Thursday 23 May 2019

Thursday Morning Briefing: Prime Minister Modi promises inclusive India after stunning election win

Indian elections

Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to unite the country after a huge election win, with his party on course to increase its majority on a mandate of pursuing business-friendly policies and a hard line on national security. Follow Reuters India election live blog.

Over 900 million people were eligible to cast their ballots in India's staggered seven-phase polling. Reuters takes a look at the world’s biggest election: from how India mobilized a million polling stations to the cash and goods worth hundreds of millions of dollars seized across India since the parliamentary election schedule was announced.

Top News

The U.S. military said it sent two Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait, its latest transit through the sensitive waterway, angering China at a time of tense relations between the world’s two biggest economies. Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a bitter trade war, U.S. sanctions and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.

U.S. Navy ships conducted joint drills with warships from allies Japan, Australia and South Korea in their first combined exercise in the Western Pacific, the U.S. Navy said. The Pacific Vanguard exercise near the U.S. island of Guam takes place ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to Japan this weekend, as Washington looks to allies in Asia to help counter China’s military might in the region.

Prime Minister Theresa May was clinging on to power after her final Brexit gambit backfired, overshadowing a European election that has shown a United Kingdom still riven by division over its EU divorce. She is now under pressure to name her departure date, which could deepen the Brexit crisis as a new leader is likely to want a more decisive split with the European Union, raising the chances of a confrontation with the bloc and an election which could usher in a socialist government.

Calm returned to the streets of the Indonesian capital after a second night of clashes between security forces and protesters angry about the outcome of last month’s election, which handed President Joko Widodo a second term. Downtown areas of Jakarta became a battlefield overnight, with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets and protesters throwing rocks and firecrackers.

John Walker Lindh, the American captured in 2001 fighting for the Taliban, is to be released early from federal prison as some U.S. lawmakers fear he remains a security risk. Lindh, photographed as a wild-eyed, bearded 20-year-old at his Afghanistan capture, will leave a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana on probation after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, according to a prison official.

Huawei

Mobile phone retailers in some Asian countries are refusing to accept Huawei devices for trade-ins, as more consumers look to offload their device on worries Google suspending business with the Chinese firm will disrupt services. Google has said it will comply with an order by President Trump to stop supplying Huawei, meaning current owners of Huawei phones face being cut off from updates of the Android operating system from late August. New phones will lose access to popular apps such as YouTube and Chrome. Here are companies that have suspended business with the Chinese firm.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation to provide about $700 million in grants to help U.S. telecommunications providers with the cost of removing Huawei equipment from their networks. The bill also moves to block the use of equipment or services from Chinese telecoms firms Huawei and ZTE in next-generation 5G networks, according to a statement by the senators.

Beijing said Washington needs to correct its “wrong actions” for trade talks to continue after the U.S. blacklisted Huawei, a blow that has rippled through global supply chains and battered tech shares as investors feared a looming technology cold war.

Business

Nissan is not considering the possibility of a merger with top shareholder Renault at the moment, and none of the nominees to the Japanese automaker’s board are pressing to make it an issue now, an external director said. As Nissan ponders its future without former chairman Carlos Ghosn, who orchestrated its financial rescue two decades ago, French partner Renault SA has been quietly maneuvering for merger talks, sources at both automakers have previously told Reuters.

Deutsche Bank’s chief executive is prepared to make “tough cutbacks” in its investment banking business, whose future is in doubt after several failed restructurings, in order to be profitable and competitive. Shares in Deutsche Bank hit a record low on Thursday as Christian Sewing kicked off its annual meeting, where he faces shareholder discontent over its strategy and leadership, with some calling for a scaling back of its sprawling global investment banking business.

World shares made it four days in the red in the last five as concerns grew that the China-U.S. trade conflict was fast turning into a technology cold war between the world’s two largest economies.

United States

Judge rules against Trump, paves way for banks to provide his business records to Congress

President Trump, three of his children and the Trump Organization lost their bid to block Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial from providing financial records to Democratic lawmakers investigating Trump’s businesses.

7 min read

U.S. prosecutors weigh death penalty for accused Pittsburgh synagogue shooter

The case of Robert Bowers, the man accused of massacring 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue last year, was set to return to a federal courtroom on Thursday, as prosecutors weigh whether to pursue the death penalty against him.

2 Min Read

Florida to execute man convicted of abducting and killing eight women in 1984

A 65-year-old man known as one of Florida’s most notorious serial killers who was convicted of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing eight women in 1984 is scheduled to be executed. Robert Long is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. at the Florida State Prison in Raiford.

3 min read

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