| U.K. Government Plans Brexit Bill, Multi-Year NHS Funding Posted: 14 Dec 2019 05:14 PM PST ![U.K. Government Plans Brexit Bill, Multi-Year NHS Funding]( "U.K. Government Plans Brexit Bill, Multi-Year NHS Funding") (Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson's Conservative government will return the Withdrawal Agreement bill for debate in Parliament before Christmas, seeking to get it passed in time for the Jan. 31 deadline for Britain to leave the European Union.After securing a hefty majority in Thursday's general election, the prime minister is setting out on the first stage of his campaign promise to "get Brexit done." He's also vowed not to extend the transition period beyond 2020, leaving Britain and the EU just 11 months to hammer out an accord.The Queen's Speech, scheduled for Thursday, will lay out the government's domestic agenda and much of it will be a reprise of what was outlined by Johnson's minority administration in October. A key addition, according to a statement late Saturday from Downing Street, will be a plan to enact a "multi-year financial commitment" to the National Health Service."This election was as much about delivering on the people's priorities as it was about getting Brexit done -- and the Prime Minister understands that," a No. 10 official said. "We will deliver on the promises we have made on helping with the cost of living, tackling crime and supporting our NHS."Regarding Northern Ireland, where the nationalist Sinn Fein made significant advances in the election at the expense of the Democratic Unionist Party, Johnson wants parties to resume talks before Christmas on governance in the province. Stormont, Northern Ireland's power-sharing assembly, has been suspended following a bitter row between Sinn Fein and the DUP.A strong U.K. is a "vital focus of this government," according to the statement.Johnson is also planning a major reshuffle in February, after Brexit, in an attempt to move on to the next part of his agenda, according to the Times of London. As many as one third of ministers in his cabinet could be fired from the top team in the prime minister's bid to tackle issues facing working-class voters, the newspaper reported, citing a government source it didn't identify.(Updates with reported Cabinet plans in last paragraph)\--With assistance from Siraj Datoo.To contact the reporter on this story: James Ludden in New York at jludden@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net, Tony CzuczkaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Shooting at suburban Atlanta mall injures 1 as shoppers flee Posted: 14 Dec 2019 12:06 PM PST  A shooting that wounded one man in a mall food court sent suburban Atlanta shoppers fleeing in panic Saturday. The Cobb County Police Department said in a statement that the man was wounded at Cumberland Mall around 1 p.m. following an argument and that the shooting suspect ran away. The victim was taken to a hospital, where Cobb County Police spokeswoman Ofc.
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| Protracted street clashes engulf Beirut near protest camp Posted: 14 Dec 2019 12:05 PM PST  Security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas while clashing with anti-government protesters and with men who tried to attack the protest camp in Beirut on Saturday, setting off street confrontations that lasted for hours. The clashes continued into the early morning Sunday as riot police lobbed tear gas and used water cannons to disperse protesters who pelted them with stones. The trouble started when dozens of men, some wearing masks, pelted security forces with stones and threw firecrackers at them on one edge of the protest camp.
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| Ivanka Trump Interviewed by Her Own Spokeswoman in Doha While More Powerful Leaders Face Journalists Posted: 14 Dec 2019 12:01 PM PST  Ivanka Trump fielded a softball interview from a State Department spokeswoman at the high-powered Doha Forum Saturday, skirting the tough interviews more powerful officials at the conference faced.U.S. State Department spokesperson and former Fox News contributor Morgan Ortagus posed open-ended and positive prompts to the president's daughter like, "You were able to put women's prosperity into the national security strategy. That was so important to me that you did that and I'd love for you to explain that," according to BuzzFeed News. Trump spoke about her work on women's economic empowerment, a project dubbed Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, which Ortagus is also a part of, according to BuzzFeed. When asked by The Daily Beast if Trump said anything of interest, BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief Ben Smith, who was in the audience for the interview, said, "Basically no." The forum brings together policymakers from across the world in the Qatari capital, and they usually sit for hard-hitting interviews. Higher-ranking officials than Ivanka Trump faced down journalists. Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin answered questions from a CNBC journalist about sanctions on Iran, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) went back and forth with a CNN anchor about impeachment. A former lead anchor of Al Jazeera interviewed Rwanda President Paul Kagame. The foreign minister of Turkey was asked about his government's alleged war crimes in Syria, according to BuzzFeed.MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin wrote, "No other government official attending this forum is being interviewed by a spokesman for that government.""Ivanka Trump could have requested to give a speech, as other government officials did, instead, rather than fielding fair and independent questions from any journalist, local, American, or European, she decided to sit down and be interviewed by the official State Dept spokeswoman," Mohyeldin wrote. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump's interview may not be in line with the image the Doha Forum would like to project. The conference's Facebook page has thus far published only one video from this year's gathering: the vice president of Ecuador saying, "The truth needs to go on the offensive; or it would lose the battle." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Israel welcomes Belgian parade's removal from UNESCO list Posted: 14 Dec 2019 11:35 AM PST ![Israel welcomes Belgian parade's removal from UNESCO list]( "Israel welcomes Belgian parade's removal from UNESCO list") Israel on Saturday welcomed a decision by the U.N.'s educational, scientific and cultural agency to drop a famous Belgian carnival off its heritage list after protests over displays of anti-Semitism. Israel's rare appreciation of UNESCO came a day after the organization removed the Aalst carnival from its Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
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| Ex-bank employee accused of taking cash from vault arrested Posted: 14 Dec 2019 11:25 AM PST ![Ex-bank employee accused of taking cash from vault arrested]( "Ex-bank employee accused of taking cash from vault arrested") Federal authorities are accusing a former Wells Fargo employee of stealing more than $88,000 in cash from the vault of a bank in North Carolina. An indictment unsealed this week alleges 29-year-old Arlando M. Henderson took the cash from customer deposits on at least 18 occasions throughout 2019 and then rigged the books to try to hide his actions. The Charlotte Observer reports the indictment alleges Henderson regularly posted on social media about his newfound riches, including photos with cash in his hands or all over the floor.
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| Georgia man arrested after calling police 3 times to confess Posted: 14 Dec 2019 10:00 AM PST ![Georgia man arrested after calling police 3 times to confess]( "Georgia man arrested after calling police 3 times to confess") A man apparently felt so bad about breaking the law that he called police three times to confess, according to police in Georgia. Lt. Tim Watkins of the Thomas County Sheriff's Office told the Thomasville Times-Enterprise that a man called at 5 a.m. Friday to say he had stolen a car in Thomasville and was about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away in the smaller town of Boston. A Boston police officer went looking for the Chevrolet Impala and 29-year-old Quent Rashed Lankford, but could find neither.
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| Supporters of Iran-backed Iraqi group protest US sanctions Posted: 14 Dec 2019 09:54 AM PST  Hundreds of demonstrators supporting a powerful Iran-backed militia group in Iraq poured into a central Baghdad plaza Saturday, some burning American flags to protest recent U.S. sanctions against key leaders. The protest came as Washington pointed fingers at Iranian proxy groups for a recent spate of rocket attacks against its military bases in Iraq. The protesters burned American and Israeli flags, as well as cardboard cutouts of U.S. President Donald Trump in Firdous Square, a central plaza that is close to where anti-government demonstrators have been camped out since Oct. 1.
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| Jeremy Corbyn's humiliating defeat a 'canary in the coal mine' for Democrats warns Mike Bloomberg Posted: 14 Dec 2019 09:19 AM PST  Presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg has described Jeremy Corbyn's crushing defeat as a "canary in the coal mine" for the Democrats as the party gears up for 2020 election. With the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary only a couple of months away, Democrat centrists have seized upon the UK election results as evidence of the danger the party faces if it drifts too far to the left. In recent weeks divisions between the centrist and radical wings have been laid bare, particularly over health care. Leading left-winger Elizabeth Warren, who had been polling strongly, has come under attack for her blueprint which would eventually see America's private health insurance system replaced by a state-run Medicare system. Moderates have warned that her radical policies would make her unelectable. Speaking in Alexandria, Virginia, Mr Bloomberg, a former New York mayor and late entrant to the Democrat race, said the party should learn the lessons of Mr Corbyn's disastrous campaign. Democrat candidates "I think it's sort of a catastrophic warning to the Democratic Party to have somebody that can beat Donald Trump and that is not going to be easy. Americans want to change, but I think they don't want revolutionary change — they want evolutionary change." Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who is now leading in Iowa and New Hampshire, has emerged as the main hope of the centrists as Joe Biden's campaign shows signs of faltering. He also suggested there were lessons to be learned from the UK. "It means that you've got to be ready to build a coalition and gather that majority," Mr Buttigieg said. Another moderate Democratic candidate, John Delaney, urged the party to take on board what had happened in the UK election. "Despite the turmoil caused by Brexit, Boris Johnson just won a massive victory with the British electorate, which should be a wake-up call to Democrats," he said. "Johnson proved that mainstream voters will not embrace an extreme economic plan that will cause upheaval, just because they are not fans of the conservative leader." Meanwhile, Mr Biden, whose main pitch to has been his ability to beat Donald Trump, will rely on a bastion of states in the US South to see him to the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination - and potentially the White House. Although the former vice president is faltering in New Hampshire and Iowa, the latest polls show him building seemingly impregnable leads in the South. Mr Biden leads easily in South Carolina, which will the fourth state to vote. He is also comfortably ahead in Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee - in some cases by over 20 points. Mr Biden's base in the southern states relies on his support from black voters. In South Carolina two-thirds of the Democrat primary electorate is black. A Quinnipiac poll this week showed Mr Biden with 51 per cent support from black voters in the state, with his nearest rival Mr Sanders on 13 per cent.
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| Houses of worship attacked with deadly frequency in 2019 Posted: 14 Dec 2019 07:50 AM PST  On Dec. 1, a band of assailants opened fire on worshippers at a small-town Protestant church in Burkina Faso, an impoverished West African country where the Christian minority is increasingly a target of attacks. The victims included the pastor and several teenage boys; regional authorities attributed the attack to "unidentified armed men" who, according to witnesses, got away on motorcycles. The slaughter merited brief reports by international news outlets, then quickly faded from the spotlight — not surprising in a year where attacks on places of worship occurred with relentless frequency.
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| North Korea Conducts ‘Crucial Test’ for Nuclear Deterrent Posted: 14 Dec 2019 07:32 AM PST ![North Korea Conducts 'Crucial Test' for Nuclear Deterrent]( "North Korea Conducts 'Crucial Test' for Nuclear Deterrent") (Bloomberg) -- North Korea said it successfully conducted a "crucial" test at a long-range projectile launch site and had boosted its nuclear-deterrent capabilities. It didn't provide any details about the exercise.The news follows a North Korean announcement last week that it held a "very important test," without elaborating. South Korea's military believes the North tested an engine for its ballistic missiles last Saturday.Another successful test was conducted at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground from 22:41 to 22:48 on Dec. 13, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said in a statement Saturday, citing a spokesman for the Academy of Defense Science. The ruling Workers' Party of Korea's Central Committee congratulated the officials, according to the report, which didn't say whether the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, was at the site.The recent tests have provided "priceless data" that will be used to develop another strategic weapon "for reliably restraining and overpowering the nuclear threat of the U.S.," Pak Jong Chon, chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA), said in a statement Saturday published on KCNA. South Korean and U.S. military officials are closely monitoring activities in North Korea and analyzing what was tested, Seoul's Defense Ministry said in a statement, without elaborating.Break DeadlockPyongyang's latest tests put further pressure on the U.S. to try to break the deadlock in negotiations between the two countries after working-level talks in Stockholm in October collapsed. North Korea is seeking some form of compensation in return for a promise to denuclearize, and Kim's regime has unilaterally imposed a year-end deadline for the U.S. and threatened to take a "new path" next year if talks fail.The U.S, and its allies will only spend the year-end in peace, if they "hold off any words and deeds rattling us," Pak said.U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun is scheduled to visit Seoul to discuss the situation with his South Korean counterpart Monday.There have been reports of continuous activity at the launch site. Work was still going on at the Vertical Engine Test Stand at Sohae, 38 North reported, citing commercial satellite imagery from Dec. 11. Kim told U.S. President Donald Trump previously that he had shut down the facility.The success of a series of scientific exercises will be used to further increase North Korea's "reliable strategic nuclear deterrent," KCNA said. Pyongyang said when it announced the test a week ago that it would play a key part in changing the country's strategic position in the near future.Earlier in the day, Chosun Ilbo newspaper cited a South Korean military official as saying that Kim's next move "could be testing an ICBM engine under Kim Jong Un's presence" or firing a submarine-launched ballistic missile.South Korea's military authorities also think Pyongyang may launch a Pukguksong-3 -- the new missile that it tested in early October -- into the West Sea on a normal trajectory instead of a lofted angle, the newspaper said.Earlier this week, South Korea's Defense Minister Jeong Kyung-doo told reporters in Sydney that he is concerned about the North's "engine-test activity" at the Sohae site.(Adds detail from the test in fourth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Kanga Kong in Seoul at kkong50@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net, James AmottFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Life After Corbyn? The Politicians Vying to Become Labour Leader Posted: 14 Dec 2019 07:11 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.After Labour's decisive election loss, party head Jeremy Corbyn announced his plans to resign from the leadership before the next election.A process to find a new leader is expected to start early next year, with his successor tasked with trying to unite a party that has become bitterly divided over Corbyn's socialist policies and accusations of racism against Jews.Despite Corbyn's failure to win at a national level, his popularity within the party will be tough to follow. Here are some of the people who could replace him:John McDonnell, 68: The Trotskyite in a Banker's SuitThe 68-year-old follower of Marx has long harbored ambitions to become leader, putting himself forward to stand in 2007 and again in 2010 to challenge Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Instead, McDonnell became Labour's economy spokesman in 2015 when his old friend Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership bid. Since then, he's gained a reputation as a pragmatic politician with an ability to speak to both sides of the debate, one day taking tea with bankers from Goldman Sachs and the next calling for the overthrow of capitalism.But that's also led to criticism of the Liverpool-born MP that he's more interested in gaining power than sticking to his values. He's also consistently said he'd back remain in a second Brexit referendum. After the resignation of Deputy Leader Tom Watson, McDonnell appears to be a natural successor though has ruled himself out of running. Instead, he may be poised to become a caretaker leader while the party decides how to move forward.McDonnell said Saturday he won't remain in the shadow cabinet after the leadership election and told the BBC he backs the "new generation."Jess Phillips, 38: The Corbyn CriticKnown for her blunt and witty speeches, the 38-year old from Birmingham in central England has already said she may throw her hat in the ring. Despite sharing many of the same left-leaning views as Corbyn, she's been a vocal critic of him, saying he's not capable of winning a majority for Labour and repeatedly threatening to quit the party. For that reason she's proved divisive -- hated by many Corbyn supporters who see her as undermining his efforts to win power.Despite her popularity, Phillips is characteristically a lone wolf and something of a contrarian. While backing a second Brexit referendum, she declined to join the People's Vote campaign, and she's on friendly terms with arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg.Keir Starmer, 57: The Arch RemainerCurrently the bookies' favorite, Corbyn's Brexit spokesman hasn't always been loyal to the current leader -- particularly when it comes to the question of the U.K.'s relationship with the European Union. Starmer backed Corbyn's rivals in the 2015 and 2016 leadership contests and is one of the party's most vocal remainers.While Starmer has faced accusations of being out of touch with working class Leave voters in the North of England, he's arguably closer to them than Corbyn, who was privately educated. To boot, he has an impressive career behind him. As a young lawyer 20 years ago, he helped two penniless environmental activists beat McDonald's Corp. after they were sued by the global burger chain for libel. Their victory forced the government to review its libel laws to redress the balance between rich and poor.Rebecca Long-Bailey, 40: The Chosen OneIf you were going to build a new Labour leader from scratch, Long-Bailey would probably tick most of the boxes: she is a young and media-savvy female hailing from a northern constituency with a safe majority. Crucially, she's also loyal to the leadership, even standing in for Corbyn at Prime Minister's Questions in June. With the Labour membership still remaining firmly to the left of the party's Parliamentarians, this could prove crucial in gaining her the support needed to win the contest.Long-Bailey is close friends with fellow leadership hopeful Angela Rayner, and there have been suggestions they could be the party's next power duo, akin to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.Emily Thornberry, 59: Corbyn's NeighborThe shadow foreign secretary is widely expected to toss her hat in the ring, especially after she refused to rule out a leadership bid in an interview with the New Statesman magazine in early December. A strong media performer with experience in both Ed Miliband's and Jeremy Corbyn's senior leadership teams, Thornberry pushed hard for Labour to back holding a second referendum on the U.K.'s membership of the EU.Old gaffes may come to haunt her, though. She was forced to resign her shadow cabinet post in 2014 after tweeting a picture perceived to be mocking working-class voters. Given she represents Islington South, neighboring Corbyn's own Islington North, members may question whether another Londoner is the right choice to get Labour winning again nationwide.Angela Rayner, 39: The One With the Back StoryRayner has been at the forefront of the party's election campaign, regularly facing the cameras and leading rallies across the country. Known for her blunt, no-nonsense interview style, her supporters think she will be able to cut across to the traditional supporters Labour has lost in recent years. In her role as shadow education secretary, she spearheaded Labour's National Education Service, which was hoped to do for education what the National Health Service did for health. She also has a back story unlike almost any other British politician serving today, leaving school at age 16 while pregnant.Given she's on good terms with the leadership but also not a fully fledged member of the hard-left faction of the party, she might be a compromise candidate who can unite Labour's different ideological wings. However, there's one factor that might deter Rayner from putting her hat in the ring: she's a close friend and flatmate of fellow leadership front-runner Rebecca Long-Bailey. Labour leadership contests have a habit of tearing apart close friendships, and even family. Just ask David and Ed Miliband.Sadiq Khan, 49: Mr. LondonSadiq Khan is one of Labour's most recognizable faces thanks to his role as Mayor of London. He served in Gordon Brown's government and was a senior figure in Ed Miliband's opposition team, before moving his focus to forcing the Conservatives out of office in London in 2016.But that hasn't meant he's kept quiet on issues of national (and international) importance. Khan has regularly clashed with Corbyn over Labour's Brexit stance and electoral strategies. He's also not backed down from a political feud with U.S. President Donald Trump. This willingness to fight his corner, as well as his track-record as leader of one of the world's largest cities, makes him seem an ideal candidate to many.The problem? He's not an MP, meaning he can't stand for leader. While then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson became a Tory MP in 2015 in preparation for his leadership ambitions, Khan made no such move in this election. Indeed, he went as far as to rule out a return to Parliament to make a leadership bid in an interview with Bloomberg TV earlier this month. Still, it's not unthinkable that the lure of becoming national leader may become too much for Khan to resist.(Adds McDonnell comments in sixth paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net;Greg Ritchie in London at gritchie10@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Andrew DavisFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Fighting rages near Libya's capital amid push by rebel army Posted: 14 Dec 2019 06:46 AM PST  Just two days after rebel Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter declared a "final" and decisive battle for the capital Tripoli, heavy fighting raged for a 24-hour period between his troops and militias loosely allied with the internationally backed government based in the city, officials said Saturday. The fighting came after Hifter, the leader of the self-styled Libyan National Army, said Thursday that the "zero hour" of his battle for Tripoli had begun, nearly eight months after he began an offensive to take the city from the country's Government of National accord supported by the U.N. The LNA's media office shared images of reinforcements arriving in Tripoli, including ground troops and pickup trucks with mounted machine guns and of clashes in southern parts of the city.
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| McDonnell to Leave Shadow Cabinet After New Labour Leader Chosen Posted: 14 Dec 2019 06:44 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.John McDonnell said he won't remain in the U.K. shadow cabinet after Labour elects a new leader in the wake of the party's worst result in a general election since 1935.Jeremy Corbyn said on Friday he will step down as the leader of the opposition party after losing some seats in its northern heartlands to the Tories for the first time in history. McDonnell, 68-year-old follower of Marx, is seen as Corbyn's closest ally and has been the party's Treasury spokesman since 2015.McDonnell told the BBC that Labour's ruling body, the National Executive Committee, will meet next week to decide the timetable for a leadership election –- and he expects it to be a couple of months.Asked who he would back as the next leader, he picked out Rebecca Long-Bailey, Angela Rayner and Richard Burgon, from what he calls the "new generation.""You can see a coalition forming that can give us, I think, the future that this country needs," McDonnell said.To contact the reporter on this story: Sara Marley in London at smarley1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 10 things you need to know today: December 14, 2019 Posted: 14 Dec 2019 06:41 AM PST ![10 things you need to know today: December 14, 2019]( "10 things you need to know today: December 14, 2019") 1.After debating the articles of impeachment against President Trump on Wednesday and Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee voted Friday to advance the articles for a full House vote. The committee approved both articles on party lines, 23-17. The first article is abuse of power, alleging Trump wrongly pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals ahead of the 2020 election. The second article is obstruction of Congress, alleging Trump improperly refused to comply with the impeachment inquiry and blocked officials from supplying lawmakers with documents and testimony. Trump called the Friday vote "an embarrassment to our country." The full House is expected to debate and vote on the articles next week. [The Associated Press, The New York Times] 2.The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear President Trump's appeal of three cases that involve subpoenas for his financial records, giving no explanation for the decision. Oral arguments for the separate cases are likely slated for March, with a decision expected at the end of June. In three separate cases, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, the House Oversight Committee, and the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees requested Trump's personal and business financial records. Trump's lawyers sued to block those subpoenas, but courts ruled against them. An appeal to the Supreme Court, after first getting stays on the rulings to block the records' immediate release to the oversight committee, was accepted Friday. Trump's lawyers have argued the subpoenas are not a legitimate legislative inquiry. [NBC News, The Washington Post] 3.The U.S. and China publicly announced a phase one trade deal on Friday, and indicated plans to sign it. The deal includes the U.S. rolling back some tariffs, including canceling tariffs on Chinese goods that were set to take effect on Sunday. Beijing has agreed to increase agricultural purchases, and is reportedly considering canceling some retaliatory tariffs. The deal is an effort to minimize the trade war that has simmered between the two countries for months. U.S. stocks surged after the deal was announced, but settled down after the initial jump. The White House will leave in place the 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion in imports, while cutting existing duties on another $120 billion in products to 7.5 percent, President Trump tweeted. [CNBC, Reuters] 4.Top Democratic presidential candidates on Friday announced plans to boycott next week's debate, to show support for a union dispute at Loyola Marymount University, where the debate is to be held. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), businessman Andrew Yang, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), billionaire activist Tom Steyer, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg each independently announced they would not "cross the union's picket line even if it means missing the debate," as Warren wrote. Employees of LMU's food service provider Sodexo have been negotiating an agreement through a labor union for months, seeking higher wages and more affordable health care. [Politico, NBC News] 5.North Korea conducted its second successful test this week geared toward strengthening Pyongyang's nuclear deterrent at the Sohae satellite launch site Friday, state media said Saturday. Although North Korea's Academy of Defense Science didn't specify what was tested, the trial may have included technologies that could improve intercontinental ballistic missiles, The Associated Press reports. North Korea considers ICBMs as strategic defensive weapons. The test, in addition to one on Dec. 7, is widely seen as an attempt to pressure the Trump administration to make major concessions in nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea set a year-end deadline for the United States to change course from its insistence on unilateral denuclearization. [Reuters, The Associated Press] 6.New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell signed a declaration of emergency Friday for the Louisiana city after phishing attempts and suspicious activity were detected on the city's network Friday morning. The city's information technology department then began to power down servers and city computers as a precaution. Ransomware was detected, but no ransom was demanded in the cyberattack, and the city doesn't believe any employee or city information was compromised during the phishing attempts. Collin Arnold, the city's director of homeland security, said New Orleans is prepared for situations in which it may need to operate without its network as a result of recent hurricane disasters. "We can operate without internet, without the city network," he said. [ABC News, CNN] 7.California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday rejected Pacific Gas & Electric's plan to pull itself out of bankruptcy and pay victims of California's wildfires because the utility company's proposal didn't meet safety requirements under state law. Newsom said PG&E fell "woefully short" of the safety benchmark and won't receive state assistance without implementing major changes to its plan. PG&E, whose faulty equipment has received blame for sparking some the state's recent fires, is on the hook for $30 billion in financial liabilities from California. The company pushed back against Newsom's comments, arguing its plan does conform to the safety requirements. PG&E has until Tuesday to revise its plan. [The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times] 8.Sudan's former President Omar al-Bashir, who was removed from power after 30 years earlier this year following nationwide protests, was sentenced Saturday to two years detention in a state-run reform center on financial irregularities and corruption charges. The 75-year-old reportedly is protected by a law that prevents anyone over the age of 70 from serving jail time. He will reportedly serve his sentence after a verdict is reached in another case in which he is accused of ordering security forces to kill the protesters in the movement that led to his removal, and he was also questioned about the 1989 coup in which he was brought to power. al-Bashir is also wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide in Sudan's Darfur region. [Al Jazeera, BBC] 9.Violent protests continued in eastern India on Saturday, as demonstrators pushed back against a new citizenship law implemented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Protesters set fire to buses and vandalized railroad stations. The law is centered on protecting religious minorities, such as Christians and Hindus, from persecution in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh by granting them citizenship. But critics believe it weakens India's secular foundations and have criticized the government for excluding Muslims from the protections. Muslim rights groups in India believe it is another example of Modi's Hindu nationalist agenda. The prime minister has been accused of attempting to marginalize the country's Muslim population. Modi denies this and has said that Muslims are not included in the law because Islam is not a minority religion in those countries. 10.Weekend moviegoers will have several major new releases to choose from, as Bombshell, Jumanji: The Next Level, Uncut Gems, Richard Jewell, and Black Christmas are all debuting to a wide release on Friday. The second installment of the Jumanji reboot turned in big numbers in Thursday previews and will likely even top Frozen II, which has led at the box office for three straight weekends. The Clint Eastwood-directed Richard Jewell has made headlines for its depiction of a real-life reporter, while Adam Sandler's Uncut Gems performance has sparked talk of a potential Oscar nomination. Another headlines-inspired film, Bombshell, features Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie in a depiction of Fox News reporters coming forward to take down ex-chief Roger Ailes. [Box Office Mojo]More stories from theweek.com Trump's pathological obsession with being laughed at The most important day of the impeachment inquiry Jerry Falwell Jr.'s false gospel of memes
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| Johnson's win may deliver Brexit but could risk UK's breakup Posted: 14 Dec 2019 06:30 AM PST  Leaving the European Union is not the only split British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has to worry about. Johnson's commanding election victory this week may let him fulfill his campaign promise to "get Brexit done," but it could also imperil the future of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland didn't vote for Brexit, didn't embrace this week's Conservative electoral landslide -- and now may be drifting permanently away from London.
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| Trump impeachment vote underscores a harshly partisan era Posted: 14 Dec 2019 06:27 AM PST  This coming week's virtually certain House impeachment of President Donald Trump will underscore how Democrats and Republicans have morphed into fiercely divided camps since lawmakers impeached President Bill Clinton. Twenty-one years ago this Thursday, a Republican-led House approved two impeachment articles against Democrat Clinton. While that battle was bitterly partisan, it was blurrier than the near party-line votes expected this week when the House, now run by Democrats, is poised to impeach Republican Trump.
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| Reparations mark new front for US colleges tied to slavery Posted: 14 Dec 2019 06:16 AM PST  The promise of reparations to atone for historical ties to slavery has opened new territory in a reckoning at U.S. colleges, which until now have responded with monuments, building name changes and public apologies. Georgetown University and two theological seminaries have announced funding commitments to benefit descendants of the enslaved people who were sold or toiled to benefit the institutions. While no other schools have gone so far, the advantages that institutions received from the slavery economy are receiving new attention as Democratic presidential candidates talk about tax credits and other subsidies that nudge the idea of reparations toward the mainstream.
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| Johnson’s Big Win Threatens to Disunite the Kingdom Posted: 14 Dec 2019 06:00 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.Boris Johnson's sweeping election victory is a very English revolution.The prime minister trounced his biggest opponent by luring traditional Labour Party voting heartlands in northern England to his Conservatives for the first time in generations, in some cases ever. Voters clearly rejected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's throwback socialist agenda, but they just as clearly rallied to Johnson's pledge to "get Brexit done."At least, they did in England. Scotland and Northern Ireland, both of which opposed leaving the European Union, chose a very different path. In each case, the result is friction with London that looks set to intensify once Brexit happens. That doesn't bode well for the future of the union, regardless of Johnson's majority at Westminster."We are heading towards a new constitutional crisis, which won't be resolved easily in the next few years," said Simon Hix, professor of political science at the London School of Economics.Questions over the integrity of the three-centuries-old United Kingdom have been at the forefront of British politics since Scotland's independence referendum five years ago. It took late intervention from London-based politicians and a raft of new promises for autonomy to avoid the breakup of a nation state that was often heralded as a model of stability. Brexit then upended the concept of union once again. There's no denying Johnson's achievement at the ballot box on Thursday in the largest nation in the U.K., but move further to the periphery and it's a different picture.He successfully extended the Conservatives' appeal in England across the Brexit-supporting belts of the disaffected—voters identified in surveys as mostly living outside the big cities and who feel ignored by and resentful of their multicultural, cosmopolitan capital. Johnson also did well in Brexit-backing Wales, gaining seats in what was once solid Labour territory to match his party's performance in 1979.Read More: The End of the United Kingdom May Be NearingIn Scotland, Johnson's pro-Brexit message was a turn-off to voters who strongly opposed leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum. They've never warmed to the prime minister's bumbling, upper-class Englishman persona, and he hardly featured in Scottish Tory campaign leaflets. Instead, the Scottish National Party increased its dominance.SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon interpreted her party's thumping win, taking 48 of 59 districts available, as a mandate for a second referendum on independence from the U.K. The last ballot in 2014 was won by the "No" campaign 55% to 45%.Johnson has said he won't grant the legal power to hold another one. He can continue to do that, but the issue is unlikely to go away. In 2021, Scotland holds its own elections for the semi-autonomous legislature in Edinburgh and the SNP looks set to bolster its hand again.Sturgeon says Brexit turns that stance on its head, and justifies a rerun. For Scottish nationalists, the election results render Johnson's position untenable. "It is clear that the kind of future desired by the majority in Scotland is different to that chosen by the rest of the U.K.," Sturgeon said in a televised speech on Friday.In Northern Ireland, pressure looks set to grow for a referendum on unity with the Republic. Nationalists who want to bring the island of Ireland together made advances in the election while unionist parties that want to remain in the U.K. lost their majority.The key here too was Brexit, with Johnson's deal seen by unionists as weakening ties to Britain. In the most high-profile loss, the Democratic Unionist Party's deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, succumbed to Sinn Fein in north Belfast. Sinn Fein, formerly the political wing of the Irish Republican Army and the DUP's most bitter adversary, campaigned under the slogan "Time for Unity."The Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 accord that largely ended the decades-long violent sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, states that there can be a vote if the U.K. minister in charge of the province sees a likely majority in favor of a united Ireland.There seems little prospect of a vote anytime soon, as both London and Dublin fear the destabilizing effect such a referendum might have on the region's peace process. Instead, the focus will likely move to restarting Northern Ireland's power-sharing assembly, which remains suspended after Sinn Fein brought it down in 2017."Now is not the time for a border poll," Ireland's Europe Minister Helen McEntee said in an RTE radio interview Friday.Read More: Johnson Urges Healing After Winning Election That Upends BritainYet here too, Brexit may alter the dynamics.Bill White, who runs Belfast-based polling company Lucid Talk, said before the election that events in Scotland as well as the impact of leaving the EU will affect sentiment on Irish unification. He sees a border poll as "inevitable," with any hint of Brexit turmoil meaning "it could be incredibly tight."Johnson isn't blind to the cracks appearing in the union, and stressed the need for unity in his victory speech. Neither are the mechanisms for a break-up of the U.K. clear so long as Johnson refuses to play along.What is evident is that Brexit is only now about to happen and the strains are already being felt in Belfast and Edinburgh. The risk for Johnson is that his pursuit of Brexit at the head of a Conservative Party now unbound widens those splits between England and the U.K.'s other constituent nations.To contact the authors of this story: Alan Crawford in Berlin at acrawford6@bloomberg.netDara Doyle in Dublin at ddoyle1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Rodney JeffersonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| AP FACT CHECK: Trump's impeachment rage, Bloomberg on coal Posted: 14 Dec 2019 05:46 AM PST  Trump also branded Democrats crazy for wanting to impeach him after all the things he's done for the country, some of which he didn't actually do. Meantime Democratic presidential contender Michael Bloomberg came out with an energy plan that claimed he was personally responsible for much of the decline of the coal industry. The U.S. has only created 6.6 million jobs since Trump took office.
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| US finally giving boot to official foot measurement Posted: 14 Dec 2019 05:37 AM PST  Change is afoot for the official measuring stick used to size up big places in America. Some land surveyors use what's known as the U.S. survey foot. Others use the definition that's more accepted by the broader world: the international foot.
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| North Korea appears to provoke Trump administration with another test at satellite launch site as deadline approaches Posted: 14 Dec 2019 05:27 AM PST ![North Korea appears to provoke Trump administration with another test at satellite launch site as deadline approaches]( "North Korea appears to provoke Trump administration with another test at satellite launch site as deadline approaches") North Korea appears committed to that year-end deadline.The country conducted its second successful test this week geared toward strengthening Pyongyang's nuclear deterrent at the Sohae satellite launch site Friday, state media said Saturday. Although North Korea's Academy of Defense Science didn't specify what was tested, the trial may have included technologies to improve intercontinental ballistic missiles, The Associated Press reports. North Korea considers ICBMs as strategic defensive weapons.The test, in addition to one on Dec. 7, is widely seen as an attempt to pressure the Trump administration to make major concessions in nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea set a year-end deadline for the United States to change course from its insistence on unilateral denuclearization before it sets out on a "new path."Still some experts don't believe North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will reverse course too drastically and create tensions that existed in 2017 by running nuclear and ICBM tests. Instead, they predict he'll try to provoke Trump with military activities that don't pose a direct threat to Washington and by strengthening Pyongyang's alliance with Moscow and Beijing, AP reports. Read more at Reuters and The Associated Press.More stories from theweek.com Trump's pathological obsession with being laughed at The most important day of the impeachment inquiry Jerry Falwell Jr.'s false gospel of memes
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| Shooting shows New Jersey's gun laws aren't stopping imports Posted: 14 Dec 2019 05:07 AM PST  Officials from states with strong gun restrictions have called for stricter firearm control in places with weaker laws to thwart traffickers, but the fatal attack on a Jewish market in New Jersey shows how fruitless those efforts can be. The attackers carried five firearms and a pipe bomb in the U-Haul van they drove to the Jersey City Jewish market before opening fire, officials said. Two of the weapons used by David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, were bought by Graham in Ohio last year, police said.
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| Brexit Wins, Impeachment Wrangling and Space Junk: Weekend Reads Posted: 14 Dec 2019 05:00 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every day? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.Boris Johnson won a strong majority in the U.K. election, virtually guaranteeing the prime minister will see through his vow to take Britain out of the European Union. The wrangling over Donald Trump's impeachment trial is shifting to the Republican camp, while an icon of U.S. business has had to learn the hard way how to navigate the president's administration.From Russia, read about how a colonel in today's version of the KGB amassed a fortune, and in Italy, a region long ruled by leftists may fall to Matteo Salvini, an anti-immigrant politician with eyes on the leading the government. We also bring you stories about a counter-espionage sting gone wrong and the growing problem of space junk.We hope you enjoy these and more of our best stories in this edition of Weekend Reads.Boris Johnson Gets Roars and Hugs While Opponent Faces DespairJohnson's gamble on a snap election paid off in full, and he now wields a mandate to complete Brexit. Kitty Donaldson and Tim Ross give a fly-on-the-wall look from inside campaign headquarters on a night that cemented the U.K.'s trajectory, possibly for generations to come.And read Tim's account of how Jeremy Corbyn, who said he'd resign after leading the Labour Party to its worst election result in 84 years, permanently changed the debate on post-financial crisis austerity in the U.K.Impeachment Trial Puts McConnell-Trump Collaboration to the TestTrump's showman instincts will be running up against Mitch McConnell's cautious management of the Senate as they negotiate the terms of an election-year impeachment trial. Steven T. Dennis and Laura Litvan report.And take a look at this deep dive from Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou and Elizabeth Dexheimer into how Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren's zeal for combat has made her a hero to progressives but hasn't yielded substantial legislative wins.GM Learns How to Navigate Minefield in Trump's WashingtonCorporate management in the age of Trump is a learning experience, and perhaps no company has absorbed more painful lessons than General Motors. Ryan Beene, Mark Niquette and David Welch tell the story of its education by fire.Trump clinched a phase-one trade deal with China, but after two years of tariffs and drama, it's facing questions over whether there will be more, Shawn Donnan reports.The Great Moscow Bank ShakedownKirill Cherkalin had cash and property worth more than $100 million in Russia, but he's not an Kremlin insider or an oligarch. As Anna Baraulina, Evgenia Pismennaya and Irina Reznik write, he was recently a colonel in Russia's Federal Security Service, a successor to the Soviet KGB.Mistrust and the Hunt for Spies Among Chinese AmericansFor days after his FBI interrogation, Wei Su wondered: Where had the microphone been? Read this account from Peter Waldman and Andre Tartar about a botched investigation that underscores the U.S. government's distrust of China and growing suspicion about Chinese Americans. If Matteo Salvini Can Win Here, He Can Win AnywhereBologna, where a suspected right-wing bomb attacked killed 85 people in 1980, has long been ruled by an allegiance of communists, socialists and the center-left. But that's being tested by anti-migrant League party leader Matteo Salvini before next month's regional ballot, John Follain and Chiara Albanese report. How Kim Jong Un Keeps Advancing His Nuclear ProgramTalks over eliminating North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's nuclear arsenal have stalled. Jon Herskovitz explains that, in the meantime, Kim has been busy making his nuclear arsenal bigger, deadlier and better able to strike as far as the U.S. mainland.Elephant Hunt 2.0: Botswana Is Trying Again After Global OutcryBotswana, which has outraged conservationists by lifting a ban on killing wildlife for sport, is making a second attempt to restart commercial hunts for its elephant population, the biggest in the world, Antony Sguazzin writes.Pop quiz, readers (no cheating!). Which nation's parliament approved legislation this week preventing undocumented Muslim migrants from neighboring countries from receiving citizenship? Send us your answers and tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.And finally … Since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Earth's atmosphere has become home to thousands of spacecraft. Thomas Pfeiffer describes how the risks of collision are increasing fast as tens of thousands of new satellites ready for launch. To contact the author of this story: Michael Winfrey in Prague at mwinfrey@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Kathleen Hunter at khunter9@bloomberg.net, Karl MaierFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| North Korea conducts another 'crucial test' at missile base Posted: 14 Dec 2019 02:40 AM PST  North Korea has conducted another "crucial test" at its Sohae satellite launch site, state media reported Saturday, as nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington remain stalled with a deadline approaching. The announcement comes a day before US Special Envoy on North Korea Stephen Biegun is set to arrive in Seoul for a three-day visit, and after the United States tested a medium-range ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean on Thursday. "Another crucial test was successfully conducted at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground from 22:41 to 22:48 on December 13," a spokesman for the North's National Academy of Defence Science said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency. The "research successes" will be "applied to further bolstering up the reliable strategic nuclear deterrent" of North Korea, the spokesman added. The statement did not provide further details on the test. Sohae, on North Korea's northwest coast, is ostensibly a facility designed for putting satellites into orbit. People watch a TV broadcasting file footage for a news report on North Korea firing an unidentified projectile, in Seoul Credit: REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji But Pyongyang has carried out several rocket launches there that were condemned by the US and others as disguised long-range ballistic missile tests. The North is banned from firing ballistic missiles under UN Security Council resolutions, and rocket engines can be easily repurposed for use in missiles. Frustrated by the lack of sanctions relief after three summits with President Donald Trump, North Korea has vowed an ominous "Christmas gift" if the US does not come up with concessions by the end of the year. Some analysts have suggested the North may be referring to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Earlier this month the North announced it conducted what it called a "very important test" at the same site in Sohae. "It's very likely that the North is going to fire something on Christmas day, and they may call it a rocket system when it actually is an ICBM," Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean defector and researcher in Seoul, told AFP. "The tests at Sohae can be seen as a form of preparation for the launch - whatever it will be - on December 25." North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had agreed to shutter the Sohae site during a summit last year with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang as part of trust-building measures. Kim has also held three meetings with US President Donald Trump since June 2018. But his nuclear negotiations with Washington have been deadlocked since a summit in Hanoi broke up in February, and Pyongyang has issued a series of increasingly assertive comments in recent weeks as its time limit approaches. The North this week criticised Washington as "foolish" for convening a UN Security Council meeting over growing concern about short-range rockets fired from the isolated state. By arranging the meeting, Washington "decisively helped us make a definite decision on what way to choose," North Korea's foreign ministry spokesman said. Last week, the North's vice foreign minister warned of returning to a war of words with the US, threatening to resume referring to Trump as a "dotard" - Pyongyang's nickname for the US leader at the height of tensions in 2017. The comments came a day after it warned that if the US used military force against the North it would take "prompt corresponding actions at any level". Back in 2017 North Korea announced it successfully tested an ICBM capable of reaching Alaska. At the recent NATO summit, Trump boasted about Washington's "most powerful military", adding: "Hopefully, we don't have to use it, but if we do, we'll use it. If we have to, we'll do it."
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| Boris Johnson goes north to celebrate crushing election win Posted: 14 Dec 2019 02:39 AM PST  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged Saturday to repay the trust of voters in the working-class heartland of northern England who rejected the Labour Party and helped give him an 80-seat majority in Thursday's election. Speaking to cheering supporters at a cricket club in Sedgefield — the constituency once held by Labour former prime minister Tony Blair — Johnson acknowledged the seismic shift that helped sweep him to victory.
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| Why the Drug War Can’t Be Won—Cartel Corruption Goes All the Way to the Top Posted: 14 Dec 2019 02:28 AM PST  CALI, Colombia—Mexico's former security minister, who also masterminded that country's war against the cartels, was arrested last Monday by U.S. officials in Dallas, Texas. Genaro García Luna stands accused by the U.S. attorney general of accepting millions of dollars from Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán while serving as the country's crime czar. That's like Al Capone bribing J. Edgar Hoover to keep the FBI off his back. When then-President Felipe Calderón chose to militarize Mexico's fight against organized crime, he tasked Luna with drafting the strategy. An engineer by training, and having never served in the armed forces or law enforcement, Luna drafted a controversial plan that involved deploying the Mexican Army across the country to fight the cartels.Trump Labeling Mexico's Cartels 'Terrorists' Makes Things WorseWhile Luna allegedly got rich taking bribes from El Chapo, tens of thousands died in the ongoing violence, with 2019 set to be the worst year on record. Luna is also wanted in Mexico for his crimes.Court documents unsealed this week in Brooklyn revealed the allegations, which include conspiracy to traffic cocaine. He's also charged with lying about his criminal background when he applied for naturalization in the U.S. Prosecutors say that on two occasions Luna accepted suitcases full of cash containing about $5 million each. In exchange, he provided Chapo's syndicate with security and access for shipping drugs into the U.S., as well as intel on official investigations and the doings of rival cartels.Luna has maintained his innocence, referring to the allegations when they first surfaced as: "Lies, defamation and perjury."According to U.S. prosecutors, Luna's assistance allowed El Chapo's Sinaloa Cartel to conduct business "with impunity" in Mexico for more than a decade."The arrest of García Luna highlights just how significant of a challenge Mexican president Manuel López Obrador faces in rooting out corruption among government officials," wrote Maureen Meyer, the Mexico director at the Washington Office on Latin America. "The sole fact that cases like Luna's are being heard in the U.S. and not Mexico points to significant weaknesses in Mexico's criminal justice institutions, and how political influence has tainted investigations for far too long."Mexican journalist Emmanuel Gallardo, who specializes in covering the cartels, said this was indicative of a larger pattern in Mexico, in which "the drug war is a farce waged against peasants" while wealthy businessmen and politicians profit on the side. "Think about it: The president's right-hand man was working with the country's largest mafia. This is another example which shows the narcos can exist only because the state allows them to," Gallardo said."This proves the corruption goes all the way to the top of the Mexican government." * * *"A Strong Incentive for Collusion"* * *If this were but an isolated incident, it would still be an outrageous scandal. But, sadly, corruption like Luna's has become a common feature of the drug war in Mexico and much of Latin America.Official statistics are hard to come by. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime issued a report in 2017 that indicates further study into the link between drug trafficking and corruption is needed. But one stat in the report stands out: In low-income countries the percentage of public officials, judges, and police officers taking bribes can exceed 50 percent.And the anecdotal evidence suggests that, as with Secretary Luna, the drug war rot goes straight to the top in many countries.Long considered one of the most corrupt countries in the Americas by groups like Transparency International, Mexico has been rocked by a number of high-profile corruption cases of late. Public figures like athletes, musicians, and a string of wealthy state governors have all been implicated. And recent accusations similar to those that brought down Luna have also surfaced against former president Enrique Peña Nieto (more on that later). But the whiff of narco gangrene isn't limited to Mexico.Last June, a Brazilian military officer traveling as part of President Jair Bolsonaro's official G20 delegation was arrested in Spain for attempting to ferry 39 kilos (about 86 pounds) of cocaine in his suitcase. Earlier this year, Colombia's National Director of Anti-Corruption was busted in a DEA sting in Miami after he attempted to solicit a bribe in exchange for sabotaging an investigation into another corrupt official. Also in Colombia, an unrelated DEA agent was rolled up for attempting to commit "deceit, craft, and trickery" on behalf of a drug lord who had plied him with cash and prostitutes."The cartels are powerful and dangerous, and the probability of punishment for cooperating with them is still too low. That creates a strong incentive for officials to tolerate or collude with criminals," said Adam Isacson, a colleague of Meyer's, and the director of WOLA's Defense Oversight program.* * *Welcome to the Narco-State* * *The Central American nation of Honduras is perhaps the most striking example of the tendency toward criminal collusion among America's ostensible drug war allies. After the democratically elected president was ousted in a military coup in 2009, the country became home to one of the highest homicide rates on earth. It's also a major way station for drugs passing from South America to Mexico and the U.S.In August of this year, a 44-page document filed by prosecutors in New York's Southern District Court identified Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and former President Pepe Lobo—along with other prominent politicians and family members—as "co-conspirators" in a plot to "leverage drug trafficking to maintain and enhance their political power."Prosecutors in that case also alleged that some $1.5 million of drug money was used to help Hernández win the presidency in 2013. His re-election in 2017 was also tainted with charges of tampering, though the Trump administration chose to look the other way. Also in 2017, ex-President Lobo's son was sentenced to more than two decades in U.S. federal prison for cocaine trafficking.Honduras' descent into a full-fledged "narco-state" is all the more worrisome given its long history as one of the White House's staunchest allies in the war on drugs, and the recipient of millions of dollars in controversial military and security assistance.Grahame Russell, director of the US-based NGO Rights Action, which maintains a full-time presence in Honduras, criticized Washington for ignoring all those mis-spent tax dollars:"President Hernández, many government officials, military and police officers have been implicated in or charged with drug trafficking and money laundering," Russell told The Daily Beast. Yet "there has been no change whatsoever in the political, economic and military support that the Honduras regime receives from the U.S."In Mexico's Cartel Country, a Murderer Who Kills Murderers Tells His StoryThe same could be said of Mexico, which has received almost $3 billion to fight the drug war over the last 12 years, regardless of human rights violations and corruption charges accrued during that span. Russell said the lack of oversight by the White House actually empowers greed-driven elites in Latín America, and accused the Trump administration of being willing "to maintain relations with governments—no matter how corrupt, anti-democratic or repressive—that promote the interests of international corporations, investors and banks."WOLA's Isacson agreed that graft has led to America keeping some strange, drug-war bedfellows."U.S. administrations need to be much more careful about who their 'friends' are in the struggle against organized crime," he said. "Organized crime is much harder to fight than an insurgency or terrorist group" because "you're fighting an enemy whose main mode of operation is to corrupt and penetrate [your allies]. Any U.S. strategy that loses sight of high-level corruption is doomed to failure."* * *"A Politician Who's Poor is a Poor Politician"* * *U.S. prosecutors first got wind of what Luna had been up to during Chapo Guzmán's trial in New York, when a key witness recounted how the cash-filled luggage had been delivered to the defense secretary. The AG pounced on that evidence, leading to Luna's arrest this week, but even more shocking allegations also surfaced during the trial.Another witness called in Chapo's defense, in January of this year, was Alex Cifuentes, who worked with Guzmán in Mexico from 2007 to 2013. During that time, as revealed in Cifuentes' sworn testimony, penultimate Mexican President Peña Nieto asked that Chapo suborn him to the tune of $250 million. In return for the enormous kickback, according to Cifuentes, Nieto promised that Chapo "wouldn't have to hide anymore." As per the trial transcripts, the sitting president at the time eventually settled for $100 million and the payment was delivered. Nieto then went on to have Chapo captured twice, finally resulting in extradition to the U.S.Nieto, for his part, tweeted at the time that the charges laid out by Chapo's witness were "false, defamatory, and absurd."But since the testimony from Chapo's trial netted them a successful indictment against Luna, might U.S. prosecutors also probe Nieto?"Only time will tell," said WOLA's Meyers."U.S. prosecutors will be responsible for deciding to investigate all allegations against Mexican officials raised in [Chapo's] trial, which could also be complemented by information that García Luna might choose to provide," she said. "There's a saying in Mexico: A politician who is poor is a poor politician," said Gallardo. "In Mexico politics is a business." A very dirty business indeed.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| How Biden Kept Screwing Up Iraq—Over and Over and Over Again Posted: 14 Dec 2019 02:18 AM PST  In September, former Vice President Joe Biden attempted to portray himself as an opponent of the Iraq war he voted for 17 years ago. Sure, as a U.S. senator, he voted to authorize the war, Biden told an NPR interviewer who asked about his foreign policy judgment. But that was only after Biden got a "commitment" from George W. Bush, the war's architect, that the former president "needed the vote to be able to get inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was engaged in dealing with a nuclear program." Alas, he continued, "before we know it, we had a shock and awe"—the opening aerial bombardment of the March 2003 invasion—and then "immediately, the moment it started," Biden opposed the war. His mistake, he said, was trusting Bush. Much like Donald Trump's own flexible history on Iraq, it was bald revisionism that a wag might call malarkey. Journalists and fact-checkers quickly called attention to the persistence of Biden's support for the war. Biden soon conceded he misspoke and at a Democratic debate, called his vote a mistake. But all that had the effect of obscuring Biden's distinct and—now that he's running for president again—relevant history with Iraq.Reviewing Biden's record on Iraq is like rewinding footage of a car crash to identify the fateful decisions that arrayed people at the bloody intersection. He was not just another Democratic hawk navigating the trauma of 9/11 in a misguided way. He didn't merely call his vote for a disastrous war part of "a march to peace and security." Biden got the Iraq war wrong before and throughout invasion, occupation, and withdrawal. Convenient as it is to blame Bush—who, to be clear, bears primary and eternal responsibility for the disaster—Biden embraced the Iraq war for what he portrayed as the result of his foreign policy principles and persisted, most often in error, for the same reasons. Biden contextualized the war within an assertion that America has the right to enforce its standards of behavior in the name of the international community, even when the international community rejects American intervention. While Biden, as the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for most of the war, had unique prominence for his views, they didn't come out of nowhere. For while Biden bullshitted through his September NPR interview, he also said something true: "I think the vast majority of the foreign policy community thinks [my record has] been very good." That will be important context should Biden become president. He's the favorite of many in Democratic foreign policy circles who believe in resetting the American geopolitical position to what it was the day before Trump was elected, rather than considering it critical context for why Trump was elected. * * *Early in 2002, Biden became alarmed that the Bush administration was prematurely losing focus on Afghanistan in favor of Iraq, which Bush's advisers had decided to invade soon after 9/11. Yet that did not drive Biden into opposition. Instead, by the summer of 2002, with the foreign relations committee gavel in his hand, Biden held a series of hearings to start "a national dialogue" on Iraq. He postured as picking no side at all, to avoid "prejudic[ing] any particular course of action." Biden's position meant Bush, at the height of his popularity and without the obstacle of the opposition party's premier foreign policy voice, could do as he liked. It is important to remember the commanding political position that Bush held for two years after 9/11. By the time of Biden's hearings, Gallup recorded Bush's approval rating at 71 percent. By the time of the Iraq vote, it was 67 percent. National Democrats embraced the war on terrorism with enthusiasm and, with few exceptions, were disinclined to challenge Bush on foreign policy even as that foreign policy became more militant and extreme. Biden, one of the leading Democratic voices on foreign affairs, recontextualized this extremism within the patina of traditional Democratic internationalism. Not only could Democrats wage the sort of politically beneficial war Bush had monopolized, they could augment it with international legitimacy, allied contributions, and greater preparation for the difficulties ahead. Rather than questioning the purpose of the proposed Iraq invasion, Biden took it for granted that the world would go along, if only America had the wisdom to ask it. He considered that both a substantive alternative to Bush and the responsible, sober course of American foreign policy. Biden's hearings highlighted the dangers of occupation, such as the basic uncertainty around what would replace Saddam Hussein, as well as the bloody, long, and expensive commitment required to midwife a democratic Iraq. "In many ways, those hearings were remarkably prescient about what was to happen," said Tony Blinken, Biden's longtime aide on the committee and a deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration. "He and [GOP Sen. Richard] Lugar talked about not the day after but the decade after. If we did go in, they talked about the lack of a plan to secure any peace that followed the intervention."But the balance of expert testimony concerned guessing at Saddam's weapons program, the pragmatic questions of invading, and the diplomatic legwork of an action whose justice—if not necessarily its wisdom—was presumed. A future occupation-era Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., Rend al-Rahim Francke, assured Biden's committee, "there will not be a civil war in Iraq." The neoconservative scholar Fouad Ajami said "kites and boom boxes" would greet the U.S. military. The chairman himself broke his agnosticism to say that "one thing is clear, these weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power." He reflected the regnant foreign policy consensus in America: Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had sealed his fate by doing so. It was an enormous factual mistake born out of an inability to see that Saddam believed that transparent disarmament would spell his doom at the hands of Iran. This misapprehension led advocates to accept that the U.S.—preferably with others, but alone if necessary—was justified or even obligated to get rid of Saddam. By late summer, Bush's secretary of state, Colin Powell, convinced the White House to attempt securing United Nations support for the war. It was a cynical maneuver: the Security Council could accept additional weapons inspections but not war; Bush could claim he tried for an internationalist solution before invading unilaterally. Its primary effect was to legitimize the war in the eyes of uncomfortable congressional Democrats who had made the tactical error of disputing the war for insufficient multilateralism rather than arguing it was wrong. Biden, however, had a principle he wanted to uphold. For nearly an hour on the Senate floor, Biden contextualized his vote for the war within a patina of unreality. There was no rush to war, he insisted, only "a march to peace and security." Voting against the war would "enhance the prospects that war is likely to occur." He had already been undercut by a House Democratic agreement that obviated Biden's preferred choice of putting greater restrictions on Bush's ability to go to war. Nevertheless, he persisted.Biden's argument was that congressional unity in threatening war would compel sufficient international resolve as to somehow compel Saddam's peaceful disarmament. He highlighted that the wording of the war resolution concerned disarming Saddam Hussein, not overthrowing him, although Biden conceded that an American army on the march would mean Saddam's downfall. Still, it was better to obscure the objective of the war, since declaring Saddam's impending end would "alienat[e] other countries who do not share that goal and whose support we need to disarm Iraq and possibly rebuild it, and it would significantly weaken our hand at the United Nations." For Biden, the critical point, "what this is about," was America daring to "enforce" U.N. Security Council disarmament resolutions that the U.N. was saying did not justify war. When the world stood against America, in the forum Biden considered critical and Bush considered pretextual, America would simply act in the world's name. He approvingly quoted the infamous Henry Kissinger: "As the most powerful nation in the world, the United States has a special, unilateral capacity, and indeed obligation, to lead in implementing its convictions, but it also has a special obligation to justify its actions by principles that transcend the assertions of preponderance of power." America's confidence in its nobility was, in the end, all the justification it required. Extraordinarily, Biden acknowledged that the "imminence and inevitability" of the threat Iraq posed was "exaggerated," although that recognition was irrelevant to both his reasoning and his vote. He performed an end-zone dance over Bush advisers who favored what he called the doctrine of preemption—a euphemism for wars of aggression—as if his vote did not authorize exactly the preemptive war those advisers wanted. The trouble Biden saw was that elevating preemption to a foreign policy "doctrine" would grant "every nation an unfettered right of preemption." Left unsaid was that it would be better for America to keep that unfettered right for itself. He credited Bush with choosing a "course of moderation and deliberation." And Biden, in his own unique idiom, heralded his own influence over Bush's choice to take the basic constitutional step of allowing congressional approval for a war: "I had two private meetings with the president myself where I made clear that I thought that was dead wrong and he would be, to use the slang on the east side of my city, in a world of hurt if he attempted to do that." Biden advisers, with some exasperation, continue to reject the notion that Biden voted for war. "It's so facile. People tell you an Authorization to Use Military Force means you voted for war," said Blinken. "No, you voted to enforce your diplomacy, if necessary, and that makes it more likely, hopefully, that the diplomacy actually works without having to enforce it. It worked at the U.N. Unfortunately, tragically, it didn't work with President Bush."* * *Nothing that followed went the way Biden expected. Bush did not share Biden's distinction between the U.N. weapons-inspection process and the invasion. Iraq did not passively accept its occupation. And Biden did not reap the political benefit of endorsing the war that seemed so obvious to the Democratic consultant class in the autumn of 2002. Iraq was an abstraction to Biden—as it was, ironically, to the neoconservatives Biden had criticized—a canvas on which to project theories of American power. During a Brookings Institution appearance four months after the invasion, Biden explained that he had cast "the right vote [on the war], and it would be a correct vote today," even though the insurgency was beginning to coalesce. The issue for Biden was that Saddam's intransigence over U.N. disarmament regimes, without military consequence, "renders useless such international commitments." The fact that the weapons of mass destruction had not materialized–and would soon be shown not to exist–didn't factor into Biden's calculation. He asserted that had the war not happened, "I have no doubt that within five years, [Saddam] would have gained access to a tactical nuclear weapon." Similarly, Biden's worries about the war that summer were only tangentially about the war itself. The danger he saw in Iraq was not occupation, but leaving before "winning the peace." Bush's infamous Mission Accomplished banner ought to have read "We've Only Just Begun," he said, heralding a challenge he considered within America's power.Still, Biden preferred talking about abstract principle and geopolitical challenge. Months after boasting that his vote for war rewarded Bush for repudiating the doctrine of preemption, Biden lamented that Bush had indeed turned preemption into an "ill-defined doctrine." But Biden was unprepared to break from prevention, which is always the prerogative of hegemonic powers. Boxed in, he continued to argue that the trouble was Bush elevating preemption to centrality in foreign policy, and fretted that predatory states would cite that "doctrine" to prey on weaker ones. He neglected to see that all those states needed was the example of the Iraq war itself. Eleven years later, when Biden was vice president, Vladimir Putin cited Iraq as a reason the U.S. had no standing to criticize him for invading Ukraine. Other delusions abounded. Biden praised the leadership of the Coalition Provisional Authority, a shockingly corrupt and incompetent organization. Its chief, Jerry Bremer, was "first-rate," Biden said mere months after Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army, the greatest gift America could have given the insurgency. Rebuilding Iraq's police force was left to former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik, whom Biden called "a serious guy with a serious team." Iraq's police would soon become indistinguishable from sectarian death squads; Kerik would soon plead guilty to tax fraud and other federal corruption charges. Biden's solution to the palpable breakdown of security in the summer of 2003 was "more foreign troops to share our mission." It was a fantasy, beloved of that era's pro-war Democrats, that would never materialize, despite Biden's assurance that aiding the occupation was "in their naked self-interest."By the next summer, with Iraq in flames, Biden continued his misdiagnosis. The original sin wasn't the war itself, it was Bush's stewardship—the same stewardship Biden praised in 2002. "Because we waged a war in Iraq virtually alone, we are responsible for the aftermath virtually alone," he thundered at the 2004 Democratic convention. The intelligence "was hyped to justify going to war," Biden continued, causing "America's credibility and security [to] have suffered a terrible blow." Yet Biden made no call for withdrawal. It was easier to pretend that Bush was waging a different war than the one he empowered Bush to wage. Writing in The New Republic, Biden insisted that Bush was wrong but he was right, since "the international community's need to enforce these U.N. resolutions provided a compelling case for war." The "most pernicious legacy" of U.S. failure in Iraq, he continued, would be not the hundreds of thousands the war killed, maimed, and traumatized, nor the millions more it turned into refugees, but "a further hardening of the Vietnam syndrome that afflicts some in the Democratic Party—a distrust of the use of American power." Those who had been right about the war—those that had forecast its disaster—could not be allowed to gain influence. By 2006, Iraq had plunged into the civil war that Ambassador Francke had told Biden's committee would not happen. Now Biden, posturing as a third way between withdrawal and the status quo, offered an extraordinary proposal to defuse it. The U.S., he wrote, ought to "establish three largely autonomous regions" for each of Iraq's major ethnic and confessional groups, presided over by a nominally national Baghdad government, something he called "unity through autonomy." Biden justified it through federalist language in the Iraqi constitution, a document written and voted on under occupation. The U.S., unable to win the war it chose, would be better off reshaping the map of Iraq into something that better suited it. The proposal was a natural outgrowth of viewing Iraq as an abstraction. Now that Iraq had undermined American power, Iraq would be subject to a kind of dismemberment, a theoretically cleaner problem to solve than a civil war or a weak client state. In September 2007, Biden prevailed upon his fellow senators to endorse his proposal on a staggering 75-23 vote. There was no support for the idea among actual Iraqis outside Kurdistan, but they were beside the imperial point. "They shouldn't be proposing its division. That could be a disaster not just for Iraq but for the region," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, at that point America's client. The Los Angeles Times noted that Iraqis, in the midst of a civil war, united against Biden. A statement from leading Sunni and Shia politicians said Congress set "a dangerous precedent to establishing the nature of the relationship between Iraq and the U.S.A. and shows the Congress as if it were planning for a long-term occupation by their country's troops." Biden, by then running for president a second time, rejected the criticism of actual Iraqis, insisting to Time, "It is not partition! It is not foreign imposition!" "The Iraqis were free to accept, reject, or act on it," Blinken said. "If the Iraqis felt the constitution was written under wrong pretenses, they always could redo it, but it was totally grounded in the constitution. A lot of folks came around to the basic idea that federalism was a way to keep the country together. But he was not imposing it on anyone."At the same time, 2007 saw Biden's most valorous act on Iraq. With the war a morass, Biden secured $23 billion, far more than the Pentagon requested, to buy Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, whose hull design proved more survivable against the insurgency's improvised bombs. Replacing insufficiently armored Humvees with MRAPs was "a passion," he said. While the number of lives MRAPs saved over the course of the program's $45 billion lifespan has been disputed, the Pentagon estimated in 2012 that over 2,000 service members are alive today because of the vehicle. Biden counted securing the funding for the MRAP among his greatest congressional achievements.While Biden's campaign failed, it provided him with an unexpected opportunity for redemption. Barack Obama had opposed the Iraq war, but was hardly afflicted with the "distrust of the use of American power" that Biden feared in 2004. Selecting Biden as his vice president laundered Biden's reputation. No longer was Biden the man whose faith in American exceptionalism had driven the U.S. into a morass. He was the lovable uncle in aviators who washed his metaphorical Trans Am on the White House lawn. Obama gave him responsibility for a three-year project of U.S. withdrawal, one that Biden considers an accomplishment. But Iraq had been so shattered by war and occupation that it could not withstand the rise of the so-called Islamic State. It would be absurd to consider that Biden's fault alone. But, as Mike Giglio recently explored in The Atlantic, Biden and other U.S. officials appeared at times dangerously unconcerned about Maliki's consolidation of power that once again marginalized Sunni Iraq, which the war had already proven would give jihadis the opportunity they needed. Biden successfully argued within the administration for continued support of Maliki as prime minister during Iraq's nine-month process of forming a new government in 2010—even as blatant U.S. intervention, predicated on empowering rivals to mitigate Maliki's excesses, failed. A former senior State Department official who worked with Biden on Iraq at the time told Giglio that "we should have been much more outspoken" about the need for Maliki to share power. In any event, while the administration believed itself a driver of Iraqi politics ahead of the withdrawal, an aide to the Iraqi Kurdish president told The New York Times that the Americans were "picking events and reacting on the basis of events. That is the policy." Blinken, who was part of the diplomatic team shuttling between Baghdad and Washington at the time, rejects the criticism. Biden "absolutely had no brief for Nouri al-Maliki," he said, but there was no viable alternative. Biden reflected America's schizophrenic attitude toward ending post-9/11 wars, in which leaving a residual force amidst an unsettled conflict does not count as continuing a war. He reportedly predicted that Maliki, whom Biden had argued for supporting, would modify an expiring troop-basing accord known as a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to permit an extended U.S. presence. "I'll bet you my vice presidency Maliki will extend the SOFA," the Times quoted him. Instead, the following year, the Iraqi parliament did no such thing. The U.S. withdrew in full at the end of 2011. Not three years later, when ISIS overran Mosul, Obama felt compelled to reinvade with a smaller U.S. force—though this time, the U.S. refused to support Maliki. Five thousand U.S. troops remain in Iraq today. "Once Maliki was back [in power], what tore Iraq apart again and led to the rise of ISIS was his extreme sectarianism. It was not for want of us trying, and berating, and arguing, pushing and pulling and prodding that he was headed for disaster if he continued down that path," Blinken said. "We obviously failed at getting him to change course, but it was not for lack of trying."* * *Biden was hardly the hawk inside the Obama administration that fellow Iraq-war supporter Hillary Clinton was. He opposed the Afghanistan escalation, although he argued for even more drone strikes instead. He opposed overthrowing Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, a 2011 decision that has left Libya in chaos for nearly a decade. He was reportedly against a CIA plan to arm Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's opposition for fear of enmeshing America within another Mideast civil war, though he helped lobby Congress to approve an ultimately abandoned plan to attack Assad militarily. Biden is the last of the pre-Obama generation of Democratic foreign policy grandees who enabled the Iraq war. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton both lost their presidential bids, saddled in both cases with the legacy of the war they supported. Now Biden confronts rivals like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are both sketching out foreign policies that begin with ending a generation of war. Sanders in particular is offering a geopolitical worldview that stands as a polar opposite to Biden's, one of international bottom-up resistance to worldwide oligarchy. Should Biden get past Sanders, Warren, and Pete Buttigieg, Trump lies in wait—another GOP president whom Biden has misdiagnosed, to the point of expressing shock that Trump would seek to weaponize U.S. influence over Ukraine to harm his family. A President Biden is likely to find himself a man out of time. Writing in The Guardian, David Adler and Ben Judah recently described Biden as a "restorationist" in foreign policy, aiming at setting the American geopolitical clock back to what it was before Trump took office. Yet now an emergent China, a resurgent Russia, and the ascent of nationalism and oligarchy across Europe, India, and South America have fragmented the America-centric internationalist order that Biden represents. While Trump has accelerated these dynamics, he is far less responsible for them than is the martial post-9/11 course of U.S. foreign policy that wrecked itself, most prominently in Iraq. It remains to be seen if the U.S. foreign policy community can reckon with its new geopolitical reality. As Biden noted to NPR, he has a deep well of support within foreign policy circles, where supporting the Iraq war is treated as an unfortunate, understandable detail and a smaller problem than Iraq-inspired domestic skepticism of American power—an update of what Biden and others used to call the "Vietnam Syndrome." Recently, The Washington Post's Josh Rogin reported that 133 diplomatic, military, and development heavyweights backed Biden. They consider him an "antidote" to Trump, not an example of the political failures that seeded the bed for Trump. Kerry, the former secretary of state, recently endorsed his longtime friend and ally Biden. Blinken pushed back on the idea that Biden's blend of liberal internationalism has passed its relevance. "He's said explicitly, we can't go back to the way the world was, it has changed significantly even since [President Trump's election]. We have to engage the world as is and as we anticipate it will be, not as it was, but some of the basic principles he would bring to our foreign policy still hold," he said. In a 2016 interview, Biden rejected a more hawkish Syria policy. When asked about overthrowing Middle Eastern dictators, he said, "I don't think we should use force unless it meets certain basic criteria. Is it in the national security interest of the United States, are our interests directly threatened, number one, or our allies? Number two, can we use it efficaciously, will it work? And number three, can it be sustained?" For someone who has been for decades a pillar of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, Biden's criteria are notably generic. They are flexible enough that every presidency, including Trump's, portrays itself as meeting them. It wasn't so long ago that Biden thought the Iraq war met his tests. It yielded an America far less able to shape the world it wants but unrepentant in its right to do so. 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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| Ex-Sudan strongman al-Bashir gets 2 years for corruption Posted: 14 Dec 2019 01:48 AM PST  A court in Sudan convicted former President Omar al-Bashir of money laundering and corruption on Saturday, sentencing him to two years in a minimum security lockup. The verdict comes a year after Sudanese protesters erupted in revolt against al-Bashir's authoritarian rule. During his three decades in power, Sudan landed on the U.S. list for sponsoring terrorism, and the country's economy was battered by years of mismanagement and American sanctions.
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| Disagreement drags UN climate talks into a 2nd extra day Posted: 14 Dec 2019 01:25 AM PST  U.N. climate talks in Madrid dragged into a second day of extra time Sunday, with officials from almost 200 countries unable to break the deadlock on key points of difference. The chair of the meeting, Chilean Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt, told weary delegates to examine new agreements drafted by her team and meet at 1:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) for further talks. Developing countries and environmental groups warned that the drafts circulated overnight Saturday risked undoing or stalling on commitments made in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
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| Malaysia Does Not Support U.S. Curbs on Iran, Premier Says Posted: 13 Dec 2019 11:36 PM PST ![Malaysia Does Not Support U.S. Curbs on Iran, Premier Says]( "Malaysia Does Not Support U.S. Curbs on Iran, Premier Says") (Bloomberg) -- U.S. economic sanctions against Iran are illegal and Malaysia does not support them, the southeast Asian nation's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Saturday in Doha.The curbs have constrained Malaysia's access to an important market and trading partner, he said at a conference in the Qatari capital.The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Iran for what it considers the Persian Gulf country's aggressive and destabilizing policies in the region. Iran and U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia are engaged in a proxy war in Yemen, and Washington blames Tehran for a surprise attack in September on Saudi oil installations.Mahathir also said that "too much politics" rather than economic logic has driven the trade dispute between the U.S. and China. "Trade wars do not solve anything," he said.President Donald Trump announced Friday that the U.S. and China agreed to the first phase of a broader agreement under which the U.S. will reduce tariffs, calming fears at least temporarily of an escalating trade war between the world's two largest economies.(Updates with Mahathir comments on trade war in fourth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Simone Foxman in Doha at sfoxman4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Bruce Stanley at bstanley5@bloomberg.net, Stanley JamesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Brussels Prepares for Its Next Brexit Punch-Up Posted: 13 Dec 2019 11:00 PM PST ![Brussels Prepares for Its Next Brexit Punch-Up]( "Brussels Prepares for Its Next Brexit Punch-Up") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- After a year of gridlock in Westminster that has frustrated the U.K.'s attempts to leave the European Union on amicable terms, British voters have handed Boris Johnson a thumping majority to do just that. They might also be handing Brussels a tough new competitor on Europe's doorstep.This is sobering for the EU, which is on course to lose an important economic and defense partner worth 14% of the bloc's gross domestic product. It could have been much worse, of course: A messy "no-deal" Brexit has been averted, the remaining 27 members have stayed united and key negotiating objectives have been achieved: including the U.K. meeting its financial obligations, guaranteeing EU citizens' rights and avoiding a hard Irish border.Any relief is likely to be short-lived, however. The EU has to rebuild its relationship with a neighbor that hosts Europe's No. 1 financial services hub, accounts for 40% of its military power and does about 640 billion pounds ($853 billion) of yearly trade with the bloc. The easy part is getting the Brits out of the door; the hard part is deciding how far to let them back in.If it were up to Johnson, this would be simple. He is championing a bespoke EU trade deal, which he reckons can be signed in 11 months and which he says would ensure minimal disruption. It wouldn't completely offset the financial impact of leaving the bloc: The U.K. in a Changing Europe think tank estimates a 1.1% to 2.6% hit to GDP. But it's better than no deal whatsoever.Unfortunately for the Gung-ho Johnson, the EU is a cautious beast by nature. Over the past three years, the Brexiters have regularly trumpeted their preferred kind of economic model: A rollback of EU rules that they see as costly and unnecessary, a new U.S. trade deal that would give President Donald Trump a deregulating foothold in Europe and a low-tax regime that some describe as "Singapore-on-Thames." Does anyone really expect the EU to give preferential market access to a tax haven on its border? That's why the warm wishes for Johnson from the EU's leaders carried a subtle sting. "We will negotiate a future trade deal which ensures a true level playing field," tweeted the new EU Council President Charles Michel. What this level playing field means exactly isn't set in stone, but the EU will make sure that access to its market is tied to accepting its rules.Zero tariffs and zero quotas between the soon-to-be-former partners are entirely possible, but they would only come with zero dumping, says the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. Brussels won't open up to the City of London without making sure it abides by the same rules as Paris, Frankfurt and Dublin.It's unlikely that these talks will be easy. There's no telling what negotiating persona Johnson will choose. Optimists believe his solid majority will soften his approach; he won't be so beholden to Brexit hardliners in his parliamentary party and he'll need to safeguard the interests of the blue-collar voters that he seduced away from Labour (rather than just keeping rule-hating hedge funds sweet). Still, Johnson's strong mandate to "get Brexit done" may encourage him to play hardball. Trump, who has slapped the EU with trade tariffs, is on his side. France's Emmanuel Macron is keen to bolster bilateral relations with the U.K. — to protect French fisheries and harness Britain's military might. Angela Merkel, a lame duck in German politics, may want to avoid a standoff that threatens her country's faltering economy.It would be folly, however, to believe that the EU will move far from the painstaking, legalistic approach that has served it pretty well since the Brexit vote in 2016 — as evidenced by Johnson's painful concessions in the withdrawal agreement. As ever, the defining purpose of Brussels will be to defend the single market and the rules that govern it. That doesn't preclude a productive U.K. relationship, but it does cast doubt on a trade deal signed in 11 months giving Brexiters the buccaneering free-trading future of their dreams.Johnson showed with his brutal casting aside of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party that he's happy to change course when necessary. No one should be surprised if he does so again.To contact the author of this story: Lionel Laurent at llaurent2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Brussels. He previously worked at Reuters and Forbes.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| North Korea conducts another test at long-range rocket site Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:45 PM PST  North Korea said Saturday that it successfully performed another "crucial test" at its long-range rocket launch site that will further strengthen its nuclear deterrent. The test — the second at the facility in a week, according to North Korea's Academy of Defense Science — possibly involved technologies to improve intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially reach the continental United States. In a separate statement, Pak Jong Chon, chief of the Korean People's Army's general staff, asserted that North Korea has built up "tremendous power" and that the findings from the recent tests would be used to develop new weapons to allow the country to "definitely and reliably" counter U.S. nuclear threats.
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| Trump/Netanyahu: Israel, America and the rise of authoritarianism-lite Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:00 PM PST  Two recent biographies of 'Bibi' pose fascinating questions regarding attitudes to Israel among American JewsLike abortion and taxes, Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel is one more flashpoint in America under Donald Trump. As millennials, minorities, women and liberals don't readily cotton to the 45th president, their support for the Jewish state cannot be assumed. In the words of a recent Economist/YouGov poll: "When it comes to Israel, American views are partisan."These trends have been decades in the making. They precede the coming of Trump and the rise of Netanyahu.At the 1988 Democratic convention, delegates rejected a call for a Palestinian state but not before Chuck Schumer, then a congressman from Brooklyn, found himself subject to the ire of Jesse Jackson's supporters. Back then, Israel was led by a coalition government that ranged from right to center-left, including Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.But when it comes to US politics under Trump, Netanyahu is no mere bystander. Two recent and exhaustively researched biographies, Ben Caspit's The Netanyahu Years and Anshel Pfeffer's Bibi, shine serious light on how Israel's standing within the US has shifted, with their subject playing no small role. Besting Barack Obama, as Netanyahu did, solidified his status with conservatives in both countries – but at a lingering cost in the US.According to Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and former instructor of Ron Dermer, Netanyahu's one-time hand-picked ambassador to Washington, "Israel has won the hearts and minds of Republicans in America, while at the same time it is losing the Democrats."A recent resolution passed by the House reaffirmed US support for Israel and a two-state solution. Republicans and progressive Democrats were displeased, albeit for different reasons.> Netanyahu is an unabashed Jewish nationalist whose alignment with the Republican party is an expression of his DNASuffice to say, Netanyahu is not a perfect fit with the minority and youth-driven, upstairs-downstairs coalition that occupies an ever larger space within the Democratic party, or with the predominantly although not exclusively liberal US Jewish community. In Israel, Trump's popularity hovers near 70%. Among US Jews the figure is the polar opposite.Both Caspit and Pfeffer speak with authority. Caspit is a reporter for Israel's Maariv daily. Pfeffer, English by birth and an occasional contributor to the Guardian, writes for Haaretz, the liberal broadsheet which, with the New York Times, Netanyahu considers an enemy of the state, a reminder that Trump-style authoritarianism-lite knows no borders.As Caspit makes clear, the Israel-born and US-educated Netanyahu is an unabashed Jewish nationalist whose alignment with the Republican party is an expression of his DNA. Caspit recounts how Netanyahu's father, Benzion, sided with the GOP while FDR was president.Benzion's son drank at the same well as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the late senator Jesse Helms. Both Caspit and Pfeffer recount how, in 1996, Netanyahu turned to Arthur Finkelstein, a conservative political guru, to defeat Peres in his maiden political contest. The late Finkelstein was legendary in Republican and conservative circles.With Roger Stone (now convicted) and others, Finkelstein was a founder of the National Conservative Political Action Committee. Finkelstein, Stone and Paul Manafort (now imprisoned) purportedly worked together more than a decade ago – in Ukraine.In 2002, out of government, Netanyahu testified before Congress that if Saddam Hussein were toppled: "I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." So much prescience.On election day 2015, he was busy warning Jewish voters that Israel's Arabs, who are Israeli citizens, were voting "in droves". To many, including Obama, that 11th-hour campaign pitch sounded like a blast from America's past.In an interview with the Huffington Post, Obama zeroed in, saying: "Israeli democracy has been premised on everybody in the country being treated equally and fairly." Netanyahu attempted to walk it back but the White House wasn't buying.As the Israeli prime minister has privately acknowledged, he does not speak "Democratic". Those around Netanyahu also concede that he either cannot or will not internalize America's changing demographics.> Like Trump, who clings to white evangelicals for dear life, Netanyahu has wedded himself to the religiously observantNow under indictment, Netanyahu faces prosecution and is looking to invoke parliamentary immunity. According to recent reports, he is taking his cues from Breitbart's Israel operations and seeking to bolster his campaign with assistance from Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, two Trump stalwarts. Support for Israel and the heart of the Republican party have both shifted right.Like Trump, who clings to America's white evangelicals for dear life, Netanyahu has wedded himself to Israel's religiously observant populations. Here, the parallels are particularly strong. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu is devout and each is on his third wife.Trump married Marla Maples while she was pregnant with Tiffany. Netanyahu married Sara under similar circumstances, although Netanyahu required some persuasion before he again tied the knot. Where Trump has Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to haunt him, Netanyahu was reported to have a sex tape hanging over head, which featured a married woman. Under religious law, that is a capital offense.No harm no foul. As Israel's religious communities weren't turned off by Netanyahu's hijinks, so have America's white evangelicals shown the capacity to forgive and forget Trump's trespasses. It as if Netanyahu served as a template. Transactional politics is universal and piety a guarantee of little, perhaps except as one more flavor of conformity.Most damning is Pfeffer's take on Netanyahu's relations with leaders of authoritarian regimes. Netanyahu, he writes, feels "more at ease with leaders" like Trump, Putin, Egypt's Sisi and India's Modi, "'strongmen' with a disregard for liberal democracy who saw in Netanyahu a kindred spirit".On that score, enter Daniel Gordis's wistful and elegiac We Stand Divided, which focuses on the "rift between American Jews and Israel" but is also an implicit lament that American Jews have morphed into an iteration of modern-day Quakers, educated and mercantile but not hyper-ethnocentric.Unlike Caspit and Pfeffer, Gordis makes no mention of Trump or Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire benefactor of the US president and Netanyahu who subsidizes a pro-Netanyahu Israeli daily and is a potential witness in the Israeli government's criminal case against Netanyahu. Adelson also funded the Shalem Institute, which launched Gordis's Jerusalem-based Shalem College.The American-born Gordis is comfortable with ethnicity and religion playing greater roles in Israel's public square, and yearns for a rapprochement between American Jews and Israel that may not come.The fact is, Jews have carved a niche in America's mainstream just as other hyphenated Americans did before them. The Puritans ultimately succumbed to the temptations of the figurative forest; Gordis offers no answer as to why Jews would be different. Jewish immigration to America was simply about escaping the old world, as opposed to founding a City on a Hill, a reality Gordis acknowledges.These competing sentiments continue to play out in Israel's fractious and freewheeling political system. In less than a year, Israel's voters have gone to the polls twice but have been unable to elect a government. A third election is set for early March. Here and there, democracy and the rule of law are being tested by two leaders for whom "l'état, c'est moi" is a rule to live by.
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| 'Wild week' as Washington works amid impeachment Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:50 PM PST  President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi don't see eye-to-eye on much these days, but in the throes of impeachment, they're in lockstep on the desire to close out the year by checking off items on their to-do lists. As the uncertain politics of the effort to remove Trump from office collide with critical year-end legislative deadlines, Washington, for the first time in recent memory, appears intent on demonstrating its capacity to multitask. Lawmakers and White House officials are eager to project the image that they've been focused on anything but the polarizing proceedings that are increasingly consuming their days and nights.
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| Johnson Victory Heralds Gradual End to U.K.’s Era of Austerity Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Explore what's moving the global economy in the new season of the Stephanomics podcast. Subscribe via Apple Podcast, Spotify or Pocket Cast.Britain can expect an end to austerity under Boris Johnson -- but little more -- with his cautious rather than spectacular plans focused on extra spending for schools, health and infrastructure and tax cuts for workers.The prime minister, who led his Conservative Party to an emphatic victory in Thursday's election, gambled on prudence when it came to the public finances, offering to spend just one extra pound for every six pledged by the Labour opposition.Whereas Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was promising German-style levels of public spending at close to 45% of gross domestic product, the burden under the Tories is set to remain under 40% and slightly below the average over the past 50 years.Spending under the Conservatives will be closer to Spain, leaving Britain below the average of advanced economies. And the state envisaged by Johnson is minimal when compared with countries such as France, Finland and Italy.Nonetheless, even a modest reopening of the spending taps will be welcome in a country that has experienced 100 billion pounds ($134 billion) of spending cuts and tax increases since 2010 as the government sought to bring down the budget deficit, which hit a towering 10% of GDP in the aftermath of the financial crisis.The squeeze came at a heavy price for public services and welfare, fueling the backlash that erupted in the 2016 vote to leave the European Union and cost Johnson's predecessor, Theresa May, her parliamentary majority a year later. Labour had hoped to win votes by arguing a decade of Conservative government had inflicted excessive hardship. Instead, voters in Brexit-supporting areas turned their fire on Labour for backing a second referendum.The Conservatives are promising to get Britain out of the EU by the end of January and hold a budget in February, allowing Johnson to deliver on his pledge to cut payroll taxes by 85 pounds a year for every worker.If they carry out their tax and spending plans, the budget deficit is set to rise modestly from around 2% of GDP, with new fiscal rules allowing for an extra 20 billion pounds of borrowing a year to fund investment in infrastructure. That should provide a modest spur to growth, as investment has a much bigger impact on the economy than government money spent on wages and public services.Economists see several risks to the fiscal outlook, however, not least the possibility that the deficit could rise much more sharply if trade talks with the EU fail and Britain ends up without a deal when the proposed Brexit transition period comes to an end at the end of next year. Such a scenario could see borrowing at closer to 4% of GDP, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.Johnson is promising to provide tens of billions more for the National Health Service, teachers and policing in the coming years, without breaking a commitment to keep revenue and day-to day spending in balance.But given the clamor for extra resources across the public sector, and an uncertain economic outlook, the Conservatives may find it hard to keep to their plans. With an estimated current-budget surplus of just 5 billion pounds by 2024, they could easily find themselves having to borrow more or raise taxes."The fiscal plans in the Conservative manifesto imply the current budget will remain in surplus by the smallest of margins in coming years," said Dan Hanson of Bloomberg Economics. "It would only take a small forecast error to move it into the red."There are also doubts over the Tories' investment plans, which would push Britain up the international rankings and take capital spending to levels last sustained in the 1970s.The manifesto set out 22 billion pounds of firm commitments over the next four years and the government is expected to announce additional proposals in the budget. Delivering projects could prove harder in reality, particularly in the short term as the government grapples with Brexit-related labor shortages.To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Atkinson in London at a.atkinson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Brian SwintFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Fallout From India Citizenship Law Scuttles Abe-Modi Meeting Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:52 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Angry protests spread across India's tea-growing state of Assam, where opposition to a new law that grants citizenship to undocumented migrants based on religion has the potential to reignite long dormant unrest.The fallout from the contentious bill and the protests against it has been swift.A planned three-day visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was scheduled to land in Guwahati on Sunday, has been postponed, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar tweeted. This is the second foreign visit to be called off amid the protests. Bangladesh's Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen also canceled a scheduled visit to India.A U.S. federal commission had called for sanctions against India's home minister should the legislation be passed, while the United Nations Human Rights office said in a tweet that the new law is "fundamentally discriminatory." Authorities shut down internet access across 10 districts in Assam -- which borders Bangladesh -- where protesters have defied a police curfew to take to the streets against the Citizenship Amendment Law. Passed Wednesday, it bars undocumented Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan from seeking citizenship but allows Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who illegally migrated from these regions to do so.India's internal tensions were spilling into the diplomatic space, said Harsh Pant, professor of international relations at King's College London. "There's been a series of things this year -- Kashmir, the new Citizenship Bill and now these protests -- that have drawn attention to whether the Indian government can manage internal issues," Pant said. "It's not like Japan will review its relations with India because of the protests but if you have a pattern of domestic tensions, it creates a negative narrative. There was clearly a miscalculation about the fallout of the bill."India also needs to be careful about managing relations with Bangladesh, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is a key ally, Pant said. "There was no need to wreck that relationship."Fear and AnxietyIt's the first time since 1979 that Assam has witnessed protests of this scale, according to Sanjoy Hazarika, professor at Centre for Policy Research, and Saifuddin Kitchlew, chair at Jamia Millia Islamia University. Mass demonstrations against illegal migrants lasted for six years in the early 1980s, leaving 855 people dead and disrupting the economy before the state and federal governments signed an accord to end the movement in 1985."Nobody wants a return to that era," Hazarika said. "This is much bigger than anything we've seen."Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government has vowed to implement a citizenship drive nationwide to weed out undocumented migrants. Assam was the first state to implement the register. The arduous process that ended in August 2019 has put about 1.9 million people at risk of becoming stateless. The new citizenship law has further raised concerns about the whittling away of values laid out in the secular constitution of the world's second-most populous nation.Over a dozen petitions have been filed in the country's top court challenging the constitutional validity of the new law and many more are expected. The petitioners include lawyers, activists, politicians, and Muslim and student bodies. The court is yet to set a date to hear the cases. India's Chief Justice S. A. Bobde refused a request for an urgent hearing by one of the petitioners, Mahua Moitra, a lawmaker from the eastern state of West Bengal.It's the third move since Modi won a resounding second term that adversely affects Muslims, who form about 14% of India's 1.3 billion population. In August his government revoked regional autonomy in Muslim-majority Indian Kashmir and in November the Supreme Court handed Hindus control of the disputed site of a demolished mosque. Modi's party has promised to build a temple there.Economic BlockadeProtesters are calling for a total economic blockade across Assam by shutting down oil and gas operations, fertilizers and petrochemicals plants, and the state's iconic tea gardens."The situation is extremely bad and is getting worse," said Tridiv Hazarika, a spokesman for Assam-headquartered state-run explorer Oil India Ltd. "Everything is closed. The curfew has been relaxed for two hours and I'm struggling to buy even a kilo of rice."People are protesting what is considered a breach of a more than three-decade old state accord with India's federal government over barring migrants from neighboring Bangladesh from making Assam their home. Protests have also spread to neighboring border states of Tripura and Manipur.There is fear in the northeastern states that granting citizenship to migrants will undermine local communities."The government has now passed a bill which basically legitimizes illegal migrants who came in before 2014," said Aman Wadud, a human rights lawyer who has represented those excluded from the citizenship registry. "People see this as a betrayal. People are angry. You cannot legitimize illegal migrants of any kind."(Updates with U.N. Human Rights office tweet in third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Debjit Chakraborty, Isabel Reynolds and Upmanyu Trivedi.To contact the reporters on this story: Archana Chaudhary in New Delhi at achaudhary2@bloomberg.net;Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net;Anurag Kotoky in New Delhi at akotoky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Muneeza NaqviFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| AP Exclusive: China tightens up on info after Xinjiang leaks Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:32 PM PST  The Xinjiang regional government in China's far west is deleting data, destroying documents, tightening controls on information and has held high-level meetings in response to leaks of classified papers on its mass detention camps for Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities, according to four people in contact with government employees there. Top officials deliberated how to respond to the leaks in meetings at the Chinese Communist Party's regional headquarters in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, some of the people said. The meetings began days after The New York Times published last month a cache of internal speeches on Xinjiang by top leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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| North Korea May Up Ante With ICBM Engine Test, Chosun Reports Posted: 13 Dec 2019 06:29 PM PST ![North Korea May Up Ante With ICBM Engine Test, Chosun Reports]( "North Korea May Up Ante With ICBM Engine Test, Chosun Reports") (Bloomberg) -- North Korea may increase provocations in the run-up to Christmas by testing an engine for its intercontinental ballistic missiles, Chosun Ilbo reported, citing an unidentified South Korean military official.North Korea's next provocation "could be testing an ICBM engine under Kim Jong Un's presence or firing a SLBM," the report cited the official as saying, referring to a submarine-launched ballistic missile.South Korea's military authorities say Pyongyang may launch a Pukguksong-3, the new type of missile that it tested early October, into the West Sea on a normal trajectory instead of a lofted angle, the newspaper reported.There have been recent signs of activity at North Korea's rocket-launch site. New commercial satellite imagery from Dec. 11 indicated work continued at the Vertical Engine Test Stand at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, where Kim's regime said it conducted an "important test" earlier this week, 38 North said in a report.Announcing the "successful" test, Pyongyang said the subject that was tested would play a key part in changing its strategic position in the near future. It didn't elaborate or say what was tested.U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun will visit Seoul on Dec. 15 to 17 to discuss the situation with his South Korean counterpart, as Pyongyang steps up pressure on the U.S. to try break a deadlock in bilateral denuclearization talks.North Korea has threatened to take a "new path" should the U.S. fail to meet the year-end deadline set by Pyongyang.To contact the reporter on this story: Kanga Kong in Seoul at kkong50@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net, Russell WardFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Specialist teams hope to recover last 2 volcano victims Posted: 13 Dec 2019 04:40 PM PST  Specialist teams were due to return to New Zealand's volcanic White Island on Sunday to resume a land search for the bodies of two victims of an eruption which has now claimed 15 lives. Two four-person teams wearing protective clothing and using breathing apparatuses were to land on the island by helicopter early morning in the hope of finding the bodies which have not been located since the island erupted Dec. 9. "They will be wearing the same protective clothing as the eight New Zealand Defence Force personnel who were on the island on Friday," Police Deputy Commissioner John Tims said.
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