| UPDATE 1-Saudi crown prince warns of escalation with Iran, says he prefers political solution Posted: 29 Sep 2019 04:40 PM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Saudi crown prince warns of escalation with Iran, says he prefers political solution]( "UPDATE 1-Saudi crown prince warns of escalation with Iran, says he prefers political solution") Saudi Arabia's crown prince warned in an interview broadcast on Sunday that oil prices could spike to "unimaginably high numbers" if the world does not come together to deter Iran, but said he would prefer a political solution to a military one. Speaking to the CBS program "60 Minutes," Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, also denied that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives nearly a year ago, but said he ultimately bears "full responsibility" as the leader of his country. While Khashoggi's death sparked a global uproar and tarnished the crown prince's reputation, the Trump administration's tense standoff with Iran, Saudi Arabia's arch-foe, has more recently dominated U.S. policy toward Riyadh, especially after the Sept. 14 attacks on the heartland of the Saudi oil industry.
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| Saudi crown prince warns of escalation with Iran, political solution 'better' Posted: 29 Sep 2019 04:30 PM PDT ![Saudi crown prince warns of escalation with Iran, political solution 'better']( "Saudi crown prince warns of escalation with Iran, political solution 'better'") Saudi Arabia's crown prince warned in an interview aired on Sunday that crude prices could spike to "unimaginably high numbers" if the world does not come together to deter Iran, but said he would prefer a political solution to a military one. The crown prince, in an interview conducted on Tuesday, said he agreed with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the Sept. 14 attacks on the kingdom's oil facilities were an act of war by Iran.
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| U.K. Tories Promise Cash Boost for Roads, Buses and Broadband Posted: 29 Sep 2019 04:01 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The U.K.'s ruling Conservative Party is set to unveil a multi-billion pound funding program to fix holes in the road, boost fiber broadband, and modernize the country's dwindling bus services, as it pitches for votes in an election.Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid will on Monday commit to spending 25 billion pounds ($30.7 billion)on upgrading key roads outside of London during the next five years. He'll also promise a National Bus Strategy for England, and 20 million pound funding for on-demand bus services that could compete with taxi apps like Uber Inc.Javid's announcement will be seen as a pitch to voters ahead of a looming election. It will also be taken as a signal that he is seeking to end a decade of austerity that helped opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn increase his share of the vote in the 2017 snap election. He'll link the announcement to the government's pledge to delivering on Brexit, saying the funding will come once the U.K. has left the EU on 31 Oct.Javid will announce the policy at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, England, where Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick will also unveil proposals to overhaul the planning system to help accelerate home-building.To contact the reporter on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Andrew Davis, Emma Ross-ThomasFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Boris Johnson Battles Sex Allegations as Brexit Opponents Plot Posted: 29 Sep 2019 03:51 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson hoped to use his Conservative Party's annual convention to launch his campaign to win the next British general election. Instead, he is fighting for his credibility as prime minister as he faces allegations of sexual impropriety and plots to oust him.After two months in charge of the U.K. government, Johnson was forced to deny he groped a journalist at a lunch around 20 years ago, and batted away allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a businesswoman and authorized taxpayer-funded sponsorship for her company during his time as London Mayor.The furor overshadowed his first appearance as prime minister at his ruling Conservative party's annual conference in Manchester, England. The grassroots members propelled him to power in July after he promised to complete the U.K.'s divorce from the European Union -- whatever the cost -- by the deadline of Oct. 31.Johnson sought to double down on his Brexit pledge, making the theme of the party convention: "Get Brexit Done."The U.K. was due to leave the EU on March 29 but the failure of previous prime minister Theresa May to win backing for the divorce deal she negotiated forced her to seek to delay the country's departure twice, before eventually she gave up and resigned.When Johnson replaced her, he made it a key promise to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31, and has said he will do so without a deal -- if necessary. Members of Parliament in London have moved to stop him carrying out this threat and are also denying him the election he says is the only way to break the deadlock.The opposition want the risk of an economically damaging no-deal Brexit to be removed before they agree to dissolve Parliament for an election.At around 1 p.m. Monday, leaders of the opposition parties will meet in Westminster -- 200 miles from where the Tories are gathering -- to discuss how they're going to make the most of the Supreme Court moving to allow Parliament to open this week.The Scottish National Party has publicly proposed calling a vote of no-confidence in Johnson's government. The idea would be that, if he were defeated, an alternative government could be installed under a temporary compromise prime minister.But it's a dangerous gamble: if the parties couldn't agree on the make-up of that alternative administration, Parliament would dissolve 14 days later for the election that Johnson has asked for and that the opposition has so far refused to give him. With Parliament broken up, MPs would have no power to stop Johnson completing a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31.How Johnson fares in any election may be determined by the public reaction to allegations that call his integrity into question.DenialsOn Sunday evening Johnson's office took the unusual step of flatly denying one claim, that around 20 years ago he inappropriately touched the leg of a junior journalist working on the magazine he was then editing. On another claim about his private life, the denial was more circumspect.The Sunday Times reported last week that when he was London Mayor, Johnson had overruled officials to get tech entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri onto trade missions, and that her company had received government sponsorship grants. The paper this week reported that Arcuri had told four friends that she'd had a sexual relationship with Johnson.Johnson's office declined to comment on the nature of his relationship with Arcuri, and the prime minister insisted there had been no impropriety. "I am very, very proud of everything we did and everything I did as mayor of London," he told the BBC. Asked if he had declared his links with Arcuri in the register of interests, he replied: "There was no interest to declare."The Greater London Authority's monitoring officer has referred the prime minister to the Independent Office of Police Conduct -- which oversees the conduct of the mayor.For years, many observers had assumed that Johnson's private life would be a bar to his ambition of becoming prime minister. He was unfaithful to his second wife, from whom he finally separated last year. He is attending conference with his new partner, Carrie Symonds.In the end, Conservative Party members decided his commitment to Brexit and his appeal to voters were more important. His biographer, Andrew Gimson, said Johnson would likely be able to brush off the Arcuri allegations, too."Voters will say that this is a man trying to do something difficult and necessary in Brexit, and that it's mean-minded of people to try and bring him down," Gimson said. "The big issue is Brexit."\--With assistance from Alex Morales and Jessica Shankleman.To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Hutton in Manchester, England at rhutton1@bloomberg.net;Kitty Donaldson in Manchester, England at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Emma Ross-ThomasFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Xi Military Parade to Showcase China Missiles Spooking the U.S. Posted: 29 Sep 2019 02:00 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- In Beijing, President Xi Jinping's grand military parade through the capital will be cheered as a display of national pride after 70 years of Communist Party rule. In Washington, many will see a growing threat to American dominance in the Western Pacific.Alongside the tanks, troop carriers and columns of goose-stepping soldiers, the 80-minute procession past Tiananmen Square on Tuesday is expected to showcase a set of missiles that have prompted the U.S. in recent months/years to try and put more firepower in East Asia. China has poured money into building what former Pacific Commander Harry Harris called "the largest and most diverse missile force in the world."The parade -- Xi's second such event in four years -- will feature the fruits of that labor, according to analysis of photos of equipment staged in advance of the holiday. One intercontinental ballistic missile -- the Dongfeng-41, one of the world's longest range rockets -- will be publicly displayed for the first time, researchers Antoine Bondaz and Stéphane Delory of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris wrote."In terms of pure political communication, the missiles are going to be what everyone is going to talk about, because it's a powerful demonstration of force and strength from the Chinese," Bondaz said Friday.Among the most immediate concerns of the U.S. and its Asian allies is the People's Liberation Army's arsenal of shorter-range, non-nuclear missiles. Over the past 15 years, China has doubled its supply of launchers and built an array of weapons that have extended the reach of its conventional warheads to cover most of America's Western Pacific bases.Such mid-range, land-based missiles, which the U.S. was banned from possessing from under its Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, were among the reasons why some supported the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Cold War-era pact this year. The PLA's dedicated Rocket Force has tested advanced "hypersonic" missiles that are almost impossible to intercept, according to a Japanese defense white paper released Friday."The medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles that the Chinese have developed, and which will be on display on the 1st of October, are a critical component" of Beijing's strategy, said Sam Roggeveen, director of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute's international security program. "What it's meant to do is to make it extremely risky and extremely expensive to conduct any military operations in North Asia."U.S. officials have estimated that around 95% of China's arsenal would've run afoul of the INF treaty, which the U.S. has also accused Moscow of violating. The PLA's missiles could allow China to "quickly use limited force to achieve a fait accompli victory" before the U.S. could respond, according to one recent report from the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre.While pulling out of the treaty lets the U.S reintroduce its own missiles, the world's most powerful military is playing catch-up with China. The Pentagon conducted its first flight test of a land-based cruise missile last month and new Defense Secretary Mark Esper said during his first visit to the region that he was looking for sites in Asia to base such weapons.Esper's suggestion exposed the hurdles facing any Washington-led effort to counter China's threat. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison ruled out hosting U.S. missiles and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has run into stiff opposition against his efforts to deploy an American missile-defense system, let alone offensive rockets.Moreover, any move to introduce such missiles would face resistance from China, which subjected South Korea to an economic embargo after it agreed in 2016 to introduce a U.S. missile shield in 2017. During Esper's trip, China's foreign ministry warned that Australia, Japan and South Korea would suffer countermeasures if they deployed the weapons."The hosting of INF-range missiles in the Indo-Pacific theater will be a challenging endeavor," said J. Berkshire Miller, a senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs. "China will surely look to place intense political and economic pressure on any U.S. ally that looks to potentially host such INF-range missiles."For its part, China said the parade, similar to events held on other milestone anniversaries, is meant to celebrate the country's founding and not directed at any other nation."China has no need or desire to show off its muscle through military parades," Cai Zijun, deputy director of the operations bureau for China's Central Military Commission's Joint Staff Department, told reporters Tuesday. "The stronger China's military, the better the chances for peace."At the same time, Xi's parade risks reinforcing arguments that China's military might represents a threat to its neighbors."These weapons can be hidden, moved around, and an attack on them would be an attack on the Chinese mainland -- for all these reasons, they're a top priority for the PLA," said Bates Gill, professor of Asia-Pacific security studies at Australia's Macquarie University. "Rolling them out at this parade is all just part of this -- making sure everyone understands that."And foreign weapons experts will take advantage of the chance to get a glimpse of hardware that China usually keeps well hidden. The procession will "demonstrate the quantitative and qualitative modernization of China's ballistic arsenal," Bondaz and Delory wrote in their analysis."While some of the strategic missiles and weapon systems that will be launched are already known, others have never yet been publicly disclosed and some are known only through rumors," they said.\--With assistance from Peter Martin, Jon Herskovitz and Adrian Leung.To contact the reporter on this story: Iain Marlow in Hong Kong at imarlow1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Tory Conference Overshadowed by Johnson Claims: Brexit Update Posted: 29 Sep 2019 12:50 PM PDT ![Tory Conference Overshadowed by Johnson Claims: Brexit Update]( "Tory Conference Overshadowed by Johnson Claims: Brexit Update") (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been battling allegations over his past sexual conduct as he struggles to control the agenda of his Conservative Party's annual conference. The premier is trying to promote policies he hopes will win votes in an election he wants to trigger. But he's facing political opposition to his hard-line Brexit strategy, and fending off questions over claims that he misused his influence while Mayor of London. Key Developments:Government accuses opponents of colluding with the European UnionGrieve receives death threat after collusion accusationJohnson to conduct Brexit negotiations by phone during conference, tells BBC there is a "good chance" of a Brexit dealPremier denies impropriety in links with businesswomanJohnson denies historical allegation he groped journalistObeying the Law Must Be 'Iron Rule' (8:30 p.m.)Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said that respect for the law is an "iron rule" and that his word matters more than that of "some unaccountable person" speaking off the record. His comments are a veiled dig at government advisers who brief the media anonymously and threaten to disregard the law in order to ensure the U.K. leaves the EU next month. Some officials in Johnson's team have been quoted saying the government will defy a new law intended to stop him forcing Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 without a deal to soften the impact on the economy. "Whatever one thinks about the merit of decisions that are made, one iron rule has to apply: we have respect for the rule of law," Buckland, whose titles include Lord Chancellor, told a fringe meeting at the Tory Party conference. "That is what your Lord Chancellor will do time and time again, without worrying about the politics of it, without worrying about what Number 10 might say. My word is the law, not some unaccountable person who might be saying something off record."Johnson's Office Denies He Groped Woman (6.30 p.m.)A spokesman for Johnson denied an allegation by a journalist that he groped her at a lunch around 20 years ago, when he was a magazine editor.The journalist, Charlotte Edwardes, made the allegations in an article in the Sunday Times. Johnson had, she said, placed his hand "high up my leg" with "enough inner flesh beneath his fingers to make me sit suddenly upright." After the lunch, she compared notes with the woman sitting on Johnson's other side, who said she'd had the same experience."This allegation is untrue," a spokesman for Johnson's office, said.Grieve Receives Death Threat (6.15 p.m.)Dominic Grieve, a Conservative expelled from the party after rebelling on the Benn Act, said he had received a death threat after the Mail on Sunday reported Johnson's office had launched an investigation into "foreign collusion" with the EU."I have not colluded," Grieve told Bloomberg News. "We did it off our own bat. And what's more, talking to the EU is not a criminal offense, so it's a double lie from No 10. It's like living a totalitarian state. The death threats have been coming in. I've had one on the train up to Manchester this afternoon.""This is quite a regular correspondent. He e-mails to tell me I'm wrong quite often but this afternoon he told me I should be killed," Grieve said. "It will go to the police tomorrow."DUP Rejects Separate N. Ireland Brexit Plan (5:25 p.m.)Democratic Unionist Party Leader Arlene Foster said Northern Ireland must leave the EU on the same terms as the rest of the United Kingdom.Speaking at a fringe event at the Tory Party Conference in Manchester, Foster was asked whether she'd countenance a Brexit deal that involves different treatment for Northern Ireland beyond agricultural checks, and whether she could accept Northern Ireland staying in both the EU and U.K. customs areas. "No to all of that," she replied."We have to leave on the same terms as the rest of the United Kingdom," Foster said. "We cannot have an internal customs border with the rest of the United Kingdom. It's an anathema. It has constitutional implications as well as economic implications."Foster then added that post-Brexit, it "doesn't work for us if we're also in the EU taking rules and regulations over which we have no democratic say and actually the only people who do have a democratic say is Dublin."Rees-Mogg: Parliament Will Back a Deal (4:00 p.m.)Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose Cabinet position is steering legislation through the House of Commons, suggested a Brexit deal will now pass if Johnson brings one back from Brussels."The mood has turned," Rees-Mogg said. "If the DUP are happy, there will be very few Conservatives including those who are without the whip who are then against a deal, and at that point, there a number of people in other parties who think that yes we must now just finish this."While Johnson earlier ruled out a pact with the Brexit Party at the next election, Rees-Mogg went out of his way to praise them. He said Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage is "in many ways admirable."Gove Flags No-Deal 'Turbulence' (3:35 p.m.)Michael Gove, the cabinet minister charged with no-deal Brexit planning, said that if that scenario pans out, there will be "challenges," at least "initially." They include EU plans to impose new tariffs and checks on trade, and possible barriers to U.K. citizens abroad, he said.Nevertheless, Gove told the Tory Party conference in Manchester that the government has taken "huge steps" to plan for a no-deal departure, including "investing in new customs procedures to smooth trade, supporting businesses to adapt to new rules and standing up for our citizens abroad."Gove said his preference would be to leave with a deal, because "we cannot anticipate every risk and cannot guarantee against some turbulence."But he reiterated the party's intention to stick to its Oct. 31 deadline for leaving the EU. "We cannot allow this division and delay to continue," he said. "We must get Brexit done."Raab: Brexit Will Happen on Oct. 31 (3:15 a.m.)Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab repeated the line that Britain will leave the EU at the end of October "no ifs, no buts," just an hour after Party Chairman delivered the same line: It's clearly a message the Tories will drum all week."We'll strive in good faith for a deal," Raab told the party conference in Manchester. "But if the EU spurn the opportunity for a win-win deal, We will leave at the end of October: No ifs, no buts."Raab committed the government to a "new Magnitsky Law" which he said would "place visa bans and asset freezes on those individuals deemed responsible for serious human rights abuses, including torture."He went on to say that keeping Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party out of government was more important than Brexit, and issued a warning to the two dozen-odd ex-Conservatives who are currently sitting as independents in the House of Commons after either quitting the party or being expelled."To any of our colleagues -- or former colleagues -- tempted to put Jeremy Corbyn and his Momentum mob into Number 10, as part of some 'temporary' anti-Brexit coalition: I just say this: history would never forgive you."Defence Secretary Says No Make-Up for Army (3 p.m.)Responding to a report in the Sun on Sunday that said army chiefs are considering allowing male soldiers to use make-up to make its employment policy inclusive. Speaking to the Conservative Party conference, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace drew applause when he declared: "Men will be allowed to wear makeup -- as long as it's camouflage cover!"Cleverly Pledges to Deliver Brexit, Win Election (2:45 p.m.)Conservative Party Chairman James Cleverly opened the conference with a bullish message that the Tories will get Brexit done and then win a general election. Playing on the Parliament-versus-the-people theme that Johnson has advanced in recent weeks, Cleverly said the main opposition Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National parties "just love to block things," including the conference itself, Johnson's attempts to trigger an early general election, and Brexit."They will fail," Cleverly said at the conference in Manchester. "Let's get Brexit done and get on with making the U.K. –- and I mean the whole of the U.K. -- a better, safer, fairer and more prosperous place to live. We will leave the EU on the Oct. 31. No ifs. No buts."He concluded with an electoral rallying cry: "The election Corbyn has tried to avoid will come. And when it does, we will be ready. And we will win," he said. "Bring. It. On."Johnson 'Cautiously Optimistic' of EU Deal (12:05 p.m.)Touring a hospital in Manchester, Johnson was asked about the likelihood of a Brexit deal. "We are cautiously optimistic -- it's difficult," he told reporters, highlighting the obstacles of the Irish backstop. He said "there is a way" to deliver a deal through Parliament, but that it was "not made easier by attempts in Parliament to fetter the ability of the government to negotiate."Asked again about his relationship with Jennifer Arcuri, he said he acted "in complete conformity with the rules" while serving as Mayor of London.Johnson: No Interest to Declare Over Businesswoman (10 a.m.)The prime minister refused to engage with questions about his links to an American former model and entrepreneur, Jennifer Arcuri. The Sunday Times reported that Arcuri confided to friends that she was in a sexual relationship with Johnson while he was serving as Mayor of London. He is alleged to have authorized taxpayer-funded sponsorship for Arcuri's fledgling technology business and allowed her to accompany delegations on foreign visits despite her business being ineligible.Johnson told the BBC simply that there had been no impropriety. "I am very, very proud of everything we did and everything I did as mayor of London," he said. Asked if he had declared his links with Arcuri in the register of interests, he replied: "There was no interest to declare."Johnson Won't Quit If Brexit Is Delayed (9:50 a.m.)In an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr, Boris Johnson suggested he wouldn't resign if Brexit negotiations are extended beyond the Oct. 31 deadline, despite making it a key commitment to deliver the U.K.'s divorce from the EU by that date, without a deal if needed."I've undertaken to lead my country and party at a difficult time and I am going to do that," Johnson said. He declined to comment on questions about whether he'd been in discussions with other EU leaders to ask one of them to veto any extension to the deadline. Instead he added, "I do think there is a good chance" of the U.K. reaching an agreement with the bloc.The premier again defended his use of what critics say is inflammatory language in the Brexit debate. "Martial metaphors, military metaphors are very old standard parliamentary practice," he said. Johnson said he thought "everybody" should calm down, adding that he was being a "model of restraint.""The best thing for the country and the best thing for people's overall psychological health would be to get Brexit done."Expelled Tory Gauke Criticizes 'Collusion' Narrative (9 a.m.)Former Justice Secretary David Gauke, expelled from the Tories for voting in favor of the Benn Act (see 8.30 a.m.), rejected the idea he'd worked with EU officials to draft the bill, and said the allegation was another example of Johnson's office using inflammatory language."You have a very good example of a No. 10 briefing using the word collusion -- that's a very loaded word itself -- and providing no evidence that there was anything supporting this statement," Gauke told Sky News.That "feeds into this narrative that anyone who doesn't agree with No. 10 is somehow unpatriotic or betraying the country, or an enemy or walking the country to surrender."Hancock: 'All Sides' Must Moderate Language (8:45 a.m.)Johnson's team is facing persistent questions over his use of terms such as "surrender" and "capitulation" to describe the efforts of his opponents to prevent a no-deal Brexit.Johnson's critics say he is fueling abuse and escalating the risk of violence against MPs with his inflammatory words. The prime minister is refusing to back down, saying he won't be bullied.On Sunday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock defended the use of the term "surrender" to describe a new law intended to ban a no-deal Brexit. But in a veiled rebuke to Johnson, he said "it's incumbent on all sides" to moderate their language."All of us get over-excited from time to time," Hancock told Sky News. "My judgment is we absolutely should use language that tries to bring people together."Tories Gather to 'Get Brexit Done' (8:30 a.m.)Under the banner 'Get Brexit Done' the Tories are meeting in Manchester, northwest England, amid a fresh row over whether Johnson can get round a law instructing him to seek a delay to Brexit if he hasn't reached a deal by Oct. 19.In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab suggested that the government could use EU law to override the so-called Benn Act, passed earlier this month. Politicians who are seeking to stop Britain leaving the bloc without a deal have been accused of foreign collusion by using the French Embassy as a base for discussions.In other developments on Sunday morning:The government is committing to building 40 new hospitals, the kind of pledge that adds to the impression that it expects to fight an election soon.Alongside domestic policy announcements this week, Johnson will also be spending considerable time on the phone to European leaders during the conference and Brexit negotiations will accelerate, his office said.Johnson apologized to Queen Elizabeth II after the Supreme Court ruled that he shouldn't have asked her to suspend Parliament, the Sunday Times reported.Despite publicly saying it would back Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as an interim prime minister in a government of national unity, the Scottish National Party is in secret talks to find an alternative, according to the Sunday Times.Labour Treasury spokesman John McDonnell has written to the Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill calling for an investigation into whether Tory Party donors who backed Johnson have a financial interest in the U.K. leaving the EU without a deal.Earlier:U.K.'s New Brexit Deal Gambit May Emerge as Early as Next WeekPolice Watchdog Asked to Investigate Johnson by London OfficialEU Is Losing Faith in Johnson's Ability to Bridge Brexit GulfSturgeon Urges Parliament to Remove Boris Johnson: Brexit Update\--With assistance from Robert Hutton and Jessica Shankleman.To contact the reporters on this story: Kitty Donaldson in Manchester, England at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net;Alex Morales in Manchester, England at amorales2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Emma Ross-ThomasFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Greta Effect Shakes Up Austrian Politics in Signal for Europe Posted: 29 Sep 2019 12:45 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Two days after rallying 7 million protesters across the world by invoking the threat of climate change, Greta Thunberg got credit for motivating voters to redraw the political landscape in Austria.After being frozen out of parliament just two years ago, the Alpine country's Greens unexpectedly tripled their support in Sunday's election to win 14% of the vote, according to preliminary projections. The result sets up the group as a viable coalition partner for Sebastian Kurz's People's Party and shows how environmental concerns are moving to the top of the political agenda in Europe."The thematic development really helped the Greens, I'm thinking here of Greta Thunberg and the climate protests," said the Social Democrat's Managing Director Thomas Drozda in an ORF television interview conceding defeat. "This is an area where the Greens have had credibility for the last 20 or 25 years."Amid record summer heat waves, funerals for lost glaciers and dying forests, climate change is starting to change European Union politics at the highest levels. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leader of the bloc's economic engine, is losing popularity to the country's Greens after being seen as too timid in protecting the environment. Incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called keeping the planet healthy the bloc's "most pressing challenge."In the two years since the 33-year-old Kurz won his last national election, global warming rose 11 percentage points to become the top concern in the minds of Austrians, according to the newest Eurobarometer data. That's about the same increase in support Austria's Green Party received on Sunday.That turns what was a political fringe movement in the conservative country into a leading candidate for a role in government and could be a sign of things to come elsewhere in Europe. Kurz will be hard pressed to dismiss the Greens, even if there are significant differences especially on sensitive social issues such as migration.The other options could be even more fraught. Joining up with the Social Democrats, which would mimic Merkel's fragile "grand coalition," would make a mockery of his promise of change. Like other center-left parties, the Social Democrats is in disarray and suffered their worst result in a national election since the country was created in the aftermath of World War I.Renewing his vows with the far-right Freedom Party would mean relying on a volatile group that triggered the collapse of his last government and sustained damage to its reputation from the aftermath of the Ibiza scandal -- an undercover video that showed party officials currying favor with a fake Russian oligarch's niece on the Spanish island.'Center of Politics'Austria's five parties agreed on a 540 million-euro ($591 million) package last week to promote renewable-energy investments. But while there's broad consensus that climate change is real and that fixing it will require a retooled economy, the parties diverge in how they propose dealing with the problem.The People's Party has been promoting the development of hydrogen fuel in transport and heavy industry, while the Greens have sought to reduce the number of automobiles driving in cities and want to expand public transportation.Bolstered by the growing momentum of the Fridays for Future protests, which has moved beyond school kids skipping classes, the Greens made it clear that their support won't come cheap. Party chief Werner Kogler said he's ready to negotiate with Kurz "as long as protecting the climate is at the center of politics.""Climate protection has arrived in the middle of society," Green politician Birgit Hebein said in an interview on ORF, thank the protest movement started by Swedish activist Thunberg a year ago. "It is key that climate change is tackled on all levels."\--With assistance from Boris Groendahl and Matthias Wabl.To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Chris ReiterFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Kurz Headed for Tough Talks After Historic Win in Austrian Vote Posted: 29 Sep 2019 12:44 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Sebastian Kurz is on track to return as Austria's chancellor after a historic election victory, but the road to a new government is fraught with hazards.Austrian voters made his People's Party and the Greens the clear winners in snap elections triggered by the collapse of his alliance with the nationalist Freedom Party. If the conservative and environmentalist groups can hash out a deal, a coalition would break new ground in Austria and send a signal across Europe."This is a great victory for Kurz, but it's not making it any easier to form a government," said Thomas Hofer, a political analyst in Vienna. "So much is standing in the way in terms of policy -- especially when it comes to migration or social issues. And there is a lot of resistance at the Greens' grassroots level."The People's Party is projected to have won 37.1% of the vote, widening support for the second straight election, according to public broadcaster ORF. Amid surging concerns about global warming, the Greens tripled their share to 14%, making them a leading candidate in a governing coalition.Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said he would ask Kurz to form a government after talking with all the leaders of the parliamentary parties. The 33-year-old deflected questions about a possible coalition, but showed little signs of wanting to compromise."Of course we want to implement our program," Kurz said in a televised debate on Sunday. "You know my position on migration, you know my position on taxes, on reform projects that are necessary."The Green leader Werner Kogler, meanwhile, made it clear that he won't easily bend to Kurz's will."We're not going to enter a coalition only to represent the policies" of the previous government with the anti-migration Freedom Party, Kogler said. "There will have to be some commonalities."The Freedom Party suffered the sharpest losses, dropping to 16.1% from 26%. The far-right group's support suffered more than expected from the fallout of the so-called Ibiza affair -- an undercover video that showed party officials currying favor with a fake Russian oligarch's niece on the Spanish island. The group backed off its ambitions to revive its coalition with the People's Party."We don't interpret this as a mandate to continue this government," Freedom Party General Secretary Harald Vilimsky told ORF. "The voters didn't make us strong enough for that."With five diverse groups entering Austria's parliament, the vote reflects the splintered state of European politics and the surging importance of environmental concerns. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU lost its lead over the country's Greens in a recent nationwide poll. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future demonstrations have increased the awareness of climate change. The Greens in Austria failed to enter parliament just two years ago. The liberal Neos also expanded their support.Other cooperation options might be less appealing for Kurz. Joining up with the Social Democrats, the default partner for decades, would make a mockery of his promise of change. The Social Democrats, the biggest opposition group, got just 21.7% for their worst result in a national election since the alpine country was created in the aftermath of World War I.Renewing his vows with the Freedom Party would mean relying on a volatile group that triggered the collapse of his last government and has suffered further damage to its reputation from the Ibiza scandal.Kurz could potentially seek to rule in a minority government, a rarity in Austrian politics. There has been a minority government only once in Austria's history. It lasted less than two years in the 1970s.Talks to form a government have historically taken months in Austria. Given the complex starting point, there's unlikely to be a quicker resolution this time. Until the new government is sworn in, caretaker Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein will remain in office.Austria has been ruled by the interim government since Kurz lost a no-confidence vote in parliament by an unlikely alliance between the Freedom Party and the Social Democrats. That sparked the snap ballot, with about 6.4 million Austrians called to elect a new national parliament. About 75% of voters turned out to cast their ballots.(Adds comments from Kurz and the Green party leader)\--With assistance from Matthias Wabl and Jonathan Tirone.To contact the reporter on this story: Boris Groendahl in Vienna at bgroendahl@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Chris ReiterFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iran's iconic anti-US murals make way for a new generation of artwork Posted: 29 Sep 2019 12:16 PM PDT  Famous murals celebrating Iran's Islamic revolution daubed on walls of the former US embassy in Tehran have been erased to make way for new paintings to be unveiled on the fortieth anniversary of the hostage crisis. Three workers were on Sunday afternoon seen removing the original artwork with a sandblaster against the wall of Taleqani avenue, bordering the south side of what was once dubbed a US "spy nest" in central Tehran. On November 4, 1979, less than nine months after Iran's last shah was toppled, pro-revolution students took Americans hostage at the embassy to protest the ex-shah's admission to hospital in the US.
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| Could this Business Venture Create Peace on the Korean Peninsula? Posted: 29 Sep 2019 12:13 PM PDT  Washington should embrace a little-known "free port" proposal for North Korea's northeastern border that could powerfully demonstrate North Korea's latent potential for rapid growth.
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| Donations for Trump's 2020 war chest surge as impeachment bid fires up Republicans Posted: 29 Sep 2019 11:53 AM PDT  Donald Trump and the Republican party are using the prospect of impeachment to raise a record election war chest, firing up supporters and hauling in unprecedented amounts of money. Republican officials said there had been a "groundswell" of support from the party's rank-and-file in the days after Democrats in Congress announced an impeachment inquiry into the president over the Ukraine scandal. It looks set to spur Mr Trump to an extraordinary total for the 2020 campaign, which could ultimately hit $2 billion. In the 72 hours after Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat House speaker, announced the impeachment inquiry Mr Trump's re-election campaign took in $15 million, which his campaign manager Brad Parscale described as "amazing". The more significant figure was that it included money from 50,000 new small donors, who were from all 50 states. At one point Mr Trump sent out an email saying "I've done nothing wrong, trust me," asking for support for an "Impeachment Defense Task Force". Around $1 million arrived in the next three hours. The impeachment inquiry was launched after a CIA whistle-blower raised the alarm about a July 25 telephone call between Mr Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine. Mr Trump is accused of pressuring Mr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, the Democrat front-runner, over business dealings his son Hunter had with an energy company in Ukraine. Both Bidens have denied any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, donations to the Republican National Congressional Committee, which works to re-elect Republicans to Congress, saw donations up by over 600 per cent. Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican party, said supporters were "fired up". The party's finance chairman, Todd Ricketts, told Yahoo: "Countless Americans are voting with their cheque books, resulting in an unprecedented amount of financial support." In Nevada, the Republican party began marketing "Impeach this" t-shirts and merchandise. Next week the scale of Mr Trump's war chest will become clear as a deadline to file third quarter totals with the Federal Election Commission approaches. Mr Trump is known to have already raised over $200 million, which is more than the combined total for all two dozen Democrats who launched 2020 White House campaigns. In a new Ipsos poll 64 per cent of Americans said the telephone call with Mr Zelenskiy represented a "serious problem". But only 17 per cent said they were "surprised" by it. Just three per cent were "very surprised". White House officials launched a concerted defence of the president on Sunday. Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump's lawyer, himself a central figure in the Ukraine affair, said: "If he [Mr Trump] hadn't asked them to investigate Biden, he would have violated the constitution." Stephen Miller, adviser to Mr Trump, said: "The president is the whistle-blower here, and this individual [the CIA officer] is a saboteur trying to undermine a democratically elected government." Congressman Adam Schiff, Democrat chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the whistle-blower had agreed to appear before the committee. His identity will be protected. It was also "paramount" to obtain records of Mr Trump's conversations with Vladimir Putin, Mr Schiff added. Mrs Pelosi said the American people were now on the side of an impeachment inquiry. She said: "In the public, the tide has completely changed." Experts said it may lead to Mr Trump resolving his trade war with China. He could accept an imperfect deal in order to raise his approval rating at home. Meanwhile, the Trump administration was reportedly continuing to investigate Hillary Clinton's emails from when she was secretary of state, and in recent weeks contacted up to 130 officials who sent emails to her.
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| Brexit talks will need to go to wire to get deal - trade minister Truss Posted: 29 Sep 2019 10:29 AM PDT ![Brexit talks will need to go to wire to get deal - trade minister Truss]( "Brexit talks will need to go to wire to get deal - trade minister Truss") Britain will need to take negotiations with the EU on Brexit up to the deadline to force the changes needed to a get deal that will pass through parliament trade minister Liz Truss said on Sunday. At the Conservative Party's annual conference in the northern English city of Manchester, Truss told an event organised by the Times newspaper that she believed parliament would now pass a Brexit deal. "The reason we didn't get further concessions in advance of March 29 is that we didn't get close enough to the deadline ... Deadlines work and we need to take it to that deadline to make the changes we all need," Truss said.
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| Syrian Kurds criticize UN envoy over constitution committee Posted: 29 Sep 2019 10:08 AM PDT ![Syrian Kurds criticize UN envoy over constitution committee]( "Syrian Kurds criticize UN envoy over constitution committee") An official with the main Kurdish-led force in Syria said Sunday the ethnic minority is not represented on the committee formed earlier this month that will be in charge of drafting a new constitution. The Syrian government does not trust the main Kurdish militia known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, and its political wing because of its links to the U.S. Turkey, a main backer of the opposition, sees the YPG as part of a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey. The tweet of Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces — of which the YPG is the main component — came after U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen spoke to Al-Jazeera TV.
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| UPDATE 1-N. Ireland's DUP leader Foster backs PM Johnson's Brexit push Posted: 29 Sep 2019 09:27 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-N. Ireland's DUP leader Foster backs PM Johnson's Brexit push]( "UPDATE 1-N. Ireland's DUP leader Foster backs PM Johnson's Brexit push") Arlene Foster, leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), said on Sunday she supported British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but could not accept leaving the EU on different terms to the rest of the country. The support of Foster's party, which is allied with Johnson's governing Conservatives, is seen as key to getting any Brexit deal passed by parliament, but it has balked at Northern Ireland being treated differently from the rest of the United Kingdom.
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| UK's Johnson rallies party with vow to 'get Brexit done' Posted: 29 Sep 2019 09:13 AM PDT  After a bruising week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson entered the warm embrace of his Conservative party's annual conference on Sunday vowing to "get Brexit done". Despite a string of parliamentary setbacks and a defeat in the Supreme Court, Johnson insists he will take Britain out of the European Union next month, with or without a deal with Brussels.
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| How to Develop an Appetite for Insects Posted: 29 Sep 2019 09:05 AM PDT ![How to Develop an Appetite for Insects]( "How to Develop an Appetite for Insects") Repeat after me: entomophagy.It's derived from Greek and Latin: "entomon," meaning "insect," and "phagus," as in "feeding on."Some think it's the future of food.In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations released a report declaring the need to swap traditional protein sources for insects to support a sustainable future. The report helped drive an explosion of efforts all dedicated to making mealworms your next meal.Presenters at a 2018 conference in Georgia, Eating Insects Athens, published papers this month in a special issue of the Annals of the Entomological Society of America. The volume showed how people who study insects scientifically are now spending more time thinking about eating them.Here are some highlights of what the researchers found:Thank Christopher ColumbusWhen Christopher Columbus returned from the Americas, he and members of his expedition used the insect-eating of the native inhabitants as an example of savagery, and as justification for dehumanizing people he would later enslave, said Julie Lesnik, an anthropologist at Wayne State University and author of "Edible Insects and Human Evolution."While it wasn't the only factor, the colonial era deepened the stigmatization of entomophagy in mainland Europe, and in turn among European settlers in the Americas. Further distaste grew as insects threatened profitable agricultural monocultures supported by slavery and industrialization.It wasn't always that way. Aristotle loved cicadas. Pliny the Elder preferred beetle larvae. They weren't that different from insect eaters among other cultures on other continents.Those Who Experienced Colonialism May Lead the WayEvidence of insects in written reports, fossilized feces and mummies found in caves across North America, and corroboration from nearly every other continent, suggest humans have valued insects as food for millenniums.Today, billions of people still consume more than 2,100 insect species worldwide. Even in the United States, Kutzadika'a people, or "fly eaters," cherish salty pupae from Mono Lake in California.Some shoppers may be following suit, purchasing popular cricket flour and protein bars from manufacturers like Chapul in specialty shops and on Amazon. That company is named after an Aztec word for cricket, and pitches itself to customers as aiming to reduce water usage by livestock in the American West and connecting with native cultures' food knowledge.Undoing Centuries of Entomophagy-phobiaMany of us were programmed early in life to fear insects, and developing an appetite for them won't be easy."It's OK if you think it's gross. It's totally fine," said Lesnik. "You didn't ask to be programmed this way."But entomophagy advocates think reprogramming can transform people's attitudes toward insects. For instance, kale, sushi, lobster and even olive oil or tomatoes were once scorned and unfamiliar in some cultures.But change can come about. With education and by acknowledging negative feelings toward eating insects, adults can try to resist passing them to their children."It will really benefit them if they don't think bugs are gross," she added. "Because it's our kids' generation that's going to have to be able to solve those problems."Still, Insects Aren't Yet Beef or ChickenIn the United States, black soldier flies, good at converting waste products to protein, have long been used as feed for poultry and farmed fish.To better understand how to produce more of them, researchers have just characterized their reproductive systems -- from the tracts' shapes to the sperm tails' lengths. They have also discovered that larvae raised in relatively low densities are more likely to survive, grow heavier at each life stage and develop more quickly.That kind of research could be a model for eventually mass producing other insects for human consumption, like mealworms or crickets, which we're a long way off from growing in ways that could feed the masses. While years of agricultural research have guided industry regulations aiming to make beef, poultry and pork healthier and safer, and less wasteful of what they eat, similar research and rules for most insects are a long way off.When Insects Are and Are Not FilthyHere's a conundrum: When an insect is in our food, the Food and Drug Administration considers it "filth."But as long as manufactured insects are "free from filth, pathogens, toxins," the Department of Agriculture says it's food.While regulations are clear about insect food sales, they're more like guidelines for insect food and feed production. The lack of stronger regulations may be limiting the number of insect-based foods on the market today.Even if consumers become more comfortable with the idea of eating insects, they won't stay that way without specific regulations meant to ensure quality and safety. That's a goal supported by industry groups like the North American Coalition for Insect Agriculture, recently formed, in part, to work with regulators as more bugs are introduced into our diets.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Pakistan Leader Warns of Kashmir 'Blood Bath' in Emotional U.N. Speech Posted: 29 Sep 2019 09:02 AM PDT  Pakistan's leader castigated India over its Kashmir crackdown from the podium of the United Nations on Friday, warning of a "bloodbath" when and if Indian authorities lift a curfew over the disputed territory.The speech by Prime Minister Imran Khan at the United Nations General Assembly was partly directed at his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, who in his own speech earlier Friday omitted any reference to Kashmir.Last month India revoked the long-standing autonomy of the mountainous border region, the flashpoint of two wars with Pakistan since both achieved independence from Britain more than 70 years ago.Indian authorities arrested thousands of Kashmiris, severed most electronic access and imposed a curfew on the entire populace of about 8 million. While some curbs have been eased, the curfew remains in effect.Modi and his subordinates have described their move as an internal domestic matter aimed at making the region more prosperous.The Indian prime minister's shift on Kashmir was welcomed by his base of Hindu nationalists, who have long wanted to exert power in the Muslim-majority region and have long accused Pakistan of supporting militant separatists there.Khan has repeatedly denounced what he has described as Modi's reckless disregard of Pakistan's historic claims to the region.The Pakistani leader has frequently reminded the world that Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers. He has used terms like genocide to describe India's intentions for the disputed Kashmir region and has complained that Modi has ignored his entreaties for a dialogue.In an interview with The New York Times Editorial Board on Wednesday, Khan said Modi was leading India down an irrational path, a theme he reiterated in his General Assembly speech."Is it arrogance that has blinded him from what is going to happen when the curfew is lifted? Does he think the people of Kashmir will quietly accept the status quo?" Khan said. "What is going to happen when the curfew is lifted will be a bloodbath."The pent-up frustration of Kashmiris living under what Khan described as Indian military occupation would inevitably come back to haunt India, he said."Would I want to live like that?" Khan said. "I would pick up a gun."Khan, who has conspicuously avoided crossing paths with Modi while both are attending the annual gathering in New York, had said that he would be using his General Assembly speech to emphasize Kashmir and implore the United Nations to intervene.Modi, in his speech, sought to portray India as a peace-loving nation that he said had given the world Buddha's philosophy of serenity. His only reference to Pakistan and Kashmir was oblique, saying India had long been a victim of terrorism."Our voice against terrorism, to alert the world about this evil, rings with seriousness and the outrage," Modi said. "It is absolutely imperative that the world unites against terrorism."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Diplomatic gatecrashers? UN sees dueling delegations from Venezuela Posted: 29 Sep 2019 08:48 AM PDT  Virtually all countries sent diplomats to the United Nations for the General Assembly, but Venezuela was a special case -- it had two delegations, each dueling for recognition. Neither President Nicolas Maduro nor opposition leader Juan Guaido -- who is recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries including the United States -- came to New York for the world's biggest annual summit, but both had teams working the hallways. Maduro's government, which is backed by Russia and China, retains the UN seat and Venezuela's official delegation was led by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza.
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| A Shadow Foreign Policy in Ukraine Backfires on the President Posted: 29 Sep 2019 08:44 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- Petro O. Poroshenko was still the president of Ukraine earlier this year when his team sought a lifeline. With the polls showing him in clear danger of losing his reelection campaign, some of his associates, eager to hold on to their own jobs and influence, took steps that could have yielded a signal of public support from a vital ally: President Donald Trump.Over several weeks in March, the office of Ukraine's top prosecutor moved ahead on two investigations of intense interest to Trump. One was focused on an oligarch -- previously cleared of wrongdoing by the same prosecutor -- whose company employed former Vice President Joe Biden's son. The other dealt with the release by a separate Ukrainian law enforcement agency to the media of information that hurt Trump's 2016 campaign.The actions by the prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, did not come out of thin air. They were the first visible results of a remarkable behind-the-scenes campaign to gather and disseminate political dirt from a foreign country, encouraged by Trump and carried out by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. In the last week their engagement with Ukraine has prompted a formal impeachment inquiry into whether the president courted foreign interference to hurt a leading political rival.The story of how Trump and Giuliani operated in Ukraine has emerged gradually in recent months. It was laid out in further detail in the past week in a reconstructed transcript of Trump's phone call this summer with a new Ukrainian president and in a complaint filed by a whistleblower inside the U.S. government.Along with documents and interviews with a wide variety of people in Ukraine and the United States, the latest revelations show that Trump and Giuliani ran what amounted to a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine that unfolded against the backdrop of three elections -- this year's vote in Ukraine and the 2016 and 2020 presidential races in the United States.Despite the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies and the Justice Department that Russia was responsible for interfering in the 2016 election, Trump was driven to seek proof that the meddling was linked to Ukraine and forces hostile to him, even fixating on a fringe conspiracy theory suggesting that Hillary Clinton's missing emails might be found there.Backed by Trump, Giuliani, who once aspired to be secretary of state, sought to tar Biden with unsubstantiated accusations of impropriety, while he and associates working with him in Ukraine on the president's agenda pursued their own personal business interests.With the political landscape scrambled by Poroshenko's defeat in April and the arrival of a new cast of Ukrainian officials, the approach pursued by Giuliani and Trump undercut official U.S. diplomacy.And the signals sent by Trump -- long skeptical of the strategic value of backing Ukraine against Russia, its menacing neighbor to the east -- complicated efforts by the new Ukrainian government to fortify itself against Moscow.The intensifying overlap this summer between Trump's political agenda in Ukraine and his official foreign policy apparatus is now at the center of an impeachment inquiry that will examine whether the president of the United States directed or encouraged his subordinates to lean on a vulnerable ally for personal political gain.Among the subjects covered in a subpoena sent Friday by House Democrats to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and demands for depositions from American diplomats was Trump's decision to freeze a $391 million military aid package to Ukraine this summer not long before his July 25 call with Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who defeated Poroshenko this spring.Democrats are also looking into the recall in the spring of the U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, Marie L. Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer who was seen as insufficiently loyal to Trump by some of his conservative allies. On Friday evening, the State Department's special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, abruptly resigned, not long after receiving a summons from House Democrats to sit for a deposition in the coming week.Trump has dismissed the impeachment investigation as another "witch hunt."In an interview on Friday, Giuliani defended his efforts to push the Ukrainians to investigate Biden, his son, Hunter Biden, and others. He asserted that he was not doing it to try to influence the 2020 presidential election, though Biden is a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump."I was doing it to dig out information that exculpates my client, which is the role of a defense lawyer," he said.Mixing Business and PoliticsIn the months before the steps taken in March on the politically explosive investigations sought by Trump, Giuliani had met at least twice with the man who would become a central figure in his efforts and a target of criticism in both countries: Lutsenko, 54, Ukraine's top prosecutor.First at a meeting in New York and later in Warsaw, Giuliani pushed Lutsenko for information about -- and investigations into -- a pair of cases of keen interest to his client.They included the Bidens' activities in Ukraine and the release during the 2016 campaign of incriminating records about Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman. Giuliani said early this year he had become increasingly convinced that the Manafort records were doctored and disseminated by critics of Trump to sabotage his campaign, and later used to spur the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.No evidence supports this idea, and Manafort's own retroactive filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act corroborated the Ukrainian documents, which also matched U.S. financial records.Still, it was not long before Trump, sensitive to any questions about the legitimacy of his 2016 victory, began echoing Giuliani's language about what they viewed as the Ukrainian origins of the Russia investigation.But Trump and Giuliani had also taken a growing interest in the role played by Biden, as vice president, in the dismissal of a previous Ukrainian prosecutor who had oversight of investigations into an oligarch who had served in a previous Ukrainian government and whose company had employed Hunter Biden. No evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the dismissal of that prosecutor, whose ouster was being sought by other Western governments and institutions concerned about corruption in the Ukrainian government.In their first meeting, in January, Lutsenko later told people, Giuliani called Trump and excitedly briefed him on the discussions. And once Lutsenko's office took procedural steps to advance investigations involving the Manafort records and the oligarch linked to Hunter Biden, Giuliani, Trump and their allies aggressively promoted stories about the developments to conservative journalists at home, further turning a foreign government's action to the president's advantage."As Russia Collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges," Trump wrote on Twitter in March, echoing the headline of one of the first such pieces by a Trump-friendly journalist.Giuliani had seemed to slide eagerly into his new role. After his hopes of becoming secretary of state were dashed -- in part, former administration officials said, because of his extensive foreign business ties -- he became a personal lawyer for Trump when the president came under scrutiny by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.Trump was publicly lobbying his own Justice Department for an investigation of Hillary Clinton and other Democrats. When he got no satisfaction on that score, Giuliani volunteered to take on the role of independent investigator, empowered by nothing other than Trump's blessing.Giuliani rejected the suggestion that he was interfering in the execution of U.S. foreign policy, noting that Volker and the State Department eventually helped connect him with a top aide to Zelenskiy."If they were concerned, I don't think they would ask me to handle a mission like this that's sensitive," he said. "I feel perfectly comfortable with what we did in Ukraine."Ukraine was familiar ground to Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and presidential candidate who had built a thriving consulting and security business.Giuliani's activity on behalf of Trump allowed him to maintain, and increase, his marketability to prospective clients around the world. Hiring him came to be seen as a way to curry favor with the Trump administration.That perception has been fed in Ukraine by the dual roles played by some of his business associates. Chief among them is a Ukrainian-American businessman named Lev Parnas. Parnas gathered information on the ground in Kyiv about the Bidens and the Manafort documents, and he helped connect Giuliani with Lutsenko and other Ukrainians with information about the cases that interested Trump.But Parnas also has advised Giuliani on energy deals in the region, and pursued energy deals of his own in Ukraine, while presenting himself as a representative of Giuliani on the Trump-related matters.In the early spring, as he was helping Giuliani in Ukraine, Parnas pitched a deal to the chief executive officer of the Ukrainian government-owned gas company, Naftogaz. Parnas also advised Giuliani on an effort related to a methane project in Uzbekistan for which Giuliani and his associates were to be paid at least $100,000. Giuliani said the project in Uzbekistan did not pan out.Parnas, a donor to Trump, rejected the suggestion that his efforts to assist Giuliani in Ukraine were related to his business, explaining in an interview on Saturday that he was funding them himself because "I think it's outrageous that our president is getting blamed for things that he had nothing to do with."Parnas said he has not done business with Giuliani in years, that his discussions with Naftogaz did not yield a deal, that he had no involvement in the Uzbekistan effort, and in fact urged Giuliani to avoid doing business there.Giuliani's business in Ukraine dates to 2004, when he said he was invited to give a speech there. In 2008, one of his companies consulted for Vitali Klitschko, a former boxing and kickboxing champion who lost a bid that year to become mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, but was elected mayor in 2014.Giuliani said he no longer represents Klitschko, but still advises him informally. He chastised the new president, Zelenskiy, this month for moving to limit the authority of Klitschko, who had endorsed Poroshenko in this year's election."Reducing the power of Mayor Klitschko of Kyiv was a very bad sign particularly based on the advice of an aide to the President of Ukraine who has the reputation of being a fixer," Giuliani wrote on Twitter.Some of Giuliani's work in Ukraine has found him on opposing sides in internal Ukrainian feuds.In 2017, one of Giuliani's companies signed a contract with Pavel Fuks, a wealthy Ukrainian-Russian developer who was among the many Ukrainians seeking access in Trump's Washington. The contract was to help Fuks attract investment from the United States to his hometown, Kharkiv, Ukraine.At the time, Fuks and others, including Sam Kislin, a Ukrainian-American businessman with ties to Giuliani, had become entangled in a complicated $1.5 billion deal to buy Ukrainian government bonds.Lutsenko, the prosecutor, blocked the deal and seized the bonds by raising accusations of fraud. Kislin responded with suggestions that Lutsenko acted illegally.Ukrainian media reported that the United States revoked Lutsenko's visa for a time amid this dispute, though Lutsenko denied it. By January, he was able to travel to America, where he met with Giuliani to discuss investigating the Democrats.Lutsenko's eagerness to assist Giuliani was seen in some quarters in Kyiv as an effort to win influential support to resolve his visa problem, fend off Kislin's claims and secure U.S. protection against potential political targeting in Ukraine.Giuliani said he was not being paid for his work for Trump. He said he does not have any active projects at the moment in Ukraine, and that his connection to the president was not helping his business. "I don't perceive it being down because I represent Trump, nor do I see a tremendous boost because I represent Trump," he said.Backing a Prosecutor, Criticizing an AmbassadorWhen Lutsenko was pursuing the matters sought by Giuliani in the spring, people around Poroshenko thought it might elicit a show of support for him from Trump, who had boosted the election prospects of other foreign leaders.Or, if Poroshenko lost, the thinking in Kyiv went, Trump might at least feel compelled to try to protect Lutsenko, the helpful prosecutor, from the fate that often befalls aides to defeated Ukrainian leaders: prosecution by the victors and possible jail sentences or exile. As the whistleblower complaint pointedly noted, Zelenskiy had signaled during the campaign that he would replace Lutsenko if he won the election.At first the strategy encouraged by Giuliani and pursued by Lutsenko seemed to be living up to those hopes.Poroshenko's allies were pleased when Trump's associates, including the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., and Giuliani, launched public attacks against one of Poroshenko's perceived enemies, Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.That month, she had criticized Ukraine's record on corruption, alluding to reports of vote-buying by Poroshenko and a rival candidate, and she was seen as an impediment to the investigations sought by Giuliani. Poroshenko's allies told people that they interpreted the Trump allies' attacks on her as a sign that the Trump team would reciprocate if the investigations into Trump's rivals continued.But Trump never delivered the signal of support Poroshenko's team was hoping for, and Poroshenko lost his reelection campaign in a landslide to Zelenskiy, a political neophyte.Poroshenko's press service issued a statement Saturday denying he solicited help for his reelection campaign. "Any attempts to link the American scandal to Poroshenko is groundless and unjustified manipulation," the statement said. "Poroshenko has never negotiated for U.S. support for himself, but for Ukraine."Zelenskiy told reporters on election night that he intended to replace Lutsenko, who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption, though he did not carry out the move until he formed a new government following parliamentary elections in July.When Trump spoke by phone to the new Ukrainian leader on July 25, Trump went so far as to complain to Zelenskiy about the impending replacement of Lutsenko. "I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair," Trump said during the call. "A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down."Skepticism About Ukraine PolicyFrom the early days of Trump's campaign, he questioned U.S. policy toward Ukraine, a former Soviet state that had received substantial support from the United States and the European Union. In the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Trump asked why the United States was so committed to the principle that seizures of territory must be opposed.Trump called the Obama administration's move to sanction Russia over the annexation "very confrontational," and said in an interview with The Times in March 2016 that "it didn't seem to me like anyone else cared other than us," invoking his longstanding criticism that U.S. allies do not pay their share when it comes to protecting democracy around the world.Trump would soon develop another issue with Ukraine: Manafort's case, which he came to view as evidence that forces in Ukraine aligned with Democrats were out to get him.When Zelenskiy, running on fighting corruption and Russia, won a lopsided victory in the presidential election on April 21, it only appears to have intensified Trump's determination to find political advantage for himself in the country.Within a few weeks of Zelenskiy's victory, the American ambassador, Yovanovitch, was recalled, months ahead of schedule, amid the claims by Trump's allies that she was undermining him.Trump quizzed his aides on Zelenskiy, asking whether Zelenskiy would help him or hurt him."There was a friend-or-foe operation on," said one senior U.S. intelligence official. "No one understood Zelenskiy."American Officials Get Increasingly Involved By May, according to the whistleblower's account, the Ukrainian leadership had been led to believe that a meeting or phone call between the two presidents would depend on "whether Zelenskiy showed willingness to 'play ball'" on the political investigations.The complaint does not identify who delivered this message to the Ukrainians. But the timing coincided with a visit to Kyiv of a U.S. delegation, led by the energy secretary, Rick Perry, for Zelenskiy's inauguration. Trump had ordered Vice President Mike Pence to skip the inauguration, the whistleblower complaint said.When members of the delegation returned to Washington, they stressed to Trump the importance of supporting the new Ukrainian government early on, and urged the president to demonstrate his commitment by granting Zelenskiy the White House visit he craved.Trump was not convinced, saying he thought all Ukrainian politicians were corrupt and, alluding to Manafort's case, that the country had tried to take him down.In the meantime, as the whistleblower complaint notes, Lutsenko was seeking to remain in office under Zelenskiy, and was sending mixed signals about pursuing the case related to the oligarch on whose company board Hunter Biden sat.But Zelenskiy would later decide to replace Lutsenko, cutting off Giuliani's main point of access to the Ukrainian government.It was against that backdrop that Zelenskiy dispatched one of his closest aides, Andriy Yermak, to open a line of communication with Giuliani.During a trip to Washington in July, Yermak, over breakfast at the Trump International Hotel, asked Volker for a connection to Giuliani. Volker broached the idea to Giuliani over a separate breakfast days later, and Giuliani and Yermak were soon chatting by phone.Yet, even as these discussions were ongoing, Trump personally ordered his staff to freeze more than $391 million in military assistance for Ukraine. The move, made with little explanation, puzzled and frustrated officials in the departments of defense and state, as well as members of Congress from both parties who viewed the assistance as critical to helping a close ally as it confronted Russia.Days later, Trump and Zelenskiy had their fateful phone call. After reminding Zelenskiy of the assistance the United States has provided to Ukraine, Trump asked him to work with Attorney General William Barr on investigations into the Bidens and other matters, according to the reconstructed transcript. Among them was the unfounded conspiracy theory suggesting that Ukraine rather than Russia was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails in 2016 and that Hillary Clinton's missing emails might be on a server in Ukraine.He also repeatedly asked Zelenskiy to work with Giuliani.Zelenskiy assured Trump that "one of my assistants spoke with Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine."The day after the call, Volker and the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon D. Sondland, were in Kyiv meeting with Zelenskiy. A week later, Giuliani and Yermak met face to face in Madrid.Trump then raised eyebrows in August when he called for ending President Vladimir Putin's pariah status on the global stage by readmitting Russia to the Group of 7 industrialized nations. Trump has quietly been urging a deal to reduce tensions between Ukraine and Russia that would pave the way for a removal of Western sanctions on Moscow, long a goal of Putin's.Trump himself hinted that was his goal when asked about Zelenskiy two weeks after the July 25 call. "I think he's going to make a deal with President Putin, and he will be invited to the White House," Trump told reporters.In response to an approaching hurricane, Trump canceled a Sept. 1 trip to Warsaw at which he would have met Zelenskiy in person for the first time, instead sending Pence, who told reporters that he and Trump "have great concerns about issues of corruption," linking them to the delayed military assistance.Only after a bipartisan outcry did the White House release the assistance this month.After hearing on Friday that Pompeo's records had been subpoenaed in the impeachment investigation, some State Department officials said they hoped to learn why a career foreign service officer was recalled as ambassador, and whether Pompeo was complicit in -- or had opposed -- putting Giuliani in touch with Ukrainian officials.Zelenskiy is still waiting for his White House meeting, as he noted when he finally met with Trump on Wednesday in New York."I want to thank you for the invitation to Washington," Zelenskiy said at a joint news conference, "but I think you forgot to tell me the date."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Hong Kong tensions high as communist China's 70th anniversary approaches Posted: 29 Sep 2019 08:14 AM PDT ![Hong Kong tensions high as communist China's 70th anniversary approaches]( "Hong Kong tensions high as communist China's 70th anniversary approaches") Protesters are planning to march again on Tuesday despite a police ban, raising fears of more violent confrontations that could embarrass Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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| UK's Rees-Mogg: DUP backing will bring in support for Brexit deal Posted: 29 Sep 2019 07:53 AM PDT ![UK's Rees-Mogg: DUP backing will bring in support for Brexit deal]( "UK's Rees-Mogg: DUP backing will bring in support for Brexit deal") Conservative and opposition lawmakers will likely vote through any Brexit deal that Prime Minister Johnson secures if the Northern Irish DUP party support it, Britain's House of Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg said on Sunday. "I think if the DUP are happy with the deal there will be very few Conservatives, including those who are without the whip, who are then against a deal, and at that point there are a number of people in other parties who think that yes we must now just finish this," Rees-Mogg told the party's annual conference in Manchester.
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| About 20,000 rally in Moscow to demand protesters' release Posted: 29 Sep 2019 07:38 AM PDT  About 20,000 people rallied in Moscow on Sunday to demand the release of those who were arrested during a wave of opposition demonstrations this summer. Protests erupted in Moscow in July after officials refused to allow a dozen independent and opposition candidates to run for the Moscow city legislature in the Sept. 8 vote. Rallies drew crowds of up to 60,000 at a time, the largest show of discontent against President Vladimir Putin's rule in seven years.
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| Johnson refuses to rule out asking EU to veto Brexit delay Posted: 29 Sep 2019 07:21 AM PDT  Prime Minister Boris Johnson has refused to be drawn on whether he had asked one of his fellow European Union leaders to veto an extension to the scheduled Brexit departure date on Oct. 31. Johnson came to office in July, promising to leave the EU — do or die — by Halloween. The House of Commons has sought to block a departure without an agreement, arguing that such an arrangement would disrupt trade and plunge the economy into recession.
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| 'Alarming' rise in far-Right weapons seizures prompts Germany to beef up police powers Posted: 29 Sep 2019 06:25 AM PDT  The German government says it will respond to an "alarming" rise in weapons seizures during raids on far-Right extremists by handing police more powers to fight radicalism. Close to 1,100 weapons were confiscated in the course of investigations into Right-wing crime in 2018, marking a 61 per cent rise on the previous year when 676 weapons were found, new statistics show. Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, said the figures represent an "alarming increase" but also show that "our investigations are having an impact and authorities are keeping a close eye on the scene." Mr Seehofer, a member of the conservative Christian Social Union party, said police capabilities would be beefed up in response. "I am determined to strengthen the security services both in personnel and in structure and to give them the necessary legal tools to cope with this threat," he stated. A veteran law-and-order man, Mr Seehofer has previously faced criticism from civil liberties groups for introducing sweeping police powers in his native Bavaria which included abolishing time limits on police detentions. The weapons listed as being seized during raids last year included hand guns, rifles and knives, as well as pepper spray, fireworks and "dangerous tools". No detailed breakdown of the numbers of each type of weapon has yet been released. German police have in the past faced criticism for using a loose definition of what constitutes a weapon. Raids on the radical Left in recent years have led to confiscations of bricks and household implements as police sought to up political pressure on Berlin's militant squatter scene. Matthias Quent, an extremism expert at the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society, told ARD that the new figures showed the far-Right are "massively arming themselves". "Their aim is to intimidate society and drive out ethnic minorities. Parts of the scene even want a civil war," Mr Quent said. Coming just months after the murder of a politician from Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats by a suspected far-right fanatic, the news adds to concern about rising militancy. Walter Lübcke, mayor of Kassel, was shot at point blank range outside his house in June. Weeks later police arrested Stephan Ernst, a man with a long history of involvement in the neo-Nazi scene. In the course of investigations, police found 46 guns at Mr Ernst's home and place of work. While it is still unclear how many of the weapons were held legally, investigators have reportedly told the home affairs committee that they were "hidden professionally".
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| Malware uses web apps to turn PCs into conduits for attacks Posted: 29 Sep 2019 06:03 AM PDT 
It's not just botnets that can hijack PCs for nefarious ends. Microsoft and Cisco's Talos researchers have identified a new malware strain, Nodersok (or Divergent), that uses web apps to turn systems into proxies for malicious internet traffic. The attack gets victims to run an HTA (HTML application) file through a rogue ad or download, launching a complex sequence of events. JavaScript in the HTA downloads a separate JavaScript file, and that in turn runs a PowerShell command that downloads and runs a whole host of tools, including ones that disable Windows Defender, ask for more control, capture data packets and create the intended proxy.
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| The Grimy History of the Attorney General's Office Posted: 29 Sep 2019 06:00 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- When Congress created the position of attorney general in 1789, it was a part-time gig. The salary lagged well behind other executive positions, and lacked congressional appropriations for office space and supplies. The idea that the occupant could serve as the president's personal fixer would have seemed absurd at the time.It no longer seems so absurd. This week, Attorney General William Barr was accused of going "rogue" by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who opened an impeachment proceeding against President Donald Trump in the wake of the Department of Justice's decision against releasing a whistle-blower's complaint to Congress. At the heart of the controversy is a phone call between the president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that focused on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great," Trump said. The Justice Department declined to investigate the allegations even after Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, elevated it to a matter of "urgent concern." The department said Barr was not involved in that decision, and added that he never spoke to the president about Biden's ties to Ukraine. Still, critics are sounding alarms about Barr failing to protect the department's storied independence from the president and its responsibility to uphold the rule of law.Attorneys general have been held to that standard for years – and for good reason. Nevertheless, Barr's predecessors have managed to build up quite a record of cronyism over the years. As with so many flaws in America's system of government, this one goes back to its founding.Back then, there was no "Department of Justice," and the attorney general floated between the three branches of government. "I am a sort of mongrel between the State and the U.S.; called an officer of some rank under the latter, yet thrust out to get a livelihood in the former," said Edmund Randolph, the nation's first top lawyer.Because the position was independent and impotent, the men who filled the position were rarely corrupt or political. In an in-depth analysis, Fordham University legal scholar Jed Shugerman found that most of nineteenth-century appointees tended to be professional lawyers, not political hacks.The only exceptions surfaced during Andrew Jackson's administration, which made unprecedented claims of executive power, and during Ulysses S. Grant's administration, which became infamous for corruption. Otherwise, the office was basically independent, if only because there wasn't a whole lot it could do to implement the president's bidding.In 1870, Congress created the Department of Justice. Shugerman has persuasively argued that this was an important step in the professionalization of law. Congressman Thomas Jenckes, the man most responsible for the new agency, viewed this move as part of a larger housecleaning of the federal bureaucracy, replacing patronage jobs with salaried positions.But there was a little problem with his plan: It placed the department under the direct control of the executive branch. As legal scholars Bruce Green and Rebecca Roiphe have recently observed, that set up the potential for the appearance, if not the reality, of undue influence. It was only a matter of time before a president decided to abuse his power.President William Howard Taft was the first who dared to do so, interfering with the criminal investigation of his corrupt interior secretary. This was controversial, but worse was yet to come. President Woodrow Wilson eventually elevated a corrupt politician and ally, A. Mitchell Palmer, to the top of the Justice Department. Wilson's private secretary told the president that the office wielded "great power politically. We should not trust it to anyone who is not heart and soul with us."Wilson presided over the erosion of the department's independence, but his successor, Warren G. Harding, had the audacity to appoint his own campaign manager, Harry Daugherty, as attorney general. Of course, Daugherty abused the office. He retaliated against congressional investigators and was implicated in a range of corrupt schemes tied to the president, including the Teapot Dome Scandal.Such men were what Shugerman termed the "crony" model of attorney general. President Franklin Roosevelt was no saint on this count. His first attorney general was Homer Cummings, a close political ally and head of the Democratic National Committee. Roosevelt also added to the office's power, handing it control over U.S. attorneys and marshals. While Cummings wasn't corrupt, he was far from independent. Indeed, he spearheaded Roosevelt's infamous attempt to pack the Supreme Court.Yet the ideal of professional independence remained alive and well among the thousands of men and women who make up the Department of Justice. In the postwar era, the attorney general might have been a political ally of the president – President John F. Kennedy appointed his own brother to the position – but the department maintained a certain independent streak.Then came President Richard Nixon, who considered the Justice Department his personal fiefdom. Long before the events that led to his impeachment, Nixon squelched an investigation of International Telephone and Telegraph, an important donor to the Republican Party seeking approval for a merger."The IT&T thing—stay the hell out of it. Is that clear? That's an order," Nixon told Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, according to a White House tape of the conversation. "Okay," Kleindienst meekly replied.His boss, Attorney General John Mitchell, occasionally pushed back at Nixon, though without much impact. "It just repels him to do these horrible things, but they've got to be done," Nixon complained. Mitchell eventually joined Nixon's presidential campaign for dirty deeds that would later lead to prison, replaced by the milquetoast Kleindienst. After Nixon resigned in disgrace, it seemed as though the scandal would bring serious reform. One bill proposed in the Senate would have made the Justice Department entirely independent from the executive branch. But Congress couldn't pull the trigger on such a substantive reform. Instead, hearings on the bill elicited the usual invocations for professionalism and ethics. There was a great deal of handwringing about prosecutorial independence, but not a whole lot of change.By the 1980s, it was back to the usual problems, with Reagan's attorney general, Edwin Meese, improperly warning the president about the brewing Iran-Contra investigation. But other administrations resurrected the appearance, if not reality, of an independent attorney general and Justice Department.Which is what makes the current allegations so unnerving. If true, the whistle-blower's complaint – that "Attorney General Barr appears to be involved, too" in a scheme to "solicit interference from a foreign country" – confirms that whatever wall of professionalism built since Watergate has been smashed.Whatever happens, Congress needs to recognize that there's nothing particularly sacrosanct about the current close relationship between the office of the president, the attorney general, and the larger Department of Justice. It's a historical accident.And, as Donald Trump has shown, an accident waiting to happen.To contact the author of this story: Stephen Mihm at smihm1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mike Nizza at mnizza3@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Stephen Mihm, an associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, is a contributor to Bloomberg Opinion.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| UK health minister: I accept the law but it could be challenged Posted: 29 Sep 2019 05:47 AM PDT ![UK health minister: I accept the law but it could be challenged]( "UK health minister: I accept the law but it could be challenged") British health minister Matt Hancock said on Sunday he accepted the law but that did not mean it shouldn't be challenged, when asked about legislation that could force the government to ask the European Union to delay Brexit. Earlier this month parliament passed a law which would compel Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ask Brussels for a delay to Brexit if lawmakers have not approved an exit deal by Oct. 19. Johnson has said he will not delay Brexit.
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| Trump condemns religious persecution amid refugee squeeze Posted: 29 Sep 2019 05:41 AM PDT  President Donald Trump said at the United Nations this week that "protecting religious freedom is one of my highest priorities." But his promise rings hollow to advocates for persecuted religious minorities seeking refuge in the United States. Trump's administration already has slashed the nation's refugee admissions ceiling to a historic low and on Thursday proposed a further cut for next year, to 18,000 — an 84% drop from the cap proposed during the last year of Barack Obama's presidency. The president's promotion of global freedom to worship prompted the State Department to set aside 5,000 refugee slots for religious minorities.
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| Russia Just Flew Its New Stealth Fighter and Stealth Drone Side by Side Posted: 29 Sep 2019 04:15 AM PDT  Get ready America, this is the future of Putin's military.
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| UN says Libya's coast guard rescued 70 Europe-bound migrants Posted: 29 Sep 2019 04:00 AM PDT ![UN says Libya's coast guard rescued 70 Europe-bound migrants]( "UN says Libya's coast guard rescued 70 Europe-bound migrants") The U.N. refugee agency says Libya's coast guard has rescued about 70 Europe-bound migrants after days in distress in the Mediterranean Sea. UNHCR says Sunday the people have disembarked back in Libya. Coast guard spokesman Ayoub Gassim said the shipwreck took place off the western city of Misrata, 187 kilometers (116 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli.
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| China urges 'calm and rational' resolution to U.S.-Sino trade war Posted: 29 Sep 2019 02:34 AM PDT  China hopes Beijing and Washington will resolve their trade dispute "with a calm and rational attitude", Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said on Sunday, ahead of talks in two weeks between the two sides. The United States and China have been locked in an escalating trade war for over a year. A new round of high-level talks between the world's two largest economies is expected in Washington on Oct. 10-11, led from the Chinese side by President Xi Jinping's top economic adviser, Vice Premier Liu He.
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| Pussy Riot’s Nadya on the Disturbing Putin-Trump Bromance: ‘He’d Love to Have as Much Power as Putin’ Posted: 29 Sep 2019 02:06 AM PDT  Rodin Eckenroth/GettyAs the most front-facing member of the feminist punk-rock collective Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova is no stranger to extrajudicial harassment by Russian law enforcement. She's been intimidated, beaten, and, most infamously, sentenced to two years in a harsh prison camp outside of Mordovia for "hooliganism"—this following the group's headline-grabbing "Punk Prayer" performance-art piece at Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. And yet, the events of Sept. 7 managed to catch her by surprise. Armed with "Pussian" Federation and rainbow flags, an array of colorful smoke cannons, and a banner reading "PUTIN YOU'D BETTER LEAVE BY YOURSELF," Tolokonnikova and her fellow Rioters aimed to protest the upcoming Moscow city parliament election outside the Russian White House. The anti-Putin women wanted to ensure a fair and just process—a tall order given Putin's penchant for election meddling and fascistic crackdown on most forms of public dissent. The moment they exited their residence, the 15 women—including her 17-year-old sister Polina—were "immediately, brutally arrested with no explanation why," according to Tolokonnikova, were thrown into a truck, had their phones confiscated, and transported to a Moscow police station where they were isolated in cells and grilled until 1 a.m..Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokno: Julian Assange Is 'Connected with the Russian Government'Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova Opens Up About Moscow Arrest: 'We Are the Many and They Are the Few'"It's a sign of our times," recalls Tolokonnikova. "It's true for us in Moscow right now—more and more people are getting angrier. Being politically aware is a new norm. If you respect yourself, you go to rallies. If you respect your country, you're not afraid of the riot police because, in the end, the country is ours. We are the many and they are the few." Judging by the recent election results, wherein Russia's ruling party lost a third of their seats in parliament following mass protests, she appears to be right. Just before the arrest, I spoke with Tolokonnikova about the Russian police state, Trump's cozy relationship with Putin, and much more. Tell me a little bit about Pussy Riot's new song, "1937." What inspired it? The idea for this song was inspired by the actions on the football field during the World Cup, when my colleagues ran onto the football field and they protested against the situation with political prisoners and persecution of political opponents of the Kremlin. Putin was seeing that action, so the cops were really mad. When they were arrested, one of the cops told them, "It's so sad that it's not 1937 right now." It is a really popular position, unfortunately, among people from the so-called Siloviky group, which has gained a lot of power under Putin's regime, and is comprised of FSB and cops. They don't want us to have a voice and be able to protest against them. They want to return to the time of 1937-1938, where around 700,000 people were executed because of standing orders. This song is written from the perspective of those tortured by police, and they're warning that at some point, the system will turn back against you.How confident are you that the Russian people—and this system that he's constantly manipulating—will eventually turn against Putin?Having examples like Muammar Gaddafi, I'm pretty confident that the system will be turned against Putin. Do you remember how Gaddafi died? I'm not saying that it should happen, or that I want it to be this way, but when you've been a dictator for a long time, you're oppressing people and breaking their lives, and they're not happy about it. At one point or another your power will go away, and you will not be respected anymore. That's something that Putin realizes—he's in power to protect himself, and his regime. But you can't just have power; you need another reason to believe in you. And Putin's time is running out for people to support him.You must have been encouraged by the recent Moscow election protests, which brought some 70,000 people to the streets. Our strategy, for those anti-Putin, is to support anyone who's not in the ruling party—since the ruling party is the most corrupt thing ever. I'm curious what your life is like in Moscow. Are you in constant danger, and do you feel like you're regularly being followed? The nature of oppression in Russia is not total. Not everybody is in prison, and you never know when you'll end up in prison. It's pretty random, actually, so you never know when it may happen. My mindset is just not to think about it. If you go out to rallies, protest, and make yourself heard, there is danger, and you should be ready to be arrested and go to prison. But you never can be ready for this bullshit. Police will beat you and then they'll accuse the protesters of beating police—without any evidence but a police report, which cannot be trusted. So yes, the danger is very real. Why do you think Putin and Trump are so drawn to one another?Putin wants to be a leader of a nativist, conservative, racist, short-minded world, and he's gaining international popularity all around the globe. Putin definitely wanted Trump to be elected. Putin is trying to be the world policeman as an alternative to the Americans as world policemen. It all started in 2004, and Putin was very scared that the Ukraine would become democratic, which would serve as an example to Russia. And then he was supporting Marine Le Pen [of France's far-right National Rally party] because of her conservatism, and he was giving money via Russian banks to support her. Seeing all these conservative movements connected to Putin, I'm not surprised that he's supporting Donald Trump. That's obvious.Both Trump and Putin enjoy undermining the press—and dissent in general. Trump is not very much about the rule of law, and like Putin, he wants to put his political opponents in prison. He's said he wants to put Hillary Clinton in prison. And like Putin, he's not a fan of the free press. I think he'd love to have as much power as Putin has, but the nature of the American political system is thankfully quite different, and there are some checks and balances.Courtesy Nadya TolokonnikovaDo you believe Putin meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Tuump?If you ask me if Russia meddled, I don't know for sure, but it's likely that they tried, because that is the nature of who Putin is. He's a KGB agent, and he'll always be a KGB agent. It's very dangerous to have a KGB agent as the head of your country, because you can be sure that he'll try to meddle in other countries' political decisions. He certainly helped Trump get elected.I know you came out and voiced your support for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Are you still Feeling the Bern for 2020? I'm one of those who believes that Bernie Sanders could have won in 2016, and from what I know about the coming election in America, it looks more promising to me. After the terrible defeat that happened in 2016, Democrats changed their agenda to become much more progressive, and to be more in line with the minds of people—because the people are progressive. I'm trying to stay positive but am really curious what's going to happen. I have not made my decision yet. I'll let you know later who I endorse in this election. But I really love Bernie. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Pope Could Soon Say ‘I Do’ to Married Priests–and Open a Schism Posted: 29 Sep 2019 02:04 AM PDT  Franco Origlia/GettyROME–In October 2017, when Pope Francis announced a Vatican synod on the Amazon region "to identify new paths for the evangelization of God's people in that region," few people beyond those who had to attend marked it on their calendars. But over the course of the last two years, as the church prepared for the synod, which will run from Oct. 6 to 27 in Rome, it's become clear there may be no more important meeting in Francis' entire papacy. The Secret Pope Francis HatersOne item among the 146 topics on the agenda listed in the 45-page working document has eclipsed all others–including the pope's focus on climate change and poverty. That is whether or not to allow married "viri probati"–men of proven virtue–to be ordained as priests for the purpose of delivering the big sacraments: baptism, confession, weddings and funerals, in far flung areas where no priests are present. Bishop Rafael Cob, apostolic vicar of Puyo, Ecuador, who will be attending the synod in Rome, said that the Church must "respond to a concrete challenge in a concrete reality." "The Amazon is a geographically difficult region to evangelize, first because of its distance, its inaccessibility," he told reporters at a press conference in Rome. "But there also is a lack of candidates who can or want to be priests with the issue of celibacy. So, logically, the Church is looking for new methods to respond to concrete challenges."But a phalanx of conservative Catholic clerics, led by American Cardinal Raymond Burke and a host of other traditionalists, are ready to demand the resignation of the pope if he signs off on such heretical matters. By allowing married men to become priests in remote areas, they fear, the church could pave the way to the abolition of celibacy. Their slippery slope concern is that next, ordained priests will be able to marry. Then, God knows what could happen, maybe even women would be allowed into the priesthood. German Cardinal Gerhard Muüller of Germany is vehement: he doesn't even want the topic brought up and has condemned the synod working document. He says it has "triggered fears of a pending change to Church doctrine." He warns that it could actually cause a schism, leaving conservatives with no choice but to leave the church under Francis. Muüller says the Amazon working document "lacks theological reflection" and creates "great confusion" for Catholics. He says that it puts the focus on "human ideas to save the world" rather than Jesus.The great schisms of the Catholic Church have been few and far between, but hugely momentous. The most significant is the so-called East-West schism that divided Christendom into the Western Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox branch. The Eastern Orthodox church, for the record, does allow married priests. The Eastern Catholic church as well as the Latin rite church also allows married men to be ordained as priests while still being recognized in Rome. Francis, as his papacy has proven, believes humans should have a say in all matters relating to, well, humans. Still, even as he entertains the idea that married devout Catholic men could be ordained to deliver the sacraments, Pope Francis has been clear that he is not willing to bend on celibacy, per se. On a recent papal voyage, he told journalists that he "would rather give his life" than reverse the celibacy rule which, for the record, is a rule he could easily change. "If the bishops agreed through mutual consent to ordain married men–those called viri probati–it's my judgment that the pope would accept it," German Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of Francis' closest theological allies, told Crux, a Catholic news site, recently. "Celibacy isn't a dogma, it's not an unalterable practice."The Plot to Bring Down Pope FrancisOn his way back from Africa in early September, Francis told reporters that he did not fear a divided church, which has led many to question whether in some small way he would like the conservatives to leave. "I pray that there will not be schisms," he told reporters on board the papal plane. "But I am not afraid."Maybe he is banking on the theory that elderly married viri probati won't have a huge issue with the matter. After all, early on in his papacy he compared Europe to an ageing women, who he described as a "grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant." Perhaps he is sure that a man of virtue won't sin for the sake of sexual satisfaction after a certain age. On the face of it, the issue seems rather banal. At the moment, many of the 2.8 million mostly Catholic people who live in the Amazon region, which skirts Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Venezuela and Suriname, don't have access to ordained priests. If they want to baptize newborns or bury their dead they have either to wait until a traveling priest shows up, which could be once a month or longer in some cases, or travel for miles to see the closest one which, as one can imagine, is almost as difficult with a newborn as it would be with a corpse. Weddings are often scheduled to happen one after another when the priest will be in town, but things like last rites are impossible to administer and vitally important to devout Catholics who believe they must be anointed at death to rise to Heaven. Nuns are aplenty in the area and while they have done much of the heavy lifting like reading the Sunday liturgy in lieu of mass, they just don't have the power that deacons and priests have because of their gender. The Catholic bishops in the Amazon region have long insisted that there are two options to deliver the faith to the faithful. First, the Catholic Church could give the nuns more power, but opening that door seems one that Rome doesn't want to go anywhere near for fear that the precedent might spark a global stampede. Francis has, in fact, slammed the door on that a number of times. So they are left with the option of ordaining married men who qualify as viri probati and giving them full powers to conduct priestly duties. The synod's working document clearly suggests studying "the possibility of priestly ordination for elders, preferably Indigenous, respected and accepted by the community, even if they have an established and stable family."And Francis has stacked the synod deck of voting clerics to include the bulk from that region and the rest from his advisory group, including three Americans who are often classified as liberal, including Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, who is one of his closest advisers, and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego. Francis has also invited 12 "special" guests to weigh in, inducing former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to deliver a talk on a yet undefined topic. The pope's trusted adviser Cardinal Kaspar says he hopes the pope does sign off on ordaining married men in certain situations. "Personally, I'm very much in favor of maintaining celibacy as an obligatory way of life with a commitment to the cause of Jesus Christ," Kaspar said. "But this doesn't exclude that a married man can carry a priestly service in special situations."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| UK PM Johnson says he will not resign to avoid asking for Brexit delay Posted: 29 Sep 2019 01:44 AM PDT ![UK PM Johnson says he will not resign to avoid asking for Brexit delay]( "UK PM Johnson says he will not resign to avoid asking for Brexit delay") British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday he would not resign to avoid having to delay Brexit beyond the end of October. Johnson has vowed to take Britain out of the EU with or without a deal, despite parliament passing a law which would require him to ask for an extension to the Brexit deadline if lawmakers have not approved a deal.
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| Iraq's removal of counterterrorism chief sparks controversy Posted: 29 Sep 2019 01:42 AM PDT  The Iraqi prime minister's removal of a top military commander from his post triggered heated political protests and uncertainty over the weekend, at a time of soaring tensions between the country's chief security partners in the region, Iran and the United States. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi removed Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi from his post as the commander of the country's elite counterterrorism forces and transferred him to the Defense Ministry on Friday, without providing an explanation. The decision sparked speculation that some among Iraq's Iran-backed politicians were uneasy with the commander's growing popularity among Iraqis.
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| Hong Kong crisis threatens to spoil China's 70th party Posted: 29 Sep 2019 01:36 AM PDT  China's tightly choreographed 70th birthday bash next week risks being upstaged by pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which offer a starkly different take on the strength and power of the Communist Party being feted in Beijing. As President Xi Jinping gets ready to preside over a huge military parade and gala event on Tuesday, the former British colony is in tumult over the erosion of its special freedoms by Beijing. Hong Kong has been rocked by the worst political unrest since its handover to China in 1997, with another round of clashes between protesters and riot police on Saturday and Sunday.
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| China Stirs Up Patriotism by Sending Tourists to Mao's Old Haunts Posted: 29 Sep 2019 01:00 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Dressed in a red guard uniform, Gao Hongli and a group of fellow kindergarten principals are laughing and whooping like they're on a Marxist hen night.They've traveled to Jinggang Mountain in Jiangxi province as part of a 100-strong delegation of preschool heads to learn how members of the Communist Party's first rural "soviet base" lived in the late 1920s."It feels deeply emotional to be here," Gao said. "We're going to take the red spirit we've learned here back to each of our kindergartens."As China prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic on Tuesday, the party has been exploiting its history to reinforce ideology — especially to those in positions of influence. Behind the holiday spirit is President Xi Jinping's campaign to bring the party, and the country, in line — a campaign that also includes feared anti-corruption measures and endless political inspections. The party is encouraging this patriotic nostalgia to bolster support in an economic slowdown and to cement backing for Xi as he combats months of civil unrest in Hong Kong and external challenges from a more assertive U.S. under President Donald Trump."Efforts under the Xi administration to revive and amplify communist orthodoxy are directly tied to the CCP's concern over its political legitimacy and regime stability," said Jude Blanchette, author of "China's New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong." "Xi fears that if the Chinese people aren't consistently reminded of the great and glorious achievements of the CCP, they will treat it with indifference or worse, hostility."As Xi put it in a 2016 speech: "Only by experiencing the hardships of revolutionary era can people truly receive education." The Chinese leader has argued that red tourism could provide the country with a "spiritual red baptism."To push this vision, the government earmarked 2.64 billion yuan ($370 million) to develop red tourism between 2016 and 2020, turning it into big business. Trips to sites associated with the country's communist revolution accounted for 10% of domestic tourism spending in the first half of 2018, according to government statistics. State media estimate red tourism sites get 800 million visits a year.Xi's endorsement has encouraged Chinese business leaders to join the trend and send employees on red tours to show loyalty to the party.Chiefs of 45 Chinese technology companies including Tencent Holdings Ltd.-backed Zhihu and Kuaishou went on a trip to Fujian to study CCP history and ideology in June. Wang Jianlin, the billionaire founder of Dalian Wanda Group, is planning a 1.7 billion dollar theme park in Yanan to mark the 100th anniversary of the party's founding in 2021.Mountain RetreatAt Jinggang Mountain, the tree-topped outpost where the then-outlawed Communist Party took refuge from the Nationalist government in 1927. Many believe that it was here that the revolutionaries adopted the tactics that would bring them to eventual victory in 1949."Until then China had followed the Soviet urban strategy of revolution, but in Jinggang Mountain they found the strategy of the countryside surrounding the cities," said Cao Hong, a retired professor at China's National Defense University, traveling to the town on the dedicated train from Beijing, which had displays on the party's history and ticket conductors trained to sing revolutionary songs.Cao, who said he's a blood relative of former leader Mao Zedong, was on his way to deliver a series of lectures at the Jiangxi Cadre College in the town. He said those early 20th century strategies for revolution still contain potent lessons for today. "You can learn about the original meaning of the revolution and learn about party discipline," he said.Also on the train were representatives of private and state-owned companies heading to Jinggang Mountain for study and outdoor training sessions in party culture and revolutionary techniques. "It's about creating a corporate culture with Chinese characteristics," Cao said.Liu, an employee for a private online publishing company, who asked not to be identified by her full name, said she'd been chosen for red culture training as a reward for strong performance and because her editorial role at the company requires a strong grasp of party principles. "It's a very good opportunity. Not everyone is able to go," she said. Ever since China began economic reforms more than 40 years ago, its leaders have promoted communist values as a way to insulate the party's rule from the forces of international capitalism and western culture. But after Deng Xiaoping began opening the country's economy in the 1980s, the wealth generated created a middle class with more material aspirations.Since taking power seven years ago, Xi has worked to reassert the party's supremacy. Communist Party cells have assumed a greater role in private and state-owned companies and universities have introduced additional classes on Marxist theory. At a party meeting in October 2018, Xi echoed Mao's edict that, "east, west, south, north and center — the party leads everything."On Jinggang Mountain the red resurgence looks somewhat like a cross between a holiday camp and an army training station. Ubiquitous little red badges mark out visitors who are party members, many of whom have hired red-guard uniforms for their three-to-seven-day stints at the schools.Secrets and SacrificeGroups from private companies, state enterprises and government departments queue up to climb the steep steps that lead to a shrine for revolutionary martyrs, where, against a backdrop of trees and mountain views, they lay wreaths and publicly renew their oaths to the party. With fists raised, they pledge to "keep the party's secrets" and promise to "sacrifice everything for the party."In the town's clothing stores, antique shops and government-run tourist sites are the traditional Mao memorabilia, hammer-and-sickles images and statues of workers. But it's the tributes to Xi that stand out. Xi's image is on everything from plates to posters and books.In a small room at a former military headquarters, cadres even line up to sit in a chair in which Xi once sat to talk with locals."Xi Jinping is really a great man. We love him, we deeply love him," said Liu Fang, after taking her turn. She was on a tour with an industry association under Guangxi's United Front Work Department. "Since he came in with his eight rules for cadres everything has changed. We must all thank him. Although it is harder to make money now, our lives are better."The adoration mirrors the role Xi has made for himself at the core of the nation's life since he became leader of the Communist Party almost seven years ago. He's abolished constitutional term limits, allowing him to remain leader for life, enshrined his "core" status into the party's governing charter and become the first leader since Mao to have his personal "thought" written into the constitution during his lifetime. State media have referred to him as "the people's leader," mirroring language used to describe Mao decades earlier.But outside the corporate packaged tours and political junkets, things look less idyllic. The town's residents, like many in China, are feeling the pinch of the economic downturn.Business SlumpWith few individual tourists, businesses owners say they depend on the organized groups of party members. When the training classes restart in the afternoon, restaurants empty and the streets become quiet."Cadres don't spend money," said Zhao Nian, 39, who runs a jewelry store in Dajing village, near the mountain. "Their food and accommodation is paid for and high-level people like that are given gifts. They don't need to buy stuff from people like us."Dai Longjie, 34, who runs a drinks and novelty-clothing-rental store said his income has halved this year."It's been really quiet," he said. "It's not easy for anyone to make money in any industry."In his hometown of Lushan in Jiangxi province, he said there have been layoffs among textile and construction workers. "I don't know if it's government policies or what the problem is, but a lot of people can't find jobs at the moment," Dai said. "People are sitting around with nothing to do."And idled factory employees is not a scenario that fits well with the long history of the workers' struggle. —With assistance by Peter Martin and Hannah Dormido \--With assistance from Hannah Dormido.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Peter Martin in Beijing at pmartin138@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Adam MajendieFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| No-deal Brexit "may well happen" - British health minister Posted: 29 Sep 2019 12:44 AM PDT ![No-deal Brexit "may well happen" - British health minister]( "No-deal Brexit \"may well happen\" - British health minister") British health minister Matt Hancock said on Sunday the country "may well" leave the European Union without a deal. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal, despite parliament passing a law which would require him to delay Brexit if it has not approved an exit agreement by mid-October. "The best way to leave is with a deal," Hancock told Sky News on the first day of the governing Conservative Party's annual conference in the northern English city of Manchester.
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| Piety & Power review: how Mike Pence went all-in for Donald Trump Posted: 28 Sep 2019 10:00 PM PDT  The VP brought the evangelicals to the table but not much else. As impeachment clouds gather, his position seems in perilDonald Trump and Mike Pence at the UN in New York this week. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesMike Pence, meet Dan Quayle.Like Pence, Quayle hailed from Indiana and feared being dumped by a president whose re-election seemed uncertain. In Quayle's case, George HW Bush calculated that the cost of unloading his gaffe-prone and draft-avoiding veep outweighed any potential advantage. Quayle kept his spot. Bush lost to Bill Clinton.Pence's prospects appear similarly shaky. With Trump trailing in the polls – and facing impeachment – reports are rife of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump seeking to drop Pence for Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations. Pence's beatific gaze at his boss, coupled with his evident discomfort with modernity, have left him vulnerable to media mockery as well as presidential whim.Tom LoBianco is the latest author to attempt to fill in the blanks on the canvas that is the vice-president. Unlike some Pence books, the result is neither hit job nor hagiography. Rather, the veteran Pence-watcher portrays his subject as a committed Christian with sharp elbows and a sonorous voice, one who has struggled with the tugs of faith and ambition, his sensibilities now dulled by baptism in Trump's swamp."The man with stark principles kept slipping away, clouded by his ambition and political maneuvering," LoBianco writes. But "Trump only made Pence's machinations more obvious to those who had watched for decades". For the biblically minded, Jacob's sojourn in the house of Laban, his corrupt father-in-law, gives steadfastness a better name than the current VP.Pence refused to be interviewed by LoBianco. But those in his orbit provide useful context in assessing a man whose time as governor of Indiana was filled with more than a fair share of debacles but who wound up on a winning national ticket.> Pence owes much to the fusion of evangelical Protestantism to unvarnished capitalism and the spirit of the Tea PartyHe made a hash of the state's Religious Freedoms Restoration Act, which would have prohibited a "governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability".Despite Pence's denials, the law was instantly viewed as an invitation to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Pence capitulated and signed remedial legislation, but only after receiving a drubbing at the hands of ABC's George Stephanopoulos – a Rhodes scholar, holder of an Oxford degree in theology, son of a Greek Orthodox priest.Pence's political existence owes much to the fusion of evangelical Protestantism to unvarnished capitalism and the spirit of the Tea party. While seeking divine guidance, he has kept at least one eye on the Koch brothers' munificence, broader cultural resentments and demographic upheaval.Back in 1992, when Bush and Quayle were primed for defeat, Pence was thinking kindly of Pat Buchanan, the Nixon speechwriter and paleo-conservative who challenged Bush for the nomination. Buchanan's ideological heir now lives in the White House, Pence striving to stay by his side.LoBianco also writes of the Pence and his wife Karen, the spouse he calls "mother", and their time in the Indiana statehouse. They would spend the day talking on the phone, even as she maintained a nearby office, in order to avoid prying eyes. According to LoBianco, it was Karen, not Mike, who was the "new sheriff in town".Piety and Power describes an exchange between Trump and Pence in which the candidate tells his prospective running mate he wants a "killer" on his ticket, and cites Chris Christie as a prime example. Pence did not rise to the bait, reportedly responding that if Trump truly wished for a "constant attack dog, I suggest that you go find someone else". But if Trump wanted a vice-president "to help get bills passed through Congress", then Pence was his "guy".> Pence is in the middle of Trump's efforts to shake down Ukraine in exchange for lowering the boom on the BidensReally? Pence stood helplessly on the Senate floor as the late John McCain torched the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, after Pence had "consistently reassured" the president "that they would have the votes needed to do away" with Obamacare.Pence also verged on the irrelevant to the president's signature achievement, the 2017 tax cut. Pence played cheerleader but the plays were called by Republican congressional leaders and the gods of industry.Pence lacks the impact he had on the campaign trail. His advice is not in demand. Trump has forged his own bonds with the religious right. The distance between Trump, Stormy Daniels, Jerry Falwell Jr and his pool boy is about a hair's breadth. Figuratively, if not literally.Karen Pence remarked in October 2016, "We knew what we were signing up for." Really?What Pence does do well is swallow his pride and raise money. In contrast to Trump, who hates schmoozing and schnoring, "donors loved talking with Pence and he loved listening". But Pence could and did go "too far". His standard $75,000-per-person ask for lunches and dinners in "small settings" triggered Trump. For all of Pence's obsequiousness, Trump came to question his loyalty.Unfortunately, Pence now finds himself in the middle of Trump's efforts to shake down Ukraine in exchange for lowering the boom on the Bidens. This is what the brass ring can look like.Pence's journey, and to a lesser degree LoBianco's book, reflect the dilemma faced by faith communities at a time when religious "nones" are a growing part of the population, organized religion is mired in scandal and mainline Protestantism, the creed of the Founding Fathers, has ceded its sway.As Ted Cruz, a preacher's son, learned in the 2016 Republican primaries, the heart of political evangelism lies not in the pews but at Daytona and Talladega, the cathedrals of Nascar. American evangelism has evolved into caffeinated American nationalism, white identity lurking near the surface.The spirit of Protestant dissent, which fueled rebellion against the crown, has given way to declaring that Trump is God's anointed. Franklin Graham, the late Billy Graham's son, threatened Americans with heaven's wrath if they had the temerity to criticize the president: "The Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment." Piety and Power is an American tale.
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| Austria Must Keep the Populists Out of Government Posted: 28 Sep 2019 10:00 PM PDT ![Austria Must Keep the Populists Out of Government]( "Austria Must Keep the Populists Out of Government") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Sebastian Kurz is a wunderkind of European politics. At 33, he is already a former chancellor of Austria — and could well be the next one, too. He now has a choice to make, one that will be watched across the European Union.Kurz's center-right Austrian People's Party looks set to win a strong plurality, but not a majority, in Sunday's elections. To regain power, he'll thus be tempted to renew an unsavory coalition with the populist Freedom Party on the far right. That would be a grave mistake and a terrible signal to Austria and the broader EU. Any other outcome, no matter how messy, is preferable.In his career to date, Kurz has displayed impressive political talent. After the 2017 election, however, he unwisely allied with the Freedom Party, bringing it into its third coalition government since the 1980s. Like many other EU politicians facing fragmented parliaments, Kurz thought he could sanitize the populists by giving them responsibility. This was an illusion. Austria should serve as a warning to others ready to coddle the far right.The Freedom Party, founded in 1955, has always been a harbinger of European populism. Under the leadership of Joerg Haider, it rose to become the third-biggest bloc in Austrian politics during the 1990s. Haider (who died in a car crash in 2008) was photogenic in lederhosen and adroit at dog-whistling, even offering cordial words at gatherings of Austrian Wehrmacht veterans that included former members of the SS. He once praised Hitler's employment policies as superior to those of post-war Austria's.To this day, the party is anti-immigrant, anti-EU, anti-elite, and indeed anti most things and people who do not fit its nativist idea of Austria. It maintains close ties to Russia and the party of President Vladimir Putin — so close that some states in the western EU have been reluctant to share intelligence with Austria, lest its interior ministry, formerly run by the Freedom Party, pass it on to Putin.The party's last stint in government ended when a video came to light in May. Shot in 2017 in a villa in Ibiza, Spain, it shows an actress posing as a rich niece of a Russian oligarch and two politicians of the Freedom Party, including Kurz's subsequent vice chancellor, discussing corrupt deals that made Austria sound like a banana republic. Enough was enough, Kurz decided. A snap election was called.Much is now at stake. Austria has a big role to play in finding a common European approach to migration and euro-area reform, as well as mediating between eastern and western EU member states, and between the EU and the western Balkans. It can't play this role credibly with the Freedom Party in government.Kurz should also be aware of Austria's reputation as a bellwether, especially in Germany. In 2000, when his party first partnered with the Freedom Party, this was considered taboo in the EU, and led to a diplomatic boycott for a few months. Today's EU is "more Austrian." Populists are in power in Hungary and Poland, recently out of power but still hungry for it in Italy, and potentially close to power in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Austria must stop normalizing these destructive movements.Granted, Kurz's other options aren't terribly appealing. A coalition with the Social Democrats would require overcoming personal resentments. A three-way deal with the Greens and the pro-business Neos would take some ideological acrobatics on all sides. A minority government could prove unstable.But any of these options is better than another run with the Freedom Party.\--Editors: Andreas Kluth, Timothy Lavin.To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg Opinion's editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net, .Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Austria Must Keep the Populists Out of Government Posted: 28 Sep 2019 10:00 PM PDT ![Austria Must Keep the Populists Out of Government]( "Austria Must Keep the Populists Out of Government") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Sebastian Kurz is a wunderkind of European politics. At 33, he is already a former chancellor of Austria — and could well be the next one, too. He now has a choice to make, one that will be watched across the European Union.Kurz's center-right Austrian People's Party looks set to win a strong plurality, but not a majority, in Sunday's elections. To regain power, he'll thus be tempted to renew an unsavory coalition with the populist Freedom Party on the far right. That would be a grave mistake and a terrible signal to Austria and the broader EU. Any other outcome, no matter how messy, is preferable.In his career to date, Kurz has displayed impressive political talent. After the 2017 election, however, he unwisely allied with the Freedom Party, bringing it into its third coalition government since the 1980s. Like many other EU politicians facing fragmented parliaments, Kurz thought he could sanitize the populists by giving them responsibility. This was an illusion. Austria should serve as a warning to others ready to coddle the far right.The Freedom Party, founded in 1955, has always been a harbinger of European populism. Under the leadership of Joerg Haider, it rose to become the third-biggest bloc in Austrian politics during the 1990s. Haider (who died in a car crash in 2008) was photogenic in lederhosen and adroit at dog-whistling, even offering cordial words at gatherings of Austrian Wehrmacht veterans that included former members of the SS. He once praised Hitler's employment policies as superior to those of post-war Austria's.To this day, the party is anti-immigrant, anti-EU, anti-elite, and indeed anti most things and people who do not fit its nativist idea of Austria. It maintains close ties to Russia and the party of President Vladimir Putin — so close that some states in the western EU have been reluctant to share intelligence with Austria, lest its interior ministry, formerly run by the Freedom Party, pass it on to Putin.The party's last stint in government ended when a video came to light in May. Shot in 2017 in a villa in Ibiza, Spain, it shows an actress posing as a rich niece of a Russian oligarch and two politicians of the Freedom Party, including Kurz's subsequent vice chancellor, discussing corrupt deals that made Austria sound like a banana republic. Enough was enough, Kurz decided. A snap election was called.Much is now at stake. Austria has a big role to play in finding a common European approach to migration and euro-area reform, as well as mediating between eastern and western EU member states, and between the EU and the western Balkans. It can't play this role credibly with the Freedom Party in government.Kurz should also be aware of Austria's reputation as a bellwether, especially in Germany. In 2000, when his party first partnered with the Freedom Party, this was considered taboo in the EU, and led to a diplomatic boycott for a few months. Today's EU is "more Austrian." Populists are in power in Hungary and Poland, recently out of power but still hungry for it in Italy, and potentially close to power in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Austria must stop normalizing these destructive movements.Granted, Kurz's other options aren't terribly appealing. A coalition with the Social Democrats would require overcoming personal resentments. A three-way deal with the Greens and the pro-business Neos would take some ideological acrobatics on all sides. A minority government could prove unstable.But any of these options is better than another run with the Freedom Party.\--Editors: Andreas Kluth, Timothy Lavin.To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg Opinion's editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net, .Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Why the Middle East Fears Iran's Missiles (To a Point) Posted: 28 Sep 2019 08:00 PM PDT  Iran has a history of unveiling wonder weapons that aren't so wonderful, such as "advanced" jet fighters that are actually copies of 1970s U.S. aircraft. While Iran can build missiles, their newest models seem more bravado than fact.
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| The Latest: Yemen vows to end attempts to divide country Posted: 28 Sep 2019 05:59 PM PDT  Yemen's new foreign minister is vowing that the government will "end any attempt to tear apart our homeland." He's sharply criticizing Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who control much of the country's north and the United Arab Emirates, which supports forces seeking their own nation in the south. Al-Hadrami told the U.N. General Assembly Saturday that attacks he said were carried out by Emirati air assets in the south have also "undermined the stability of our homeland." And he said the UAE "aggression" has undermined the Saudi-led coalition's goal of assisting the government.
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| Myanmar: Repatriate Rohingya to 'more conducive environment' Posted: 28 Sep 2019 05:51 PM PDT  Wary of international interference, Myanmar insisted Saturday it wants Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled to neighboring Bangladesh repatriated to their former homes so they can live in a "more conducive environment" than the one they left. Kyaw Tint Swe, Myanmar's minister for the office of the state counselor, said in his nation's address at the U.N. General Assembly that Myanmar is working with Bangladesh and the U.N. to find "long-term and practical solutions" to bring home some of the more than 740,000 Rohingya in the country's Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh.
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| They said it: Leaders at the UN, in their own words Posted: 28 Sep 2019 05:44 PM PDT  Here, The Associated Press takes the opposite approach and spotlights some thoughts you might not have heard — the voices of leaders speaking at the United Nations who might not have captured the headlines and the airtime on Saturday, the fifth day of 2019 debate. "When I was a young boy in the Marshall Islands, the unavoidable sound of ocean waves crashing upon our coral reefs was, to me, a natural symphony.
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