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Wall Street rises, buoyed by economic data; Dow sets high

U. S. services sector activity hit a high in November, with a surge in production boosting hiring, following on the heels of Friday’s employment report that showed strong job gains last month. U. S. stocks have climbed since the Nov. 8 election, fueled by expectations of significant economic stimulus and cuts in corporate taxes and regulations under Donald Trump. ”A lot of people were negative going into the election, or cautious, so now they’re scrambling to own stocks,” said Alan Lancz, president of investment advisory firm Alan B. Lancz & Associates Inc in Toledo, Ohio. Lancz said U. S. investors on Monday also were encouraged by strength in European equities following Italy’s political referendum. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was set to resign after suffering a resounding defeat over constitutional reform. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 45. 82 points, or 0. 24 percent, to 19, 216. 24, the S&P 500 gained 12. 76 points, or 0. 58 percent, to 2, 204. 71 and the Nasdaq Composite added 53. 24 points, or 1. 01 percent, to 5, 308. 89. The Dow, which closed at a record and minted a new intraday peak, has topped the other major indexes since the election, as investors have rotated into the financial and industrial sectors. Financials gained 1. 2 percent on Monday and were the major S&P sector. Goldman Sachs shares rose 2. 3 percent after HSBC initiated coverage with a ”buy” rating. Monday’s economic data reinforced the view that the Federal Reserve is primed to raise interest rates next week, benefiting banks. “We have a situation where the Fed is probably going to raise rates next week and this time raising rates is being viewed as a positive, mainly because of its impact on the financial stocks, which are all doing quite well today,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia. Big tech names also lifted the S&P 500 and helped the Nasdaq outperform on Monday. Amazon. com rose 2. 6 percent as it said it opened a grocery store in Seattle without lines or checkout counters. Health insurers Aetna and Humana fell 3 percent and 2. 2 percent, respectively, as a trial over their proposed merger kicked off. The health sector fell 0. 2 percent and was the group. About 7. 1 billion shares changed hands in U. S. exchanges, below the 7. 9 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2. ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3. ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted 52 new highs and 2 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 232 new highs and 29 new lows. (Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Nick Zieminski) SINGAPORE Most Asian stock markets fell on Thursday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed a lack of consensus on the future pace of U. S. interest rate increases, while oil prices inched higher following a steep decline a day earlier. WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday.

Aleppo’s fall would be win for Russia, defeat for U.S. in Mideast

U. S. moderate rebels’ loss of the eastern half of Syria’s largest city Aleppo to government forces would be a defeat for President Barack Obama’s efforts to promote democracy and defeat terrorism in the Middle East, U. S. officials conceded on Monday. Their grim assessment reflected the expectation that the last districts of Aleppo, where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped, will soon fall to the Syrian Army supported by Russia, Iran, and Shiite Muslim militias from Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere. ”The fall of eastern Aleppo will confront the United States with the reality that supporting a moderate opposition with any hope of becoming the future government of Syria is no longer a hope,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior U. S. intelligence analyst. The defeat would leave Donald Trump with less influence over the course of the more than civil war that is likely to grind on, fueling greater instability, violent extremism, refugee flows and regional rivalries, the officials said. The loss by the moderate rebels would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar securing his grip on all of Syria’s main cities and most of the south, central spine and western flank bordering the Mediterranean. It also would vindicate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bet that he could save Moscow’s longtime ally Assad by intervening in September 2015 with airpower, artillery, military advisers and other support. Russia on Monday said it would start talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo, a step the U. S. official said Washington would likely embrace to save lives. ”Who won? Putin, the Iranians and Assad. Who lost? We did, and Jordan (where the CIA trained and armed moderate rebels) especially. The Saudis and Gulf states,” said one U. S. official, who like others who spoke to Reuters, requested anonymity. As Obama prepares to leave office on Jan. 20, his policies in the Islamic world have suffered a series of setbacks. His hopes to bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians have been dashed. He pulled U. S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but they are back in limited numbers helping the government combat Islamic State fighters. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is retaking territory where U. S. and allied forces had defeated them. Libya, where the Obama administration led ”from behind” to oust Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, is in chaos. ’ALEPPO FALLS, BUT THE WAR GOES ON’ Syria, though, is the clearest American defeat. Some U. S. officials spoke bitterly of Obama’s decision not to intervene more forcefully in a war that has claimed more than 500, 000 lives, forced millions from their homes and unleashed waves of refugees into neighboring states and Europe. While Obama provided some support to moderate rebel factions, it was never enough to achieve the U. S. goal of forcing Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers to negotiate his replacement by a government of national unity, they said. The moderate opposition’s defeat also confirms the return of Moscow as a major regional powerbroker, a status it has not enjoyed since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. ”In the end, the Russians didn’t have an interest in ending the war,” said one U. S. official of Washington’s effort to craft a diplomatic solution with Moscow. ”They wanted to win it.” Pillar said he doubted that a negotiated outcome was ever attainable. ”There was never enough of a political culture or base for the moderate opposition to become strong enough . . . before Russian intervention or after,” said Pillar. But with Assad hampered by manpower shortages, the civil war that began after he crushed peaceful protests in 2011 will go on, compelling the continued involvement of Russia and the Syrian leader’s other allies. ”Aleppo falls, but the war goes on,” said the first U. S. official. WILL AL QAEDA REBOUND? He and other current and former U. S. officials argued that rebels who escape Aleppo would keep fighting, with some likely joining groups such as Jabhat Fateh formerly known as the Nusra Front, which Washington regards as al Qaeda’s Syrian branch. ”The guys who are going to get out are going to fight . They are going to join Nusra . .. the Arabs are going to continue to fund the opposition,” said the U. S. official. ”They are not going to forget about it just because we have.” Other U. S. officials warned that the conflict could escalate as flagging U. S. support for Assad’s opponents could prompt Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to intensify their military aid to rebel groups. A second official, reflecting concerns shared by numerous others, said Saudi Arabia could funnel more lethal weapons to opposition factions, which raises the possibility that they eventually could be turned against Western targets. ”We’ve been pretty good at keeping stuff out of there so terrorists can’t get their hands on it, but there’s no reason for the Saudis to heed our warnings anymore,” he said. Meanwhile, the fall of eastern Aleppo will provide a major boost to Shi’ite Iran, Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered significant casualties fighting for Assad. By helping secure Assad, Iran will preserve the pipeline through which it ships missiles and other weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia movement that also has fought for Damascus, to use against Israel. ”The Assad family is the longest standing strategic partner of Iran in the entire Middle East,” said a third U. S. official. ”Syria is the forward operating base against Israel, the conduit to Hezbollah, and an island in the Arab lands.” (Reporting by Jonathan Landay and Arshad Mohammed; Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by John Walcott and Grant McCool) QAMISHLI, The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a ”declaration of war” which could trigger clashes within days. CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis.

UTC CEO says no ’quid pro quo’ on keeping Indiana plant open

United Technologies Corp ( ) parent company of Carrier Corp, got a ”good deal” with Donald Trump that allowed it to shift most jobs at two Indiana plants to Mexico, its chief executive said on Monday in an interview with CNBC. Greg Hayes, chief executive of UTC, said Trump did not make threats in negotiations over the plant’s future or raise the company’s U. S. military contracts. Carrier, which in February had announced plans to close two Indiana plants and send 2, 100 jobs to Mexico, agreed last week to keep its Indianapolis plant open and keep about 1, 100 jobs in the state, including 800 at the plant. It did not change its decision to close its Huntington plant. ”I was born at night but not last night,” Hayes told CNBC. ”I also know that about 10 percent of our revenue comes from the U. S. government. And I know that a better regulatory environment, a lower tax rate can eventually help UTC over the long run. And so we weighed all of things in making the decision with the board.” UTC, which had revenue of $56 billion in 2015 and owns Pratt & Whitney, has significant U. S. military contracts. Trump, who repeatedly threatened during the presidential campaign to impose a 35 percent tax on companies that moved jobs overseas, announced a deal last week in which UTC agreed to keep the Indianapolis plant open and invest at least $16 million in it. Indiana officials said UTC would receive up to $7 million in state tax incentives. ”We keep the plant open, we keep 1, 100 people employed in Indianapolis. We still get to do the preponderance of the restructuring, which we were going to do anyways,” Hayes told CNBC, calling it a ”a good deal for UTC.” Hayes said there was ”no quid pro quo” and said Trump did not tell him he would not impose taxes if the plant was kept open. ”He simply said, ’Take a hard look at it,’” Hayes said. Hayes said the $16 million investment will help automate the plant ”to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive. Now is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost labor? No.” Hayes said the company’s military contracts did not come up in talks with Trump and Vice Mike Pence, the Indiana governor. Wayne Ranick, a spokesman for the United Steelworkers union, said the deal means that 730 union workers at the Indianapolis plant will keep their jobs and about 80 salaried workers. But work on fan coil manufacturing ”is still going to Mexico, affecting about 600 employees.” The nearly 1, 100 jobs also includes retaining about 300 jobs at Carrier’s Indiana headquarters that were not scheduled to go Mexico. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler) WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday. One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.

Trump should not spend like economy in crisis: Fed officials

Federal Reserve officials cautioned on Monday that the incoming Trump administration’s economic plans should not be cast as if the economy is in crisis, but instead be designed to help the economy’s prospects. The comments reflected a developing debate within the Fed over the impact of Donald Trump’s leadership of a government. Fed officials worry there is risk that overly aggressive fiscal, tax and other changes could become inflationary given the economy’s current strength. That could force the Fed into more rapid interest rate increases and possibly raise the risk of recession. Yet there is also potential, officials feel, for tax, regulatory and infrastructure spending to boost the country’s lagging productivity. Properly designed and executed policies to boost infrastructure, modify regulations for some industries and overhaul the tax code ”may have some impact . .. if they are directed towards improving U. S. productivity growth,” St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said in remarks in Phoenix at a luncheon sponsored by Arizona State University. But ”these policies should not be viewed as countercyclical measures,” Bullard said. ”The economy is not in recession today.” ”An infrastructure plan would be terrific, that would be good,” Chicago Federal Reserve bank president Charles Evans said in Chicago. ”I think corporate tax rationalization would be a huge improvement.” Yet he agreed: ”you don’t need explicit stimulus” with the jobless rate already so low. FISCAL OUT OF SYNC Fed officials are typically reluctant to give specific advice to the elected officials who set government spending and debt levels, in part to preserve their own political independence. But in recent months they have become more voluble on the subject. They feel fiscal policy in the critical early years after the financial crisis was out of sync with what the country required, set too tight at a time when the country needed, and the Fed was pushing to achieve, higher growth. Trump’s victory, coupled with the election of a House and Senate, has turned that debate on its head: elected officials may be pushing to stimulate the economy at a time when the Fed is beginning to raise interest rates and sees the economy approaching full employment. The dilemma would be resolved, Fed officials suggested, if the new administration’s policies focus on efforts that revive productivity growth, and do not amount to spending for spending’s sake. ”If you put the right public capital in place it could improve productivity and you would have a higher trend growth rate,” Bullard said in comments that have been echoed across the Fed. In remarks in New York, Fed vice chair and New York Fed President William Dudley recommended Congress and the administration set rules that could help in the next crisis with programs that automatically boost spending in a downturn. Such automatic stabilizers ”would kick in to support incomes,” Dudley said, which ”should lead workers to be less fearful about losing their jobs, and businesses to be less concerned that demand for their products might fall precipitously.” (Additional reporting by Ann Saphir in Chicago and Jon Spicer in New York; Editing by David Chance, Paul Simao and Meredith Mazzilli) SINGAPORE Most Asian stock markets fell on Thursday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed a lack of consensus on the future pace of U. S. interest rate increases, while oil prices inched higher following a steep decline a day earlier. WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday.

Delaware Court revives case over Pincus’s Zynga stock sale

The Delaware Supreme Court revived a lawsuit against Zynga Inc’s ( ) controlling shareholder, Mark Pincus, and fellow board members for allegedly allowing leaders of the social gaming company to act on inside information and dump stock before it crashed in 2012. Delaware’s high court ruled that the Court of Chancery erred when it dismissed the lawsuit against the board of Zynga, which created the online game Farmville, in February for procedural reasons. The ruling clears the way for the 2014 lawsuit by shareholder Thomas Sandys to proceed to discovery and trial, or for new motions to dismiss. Neither court has considered the merits of the allegations. A Zynga spokeswoman declined to comment. Sandys’ lawsuit alleged that Zynga’s board exempted top managers and directors, including former Chief Executive Officer Pincus, from a rule restricting stock sales until three days after an earnings announcement. The group of insiders then sold 20. 3 million shares of stock for $236. 7 million in a secondary offering at $12 per share, according to court records, with Pincus selling $192 million of stock. Three weeks later, the company announced its earnings, sending the stock tumbling to $8. 52, and three months later it fell to $3. 18. Sandys sued Pincus and others on behalf of Zynga, in what is known as a derivative action. Any settlement or judgment in the case will be paid to Zynga, not directly to shareholders. The lower court dismissed the case because it found Sandys failed to show that a majority of the board was too conflicted to consider bringing the lawsuit, which would clear the way for a shareholder to pursue the case. The Supreme Court found the lower court should have determined six of the board’s directors were not impartial, not just three. The high court focused on Ellen Siminoff, whose husband an aircraft with Pincus, and William Gordon and John Doerr, partners at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The firm is a major investor in Zynga and also One Kings Lane, a company by Pincus’s wife. Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo Strine said in the opinion those sort of relationships made it impossible for those directors to impartially consider suing Pincus. ”Causing a lawsuit to be brought against another person is no small matter, and is the sort of thing that might plausibly endanger a relationship.” Zynga stock on Monday closed at $2. 95, up 3. 15 percent, on Nasdaq. (Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware) BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are weighing another record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and have set up a panel of experts to give a second opinion on the case, two people familiar with the matter said. MEXICO CITY Billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil argued on Wednesday against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country’s telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights.

Ex-coup leader, DEA fugitive wins Haitian Senate seat

A former Haitian coup leader wanted by the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration for alleged cocaine trafficking and money laundering has won election to Haiti’s Senate, according to preliminary results released by the electoral council. Guy Philippe defeated all other candidates in the second round of elections, held on Nov. 20, for the southwestern Grand Anse region, which is still recovering from the damage inflicted by Hurricane Matthew. ”Victory, thank you Grand Anse,” said a message posted on Philippe’s Facebook page late on Sunday. ”My fellow compatriots, together we will accomplish and live a patriotic act of faith.” In Haiti, losing candidates have a period in which to file complaints about the results. If Philippe’s win stands, he would take office early next year for a term. In 2004, the former police officer, who Human Rights Watch said had overseen extrajudicial killings, was a prominent figure in a coup against President Aristide. His election underscores political turmoil in impoverished Haiti, which is still struggling to establish democratic institutions more than 20 years after it threw off a dictatorship. The DEA has a arrest warrant against Philippe and lists him as one of its Most Wanted Fugitives, accusing him of conspiracy to import cocaine and launder monetary instruments. He has denied the accusations and said the United States had no legal jurisdiction to make arrests in Haiti. DEA agents backed by Haitian police made a failed bid to arrest Philippe in 2007. He was not at home when the agents showed up. The DEA spokeswoman for Miami, Anne Judith Lambert, said the agency could not comment on Philippe because the warrant was active. A U. S. Embassy spokesman said it had no official position on Philippe’s electoral victory. Earlier this year, Philippe threatened an uprising against any transitional government put in place after President Michel Martelly left power with no elected successor. He was later suspected of involvement in an attack on police headquarters in the southern Haitian city of Les Cayes that killed at least six people. One of the detained gunmen said Philippe had commissioned the assault, which involved some 50 men. Haitian police issued a warrant for Philippe’s arrest after the attack in Les Cayes. His lawyers have argued that the warrant was invalid because he was a candidate. Election to Haiti’s parliament will mean Philippe will have legal immunity from some but not all criminal proceedings. (Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Peter Cooney) QAMISHLI, The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a ”declaration of war” which could trigger clashes within days. CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis.

Ghana President Mahama asks for second term to consolidate gains

Ghana President John Mahama, facing a tough challenge in this week’s election, said on Monday he had done his best in the past four years and deserved a second term to consolidate economic and infrastructure gains. ”I humbly ask for your mandate on Wednesday . .. to complete the journey which we all started together,” Mahama told thousands of supporters at the end of the ruling party’s campaign ahead of Wednesday’s vote. Mahama is seeking a second and final term in what is expected to be a close race between him and main opposition leader Nana . Voters will choose among seven presidential candidates and elect members of parliament for 275 constituencies. Ghana exports gold, oil and cocoa, but experienced a slump in global commodity prices and macroeconomic instability, forcing the government to adopt a aid deal with the International Monetary Fund in April 2015. Mahama said that despite the challenges, the West African country made modest gains in stabilizing the economy, resolving a prolonged power crisis and improving social and economic infrastructure. ”We have done much work, but more needs to be done and we can only advance faster if we press on and stay the course,” Mahama said. Mahama, 58, a former vice president, was elected in 2012 after serving six months as president to complete the term of John Atta Mills, who died in office. has said Mahama would threaten the nation’s future, accusing the president’s government of mismanaging the economy and unleashing hardship. Mahama’s supporters, waving miniature party flags, filled the stands and inner perimeter of the Accra sports stadium, draped in a sea of black, red, white and green stripes. Among them was a group of five women aged 72 to 78 years, who said they showed up to celebrate Mahama for consolidating peace and unity in Ghana. ”He is not only doing his best for Ghana but he is also an epitome of peace, which we sometimes take for granted,” one of them, Naa Teye, said. Ghana has held five successful democratic elections since 1992 and Mahama said he was hopeful the election would pass off peacefully. (Reporting by Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Peter Cooney) QAMISHLI, The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a ”declaration of war” which could trigger clashes within days. CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis.

Contenders line up after New Zealand’s prime minister resigns

At least three senior ministers joined the race to replace New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday, a day after Key stunned the nation by resigning to spend more time with his family, with his deputy Bill English seen as the . English, the finance minister and deputy leader of the ruling National Party, announced his candidacy, as did Health Minister Jonathan Coleman and Police Minister Judith Collins. Other contenders may yet still emerge before the party holds a caucus meeting on Monday to vote for a new leader. English, who has been endorsed by Key, is seen as to win but some analysts felt Coleman stood a chance. ”It’s Bill English’s to lose in the sense that there’s such a strong endorsement and essentially direction from Key that it’s very difficult for the caucus to outright repudiate the prime minister’s preference,” said Jon Johansson, a political scientist at Wellington’s Victoria University. Several Cabinet members, including Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse and Primary Industry Minister Nathan Guy, have declared their support for English. Other potential candidates include senior Cabinet minister Steven Joyce, fellow Cabinet minister Paula Bennett and Energy Minister Simon Bridges. ”I can see fantastic opportunities for stronger economic performance, for spreading the benefits of growth for more New Zealanders . .. I am a candidate for leadership,” English told reporters after a caucus meeting in New Zealand’s distinctive ”Beehive” parliament building in the capital, Wellington. National elections are not expected until late 2017. A recent UMR survey of voters pegged English as favorite to replace Key on 21 percent, followed by Joyce on 16 percent, Bennett on 11 percent and Collins on 6 percent. Coleman was not ranked in the survey, which was conducted in early October, but said he had youth and energy on his side. Johansson said some backbenchers felt senior party positions were all held by old hands and there was room for new blood. ”I think there could be a little bit more turbulence going on in that caucus than surface appearances,” he said. Key has been New Zealand’s leader since 2008 and the National Party is through a third, term that has been marked by political stability and economic reform. He remains one of the world’s most popular leaders, praised for his stewardship of New Zealand’s $170 billion economy in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and two devastating earthquakes in Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand’s South Island. (Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Paul Tait) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

Brazil’s indicted Senate head removed by Supreme Court

Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday removed Senator Renan Calheiros as president of the Senate after the top court indicted him last week on charges of embezzlement, a court spokesman said, a move that could put the government’s agenda in peril. His replacement on Tuesday by Senator Jorge Vianna of the leftist Workers Party, who opposes spending cuts, could block steps to control a widening budget deficit and recoup confidence in Latin America’s largest economy mired in a deep recession. Justice Marco Aurelio de Mello removed Calheiros based on a majority ruling by the high court last month that any person indicted for a crime could not be in the presidential line of succession. The head of the Senate is the second in line after the speaker of the lower house, as Brazil does not have a vice president at the moment. The judge’s ruling must be put to the full court, which is expected to uphold the injunction on Wednesday since six of its 11 justices favored the new presidential succession rule. The removal of Calheiros was a new blow for President Michel Temer whose government has been weakened by corruption scandals as it strives to push through unpopular austerity measures, including a cap on federal spending that is scheduled to be put to a final vote in the Senate on Dec. 13. ”The injunction is terrible news for Temer because it puts the spending ceiling at risk given that the deputy leader of the Senate is from the Workers Party,” said Leonardo Barreto, head of political consultancy Factual. ”This can delay the final vote and send the wrong signal to markets,” he said. Calheiros declined to comment on the decision but his office said he would step down on Tuesday morning when he is officially notified, at which point Vianna, the vice president of the upper chamber, becomes leader until Senate elections in February. The Workers Party quickly said the fiscal measures should be delayed until the new session next year. ”How can we vote for this explosive agenda in the climate of instability in which no one knows who is in command of the Senate,” Workers Party Senator Paulo Paim said. Calheiros was indicted Dec. 1 on charges of misusing public funds in a case involving child support for a daughter he had in an extramarital affair, including billing the Senate for car rentals with false contracts. The change of leadership in the Senate comes at a crucial moment for Temer’s efforts to pass austerity measures through Congress to restore fiscal discipline to Brazil’s overdrawn government accounts. The government’s leader in Congress, Senator Romero Juca, said the removal of Calheiros would not alter plans for the Dec. 13 vote on the spending cap, the key measure in Temer’s plan to rein in a widening budget deficit. But the uncertainty is expected to rattle investors who are looking for signs that Brazil is putting its books in order before they decide to invest in the country again. Brazil lost its credit rating last year due to the fiscal deficit run up by the Workers Party government of impeached President Dilma Rousseff, who was replaced by Temer in May. The fall of Calheiros was a question of time because he faces 11 corruption investigations, most of them related to the massive bribery and kickback scandal centered on oil company Petrobras. The ousting of Calheiros was welcomed by some of his peers who were critical of his attempts to curtail the work of prosecutors in the Petrobras scandal. ”It was deeply unsettling for all of us to have an indicted person as leader,” said Senator Ricardo Ferraço of centrist PSDB party. ”This is timely and will clean things up.” (Additional reporting by Eduardo Simoes and Marcelo Teixeira in Sao Paulo; Editing by Diane Craft and Lisa Shumaker) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

U.S. attorneys argue Aetna-Humana deal violates antitrust law

A U. S. Justice Department attorney told a federal judge on Monday that health insurer Aetna Inc’s planned acquisition of Humana Inc would break antitrust law by reducing competition in Medicare Advantage and Obamacare exchange businesses, kicking off a trial expected to last weeks. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in July asking the court to stop Aetna’s $34 billion deal for Humana, arguing it would lead to higher prices for seniors and the disabled on Medicare and for people who use the individual insurance program created under the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. Aetna defended the deal on Monday, arguing that Medicare Advantage competes with the government’s traditional Medicare program for elderly or disabled patients. It also said that it plans to stay out of the Obamacare exchanges in the near future. Both programs, as well as antitrust enforcement, could face changes under Republican Donald Trump. Justice Department lawyer Craig Conrath told Judge John Bates of the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia that traditional Medicare does not compete with Medicare Advantage, which is run by insurers. A witness called by the government, Aetna executive Nancy Cocozza, president of Aetna’s Medicare Business, was shown internal documents that appeared to show that Aetna considered Humana a major competitor but not original Medicare. The documents were not visible in the court. Shown one assessment of top competitors that did not have Medicare, Cocozza protested, ”These are MA (Medicare Advantage) competitors but there are others.” Conrath also said that Aetna’s plan to largely exit the Obamacare exchanges in 2017 should be disregarded because the company could the market as soon as 2018 if it chooses. Conrath said written communications showed that Aetna left Obamacare because of the antitrust lawsuit. Aetna has said it would not return to the exchanges until 2019 at the earliest. Share prices of both companies dropped Monday. Humana closed down 2. 2 percent at $208. 83 while Aetna was down 3 percent at $129. 45. Aetna attorney John Majoras argued that traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage did compete, citing a U. S. government website. There could soon be more competition, he said, noting ”entry has been common and it has been widespread.” Majoras also argued that the Obamacare exchanges were unprofitable and said that was the real reason the company planned to drop out of 11 of the 15 states where they are on the exchanges. ”The result to Aetna has been mounting losses,” Majoras said. ”Humana’s losses were actually even a bit worse.” The Justice Department filed another lawsuit in July to stop Anthem Inc’s planned $45 billion purchase of Cigna Corp. That trial is underway in the same courthouse. The trials will be over before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. He has pledged to repeal and replace Obamacare and has said Medicare should be modernized. Humana is the second largest Medicare Advantage insurer while Aetna is the fourth, and the two compete in more than 600 counties, the government said in its complaint. (Reporting by Diane Bartz and Caroline Humer; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler) Biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp will buy a stake in BeiGene Ltd and help develop and commercialize BeiGene’s investigational treatment for tumor cancers, the companies said on Wednesday. BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen .

Setting sights on fourth term, Merkel vows tough line on migration

Angela Merkel laid out her case for a fourth term as German chancellor on Tuesday, seeking to energize her conservatives with a call to ban Muslim veils and the promise of a tougher stance on immigration after a record influx of refugees. Speaking to a party congress of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Essen, the western rust belt city where she won the party leadership 16 years ago, Merkel sought to present herself as a guarantor of stability in an uncertain world. The meeting was taking place a month after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States and at a time when Europe is reeling from a surge in populism and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Merkel has been described as the last guardian of western democratic values, a suggestion she rejected. ”You must help me,” she said in an impassioned appeal to 1, 000 CDU delegates. ”No one, not even someone with great experience, can change things for the good in Germany, in Europe, in the world more or less on their own certainly not a chancellor of Germany.” She was later head of the party by 89. 5 percent of the delegates present, down from 96. 7 percent two years ago. Europe’s most powerful leader announced in November that she would seek to win a fourth term next autumn a feat achieved by only two chancellors, Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl, both of the CDU. Merkel’s decision to allow the migrant influx last year hit her popularity, triggered a damaging fight with her Bavarian allies and led to a surge in support for the eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party is expected to win its first seats in the federal parliament next year. In a nod to these troubles, Merkel began her speech with a promise not to allow a repetition of last year’s migrant influx, when nearly 900, 000 migrants poured into Germany, and drew cheers when she said the Muslim veil was not compatible with German culture. ”Here we say ’show your face’. So full veiling is not appropriate here. It should be prohibited wherever legally possible,” she said in a speech that lasted an hour and a quarter and was followed by 11 minutes of applause. A year ago, the CDU rejected such a ban. ”OFF THE RAILS” Admitting that many people felt the world was ”going off the rails” Merkel told the conference: ”We are faced with a world, especially after the U. S. election, that needs to itself, with regard to NATO and the relationship with Russia.” Britons voted for Brexit in June, while Trump has questioned the relevance of the transatlantic alliance and sent conciliatory signals to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The brutal war in Syria has led hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee to Europe. The AfD is one of many populist parties across Europe that are challenging the political establishment and threatening the liberal democratic values that have shaped the West since World War Two. In her speech, Merkel called the bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo a ”disgrace” and warned Britain there would be no ”cherry picking” in its Brexit talks. She made a case for free trade and won applause when she talked about slashing German unemployment. When she came into office in 2005, George W. Bush was U. S. president, Jacques Chirac was in the Elysee Palace in Paris and Tony Blair was British prime minister. An Emnid poll on Sunday showed support for the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) at a high of 37 percent, 15 points ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD). ”The 2017 election for the Bundestag will be difficult like no previous election at least since German reunification” in 1990, Merkel told the conference. (Additional reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Tom Heneghan) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

Ford Motor to raise $2.8 billion debt to fund new technology

Ford Motor Co ( ) will raise $2. 8 billion in debt, according to a filing with U. S. securities regulators, funds which a senior executive said on Monday will help fund investments in new technology including cars. Joe Hinrichs, Ford president of the Americas region, said the funds would largely go for investment in new technology including electric vehicles, vehicles, and mobility efforts such as and . ”It’s an opportunistic time,” Hinrichs told Reuters in an interview on Monday morning. ”It’s a supportive marketplace for debt given where rates are, and we want to make sure that throughout the cycle of the industry we have the flexibility to do what we need to do and want to do, especially in the emerging part of the business. ” In a late Monday afternoon filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ford said it will raise $1. 5 billion in notes with a yield to maturity of 4. 356 percent and $1. 3 billion of notes at 5. 291 percent. ( ) Hinrichs, who has led Ford’s Americas region for four years, said Ford has the manufacturing flexibility to make more of its Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator large SUVs as the two models undergo their first total makeover in 14 years. Hinrichs did not say how many of the new models it hopes to sell. ”Suffice to say it is a big opportunity for us,” Hinrichs said of the new versions of the large SUVs. General Motors Co ( ) has dominated the large SUV part of the U. S. auto business in recent years, although Ford invented the segment about two decades ago. This year, through November, GM’s four large SUVs have outsold Ford’s two entries more than . But Ford’s big SUV sales are up 33 percent this year, to GM’s rise of 18 percent. It is too early, Hinrichs said, to determine the impact of any changes that may come to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Donald Trump has said he will renegotiate. Last week, as the U. S. unemployment rate showed a low, economists said the path is clear for an interest rate hike this month by the Federal Reserve. (Reporting by Bernie Woodall and Joseph White; Editing by W Simon, Diane Craft and James Dalgleish) BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen . NEW DELHI India is examining the use of private vehicles as shared taxis in an effort to reduce car ownership and curb growing traffic congestion in major cities, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Commentary: Trump’s brave new world of Twitter diplomacy

When it comes to managing relations with China, Donald Trump is tearing up the rulebook. First by using Twitter to announce his telephone call with Taiwanese President Tsai and then in his over Beijing’s economic and military policy. Traditionally, the key events in something as strategically crucial as . S. relations are heavily discussed for hours, if not days, at the highest ranks of government. The new however, shows every sign of being more spontaneous — and looks set to continue to use his personal social media posts in a way that will terrify foreign policy purists. Trump has yet to pick his secretary of state and that decision will be crucial to the foreign policy tone of his presidency. Given his style so far, however, there seems little doubt that he will also see himself as America’s “ . ” That could make life difficult for whomever he picks to runs the State Department. Throughout his campaign, Trump signaled his broad intention to take a tougher line on China, even as he builds bridges with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. When it comes to Beijing, however, Trump’s main focus has been on trade. When it comes to China’s relations with neighbors, he had been less aggressive arguing, as with Europe, that America’s Asian allies should do more to protect themselves. At one stage, he even appeared to be suggesting that Japan and South Korea should be left to acquire their own nuclear arsenals for a suggestion he later pulled back from. Beijing may well have been surprised, therefore, by the speed with which Trump has apparently embraced Taiwan and then raised concerns over Beijing’s broader military expansion. Trump’s is believed to have been the first by a U. S. or president with a Taiwan leader since 1979, when President Jimmy Carter began recognizing Beijing as the sole government of China. China views Taiwan as a breakaway province. According to Trump, the call was set up at the behest of and initiated by the Taiwanese government rather than Trump himself. Presumably, that offer has been made to previous by Taiwan but they have politely declined. Trump almost certainly knew it would antagonize Beijing but went ahead anyway. of course, has always been clear particularly through massive military sales and other forms of assistance. In 1996, a particular period of tension in which some experts believed Beijing might move militarily against Taiwan, President Bill Clinton famously sent two U. S. aircraft carriers to send a similarly strong message of Washington’s resolve. That carrier deployment, however, would have been heavily discussed at the top levels of the U. S. government before being implemented. seem entirely unmoderated. He may not yet be president, but what he writes from his Manhattan penthouse often in the early hours of the morning can be as important as any highly crafted speech or policy statement. To career diplomats and foreign policy purists, unfettered tweeting is a terrifying concept. But it is not so different from President Barack Obama’s habit of holding town meetings both in the United States and overseas, often with students, where he often opines widely and spontaneously on a range of topics. The Obama White House has been more focused than any other administration on retaining its own control of foreign policy. For all the talk of her experience as secretary of state, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was seen by many in Washington as having less freedom to maneuver than many in the role before her, acting first and foremost as a mouthpiece and personal envoy for the president on matters of importance. Current incumbent John Kerry, officials and other State Department watchers say, has been more prone to speaking his mind or misspeaking, sometimes leaving officials struggling to explain exactly what he meant. In general, however, recent White House administrations have been deeply focused on trying to control the message when it comes to international affairs. What we will shortly have in the Oval Office, however, is a businessman and perhaps more importantly, a reality TV and social media star whose arguably strongest skill set is in generating controversy and attention. Take that habit too far, and you could easily start a war. This is not how those in and around government ever thought social media should work. Organizations like the State Department, for example, have set up hugely complex systems to manage a plethora of social media feeds for individual officials, embassies, missions and campaigns. In the military, it is often quite literally easier to get authorization to kill someone in an active war zone that it is to get a Twitter or Facebook posting cleared for release. In any future diplomatic spat or confrontation, even something on the scale of the Cuban missile crisis, it is entirely possible that world leaders may be tweeting at each other directly — with the rest of the world, including their own diplomatic and military command chains, forced to watch and play . Building the systems and structures to manage that, particularly in managing a potentially messy and dangerous confrontation in the Baltic states or South China Sea, is going to be a challenge. Other more subtle forms of communication — unacknowledged direct telephone calls, messages delivered through spies, envoys and allies — have also not gone away. But they will now be taking place at the same time as what could be frantic social media exchanges. Trump and Putin, of course, are also currently having their own very public courtship a precursor to what will presumably be their first meeting sometime next year. Whether that relationship blossoms or crashes, it will likely do so in a very public manner. Both Bill Clinton’s decision to send aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Strait and Trump’s Twitter actions were forms of geopolitical messaging. Judging by the to Trump’s call in China’s that’s something those in charge in Beijing clearly understand. ”Before he gets sworn in, he faces some vague space to handle things,” it said in an opinion piece. ”By answering Tsai’s call he may want to test how China would react and therefore prepare him for dealing with the country and gaining some advantage after he takes office.” Like everyone else in the world, those in charge in Beijing still really don’t know what to expect from the incoming president. If relations with Beijing go well, Trump might never talk to a Taiwanese leader again. If he wants a way to needle the world’s largest economy, however, he has set a precedent — and next time he could let it be known that he initiated the call. Alternatively, of course, he could just say something even more outrageous on social media. Forget the three a. m. telephone call. We are now in the world of the three a. m. tweet. The views expressed in this article are not those of Reuters News. Iraqi officials have declared that Islamic State’s caliphate is finished. On June 29, after months of urban warfare and U. S. air strikes, Iraqi forces say they are on the verge of expelling the militants from their last holdouts in Mosul. “Their fictitious state has fallen,” an Iraqi general told state TV after troops captured a symbolically important mosque in Mosul’s old city. In Syria, U. S. rebels are moving quickly through the eastern city of Raqqa, another capital of the Donald Trump and his South Korean counterpart Moon must face North Korea’s nuclear reality: Pyongyang’s bomb is here to stay. When the two presidents hold their first summit on Friday, they need to drop quixotic efforts to stop Kim Jong Un from building a nuclear arsenal and instead focus on preventing its use.

California bill would require reporting of ’superbug’ infections, deaths

A California state senator introduced a bill on Monday that would mandate reporting of infections and deaths and require doctors to record the infections on death certificates when they are a cause of death. The legislation also aims to establish the nation’s most comprehensive statewide surveillance system to track infections and deaths from pathogens. Data from death certificates would be used to help compile an annual state report on superbug infections and related deaths. In September, a Reuters investigation revealed that tens of thousands of superbug deaths nationwide go uncounted every year. The infections are often omitted from death certificates, and even when they are recorded, they aren’t counted because of the lack of a unified national surveillance system. “The (Reuters) story highlighted some of the problems that have come from the lack of information, the lack of reporting, especially deaths,” said state Senator Jerry Hill, who introduced the bill. “I wasn’t aware that on death certificates, infections have never been called out. ” Because there is no federal surveillance system, monitoring of superbug infections and deaths falls to the states. A Reuters survey of all 50 state health departments and the District of Columbia found that reporting requirements vary widely. California is among the states that do not require reporting of deaths. A Reuters analysis of death certificates from 2003 to 2014 identified more than 20, 000 deaths linked to the infections in California, the most of any state — and probably an undercount, given the unreliability of death certificate data. Hill’s bill would require hospitals and clinical labs to submit an annual summary of infections to the California Department of Health beginning July 1, 2018; amend a law governing death certificates by requiring that doctors specify on death certificates when a superbug was the leading or a contributing cause of death; and require the state Health Department to publish an annual report on resistant infections and deaths, including data culled from death certificates. Hill introduced legislation in 2014 that would require reporting of superbug infections not deaths. It was ultimately stripped down to mandate that all hospitals in California implement “stewardship” programs to prevent the overprescription of antibiotics that promotes drug resistance. Hill said the state medical association and other physician groups opposed the initial proposal. The 2014 legislation followed a 2013 threat report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which estimated that at least 23, 000 people in the U. S. die every year from infections. A Reuters analysis of the agency’s math found that the numbers are based on such small sample sizes that they are mostly guesswork. Hill has written several bills that have been signed into law in recent years. Those include laws that regulate antibiotic use in livestock and others that mandate antibiotic stewardship programs in nursing homes and other healthcare facilities. “We don’t know how (superbugs) affect California,” Hill said. “We could be overreacting in certain areas or underreacting in areas that could create real problems for people. ” (Edited by John Blanton) WASHINGTON The issuance of U. S. visas, passports and other travel documents should be transferred to the Department of Homeland Security from the State Department, a consulting company commissioned by U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has recommended in a report. Gene Conley, the only man to win both a baseball World Series and an NBA championship in basketball, died on Tuesday at the age of 86, the Boston Red Sox said in a statement.

North Carolina governor concedes election to Democratic opponent

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory on Monday conceded the state’s contested gubernatorial race to Democrat Roy Cooper, almost four weeks after the Nov. 8 election that many viewed as a referendum on a law limiting transgender bathroom rights. The Republican incumbent had trailed his challenger since election night, when Cooper declared victory with a margin of fewer than 5, 000 votes. McCrory refused to bow out, vowing to seek a recount and challenging the validity of votes his campaign said may have included ones cast by felons or dead people. As of Monday, the state’s unofficial election results showed Cooper’s lead had grown to 10, 263 votes as counties continued to tally ballots. McCrory was entitled to a recount only if he trailed by 10, 000 votes or less. In a video message issued by the governor’s office, McCrory said Cooper had won ”the closest North Carolina governor’s race in modern history.” ”Despite continued questions that should be answered regarding the voting process, I personally believe that the majority of our citizens have spoken,” said McCrory, who sat on a couch with a Christmas tree in the background in the video. Cooper’s win over the incumbent marks the only governorship picked up by Democrats nationally, while Republicans added governor seats last month in New Hampshire, Missouri and Vermont. Cooper, the state’s attorney general, said serving as governor ”will be the honor of my life.” ”While this was a divisive election season, I know still that there is more that unites us than divides us,” he said in a statement after his opponent’s concession. The Democratic candidate’s bid benefited from a backlash against McCrory after he signed a state law in March that bans transgender people from using restrooms that match their gender identity and limits protections for gays and lesbians. The law, the only of its kind in the United States, drew national attention. It has been blamed for hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses and the relocation of major sporting events from the country’s ninth most populous state. Opponents of the measure, known as House Bill 2, said a McCrory defeat would have national implications. ”McCrory’s stubborn and reckless support of HB 2 cost him this election, and his defeat sends a powerful warning to lawmakers across the country that targeting LGBTQ people will not be tolerated,” Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer ( questioning) . (Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Europe suffers Italian blow but bigger tests loom

The resounding ”no” from Italian voters to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s referendum on constitutional reform was not a rejection of the European Union and its single currency, as jubilant populists from across the bloc claimed on Monday. But the vote, which pushes Renzi out of office, does represent a significant setback for Europe at a time when its leaders are scrambling to mount a credible response to Brexit, the election of Donald Trump in the United States and their stubborn economic woes at home. In one fell swoop, it adds another country to the list of EU members that are likely to be by domestic politics in 2017, a year in which the Dutch, French, Germans, and possibly the British, will go to the polls. And it sends a warning to other European reformers like Francois Fillon, the conservative frontrunner for the French presidency, who has promised no less than five referendums to push through his domestic agenda if he is elected next spring. More immediately, despite the relatively calm reaction of financial markets on Monday, the vote will deepen concerns about Italy’s banking sector and the economic prospects of the euro zone’s third biggest member state. That, in turn, could complicate the calculus for the European Central Bank, which meets on Thursday to decide on the future of its controversial bond purchase program. ”This won’t push Italy back into crisis for now,” said Marcel Fratzscher, head of the DIW economic institute in Berlin and a former top official at the European Central Bank. ”But it means lost time for a country that faces huge problems with its banks, its enormous public debt levels and high unemployment. There is a significant danger that the reform course will now slow.” BREXIT PARALLEL Renzi, seen by his European partners as an anchor of stability in a country where political upheaval has been the norm for decades, won just over 40 percent of the vote in the referendum, a far worse result than polls had predicted. His defeat comes only days after deeply unpopular French President Francois Hollande, also a leftist, bowed to political realities and announced he would not seek a second term. Renzi’s departure could lead to early elections in Italy next year. It increases the risks of the Movement gaining power, although the prospect of that remains slim. After the Brexit vote went bad for David Cameron in June, it is the second time in half a year that the leader of a major EU member state tied his future to a referendum and lost, a development that was seized upon by the region’s firebrands. ”The Italians rejected Renzi and the EU,” Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front said on Twitter. ”This vote looks to me to be more about the euro than constitutional change,” added Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). But unlike Britain, polls show that a solid majority of Italian voters are in favor of both the EU and the euro. They were encouraged to vote ”no” by all of the major parties in Italy outside of Renzi’s Partito Democratico (PD). His defeat therefore, which came on the same day that Austrian voters sent a candidate to defeat in a presidential looks less like a rejection of Europe and the political establishment, and more like a serious miscalculation on the part of Renzi. ”When a prime minister who will always be remembered for taking office through an party coup calls a national referendum in a country that’s still struggling to emerge from a recession, he can expect an unfavorable result,” said Nicholas Spiro of Lauressa Advisory. CRUNCH TIME That won’t cushion the impact for Europe, whose leaders have promised to unveil their vision for the EU in the Italian capital next March, the 60th anniversary of the bloc’s founding Rome treaty. Who will host that summit is now an open question. The same month, Dutch voters will go to the polls and British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to invoke Article 50 of the EU treaty, triggering a tight countdown to Brexit a timeline made all the more challenging by Europe’s heavy election calendar. Only a month later, the first round of the French election will take place. Polls suggest that will produce a showdown between Le Pen and Fillon, the hardline conservative who is advocating a radical overhaul of the French economy through deep cuts in public sector jobs and the scrapping of the workweek. Fillon has proposed a total of five referendums: one to enshrine a balanced budget law in the constitution, a second to overhaul French territorial authorities, a third to unwind France’s generous pension regimes, a fourth on immigration quotas and a fifth in an echo of Renzi’s own referendum to reduce the number of parliamentarians. Far more than the Italian referendum, the French vote is shaping up as a moment for Europe and its political mainstream. Fillon, no doubt, will be watching what is now unfolding in France’s southern neighbor as he girds for battle. ”The French election will be the crucial test for Europe,” said Dominique Moisi of the Institut Montaigne. ”To counter Le Pen, Fillon may have to move to the center. He will have to put quite a bit of water in his traditionalist wine.” (Reporting by Noah Barkin; editing by Anna Willard) QAMISHLI, The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a ”declaration of war” which could trigger clashes within days. CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis.

Amazon opens line-free grocery store in challenge to supermarkets

Amazon Go, the online shopping company’s new ( ) store, uses sensors to detect what items shoppers have picked off the shelves and sends a bill to their Amazon accounts if they do not replace them. The store marks Amazon’s latest push into groceries, one of the biggest retail categories it has yet to master. The company currently delivers produce and groceries to homes through its AmazonFresh service. ”It’s a great recognition that their model doesn’t work for every product,” said analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research, noting that physical stores would complement AmazonFresh. ”If there were hundreds of these stores around the country, it would be a huge threat” to supermarket chains, he said. The S&P 1500 food retail index, which includes Kroger Co, Whole Foods Market Inc and other companies, was down 0. 5 percent at the close. Shares of Amazon closed up about 2. 6 percent. Amazon Go is available now for employees of the company and is expected to be open to the public early next year, Amazon said. If tests are successful, Amazon plans to open more than 2, 000 grocery stores, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing sources. The company is considering other store formats, including one that would let drivers pick up goods at the curbside, the report said. Amazon declined to comment on the report. ”The checkout lines are always the most inefficient parts of the store experience,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of retail research firm Conlumino. ”Not only would you save a lot on labor costs, you actually would make the process much quicker for consumers and much more satisfying.” Still, the experience would take getting used to, he said. Some people may ”feel like they stole” an item, Saunders said. Apart from groceries such as bread and milk, the store also offers meals made fresh by chefs and local kitchens and bakeries, Amazon said. That would make Amazon Go a potential competitor to dining chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc as well. Amazon Go is not the first physical store for the company to open. It has a book store in Seattle, as well as at malls where it displays Amazon devices such as the Kindle. (Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru and Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Andrew Hay and Matthew Lewis) BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are weighing another record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and have set up a panel of experts to give a second opinion on the case, two people familiar with the matter said. MEXICO CITY Billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil argued on Wednesday against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country’s telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights.

Oil falls on output cut skepticism, OPEC and Russia output rise

Oil prices on Tuesday ended lower for the first time since OPEC agreed on Nov. 30 to cut output, as data showing record high production in the producer group fed skepticism that it would be able to reduce supplies. Brent futures slid $1. 01 to settle at $53. 93 a barrel, while U. S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 86 cents to $50. 93 per barrel. Crude had surged more than 15 percent in the four sessions since the Nov. 30 OPEC meeting. ”Prices fell for the first day in five in reaction to news that OPEC’s output hit a record high last month,” said James Williams, president of energy consultant WTRG Economics in Arkansas. OPEC’s output set another record high in November, rising to 34. 19 million barrels per day (bpd) from 33. 82 million bpd in October, according to a Reuters survey. Oil prices pared losses slightly after inventory data released late Tuesday from the American Petroleum Institute showed U. S. crude stocks dropped more than expected last week despite a hefty build of 4 million barrels in Cushing, Oklahoma. [ ] If the Cushing build is reinforced in Wednesday’s report from the U. S. Energy Information Administration, that would signal the largest weekly rise since January 2009, data showed. As part of last week’s decision, OPEC said major oil producers outside the group would cut 600, 000 bpd of production on top of OPEC’s 1. 2 million bpd reduction. Those countries and OPEC meet this weekend to finalize the terms. Russia reported average oil production in November of 11. 21 million bpd, its highest in nearly 30 years. That means OPEC and Russia alone produced enough to cover almost half of global oil demand, which is just above 95 million bpd. Market watchers had said OPEC’s decision to cut output marked an for Saudi Arabia, which has been battling to keep market share for the past two years by selling more, if cheaper, barrels rather than bolstering prices. But in a sign the fight for market share is not over, Saudi Aramco cut the January price for its Arab Light grade for Asian customers by $1. 20 a barrel from December. The U. S. EIA expects U. S. crude production to fall less than previously expected to 8. 9 million bpd in 2016 and to 8. 8 million bpd in 2017 from 9. 4 million bpd in 2015, according to its monthly short term energy outlook. (Additional reporting by Sabina Zawadzki in London, Henning Gloystein in Singapore and Polina Devitt and Anastasia Lyrchikova in Moscow; Editing by Marguerita Choy, Meredith Mazzilli and David Gregorio) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

U.S. services sector activity scales one-year high

U. S. services sector activity hit a high in November, with a surge in production boosting hiring, further evidence of strength in the economy that clears the way for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next week. Monday’s bullish report from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) followed data last week showing strong job gains in November which helped drive the unemployment rate to a low of 4. 6 percent. ”The U. S. economy looks solid heading into and, backed by a tightening labor market, the Fed is set to raise rates next week,” said Robert Kavcic, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. The ISM said its activity index jumped 2. 4 percentage points to 57. 2, the highest reading since October 2015. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector, which accounts for more than of U. S. economic activity. Services industries reported a 4 percentage point surge in production last month. A measure of services sector employment soared 5. 1 percentage points to a high. While industries reported a modest decline in new orders, the new orders gauge remained well above expansionary territory. A for export orders increased solidly last month. The strong services sector sentiment was also captured in a separate survey from data firm Markit, which showed a gauge on new orders rising to its highest level since August 2015 and a measure of new business at a high. Prices for U. S. Treasuries fell on Monday, with the Treasury bond briefly falling one point on the data before reversing losses following a large block purchase of ultra bond futures. The dollar traded lower against a basket of currencies, while U. S. stocks rose. The Fed is expected to increase borrowing costs at the Dec. policy meeting. The U. S. central bank raised its benchmark overnight interest rate last December for the first time in nearly a decade. The services sector survey added to last week’s upbeat manufacturing survey and data on consumer spending in suggesting the economy maintained its momentum early in the fourth quarter after growing at a brisk 3. 2 percent annualized rate in the quarter. With November’s strong gains, a composite of the ISM manufacturing and indexes rose to 56. 7, the highest reading since October 2015, from 54. 5 in October. ”This level has typically been consistent with about a 3. 5 percent annual rate in real GDP growth,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U. S. economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York. ”Growth has been a bit weaker than suggested by the ISM data in the past year, but, even so, the data suggest good upward momentum.” The Atlanta Federal Reserve is currently forecasting gross domestic product rising at a 2. 9 percent rate in the fourth quarter. Last month, the ISM said the majority of industries surveyed offered positive comments about business conditions and the direction of the overall economy. Fourteen services industries reporting growth in November included retail trade, construction, finance and insurance, information and wholesale trade. The two industries reporting contraction were real estate, rental and leasing, and public administration. (Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

U.S. retailers value enthusiasm over experience for holiday hires

Hiring managers in the United States said they are looking for ”brand evangelism” candidates who regularly wear company products or had knowledge of them while job portals show employers emphasizing interpersonal skills, a keen fashion sense and concise yet creative resumes. ”To create a shopping experience that will make the customer feel welcome and comfortable,” read the job overview for staff at Macy’s on one portal. ”Previous retail experience preferred, but not required.” Retailers are eager to bring customers into stores rather than see them shop online from home because it is easier to encourage purchases of other items . In addition, purchases do not involve shipping costs. It is an uphill struggle, as customers increasingly opt for the convenience and comfort that online shopping provides. Sales at stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday the start of the busiest shopping season fell from last year, while internet sales rose in percentages. ”In the past we would be very, very focused on that (retail experience) but now we are willing to look at people who have good customer service and understand what customer service is, over somebody who has previous retail experience,” said Denise Domian, senior of human resources at Stores Inc, a department store chain. Domian said the most heavily weighted factors when deciding on a candidate for the retail floor were critical thinking and people orientation. Melany Diaz, 22, found her job as a holiday season vendor for L’Oreal at Macy’s on State Street in Chicago through an agency. She had no retail experience and said the brand stressed the importance of knowing her target audience and the products. ”They wanted me to know as much as possible about the brand. History is the most important, because you have a lot of loyal customers who have seen the brand grow,” Diaz said. CUSTOMER SERVICE COMEBACK? The trend in holiday hiring reflects a broader move by stores to emphasize customer service. In September, Stores Inc said it would cut 7, 000 jobs at U. S. stores as part of ongoing efforts to have more employees on the sales floor. The holiday season which encompasses November and December can account for up to 40 percent of annual sales for retailers. Many take on extra staff to cope department store Macy’s Inc said it would hire 83, 000 people, and Target Corp and Kohl’s Corp added some 70, 000 each all broadly the same as last year. Amazon will hire 120, 000 temporary workers up 20 percent from last year. Delivery companies including United Parcel Service Inc are also looking for extra hands to help with the seasonal rush. With unemployment at the lowest levels in 16 years and occupations like driving for Uber attracting workers, the hunt for temporary retail staff has become intense. Macy’s and Target are offering higher wages than previous years and bonuses for working busier shifts. ”With retail sales expected to be higher than last year and less job seekers in the market, retailers need to find new ways to attract and retain employees throughout the holiday season,” said Susan Vitale, a workplace hiring expert at recruiting software provider iCIMS. The National Retail Federation expects total U. S. holiday sales to increase 3. 6 percent this year to $655. 8 billion. (Additional reporting by Renita D. Young in Chicago; Editing by Jo Winterbottom and Matthew Lewis) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

U.S. could copy Canada’s infrastructure model: Caisse

Incoming U. S. President Donald Trump could set up an entity similar to Canada’s infrastructure bank to help fund his plans to spend $1 trillion on roads and bridges, one of the world’s biggest infrastructure investors said. Michael Sabia, chief executive officer of the Caisse [CDPDA. UL] Canada’s public pension fund, was on the advisory panel that recommended Canada set up an infrastructure bank with an aspiration to attract C$4 to C$5 for every C$1 of public funding for infrastructure projects. He said a similar entity could be set up in the United States to address issues around how it approaches partnerships, a lack of project management experience, the absence of a pipeline of major projects and the need for predictable decision making at a political level. ”Attention has got to be paid to that dimension of it or you’re not going to see institutional investors like us having a significant appetite to be able to do things,” Sabia said in an interview on Monday. Trump has said he plans to spend $1 trillion over 10 years on building infrastructure, financing the rebuilding of the country’s roads, bridges and transport systems by attracting investment from private institutions. However, the United States is seen by infrastructure investors as lagging behind countries such as Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom in the way it structures infrastructure projects to attract private capital. Canada’s Liberal government is in the process of setting up the new infrastructure bank, which it wants to have up and running next year. It is courting foreign investors as well as the major Canadian funds and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he is happy to go with the United States to compete for investment. Sabia said the Caisse would wait and see what the new U. S. administration will do before making investment decisions. ”We need to see, once the administration is in place, what policies it pursues and what is actually done because it’s actions that count much more than words,” he said. Sabia, who has been chief executive of the Caisse since 2009, said the Caisse had substantially increased its exposure to the United States over the past five or six years. ”The United States is the largest economy in the world and I think we’re always going to be able to find opportunities to do things there which meet our and our risk criteria,” he said. (Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Barclays’ exit from energy trading stirs concerns over liquidity

British bank Barclays Plc has joined the list of top banks to exit energy trading, an exodus that analysts say raises concern among oil producers that falling liquidity means they cannot use derivatives for their basic function: to hedge risk by locking in future prices. Wall Street firms have scaled back in commodity markets since the 2008 financial crisis from owning physical assets or taking positions in the market in the face of regulatory scrutiny. The banks were big players in the market for derivatives years into the future. The departure of Barclays exacerbates the scarcity of counterparties for trade when producers are trying to hedge their production for 2018 and beyond, potentially raising the cost to lock in that output. That increase could force producers to forgo protection altogether, putting them at risk if the market takes another leg down. Some producers seek to lock in future profits and fund expansion through selling as much as 80 percent of production years into the future. ”It’s one less bank willing to make a trade in the market, which reduces liquidity overall. That’s one less source of credit and one less counterparty,” said John Saucer, vice president of research and analysis at Mobius Risk Group. On Thursday, Barclays said it would close its energy business within the ’Macro’ trading division, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters, a move to better maintain resources. They follow a string of other big banks who, with profits hampered by toughening financial regulations, have chosen to exit. Executives and traders within the industry said that Barclays’ move was not surprising as it had been scaling down in recent years. But it represents the departure of another former player from the energy space. Other big players who have already exited the market include RBS Sempra in 2010 and Deutsche Bank three years ago. Merchant traders such as Vitol Group, Mercuria Energy Group and Glencore Plc sought to fill the vacuum left by the investment banks. But the merchant traders have preferred to trade around their own physical positions, which are often linked to derivatives contracts with nearby expirations. ”Merchant books are physically oriented. They don’t offer the same type of liquidity that the banks do,” Saucer added. ”When they’re there, it’s patchy and specific. It’s ancillary to the other stuff they’re doing.” That means merchant traders have little incentive to trade years into the future, and so have failed to plug the gap left by the big banks. Merchants also have tighter credit availability than banks, so are less willing to tie up capital in futures trade. Barclays has been reducing its footprint for a while, having announced a retreat from precious metals in January. Two sources familiar with the matter said that Barclays’ business with oil producers seemed to be reducing in size over the years, it retained a decent refinery business. The memo noted that the Macro’s energy business accounted for less than two percent of overall revenue for the markets business at the British lender. Still, those with a stronger financial position and a larger presence, including heavy hitters like Goldman Sachs & Co[GSGSC. UL] or JPMorgan Chase & Co, remain in the market and can absorb additional hedging needs. If one of the current larger players dropped out, that would be much more concerning because it would greatly increase the price to hedge, traders said. One point of uncertainty, they added, was what Barclays was going to do with its trade book. Analysts pointed out that Barclays could unwind hedges that it already conducted with market participants. The other option would be to sell the hedge book, thereby passing on any risk to another player. That could be prime opportunity for banks or merchants wanting to grow. ”We think of this in relationship terms and if there was a specific reason to trade with Barclays. Sadly, increasingly, there wasn’t,” said Steve Sinos, vice president of Mercatus Energy Advisors, which works with energy producers and consumers. ”They were competitive, but weren’t providing anything outstanding. And, they didn’t have a lot of lending with our clients.” (Additional reporting by Jessica in New York; Editing by Simon Webb and Marguerita Choy) LONDON New Saba Capital Management, famed for its winning bet against the JPMorgan Chase trader known as the ’London Whale’ is closing its office in London’s Mayfair district, two sources close to the situation told Reuters. ROME Italian prosecutors have decided to take Morgan Stanley to court over allegations that the U. S. bank caused 2. 7 billion euros ($3. 1 billion) in losses to the state in relation to derivative transactions, a source familiar with the matter said.

Russia says to start talks with U.S. on Aleppo rebel withdrawal

The Russian government said on Monday it would start talks with Washington on a rebel withdrawal from Aleppo this week as Syrian forces fought to seize more territory from rebels who are struggling to avoid a major defeat. The latest army attack, which saw fierce clashes around the Old City, aims to cut off another area of rebel control in eastern Aleppo and tighten the noose on districts where tens of thousands of people are trapped. Advances in recent weeks have brought Damascus, backed militarily by Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, closer to recapturing Syria’s second largest city before the nearly war and a prize long sought by President Bashar . The rebels are now reduced to an area just kilometers across. While Assad’s allies have in the past year turned the battle in his favor, Western and regional states backing the rebels have been unwilling or unable to prevent a major defeat for groups who have fought for years to topple the Syrian leader. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on the withdrawal of rebels would begin in Geneva on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. There was no immediate comment from Washington, which has backed some of the rebels. ”Those armed groups who refuse to leave eastern Aleppo will be considered to be terrorists,” Lavrov told a news conference. ”We will treat them as such, as terrorists, as extremists and will support a Syrian army operation against those criminal squads.” While the rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government bombardments. ”The people are paying a high price, with no state or organization intervening,” the official said, adding that this was his personal assessment based on reports from the city. With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting. BLACK SMOKE RISES NEAR CITADEL Responding to Russia’s demand for their withdrawal, rebels told U. S. officials on Saturday they would not leave. Reiterating that position on Monday, rebel official Zakaria Malahifji said, ”No person in his right mind, who has any sense of responsibility and patriotism, would leave his city.” ”The Russians are trying to do everything they can to make people leave. This is far from reality,” he said, speaking to Reuters from Turkey. Insurgents, meanwhile, fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place within a kilometre of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City. Heavy gunfire could be heard from the Old City and smoke from mortar shell blasts rose from the area, Reuters journalists in a western district said. Rebels appeared on the verge of being driven from the neighborhood after new advances by Syrian government forces on Sunday. But rebels said they had mounted a on Monday, and were recovering ground in some areas. Clashes raged in the Old City itself, which has long been split between and areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. A Syrian army officer told Reuters intense fighting was taking place around the Old City. State television broadcast a report from inside a hospital complex seized from rebels on Sunday. The hospital is strategically important because it overlooks surrounding areas held by insurgents. A government takeover of the eye hospital complex and areas stretching west from there to the citadel would cut the remaining areas of eastern Aleppo in two, further isolating embattled rebel groups. Rebels said they were fighting back in that area too on Monday. REBELS LAUNCH ”They (rebels) are trying to take back all the areas the regime took yesterday (including) the eye hospital, ” Malahifji said. Moscow said a rebel attack on a mobile military hospital killed one Russian medic and wounded two others. The United Nations says more than 200, 000 people might still be trapped in areas, affected by severe food and aid shortages. ”We need to reach them,” U. N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien said in Geneva on Monday. ”People have been eking what they can, prices have skyrocketed so there is a real and severe shortage of foodstuffs.” Russia is expected to veto a U. N. resolution on Monday which calls for a ceasefire, with Lavrov saying a truce was because it would allow rebels to regroup. State TV said rebel shelling killed seven people in areas of Aleppo on Monday. More than 300 people have been killed in government bombardments of areas since and 70 have died in rebel shellings, the Syrian Observatory says. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman in Amman, Firas Makdesi in Aleppo, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Jack Stubbs in Moscow; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Millership) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

Web giants to cooperate on removal of extremist content

Web giants YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft will step up efforts to remove extremist content from their websites by creating a common database. The companies will share ’hashes’ unique digital fingerprints they automatically assign to videos or photos of extremist content they have removed from their websites to enable their peers to identify the same content on their platforms. ”We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online,” the companies said in a statement on Tuesday. Tech companies have long resisted outside intervention in how their sites should be policed, but have come under increasing pressure from Western governments to do more to remove extremist content following a wave of militant attacks. YouTube and Facebook have begun to use hashes to automatically remove extremist content. But many providers have relied until now mainly on users to flag content that violates terms of service. Flagged material is then individually reviewed by human editors who delete postings found to be in violation. Twitter suspended 235, 000 accounts between February and August this year and has expanded the teams reviewing reports of extremist content. Each company will decide what image and video hashes to add to the database and matching content will not be automatically removed, they said. The database will be up and running in early 2017 and more companies could be brought into the partnership. The European Union set up an EU Internet Forum last year bringing together the internet companies, interior ministers and the EU Coordinator to find ways of removing extremist content. The Forum will meet again on Thursday, when ministers are expected to ask the companies about their efforts and helping to provide evidence to convict foreign fighters. (Reporting by Julia Fioretti; editing by John Stonestreet) BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are weighing another record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and have set up a panel of experts to give a second opinion on the case, two people familiar with the matter said. MEXICO CITY Billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil argued on Wednesday against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country’s telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights.

Former hedge fund exec’s Empire Report keeps tabs on New York

Former hedge fund executive JP Miller launched an app on Monday for his startup news site Empire Report that is modeled on the Drudge Report and chronicles New York, its politicians, financiers and celebrities. With headlines like ”Goldman guy sees gold in ’ ’ position,” and ”Shock Poll: 49 percent of New Yorkers optimistic about Trump future,” Empire Report’s layout and type looks similar to the conservative news aggregator. The website (www. nyempirereport. com) is meant to be and has no affiliation with Drudge, Miller said in an interview on Monday. There are other websites in Colorado, Connecticut and Pennsylvania that also look like the Drudge Report. The timing for Miller’s site and app, which gives users access to it at the touch of a button on their smartphones, could not have been better, the said, noting that interest in New York has spiked since Donald Trump’s surprise presidential win. Five months ago, Miller left hedge fund Tiger Ratan Capital, where he had been head of investor relations. Raising money for Tiger Ratan, which got a boost from billionaire investor Julian Robertson, is similar to working on his own startup, Miller said. ”It is fast paced and all about telling the right story.” Right now advertisers like businessman John Catsimatidis and Miller’s savings from his once lucrative hedge fund industry career, are funding the business. ”My dream is for this to become the most widely read news and information site with news about New York,” Miller said. Traffic jumped 50 percent between October and November, Miller said, declining to say exactly how many hits Empire Report is tracking. With Trump turning to Wall Street to fill some cabinet posts, readership is climbing further, Miller said. So far, Trump has tapped former Goldman Sachs partner Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as Commerce secretary. Every past and future politician who visits Trump Tower or dines at a restaurant in Trump International Hotel & Tower, is closely chronicled on the site. One of Monday’s headlines trumpeted: ”Al GORE arrives at Trump Tower.” Miller got his start in politics before moving into hedge funds. He worked as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s New York finance director in 2012. (Reporting by Svea ; Editing by Tom Brown) BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are weighing another record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and have set up a panel of experts to give a second opinion on the case, two people familiar with the matter said. MEXICO CITY Billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil argued on Wednesday against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country’s telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights.

U.S. makes new arrest in fraud probe of bankrupt video tech firm

U. S. prosecutors on Monday announced the arrest of a New Jersey man accused of engaging in a fraud scheme involving bankrupt video technology firm Kit Digital, in the latest case to spill out of the startup’s failure. Irfan Amanat, 45, was charged in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud stemming from a scam prosecutors said he engaged in with his brother. He is among seven people to face criminal charges since September 2015 as part of a probe into what prosecutors say were efforts to mislead investors and others about Kit Digital’s financial health before its 2013 bankruptcy. Those charged include Digital Chief Executive Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, a former Goldman Sachs analyst who achieved brief fame as an internet entrepreneur, and Omar Amanat, an investor in media, finance and technology companies who is Irfan Amanat’s brother. Both have pleaded not guilty. Irfan Amanat, who a decade ago was the subject of a U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission case related to his time as chief technology officer of Tradescape Corp, was arrested at his home in New Jersey, prosecutors said. His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. According to charging papers, in 2008, the Amanat brothers solicited a $6. 5 million investment from Kit Digital in an investment vehicle Irfan Amanat managed called Enable Invest Ltd. In return, Omar Amanat raised $1 million from hedge fund Maiden Capital, headed by Stephen Maiden, for a special purpose investment vehicle Tuzman controlled, the complaint said. Tuzman, though, redirected that money into Enable without Maiden’s permission, the complaint said. With Irfan Amanat’s knowledge, Omar Amanat misappropriated $3 million from Enable, which was used to buy luxury Manhattan properties, the complaint said. Irfan Amanat also lost millions of dollars trading, but misrepresented to investors that Enable had positive returns, the complaint said. Like operators of a Ponzi scheme, the brothers also used new investor funds to pay redemptions, it said. When Enable became insolvent in 2009, Irfan Amanat worked with Maiden to hide his hedge fund’s losses, the complaint said. He then worked with Tuzman to deceive auditors about Kit Digital’s health by claiming Enable maintained over $2 million in liquid assets on the company’s behalf, the complaint added. Maiden has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors. He is already serving a sentence for running a Ponzi scheme. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Tom Brown) BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are weighing another record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and have set up a panel of experts to give a second opinion on the case, two people familiar with the matter said. MEXICO CITY Billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil argued on Wednesday against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country’s telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights.

Top U.S. Marine’s wish-list for Trump goes well beyond troop hikes

U. S. Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller, like much of the Pentagon top brass, is pretty happy about Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to rebuild America’s military after years of congressionally imposed spending caps. But ask Neller about Trump’s main proposal to increase the number of Marine infantry battalions from 24 today to 36, and he pauses. ”That’s a lot,” Neller told Reuters in an interview. Neller, like many of his Pentagon colleagues, thinks America’s military needs to shift quickly to prepare for more sophisticated adversaries than the insurgents the United States has been fighting in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. That will require more troops, including in the infantry. But Neller wants more cyber, intelligence and avionics specialists, as well as additional jets, amphibious ships and other weaponry that can better prepare the Marine Corps for a potential conflict with another country. Islamic extremists are certainly lethal, Neller says, but are not nearly as capable as even the separatists that Ukraine is fighting, whose arsenal includes drones, radar and accurate artillery, for example. ”If you think the next war’s going to be like this ( battle) then OK fine. I don’t think it is. I don’t,” Neller said. ”It’s going to be much more difficult. It’s going to be much more complicated. It’s going to be much more sophisticated.” At the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, Neller said his for the Marine Corps included speeding up purchases of items, including Lockheed Martin Corp’s stealth supersonic aircraft and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) made by Oshkosh Corp. Trump’s campaign proposal for the Marine Corps was based on a Heritage Foundation study that determined that 36 battalions would be necessary to wage two wars at once. ”Having this ability deters other competitors from trying to take advantage of the U. S. being ’tied down’ in a conflict in one region,” wrote the Heritage Foundation’s Dakota Wood. To that end, Trump has also pledged to build an active Army of around 540, 000, up from about 475, 000 today and build a Navy approaching 350 surface ships and submarines, up from just over 290 ships today. He pledged to give the Air Force at least 1, 200 fighter aircraft, about 100 more than today. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, speaking at the same defense forum, welcomed the possibility of more aircraft and, like Neller, expressed interest in accelerating the acquisition of aircraft. ”Additional aircraft would certainly allow us to be able to do different jobs across the word simultaneously,” James said, also noting the need for a new bomber. But James also spoke of other capabilities, including in space, and warned about the need for Congress to fund nuclear modernization, which some estimates say will cost about $1 trillion over the next three decades. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said the U. S. arms industry is ready and capable of boosting production of new ships to meet Trump’s campaign pledge. Shifting the current target of 308 ships upwards would be ”remarkably easy,” as long as there is funding to pay the bill. ”If it’s resourced, it’s a matter of working closely with the industrial base, and they definitely are ready to do that,” he told Reuters, adding the only limiting factor would be hiring and training workers to build the new ships. Republicans, who will control both houses of Congress and the White House after Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, see good prospects for raising military spending levels and scrapping a 2010 law that imposed mandatory cost caps on defense spending. Still, it’s unclear how Trump will fund all of his planned programs, which beyond the military spending spree includes paying for a major U. S. domestic infrastructure program. For Neller and other Pentagon chiefs, investing to prepare for more advanced threats is a priority, regardless of whether Trump makes good on his pledges. ”The only thing we’re not going to do is stay the same. We’re not. Can’t. I’d be derelict in my duties,” Neller said. (Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by James Dalgleish) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

After hesitation, Carson accepts Trump’s offer to head U.S. housing department

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a of Donald Trump, overcame his stated qualms about a lack of government experience on Monday to accept the ’s nomination to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Democrats criticized the Republican ’s latest pick for his incoming administration, calling Carson unqualified to take over $ agency that oversees public housing. Carson, a popular writer and speaker in conservative circles, has been a close adviser to Trump since he dropped out of the 2016 Republican presidential primary contest and he is a vice chairman of Trump’s transition team. Trump discussed the job with Carson before the Thanksgiving Day holiday last month, although despite his own presidential run Carson had previously indicated reluctance to take a position in the incoming administration because of his lack of experience in federal government. Picking up that theme, House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said on Monday, ”Dr. Ben Carson is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice to lead a department as complex and consequential as Housing and Urban Development.” Trump, a real estate magnate who also has no government experience and has never held public office, expressed confidence Carson could do the job, saying in a statement that he ”has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities.” Carson, 65, is the first picked for a Cabinet spot by Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20 and has been gradually filling out his administration since beating Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 presidential election. Carson said he was honored to accept the post, which requires confirmation by the U. S. Senate. ”I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly by strengthening communities that are most in need,” he said in the statement. Republicans control the Senate and Senator Lindsey Graham, who has been a sometimes strong critic of Trump, praised Carson in a statement, saying ”I’m sure he will be an agent of change in a department that could stand some change. ” FORMER TARGET OF TRUMP ATTACKS Carson, a respected neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, had been considered for U. S. surgeon general and head of Health and Human Services Department. His business manager, Armstrong Williams, said last month that Carson had decided not to serve in Trump’s administration because ”his life has not prepared him to be a Cabinet secretary.” But Carson said after meeting with Trump he believed he could make a contribution. Like many of the initial field of 17 White House hopefuls who vied for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, Carson was a frequent target of Trump attacks during the campaign. But he became one of his most supporters after Trump secured the nomination. Carson enjoyed a brief surge early in the presidential campaign that took him to the top of the Republican polls in late 2015. But Trump went after him, questioning his mental stability because of childhood incidents in which Carson said he attacked his mother with a hammer and tried to stab another boy. Carson’s campaign sputtered after that and he dropped out of the race in March. He would take over a department whose mission has been to help and people find housing by offering a combination of public housing, rent subsidies and mortgage assistance. The agency oversees mortgage lending and is also responsible for enforcing laws intended to prevent discrimination against those attempting to rent or buy homes. Carson has been critical of HUD efforts under the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama to compel local governments to actively seek to end discrimination, instead of just responding to instances of racial discrimination. In a column he wrote in 2015 for the Washington Times, Carson called the program a ”mandated scheme.” If confirmed to the post, he could seek to end the Obama program. IVANKA TRUMP TO MEET AL GORE Other picks by Trump so far for his administration include: Marine Corps General James Mattis as defense secretary, U. S. Representative Mike Pompeo as CIA director, Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general, retired General Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as chief of staff and media executive Steve Bannon as chief White House strategist. Trump is still considering various candidates to fill the post of U. S. secretary of state. Former Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat and a longtime advocate for strong steps to tackle climate change, was scheduled to meet on Monday with Trump’s daughter Ivanka. In the past, Trump has dismissed the idea of climate change as a hoax and he said during the campaign that he would seek to get the United States out of the Paris Agreement to reduce global emissions of fossil fuels. But last month he told the New York Times he had an open mind on this. Meanwhile, Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein filed suit in federal court in Pennsylvania on Monday in an attempt to force a statewide recount of voting there, adding to recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin. Even if the recounts were to proceed in all three states, there is almost no chance that they would overturn Trump’s victory in last month’s election. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Diane Bartz and Ginger Gibson; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Richard Cowan; Editing by Frances Kerry) NEW YORK Six in 10 American voters support the new ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States unless they can show they have a close relative here, according to opinion poll results released on Wednesday. LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May will hold a bilateral meeting with U. S. President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg on Friday, a British government official said on Wednesday.

Trump has broad power to implement immigration policies: legal experts

Donald Trump will be able to make many of his promised changes in immigration policy unilaterally by exercising the same kind of executive powers he criticized President Barack Obama for using. But while most of the measures laid out in a immigration policy plan on Trump’s transition website could be set in motion without legislative approval, fully implementing them would require funding that Congress would have to approve, legal experts said. Two core pieces of Trump’s plan, for example, involve removing more criminal immigrants who are in the country illegally and ending ”catch and release” of those who cross the border illegally and are awaiting court hearings. Shifting policy on both issues could be accomplished by putting out new enforcement directives to agents in the field from the Department of Homeland Security. But the changes would be expensive, requiring a dramatic expansion of immigration courts and detention facilities used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Stephen an immigration law expert at Cornell Law School. More deportations would require more staff at every level of the system to investigate, apprehend and process those targeted. Immigration courts already have a backload of more than 500, 000 cases. Detention space is currently stretched to house 41, 000 immigrants currently awaiting deportation or hearings and far more holding facilities would be needed if detainees were no longer released while awaiting court dates. Even then, completely ending the release of immigrants awaiting hearings would be difficult: A recent court decision has prohibited detention longer than 20 days for adults and children migrating together, a demographic that surged to more than 77, 000 in fiscal year 2016. Trump’s transition team has not explained how the new president intends to implement his plans. ”The is very focused on naming his cabinet, building out his administration and preparing to hit the ground running on Inauguration Day,” said Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Trump transition team. ”There will be plenty of time to discuss detailed policy specifics after the .” Democratic attorneys general and civil rights groups are already busy preparing legal arguments to try to stop Trump’s executive actions should he implement some of his proposals. The pushback will be similar to the challenges Obama faced from Republican attorneys general and conservative groups when he acted alone to try to shield nearly 5 million immigrants from deportation. FIRST DAYS Among the easiest immigration promises for Trump to fulfill will be his vow to reverse Obama’s executive orders. The could eliminate with a Obama’s 2012 policy allowing immigrants brought here illegally as children to apply for work permits, a program known as DACA that Trump has said he will end. What would happen next is unclear. More than 740, 000 people have been approved for deportation relief under the program, and many worry that their addresses and other identifying information could be used by the new administration to target them for deportation. Steve Legomsky, former chief counsel at U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said no laws would prevent the Trump administration from using program records for immigration enforcement, but the has not said he would do so. Denying visas to people from countries ”where adequate screening cannot occur,” another point on Trump’s immigration plan, could also be easily accomplished by the president. Under current law, the administration can unilaterally suspend visas for any individuals or groups of people deemed ”detrimental to the interests of the United States.” In the past, presidents have chosen to apply this statute narrowly to keep out particular dictators or to deal with emergencies, for example. But the law is worded very broadly and could theoretically be applied to entire countries, said David Martin, emeritus professor of international law at University of Virginia School of Law. Trump’s promise to make legal immigration better serve America and its domestic workforce would likely focus, at least initially, on temporary employment visas such as the which are issued to specialized workers in fields such as technology. While Congress sets the maximum number of visas that can be issued annually, Trump could ask the Department of Justice to step up investigations of companies using those visas, with a focus on whether they are discriminating against American workers. This could include banning more tech outsourcing firms, which are the largest users of visas, from the program if they violate the rules, said Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University. ”Employers are going to be caught up in the cross hairs,” said business immigration lawyer Matthew Dunn from the law firm Kramer Levin. (Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington D. C. additional reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sue Horton and Mary Milliken) NEW YORK Six in 10 American voters support the new ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States unless they can show they have a close relative here, according to opinion poll results released on Wednesday. LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May will hold a bilateral meeting with U. S. President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg on Friday, a British government official said on Wednesday.

Deal advice DIY by major Chinese firms threatens banks’ rain making

Fosun International Ltd ( ) China’s biggest conglomerate, is known globally for its bold dealmaking, including the tenaciously successful pursuit of French resort operator Club Med. What is less known is Fosun’s reluctance to use expensive investment banks to advise on such deals. Instead, the company has built a internal investment team to advise on its global acquisitions, its assistant president Chen Bo told Reuters. ”When Fosun started its globalization strategy five years ago, we were nobody in the global business. We definitely needed investment bankers to introduce Fosun and lead us on the deals,” he said. ”But today with the growth of the brand and strong [ ] experts across the world, we don’t rely on any intermediates. We find the targets by our own team and negotiate with the owners of the potential assets directly.” As some global investment banks shrink their Asian footprint, ambitious Chinese conglomerates such as Fosun and technology giants notably Alibaba Group Holding Ltd ( ) and Tencent Holdings Ltd ( ) are beefing up mergers and acquisitions advisory teams, hiring hundreds of bankers and other financial professionals to sustain their global dealmaking drive. In some cases, the internal teams of Chinese corporations far outnumber investment bankers at global banks in Asia. Goldman Sachs ( ) for instance, currently employs around 250 investment bankers in Asia, outside of Japan and Australia, following a recent 15 percent cut. While it is normal for large western companies to assemble M&A experts, they do mostly continue to use external advisers while executing large takeovers. The teams in the U. S. and Europe also tend to be much more modest in size. Investment banks are missing out due to Chinese buyers increasing reliance on internal advice. When Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceuticals Group Ltd ( ) acquired India’s Gland Pharma for $1. 3 billion this year, it did not use any external advisers. Similarly, when Chinese ride hailing firm Didi Chuxing bought Uber’s China unit, all financial advisory work for both firms was done .. ”These Chinese companies have realized they are going to be serial acquirers and they might better do on their own rather than hiring a bank,” said Keith Pogson, EY senior partner for financial Services in the . ”With their own team, they can better manage their strategy, look for assets that fit their future worldwide, approach and acquire targets directly. They are basically the whole process,” he added. BIG NAME HIRES Pogson did note that Chinese acquirers would eventually scale back their M&A splurge, and that this would make it difficult to sustain large operations. There will be a point when having a very big team “will be a handicap rather than help,” he said. Fosun’s team is divided into 15 groups focusing on different industries spread across 14 countries, from the United States and Britain to Brazil and Russia. The team, made up mostly of industry specialists hired from retreating global investment banks, as well as multinational companies and other financial institutions, has about 240 managing directors worldwide, of which 101 are foreign, according to Fosun. Elsewhere, Alibaba and its financial affiliate, Ant Financial Services Group, have also built their teams to 150 and 30, respectively, according to people familiar with the matter. Alibaba and Ant Financial have lured a number of big name investment bankers, including Michael Evans and Douglas Feagin, two veteran Goldman bankers. Tencent’s M&A team has grown to about 50 people, and is led by its president Martin Lau, a former Goldman Sachs executive director, according to people familiar with the matter. Alibaba, Ant Financial and Tencent declined to comment on the size of their investment teams. Fosun, which has snapped up other global brands such as Canada’s Cirque du Soleil, has only paid about $44 million in M&A advisory fees since 2002, data compiled by Thomson Reuters showed. Among its top 20 outbound M&A deals, it only hired financial advisers for five. Chinese deals teams are also beginning to have some impact on investment banks’ revenues. Volume of China’s completed outbound and domestic M&A deals has increased by almost 80 percent so far this year to $404 billion, but fee volume only rose by about 40 percent, according to data from Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting. ”These internal teams in one way eat a bit of the fee pool because a lot of things can be done instead of outsourcing to other banks, in particular in the tech sector,” said Jason Lam, president of China Renaissance Securities (HK) a boutique investment bank. Freeman Consulting data also shows half of tech deals below $300 million by Chinese firms have been executed so far this year, while external advisors have been engaged in the majority of larger tech acquisitions. ”For internet and technology companies, it makes a lot of sense to do these deals ” said one Hong Asia head of M&A at a global investment bank. ”That’s because they are usually buying a private company. It’s just entrepreneurs talking, they don’t need a fancy valuation or fancy legal contract.” Yet, some bankers believe external advisors are here to stay especially for mega deals. ”For big M&As, sometimes even you have a team, it’s better to have a to be the messenger,” said Lam of China Renaissance. (Reporting by Julie Zhu; Additional reporting by Denny Thomas, Elzio Barreto and Lisa Jucca; Editing by Denny Thomas and Martin Howell) Biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp will buy a stake in BeiGene Ltd and help develop and commercialize BeiGene’s investigational treatment for tumor cancers, the companies said on Wednesday. BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen .

Trump on Boeing’s Air Force One contract: ’Cancel order!’

U. S. Donald Trump urged the government on Tuesday to cancel an order with Boeing Co for a revamped Air Force One one of the most prominent symbols of the U. S. presidency saying costs were out of control. It was the latest example of Trump using his podium, often via Twitter messages, to rattle companies and foreign countries as he seeks to shake up business as usual in Washington. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, took aim at what he called cost overruns even though the plane is only in development stages. ”Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!” Trump said on Twitter. It was not immediately clear what prompted the timing of his complaint. Trump, who has vowed to use his skills as a businessman to make good deals that benefit American taxpayers, then made a surprise appearance in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, where he amplified his comments. ”The plane is totally out of control. I think it’s ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money,” he told reporters. Boeing, which has built planes for U. S. presidents since 1943, has not yet begun building the two replacements for the current Air Force One planes, which are scheduled to be in service by 2024. Boeing has not yet been awarded the money to build the proposed replacements. ”We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States,” the company said in a statement. Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg called Trump after his remarks and they had a constructive dialogue, sources familiar with the conversation told Reuters. Muilenburg told Trump the cost of the airplane could be lowered if the U. S. Air Force changed its requirements and the issue would likely be resolved without a major dispute, the sources said. NOT A ’VANILLA’ JUMBO JET The Air Force, which operates the presidential planes, announced in January 2015 that Boeing’s would be used to replace the two current presidential planes. The planes can fly direct from Washington to Hong Kong, 1, 000 miles (1, 600 km) farther than the current Air Force One. They are designed to be an airborne White House able to fly in security scenarios, such as nuclear war. President Barack Obama, who flew on the aging Air Force One to Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday, has called the plane one of the best perks of the presidency. His spokesman, Josh Earnest, told reporters on board that the contracting arrangements for replacements were ”rather complicated” and said the recommendations for upgrades had been made by national security experts. The budgeted costs for the replacement program are $2. 87 billion for the fiscal years 2015 through 2021, just on research and development, testing and evaluation, according to budget documents seen by Reuters. The current Air Force plan envisions extensive modifications to a Boeing plane, adding military avionics and advanced communications to a system. ”Of course it’s not like buying a vanilla Boeing jumbo jet,” said defense consultant Loren Thompson, who has close ties to Boeing and other companies. A March 2016 report from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimated the cost of the overall program at $3. 21 billion, including the purchase of two aircraft. But the GAO estimated the costs for research and development would be lower, at just under $2 billion. If the GAO report used the same Air Force estimate for research and development, then its estimate would be around $4 billion. Boeing shares dipped after Trump’s tweet but closed up 0. 1 percent at $152. 24. LATEST BROADSIDE Trump’s broadside against Boeing comes as Washington’s business lobbyists are bracing for a wild ride. A New York real estate developer, Trump took aim at big corporations during his campaign, saying that they often harmed ordinary Americans by sending jobs abroad. Since winning the Nov. 8 election, he has taken credit for pushing United Technologies Corp and Ford Motor Co to backtrack on outsourcing plans. Trump’s attack on Boeing was the main topic of discussion at the annual luncheon of the Aerospace Industries Association, where the group’s chief executive, Dave Melcher, urged the new administration to promote trade and bolster the manufacturing jobs that the $143 sector offers. Industry executives say they are seeing willingness from the Trump team to take another look at export controls that limit exports of U. S. weapons. But in the short term, his tweets and comments on Boeing put defense contractors on notice. ”The chilling effect on industry is huge, if you are a contractor,” said Franklin Turner, a partner specializing in government contracts at law firm McCarter & English. Boeing relies on the U. S. military and other arms of the federal government for a significant share of its defense, space and security business which is worth $30 billion a year. The company clashed during the past year with Republicans in Congress over the Bank, a federal program Boeing uses to finance sales to certain overseas customers. Boeing executives have also been outspoken supporters of the Partnership trade deal with Asia, which Trump opposed. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner, Emily Stephenson, Mike Stone, Susan Heavey, Andrea Shalal and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Ayesha Rascoe aboard Air Force One; Steve Holland, Alana Wise, Jeffrey Dastin, and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Writing by Roberta Rampton and Amanda Becker; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney) NEW YORK Six in 10 American voters support the new ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States unless they can show they have a close relative here, according to opinion poll results released on Wednesday. LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May will hold a bilateral meeting with U. S. President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg on Friday, a British government official said on Wednesday.

Los Angeles metro system bomb threat not credible: FBI

A threat to detonate a bomb at a subway station in Los Angeles was not credible, federal authorities said late on Tuesday after police spent the day searching commuters and leading dogs around stations across the metro area. Authorities found no evidence regarding a specific but uncorroborated threat made by a caller who warned that a bomb would blow up on Tuesday at the Metro Red Line’s Universal City station, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. ”Based on significant similarities, law enforcement partners also believe the anonymous caller may have, on a previous occasion, reported threats that did not materialize,” the FBI said in a statement. Heavy security at subway stations in Los Angeles greeted commuters on Tuesday. Armed deputies searched passengers’ bags while bomb squad teams led dogs around stations across the Los Angeles County transit system, media footage showed. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who boarded a train at the Universal City station on Tuesday, said law enforcement was prepared and asked the public to be vigilant. Federal and city officials said on Monday they had been alerted by authorities in another country to a ”specific” threat against the city’s Red Line commuter rail system, prompting them to beef up security and alert the public. Law enforcement officials said the threat had been relayed to the FBI by a law enforcement agency in another country, where the threat had originated. Officials did not identify the country. The male caller, speaking in English, had warned authorities in that country of a potential attack on Tuesday targeting the Red Line station, which is across the street from the Universal Studios theme park, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said. The caller did not threaten to carry out the attack, but said he was alerting law enforcement. The Red Line runs between downtown Los Angeles and northern neighborhoods, including Hollywood and North Hollywood. It carries about 145, 000 passengers a day as part of the city’s larger transit system. (Writing by Gina Cherelus in New York; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Daniel Wallis, David Gregorio and Paul Tait) WASHINGTON U. S. Representative Steve Scalise, shot and wounded during a baseball practice last month, developed an infection and was readmitted to an intensive care unit, MedStar Washington Hospital Center said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

U.S. Supreme Court backs Samsung in smartphone fight with Apple

The ruling, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, held that a patent violator does not always have to fork over its entire profits from the sales of products using stolen designs, if the designs covered only certain components and not the whole thing. The justices sent the case back to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington to determine how much Samsung must pay. But they did not provide a road map to juries and lower courts on how to navigate similar disputes in the future. Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said in a statement that the U. S. company remained ”optimistic that the lower courts will again send a powerful signal that stealing isn’t right.” Samsung told Reuters in a statement the ruling was a ”victory for Samsung and for all those who promote creativity, innovation and fair competition in the marketplace.” Following a 2012 jury verdict favoring Apple, Samsung initially was hit with nearly $930 million in penalties, later cut by $382 million, for infringing Apple’s iPhone patents and mimicking its distinctive appearance in making the Galaxy and other competing devices. Samsung in December 2015 paid its Cupertino, rival $548 million. But Samsung took the matter to the Supreme Court, saying it should not have had to make $399 million of that payout for copying the patented designs of the iPhone’s front face, bezel and colorful grid of icons that represent programs and applications. With the products that used iPhone designs, Samsung went on to become the world’s top smartphone maker. Tuesday’s ruling followed a ferocious legal battle between the world’s top two smartphone manufacturers that began in 2011 when Apple sued Samsung for patent and trademark infringement. It was one of the most closely watched patent cases to come before the top U. S. court in recent years. The legal dispute centered on whether the term ”article of manufacture,” on which design patent damages are calculated in U. S. patent law, should be interpreted as a finished product in its entirety, or merely a component in a complex product. In court papers, Samsung, Apple and the U. S. government all agreed that the term could mean a component. But Apple urged the Supreme Court to affirm the appeals court’s ruling because Samsung presented no evidence that the article of manufacture in this case was anything less than its entire smartphone as sold. Samsung, meanwhile, said that it did not have to present such evidence. Sotomayor, writing for the unanimous court, said that the law is clear. The term ”article of manufacture is broad enough to encompass both a product sold to a consumer as well as a component of that product,” she wrote. PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY The justices nevertheless refused to devise a test for juries and lower courts to use to discern what a relevant article of manufacture is in a particular case, a task that could be fraught with difficulty when considering products. ”No doubt whether with or some other design patent case, we are going to have a period of uncertainty where courts will be trying to formulate a test and what the boundaries are,” Richard McKenna, an expert in design rights at the law firm Foley & Lardner in Milwaukee, said in an interview. In court papers, Apple said its iPhone’s success was tied to innovative designs, which other manufacturers quickly adopted in their own products. Samsung, in particular, made a deliberate decision to copy the iPhone’s look and many user interface features, Apple said. Samsung argued that it should not have had to turn over all its profits, saying that design elements contributed only marginally to a complex product with thousands of patented features. Design patent fights very rarely reach the Supreme Court. It had not heard such a case in more than 120 years. The case is Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd v. Apple Inc, in the Supreme Court of the United States, No. . (Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington and Se Young Lee in Seoul; Editing by Will Dunham and Stephen Coates) NEW YORK John McAfee, the creator of eponymous antivirus computer software, has settled a lawsuit against Intel Corp over his right to use his name on other projects after the chipmaker bought his former company. YORK A startup has joined up with Mastercard Inc to launch a payment card that allows users to retroactively choose a different credit or debit card for a purchase they have already made, in what they called ”financial time travel”.

U.S. insurer lobby group seeks delay in 2018 Obamacare deadline

The largest lobbying group for health insurers has asked U. S. lawmakers weighing the fate of Obamacare to push back the due date for 2018 individual insurance submissions to regulators in hopes of obtaining greater clarity on the program’s future later on. Republican leaders including Donald Trump and U. S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have said they are keen to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program, the Affordable Care Act, which provides coverage to millions of Americans. The process of repealing and replacing Obamacare could take two to three years, however, according to some senators. How much of the law will change and when is still unclear. Trump has said some aspects of the program are good, such as allowing young adults to stay insured with their parents until age 26. The trade association America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, has been speaking with senators for the past few weeks, spokeswoman Kristine Grow said on Tuesday. She provided a list of issues under discussion, which touch on the individual exchanges, Medicare and Medicaid. Insurers backed the idea of pools, saying they can mitigate the risk of adverse selection and deliver effective coverage. Both Trump and his choice to head the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, advocate for use of the pools to insure the very sick. Two of AHIP’s largest members are Anthem Inc and Cigna Corp, both of which plan to sell Obamacare plans in 2017. Insurers also asked for funding through Jan. 1, 2019, for programs and making the 2016 reinsurance payments to insurers who qualify for them as planned. And they asked for elimination of two health insurance taxes, which they said would help slow premium growth. They suggested extending the deadline to file health exchange plans by a few months until the summer of 2017, when there will be less uncertainty and more insurers are likely to submit bids. Insurers are asking senators for limited changes to the Medicaid program during the transition period, and to ensure a transition period for states that have expanded Medicaid, the program for the poor jointly funded by the federal government and states. Republicans are considering changing its funding to block grants, which could cut the total amount. On Medicare, the insurers are seeking changes as soon as February, when the government will propose target rates for 2018 Medicare Advantage plans. (Editing by Matthew Lewis) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

China urges U.S. to block transit by Taiwan president

China called on U. S. officials on Tuesday not to let Taiwanese President Tsai pass through the United States en route to Guatemala next month, days after Donald Trump irked Beijing by speaking to Tsai in a break with decades of precedent. The U. S. State Department appeared to reject the call, saying that such transits were based on ” U. S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of (U. S.) relations with Taiwan.” China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, whom it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a island that Beijing regards as a renegade province. Her call with Trump on Friday was the first between a U. S. or president and a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979. Tsai is due to visit Guatemala, one of Taiwan’s small band of diplomatic allies, on Jan. its foreign minister, Carlos Raul Morales, told Reuters. Taiwan’s Liberty Times, considered close to Tsai’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, reported on Monday that she was planning to go through New York early next month on her way to Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. Taiwan has not formally confirmed Tsai’s trip but visits to its allies in the region are normally combined with transit stops in the United States and meetings with officials. The trip would take place before Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20 to replace Democrat Barack Obama and Tsai’s delegation would seek to meet Trump’s team, including his White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the Liberty Times said. MEETING ”UNLIKELY” An adviser to Trump’s transition team said he considered it ”very unlikely” there would be a meeting between Tsai and Trump if she were to go through New York. China’s Foreign Ministry said the principle, which states Taiwan is part of China, was commonly recognized by the international community and that Tsai’s real aim was ” .” China hopes the United States ”does not allow her transit, and does not send any wrong signals to ’Taiwan independence’ forces,” the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters. U. S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Monday he had no information whether Tsai would meet U. S. officials if she stopped in transit but said Taiwanese presidents did stop over periodically. He said the transits were ”based on U. S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of our relations with Taiwan.” A spokeswoman repeated the position on Tuesday when asked to comment on the Chinese call. In a meeting with American reporters on Tuesday, Tsai played down the significance of her conversation with Trump, saying it was to congratulate the . ”I do not foresee major policy shifts in the near future because we all see the value of stability in the region,” she told the reporters. U. S. Vice Mike Pence told the Fox News Channel on Tuesday that Trump did not regret taking the call. ”(The) was fully aware of the policy,” Pence said. ”He’s also very aware that the United States has sold billions of dollars in arms to Taiwan. ”We have a unique relationship with that country that’s been defined over the decades since we’ve reopened relations with the People’s Republic of China but I think he think he felt it would be rude not to take the call. ” Taiwan has been self governing since 1949 when Nationalist forces fled to the island after defeat by Mao Zedong’s communists in China’s civil war. Taiwan’s Presidential Office said media reports about a January trip were ”excessive speculation.” El Salvador’s government said it was working with Taiwan on plans for a visit by Tsai in the second week of January but gave no specific dates. The Nicaraguan government had no immediate comment. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is to be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Jan. 10, however, so Tsai’s trip to Guatemala would dovetail with that ceremony. The White House said on Monday it had sought to reassure China after Trump’s phone call with Tsai, which the Obama administration warned could undermine progress in relations with Beijing. (Reporting by Bill Barreto in Guatemala City, Nelson Renteria in San Salvador, Enrique Andres Pretel in Mexico City, David Brunnstrom and Susan Heavey in Washington, Michael Martina in Beijing and J. R. Wu in Taipei; Writing by Simon Gardner; Editing by Bill Trott and James Dalgleish) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

Ex-U.S. Attorney Yang being considered for SEC chair: source

Former U. S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang is being considered to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Trump administration, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. Yang is a partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles where she represents corporate defendants in crime investigations and compliance matters. Previously, Yang served as the first female U. S. attorney. She was appointed to the Central District of California by Republican President George W. Bush in 2002 and left in 2006 to join Gibson Dunn. Yang is a longtime friend of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and donated to his presidential campaign. If tapped, she would become the second consecutive former federal prosecutor to lead the SEC. Its current chair, Mary Jo White, previously served as U. S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Yang did not respond to a call or an email requesting comment, and it is not clear if she is the leading contender for the top SEC job. Other names that have been floating around include former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, who is helping oversee the transition for financial regulation, and Ralph Ferrara, a former SEC general counsel who is also on the transition team. Unlike Atkins or Ferrara, Yang is not considered to be as deeply steeped in securities regulatory policy matters. Yang has represented a variety of corporate clients and also previously served as a Justice monitor for a medical device company. Currently, she is representing Allergan Plc in a lawsuit filed last month against a company called Amazon Medica for trademark infringement, false advertising and unfair competition related to its selling Botox with foreign labels to U. S. doctors. She has also represented Uber Technologies Inc in a class action lawsuit to force the company to pay its drivers overtime and minimum wage. Yang was among the Gibson Dunn attorneys who were hired to conduct an outside investigation into the ”Bridgegate” scandal. Their March 2014 report exonerated Christie, finding that he had no involvement in the decision to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York City. Two of Christie’s former close associates, Bridget Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were convicted for their roles in the scandal last month. During their trial, former Port Authority official David Wildstein, who previously pleaded guilty for his involvement, testified that he and Baroni had in fact discussed the lane closures with Christie. Christie has not been charged with wrongdoing. Defense attorneys in the case and local media in New Jersey have raised questions about the independence of Gibson Dunn’s investigation, citing Yang’s personal friendship with Christie and efforts to raise money for his campaign. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

U.S. lawmaker: Sony breach may have inspired Russian election hacking

The U. S. failure to retaliate strongly for the 2014 cyber attack against Sony Pictures may have helped inspire Russian hackers who sought to interfere in the 2016 U. S. election, a senior congressional Democrat said on Tuesday. ”Russia may have concluded that they could hack American institutions and there’d be no price to pay,” Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told a press breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. Schiff suggested that Washington team up with European allies to impose sanctions that would hit the Russian economy. Russia was blamed for attacks on Democratic organizations that damaged the party during the 2016 election campaign, in which Republican Donald Trump won the presidency and his party kept control of the Senate and the House. Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the allegations as U. S. campaign rhetoric. Schiff was one of a group of senior House Democratic lawmakers who wrote to President Barack Obama on Tuesday asking administration officials to brief members of Congress on Russian efforts to influence or interfere in the Nov. 8 U. S. election. ”Russia may have succeeded in weakening Americans’ trust” in democratic institutions, said the letter, also signed by Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, and the ranking Democrats on the Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, Oversight and Armed Services committees. Other lawmakers, including some Republicans, have asked for investigations or called for legislation to address the hacking issue. Reuters reported on Friday that James Clapper, the U. S. director of national intelligence, asked Congress to remove a provision in an upcoming intelligence authorization bill that would have created a special committee to combat Russian efforts to exert covert influence abroad. Schiff, who backs creation of the bipartisan committee, said on Tuesday the United States needed to do more to stop such hacking. ”Unless we establish some kind of deterrent, this is going to be unending,” he said. An Intelligence Committee aide said the panel had changed the provision independent of Clapper’s letter and felt it had ”appropriately addressed” intelligence community concerns. In 2016, the hacking benefited Trump, Schiff said. He added, however, that Russian hackers could turn on Trump once he is president if they do not approve of his policies. The Obama administration publicly blamed North Korea for the malicious breaches that crippled Sony in 2014. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Syrian troops enter Aleppo’s Old City, poised for war’s biggest victory

Syria’s army and allies pushed into parts of Aleppo’s Old City on Tuesday, a monitoring group said, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold. A rebel official said they would never abandon Aleppo, after reports that U. S. and Russian diplomats were preparing to discuss the surrender and evacuation of insurgents from territory they have held for years. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal would begin in Geneva as soon as Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. But sources familiar with the plans later told Reuters no talks would take place this week in the Swiss city. The rebels, who controlled large parts of eastern Aleppo for nearly five years, have lost around two thirds of their territory in the city over the past two weeks. Government forces entered parts of the Old City late on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported. A rebel official denied they had entered but said the army and its allies were trying to enter and battles continued. A military source said troops were ”advancing in that direction”. The government now appears closer to victory in the city than at any point since 2012, the year after rebels took up arms to overthrow President Bashar in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world’s worst refugee crisis. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one. Russia and China vetoed a U. N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce. Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in districts of Aleppo, reduced to a few kilometers (miles) across. The United Nations, whose staff are restricted to areas of the city, on Tuesday described ”a very disastrous situation in eastern Aleppo”. ”There has been heavy shelling on us, there are massacres (of civilians) there’s no electricity and little internet access,” said Abu Youssef, a resident of one of the areas still held by the fighters. Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months. Moscow wants negotiations with Washington to facilitate such an evacuation. But despite Lavrov’s announcement of a meeting in Geneva, a U. S. official said firm plans for talks had never been set, though Washington was still working to reopen negotiations. “We’re not going to negotiate this publicly,” the official said on condition of anonymity. Rebels have told U. S. officials they will not withdraw, and said there had been no more formal contact with Washington on the topic since last week. ”The Americans asked if we wanted to leave or to stay . .. we said this is our city, and we will defend it,” Zakaria Malahifji, a official for the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters on Tuesday. The Cold superpowers have backed opposing sides in the war, but Russia has intervened far more openly and decisively, joining Iran as well as Iraqi and Lebanese Shi’ite groups to back Assad. Some of the groups fighting in eastern Aleppo have received support in a U. S. military aid program to rebels deemed moderate by the West. However, this has been minimal compared to massive Russian air support to aid Assad’s government, which has turned the tide of the war in his favor over the past year. The army said it had taken over areas to the east of the Old City including Marja and Karm bringing them closer to cutting off another pocket of rebel control. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said and some other areas had been taken, but did not immediately confirm the takeover of all the areas announced by the army. A rebel official denied had been taken but said fighting continued in the neighborhood. Outside of Aleppo, the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. The Observatory said a heavy Syrian and Russian aerial bombardment in the last three days in the mostly Idlib province to the southwest had killed more than 100 people. WINTER IS COMING The rebels’ loss of the eastern half of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, would be the biggest victory of the conflict so far for Assad, securing his grip on all Syria’s main cities. It would also be a success for President Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow’s ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi’ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad. U. N. official Jens Laerke said: ”Winter is approaching, it’s already getting very, very cold so that has come up as a priority need . .. Food is running out, the little food that is available is being sold at extremely inflated prices.” While rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government assaults. Insurgents, meanwhile, have fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place on Monday within a kilometer (half a mile) of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City. With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets, the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting. Apart from their support for rebels fighting against Assad, Western countries are also taking part in a U. S. air campaign against Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim militant group which broke away from other groups to proclaim a caliphate in territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq. Moscow says helping Assad is the best way to defeat Islamic State. Western countries say the group gains strength from the fury unleashed by Assad’s military crackdown on his enemies. France, a staunch backer of the opposition, will convene foreign ministers of countries in Paris on Saturday to try to come up with some form of strategy in the wake of the Aleppo onslaught, although few diplomats expect anything concrete to be achieved. Western countries say that even if government forces take Aleppo, they will still not be able to end the conflict, as long as millions of Syrians see the government as a brutal enemy. ”Aleppo falls, but the war goes on,” said one U. S. official. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, John Irish in Paris, Angus McDowall, John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Jonathan Landay, Yeganeh Torbati and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Peter Millership; Editing by Peter Graff and James Dalgleish) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

Japan business mood brightens as yen weakens: Reuters Tankan

Japanese manufacturers’ confidence rose for a fourth straight month to a high in December and the service sector’s mood also rose, a Reuters poll showed, with a weaker yen brightening prospects for exporters. The monthly Reuters Tankan which tracks the Bank of Japan’s key quarterly tankan found sentiment at manufacturers and firms both up from three months ago, pointing to improvement in the central bank’s survey out next week. In the poll of 531 and firms, carried out between Nov. 22 and Dec. 2 and in which 268 responded, the sentiment index for manufacturers rose to 16 from 14 in November, driven by steel and transport equipment makers. It was the highest reading since August 2015, but it is expected to fall to 10 over the next three months. Compared with three months ago, the index was up 11 points, indicating an improvement in the headline big manufacturers’ index in the BOJ tankan due Dec. 14. In written comments, Japanese exporters expressed concerns about uncertainty over the global outlook following the shock U. S. election victory by Donald Trump, while a subsequent dollar rebound buoyed sentiment among manufacturers. ”It’s good that the yen has weakened. But the outlook is highly unclear,” a manager at a chemicals firm wrote in the survey, which companies answer anonymously. ”There’s a mountain of problems such as Trump, South Korea, China and Russia.” The index rose to 19 from 15 in November, up five points compared with three months ago, a good sign for the upcoming BOJ tankan. It was the highest reading since May, and it is seen edging up further to 20 in March. In a worrying sign for private consumption that constitutes about 60 percent of the economy, however, retailers’ sentiment fell to minus 14 from zero in November, reflecting weak domestic demand. ”Sales from inbound tourism are slowing and clothing sales remain poor,” one retailer said. Another retailer said business conditions were not so good due to ”high input prices caused by a weak yen, and a spike in unit costs of foodstuffs.” The BOJ’s last tankan on Oct. 3 showed big Japanese manufacturers’ mood held steady in the third quarter while sentiment fell to its lowest in nearly two years. The central bank last month held off on expanding stimulus, underscoring a market view that it will stand pat unless a severe shock threatens to derail economic recovery. It holds the next rate review Dec. . (Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto and Izumi Nakagawa; Editing by Eric Meijer) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Modi’s cash clampdown gamble may force India central bank to cut rates

An intense cash shortage in India could force the central bank to cut interest rates to a low on Wednesday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s currency gamble threatens to hit nearly every aspect of the economy, from consumers to supply chains. A majority of the nearly 60 analysts polled by Reuters predict the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will cut the repo rate INREPO=ECI by 25 basis points (bps) to 6. 00 percent, the lowest since November 2010, while six predicted a deeper 50 bps cut. Pressure on the RBI and Governor Urjit Patel to act has grown since Modi stunned the country on Nov. 8 with a drastic plan to abolish 500 and 1, 000 rupee notes ($7. . 70) removing 86 percent of the currency in circulation in a bid to crack down on India’s ”shadow economy.” Data so far shows the measure has hit the economy more than expected: auto sales plunged and services sector activity dived into contraction last month for the first time in years. The prospect that India’s robust growth will be derailed could offset any worries about a volatile global environment, which saw the rupee sink to a record low last month as part of a in emerging market assets. Analysts say the RBI has room to act given consumer inflation INCPIY=ECI eased in October to 4. 20 percent, the slowest pace in 14 months and below the RBI’s target of 5 percent for March 2017. ”We expect the RBI monetary policy committee (MPC) to cut rates by 25 basis points,” said Radhika Rao, an economist with DBS Bank, in a note. ”While lingering external uncertainties raise the odds of a the RBI MPC is likely to take a growth supportive stance to offset downside risks to growth from the demonetization effort.” A rate cut is not without risks. It would mark a second consecutive 25 bps easing by the MPC, and some foreign investors warn it could raise concerns about whether the central bank is losing its focus on inflation. A cut would also come at a time when emerging markets are under pressure after the election of Donald Trump as U. S. president last month sparked a surge of capital flows back into the United States, a trend that could accelerate as the Federal Reserve gears up to raise interest rates next week. In India, foreign investors sold a net $4. 7 billion in debt and equities in November even, though the country is seen as in better shape than other emerging markets. But a rate cut would signal the RBI’s priority is in supporting the economy, which grew an annual 7. 3 percent between July and September, the fastest rate for a large economy in the world but still below the levels needed to sustain full employment. Investors will also want more details from Patel about how the RBI is managing the process of demonetization after coming under criticism from market participants for frequently announcing adjustments to its policies. Most analysts say the RBI will likely partly roll back a directive for banks to place their entire deposits under the central bank’s cash reserve ratio in a bid to absorb the extra liquidity generated by the government’s banknotes move. The need to keep it in place has eased after the government announced last week it would raise the issuance of special bonds to soak up the liquidity. ($1 = 68. 0199 Indian rupees) (Editing by Kim Coghill) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

U.S. judge throws out emissions fraud lawsuit against Mercedes

U. S. District Judge Jose Linares said the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case. Plaintiffs claimed Mercedes falsely advertised the BlueTec vehicles as having lower emissions. They said that they later found that the emissions were higher than U. S. standards permitted. The judge said the plaintiffs failed to show they actually viewed any of Mercedes’ advertisements touting the cleaner technology. He gave them leave to revise their complaint. Diesel car makers in the U. S. have been under increased scrutiny since Volkswagen AG ( ) admitted in September 2015 that it had rigged U. S. diesel emissions tests. Volkswagen ultimately agreed to pay $15. 3 billion in settlements for owners as well as state and federal regulators. In April, the U. S. Department of Justice asked Daimler to investigate the emissions certification process for its Mercedes vehicles. The automaker said it would cooperate with U. S. authorities, but has not admitted to any wrongdoing. The BlueTec system uses urea to eliminate nitric oxide fumes from vehicle emissions. It is used mainly in heavier cars like sports utility vehicles or Daimler’s large limousines. (Reporting by Erica Teichert; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Bernard Orr) BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen . NEW DELHI India is examining the use of private vehicles as shared taxis in an effort to reduce car ownership and curb growing traffic congestion in major cities, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Libyan forces clear last Islamic State holdout in Sirte

Libyan forces backed by U. S. air strikes finished clearing the last Islamic State holdout in Sirte on Tuesday after a near battle for the militant group’s former North African stronghold. The forces gained full control over a final patch of ground in Sirte’s Ghiza Bahriya district after hours of clashes. Several dozen women and children who had been holed up with the militants were able to leave the ruined buildings where they had made their last stand. As celebrations erupted among the Libyan forces, which are dominated by brigades from the city of Misrata, a spokesman said the military campaign would continue until the wider area was secured. Fighters fired in the air chanting ”Free Libya” and ”The blood of the martyrs was not for nothing.” The loss of Sirte is a major blow for Islamic State, leaving the group without any territory in Libya, though it retains an active presence in parts of the vast country. The jihadist group took over Sirte in early 2015, turning it into their most important base outside the Middle East and attracting large numbers of foreign fighters into the city. It imposed its rule on residents, and extended its control along about 250 km (155 miles) of Libya’s Mediterranean coastline. Spokesman Rida Issa said although forces had ”secured all the buildings and the streets” in Ghiza Bahriya, this did not mean the end of the operation. ”We still need to secure the area around Sirte,” he said. French Defence Minister Le Drian said: ”This is very good news. The defeat of Daesh (Islamic State) is a very strong act, but it can only be seen as a step . .. the militias that have freed Sirte deserve to be congratulated.” Libyan and Western officials say some Islamic State fighters escaped from Sirte before the battle or in its early stages. They fear an insurgent campaign from outside the city and there have been attacks in outlying areas. BOMBERS, SNIPERS, MINES The forces counterattacked in May after jihadists moved along the coast toward their city. The brigades, nominally aligned with a U. N. government in Tripoli, advanced rapidly toward the center of Sirte before suicide bombers, snipers and mines largely halted their progress. More than 700 of their fighters have been killed and more than 3, 200 wounded in the grueling campaign. On Tuesday, a further three men were killed and about 50 wounded, said Mohamed Lajnef, an official at Sirte’s field hospital. He also said 21 women and 31 children had been released in Ghiza Bahriya. Dozens of other women and children some of them migrants from Africa held captive by Islamic State had escaped or had been released from ground in recent days. Mohamed another spokesman for the military operation, said there had been two attempted suicide bombings on Tuesday, including one by a woman, and that more than 30 militants’ bodies had been counted in the rubble. Since Aug. 1, the United States has carried out at least 495 air strikes against Islamic State in Sirte. Libya remains in turmoil over five years after the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi. The U. N. Government of National Accord (GNA) that arrived in Tripoli in March and supported the campaign in Sirte has made little progress in ending the chaos. Sirte lies in a strategic position about halfway along Libya’s coastline, near some of the country’s major oil fields and terminals. Close to Gaddafi’s birthplace, it is also the city where he was shot and killed after ruling Libya for 42 years. Almost all of Sirte’s estimated population of 80, 000 fled the city since Islamic State took over. Ghasri appeared on television asking local families not to return until mines had been cleared. (Additional reporting by Mohamed Lagha in Misrata, writing by Aidan Lewis; editing by Janet Lawrence, G Crosse) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

Banks, telecoms lead Wall Street up; another Dow record

The S&P financial sector . SPSY rose nearly 1 percent, lifted by a 2. 2 percent gain for Wells Fargo ( ). The bank’s chief executive told an investor conference it will see a profit hit because of the sharp rise in interest rates, but will benefit in the longer term from rising rates. Bank of America ( ) Citigroup ( ) and Goldman Sachs ( ) also ended higher. Financials have climbed more than 15 percent since the Nov. 8 election and are seen as one of the sectors particularly benefiting as Donald Trump seeks to pass economic stimulus and reduce corporate taxes and regulations. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise interest rates next week, in another boost for banks. Financials in general are ”benefiting from the feeling that interest rates are done going down and we are going to see a much more favorable interest rate and spread environment for financials,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 35. 54 points, or 0. 18 percent, to 19, 251. 78, the S&P 500 gained 7. 52 points, or 0. 34 percent, to 2, 212. 23 and the Nasdaq Composite added 24. 11 points, or 0. 45 percent, to 5, 333. 00. Equities are also gaining support from recent positive economic data and corporate results from S&P 500 companies, which in the third quarter were poised to snap a streak of quarterly profit declines, said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana. ”It looks like we are leaving the earnings recession and we have entered a period of earnings growth that I think can support the higher prices that we’re seeing,” Carlson said. AT&T ( ) shares rose 1. 9 percent. The company said its new streaming television service DirectTV Now has so far exceeded expectations. Verizon shares climbed 1. 2 percent. The No. 1 U. S. wireless carrier is selling 29 data centers to Equinix ( ) for $3. 6 billion. Verizon also helped boost the Dow, which has outperformed other major indexes and notched a series of fresh record highs since the election as investors pile into financials and industrial stocks. Trump’s market influence was seen on Tuesday as Boeing ( ) shares fell after he tweeted that the government should cancel an order with the plane maker to develop a revamped Air Force One. Boeing shares recovered initial losses and ended marginally positive. Trump’s announcement that Japanese telecoms and internet firm SoftBank ( ) agreed to invest $50 billion in the United States also rippled through markets, with Sprint shares ( ) rising 1. 5 percent and ( ) gaining 1. 8 percent. In other corporate news, Nike ( ) fell 2. 5 percent after Cowen & Co downgraded the shoe and apparel maker’s shares to ”market perform.” About 7. 1 billion shares changed hands in U. S. exchanges, below the 7. 9 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2. ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1. ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted 41 new highs and four new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 294 new highs and 21 new lows. (Additional reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Dan Grebler and James Dalgleish) SINGAPORE Most Asian stock markets fell on Thursday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed a lack of consensus on the future pace of U. S. interest rate increases, while oil prices inched higher following a steep decline a day earlier. WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday.

Obama defends record on terrorism in national security speech

President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned that the United States would not be able to wipe out terrorism with military might as he offered a sweeping defense of his administration’s national security record. In his final major speech on counterterrorism as president, Obama argued that his administration had been able to make al Qaeda ”a shadow of its former self” and had put Islamic State on its heels, but said terrorism would remain a threat to the United States. ”Rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs or deploying more and more troops or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat and we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained,” Obama said during a speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Obama will turn over the White House on Jan. 20 to Republican Donald Trump who has been sharply critical of his administration’s approach to fighting terrorism. Trump referred to Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as the ” ” of Islamic State during the presidential campaign, blaming them for the initial spread of the militant group. The White House said Obama’s national security speech had been planned long before the Nov. 8 election and was not aimed specifically at the incoming Trump administration. But during his speech, Obama spoke of the importance of adhering to American laws and values and against reinstating the use of waterboarding or imposing a religious test on immigrants, two positions that Trump has supported in the past. ”The whole objective of these terrorists is to scare us into changing who we are and our democracy,” Obama said. Obama signed an executive order after taking office in January 2009 that banned waterboarding and other ”enhanced interrogation techniques” or EITs. Such executive orders can be rescinded by a president’s successors. Many lawmakers and human rights groups have denounced waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, as torture. While Trump is now calling for ”extreme vetting” of certain refugees admitted to the United States, during the campaign he proposed banning Muslims from entering the country. Obama came into office planning to unwind U. S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and promising to focus on fighting militant groups that threatened the United States wherever they were. Instead, he has been forced to return some U. S. troops to Iraq and keep thousands in place in Afghanistan after more than years of war. Obama said his administration’s approach of providing support to local partners and not undertaking massive ground invasions has been effective and is making progress in the fight to take Mosul in Iraq from Islamic State. Some counterterrorism experts have pointed to the rise of Islamic State as an example of Obama being too slow to respond to an emerging threat. While the United States has been successful in killing some key militant leaders, Obama’s ”legacy has been tarnished by the way terrorist groups have regenerated and strengthened in the latter parts of his presidency,” said Robin Simcox, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Peter Cooney and James Dalgleish) QAMISHLI, The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a ”declaration of war” which could trigger clashes within days. CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis.

Ford stockpiles best-selling F-150 trucks to test new transmission

Ford Motor Co ( ) is stockpiling 2017 model trucks, delaying delivery to dealers while it runs final tests on a new transmission, a top executive told Reuters. The trucks should be delivered by the end of the year, Joe Hinrichs, head of Ford’s automotive operations in the Americas said in an interview on Monday. ”We are launching the new Raptor and with the new transmission,” Hinrichs said. “We continued building but we’re holding (trucks) longer so we could do more testing and make sure everything is right before we release them,” Hinrichs said. Extra testing is surely prudent in an industry plagued by frequent and costly automotive safety recalls. But Ford’s shipping delays come as rival General Motors Co ( ) is aggressively trying to cut into Ford’s lead in U. S. pickup sales. Taking aim at the ”Built Ford Tough” ad campaign, as part of a bid dominate the lucrative light truck and sport utility vehicle market, GM rolled out a series of TV commercials over the summer. Punching holes, literally, in the lightweight aluminum beds featured in Ford’s new line of pickups, the ads tout the alleged advantages of the steel beds in GM’s trucks. The Ford line of pickups has been the model line in the United States for 34 years, and Hinrichs predicted 2016 will make it 35 years in a row. Ford did not disclose how many pickups it is holding. But several hundred vehicles were stored earlier this week behind a chain link fence on an empty factory parking lot in Detroit. More were parked on Tuesday near the County airport. Many were Limited or Platinum models with sticker prices above $50, 000. Ford designed the transmission jointly with GM. The 2017 model equipped with a 3. 5 liter engine and the automatic gearbox get a one mile per gallon improvement in fuel economy over comparable 2016 models with transmissions, according to federal fuel economy data. Ford remains the leader in large, light duty pickups with 733, 287 trucks sold on the U. S. market through the end of November, according to sales figures compiled by Autodata Corp. However, Ford in October said it would cut a week of production at a Kansas City assembly plant that builds . GM has sold 718, 994 of its large pickups during the same 11 months. GM said in November it had increased inventory on U. S. dealer lots by 111, 000 vehicles at the end of the third quarter. GM, Ford and other major automakers in the United States are promoting discounts and financing deals to clear out inventory by the end of the year. December is a critical month for truck sales, said Pete DeLongchamps, vice president of manufacturer relations with Group 1 Automotive, a Houston auto retail chain. ”I expect them to be aggressive.” (Reporting by Joe White; Editing by Tom Brown) BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen . NEW DELHI India is examining the use of private vehicles as shared taxis in an effort to reduce car ownership and curb growing traffic congestion in major cities, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Iraqi army launches fresh assault toward Mosul center

Iraqi army units surged toward the center of Mosul on Tuesday in an attack from the city’s southeastern edges that could give fresh impetus to the battle for Islamic State’s Iraqi stronghold. Campaign commander Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah was quoted by Iraqi television as saying troops had entered Salam Hospital, less than a mile (1. 5 km) from the Tigris river running through the city center. If confirmed, that would mark a significant advance by the Ninth Armoured Division, which had been tied up for more than a month in combat with Islamic State on the southeastern fringes of the city. Residents of Islamic districts of east Mosul said by telephone the army had punched deep into the east bank of the city, getting close to the Tigris. ”The fighting right now is very heavy Iraqi forces have gone past our neighborhood without entering it. Our area is now practically surrounded by the river and the Iraqi forces,” said a resident of the Palestine neighborhood. Islamic State’s news agency appeared to confirm the advance, saying three car bombers struck the troops near Salam hospital. A Reuters team saw thick black smoke rising from the area around the hospital. ”We made good advances today,” said a soldier who identified himself as Abu Ahmed. Mosul is by far the largest city under Islamic State control and defeat there would roll back the caliphate it declared in 2014 after seizing large parts of Iraq and Syria. Some 100, 000 Iraqi soldiers, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and mainly Shi’ite paramilitary forces are participating in the Mosul campaign that began on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U. S. coalition. A colonel in the armored division said Tuesday’s assault, launched at 6 a. m. aimed to ultimately reach Mosul’s Fourth Bridge, the southernmost of five bridges spanning the river. The bridge, like three others, has been hit by U. S. air strikes to prevent Islamic State sending reinforcements and suicide car bombs across the city to the eastern front. The last and oldest bridge, built in the 1930s, was targeted on Monday night, two residents said. The structure was not destroyed, but the air strikes made two large craters in the approach roads on both sides. ”I saw Daesh (Islamic State) using bulldozers to fill the craters with sand and by midday vehicles managed to cross the bridge normally. I drove my car to the other side of the bridge and saw also Daesh vehicles crossing,” a taxi driver told Reuters. NEW TACTICS The army says it is facing the toughest urban warfare imaginable hundreds of suicide car bomb attacks, mortar barrages, sniper fire and ambushes launched from a network of tunnels. More than a million civilians are still in the city. The colonel said Tuesday’s offensive aimed to overwhelm the militants, who have put up stiff resistance but are hugely outnumbered by the attacking forces. ”We are using a new tactic increasing the numbers of advancing forces and also attacking from multiple fronts to take the initiative and prevent Daesh fighters from organizing any ” the colonel said by telephone. He said the four armored division regiments, whose tanks and heavy armor have struggled to adapt to fighting, had been reinforced by an infantry regiment. They were aiming for the Wahda neighborhood, a sprawling southeastern district. Wahda could serve as a launchpad for an advance to the Fourth Bridge, he said. The Sunni Muslim jihadists, who seized Mosul in are believed to be dug in across the city, but a U. S. general in the coalition supporting Iraqi forces told Reuters they appeared to have committed additional defenses to the fight in the east. The west of the city is more densely populated than the east and has a greater concentration of Sunni Muslims. ”The quality of the enemy we are facing now is markedly declined from a month ago,” said Brigadier General Scott Efflandt, a coalition deputy commander. ”What they were saving for the west side of the river they are now committing to the east.” He said the number of militants in the city had probably fallen to around 3, 000, from around 000 at the start of the campaign. Iraqi officials have not given any casualty figures for their own forces. Last week the United Nations said nearly 2, 000 members of Iraq’s security forces had been killed in November a figure Baghdad says was based on unverified reports and that more than 900 police and civilians had also been killed. (Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Andrew Roche) QAMISHLI, The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a ”declaration of war” which could trigger clashes within days. CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis.

Oil firms and carmakers diverge in costly debate

Many carmakers are predicting a significant shift to electric vehicles in the next decade. Advances in battery technology and the growth of autonomous driving and ride sharing suited to electric vehicles will power this expansion, they reason. But some oil executives take a different view, predicting electricity will play only a bit part in transport out to 2040 at least. If they are on the wrong side of the argument, it could come at a cost to an industry where new projects often cost billions of dollars to build and need decades of at least moderate crude prices to pay off. Over half of all crude oil pumped is used for transport. An overly pessimistic outlook for electric cars may lead oil companies to adopt an overly optimistic outlook for oil consumption and price growth, analysts say. ENI SpA ( ) Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi is among those who believe the threat posed to the oil industry by electric vehicles is not significant. ”Electric cars, they can grow, but I don’t think that is a problem (for us),” Descalzi told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in London last month. ExxonMobil Corp( ) the largest western oil producer by market value, and British rival BP Plc ( ) publish oil market outlooks to 2035 and 2040 respectively that guide their investment decisions. Both predict that in 2035, less than 10 percent of new cars will be electric vehicles (EVs) or hybrids — cars with a backup combustion engine for when the battery runs flat. ”Our central view in the outlook is the penetration of electric vehicles and electricity more generally is likely to be pretty limited over the next 20 years,” Spencer Dale, BP’s Chief Economist, said in February. The carmakers don’t produce comparable outlooks for vehicle production but their nearer term predictions for vehicle envisage a much faster take up of EVs. Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Mercedes Benz manufacturer Daimler AG ( ) said in September his goal was to have EVs make up between 15 and 25 percent of group global sales by 2025. BMW AG ( ) has said it could do the same. Ford ( ) CEO Mark Fields said in April that by 2020, 40 percent of models would be electrified. ”For over 100 years the internal combustion engine has been a basic design assumption for our business, for our industry,” Hau Ford vice President for Purchasing told analysts at an investor day in September. ”This shift to electrification is game changing,” he added. For the oil companies, a lot is riding on the accuracy of their demand forecasts, said Alex Griffiths, Group Credit Officer for corporates at credit rating agency Fitch, who produced a report about electric vehicles. ”Without that (oil) demand increase, you potentially find that the market gets out of kilter … which is not a good place for the oil industry to be in,” he said. To be sure, some in the oil industry are predicting a rapid expansion of EVs and some carmakers are conservative on EV prospects, but they are in a minority. Norway’s Statoil ( ) for instance, says electric motors could roll out widely in the next two decades. And Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV( ) CEO Sergio Marchionne has expressed caution about the uptake of electric cars. ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY Where there is a variance in outlook between the oil and auto industries, it is usually down to different expectations around technological developments and what happens in emerging markets. Carmakers expect batteries to become cheaper and be able to support greater vehicle range than some oil companies have predicted. Oil companies have said regulated caps on vehicle emissions can be most efficiently achieved by improvements in combustion engine efficiency. But carmakers say it is becoming increasingly expensive to hit emissions targets with combustion technology. BMW Chairman Harald Krueger told investors last year that electric motors were the only way to meet CO2 emissions regulations coming into force in Europe and elsewhere. But an even bigger reason why many in the auto industry believe the future for cars is electric is because of developments in car ride sharing and autonomous vehicles. Thanks largely to the involvement of Silicon Valley companies like Google owner Alphabet Inc. ( ) driverless cars have gone in a few years from the stuff of science fiction to a reality. Many of the big carmakers are developing models and predicting in the 2020s. Indeed, they predict the technology could change their business model from selling vehicles to providing transport as a service. That would be a big boost for electric engines. Electric cars are expected to remain more expensive than combustion engine vehicles for the foreseeable future but their operating costs are much lower than gasoline. That extra cost can be quickly recouped if the vehicle is part of an autonomous fleet with a high utilization rate — as ride hailers like Uber Technologies envisage emerging in the next decade. Also, with fewer moving parts, electric cars are cheaper to maintain — another incentive for fleet owners. And perhaps most crucially, driverless technology integrates better with an electric engine than a combustion engine because such technology needs electricity to operate, auto experts say. ”All those sensors and that computer platform, the beauty is on board we’ve got a lot of capability to power all those systems,” Pam Fletcher, General Motors ( ) Chief Engineer said at a conference in September. There is no evidence oil companies have factored this change into their calculations. Neither BP nor Exxon’s outlooks mentioned autonomous vehicles, although a policy document issued by BP on Monday said driverless cars would be considered in its next outlook due out in early 2017. Nor were autonomous vehicles mentioned in the transcripts of 44 analyst presentations given in the past year by the seven biggest Western oil companies — Exxon, BP, ENI, Royal Dutch Shell Plc( ) Chevron( ) ConocoPhillips( ) and France’s Total SA( ) reviewed by Reuters. The companies said they had not modeled the impact of autonomous vehicles, or they declined to comment. A spokesman for the International Energy Agency, which advises developed nations and their oil companies on energy policies, said it had not yet studied the potential impact of driverless cars on oil demand. CHINA MAY BE KEY Oil executives’ outlook for oil is also supported by an expectation that increased car ownership in emerging markets can more than make up for any increase in EV penetration. ”When we talk of electric cars, we are talking about the OECD,” ENI’s Descalzi said, referring to the group of 35 largely rich industrialized nations. ”More than 1. 3 billion (people) have no electricity,” he added. But Simon Redmond, Director, Oil & Gas Corporate Ratings at credit rating agency Standard & Poors said there was a risk that developing countries’ adoption of the automobile echoed their experience with telecoms. In that case, consumers largely skipped use of the established technology fixed land lines and went straight to the latest technology — mobile phones. Indeed, some in the auto industry think emerging markets could well outpace some rich countries in adopting EVs. ”We believe that China is going to lead in the penetration of electric vehicles into the market,” Mary Barra, General Motors CEO, said in October. Exxon predicts that by 2040, car ownership in China will triple to about 30 vehicles per 1, 000 people. BP predicts such growth, and an increase in miles driven per vehicle over the next 20 years, will help China overtake the United States to become the world’s largest liquids consumer in 2032. Yet, China is already the largest market for electric vehicles in the world, helped by government subsidies worth up to $10, 000 per car and exemptions from traffic restrictions in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Between sales of and hybrid models totaled 337, 000 and the country is targeting 5 million such vehicles on its roads by 2020. The government also offers incentives to manufacture electric vehicles in China, including more relaxed restrictions on foreign ownership of carmakers, and plans to set quotas that would require a certain proportion of cars built in China to be vehicles. Analysts say the risk for oil companies is that, with growth in crude demand baked into market analysts’ forecasts, anything which suggests the shift to electric vehicles will be quicker than expected can impact oil prices years before the shift occurs. ”The key risk for the industry is the rate of change,” said Redmond. “It does bring into question some of the economics of the different type of projects that the (oil) majors may want to look at,” he added. For a Graphic on BP’s projections on the use of different energy sources in transport click, (Additional reporting by Alissa De Carbonnel in Brussels; editing by Janet McBride) NEW YORK Tesla Inc shares slid more than 7 percent on Wednesday, their biggest percentage decline in more than a year, on delivery numbers, yet the luxury electric carmaker’s stock price remained above analysts’ median target. NEW YORK In the world of financial technology, where startups are the focus of M&A chatter, a $10 billion combination of two processors whose roots date to the 1970s might seem unusual.

A shift from yoga pants may leave Lululemon investors in a sweat

Mutual funds that bought Lululemon Athletica’s ( ) stock in recent months may find themselves in a cold sweat if the retailer’s quarterly report on Wednesday shows strong signs that leggings and other yoga apparel are falling out of fashion. At least two stock analysts have reduced their expectations for the company over concerns that women are losing interest in the ”athleisure” category that the retailer helped popularize over the past decade. Lululemon already faces relentless competition from Under Armour ( ) Nike ( ) and a multitude of rivals selling less expensive . A year of growth powered by an overhaul of its pants lineup may also be ending. Mutual funds appear to have taken advantage of a 30 percent drop in Lululemon’s stock since late August to buy. That decline has left Lululemon trading at 23 times expected earnings, lower than its average of 29, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream. Lululemon’s stock on Tuesday rose 0. 46 percent to $57. 38. In the past quarter, 86 mutual funds became new owners of Lululemon stock, eclipsing the 58 funds that sold out, according to Morningstar. Pointing to evidence from apparel trade shows that consumers are shifting away from athleisure and toward denim, Canaccord analyst Camilo Lyon last week downgraded Lululemon’s stock to ”sell” from ”hold.” Mizuho Securities analyst Betty Chen, who recently cut her price target for Lululemon to $60 from $68, said women are favoring ripped and distressed jeans as well as ”retro” athletic styles from Adidas ( ) and Puma. ”We see shoppers buying it and wearing it. You can also see a lot of it online through bloggers, and a lot of the young celebrities are wearing it,” Chen said. Typical Lululemon customers are likely to buy just three pairs of the company’s pants in 2017, down from four this year, which implies $127 million in lost revenue, according to Lyon. Baird and Dreyfus recently led mutual funds buying Lululemon, according to September regulatory filings. Fidelity reported in October that it owned 15 percent of Lululemon, making the it the apparel seller’s largest investor after Advent International, a private equity firm, which had a 15. 8 percent stake as of an Oct. 7 filing. Analysts on average expect Lululemon’s revenue to grow 13 percent in the October quarter, but some are concerned that executives might give an underwhelming forecast for the current quarter. Stores saw healthy traffic but weak customer spending over Black Friday, according to a Deutsche Bank analysis. (Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Alan Crosby) WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday. One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.

Brazil’s president, beset on all sides, struggling to be savior

When Michel Temer took over Brazil’s presidency in May, many hoped he could overcome the political gridlock, corruption scandals and economic obstacles that have hobbled Latin America’s biggest country. But seven months into the job, Brazil’s problems look just as intractable as they did when Temer and his Congressional allies orchestrated the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, his predecessor. Like a sequel to her administration, Temer’s is already beset by scandal, an unwieldy legislature and an economy that risks entering a third year of recession. Instead of hope and change, after 13 years of increasingly feckless government by the leftist Workers Party, even those who enabled Temer’s ascent fear more of the same. ”We already have a crisis of confidence as bad as it was with Dilma,” says Cristovam Buarque, a veteran senator scorned by fellow leftists for supporting Rousseff’s impeachment. ”There is no indication the country has a way out of this mess.” A quick fix would be rare in Brazil’s chaotic, multiparty democracy. After all, Temer, as vice president, was part of Rousseff’s administration and, critics say, helped create the mess. His Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) a shapeshifting mix of conservatives and centrists, was a key part of the Workers Party coalition. And Temer, a backroom dealmaker who calls his specialty ”arbitrating conflict,” is not the commandeering, inspirational savior that many Brazilians crave. ”This is someone known for accommodation, not for leading with ideas, certainty and strength,” says Rafael Cortez, a political scientist at Tendencias, a São Paulo consulting firm. The president and his aides say they remain confident they can pull Brazil from the morass. But many Brazilians are growing impatient, with memories fresh of an economic boom that preceded the Rousseff administration. The recession is proving relentless, pushing unemployment toward a 12 percent level unseen in over a decade. Last week, government data showed the economy contracted for a seventh consecutive quarter. Confidence is so low — and wallets so bare — that businesses are not investing and consumers are not spending. If federal finances were not hurting enough, with the deficit this year expected to equal 10 percent of the economy as tax revenues plummet, Temer recently agreed to help troubled state governments. Several states are so bankrupt they will likely need bailouts. FISCAL CRISIS, MESSY POLITICS To make way for future growth, Temer has bet on two measures economists have long argued would make Brazil more efficient: a constitutional amendment to limit government spending and an overhaul of the costly social security system. Even if they are passed quickly which is far from certain amid political tumult that threatens to derail a Senate vote on the spending cap the measures will provide little immediate relief. ”There is a horrendous fiscal crisis ahead and the government has only been thinking about the and the ” says Monica de Bolle, a Brazilian economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. She is one of a few to have suggested Temer consider tapping the International Monetary Fund — anathema to some in a country that during the boom took pride in weaning itself off decades of foreign assistance. ”The government is going to need cash and it doesn’t make sense to just sit, wait and hope,” de Bolle added. The messy political situation is compounded by growing tension between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Temer recently lost his fourth minister to graft allegations. On Monday, a Supreme Court judge sought to strip the Senate presidency from Renan Calheiros, a party colleague of Temer’s, after indicting him on corruption charges. On Tuesday, Calheiros said he would resist the order. If the full court forces his removal, Calheiros’ replacement, a Workers Party stalwart, is expected to delay the vote. The lower house, rattled by a plea bargain deal by employees of engineering firm Odebrecht SA that could implicate dozens of lawmakers in a kickback scandal, disgusted Brazil last week by passing a bill meant to intimidate judges and prosecutors. Combined, the troubles have undermined confidence further. Local stocks and Brazil’s currency, the real, are trading well below peaks reached after a boom. The Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, on Monday raised its probability to 20 percent that Temer would not finish his term, citing growing unrest and possible fallout from the kickback probe, which could touch Temer himself. Having gone through one traumatic ouster, few Brazilians are eager for another aborted administration. Even if Temer is unpopular, with approval ratings mired at around 14 percent, some see no benefit in his failure. ”We have to hope for improvement,” says Rogerio Chequer, a São Paulo businessman who leads Vem Pra Rua, a conservative group that organized street protests in recent years. ”We need economic development, we need better politics and we need a way out of this deadlock.” (Reporting by Paulo Prada; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Marguerita Choy and Andrew Hay) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

U.S. courts look ahead to Trump as Obama cases fizzle

President Barack Obama’s legal defense of some key initiatives including his signature healthcare law is collapsing as courts put cases on hold until after Donald Trump, hostile to the policies, assumes office on Jan. 20. The pending conservative legal challenges could undo important elements of Obama’s presidential legacy if Trump, as expected, opts not to defend the Obama policies in court or simply ditches the initiatives that are under attack. Since Trump’s election on Nov. 8, various courts have delayed action in three groups of cases that will not be resolved before Obama leaves office and blocked an administration regulation from going into effect in another. They include a challenge by House of Representatives Republicans to an important provision in the Obamacare law, and cases concerning religious objections to that law’s mandate that employers provide health insurance coverage for birth control. They also include Obama’s executive action, put on hold by the Supreme Court in June, to spare from deportation millions of immigrants in the country illegally, and his administration’s bid to extend overtime protections for workers. states like Texas were behind some of the biggest challenges to Obama policies. ”We have a host of cases pending against the federal government due to the Obama administration’s overreach,” said Marc Rylander, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who has sued the administration on various issues including immigration. Rylander said Texas officials ”will continue to pursue all of these cases and look forward to working with a new administration.” The U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday put on hold the House Republican Obamacare challenge until at least Feb. 21. Trump and Republican congressional allies have said they plan to repeal and replace the law, meaning the case could become moot. The Obama administration opposed the delay in that case, but agreed to put on hold its effort to revive Obama’s 2014 immigration plan. The administration and the states that challenged the plan filed a joint motion on Nov. 18 saying the case should be put on hold ”given the change in administration.” Trump has vowed to crack down on immigrants in the country illegally and is expected to abandon Obama’s blocked policy. BIRTH CONTROL COVERAGE The series of cases pending in lower courts concerning efforts by Christian groups to obtain an exemption to a provision of the Obamacare law requiring employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives are also in a holding pattern. The Supreme Court sent the cases back to lower courts in May, throwing out several rulings in favor of the administration. The lower courts are now awaiting the change in administrations. In one of the cases, before the New 5th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lawyers for some of the religious groups said in court papers that a delay ”will afford the president and new administration an opportunity to take a fresh look at this litigation and consider potential resolutions acceptable to all sides.” In the labor case, a federal judge on Nov. 22 prevented Obama’s regulation to extend mandatory overtime pay to more than 4 million salaried workers from going into effect on Dec. 1 as scheduled. That will give Trump leeway to change course when he takes office. So far, courts have not delayed action on several other cases involving key Obama policies, including a state and industry challenge to rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions mainly from power plants. An appeals court in Washington heard oral arguments in September but has not yet issued a ruling. Trump has said he plans to rescind the regulation. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide a major transgender rights case that hinges in part on the Obama administration’s policy position in support of a transgender high school student named Gavin Grimm, who identifies as male and sued in 2015 to win the right to use the school’s boys’ bathroom. The court has not yet scheduled oral arguments in the case. It is due to rule by the end of June. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Alaska Air wins U.S. antitrust approval for Virgin deal with conditions

Alaska Air Group Inc ( ) has won U. S. antitrust approval for its $2. 6 billion acquisition of Virgin America Inc VA. O on condition that it scale back its with American Airlines Group Inc ( ) the Justice Department said on Tuesday. The merged company would be the fifth largest U. S. carrier after American Airlines ( ) Delta ( ) United Airlines Inc ( ) and Southwest Airlines Co ( ). Alaska Air said in a statement that it was pleased with the approval and plans to close the purchase ”in the very near future.” Under the settlement with the Justice Department, Alaska and American would be banned from on routes where Virgin and American now compete, the department said. is also barred on routes that Alaska Air might start in the future if American also flies that route. The settlement is a good one for Alaska since it does not require the company to dispose of any gates, slots or other hard assets, said airline analyst Robert Mann of R. W. Mann & Company, Inc. ”It’s not a material impact on the economics of the deal,” said Mann. American put its code on nearly 163, 000 Alaska Airlines scheduled flights in 2016, and Delta put its code on more than 78, 000, according to data from air travel intelligence company OAG. Alaska Airlines places its code on nearly 588, 000 of those carriers’ scheduled flights as well. Alaska, which paid a premium of about 86 percent for Virgin, pursued the deal to better compete against Delta Air Lines Inc ( ) and American, the company has said. Virgin is the offshoot of billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, which had become famous for its mood lighting and entertainment on flights. The big four airlines control more than 80 percent of the U. S. travel market, and the Justice Department is hoping that a stronger Alaska Air will compete with the giants. ”Today’s settlement ensures that Alaska has the incentive to take the fight to American and use Virgin’s assets to grow its network in ways that benefit competition and consumers,” Renata Hesse, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said in a statement. Alaska in April announced its $2. 6 billion cash deal for Virgin America, which will make it the top carrier on the U. S. West Coast. (Reporting by Diane Bartz, Alana Wise and Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Diane Craft) Biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp will buy a stake in BeiGene Ltd and help develop and commercialize BeiGene’s investigational treatment for tumor cancers, the companies said on Wednesday. BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen .

U.S. trade gap widens as exports of soybeans, other products drop

The U. S. trade deficit recorded its biggest increase in more than years in October as exports of soybeans and other products fell, suggesting trade would be a drag on growth in the fourth quarter. The Commerce Department said on Tuesday the trade gap rose 17. 8 percent, the largest increase since March 2015, to $42. 6 billion. Higher imports due to rising domestic demand also contributed to the widening of the deficit. When adjusted for inflation, the deficit rose to $60. 3 billion from $54. 2 billion in September. ”This widening of the trade deficit at the start of the fourth quarter puts trade on track to subtract a little more than one percentage point from GDP growth,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York. Exports contributed 0. 87 percentage point to the third quarter’s 3. 2 percent annualized rate of increase in gross domestic product. The jump in exports in the last quarter largely reflected a surge in soybean shipments to China after a poor harvest in Argentina and Brazil. While the reversal in soybean shipments, which is weighing on exports, suggests trade is likely to subtract from GDP growth in the fourth quarter, consumer spending and a firming housing market are expected to keep supporting the economy. Rising gas and oil well drilling in response to increasing oil prices is also expected to boost growth this quarter by stimulating demand for manufactured goods such as machinery. Firming oil prices are starting to have an impact on manufacturing. A second report from the Commerce Department on Tuesday showed new orders for manufactured goods rose 2. 7 percent in October after increasing 0. 6 percent in September. That was the largest increase since June 2015 and marked four straight months of gains. Unfilled orders at factories increased 0. 7 percent, the biggest rise since July 2014, ending four consecutive months of decline. The report pointed to an upturn in manufacturing, which accounts for about 12 percent of the economy, after a prolonged slump that helped to erode economic growth. But factory inventories were flat, suggesting a moderate pace of inventory accumulation this quarter. Following the trade and factory orders reports, the Atlanta Federal Reserve cut its gross domestic product estimate by of a percentage point to a 2. 9 percent rate. U. S. financial markets were little moved by the data ahead of the European Central Bank’s policy meeting on Thursday, which could offer new clues on its bond purchasing program. The dollar . DXY rose against a basket of currencies, while prices for U. S. Treasuries were mixed. U. S. stocks were largely unchanged. DOLLAR DRAG Exports fell 1. 8 percent to $186. 4 billion in October. They were held down by declining shipments of food, industrial supplies and materials, automobiles and consumer goods. Exports of soybeans, which helped power the economy in the third quarter, fell again in October. However, exports of capital goods were the highest in October since December 2015. Some of the drag on exports reflects the residual effects of the dollar’s surge against the currencies of the United States’ main trading partners between June 2014 and January 2016. The dollar rally appeared to fade for much of the year, giving exports and industries some respite. But with the greenback resuming its rally in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the Nov. 8 presidential election, exports could struggle in 2017. The dollar has gained 4. 1 percent on a basis since the election. ”Our expectation is that trade will end up being a drag on GDP growth every quarter from now until the end of 2018,” said Jay Bryson, global economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina. ”That is not to say that a dynamic like this year’s unexpected surge in soybean exports will not result in a quarter in which trade boosts growth.” Exports to Canada, the main U. S. trading partner, fell 2. 4 percent in October. There was also a decline in goods shipped to the European Union. But exports to China surged to their highest level since December 2013, while shipments to Japan were the highest in more than two years. Imports increased 1. 3 percent to $229. 0 billion in October, the highest level since August 2015. There were increases in food, capital goods and consumer imports, pointing to strong domestic demand. But imports of automobiles and industrial supplies and materials fell. Imports of petroleum goods were the highest in a year, reflecting an increase in crude oil prices. Imports from China hit their highest level in a year. With exports outpacing imports, the politically sensitive U. S. trade deficit fell 4. 2 percent to $31. 1 billion in October. In a third report on Tuesday, the Labor Department said nonfarm productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, rose at an unrevised 3. 1 percent rate in the third quarter. While the increase snapped three straight quarters of decline, the trend in productivity remains weak. Productivity was unchanged compared to the third quarter of 2015. (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Cuba, U.S. to discuss detente in wake of Trump election

Cuba and the United States will draw up a roadmap for deepening their detente on Wednesday in a first meeting since the election of Donald Trump as U. S. president and the death of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro. The fifth U. S. bilateral commission comes at a time of increased uncertainty about the future of U. S. relations given Trump’s promise to end the detente if Cuba did not offer a better ”deal.” The administration of outgoing U. S. President Barack Obama has pressed American companies to complete additional business deals in Cuba to help further cement the president’s policy by the time Trump takes office on January 20. ”We will define the actions that will be carried out in the coming weeks to further the process of improving relations,” the Cuban foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Those actions would include visits and accords of cooperation in areas of mutual interest, it said. Cuba has so far mostly stayed quiet on Trump’s statements, waiting to see whether he converts his tough rhetoric into policy change. Several major U. S. companies, such as General Electric, are in the final stages of negotiating deals with Cuba, sources familiar with the matter say. One of those sources, based in Washington, said more than half a dozen announcements, ranging from cruise ships and travel to manufacturing and telecommunications, are believed to be in the works. Negotiations may have been affected by the nine days of official mourning for Castro, the source said. Castro had given Cuba an outsized influence in world affairs during his half century as president, partly by clashing with the United States. His younger brother, Raul Castro, who took over as president in 2008, made history two years ago by agreeing with Obama to end Cold War hostility and start normalizing relations. Since then, the two countries have opened embassies, restored commercial flights, opened travel options and negotiated agreements on issues affecting the environment, law enforcement, the postal service and communications. Obama, who visited Cuba earlier this year, has also gradually poked holes in the U. S. embargo on the Caribbean island through executive orders. But Trump says Obama ought to have cut a ”better deal.” At a campaign rally in Miami, which has a large population of Cuban exiles, he said he would seek to reverse Obama’s moves to open relations with Cuba unless its leaders allowed religious freedoms and freed political prisoners. U. S. supporters of the detente say it is improving Cubans’ lives while contributing to opening the socialist system in place, for example by fostering the fledgling private sector. A bipartisan group of U. S. congressional leaders and four Cuban entrepreneurs will hold a joint news conference on Wednesday to urge Congress to lift the U. S. embargo on Cuba. The Cuban entrepreneurs will also urge Trump not to reverse the thaw, according to a statement issued by the office of Senator Patrick Leahy. (Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta, Frank Daniel, and Marc Frank in Havana and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler) QAMISHLI, The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a ”declaration of war” which could trigger clashes within days. CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis.

Little African primate’s talents inspire leaping robot

Inspired by the remarkable jumping ability of an African primate called a galago, scientists have fashioned a small robot with unique leaping capabilities they hope can someday be used in tricky situations. The scientists said on Tuesday they had built a robot, dubbed Salto, with vertical jumping agility like no other machine, able to leap into the air and then spring off a wall, or perform multiple vertical jumps consecutively. In designing mobile robots, researchers sometimes mimic the way animals move. For example, some robots slither over terrain like a snake. In this case, the researchers sought to create a robot that might need to hurdle impediments as it traverses difficult terrain like the rubble of a building wrecked by an earthquake. To design Salto, short for ”saltatorial locomotion on terrain obstacles,” the University of California, Berkeley, researchers sought inspiration from one of the animal kingdom’s best leapers. The galago, or bushbaby, is a relatively small, typically and primate. It is an agile leaper and can hop high in the air on two legs while on the ground. The goal was to build a robot better at leaping than any other. ”We looked to biology for inspiration because it’s fair to say that animals can outclass any robot when it comes to jumping,” said robotics researcher Duncan Haldane, who led the study published in the journal Science Robotics. ”Our goal was to have a robot small enough to not disturb the rubble further (and) move quickly across the many kinds of rubble produced by collapsed buildings.” The galago jumps so well because it stores energy in its tendons when it is in a crouched position and can then spring into the air. The researchers adapted that into Salto by using a motorized, leg mechanism that lets the robot get into the same type of crouched position. Salto weighs 3. 5 ounces (100 grams) is about 10 inches (26 cm) tall and can jump 3. 3 feet (1 meter) high. It achieves 78 percent of the galago’s vertical jumping prowess. ”We’re particularly interested these days in seeing if we can not just match but exceed the performance of animals,” said electrical engineering and computer sciences professor Ronald Fearing, who heads the lab where Salto was developed. ”The more we understand about how animals move and how to use the available engineering technologies, the closer we can get to that point.” (Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Peter Cooney) BEIJING China’s launch of a new rocket, the Long Y2, carrying what the government said was its heaviest ever satellite, failed on Sunday, official news agency Xinhua said. MEXICO CITY A tower of human skulls unearthed beneath the heart of Mexico City has raised new questions about the culture of sacrifice in the Aztec Empire after crania of women and children surfaced among the hundreds embedded in the forbidding structure.

Not ’As Seen on TV’: Snuggie maker sues Amazon.com

Makers of the Snuggie blanket and other products sold mainly on TV have sued Amazon. com Inc, accusing the internet retailer of trademark infringement for letting an ”astronomical” number of counterfeit products to be sold through its website. The lawsuit was filed on Monday night by Allstar Marketing Group LLC, Ideavillage Products Corp and Ontel Products Corp, which respectively sell such products as the Snuggie, Copper Fit compression sleeves and Magic Tracks toy racetracks through ”As Seen on TV” advertising. It was filed three weeks after Amazon filed two of its own lawsuits in a Washington state court, targeting vendors it said were selling counterfeit goods on its website. Amazon spokesman Erik Fairleigh declined to comment on Tuesday, citing the pending litigation. Allstar, Ideavillage and Ontel said they have lost profits because Amazon has let its product display pages be ”hijacked” by counterfeiters, which offer impossibly low prices and confuse consumers into thinking their products are the real thing. The plaintiffs said counterfeiters from China, Japan, Thailand and other countries are taking a ”free ride” on their reputation and goodwill, while many consumers leave bad reviews about fake products on the hijacked pages. ”Amazon has taken no action to prevent the sale of such counterfeit products despite having the knowledge, opportunity and means to do so,” the plaintiffs said. The lawsuit also accuses Amazon of copyright infringement, and violating New York state false advertising and unfair competition laws. It seeks to recoup unspecified sums in the millions of dollars, including lost profits and punitive damages. The plaintiff’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment. Allstar is based in Hawthorne, New York; Ideavillage in Wayne, New Jersey and Ontel in Fairfield, New Jersey. Amazon’s policy says that ”customers trust that they can always buy with confidence on Amazon. com,” and that counterfeiters can have their selling privileges revoked and inventory destroyed without reimbursement. The lawsuits filed by Amazon on Nov. 14 in the Superior Court in King County, Washington targeted makers of what it called fake versions of Forearm Forklift straps, which help people lift heavy items, and TRX exercise products. In July, the German shoemaker Birkenstock Orthopadie GmbH decided to stop selling on Amazon because of counterfeiters. The case is Allstar Marketing Group LLC et al v Amazon. com Inc, U. S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. . (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby, Bernard Orr) HELSINKI Telecoms network equipment maker Nokia and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Technology have signed a patent licensing agreement, the companies said on Wednesday. SAO PAULO Financial technology firms in Brazil are targeting lending to and companies to fill a gap in the credit market left by large lenders deterred by rising delinquencies and narrow margins.

California EPA says settled with Apple on hazardous waste claims

Apple also agreed to increase inspections to settle allegations about facilities in Cupertino and Sunnyvale, the Agency’s Department of Toxic Substances Control said. ”This matter involves an oversight in filing paperwork to close one of our recycling facilities as part of our expansion to a larger site,” Apple spokeswoman Alisha Johnson told Reuters in an emailed statement. ”We’ve worked closely with [the Department of Toxic Substance Control] to ensure that going forward we have the proper permits for our current site. As we do with all our facilities, we followed our stringent set of health and safety standards, which go well beyond legal requirements.” State regulators alleged Apple opened and operated an electronic waste shredding facility in Cupertino, its home base, between 2011 and 2012 without informing them. The department also alleged Apple mishandled metal dust from shredder operations at the Cupertino facility, which processed about 1. 1 million pounds (500, 000 kg) of waste before it was closed in January 2013. Regulators also said that Apple subsequently opened another shredding facility in nearby Sunnyvale and processed 800, 000 pounds of waste before notifying the regulators of the plant’s existence. At the Sunnyvale plant, regulators alleged, Apple took hazardous dust swept from the floor and sent it to a disposal site that was not authorized to handle toxic waste. The regulators also claim Apple did not properly report and track exports of hazardous waste and failed to mark used oil containers properly as hazardous waste. (Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Dan Grebler and Alan Crosby) BERLIN Draft conclusions to this week’s summit of the Group of 20 leading economies acknowledge the United States’ isolation in opposing the Paris climate accord but agree to G20 collaboration on reducing emissions through innovation, a G20 source said. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Trump sold all his shares in companies in June: spokesman

U. S. Donald Trump sold all of his shares in companies in June, aides said on Tuesday, a move that likely raised substantial cash ahead of the presidential election and could now ease some concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Trump’s stock portfolio included shares of companies including Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and a host of others, according to a financial disclosure form filed in May. Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in an email that Trump sold all of his shares, but he did not respond to questions about what Trump did with the sales proceeds or whether he withdrew from any other investments at the same time. The Republican’s transition team did not provide documentation of the sales. Trump will not have to file a new financial disclosure form until May 2018, according to the U. S. Office of Government Ethics. Presidents typically provide some such information voluntarily during their first year in office. Selling his shares would reduce some potential for conflicts for the as he prepares to take over the White House from Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. It would not address concerns about Trump’s personal and family business activities, which include hotels and golf resorts from Panama to Scotland. Trump has said he will step back from running his business, but he has not given any detail about the arrangements. During the presidential campaign, Trump indicated he had pulled back from the stock market. ”I did invest, and I got out, and it was actually very good timing,” he told Fox Business in an August interview. The issue arose after Trump urged the government to cancel an order with Boeing Co for a revamped Air Force One presidential plane. The New York real estate developer, who defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election, said, without citing proof, that costs for the aircraft were out of control. Trump had previously said he owned Boeing shares. Asked earlier on Tuesday whether the still owned them, Miller said Trump sold all his shares in June, but it was not clear at the time whether he was speaking only about Boeing stock. (Reporting by Emily Stephenson, additional reporting by David Alexander; editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Microsoft gains EU approval for $26 billion buy of LinkedIn

Microsoft ( ) won EU antitrust approval on Tuesday for its $26 billion bid for professional social network LinkedIn LNKD. N, its largest ever acquisition, after agreeing to a series of modest concessions. The deal, which has already received the green light in the United States, Canada, Brazil and South Africa, would close in the coming days following the EU clearance, said Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer. ”With this regulatory process behind us, we can bring together two great companies and focus on even broader issues for the future,” he said in a blog. The U. S. software company is aiming to enhance its core business products with LinkedIn’s suite of sales, marketing and recruiting services, allowing it to better compete with rivals in computing. LinkedIn generates the bulk of its $3 billion annual revenue from job hunters and recruiters who pay a monthly fee to post resumes and connect with people. The European Commission, which in recent months has signaled concerns about companies acquiring rivals with valuable data and the potential negative impact on competition, said the concessions addressed its concerns. ”These networks are important for professionals to connect and interact and to find new career opportunities. Today’s decision ensures that Europeans will continue to enjoy a freedom of choice between professional social networks,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. Reuters had flagged the imminent EU approval on Nov. 23. To secure EU approval for its largest ever deal, Microsoft will let LinkedIn rivals access its Office program, crucial for integrating their services with its Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel programs. It will also allow computer makers the option of installing or removing LinkedIn on its Windows operating system, and give competing networks access to Microsoft Graph for software developers. The concessions will be in force in Europe for five years. U. S. software company Salesforce, which lost out on the bid for LinkedIn and had urged regulators to take a tough line on the deal, said enforcers should not drop their guard. ”Given Microsoft’s history and existing monopolies, it will be necessary for antitrust enforcement agencies to be vigilant to ensure that Microsoft operates in a manner that promotes competition, rather than stifles it,” Salesforce said in a statement. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Philip Weir) Biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp will buy a stake in BeiGene Ltd and help develop and commercialize BeiGene’s investigational treatment for tumor cancers, the companies said on Wednesday. BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen .

Bain exits race for SAB’s Pilsner Urquell, other brands: sources

The field of bidders for SAB Miller’s Central and Eastern European beer brands being sold by InBev ( ) has narrowed after U. S. buyout fund Bain Capital walked away, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Acquisitive Japanese brewer Asahi Group ( ) is seen as a to buy the brands, which include Pilsner Urquell in the Czech Republic and Tyskie and Lech in Poland, the sources said. The package is expected to fetch around 6 billion euros ($6. 4 billion) they added. The other bidders are a consortium led by Swiss investment firm Jacobs Holding and PPF, the investment firm of Czech business tycoon Petr Kellner. Bain was initially planning a joint offer with Advent International. Its departure raises questions over Advent’s ability to submit a competitive offer without a partner. Representatives for AB InBev, Bain and Advent declined to comment. Asahi recently outbid private equity funds in the race to buy SABMiller’s Peroni and Grolsch. The Asian brewer wants to offset slow growth in its home market and can justify paying a higher price for overseas acquisitions based on the cost benefits it would extract and the ability to use the brands to boost its international sales. But European buyout fund Advent remains keen to vie for AB InBev’s beer brands and is scrambling to meet a Dec. 12 deadline for binding bids, two of the sources said, cautioning that the transaction would absorb a significant portion of its fund. AB InBev wants to sign a deal by Christmas, the sources said. It is selling the brands as part of its $100 acquisition of SABMiller, which closed in October. China Resources, which earlier bought out SABMiller’s stake in a Chinese joint venture, also made a competitive bid in the first round of the auction and is seen as a serious contender, according to another source. The consortium, advised by Goldman Sachs, is backed by Canada’s PSP Investments, which manages pension funds of its armed services and famed Mounties, as well as Czech family office R2G. Jacobs, which previously failed to buy Peroni and Grolsch, is keen to invest in the consumer sector, the sources said. ($1 = 0. 9402 euros) (Additional reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague; Editing by Alexander Pitchford) Biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp will buy a stake in BeiGene Ltd and help develop and commercialize BeiGene’s investigational treatment for tumor cancers, the companies said on Wednesday. BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen .

Exclusive: Italy preparing to take controlling stake in Monte dei Paschi - sources

Italy is preparing to take a 2 billion euros controlling stake in Monte dei Paschi di Siena ( ) as the bank’s hopes of a private funding rescue fade following Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s decision to quit, two sources close to the matter said on Tuesday. The government is already the ailing bank’s single largest shareholder with a four percent share, but is planning to buy junior bonds held by ordinary Italians to take the stake up to 40 percent, the sources said. This would make it by far the biggest shareholder, meaning the Treasury would be able to control Italy’s third biggest bank and its shareholder meetings. The sources said a government decree authorizing the deal, which would see the state buy the subordinated bonds from retail investors and convert them into shares, could be rushed through as early as this weekend. Monte dei Paschi must raise 5 billion euros ($5. 4 billion) by the end of this month to avoid being wound down, but private investors are reluctant to provide cash after Renzi lost a referendum on Sunday and announced plans to resign. The bank is set to raise 1 billion euros from a bond swap with institutional investors and Rome is hoping the 2 billion euros participation from the government could help persuade private investors to fill the 2 billion euros gap. ”It’s a nationalization with a strong presence by the state that can attract other investors and allow the transaction to be completed,” said one of the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Treasury and Monte dei Paschi declined to comment. Renzi is expected to leave office in days and could be replaced by his economy minister or another leading politician. But an early election might be held next year, raising investor fears that a maverick, party could take power. Italy’s treasury would buy the bonds held by around 40, 000 retail investors at face value, the sources said. That way, the government would ensure retail investors do not suffer any losses in the bank’s bailout, making it politically more palatable and staving off the risk of a run on deposits that could trigger a wider banking crisis. The European Commission would need to assess whether the government’s intervention is taking place at market prices or if it constitutes state aid, another source said. Monte dei Paschi, rated the weakest lender in European stress tests this summer, had planned to arrange a private rescue, starting with a firm commitment from one or more anchor investors and then launching a share sale this week. However, investment banks lined up to underwrite that plan, led by JPMorgan ( ) and Mediobanca ( ) have in effect put the deal on hold due to political uncertainty. One source said they would make a decision by Friday but that the chances of the privately backed deal going ahead as planned were now slim. A source close to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund said it could inject 1. 4 billion euros in the bank but wanted to wait to see what kind of government would succeed Renzi. Other sources were more cautious on Qatar’s willingness to back the deal. Italy’s head of state on Monday asked Renzi to put his resignation on hold until the 2017 budget is approved by parliament, which is expected to happen on Wednesday. The bank’s chief executive, Marco Morelli, held talks with European Central Bank officials in Frankfurt on Tuesday to review its options. A meeting of the bank’s board is likely to take place on Wednesday. (1 euro = $1. 0700) (additional reporting by Paola Arosio in Milan and Tom Finnes in Doha, writing by Silvia Aloisi; editing by Anna Willard) Biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp will buy a stake in BeiGene Ltd and help develop and commercialize BeiGene’s investigational treatment for tumor cancers, the companies said on Wednesday. BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen .

Trump fills homeland security, environment, China ambassador jobs

Donald Trump on Wednesday picked a fossil fuel industry defender as his top environmental official, another retired general as homeland security chief and Iowa’s governor as U. S. ambassador to China in choices at odds with some of his recent pronouncements. Trump, continuing to build his Cabinet as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20, said Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, 48, would be nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt sued the EPA in a bid to undo a key regulation under outgoing President Barack Obama that would curb greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change, mainly from power plants. Trump tapped retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, 66, for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, whose responsibilities include immigration. Kelly, the third retired general named by Trump to a senior administration post, last year told Congress that a lack of security on the U. S. border posed a threat to the United States. Trump’s transition team said Republican Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, 70, who has boasted of close ties to Beijing’s leaders, was picked as U. S. ambassador to China. In addition, transition officials said Linda McMahon, 68, former CEO of professional wrestling company WWE and wife of wrestling kingpin Vince McMahon, was Trump’s choice to head the Small Business Administration. Trump has taken part in WWE events in the past and has close ties to the McMahons. He is a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. All four posts require Senate confirmation. Pruitt’s selection came despite a softer tone Trump has struck on environmental regulation since his Nov. 8 election. He has stepped back from casting climate change as a hoax, signaled he might be willing to allow the United States to continue participating in the Paris climate change deal aimed at lowering world carbon emissions, and met with former Vice President Al Gore, a leading environmental voice. Pruitt’s selection brought a quick rebuke from Democrats. ”The head of the EPA cannot be a stenographer for the lobbyists of polluters and Big Oil,” House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said of Pruitt. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, brushed off the criticism, praising Pruitt’s record and telling reporters at Trump Tower: ”We’re very accustomed to the naysayers and the critics.” TOUGH TALK Trump talked tough during the campaign about deporting all of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States and building a wall along the Mexican border. But since the election he has softened his comments on deportation and referred to some illegal immigrants as ”terrific people.” Kelly would work in tandem with Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump’s pick for attorney general, who is a leading advocate of cracking down on illegal immigration. The former general would head a department in charge of securing borders against illegal immigration, protecting the president, responding to natural disasters and coordinating intelligence and counterterrorism. He formerly headed the Southern Command, responsible for U. S. military activities and relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. He was a proponent of keeping open the U. S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Trump previously picked retired Marine Corps General James Mattis as defense secretary and retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as national security adviser. Branstad has been an eager trading partner with China, helping Iowa sell agricultural goods to the Asian powerhouse. His choice came after Trump rattled the world’s economy with tough talk on trade and a telephone call with the leader of Taiwan. Trump has more key appointments to make in coming days, including the job of secretary of state. His team said former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a fierce Trump critic during the campaign, is still under consideration for a diplomatic job. Aside from the personnel announcements, Trump basked in being named Time magazine’s ”person of the year,” telling NBC’s ”Today” show, ”It’s a great honor, it means a lot.” In an interview with Time, Trump continued to take on corporate America, promising to bring down drug prices and causing shares of U. S. pharmaceutical and biotech companies to fall. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Warren Strobel, Valerie Volcovici and Timothy Gardner in Washington and Bill Berkrot, Lewis Krauskopf, Melissa Fares and David Ingram in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Jonathan Oatis) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

U.S. mayors ask Trump to keep young illegal immigration policy

Mayors from the largest U. S. cities warned Donald Trump on Wednesday of the potential economic harm he might cause if he wipes out a program that allows young illegal immigrants to remain in the United States. They warned in a letter that as much as $9. 9 billion in tax revenue would be lost over four years and $433. 4 billion in U. S. gross domestic product would be wiped out over 10 years if he cancels a policy aimed at protecting these people from deportation. DACA, or The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, was created through an executive order in 2012. It allows undocumented young people brought to the United States before the age of 16 to remain without fear of deportation as they pursue a higher education, work or engage in military service. The deferred action is subject to renewal every two years. The mayors asked for the program to allow for initial applications and renewals to continue until ”Congress modernizes our immigration system and provides a more permanent form of relief for these individuals.” As president, Trump would have the authority to undo DACA. ”This program helps foster economic growth and enhances public safety and national security,” said the letter, written by the Democratic Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, and signed by mayors of other major U. S. cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Houston. ”We are clear as mayors that these are dreamers who are seeking the American Dream, and we should embrace them rather than do a ” Emanuel said after presenting Trump the letter at a meeting in New York. Trump has called for the deportation of illegal immigrants, an estimated 11 million people, and promised to build a wall on the border with Mexico. According to the letter, which was made available to the press, nearly 742, 000 undocumented youths have participated in DACA. DACA is part of the broader immigration issue of municipalities that offer themselves up as ”sanctuary cities,” where local law enforcement refuse to report to federal authorities undocumented immigrants they encounter. Trump has threatened to cut off federal funding for those municipalities. While he would have the authority to cut some kinds of funding, mayors of those cities have said they will not be pressured to report migrants to federal agents. Santa Ana city council voted on Tuesday to declare their community in Southern California of 325, 000 people, half of whom are foreign born and 80 percent of Hispanic descent, a sanctuary city. In Los Angeles, the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to ask county departments to provide plans for shielding undocumented immigrants from U. S. immigration authorities, said Jessie Gomez, a spokeswoman for Supervisor Hilda Solis. The board oversees health, law enforcement and social welfare departments that operate but it does not administer the city of Los Angeles. Nearly one million residents of Los Angeles County are believed to be undocumented immigrants, according to Solis’ office. White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Wednesday said he could not address the incoming president’s potential actions but that the current administration was working to ensure Trump’s team understood why Obama pursued the policy. ”The president’s been crystal clear, both in words and deeds, about his view that young people who are American in every way but their papers shouldn’t be deported . .. A policy of deporting them would be inconsistent with our values,” Earnest said of DACA. (Reporting by Daniel Bases; Additional reporting by Melissa Fares in New York, Ayesha Rascoe in Washington and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by James Dalgleish) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Senate joins House to pass sweeping new health bill

It will also provide funding for cancer and Alzheimer’s research, help fight the opioid epidemic, expand access to mental health treatment and advance research into precision medicine. Two years in the making, the 21st Century Cures Act was passed last week by the House of Representatives and will now go to President Barack Obama to sign into law. Supporters say it will speed access to new drugs and devices, in part by allowing clinical trials to be designed with fewer patients and cheaper, goals. ”For the second consecutive year, the Senate is sending the President another Christmas miracle for his signature,” Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee said in a statement. ”Last year, it was the Every Student Succeeds Act, and this time, it’s the 21st Century Cures Act — a bill that will help virtually every American family.” Critics of the legislation say it gives massive handouts to the pharmaceutical industry and will lower standards for drug and medical device approvals. ”This gift — which 1, 300 lobbyists, mostly from pharmaceutical companies, helped sell — comes at the expense of patient safety by undermining requirements for ensuring safe and effective medications and medical devices,” consumer watchdog Public Citizen said in a statement. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren was among the handful of senators who voted against the bill, as was independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Each decried what they described as big handouts to the pharma industry. Even so the bill passed . The House passed it by a vote of . The $6. 3 billion act, sponsored by Republican Representative Fred Upton, authorizes $4. 8 billion for the National Institutes of Health and $500 million to the Food and Drug Administration. It also calls for $1 billion over two years to battle the opioid epidemic. On Tuesday the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a report showing that in 2014 about 129 people died every day as a result of drug poisoning. Of those, 61 percent are opioid or heroin related. ”Opioids such as heroin and fentanyl and diverted prescription pain pills are killing people in this country at a horrifying rate,” Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said. ”We face a public health crisis of historic proportions.” The bill also calls for $1. 8 billion in funding for Vice President Joseph Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative designed to bolster cancer research by reducing bureaucracy and promoting research collaboration. Critics note that the money described in the bill must be appropriated by separate funding bills and that the money may ultimately never materialize. Yet the changes to the clinical trial process, something long sought by the drug industry, will be set in stone regardless of whether money for the research projects is forthcoming. Among those changes: Greater prominence will be given to ”real world” evidence gathered outside the framework of a randomized, controlled clinical trial, the gold standard for determining whether a drug is safe and effective. Such evidence could be much easier for drug companies to collect. ”The passing of 21st Century Cures Act is a show of extraordinary bipartisan unity after a divisive election that should be celebrated,” said Ellen Sigal, chair of the patient advocacy group Friends of Cancer Research. Under the Act patient input will be formally incorporated into the FDA’s drug review process. Funding for the Act will be offset by reductions in some Medicaid payments and through the sale of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The White House supports the bill but said earlier it was concerned that draining the Petroleum Reserve ”continues a bad precedent of selling off longer term energy security assets to satisfy near term budget scoring needs.” (Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; editing by Leslie Adler and Tom Brown) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Ties between Russia and the Taliban worry Afghan, U.S. officials

Afghan and American officials are increasingly worried that any deepening of ties between Russia and Taliban militants fighting to topple the government in Kabul could complicate an already precarious security situation. Russian officials have denied they provide aid to the insurgents, who are contesting large swathes of territory and inflicting heavy casualties, and say their limited contacts are aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table. Leaders in Kabul say Russian support for the Afghan Taliban appears to be mostly political so far. But a series of recent meetings they say has taken place in Moscow and Tajikistan has made Afghan intelligence and defence officials nervous about more direct support including weapons or funding. A senior Afghan security official called Russian support for the Taliban a ”dangerous new trend” an analysis echoed by the top U. S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson. He told reporters at a briefing in Washington last week that Russia had joined Iran and Pakistan as countries with a ”malign influence” in Afghanistan, and said Moscow was lending legitimacy to the Taliban. Russia’s ambassador to Kabul, Alexander Mantytskiy, told reporters on Thursday that his government’s contacts with the insurgent group were aimed at ensuring the safety of Russian citizens and encouraging peace talks. ”We do not have intensive contacts with the Taliban,” he said through an interpreter, adding that Russia favored a negotiated peace in Afghanistan which could only happen by cultivating contacts with all players, including the Taliban. Mantytskiy expressed annoyance at persistant accusations of Russian collaboration with the Taliban, saying the statements by American and Afghan officials were an effort to distract attention from the worsening conflict. ”They are trying to put the blame for their failures on our shoulders,” he told Reuters. ANOTHER ”GREAT GAME”? Afghanistan has long been the scene of international intrigue and intervention, with the British and Russians jockeying for power during the 19th Century ”Great Game,” and the United States helping Pakistan provide weapons and funding to Afghan rebels fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s. Taliban officials told Reuters that the group has had significant contacts with Moscow since at least 2007, adding that Russian involvement did not extend beyond ”moral and political support”. ”We had a common enemy,” said one senior Taliban official. ”We needed support to get rid of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan and Russia wanted all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan as quickly as possible.” Moscow has been critical of the United States and NATO over their handling of the war in Afghanistan, but Russia initially helped provide helicopters for the Afghan military and agreed to a supply route for coalition materials through Russia. Most of that cooperation has fallen apart as relations between Russia and the West deteriorated in recent years over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. Incoming U. S. president Donald Trump, who takes office in January, has signaled a desire to improve relations with Russia, meaning future U. S. and Russian policies could change. FOREIGN MEETINGS In recent months, Taliban representatives have held several meetings with Russian officials, according to Taliban and Afghan government sources. Those meetings included a visit to Tajikistan by the Taliban shadow governor of Kunduz province, Mullah Abdul Salam, said Kunduz police chief Qasim Jangalbagh. Another recent meeting occurred in Moscow itself, according to an official at the presidential palace in Kabul. Earlier this week Afghan lawmakers said they planned to investigate reports of Russian aid to the Taliban, and had sent a letter to Moscow seeking clarification. Afghan officials did not produce evidence of direct Russian aid, but recent flights by unidentified helicopters and seizures of new ” ” guns had raised concerns that regional actors may be playing a larger role, Jangalbagh said. ”If the Taliban get their hands on guns provided, for example, by Russia, then it is a and forget about peace,” said another senior Afghan security official. ISLAMIC STATE OR UNITED STATES? According to Afghan and U. S. officials, Russian representatives have maintained that government security forces, backed by U. S. special forces and air strikes, have not done enough to stem the growth of Islamic State in Afghanistan. Militants loyal to the radical Middle network have carved out territory along the border with Pakistan, and have found themselves fighting not only Afghan and foreign troops, but also the Taliban, who compete for land, influence, and fighters. Taliban officials dismissed the idea that their ties to Russia had anything to do with fighting Islamic State. ”In early 2008, when Russia began supporting us, ISIS( Islamic State) didn’t exist anywhere in the world,” the senior Taliban official said. ”Their sole purpose was to strengthen us against the U. S. and its allies.” That was echoed by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who said ”ISIS is not an issue”. Nicholson said the talk of Islamic State is a smokescreen designed to justify Russian policies. ”Their (Russia’s) narrative goes something like this: that the Taliban are the ones fighting Islamic State, not the Afghan government,” Nicholson said. ”So this public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact, but is used as a way to essentially undermine the Afghan government and the NATO efforts and bolster the belligerents.” (Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Pakistan and Tatiana Ustinova and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Editing by Mike ) CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis. WASHINGTON U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday it was important for U. S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to have a ”good exchange” over how they see the nature of the bilateral relationship.

Two juveniles charged with arson in Tennessee wildfires that killed 14

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman Josh DeVine declined to release details about the juveniles, who have been arrested, citing their ages and the ongoing investigation. The fires have been centered in Sevier County just east of Knoxville and have damaged or destroyed more than 1, 750 structures, local and federal authorities said in a statement. It was the highest death toll from wildfires in the United States since 2013, when 19 firefighters died near Prescott, Arizona. ”Our promise is that we will do our very best to help bring closure to those who have lost so much,” Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn said in a statement. The two youths were charged with aggravated arson and were held at a juvenile detention center in Sevier County, the bureau said in a statement. It added that authorities from the National Park Service, the U. S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office participated in the probe. The largest of the blazes, the Chimney Tops 2, broke out on Nov. 23 in a remote rugged area dubbed Chimney Tops in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, authorities said. Fed by brush and trees and stoked by fierce winds, the flames quickly spread, turning into an inferno that roared out of the park. Thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses. Authorities have said since last week that the fire was human caused. A large amount of the damage was in Gatlinburg, known as the ”gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains,” in eastern Tennessee, about 40 miles (64 km) southeast of Knoxville. At one point, residents of Pigeon Forge, which is home to country music star Dolly Parton’s theme park Dollywood, were forced to leave the area. Dollywood has since . Parton and other performers will put on a show Dec. 13 on the Great American Country channel to raise funds for people affected by the fires, Parton’s company said in a statement. The Chimney Tops 2 Fire is 64 percent contained after burning more than 17, 000 acres (6, 880 hectares) according to the government tracking website InciWeb. Rainfall over the last week has helped firefighters control the blazes. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Andrew Hay) BERLIN Draft conclusions to this week’s summit of the Group of 20 leading economies acknowledge the United States’ isolation in opposing the Paris climate accord but agree to G20 collaboration on reducing emissions through innovation, a G20 source said. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Yields rise, euro dips as ECB trims bond purchases

Bond yields rose and the euro dipped on Thursday after the European Central Bank said it would prolong its bond purchase program but surprised investors by scaling back on how much it will spend each month. Wall Street stocks closed higher. The euro saw its biggest percentage drop against the dollar since June after the ECB said it would reduce its bond buying program to 60 billion euros a month from 80 billion, but extended it from April to December 2017. ECB President Mario Draghi said it was not an outright of quantitative easing (QE) but this did not completely reassure fixed income investors. ”Currencies are reacting more to the extension and bonds are focused on the taper,” said Frances Donald, senior economist at Manulife Asset Management in Boston. ”The total announcement today is more easing than expected. It may take more time for the bond market to recognize that.” The euro was last down 1. 3 percent at $1. 0614 after surging to $1. 0875 after the ECB’s statement. The dollar rose 0. 9 percent against a basket of major currencies after the ECB news and ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve meeting at which a rate hike is expected. ”It didn’t help the euro was at the highs; we had a clearing of euro shorts after the Italian referendum,” said Vassili Serebriakov, FX strategist at Credit Agricole in New York referring to an Italian vote against constitutional reform days before the ECB meeting. The S&P 500 benchmark stock index rose, with its biggest boost from financials, followed by the materials sector. ”This is just a continued . The path of least resistance has been higher,” said Jason Ware, chief investment officer with Albion Financial Group in Salt Lake City. ”Seasonally, you have a strong period. You have money coming out of the bond market . .. so that money has to go somewhere.” The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 65. 19 points, or 0. 33 percent, to 19, 614. 81, the S&P 500 gained 4. 84 points, or 0. 22 percent, to 2, 246. 19 and the Nasdaq Composite added 23. 59 points, or 0. 44 percent, to 5, 417. 36. The benchmark U. S. Treasury note’s yield was up over 4 basis points at 2. 393 percent, retreating from a session high of 2. 427 percent. The yield held below the 2. 492 percent level reached on Dec. 1, which was its highest since July 2015, according to Reuters data. The German Bund yield was up 3 basis points at 0. 379 percent. ”It’s not what the market had expected and hoped for, but he left the door open,” said Kevin Giddis, head of fixed income capital markets with Raymond James referring to the ECB. Oil futures snapped a decline on growing optimism that producers might agree to cut output following a cartel agreement to limit production. [ ] Brent futures settled up 89 cents at $53. 89 a barrel while U. S. crude settled up 1. 07 at $50. 84, as market watchers focused on a weekend meeting of OPEC and producers that may result in an agreement to cut output further. Gold nudged 0. 2 percent lower. (Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf, Richard Leong and Karen Bretell in New York, Patrick Graham in London and Wayne Cole in Sydney; Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Japan third quarter growth slashed as capex, inventories shrink

Japan’s economy grew much slower than initially estimated in the third quarter, revised data showed, as capital expenditure dried up and companies ran down inventories renewing concerns about Japan’s growth prospects. The Cabinet Office said on Thursday the economy grew at a 1. 3 percent annualized rate in a severe revision from the 2. 2 percent annualized growth first estimated and barely over half the median estimate for a 2. 4 percent annualized expansion. Capital expenditure fell 0. 4 percent in the quarter, versus the preliminary estimate of 0. 0 percent, as steel and real estate companies reduced investment. On the positive side, consumer spending was revised up and separate data showed services sector sentiment improved. However, weak capital expenditure may temper optimism that the economy could accelerate heading into next year. ”Capex and consumer spending are the twin engines of domestic demand, and I’m not convinced that both will recover strongly,” said Norio Miyagawa, senior economist at Mizuho Securities. ”We have government stimulus and a weak yen, so the economy will continue to grow, but growth will be modest.” Inventories subtracted 0. 3 percentage point from growth, more than a preliminary reading of a 0. 1 percentage point contraction, which showed that a recent buildup in inventories was slowing, and a positive sign that companies were able to sell excess goods, Miyagawa said. Net exports added 0. 3 percentage point to growth in less than a 0. 5 percentage point contribution in the previous quarter. However, economists were optimistic that exports would pick up in the future as the yen had fallen to an low after Donald Trump was elected U. S. president. Japan’s government has also approved a stimulus package with 7. 5 trillion yen of spending on public works, which should marginally support growth next year, economists say. Private consumption, which accounts for roughly 60 percent of the economy, rose 0. 3 percent, versus the preliminary estimate of 0. 1 percent growth, as households spent more on food and beverages, TV sets and domestic travel. The government adopted a new base year for calculating gross domestic product, which lifted nominal GDP closer to the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s target level. The new calculation method, which will include research and development as capital expenditure for the first time to conform with international standards, has been applied to GDP data going back to 1994. Because of this change, business investment was 17 percent higher last quarter than previous data had suggested, according to Marcel Thieliant, senior Japan economist at Capital Economics in Singapore. Cabinet Office data showed the new calculation method added 19. 2 trillion yen to capital expenditure in fiscal 2015, versus an 18. 5 trillion yen contribution in the previous fiscal year. ”The changes have made the capital expenditure data more accurate,” said Hiroshi Miyazaki, senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. ”This won’t change the overall pace of growth. I expect capital expenditure to bottom out in the current quarter.” An index of sentiment among ” ” workers, such as taxi drivers and restaurant staff, rose to 53. 5 in November, the highest since March 2014, as a stock market rally and a falling yen made employees more optimistic. (Reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Eric Meijer) SINGAPORE Most Asian stock markets fell on Thursday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed a lack of consensus on the future pace of U. S. interest rate increases, while oil prices inched higher following a steep decline a day earlier. WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday.

Digital Asset says blockchain platform allows confidential trades

The new platform provides a solution to confidentiality issues holding back adoption of the nascent technology in financial markets, according to a report issued by the company, which is led by former JPMorgan banker Blythe Masters. Blockchain, which first emerged as the software underpinning cryptocurrency bitcoin, is a shared record of transactions and asset ownership that is maintained by a network of computers on the internet. This means every user on a network could potentially have access to the details of every transaction. While this reduces risks associated with discrepancies in data records held by different firms, it also makes it inadequate for use in certain securities markets where participants would be at a disadvantage if they disclosed their positions. Digital Asset’s platform solves the privacy issue by dividing the distributed ledger of transactions into two components: one where participants can confidentially store their transactions data, and another that is shared by all participants without the confidential data, according to the report. The new platform will form the basis of the technology that Digital Asset is building for financial institutions including Australian stock exchange ASX and U. S. post trade services provider the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, it said. The company was earlier this year awarded a contract to replace ASX’s clearing and settlement systems with its blockchain based software. Digital Asset’s platform will be ready for use by the end of 2017. Any decision by ASX to use it would be made thereafter in consultation with their stakeholders, according to Dan O’Prey, Digital Asset Holdings’ chief marketing officer. ”This is the output of two years of hard work and confronting production requirements,” O’Prey told Reuters. While enthusiasm around blockchain in financial markets has exploded over the past year, the technology has yet to be deployed to run large financial processes such as the clearing and settlement of equities markets. Research firm Greenwich Associates polled more than 130 executives working on blockchain in capital markets in June and found that transaction confidentiality was their top security concern, with 56 percent of respondents citing it as their primary worry. Other than solving the confidentiality issue, Digital Asset’s technology can also interact with existing financial protocols, meaning that it could be implemented in a given market without the need for all participants to be running on a blockchain based system, according to the company. Founded in 2014, New Digital Asset is one of the most high profile startups in the nascent blockchain industry. Earlier this year it raised more than $60 million from large financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, CME Group, Deutsche Borse and Citigroup. (Corrects paragraph 7 to show Digital Asset Holdings’ platform will be ready for use at the end of 2017, not that it will go into production with ASX at the end of 2017) (Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Andrew Hay) BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are weighing another record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and have set up a panel of experts to give a second opinion on the case, two people familiar with the matter said. MEXICO CITY Billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil argued on Wednesday against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country’s telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights.

U.S. lawmakers, Cuban business owners urge Trump to preserve detente

U. S. lawmakers joined more than 100 Cuban entrepreneurs on Wednesday to urge Donald Trump to continue President Barack Obama’s engagement with Havana, despite Trump’s threat to end detente with the island. Preparing for what could be a long fight, five congressional Democrats and one Republican held a news conference in Washington with Cuban entrepreneurs whose businesses had grown since the two countries moved toward more normal relations two years ago. ”I hope that the next president of the United States, as a businessman, understands our needs,” said Yamina Vicente, who owns Decorazon, a party planning and decorating business in Havana. ”A few years ago, a new era of dreams in Cuba began. I hope that my children will be able to dream, too,” Vicente said. More than 100 Cuban small business owners sent a letter to Republican Trump on Wednesday urging him not to roll back Obama’s rules to ease restrictions on travel, trade and investment and toward more normal diplomatic relations. The appeal to Trump from Cuba’s fledgling private sector underscored uncertainty about future relations between the two former Cold War foes, given his vow to halt what he called Obama’s ”deal” unless Havana agreed to new terms. Obama administration officials, seeking to further cement changes before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, held talks with Cuban counterparts in Havana on Wednesday. It was the first such meeting since Trump’s election and the death of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro. Appealing to Trump’s roots as a real estate developer, the Cuban entrepreneurs wrote, “As a successful businessman, we’re confident that you understand the importance of economic engagement between nations. ” ”Additional measures to increase travel, trade and investment … will benefit our companies, the Cuban people and U. S. national interests,” they wrote. RESTAURANTS, HAIR SALONS, CAR REPAIR The letter was organized by Cuba Educational Travel, a U. S. company that arranges trips to the island, and the Washington lobbying group Engage Cuba. It was signed by startups and small entrepreneurs including restaurants, technology firms, car services and hair salons. The Obama administration has pressed for additional business with Cuba in hopes of making detente irreversible. Companies fear reversing Obama’s opening could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. Several U. S. airlines have begun direct flights to Cuba, a U. S. firm signed a contract to manage a hotel there, and industries from agriculture to technology are looking into opportunities involving the island. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd and Norwegian Cruise Line said on Wednesday they had received approval from Cuba’s government to operate cruises to the island. Cuban officials in Havana said on Wednesday that they are open to continuing to deepen the detente with the Trump administration, but also hope to reach half a dozen more business agreements before Obama leaves office next month. Obama and President Raul Castro announced a breakthrough in diplomatic relations in December 2014. Since then, ties have been restored, and Obama has used executive actions to ease some business and travel restrictions, although the U. S. Congress has resisted removing the broader U. S. embargo. Trump has said Democrat Obama should have cut a ”better deal,” echoing critics who have said Cuba won too many concessions from the United States. At a campaign rally in Miami, Trump said he would seek to reverse the policy unless Cuba allowed greater freedom. The Cuban government so far has mostly refrained from commenting on Trump’s statements. Obama’s opening to Cuba is considered one of his legacy foreign policy achievements. Supporters say the policy is improving Cubans’ lives while opening cracks in the socialist system. Democratic U. S. Representative James McGovern urged businesses that might have Trump’s ear to make the case for further opening. ”Make sure that they know that it is important that we not go backward. Call the Tweet the . Whatever works,” he said. Raul Castro started introducing reforms in 2011. Cuban entrepreneurs have complained, however, that more changes are needed. Private businesses still have no access to wholesale stores and can only import or export via government agencies. Internet service on the island is also limited. (Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh in Havana; Editing by Andrew Hay, Jim Finkle, Grant McCool) QAMISHLI, The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday that Turkish military deployments near areas of northwestern Syria amounted to a ”declaration of war” which could trigger clashes within days. CARACAS government supporters burst into Venezuela’s congress on Wednesday, witnesses said, attacking and besieging lawmakers in the latest of violence during a political crisis.

Pakistan mourns 47 killed in air crash, as investigators seek answers

Pakistan on Thursday mourned the 47 victims of its deadliest plane crash in four years, including a famed rock evangelist, as officials sought to pinpoint the cause of the disaster. Engine trouble was initially believed responsible, but many questions remain, stirring new worries about the safety record of state carrier Pakistani International Airlines. The aircraft involved in the crash had undergone regular maintenance, including an ” ” certification in October, said airline chairman Muhammad Azam Saigol. ”I want to make it clear that it was a perfectly sound aircraft,” Saigol said. The aircraft appeared to have suffered a failure in one of its two turboprop engines just before the crash, he added, but this would have to be confirmed by an investigation. ”I think there was no technical error or human error,” Saigol told a news conference late on Wednesday. ”Obviously there will be a proper investigation.” Grief erupted online soon after flight PK661 smashed into the side of a mountain near the town of Havelian, in province, on Wednesday, after taking off from the mountain resort region of Chitral. It crashed just 50 km (31 miles) short of its destination, the international airport in Islamabad, the capital. A PIA spokesman said the pilot, who issued a ”mayday” emergency call before the crash, may have prevented an even bigger catastrophe by manoeuvring the plane away from populated areas. ”It seems that the pilot directed it away from people’s homes. Otherwise there could have been even more damage,” Daniyal Gillani told Reuters outside a morgue at an Islamabad hospital where bodies were being identified. Stunned relatives gathered there, some weeping quietly, others besieging officials with questions. ”What can I tell you?” said Raja Amir, as he waited for his mother’s remains. ”I don’t know what we will get of her. There is still another hell to go through.” Remains continue to be brought by helicopter to Islamabad, where DNA tests will be used to identify them. Television images appeared to show rescue officials retrieving the aircraft’s ”black box” flight recorder from the wreckage, and the airline confirmed the recovery to the Geo News channel. ROCK STAR AND ROYALTY Much of the public’s anguish focused on Junaid Jamshed, the vocalist of Vital Signs, one of Pakistan’s first and most successful bands of the 1990s, who abandoned his music career in 2001 to become a travelling evangelist with the conservative Tableeghi Jamaat group. Many comments on social network Twitter pointed up the contrast between his two roles, first as a pop sensation singing about love and heartbreak, and then as a stern, bearded preacher admonishing young people for straying from Islam. ”Junaid Jamshed’s journey was so quintessentially Pakistani. Conflicted, passionate, devoted, ubersmart, and so, so talented. Tragic loss,” Mosharraf Zaidi, an development professional and analyst, said in a tweet. Others simply shared his band’s many hits, such as ’Dil Dil Pakistan’ which has become an unofficial anthem, played at public gatherings since its release in 1987. Among the 46 others who perished were two infants, three foreigners two Austrians and a Chinese man and five crew listed on the manifest. Foreign tourists increasingly travel to Chitral, along with numerous domestic visitors, as Pakistan emerges from years of militant violence. The dead included a member of Chitral’s traditional royal family, his wife and family, besides a regional administrative official, Osama Ahmad Warraich, killed with his wife and infant daughter. At a funeral for the Warraich family, Osama’s mother was seen waving at the coffins and weeping: ”Let me say goodbye to my kids one more time”. SAFETY CONCERNS The aircraft, made by French company ATR in 2007, had racked up 18, 739 flight hours since joining PIA’s fleet that year. Its captain, Saleh Janjua, had logged more than 12, 000 flight hours over his career, the airline said. Concern is growing over air safety as media in recent years have reported several . In the worst disaster, in 2010, all 152 people on board were killed when a plane operated by airline Air Blue crashed in heavy rain near Islamabad. Two years later, all 127 aboard were killed when a plane operated by Bhoja Air crashed near the city. The father of one of the crew who died lashed out at PIA and the government, saying better management could have prevented the crash. ”I have no hope,” Raja Abdul Ghaffar said after the body of his son was brought to the morgue. ”I am left with nothing.” (Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad, Amjad Ali; Writing by Asad Hashim; Editing by Kay Johnson and Clarence Fernandez) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

Retailer Wal-Mart de Mexico to invest $1.3 billion in Mexico

Retailer de Mexico ( ) said on Wednesday it will invest $1. 3 billion in logistics in Latin America’s No. 2 economy, in what is perceived as a show of commitment to Mexico at a time of uncertainty after the election of Donald Trump. The investment in Mexico will not result in any jobs being moved from the United States, spokeswoman Jo Warner told Reuters. ”The investment is funded by Walmex and is necessary for expansion of ’s Mexican business,” she said. Warner did not comment on whether had heard from Trump after it made the announcement in Mexico. She said the investment is not the same as companies moving jobs to Mexico. Recently, United Technologies Corp’s ( ) Carrier unit decided to keep half of the 2, 100 Indiana jobs it was to shift to Mexico after the U. S. worked out an agreement with the company’s CEO, Gregory Hayes. The election has thrown Mexico’s business world into uncertainty, as Trump has attacked U. S. companies investing south of the border and threatened to renegotiate or scrap a major trade agreement with Mexico. A large part of ’s investment will be over the next three years, including in infrastructure, said the company’s chief executive, Guilherme Loureiro. He said it would create some 10, 000 permanent new jobs. ”It will involve the building of new distribution centers, as well as the expansion of ones we already have,” he said at an event with President Enrique Pena Nieto at the president’s office. Loureiro said the company had already invested 80 billion pesos ($3. 93 billion) in the past four years. has been looking to double sales in Mexico by 2024 by boosting its core business of running discount retail and membership stores, and expanding its fresh food business. In August it sold its Suburbia clothing chain to El Puerto De Liverpool ( ) for about $852 million in order to streamline operations in the country. At ’s shareholder meeting in June, David Cheesewright, head of the overseas division, singled out the Mexican market as a top priority. Mexico has ’s largest number of stores outside the United States. has struggled in overseas markets, including Britain and China, but Walmex has remained a bright spot with revenue growing 10. 8 percent to 126. 86 billion pesos ($6. 25 billion). ($1 = 20. 3110 Mexican pesos) (Reporting by Mexico City Newsroom and Nandita Bose in Chicago; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Matthew Lewis) WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday. One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.

Wall Street surges to new highs; transports set record

Wall Street surged on Wednesday, with the Dow industrials and S&P 500 hitting fresh records, as equities continued their march upward after the election of Donald Trump as U. S. president, and a new high for transportation stocks added to the bullish tone. All three major indexes finished more than 1 percent higher. The gains came even as Trump’s comments on prescription drug pricing wounded the healthcare sector. U. S. equities have scaled new highs since the election, with investors encouraged by Trump’s plans for economic stimulus and to reduce corporate taxes and regulations. ”I think it’s continuation of the view that the new administration will be ” said Ernie Cecilia, chief investment officer of Bryn Mawr Trust in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 297. 84 points, or 1. 55 percent, to 19, 549. 62, the S&P 500 gained 29. 12 points, or 1. 32 percent, to 2, 241. 35 and the Nasdaq Composite added 60. 76 points, or 1. 14 percent, to 5, 393. 76. The S&P 500 set a new closing high for the first time since Nov. 25. The Dow Jones Transport Average . DJT rose 2. 5 percent and set new intraday and closing highs, surpassing its prior peaks from late 2014. A finish above the closing record for the transportation average could indicate further gains as it triggers a bullish sign for some investors who look for parallel performance for both the Dow industrial and transportation averages. ”You’re going to have these (software) programs that are now going to say Dow Theory has been confirmed and they then initiate buy orders, which creates more fuel for the fire,” said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O’Neil Securities in New York. Gains were with 10 of 11 major sectors in positive territory. A $ trading program to buy a broad spectrum of stocks also came into the market in the afternoon and ”really just sparked this market to move higher and higher,” said Jonathan Corpina, senior managing partner for Meridian Equity Partners, an equity and options in New York. Telecommunications . SPLRCL and real estate . SPLRCR, which are high dividend payers, posted the strongest sector gains. ”There’s a little bit of a bond market rally going on, certainly in the long end, so that means dividend stocks feel better,” said Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago. Traders also pointed to covering of short positions ahead of Thursday’s meeting of the European Central Bank as a catalyst driving the market higher. Trump’s victory has been seen as a boon, particularly for financial and industrial stocks that have surged since the election. But biotechnology and pharmaceutical stocks tumbled on Wednesday after Trump promised in a Time magazine article that ”I’m going to bring down drug prices.” The S&P healthcare . SPXHC fell 0. 8 percent, the only group in negative territory. The Nasdaq Biotechnology index . NBI slumped 2. 9 percent, recovering from steeper losses initially after Trump’s comments were publicized. Trump’s effect was seen on Tuesday, as well, with Boeing’s ( ) stock falling briefly after his tweet that an order for a revamped Air Force One plane should be canceled over high costs. ”I think it is a new fact of life . .. that fundamentals can be swept aside any day by comments from the ( ),” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management. About 8. 2 billion shares changed hands in U. S. exchanges, above the 8 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 3. ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1. ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted 98 new highs and seven new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 350 new highs and 32 new lows. (Additional reporting by Sinead Carew and Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Rebels seek ceasefire with Syrian army closer to retaking Aleppo

Syrian rebels in besieged eastern Aleppo called on Wednesday for an immediate ceasefire and the evacuation of civilians and wounded, but gave no indication they were ready to withdraw as demanded by Damascus and Moscow. The Syrian army and allied forces have made rapid gains against insurgents in the past two weeks and look closer than ever to restoring full control over Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city before the war, and achieving their most important victory of the conflict now in its sixth year. In a statement calling for the truce, the rebels made no mention of evacuating the several thousand fighters who are defending an ever shrinking area of eastern Aleppo. Syria and Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar have said they want rebels to leave Aleppo and will not consider a ceasefire unless that happens. ”It’s been a tragedy here for a long time, but I’ve never seen this kind of pressure on the city you can’t rest for even five minutes, the bombardment is constant,” a resident said. ”Any movement in the streets and there is bombardment (on that area) immediately,” said the east Aleppo resident contacted by Reuters, who declined to be identified. Fear gripped the remaining residents as food and water supplies were cut off. Retaking Aleppo would also be a success for President Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow’s ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi’ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad. The Syrian government now appears closer to victory than at any point in the five years since protests against Assad evolved into an armed rebellion. The war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world’s worst refugee crisis. Outside of Aleppo, the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. ”The decision to liberate all of Syria is taken and Aleppo is part of it,” Assad said in a newspaper interview, according to television station . He described the city as the ”last hope” of rebels and their backers. ARMY RETAKES OLD CITY The Syrian army now controls all of the Old City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site including the Umayyad Mosque, which had been held by rebels, the Observatory said. Explosions and artillery fire could be heard on Syrian state television in districts around the citadel which overlooks the Old City as the army pressed its offensive. More neighborhoods were expected to fall but rebels were fighting ferociously. Syrian state news agency SANA said rebel shelling killed 12 people in districts of Aleppo. Rebels have lost control of about 75 percent of their territory in eastern Aleppo in under 10 days, Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said. The ”humanitarian initiative” published by rebels called for the evacuation of around 500 critical medical cases. The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a potential U. S. deal to allow Syrian rebels to leave Aleppo safely was still on the agenda. Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Hamburg on Wednesday. A statement from State Department spokesman John Kirby said the two had ”discussed ongoing multilateral efforts to achieve a cessation of hostilities in Aleppo, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid” to civilians there. Kerry told reporters after the meeting that he and Lavrov would ”connect” on Thursday morning. There was no further detail on the discussions, but State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a news briefing on Wednesday that Kerry and Lavrov were discussing proposals to halt fighting in Aleppo, which could include either safe passage out of Aleppo for opposition forces, or a pause in fighting so that humanitarian aid could be delivered. ”STRATEGIC VICTORY” Russia and China vetoed a U. N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce. The Syrian army’s advance is a ”strategic victory” that will prevent foreign intervention and alter the political process, Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar told reporters in Damascus. ”Those who believed in the Syrian triumph, know that (the rebels’) morale is at its lowest and that these collapses that have begun are like domino tiles,” he said. An official with an Aleppo rebel group, who declined to be named, told Reuters the United States appeared to have no position on the Syrian army assault on Aleppo, just weeks before U. S. Donald Trump takes office. ”The Russians want the fighters out and they (the Americans) are ready to coordinate over that” said the official, citing indirect contacts with U. S. officials. While rebels say they could fend off the offensive for some time to come, the fighting is complicated by tens of thousands of fearful civilians trapped in the area, many of them related to the fighters, the official said. ”The civilian burden is very heavy, in a small area.” ” ” As winter sets in, siege conditions are increasingly desperate, exacerbated by increasing numbers of displaced residents and food and water shortages. A U. N. official said on Wednesday about 31, 500 people from east Aleppo have been displaced around the entire city over the past week, with hundreds more seen on the move on Wednesday. With hospitals, clinics, water and food cut off, U. N. chief Ban said the situation was ” .” Very few rebels had quit Aleppo so far, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who described those who were left there as ”terrorists” who were uniting around fighters from the group formerly known as the Nusra Front. But eastern Aleppo is widely seen by analysts of the Syria conflict as a bastion of the moderate opposition to Assad, which has maintained that jihadists have little presence in the city. Civilians wanting to leave east Aleppo should be evacuated to the northern Aleppo countryside, rather than Idlib province, the rebel document said. Idlib is dominated by Islamist groups including Fateh the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, and is facing intense bombardment by Russian warplanes. “Russia wants to move them to Idlib. The fighters have a choice: survive for an extra couple of weeks by going to Idlib or fight to the very end and die in Aleppo,” one senior European diplomat, who declined to be named, said. ”For the Russians it’s simple. Place them all in Idlib and then they have all their rotten eggs in one basket. ” On . S. talks, the diplomat said: “The assumption is that the U. S. has influence on the ground. I don’t think that’s the case. ” (Reporting by Lisa Barrington, Ellen Francis, Tom Perry, John Davison, Andrew Osborn, Tom Miles, John Irish and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and James Dalgleish) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

U.S. Republicans quibble over effective date of Obamacare repeal

U. S. Republican senators are leaning towards a plan to delay the effective date of an Obamacare repeal for three years, a senior Republican said on Wednesday. But some conservatives in the House of Representatives think that is too long to wait for the end of the Affordable Care Act, as President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program is known. ”In the Senate, there’s consensus for three years,” Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the chamber’s finance committee, told reporters, saying it could take that long to work out a replacement for Obamacare. ”It takes time to do things around here.” Republicans in both the House and Senate say they want to repeal Obamacare early in 2017; it will be the first order of business in the Senate in January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said on Tuesday. Donald Trump’s election as U. S. president last month means Republicans will control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives in 2017. The new Congress goes to work on Jan. 3; Trump will be sworn in on Jan. 20. But Republicans have not agreed on how quickly the Obamacare repeal should go into effect. A delay would give them time to work on a replacement, instead of throwing millions of Americans out of their health insurance with no substitute. Some House conservatives favor phasing out Obamacare and getting a replacement within two years, because three years would not lapse until after the next congressional election, with the attendant uncertainty about who will be in the majority then. ”We don’t think it’s very wise to leave a plan like that up to a (future) Congress that you can’t necessarily control,” said Ben Williamson, spokesman for Representative Mark Meadows, the incoming leader of the Freedom Caucus, a group of about 40 House conservatives. ”There is a potential that some members of the Freedom Caucus might vote against repeal, if the replacement was going beyond two years,” Williamson said. The Affordable Care Act has provided some 25 million previously uninsured Americans with health coverage. Republicans have repeatedly tried to dismantle the law, which they call a government overreach. Another senior senator said some Republicans are worried about whether they will have to raise taxes in three years to pay for an Obamacare replacement, which could for example involve tax credits to subsidize health insurance. ”What Republicans could be faced with in three years, is voting for a tax increase . .. and that’s not exactly a place that Republicans relish being,” said Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. (Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Bernard Orr) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Japan Inc warns of global trade contraction under Trump presidency: Reuters poll

Corporate Japan is bracing for a rocky ride under incoming U. S. President Donald Trump, a Reuters poll showed, with well over a third of firms seeing a contraction in global trade as concerns about a rise in U. S. protectionism threaten to shatter a fragile economic recovery. Fully of Japanese companies expect no expansion in world trade, highlighting festering anxiety that Trump’s fiery protectionist rhetoric during campaigning might turn into policies through his term that begins in January. Throughout the campaign that led to his upset election win, the Republican pledged to redraw trade deals to win back American jobs. He has threatened Mexico and China with punitive tariffs that some economists have warned could spark a trade war that could potentially roll back decades of liberalization. The Reuters Corporate Survey, conducted Nov. . 2, underscored such concerns. The monthly poll of 531 big and firms found 40 percent expected global trade to shrink in the 4 percent saw trade friction, while 32 percent saw no change. Only one quarter predicted global trade will expand under Trump. That would mark a deterioration in global trade, which has expanded at a modest rate below 3 percent in recent years after bouncing from a plunge in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis. Trump has threatened to ditch the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, between the United States, Canada and Mexico, arguing the agreement has sent U. S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico. He has also said he would withdraw from the Partnership, or TPP, an ambitious trade pact linking 12 countries including the United States and Japan. In written responses, companies voiced concerns about the fate of TPP, NAFTA and Mexico, where Japanese automakers have plants, and how a waning American presence could pave the way for China to wield more influence worldwide. ”Reversal of free trade is a concern for our business, but what’s more worrying is a weaker U. S. military presence in East Asia, which could embolden China to take control of the power vacuum in the region,” wrote a manager at an electrical machinery company. Trump ”has declared exiting TPP and pushing bilateral trade pacts, and I’m worried about a shift in (global) trade regime towards one led by China,” wrote a manager at a chemicals firm. Managers answered on condition of anonymity in the survey, which was conducted for Reuters by Nikkei Research. Around 250 answered questions on the impact of a Trump presidency. The uncertainty around Trump’s trade policies adds to the risks for Japan’s economy, which is struggling to mount a sustainable recovery amid slow global demand and sluggish domestic consumption. UNPREDICTABLE The survey found that of Japanese companies saw no change in their investment stance towards U. S. while 14 percent said it would wane and the remaining 11 percent saw it growing. Previous Reuters surveys taken during the election campaign had shown a majority of firms believed Trump would be bad for business in the United States, and that Japanese corporate appetite for investing in the U. S. would wane. ”Expectation is rising that Trump will adopt steps such as infrastructure investment, tax cuts and deregulation,” said Hidenobu Tokuda, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute, who reviewed the survey results. ”That said, companies remain cautious about what he says and does, which is all uncertain and utterly unpredictable.” The survey also found that companies worried both about a strong yen and a weak yen under a Trump presidency, suggesting there’s no consensus on what sort of currency changes are in store. The yen has nearly reversed all of this year’s gains since the U. S. election easing concerns about Japan’s economy on expectations that Trump’s proposed reflationary economic policies would push up U. S. interest rates. percent said the dollar would move in a yen range next year slightly stronger than around a yen range seen during the survey period. Just 27 percent saw it in the yen and 2 percent said it would weaken beyond 120 yen. Eight percent saw it strengthening to the yen range. (Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Additional reporting by Izumi Nakagawa.; Editing by Malcolm Foster & Shri Navaratnam) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Eastern Libyan forces foil rival faction’s advance on oil ports: officials

Eastern Libyan forces said they thwarted an attempted advance on some of Libya’s major oil ports on Wednesday, hitting a rival faction with air strikes and capturing some of its commanders. The violence raised the prospect of a fresh struggle for control of the oil ports and for overall power between the many armed factions in anarchic Libya that have competed with each other in shifting alliances since a 2011 uprising. It came a day after forces led by brigades from the western city of Misrata completed a near battle to oust Islamic State militants from their erstwhile North African stronghold in Sirte, the hometown of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi and less than 200 km (125 miles) northwest of the oil ports. A spokesman for the Libyan National Army (LNA) as the eastern forces are known, said rival fighters had withdrawn after briefly occupying the town of Ben Jawad, 30 km (19 miles) west of the port of Es Sider, and were being pursued in the surrounding area. Four LNA troops were killed and seven wounded in the clashes, a medical source in nearby Ras Lanuf said. The National Oil Corporation (NOC) said it had not suspended any loadings, but was monitoring the situation carefully. One eastern security official said the groups that advanced towards the ports in Libya’s Oil Crescent were linked to the Benghazi Defense Brigades, which tried this year to launch a against the LNA. The LNA is commanded by Khalifa Haftar, who has become a figurehead for factions in the east while waging a military campaign against Islamist militants and other opponents over more than two years. In September his forces seized control of four Oil Crescent ports from a rival faction, allowing the NOC to end blockades at three of the ports and double national oil production to about 600, 000 barrels per day (bpd). Speculation had risen about a possible against the oil ports by forces including the faction that was ousted in September, Islamist brigades with support from Misrata, and a Haftar rival who was named as defense minister by a U. N. Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. A statement published by Libyan media and purporting to come from the defense ministry in Tripoli said a unit had been formed to ”liberate the oil fields and ports from mercenaries” and return Libyan oil resources to national institutions ”without restrictions or conditions”. But the GNA’s leadership, or Presidential Council, said in a statement that it had ”no link with what is happening in the Oil Crescent” denying reports that it had given instructions to any force in the area. (Additional reporting and writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Jonathan Oatis) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

ECB to extend asset buys, may debate signal about when it will end

The European Central Bank will extend its already generous asset buys on Thursday, aiming to boost stubbornly weak price growth, but with much of its firepower exhausted it may also debate sending a token signal about the eventual end of such purchases. Emphasizing abundant risk, including from elections in potentially four of the euro zone’s five biggest economies, ECB President Mario Draghi is expected to argue that premature tapering or slowly ending could abort a still timid recovery, unraveling the impact of the buys. The unprecedented effort has already consumed 1. 4 trillion euros ($1. 5 trillion). Indeed, the ECB has been at pains in the past month to emphasize that maintaining current financing conditions is ’crucial’ as underlying inflation seems to be stuck below 1 percent, a message taken by markets as confirmation of their expectation for a six month extension of asset buys until September. The ECB will announce its key policy decisions at 1245 GMT, followed by Draghi’s news conference at 1330 GMT. On the face of it, the outlook is upbeat. Inflation which has been dangerously low is now at a more than 2 year high and rising, with higher oil prices and predictions for more U. S. budget spending bolstering expectations. Euro zone economic growth is shrugging off Britain’s decision to leave the Eropean Union, and Germany, the bloc’s growth engine, seems to be picking up speed again. Ironically, the collapse of Italy’s government this week may actually hasten instead of delay the recapitalization of ailing lender Monte dei Paschi ( ) much to the ECB’s relief, It has pointed to weak banks as a key obstacle to transmitting stimulus. Italian bank shares . FTIT8300 are up over 10 percent this week and the sovereign bond yield differential between Germany and peripheral countries like Italy and Spain have narrowed since Sunday’s vote. WEAK OUTLOOK But beneath the surface, the outlook is far from comforting. The inflation rise is almost entirely due to past oil price falls being knocked out of statistics and underlying inflation is flat, if not slowing, suggesting that price growth is far from sustainable, a key condition for removing stimulus. Wage growth has also disappointed, suggesting that companies have cut their inflation expectations. This is a cycle that could entrench anemic price growth, making it tougher to get it back to the desired 2 percent. Even consumption, the key driver of growth is not as good as it looks. Consumption has been driven a jump in disposable income due to oil price falls and loose ECB policy. But Brent crude LCOc1 is up 14 percent in the past 3 months, leaving monetary policy as the chief driver of consumption. ”Core inflation and wage growth remain stubbornly low, and the ECB will be wary of repeating past mistakes of withdrawing support too early,” HSBC said in a note to clients. ”Perhaps as important are the numerous political risks.” The rising clout of populist parties could also weaken governments’ resolve to push ahead with painful but needed reforms. Elections in France, Germany, the Netherlands and possibly Italy, could leave the ECB with more of the burden. Even though many of the ECB’s fresh economic forecasts will be broadly unchanged from three months ago, the projection for underlying inflation is likely to be cut, a vital clue that the rise in inflation may be temporary. SCARCITY One key problem for the ECB to solve then is how to find enough assets to buy. Self imposed rules are creating a scarcity and the ECB will have to ease some restrictions, though each move will come with a cost, raising political and legal challenges. The options on the table will be whether to buy bonds yielding less than the deposit rate, buy more than 33 percent of each bond or whether to deviate from the capital key, or each country’s shareholding in the ECB. ”We expect the ECB to remove the deposit rate floor and potentially allow for some limited deviation from the allocation,” BNP Paribas said. ”Even so, asset scarcity would still be biting. The ECB faces a between the volume of its monthly purchases and the length of the QE program.” Another debate will be whether to send markets a signal about the eventual end of the asset buys. Although such a signal is far from certain, policymakers are still likely to debate it, a potential concession to more conservative policymakers and an acknowledgement that the program, nearing the end of its second year, cannot go on indefinitely. ($1 = 0. 9294 euros) (Editing by Jeremy Gaunt) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Lululemon quarterly sales top expectations, shares jump

Canadian yoga and leisure apparel retailer Lululemon Athletica Inc on Wednesday reported quarterly profit that beat analysts’ forecasts, helped by gross margins and sales. Supply chain improvements, a problem area that has plagued the company in recent years, and lower product costs underpinned the company’s improved margins and were also driving improvements in the fourth quarter, executives said in an analysts’ conference call. ”We continue to be on track with our plan of doubling our revenue and more than doubling our earnings,” said chief executive Laurent Potdevin. ”The gross margin expansion is a key element in the earnings recovery that we see today and expect going forward.” Gross margin, or revenue less the cost of goods sold, rose to 51. 1 percent, from 46. 9 percent a year ago. sales online and at stores open at least a year rose 7 percent, excluding exchange rate fluctuations. That beat the 5. 4 percent increase expected by analysts, according to Consensus Metrix. The fourth quarter began slowly in November, before picking up around Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, executives said, noting strong sales during the U. S. Thanksgiving holiday period. For the fourth quarter, the company said it was expecting revenue of $765 million to $785 million and earnings of 96 cents to $1. 01 per share. Lululemon’s international success helped turn the retailer into an investor favorite, but struggles with inventory, embarrassing product recalls, and executive changes in recent years have blemished its record. The company, which plans to open its first three stores in China this month, began by carving out a niche market of expensive women’s yoga pants before expanding into other areas. It helped push ”athleisure wear” into mainstream fashion and now competes in a crowded market that includes Nike Inc and Under Armour, as well as retailers like Gap Inc. Net income rose to $68. 3 million, or 50 cents per share in the third quarter ended Oct. 30, from $53. 2 million, or 38 cents per share, in the prior year. Revenue was $544. 4 million, up from $479. 7 million. Analysts were expecting, on average, earnings of 43 cents a share and revenue of $540 million, according to Thomson Reuters . Shares, which closed at $59. 84, climbed 10 percent in trading. (Reporting by Solarina Ho in Toronto; Editing by Jim Finkle and James Dalgleish) WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday. One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.

BlackRock adjusts leadership team for its largest mutual fund

BlackRock Inc ( ) is making leadership changes to its biggest mutual fund. The world’s largest asset manager is replacing one of the top leaders on its $42 billion BlackRock Global Allocation Fund ( ) ( ) and adding three new portfolio managers, a move that comes as the fund’s performance has lagged its rivals. Aldo Roldan, a managing director and portfolio manager, is stepping down as portfolio manager on the fund because he wanted to reduce his responsibilities, a BlackRock spokeswoman said Wednesday. Roldan will continue to work on the Global Allocation team as a ”senior investor,” focusing on research and analysis, she said. Three other investors will get top billing, including Russ Koesterich, the fund’s head of asset allocation, as well as David Clayton and Kent Hogshire, who already assist on the fund. The changes take effect Jan. 1. Koesterich is particularly well known outside the company as its former global chief investment strategist, a role in which he traveled widely and spoke to the press about the asset manager’s investment views. The company announced he was shifting to a new role supporting Global Allocation in March. The fund is a ” ” portfolio of stocks, bonds and other investments. New BlackRock has been working to boost the investment performance of its stockpicking funds by introducing more data mining and investment techniques to its traditionalist teams, such as Global Allocation, which started in 1989. Much of the investment management industry has been wrestling with a move from active funds to passive ones that merely track an index because those funds often perform better and charge less. BlackRock is a major manager of index funds through its iShares funds business. Relatively institutional shares of Global Allocation are up 3. 7 percent this year, trailing 72 percent of its peers, according to Thomson Reuters Lipper. Over 10 years, the fund is in the top 20 percent. Investors pulled $8. 1 billion from the fund this year, through November, according to the research service. Roldan joined the Global Allocation team in 2006. He has been one of three lead managers overseeing a sprawling collection of analysts, traders, marketing personnel and other staff who focus on the fund, alongside Dennis Stattman and Dan Chamby. A specialist in emerging markets who holds a doctorate in economics and econometrics from the University of Pennsylvania, Roldan joined BlackRock when it acquired the team’s former employer, Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, in 2006. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by Jim Finkle and Alan Crosby) WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday. One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.

Exclusive: U.S. regulator set to fail Wells Fargo on community lending test - sources

A U. S. bank regulator is ready to fail Wells Fargo on a national scorecard for community lending, sources familiar with the decision said on Wednesday, in a move that could limit expansion for the bank. Wells Fargo is due to be deemed a bank that ”needs to improve” under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) a law meant to promote lending to poor neighborhoods. The move is a downgrade from the ”outstanding” tag Wells Fargo has held since 2008 and the change would give regulators a greater say on matters like whether they may open new branches. The ruling from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the main regulator for national banks, is due by early January, said the sources with knowledge of the plans. A Wells Fargo spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesman for the OCC also declined to comment. Wells Fargo has struggled since September to overcome its admission that employees wrongly created as many as 2 million accounts without customer authorization. A downgrade on the bank’s community service score could further tarnish the reputation of the San lender at a time when it hopes to move beyond the scandal. Wells Fargo may win an appeal to the downgrade through an independent arm of the regulator but no decision has yet been made, said sources familiar with the process. Consumer advocates have faulted the OCC for letting eight years pass between reviewing Wells Fargo’s commitment to community development. ”Regulators could have downgraded Wells Fargo years ago and maybe that would have stopped some of this wrongdoing,” said Paulina Gonzalez, head of the California Reinvestment Coalition. Following the 2008 housing market collapse, the OCC faulted several national banks for their community lending. Bank of America Corp ( ) lost its ”outstanding” grade in 2011 when the OCC faulted the lender for ”discriminatory or other illegal credit practices.” JPMorgan Chase & Co ( ) also slipped one notch from ”outstanding” to ”satisfactory” in 2013. But industry and regulatory sources said they knew of no other case where a national bank had slipped two notches in a single review of CRA compliance. (Reporting By Patrick Rucker, additional reporting by Dan Freed in New York; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli, Bernard Orr) LONDON New Saba Capital Management, famed for its winning bet against the JPMorgan Chase trader known as the ’London Whale’ is closing its office in London’s Mayfair district, two sources close to the situation told Reuters. ROME Italian prosecutors have decided to take Morgan Stanley to court over allegations that the U. S. bank caused 2. 7 billion euros ($3. 1 billion) in losses to the state in relation to derivative transactions, a source familiar with the matter said.

Commentary: Facebook and Twitter’s real sin goes beyond spreading fake news

Social media companies are taking heat for influencing the outcomes of the U. S. presidential election and Brexit referendum by allowing fake news, misinformation campaigns and hate speech to spread. But Facebook and Twitter’s real sin was an act of omission: they failed to contribute to the data that democracy needs to thrive. While sitting on huge troves of information about public opinion and voter intent, social media firms watched as U. S. and UK pollsters, journalists, politicians and civil society groups made bad projections and poor decisions with the wrong information. The data these companies collect, for example, could have told us in whether fake news was having an impact on voters. Information garnered from social media platforms could have boosted voter turnout as citizens realized the race was closer than the polls showed — and that their votes really would matter. Instead, these companies let the United States and UK tumble into a democratic deficit, with political institutions starved of quality data on public opinion. Legally, social media companies aren’t obligated to share data in the public interest. And what they can share is always shaped by users’ privacy settings, rules about selling personal information, and the particular deals companies like Facebook and Twitter make with third party businesses. But they are now the primary platforms for political conversation. As such, they should act in ways that support democratic practices, especially around sensitive political moments like elections. Facebook and Twitter have the ability to reach, and target, millions of voters. From the minute you sign up on one of these platforms, the companies use data about your behavior, interests, family and friends to recommend news and new social connections. And they sell this data to other companies for even deeper analysis on what you might buy and what you think about important social issues. By examining data about the connections you make and content you share, social media companies can make powerful inferences about whether you are likely to vote, how you are likely to vote, and what kinds of news or advertisements might encourage or discourage you to engage as a citizen. Social media firms regularly study the news consumption habits of users, of the causes and consequences of political polarization on its platform. To that end, only Facebook and Twitter know how pervasive fabricated news stories and misinformation campaigns have become during referendums and elections. They know who clicked on what links, how much time each user spent reading an “article,” and where the user was physically located. If the companies merged user data with other datasets — say, from credit card records or voter registration files — they may even know the user’s voting history and which political groups the user has donated to. These companies know enough about voter attitudes to serve up liberal news to liberals and conservative news to conservatives, or fake news to undecided voters. During the recent U. S. presidential election, there was a worrying amount of false information on both Facebook and Twitter, and research suggests that many users between real and fabricated news. My ” shows that Facebook and Twitter can be easily used to poison political conversations. Trump campaigners were particularly good at using bots — basic software programs with communication skills — to propagate lies. Bogus news sites were started just to but undoubtedly influenced some voters’ view when manipulated images and false reports went viral. Several major U. S. tech companies have since announced steps to reign in fabricated news. In response to criticism about the spread of misinformation on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg described in a some of the projects the company already has underway, including making it easier for users to report fake news. Facebook has also updated its advertising policies to spell out that its ban on deceptive and misleading content applies to this type of content. Google has it is working to prevent websites that spread bogus news from using its advertising platform. But more can be done. While social media use has been on the rise, our systems for measuring public opinion have been breaking down. and surveys are increasingly inaccurate. With so many people on mobile phones, consuming political content that comes to them through friends, family and Facebook, traditional polling companies no longer get a full picture of what the public knows and wants. For modern democracies to work, three kinds of polling systems need to be up and running. First, nationwide exit polls, which identify mistakes in how elections are run, helping to confirm or refute claims of fraud. For several decades exit polling was coordinated by major news outlets, but the coalition broke down in the United States in 2002 and 2005 in the UK. Today, exit polls are run haphazardly, and are more about predicting winners and outcomes than systematically checking the results. Second, democracies need a regular supply of public policy polls so that journalists, public policy makers, civic groups and elected officials can understand public opinion before and after voting day. Third, democracies need “deliberative polls” that put complex policy questions to representative groups of voters who are given time to evaluate the possible solutions. These kinds of polls engage citizens about public policy options through extended conversations with experts and each other. They lead to more informed . Companies like Facebook and Twitter manage the platforms over which most citizens in advanced democracies now talk about politics, and they could be the critical new platforms for these polling systems. They could never completely replace existing techniques for measuring public opinion. But our existing polling systems are weakening, and social media platforms have an obvious role to play. With the data at their disposal and the platforms they maintain, social media companies could raise standards for civility by refusing to accept ad revenue for placing fake news. They could let others audit and understand the algorithms that determine who sees what on a platform. Just as important, they could be the platforms for doing better opinion, exit and deliberative polling. This year, Facebook and Twitter watched as ways of measuring public opinion collapsed. Allowing fake news and computational propaganda to target specific voters is an act against democratic values. But withholding data about public opinion is the major crime against democracy. (Philip N. Howard is a professor of sociology, information and international affairs at Oxford University. He is the author, most recently, of Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up. ) The views expressed in this article are not those of Reuters News. Iraqi officials have declared that Islamic State’s caliphate is finished. On June 29, after months of urban warfare and U. S. air strikes, Iraqi forces say they are on the verge of expelling the militants from their last holdouts in Mosul. “Their fictitious state has fallen,” an Iraqi general told state TV after troops captured a symbolically important mosque in Mosul’s old city. In Syria, U. S. rebels are moving quickly through the eastern city of Raqqa, another capital of the Donald Trump and his South Korean counterpart Moon must face North Korea’s nuclear reality: Pyongyang’s bomb is here to stay. When the two presidents hold their first summit on Friday, they need to drop quixotic efforts to stop Kim Jong Un from building a nuclear arsenal and instead focus on preventing its use.

OPEC, U.S. begin ’cat and mouse’ oil game as producers pounce on hedges

As far as one of the world’s biggest commodities traders, Glencore’s chief Ivan Glasenberg, is concerned, the oil market will be at the mercy of ”a cat and mouse game” between OPEC and its U. S. shale rivals in the coming year. A 16 percent price rally over the past week has delivered U. S. frackers a golden opportunity to hedge or sell forward their production for 2017 and beyond, to shore up their coffers against possible future price falls. Prices for prompt Brent and WTI benchmark futures contracts have hit their highest in nearly a year and a half, but this rush by the shale industry to hedge has capped the rally in prices of oil for delivery further in the future. This will probably mean no for the producers, at least as prices remain below $60 per barrel, and OPEC knows this. ”It’s going to be a cat and mouse game between OPEC and shale oil in America,” Glasenberg said this week. ”OPEC members will say, ’if you (raise output) we are going to ramp up production and push oil back down to $35’ . .. I hope shale in America will be responsible and realize what’s happened and allow the higher oil price to be sustained,” he said. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed on Nov. 30 to its first production cut since 2008, whereby it will reduce output by around 1. 2 million barrels per day to 32. 5 million bpd from January for six months. Crucially, Russia agreed to cut output by up to 300, 000 bpd in the first half of 2017, its first joint action with OPEC since 2001, and another 300, 000 bpd in cuts are to be borne by other producing nations. NO FREE LUNCH FOR SHALE The collapse in the premium of oil futures contracts in both the Brent LCOc1 and U. S. crude futures markets CLc1 shows how investors and producers alike are taking OPEC at its word. The U. S. futures curve has inverted so prices for delivery of oil in December 2017 are now above those for delivery a year later, reflecting the wall of producer selling that has materialized since OPEC made its announcement. “Producers have returned very actively in the market for hedging last week after the OPEC decision,” said one source with a bank active in the market. Brandon Elliott, executive vice president of corporate development and strategy for U. S. shale producer Northern Oil & Gas, said his company had added to its hedges. ”In some core Bakken areas, it’s economical to drill in the $ $55 WTI price,” he said, referring to the North American Bakken shale formation. ”I would expect that as we lock in some of the low $50s, activity picks up a bit.” Higher prices for oil for prompt delivery compared to those for delivery in the future will guarantee OPEC countries higher income now, rather than further down the line, when they ramp production back up again. ”OPEC knows this dynamic. As such they have been quite clever by only pledging a cut lasting six months to begin with. This tightens up the front end of the market,” SEB commodities analyst Bjarne Schieldrop said. ”OPEC would prefer though not to lift forward prices further out on the curve. They don’t want to offer shale oil producers a free lunch with the possibility of a guaranteed, high profitability for new projects through a high forward price.” Giving U. S. oil producers an incentive to drill more aggressively is the last thing OPEC members want, particularly since the group’s decision in November 2014 to let prices fall was precisely to squeeze out shale rivals. Venezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino said on Wednesday OPEC is aiming for an oil price that is not ”too high or too low,” around $ a barrel, while his Nigerian counterpart Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said he would like to see a price of $60 by December 2017. (Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in London; Editing by Dale Hudson) WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday. One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.

Koch Industries takes aim at House Republican tax reform plan

Koch Industries, the private conglomerate owned by billionaire conservatives Charles and David Koch, warned on Wednesday that a Republican tax reform proposal meant to encourage U. S. exports could have devastating effects on the economy and consumers. The proposal, known as border adjustability, is part of a larger tax reform plan backed by Republicans in the House of Representatives, including Speaker Paul Ryan. It has attracted the attention of advisers to Donald Trump as a potential tool for creating manufacturing jobs for Americans. But the provision, which would tax imports while exempting U. S. exports from corporate income tax, has raised concerns in the retailing and energy sectors about its potential effects on prices for imported consumer items and foreign goods used in domestic production. Corporate lobbyists say that Trump’s threatened 35 percent import tax against U. S. companies that move jobs overseas could reflect an interest by the in a approach to tax reform. The Trump team and Republicans in Congress are currently trying to hammer out an agreement on tax reform for 2017. ”The proposed border tax adjustment will distort the market, increase consumer prices and create an uneven playing field for companies and consumers,” Philip Ellender, who oversees government and public affairs for the Wichita, multinational, said in a statement. ”The consequences to the economy and the American consumer could be devastating,” added Ellender, who said Koch otherwise supports tax reform. Koch is the second largest private U. S. company, with operations that range from refining and chemicals to ranching and forest products. Its owners are known to spend heavily on conservative initiatives and to oppose government intervention in business. Representative Kevin Brady, Republican chairman of the House tax committee that produced the reform plan, welcomed the Koch statement as feedback but described border adjustability as ”a key provision” that would level the playing field for ”Made in America” products. Brady has said the plan would unleash economic and job growth by cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, simplifying the tax code and encouraging investment. Border adjustability would help pay for tax cuts by generating $1. 2 trillion in revenues over a decade, according to the Tax Policy Center. The provision would also discourage U. S. companies from moving operations abroad as a result of another provision, which would eliminate U. S. taxes on the foreign profits of U. S. multinationals. (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Andrew Hay) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Italian PM Renzi resigns, president to consult with parties

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned on Wednesday after a bruising referendum loss at the weekend, with most parliamentary factions pushing for an early election in a few months’ time. The ’s decision to quit after less than three years in office dealt a new blow to Western governments still in shock from Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the election of outsider Donald Trump as U. S. president. Underscoring the financial risks that heavily indebted Italy faces, Moody’s changed its outlook on the country’s bond rating to negative from stable, saying prospects for economic reform had shrunk after Italians rejected Renzi’s proposals to revise the constitution and streamline parliament. Renzi tendered his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella, who said he would consult with political parties to decide the next steps. He asked Renzi to carry on in a caretaker capacity until a solution is found. After the consultations, which will begin on Thursday at 1700 GMT and end on Saturday afternoon, Mattarella is widely expected to ask a member of Renzi’s cabinet, or a politician from his Democratic Party, to try to form a new government. Elections are due in 2018 but many politicians are calling for them to be held earlier. The political crisis sparked by the referendum coincides with a crisis in Italy’s banks, especially at its lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena ( ) which looks likely to require government intervention to survive. Two sources told Reuters on Tuesday that Renzi’s administration was preparing to take a ($2. ) controlling stake in the bank by purchasing junior bonds. On Wednesday, a Treasury spokesman denied Italy was poised to ask for a loan from the European Stability Mechanism to support its banking sector. QUICK VOTE Renzi addressed his Democratic Party (PD) before meeting the president, saying the party would only participate in a government intended to last until 2018 if it was backed by all the main forces in parliament, a prospect which seems remote. Otherwise early elections should be held as soon as possible, he said, after the Constitutional Court has ruled early next year on the legitimacy of the current electoral law. ”The PD is not afraid of going to early elections,” he said. Most opposition parties, including the Movement and the Northern League, are clamoring for a quick vote. Northern League leader Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday his party would ”take to the streets” if a clear indication of the timing of the next election had not been given within a week. Infrastructure Minister Graziano Delrio, a close ally of Renzi, said an interim government should change the electoral law quickly so an election could be held ”in the Spring”. Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and a minority inside Renzi’s PD want a new administration to be formed with the backing of the current parliament, perhaps to last until 2018, to give them time to resolve internal party battles. Markets have reacted calmly to the political tensions, with the gap between Italian and German bond yields hitting 155 basis points on Wednesday, the tightest in about a month, having climbed as high as 193 points before Sunday’s vote. Although Moody’s maintained its rating at Baa2, just two notches above junk status, it said the outlook had dimmed, with the chances of meaningful economic and fiscal reform receding. ”(There is) the rising risk that the stabilization and reduction in Italy’s large debt burden will be further deferred,” the ratings agency warned. It said it might consider cutting the rating at a future date, citing as one possible trigger ”the need for a significant recapitalization of banks by the government”. There was no immediate comment from the Treasury. (Additional reporting by Isla Binnie, Crispian Balmer and Francesca Piscioneri; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and James Dalgleish) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

On 75th anniversary, U.S. veterans recall Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

It has been 75 years but U. S. Navy veteran James Leavelle can still recall watching with horror as Japanese warplanes rained bombs on his fellow sailors in the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor that plunged the United States into World War Two. Bullets bounced off the steel deck of his own ship, the Whitney, anchored just outside Honolulu harbor, but a worse fate befell those aboard the Arizona, Oklahoma, Utah and other U. S. ships that sank or capsized in the attack that killed 2, 400 people. ”The way the Japanese planes were coming in, when they dropped bombs, they’d drop them and then circle back,” said Leavelle, a Navy Storekeeper Second Class at the time of the attack. Leavelle, now 96, was among 30 Pearl Harbor survivors honored at a reception in Los Angeles before heading to Honolulu to mark Wednesday’s 75th anniversary of the attack. The bombing of Pearl Harbor took place at 7:55 a. m. Honolulu time on Dec. 7, 1941, famously dubbed ”a date which will live in infamy” by U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fewer than 200 survivors of the attacks there and on other military bases in Hawaii are alive. Wednesday’s commemoration at a pier overlooking the memorial to the sunken Arizona began with a moment of silence at precisely that time. The battleship Arizona sank with 1, 177 officers and crew on board and lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Wearing leis of fresh Hawaiian flowers around their necks, about 350 U. S. veterans of World War Two and their families received blessings and prayers for peace. A performance by the Navy’s Pacific Fleet Band was made bittersweet by the knowledge that every member of the USS Arizona band, one of the Navy’s best, died that day. Two families were to participate in a private ceremony in which the ashes of crew members who survived the attack and died later were to be interred in a turret of the Arizona. Across the United States on Wednesday, Americans remembered those who died at Pearl Harbor and the long, difficult war that followed. WAR BEGINS The shock of the Pearl Harbor attack is vividly illustrated in an exhibit at Massachusetts’ Museum of World War II, which features relics including a West Point cadet’s letter to his father, General Dwight Eisenhower, on preparing himself for war. [L1N1E01KC] On Dec. 8, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan. Three days later, Germany declared war on the United States. Will Lehner, 95, was among those who had a chance to fight back in the Pearl Harbor attack. The 2nd class naval fireman was in the boiler room of the USS Ward, which was patrolling the entrance to the harbor, when crew members spotted a Japanese submarine. ”That submarine was on the surface and our skipper didn’t know if it was ours or not,” Lehner, 20 at the time, said at the Los Angeles event. ”He said, ’Load your guns. ’” ”The first shot went right over the top, the next shot right after it hit that submarine and punched a hole in it.” After the war, a historical discrepancy nagged at Lehner. The Japanese submarine had not been recovered and many historians doubted that it existed. That changed in 2002 when the submarine was found. ”For 62 years,” Lehner said, ”nobody believed us.” For his part, Leavelle would be touched twice by the hand of history. After the war, he became a policeman in Texas. On Nov. 24, 1963, he was the Dallas officer handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy was shot to death by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. (Reporting by Dana Feldman in Los Angeles and Hugh Gentry in Honolulu; Writing and additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Peter Cooney, Toni Reinhold) WASHINGTON The issuance of U. S. visas, passports and other travel documents should be transferred to the Department of Homeland Security from the State Department, a consulting company commissioned by U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has recommended in a report. Gene Conley, the only man to win both a baseball World Series and an NBA championship in basketball, died on Tuesday at the age of 86, the Boston Red Sox said in a statement.

AT&T touts Time Warner merger at U.S. Senate hearing

AT&T Inc’s ( ) planned $85. 4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc ( ) will increase innovation and bring ” options” to consumers upset by high cable bills, AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told lawmakers on Wednesday. ”We want consumers to pay for their content once and watch it any where any time,” he said at a hearing of the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel. Senator Amy Klobuchar, the ranking Democrat on the panel, expressed concern that the deal would create incentives for AT&T to refuse to license Time Warner’s movies and television shows to competitors. She also said AT&T could favor its own shows over independent content. Time Warner owns HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network and the Warner Bros film studio. Senator Al Franken, also a Democrat, expressed the same concern and pressed Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes on whether the new, combined company would raise rates to others who would broadcast its content. ”It would not have the incentive nor would it have the ability,” Bewkes responded. AT&T’s Stephenson agreed: ”It would make no sense . .. to do that.” Senator Mike Lee, a Republican who chairs the antitrust panel, said the review by the U. S. Justice Department would be ”very .” ”Consumer welfare is maximized by protecting competition, not necessarily by protecting competitors,” Lee said. The Justice Department will determine whether the deal is legal under antitrust law. If the agency decides to stop a proposed transaction, it must convince a judge to agree. Stephen has said that the Federal Communications Commission would also review the deal if AT&T decides to assume any of Time Warner’s licenses. Franken said he wanted to see the FCC review the merger because of their tougher standard. Senator Richard Blumenthal said he had ”serious concerns about this transaction. I have yet to be convinced that the benefits outweigh the risks.” But he was also concerned that Donald Trump, whose administration will decide whether to approve the merger, had said during the campaign that it should be blocked. ”What troubles me is that the has said that his Justice Department will enforce a different standard of law depending” on whether he is angered by news coverage, said Blumenthal, calling the notion ”absolutely abhorrent”. Stephenson said he had not been in touch with Trump’s transition team on the issue and that he expected the Justice Department would review the merger fairly. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban told the Senate panel that the merger would create another competitor against large companies like Apple Inc ( ) Google ( ) Microsoft Corp ( ) Amazon. com Inc ( ) and Facebook Inc ( ). ”Delivering content to consumers in this world is not easy,” he said in written testimony. ”Alone, it will be very difficult, if not impossible for either AT&T or Time Warner to compete.” And more change would be coming, he said: ”There’s going to be people cutting the broadband cord.” HELSINKI Telecoms network equipment maker Nokia and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Technology have signed a patent licensing agreement, the companies said on Wednesday. SAO PAULO Financial technology firms in Brazil are targeting lending to and companies to fill a gap in the credit market left by large lenders deterred by rising delinquencies and narrow margins.

Trump vows to bring down drug prices, doesn’t say how

Donald Trump took aim at drugmakers on Wednesday by promising in a magazine interview that ”I’m going to bring down drug prices,” sending shares of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies lower. In a cover story for Time magazine, which named him its Person of the Year, Trump said: ”I don’t like what has happened with drug prices.” The Republican U. S. a wealthy real estate developer who ran a campaign with a populist appeal, did not state in the interview how he would reduce the cost of prescription drugs. Trump previously has suggested he was open to allowing importation of cheaper medicines from overseas. Trump previously had taken aim at other industries, suggesting an interventionist stance toward business during his presidency. Allergan Inc Chief Executive Brent Saunders last week cautioned drug companies against a false sense of security under Trump. [L1N1DW1Z9] ”If our industry can on pricing, we can all focus on investing in innovative medicines and cures and move the pricing discussion to the back burner,” Saunders said via on Wednesday. Trump’s Nov. 8 election victory was initially a boon for drug and biotech stocks, as investors relaxed knowing Democrat Hillary Clinton, who had been critical of rising drug prices, had not won the White House. The Nasdaq Biotech Index rose as much as 12 percent in the two days after the election. During the past few weeks, however, pharmaceutical stocks had given up the majority of those gains. The biotech index on Wednesday fell more than 3 percent to its lowest level since before the election. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical index of U. S. and European drugmakers was down 1 percent on Wednesday. Chris Raymond, biotech analyst for Raymond James, said investors were unsure of how seriously to take Trump’s latest comments. ”Nobody that I have talked to who is an institutional investor has said that they are selling based on this,” he said. Continually rising drug prices have placed a heavy burden on consumers, many of whom cannot afford their medicines or face increasing on prescription drugs. Trump has vowed to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare reform law, but that pledge does not address drug prices. PhRMA, the largest pharmaceutical industry trade group, in an statement said government mandates and interventions are not the solution for patients when it comes to medicine costs. ”If the drug companies think that they’re going to continue to have free rein to set and raise drug prices because of Trump, I think they’re deluding themselves,” said Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. ”Nobody who voted for him is in favor of high drug prices.” CARS, PLANES, THEN PHARMA The pharmaceutical industry is the latest targeted by Trump. On Tuesday he took aim at a leading aerospace company, urging the government to cancel an order with Boeing Co for a revamped version of the presidential plane due to its extremely high cost. He previously targeted the auto industry, vowing to block Ford Motor Co from opening a new plant in Mexico and threatening to impose tariffs on cars shipped back across the border. The heads of those companies have sought direct discussions with Trump. Jeff Jonas, a portfolio manager with Gabelli Funds, said Trump has brought the idea of drug pricing reform back to life, but added, ”I’m still skeptical that anything actually passes through Congress, but the overhang is clearly going to continue.” Len Yaffe, who manages StocDoc Partners healthcare fund, said that ”companies that succeed in bringing transformative medicines to the market will continue to command a premium price.” (Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf and Bill Berkrot; Additional reporting by Ransdell Pierson, Rodrigo Campos and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York; Editing by Caroline Humer and Will Dunham) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Exclusive: In mammoth task, BP sends almost three million barrels of U.S. oil to Asia

Oil major BP ( ) is shipping almost three million barrels of U. S. crude to customers across Asia, pioneering a lengthy and complex operation likely to become more popular after OPEC last week announced deep production cuts. BP’s efforts, involving one of the world’s longest sea routes, seven tankers and a series of transfers, underscore a desire among oil traders to develop new routes to sell swelling supplies of cheap U. S. shale oil to Asia, the world’s biggest consumer region. While exports of U. S. crude have been allowed since a ban was lifted a year ago, the distance, cost and complexity of shipping to Asia has so far kept the flow to a trickle. Now, using its global shipping and trading network, BP was able to grapple with U. S. port limitations and the need to transfer oil between ships off Malaysia to split cargoes for customers across Asia, according to trade sources and shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon. ”Keeping regional price differentials, different tanker rates, and the forward price curve in mind while considering the delivery needs and schedules of your counterparties is not something many oil trading firms can do,” said a shipping source in Singapore, who had knowledge of the operations. ”BP is one of perhaps half a dozen firms capable of doing so,” he added, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to publicly discuss operations. BP declined to comment. (For graphic on U. S. shale costs falling, click ) OPEC INCENTIVE While BP’s operations are currently the most sophisticated, others have also begun developing U. S. trade. China’s Unipec, the trading arm of Asia’s largest refiner Sinopec ( ) is shipping about 2 million barrels of WTI to China this month, while trading house Trafigura is also exporting some 2 million barrels of U. S. oil to Asia. Incentives to bring U. S. crude into Asia have risen after the Middle producer club of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia agreed to cut output, encouraging refiners across the region to seek alternatives to offset potential supply shortfalls. ”OPEC is putting U. S. shale oil to the test. .. (and) we will truly see what it can deliver,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodity analyst at SEB. He predicted 2017 would be a ”shale oil party” with a surge in U. S. exports after the OPEC production cuts. The operation to send the oil, worth around $150 million, to buyers lasted four months and involved BP traders in the United States and Singapore, while colleagues from London were responsible for ship chartering, the sources said and data showed. BP took advantage of arbitrage between cheaper U. S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) CLc1 crude and the global benchmark Brent LCOc1. The deal was aided by cheap tanker rates and a curve, where future oil deliveries are more expensive than those for immediate discharge, making sourcing oil from as far away as North America profitable. FROM GOLA TO MALAYSIA BP’s operations to Asia kicked off in when it chartered the large tanker Felicity to load crude from the smaller vessel Eagle Stavanger in the Galveston Offshore Lightering Area (GOLA) off Texas. Days later, also at GOLA, BP transferred oil from three tankers to the C. Excellency, a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC). The transfers were necessary as American ports cannot load oil on the biggest tankers. A VLCC can carry 2 million barrels of oil, enough to meet two days’ worth of Britain’s consumption, while a Suezmax and an Aframax can load 1 million barrels and 800, 000 barrels, respectively. Too big for the Panama Canal, the Felicity and C. Excellency sailed around South Africa to the Linggi International Transhipment Hub in Malaysia where their cargoes were split up again for delivery across . In late October, the Felicity transferred part of its oil to the smaller Aframax Taurus Sun, which then delivered 300, 000 barrels of WTI Midland crude to Thailand, according to shipping data. The C. Excellency received the rest of the Felicity’s cargo in Malaysia, then transferred oil to British Gannet in November. On Wednesday, shipping data shows that the British Gannet docked at BP’s Kwinana refinery in Perth, Australia to make its final delivery. The cargo will have traveled more than 16, 000 nautical miles (30, 000 km) from GOLA. Meanwhile, C. Excellency received some fuel from another the Gener8 Andriotis, and this week headed to Sriracha in Thailand to deliver 300, 000 barrels of WTI, shipping data showed. Sources involved with the shipment said some of that oil would likely proceed to Japan. While BP’s operation stands out size and complexity, more trades are likely. ”As Middle East producers and Russia are due to cut their output, large crude buyers (in Asia). .. will likely import an incremental amount from sources,” said Erik Nikolai Stavseth from Norway’s Arctic Securities. (Additional reporting by Liz Hampton and Marianna Parraga in HOUSTON, Catherine Ngai in NEW YORK, and Keith Wallis in SINGAPORE; Editing by Henning Gloystein and Lincoln Feast) WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers were increasingly split on the outlook for inflation and how it might affect the future pace of interest rate rises, according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting on June released on Wednesday. One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.

How Iran closed the Mosul ’horseshoe’ and changed Iraq war

In the early days of the assault on Islamic State in Mosul, Iran successfully pressed Iraq to change its battle plan and seal off the city, an intervention which has since shaped the tortuous course of the conflict, sources briefed on the plan say. The original campaign strategy called for Iraqi forces to close in around Mosul in a horseshoe formation, blocking three fronts but leaving open the fourth to the west of the city leading to Islamic State territory in neighboring Syria. That model, used to recapture several Iraqi cities from the militants in the last two years, would have left fighters and civilians a clear route of escape and could have made the Mosul battle quicker and simpler. But Tehran, anxious that retreating fighters would sweep back into Syria just as Iran’s ally President Bashar was gaining the upper hand in his country’s civil war, wanted Islamic State crushed and eliminated in Mosul. The sources say Iran lobbied for Popular Mobilization fighters to be sent to the western front to seal off the link between Mosul and Raqqa, the two main cities of Islamic State’s caliphate. That link is now broken. For the first time in Iraq’s drive to defeat Islamic State, several thousand militants have little choice but to fight to the death, and 1 million remaining Mosul citizens have no escape from the front lines creeping ever closer to the city center. ”If you corner your enemy and don’t leave an escape, he will fight till the end,” said a Kurdish official involved in planning the Mosul battle. ”In the west, the initial idea was to have a corridor . .. but the Hashid (Popular Mobilisation) insisted on closing this loophole to prevent them going to Syria,” he told Reuters. The battle for Mosul is the biggest in Iraq since the U. S. invasion of 2003. In all, around 100, 000 people are fighting on the government side, including Iraqi soldiers and police, ”peshmerga” troops of the autonomous Kurdish region and fighters in the Popular Mobilisation units. A U. S. international coalition is providing air and ground support. Iraqi army commanders have repeatedly said that the presence of civilians on the battlefield has complicated and slowed their operation, restricting air strikes and the use of heavy weapons in populated areas. They considered a change in strategy to allow civilians out, but rejected the idea because they feared that fleeing residents could be massacred by the militants, who have executed civilians to prevent them from escaping other battles. Authorities and aid groups would also struggle to deal with a mass exodus. KILL BOX Planning documents drawn up by humanitarian organizations before the campaign, seen by Reuters, show they prepared camps in areas of Syria for around 90, 000 refugees expected to head west out of Mosul. ”Iran didn’t agree and insisted that no safe corridor be allowed to Syria,” said a humanitarian worker. ”They wanted the whole region west of Mosul to be a kill box.” Hisham an Iraqi analyst on Islamist militants who was briefed on the battle plan in advance, also said it initially envisaged leaving one flank open. ”The first plan had the shape of a horseshoe, allowing for the population and the militants to retreat westward as the main thrust of the offensive came from the east,” he said. About a week before the launch of the campaign, Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a close ally of Iran, accused the United States of planning to allow Islamic State a way out to Syria. ”The Iraqi army and popular forces must defeat it in Mosul, otherwise, they will be obliged to move to eastern Syria in order to fight the terrorist group,” he said. Hezbollah is fighting in support of Assad in Syria. Hashid spokesman Karim denied that Tehran was behind the decision to deploy the Shi’ite fighters west of Mosul. ”Iran has no interest here. The majority of these statements are mere analysis they are simply not true,” he said. Nevertheless, securing territory west of Mosul by the militias has other benefits for Iran’s allies, by giving the Shi’ite fighters a launchpad into neighboring Syria to support Assad. If Islamic State is defeated in Syria and Iraq, Tehran’s allies would gain control of an arc of territory stretching from Iran itself across the Middle East to Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast. RUSSIAN PRESSURE Iran was not the only country pressing for the escape to be closed west of Mosul. Russia, another powerful Assad ally, also wanted to block any possible movement of militants into Syria, said Hashemi. The Russian defence ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. One of Assad’s biggest enemies, France, was also concerned that hundreds of fighters linked to attacks in Paris and Brussels might escape. The French have contributed ground and air support to the Mosul campaign. A week after the campaign was launched, French President Francois Hollande said any flow of people out of Mosul would include ”terrorists who will try to go further, to Raqqa in particular”. Still, the battle plan did not foresee closing the road to the west of Mosul until Prime Minister Haider agreed in late October to despatch the Popular Mobilisation militias. ”The government agreed to Iran’s request, thinking that it would take a long time for the Hashid to get to the road to Syria, and during that time the escape route would be open and the battle would still proceed as planned,” Hashemi said. The Hashid move to cut the western corridor was announced on Oct. 28, 11 days after the start of the wider Mosul campaign. Fighters made swift progress, sweeping up from a base south of Mosul to seal off the western route out of the city. Abadi ”was surprised to see them reaching the road in just a few days,” Hashemi said. ”The battle has taken a different shape since then no food, no fuel is reaching Mosul and Daesh (Islamic State) fighters are bent on fighting to the end.” IRAQ STRONGHOLD Once the Iraqi Shi’ite militia advance west of Mosul had begun, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr told his followers there could be no retreat from the city where he first proclaimed his caliphate in July, 2014. Those tempted to flee should ”know that the value of staying on your land with honor is a thousand times better than the price of retreating with shame,” Baghdadi said in an audio recording released five days after the Shi’ite militias announced they were moving to cut off the last route out. Since then his fighters have launched hundreds of suicide car bombs, mortar barrages and sniper attacks against the advancing forces, using a network of tunnels under residential areas and using civilians as human shields, Iraqi soldiers say. A senior U. S. officer in international coalition which is supporting the campaign said that waging war amidst civilians would always be tough, but the Baghdad government was best placed to decide on strategy. ”They’ve got 15 years of war (experience). .. I can’t think of anyone more calibrated to make that decision and as a result that why as a coalition we supported the government of Iraq’s decision,” Brigadier General Scott Efflandt, deputy commanding general in the coalition, told Reuters. ”The opening and closing of that corridor, hypothetically, realistically, did not fundamentally change the plans of the battle,” he added. ”It changes how we prosecute the fight, but that does not necessarily make it easier or harder.” But the Kurdish official was less sanguine, saying the battle for Mosul was now ”more difficult” and could descend into a long drawn out siege similar to those seen in Syria. It could ”turn Mosul into Aleppo,” he said. (Reporting by Patrick Markey and Maher Chmaytelli in Erbil and Dominic Evans in Baghdad; additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Tatiana Ustinova in Moscow; writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Peter Graff) UNITED NATIONS The United States cautioned on Wednesday it was ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program but said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers by test launching a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. WARSAW U. S. President Donald Trump meets eastern NATO allies in Warsaw on Thursday amid expectations he will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to counter threats from Russia after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense.

Turner will create shows for Snapchat in expanded partnership

TV networks of the Time Warner Inc unit, including TBS and Adult Swim, will create original series exclusively for the unit of Snap, Inc, the broadcaster said in a statement. The companies also renewed their March agreement for Snapchat to create Live Stories, collections of photos and videos centered around a specific event, with sports shows from Turner. The shows include the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAAA) Division I Men’s Basketball Championship and the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Championship. Turner will lead sales efforts for Live Stories and shows, while Snapchat will take the lead for sponsorships on the Discover channels. Financial terms were not disclosed. Turner formed the partnership with Snap in 2015, and forged links with other digital media companies, to court younger viewers who prefer mobile gadgets to television. Turner said its networks reach more than 75 percent of millennials each month, the same audience that Snapchat targets. The partnership began with the launch of Snapchat’s Discover feature which allows companies to offer and manage their own content. The original channels included Turner’s CNN and Bleacher Report, a San sports news website. Bleacher Report, which had been available worldwide except in the United States, France and Australia, will launch a U. S. Discover channel on Jan. 4. CNN will increase its content on Discover. Snap has partnered with multiple traditional U. S. media companies, including Viacom Inc and Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal, as it prepares to go public early next year. This year Turner has also invested in digital media companies Mashable and Refinery29, and launched a digital video startup within CNN called Great Big Story. (Reporting by Tim Baysinger; Editing by Richard Chang) BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are weighing another record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and have set up a panel of experts to give a second opinion on the case, two people familiar with the matter said. MEXICO CITY Billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil argued on Wednesday against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country’s telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights.

Payments start-up Circle moves away from bitcoin business

U. S. Circle Internet Financial Ltd, a social payments app backed by Goldman Sachs, said on Wednesday it will no longer allow customers to buy and sell bitcoin because it has failed to become a meaningful part of its business. ”Using bitcoin for speculative trading or people buying and selling bitcoin because they think it’s fun that’s not an interesting business for us,” Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s chief executive and said in a interview with Reuters. ”It’s a distraction to have to support these customers given that our growth has been on our social payments business.” Instead, customers will be directed to digital asset exchange Coinbase if they want to buy and sell the digital currency. Customers, however, can still continue to store bitcoin using the Circle app and can still convert bitcoin stored via the service to dollars, pounds or euros and continue sending money via social messaging, without fees. Allaire has also been disappointed with the lack of progress in bitcoin’s technology. ”A few years ago when we started the company, bitcoin is the only digital currency technology that mattered,” said Allaire ”We obviously envisioned it as a mainstream phenomenon and we had expected more progress in terms of technology development, but the development has slowed in the last three years.” Circle then decided to develop its own technology, Allaire said, as the company announced the launch of Spark, an open source project that provides a way for digital wallets to exchange value using blockchains, including bitcoin. Blockchain, the technology that has powered bitcoin, has exploded over the last two years due to its usefulness in recording and keeping track of assets across practically all industries. The initial focus for Spark is to connect digital wallets or accounts around the world while ensuring that full compliance requirements are met. Circle formed partnerships in two new markets South Korea’s Korbit and the Philippines’ Coins. ph, Allaire said. Using Spark, Circle customers in the U. S. UK and Europe will be able to send and receive value with those in Korea and the Philippines using distributed ledgers. Circle said international payments will be as easy as sending a text or email messages. Circle has raised about $140 million since inception more than three years ago. Allaire said the company is on pace to do more than $1 billion in payment transfers for 2016. Its growth over the last year in terms of user accounts, transactions, as well as, activity ”has been in the percent annualized growth range.” (Reporting by Gertrude ; Editing by Alan Crosby) BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are weighing another record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and have set up a panel of experts to give a second opinion on the case, two people familiar with the matter said. MEXICO CITY Billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil argued on Wednesday against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country’s telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights.

Trump to pick foe of Obama climate agenda to run EPA -source

Donald Trump will name Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, an ardent opponent of President Barack Obama’s measures to curb climate change, as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a Trump transition team official said on Wednesday, a choice that enraged green activists and cheered the oil industry. Trump’s choice of Pruitt fits neatly with the Republican ’s promise to cut back the EPA and free up drilling and coal mining, and signals the likely rollback of much of Obama’s environmental agenda. Since becoming the top prosecutor for the major and state in 2011, Pruitt, 48, has launched multiple lawsuits against regulations put forward by the agency he is now poised to lead, suing to block federal measures to reduce smog and curb toxic emissions from power plants. He is also a leading figure in a legal effort by several states to throw out the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of Obama’s climate change strategy that requires states to curb carbon output. In an interview with Reuters in September, Pruitt said he sees the Clean Power Plan as a form of federal ”coercion and commandeering” of energy policy and that his state should have ”sovereignty to make decisions for its own markets.” Pruitt has also said he is skeptical of climate change. In an opinion piece in an Oklahoma newspaper this year, he wrote that he believes the debate over global warming is ”far from settled” and that scientists continue to disagree on the issue. An overwhelming majority of scientists around the world say manmade emissions are warming the planet. The Obama administration finalized the Clean Power Plan in 2015 as a key part of meeting U. S. obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement, an accord among nearly 200 countries to curb global warming. Many scientists say warming is causing rising sea levels, drought, and an increase in ferocious storms. Trump vowed during his campaign to pull the United States out of the Paris deal, saying it would put American businesses at a competitive disadvantage. Since the election, however, Trump has said he will keep an ”open mind” about the climate deal, and also met with former Vice President Al Gore, a leading climate change activist. [L1N1E025U] Trump, a real estate magnate who takes office on Jan. 20, is in the midst of building his administration and is holding scores of interviews at his office in New York. ’FOX GUARDING THE HENHOUSE’ Environmental groups and former Obama officials bristled at the choice of Pruitt, and some lawmakers, including U. S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, said they would fight his nomination. ”Scott Pruitt running the EPA is like the fox guarding the henhouse,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, which supported Trump’s opponent in the election, Democrat Hillary Clinton. ”Time and again, he has fought to pad the profits of Big Polluters at the expense of public health,” Karpinski said. Heather Zichal, a former deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change under Obama, said Trump’s choice was alarming. ”You can meet with Al Gore on Monday, pledge to keep Teddy Roosevelt’s environmental legacy alive on Tuesday, but if you nominate the Clean Power Act’s leading opponent to head the EPA on Wednesday, you’re making an unequivocal statement about the direction of your leadership,” she said. Sanders, who campaigned for the Democratic nomination for president on a promise to combat climate change, said he will ”vigorously oppose” Pruitt’s nomination. The EPA position must be confirmed by a vote in the U. S. Senate. But representatives of the oil industry, and some Republican lawmakers, were cheered by the pick. Scott Segal, an energy industry lobbyist at Bracewell LLP called Pruitt ”a measured and articulate student of environmental law and policy” who helped ”keep EPA faithful to its statutory authority and respectful of the role of the states in our system of cooperative federalism.” U. S. Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, also a climate change skeptic, said ”Pruitt has fought back against unconstitutional and overzealous environmental regulations like Waters of the U. S. and the Clean Power Plan; he has proven that being a good steward of the environment does not mean burdening tax payers and businesses with red tape.” Trump aides praised Pruitt’s conservative record. ”Attorney General Pruitt has a strong conservative record as a state prosecutor and has demonstrated a familiarity with laws and regulations impacting a large energy resource state,” one of the aides said on a transition team briefing call on Wednesday. (Additional Reporting by David Shepardson; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Frances Kerry) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

Linde resumes merger talks with Praxair, CEO resigns

Germany’s Linde agreed to revive talks with U. S. rival Praxair to create a $65 billion industrial gases giant which will have its main operations run from Connecticut, two sources familiar with the deal said on Wednesday. The deal is being pursued as a ”merger of equals” thanks to a 50:50 valuation split, these people said. But a combined company will have its operating base in Danbury, Connecticut, where Praxair is headquartered and Praxair’s Chief Executive Steve Angel will head the merged company, these sources said on Wednesday, after Linde confirmed it would resume talks. In a largely symbolic gesture, Linde will be the name of the combined company, and Wolfgang Reitzle, Linde’s chairman would also be chairman of the combined firm, the sources said. A ”meaningful” representation would be retained in Germany, these people said, adding that the primary listing would be in New York and the secondary listing in Frankfurt. Talks broke down in September amid disagreements over where the combined firm would have its headquarters and research and development, as well as over who would occupy the main management roles, sources told Reuters at the time. On Wednesday Linde’s chief executive Wolfgang Buechele paved the way to a revived deal by stepping down with immediate effect. ”With the resumption of the talks, a successful merger is now drawing near,” Buechele said in a statement. Buechele will be replaced by Aldo Ernesto Belloni, a former executive board member who retired two years ago. ”With a succession plan in place, the necessary continuity is assured without interruption for the demanding tasks of the coming months,” Buechele added, without elaborating on why he was leaving some four months earlier than planned. The companies now aim to have drawn up an outline agreement before the Christmas holidays, sources close to the matter said. Belloni, who retired at the end of 2014 after 14 years on Linde’s management board, is a close ally of Chairman Wolfgang Reitzle, who needed to steady the ship after an exodus of key people in the wake of the collapse of initial merger talks with Praxair in September. Finance Chief Georg Denoke left immediately after the talks failed in September while Buechele said he would stay on only until April 2017, leaving Reitzle, Buechele’s predecessor as CEO, to plot the company’s future course. Linde and Praxair, alongside rivals Air Liquide and Air Products, are struggling with slower economic growth that has weakened demand from the manufacturing, metals and energy industries and put pressure on smaller players, leading to further consolidation in the sector. Air Liquide bought Airgas Inc, the leader in U. S. packaged gases, in a $13. 4 billion deal finalised in May. Praxair generates lower core earnings but with a higher sales margin than its German peer. Shares in Linde were up 2. 4 percent at 160 euros on Wednesday, valuing the company at around 29. 8 billion euros ($32 billion). Shares in Praxair were up 1. 7 percent at $121, giving it a market value of around $34. 6 billion. Linde decided to resume negotiations after Praxair offered to locate some central functions of the combined group in Germany, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. Under the proposed new terms, one of the combined entity’s executive board members would be based in Munich, where Linde is headquartered, and the main German sites would be preserved, the sources said. Linde said the supervisory board vote to resume talks was unanimous, meaning the board’s labor representatives must have been won over. Sources close to the matter have said that opposition from the workers’ representatives due to concerns for German jobs was a factor in the failure of talks in September. Still, the success of a deal hinges on a clear chain of command. On an earnings conference call on October 27, Praxair’s Angel said a deal could yield significant synergies ”by ensuring upfront that leadership is unambiguous, and the company is operated in a clear and consistent way.” Angel said Praxair’s “operational excellence” could complement Linde’s “technology in engineering. ” Linde had already said last week it was considering a revised proposal it had received from Praxair about a potential merger of equals, which was confirmed by Praxair. (Additional reporting by Jens Hack in Munich; Writing by Edward Taylor; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Adrian Croft) U. S. credit card processor Vantiv agreed to buy Britain’s Worldpay for 7. 7 billion pounds ($10 billion) on Wednesday in a move expected to trigger further deals. Jana Partners LLC stepped up its criticism on Wednesday of U. S. natural gas producer EQT Corp’s deal to buy Rice Energy Inc arguing that EQT could save as much as $4. 5 billion if it separated its pipeline assets instead.

Exclusive: Aon explores $5 billion benefits outsourcing unit sale - sources

The divestiture would undo much of Aon’s $4. 9 billion acquisition of human resources services provider Hewitt Associates Inc in 2010, signaling the company now wants to focus more on its insurance and risk management businesses. Aon is working with investment bank Morgan Stanley ( ) on a sale process for the unit, that has attracted interest from private equity firms, the people said on Wednesday. Negotiations about how the unit may be carved out are complex and could take several more weeks, the sources added, cautioning that there is no certainty that Aon will decide to sell the business, which has earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of close to $500 million. The sources asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. ”We are always exploring opportunities that enable us to accelerate innovation on behalf of our clients. Per company policy, we do not comment on rumors or speculation regarding our business,” Aon said in a statement. Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Aon shares jumped as much as 1. 5 percent on the news to $114. 90, giving the company a market capitalization of approximately $30 billion. Headquartered in London, Aon is a risk management, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and also provides human resources solutions and outsourcing services to companies in more than 120 countries. Aon’s benefits administration division facilitates the processing of claims for companies, including defined benefit, defined contribution, and health and welfare administrative services. Private equity firms have been prolific investors in businesses that help companies cut costs by outsourcing large parts of their administrative functions, attracted by the strong cash flows that such operations can generate. In September, Canadian pension fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec agreed to acquire a $500 million minority stake in Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc, a company specializing in workers’ compensation that is owned by buyout firms KKR & Co LP ( ) and Stone Point Capital LLC. In another example, private equity firm Blackstone Group LP ( ) and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC invested $750 million in 2014 to obtain minority stakes in Kronos Inc, a workforce management solutions company controlled by buyout firm Hellman & Friedman LLC. (Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr) Biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp will buy a stake in BeiGene Ltd and help develop and commercialize BeiGene’s investigational treatment for tumor cancers, the companies said on Wednesday. BRUSSELS French carmaker PSA Group secured unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday to acquire General Motors’ German unit Opel, a move which will help it better compete with market leader Volkswagen .

Trump gets one presidential intelligence briefing a week: sources

Donald Trump is receiving an average of one presidential intelligence briefing a week, according to U. S. officials familiar with the matter, far fewer than most of his recent predecessors. Although they are not required to, have in the past generally welcomed the opportunity to receive the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) the most highly classified and closely held document in the government, on a regular basis. It was not immediately clear why Trump has decided not to receive the intelligence briefings available to President Barack Obama more frequently, or whether that has made any difference in his presidential preparations. An official on the transition team said on Thursday that Trump has been receiving national security briefings, including ”routine” PDBs and other special briefings, but declined to specify their content or frequency, saying these matters were classified. Trump has asked for at least one briefing, and possibly more, from intelligence agencies on specific subjects, one of the officials said. The source declined to identify what subjects interested the but said that so far they have not included Russia or Iran. Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Trump’s vice has been receiving his own PDB at least six days a week, the sources familiar with the matter said. Former Central Intelligence Agency briefer David Priess, the author of a book about PDBs, said that traditionally, Trump and Pence’s predecessors sat for ”daily or intelligence briefings” between their elections and their inaugurations. He said Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did not start receiving their daily briefings until later in November, while the delayed election result in 2000 meant that George W. Bush did not start receiving his until December. The briefings are not compulsory. Priess said that after his first election, Richard Nixon spurned briefings, so paper PDBs were delivered to his office, only for a ”stack” of them to be later returned to the CIA, unopened. Trump’s casual attitude to the briefings attracted criticism from Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. ”It is deeply disturbing that the has time for rallies but not for regular intelligence briefings,” Schiff said. During the to the Nov. 8 presidential election, Trump and a handful of advisers received at least two briefings from intelligence officials about broad national security issues. However, the briefings did not include the kind of secrets that are included in the PDBs that Obama, Trump and Pence now have access to. Such secrets include information about U. S. espionage sources and covert operations overseas. PDBs are presented to presidents and their closest aides by representatives of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) though material in them is prepared by the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other parts of the U. S. intelligence community, the officials said. During and after the election campaign, Trump raised questions about the intelligence on hacking of U. S. political institutions. In a statement on Oct. 7, ODNI and the Department of Homeland Security expressed confidence that the Russian government had ”directed” hacking into ”emails from U. S. persons and institutions” that was ”intended to interfere with the U. S. election process.” Trump, however, has repeatedly dismissed suggestions that Russia was behind the efforts, telling Time magazine earlier this week: ”I don’t believe they interfered . .. It could be Russia. It could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.” (Corrects to say Iran, not France, in fifth paragraph) (Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Patricia Zengerle; editing by John Walcott and Bill Rigby and G Crosse) NEW YORK Six in 10 American voters support the new ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States unless they can show they have a close relative here, according to opinion poll results released on Wednesday. LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May will hold a bilateral meeting with U. S. President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg on Friday, a British government official said on Wednesday.

Trump picks opponent of higher minimum wage for Labor Department

Donald Trump named executive Andy Puzder to head the U. S. Department of Labor on Thursday, drawing criticism from labor advocates worried about his opposition to a higher minimum wage and government regulation of the workplace. Puzder, chief executive of CKE Restaurants Inc, which operates the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s chains, has frequently argued in the media that higher minimum wages would hurt workers by forcing restaurants to close. He has bashed a new Labor Department rule aimed at extending overtime pay to more than 4 million U. S. workers and has praised the benefits of automation in the industry. workers, who are largely not unionized, are engaged in a campaign known as the ”Fight for $15,” which is supported by labor unions, to raise minimum wages to $15 an hour. They have had successes in New York and California and in cities and municipalities such as Seattle. The federal minimum wage is $7. 25. Workers in states that have higher minimum wages are entitled to the higher rate, the Labor Department says. Trump, in a statement released by his transition team, praised Puzder for a ”record fighting for workers” and said he would ensure occupational safety standards. ”He will save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages,” Trump said. In the same statement, Puzder, 66, said he agreed with Trump that ”the right government policies can result in more jobs and better wages for the American worker.” The Labor Department regulates wages, safety and discrimination in the workplace. Republican Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in last month’s election by carrying swing states and some traditionally Democratic states in the U. S. Rust Belt after promising to create jobs and to review or cancel trade deals that he said were bad for workers. National labor leaders had urged their members to back Clinton, saying Trump’s appointments and policies would not align with his promises to workers. Labor leaders have been girding for Trump to appoint regulators at the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board, and to roll back key regulatory initiatives of the Obama administration such as the Labor Department rule granting overtime pay to more than 4 million salaried workers, both unionized and not unionized. ”He was talking a good game when he was running for president, as far as helping workers and leveling the playing field for them, but with the nominations he’s made it’s just the opposite,” said Lee Saunders, president of the public employees union AFSCME. are expected under Trump at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, which enforces federal laws. Trump will have an early opportunity to shape the EEOC when he replaces its general counsel, Obama appointee David Lopez, who is leaving the agency this month, and a vacancy on the commission. Trump will also be able to fill two current vacancies on the NLRB early in his term, likely tipping the agency to a more posture. Although just 11. 1 percent of U. S. workers were represented by a union in 2015 down from 20. 1 percent in 1983, the first year government statistics were kept labor unions are a powerful force in Democratic politics. But union members’ support for Clinton at the election was lower than it had been for President Barack Obama four years ago. About 51 percent of voters from union households backed Clinton, with 42 percent supporting Trump, a CNN exit poll showed. Democrat Obama won 58 percent of the same voters in his 2012 win against Republican Mitt Romney. Business groups welcomed the appointment of Puzder. Robert Cresanti, president of the International Franchise Association, an industry group, praised him as an ”exceptional choice” who would bring ”business experience and policy acumen on so many issues impacting employers and employees.” Democrats were critical. ”In Andrew Puzder, Trump found a labor secretary that would help him roll back the minimum wage, end the overtime rule that will raise wages for millions, weaken safeguards for workers, and to wipe out unions,” said American Bridge, a liberal advocacy group. DISPUTE WITH UNION LEADER Trump’s decision to pick Puzder comes as he engaged in a Twitter dispute with the head of a local United Steelworkers union in Indiana. United Steelworkers Local 1999 President Chuck Jones, who represents workers at United Technologies Corp’s Carrier plant in Indianapolis, criticized Trump for inflating the number of jobs that would be saved by his intervention in the company’s decision to move some production to Mexico. Trump responded on Twitter that Jones had done a ”terrible job representing workers.” Jones said after speaking to the company that 800 jobs would remain in Indianapolis, of which 730 will be union jobs and 70 management positions. Trump said last week that a deal by Indiana to give the company $7 million in tax breaks would keep 1, 100 jobs in the region. ”Our people, at that point in time, got their hopes back up that they might have a job,” Jones told CNBC on Thursday. ”All he had to do is come back and say I was misled by (United Technologies),” Jones said about Trump. ”Instead of doing that he goes on the attack on me?” (Additional reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley, David Shepardson and Emily Stephenson in Washington and Dan Wiessner in Albany, N. Y.; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney) NEW YORK Six in 10 American voters support the new ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States unless they can show they have a close relative here, according to opinion poll results released on Wednesday. LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May will hold a bilateral meeting with U. S. President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg on Friday, a British government official said on Wednesday.

John Glenn, first American to orbit Earth, dies at 95

Glenn, the last surviving member of the original seven American ”Right Stuff” Mercury astronauts, died at the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University in Columbus, said Hank Wilson, a spokesman at the university’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs, which Glenn helped found. Glenn was credited with reviving U. S. pride after the Soviet Union’s early domination of manned space exploration. His three laps around the world in the Friendship 7 capsule on Feb. 20, 1962, forged a powerful link between the former fighter pilot and the quest to explore outer space as a ”New Frontier.” President Barack Obama, who in 2012 awarded Glenn the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said: ”With John’s passing, our nation has lost an icon.” ”When John Glenn blasted off from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas rocket in 1962, he lifted the hopes of a nation,” Obama said in a statement. ”And when his Friendship 7 spacecraft splashed down a few hours later, the first American to orbit the Earth reminded us that with courage and a spirit of discovery there’s no limit to the heights we can reach together.” Donald Trump said on Twitter the United States had lost ”a great pioneer of air and space in John Glenn. He was a hero and inspired generations of future explorers.” As the third of seven astronauts in NASA’s Mercury program to venture into space, Glenn became more of a media fixture than the others and was known for his composure and willingness to promote the program. Glenn’s astronaut career, as well as his record as a fighter pilot in World War Two and the Korean War, helped propel him to the U. S. Senate in 1974, where he represented his home state of Ohio for 24 years as a moderate Democrat. His star was dimmed somewhat by a Senate investigation of several senators on whether special favors were done for a major campaign contributor. He was cleared of wrongdoing. Glenn’s entry into history came in early 1962 when fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter bade him ”Godspeed, John Glenn” just before the Ohio native was rocketed into space for a trip that would last just under five hours. ’VIEW IS TREMENDOUS’ ” (gravity) and I feel fine,” was Glenn’s succinct assessment of weightlessness several minutes into his mission. ”Oh, and that view is tremendous.” After splashdown and recovery in the Atlantic, Glenn was treated as a hero, addressing a joint session of Congress and feted in a New York parade. Glenn had been hospitalized since Nov. 25. He ”died peacefully,” according to a statement from his family and Ohio State University. ”He left this earth for the third time as a happy and fulfilled person,” the statement said. ”Glenn’s extraordinary courage, intellect, patriotism and humanity were the hallmarks of a life of greatness. His missions have helped make possible everything our space program has since achieved and the human missions to an asteroid and Mars that we are striving toward now,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. Glenn’s experiences as a pioneer astronaut were chronicled in the book and movie ”The Right Stuff,” along with the other Mercury pilots. The book’s author, Tom Wolfe, called Glenn ”the last true national hero America has ever had.” ”I don’t think of myself that way,” Glenn told the New York Times in 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight. ”I get up each day and have the same problems others have at my age. As far as trying to analyze all the attention I received, I will leave that to others.” Glenn’s historic flight made him a favorite of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, who encouraged him to launch a political career that finally took off after a period as a businessman made him a millionaire. HERO STATUS Even before his Mercury flight, Glenn qualified for hero status, earning six Distinguished Flying Crosses and flying more than 150 missions in World War Two and the Korean War. After Korea, Glenn became a test pilot, setting a transcontinental speed record from Los Angeles to New York in 1957. The determination and that marked Glenn’s military and space career did not save him from misjudgments and defeat in politics. He lost his first bid for the Senate from Ohio in 1970, after abandoning a race in 1964 because of a head injury suffered in a fall. He was elected in 1974 and was briefly considered as a running mate for Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in 1980. But a ponderous address at the Democratic National Convention people walked out caused Carter to remark that Glenn was ”the most boring man I ever met.” Glenn sought the Democratic presidential nomination himself in 1984 but was quickly eliminated by eventual nominee Walter Mondale, Carter’s vice president. His failure was all the more stinging because he had been touted as an early . In the Senate, Glenn was respected as a thoughtful moderate with expertise in defense and foreign policy. His luster was dulled, however, by a Senate investigation of the ”Keating Five” five senators suspected of doing favors for campaign contributor Charles Keating Jr. The panel eventually found Glenn did nothing improper or illegal. BACK TO SPACE He took a leading role in seeking to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, especially to Pakistan. He was the author of a law that forced the United States to impose sanctions on India and Pakistan in 1998 after both countries conducted nuclear tests. He also was a staunch advocate of a strong military and took a keen interest in strategic issues. He retired from the Senate in 1999. years after his maiden space voyage, Glenn became America’s first geriatric astronaut on Oct. 29, 1998. He was 77 when he blasted off as a mission specialist aboard the shuttle Discovery. He saw it as a blow to the stereotyping of the elderly. ”Maybe prior to this flight, we were looked at as old geezers who ought to get out of the way,” Glenn said after his shuttle mission. ”Just because you’re up in years some doesn’t mean you don’t have hopes and dreams and aspirations just as much as younger people do.” John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio. In his latter years, he was an adjunct professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. He had a knee replacement operation in 2011 and heart surgery in 2014. Glenn is survived by his wife of 73 years, his childhood sweetheart, Annie Castor. They had two children, David and Lyn. (Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Additional reporting by Irene Klotz in Cape Canaveral, Fla. and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney) LONDON Move over dolls, the sex robots are here. MOUNT ETNA, Italy A robot wheels across a rocky, windswept landscape that looks like the surface of some distant planet from a science fiction film. But it is not in outer space, it’s on the slopes of Europe’s most active volcano.

Polar vortex redux? U.S. forecasters say it could hit next week

Forecasters are sending chills down some spines with a prediction that much of the northern half of the United States could see frigid weather next week similar to lows the polar vortex brought to parts of the country in 2014. Anticipation of a freezing blast began to build this week when weather maps and forecast models showed similarities between next week’s system and one that developed in January 2014. ” atmosphere configuration very similar in scale & magnitude as infamous Jan 2014 #PolarVortex popularized by me and @afreedma,” meteorologist Ryan Maue said on Twitter on Tuesday alongside maps comparing the two weather systems. The southward shift in the polar vortex in 2014 brought the Midwest some of its coldest weather in two decades. Icy conditions snarled travel and thousands of flights were canceled or delayed. Frigid temperatures combined with gusting winds to create wind chills as low as 60 degrees Fahrenheit below zero (minus 51 Celsius) that killed at least nine people. The coldest weather next week is expected in the Midwest and Northeastern starting around Tuesday, according to forecasts that show temperatures in the single digits in some cities. ”The air mass on the way for the middle of December is likely to be substantially colder when compared to that of this past week and this weekend,” AccuWeather meteorologist Paul Pastelok wrote on Thursday. Temperatures from the Northern and Central plains to wide swathes of the Midwest are likely to drop by between 5 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit compared to temperatures this week, according to AccuWeather. It is unclear how far south the cold air will be felt, according to Pastelok. Chicago, the largest city in the Midwest, is bracing for temperatures in the teens next week, according to an AccuWeather forecast, which showed a low of 17 Fahrenheit (minus 8 Celsius) for Wednesday and Thursday. Further north in Minnesota, . Paul NBC affiliate KARE forecasted temperatures dropping to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 Celsius) on Tuesday of next week, then 8 degrees (minus 13 Celsius) on Wednesday. (Reporting by Timothy McLaughlin in Chicago; Editing by James Dalgleish) TOKYO One man was dug out of a landslide without any signs of life and two women were injured as record rains battered southwestern Japan for a second day on Thursday, with flooded rivers forcing 400, 000 from their homes, officials and media said. SYDNEY The United Nations cultural body UNESCO has voted to leave the Great Barrier Reef off its ”in danger” list despite recent widespread destruction of the World Heritage Site.

Wells Fargo picks four directors for sales scandal probe: source

Rounding out the special committee’s leadership, the person said, are Enrique Hernandez, chair of the board of directors’ risk committee, and Donald James, a director who sits on the board’s finance and risk committees. The source asked not to be identified as the full of the committee has not been made public. All the directors of the special committee are independent in that they do not work for the company in an operational sense. Law firm Shearman & Sterling and the board’s human resources committee will also work on the investigation, according to an announcement by Wells Fargo’s board on Sept. 27. The human resources committee has five directors, including Sanger and James. A spokesman for Wells Fargo declined to comment and Sard Verbinnen, which represents the board, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Wells Fargo saw its shares battered in September and October following a $190 million settlement with two regulators and the City Attorney of Los Angeles over the creation of as many as 2 million accounts set up without customers’ authorization. The bank fired 5, 300 branch employees over the matter, which also led to the resignation of former Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf. A host of investigations and lawsuits are still pending. Sanger, a former CEO of General Mills Inc ( ) has served on Wells Fargo’s board since 2003, while Duke, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, has been a director since 2015. Both the chair and vice chair positions recently received pay increases. The chairman now receives $250, 000 annually and the vice chair receives $100, 000. The chair used to be paid $60, 000 plus separate fees for chairing committees. According to a Sept. 8 regulatory settlement, problematic sales practices at Wells Fargo go back to at least 2011. (Reporting by Dan Freed in New York; Editing by Tom Brown) LONDON New Saba Capital Management, famed for its winning bet against the JPMorgan Chase trader known as the ’London Whale’ is closing its office in London’s Mayfair district, two sources close to the situation told Reuters. ROME Italian prosecutors have decided to take Morgan Stanley to court over allegations that the U. S. bank caused 2. 7 billion euros ($3. 1 billion) in losses to the state in relation to derivative transactions, a source familiar with the matter said.

U.S. Congress passes $618.7 billion annual defense bill

The U. S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a compromise version of an annual defense policy bill on Thursday without controversial provisions such as requiring women to register for the draft or allowing contractors to make hiring decisions. senators backed the $618. 7 billion National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, and seven opposed it. Because it passed the House of Representatives by a similarly large margin last week, the bill now goes to the White House for President Barack Obama to veto or sign into law. A White House spokesman told a briefing he did not yet have a position on the bill to report. The 2016 bill, the last of Obama’s presidency, includes some initiatives with which he has disagreed in the past. It includes a $3. 2 billion increase in military spending, when there has been no similar increase in funding. The bill also bars closures of military bases, although top Pentagon officials say they have too much capacity, and it blocks planned reductions in troop numbers. And it continues policies that bar transfers of prisoners to U. S. soil from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Obama had hoped to close. While his administration has shipped most inmates from the controversial prison, the Democrat is not expected to accomplish his goal of shuttering it before he leaves office Jan. 20. Obama’s successor, Republican Donald Trump, wants to keep Guantanamo open, and expand it. The NDAA passed both chambers in the Congress with margins large enough to overcome a veto, and the compromise legislation features many provisions such as a military pay raise and an expansion of a landmark human rights bill, that are extremely popular in Congress. [L1N1E316A] After months of negotiation, the Senate and House Armed Services committees unveiled a compromise version of the NDAA last month that left out the Russell Amendment, a ”religious freedom” measure Democrats said would have let federal contractors discriminate against workers on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, overturning Obama’s executive order. Some House Republicans said they hoped to revisit that provision after Trump takes office, when they do not have to worry about a veto threat from a Democratic White House. The bill also excluded a provision that would have required women to register for the military draft, now that Pentagon leaders are moving to allow them into combat. A provision recommending that the U. S. conducts yearly military exchanges with Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a breakaway province, made it into the final bill. China’s defense ministry said in a statement on its official microblog on Friday that it was ”firmly opposed” to the move, which would ”inevitably damage U. S. interests”. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner, and Christian Shepherd and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Richard Chang and Clarence Fernandez) MEXICO CITY A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. NEW YORK The U. S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.