November, 2019

• 12 November

  Dems take impeachment probe public as Trump roars defiant

  

  Bloomberg House Democrats this week are taking their effort to impeach Donald Trump into a risky new phase of public hearings that the president is eager to turn into a made-for-TV personal battle, echoing his successful White House run in 2016. The hearings on Wednesday and Friday feature three career diplomats who, in previous closed-door depositions, outlined attempts by Trump’s ...

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• 12 November

  Top Gaza commander killed in Israeli airstrike

  Bloomberg Israel assassinated a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad group in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, touching off a barrage of Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli communities and Israeli airstrikes that shattered a truce that’s largely held for months. Islamic Jihad accused Israel of also targeting another of its top commanders, Akram al-Ajouri, in the Syrian capital, Damascus. In ...

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• 12 November

  Bolivia opposition seeks to fill power vacuum amid violence

  

  Bloomberg Bolivian lawmakers took a first step towards filling the vacuum of leadership left by the resignation of president Evo Morales, who has fled to Mexico after being granted asylum, as violent clashes continued around the country. Jeanine Anez, an opposition senator, surfaced as acting head of Congress and next in line to succeed Morales after Bolivia’s vice president and ...

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• 12 November

  Moon’s headache is prosecutor he picked

  

  Bloomberg South Korean President Moon Jae-in — swept into office on a vow to clean up government after his predecessor was ousted for graft — wanted a prosecutor who wouldn’t hesitate to go after the most powerful. Problem is, Moon may have gotten what he wished for in Yoon Seok-youl. Almost immediately after being appointed as the nation’s chief prosecutor ...

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• 12 November

  Fight over Hong Kong’s future grows more grim

  

  Bloomberg The pictures out of Hong Kong over the past few days have been particularly worrisome: a protester shot by police at point-blank range, an older man set ablaze, a truck driver beaten by demonstrators. While only one fatality has been linked to the protests since they began five months ago, that number could easily be higher. Police and protesters ...

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• 12 November

  Warren has a penchant for micro-pandering

  

  The torrent of astonishing talk from Democratic presidential aspirants has included two especially startling ideas. One is that we are going to die — the climate change crisis is “existential” — unless America does a slew of things that the aspirants know are not going to be done. And the leading progressive aspirant has endorsed an idea that would confirm ...

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• 12 November

  Do 125,000 farmers deserve $14.3b?

  

  The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy — also known as CAP — is a 58-billion-euro system of farm aid that accounts for the bloc’s biggest single budget expense. And it has long been a punching bag for euroskeptics. The UK press for years excoriated the “butter mountains” supported by EU money. Even after production quotas went away, critics accused the ...

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• 12 November

  China Pacific’s Swiss policy is mainly aimed at London

  It’s a deal linking Shanghai and Zurich, but the real target looks to be London. China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co. is in talks to invest at least $2 billion in Swiss Re AG, Manuel Baigorri of Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Shanghai-based China Pacific is the country’s third-largest insurer, while Zurich-based Swiss Re is Switzerland’s biggest ...

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• 12 November

  Germany undermining the climate change fight

  The European Union’s 555 billion-euro ($600 billion) lending arm, the European Investment Bank, will choose this month whether to sign off on a plan to ditch fossil fuel projects almost entirely and boost support for clean-energy finance. The decision has been delayed by pushback from Germany and some central European nations. That says a lot about Berlin’s muddled approach to ...

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• 12 November

  New voting rules could finally resolve Brexit

  

  As the UK prepares for elections on December 12, the outlook for Brexit is as unclear as ever. Among the options before voters are leaving the European Union without a deal (the Brexit Party); leaving with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s deal (the Tories); hammering out a new deal that would then be subject to a second referendum (Labour); or simply ...

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