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Britain’s economy is in serious danger of entering its first recession since the financial crisis as business confidence wilts in the Brexit chaos, a closely watched business survey showed on Wednesday. Growth in Britain’s dominant services sector slo…
September 4, 2019Read More
Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam says she is withdrawing the China extradition bill that sparked months of protests in Hong Kong. She made the announcement in video address.
September 4, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg Opinion) — If the U.K. parliament can’t clean up the Brexit mess, it might be time for Europe to start spending instead. The economic impact of a worst-case no-deal Brexit on the rest of the European Union is estimated to amount to $250 billion by 2030, according to the International Monetary Fund.Back in 2017, Ireland suggested that was a good reason to deploy one of the bloc’s financial lifelines. Known as the “Globalization Adjustment Fund,” it was intended to support the re-training and re-employment of people who had lost their jobs due to global phenomena like cheap competition abroad, or financial crises. It might now need to do the reverse: Help victims of de-globalization and rising barriers to trade.It looks like the Irish will get their wish. Reports say the EU’s “no-deal” help package to be announced Wednesday will include the fund after a broader push from member states and the European Parliament to add “Brexit” to the list of crises that justify using the money. The fund only has an annual budget of 150 million euros ($165 million). But this small pot of cash may be combined with another financial lifeline, the Solidarity Fund, which is supposed to help countries hit by natural disasters like earthquakes that cost around 0.6% of gross national income. It has paid out about 5 billion euros since 2002.To be clear, the numbers involved here are unlikely to get anywhere close to pulling Europe out of an economic hole. Ireland faces an estimated hit of 3.4 billion euros to its economy from a hard Brexit, according to the Bertelsmann Stiftung think tank. For nearby France, it’s 7.7 billion.Still, treating Brexit like a literal disaster has other advantages. Brussels is often accused by critics of being too distant and deaf to the concerns of ordinary people. More spending and less bureaucratic hoop-jumping — the tortuous box-checking associated with these funds is a problem — would be a welcome change from haggling over deficit limits. Member states might also be prodded into action in a slowing economy: The British-Irish Chamber of Commerce wants Ireland to use its corporate-tax coffers to finance a 1 billion-euro Brexit Response Fund.Ideally this would just be the start for incoming European Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen, who wants to harness the European Investment Bank to unlock $1.1 trillion of green investment, and new European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde, who has called for reform of the EU’s budget rules. More spending is vital, given the prospect not just of Brexit but an escalating global trade war. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reckons euro-zone economic growth could get a lift of 1% from a three-year fiscal stimulus if big countries like Germany upped their spending by 0.5% of GDP, alongside other reforms.Brexit might not be the starting-gun for a coordinated plan — it hasn’t happened yet, for one thing, and its impact is weighted towards specific industries and countries — but even a muddled approach would be progress. It took burning cars on the streets of Paris last year to push Emmanuel Macron into digging out 10 billion euros of French budget giveaways. Germany is torn between its commitments to a balanced budget and the chance to stave off recession through spending. Italy’s debt burden and fractious politics are limiting its room for maneuver.The U.K. is accelerating its own spending plans with an extra 2 billion pounds due to be announced. For all the negative aspects and costs of tearing up the terms of trade between Britain and its top trading partner, Europe should do likewise and prepare its own relief funds. Spending, and solidarity, are opportunities to seize from this crisis.To contact the author of this story: Lionel Laurent at [email protected] contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Baker at [email protected] column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Brussels. He previously worked at Reuters and Forbes.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
September 4, 2019Read More
At a CNN forum on climate change, the first such prime-time event in a presidential campaign, candidates vowed to take aggressive action to combat global warming.
September 4, 2019Read More
The owner of the British-flagged Stena Impero oil tanker held in the Persian Gulf by Iran says he was told by Iranian authorities that seven of the 23-member crew will be released. Erik Hanell, CEO of the Swedish shipping group Stena Bulk that owns th…
September 4, 2019Read More
President Hassan Rouhani said Iran will announce a new step in scaling back its nuclear commitments by Thursday despite a diplomatic push for relief from US sanctions. “I don’t think that… we will reach a deal, so we’ll take the third step and we wi…
September 4, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg) — Want to receive this post in your inbox every day? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.Boris Johnson has only been prime minister for six weeks. He might not last another six.In the latest dramatic climax in the U.K.’s three-year Brexit saga, Johnson humiliatingly lost his very first vote in parliament, leaving his party in tatters and his strategy in chaos.More than 20 of Johnson’s Conservatives defied his orders last night and backed a plan to stop him forcing the U.K. out of the European Union without a deal on Oct. 31. Johnson retaliated in spectacular style. First he warned that unless the rebels back down in another crucial vote today, he will push forward with his own attempt to trigger a general election. Then he fired them all.Among the casualties of Johnson’s purge were some of the biggest names in British politics. Former chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond was ejected from the Tory party. So too was 79-year-old former chancellor Kenneth Clarke, who first served in the cabinet under Margaret Thatcher.With an early election apparently inevitable, the risk for Johnson is that radically ripping up the Tory party and pushing for a hard Brexit could backfire. With the economy on course for its first recession since the financial crisis, voters may start to see Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn as the safer choice.Global HeadlinesLam’s gesture | Hong Kong’s embattled leader, Carrie Lam, formally withdrew legislation that would’ve allowed extraditions to China, local media reported, after a weekend of anti-government protests that saw fierce clashes with riot police. While Hong Kong stocks rallied, it’s unclear if killing the bill will placate a movement that has morphed into calls for direct leadership elections.Click here for more on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call for the ruling Communist Party to brace for a “long-term” struggle against a variety of threats.State of emergency | Hurricane Dorian is focusing its armory of flooding and high winds on the U.S. East Coast after laying waste to the Bahamas in a two-day battering. President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency in North Carolina as the Category 2 hurricane tracked north-northwest on a path forecast to take it parallel to the coast over the rest of the week.There’s a growing consensus among Democrats vying for the 2020 presidential nomination on seven ways to fight climate change.Hurdle cleared | Prime Minister-designate Giuseppe Conte is set to form Italy’s next government after supporters of the anti-establishment Five Star backed him in an online vote. Five Star will join forces with the center-left Democratic Party, an outfit it had long criticized as corrupt and out of touch. Conte will present a list of ministers and a government program today to President Sergio Mattarella.Officials told John Follain today that Roberto Gualtieri, a European lawmaker from the Democratic Party, is the leading candidate to become finance minister.No Lone Ranger | Trump’s new ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, wants to cut a low-key profile and leave the combative tone to other administration officials. As David Wainer reports, the wealthy Trump campaign contributor plans to focus on a narrower range of issues than her predecessor such as building alliances to muster resources for global humanitarian crises.Family matter | Those who criticize Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s plan to make his son ambassador to the U.S. are “envious of the access” he would have in Washington, Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo says. He told Samy Adghirni in an interview that Trump knows very few ambassadors by their first name — so the fact the U.S. president met over the weekend with Eduardo Bolsonaro is proof of the special treatment he’d receive.What to WatchPoliticians and business leaders are due to gather in Cape Town today for a World Economic Forum meeting overshadowed by xenophobic violence that’s soured South Africa’s relations with its regional counterparts. Japanese Foreign Minister Kono Taro in an editorial today for Bloomberg urged South Korea to take “concrete actions as a responsible member of the international community” as a resurgent dispute over colonial-era grievances hits trade between the two U.S. allies.And finally … Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador insists he isn’t paranoid after he showed reporters a mini camera he says was used to spy on him. Cleaning staff found the device by accident in a dining area used for meetings with governors and business leaders. The president says he has nothing to hide and put the incident down to the fact that “some have kept their bad habits and practices of spying,” he said. To contact the author of this story: Tim Ross in London at [email protected] contact the editor responsible for this story: Karl Maier at [email protected], Rosalind MathiesonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
September 4, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg) — A Scottish judge declined to block Boris Johnson’s plan to suspend Parliament, dealing a blow to lawmakers who argued that there isn’t enough time to thwart a no-deal Brexit.Judge Raymond Doherty in Edinburgh held off granting an injunct…
September 4, 2019Read More
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies on Tuesday denied a new allegation of patent theft from a Portuguese inventor while accusing the US government of trying to “coerce” its employees to turn against it.Last Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US Department of Justice had investigated Huawei in connection with a theft of smartphone-camera patents alleged by a Portuguese inventor, Rui Pedro Oliveira.In its Tuesday statement, Huawei said “these allegations are false”, adding it was “clear that Mr. Oliveira is taking advantage of the current geopolitical situation”.Huawei also said that over the past several months, the US government had engaged in tactics to “threaten, menace, coerce, entice, and incite both current and former Huawei employees to turn against the company and work for them”.Law enforcement officials also had attempted “entrapment, or pretending to be Huawei employees, to establish legal pretence for unfounded accusations against the company,” the statement said.A Huawei spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request by the South China Morning Post for a comment elaborating on the company’s statement. The FBI declined to comment on the Huawei accusations.The world’s second largest smartphone maker is caught in the crosshairs of the 13-month-old US-China trade war, as the Trump administration worries that Huawei’s data on the US could be leaked to Beijing, posing a security threat.Huawei has been indicted in multiple lawsuits related to allegations it violated US business laws by doing business with Iran, a sanctioned country, and infringing intellectual property rights, among other things.In nine bullet points, Huawei’s statement alleged a range of actions by the FBI that included unlawfully searching, detaining and even arresting company employees and partners, and launching cyberattacks to infiltrate its intranet and internal information systems.FBI agents were also sent to the homes of Huawei employees to pressure them to collect information on the company, according to the statement.Huawei has long denied multiple accusations of trade patent infringement, including an ongoing investigation into claims it stole trade secrets from T Mobile, the mobile communications unit of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG, in 2012 and 2013.Huawei’s clandestine business dealings with Iran led to the arrest of its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in Vancouver, British Columbia last year.In Late August, the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, accused the US of trying to disrupt the company’s business with unwarranted charges that it said amounted to “typical bullying behaviour”.In May, the Commerce Department blacklisted Huawei, placing it on an Entity List of nations considered a risk to US security and foreign policy, to prevent it from buying American components through firms such as Qualcomm and Intel.Huawei’s clandestine business dealings with Iran led to the arrest of CFO Meng Wanzhou, shown leaving her family home in Vancouver, where she remains under house arrest. Photo: Reuters alt=Huawei’s clandestine business dealings with Iran led to the arrest of CFO Meng Wanzhou, shown leaving her family home in Vancouver, where she remains under house arrest. Photo: ReutersThe Trump administration worries that the Chinese company could be forced to divulge the data it has on the US to the Chinese government.Last month, however, the US extended to November a deadline that would allow American tech suppliers to sell components to Huawei for another 90 days.In Tuesday’s statement, Huawei said the Portuguese inventor Oliveira had met with company representatives in 2014 to pitch his design for a smartphone camera. Last year, Oliveira sued the company for patent theft, accusing it of using his design in its newly released camera.Huawei filed a complaint against Oliveira in March in the US, seeking to get the American court to declare that no patent infringement had taken place. The case is pending.This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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(Bloomberg) — Angela Merkel’s government aims to phase out herbicides containing glyphosate by the end of 2023, a move that could generate further headwinds for German drug and chemical giant Bayer AG.As part of the proposal approved by her cabinet on…
September 4, 2019Read More
Veteran lawmaker Nicholas Soames was one of 21 Conservative lawmakers who defied their own party to vote against Johnson on Brexit.
September 4, 2019Read More
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