| Japan finds 41 more cases on ship as virus alarm doctor dies Posted: 06 Feb 2020 04:35 PM PST  Japan on Friday reported 41 new cases of a virus on a cruise ship that's been quarantined in Yokohama harbor while the death toll in mainland China rose to 636, including a doctor who got in trouble with authorities in the communist country for sounding an early warning about the disease threat. Before Friday's 41 confirmed cases, 20 passengers who were found infected with the virus were escorted off the Diamond Princess at Yokohama near Tokyo. Dr. Li Wenliang, 34, had worked at a hospital in the epicenter of the outbreak in the central city of Wuhan.
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| John Bolton, Susan Rice to speak at Vanderbilt on Feb. 19 Posted: 06 Feb 2020 04:06 PM PST  Former national security adviser John Bolton will speak at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University later this month alongside another former national security adviser, Susan Rice, just two weeks after the U.S. Senate acquitted President Donald Trump without subpoenaing Bolton to testify at the impeachment trial. Bolton served as national security adviser to Trump and also was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush.
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| Trump shows no qualms about using presidency to court voters Posted: 06 Feb 2020 03:40 PM PST  Dispatching Cabinet secretaries across the country to woo Iowa voters. Delivering a State of the Union address that doubled as a campaign kickoff speech. President Donald Trump made clear this week that he has no qualms about using the powers of his office to court voters in an election year.
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| Trump says U.S. operation killed al-Qaida leader in Yemen Posted: 06 Feb 2020 03:39 PM PST |
| Amid irregularities, AP unable to declare winner in Iowa Posted: 06 Feb 2020 03:22 PM PST  The Associated Press said Thursday that it is unable to declare a winner of Iowa's Democratic caucuses. With 97% of precincts reporting from Monday's caucuses, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by three state delegate equivalents out of 2,098 counted.
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| McConnell remaking Senate in age of Trump, impeachment Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:30 PM PST  Long before Donald Trump's impeachment landed in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had one piece of advice for the president: Focus on the House. It was the GOP leader's central strategy to produce as partisan an impeachment as possible -- too polarizing for any centrists to touch -- to secure Republican acquittal in the Senate. "He understood right from the start, this was crooked politics," said Trump, singling McConnell out for praise Thursday at the White House.
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| Architect of US peace plan blames Palestinians for violence Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:22 PM PST  The chief architect of the U.S. blueprint to resolve the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians on Thursday blamed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for soaring tensions and violence in the occupied West Bank since the plan's release last week. Abbas is putting forward old talking points when the situation on the ground has changed and "this may be the last chance to resolve the situation," Kushner said.
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| Senate Report Criticizes Response to Russian Meddling and Partly Blames McConnell Posted: 06 Feb 2020 12:00 PM PST  WASHINGTON -- Republican congressional leaders' refusal to publicly acknowledge Russian election interference in 2016 contributed to a watered-down response by the Obama administration in the midst of the presidential campaign, a Senate report released Thursday found.Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. and the Senate majority leader, reacted skeptically after receiving an intelligence briefing in September 2016 about the Russian interference, a former Obama administration official said in the report. "You security people should be careful that you're not getting used," McConnell told Lisa Monaco, the White House homeland security adviser under President Barack Obama, at the time, according to the report.The bulk of the report focuses its criticism on the Obama administration and the "heavily politicized environment" that prevented a more forceful response to the Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. But the inclusion of McConnell's skepticism in a report from a Republican-led Senate committee could give the accusations new life.Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, have previously accused McConnell of stopping the Obama administration from speaking out more forcefully against Russian interference. McConnell has long denied those allegations, pointing to a bipartisan letter that congressional leaders released in late September 2016.The response to Russia's meddling presented a difficult political calculus for McConnell: A public acknowledgment before the election might have deterred Moscow and improved voters' trust in the outcome, but none of that was assured, and it also could have cost Republicans the White House.According to the report, numerous Obama administration officials said some members of Congress at the September 2016 briefing "resisted the administration request that a bipartisan statement be made regarding Russia being responsible for interference activities." It was at that briefing where McConnell told Monaco that she should be careful with the intelligence.The full report from the committee, led by Sen. Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., wavers on the effect any high-level U.S. government warning would have had on Russia's campaign of election sabotage. The Kremlin's operations continued even as the Obama administration began discussing them publicly, Senate investigators found."After the warnings, Russia continued its cyberactivity to include further public dissemination of stolen emails, clandestine social media-based influence operations, and penetration of state voting infrastructure through Election Day 2016," the report said.The committee said that the Obama administration was worried that its warnings to Russia could potentially undermine voters' confidence in the election, which would itself help the Russian effort. The government was also hampered by what it did not know, including the full extent of the Russian ability to manipulate election systems.The report also contained some new details about the Obama administration's efforts to halt the Russian interference campaign. The administration delivered five direct warnings to "various levels of the Russian government," including messages from Obama to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the report said.Obama warned Putin in a note that "the kind of consequences that he could anticipate would be powerfully impactful to their economy and far exceed anything that he had seen to date," the report said, citing an interview with Susan E. Rice, Obama's national security adviser at the time.Some of the material in the report is redacted, including the timing of the first warning that many in the administration received, in the form of briefings from the CIA director at the time, John O. Brennan.Even as they presented the report's findings as bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans on the committee highlighted the still-acrimonious partisan divide over the 2016 campaign in their responses.Burr aimed his criticism at the Obama administration, accusing officials of sharing too little information inside the government."Frozen by 'paralysis of analysis,' hamstrung by constraints both real and perceived, Obama officials debated courses of action without truly taking one," Burr said.Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, blamed partisan politics in part for the flawed response in 2016 and warned that they are still a barrier to fighting Russia's continuing interference in U.S. politics."I am particularly concerned, however, that a legitimate fear raised by the Obama administration -- that warning the public of the Russian attack could backfire politically -- is still present in our hyperpartisan environment," Warner said.In a supplement to the report, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the failure in the midst of the campaign to make a "bipartisan public acknowledgment of the ongoing attack by Russia" had serious implications.Such a statement, Wyden wrote, might have prompted the news media to give more context in their reporting of disclosures by WikiLeaks about the Clinton campaign, most importantly noting "their release was part of a Russian influence campaign" designed to assist Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee."An acknowledgment of Russian influence operations, particularly operations intended to help Donald Trump, would have reflected poorly on the candidate and his campaign," Wyden wrote. "But that should not have been a reason for the administration and members of Congress to withhold from the public warning of an ongoing attack by a foreign adversary."The committee report includes a range of recommendations to ensure the government is better prepared to react to a foreign influence campaign in future elections. Legislation enacted last year requires the director of national intelligence to present regular assessments of such threats before elections, the report noted.Senators also called for the executive branch to be more forthcoming with the public, particularly if foreign influence operations -- called "active measures" by the Russians -- are underway."In the event that such a campaign is detected, the public should be informed as soon as possible, with a clear and succinct statement of the threat, even if the information is incomplete," the report said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Iraq considers deepening military ties with Russia Posted: 06 Feb 2020 11:49 AM PST  Iraq and Russia discussed prospects for deepening military coordination, Iraq's Defense Ministry said Thursday, amid a strain in Baghdad-Washington relations after a U.S. airstrike killed a top Iranian general inside Iraq. The ministry statement followed a meeting in Baghdad between Iraqi army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Othman Al-Ghanimi and Russian Ambassador Maksim Maksimov, as well as a newly arrived defense attache. The meeting comes during an uncertain moment in the future of Iraq-U.S. military relations, following the Jan. 3 U .S. drone strike that killed Iran's most powerful military commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and Iraqi senior militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis near Baghdad airport.
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| Deported to death: US sent 138 Salvadorans home to be killed Posted: 06 Feb 2020 10:08 AM PST  At least 138 people deported from the United States to El Salvador since 2013 have been killed, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch, which investigates human rights abuses worldwide. The 117-page report also says at least 70 of the more than 200 deportees tracked by researchers were sexually assaulted, tortured or kidnapped. Many victims were asylum-seekers attacked or killed by the gangs they originally fled. The findings show that "the U.S. is repeatedly violating its obligations to protect Salvadorans from return to serious risk of harm," Human Rights Watch says. The group used court records, police reports, interviews with victims and their families and news articles to document the fates of these deportees. It is the first systematic effort to find out what happened to Salvadorans whose asylum claims were rejected in U.S. immigration courts because they failed to demonstrate "credible fear" of violence in El Salvador. International asylum laws created after the Holocaust require countries to take in people who are persecuted for their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.El Salvador has one of the world's highest homicide rates. It is one of the main sources of migration to the U.S.As part of its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration in September signed an agreement with El Salvador requiring the Central American country to keep asylum seekers there while they await the results of their asylum claims. But the murders of 138 deportees belie any notion that El Salvador can protect citizens who are under threat. Roots of impunityRoughly the size of New Jersey, El Salvador is densely populated and highly connected by cellphone service and social media. The vulnerable groups protected under international asylum law cannot easily go under the radar or relocate if targeted by gangs, corrupt police or domestic abusers.Hundreds of Salvadorans are killed every month. Murders, disappearances and tortures almost always go unsolved in El Salvador. Criminals, especially those with access to power, are rarely punished for their wrongdoing.I have documented this culture of impunity across Central America and Mexico, focusing on the indigenous people, women and political dissidents who are so often victims of political violence. This violence dates back centuries, to Spain's bloody conquest of the Americas. As in the U.S., colonial-era brutality has lasting impacts on the region's race, class and gender divisions.In 1932, the massacre of indigenous Salvadorans and leftists who rebelled against dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez left between 10,000 and 30,000 dead.Communist Party member Farabundo Martí, who led Salvadoran peasant farmers in their revolt against political corruption and unjust resource allocation, was assassinated after the massacre. But the struggle continued.By the 1970s, dissident factions again organized against state oppression. United as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, these groups eventually waged war on the ruling ARENA party, which they blamed for oppressing the Salvadoran working class.The subsequent Salvadoran civil war killed 75,000 people. In 1992, with intensive military support from the United States, ARENA defeated the rebels. The 1992 El Salvador peace accords, overseen by the United Nations, were meant to bring national reconciliation. A truth commission documented widespread human rights abuses committed by state and paramilitary forces during the war. But days after the report was released, in 1993, El Salvador's ARENA-controlled congress passed an amnesty law that excused most government and military officials.As a result, the root causes of El Salvador's conflict – particularly, unequal access to insufficient resources – still plague society. So does the very weak rule of law that allowed civil war criminals to go unpunished.Neither the rightist or leftist governments that have held power since have managed to change this.El Salvador's defense minister recently assessed that there are more gang members than soldiers in his country. Police in El Salvador are extremely aggressive in pursuing them, and civilians can get caught in the crossfire, Human Rights Watch finds.The resulting dangerous disarray sent 46,800 residents to seek asylum in the U.S. last year. Risking the unknown violence of migration over guaranteed violence at home is, for many Salvadorans, a logical decision. Human securityCrime and violence in El Salvador has declined since President Nayib Bukele took office in June 2019, according to the government.The president credits his tough-on-gangs policing with improving security in the country. But some crime analysts say the apparent drop in homicides is actually a manipulation of crime data. The government recently changed how it counts murders, eliminating deaths that result from confrontation with security forces – police killings – from the homicide category. In any case, levels of violence in El Salvador are still among the world's highest. Police regularly turn a blind eye to violence by gang members, including both MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, either due to corruption or concern for their own safety. As a result, Salvadoran police frequently fail to meaningfully protect people from gang violence. In these circumstances, deporting Salvadoran asylum-seekers may violate an international law called "non-refoulement."According to the 1954 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, which both the U.S. and El Salvador signed, states cannot expel refugees to a territory "where his life or freedom would be threatened." Migrants know El Salvador can't protect them. That, of course, is why they flee. Now the United States government has to know that, too.This is an updated version of an article originally published Oct. 10, 2019.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * In Central America, gangs like MS-13 are bad – but corrupt politicians may be worse * Why is El Salvador so dangerous? 4 essential readsMneesha Gellman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Chemical weapons watchdog report criticizes leaks Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:54 AM PST ![Chemical weapons watchdog report criticizes leaks]( "Chemical weapons watchdog report criticizes leaks") An independent investigation into leaks that raised questions over the global chemical weapons watchdog's conclusion that chlorine was used in a notorious 2018 attack in Syria has criticized two former officials responsible for releasing classified information, the organization's chief said Thursday. Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Director-General Fernando Arias told members that he stands by the conclusions of a Fact-Finding Mission issued on March 1 last year that found "reasonable grounds" that a toxic chemical was used in Douma on April 7, 2018.
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| Experts scramble, but new virus vaccine may not come in time Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:32 AM PST |
| German state premier quits after 'unforgivable' far right vote Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:00 AM PST  The premier of Germany's Thuringia state stepped down and called for snap elections Thursday, barely 24 hours after he was elected with the help of far-right AfD lawmakers in a vote Angela Merkel called "unforgivable". Thomas Kemmerich, from the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), said he would apply for the regional parliament to be dissolved in response to the outrage over his appointment, which drew comparisons with the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s. "We want new elections to remove the stain of the AfD's support from the office of the premiership," he told reporters, adding that his resignation was "unavoidable".
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| Political Fallout in Germany Intensifies Over Far-Right Pact Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:47 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The fallout over a controversial alignment of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats with the right-wing AfD now shifts to Berlin after the politician at the center of the crisis became the first victim.Just one day after a shock vote in Thuringia sparked outrage, the Free Democrats' Thomas Kemmerich said he will step down as the state's premier and seek new elections. Christian Lindner, his party's chairman, is in the firing line and called an emergency leadership meeting on Friday in the German capital to decide whether he should remain in charge.CDU leadership will also convene on Friday to determine a way forward after the local state chapter defied orders from Berlin. That heaps pressure on Chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was already struggling to sustain her position as Merkel's heir.German politics was upended on Wednesday when for the first time a state premier was appointed with the far right's help. The surprise move involved the CDU and the Free Democrats deposing the incumbent leader in the state of Thuringia with the backing of the Alternative for Germany party. The move broke a taboo among established parties, which had all vowed not to work with the AfD."There can be no question, Thuringia needs a new beginning," Paul Ziemiak, general secretary of the Christian Democrats, told reporters Thursday in Berlin. "For the CDU, this new beginning can only take place on the basis of the decisions of our party conference."The turmoil reflects the tense state of German politics as the AfD makes inroads and Merkel prepares to retire from politics at the end of her term in 2021 at the latest. During a state visit to South Africa, Merkel weighed in, calling the action of her party's state chapter "unforgivable" and said it should be reversed.In a five-minute press conference in Thuringia's capital of Erfurt, Kemmerich reiterated that his party won't cooperate with the AfD, even after the anti-immigration party helped him into office. The FDP barely garnered enough votes to enter the state legislature and needed the unprecedented alliance to narrowly beat Bodo Ramelow from the Left party."We want to hold a new election to remove the stain of the AfD's support," Kemmerich said. Asked whether he'd made a mistake by accepting the post, he responded: "No."While Kemmerich's move opens the door to elections, the motion would still need to find support in parliament, where the FDP only has five members in the fragmented 90-seat body. The Left has the most seats with 29, and the AfD is second with 22.Merkel's coalition partners scheduled a crisis meeting for Saturday to talk about the consequences of the events in Thuringia. The issue provides an opening for the Social Democrats, the reluctant junior partner, to gain political capital."The CDU leader must show that she has her party under control," SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil told Spiegel. If she can't control the Thuringian branch, then "she's a queen without a country. We'll hold her to that standard."The AfD, which switched support from its own candidate to back Kemmerich, sent shockwaves across the political spectrum and sent thousands of protesters onto the streets in Erfurt and in cites including Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.Historical EchoesBjoern Hoecke, the AfD's controversial state leader, was the mastermind behind the shock move. A notorious figure from the hard-right nationalist wing, he has made headlines by assailing Germany's guilt complex, referring to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a "monument of shame." A German court ruled in September that he could be legally called a "fascist."In a post on Twitter after losing the vote, Ramelow alluded to the fact that the Nazis were first part of a state government in Thuringia, with the success there used as a model for their national power grab. The post included a photo of Hoecke congratulating Kemmerich below a picture of Adolf Hitler shaking hands with then President Paul von Hindenburg.Thirty years after reunification, Thuringia -- like most of the former communist states -- still struggles with lower wages, an exodus of young people and the sense of being second-class to the more affluent West. The AfD has exploited these shortcomings in state elections in the region this fall.The anti-establishment party, which has swept into national parliament and all 16 state assemblies in recent years, came in second place in Thuringia last October. Its inroads meant that Ramelow's anti-capitalist Left no longer had a majority to lead a coalition with the SPD and the Greens.The state of 2.2 million people borders Bavaria to its south and is home to some of Germany's most valuable cultural heritage, including its literary capital in Weimar and Wartburg Castle near Eisenach, where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German.The emotion of the political rupture was evident after the vote. With Kemmerich receiving congratulations, Left's caucus leader in Thuringia tossed a bouquet of flowers at his feet and walked off without shaking his hand.To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net;Arne Delfs in Erfurt at adelfs@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Chris Reiter, Raymond ColittFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| UN envoy says push continues toward cease-fire deal in Libya Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:46 AM PST  The U.N.'s special representative for Libya said Thursday the country's warring sides are working to turn a provisional cease-fire into a formal agreement as they emerged from four days of talks, a prospect that appears to face steep obstacles. Ghassan Salame, head of the United Nations support mission in Libya, said rival military leaders are negotiating the remaining sticking points in a cease-fire deal. Another unresolved issue, he said, is how to deal with heavy weaponry, which powerful foreign backers continue sending to Libya, despite their pledges not to at a high-profile summit last month in Berlin.
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| Ex-official for notorious Syria rebels got visa to France Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:45 AM PST ![Ex-official for notorious Syria rebels got visa to France]( "Ex-official for notorious Syria rebels got visa to France") The one-time spokesman for the notorious Syrian rebel faction the Army of Islam , who was arrested in southern France last week and charged with torture and war crimes, arrived in the country on a short-term visa, the French Foreign Ministry said Thursday. The ministry said during an online briefing that Islam Alloush was issued a "short-term visa ... based on a complete file, after questioning by the appropriate ministerial services." The request was reportedly made at the French consulate in Istanbul. It wasn't immediately clear whether Alloush had traveled beyond France, or when he arrived.
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| Brexit Bulletin: Raab Talks Up Huge Win-Win Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:28 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.What's Happening? After the lofty rhetoric of Brexit day, we're getting a sense of what a trade negotiation might feel like.It's less than a week after Brexit and the stage sets for upcoming trade talks are being built. There is much to be done: As well as hammering out a high-speed free-trade agreement with the European Union over the next 11 months, Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants the U.K. to undertake an ambitious multipronged set of trade negotiations with other major nations.Johnson has long argued that the ability to strike trade deals is one of the great prizes of leaving the European Union, and he is prioritizing agreements with the U.S., Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He wants the right to diverge from EU rules, theoretically allowing Britain room to negotiate with multiple partners at the same time. (Sometimes referred to as a sort of three-dimensional chess game.)Taking up the mantle on Thursday was International Trade Secretary Liz Truss, explaining how Britain wants mutually beneficial tariff cuts while protecting "sensitive" U.K. products. Simultaneously, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was deployed to Australia, which he hailed as a "natural partner" for the U.K. "The scope for win-win is huge," Raab said.Truss announced plans to simplify import tariffs after the post-Brexit transition period expires on Dec. 31, and Britain will be able to set its own rates. The smallest tariffs would be abolished, as would those on key components and on goods which the U.K. doesn't produce itself. Other rates would be rounded down to the nearest 2.5% under the plans, which are open to public consultation until March 5.None of this is especially controversial, and the devil will be in the detail. There was clear daylight between Johnson and EU Brexit lead Michel Barnier when they set out their opening positions earlier this week. For some, that heralds trouble ahead. For others, a way forward lurks amid the rhetoric.Beyond BrexitThe best way to avoid the coronavirus on flights is not to wear face masks or rubber gloves. One writer used dark web ransomware to sabotage his editor. Here's how he did it. Kodak is back—at the Oscars, at least. Several of this year's best picture contenders were shot on Kodak film.Brexit in BriefChange in Dublin? | Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is poised to lose Saturday's election, betting odds indicate, with the party that oversaw the nation's international bailout set to return to power. Paddy Power odds give Micheal Martin, who leads the biggest opposition party, Fianna Fail, a 94% chance of heading the government.Bomb Plot Probe | Police in Northern Ireland are investigating a possible plot to blow up a truck on the day the U.K. formally left the European Union, broadcaster RTE reported Thursday.Dream On | The U.K.'s ambition to lift economic growth toward its post-war average of almost 3% is "quite unrealistic," the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said.Profiled, Again | What goes on inside the head of Dominic Cummings, Johnson's chief strategist? The Guardian is the latest to have a go at decoding his many thoughts. For the record, Bloomberg, the FT, the Telegraph, BBC Radio 4, New Statesman, Politico, CNN and Tortoise have already been there.Rebecca Long Way Behind | Left-wing Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey is placed last among Labour voters in a London Evening Standard/Ipsos MORI poll. However, Labour members will elect the new leader, not just party voters — and that could boost Long-Bailey's chances.Peerage Politics | It feels like just yesterday that Boris Johnson was sacking Philip Hammond as chancellor and throwing him and pro-European Tory grandee Ken Clarke out of the parliamentary party. Now the prime minister is nominating both men to the House of Lords, the BBC reports.Language Matters | Fresh from attempting to divide and conquer the Westminster press pack, Downing Street has made another attempt to rewrite the language of Brexit. After Johnson effectively banned the use of the B-word itself, the latest phrase under the microscope is that old favorite, "no deal." According to The Sun, No. 10 instead prefers "non-negotiable outcome."Want to keep up with Brexit?You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter, and listen to Bloomberg Westminster every weekday. It's live at midday on Bloomberg Radio and is available as a podcast too. Share the Brexit Bulletin: Colleagues, friends and family can sign up here. For full EU coverage, try the Brussels Edition.For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close.To contact the authors of this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.netAdam Blenford in London at ablenford@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Guy Collins at guycollins@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Walmart shooting suspect charged with federal hate crimes Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:18 AM PST  The man accused of killing 22 people and wounding two dozen more in a shooting that targeted Mexicans in the border city of El Paso, Texas, has been charged with federal hate crimes. Patrick Crusius, 21, has been charged with 90 counts under federal hate crime and firearms laws for his role in the Aug. 3 shooting that authorities said was aimed at scaring Hispanics into leaving the United States, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday. Federal prosecutors announced the charges against Crusius of Allen, Texas, at a Thursday news conference in El Paso.
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| A Far-Right Coup Galvanizes German Democracy Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:16 AM PST ![A Far-Right Coup Galvanizes German Democracy]( "A Far-Right Coup Galvanizes German Democracy") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Germans should be proud of the democracy they've built since 1949, as they behold the dramatic events unfolding in the otherwise sleepy regional capital of Erfurt, in the eastern state of Thuringia. Right-wing populists may grasp for power there as they do elsewhere in Europe and the world. But political culture in Germany, built upon the ruins of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, appears to be resolutely staring them down.It was only yesterday, on Feb. 5, that a far-right populist party, the AfD, engineered a tactical coup in the Thuringian state parliament that could have, or so it hoped, normalized extremism in German politics. But within hours, Germany's entire political mainstream stood up in defiance. Protesters took to the streets in Erfurt, Berlin and other cities. By today, the coup was all but undone, and the country seems more united than ever against extremism.The AfD's parliamentary maneuver involved secretly switching its support in the third round of balloting, thereby toppling the incumbent premier and helping instead to elect the obscure candidate of another party, the liberal Free Democrats, which has the smallest contingent in the chamber. His name is Thomas Kemmerich. Whether or not he had had a hunch of the AfD's scheme is unclear.What is perfectly clear, however, is the national reaction. Leaders of the three parties on the left condemned the trick as "political arson." So did the leaders of the conservative parties. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the boss of the Christian Democrats and a candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, chastised her party's Thuringian branch, which had also voted for Kemmerich, for acting against party policy. Her general secretary referred to parts of the AfD as "Nazis" on public TV. Merkel herself called the move "unforgivable." Even leaders of the Free Democrats said that any political office that even implicitly relied on support from the AfD was unacceptable.Kemmerich, a previously untested regional politician who had campaigned by flaunting his bald pate and cowboy boots, understood he had no hope of building and maintaining a governing majority. He also grasped that his path to power — with the AfD's "perfidious trick," as he called it — was never going to be considered legitimate. So, today, he offered his resignation. His own Free Democrats will table a motion to dissolve the Thuringian parliament and call for new elections.How the Thuringians will vote remains to be seen. But it seems likely that they now realize that politics in their state, often considered a backwater, has national and even continental significance. They may feel a special call to responsibility.What, though, does this episode say about German democracy as such? Its postwar constitution, drafted under the benevolent tutelage of the American conquerors-turned-protectors, was written to be a much stronger bulwark against extremism than the Weimar Republic's was. But democracy needs not only the letter but also the spirit of liberal institutions. Hitler never formally abolished Weimar's constitution, he just ignored it. The Caesers, Julius and Octavian, never got rid of elections, tribunes, senators or praetors, they just made them all irrelevant until Octavian became princeps, the unofficial "first," better known as Emperor Augustus.As democracies age, they seem to grow lazy about infusing the letter of their freedoms with the requisite spirit, as many Americans, Germans and others were reminded this week, when the U.S. Senate acquitted an impeached president without even admitting witnesses first. Technically, Kemmerich's election by the Thuringian legislature was also perfectly legal. Members of parliament, in free and secret ballots, were simply casting their votes. And yet it immediately became clear that the AfD's chicanery betrayed the soul of German democracy and mocked the will of the Thuringian electorate. As if they'd been training for 75 years, Germans instinctively started doing the right things.To contact the author of this story: Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Melissa Pozsgay at mpozsgay@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andreas Kluth is a member of Bloomberg's editorial board. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| A Far-Right Coup Galvanizes German Democracy Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:16 AM PST ![A Far-Right Coup Galvanizes German Democracy]( "A Far-Right Coup Galvanizes German Democracy") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Germans should be proud of the democracy they've built since 1949, as they behold the dramatic events unfolding in the otherwise sleepy regional capital of Erfurt, in the eastern state of Thuringia. Right-wing populists may grasp for power there as they do elsewhere in Europe and the world. But political culture in Germany, built upon the ruins of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, appears to be resolutely staring them down.It was only yesterday, on Feb. 5, that a far-right populist party, the AfD, engineered a tactical coup in the Thuringian state parliament that could have, or so it hoped, normalized extremism in German politics. But within hours, Germany's entire political mainstream stood up in defiance. Protesters took to the streets in Erfurt, Berlin and other cities. By today, the coup was all but undone, and the country seems more united than ever against extremism.The AfD's parliamentary maneuver involved secretly switching its support in the third round of balloting, thereby toppling the incumbent premier and helping instead to elect the obscure candidate of another party, the liberal Free Democrats, which has the smallest contingent in the chamber. His name is Thomas Kemmerich. Whether or not he had had a hunch of the AfD's scheme is unclear.What is perfectly clear, however, is the national reaction. Leaders of the three parties on the left condemned the trick as "political arson." So did the leaders of the conservative parties. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the boss of the Christian Democrats and a candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, chastised her party's Thuringian branch, which had also voted for Kemmerich, for acting against party policy. Her general secretary referred to parts of the AfD as "Nazis" on public TV. Merkel herself called the move "unforgivable." Even leaders of the Free Democrats said that any political office that even implicitly relied on support from the AfD was unacceptable.Kemmerich, a previously untested regional politician who had campaigned by flaunting his bald pate and cowboy boots, understood he had no hope of building and maintaining a governing majority. He also grasped that his path to power — with the AfD's "perfidious trick," as he called it — was never going to be considered legitimate. So, today, he offered his resignation. His own Free Democrats will table a motion to dissolve the Thuringian parliament and call for new elections.How the Thuringians will vote remains to be seen. But it seems likely that they now realize that politics in their state, often considered a backwater, has national and even continental significance. They may feel a special call to responsibility.What, though, does this episode say about German democracy as such? Its postwar constitution, drafted under the benevolent tutelage of the American conquerors-turned-protectors, was written to be a much stronger bulwark against extremism than the Weimar Republic's was. But democracy needs not only the letter but also the spirit of liberal institutions. Hitler never formally abolished Weimar's constitution, he just ignored it. The Caesers, Julius and Octavian, never got rid of elections, tribunes, senators or praetors, they just made them all irrelevant until Octavian became princeps, the unofficial "first," better known as Emperor Augustus.As democracies age, they seem to grow lazy about infusing the letter of their freedoms with the requisite spirit, as many Americans, Germans and others were reminded this week, when the U.S. Senate acquitted an impeached president without even admitting witnesses first. Technically, Kemmerich's election by the Thuringian legislature was also perfectly legal. Members of parliament, in free and secret ballots, were simply casting their votes. And yet it immediately became clear that the AfD's chicanery betrayed the soul of German democracy and mocked the will of the Thuringian electorate. As if they'd been training for 75 years, Germans instinctively started doing the right things.To contact the author of this story: Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Melissa Pozsgay at mpozsgay@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andreas Kluth is a member of Bloomberg's editorial board. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| States use Catholic clergy abuse lists to screen applicants Posted: 06 Feb 2020 07:25 AM PST |
| NIreland police say IRA dissidents planned Brexit truck bomb Posted: 06 Feb 2020 06:03 AM PST ![NIreland police say IRA dissidents planned Brexit truck bomb]( "NIreland police say IRA dissidents planned Brexit truck bomb") Irish Republican Army dissidents planted a bomb on a truck that was intended to explode on the day Britain left the European Union last week, police in Northern Ireland said Thursday. The Police Service of Northern Ireland said a Belfast newspaper had received a call Friday — Brexit day — saying there was a bomb on a truck at Belfast docks. After a search lasting into the next day, police found a bomb aboard a truck at an industrial park in the Northern Ireland town of Lurgan.
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| Iran Has a Liberal Movement—And America Has Ignored Them For Years Posted: 06 Feb 2020 05:40 AM PST  After decades of conflict, recently escalated to near-war, it appears there's little chance that U.S. relations with Iran will ever improve. For 40 years, the relationship between the U.S. and Iran has been marked by disagreement – but also by a series of missed opportunities. If, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleges, the U.S. has been worried about the Iranian regime for the past 40 years, why didn't U.S. policies and policymakers support Iran's numerous voices – growing louder and larger – calling for support to overthrow the hardline Islamists in power?
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| An anti-Putin blogger was murdered in a French hotel, and the killing has the hallmarks of the Russian hit squad causing chaos in Europe Posted: 06 Feb 2020 05:28 AM PST  Imran Aliev, a 44-year-old Chechen blogger who opposed both Vladimir Putin and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, was murdered in Lille last week.
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| Egypt officials say 13 killed in Aswan road accident Posted: 06 Feb 2020 05:26 AM PST ![Egypt officials say 13 killed in Aswan road accident]( "Egypt officials say 13 killed in Aswan road accident") Thirteen people were killed and seven injured Thursday when a bus and a truck collided on a highway in Egypt's southern Aswan province, a health official said. Ihab Hanafy, a Health Ministry undersecretary, said the bodies were transferred to the morgue of a local hospital and the injured were receiving treatment. Thursday's collision was the second road accident in Aswan in less than a week.
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| What Went Wrong for Joe Biden in Iowa Posted: 06 Feb 2020 05:17 AM PST  DES MOINES, Iowa -- Maybe it was the threat of bad weather. Maybe it was a seating assignment debacle. Maybe it was a struggling campaign organization that still had not found its footing.But as Joe Biden spoke at a major Iowa Democratic Party dinner in November, one thing was clear: His support appeared tepid compared with the vocal cheering sections of his biggest rivals. The reception angered Biden and his top aides -- and it left little doubt about his standing, three months before the nominating process in the Democratic presidential race would begin: The former vice president was in deep trouble in Iowa.Two days after the dinner, Biden ripped into his campaign chairman, Steve Ricchetti, according to a person familiar with the conversation. And at the Biden headquarters in Philadelphia, senior officials sternly told staff members they needed to step up their performance.The dinner's damaging optics marked the beginning of a flurry of changes: Trusted aides were deployed to Iowa sooner than anticipated. Biden rescheduled time with donors to make space for a bus tour in Iowa. Former Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and his wife, Christie, major players in Iowa Democratic politics, announced their Biden endorsements.It was too late.Biden's performance in the Iowa caucuses on Monday dealt a damaging blow to the former vice president; with more than 90% of the results counted by Wednesday night, he trailed Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, with Sen. Amy Klobuchar not far behind."I am not going to sugarcoat it," Biden said Wednesday as he campaigned in New Hampshire. "We took a gut punch in Iowa."Certainly over the past year, Biden has proved far more resilient than many expected. He has led national polls for months despite verbal gaffes, scrutiny of his long and sometimes controversial record in Washington, and a relentless assault from Republicans over his son's dealings in Ukraine. The slow drip of vote totals in Iowa -- and a swirl of other major news events -- may blunt the attention on Biden's challenges. And Iowa is an overwhelmingly white state, while Biden's biggest political strength is with black voters, whom he is counting on for support in later-voting, more diverse states.But he now faces jittery donors, an uncertain landscape in upcoming Democratic contests and a sharp challenge to the central argument of his campaign message: that he is the party's strongest candidate to win a general election.Interviews with more than a dozen advisers, allies and Iowa strategists show that Biden was late in focusing on Iowa, put together an organization there that fell well short of his top rivals' and that his core pitch about electability and experience was not enough to persuade voters who wanted a fresh face or more boldly progressive ideas.Biden was also a less-than-inspiring presence on the trail, according to some voters, struggling at times in the homestretch to deliver crisp, energetic, on-message performances.Late Start Proves CostlyWhen Biden announced his candidacy on April 25, some of his chief rivals had already been running for months.His late start had long-lasting consequences, according to some of his supporters."He could have been here sooner and more aggressively," said Vilsack, who became Biden's top surrogate in the state. "Because this is all about relationships.""It was frustrating that they weren't seeming to reach more people," added Susan Judkins, a member of the Clive City Council. "Some of the other campaigns had been getting momentum. They had hired staffers who are known to Iowans, who had an ability to influence."When he did get to the state over the summer and into the fall, Biden's team produced carefully managed events. He traveled with a phalanx of staff members, sometimes used teleprompters and typically spoke from behind rope lines. None of that prevented a series of verbal stumbles in Iowa in August -- but according to some of his allies, it did keep Biden from showing off his biggest strength: his retail politicking skills."I've had that conversation at least since the end of May, beginning part of the summer, that Joe would do better and has always done better meeting with people," said state Rep. Bruce Hunter, a staunch Biden ally who said he made that case to Biden's state campaign leadership. "He needed to get out more, talk to smaller groups of people, listen to them, give his vision one-on-one to people."Yet no amount of glad-handing could remedy an organization that even his supporters here found frustrating."His campaign is not a good campaign," Roxanna Moritz, the Scott County auditor and a Biden supporter, said late last month. "They're not embedding loyalty to the organization, he doesn't do groundwork."She said that the campaign was "not returning phone calls, no follow through.""It's kind of sad because I really do think he is the right person," she added.By the fall, Biden's advisers felt that their campaign organization in Iowa had steadied -- but events in Washington took him down a detour that no one could have foreseen, or prevented.On Sept. 21, more than 1,000 Biden supporters assembled at the Polk County Steak Fry, featuring the kind of chummy interaction in which Biden is at his best.But their efforts were overshadowed by news that President Donald Trump had asked Ukraine to investigate Biden's son, Hunter Biden, a story that would consume the campaign for months. That night, a Des Moines Register poll revealed that Biden had slipped from first place in Iowa, overtaken by Warren of Massachusetts.Biden spent the next weeks grappling with the best way to respond to the Ukraine controversy. And party officials continued to describe his Iowa organization as scattershot, an issue thrown into sharp relief at the party dinner in November, the Liberty and Justice Celebration.Biden's team said that it had around 1,200 people in the arena, many of whom went on to become precinct captains and dedicated volunteers. But the empty seats and the smaller and less boisterous Biden sections spread throughout the arena cut a sharp contrast with the loud, unified crowds of Warren and Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, in a major test of organizational strength.More damaging than the evident differences in crowd strength was what many Iowa Democrats were seeing for the first time in person: a once-fiery candidate who was looking his age compared with a number of his younger rivals.A Key Endorsement, and Some AdviceBiden's campaign could do little to alter the presentation of a candidate who was given to meandering into verbal cul-de-sacs even in his prime.But they concluded that they needed to better display Biden's strong interpersonal skills, and to connect with more moderate voters who live in rural areas.Vilsack, the former governor, had long advocated that approach, joining with his wife to advise their old friend to spend time in small towns during a private conversation last spring.After spending months meeting with candidates, the Vilsacks -- who supported Biden in his first presidential campaign, in 1987 -- informed Biden in a phone call that they would endorse him, impressed with his rural policy proposal, his empathy and his "capacity to take a punch."Behind the scenes, they offered the campaign leadership two major pieces of advice."One, you need to be out there in all parts of the state," Vilsack said. "And two, you need to spend time with voters in a way that they will get to know you.''After Thanksgiving, the Vilsacks joined Biden on a bus trip, called the "No Malarkey" tour, across rural parts of the state where the Biden campaign saw chances to accrue delegates.The trip revealed strategic openings for the campaign, officials said. They spotted an opportunity with Latino voters in Storm Lake, Iowa, and were reminded to accentuate Biden's advantage with Catholics in Dubuque.The problem: Those lessons were arriving with just weeks to capitalize on them. Other candidates had already spent many months trying to win over the state's Democratic caucusgoers."Had he done the 'No Malarkey' tour in the summertime, you may never have seen that Elizabeth Warren bounce," said Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., who supports Biden.Jesse Harris, a senior Biden Iowa adviser, said the timing was designed to coincide with when caucusgoers intensified their focus on the race. "The vice president did spend quite a bit of time in the state," he said. "Obviously, he got into the race a bit later than the other candidates, so two or three months behind when he first visited the state compared to others. But we were actively here in Iowa.""The bus tour," he added, "was a very visible extension of what we were already doing."Disappointing Some SupportersAs 2020 arrived, there were some encouraging developments, building on what the campaign saw as post-bus tour momentum.On Jan. 2, Rep. Abby Finkenauer, a Democrat who in 2018 had flipped an eastern Iowa district, endorsed Biden, signaling that candidates in the toughest races believed Biden was their safest bet at the top of the ticket. Rep. Cindy Axne, a Democrat from another competitive Iowa district, later followed suit.And tensions with Iran propelled national security matters into the spotlight, playing into Biden's message of experience.Yet even as Biden continued to land high-profile endorsements, Sanders of Vermont was on the rise, expanding his progressive support and seeking to cut into Biden's base of blue-collar workers by attacking his record on Social Security, pointing out that he had occasionally entertained freezes to the program. The specter of a possible conflict with Iran allowed Sanders to continually remind voters that Biden had approved the use of force in Iraq.A New York Times/Siena College poll released late last month found that even in eastern Iowa -- home to many white working-class voters with whom Biden expected to be strong -- he was struggling.Before the 2016 campaign, David Plouffe, Barack Obama's former campaign manager, had warned Biden, according to an article in The Atlantic, "Do you really want it to end in a hotel room in Des Moines, coming in third to Bernie Sanders?"In the final weeks before the 2020 caucuses, Plouffe's warning was starting to sound prescient.Recognizing the need to win new supporters, Biden's Iowa director, Jake Braun, floated a deal over dinner in Des Moines with an adviser to Klobuchar of Minnesota. The two moderate Democrats should form an alliance, Braun suggested a week before the vote, and urge their supporters to back the other if one of them did not advance to the final round in a precinct.Klobuchar's camp quickly shot down the prospect when the story leaked, and Braun, who had already been marginalized by Biden's national campaign, found himself isolated by his enraged superiors, who had warned him not to freelance, according to a person familiar with internal discussions.Sue Dvorsky, a former Iowa Democratic chair, had backed Sen. Kamala Harris of California. After Harris dropped out, Dvorsky said she was inclined to support Biden, whom she and her husband had met when he ran for president in 1987.But Dvorsky was appalled at the state of Biden's organization, which was lacking precinct captains even in her own heavily Democratic community. Last week she endorsed Warren."This has been a sloppy effort that was always aimed at a general election," she said of Biden's organization, deeming it worse than his first two Iowa campaigns. "Right now, they're bringing in hundreds of people from out of state -- not to be canvassers but to be precinct captains."Even some of Biden's high-profile supporters were perplexed by the campaign's choices, which included dispatching a number of his former Senate colleagues, all of them white men over 70, to stump for him in the Iowa campaign's final days.On the Saturday before the caucuses, Judkins had an uneasy feeling about the decision her state was about to make. She had spent the day knocking on doors with a host of prominent Biden supporters from across the country. She came away impressed by what her colleagues had told her -- that Biden had more support and organizational strength in later-voting states. She wished they had come to Iowa sooner."I said to my husband, 'I feel like all of these people from around the country are coming in to try to save us from ourselves,'" she said when they went out that evening. "Here we are, going out dancing. Kind of like the Titanic, the ship going down."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Scotland’s Finance Secretary Quits Over ‘Predatory’ Texts to 16-Year-Old Schoolboy Posted: 06 Feb 2020 05:02 AM PST  Derek Mackay started the week as Scotland's powerful finance secretary who has long been tipped to be the country's next leader. On Thursday, he was due to deliver a showpiece budget statement and further solidify his position as next-in-line—and possibly as the man to lead Scotland to independence in the wake of Brexit. Instead, his career lies in ruins after it was revealed he sent hundreds of "predatory" texts to a 16-year-old schoolboy.Mackay, one of the most recognizable lawmakers from the pro-independence Scottish National Party, has admitted he "behaved foolishly" and has submitted his resignation to First Minister and party leader Nicola Sturgeon. He was left with no other option after the Scottish Sun exposed screens of text messages, including one telling the unnamed boy he was "really cute" and inviting him to dinner and a rugby match with him.The transcripts show Mackay repeatedly messaged the boy on a number of platforms for six months, despite some responses from the teenager in which he clearly expressed his discomfort. Mackay reportedly contacted the boy after having had no prior contact, and kept messaging him even after the teen revealed he was just 16 and told Mackay not to "try anything."In the most damning part of the transcript, Mackay asked the boy, "And our chats are between us?" before following up with: "Cool, to be honest I think you are really cute," then encouraging him to delete the message.In all, Mackay sent 270 messages to the schoolboy. The lawmaker complimented the boy's haircut, informed him of his sexuality, and invited the kid to be his guest at an official parliamentary rugby event. Mackay also messaged the boy on Christmas Day, sending a number of messages, including one just before midnight that said: "You still up."The creepy messages were publicly exposed after the boy's mother learned what was happening and told the newspaper. She told the Scottish Sun: "If I could speak to [Mackay], I would ask him 'Why? Why did you do this?' I worry about what would have happened if my son had sent him back a message he wanted to hear. You can see he tries again and again—like he is trying to get my son to change his mind about something."Following the report, Mackay apologized to the boy's family and resigned.In a statement to ` Scotland's devolved parliament on Thursday, Sturgeon confirmed that she'd accepted Mackay's resignation from her government, and said that he has also been suspended by the party while it carries out further investigations. However, he remains a member of the Scottish parliament—a fact that provoked fury from opposition leaders.Scottish Conservative party leader Jackson Carlaw said that, not only should Mackay stand down from the parliament, his messages could "constitute the grooming of a young individual." Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said Mackay "abused his power," calling his actions "predatory."The scandal has rocked the Scottish National Party and Scotland's devolved government at a pivotal time. It's pushing for another referendum on Scottish independence following Britain's withdrawal from the European Union last week. In the 2016 referendum on Europe, Scottish voters overwhelmingly backed remaining inside the EU, and recent polling has suggested that Brexit has boosted support for independence.It also comes ahead of the trial of Alex Salmond, the country's former first minister, who for decades led the campaign for Scottish independence. He was charged last year with two counts of attempted rape and several counts of sexual assault. That trial is set to begin in March.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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| U.K. Seeks Simpler Tariffs, U.S. Deal to Boost Post-Brexit Trade Posted: 06 Feb 2020 04:40 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world threatened by trade wars. Sign up here. Boris Johnson's government sought to burnish the U.K.'s post-Brexit trade credentials as it laid out its ambitions for a deal with the U.S. and plans to make it easier for all countries to export goods to Britain.Setting out the principles that will guide talks with Washington, International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said Britain wants mutually beneficial tariff cuts while protecting "sensitive" U.K. products. It also wants to boost the British services industry and maximize access to U.S. government procurement.Johnson has long argued that the ability to strike trade deals is one of the great prizes of leaving the European Union, and is prioritizing agreements with the U.S., Japan, Australia and New Zealand this year. But his government also announced plans to relax trade access to the U.K. more widely.Under proposals announced Thursday, the U.K. would simplify import tariffs once a post-Brexit transition period with the EU expires at the end of December and Britain will be able set its own rates. The smallest tariffs would be abolished, as would those on key components and on goods which the U.K. doesn't produce itself. Other rates would be rounded down to the nearest 2.5% under the plans, which are open to public consultation until March 5."It is vitally important that we now move away from complex tariff schedule imposed on us by the European Union. High tariffs impinge on businesses and raise costs for consumers," Truss said in an emailed statement. "This is our opportunity to set our own tariff strategy that is right for U.K. consumers and businesses across our country."In a separate written statement to Parliament, Truss said the U.K. intends to "drive a hard bargain," even as it works to seal trade deals with countries accounting for 80% of Britain's trade within three years. The government must be "prepared to walk away" from negotiations if necessary, she said.Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is in Australia on Thursday to kick-start efforts to secure a trade agreement with Prime Minister Scott Morrison's administration, as part of a four-nation tour that also includes Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.Truss repeated the government's position that the state-run National Health Service "will not be on the table" in trade talks and that the U.K. will not compromise on environment, animal welfare or food standards.Talks with Australia, New Zealand and Japan "will also be a potential stepping-stone" to joining the a broader Pacific trade agreement known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, Truss said.On post-Brexit import tariffs, the Trade Department said the world's poorest nations will continue to benefit from the lower tariff access they already have to U.K. markets. Special arrangements will apply to goods entering Northern Ireland, in line with the withdrawal agreement struck with the EU, it said.The government also said it will review 43 EU trade remedy measures, deemed important to U.K. industries, including anti-dumping duties on imports of ceramic kitchenware and tableware from China.\--With assistance from Olivia Konotey-Ahulu.To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas PennyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump administration to open free-trade talks with Kenya Posted: 06 Feb 2020 03:59 AM PST  The Trump administration announced Thursday that it intends to open free-trade talks with Kenya in pursuit of what would be the first trade agreement between the United States and a nation in sub-Saharan Africa. The announcement followed a White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. When asked about the prospects for such a deal before the meeting, Trump said it "probably" would happen.
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| Syrian army enters key town as Turkey beefs up its troops Posted: 06 Feb 2020 03:10 AM PST  Syrian government troops entered a strategic town in the country's last rebel stronghold Thursday after fierce clashes with opposition fighters, even as Turkey sent reinforcements seeking to curtail the offensive, Syrian state media reported. The push by President Bashar Assad's forces into towns and villages in the northwestern Idlib province has caused the displacement of more than a half million people in just over two months, compounding a humanitarian disaster in the region packed with internally displaced people. It has also angered Turkey and risked a military confrontation between Turkish and Syrian troops.
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| The Rebel Turned Politician Who Wants to Rule Ivory Coast Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:46 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Next Africa newsletter and follow Bloomberg Africa on TwitterIn Ivory Coast, where big-man personalities dominate and switching allegiances is par for the course, Guillaume Soro -- former student leader, rebel chief and prime minister -- seems a perfect fit to one day lead the world's biggest cocoa producer.His loyalties have zigzagged over the years, from being a supporter of Laurent Gbagbo, the man who led Ivory Coast into a civil war, to backing Alassane Ouattara, who defeated Gbagbo in elections and recently accused Soro of trying to overthrow him. Soro called the allegations "pure fiction" in an emailed response to questions.Through it all, Soro, 47, has never been shy about his desire to run French-speaking West Africa's biggest economy. Last week in Paris, he announced he's planning to return to contest presidential elections in October. But there's a catch: He faces an arrest warrant on charges related to the alleged coup attempt. That's heightened concern he might try to stoke unrest as the vote approaches."The reality is that they want to exclude me," Soro said. "I won't accept it. I'll organize myself so that I can be in Ivory Coast and submit my political project to the voters."Soro is a divisive figure. Even though he's publicly asked for forgiveness for his role in a decade-long conflict that split the country into a rebel-held north and a government-run south, many Ivorians blame him for the crisis that killed thousands and destroyed the livelihoods of many others.All the same, as the youngest major politician in a country dominated by men well into their seventies, his social-media savvy and penchant for bling resonate with a new generation of voters. Last year he asked his 963,000 followers on Twitter to write a slogan and come up with a theme song for his fledgling political party.While Ouattara has overseen consistent annual economic growth of more than 7% since 2012 and transformed the main city, Abidjan, into a bustling metropolis that's attracting companies from Morocco to China, he's a taciturn 78-year-old technocrat. The main opposition leader, Henri Konan Bedie, turns 86 in May."Soro is somewhat of an enigma in Ivorian politics; he has allied himself with many of the major actors over the years and he is extremely ambitious," said Kobi Annan, an analyst at risk consultancy Songhai Advisory in neighboring Accra, Ghana. "His age is very much in his favor."As a 33-year-old rebel leader controlling northern Ivory Coast, few took him seriously in 2005 when he received visitors sitting on a red Louis XVI chair at his shabby headquarters and declared himself prime minister. Yet just two years later, he reached his goal by making a pact with then President Gbagbo, who he had previously tried to oust.Then, in 2010, he dropped Gbagbo, whose refusal to accept his defeat in elections sparked a violent six-month standoff, and deployed his rebel force alongside French and United Nations aircraft to help Ouattara assume the presidency.That conflict -- the country's bloodiest -- paralyzed cocoa exports for months and sent prices for the commodity soaring. Ivory Coast grows about 40% of the world's cocoa.While a role as power broker in recent years appeared to set Soro on course for a high office, he suffered a fall from grace after the allegations emerged of a coup plan.In December, the state prosecutor released a recording of a 2017 phone call in which Soro allegedly discussed a plot, before issuing the arrest warrant. About 15 of his closest collaborators were detained, and anti-tank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles found in their homes. For some observers, the timing was suspiciously convenient with elections approaching."We could indeed ask legitimate questions about the period and the context chosen by the justice system to institute proceedings against Soro," said Sylvain N'Guessan, a political analyst in Abidjan.Commenting publicly on the issue for the first time this week, Ouattara told party loyalists "there's no doubt" that a coup was being planned. He declined to elaborate, saying the case was in the hands of the prosecutor.Soro quit the ruling coalition last year and resigned as speaker of parliament, a post he'd held since 2012. The rift was caused by Ouattara's decision to groom Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly as his likely successor -- if he chooses not to seek a third term, which is now allowed by a 2016 change to the constitution."The problem is that he's still too much of a rebel and not enough of a polished politician," Annan said. "Ouattara believes in Soro's potential, but he's worried that he's a little bit unpredictable and that, in an election year, is dangerous."In 2018, the discovery of a cache of weapons in a house owned by Soro's head of protocol was seen as evidence that he had backed a series of mutinies in the army, where he still has substantial support from his days as a rebel leader.Two years before that, UN investigators said he'd acquired about 300 metric tons of weapons and ammunition, an accusation he denied. The prosecutor of neighboring Burkina Faso also sought Soro's arrest over his alleged role in a short-lived coup against the then-interim government. The charges were later dropped."Will he be president one day? I very much believe so," Annan said. "He still needs to work toward gaining political and popular capital and that cannot be done from outside the country. The arrest warrant has effectively put paid to any ambition he had of being able to mount a viable challenge in the October elections."(Adds details on alleged coup plot in 13th paragraph)\--With assistance from Baudelaire Mieu and Leanne de Bassompierre.To contact the reporter on this story: Pauline Bax in Johannesburg at pbax@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Karl MaierFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| German governor elected with far-right help to step down Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:14 AM PST  A German state governor who got the job with the help of the far-right said Thursday he plans to step down and seek a new regional vote — after just a day in office that was marked by mounting criticism, including from Chancellor Angela Merkel. Thomas Kemmerich, of the small pro-business Free Democrats, was elected as governor of eastern Thuringia state by its regional legislature on Wednesday with the support of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD. It became a major embarrassment for Germany's mainstream center-right parties and revived questions about the future of the country's governing coalition.
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| 'A floating prison': Cruise of Asia ends in virus quarantine Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:49 AM PST  David Abel's 50th wedding anniversary luxury cruise began with him eating his fill and enjoying the sights of East Asia. It's ending with him quarantined in his cabin aboard the Diamond Princess for two extra weeks, eating a "lettuce sandwich with some chicken inside" and watching 20 infected people escorted off the ship, heading for hospitals for treatment of a new virus. Abel is among hundreds of passengers on two cruise ships in Japan and Hong Kong who are caught in the drama and fear about the little-understood, but fast-spreading new type of coronavirus.
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| Merkel: Conservatives siding with far right in election bad for democracy Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:43 AM PST ![Merkel: Conservatives siding with far right in election bad for democracy]( "Merkel: Conservatives siding with far right in election bad for democracy") German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that Wednesday - when a state premier was elected with support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and her conservatives - was a bad day for democracy and the outcome needed to be undone. The election of Thomas Kemmerich, a little-known liberal Free Democrat (FDP) in the eastern state of Thuringia, was the first in which a state premier won with the support of the AfD, shattering the post-war consensus among established parties of shunning the far right.
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| Giuliani & Co. Plot New Biden Probes as Trump’s Ukraine Team Lies in Ruin Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:41 AM PST  President Trump may have been acquitted by the Senate on Wednesday. But some of his allies and most prominent lieutenants are in no mood to let the Ukraine impeachment scandal go.Rudy Giuliani—Trump's personal attorney whose Biden-related digging and controversial shadow-diplomacy led directly to this president's impeachment—is very much in the category of Trumpworld's unrepentant.Giuliani, for one, is planning on "ramping up" his investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden. "It's a matter of the fair administration of justice for real," he told The Daily Beast.Giuliani did not go into details regarding what these continued private probes would entail, but the former New York mayor wasn't alone in his enthusiasm.In Giuliani's quest to uncover dirt on, or provoke a Ukrainian announcement of an investigation into, the then-frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, he openly collaborated with the fervently pro-Trump cable outlet One America News Network. In recent months, OAN launched a series with Giuliani in an effort to exonerate the president and implicate the Bidens in misconduct and "corruption," with some accusations being entirely baseless and conspiracy-theory minded. This endeavor—which included a high-profile joint trip to European countries at the height of the impeachment probe, a jaunt that freaked out various senior officials in Trump's national-security apparatus—did not end up saving the president from being impeached. And yet, the conservative news channel and Trump-propaganda vehicle doesn't appear to be through. OAN President Charles Herring said in an interview Wednesday that his network has more investigations forthcoming on the Bidens, as well.Herring said the first salvo, post-acquittal, will be another "hour-long special, part four of our series, featuring personal attorney to the president, Rudy Giuliani." He added that the team was "finishing up post-production today [Wednesday], and it will be airing this weekend… There are several [Ukrainian] individuals, Viktor Shokin, who will be featured. Andriy Derkach will be featured… And a member of the Ukrainian parliament, Oleksandr Dubinsky, is also featured."As it happens, a TV channel owned by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky had just been raided by Ukraine's security service on Wednesday. Dubinsky has close ties to both Kolomoisky and the news outlet. Some Ukrainian individuals linked the raid to Dubinsky's meeting with Giuliani in Kyiv in December, but officials working in the parliament pushed back on that claim, saying the security service was searching the channel's office for potential wiretaps that recorded the country's prime minister."We're considering another international trip, we're working on the plans right now, which would lead us to part five of our series," OAN's president added, while not commenting on whether or not Giuliani would be going on this trip, as well. "There's a number of unanswered questions… regarding Ukraine and the Bidens, among other topics. We're going to continue to dig."During his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Trump indicated that he would be seeking payback, claiming that "so many people have been hurt, and we can't let that go." Later on Fox News' America's Newsroom, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham reiterated that Trump would be using his post-impeachment speech to potentially push for probes into his political enemies. "I think he's also going to talk about just how horribly he was treated and, you know, that maybe people should pay for that," she said, adding that Trump believes that "people should be held accountable."Additionally, Trump allies on Capitol Hill have already made clear that they're itching for some payback. About an hour after Wednesday's acquittal, GOP senators Chuck Grassley (IA) and Ron Johnson (WI) announced a review regarding "potential conflicts of interest posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden and his associates during the Obama" era.It was only two weeks ago that Eric Ueland, Trump's legislative affairs director, had breezed past a group of reporters and was quoted saying, "I can't wait for the revenge."To be sure, several Trump administration officials involved in Ukraine policy have already been condemned by the White House, particularly those who participated in the House impeachment inquiry and testified on national television. President Trump described the co-operators as "human scum" and "liars." The White House Twitter account delivered a personal attack on Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, one of the White House's top Ukraine experts, smack in the middle of his testimony. Following the appearance of Fiona Hill, Trump's former top Russia adviser, White House loyalists took to social media to try and frame the former official as too emotional. But perhaps no one drew as much ire from Trump as former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who left the administration just weeks after the whistleblower complaint was released in September. Although the former official refused to cooperate with the House's inquiry in the beginning, he changed his tune later on and said he would answer questions in front of the Senate. That set off a firestorm inside the White House, where officials tried to manage not only the possibility of a Bolton appearance but his upcoming book's manuscript, which The New York Times said directly linked Trump's push for investigations in Ukraine to the freezing of military aid. "For a guy who couldn't get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn't get approved for anything since, 'begged' me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying 'Don't do it, sir,' takes the job … gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book," Trump said on Twitter just two days before the Senate voted on whether to bring Bolton in for questioning.Others entangled in the months-long Trump-Ukraine mess don't appear to have the luxury of seeking vengeance. Several of the most entrenched Trump officials ensnared in the Ukraine affair have since ditched the administration, perhaps out of fear of retribution. Others have remained at their posts, but with their roles diminished and future prospects in government thrown into question.While figures such as Giuliani have continued to meet with Ukrainian officials and politicos and plot new investigations throughout the impeachment process, other characters in the Ukraine saga—including the "three amigos"—have drawn back from public view. Some of the officials are still getting wrapped up in inquiries by outside interest groups, such as American Oversight, a Washington-based ethics watchdog that has filed numerous records requests in search of new details about the administration's communications on Ukraine.Parnas Lawyer: Giuliani Delivered Graham Letter Calling for Sanctions on Ukrainian OfficialsCurrent and former national-security officials who spoke to The Daily Beast for this story said Kurt Volker, the former envoy to Ukraine in charge of negotiations, played the biggest role on the ground in Kyiv. Volker was the most educated about the region and understood not only the historic struggles of the country but also its deep desire for reform, those officials said. But Volker resigned from the Trump administration one day after the whistleblower report was released in September. He didn't offer a public explanation for why he left.The former Ukraine envoy was the first official caught up in the saga to resign from the administration but he wasn't the last. Shortly after, a slew of Trump officials departed, including Bolton and national-security official Tim Morrison. Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, last week requested an early departure from her post. Meanwhile, top U.S. officials in Ukraine also moved on. Former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was ousted from her post in May, resigned from the administration this week while her successor, Acting Ambassador William Taylor, departed his post just days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was set to visit Ukraine and meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky. As the departures and resignations rolled out into the news, current and former officials in Ukraine have worried about the future of their relationship with Washington. Several officials told The Daily Beast they felt no one was left in the Trump administration who was passionate about improving relations between the two countries and worried the U.S. would yet again decide to freeze military aid in the future.Their worries are compounded by the fact that perhaps the only leading Trump official in a position to continue the dialogue —EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland—played a vital role in helping Trump with his political errand in Ukraine.Sondland has maintained a low profile following his blockbuster appearance in the House impeachment inquiry. Sondland, who donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee, was one of the first individuals in the Trump administration to join the push by the president to convince Ukraine to open specific investigations into Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and the 2016 presidential elections. He played a major role in trying to push Ukrainian officials to agree to Trump's demands. In a series of meetings on July 10 at the White House, Sondland created a scene when he brought up with top Ukrainian officials the need for Zelensky to agree to the investigations.Gordon Sondland Stepped In 'and Things Went Really Off the Rails'During his testimony in November, the EU ambassador quite brazenly threw his amigos and Giuliani under the bus, saying Trump's personal attorney led the backchannel effort and that he was acting on the president's orders. Sondland also corroborated other officials' testimony that Trump did, in fact, engage in a quid pro quo. To the observer, Sondland's testimony was sure to elicit blowback from President Trump. Instead, though, the president offered another form of chide.When asked by reporters about his EU Ambassador, Trump said he didn't know Sondland "very well" before adding, "Seems like a nice guy though." Although Trump didn't denounce Sondland in front of the cameras, there was an effort behind the scenes at the State Department to manage the fallout of Sondland's involvement in the Ukraine saga. The EU ambassador did not return to his post in Brussels for several weeks, two State Department officials said, and has since been asked to keep a low profile, particularly on Ukraine policy, throughout the impeachment proceedings. Then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Volker joined Sondland at Zelensky's inauguration in May. Vice President Pence was supposed to attend the ceremony but the amigos went in his place, setting the stage for what's been described publicly by national-security officials in the impeachment inquiry as an illegitimate foreign-policy backchannel. While Perry is no longer an official in the White House, his ideas on Ukraine live on in the Department of Energy. Ukrainian officials who've worked with Perry in the past have said they looked to him to help them navigate a way to become less dependent on Russian natural resources.Before he left, Perry worked on developing a plan, in coordination with Kyiv, for America to export its liquefied natural gas to Ukraine through Poland. In August, three countries agreed to co-operate on the project. Poland's representatives said the country would commit to sending 6 billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine starting in 2021. While that plan is still being crystalized, Ukraine and Poland are playing ball, or trying to. The first tanker filled with American LNG landed in Poland in November. Officials are still working behind the scenes to sort varying competing interests for contracts.Despite the bodies left in the impeachment drama's wake, by Wednesday's close of business, the president and his team were busy messaging their way through another supposed victory lap—and gleefully raking in cash off of it. "VINDICATED!" Trump texted supporters, via his 2020 campaign, on Wednesday night. "I've been acquitted from the Impeachment HOAX. We need to send a message…Donate NOW." 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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| NASA's record-setting Koch, crewmates safely back from space Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:39 AM PST  NASA astronaut Christina Koch, who spent nearly 11 months in orbit to set a record for the longest spaceflight by a woman, landed safely Thursday in Kazakhstan along with two International Space Station crewmates. The Soyuz capsule carrying Koch, station Commander Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, touched down southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 3:12 p.m. (0912 GMT). The study is important since NASA plans to return to the moon under the Artemis program and prepare for the human exploration of Mars.
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| Death toll in Turkey avalanche disaster rises to 41 Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:29 AM PST  The death toll from a pair of avalanches in eastern Turkey climbed to 41 Thursday, Turkey's disaster and emergency agency said as search teams aided by sniffer dogs scanned the avalanche field for bodies. The first avalanche late Tuesday killed five people in eastern Van province, which borders Iran. After about 300 emergency service workers were called to respond, a second avalanche struck the large rescue team near the town of Bahcesaray on Wednesday.
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| Netanyahu’s Election Hopes Rope U.S. Into Africa’s ‘Last Colony’ Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:23 AM PST ![Netanyahu's Election Hopes Rope U.S. Into Africa's 'Last Colony']( "Netanyahu's Election Hopes Rope U.S. Into Africa's 'Last Colony'") (Bloomberg) -- Israel asked the U.S. to open a consulate in Moroccan-annexed Western Sahara to help it normalize ties with the North African nation, an official said, a move that would bolster both Morocco's territorial claim and the Israeli leader's re-election bid.It's not clear if Morocco's government or Washington is on board with Israel's effort to leverage its closeness to the Trump administration to make the U.S. the only major power with a mission there, the Moroccan official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss secret communications.While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be able to point to such a move as evidence of his diplomatic acumen as he struggles to hold on to his job in next month's election, popular support in Morocco for the Palestinians' statehood cause could create significant pushback, despite the prospect for strong business and trade ties. Netanyahu's office, the Moroccan Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Embassy in Morocco had no comment.Israel's Channel 13 TV reported on Monday that Netanyahu was pushing to have the U.S. recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, which Morocco seized after colonial power Spain pulled out in 1975, in a step that isn't internationally recognized. Former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton opposed Netanyahu's push but the prime minister has raised the matter again, without receiving agreement, it said.Bought DronesThe French website Intelligence Online reported that the Moroccan military took possession last week of three Israeli-made reconnaissance drones sold via France.Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita declined to comment to lawmakers on the Channel 13 report, and in response to criticism of a possible warming of ties with Israel, retorted that Morocco's national priority was the Western Sahara and not Palestine, local media reported."We should not be more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves," the Lakome newspaper quoted Bourita as saying on Tuesday.Palestinian leaders have campaigned to isolate Israel and have watched warily as its ties with Arab and Muslim states have improved. Arab nations were tepid in their opposition to the Trump administration's Middle East peace plan unveiled last week, which goes further than previous U.S. proposals in favoring Israel's demands, including to annex occupied territory in the West Bank, the heart of the Palestinians' hoped-for state.In spite of stepped up restrictions on freedom of speech and protests, a Moroccan coalition led by Islamist Prime Minister Saad-Eddine El Othmani, major unions and the banned Justice and Spirituality group announced plans for a street protest on Sunday to oppose Trump's plan.African SupportIn recent weeks, four smaller African countries have opened consulates in the Moroccan-controlled parts of the mineral-rich Western Sahara. Moroccan state media hailed the development as affirmation of Rabat's sovereignty over the region, which Morocco held onto throughout a 16-year guerrilla war by the Polisario indigenous group, which ended with a 1991 truce brokered by the United Nations. Morocco claims centuries-old rights to the territory.A UN plan to hold a referendum to decide the Western Sahara's fate has faltered amid differences over who is eligible to vote. The UN describes the Western Sahara, regarded by many as Africa's last colony, as a non-self-governing territory.Netanyahu, who has been unable to form a government after two back-to-back elections last year, is laboring hard to distinguish himself from rival Benny Gantz, a former military chief and political newcomer with almost no diplomatic experience. With the March 2 election approaching, he's been flitting across the globe meeting with world leaders, including presidents Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin. This week he flew to Uganda, where he discussed opening embassies with President Yoweri Museveni, and held a surprise meeting with the head of Sudan's transitional government, who agreed to work toward establishing diplomatic ties.The Israeli leader's campaign to normalize relations with Arab and Muslim-majority-states is not new, however. Netanyahu has been working for years to normalize relations, trying to create joint fronts against Islamic extremism. Relations with Morocco were never as hostile as with some other Arab countries, and there have been reports in the Israeli press in recent years of diplomatic overtures.Morocco played a discreet role in brokering the first peace talks between Arabs and Israelis in the 1990s under the late King Hassan II. While Rabat suspended low-key diplomatic contacts with Israel two decades ago at the start of the Palestinian uprising, Israel has a large community of citizens of Moroccan descent, and Israeli tourism to Morocco is permitted, though there are no direct flights between the countries.These cultural links could mean strong potential for business and trade, especially in tourism, agribusiness and security.(Updates with planned protest against Trump peace plan in ninth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Souhail Karam in Rabat at skaram10@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Amy Teibel at ateibel@bloomberg.net, Michael GunnFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Saudi Arabia bars citizens, residents from travel to China Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:58 PM PST  Saudi Arabia on Thursday barred its citizens and residents of the kingdom from traveling to China amid the new virus outbreak. The kingdom's General Directorate of Passports said the measure was in response to the new virus believed to have stemmed from central China. It warned that any residents of the kingdom who violate this order will not be allowed to return to Saudi Arabia.
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| Amnesty finds Saudi anti-terror court a weapon of repression Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:19 PM PST  Saudi Arabia has used a secretive court established to try terrorism cases as "a weapon of repression" to imprison peaceful critics, activists, journalists, clerics and minority Muslim Shiites, including some who were sentenced to death and executed, Amnesty International said Thursday. The London-based rights organization examined court documents and spoke to activists and lawyers for its 53-page report, which sheds light on the secretive proceedings of the Specialized Criminal Court. Established in 2008 to try terror-related crimes, the court started trying critics of the government in 2011 under broadly worded counter-terrorism laws that criminalize acts such as insulting King Salman and the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
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| Israel hits Iran-backed posts in Syria, casualties reported Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:02 PM PST ![Israel hits Iran-backed posts in Syria, casualties reported]( "Israel hits Iran-backed posts in Syria, casualties reported") Israel carried out airstrikes early Thursday near Damascus, wounding eight soldiers, Syrian state media said, while an opposition war monitoring group said the strikes targeted army positions as well as Iran-backed fighters, killing 23. State news agency SANA said Syrian air defenses shot down most of the missiles in the suburbs of the capital and the country's south before they reached their targets. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the Syrian war through a network of activists on the ground, said the airstrikes took place after midnight.
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| Nuclear watchdog head warns Iran over recent detention of inspector Posted: 05 Feb 2020 10:30 PM PST  Rafael Grossi, IAEA director general, said he told Iranian officials a repeat of the 'grave' incident would be a 'serious problem'The new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned Iran there will be serious consequences if there is any repeat of last year's detention of an IAEA inspector.Speaking to journalists on his first official trip to Washington as IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi said he had met a senior Iranian official inVienna in December and expressed his concern over what he described as a "grave" incident."It's something I believe I dealt with constructively and very clearly. I said: this for us is unacceptable," Grossi said he told the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. "I think there's an understanding between us that this cannot be repeated."Grossi said that the IAEA was also talking with Iran about the discovery of uranium particles last year at a site in Turquzabad outside Tehran, and that he was hoping to get more information from an Iranian delegation due to visit IAEA headquarters in Vienna this month. He said he hoped that he would have the full backing of the international community to persuade Iran to comply.IAEA inspectors have remained in Iran monitoring its nuclear programme, even after US withdrawal from the 2015 agreement that imposed limits on that programme and Iran's subsequent declaration that it would begin ignoring some of those constraints. The inspectors have also continued their work despite the dramatic rise in tensions following the US assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in January.Grossi said that the ejection of IAEA inspectors would trigger "a major international crisis" but he also said he would withdraw the inspectors immediately if there was any threat to their safety.Iran revoked an IAEA inspector's accreditation in November, saying she had triggered an alarm at a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, because she had traces of explosive chemicals on her. She was denied entry to the site, and briefly denied permission to leave Iran.Grossi said Iran's allegations were unfounded. The Argentinian diplomat, who took the helm at the IAEA in December, said he respected Iran had its own view of what happened at Natanz, but added: "In whatever scenario, an inspector has privileges and immunities, and these have to be respected."If they are not respected, that could be a serious problem so I think we have an understanding."Grossi insisted that the incident had not stopped inspectors continuing to monitor Iranian nuclear facilities to ensure restricted material is not diverted, but added there was an increased emphasis on safety."I'm responsible for these people," he said. "They are out there, so their security and safety comes first. If I felt there's a problem there, I will take them out immediately."Grossi made clear that Iran had yet to provide an explanation of the uranium traces at the site at Turquzabad, but he would continue to press for answers."We are in a process and any process has ups and downs," he said.At an appearance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace later on Wednesday, he said: "When I request Iran to work with us … I hope that countries will give me the necessary support that I need."Grossi said that he also discussed North Korea at a meeting on Tuesday with the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and said that if a nuclear agreement was made with Pyongyang, the IAEA would be ready to send in an inspection team "while the ink is still fresh" to verify compliance."When we return, we will find a country that is completely different from the one our inspectors were kicked out of 10 years ago … It's a country in possession of nuclear weapons."He added: "It's going to be a massive, massive effort, much bigger than the one in Iran. So it's going to be a great challenge for us, and I'm trying to make sure that we are up to the task."
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| DHS cuts New Yorkers off from 'trusted traveler' programs Posted: 05 Feb 2020 10:27 PM PST |
| Brussels Edition: Truce Offerings to Trump Posted: 05 Feb 2020 10:15 PM PST ![Brussels Edition: Truce Offerings to Trump]( "Brussels Edition: Truce Offerings to Trump") (Bloomberg) -- Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg's daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every weekday morning.The European Union's trade and foreign affairs chiefs will be in Washington today, trying to soothe transatlantic ties in visits abruptly announced late yesterday. The EU is seeking to salvage a 2018 commercial truce that has been fraying amid renewed U.S. tariff threats. Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan may need clearer signals about what the Americans would accept before making an outright peace offer, especially after U.S. officials signaled that EU plans to ease imports of foods such as shellfish won't cut it. His second trip to the U.S. capital in less than a month may pave the way for a White House visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Foreign-policy supremo Josep Borrell won't have an easier time in view of the EU-U.S. divide over Iran and his rejection of Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan.What's HappeningUnholy Alliance | Germany's political establishment is in disarray after Chancellor Angela Merkel's party lined up with the far right for the first time ever to elect a German state leader. The political reverberations bruised Merkel's heir-apparent and threaten to push her coalition with the SPD to the breaking point, the latest clash in the last two years that has driven a wedge between the governing parties.Christine's Troubles | Trump's persistent tariff threats and the spread of coronavirus are just some of the issues on the mind of ECB President Christine Lagarde, who appears before European Parliament lawmakers this morning. She's also likely to address her big task for this year — the central bank's strategic review, which could lead to a change in its inflation goal — and her plan to include the fight against climate change in monetary policy.Financial Rules | Freed from British influence, European authorities are hatching an offensive to weaken the Brexit-addled City of London. Officials in Berlin, Brussels and Paris are looking to amend the post-crisis financial rulebook known as MiFID II by walking away from concessions they made to the U.K. in the six years it took to complete the regulations.Polish Stakes | Poland will hold a presidential election on May 10 that will likely determine whether the country's revolt against the EU's democratic standards continues. The announcement comes a day after the president ratified a law slapping penalties on judges who are critical of the government's justice-system changes. In Case You Missed ItRomanian Elections | Romania's minority government was ousted just three months after taking power in a move that pushes the Black Sea nation closer to early elections. The lost confidence vote in parliament was a calculated step by Liberals, who want to capitalize at the ballot box on their high polling scores.Clean Data | Data centers should be made more energy efficient and be carbon neutral by 2030, the EU urges in a draft digital strategy plan to be unveiled later this month. The paper, prepared by the European Commission and seen by Bloomberg, promises action on Internet giants later this year, saying "regulatory responses" might be needed where online platforms have effectively become "large private gatekeepers and rule setters."Circular Economy | Recycling is rising on the agenda in the EU, with officials drafting more than a dozen laws to strengthen a "circular economy" that will use more of its discarded fibers, metals and plastics. Some 40 regulatory initiatives are due to be published on March 10. Papal Request | Pope Francis urged the International Monetary Fund chief and several finance ministers to help alleviate the debt burden of struggling countries, calling for "a new financial architecture" to ensure social justice. Francis has made global inequality and climate change cornerstones of his papacy. Bulgarian Graft | Bulgaria's president and prime minister are trading accusations in an escalating dispute over corruption that's threatening the nation's push to adopt the euro and join Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, Slav Okov reports from Sofia. Chart of the DayThe EU's trade surplus with the U.S. hit a record high in 2019, a milestone the bloc probably doesn't want noticed too widely in Washington, given upcoming talks with an American president who's intent on fixing what he sees as economic imbalances.Today's AgendaAll times CET.9 a.m. EU lawmakers hold monetary discussion with Lagarde in Brussels 7:30 p.m. EU financial services chief Valdis Dombrovskis speaks at event in in Paris EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell meets Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien and Senior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner in Washington EU Council President Charles Michel meets with EU leaders ahead of summit to discuss bloc's budget EU economy chief Paolo Gentiloni meets Greek premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis in AthensLike the Brussels Edition?Don't keep it to yourself. Colleagues and friends can sign up here. We also publish the Brexit Bulletin, a daily briefing on the latest on the U.K.'s departure from the EU. For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for full global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close.How are we doing? We want to hear what you think about this newsletter. Let our Brussels bureau chief know.\--With assistance from Paul Gordon and Zoe Schneeweiss.To contact the authors of this story: Nikos Chrysoloras in Brussels at nchrysoloras@bloomberg.netJonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: David Merritt at dmerritt1@bloomberg.net, Chad ThomasFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Not a break, but fissures in US-Iraqi military alliance Posted: 05 Feb 2020 09:58 PM PST |
| Mideast violence flares as anger mounts over Trump plan Posted: 05 Feb 2020 09:53 PM PST  Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in clashes in the occupied West Bank on Thursday and a third in Jerusalem after he opened fire at police, hours after a car-ramming attack elsewhere in the city wounded 12 Israeli soldiers. Tensions have soared following last week's release of President Donald Trump's Mideast initiative, which greatly favors Israel and was rejected by the Palestinians. The plan would allow Israel to annex all of its settlements and large parts of the occupied West Bank — sparking calls from Israeli nationalists to do so immediately.
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| Impeachment loses its constitutional gravity in Trump case Posted: 05 Feb 2020 09:15 PM PST |
| Biden reaches for 'Comeback Kid' mantle in New Hampshire Posted: 05 Feb 2020 09:11 PM PST  Joe Biden entered the Democratic presidential race as a favorite, the candidate with the longest resume, a network of establishment donors and a pitch that he could win the kind of voters who would defeat President Donald Trump. New Hampshire is known for knocking down front-runners, usually with candidates carrying an insurgent torch, like Gary Hart in 1984, John McCain in 2000 and Bernie Sanders in 2016, instead of steadying a slipping candidate's fate. The former vice president made light of the Iowa results as he campaigned in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
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| Trump courts black voters, but opposition remains deep Posted: 05 Feb 2020 09:09 PM PST  President Donald Trump took African American guests to his State of the Union speech, ran a Super Bowl ad boasting how he's making the criminal justice system more equitable for black people and portrayed himself as the champion of education and job opportunities for people of color. "I don't know too many black people who care for Donald Trump," said the 21-year-old Brown, who favors Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Trump went out of his way to reach out to black voters during his speech Tuesday, touting several initiatives ahead of the November election.
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