Amarillo

N. Korea test-fires missiles again after joint drills end

North Korea fired two suspected short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Saturday in the seventh weapons launch in a month, South Korea's military said, a day after it vowed to remain America's biggest threat in protest of U.S.-led sanctions on the country. President Donald Trump downplayed the latest launch. "Kim Jong Un has been, you know, pretty straight with me.

UN envoy challenges Malaysia's claim to near zero poverty

A U.N. special rapporteur challenged Malaysia's claim to have nearly ended poverty, saying an estimated one in six people in the Southeast Asian country are still considered poor. Malaysia's official poverty rate fell from 49% in 1970 to just 0.4% in 2016. Philip Alston, the U.N. rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said Friday the rate was "extremely artificial," doesn't reflect the cost of living and excluded vulnerable populations.

North Korea launches short-range missiles again, complicating US attempts for talks

North Korea fired what appears to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Saturday, the South Korean military said, the latest in a series of launches in recent weeks. A US official said the two missiles North Korea had fired appeared to be similar to launches in recent weeks. Saturday's launch, the seventh by North Korea since US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met at the inter-Korean border in June, have complicated attempts to restart talks between US and North Korean negotiators over the future of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. The two leaders agreed to restart working-level negotiations in June, but since then the United States has so far been unsuccessful in attempts to get talks going. US envoy on North Korea Stephen Biegun was in Seoul this week to discuss ways to get negotiations back on track. "We are prepared to engage as soon as we hear from our counterparts in North Korea," Mr Biegun said on Wednesday. But in recent weeks, North Korea has repeatedly criticised US and South Korean largely computer-simulated joint military drills, South Korea's import of high-tech weapons such as F-35 stealth jets, and US testing of its intermediate-range cruise missile as threatening and hindrances to dialogue. North Korean missile ranges On Friday, North Korea's top diplomat called US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a "diehard toxin," saying: "We are ready for both dialogue and standoff." South Korea's National Security Council (NSC) expressed "strong concern" over North Korea's continued launches despite the fact that the South Korea-US joint military exercises denounced by North Korea had ended. It called for North Korea to stop escalating military tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The NSC agreed to make diplomatic efforts to bring North Korea to the negotiating table with the United States as soon as possible for the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, South Korea's presidential office said in a statement. A senior US administration official said: "We are aware of reports of a missile launch from North Korea, and continue to monitor the situation. We are consulting closely with our Japanese and South Korean allies." Japanese Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya said that North Korea's missile launches were a clear violation of UN resolutions and cannot be ignored. He confirmed that missiles fell outside Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone, and posed no immediate threat to Japan's security. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JSC) said North Korea fired what appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles on Saturday at around 6:45 a.m. and 7:02 a.m. KST respectively from around Sondok, South Hamgyong Province. Sondok is the site of a North Korean military airfield. They flew about 236 miles and reached a height of 60 miles, JSC said. Japan's Coast Guard warned shipping not to approach any fallen debris. South Korea officially informed Japan on Friday of its decision to scrap an intelligence-sharing agreement, which Japanese Minister of Defence Takeshi Iwaya said was regrettable and showed that Seoul failed to appreciate the growing security threat posed by North Korea.

Imperial Japan Wanted Battleships with Insane 20-Inch Guns. Here's Why It Never Set Sail

Had the war not come, Japan would have bankrupted itself spending on these massive ships. Japan lacked the industrial capacity to compete with the United States; indeed, even if it had managed to seize and keep wide swaths of East Asia, it could not have matched U.S. industrial production for decades. The United States would have responded to Japanese construction with even larger, more deadly ships, and of course eventually with submarines, aircraft and guided missiles.In January 1936 Japan announced its intention to withdraw from the London Naval Treaty, accusing both the United States and the United Kingdom of negotiating in bad faith. The Japanese sought formal equality in naval construction limits, something that the Western powers would not give. In the wake of this withdrawal, Japanese battleship architects threw themselves into the design of new vessels. The first class to emerge were the 18.1-inch-gun-carrying Yamatos, the largest battleships ever constructed. However, the Yamatos were by no means the end of Japanese ambitions. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) planned to build another, larger class of super battleships, and had vague plans for even larger ships to succeed that class. War interceded, but had Japan carried out its plans it might have deployed monster battleships nearly as large as supercarriers into the Pacific.(This first appeared in 2016.)“Super” YamatosThe A-150 class would have superseded the Yamatos, building on experience with that class to produce a more formidable, flexible fighting unit. Along with the Yamatos, these ships were expected to provide the IJN with an unbeatable battle line to protect its Pacific possessions, along with newly acquired territories in Southeast Asia and China.Recommended: Could the Battleship Make a Comeback? ​The A-150s would theoretically have carried six 510-millimeter (twenty-inch) guns in three twin turrets, although if problems had developed in the construction of that gun they could have carried the same main armament as the Yamatos. The 510-millimeter guns would have wreaked havoc on any existing (or planned) American or British battleships, but would also have caused substantial blast issues for the more delicate parts of the ship. The A-150s would have carried heavier armor than their smaller cousins, more than sufficient to protect from the heaviest weapons in the American or British arsenals. The secondary armament would have included a substantial number of 3.9-inch dual-purpose guns, a relatively small caliber suggesting that the A-150s may have relied on support vessels to protect them from enemy cruisers and destroyers.Recommended: America's Battleships Went to War Against North Korea Design compromises limited the effectiveness of the Yamatos by reducing their speed and range; they could not keep up with the fastest IJN carriers, and burned too much fuel for economic employment in campaigns such as Guadalcanal. The A-150s would likely have been somewhat faster (thirty knots) than the Yamatos, with a longer range more suitable for missions deep into the Pacific.Recommended: How the U.S. Navy Wanted to Merge Aircraft Carriers and BattleshipsThe construction of the Yamatos challenged the capacity of the Japanese steel and shipbuilding industries, and the A-150s would have strained them even more. For example, producing the armor plate necessary to protect a battleship against twenty-inch guns was simply beyond Japan’s industrial capacity, and would have required serious compromises. Moreover, the IJN would have struggled to surround the A150s with support units. While the USN committed to building an enormous number of heavy cruisers, light cruisers and aircraft carriers in addition to the battleship fleet, Japan completed only a small handful of these ships during the war.Little is known about the successors to the A-150 class, which would have been larger, faster and more heavily armed. Potentially displacing a hundred thousand tons, and carrying eight twenty-inch guns in four twin turrets, even the contemplation of such ships would have required a serious revision of economic realities in East Asia. In any case, the changes in naval technology that rendered the battleship obsolete likely would have become obvious before any of these monsters had entered service.Strategic and Economic FollyJapan ordered two A-150 battleships in the 1942 construction program. The first would have succeeded HIJMS Shinano on the dock; the second, the never named fourth sister of the Yamato class. However, wartime demands for smaller ships (and eventually for aircraft carriers) meant that neither ship was ever laid down.But the war only exposed underlying economic realities; it did not forge them. Japan barely had the industrial capacity to build the initial Yamatos, along with all of the support ships that the battlefleet would require. This is the dirty little secret of the entire Washington Naval Treaty system; the United Kingdom could outpace Japanese construction by a wide margin, and the United States could outpace both combined, if it decided to do so. The treaty system prevented an arms race that Japan could not possibly have won, whether in 1921 or in 1937. Japan’s GDP at the beginning of World War II was a bit over half that of Britain’s, and less than a quarter that of the United States.Japan’s naval success at the beginning of the Pacific War happened because of the treaties, not despite them. The IJN played a poor hand very well, but in any kind of extended naval competition against the United States, the UK, or a combination of the two, it could not win. Upon discovering the existence of these ships, the United States would have begun to construct even larger battleships, as well as other means of sinking large battleships. Indeed, in 1952 the United States laid down USS Forrestal, the first of a class of four aircraft carriers substantially larger than the A-150 class battleships.ConclusionHad the war not come, Japan would have bankrupted itself spending on these massive ships. Japan lacked the industrial capacity to compete with the United States; indeed, even if it had managed to seize and keep wide swaths of East Asia, it could not have matched U.S. industrial production for decades. The United States would have responded to Japanese construction with even larger, more deadly ships, and of course eventually with submarines, aircraft and guided missiles.Warships are (imperfect) reflections of existing economic realities. Timing, technology and grand strategy matter, but in raw competition involving mature technologies, superior economic strength will eventually prevail. The Japanese economy would eventually become competitive with that of the UK, and even the United States, but this would only happen in context of an open trading system with access to the European and American markets. No battleship could carry guns large enough to bring that outcome about.Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat.Image: Wikimedia Commons.(This article originally appeared in 2018.)

Macron spearheads pressure on Bolsonaro over Amazon fires

France's Emmanuel Macron led a growing wave of international pressure on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro over the fires raging in the Amazon rainforest Friday, telling him Paris would block efforts to seal a major trade deal. The issue will be high on the agenda when global leaders meet for the G7 summit Saturday in the French resort of Biarritz, where they are also set to tackle global trade wars and the Iran nuclear standoff. Just days before hosting the summit, Macron called for urgent talks on the "international crisis" in the world's largest rainforest, saying leaders would hammer out "concrete measures" to tackle it.

How an Old Iranian F-5 Could Kill An F-35 Stealth Fighter In Battle

Amid escalating tensions between Iran and the United States, in part resulting from U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision unilaterally to withdraw the United States from the 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. armed forces have deployed a wide array of ships, planes and other weapons to the Middle East.The American arsenal in the region includes F-35 stealth fighters. If tensions turn into warfare, the factory-fresh F-35s could face an Iranian air force operating some of the oldest active fighters in the world.The Iranians with their four-decade-old F-4s, F-5s and F-14s might not seem to have a chance against the Americans flying arguably the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft. But history, and recent testing show how Iranian pilots flying old planes could defeat Americans flying brand-new ones.For one, the F-35, while new, isn’t necessarily a stellar aerial performer. In 2015 someone associated with the F-35 test effort leaked an official report explaining the stealth fighter’s limitations in air-to-air maneuvers with an F-16.“The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” an unnamed F-35 test pilot wrote in a scathing five-page brief. “Insufficient pitch rate,” he added. “Energy deficit to the bandit would increase over time.”The complaints continued. “The flying qualities in the blended region (20 to 26 degrees [angle of attack]) were not intuitive or favorable,” the pilot wrote, adding that there’s no point for an F-35 pilot to get into a sustained, close turning battle with an enemy pilot. “There were not compelling reasons to fight in this region.”The pilot’s revelations underscore what many observers long have suspected about the F-35. While its radar-evading qualities and high-end sensors might allow it to gain a favorable position for long-range missile shots, in a close fight the F-35 hardly excels.If an Iranian pilot can survive a merge with an F-35 and engage the stealth fighter in a turning dogfight, the Iranian might just bag himself a stealth fighter. It’s worth noting that the Iranian air force flies scores of fighters that excel precisely in that regime.American-made F-5 Tigers, for instance. Former U.S. Navy pilot Francesco Chierici who flew F-5s in the adversary role, sang the plane’s praise in a 2019 article for The War Zone. “The Tiger was clean, just an AIM-9 and a telemetry pod on the wingtips, and occasionally a centerline fuel tank,” Chierici wrote. “She slipped through the ‘number’ (Mach 1) easily. … The F-5 was a pair of engines and wings. It was so simple …”> Aerodynamically, the F-5 will always be what we call a category-three fighter, where the F-35 and F-22 are now category-five fighters. Compared to modern jets, it is underpowered, slow and bleeds airspeed badly in a sustained turn, not to mention it has no stealth other than its tiny size.> > But with just a few modifications, the F-5 is being turned into a threat plane with a legitimate sting. The newest upgrades include an [electronically-scanned] radar, good [radar-warning] gear, chaff and flares, a jamming pod and a helmet-mounted cueing system for a high off-boresight IR (infrared-guided) missiles. > > A Tiger so outfitted can provide Super Hornets and F-35s a legitimate threat, especially in the training environment.Iran indeed has been upgrading its F-5 fleet, although the modifications likely will not include the latest sensors and helmet sights.Still, all things being equal the F-5 despite its age might still possesses the agility to gain the advantage over an F-35. Again, provided the F-5 pilot survives the merge to a close-in fight.That’s a big assumption. F-35 pilots understand the limitations of their aircraft and certainly would do their best to avoid a dogfight. The Iranians might have to ambush the Americans in order to force the fight to close range. It’s unclear how the Iranians might do so, given the Americans’ huge advantage in sensors and situational awareness.David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad.

UN threatens sanctions over C.Africa peace pact violations

The United Nations special envoy for the Central African Republic on Friday threatened sanctions for violations of a peace agreement signed by the government and rebel groups to end a war that has ravaged the country since 2013. The CAR is experiencing relative calm since the accord was signed in February between the government and 14 military groups -- the eighth deal since the conflict erupted -- but clashes are still regular in the landlocked country.

Here are the reasons for Trump's economic war with China

On Friday the US president ‘hereby ordered’ companies to halt business with China, among other attacks – how did we get here? Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Osaka, Japan, on 29 June. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/ReutersEven by Donald Trump’s standards his Twitter rant attacking China on Friday was extraordinary. In a series of outbursts Trump “hereby ordered” US companies to stop doing business with China, accused the country of killing 100,000 Americans a year with imported fentanyl and stealing hundred of billions in intellectual property.The attack marked a new low in Sino-US relations and looks certain to escalate a trade war already worrying investors, manufacturers and economists who are concerned that the dispute between the two economic superpowers could trigger a recession.Not so long ago Trump called China’s president, Xi Jinping, “a good friend”. Now he is an “enemy”. How did we get here? China, China, ChinaOn the campaign trail Trump railed against China accusing it of pulling off “one of the greatest thefts in the history of the world” and “raping” the US economy.Trump repeated the word China so often it spawned a viral video of him saying it over and over again. The attacks were a hit with voters and helped get him elected. He has continued lambasting China – to cheers – at rallies ever since.His main beef? The trade deficit. Trade deficitThe US imported a record $539.5bn in goods from China in 2018 and sold the Chinese $120.3bn in return. The difference between those two numbers – $419.2bn – is the trade deficit.That deficit has been growing for years as manufacturing has shifted to low-cost China and, according to Trump, it explains the hollowing out of US manufacturing.For Trump, and especially for his adviser Peter Navarro, who once described China as “the planet’s most efficient assassin”, trade deficits represent an existential threat to US jobs and national security. China makes up the largest part of the US trade deficit but those fears are also behind his disputes with the EU, Canada and Mexico.His detractors argue these deficit worries are hyperbole and a result of the US’s stronger economy, which allows consumers to buy goods at cheaper prices.The truth is probably somewhere in between.While it’s true that unemployment is at record lows and consumers continue to prop up the economy, manufacturing jobs have been lost (automation is also to blame for this) and with them wage growth (although the hollowing out of unions plays a part here).But it is not just deficits that concerns Trump. ThievesChina has a deserved reputation for intellectual property theft. On Friday, Trump estimated China robs the US of “hundreds of billions” a year in ideas.In March, a CNBC poll found one in five US corporations had intellectual property stolen from them within the last year by China.According to the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, the theft costs $600bn a year. Beijing bucksLike Tesla, Nio, a Chinese electric vehicle (EV) company, is suffering as subsidies for EVs are phased out. Unlike Tesla, Nio has Xi. China is pumping $1.5bn into the company to keep it on the road, the latest in a series of handouts that the Trump administration believes are unfair.Cheap steel and aluminium, subsidized by the Chinese government, are the origins of this trade dispute. According to the White House, last year alone China dumped and unfairly subsidized goods including steel wheels, tool chests and cabinets and rubber bands on to the US market.To be fair the US too is more than willing to bail out its industries (see: the banks or the automakers) at the taxpayers’ expense. But at this point “fair” is not up for discussion. Currency manipulatorEarlier this month the US officially accused China of manipulating its currency “to gain unfair competitive advantage in international trade”.It was the first time since 1994 that such a complaint has been made official and comes as the dollar has strengthened against world currencies. The dispute adds another layer of tension to a complex situation.China disputed the charge accusing the US of “deliberately destroying international order” with “unilateralism and protectionism”.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) appears to be on China’s side, arguing the devaluation of the yuan is largely in line with worsening economic conditions in China. What happens next?The US has now slapped billions of dollars on tariffs on Chinese goods. China retaliated, again, on Friday with more levies on US goods. China’s economic growth has slowed to levels unseen since 1992; US economic forecasts have also been cut.American farmers were the first to feel the result, as China has canceled orders, and manufacturers are increasingly gloomy. So far US consumers have not felt the pinch but JP Morgan estimates the average US household will end up paying $1,000 a year for goods if the latest set of tariffs go through.The unanswerable question is whether any of this will sway Trump. If his supporters continue to see a trade war with China – and the pain it will cause – as the necessary price to Make America Great Again, then the answer is probably no.

Putin orders Russia to respond after US missile test

President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military on Friday to work out a quid pro quo response after the test of a new U.S. missile banned under a now-defunct arms treaty. In Sunday's test, a modified ground-launched version of a U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missile accurately struck its target more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away. The test came after Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

N. Korea says it will remain 'threat' to US, slams Pompeo

North Korea on Friday launched a scathing attack on US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, calling him a "diehard toxin" and saying it was "sceptical" whether it can negotiate with him. Pyongyang also vowed to remain the United States's "biggest 'threat'" and said annual US-South Korea joint military drills had "complicated" nuclear talks between the two countries. "We are ready for both dialogue and stand-off," North Korea's foreign minister Ri Yong Ho said in a statement.

Japan Built a Killer Kamikaze Jet Weapon: A World War II Winner?

While plans called for producing almost 500 Kikkas by the end of 1945, those plans were dashed by Japan's surrender on August 15. Just one aircraft had been completed by war's end.​It is a fallacy that Germany was the only nation to develop combat jets in World War II. In truth, while Germany had the most advanced technology, all of the major powers had jet aircraft projects during World War II, including the United States, Britain, Russia, Italy and Japan.(This first appeared several months ago.)The most well-known Japanese jet—and the only one that saw combat—was the Okha, a rocket-propelled and human-piloted kamikaze. But another Japanese jet actually flew before the war ended, and would have seen combat had it continued: the Nakajima Kikka.Japanese scientists had actually studied jet engines as far back as the 1930s, despite little government support, and even a turbojet prototype by 1943. Tokyo also knew of German research due to Japanese observers who witnessed early tests of the legendary German Me-262 jet fighter in 1942, But it wasn't until the summer of 1944, when U.S. B-29 bombers began to pound Japan, that the Japanese Navy asked for the Kokoku Heiki No. 2, or Kikka ("orange blossom").Recommended: America’s Battleships Went to War Against North KoreaRecommended: 5 Places World War III Could Start in 2018Recommended: How North Korea Could Start a WarThat the Kikka resembled an Me-262 is no coincidence—nor was it a matter of simple imitation. Japan's jet program was heavily derived from German research, but the aid was hardly straightforward. In July 1944, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering ordered that Japan be provided with blueprints for the Me-262, the Junkers Jumo 004 and BMW 003 turbojet engines, and even an actual Me-262 aircraft.Yet the Japanese submarine carrying the plans from Germany to Japan was sunk by U.S. forces, though not before a Japanese envoy got off at Singapore with just a single cutaway drawing of the BMW 003 (arguably just as important as the blueprints for the Me-262, given that early jets were only as good as their unreliable engines). That was enough for Japanese engineers to build the Ne-20 turbojet, an engine that was superior to the homegrown Ne-12 that was originally supposed to power the Kikka.There were two striking aspects to the Kikka. The most obvious is that it looks like a smaller version of the Me-262, though the similarities were mostly skin-deep. Unlike the German jet, the Kikka had straight instead of swept-back wings, which hampered its performance. The other striking aspect was that it was originally designed as a kamikaze. "In keeping with the shimpu [kamikaze] mission of the aircraft, the initial design had no landing gear and was to be launched from catapult ramps, boosted with RATO [rocket-assisted take off] units," writes aviation historian Edwin Dyer. "The calculated range was a mere 204km (127 miles) due to the designated engine, the Ne 12, which burned fuel at a rapid rate. At sea level the estimated speed was 639km/h (397mph). A single bomb fixed to the aircraft was the only armament. Another feature was the inclusion of folding wings to allow the aircraft to be hidden in caves and tunnels and protected from bombing attacks."By March 1945, the Kikka's mission changed to a tactical bomber, and an interceptor armed with 30mm cannon. Its engine changed from the Ne-12 turbojet to the Ne-20 (though shortages of key metals reduced the Ne-20's efficiency). But design was one thing: building jets in 1945 while Japanese aircraft and engine factories were being pounded by U.S. bombers was another. Nonetheless, on August 7, 1945—the day after Hiroshima became the first atomic victim—test pilot Lt. Cdr. Susumu Takaoka made the first (nonkamikaze) flight of a Japanese jet. However, a second flight on August 11, two days after Nagasaki, resulted in a crash landing that damaged the Kikka prototype beyond repair.Not that it mattered. While plans called for producing almost 500 Kikkas by the end of 1945, those plans were dashed by Japan's surrender on August 15. Just one aircraft had been completed by war's end.How did the Kikka compare to the Me-262s that worried the Allied air forces in 1944–45? The Me-262A1A had a top speed of 540 miles per hour, which left in the dust American pilots flying P-51D Mustangs (maximum speed 437 miles per hour). Plans for the interceptor version of the Kikka called for a maximum speed of 443 miles per hour. In other words, its maximum speed was about the same as a Mustang, and the early jets of World War II were neither known for maneuverability or engine reliability.The most intriguing question, of course, is whether Japanese jets could have changed the outcome of the Pacific War had they been fielded in time. The best answer is to look at what happened to Germany, which actually produced 1,400 Me-262s, some of which saw combat between November 1944 and May 1945. Though quite disturbing to the Allies, the jets didn't save the Third Reich. There were too many Allied aircraft, the Anglo-American air forces mounted standing patrols over airfields to catch the Me-262 during their vulnerable take-off and landing runs, and Nazi Germany was being overrun Allied tanks.With an even worse fuel and raw-materials situation than Germany, Japan probably would have fared no better. The Kikka would have been overwhelmed by the massive U.S. land-based and carrier-based formations that roamed over Japan in the last days of the war. If it had been fielded earlier, perhaps it could have made some difference over battlefields such as the 1944 U.S. invasion of the Philippines. Yet even there, the Kikka's short range would have rendered it unsuitable for the long-distance flying that characterized the Pacific War. The Kikka might have been relegated to a defensive role over the home islands, intercepting daytime B-29 raids—except the Americans eventually switched the B-29s from day raids to night, when the radar-less Kikka could not fly.Like its big brother the Me-262, the Kikka was too little, too late.Suggested Reading: Japanese Secret Projects 1: Experimental Aircraft of the IJA & IJN 1939-1945, by Edwin Dyer.Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.Image: Wikipedia.(This article first appeared earlier this year and is being republished due to reader interest.)

After Beating and Hernia, American Prisoner Paul Whelan Refused Hospitalization by FSB Doctors

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEVMOSCOW–Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen held in Russia on suspicion of spying, looked pale and sick when his prison guards brought him to Lefortovo court on Friday. He said he had been beaten and is suffering from a hernia, but his condition is hardly a surprise after eight months in Moscow’s Lefortovo, a prison run but the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB, and it looks like Whelan has learned only too well how incarceration there operates.Whelan is facing 20 years in Russian prison for spying, after accepting a flashcard that allegedly contains some sensitive information. His family is far away, he does not speak the Russian language, and on top of everything the 49-year-old security manager for a Michigan-based auto parts company is suffering from a painful inguinal hernia, with part of his intestine having ruptured the abdominal wall.Paul Whelan, Accused U.S. Spy Held in Moscow, Says a Russian Investigator Threatened His LifeWhen the judge suggested calling an ambulance in the middle of the hearing on Friday morning, Whelan rejected the idea, as a useless waste of time: “The nurses won’t take me to a hospital, they will only check my blood pressure, temperature, and say, ‘You are fine,’” he told the court.By now Whelan must have learned the rules and brutal methods in Russian prisons. “No ordinary ambulance can take a prisoner who is under FSB investigation to the hospital,” Alexander Cherkasov, chair of the Memorial Human Rights Center told The Daily Beast. “There is a specialized hospital 20 where they normally take sick prisoners, after a certain bureaucratic procedure.”Also, no Russian nurse working for an ambulance carries strong painkillers. (Russian doctors are not allowed to prescribe strong drugs even for people dying in agonizing pain, so Russians suffer from pain all over the country, many committing suicide.)Whelan looked and sounded doomed. He said that his health condition worsened after his prison guard beat him. The incident happened earlier this month, when Whelan was being moved from one cell to another. Whelan’s lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, told The Daily Beast, “I have checked: prison guards did not know that my client had a hernia, they made him carry all his stuff himself to a different cell. The treatment in Lefortovo is inhuman.”  On Friday, Whelan told the judge, “If you call for a doctor who would hospitalize me, I don’t mind calling for the ambulance.” But just as he predicted, the nurses on call checked him right at Lefortovo Court and decided against his hospitalization.Whelan, who holds U.S., Canadian, British, and Irish passports, was arrested on December 28 in his hotel room a few steps away from the Kremlin. His lawyer Zherebenkov predicted early on the way the case was likely to develop: “They will pickle Paul for a year or more, as he is clearly just a pawn; and then they will swap him for some important Russian kept in American prison,” the lawyer told The Daily Beast in January.Almost eight months later Zherebenkov still has not seen any solid evidence establishing his client’s guilt. “The FSB  investigation has not presented us with a single solid piece of material, so our truth in this case is even stronger than half a year ago–that’s why FSB want more time,” the lawyer said.Meet Putin’s American Prisoner, Paul WhelanAccording to Media Zona, a group of journalists reporting on news about Russian prisons and court cases, at least 99 detainees died in detention centers and prisons used by investigators in 2016. Many more died in prison camps. “It is hard for us to find out what causes the deaths of prisoners—when prison guards crack somebody’s head open, they say that the detainee fell down and died in an accident,” Dmitry Shvets, a Media Zona reporter told The Daily Beast. But the problem is not just physical violence. “Lefortovo prison is famous for psychological torture by isolation. The inmates cannot communicate with each other, no prisoner has a chance to use a phone.”Whelan’s family was aware that the FSB wanted to extend the time for investigation for two more months. ”This morning's hearing was more theatrical than his previous hearings—ejecting the media, calling an ambulance—but we were not surprised by the result,” Whelan’s twin brother, David, told The Daily Beast.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Putin promises 'symmetrical response' to US missile test after end of nuclear treaty

Vladimir Putin has promised a “symmetrical response” to the US test of a missile banned under a nuclear weapons treaty rubbished this month by the Trump administration amid fears of a new arms race. A new land-based version of the navy's Tomahawk cruise missile fired from an island in California struck a target more than 310 miles away on Sunday, according to the Pentagon. The recently defunct 1987 US-Russian intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty banned land-based missiles with ranges between 310 and 3,410 miles. On Friday, Mr Putin told his security council that the test just 16 days after the treaty's demise proved that the United States had long been developing weapons in violation of the agreement, while accusing Russia of the same as part of a “propaganda campaign”. He argued that the use of an Mk41 launcher on Sunday confirmed Russia's longstanding complaints that US missile defence installations in Romania and Poland could be repurposed to fire offensive weapons. By leaving the agreement, Washington wanted to “untie its hands for the deployment to different regions of the world of missiles that were previously banned,” Mr Putin said. “American politicians at a high level are saying that the deployment of new systems could start in the Asia Pacific region, but that also touches on our vital interests, since this is all close to Russia's borders,” he said.  He ordered the defence and foreign ministries to “analyse the level of the threat to our country created by the aforementioned actions of the United States and take exhaustive steps to prepare a symmetrical response”.  The US defence department on Sunday tests a land-based cruise missile that would previously have been banned  Credit: Scott Howe/Department of Defence/UPI/Barcroft While he did not say exactly what that would be be, it was reported in February that Russia could begin producing a land-based version of its Kalibr cruise missile with a range of 1,600 miles by the end of the year.  “For a symmetrical response, it would be enough to take Kalibr and put it on land and conduct a launch,” defence analyst Alexander Golts told The Telegraph. “That wouldn't take a huge effort.” Donald Trump's announcement in February that he would withdraw from the INF treaty, which ended the deployment of US ballistic missiles to Europe and of Soviet nukes targeting them, raised fears of a new arms race. European leaders persuaded Mr Trump to give Russia six months to end its 9M729 missile programme, which the United States had said was in violation of the treaty. Moscow denied this and accused Washington of undermining the agreement with its missile defence plans.  The Pentagon has claimed that the Mk41 launcher used in Sunday's test was not the same as the Aegis Ashore missile defence system in Romania, which is also being deployed to Poland. In his statement, Mr Putin insisted Russia would not be drawn into an “arms race that is destructive for our economy”. But he also noted that Russia was developing weapons “with no equivalent,” a reference to prospective arms announced last year including a hypersonic glider warhead, underwater nuclear drone and nuclear-powered cruise missile.  The tit-for-tat “response” announced by the president could also include tests of these weapons, according to Mr Golts. “We can assume that everything Russia has to demonstrate its power will be moved out under the guise of symmetrical measures,” he sad.  While the Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile is already in deployment, the United States has claimed that tests of the nuclear-powered cruise missile ended in crashes.  The mysterious engine test explosion that killed at least five and caused a radiation spike in northern Russia this month was believed by some to be related to this programme.

As G7 leaders gather in Biarritz, the group is more divided than at any time in its 45 year history

This weekend's G7 summit is unlikely to produce a joint communique amid deepening divisions between the world's seven richest nations over everything from Brexit to trade, climate change, and how to deal with China, Iran, and Russia.  It will be the first time the forum of leading economies has failed to produce a statement of common intention and agreement since it began as the Group of Five in 1975, in the latest blow to the post-Cold War consensus of free trade, democracy, and globalisation that it once represented.  Emmanuel Macron will host Boris Johnson,  Donald Trump, Angela Merkel, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, Canada's Justin Trudeau, and Italy's prime minister Giuseppe Conte for the 45th summit of the world's leading industrialized nations in the surfing resort of Biaritz this weekend.  An early sign of trouble came last week, when Donald Trump repeated his call for Russia to be readmitted to the group. Vladimir Putin has been persona-non-grata at G7 meetings since he annexed Crimea and sent troops to support a separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine in 2014.  Mr Macron immediately shot that down, warning it would be “strategic error” to let Russia back into the club while it continued to fuel the war in east Ukraine.    Vladimir Putin's banishment from the G7 has become a point of contention between Mr Trump and the other leaders Credit: Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin/ REUTERS “I think to say that without any conditions Russia can return to the table would be signing off the weakness of the G7,” he said.     Boris Johnson, widely seen as a rare European ally of Mr Trump, was equally lukewarm on Russia returning: “Given what happened in Salisbury,” he noted after meeting Mrs Merkel this week,  “the case has yet to be made.”   But differences over how to handle Mr Putin are only the tip of the iceberg.  On Friday night a series of tweets by Mr Trump raised fears that the escalating trade war between the US and China will tip the global economy into recession. He said he had "ordered" American companies to leave China after Beijing announced tariffs on $75 billion worth of US goods. Mr Macron has made the forest fires in Brazil the top priority for the summit, and has also said he wants to use the summit to push for an overhaul a “crazy” global tax system that sees tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook get away with paying minimal taxes no matter where they operate.  Winning over Mr Trump, who leads by far the biggest economy in the room and enjoys considerable influence with other populists, including Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, is key to achieving those goals.  But Mr Trump has a much more sceptical attitude to climate change than his G7 colleagues, and sees the notion of a “digital tax” as an attack on US flagship businesses. He has threatened to slap tariffs on French wine in retaliation. The seven are also divided over rising strategic challenges.  U.S. President Donald Trump meets French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris in 2018 Credit: CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS In 2018 Mr Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and adopted a policy of maximum economic pressure intended to force Tehran to accept tighter nuclear restrictions and end its ballistic missile program and backing for armed groups across the Middle East.  The European members of the club, including Britain, remain committed to the agreement and have attempted to continue to trade with Iran in a bid to keep the deal alive, despite US pressure.  Ironically, Mr Macron may be relying on that French wine - among other delicacies - to raise the mood at what are expected to be contentious talks.  The Elysee palace has hired five Michelin-starred local chefs to prepare Basque specialties for the lunches and dinners where the most serious talking will be done.  The G7, consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, began in the 1970s as an annual meeting of the leaders of the world's largest developed economies.   Russia joined as a full member in 1998, making it the G8. It was suspended following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and left permanently in 2017.

Jair Bolsonaro blamed for turning a blind eye to degradation in the name of 'progress'

During a recent visit to the Amazon where he proposed opening up mining in an ecological reserve the size of Denmark, the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro summarised his approach to the rainforest. “Let’s use the riches that God gave us for the well-being of our population,” Mr Bolsonaro said, before adding to any would-be prospectors: “You won’t get any trouble…” Ever since he took office in January this evangelism, populism, and total disregard for the vital ecological role the Amazon serves have been the hallmarks of Mr Bolsonaro’s tenure. The apocalyptic wildfires of recent days – more than 9,000 individual blazes have been recorded across the Amazon in the past week alone – are being blamed largely on the approach taken to the world’s largest rainforest by the man nicknamed ‘Captain Chainsaw’. To put the destruction into context: this year there have been more than 70,000 wildfires recorded in Brazil, an 84 per cent increase on the same period last year. In the past month alone some 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles) of the rainforest has been engulfed by wildfire.  Mr Bolsonaro has decried the fact that 15 per cent of Brazil’s territory is reserved for indigenous tribes Credit: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters During the dry season in Brazil – the largest country in Latin America which contains 60 per cent of the Amazon – it is common for wildfires to occur in the rainforest but experts say the current rate is unprecedented and the direct result of demons unleashed by Mr Bolsonaro in his pledges to turn a blind eye to environmental degradation in the name of economic progress. “It is absolutely clear those who are starting these fires are doing so because they feel empowered by the rhetoric they have heard from the Brazilian president,” says Mike Barrett, WWF-UK’s executive director of science and conservation. Mr Bolsonaro, a 64-year-old former army captain, was elected on the back of the country’s worst recession in history. During his controversial campaign he successfully courted the support of Brazil’s powerful evangelical churches - who were attracted by his ultra-conservative messages - and ran on a ticket of removing environmental red tape and attracting development to previously protected parts of the country.  Official data has shown an 84 per cent increase in wildfires in the Amazon this year Credit: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters Lands belonging to Brazil’s indigenous tribes have in particular provoked his ire. Mr Bolsonaro has decried the fact that 15 per cent of Brazil’s territory is reserved for indigenous tribes despite their numbers adding up to fewer than 1m people. “Let us together integrate these citizens and bring value to all Brazilians" he tweeted in January.  The previous month he had bluntly told reporters: “Why in Brazil do we have to keep them as inmates in reserves, as if they were animals in a zoo?” Since taking office Mr Bolsonaro has handed control of the country’s indigenous affairs to its Ministry of Agriculture and slashed the budget of Brazil’s environmental protection agency by 24 percent.  There have been numerous accounts of unpermitted development and land grabs on indigenous reserves, while the environmental regulatory issued fewer fines than at any point since 1995 during the first two months of his presidency. The president has suggested Brazilian tribes should be taken out of reserves and "integrated" into society Credit: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters In a statement released on Friday, the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) expressed its “extreme concern” about the rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest, adding: “Loggers are taking our land and irresponsible landlords are taking advantage of the weakening of environmental surveillance to advance into our homes.” In July a tribal chief from the Amapa region was murdered. According to media reports, witnesses saw a number of gold miners enter the protected reserve of the Wajãpi community, then stab their leader to death. In response to the incident the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, decried the killing and characterised it as part of a larger issue of “encroachment on indigenous land".  Mr Bolsonaro’s response was typical, suggesting the victim may not have been murdered at all.  Mr Bolsonaro has claimed NGOs may be responsible for setting the fires in order to tarnish Brazil's image, but has provided no evidence when pressed Credit: Rio Branco Firefighters/REX Such pugnaciousness is a hallmark of a president determined to face down any perceived criticism. Earlier this month the director of Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) – which has provided the data showing the rise in deforestation – was fired by Mr Bolsonaro who dismissed its findings as “lies” designed to harm Brazil.  Striking a similarly aggressive tone, this week he has sought to blame the wildfires on NGOs operating in the Amazon whom he has previously accused of “sticking their noses into Brazil”. When pressed he admitted he could not provide any evidence to confirm his claims. As the forest burns, and miners, loggers and cattle ranchers move in to exploit the land, Mr Bolsonaro has also reopened the door to a series of new hydroelectric dam projects in the Amazon, reversing a decision taken by the previous administration due to the feared ecological impact on the forest. Yet it is wrong to blame all the Amazon’s current woes on Mr Bolsonaro. Certainly the recent deforestation is a problem far from confined to Brazil.  After a decade or so of gradual progress, deforestation has suddenly exploded across the Amazon, which spans nine countries containing 40 per cent of earth’s rainforest and 10-15 per cent of all its terrestrial species. Weather satellites have shown the extent of the wildfires from space Credit: NASA/NOAA/Reuters Cattle ranchers are believed to account for roughly 80 per cent of deforestation in the region, with Brazil's Amazon one of the world's largest exporters of beef. Experts warn a tipping point could soon be reached where the deforestation becomes irreversible and much of the Amazon turns into dry savannah, transforming from a vital sink for global emissions to releasing an estimated tens of billions of tonnes of carbon into the air. Last week the Telegraph reported from the Colombian Amazon where deforestation has rapidly increased from 124,000 hectares in 2015 to 197,000 hectares in 2018, 66 per cent of which is concentrated in the Amazon region. There, as in Brazil, starting fires is deemed the quickest way of levelling swathes of land to turn into cattle pastures. The animals are left to graze among charred stumps standing as headstones to the pristine forest that once stood there. Despite rising international condemnation of the destruction, Mr Bolsonaro’s approach remains resolute. “Brazil does not owe the world anything when it comes to environmental protection”, he said in March. The Amazon, Captain Chainsaw insists, is his to do with as he pleases.

Israeli teen dies of wounds in West Bank attack, 2 wounded

An explosion Friday near a West Bank settlement that Israel said was a Palestinian attack killed a 17-year-old Israeli girl and wounded her brother and father, Israeli authorities said. Initially, three Israelis were reported wounded in the blast on Friday near the Dolev settlement, northwest of Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered condolences to the family and vowed to pursue the perpetrators and "strengthen" Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Revealed: Felix Sater Did Extensive Work for U.S. Intelligence

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos Getty/APBefore appearing in the Trump-Russia probe, Felix Sater traveled throughout Central Asia gathering intelligence on the Taliban for the U.S. government, according to a decade-old court filing unsealed Friday. In 1998, the Russian-American businessman began cooperating with the U.S. government after pleading guilty to participating in a $40 million stock-fraud case involving New York mafia figures. After entering his plea, Sater spent years working hand-in-hand with the CIA and the FBI to target New York organized crime families and Al Qaeda, according to a 2009 letter filed by prosecutors requesting a reduced sentence for Sater due to his cooperation. The judge obliged, assigning him a $25,000 fine and no prison time. “[T]he agents who worked with Sater found him to be dependable, insightful, and hard-working,” the letter said.Sater drew immense public interest during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of links between the Trump campaign and Russia because Sater helped President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen negotiate a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Those talks unfolded secretly in the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, even as Trump publicly claimed he had “nothing to do with Russia.” In an eye-popping email, Sater even told Cohen that Russian President Vladimir Putin could help Trump win the election if the deal went through.Sater, unsurprisingly, drew scorching criticism for this activity. But he has defended himself by claiming to be a patriot who worked closely with American spies at great personal risk. The filing by federal prosecutors, known as a 5K1 letter, indicates there is some truth to those claims.Benton Campbell, the then-U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, sent the letter on August 27, 2009 to Judge Leo Glasser, who presided over Sater’s case. Felix Sater: The Crook Behind the Trump-Russia ‘Peace’ PlanU.S. officials have alluded in the past to Sater’s cooperation. In her Senate confirmation hearing to be attorney general in 2015, for instance, Loretta Lynch praised his work with the Justice Department. But the newly unsealed letter is the most detailed statement from the feds on Sater’s work for Uncle Sam.  The letter begins by describing a serendipitous find: In an abandoned storage unit that police seized in January 1998, someone had left loaded guns and documents detailing the criminal enterprise that Sater was involved in. Sater was overseas at the time. When he learned law enforcement were looking for him, he immediately contacted American intelligence officers, and, in an effort to shore up goodwill, offered information about Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, which was fighting the Taliban. U.S. intelligence officials took him up on the offer, and he spent the spring and summer of 1998 traveling through Central Asia and gathering information about the Northern Alliance, including details on their interest in selling Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the U.S. (including those missiles’ serial numbers), as well as information about the Taliban and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.That year, he got in touch with an ex-KGB officer-turned-arms dealer who had information about threats to the U.S. emanating from Central Asia and Afghanistan. Sater shared the arms dealer’s information with the CIA and the FBI. The contact told Sater about the missiles, as well as what was believed to be bin Laden’s satellite phone number and information about the people who supplied the terrorist leader with weapons.Sater also worked with a precious stones dealer who had Taliban contacts. The FBI paid for a phone that Sater sent to the dealer, according to the letter. The two used it to stay “in constant contact.” That individual shared ample information with Sater that he passed on to the U.S. government, including details on bin Laden’s location after the September 11 attacks, information on Al Qaeda’s structure and finances, the purported location of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, details on the casualties of U.S. airstrikes, details on a plot to assassinate President George W. Bush, and information on North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.The letter notes that Sater traveled to dangerous parts of Central Asia to gather much of this information.  In December 1998, Sater returned to the U.S., surrendered, entered a guilty plea, and explained to prosecutors the significance of the storage unit’s contents. And he kept cooperating. Sater shared detailed information with the prosecutors about organized crime in New York. Most importantly, prosecutors said he helped them secure the conviction of Frank Coppa Jr., a member of the Bonanno crime family. A footnote in the letter notes that Coppa then began cooperating, which led to the conviction and cooperation of Joe Massino, the boss of the Bonanno crime family. Massino’s subsequent cooperation with the feds was historic: one federal judge said he “may be the most important cooperator in the modern history of law enforcement efforts to prosecute the American Mafia.”Sater also helped the feds investigate access device fraud and money-laundering schemes that started in Russia, according to the letter. The letter concludes with a full-throated endorsement of Sater’s work. “Felix went above and beyond what is expected of most cooperators and placed himself in great jeopardy by so doing,” it said.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

At the G7, Trump Is One of the Popular Ones

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Donald Trump is an unpopular president. According to the Real Clear Politics polling average as of Friday afternoon, only 43.3% of Americans approve of his performance. FiveThirtyEight, which weights polls by quality, sample size and partisan lean, puts the average at 41.6%.But as the president meets with leaders of the other G7 countries in the French resort city of Biarritz this weekend, he can take solace in the fact that he’s more popular than almost all of his peers. The lone exception seems to be Japanese premier Shinzo Abe, whose cabinet’s approval rating is 48.8% (to only 35% disapproval) in the Japan Political Pulse poll aggregator maintained by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA.Only 32% of Germans polled for broadcaster ARD a few weeks ago said they were satisfied with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval rating was 41% in one recent poll and 39% in another (and in the second poll, by Ipsos, only 33% agreed that he “has done a good job and deserves to be re-elected”). In the U.K., only 31% have a positive opinion of brand-new Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to YouGov. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte just resigned, so while he remains in office until a new government is formed and the current governing coalition still has a majority in polls, I don’t think he can really be counted as riding on a wave of approval.Then there is French President Emmanuel Macron, the one other more or less directly elected head of state (as opposed to leader of a parliamentary government) coming to Biarritz. In so many ways, he’s the diametric opposite of Trump: young, cosmopolitan, well-spoken, technocratic. He’s the least popular of the lot, with a 28% approval rating in the most recent poll listed by the diligent editors of the “Opinion polling on the Emmanuel Macron presidency” Wikipedia page and 22% percent in the one before that.Trump’s approval rating has of course been remarkably stable, stuck since early 2018 in a narrow band between 40% and 45%. This may be the result of extreme partisan polarization — Trump remains very popular, if not quite as popular as he says he is, among Republicans — or of the personalization of the presidency. Or maybe it’s just that a reasonably healthy economy and a chaotic presidential performance have so far mostly canceled each other out. In any case, approval ratings seem to be less stable in other countries, and with the world and Europe in particular in the midst of an economic slowdown, their common direction at the moment seems to be down. Macroeconomic fluctuations aside, there also seems to be a more general dissatisfaction afoot in many rich, Western democracies that makes it tough for incumbents to remain popular.In the U.S., Trump has enjoyed both economic good times and a seemingly inalienable base of about 25% of Americans — that is, the people who say in polls that they “strongly approve” of his performance. There’s another 40% or so who “strongly disapprove” of him, though, and recent signs of economic sputtering seem be dragging Trump’s overall approval rating down at least a little. By all appearances, this is rattling the president. While in Biarritz he might want to consider chilling out and enjoying the fact that, relative to that crowd, he still counts as quite beloved.To contact the author of this story: Justin Fox at justinfox@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He was the editorial director of Harvard Business Review and wrote for Time, Fortune and American Banker. He is the author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

At the G7, Trump Is One of the Popular Ones

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Donald Trump is an unpopular president. According to the Real Clear Politics polling average as of Friday afternoon, only 43.3% of Americans approve of his performance. FiveThirtyEight, which weights polls by quality, sample size and partisan lean, puts the average at 41.6%.But as the president meets with leaders of the other G7 countries in the French resort city of Biarritz this weekend, he can take solace in the fact that he’s more popular than almost all of his peers. The lone exception seems to be Japanese premier Shinzo Abe, whose cabinet’s approval rating is 48.8% (to only 35% disapproval) in the Japan Political Pulse poll aggregator maintained by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA.Only 32% of Germans polled for broadcaster ARD a few weeks ago said they were satisfied with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval rating was 41% in one recent poll and 39% in another (and in the second poll, by Ipsos, only 33% agreed that he “has done a good job and deserves to be re-elected”). In the U.K., only 31% have a positive opinion of brand-new Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to YouGov. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte just resigned, so while he remains in office until a new government is formed and the current governing coalition still has a majority in polls, I don’t think he can really be counted as riding on a wave of approval.Then there is French President Emmanuel Macron, the one other more or less directly elected head of state (as opposed to leader of a parliamentary government) coming to Biarritz. In so many ways, he’s the diametric opposite of Trump: young, cosmopolitan, well-spoken, technocratic. He’s the least popular of the lot, with a 28% approval rating in the most recent poll listed by the diligent editors of the “Opinion polling on the Emmanuel Macron presidency” Wikipedia page and 22% percent in the one before that.Trump’s approval rating has of course been remarkably stable, stuck since early 2018 in a narrow band between 40% and 45%. This may be the result of extreme partisan polarization — Trump remains very popular, if not quite as popular as he says he is, among Republicans — or of the personalization of the presidency. Or maybe it’s just that a reasonably healthy economy and a chaotic presidential performance have so far mostly canceled each other out. In any case, approval ratings seem to be less stable in other countries, and with the world and Europe in particular in the midst of an economic slowdown, their common direction at the moment seems to be down. Macroeconomic fluctuations aside, there also seems to be a more general dissatisfaction afoot in many rich, Western democracies that makes it tough for incumbents to remain popular.In the U.S., Trump has enjoyed both economic good times and a seemingly inalienable base of about 25% of Americans — that is, the people who say in polls that they “strongly approve” of his performance. There’s another 40% or so who “strongly disapprove” of him, though, and recent signs of economic sputtering seem be dragging Trump’s overall approval rating down at least a little. By all appearances, this is rattling the president. While in Biarritz he might want to consider chilling out and enjoying the fact that, relative to that crowd, he still counts as quite beloved.To contact the author of this story: Justin Fox at justinfox@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He was the editorial director of Harvard Business Review and wrote for Time, Fortune and American Banker. He is the author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Boris Johnson prepares to take his place on world stage

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has endeavored to lead his country since he was a boy, will get his first moment on the world stage in his new role at the Group of Seven summit in France this weekend. The man who has said his life's ambition as a child was to be "world king" could be the shortest-serving prime minister in British history if he fails in his high-stakes gambit to force the European Union to reopen Brexit talks. As Johnson prepares to meet with world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, at the seaside resort of Biarritz, opponents at home are plotting to bring him down with a no-confidence vote after Parliament returns from its summer recess next month.

Pompeo says Huawei CEO is not a bargaining chip in Trump-China trade war

Mike Pompeo has rejected claims that detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is being used for leverage in the US-China trade war. Speaking with his Canadian counterpart, Chrystia Freeland, in Ottawa on Thursday, the US secretary of state appeared to rule out dropping the extradition request for Ms Meng to ease tensions with Beijing, insisting it is a legal matter. In December, US president Donald Trump implied he might intervene in the case to help secure a trade deal with China. “Whatever’s good for this country, I would do,” he said at the time. The US alleges Ms Meng – the Chinese technology company’s chief financial officer and the daughter of its chief executive – helped  Huawei circumvent sanctions on Iran. According to Vancouver court documents released this week, she told a Canadian border official that the company has an office in Iran. The US has charged Ms Meng, 47, with bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit both. She is currently on bail living under house arrest in one of her Vancouver mansions while her lawyers fight her extradition to the US. Asked on Thursday if she is a “bargaining chip” in US-China trade talks, Mr Pompeo replied simply: “No.” Since Ms Meng’s arrest in Vancouver airport on a US arrest warrant in December, ties between Ottawa and Beijing have fallen to a historically low ebb. Two Canadians, businessman Michael Svapor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, were arrested and charged with espionage shortly afterwards in what is widely viewed as a reprisal by Beijing. “Our team is focussed on helping those two Canadians be released,” Mr Pompeo said later ahead of a meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. Mr Trump spoke directly to Chinese president Xi Jinping about their “arbitrary detention” in June, he told journalists. Mr Pompeo, 55, also slapped down a question comparing their confinement with that of Ms Meng, accusing the journalist of taking “the Chinese line”. Mr Pompeo was visiting Canada ahead of the G7 meeting in France, where relations with China will be discussed. On Friday, Beijing escalated the trade dispute, announcing fresh tariffs on US imports worth $75 billion (£61 billion).

Syria retakes territory in NW held by rebels since 2012

Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops seized control of a string of villages in the northern countryside of Hama province, completing their takeover of the formerly rebel-held region just south of Idlib province for the first time since 2012, the Syrian army and a war monitoring group said Friday. The army said troops seized the villages of Latamneh, Latmeen, Kfar Zeita and Lahaya, as well as the village of Morek, where Turkey maintains an observation post, pressing ahead its offensive toward Idlib. The army advance represents the latest in a series of losses for rebels who have, for eight years, fought to topple Assad.

Iran's Zarif praises Macron nuclear crisis suggestions

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Friday that suggestions by French President Emmanuel Macron about defusing the crisis over Iran's nuclear drive went in the right direction, but that more work needed to be done. "President Macron made some suggestions last week to President (Hassan) Rouhani and we believe they are moving in the right direction, although we are not definitely there yet," Zarif told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in an interview after meeting Macron for rare talks in Paris. "We had a good discussion today," Zarif said.

Strikes on Iran-backed militias threaten to destabilize Iraq

An Israeli airstrike on an Iranian weapons depot in Iraq, confirmed by U.S. officials, is threatening to destabilize security in the volatile country that has struggled to remain neutral in the conflict between Washington and Tehran. It would be the first known Israeli airstrike in Iraq since 1981, when Israeli warplanes destroyed a nuclear reactor being built by Saddam Hussein, and significantly expands Israel's campaign against Iranian military involvement in the region. The July 19 attack targeted a base belonging to Iranian-backed paramilitary forces in Amirli in the northern Salaheddin province, and killed two Iranians.

Russia's Su-57 Stealth Fighter Has One Target In Its Sights: The U.S. Navy

The Su-57 is Russia’s equivalent of the U.S. F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters. A Mach 2 aircraft capable of air superiority and ground-strike missions, it is Russia’s first stealth plane, and probably the most sophisticated aircraft in the Russian arsenal.​Russia is designing an anti-ship missile for its Su-57 stealth fighter.But is hunting ships the best mission for such an advanced aircraft?Deputy Defense Minister Alexey Krivoruchko made the announcement while visiting the Detal Design Bureau, which is developing a new anti-ship missile, according to Russian news agency TASS.(This first appeared in June 2019.)“Today the enterprise is working on developing an active homing warhead for the promising anti-ship missile that is planned to be carried by the Su-57 fighter as well," Krivoruchko said.“A working meeting was held on the premises of the Detal Design Bureau to discuss the issue of signing a contract with Tactical Missiles Corporation on acquiring the entire range of air-launched weapons for the Su-57 fighter jets,” TASS said.The Su-57 is Russia’s equivalent of the U.S. F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters. A Mach 2 aircraft capable of air superiority and ground-strike missions, it is Russia’s first stealth plane, and probably the most sophisticated aircraft in the Russian arsenal. It also has a long and troubled history stretching back more than a decade, due to technical issues and even more because of financial considerations.  Estimates have ranged from $40 million to $156 million per plane—a figure that earlier made the Russian Air Force cancel mass production and buy just a handful of aircraft. Russia now has about a dozen Su-57s, which have flown a few missions over Syria.But last month, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that seventy-six Su-57s would be delivered by 2028. Though Russian defense plans previously called for buying just sixteen aircraft, Putin said Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had told him that the Su-57’s manufacturer had cut the price of the plane by 20 percent, which was a deal that the government couldn’t pass up. "We have agreed to purchase 76 such fighters without the increase in prices in the same period of time," Putin said.Nonetheless, whether it is sixteen or seventy-six jets, that’s not a huge fleet. America has just 186 F-22 fighters, a number that many consider too small for sustained combat operations. The U.S. military also plans to acquire more than 2,400 F-35s.Of course, Russia may choose to buy more than seventy-six Su-57s, depending on the country’s strained economy, and how well the aircraft performs once in regular service. But the size of the initial order suggests that the Russian Air Force could end up with just seventy-six aircraft—assuming that figure isn’t cut in future budgets over the next decade—and perhaps no more than a couple of hundred aircraft.In which case, what is the best use of a cutting-edge stealth fighter? The capabilities of such a plane would be needed against an opponent possessing sophisticated aircraft and air defenses: America, NATO, Japan, Israel (or conceivably even China). To intercept hostile stealth aircraft, Russia will be tempted to send up its own stealth fighters. A fleet of just seventy-six Su-57s, minus the inevitable losses from combat, accidents and required maintenance, might be severely taxed by air defense and escort missions.So how many would be left for anti-ship work? Against most naval targets, older planes such as Su-30 fighter and Tu-22M3 bomber—armed with hypersonic missiles would suffice. There may be situations where stealth is desired, perhaps against a heavily defended U.S. carrier battlegroup. But employing a limited number of Su-57s to attack ships is similar to assigning F-22s on anti-shipping missions—a move that would leave U.S. Air Force commanders aghast.Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.Image: Wikimedia Commons.(This article was originally published earlier this year and is being republished due to reader interest.)

European Integration is in America’s Interests; Brexit Isn’t

One of several specters hanging over this week’s G7 meeting is the prospect that in a little more than two months the United Kingdom will crash out of the European Union. Such a “no-deal Brexit” will help no one (other than perhaps leaders in Russia or China who welcome any division and weakness in the West) and hurt many, especially in Britain itself, where government experts recognize in private what a calamity such an exit would be for the British economy. British prime minister and lead Brexiteer Boris Johnson is facing two impossible tasks that are in large part of his own making. One is to persuade European leaders to renegotiate the deal they reached with Johnson’s predecessor—a renegotiation those leaders have little or no incentive to undertake. The other will be to make good on the Brexiteers’ promises about benefits to the British public, promises that were far-fetched even with a negotiated exit and will be all the more so under the no-deal scenario.Johnson’s one prominent source of outside support is President Donald Trump, who has been cheering on Johnson all the way to the miserable dead end of Brexit.For those most interested in U.S. foreign policy, now is a good time to recall what the whole project of European integration means for broader peace and prosperity—and for U.S. interests. As multiple U.S. administrations of both parties, before Trump, have repeatedly made clear, that project is very much in U.S. interests, as is Britain’s participation in it.U.S. recognition of the value of the European integration project goes back to the project’s earliest days, when the question of British membership already was a key issue. In 1950, as negotiations to accomplish the first step in the project—creation of the European Coal and Steel Community—were about to begin, Britain’s Labour government stood aloof. President Harry Truman’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson, later wrote in his memoir that this “was not the last clear chance for Britain to enter Europe, but it was the first wrong choice—as wrong as General de Gaulle’s tragic rejection of the penitent in 1963.” (The latter part of Acheson’s comment referred to French president Charles de Gaulle’s vetoing of a later British application to join what was then the European Economic Community. After de Gaulle left office, Britain finally did join in 1972.)When Dwight Eisenhower succeeded Truman in 1953, U.S. support for the European project remained strong. By late 1953 a focus of discussion was the European Defense Community (EDC), a proposed integrated military force that would be shelved the following year when a newly installed French government withdrew its support for the proposal—with the French decision heavily influenced by an earlier British decision not to participate. In December 1953, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, to emphasize how much importance the United States placed on the proposed EDC, sternly warned the North Atlantic Council that if this part of the European project did not materialize, the United States would have to conduct an “agonizing reappraisal” of its security commitment to Western Europe.The first and greatest objective of the integration project, as envisioned by its founding fathers such as the French statesmen Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, was to banish to the past anything like the two world wars of the first half of the twentieth century. In this, the project has succeeded magnificently. War between the likes of France and Germany is now unthinkable, marking an amazing transformation from the carnage and hatred of the immediately preceding decades. The United States, which twice had to enter the carnage, as the New World coming to the rescue of the Old World, ought to be as appreciative of this achievement as anyone else.The prevention of another European war is by no means the only achievement of the integration project that assists the United States. As a bastion of liberal democracy, a unified Europe is a more beneficial player on the larger world stage than members of a disunited Europe would be. And in a globalized world economy, the benefits of integration in Europe have spillover effects that benefit others, including in the United States.British participation in the project has consistently been in U.S. interests. It is a force multiplier to, rather than a replacement for, a U.S.-UK special relationship. Britain is more useful and important to the United States when it has a foot on both sides of the Atlantic and is a major player in European affairs than if it is just a post-imperial island off the coast of Normandy. Obviously Trump sees the relationship differently. Perhaps some thinking in the White House, and in the mind of John Bolton when he recently visited London, sees a weakened and isolated post-Brexit Britain, more dependent on U.S. goodwill as a result, as more easily bent to the Trump administration’s wishes on issues in the Middle East and elsewhere. But all of this is just a variant on the Trumpian notions that multilateral is always worse than bilateral, and that international relationships are mostly zero-sum with a winner and a loser. Experience already has shown how mistaken and ineffective those notions are when applied to, for example, trade and economic issues involving China.To the extent Johnson becomes Trump’s poodle and is seen to have become that, he will be all the more ineffective in relieving what otherwise is division within the West or isolation of the United States for following policies that are controversial or simply bad. There already are some hints of this regarding maritime security in the Persian Gulf.Trump’s posture toward Brexit is one more manifestation of his basing U.S. policy not on careful calculation of U.S. interests but instead on transnational identification with other leaders who share xenophobic and populist or faux-populist tendencies. His kinship with Johnson extends to these qualities as well as to demagogic success, disregard for truth, and strange hair. It is not just a campaign slogan for Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn to describe Johnson as “Britain’s Trump”.Americans and their government cannot and should not now try to interfere in the political and constitutional mess that the Brexit issue has become for Britain. They can only hope that the mess plays out in the weeks ahead in a way that irreparable breaks do not occur before better thinking prevails, perhaps in the form of a second referendum.Paul R. Pillar is a contributing editor at the National Interest and the author of Why America Misunderstands the World.Image: Reuters

Macron Opposes Mercosur Trade, Saying Brazil ‘Lied’ on Climate

(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. Outraged over the Amazon fires, Emmanuel Macron branded Brazil’s president a liar and threatened to block the European Union’s trade deal with the Mercosur countries as he prepares to whip the Group of Seven leaders into climate action.The French president’s office said that it has become clear that Jair Bolsonaro wasn’t serious about his commitments on tackling climate change when he spoke to world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka earlier this year."The president can only conclude that President Bolsonaro lied to him in Osaka," at the G-20, the statement said. "Under these conditions, France is opposed to the Mercosur deal."A day before he’s due to welcome G-7 leaders to Biarritz, Macron said he would make the burning of the Amazon jungle a priority at the summit. That provoked an angry response from Bolsonaro, who accused him of acting like a colonialist."The news is really worrisome, but we need to lower the temperature, there are fires in Brazil every year," Brazilian Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias told reporters in Brasilia. "There were fires in Portugal, in Siberia, there were fires all over the world and Brazil wasn’t questioning them."Trade, ClimateThe way that an environmental dispute escalated so quickly into a new front in the global trade tensions shows the growing importance of climate as a fundamental plank of geopolitics. Even before Macron’s announcement, Ireland said it could not vote for the Mercosur agreement and Finland wants the EU to consider a ban on Brazilian beef.The EU has sought to leverage the size of its market to pressure trading partners into doing more to reduce emissions and is also concerned that its companies will be undercut by rivals operating in places with looser restrictions.But the configuration of the G-7 right now will make it difficult for Macron to make a lot headway beyond some token words. Donald Trump famously ripped up last year’s communique and does not want to be cornered. U.K.’s Boris Johnson is eager to tighten his bond with the U.S. president and at odds with European allies over Brexit. Italy is mired in a messy political crisis at home and has no prime minister. Japan is unlikely to stick its neck out -- it is more concerned about the potential fallout from the U.S. trade war with China.In fact, the run-up to the G-7 was overshadowed by China whacking the U.S. with higher tariffs on soybeans, cars and oil in retaliation for Trump’s latest planned levies.And Trump himself has signaled where his priorities lie. On waking up he began tweeting against the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and China’s Xi Jinping -- not on the Amazon fires. A U.S. official said that the U.S. are deeply concerned about the impact of the fires while indicating the administration did not see it as part of the broader climate issue.The EU wrapped up 20 years of negotiations to seal an accord with South America’s leading customs union just weeks ago, in what was then seen as a major retort toTrump’s attacks on the global system of free trade. The deal could affect almost 90 billion euros ($100 billion) of goods and Brazil expects to see its economy increased by about $90 billion over the next 15 years.Officials on both sides are still fine-tuning the agreement and it still needs to be approved by EU governments before it can enter into force. A Brazilian official, with direct knowledge of the government’s position, said that the EU-Mercosur deal is not ready to be signed yet, and that while the deal could be rejected or put to one side, it could not be changed.The official added that France stood to lose a lot if the agreement didn’t go through, citing the presence of supermarket chain Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA and carmakers such as Renault SA and Peugeot SA.Another senior government official however said that France’s position is a cause of concern and that the Bolsonaro administration needed to change the narrative. There are signs that the president is already poised to do that.Speaking on Friday morning in Brasilia, Bolsonaro said the government is considering declaring a state of emergency in the region, allowing the president to deploy armed forces and extra funding to the region: “We discussed a lot of things and whatever is within our reach we will do. The problem is resources.”(Adds Johnson’s tweet.)\--With assistance from Arne Delfs, Alex Morales, Kati Pohjanpalo, Peter Flanagan, Rachel Gamarski, Mario Sergio Lima and Josh Wingrove.To contact the reporters on this story: Helene Fouquet in Bairritz, France at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net;Simone Iglesias in Brasília at spiglesias@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Ben SillsFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Trump news: President explodes in astonishing attack on Federal Reserve and orders US companies to cease trading with China 'immediately'

Donald Trump has launched an extraordinary attack on the Federal Reserve and its chairman Jerome Powell while seemingly demanding US companies cease trading with China “immediately” as the rival superpower upped the ante in their ongoing trade war by hiking tariffs on $75bn (£61bn) of American goods.After Mr Powell addressed a central bank symposium in Wyoming and declined to say he would cut interest rates in accordance with the president’s wishes, the commander-in-chief exploded on Twitter and asked who is the “the bigger enemy” of the US, Mr Powell or Chinese premier Xi Jinping.