| China's virus death toll surpasses SARS but new cases fall Posted: 08 Feb 2020 05:21 PM PST  Mainland China's death toll from the new virus outbreak has risen to 811, surpassing the number of fatalities in the 2002-2003 SARS pandemic. Another 89 deaths were reported, while 2,656 new cases were added for a total of 37,198. On Saturday, 3,399 cases were reported for the previous 24 hours.
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| Irish PM Varadkar Defies Polls to Stay in Race for Power Posted: 08 Feb 2020 04:00 PM PST ![Irish PM Varadkar Defies Polls to Stay in Race for Power]( "Irish PM Varadkar Defies Polls to Stay in Race for Power") (Bloomberg) -- Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar's party defied pre-election surveys to stay in contention to keep power, as an exit poll showed the nation's three biggest political parties in a dead heat.Varadkar's Fine Gael won 22.4% of first-preference votes in Saturday's election, according to the poll, state broadcaster RTE said, confounding surveys that put the party in third place before the vote.Sinn Fein won 22.3%, according to the Ipsos/MRBI poll of 5,000 voters, commissioned by RTE and the Irish Times. Though Sinn Fein is in the race to be the biggest party by vote share, it didn't run nearly enough candidates to become the dominant force in Ireland's 160-seat parliament.Fianna Fail, which oversaw the nation's international bailout in 2010, secured 22.2% in the poll, which has a margin of error of 1.3 percentage points. Counting begins at 9 a.m. on Sunday in Dublin and could run into the middle of the week.It's clear no party will come close to a majority, meaning Varadkar and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin will have to seek out coalition partners. The party with the most seats will be in prime position to lead the government. The Greens and Labour Party, with a combined 12.5%, may become kingmakers."The exit poll suggests a great degree of fragmentation, which will make government formation very difficult," according to Eoin O'Malley, a politics professor at Dublin City University. "There'll have to be significant compromise, and rowing back from election commitments, or else Ireland will be voting again this year."Under Ireland's electoral system, about 44% is needed for an outright majority.The result means Varadkar, 41, still has a fighting chance to stay in power. In the last days of the campaign, Fine Gael unleashed attacks on Fianna Fail's economic record and questioned the democratic credentials of Sinn Fein, long considered toxic by mainstream politicians for its links to the IRA terrorist group.Policy Continuity?A Fine Gael or Fianna Fail-led government "would largely mean continuity from a financial and economic policy perspective," said Bert Colijn, an economist with ING Groep NV.The traditional divide in Irish politics runs between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, separated by little except where they stood on the division of Ireland in 1921. Both share Brexit policies, broadly agree on economic and fiscal policy and vow to protect the nation's 12.5% corporate tax rate.Before the election, both Varadkar and Martin ruled out pacts with Sinn Fein, though some members of Fianna Fail say Martin should keep the option open."Would he do it?" O'Malley, the political scientist, said before the election. "It's his last chance to be Taoiseach, so if the numbers add up, probably, yes."To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Flanagan in Dublin at pflanagan23@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Dara Doyle, Tony CzuczkaFor 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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| Some U.S. Pension Funds Play Into China’s Hands, Pompeo Warns Posted: 08 Feb 2020 03:10 PM PST ![Some U.S. Pension Funds Play Into China's Hands, Pompeo Warns]( "Some U.S. Pension Funds Play Into China's Hands, Pompeo Warns") (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Michael Pompeo delivered a tough warning about China in a speech to U.S. governors, urging caution in business dealings as Beijing looks for ways to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities and expands repression at home.He had a pointed message for certain U.S. state pension funds that may be investing in ways that help China's government crack down on its Muslim minority, or even put U.S. military personnel at risk."As of its latest public filings, the Florida retirement system has invested in a company that in turn has invested in surveillance gear that the Chinese Communist Party uses to track more than 1 million Muslim minorities," Pompeo said at the National Governors Association's winter meeting in Washington.California's pension fund, the country's largest, "is invested in companies that supply the People's Liberation Army," Pompeo said without providing specifics. "That puts our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines at risk."The world's second-largest economy is further embracing repression under President Xi Jinping, Pompeo said in a continuation of the commentary about Beijing that was a feature of his recent trip to Europe and Central Asia.Who Are the Uighurs and Why Is China Locking Them Up?: QuickTake"Competition with China is happening inside of your state and it affects our capacity to perform America's vital national-security functions," the top U.S. diplomat said. "Competition with China is not just a federal issue."Pompeo said U.S. engagement with China at the end of the Cold War was based on the assumption that it would turn toward becoming a liberal democracy."It didn't happen," Pompeo said. "Under Xi Jinping the country is moving exactly in the opposite direction: more repression, more unfair competition, more predatory economic practices, and indeed a more aggressive military posture as well."He added that those trends don't mean the countries can't do business, citing the recent "Phase One" trade deal between China and the U.S. and prospects for a second round.Chinese officials in the past have pushed back aggressively on U.S. criticism -- including those by Pompeo -- as interference in the country's domestic affairs. The Chinese embassy in Washington had no immediate comment on his latest comments.Pompeo also said China's government wants to exploit U.S. freedoms to gain advantage at the federal, state and local levels."I'm asking you to adopt a cautious mindset," Pompeo said. "In the words of President Reagan, when you are approached for introduction or a connection to a deal, 'trust but verify.'"DC Metro CarsAs an example, Pompeo said there had been concerns that the District of Colombia had considered buying railcars from a Chinese state-owned company for its Metro transit system. The move, which was never finalized, was scuttled after Congress passed a law prohibiting such purchases on cybersecurity grounds.A government-backed think tank in China has assessed governors of all U.S. states as friendly, hard-line or ambiguous toward it, Pompeo said."I would be surprised if most of you in the audience have not been lobbied by the Chinese Communist Party directly," he added.In London on Jan. 30, Pompeo, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency chief, said China's Communist Party "presents the central threat of our times." In Kazakhstan on Feb. 2, he denounced China's human rights abuses.Pompeo's comments align him with Vice President Mike Pence but contrast with President Donald Trump's recent conciliatory language toward China.Trump on Friday tweeted that he'd had a "long and very good conversation by phone" with Xi about China's response to the coronavirus. "President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation."Beyond posing a security risk, Pompeo said the lack of transparency was an issue for U.S. investments in China."Their books are not wide open, so it's difficult to know if the transaction that's being engaged in is transparent and fair and follows the rule of law," he said. "All of these things may well be legal, but the question is do they demonstrate good judgment and preserve America's national security."(Updates with comments about pension funds from second paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Kearns in Washington at jkearns3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Linus ChuaFor 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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| Ireland's general election exit poll suggests 'unprecedented' 3-way split Posted: 08 Feb 2020 02:44 PM PST  If you thought Iowa was close, wait until you hear about Ireland.Votes won't be official until Sunday when counting begins in the morning, but exit polls show Ireland's general election Saturday ended in what ostensibly amounts to an "unprecedented" three-way tie between the country's two dominant center-right political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which is led by Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, as well as Sinn Féin, a left wing party whose primary goal has traditionally been Irish unification. Fianna Fáil garnered 22.2 percent of the vote, Fine Gael 22.4, and Sinn Féin 22.3.Sinn Féin is the big story; the party has transitioned from its Irish Republican Army-linked past, and has made inroads with Ireland's younger voters because of its social and economic policies. Brexit, despite its ability to own headlines, is not considered a major factor in the headlines.All three parties are a long way from being able to form a government, and both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have ruled out a coalition with Sinn Féin. Varadkar has said he's willing to form a grand coalition with Fianna Fáil, but the feeling isn't mutual, so per The Irish Times, someone will have to break a promise to form a government eventually. Read more at The Irish Times and The Wall Street Journal.More stories from theweek.com American democracy is dying America's pig problem The battle of the moderates
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| Klobuchar Raises $2 Million Off Strong Debate: Campaign Update Posted: 08 Feb 2020 12:34 PM PST ![Klobuchar Raises $2 Million Off Strong Debate: Campaign Update]( "Klobuchar Raises $2 Million Off Strong Debate: Campaign Update") (Bloomberg) -- Bernie Sanders had something nice to say about Wall Street Saturday: It's not as bad as drug companies.The Vermont senator told voters at an event in Rochester, New Hampshire, that his staffers often debate which is more corrupt: Wall Street or the pharmaceutical companies.Sanders said he is inclined to think it's the drug industry."It's a hard choice. I kind of lean to the drug companies," Sanders said. "These guys are not only greedy, they are bloody corrupt."He added that when drug companies realized they had drugs like opioids that were highly addictive, their response was to hire more sales people "just like heroin pushers do." -- Emma KineryKlobuchar Raises $2 Million Off Strong Debate (2:23 p.m.)Amy Klobuchar's campaign said it had raised $2 million from donors in all 50 states since Friday night's debate, in which she went on the offensive against the front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination.The pace was a sharp uptick from her previous level when she raised $11.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019."With proven grassroots support, Amy continues to outperform expectations and punch above her weight," campaign manager Justin Buoen said in a statement.At a debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, the Minnesota senator said Bernie Sanders would turn off moderate voters, called Medicare for All proposals unrealistic and argued that Pete Buttigieg was too inexperienced to be president.Still, Klobuchar faces an uphill race in the Democratic primary. She came in fifth place in the Iowa caucuses, with 12.3% of the vote. In the Real Clear Politics average of polls in New Hampshire, she's currently in fifth place.Biden Mocks Buttigieg in Ad About Experience (1:35 p.m.)Joe Biden mocked Pete Buttigieg in an ad that contrasts the former vice president's long experience in government to the more modest accomplishments of the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana."We're electing a president. What you've done matters," the ad says.The spot compares Biden's work helping to pass the Affordable Care Act to Buttigieg's implementation of decorative lights under South Bend's bridges. It also says that while Biden, 77, worked to revive the economy after the 2008 crash, Buttigieg brought new sidewalks to his mid-sized city."Both Vice President Biden and former Mayor Buttigieg have taken on tough fights," the ad says. "Under threat of a nuclear Iran, Joe Biden helped to negotiate the Iran deal. Under threat of disappearing pets, Buttigieg negotiated lighter licensing regulations on pet chip scanners."Democratic candidates including Biden took aim at Buttigieg's experience at the Democratic debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday after the former mayor won the Iowa caucus by a razor-thin margin. Biden placed fourth.Buttigieg spokesman Chris Meagher said the ad reflected Biden's status as a Washington insider."South Bend residents who now have better jobs, rising income, and new life in their city don't think their lives are a Washington politician's punchline," Meagher said in a statement. "The vice president's decision to run this ad speaks more to where he currently stands in this race than it does about Pete's perspective as a mayor and veteran." -- Emma KineryWarren Slides in New Hampshire Poll (1:19 p.m.)Elizabeth Warren has slipped to single digits in a New Hampshire poll, just days before the state's primary Tuesday.In a survey for CNN by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, Warren, the senator from neighboring Massachusetts, had 9% support of likely Democratic primary voters, putting her in fourth place.In previous polls over the last year, she had been as high as 19% in New Hampshire.The poll showed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the lead with 28%, followed by former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 21% and former Vice President Joe Biden at 11%.The survey of 365 likely Democratic primary voters conducted Feb. 4 through 7 has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.1 percentage points.Top Democrat Sees Arc From Harvey Milk to Buttigieg (11:44 a.m.)Ray Buckley was just a teenager when Harvey Milk was assassinated, less than a year after he had been elected to the San Francisco City Council.Now the New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman, Buckley said that the death of the most famous openly gay politician in the U.S. in 1978 was a "profound moment.""For those of us who were teens who wanted to be involved in public office," he said, the killing suggested, "if you come out, you will be assassinated," he said. "That was a very real frightening thought for many of us for years."Buckley remarked on the progress he has seen since he was elected as an openly gay state lawmaker in 1986 to today, when the state has an openly gay legislators, mayors, city councilors, school board members and a congressman. Notably, former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is openly gay, is polling well in the presidential primary.He compared the arc from Milk's assassination to Buttigieg's candidacy to that from Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination to the election of Barack Obama. Buckley noted that when he helped found the New Hampshire Citizens Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Rights, its list of goals did not include same-sex marriage, serving openly in the military or adoption rights. "We were just trying to survive," he said.COMING UPThe New Hampshire primary is Feb. 11.Democratic presidential candidates will meet for their next debate on Feb. 19 in Las Vegas.Nevada holds its caucuses on Feb. 22, and South Carolina has a primary on Feb. 29.(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)\--With assistance from Emma Kinery.To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Teague Beckwith in Manchester, New Hampshire at rbeckwith3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, Magan CraneFor 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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| Biden tells NH Democrats that Buttigieg 'not a Barack Obama' Posted: 08 Feb 2020 11:14 AM PST  Biden's biting attacks on Buttigieg's relatively thin resume mark a new, more aggressive attempt to slow the momentum of the youngest candidate in the Democratic field. The 38-year-old emerged from Iowa in an effective tie with Sen. Bernie Sanders, but faces questions about whether his eight years as mayor of South Bend, Indiana — a city of about 100,000 people — prepared him for the presidency.
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| US official: American casualties in Afghan military mission Posted: 08 Feb 2020 10:59 AM PST ![US official: American casualties in Afghan military mission]( "US official: American casualties in Afghan military mission") American and Afghan military personnel were fired on while conducting an operation in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, the U.S. military said Saturday, and one official said there were U.S. casualties. The Taliban and the Islamic State group affiliate both operate in eastern Nangarhar province. The incident comes as Washington seeks to find an end to Afghanistan's 18-year war, America's longest.
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| Merkel fires minister over far-right row Posted: 08 Feb 2020 10:18 AM PST  German Chancellor Angela Merkel salvaged her fragile ruling coalition Saturday with the resignation of two officials, including one junior minister, who had aligned themselves with the far-right in a regional election. The surprise election of Thomas Kemmerich as state premier in Thuringia with the help of MPs from the far-right AfD on Wednesday shattered a political taboo in Germany, where mainstream parties have vowed never to work with the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant party. On Saturday Merkel effectively dismissed Christian Hirte, the government's commissioner for eastern Germany and a junior minister after he congratulated Kemmerich on his success.
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| Merkel Just Gave Her Party Chief a Lesson in Crisis Management Posted: 08 Feb 2020 09:42 AM PST ![Merkel Just Gave Her Party Chief a Lesson in Crisis Management]( "Merkel Just Gave Her Party Chief a Lesson in Crisis Management") (Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel stepped in to halt a government crisis over her party's flirt with the far right in eastern Germany, defusing one threat to her political legacy while potentially setting the stage for the next.Under fire from the governing coalition in Berlin, the premier of the eastern state of Thuringia limited the immediate fallout by resigning on Saturday. His election with the votes of Merkel's party and the nationalist Alternative for Germany had set off the political firestorm.Yet it took Merkel's return from a trip to Africa to contain the crisis, underscoring the weakness of her successor at the helm of the Christian Democratic Union party and the domestic pressures on Merkel as she seeks to keep Germany on the centrist path that has defined her more than 14 years in office.It was a lesson in crisis management for CDU chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a Merkel protegee who has struggled to make her mark and stake a claim to succeeding Merkel as chancellor in the next federal election in 2021.AKK, as Kramp-Karrenbauer is known, had tried since Wednesday to establish control after Thomas Kemmerich, a Free Democratic Party politician, was elected state leader of Thuringia with help from local CDU lawmakers.That broke a taboo established by national parties, including the CDU, never to cooperate with the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. It incensed the Social Democrats, Merkel's coalition partner in Berlin.Out of AfricaMerkel took the first step shortly after her plane touched down Saturday morning in Berlin. She contacted her top liaison for the eastern German states, Christian Hirte, to tell him that his services were no longer needed. Hirte, the CDU's leader in Thuringia, had applauded Kemmerich's election as a victory of the political center.At 1 p.m., Merkel met with her CDU-led party bloc and the Social Democrats at the chancellery in Berlin to avert a possible breakup of the coalition after the SPD's two national leaders in a newspaper interview threatened to leave the government if Kemmerich didn't resign immediately.Two hours later, the coalition demanded exactly that and called for an early state election soon. Around the same time, Kemmerich tweeted he was resigning with immediate effect after insisting a day earlier he wouldn't.In the statement, Merkel's coalition called the circumstances of Kemmerich's election "unforgivable," echoing language she used on Thursday while in South Africa.Kemmerich's exit and the call for elections in Thuringia helps avoid an immediate bust-up with Social Democrats, which had pressed Merkel's CDU to be more aggressive in seeking his removal.Next Crisis?Now, Merkel will have to deal with detractors in her own party.CDU officials in Thuringia, who saw their party slump in the last state election in October, opposes sending voters to the polls again. Kramp-Karrenbauer spent Thursday night in Erfurt, the state capital, unsuccessfully trying to persuade them otherwise — until Merkel sought to lay down the law from Berlin on Saturday.Part of Merkel's loss of authority in her waning years stems from the CDU's collapse in the formerly communist east. The AfD, which built a nationwide base by denouncing Merkel's openness to refugees, has capitalized on the region's prosperity and jobs gap with western Germany.In last year's state election, Alternative for Germany more than doubled its support in Thuringia to 23.4 percent and pulled ahead of the CDU. That set up this week's election of Kemmerich, whose FDP party barely made it into the state legislature but was eager for a share of power.\--With assistance from Patrick Donahue and Alexander Kell.To contact the reporter on this story: Arne Delfs in Berlin at adelfs@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, 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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| Biden mocks Buttigieg's mayoral accomplishments in new campaign ad Posted: 08 Feb 2020 09:27 AM PST  Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign team is out with a new ad, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg probably won't like it.Biden clearly isn't a fan of Buttigieg going after his record vice president, even daring his younger competitor to openly call the Obama administration a failure. So it's not shocking to see his campaign go after the mayor's record, especially as he tries to establish himself as a legitimate contender for the nomination following a strong showing in the controversial Iowa caucuses.The ad pits Biden's record against Buttigieg's in an effort to show that while Buttigieg was achieving small scale goals in South Bend like putting colorful lights underneath bridges, Biden was helping the Obama administration make changes on the global and national level, including negotiating the Iran nuclear deal and passing the Affordable Health Care Act. Be warned, though -- they're not particularly nice about the distinctions. Watch the ad below. > Oh wow...Biden ad makes fun of Pete Buttigieg's mayoral record, joking he "revitalized the sidewalks" of South Bend while Biden negotiated Iran deal/helped with auto bailout https://t.co/AqjH0UJdS4> > -- Liz Goodwin (@lizcgoodwin) February 8, 2020More stories from theweek.com American democracy is dying America's pig problem Ireland's general election exit poll suggests 'unprecedented' 3-way split
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| UN medical relief flights continue from Yemen’s capital Posted: 08 Feb 2020 09:18 AM PST ![UN medical relief flights continue from Yemen's capital]( "UN medical relief flights continue from Yemen's capital") Flights transporting Yemeni medical patients from rebel-held areas continued Saturday when a second plane carrying 24 patients took off from Sanaa bound for Jordan's capital, the U.N. health agency said. The U.N. flights, which began Feb. 3, are seen as a humanitarian breakthrough in the more than 5-year-old conflict in the Arab world's poorest country. The conflict began with the 2014 takeover of the capital Sanaa by the rebel Houthis, who control much of the country's north.
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| Doubts persist for Dem voters about female nominee in 2020 Posted: 08 Feb 2020 09:09 AM PST  In a perfect world, Susan Stepp, a 73-year-old retiree, would be voting vote for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, she says. "I am not sure a woman is the best candidate to go up against Trump," Stepp said recently as she stood in the back of a conference room listening to tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang as part of her hunt for the best candidate to challenge the Republican incumbent. In Iowa's caucuses last Monday, many Democrats did not prioritize breaking the gender barrier to the Oval Office and they viewed being a woman as a hindrance rather than an advantage in the race.
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| Democrats on edge after 2020 election season's ragged launch Posted: 08 Feb 2020 07:37 AM PST  For Democrats, this was supposed be a moment to begin easing three years of built-up of anxieties. Instead, the launch of the 2020 presidential primary has left the party deeply unsettled and President Donald Trump gleeful about the chaos. Party leaders are on edge over embarrassing technical issues that marred this past week's Iowa caucuses, as well as lower than expected turnout in the leadoff state.
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| Oregon candidate, once a Trump critic, now embraces him Posted: 08 Feb 2020 07:36 AM PST  In 2018, the Republican party's candidate for governor of Oregon painted himself as a centrist, criticized President Donald Trump's environmental stance and said he didn't want to be linked to divisive national figures. Knute Buehler lost to incumbent Gov. Kate Brown by almost 120,000 votes. Now, Buehler is running for a seat in Congress in a district covering a conservative swath of Oregon, and has taken Trump into a tight embrace.
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| Death of American Fuels Concern Over China's Approach to Coronavirus Posted: 08 Feb 2020 07:29 AM PST  SHANGHAI -- A U.S. citizen died from the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, American officials said on Saturday. It was the first known American death from the illness, and was likely to add to diplomatic frictions over Beijing's response to the epidemic.Relations between Washington and Beijing have been tense for years on a number of issues, including trade, technology and human rights. And while Chinese officials have publicly touted the importance of international cooperation to combat the virus, doubts have arisen in recent days about China's willingness to accept a helping hand -- particularly from the United States.Few details about the American, who died on Thursday, were immediately available. According to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, the person was 60 years old and died at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, the inland metropolis at the center of the epidemic. Two people familiar with the matter said the person was a woman and had underlying health conditions.The U.S. government has been evacuating many of its diplomats and other citizens from Wuhan, which Chinese authorities have locked down in an effort to contain the spread of the virus. It could not immediately be learned whether the American who died had tried to leave the city on any of the flights organized by the State Department."We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss," said a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. "Out of respect for the family's privacy, we have no further comment."Word of the death came out as frustrations about Beijing's handling of the epidemic, which has already provoked outrage and criticism within China, were beginning to emerge at the diplomatic level as well. The virus has killed at least 700 people in China, sickened thousands more and spread across the globe.For more than a month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been offering to send a team of experts to China to observe the outbreak and help if possible. But no invitation has come.The World Health Organization, which made a similar offer about two weeks ago, appeared to be facing the same cold shoulder, though a spokeswoman said it was just "sorting out arrangements."Current and former health officials and diplomats said they believed the reluctance came from China's top leaders, who do not want the world to think they need outside help.Within China, public discontent about the government's response to the crisis reached an extraordinary new peak on Friday after the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, who had warned his colleagues early on about the new virus but was reprimanded for spreading rumors.After Li's death, grieving internet users posted messages expressing anger about the way he had been treated and even demanding freedom of speech -- unheard-of in China's authoritarian political system.Communist Party officials said on Friday that they would send a team from the powerful anti-corruption committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding Li's death. Chinese state news media also reported on Saturday that the government was sending two senior officials to Wuhan to reinforce efforts to bring the outbreak under control.It was not immediately clear if the appointments on Saturday amounted to a reshuffling of the local leadership or were simply an effort to reinforce officials on the front line. Still, it appeared to be an acknowledgment that authorities in Wuhan had been overwhelmed.Japan also said on Saturday that one of its citizens had died in a Wuhan hospital from a suspected case of the coronavirus. But the Japanese Foreign Ministry said that based on information it received from Chinese authorities, it could not confirm whether the man, who was in his 60s, had been infected with the new virus. The ministry called the cause of death viral pneumonia.China's Foreign Ministry said this past week that as of noon on Thursday, 19 foreign nationals in the country had been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. Two of them had recovered and were discharged from the hospital. The other 17 were still receiving treatment.As the virus spreads, China is confronting a growing sense of isolation -- a stark reversal for the country after decades of economic and diplomatic integration with the rest of the world. Many countries, including the United States, have placed entry restrictions on travelers from China. Airlines have canceled flights. Fears of the virus have fueled anti-Chinese racism in some parts of the world.Chinese officials have criticized the United States both for evacuating Americans from China and for imposing travel curbs, saying that such moves could spread panic. On Friday, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo each appeared to be trying to ease tensions.Pompeo said that the United States was prepared to spend up to $100 million in existing funds to help China and other countries fight the epidemic. Pompeo also said that the State Department had helped transport about 18 tons of donated medical supplies, including masks, gowns and gauze, to the people of China in the past week.Trump praised China's handling of the crisis on a phone call with China's top leader, Xi Jinping, on Friday. And in a pair of Twitter posts, Trump said Xi was leading "what will be a very successful operation."But other American officials have quietly voiced concerns about China's response to the epidemic. And the confirmation on Friday that repeated offers of help to China had been ignored only deepened the sense of worry.Alex Azar, the U.S. secretary of health and human services, said at a news briefing on Friday that he had recently reiterated the CDC offer to his Chinese counterpart, Dr. Ma Xiaowei.Asked about the holdup, Azar said: "It's up to the Chinese. We continue to expect fully that President Xi will accept our offer. We're ready and willing and able to go."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| 160 Nations Ban These Weapons. The U.S. Now Embraces Them. Posted: 08 Feb 2020 07:08 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration, which came into office pledging to end "endless wars," has now embraced weapons prohibited by more than 160 countries, and is readying them for future use. Cluster bombs and anti-personnel land mines, deadly explosives known for maiming and killing civilians long after the fighting ended, have become integral to the Pentagon's future war plans -- but with little public rationale offered for where and why they would be used.These new policies, endorsed by Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, can be traced to 2017 when the Pentagon chief at the time, Jim Mattis, was drafting a military strategy that named Russia and China as the United States' great power rivals. Both have significant ground forces, and mines historically have been used to deny an adversary's troops the ability to advance on the battlefield.In a news conference Monday, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, said that the policy change "was the result of an extensive conversation" with different departments of the executive branch. It is intended "to provide the commanders on the ground nonpersistent munitions that are necessary for mission success in major contingencies in extreme or exceptional circumstances," he said.Hoffman declined to specify who had requested the policy change.Former Defense Department officials said the debate about reintroducing land mines and other so-called area-denial weapons came to a head in 2017 as the administration analyzed Russia's rapid invasion and annexation of Crimea.That November, Mattis nullified a 2008 memo that suspended the use of almost all cluster weapons and directed the destruction of the current stockpile. Those weapons, built to fight World War III with the Soviet Union, were failure-prone, and gained infamy for killing and wounding civilians as well as U.S. troops.The Pentagon has been unable to articulate the need for these types of weapons, but industrial lines once thought extinct at defense firms are returning. That is partly because of lobbying efforts by retired senior military officers like Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general who served as an adviser to Mattis on overhauling infantry combat. But his argument was based, in part, on a flawed understanding of the effectiveness of cluster munitions in past conflicts, especially the 1991 Gulf War, where analysis afterward found high failure rates and little evidence they had deterred Iraqi forces to the extent at first believed.As of October 2019, the Army had paid $11.5 million to Northrop Grumman and $23.3 million to Textron for the development of new anti-vehicle mines, according to officials at Picatinny Arsenal, an Army weapons research and development center in New Jersey. At that time, the total value of the two contracts was estimated at nearly $60 million.The Pentagon's effort to look to the future has put the military on a path that hearkens back to the Cold War, when victory relied on being able to place explosives across broad swaths of ground to limit the enemy's ability to move across the battlefield.Some of these weapons -- including land mines and cluster bombs -- had been rejected by many nations.In 1997, more than 120 countries signed the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel land mines that explode indiscriminately. Notably, the U.S. was not among them, citing a need to use these mines along the border between North and South Korea, and it is not among the 164 nations that are now party to the treaty."How can these policies be justified knowing that so many people have decided that these weapons have no place in war fighting and what these weapons do to people all over the world, including American service members?" asked Rachel Stohl, an arms control expert at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan policy research organization. "It's mind-boggling."The Trump administration's abolishment of past policies that limited the development and use of these weapons has already drawn condemnation from some of the United States' closest allies in Europe, further fraying strained relations.The European Union said in a statement this week that the use of anti-personnel land mines "anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable."That came in response to an announcement by the White House last week that it would reverse long-standing policies that restricted the use of anti-personnel land mines. Under a 2014 measure by the Obama administration, the use of the weapons -- small explosive charges that are usually buried in the ground and detonated when stepped upon -- had been limited to the Korean Peninsula.The moves were only the latest challenges to America's traditional alliances. President Donald Trump has turned his back on Kurdish allies in Iraq and Syria, threatened to pull troops from South Korea, hinted that he would exit the mutual defense agreement with Japan and even discussed pulling out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.Newer generations of American mines are supposed to self-destruct after a preset amount of time, but have failed to do so in combat conditions. Pentagon officials have yet to explain how the new antipersonnel land mines they wish to use would differ technologically from those."What's really troubling is that, in a way, this gives a green light to others who would be less responsible using these weapons," Stohl said.In the era before precision-guided weapons, unguided cluster munitions -- which break open over a target and dispense a number of smaller "submunitions" over a wide area -- were seen as a way to make up for inaccurate bombs or artillery fire. Now that laser-guided and GPS-guided weapons are the norm in U.S. and NATO airstrikes, military officials and humanitarian rights groups no longer see "area attack" weapons like cluster bombs as necessary. The Pentagon has not addressed exactly why it believes cluster weapons are still needed, except for citing their perceived use in a war with North Korea.U.S. forces last used land mines and cluster munitions in large quantities during the 1991 Gulf War, and cleanup efforts in Kuwait and Iraq to find and destroy unexploded ordnance of both types continue today. Since 1993, the U.S. has spent $3.4 billion to demine and eradicate unexploded ordnance in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where civilians still are killed by the remnants left over from the Vietnam conflict. That figure does not include spending to clean up unexploded weapons -- including from cluster bombs -- on disused military practice ranges, including those on the island of Kaho'olawe in Hawaii and on Vieques in Puerto Rico.Sections of military bombing and artillery ranges where cluster weapons have been used are considered so hazardous that only bomb disposal personnel may enter. Many have been marked as permanently contaminated, and are off-limits entirely.The U.S. military's recent moves to make land mines and cluster weapons easier to use have elicited widespread criticism."The convention has long professed that any perceived or limited military utility of antipersonnel mines is grossly outweighed by the humanitarian consequences of their use," said Juan Carlos Ruan, who serves as a director of the Ottawa Convention -- commonly referred to as the Mine Ban Treaty. "There is no such thing as 'responsible use of anti-personnel mines.'"Some limits on conventional arms remain, including on incendiary substances like white phosphorous and napalm. Their use is restricted in areas where civilians are present, but otherwise permissible against enemy personnel. U.S. warplanes dropped 750-pound napalm bombs in limited numbers in the 1991 Gulf War, as well as in Afghanistan and during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. artillery units have recently fired white phosphorous-filled shells in Syria and Iraq. The accord limiting how such weapons may be used in warfare is included in the Convention on Certain Conventional Munitions.The first major international effort to regulate the conduct of warfare was the Geneva Convention of 1864. Further meetings in Geneva resulted in international agreements on such things as the protection of medics and doctors in combat, humane treatment of prisoners of war and a ban on intentionally targeting civilians.President Richard M. Nixon signed a treaty banning biological and toxic weapons just months before the Watergate burglary. And in 1993, President Bill Clinton signed a treaty banning the use or stockpiling of chemical weapons. Last week at the Pentagon, Vic Mercado, a retired Navy rear admiral who now is a civilian Pentagon official for plans, said the idea of resuming work on chemical and biological weapons "hasn't even come across my desk as an issue."Some nonprofit groups that have been involved in the creation and enforcement of different arms control treaties express concerns that the Trump administration is tearing apart legal frameworks that took decades to build and that have successfully limited civilian harm during armed conflict.Since Trump took office in early 2017, State Department officials have become less active in yearly meetings that chart the progress of various arms-control treaties, said Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch."At the last annual meeting of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in November, the United States did not speak during the meeting's general debate," Wareham said. "The United States delegation to the convention has become quieter and quieter, contributing less and less to multilateral discussions."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Germany’s Far Right Puts First Crack in Establishment’s Defenses Posted: 08 Feb 2020 05:28 AM PST ![Germany's Far Right Puts First Crack in Establishment's Defenses]( "Germany's Far Right Puts First Crack in Establishment's Defenses") (Bloomberg) -- Thomas Kemmerich stood in the state legislature on Wednesday to accept the traditional floral tributes from lawmakers after his election as premier of Thuringia in eastern Germany.But after his unprecedented coup in winning support from both Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and the far-right Alternative for Germany, the caucus leader of the biggest party was in no mood for formalities. Susanne Hennig-Wellsow from the former communists of The Left tossed her bouquet at Kemmerich's feet and walked off.As the storm of his appointment broke over German politics, Kemmerich, from the liberal Free Democrats, found that congratulations were in short order all around.Chancellor Merkel called his election "unforgivable," his national party leader Christian Lindner showed up to read him the riot act, and barely 24 hours later he was forced to announce he would step down.The real winner was the AfD, with polls from the Forsa Institute showing a sharp decline in support for the FDP. As the Berlin establishment scrambled to reverse his appointment, Merkel called for a fresh state election. With polls signaling a drubbing for the CDU, party chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer tried to walk it back. Lindner was hauled in by the FDP leadership to face a confidence vote. The instigators sat back and reveled in the chaos."The AfD is the most relaxed party in Germany at the moment," co-Chairman Joerg Meuthen said in a telephone interview. "The fear of the other parties is justified, because they're losing ground with every election."Founded in 2013 in protest over Merkel's support for bailing out Greece, the party's support surged in the wake of the refugee crisis in 2015. In the last election, the AfD emerged as the largest opposition group and recent polls show it in third place behind the CDU and the Greens and ahead of the embattled Social Democrats.With a strong power base in the former communist East, the AfD has become a serious threat by appealing to Germans disaffected by Merkel's globalist approach and unsettled by the technology changes that threaten thousands of jobs.By successfully helping to appoint a state leader for the first time, the party outmaneuvered Germany's old guard. But the CDU should still have seen it coming."The AfD has a very disruptive strategy," said Josef Janning, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. "They are trying to expose the weakness of mainstream politics."At a party convention at the end of November, the AfD made it clear that it wanted a seat at the decision-making table, even if all other parties still refuse to cooperate with it. The anti-establishment group vowed to modify its divisive, nationalist rhetoric to make itself a more palatable partner — describing itself as "bürgerlich," which has connotations of being close to the people.Tino Chrupalla, a 44-year-old tradesman from the eastern state of Saxony, was elected as co-chairman to help broaden the party's appeal alongside Meuthen, an economics professor from affluent Baden-Wuerttemberg in the west.Test CaseThuringia was the first opportunity to put its new strategy to the test: The state parliament was fragmented after an AfD surge in October's election and the coalition around the Left's Bodo Ramelow no longer had a majority.The incumbent candidate was still expected to squeak through with a simple majority in the third round of voting.The CDU, which didn't field its own contender, was backing Kemmerich along with the FDP, while the AfD, as always, was on its own. But when the 22 AfD lawmakers pressed their buttons in the final round they ditched their own candidate and swung behind Kemmerich.The tacit alliance between Merkel's party and the far right sent shudders through the circles of power -- the AfD's leader in Thuringia, Bjoern Hoecke, is a bona-fide fascist according to a German court ruling."We will never tolerate that the AfD has influence on political decisions: no cooperations, no coalitions, no agreements, no joint proposals, nothing," CDU Deputy Chairman Armin Laschet said in an interview with broadcaster NTV. "The boundaries between the CDU and the AfD are crystal clear."The Long GameThe AfD is betting resistance will erode over time and as alternative alliances become increasingly difficult. There are signs that some factions in the CDU are already starting to question the official stance. On Wednesday, the AfD put the first crack in the wall keeping them from power.With efforts underway to reverse Kemmerich's election, the events in Thuringia also fit neatly into the AfD's narrative that established parties are intent on clinging to power at all costs. The more the far right is blocked, the more its claims to being the voice of Germans left behind and marginalized by the mainstream are bolstered."We will patiently continue with our work and see what happens," said Meuthen, likening the AfD's position now to how the Green party was shunned in the 1980s.Still, there's a clear difference to the environmental movement. German politics remains haunted by memories of the Nazi era, and the extreme rhetoric of figures like Hoecke alarms many voters. A notorious figure from the hard-right nationalist wing of the party, Hoecke has made headlines by assailing Germany's guilt complex, referring to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a "monument of shame."Fears of right-wing extremism fuels emotions in Germany, especially in Thuringia, where the Nazis first rose to power. Hennig-Wellsow, the Left party politician who threw her congratulatory flowers on the floor, justified her slight of lawmaking peer Kemmerich, who campaigned against the AfD, by pointing to the lessons of history."If such a taboo is broken in a democratic parliament, I can't just move on to business as usual. That would mean normalizing or trivializing the pact with fascism," she said in an interview with Die Welt. "There's no better way to send a message than to say it with flowers."(Adds reference to polls in fifth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Patrick Donahue and Arne Delfs.To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Reiter in Berlin at creiter2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Ben Sills, Tony CzuczkaFor 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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| Syrian troops gain territory in push to control key highway Posted: 08 Feb 2020 05:25 AM PST  Syrian government forces captured new areas from insurgents in their efforts to control a key highway in the northwest Saturday, as Turkey sent more reinforcements into the war-torn country, state media and opposition activists said. The weekslong government offensive has created a humanitarian crisis with about 600,000 people fleeing their homes in Syria's last rebel stronghold since the beginning of December, according to the United Nations. Rebels control much of Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Aleppo region that is home to some 3 million people — many of them displaced from other parts of Syria.
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| AP FACT CHECK: Trump, Dems and the state of disunion Posted: 08 Feb 2020 05:21 AM PST  President Donald Trump says the world is witnessing a great American economic revival that he brought on by reversing course from the Obama years. Trump's State of the Union speech came packed with assertions tailor-made for his reelection bid, during a week when his acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial emboldened him.
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| Trump Gets Double Boost; Hero Chinese Doctor Dies: Weekend Reads Posted: 08 Feb 2020 05:00 AM PST ![Trump Gets Double Boost; Hero Chinese Doctor Dies: Weekend Reads]( "Trump Gets Double Boost; Hero Chinese Doctor Dies: Weekend Reads") (Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every day? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.U.S. President Donald Trump emerged as a two-time winner this week, with his acquittal by the Senate on impeachment charges and the Democrats' shambolic handling of the vote count in the Iowa caucuses.In China, meanwhile, the death of Li Wenliang, a doctor who was sanctioned by local authorities after blowing the whistle on the coronavirus last month, unleashed a wave of public anger.Dig into these and other topics with the latest edition of Weekend Reads. Inside the Epic Iowa Meltdown That Paralyzed 2020 DemocratsThe debacle over the vote count in the Democratic caucuses in Iowa prompted questions about the integrity of the state's system and the technological competence of the Democratic Party, particularly in light of the Russian hacking and disinformation campaign directed at it in 2016, Tyler Pager explains. Sanders Builds California Primary Machine to Land Knockout BlowAs Democratic presidential nominating race heads for make-or-break Super Tuesday primaries, Jeffrey Taylor reports on how Bernie Sanders has built an operation aimed at winning the night's biggest prize: California. Trump's Plea to Black Voters Shows Find-a-Few StrategyTrump has spent the last week showcasing policies he believes should win the support of black voters who will help sway outcomes in key battleground states from Florida to Wisconsin in the November election, Mario Parker reports.Death of a Hero Doctor Sparks Crisis of Confidence in Xi's ChinaFor all the work that Chinese President Xi Jinping's government has done to channel public anxiety over the new coronavirus into patriotic fervor, the death of a 34-year-old doctor has unleashed a wave of fury that is sparking a rare crisis of confidence in the Communist Party. China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From CoronavirusScenes of chaos and despair are emerging daily from China's Hubei province, the landlocked region of 60 million people where the new coronavirus dubbed 2019-nCoV was first identified in December, and where it has since cut a wide, deadly swathe.Germany's Far Right Puts First Crack in Establishment's DefensesA state leader from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats threw in his lot with the far-right Alternative for Germany this week, shaking the establishment. Chris Reiter explains how the drama unfolded.Where a Brexit Trade Deal Matters Most to Boris JohnsonPrime Minister Boris Johnson's tough stance in the opening round of the post-Brexit trade talks could be costly, Joe Mayes and Sam Dodge write, because voters in the districts that backed him rely overwhelmingly on the manufacturing jobs that would be at risk if Britain fails to secure a deal. Arabs Out, Settlers In: Trump Peace Plan Re-Engineers IsraelArabs have long complained that they're second-class citizens of Israel. As Gwen Ackerman and Amy Teibel explain, if the Trump administration's peace plan comes to life, some might not even be that.Maduro Embraces Capitalism and Venezuelan Emigres Are ReturningAfter leading his country's economy over a cliff, President Nicolas Maduro has brought Venezuela a certain measure of stability. As Patricia Laya and Alex Vasquez write, emigration is slowing and some people are returning.And finally … An amnesty for fighters in Nigeria who once threatened to cripple Africa's biggest oil industry has largely brought peace to the Niger River delta by providing opportunities in business and politics to militant leaders. But it remains fragile, and as one commander known as Boyloaf told William Clowes, "anyone who wants to close the program will have to face the repercussions." To contact the author of this story: Karl Maier in Rome at kmaier2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Kathleen Hunter at khunter9@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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| 21 dead, 31 hurt in Thai mass shooting; gunman hides in mall Posted: 08 Feb 2020 04:53 AM PST  A gunman described as a soldier angry over a financial dispute killed two people and then went on a far bloodier rampage Saturday in northeastern Thailand, shooting as he drove to a busy mall where shoppers fled in terror. Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantrawanich said Sgt. Maj. Jakrapanth Thomma was behind the attack in Nakhon Ratchasima, a hub for Thailand's relatively poorer and rural northeastern region. Much of the shooting took place at Terminal 21 Korat, an airport-themed mall filled with colorful Lego sculptures, a merry-go-round and huge replicas of landmarks from around the world.
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| Iran says foils cyberattack targeting internet providers Posted: 08 Feb 2020 03:24 AM PST  Iran repelled a cyberattack on Saturday that disrupted the country's internet services for an hour, a telecommunications ministry official said. "At 11:44 (0814 GMT) a distributed denial-of-service attack disrupted the internet services of some mobile and fixed operators for an hour," tweeted Sajad Bonabi. A DDoS attack involves overwhelming a target's servers by making a massive number of junk requests.
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| Russian pro-Putin leader praises ‘brave’ Trump and offers to fly entire political party to Mar-a-Lago Posted: 08 Feb 2020 03:23 AM PST  The leader of a nationalist party in Russia has offered to fly his members out to Donald Trump's private Florida residence in order to celebrate the US president's impeachment "victory".Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the pro-Putin Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), made the offer in a Saturday morning tweet in which he also offered his congratulations to Mr Trump, whom he described as "brave" and the "strongest" president in US history.
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| German governor elected with far-right help resigns Posted: 08 Feb 2020 03:12 AM PST  A German state governor installed with the help of a far-right party said Saturday he is resigning with immediate effect, three days after his election shook the country's politics and stoked new tensions in Chancellor Angela Merkel's government. Thomas Kemmerich's announcement came as leaders of Merkel's governing coalition, meeting in Berlin to discuss the fallout, demanded that he go and the legislature of the eastern state of Thuringia "promptly" choose a successor. Pro-business politician Kemmerich's election was only possible because the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, supported him in a vote in the state legislature — as did the regional branch of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, against the wishes of its national leadership.
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| Top 3 parties in dead heat after Irish parliament elections Posted: 08 Feb 2020 03:00 AM PST  Ireland's three biggest political parties are likely to face a difficult process of forming a new government, with an exit poll suggesting they finished in a virtual dead heat in parliamentary elections Saturday. The survey conducted for national broadcaster RTE, the Irish Times, TG4 television and University College Dublin by pollster Ipsos MRBI said the Fine Gael party of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein all got about 22% of first preference votes.
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| Khamenei says Iran must become strong to end 'enemy threat' Posted: 08 Feb 2020 02:37 AM PST  Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday that the Islamic republic must become strong enough to ward off the "enemy's threats" and prevent a war. Khamenei also said Iran had a strong air force despite decades of US pressure and sanctions on the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. "We must become strong so that there will not be a war, become strong so that enemy's threats will end," he told a gathering of air force commanders and staff.
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| Russians on the Riviera Say ‘We’re Not All Thugs and Gangsters’ Posted: 08 Feb 2020 02:13 AM PST  This is the first in an occasional series about Russians on the Riviera, which is, yes, about the Moscow mob on the Med, and much more.NICE, France—The Russians have been coming for a long time. But when they first arrived in the mid-19th century on the Côte d'Azur, this mythic coastline stretching from Monaco to St. Tropez, they gave back. They left a legacy of art, literature and architecture, including the biggest Russian Orthodox cathedral in western Europe, built by Tsar Nicholas II.An Arrest in France Freaks Out the Kremlin Kleptocracy"We're not all thugs and gangsters," my friend Natalya, a Russian TV producer married to a former KGB spokesman-turned-multi-millionaire industrialist, once told me at her vast penthouse overlooking the Mediterranean in Monte Carlo. "People forget who we were 100 or 150 years ago. There was a Russia before Putin."Long before obscenely rich oligarchs like Suleiman Kerimov, Roman Abramovich, Dmitry Rybolovlev, Alisher Usmanov, Sergei Pugachev, Andrey Melnichenko, the Rotenberg brothers, Rinat Akhmetov and the late Boris Berezovsky shrewdly made billions off the fall of the Soviet Union and scooped up the French Riviera's most prime real estate, there were the last of the Romanovs, the tsarinas who helped build the first Russian churches on the Riviera, the artist Marc Chagall—and the acclaimed writer and painter Marie Bashkirtseff.Despite their creative imaginations, those early émigrés to the Riviera couldn't have imagined a future where billionaire Russians would be crashing their black Ferrari Enzos into trees in Nice (Kerimov) or being arrested on suspicion of fraud (Rybolovlev) or money laundering through the purchase of sumptuous villas (Kerimov again, Abramovich and Berezovsky.) Nor could they have foreseen a time when Russians edged out the Italians to run the Mafia in Monaco. But they could probably understand the resourcefulness of present-day refugees from the old Soviet Union. It's well known in some corners of Nice, for example, that you can hire a former Chechen soldier with a pit bull for 100 euros an hour if someone is late paying back a loan or if you have a squatter in your apartment.The Russians who came here before the Bolshevik Revolution, whether to settle or just enjoy the fabled winter season, were cultivated aristocrats or royalty. After the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1923, many of them returned penniless, forced to forgo their luxe villas for boarding houses and drive taxis for a living."For a long time after that, the serious money down here was all English and American," the late historian Francis O'Hara told me last year. "But now the Russians have all the money again, along with the Arabs."* * *FAME OR DEATH* * *Born in what is now the Ukraine, multi-lingual Marie Bashkirtseff was just 12 years old in 1870 when she and her family moved to a villa on the famous Promenade des Anglais on the Nice seafront. She began writing (in French) an extraordinary diary at the age of 13 that presaged her death at 25 from tuberculosis and showed just how ballsy and feminist a young girl could be in a country where women would not get the vote until 1944.Bashkirtseff and her modestly titled tome, I Am the Most Interesting Book of All, was published posthumously in 1887 and initially purged of its more radical and intimate passages by her mother. Later, writer and translator Phyllis Howard Kernberger exhumed Marie's notebooks from the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and published the journal in its original form with all its passion and unapologetic narcissism."I was born to be a remarkable woman; it matters little in what way or how," Bashkirtseff wrote. "I shall be famous or I will die." She gave the opposite sex short shrift. "To a woman who knows her own mind, men can only be a minor consideration."Bashkirtseff, who died in 1884 in Paris, also left a trove of paintings that have been shown in recent years at museums throughout Europe, including the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Chéret museum in Nice and the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg. More than 60 of her works, however, were destroyed by the Nazis. Marc Chagall, né Moishe Shagal, was born in what is now Belarus a few years after Bashkirtseff's death. He moved to Paris as a young man but eventually wound up in the south, in a stone house in the spectacular hillside village of St. Paul de Vence surrounded by the landscape that inspired him. "There, in the south, for the first time in my life, I saw that rich greenness—the like of which I had never seen in my own country," Chagall once said. Chagall paid it forward by leaving all his artwork to the French government. The Musée National Marc Chagall in Nice is better known as the Biblical Message since Chagall considered the 17 biblical works included in his collection to be among the most important. * * *'BILLIONAIRE'S BAY'* * *Russians have long settled all over the Cote d'Azur. One of their least-known communities has been at the exquisite seaside town of Menton, lodged just the other side of Monaco on the way to the Italian border and often overlooked by tourists plying the Cannes-Nice-Monaco circuit.Both wealthy and middle-class Russians flocked to Menton before and after the revolution and created a home away from home with a sanitarium called the Maison Russe, a small Russian orthodox church, and a cemetery overlooking the Mediterranean.In this century, some oligarchs like the controversial Dmitry Rybolovlev, who lives on the top two floors of the storied Belle Époque building, favor Monaco, but the heart of the Russian experience on the Riviera lies further west, on the tip of the breathtaking Cap d'Antibes peninsula, 12 miles from Nice.It was here, on this rocky promontory dotted with cypress, umbrella pines and bougainvillea, that Prince Dimitri Romanov, a descendant of the House of Romanov, was born in the Villa Thenard in 1926. His parents came here after fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution and the murders of the Romanov royal family. Rich Russians continued to gravitate here where they can look out on what is called "Billionaire's Bay" or the "The Cove of False Money," buying up the finest villas through an opaque system of shell companies and lawyers that inevitably attract the French tax authorities.* * *THE RUSSIAN GATSBY* * *The oligarch and senator Kerimov, 53, dubbed the "Russian Great Gatsby," ran afoul of the taxman in 2017. Kerimov was linked to four properties on Cap d'Antibes. One was Villa Hier, the 12,000-square-meter, $35 million estate that served as Michael Caine's house in the 1998 film about Riviera con artists, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.On paper the properties were owned by Kerimov's Swiss associate Alexander Studhalter, but the Fisc, as France's IRS is called, wasn't having it. They believed Studhalter was a straw man to help Kerimov avoid paying high taxes to the French state. Kerimov, who has a net worth of about $7 billion, was arrested in November 2017 at Nice airport on suspicion of money laundering and tax evasion. He was cleared of all charges in June 2018 in a decision that the Nice prosecutor called a "surprise."'The Last Czars': Inside Netflix's Stunning Russian Answer to 'The Crown'Roman Abramovich wasn't as lucky, losing his protracted battle with French tax officials who correctly deduced that he had undervalued his enormous villa, Château de la Croë, in order to pay less tax. The 18-acre estate, which sits alone at the tip of the Cap, was once home to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, King Leopold III of Belgium, the last Queen of Italy, and Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.The most dramatic takedown of a Russian oligarch on the Cap occurred in 2005 when masked policemen from France's anti-corruption unit landed Bond-style in helicopters on the lawn of Boris Berezovsky's $10 million Château de la Garoupe and raided it, top to bottom. As with Kerimov, authorities believed Berezovsky had used a lawyer to hide and launder the money used to buy the villa.Berezovsky did not fare well. He had been involved in a long feud with Vladimir Putin and some thought he might have been set up by the Russian leader, who might have felt he'd been stealing money from the Russian Federation, or undermining the Putinocracy, or both. In 2013, Berezovsky wound up dead in England in an apparent suicide, and the French state seized control of Château de la Garoupe."There's a thin line between the [Russian] guys who win or lose down here," Natalya told me. "You really have to have a serious enemy to wind up dead or in prison. Because most of the time when you've got the kind of money they do, the charges don't stick."This story has been corrected to reflect the fact that women did not get the vote in France until 1944.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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| The Latest: WHO to send mission to virus-hit China Posted: 08 Feb 2020 02:09 AM PST  The head of the World Health Organization says it received a response from China on Saturday on the dispatch of a WHO-led international mission to the country, where a new virus has emerged. Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the team leader will leave on Monday or Tuesday and the rest of the experts will follow.
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| 'We're definitely not prepared': Africa braces for new virus Posted: 07 Feb 2020 11:40 PM PST  At a Chinese-run hospital in Zambia, some employees watched as people who recently returned from China showed up with coughs but were not placed in isolation. A doctor tending to those patients has stopped coming to work, and health workers have been ordered not to speak publicly about the new virus that has killed hundreds around the world. The virus that has spread through much of China has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but global health authorities are increasingly worried about the threat to the continent where an estimated 1 million Chinese now live, as some health workers on the ground warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.
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| Air Force suicides surged last year to highest in 3 decades Posted: 07 Feb 2020 09:02 PM PST  Suicides in the active-duty Air Force surged last year to the highest total in at least three decades, even as the other military services saw their numbers stabilize or decline, according to officials and unpublished preliminary data. The reasons for the Air Force increase are not fully understood, coming after years of effort by all of the military services to counter a problem that seems to defy solution and that parallels increases in suicide in the U.S. civilian population. According to preliminary figures, the Air Force had 84 suicides among active-duty members last year, up from 60 the year before.
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| U.S., Europe could team up on 5G, but not if trade war under way -German lawmaker Posted: 07 Feb 2020 08:32 PM PST ![U.S., Europe could team up on 5G, but not if trade war under way -German lawmaker]( "U.S., Europe could team up on 5G, but not if trade war under way -German lawmaker") The United States and the European Union could team up to counter the dominance of China's Huawei Technologies in next-generation 5G telecoms technology, but not if Washington continues to threaten tariffs against Brussels, a senior German conservative lawmaker said late on Friday. Norbert Roettgen, a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, said he told U.S. officials during a visit to Washington that he saw opportunities for greater transatlantic cooperation on 5G that would benefit both sides.
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| Kobe Bryant helicopter had nearly cleared blinding clouds Posted: 07 Feb 2020 08:31 PM PST  The pilot of the helicopter that crashed and killed Kobe Bryant and eight others was almost out of blinding clouds when he suddenly plunged and crashed into a Southern California hillside, investigators and aviation experts indicated. Ara Zobayan had told air traffic control he was climbing to 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) and he rose to 2,300 feet (701 meters), according to an investigative update released Friday from the National Transportation Safety Board. The helicopter was just 100 feet (30 meters) from the cloud tops and conceivably would have broken through into clear air in a matter of seconds.
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| Haitian president lays out terms for deal with opposition Posted: 07 Feb 2020 06:45 PM PST  PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — President Jovenel Moise said Friday that he is optimistic that negotiations with a coalition of his political opponents will succeed in forging a power-sharing deal to end months of deadlock that have left Haiti without a functioning government. In an interview with The Associated Press, Moise laid out his bargaining position in the talks that began last week in the mission of the papal envoy to Haiti with political opponents and some civil society groups. Moise said his efforts to improve living conditions for Haiti's 11 million people had been thwarted during his first three years in office by the constitutional requirement that the National Assembly must approve virtually all significant presidential actions.
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| Judge strikes blow to US immigration enforcement tactics Posted: 07 Feb 2020 05:34 PM PST  A federal judge has prohibited U.S. immigration authorities from relying on databases deemed faulty to ask law enforcement agencies to hold people in custody, a setback for the Trump administration that threatens to hamper how it carries out arrests. The ruling applies only to the Central District of California, where state law already sharply limits the extent to which state and local law enforcement agencies can honor requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The ruling, issued Wednesday, applies even if ICE moves the operation from Laguna Niguel, south of Los Angeles.
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| Japan Next for Raab as U.K. Pushes Post-Brexit Trade Credentials Posted: 07 Feb 2020 04:01 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab faces a tough task when he arrives in Tokyo: persuading Japanese companies -- including those that invested in Britain as an entry point to the European Union -- to back Prime Minister Boris Johnson's vision for the U.K. after Brexit."Now we've left the EU we can take full advantage of the opportunities open to us -- in trade, investment, technological innovation and security cooperation," Raab said in an emailed statement ahead of a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi on Saturday. "Japan is a great friend and our closest security partner in Asia."While the Japanese government has expressed a willingness to negotiate a trade deal, it has also lobbied hard on behalf of companies for the U.K. to maintain close ties to the EU. Johnson's speech this week expressing a willingness -- if necessary -- to trade with the bloc from next year without a formal agreement will have done little to assuage their concerns.Japanese companies have used the U.K. as a center of car manufacturing over several decades, but Brexit has undermined a key rationale behind such investments by jeopardizing tariff-free access to the EU's single market and the ability to ship components and completed cars around the bloc without customs checks.Honda Motor Co. said it will close its Swindon plant by next year, and the European chairman of Nissan Motor Co. warned a no-deal Brexit would mean the company's factory in northeast England "will not be sustainable." That's still a possibility if the U.K. and the EU fail to reach a trade agreement before the deadline at the end of the year.The risks for Johnson's government extend beyond the economy. Many Japanese companies have operations in areas won by the Conservatives from Labour in the December election, and any loss of jobs would probably result in fewer votes for the governing party.Johnson has argued that the ability to strike trade deals around the world is one of the great prizes of Brexit, and his government is prioritizing the U.S., Japan, Australia and New Zealand this year. Raab's Japan visit follows talks in Canberra with his counterpart Marise Payne. After Japan, he will travel on to Singapore and Malaysia.To contact the reporter on this story: Olivia Konotey-Ahulu in London at okonoteyahul@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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| NH campaigns expected to shift into overdrive after debate Posted: 07 Feb 2020 12:04 PM PST  The final stretch before the New Hampshire primary is typically a frenetic period for White House hopefuls eager to make their mark early in the nomination process. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders made a morning appearance Friday, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren made an impromptu stop in a cafe to meet winners of a contest. It was a fitting end to a week in which the fallout from the chaotic Iowa caucuses, the climax of President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, the need to replenish campaign coffers and the demands of national television appearances have distracted candidates from the traditional New Hampshire glad-handing.
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