Lafayette

Ecuador indigenous, president open talks over protests

President Lenín Moreno and leaders of Ecuador's indigenous peoples sat down Sunday evening to a nationally broadcast negotiating session aimed at defusing nearly two weeks of protests that have paralyzed the economy and left seven dead and hundreds injured in clashes with police. Sitting around a U-shaped table, Moreno and indigenous leaders took turns laying out their positions in talks mediated by the United Nations' chief representative in Ecuador and broadcast live online and on national TV. Wearing the feathered headdress and face paint of the Achuar people of the Amazon rain forest, the president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations, Jaime Vargas, demanded the immediate cancellation of Moreno's Oct. 1 decree ending fuel subsidies as part of an International Monetary Fund austerity package.

The Latest: Syrian Kurds ally with Damascus in major shift

Syrian Kurdish officials say they will work with the country's central government in Damascus to fend off Turkey's offensive against Kurdish fighters. In a major shift of alliance, Kurdish-led forces are to deploy side by side with government troops along the northern Syrian border. Sunday's announcement came hours after U.S. officials said American troops will leave northern Syria.

The U.S. Spoiled a Deal That Might Have Saved the Kurds, Former Top Official Says

Ismail Coskun/APABU DHABI—Abandoned by the Americans, their former allies, Syria’s Kurds reportedly are allowing troops from the Assad regime to enter territory they had under their control. The Kurds also are putting out feelers to Russia for support against an onslaught by Turkish troops and Turkish-supported militias.A return of Bashar al-Assad’s forces to northeastern Syria for the first time in seven years would make visible the end to the bitter, controversial U.S. mission there against the so-called Islamic State. That’s not because of any concerted decision to withdraw by President Trump, whose antiwar rhetoric obscured his vacillation about leaving. It’s because Assad will deny his American adversary the room to operate that the Syrian Kurds had provided their deceitful American partners. “We know that we would have to make painful compromises with Moscow and Bashar al-Assad if we go down the road of working with them,” the Kurdish commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) wrote in an op-ed published Sunday in Foreign Policy. “But if we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people.”More in sorrow than in anger, the commander, Mazloum Abdi, wrote, “When the whole world failed to support us, the United States extended its hands. We shook hands and appreciated its generous support.”But under Turkish pressure, at Washington’s request, the Kurds “agreed to withdraw our heavy weapons from the border area with Turkey, destroy our defensive fortifications, and pull back our most seasoned fighters. Turkey would never attack us so long as the U.S. government was true to its word with us.”Or so they believed. “We are now standing with our chests bare to face the Turkish knives,” Mazloum wrote.Brett McGurk, who resigned as the presidential special envoy to the coalition against ISIS last December, told The Daily Beast on Sunday that such a move by the Syrian Kurds was predictable under the circumstances. Even last year, when McGurk was still serving, Kurdish leaders in Syria were telling the Americans that if support for them and deterrence against a Turkish attack was not going to continue, they needed to make a deal with the Assad regime and Russia for protection. “We have given our road map to the Russians. We are just waiting on a decision,” one senior Kurdish official told The Washington Post.McGurk said he supported that idea at a time when Trump already was talking about pulling out of Syria, but he met firm opposition within the administration. (Special Representative for Syria Engagement Jim Jeffrey, for one, “told the Kurds on multiple occasions, ‘we’ll manage Turkey, don’t make a deal with the [Assad] regime,’” according to a source familiar with the matter.) Then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and crew insisted the U.S. must stay in Syria until Iran was out, or at least on its way. (Representatives for Bolton, whom Trump fired last month, did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Neither did State Department spokespeople.)Since McGurk’s resignation, he has stayed in touch with the members of the SDF and some contacts in the U.S. departments of state and defense. He says the Kurds asked repeatedly if the support and protection of the United States could be relied upon, and they were told repeatedly that the Americans had their backs. But that was not the case. McGurk told the Beirut Institute Summit in Abu Dhabi that when the Russians first got heavily involved in Syria in 2016, an oft repeated truism about Kremlin duplicity was “Everybody knows not to get into a well with a Russian rope.”“But now what I hear,” McGurk told the audience, “is that nobody should get into a well with an American rope.”In other words, once it became clear in 2018 that Trump was hostile to the open-ended U.S. presence in Syria he inherited, the Kurds had options to help ease the end of their relationship with the Americans. But Trump’s State Department and Pentagon, unwilling to face up to a final withdrawal—and the unequivocal loss of U.S. influence in a part of the Middle East where it is increasingly impotent, if not irrelevant—convinced the Kurds not to plan for an American departure. Had the Kurds done so, their new Russian and Syrian partners might have been able to spare them the devastation that Turkey is now wreaking as the U.S. pulls back and stands by. And now that the slaughter has begun, Mazloum has made clear that his forces and his people have no choice but to look to Russia and Damascus for support. Unfortunately for the Kurds, as McGurk points out, after Trump’s betrayal dramatically weakened their position, when they call the Russians or the Syrian regime it’s not clear that anyone is picking up the phone.Meanwhile, mass escapes of ISIS prisoners and alleged war crimes by Turkish-backed militia members in northeast Syria reflected the mounting chaos as Ankara drives ahead with an assault that already is deeper into Syria than originally announced.“I think we are likely to see a significant comeback by ISIS,” McGurk told the audience in Abu Dhabi. In Washington and in the field, confusion among the Americans is rampant. Ever since last Sunday’s phone call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the administration has aggressively insisted that its green light to Erdogan, complete with a presidential invitation to the White House next month, was really a red light.Trump Says U.S. Troops Have Quit Syria. It’s Not True.On Sunday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CBS, “Look, it's a very terrible situation over there. A situation caused by the Turks, by President Erdoğan. Despite our opposition they decided to make this incursion into Syria.” Trump has escalated his rhetoric about the generation-long disaster of the U.S. military in the Mideast, but he has still yet to withdraw from Syria–and has in fact deployed 14,000 new troops to the Gulf region in the past six months. Incoherence, deceit and betrayal are now the most conspicuous characteristics of U.S. policy. Esper said that because the Kurds are looking to cut a deal if you will with the Syrians and the Russians to counter-attack against the Turks in the north, American troops could find themselves “caught between two opposing advancing armies and it's a very untenable situation. So I spoke with the president last night after discussions with the rest of the national security team and he directed that we begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria.”But as it dawns on Trump that his “end endless wars” mantra could ignite a new endless war, he is reluctant to carry out a full troop withdrawal. Esper spoke about withdrawing from “northern Syria” two days after he and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted there were “no additional changes to our force posture.” Two knowledgeable U.S. officials told The Daily Beast that the U.S. planned to remain in Syria, just further away from the Turkish fighting positions. Some undisclosed hundreds of the 1,000 U.S. forces currently in Syria will indeed leave the country—for elsewhere in the Mideast, however, not home. U.S. ‘Withdraws’ as Kurds Strike Deal to Let Assad's Forces Into RegionBut all of that improvisation, the consequence of senior officials attempting to salvage something after the Trump-Erdogan accord, may now be overtaken by events. Assad’s forces are unlikely to permit continued U.S. operations. The end of a war never declared by Congress may come not by American decision, let alone negotiation, but by American adversaries seizing the initiative that Trump has been comfortable abandoning. Already reports are coming in from Syria of ISIS fighters breaking out of their Kurdish detention facilities as the Kurds fight for their lives. According to the New York Times, the rapid pullback, sometimes under fire from their Turkish NATO ally, has cost the Americans their plans to move a handful of senior ISIS detainees to U.S. military custody in neighboring Iraq. All of it raises the prospect of ISIS grabbing victory – meaning a new lease on life – out of the jaws of defeat after the Kurds, sponsored by the U.S., finished off the Caliphate in 2018.Meanwhile leaders in the Middle East are trying to come to terms with the fact that the Americans have proved to be fatally unreliable allies.Hoshyar Zebari, the former deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Iraq, told the Beirut Institute Summit in Abu Dhabi that in the Syrian war, “The Russians did not walk away from their partners. The Iranians did not walk away from their partners. But the Americans did.”“Definitely the Turks will be emboldened,” Zebari told The Daily Beast. “We expect about 50,000 refugees to cross the border,” he said, mostly into the Kurdish region of Iraq.  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.

Syria's Kurds look to Assad for protection after US pullout

Syria's Kurds said Syrian government forces agreed Sunday to help them fend off Turkey's invasion — a major shift in alliances that came after President Donald Trump ordered all U.S. troops withdrawn from the northern border area amid the rapidly deepening chaos. The shift could lead to clashes between Turkey and Syria and raises the specter of a resurgent Islamic State group as the U.S. relinquishes any remaining influence in northern Syria to President Bashar Assad and his chief backer, Russia.

With Hypersonic Missiles, Israel's F-35s Are Upping The Ante In Syria

Iran has taken notice.

Pompeo suggests reporter 'working for Democrats' after impeachment grilling

Titans of American journalism Rather and Mitchell join praise of Nancy Amons after Nashville reporter stuns secretary of state * Opinion: Rudy Giuliani is Donald Trump’s real secretary of stateSecretary of state Mike Pompeo. Photograph: Pablo Martínez Monsiváis/APSecretary of state Mike Pompeo suffered embarrassment from an unexpected quarter on Friday, as an interview with a local TV reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, produced not softball platitudes but hardball questions about the impeachment inquiry.“It sounds like you’re working, at least in part, for the Democratic National Committee,” the flustered diplomat said as he was pressed over Donald Trump’s attempts to have Ukraine investigate a political rival.Pompeo was in Nashville to give a speech to a Christian group about religious freedom, a priority of the Trump administration. WSMV, an NBC affiliate, reported that he told his audience it was “a heck of a day not to be in Washington”.WSMV reporter Nancy Amons was determined not to give him a break.Saying she would “start right away with the tough stuff, as you know”, Amons asked about a key issue in the Ukraine scandal: the removal of the US ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, who was testifying to House members on Friday, and the resignation of Michael McKinley, a close aide to Pompeo.“Well, ma’am, you have some of your facts wrong, so you should be careful about things you assert as facts before you state them,” Pompeo said.“But more importantly, I’m incredibly proud of the work that I’ve done along with my team, other senior leaders at the state department, to make sure that this institution was functional, preserved and delivering on behalf of America.”Pressed, Pompeo repeated that he did not talk about personnel matters as “it wouldn’t be appropriate, ma’am, to do that”. He appreciated the question “a great deal”, he said, but would not answer it.With Pompeo’s irritation increasingly visible, Amons asked if he had met Rudy Giuliani on a visit to Warsaw this year.The former New York mayor is commonly described as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer although it is not clear what legal work he might do for the president.As the impeachment inquiry proceeds, Giuliani is under scrutiny regarding extra-governmental efforts to promote conspiracy theories about Ukraine and to persuade President Vlodimyr Zelinskiy to investigate unproven allegations of corruption against Hunter Biden, the son of former vice-president Joe Biden.Two Soviet-born associates of Giuliani were arrested this week on campaign finance charges. Giuliani himself is reportedly under investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.Pompeo chose three times not to answer Amons’ question, instead offering grim-faced variations on a theme: that he went to Warsaw to work on “an important mission … to take down the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran” and it was the “only thing I engaged in while I was there”.“It sounds like you’re not going to say,” Amons said.She then asked about text messages between US diplomats, obtained by House Democrats, which show concern that Trump was making the US-Ukraine relationship contingent on help with investigating the Bidens.“Were you aware that this was happening?” she asked.“You’ve got your facts wrong,” Pompeo said. “It sounds like you’re working, at least in part, for the Democratic National Committee when you phrase the predicate of a question in that way.“It’s unfortunate and it does a real disservice to the employees and the team at the United States Department of State. Our team was incredibly focused, we wanted a good relationship with Ukraine.”Amons also asked about the situation in Syria, where Trump’s decision to pull US troops away from the border with Turkey has given a green light to an incursion by Turkish forces opposed to Kurdish groups long allied to the US.Civilian casualties and possible war crimes have been reported. The United Nations said on Sunday 130,000 people have been displaced. Nashville is home to a sizeable Kurdish American community, some of whom told the Guardian this week of their sense of betrayal by the US government. Amons asked the secretary of state what he would say to them.“So the United States under President Trump did enormous work to support the Kurds in taking down the [Islamic State] in predominantly Kurdish regions of Syria,” Pompeo said.Asked “for the Kurds who are here in Nashville, do you see why they are so worried”, he said: “We’ve been incredibly supportive and we will continue to support them.”The interview drew praise from some titans of American journalism, among them Andrea Mitchell and Dan Rather, who Amons thanked on Twitter.She also thanked her team and wrote: “Being prepared is crucial, and listening – things I learned through many years of workshops with Investigative Reporters and Editors, a great non-profit for journalists.”Asked about Pompeo’s evident irritation with her questions, she wrote: “No, I never felt unsafe. I think he liked me less at the end though than at the beginning.”

US pulling out of northern Syria; full withdrawal possible

The United States appears to be heading toward a full military withdrawal from Syria amid growing chaos , cries of betrayal and signs that Turkey's invasion could fuel a broader war. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday that President Donald Trump had directed U.S. troops in northern Syria to begin pulling out "as safely and quickly as possible." He did not say Trump ordered troops to leave Syria, but that seemed like the next step in a combat zone growing more unstable by the hour. Esper, interviewed on two TV news shows, said the administration was considering its options.

No sign of Brexit breakthrough with time running out

British and European negotiators on Sunday played down hopes of a rapid breakthrough in their last-ditch bid to strike an amicable Brexit divorce deal. Intense talks continue in Brussels, but European diplomats say the two sides are still far apart on how to manage trade and customs on the island of Ireland.

Macron, Merkel call for end to Turkish offensive in Syria

The leaders of France and Germany called Sunday for an end to Turkey's offensive against Kurds in northern Syria, warning of dire humanitarian consequences and a boost for the Islamic State group. Emmanuel Macron hosted Angela Merkel in Paris for a working dinner amid turmoil stirred up by Ankara's attack and Britain's pending exit from the European Union, both issues on the leaders' agenda.

Macron, Merkel call for end to Turkish offensive in Syria

France's President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Sunday for an end to Turkey's offensive against Kurds in northern Syria, warning of dire humanitarian consequences and a boost for the Islamic State group. "Our common wish is that the offensive must cease," Macron told a joint press conference with Merkel, who said she had spoken to Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan for an hour on Sunday and told him: "We must put an end to this Turkish invasion". "There are humanitarian reasons for this," Merkel told journalists, adding: "We can no longer accept this situation against the Kurds.

Russia will work with Saudi to stabilise oil market: Putin

Russia will work with Saudi Arabia against any "attempt to destabilise" the oil market, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview broadcast Sunday, on the eve of a visit to Riyadh. Tensions in the region are high following attacks on oil installations in Saudi Arabia, which sent prices surging, and the seizure of tankers in the Gulf. "If anyone believes that acts such as the seizing of tankers or strikes against oil infrastructure could in any way affect the cooperation between Russia and our Arab friends... they are very wrong," Putin said.

Israel president asks Putin to pardon woman jailed for cannabis

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday appealed to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to pardon an Israeli-American jailed for smuggling cannabis who is reportedly caught up in a prisoner exchange request. Naama Issachar was caught with nine grammes of the drug in her checked luggage while transiting from India to Israel at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport in April. The 26-year-old was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail by a Russian court on Friday, with Moscow reportedly seeking an exchange of a prisoner set to be extradited by Israel to the United States for her release.

Kremlin relishes US pullback from Syria, turmoil in Ukraine

From Syria to Ukraine, new fault lines and tensions are offering the Kremlin fresh opportunities to expand its clout and advance its interests. The U.S. military withdrawal from northern Syria before a Turkish offensive leaves Russia as the ultimate power broker, allowing it to help negotiate a potential agreement between Syrian President Bashar Assad and the Kurds who were abandoned by Washington.

12 Hours. 4 Syrian Hospitals Bombed. Evidence Reveals One Culprit: Russia.

The Russian Air Force has repeatedly bombed hospitals in Syria in order to crush the last pockets of resistance to President Bashar Assad, according to an investigation by The New York Times.An analysis of previously unpublished Russian Air Force radio recordings, plane-spotter logs and witness accounts allowed The Times to trace bombings of four hospitals in just 12 hours in May and tie Russian pilots to each one.The 12-hour period beginning on May 5 represents a small slice of the air war in Syria, but it is a microcosm of Russia's four-year military intervention in Syria's civil war. A new front in the conflict opened this week, when Turkish forces crossed the border as part of a campaign against a Kurdish-led militia.Russia has long been accused of carrying out systematic attacks against hospitals and clinics in rebel-held areas as part of a strategy to help Assad secure victory in the eight-year-old war.Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group that tracks attacks on medical workers in Syria, has documented at least 583 such attacks since 2011, 266 of them since Russia intervened in September 2015. At least 916 medical workers have been killed since 2011.The Times assembled a large body of evidence to analyze the hospital bombings on May 5 and 6.Social media posts from Syria, interviews with witnesses, and records from charities that supported the four hospitals provided the approximate time of each strike. The Times obtained logs kept by flight spotters on the ground who warn civilians about incoming airstrikes and cross-checked the time of each strike to confirm that Russian warplanes were overhead. We then listened to and deciphered thousands of Russian Air Force radio transmissions, which recorded months' worth of pilot activities in the skies above northwestern Syria. The recordings were provided to The Times by a network of observers who insisted on anonymity for their safety.Spotter logs from May 5 and 6 put Russian pilots above each hospital at the time they were struck, and Air Force audio recordings from that day feature Russian pilots confirming each bombing. Videos obtained from witnesses and verified by The Times confirmed three of the strikes.Recklessly or intentionally bombing hospitals is a war crime, but proving culpability amid a complex civil war is extremely difficult, and until now, Syrian medical workers and human rights groups lacked proof.Russia's position as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has shielded it from scrutiny and made U.N. agencies reluctant to accuse the Russian Air Force of responsibility."The attacks on health in Syria, as well as the indiscriminate bombing of civilian facilities, are definitely war crimes, and they should be prosecuted at the level of the International Criminal Court in The Hague," said Susannah Sirkin, director of policy at Physicians for Human Rights. But Russia and China "shamefully" vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have referred those and other crimes in Syria to the court, she said.The Russian government did not directly respond to questions about the four hospital bombings. Instead, a Foreign Ministry spokesman pointed to past statements saying that the Russian Air Force carries out precision strikes only on "accurately researched targets."The U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, opened an investigation into the hospital bombings in August. The investigation, still ongoing, is meant in part to determine why hospitals that voluntarily added their locations to a U.N.-sponsored deconfliction list, which was provided to Russia and other combatants to prevent them from being attacked, nevertheless came under attack.Syrian health care workers said they believed that the U.N. list actually became a target menu for Russian and Syrian air forces.Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the secretary-general, said in September that the investigation -- an internal board of inquiry -- would not produce a public report or identify "legal responsibility." Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian permanent representative to the U.N., cast doubt on the process shortly after it was announced, saying he hoped the inquiry would not investigate perpetrators but rather what he said was the U.N.'s use of false information in its deconfliction process.From April 29 to mid-September, as Russian and Syrian government forces assaulted the last rebel pocket in the northwest, 54 hospitals and clinics in opposition territory were attacked, the U.N. human rights office said. At least seven had tried to protect themselves by adding their location to the deconfliction list, according to the World Health Organization.On May 5 and 6, Russia attacked four. All were on the list.The first was Nabad al Hayat Surgical Hospital, a major underground trauma center in southern Idlib province serving about 200,000 people. The hospital performed on average around 500 operations and saw more than 5,000 patients a month, according to Syria Relief and Development, the U.S.-based charity that supported it.Nabad al Hayat had been attacked three times since it opened in 2013 and had recently relocated to an underground complex on agricultural land, hoping to be protected from airstrikes.At 2:32 p.m. on May 5, a Russian ground control officer can be heard in an Air Force transmission providing a pilot with a longitude and latitude that correspond to Nabad al Hayat's exact location.At 2:38 p.m., the pilot reports that he can see the target and has the "correction," code for locking the target on a screen in his cockpit. Ground control responds with the green light for the strike, saying, "Three sevens."At the same moment, a flight spotter on the ground logs a Russian jet circling in the area.At 2:40 p.m., the same time the charity said that Nabad al Hayat was struck, the pilot confirms the release of his weapons, saying, "Worked it." Seconds later, local journalists filming the hospital in anticipation of an attack record three precision bombs penetrating the roof of the hospital and blowing it out from the inside in geysers of dirt and concrete.The staff of Nabad al Hayat had evacuated three days earlier after receiving warnings and anticipating a bombing, but Kafr Nabl Surgical Hospital, 3 miles northwest, was not as lucky.A doctor who worked there said that the hospital was struck four times, beginning at 5:30 p.m. The strikes landed about five minutes apart, without warning, he said, killing a man who was standing outside and forcing patients and members of the medical staff to use oxygen tanks to breathe through the choking dust.A spotter logged a Russian jet circling above at the time of the strike, and in another Russian Air Force transmission, a pilot reports that he has "worked" his target at 5:30 p.m., the time of the strike. He then reports three more strikes, each about five minutes apart, matching the doctor's chronology.Russian pilots bombed two other hospitals in the same 12-hour span: Kafr Zita Cave Hospital and Al Amal Orthopedic Hospital. In both cases, spotters recorded Russian Air Force jets in the skies at the time of the strike, and Russian pilots can be heard in radio transmissions "working" their targets at the times the strikes were reported.Since May 5, at least two dozen hospitals and clinics in the rebel-held northwest have been hit by airstrikes. Syrian medical workers said they expected hospital bombings to continue, given the inability of the U.N. and other countries to find a way to hold Russia to account."The argument by the Russians or the regime is always that hospitals are run by terrorists," said Nabad al Hayat's head nurse, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared being targeted. "Is it really possible that all the people are terrorists?"The truth is that after hospitals are hit, and in areas like this where there is just one hospital, our houses have become hospitals."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company

Hong Kong Police Officer Slashed in Neck as Violence Continues

(Bloomberg) -- A Hong Kong police officer was slashed in the neck during a confrontation with protesters, as violent clashes continued following an escalation of violence earlier this month in demonstrations that began in June.Demonstrators spread out in 18 districts on Sunday in scattered, pop-up protests to pressure the government to meet their remaining demands, including the right to choose and elect their own leaders. Police said the officer suffered a neck wound after being attacked with a “sharp-edged” object in a subway station, adding that authorities fired tear gas in several places to disperse crowds who were vandalizing shops and public facilities.Overall the disruption wasn’t as bad as earlier this month, when the subway system was completely shut down due to widespread violence after leader Carrie Lam invoked emergency powers last used more than half a century ago to impose a ban face masks. Prior to this weekend, some activists had urged others to scale back the vandalism that has shut shops, banks and train stations over concerns it could sap support for the movement.Several events later this week could add fuel to the protests: Lam is due to give her annual economic-policy address, and U.S. lawmakers in the House of Representatives may vote on a bill that would require annual reviews of Hong Kong’s special trading status and potentially sanction some Chinese officials. Protesters plan to hold a rally in support of the bill in Central starting at 7 p.m. on Monday.“The protesters and the people in Hong Kong certainly would like to have more international attention, would like to secure international sympathy,” Joseph Cheng, a retired political science professor and pro-democracy activist, said Sunday. “The concern obviously is that violent activities may lose international support. There is a definite awareness.”Protesters are also concerned that violence may give the government an excuse to delay local elections next month, particularly as demonstrators are still enjoying popular support. Lam’s approval rating has been stuck near record lows for months.U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday appeared to endorse the notion that the protests were waning in a meeting in Washington with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. The two sides agreed to “phase one” of a trade deal that reduced tensions between the world’s biggest economies, even as thorny issues remain.“We discussed Hong Kong and I think great progress has been made by China in Hong Kong,” Trump said. “And I’ve been watching and I actually told the vice premier it really has toned down a lot from the initial days of a number of months ago when I saw a lot of people, and I see far fewer now.”The issue jumped into the forefront of debate in the U.S. over the past week after the general manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team tweeted support for the anti-Beijing protesters. The tweet was quickly deleted, but it triggered a backlash from Chinese companies and fans, leading to an exhibition game on Thursday in Shanghai not being aired or streamed in China.While he didn’t refer directly to Hong Kong, China President Xi Jinping told Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli that those attempting to split China will be crushed, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday. Xi said any external force backing the split of China will be considered as delusional by the Chinese people, the report said.The ongoing unrest was sparked by the Hong Kong government’s plan to introduce now-withdrawn legislation that would’ve allowed extradition to mainland China. Protester demands have since broadened to include an independent commission of inquiry into police brutality and greater democracy. Lam’s use of the emergency law raised the ire of protesters and paralyzed large parts of the city.About 100 restaurants have closed because of the unrest, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in a blog post Sunday. Around 2,000 employees have been affected as a result of the closures, Chan said, citing the catering industry.Since protests erupted on China’s National Day on Oct. 1, police have arrested about 500 people, including 77 for violating the mask ban, and fired almost 2,000 rounds of tear gas. Dozens of people have have been injured, including two teenage protesters who were shot during fights with police.Lam has refused to rule out further emergency measures, or even requesting Chinese military intervention to halt the unrest. “If the situation becomes so bad, then no option should be ruled out, if we want Hong Kong to at least have another chance,” she told reporters Tuesday.\--With assistance from Stanley James.To contact the reporters on this story: Aaron Mc Nicholas in Hong Kong at amcnicholas2@bloomberg.net;Eric Lam in Hong Kong at elam87@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Daniel Ten KateFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Iran offers warning after mysterious tanker attack

Iran's president warned Sunday it would be "a big mistake" to think his country won't respond to threats after a mysterious attack on one of its oil tankers. Hassan Rouhani's remarks came as Pakistan's prime minister was visiting Iran in an effort to ease tensions between Tehran and Saudi Arabia. Imran Khan is planning to visit Saudi Arabia later this week.

Pilot recordings show Russian air force bombed Syrian hospitals, report claims

The Russian air force deliberately bombed at least four hospitals in rebel-controlled parts of Syria, intercepted radio messages suggest.  Russia has been accused of deliberately targeting medical facilities and personnel repeatedly since it entered the war in Syria on the side of Bashar Assad in 2015.  It has consistently denied the allegations, saying its aircraft only bomb carefully selected targets.  But in recordings of transmissions obtained by the New York Times, Russian ground controllers are heard giving pilots the precise coordinates of hospitals just minutes before they were destroyed in airstrikes.   The conversations, carried on in terse Russian military phrases,  reportedly consist of a dispatcher issuing a pilot with coordinates; the pilot confirming receipt; the dispatcher giving a green light for the strike; and the pilot confirming he has hit the target.   The paper says checking the map-references use by the pilots and cross referencing the time of the transmissions with data gathered by plane spotters and witness accounts shows the aircraft were responsible for attacks on four hospitals in southern Idlib province, the last significant pocket held by rebel groups. The Nabad al Hayat Surgical Hospital, Kafr Nabl Surgical Hospital, the Kafr Zita Cave Hospital, the Al Amal Orthopedic Hospital were all  bombed in a 12 hour period on May 5 and May 6 this year.  All four were on a “deconfliction” list of medical facilities provided by the United Nations to all sides, including Russia, in an effort to reduce civilian casualties.  The Russian foreign ministry has not commented on the report.  Russian and Syrian government forces launched an offensive against the Idlib pocket on April 30. Human rights groups said in May that eight hospitals on the list had been targeted during the offensive.  The laws of war prohibit direct attacks on civilian facilities, like schools. They also prohibit direct attacks against hospitals and medical staff. However, proving culpability and intention on a battlefield is usually difficult. International humanitarian law also grants that a school or hospital could become a legitimate target if it is used to contribute to one side’s military operations.

U.S. ‘Withdraws’ as Kurds Strike Deal to Let Assad’s Forces Into Region

Khalil Ashawi/ReutersAmid a Turkish assault, the Kurds, or Syrian Democratic Forces, have struck a deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, that will bring forces loyal to Assad back into areas that have been under Kurdish control for years.“An agreement has been reached with the Syrian government—whose duty it is to protect the country’s borders and preserve Syrian sovereignty—for the Syrian Army to enter and deploy along the Syrian-Turkish border to help the SDF stop this aggression [by Turkey],” the Kurds said in a statement.Once the agreement was made Sunday night, Syrian Assad troops began moving into towns near the border with Turkey where Turkish forces have been encroaching since President Trump announced that he was withdrawing American forces from the region earlier this week.The agreement appears to undermine any expectation that United States might continue to assist the Kurds—Washington’s allies against ISIS—as they are attacked by Turkey. In the aftermath of Trump’s announcement, with a Turkish invasion carried out just days later, American forces were unable to carry out a move of about 60 “high value” ISIS detainees out of wartime prisons run by the Kurds, The New York Times reports. The chaos also made way for hundreds of ISIS prisoners on Sunday to escape from a low-security detention camp in the area.In the latest surge of anti-war rhetoric from the Trump administration, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Sunday that the U.S. is launching a “deliberate withdrawal” of American forces from northern Syria but refused to say how long it will take.“We want to conduct it safely and quickly as possible,” Esper told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, adding, “I’m not prepared to put a timeline on it, but that’s our general game plan.” Two knowledgeable U.S. officials told The Daily Beast that the troops are just withdrawing further away from the advance of Turkish forces massacring the Syrian Kurds whom America relied upon to destroy the so-called Islamic State’s caliphate.There are currently 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria. A knowledgeable U.S. official said hundreds of those troops, without further specificity, will leave Syria for elsewhere in the Mideast. Following a pullout from two northern Syrian observation posts last week, the U.S. will now retreat farther away from the area Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invaded.Esper said Trump gave the withdrawal order because Turkish forces are pushing further south into Syria and Kurdish forces had been trying to cut a deal with Syria and Russia to counter-attack.“We have American forces likely caught between two opposing advancing armies, and it’s a very untenable situation,” he said.But as Esper made clear, the order affects only the north and there will still be American forces in the rest of Syria even as Trump—who separately has ordered about 14,000 U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf region over the past six months—rails against the disastrous, bloody, and interminable U.S. misadventure in the Middle East over the past generation.A U.S. official told CNN that U.S. policy “has failed” and that the campaign in Syria to defeat ISIS is “over for now,” giving the terrorist group “a second lease on life with nearly 100,000 [people] who will re-join their jihad.” The mixed messaging by the Trump administration is making it difficult for even his most ardent supporters to help unravel his foreign policy on Syria as it spins out of control. Just days after Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops from northern Syria where they have been providing weapons and cover to allied Kurdish fighters on the border between Turkey and Syria, Turkey began a military incursion that has sent the region into a level of chaos it has not seen in recent years.The Daily Beast first reported Friday that claims made by the Trump administration that U.S. troops had been withdrawn were false. “We are out of there. We’ve been out of there for a while,” Trump said Wednesday. “No soldiers whatsoever.” Two officials told The Daily Beast that in fact the U.S. military had only pulled back from—not completely out of—northern Syria. They had simply abandoned two small observation posts from which they supported Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS fighters. Trump Says U.S. Troops Have Quit Syria. It’s Not True.Trump then tweeted that he had been talking with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–SC), who had been highly critical of Trump’s decision to remove troops. “Pray for our Kurdish allies who have been shamelessly abandoned by the Trump administration. This move ensures the reemergence of ISIS,” Graham warned Wednesday. “I urge President Trump to change course while there is still time by going back to the safe zone concept that was working.” Graham later tweeted that any sanctions had to be serious. “The conditional sanctions announced today will be viewed by Turkey as a tepid response and will embolden Erdogan even more,” Graham tweeted Friday. “The Turkish government needs to know Congress will take a different path—passing crippling sanctions in a bipartisan fashion.”But in a Sunday morning tweet, the president wrote that he was working with Graham “and many members of Congress, including Democrats, about imposing powerful Sanctions on Turkey.”He then added: “Treasury is ready to go, additional legislation may be sought. There is great consensus on this. Turkey has asked that it not be done. Stay tuned!”Turkey has warned that any threats of sanctions would be met with the release of millions of refugees along the border between Turkey and Syria into Europe. Trump told reporters at the White House earlier this week that such a possibility did not concern him. “Well they’re going to be escaping to Europe,” he said. “That’s where they want to go, they want to go back to their homes.”On Sunday, the Associated Press reported that up to 700 ISIS sympathizers did escape the Ain Eissa camp, which holds up 12,000 people caught up in years of unrest. Most of those who escaped are ISIS brides and children, but officials warn that they could be part of a resurgence of the so-called Islamic state. Several known ISIS fighters were also spotted fighting in the current conflict, according to CNN, which reported that at least five fighters had escaped the notorious Ghuwairan prison due to heavy shelling in the area. During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)—who has been one of the president’s most vocal defenders on the Syria decision—called it a “messy, complicated situation” while saying the president was right to move soldiers out of the way because “Turkey was coming in one way or another.” When moderator Chuck Todd noted that U.S. soldiers near the Turkish border were serving as a deterrent to an Erdogan invasion, Paul retorted “they were until they weren’t.”Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin repeated Paul’s line that this is a “complicated situation” when asked on ABC’s This Week why the administration hasn’t imposed sanctions on Turkey yet.“We are ready to go on a moment’s notice to put on sanctions,” Mnuchin said. “As I said, these sanctions could be starting small. They could be maximum pressure which would destroy the Turkish economy. The president is very focused on this. He’s offered to mediate the situation.”Mnunchin also pushed back on criticism from those within the president’s own party. In response to Graham and others saying sanctions would be a tepid reaction to Turkey, Mnuchin stated that this is a “multi-step process” and the administration needs to make sure “we have the proper authorizations.” The treasury chief, meanwhile, was asked what the president was talking about when he criticized the Kurds for not storming the beaches at Normandy alongside U.S. troops. Mnuchin asserted Trump’s analogy was that he was pushing back on everyone “saying the Kurds are these long-standing allies” and that our role in Syria “was not to defend the Kurds.”On CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said that while he wished the president’s decision had “been different,” he feels that we tend to “oversimplify the complicated relationships” in the region. He went on to say this wasn’t a “binary choice” as both the Turks and Kurds are considered allies. As for whether the U.S. was retreating from the area and allowing the Turks to invade northern Syria, Cramer said “we can’t be in the middle of every skirmish in the neighborhood.”House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel (D-NY), meanwhile, told Meet the Press that while he is working on a bipartisan bill that will slap sanctions on Turkey and condemn the president’s policy as it relates to the Kurds, he acknowledges that “it’s not going to stop” the Turks now. Asked whether it’s too late to do anything at this point, Engel seemed to resign himself to that notion.“We could mitigate the damage,” he told Todd. “Of course, it’s spiraling quickly. And what’s happened, of course, is a lot of ISIS prisoners, we’ve gotten reports that they have been released or they’ve escaped and so this is just the tip of the iceberg. And if we think this is terrible, I predict we will have many, many more days, weeks, and months of terrible things like this.”Elsewhere on Meet the Press, former secretary of defense James Mattis warned that ISIS could see a revival in the area, noting the Syrian Democratic Forces were the ones who largely fought the terror group in Syria. If we don’t keep pressure on, ISIS will resurge,” Mattis said. “It’s absolutely a given that they will come back.”During his State of the Union interview, South Bend Mayor and Afghanistan War veteran Pete Buttigieg insisted Trump was “systematically destroying American allies and American values.”“What’s even more disturbing to me as a veteran is hearing from soldiers who feel they have lost their honor over this, who feel they are unable to look in the eye [of] allies who put their lives on line to fight with us,” he added. “If you take away a soldier’s honor, you might as well go after their body armor next. That is what the commander-in-chief is doing right now.”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.

Mattis: Trump's troop pullout will lead to 'disarray' in Syria and Isis resurgence

* Ex-defense secretary calls resurgence of Isis ‘a given’ * Kurds say 785 Isis affiliates escape camp after Turkish shellingJames Mattis declined the opportunity to directly criticise his former boss, Donald Trump. Photograph: Leah Millis/ReutersThe former defense secretary James Mattis has said Donald Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of US troops from the Syria-Turkey border has increased the chances of a resurgence of Islamic State. But the retired general passed up an opportunity to directly criticise the president.“If we don’t keep the pressure on,” Mattis told NBC’s Meet the Press, “then Isis will resurge. It’s absolutely a given that they will come back.”After Mattis’s remarks were released, the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria said 785 foreign individuals affiliated with Isis had escaped the camp where they were being held, following heavy Turkish shelling.Trump announced the US withdrawal on Monday after a call with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The surprise announcement prompted widespread accusations of a betrayal of Kurds allied to the US in war-torn Syria. Turkey, which regards some Kurdish groups as terrorists, swiftly attacked. The president also said Erdoğan would visit the White House.Trump faced stringent attacks from both sides of the aisle. In Washington on Saturday night he held his ground, telling the conservative Values Voter Summit he was “an island of one”.“We have to bring our great heroes, our great soldiers, we have to bring them home,” he insisted. “It’s time. It’s time.”> If we don’t keep the pressure on, then Isis will resurge. It’s absolutely a given that they will come back> > James MattisOn Sunday morning, Trump warmed to his theme. The president said it was “very smart not to be involved in the intense fighting along the Turkish border, for a change”, amid a stream of tweets that included a startling statement: “Others may want to come in and fight for one side or the other. Let them!”In more measured tones, defense secretary Mike Esper told CBS’ Face the Nation “it’s a very terrible situation over there” but insisted roughly 1,000 US troops would be evacuated in a “deliberate withdrawal”.US forces are not yet out of harm’s way. The Washington Post reported that Turkish forces which shelled an area where US special forces troops remained on Friday had known for months they were there.Brett McGurk, the former US envoy to the global coalition against Isis who resigned over Trump’s attempts to withdraw from Syria, told the Post: “Turkey wants us off the entire border region to a depth of 30km [20 miles]. Based on all the facts available, these were warning fires on a known location, not inadvertent rounds.”Turkey is facing threats of US sanctions – reiterated by Trump in his speech on Saturday night – unless it calls off the incursion. Two of its Nato allies, Germany and France, have said they are halting weapons exports and the Arab League has denounced the operation.But airstrikes and shelling continue in Kurdish areas and harrowing scenes among panicked and grieving refugees are being reported worldwide. More than 130,000 people have been displaced from rural areas around Tel Abyad and Ras al Ain as a result of the fighting, the United Nations said. Turkish forces and their Syrian allies seized large parts of the town of Suluk, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday, the fifth day of the offensive.On Saturday, CNN reported that earlier this week Gen Mazloum Kobani Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, told a senior US diplomat: “You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered.”Also on Saturday, another SDF commander told a press conference: “The protection of Isis prisons will not remain our priority. The defence of our soil will be prioritised if [the] Turkish military continues its attacks.”On Sunday, the Kurds said some Isis prisoners had escaped. In an apparent reference to Turkish-backed Syrian insurgents, the Kurds said mercenaries attacked a camp where Isis “elements” attacked guards and opened the gates.“The brutal military assault led by Turkey and its mercenaries is now taking place near a camp in Ain Issa, where there are thousands from families of Isis,” the Kurds said, adding “some were able to escape after bombardments that targeted” the camp.Mattis discussed the threat of an Isis resurgence on NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday.“It’s in a situation of disarray right now,” he said in excerpts released by the broadcaster. “Obviously, the Kurds are adapting to the Turkish attacks. And we’ll have to see if they’re able to maintain the fight against Isis. It’s going to have an impact. The question is, how much?”Asked if the US would regret Trump’s decision, Mattis said: “We have got to keep the pressure on Isis so they don’t recover.“We may want a war over. We may even declare it over. You can pull your troops out as President Obama learned the hard way out of Iraq, but the ‘enemy gets the vote’, we say in the military. And in this case, if we don’t keep the pressure on, then Isis will resurge. It’s absolutely a given that they will come back.”Trump said this week any militant prisoners escaping from camps guarded by Kurds “will be escaping to Europe”. He also said the Kurds “didn’t help us in the second world war, they didn’t help us in Normandy, for example”.Mattis’s apparent disinclination to directly criticise the president, even as Syria spirals into ever worse chaos as a result of US actions, is in keeping with his approach since resigning in December 2018.The retired US Marine Corps general has said he has a “duty of silence” regarding the president he served. That commitment has held despite Mattis having resigned, like McGurk, in response to an earlier attempt by Trump to pull US troops from Syria and in protest at his treatment of America’s allies.In September, Mattis published a memoir, Call Sign Chaos. The book skirted his service to Trump, focusing instead on his career in the US armed forces.

The Latest: UN: talks to end Ecuador crisis to start Sunday

The United Nations and Ecuadorian Bishops' Conference have announced that talks between indigenous protest leaders and Ecuador's government will begin at 3 p.m. local time (4 p.m. EDT) Sunday. The announcement came after President Lenín Moreno ordered a 24-hour curfew and the army took to the streets in response to a day of attacks on government buildings and media offices.

Sudanese rebel groups seek peace after years of fighting

Sudan's new, transitional authorities have six months to make peace with the country's rebels under a power-sharing deal reached this summer between the military and the pro-democracy movement following the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April. Talks with the rebels are to officially start Monday in neighboring South Sudan's capital. Sudanese government officials met informally with a rebel leader in Juba this week to prepare for the talks.

Ecuador president to hold talks with indigenous leaders following deadly anti-austerity protests

A first meeting between Ecuador's president and indigenous leaders will take place on Sunday, the United Nations said, after Lenin Moreno ordered a curfew and military control in the capital to try to quell deadly, anti-austerity protests. The rolling demonstrations have left six people dead and nearly 2,100 wounded or detained, according to authorities, with protesters on Saturday targeting a television station and a newspaper as well as setting fire to the comptroller general's office. Sunday's meeting will be held in the capital Quito, the UN and Catholic Church said in a joint statement. "We put our trust in the goodwill of all to establish a dialogue in good faith and find a quick solution to the complicated situation in the country," they added. The crisis broke out at the start of October after Moreno ordered fuel subsidies cut as part of a deal struck by his government to obtain a $4.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. CONAIE, the indigenous umbrella group leading the protests, had previously rejected an offer of dialogue and said the talks would focus on "the repeal or revision of the decree" that has left consumers paying more than double for fuel. Ecuador's indigenous groups make up a quarter of the country's 17.3 million people. Thousands from disadvantaged communities in the Amazon and the Andes have traveled to Quito where they are spearheading demands that the subsidies continue.   Demonstrators on Saturday ransacked and set fire to the building housing the comptroller general's office, which was shrouded in thick smoke after being attacked with fire bombs. The prosecutor's office said 34 people were arrested. Nearby, protesters built barricades in front of the National Assembly building as police fired tear gas at them, according to AFP journalists. The Teleamazonas TV channel interrupted its regular broadcast to air images of broken windows, a burned vehicle and heavy police presence on the scene. "For about half an hour, we were under attack. They threw stones at us, forced open the doors and threw Molotov cocktails," presenter Milton Perez said. The station evacuated 25 employees, none of them hurt. El Comercio newspaper reported on Twitter that its offices were attacked by a "group of unknowns." It did not provide further details. "We have nothing to do with the events at the comptroller's office and Teleamazonas," said CONAIE. Protesters did not immediately heed the curfew that went into effect at 3:00 pm (2000 GMT), with security forces still struggling to impose order in some parts of the city as night fell. "Where are the mothers and fathers of the police? Why do they let them kill us?" cried Nancy Quinyupani, an indigenous woman. The restrictions in Quito, a city of 2.7 million, came on top of a state of emergency Moreno had declared on October 3, deploying some 75,000 military and police and imposing a nighttime curfew in the vicinity of government buildings. In televised comments, Moreno said Saturday "was a sad day for Ecuador." "Dark forces linked to organized political delinquency and led by Correa and Maduro, with the complicity of narcoterrorism, criminal groups and violent foreign citizens have caused never-before-seen violence," he added. It is the second time Moreno has accused his predecessor Rafael Correa and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of orchestrating the crisis to destabilize the country. The violence has forced Moreno to relocate his government to Ecuador's second city, Guayaquil, and has hit the oil industry hard with the energy ministry suspending more than two-thirds of its distribution of crude. Protesters seized three oil facilities in the Amazon earlier this week. Moreno is struggling with an economic crisis that he blames on waste and corruption by Correa's administration.

Xi Says Any Attempt to Split China Will Be Crushed: Xinhua

(Bloomberg) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping told Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli that those attempting to split China will be crushed, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.Xi said any external force backing the split of China will be considered as delusional by Chinese people, the report said. Oli said Nepal firmly supports China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and won’t allow Nepal’s territory to be used for separatist activities against China, Xinhua reported. Nepal is adjacent to China’s region of Tibet, where Beijing has long sought to suppress separatist sentimentTo contact the reporter on this story: Huang Zhe in Beijing at zhuang37@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Brendan ScottFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Aramco Showcases Oil-Attack Recovery Though Damage Remains

(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Aramco showed it has made significant progress in restoring damaged oil infrastructure to normal operation just a month after a devastating aerial attack halted production. But work remains to be done.A visit to the Khurais oil field on Saturday revealed gleaming stabilization towers, four of which were hit in the strike by missiles and drones on Sept. 14. While one of the towers shown to reporters remained a charred wreck, Aramco insisted that the site is now able to operate at full capacity for limited periods.Workers at the state-run oil giant worked 24 hours a day to restore output after the attacks on Khurais and the Abqaiq processing plant disabled 5% of global supply. A trip to Khurais a week after the assault showed equipment scorched and ruptured, with several stabilization units -- 90-meter (300-foot) towers that reduce pressure and remove gas from the crude -- burnt out.Yet Aramco made surprisingly swift progress with repairs, returning production to pre-attack levels by the end of last month. Oil prices, having surged the most on record immediately after the strikes, gave up their gains as traders turned their attention to slowing economic growth and demand concerns.The Khurais field has a maximum output capacity of 1.45 million barrels a day. An Aramco official said Saturday it’s now technically possible to operate the site at full capacity, having shown it can run it flat-out for about a day.A subsequent visit to the Abqaiq plant, some 150 miles from Khurais, showed the restoration of further stabilization towers. Five there were hit in the attack and three are now running as normal, Khaled Al Buraik, Aramco’s vice president for southern-area oil production, told reporters. It may take as long as six weeks to fully restore all the towers, a company official said.That chimes with comments from Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, who said last month that a return to the company’s full 12 million-barrel-a-day capacity is unlikely before the end of November.Abqaiq was struck 18 times in total, with 11 hits on its giant spheroids, which separate natural gas and water from the oil. Saturday’s visit showed that all of the so-called three-phase spheroids have been repaired. Primary-separation spheroids are also back to normal, according to Aramco, though the affected tanks are still partly shrouded in scaffolding, which could indicate some repairs continue.Saudi and U.S. officials said that the drones and missiles used in the attacks were made by Iran, though Tehran denied involvement. The incident ratcheted up instability in the world’s most important oil-producing region, where tensions increased further on Friday as Iran said missiles had struck one of its tankers in the Red Sea.\--With assistance from Anthony DiPaola.To contact the reporter on this story: Dina Khrennikova in Moscow at dkhrennikova@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Amanda Jordan, James AmottFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Merkel’s Spending Drive Thwarted by Bats, Lizards and Red Tape

(Bloomberg) -- Explore what’s moving the global economy in the new season of the Stephanomics podcast. Subscribe via Pocket Cast or iTunes.Visitors arriving by train in Stuttgart are met with a gaping hole that tells a sobering tale about Germany’s challenges in ramping up investment.It’s an infamous railway construction project, dreamed up in the 1990s and now billions of euros over budget and at least four years behind schedule. Among the reasons for the delay to the roughly 8 billion-euro ($9 billion) Stuttgart 21 development are a cumbersome planning process and ecological rules protecting lizards.That parable of red tape is a familiar one across Germany and underscores the problems facing the country as it risks stumbling into recession. Home to manufacturing powerhouses Daimler AG and Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart should be a prime candidate for realizing the government stimulus economists are calling for. But it’s not that simple.“Funds aren’t the issue,” said Detlef Kron, chief of Stuttgart’s planning department, as he unfurled a map of the town’s center strewn with numerous dark blue markers to represent new projects. Project paperwork can reach dozens of pages and environmental documentation can be triple that, he said.The administrative headaches he describes -- including a process lasting as long as four years to sort out building permission -- raises the question of whether the country can tackle commonplace problems like malfunctioning trains, old bridges and patchy wireless coverage quickly enough for it to make a meaningful difference to the economy.While critics charge Germany with being overzealous in its commitment to balanced budgets, Chancellor Angela Merkel insists that’s not the case. Germany has plenty of funds earmarked for investment, but the problem is “our planning and approval process is miserably slow,” she said at a union event in Nuremberg this month.There are detailed and ever-evolving environmental, social and safety requirements -- such as public hearings, changes to the fire code or impact assessments for endangered species -- that sometimes force already approved plans to be modified. That’s not to mention delays caused by lawsuits winding their way through the courts.Stuttgart 21 encroached on the habitat of protected lizards whose resettlement cost millions of euros. In the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, the construction of a motorway got stymied because officials hadn’t been thorough enough investigating its impact on bats.Planning requirements are one reason why a country synonymous with sophisticated engineering abroad has a track record on major infrastructure projects at home that borders on abysmal. In addition to Stuttgart 21, other quagmires include the Hamburg concert hall, a long-delayed overhaul of Berlin’s most prestigious opera house and the capital’s bungled airport.“Difficult and time-consuming planning and approval processes increasingly mean that important infrastructure projects can only be completed with a delay, or don’t get completed at all,” said Michael Stomberg, chief executive officer of construction company Bauer AG.The problem isn’t just limited to public projects. Germany ranks behind Serbia, France, Malaysia and Mongolia in a World Bank index for dealing with construction permits for commercial projects like warehouses.Even after planning hurdles have been cleared, it’s a further struggle to find construction crews and equipment amid a building boom, including pent-up demand for housing in major urban centers such as Berlin.“The construction industry is operating at full capacity, and that can present a challenge in terms of timing for everyone in the industry,” said Karl Wambach, executive vice president at Brookfield Properties Inc., which is redeveloping a shopping center at Potsdamer Platz, a symbolic location at the crossroads of former East and West Berlin.Such constraints haven’t deterred calls for Germany to build more. International Monetary Fund officials “encouraged the authorities to continue to use the available fiscal space to bolster potential growth.” In their last assessment of the economy in July, they put infrastructure investment at the top of their wish list.With low debt levels and negative interest rates meaning Germany would effectively be paid to sell bonds, the country has plenty of room to maneuver financially. But back in Stuttgart, where Kron’s department is struggling to find office space for planned new hires, that approach doesn’t make sense.“Why should we raise debt?” he said. “We can’t even spend the money that we have.”\--With assistance from David Verbeek, Raymond Colitt and Leonard Kehnscherper.To contact the reporters on this story: Catherine Bosley in Zurich at cbosley1@bloomberg.net;Andrew Blackman in Berlin at ablackman@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Craig Stirling, Chris ReiterFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Trump says he's an 'island of one' on Syria

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he is an "island of one" for removing U.S. forces from northeastern Syria. Turkey, however, regards those Kurdish fighters as a terrorist threat and has launched a military operation against them. Trump announced that he had directed $50 million in emergency aid for Syria to support Christians and other religious minorities there.

The Latest: Turkey says troops captured Syrian border town

France is halting exports of any arms to Turkey that could be used in its offensive against Kurds in Syria, and wants an immediate meeting of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State extremists. France's defense and foreign ministries made the announcement in a statement Saturday reiterating opposition to the Turkish military operation, which is facing growing international condemnation.

Turkish forces say they've captured key Syrian border town

Turkey's military said it captured a key Syrian border town under heavy bombardment Saturday in its most significant gain since an offensive against Kurdish fighters began four days ago, with no sign of relenting despite mounting international criticism. Turkish troops entered central Ras al-Ayn, according to Turkey's Defense Ministry and a war monitor group. The ministry tweeted: "Ras al-Ayn's residential center has been taken under control through the successful operations in the east of Euphrates" River.

Brexit Deal in Sight as Negotiators Wrestle With the Details

(Bloomberg) -- Follow @Brexit, sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, and tell us your Brexit story. The U.K. and European Union signaled a Brexit deal is in sight, with negotiators heading into intensive talks in Brussels as a potential compromise over the Irish border starts to emerge.With EU officials saying Boris Johnson had indicated a possible path to detailed talks, the U.K. prime minister planned to update his Cabinet on Sunday on progress toward a Brexit deal. Speculation that Britain will avoid dropping out of the EU without a divorce accord lifted the pound last week to its biggest two-day gain in a decade, though both sides cautioned that much work remains to be done for Britain to leave by Johnson’s Oct. 31 deadline.At issue are the prime minister’s plans to take Northern Ireland out of Europe’s customs union and give Stormont, its power-sharing assembly, a veto over the arrangement. The first would trigger the return of checks on goods crossing the frontier, something the Irish government and the EU oppose. The second would hand Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party an effective veto over the deal, something unacceptable south of the border.DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds rejected any weakening of Northern Ireland’s custom ties with the U.K. and said his party is awaiting the outcome of the talks in Brussels, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper quoted him as saying in an interview.A possible compromise is a British idea for Northern Ireland to technically leave Europe’s customs union but for the province to adhere to EU customs rules and tariffs, according to two officials. This would have the twin benefit of preventing a border on the island of Ireland and enabling the U.K. to strike trade deals around the world.It’s similar to a “customs partnership” plan the EU rejected in 2018, and would leave Northern Ireland with a different customs regime to the rest of the U.K. British authorities would have to collect tariffs on behalf of the bloc on goods crossing the Irish Sea. EU officials said the proposal is extremely complicated and needs work before it could be considered to be a solution, but didn’t rule out that it could emerge as the compromise.“Getting Brexit done by 31 October is absolutely crucial, and we are continuing to work on an exit deal so we can move on to negotiating a future relationship based on free trade and friendly cooperation with our European friends,” Johnson said in a statement.BackstopEU officials view the only sure-fire solution as an arrangement that keeps Northern Ireland in the customs union, the so-called backstop. While there’s no discussion yet of putting a time limit on that arrangement, something the EU has previously rejected, one EU official said that it could yet be considered.Any agreement would have to be backed by Parliament in London, where Johnson is reliant on the DUP. The party staunchly opposes subjecting Northern Ireland to different customs rules than the rest of the U.K.After EU officials said Johnson indicated he was prepared to make sufficient concessions to allow detailed talks to begin, teams from both sides started work Saturday to explore whether they can arrive at the basis of an accord ahead of a summit of EU leaders that begins Thursday.Can Johnson Get a Deal Through Parliament? Silence Is GoldenIn a meeting with envoys of the bloc’s remaining 27 countries on Friday, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, suggested that Johnson is softening his stance on both customs and Stormont’s consent. In what would potentially be a significant climb-down, Johnson acknowledged there should be no customs border on the island of Ireland, two officials said. When asked in a pooled interview for British television, Johnson declined to say whether Northern Ireland will leave the EU’s customs union.“There is a joint feeling that there is a way forward, that we can see a pathway to a deal,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. There’s work to be done.”Ship of StateIn an article for the Sunday Telegraph, Jacob Rees-Mogg -- whose hardcore anti-EU stance has peppered the airwaves since the 2016 referendum -- suggested that some Brexiteers will have to come around to accepting Johnson’s compromises.“As a Leaver, Boris can be trusted,” Rees-Mogg wrote. “If he thinks the ship of state is worth an extra ha’porth of tar, he deserves support.”While negotiations are heading into a new intensive phase, they aren’t headed into the full “tunnel,” the formal Brussels process by which the actual legal text of an agreement is thrashed out in secret.This suggests that the EU still has reservations about the chances of getting a deal done, and that member states are unwilling to outsource the process entirely to Barnier and his team.The European Commission will update the EU’s national envoys Sunday, with the aim of having something concrete for EU affairs ministers to look at when they meet in Luxembourg on Tuesday to prepare for the summit.sDUP Leader Arlene Foster fired a warning shot against trying to keep Northern Ireland in the EU customs union, though she stopped short of explicitly withholding support from the prime minister.“Those who know anything about Northern Ireland will appreciate that these issues will only work with the support of the unionist as well as the nationalist community,” she said in a statement.For all the optimism, there’s still a long way to go.European Council President Donald Tusk said the U.K. hadn’t yet “come forward with a workable, realistic proposal.”But there are “promising signals,” he said.(Updates with DUP leader’s comments in fourth paragraph, Johnson comments in seventh)\--With assistance from Dara Doyle, Nikos Chrysoloras and Alexander Weber.To contact the reporter on this story: Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, James LuddenFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.