Bhinneka News Online: Wednesday Morning Briefing: Kushner’s push from the president’s briefing

Wednesday 28 February 2018

Wednesday Morning Briefing: Kushner’s push from the president’s briefing

Highlights

It’s a tumultuous time for the White House youth contingent.
Jared Kushner’s security clearance has been downgraded, barring him from access to the president’s daily intelligence briefing, and close Trump aide Hope Hicks refused to answer questions from the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee about her time with the administration.

World stocks were set to snap a record 15-month long winning streak today, tumbling another quarter percent after new Fed boss Jerome Powell’s comments suggested the possibility of four U.S. interest rate rises this year rather than three.

Reanna Frauens, a lifelong gun enthusiast and a proud member of the Markham Skeet, Trap & Sporting Clays Club, is about the same age as many of the 17 victims killed by a shooter with an assault rifle at a Florida high school about a dozen miles away. But unlike many of the survivors of the massacre, the 16-year-old sees a nascent, student-led campaign for tighter gun controls as a threat to her rights under the U.S. Constitution.

world

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his late father Kim Jong Il used fraudulently obtained Brazilian passports to apply for visas to visit Western countries in the 1990s, five senior Western European security sources told Reuters.

Syrian government forces and allied militias gained ground today in clashes with rebels in eastern Ghouta near Damascus as fighting raged despite a Russian ceasefire plan, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Emails from its own scientists show the International Agency for Research on Cancer failed to comprehensively review evidence on human exposure to the cancer-causing chemical benzene. The agency has not remedied matters, despite its findings being used in U.S. court cases and relied upon around the world.

Commentary: Removing China's presidential term limits have set up Xi Jinping to continue ruling for the rest of his life, writes Peter Marino. "But more importantly ... Xi has fractured what remains of global models and understanding of the incentives and functioning of Chinese politics, transformed China into something more unambiguously dictatorial, and opened up a new and potentially dangerous fissure in Chinese elite politics."

Dan Williams

@DanWilliams

An economy in ruins leaves Gazans with hard choices https://reut.rs/2FdjBJQ via @NidalAl

12:21 PM - FEB 28, 2018

Business

A question of interest at the heart of debate over GM Korea rescue

For years, General Motors resisted calls from South Korean officials to cut interest rates it was charging on nearly $3 billion in loans to its loss-making South Korean unit, according to three sources and documents seen by Reuters.

5 min read

Exclusive: Bayer to win EU approval for $62.5 billion Monsanto deal - sources

EU antitrust regulators are set to approve with conditions German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer’s $62.5 billion bid for world No. 1 seed company Monsanto, two people familiar with the matter said today.

2 Min Read

Amazon buys startup Ring in $1 billion deal to run your home security

Amazon has agreed to buy video doorbell maker Ring, the companies said yesterday, in what analysts see as a growing bet on delivering packages inside of shoppers’ homes and on home security.

3 min read

Formula 1 puts viewers in control with streaming TV product

Formula 1 is launching a new TV streaming product that it says will put fans in control of their race viewing experience, letting them watch from their favorite driver’s perspective or tracking battles for position. Read more tech news and coverage from the Mobile World Congress here.

2 min read