Wednesday 28 June 2017

Wednesday Morning Briefing

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Washington

 

U.S. Senate Republican leaders postponed a vote on a healthcare overhaul on Tuesday after resistance from members of their own party, and President Donald Trump summoned Republican senators to the White House to urge them to break the impasse.

 

Commentary: The biggest victims of the Senate health bill (and other Trump plans)

 

President Trump is growing increasingly frustrated with China over its inaction on North Korea and bilateral trade issues and is now considering possible trade actions against Beijing, three senior administration officials told Reuters. The officials said Trump was looking at options including tariffs on steel imports, which Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross already has said he is considering as part of a national security study of the U.S. steel industry.

 


World

 

A Venezuelan police helicopter fired 15 shots at a government ministry, where scores of people were at a social event, and dropped four grenades on the Supreme Court, where judges were meeting, escalating the OPEC nation's political crisis in what President Nicolas Maduro called an attack by "terrorists" seeking a coup.

 

In a stage-managed gesture of benevolence a year ahead of a presidential election, Russia's Vladimir Putin flew 750 miles to call in on a woman living in squalor and ordered her to be rehoused immediately. Putin's carefully-choreographed trip to the woman's Urals home, with state media on hand to cover, is part of a pre-election Kremlin drive to project the image of a caring leader as poverty rises nationwide and the economy slows.

 

The decapitated bodies of five civilians have been found in a Philippine city occupied by Islamist rebels, the military said on Wednesday, warning the number of residents killed by rebel "atrocities" could rise sharply as troops retake more ground.

 

Qatar's 2022 World Cup organizers have welcomed a long-awaited FIFA report on the race to host the tournament, saying the conclusions represented "a vindication of the integrity" of Doha's bid. The report, which also investigated the bidding process for the 2018 World Cup, made no suggestion that either Russia or Qatar should lose the right to stage the tournament, despite detailing numerous attempts to influence voting officials.

 

A major global cyber attack disrupted computers at Russia's biggest oil company, Ukrainian banks and multinational firms with a virus similar to the ransomware that infected more than 300,000 computers last month. The rapidly spreading cyber extortion campaign, which began on Tuesday, underscored growing concerns that businesses have failed to secure their networks from increasingly aggressive hackers, who have shown they are capable of shutting down critical infrastructure and crippling corporate and government networks.

 

India's largest container port hit by global cyber attack

 

Factbox - Companies hit by global ransomware attack on June 27

 

Indonesian authorities have imposed a travel ban on tycoon and politician Hary Tanoesoedibjo, who is building resorts to be managed by Trump hotels, over an investigation into allegations he threatened a prosecutor via text message.

 


China launches new class of naval destroyer 

China's new type of domestically-built destroyer, a 10,000-tonne warship, is seen during its launching ceremony at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, China June 28, 2017. REUTERS/China Stringer Network

 


China National Petroleum Corp has suspended sales of fuel to North Korea over concerns the state-owned oil company won't get paid, as pressure mounts on Pyongyang to rein in its nuclear and missile programmes, three sources told Reuters. A prolonged cut would threaten critical supplies of fuel and force North Korea to find alternatives to its main supplier of diesel and gasoline, as scrutiny of China's close commercial ties with its increasingly isolated neighbor intensifies.  

 

Japanese and European Union negotiators meeting in Tokyo aim to reach a free trade deal that would stand against a protectionist tide threatening the global economy, and make the United States think twice over pursuing inward-looking policies.

 

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was putting on hold plans to introduce legislation that would have demanded a second independence referendum. Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party wants to break Scotland's 300-year-old union with England, had been seeking a referendum in late 2018 or early 2019, ahead of Britain's EU exit which is due in March 2019.

 

The Iraqi military estimates up to 350 Islamic State militants are besieged in the remaining parts of Mosul's Old City, dug in among civilians in crumbling houses and making extensive use of booby traps, suicide bombers and sniper fire to slow the troops advancing from west, north and south.

 


Business

 

Six weeks ago, David Webb, an activist investor and former director of the Hong Kong exchange, issued a report titled "The Engima Network: 50 stocks not to own.” On Tuesday, most of the shares he named abruptly plunged. Webb's report mapped out a complex web of cross-shareholdings between companies listed on both the main board and its sibling, the Growth Enterprise Market, which he said created a breeding ground for volatility.

 

The trustee recouping money for Bernard Madoff's victims on Tuesday announced nearly $371 million of new settlements with two groups of offshore funds that invested with the imprisoned Ponzi schemer, boosting the total recovery to about $12 billion.

 

Jury selection in the New York trial of former drug company executive Martin Shkreli will enter its third day Wednesday, after some potential jurors said they could not be fair to a man who gained notoriety by raising the price of a life-saving drug more than 5,000 percent. U.S. prosecutors have accused Shkreli, dubbed the "pharma bro," of running a Ponzi-like scheme at his former hedge fund and a drug company he once ran. Shkreli has pleaded not guilty to charges of securities and wire fraud.

 

U.S. pipeline operators are selling their underused space at steep discounts to keep crude flowing - angering shippers and distorting an already opaque market for oil trading.