Bhinneka News Online: Monday Morning Briefing: Trump to offer first detailed impeachment defense as pivotal week begins

Monday, 20 January 2020

Monday Morning Briefing: Trump to offer first detailed impeachment defense as pivotal week begins

U.S.

After refusing to cooperate with the Democratic Party-led impeachment probe in the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump will offer his first comprehensive defense, before his trial begins in earnest in the Senate. Trump, only the fourth of 45 American presidents to face the possibility of being ousted by impeachment, has to meet a noon deadline to submit his written defense.

A large caravan of Central Americans was preparing to cross the Guatemalan border into Mexico, posing a potential challenge to the Mexican government’s pledge to help the United States contain mass movements of migrants. Trump has threatened to punish Mexico and Central American countries economically if they fail to curb migrant flows, resulting in a series of agreements aimed at taking pressure off the United States in absorbing the numbers.

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Australia boosted emergency funding for small businesses hit by bushfires that have ravaged the country for months, as the mounting costs of the disaster cast doubt on the government’s ability to deliver a promised budget surplus. Hard-hit businesses in the country’s blaze-ravaged Kangaroo Valley are calling for tourists to return now that the wildfires are under control, and fear firms and jobs will be lost unless the all-clear message is heard. Drought-ravaged parts of rural Australia have also been hit by dust storms that threaten to drift over more heavily populated cities including Sydney, bringing a new element to the extreme weather.

Britain’s Prince Harry has spoken of his sadness at being forced to give up his royal duties in a deal with Queen Elizabeth and senior Windsors, saying there was no other option if he and his wife Meghan were to seek an independent future. Here is a look at the new life of Prince Harry and Meghan after splitting from the royal family.

Iran said that it had not closed the “door to negotiations” in efforts to resolve a dispute over its nuclear agreement with world powers that has escalated steadily since the United States withdrew from the deal in 2018. Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said any further move by Tehran to scale back its commitments to the deal would depend on actions by other parties, after European states triggered a mechanism that could lead to the reimposition of U.N. sanctions.

Lea Evron, 85, has only fragments of memories of the fur factory and the three-story apartment building her family owned before World War Two in Zywiec, a small town in southern Poland. What she does remember clearly is returning after the war, when most of her family had been killed in the Holocaust.

Davos

Move over revenue growth and dividend payouts: it’s time to take your portfolio’s temperature. A vanguard of insurers and pension funds, many of whom will be in Davos this week for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, say part of the answer is a new “temperature score” that gives a snapshot of how their investments are contributing to climate change.

A majority of people around the world believe capitalism in its current form is doing more harm than good, a survey found ahead of this week’s Davos meeting of business and political leaders. This year was the first time the “Edelman Trust Barometer”, which for two decades has polled tens of thousands of people on their trust in core institutions, sought to understand how capitalism itself was viewed.

The world’s richest 2,153 people controlled more money than the poorest 4.6 billion combined in 2019, while unpaid or underpaid work by women and girls adds three times more to the global economy each year than the technology industry, Oxfam said. The Nairobi-headquartered charity said in a report released ahead of the annual World Economic Forum of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, that women around the world work 12.5 billion hours combined each day without pay or recognition.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will not attend the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos this week because its organizers had “abruptly changed its agenda”, its foreign ministry spokesman said. Reuters last week reported that Zarif was no longer on the list of nearly 3,000 people due at the event, which is being held under the banner “Stakeholders for a Sustainable and Cohesive World”.

Business

Feel good factor keeps world stocks near record highs, oil jumps

World stocks held near record highs as generally better data and earnings bolstered sentiment, while oil prices hit their highest in over a week after two large crude production bases in Libya began shutting down following a blockade.

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China repeats call on Canada to release Huawei CFO Meng

China repeated its call for Canada to release detained Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou as soon as possible, ahead of the executive’s first extradition hearing later in the day.

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Samsung appoints new mobile chief as Huawei chips away at market share

Samsung named its youngest president as its new smartphone chief as the firm seeks to defend its lead in the handset market from rising challenges from rivals such as Huawei.

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