soar Posted: 20 Sep 2019 09:25 AM PDT !['All-out war' would decimate Iran's economy, cause oil prices to soar]( "'All-out war' would decimate Iran's economy, cause oil prices to soar") Iran's economy could fall 25 percent during a conflict with the U.S.
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| After Iran bombs Saudi oil infrastructure, should the United States retaliate? Posted: 20 Sep 2019 09:16 AM PDT  Iran's attack reveals weakness. Trump can do nothing and wait for sanctions to continue crushing the mullahs' regime.
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| Saudis threaten UN-brokered truce in strike near Yemeni port city Posted: 20 Sep 2019 09:12 AM PDT  The Saudi-led military coalition launched an air strike north of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah early on Friday morning, amidst heightened tensions following a weekend strike against Saudi oil installations. The coalition said it had struck only "legitimate military targets," and had succeeded in destroying four sites used to assemble maritime drones and sea mines by Houthi fighters. "These sites are used to carry out attacks and terrorist operations that threaten shipping lines and international trade in the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the southern Red Sea," said coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki in a statement. Houthi forces who control the area were quick to brand the strike a "dangerous escalation", saying it violated a UN ceasefire agreement reached last year in Sweden. While the strike took place north of the city, it was within Hodeidah governate and as such violates the terms of the agreement. "The coalition will bear the responsibility of this escalation which is also a test to the United Nations," said Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam on Twitter. But some argue this is only the latest in a series of violations on both sides. "There has been so much escalation in and around the city, but often when the Houthis break ceasefires they are labelled skirmishes," said Fatima Alsarar of the Middle East Institute. "The focus has been so much on the Saudi-led coalition because it's a partner to the United States and you expect them to behave responsibly, but the Houthis are expected to behave like a militia so the bar is so much lower." "There's also pressure to see Hodeidah agreement work, and this is unfortunate because the UN always says the ceasefire has been successful otherwise. But people have died. This is just an effort to make the agreement look more successful than it has been." Yemen displaced Hodeidah is a vital port city on the Red Sea, not only for humanitarian access but because it is used by the Houthis to smuggle in missile parts and small weapons from their backers in Iran. As a result, the city has been at the centre of conflict for the majority of the five-year war. The Saudi-led coalition, which receives Western backing, have been engaged in Yemen's civil war since 2015 after Houthi forces, backed by Iran, ousted the internationally recognised government in the capital Sana'a in late 2014. Some suspect Friday's strikes were a retaliation for attacks on Saudi oil installations on Saturday, which were later claimed by the Houthi movement. But experts have ruled out Houthi responsibility, arguing forensic evidence shows the attacks came from Iran, the Houthis' principal ally in the region. "This attack seems symbolic and packaged for a domestic audience," said Peter Salisbury, Senior Analyst at Crisis Group. "The Saudis likely felt the need to demonstrate their willingness to respond to Houthi cross-border attacks. They've struck this site before which raises questions about the utility of such a strike expect for show." "Yemen, in the eyes of some in the Riyadh and elsewhere, represents the low-hanging fruit in terms of demonstrating a willingness to retaliate against Iran," he added. The Houthis, for their part, are happy to be used as a scapegoat in Yemen for Iran in order to reach their ultimate objective, according to Ms Alasrar: "Iran thrives on creating confusion, it aims to deflect and say: look at the Houthis, look at the Saudis, we're not doing anything. They're sending a message to the US that they need to respect their authority while also denying involvement."
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| Thousands of young activists challenging lawmakers to act in Global Climate Strike Posted: 20 Sep 2019 09:12 AM PDT  Hundreds of thousands of young people have taken to the streets for the Global Climate Strike to raise awareness on climate change and urge lawmakers to create policies to help save the planet ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit next week. The march is building on a "historic surge" of student protests and strikes for climate action, but adults also are formally invited to participate, according to the organizers behind the movement. Massive crowds were seen in Japan, Australia, England and New York, with streets packed wall-to-wall with protesters.
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| Germany’s Green New Deal Doesn’t Do Much for the Climate Posted: 20 Sep 2019 09:07 AM PDT ![Germany's Green New Deal Doesn't Do Much for the Climate]( "Germany's Green New Deal Doesn't Do Much for the Climate") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The German government's 54 billion-euro ($60 billion) climate deal, approved after about 20 hours of overnight negotiations on Friday, is a typical product of the reluctant coalition run by Chancellor Angela Merkel: It achieves a balance of interests and little more. If German voters want a more ambitious plan, and there are indications that they do, they'll have to wait until after the 2021 election.The package is an exercise in evenhandedness. It's neutral from the budgetary point of view, meaning the government isn't sacrificing its balanced budget for the sake of reducing emissions. It makes fossil fuels more expensive, but it does so slowly, and counterbalances the rising costs with promised cuts to other energy-related levies, such as grid fees and a renewable energy subsidy, and with incentives to take trains and buy electric cars. It also promises government investment in expanding the charging network for electric cars, and avoids burdening automakers with additional costs. One can see that center-right and center-left politicians had a hand in drafting the 22-page position paper that emerged from the talks – and that the Greens, Germany's second-most-popular party but not a member of the governing coalition, weren't there.The key element of the plan is the introduction of trading in emission allowances for transport and heating starting in 2021. The two sectors are responsible for a combined 33% of Germany's greenhouse gas emissions, but they are not covered by the European Union's existing emissions-trading system, which is designed for large industrial users such as power plants and airlines.In 2021, an allowance for 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide will be offered for 10 euros; that price will rise to 35 euros in 2025. After that, the government will start issuing fewer and fewer allowances to match its emissions reduction goals, and they'll be auctioned; the maximum price will be set at 60 euros per ton of CO2. The idea is that by 2030, Germany's greenhouse gas emissions will be cut by 55% from the 1990 level. This is quite a lofty goal, since only a 30% cut has been achieved to date, far from the 40% reduction Germany had targeted for 2020. The proposed measures are expected to increase the price of gasoline and diesel by some 3 euro cents per liter in 2021 and by 9 to 15 euro cents starting in 2026, so it'll be some time before the change becomes noticeable to drivers. By the time it happens, they should find it easier to switch to electric cars: Germany aims to have 1 million charging stations available by 2030, and it's planning to keep subsidizing the purchase of vehicles running on non-fossil fuel and hybrids.Rail passengers won't notice the increases at all, even if they use diesel-powered trains: The government wants to cut the value-added tax on train tickets. But air tickets will be taxed at a higher rate, especially if they're offered at rock-bottom prices.The leftist part of the coalition, the Social Democrats, clearly was worried about the damage any fuel price increase would have on poorer Germans. A fuel tax was what sparked the recent Yellow Vest protests in France, after all. So those who have to commute to and from work will be able to write off a bigger share of their transport costs from their taxable income.Merkel and her finance minister, Olaf Scholz, peppered their presentation of the plan with references to the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg and the climate strikes held in many countries, including Germany. But Merkel also reminded her audience that politics is the art of the possible, and said the deal would fall short of "impatient young people's" expectations. And, lo and behold, it did. After the presentation, the German branch of Fridays for Future, the movement founded by Thunberg, tweeted: "It's a bad joke that the government praises Fridays for Future at the beginning of each statement and then tries to sell us decisions that further trample upon our future." Instead of the carefully balanced package rolled out by the government, climate activists would have liked to see a speedier transition away from coal in power generation (Germany only plans to exit coal by 2037) and an immediate, hefty price tag on CO2 emissions.The latter would have been possible if the government had opted for a carbon tax rather than an emissions-trading scheme, which requires time and additional bureaucracy to put into operation and supervise. Two climate-change think tanks made this argument in detail in a recent report, pointing out that a tax would achieve the same results in terms of climate goals as the more complex trading scheme. Politically, however, a tax is less palatable – it looks like the government taking money directly out of citizens' pockets. The more elaborate scheme is less obvious, and it appears to be more clearly linked to emissions.It seems as though Merkel's coalition is about to fall apart over every more or less important issue. Climate is important, and the chancellor must be relieved that her quarrelsome cabinet has dodged another bullet. But Germans are unlikely to be equally relieved.According to a poll published on Friday, 63% of Germans say protecting the climate should have priority over economic growth. I wouldn't be surprised if the government's timid effort gave a boost to the Greens, who are only slightly behind Merkel's Christian Democrats in the polls. They have been able to lure many of Merkel's more liberal voters away, and they can keep doing so by demanding more climate action. Then, if no centrist government can be created without them in 2021, Friday's deal will be considerably strengthened.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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