Bhinneka News Online: Wednesday Morning Briefing: U.S. quits U.N. human rights body

Wednesday 20 June 2018

Wednesday Morning Briefing: U.S. quits U.N. human rights body

United Nations

The United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform, a move activists warned would make advancing human rights globally even more difficult.

China expressed regret on Wednesday over a U.S. decision to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council, with state media saying the image of the United States as a defender of rights was “on the verge of collapse”.

UNITED STATES

Trump told Republican lawmakers he would back either of the immigration bills making their way through the House of Representatives, as the outcry grew over his administration’s separation of immigrant parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a political opponent of Trump, said that the state would sue the Trump administration for separating children of immigrants from their parents when apprehended illegally crossing the U.S. border.

Commentary: The Trump administration is taking a dangerous approach to trade by blocking appointments of new judges to the appeals court of the World Trade Organization, writes policy analyst and former WTO lawyer Simon Lester. “The Trump administration has now taken confrontation to the extreme… Holding the system hostage without proposing specific reforms is unproductive.”

World

Exclusive: Pope Francis has criticized the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant families at the Mexican border, saying populism is not the answer to the world’s immigration problems. Speaking to Reuters, the Pope said he supported recent statements by U.S. Catholic bishops who called the separation of children from their parents “contrary to our Catholic values” and “immoral”. Pope Francis also voiced optimism for improved ties between the Vatican and China.

Fears of a humanitarian crisis in Yemen’s main port city Hodeidah grew as battles spilled into residential districts after Arab coalition forces seized the airport from the Iran-aligned Houthis.

Two @Reuters journalists have been detained in Myanmar for 191 days. Follow the latest updates on the case: https://reut.rs/2M8NpHp

Sponsored by Barclays: Job security in the robot economy As machine learning and AI become more commercially viable, will humans be replaced in the workplace? We don’t think so. Find out why.

Mark Trevelyan

@MarkJTrev

A Urals brewery made a slight miscalculation with the amount of special #WorldCup 2018 beer prepared for the Egypt-Uruguay match. But all is not lost - Mexico are yet to arrive in town https://reut.rs/2yxGOUG

7:17 AM - JUN 20, 2018

Business

EU to impose duties on U.S. imports Friday after Trump tariffs

The European Union will begin charging import duties of 25 percent on a range of U.S. products on Friday, in response to U.S tariffs imposed on EU steel and aluminum early this month, the European Commission said.

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Exclusive: Lapses at many levels of bank led to India's huge PNB fraud, internal report shows

A $2 billion fraud at India’s Punjab National Bank (PNB) may have been orchestrated by a few rogue employees, but it escaped detection because of widespread risk-control and monitoring lapses in many areas of the bank, the bank’s own internal probe has found.

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South Korea's Bithumb loses $32 million in digital money heist, bitcoin falls

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb said 35 billion won ($31.5 million) worth of virtual coins were stolen by hackers, the second local exchange targeted in just over a week as cyber thieves exposed the high risks of trading the digital asset.

3 min read