August, 2019

• 3 August

  US sanctions Russia again over ‘nerve agent’

  

  Bloomberg The US imposed a second round of sanctions on Russia for using a nerve agent in an assassination attempt last year. The additional sanctions will prohibit US banks from participating in the issuance of Russian sovereign debt, the State Department said in an emailed statement. The sanctions will take effect following the publication of a federal register notice on ...

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• 3 August

  Thai premier condemns Bangkok bomb blasts

  Bloomberg Authorities in Thailand tightened security in Bangkok as they probed a series of small blasts that hit the city, injuring at least four people. Some of the explosions were caused by homemade bombs and the incidents could be linked, the police said. Blasts occurred at a government complex, a suburban road, below a downtown metro station and near an ...

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• 3 August

  Trump calls HK protests ‘riots’, adopting China rhetoric

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump labeled recent protests in Hong Kong as “riots,” adopting the language used by Chinese authorities and suggesting the US would stay out of an issue that was “between Hong Kong and China.” “Something is probably happening with Hong Kong, because when you look at, you know, what’s going on, they’ve had riots for a long period ...

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• 3 August

  Johnson’s UK majority cut to one seat

  

  Bloomberg The anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats won a by-election in Brecon and Radnorshire, reducing Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s House of Commons majority to a single seat and making his balancing act more difficult as he seeks to deliver Brexit by October 31. Jane Dodds of the Liberal Democrats won 13,826 votes, beating Conservative Chris Davies on 12,401. Dodds overturned Davies’s majority ...

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• 3 August

  ‘US headed towards blockade of Venezuela’

  

  Bloomberg Donald Trump is serious about a possible US blockade of Venezuela, a senior administration official said, saying that the country’s president Nicolas Maduro has a short window to voluntarily leave power. Trump told reporters that he was considering a blockade or quarantine of the Latin American country, where the US has been trying for months to unseat Maduro. He ...

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• 3 August

  Donald Trump’s intelligence shakeup could be dangerous

  

  Among intelligence professionals, President Trump’s nomination of an inexperienced, partisan politician to oversee America’s spy agencies prompted deep dismay — but also a stolid reaffirmation of the spymaster’s credo: Let’s get on with it. This combination of incredulity and stoicism was voiced by a half-dozen current and former officers I spoke with about Trump’s choice of Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, ...

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• 3 August

  Credit Suisse, BNP bounce may be brief

  

  Wall Street’s worst first half in more than a decade for trading is turning out to be surprisingly less painful for some European firms: Credit Suisse Group AG and BNP Paribas SA managed to claw back some of the market share they had previously lost. But counting on a continued rebound could be a mistake. Switzerland’s second-biggest bank reported a ...

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• 3 August

  Congo’s Ebola outbreak is US national security threat

  In 2014, the US led the effort by governments to blunt the world’s biggest outbreak of Ebola, which took more than 11,000 lives in West Africa before it was declared over in mid-2016. Now, a smaller but more complex outbreak rages in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the US response has been shaped by indifference and bureaucratic haggling. The ...

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• 3 August

  ECB’s Draghi sends love and thanks to Powell

  Jerome Powell’s half-hearted rate cut incensed President Donald Trump, who immediately took to Twitter to say the chairman of the US Federal Reserve had “let us down”. Global equities sunk and the dollar strengthened as Powell chose to cut rates by a quarter- rather than a half-point and said this wasn’t the start of a “lengthy cutting cycle.” But the ...

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• 3 August

  China buying more US farm goods is a dead end

  

  With trade talks collapsing between the US and China in Shanghai, there’s even less hope of any resumption in American farm exports, which were once portrayed as the foundation of any agreement. That’s not good enough, according to President Donald Trump. Had a trade detente materialised, those expecting a rapid return to the status quo on farm trade likely would ...

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