Bhinneka News Online: Wednesday Morning Briefing: Mueller says Flynn 'substantially' aided probe of possible links between Russia and Trump campaign

Wednesday 5 December 2018

Wednesday Morning Briefing: Mueller says Flynn 'substantially' aided probe of possible links between Russia and Trump campaign

Politics

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office said President Donald Trump’s ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn provided “substantial” cooperation with its probe into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign team and Moscow.

Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger had a potent defense against attacks by President Trump and other Republicans casting her party as weak on national security: her career as a covert CIA counter-terrorism officer.

Bill Gardner, the New Hampshire official who has zealously guarded his state’s position kicking off U.S. presidential races for four decades, could end his long run in office if lawmakers pick a new secretary of state.

europe

U.S. investment bank J.P. Morgan said the chances of Britain calling off its divorce from the European Union had increased after a string of humiliating parliamentary defeats for Prime Minister Theresa May cast new doubt over her plan to quit the bloc and sent sterling higher.

President Trump has taken another swipe on Twitter at the French president prompted by Macron’s woes over violent protests against fuel taxes. “I am glad that my friend @EmmanuelMacron and the protestors in Paris have agreed with the conclusion I reached two years ago,” Trump tweeted late on Tuesday.

Denmark and Britain are the top countries when it comes to implementing measures to fight climate change, although Britain has lagged in phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, a report published by academics said.

World

Istanbul’s chief prosecutor has filed warrants for the arrest of a top aide to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and the deputy head of its foreign intelligence on suspicion of planning the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, two Turkish officials said.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has filed a defamation suit against a financial adviser and blogger who shared an article on his Facebook page, Lee’s spokeswoman said. The legal action comes weeks after the Singapore government demanded Facebook remove a separate post by an Australia-based blogger about Singapore’s banks and 1MDB, which it said was false and malicious.

New Caledonia and Vanuatu ordered coastal evacuations after a powerful undersea earthquake triggered tsunami warnings in the South Pacific, but appeared to have suffered little damage.

Commentary: Mexico's newly-inaugurated populist president Andrés Manuel López Obrador is determined to reconstitute the awesome power of the presidency, not to crack down on the disaffected left, but to champion it, writes Andrés Martinez, a professor of practice at the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

Reuters Top News

@Reuters

.@Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been imprisoned in Myanmar for 359 days. Follow updates on the case: reut.rs/2RC8mgU

8:03 AM - 5 Dec 2018

Markets & Trade

World stocks sideswiped by Wall Street, U.S. yield curve double whammy

Global stocks tumbled to one-week lows, as declines by long-dated U.S. bond yields and a renewal of trade concerns stoked fears of a downturn in the United States, the world’s largest economy.

5 min read

Exclusive: China's Unipec to buy U.S. oil after Xi-Trump tariff truce

Chinese oil trader Unipec plans to resume U.S. crude shipments to China by March after the Xi-Trump deal at the G20 meeting reduced the risk of tariffs being imposed on these imports, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.

3 min read

China confident it can clinch U.S. trade pact, Trump demands 'real deal'

China expressed confidence that it can reach a trade deal with the United States, despite fresh warnings from President Trump that he would revert to more tariffs if the two sides cannot resolve their differences.

6 Min Read