Tag: political figures – intl

Putin signs law to mobilize Russian citizens convicted of serious crimes | CNN

CNN
—

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law to conscript citizens with unexpunged or outstanding convictions for murder, robbery, larceny, drug trafficking and other serious crimes under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to be called up for military service to mobilize.

This makes it possible to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people who have been sentenced to probation or have recently been released from colonies who were previously forbidden to serve.

The only group of criminals exempted from the decree are those who committed sex crimes against minors, treason, spying or terrorism. Also excluded are those convicted of the attempted assassination of a government official, hijacking an aircraft, extremist activity and illegal handling of nuclear materials and radioactive substances.

President Vladmir Putin said Friday that the Kremlin had already mobilized an additional 18,000 soldiers above its goal of 300,000 to fight in its war in Ukraine from the general male population of Russia.

Earlier this week, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that all partial mobilization activities, including summons deliveries, had been suspended after officials said the draft’s target of recruiting 300,000 personnel had been met.

However, Putin’s partial mobilization order will only end when the Russian President signs in an official decree. Until then, he reserves the right to recruit more people into military conscription in the future.

The head of Russia’s notorious Wagner forces, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has apparently summoned prisoners from Russian jails to join the mercenary group in fighting the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

The amendments signed by Putin are unrelated to these alleged recruitments. Instead, the law applies to prisoners who were conditionally convicted or released from colonies. These people usually must remain under the supervision of the authorities for eight to ten years until the conviction is canceled.

They are not allowed to leave their place of residence and must comply with various restrictions.

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November 5, 2022
Germany’s leader and top CEOs have arrived in Beijing. They need China more than ever | CNN Business

Hong Kong/London
CNN Business
—

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in China on Friday with a team of top executives and a clear message: business with the world’s second largest economy must continue.

Scholz met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People after landing in the capital Friday morning, according to a Chinese state media account. The German chancellor is also expected to meet with Premier Li Keqiang.

Joining Scholz for the whirl-wind one day visit is a delegation of 12 German industry titans, including the CEOs of Volkswagen

(VLKAF), Deutsche Bank

(DB), Siemens

(SIEGY) and chemicals giant BASF

(BASFY), according to a person familiar with the matter. They are set to meet with Chinese companies behind closed doors.

The group entered China without participating in the usual seven-day hotel quarantine. Images showed hazmat-clad medical workers greeting their jet at Beijing’s Capital International Airport to test the official delegation for Covid-19.

During the Friday morning meeting between the two leaders, Xi called for Germany and China to work together amid a “complex and volatile” international situation, and said the visit would “enhance mutual understanding and trust, deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields and plan for the next phase of Sino-German relations,” according to a readout from state broadcaster CCTV.

Scholz’s visit — the first by a G7 leader to China in roughly three years — comes as Germany slides towards recession. But it has fired up concerns that the economic interests of Europe’s biggest economy are still too closely tied to those of Beijing.

Since the invasion of Ukraine this year, Germany has been forced to ditch its long dependence on Russian energy. Now, some in Scholz’s coalition government are growing nervous about the country’s deepening ties with China. Beijing has declared its friendship with Russia has “no limits,” while China’s relations with the United States are deteriorating.

The tension was highlighted recently by a fierce debate over a bid by Chinese state shipping giant Cosco to buy a 35% stake in the operator of one of the four terminals at the port of Hamburg. Under pressure from some members of the government, the size of the investment was limited to 24.9%.

The potential deal has raised concerns in Germany that closer ties with China will leave critical infrastructure exposed to political pressure from Beijing, and disproportionately benefit Chinese companies.

But Germany is hardly in a position to rock the boat with Beijing as it grapples with the challenge of reviving its struggling economy. Its consumers and companies have borne the brunt of Europe’s energy crisis, and a deep recession is looming.

If the European Union and Germany were to decouple from China, it would lead to “large GDP losses” for the German economy, Lisandra Flach, director of the ifo Center for International Economics, told CNN Business.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that a major reduction in trade between the European Union and China would shave 1% off of Germany’s GDP.

Germany needs to shore up its export markets as ties with Russia, once its main supplier of natural gas, continue to unravel.

When it comes to China, Germany won’t want to “lose also this market, this economic partner,” said Rafal Ulatowski, an assistant professor of political science and international studies at the University of Warsaw.

“They [will] try to keep these relations as long as it’s possible.”

As Western countries have imposed swingeing economic sanctions on Russia, China has publicly maintained its “neutrality” in the war while ramping up its trade with Moscow.

That has triggered a backlash in Europe, where some companies are already becoming wary of doing business in China because of its stringent “zero Covid” restrictions.

Pressure on Berlin is also mounting over China’s human rights record. In an open letter Wednesday, a coalition of 70 civil rights groups urged Scholz to “rethink” his trip to Beijing.

“The invitation of a German trade delegation to join your visit will be viewed as an indication that Germany is ready to deepen trade and economic links, at the cost of human rights and international law,” they wrote in the memo, published by the World Uyghur Congress. Based in Germany, the organization is run by Uyghurs raising awareness of allegations of genocide in China’s Xinjiang region.

It suggested Berlin was “loosening economic dependence on one authoritarian power, only to deepen economic dependence on another.”

In an op-ed published in a German newspaper on Wednesday, Scholz said he would use his visit to “address difficult issues,” including “respect for civil and political liberties and the rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province.”

A spokesperson for the German government addressed wider criticism last week, saying at a press conference that it had no intention of “decoupling” from its most important trading partner.

“[The chancellor] has basically said again and again that he is not a friend of decoupling, or turning away, from China. But he also says: diversify and minimize risk,” the spokesperson said.

Last year, China was Germany’s biggest trading partner for the sixth year in a row, with the value of trade up over 15% from 2020, according to official statistics. Together, Chinese imports from, and exports to, Germany were worth €245 billion ($242 billion) in 2021.

Still, the furore surrounding the Hamburg port deal is a reminder of the tradeoffs Germany has to confront if it wants to maintain close ties with such a vital export market and supplier.

A spokesperson for Hamburger Hafen und Logistik (HHLA), the company operating the port terminal, told CNN Business on Thursday that it was still negotiating the deal with Cosco.

Flach, of the ifo Center for International Economics, said the deal warranted scrutiny because “there is no reciprocity: Germany cannot invest in Chinese ports, for instance.”

However, it is easy to overstate the impact of the potential agreement, said Alexander-Nikolai Sandkamp, assistant professor of economics at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

“We’re not talking about a 25% stake in the Hamburg harbor, or even the operator of the harbor, but a 25% stake in the operator of a terminal,” he told CNN Business.

Jürgen Matthes, head of global and regional markets at the German Economic Institute, told CNN Business that critics were no longer simply weighing the business benefits of Chinese investment in the country.

“Politics and economics have to be looked at together and cannot be taken separately any longer,” he said. “When geopolitics comes into play, the view of China has very much declined and become much more negative.”

China’s recent treatment of Lithuania has also deepened concerns that Beijing “does not hesitate to simply break trade rules,” Matthes added. The small, Eastern European nation claimed last year that Beijing had erected trade barriers in retaliation for its support for Taiwan.

China has defended its downgrading of relations with Lithuania, saying it is acting in response to the European nation undermining its “sovereignty and territorial integrity.” This year, after a Lithuanian official visited Taiwan, Beijing also announced sanctions against her and vowed to “suspend all forms of exchange” with her ministry.

As the German delegation touches down on Friday, they will be faced with another issue, which has become the single biggest headache for companies across China.

“The biggest challenge for German businesses remains China’s zero-Covid policy,” said Maximilian Butek of the German Chamber of Commerce in China.

“The restrictions are suffocating economic growth and heavily impact China’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign direct investment,” he told CNN Business.

He said the broader restrictions were so stifling that some companies had moved their regional headquarters to other locations, such as Singapore. “Managing the whole region without being able to travel freely is almost impossible,” he added.

In a brief statement, Volkswagen told CNN Business that its CEO was attending the trip since “there have been no direct meetings for almost three years” due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“In view of the completely changed geopolitical and global economic situation, the trip to Beijing offers the opportunity for a personal exchange of views,” the automaker said.

Despite Beijing’s Covid curbs and geopolitical tensions, Germany has every economic incentive to stay close to China.

Its dependency on China can be seen across industries. While about 12% of total imports came from China last year, the country was responsible for 80% of imported laptops and 70% of mobile phones, Sandkamp said.

The automobile, chemical and electrical industries are also reliant on Chinese trade.

“If we were to stop trading with China, we would run into trouble,” Sandkamp added.

China made up 40% of Volkswagen’s worldwide deliveries in the first three quarters of this year, and it’s also the top market for other automakers such as Mercedes.

Wariness among some German officials over the country’s closeness with China could filter into a more restrictive trade policy, though economic cooperation is still in both parties’ interests.

Last week, Germany’s economy minister Robert Habeck told Reuters that the government was efforting a new trade policy with China to reduce dependence on Chinese raw materials, batteries and semiconductors.

Unidentified sources also told the news agency that the ministry was weighing new rules that would make business with China less attractive. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment from CNN Business.

But “despite all odds and challenges, China remains unrivaled in terms of market size and market growth opportunities for many German companies,” said Butek, of the German Chamber.

He predicted that “the large majority will stay committed to the Chinese market and is expecting to expand their business.”

Companies appear to be toeing that line. Last week, BASF CEO Martin Brudermüller was quoted in Chinese state media as saying that Germans should “step away from China-bashing and look at ourselves a bit self-critically.”

“We benefit from China’s policies of widening market access,” he said at a company event, according to state-run news agency Xinhua, pointing to the construction of a BASF chemical engineering site in southern China.

— CNN’s Simone McCarthy, Chris Stern, Lauren Kent, Claudia Otto and Arnaud Siad contributed to this report.

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November 3, 2022
Opinion: In Ukraine, many global battles are colliding | CNN

Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN
—

Almost immediately after last month’s blast that destroyed a section of the Kerch bridge connecting Russia to Crimea – the Ukrainian territory it annexed in 2014 – the Kremlin intensified attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, stepping up its bombing of apartment buildings, power grid and water systems.

Much of the weaponry for these attacks that are wreaking havoc on the lives of Ukrainians is coming from Iran, which has already supplied Russia with hundreds of deadly drones.

Now, CNN has reported Iran is about to start sending even more – and more powerful – weapons to Russia for the fight against Ukraine, according to a western country closely monitoring Iran’s weapons program.

The strengthening relationship between Moscow and Tehran has drawn the attention of Iran’s rivals and foes in the Middle East, of NATO members and of nations that are still – at least in theory – interested in restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which aimed to delay Iran’s ability to build an atomic bomb.

The intersection of the war in Ukraine and the conflicts surrounding Iran is just one example of how Ukraine has become the pivot point for so many of the world’s geopolitical tensions.

A little over eight months since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has become the stage upon which multiple battles are being fought.

This is a conflict like few, if any, in recent memory, with grave and far-reaching consequences. The ramifications we have already seen underscore just how important it is – and not only for Ukraine – that Russia’s aggression not succeed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was never a run-of-the-mill border dispute. Even before it started, as Putin initiated – and continuously denied – his march to war, the importance of preventing Russia’s autocratic regime from gaining control of its neighbor, with its incipient democracy, was clear.

The historian Yuval Noah Harari has argued that no less than the direction of human history is at stake, because a victory by Russia would reopen the door to wars of aggression, to invasions of one country by another, something that since the Second World War most nations had come to reject as categorically unacceptable.

For that reason, Ukraine received massive support from the West, led by the United States. The war in Ukraine reinvigorated NATO, even bringing new applications for membership from countries that had been committed to neutrality. It also helped reaffirm the interest of many in eastern European states – former Soviet satellites – of orienting their future toward Europe and the West.

Much of what happens today far from the battlefields still has repercussions there. When oil-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia, decided last month to slash production, the US accused the Saudis of helping Russia fund the war by boosting its oil revenues. (An accusation the Saudis deny).

Separately, weapons supplies to Ukraine have become a point of tension with Israel, which has developed highly effective defense systems against incoming missiles. Ukraine has asked Israel to provide those systems, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling, but Israel refuses, citing its own strategic concerns.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz recently reiterated that “Israel supports and stands with Ukraine, NATO and the West,” but will not move those systems to Ukraine, because, “We have to share our airspace in the North with Russia.”

Syria’s airspace, bordering Israel, is controlled by Russian forces, which have allowed Israel to strike Iranian weapon flows to Hezbollah, a militia sworn to Israel’s destruction. Gantz has offered to help Ukraine develop defensive systems and it will reportedly provide new military communications systems, but no missile shields.

As others have noted, Israel is reluctant to let go of its defensive systems partly because it could need them for its own defense. Hezbollah in the north holds a massive arsenal of missiles, and Hamas in the south has its own rockets.

Beyond the Middle East and Europe, the war in Ukraine has also brought economic and potentially political shockwaves across the world.

Russia’s assault on Ukrainian ports and its patrols of Black Sea halted Ukraine’s grain exports just after the war started, causing food prices to skyrocket. The head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, warned in May that the world was “marching toward starvation.”

A UN and Turkey-brokered agreement allowed Ukraine’s maritime corridors to reopen, but this week Moscow temporarily suspended that agreement after Russian Navy ships were struck at the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Putin’s announcement was immediately followed by a surge in wheat prices on global commodity markets. Those prices partly determine how much people pay for bread in Africa and across the planet.

In fact, the war in Ukraine is already affecting everyone, everywhere. The conflict has also sent fuel prices higher, contributing to a global explosion of inflation.

Higher prices not only affect family budgets and individual lives. When they come with such powerful momentum, they pack a political punch. Inflation, worsened by the war, has put incumbent political leaders on the defensive in countless countries.

Now comes a new chapter in the international impact of the war in Ukraine. Some of Putin’s former friends in the far right have turned against him, but not all. Some far-right politicians and prominent figures in Europe and the US echo Putin’s claims about the war. Their hope is to leverage discontent – which could worsen as winter comes and heating prices rise.

And it’s not all on the fringes. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader who could become speaker of the House after next week’s US elections, suggested the GOP might choose to reduce aid to Ukraine. Progressive Democrats released and withdrew a letter calling for negotiations. Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official during the Obama administration, said they’re all bringing “a big smile to Putin’s face.”

The war in Ukraine is becoming an engine that fuels a far-right push for more influence; a symbiotic relationship between Putin and his fans in the West. Just as a political action committee linked to the former Trump aide Stephen Miller is arguing against spending on Ukraine, somehow linking it to poverty and crime in the US, like-minded figures in Europe are trying to promote their views by pointing to their country’s hardships as the cost of helping Ukraine. For now, support for Ukraine remains strong in Europe and the US, although flagging among Republicans.

Ukraine has become the epicenter of a global conflict; a hub whose spokes connect to every country, every life. Russia’s aggression – its Iranian drones, civilian targets, and weaponization of hunger – has already taken a global toll, lowering worldwide living standards and raising international tensions.

If Russia is allowed to win, Putin’s war would mark the beginning of a new era of global instability, with less freedom, less peace and less prosperity for the world.

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November 2, 2022
Families of Halloween crush victims identify lost items as South Korean police admit mistakes | CNN

Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—

ln a cavernous Seoul gymnasium Tuesday, grieving families inspected neat rows of belongings left behind at the scene of the deadly street crush in Itaewon.

Shoes, bags, glasses, notebooks, wallets, cardholders and colorful hats were laid out on makeshift tables and exercise mats along the polished floor – waiting to be claimed by the next of kin of 156 victims killed in Saturday night’s crowd surge.

“Found it. I think this is the one,” said one woman, as she recognized a black coat, hugging it as she cried.

The middle-aged woman, who had arrived with her husband, collapsed to the floor in tears after discovering a missing pair of knee-high boots. It was among rows of black boots, stilettos and sneakers. In many cases, there was just one shoe.

Another younger woman, wearing a cast on her left arm, walked into the gymnasium to find her lost shoe. This woman, who didn’t want to be named, said she was in front of a bar in the alley when the crush happened.

Stuck in the crowd, she said she passed out from asphyxiation “to the point I thought I was dead, but a foreigner shouted at me to wake up.” Her arm was badly bruised during the incident, and after she came to, the woman said she just held on until the crowd eased and she could be rescued.

Family members walked into the gymnasium, one by one and in small groups, escorted by officials who hurriedly put on white gloves and showed them to the tables, so they could inspect and claim the carefully arranged possessions.

South Korea is in deep mourning for the 156 people killed, including 26 foreigners, in the crowd crush on Saturday night when as many as 100,000 people crammed into the narrow streets of Itaewon to celebrate Halloween.

Officials expected large numbers due to the popularity of the area for Halloween parties in pre-Covid years, but police have admitted they were unprepared for this year’s crowd.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Yoon Hee-keun, head of National Police Agency, bowed deeply as he began a press conference, admitting for the first time failings on the behalf of the police in the capital that night.

Yoon said officers failed to adequately respond to the emergency calls that flooded into the police call center before the disaster.

“The calls were about emergencies telling the danger and urgency of the situation that large crowds had gathered before the accident occurred,” Yoon said. “However, we think the police response to the 112 (emergency telephone number) calls was inadequate.”

South Korean police received at least 11 calls from people in Itaewon about concerns of a possible crush as early as four hours before the incident occurred on Saturday night, records given to CNN by the National Police Agency show.

The first call was made at 6:34 p.m. Saturday from a location near the Hamilton Hotel, which borders the alley where the deadly surge occurred, the records show.

“People are going up and down the alley now, but it looks really dangerous. People can’t come down but people keep coming up (the alleyway), so I fear people might be crushed,” one caller said, according to the record.

“I managed to get out, but it’s too crowded. I think you need to control this. Nobody is controlling (the crowd). I think police officers should be standing here and moving some people so that others can go through the alleyway. People cannot even go through but there are more people pouring down,” the caller added.

Then at 8:09 p.m., another person in Itaewon reported that there were so many people in the area that they were falling over and getting hurt. The caller asked for traffic control, the record shows.

The deadly crowd surge took place just after 10 p.m.

On Monday, Oh Seung-jin, director of the agency’s violent crime investigation division, said about 137 personnel had been deployed to Itaewon that night, compared to about 30 to 90 personnel in previous years before the pandemic.

“For this time’s Halloween festival, because it was expected that many people would gather in Itaewon, I understand that it was prepared by putting in more police force than other years,” said Oh.

However, police at the scene were tasked with cracking down on illegal activity such as drug taking and sexual abuse in the area “rather than on site control,” Oh said.

On Tuesday, South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said a “lack of institutional knowledge and consideration for crowd management” was partly to blame for the crowd crush.

“One of the reasons was a lack of deep institutional knowledge and consideration for crowd management. However, the police are investigating,” Han said.

“Even if more police were put in (to the site), there seems to have been a limit in the situation as we don’t have a crowd management system, but we’ll need to wait for the police investigation to find out the cause,” he added.

CNN reporter returns to Itaewon’s narrow alley one day after the Halloween disaster. See what’s it like

At a Tuesday Cabinet meeting, President Yoon Suk Yeol urged the need to establish systems to prevent similar tragedies.

“In addition to side streets where this time’s large disaster happened, (we) need to establish safety measures at stadiums, performance venues and etc. where crowds gather,” he said, adding that the government will hold a national safety system inspection meeting with relevant ministers and experts soon.

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November 1, 2022
Netanyahu on brink of comeback as Israeli exit polls point to narrow majority for ex-PM | CNN

Jerusalem
CNN
—

Former Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was on the verge of making a triumphant return to office in Israel, as initial exit polls suggested he may have scraped a narrow majority in the country’s fifth national election in less than four years.

If exit polls are correct – a big if – Netanyahu and his political allies appear to be on pace to win most seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

As expected, first exit polls from the country’s three main broadcasters suggested late on Tuesday that no party won enough seats to govern on its own, meaning that it will be necessary to build a coalition government.

The exit polls projected pro-Netanyahu parties would take 61 or 62 of the parliament’s 120 seats. The alliance is comprised of Netanyahu’s Likud party, Religious Zionism/Jewish Power, Shas and United Torah Judaism.

The alliance backing the current acting Prime Minister Yair Lapid, comprised of Yesh Atid, National Unity, Yisrael Beiteinu, Labor, Meretz and Ra’am, was poised to take 54 or 55 seats, according to the exit polls.

The Arab party Hadash/Taal, which is unlikely to support either side, was set to secure four seats, the exit polls suggested.

The election was marked by what was likely the highest turnout since 1999. The Central Election Committee said that two-thirds of eligible voters cast their ballots by 8 p.m. – two hours before the polls were set to close.

Netanyahu spent the closing weeks of the campaign barnstorming the country in a truck converted into a travelling stage encased in bulletproof glass. Pro-Netanyahu ads – and ads depicting his opponents looking shady – plastered the sides of buses.

It’s not yet certain that Netanyahu has made a comeback, after he was outmaneuvered following last year’s elections by Lapid.

The exit polls are only projections based on interviews with voters on Tuesday, not official results. The results can – and have in the past – change throughout the election night. Official results may not be final until Wednesday or even Thursday.

Once official results are in, President Isaac Herzog will invite the politician he deems most likely to be able to form a government to open coalition negotiations.

A Netanyahu return to the head of government could spell fundamental shifts to Israeli society.

A Netanyahu government would almost certainly include the newly ascendant Jewish nationalist Religious Zionism/Jewish Power alliance, whose leaders include Itamar Ben Gvir, once convicted for inciting racism and supporting terrorism.

When asked by CNN on Tuesday about fears he would lead a far-right government if he returns to office, Netanyahu responded with an apparent reference to the Ra’am party, which made history last year by becoming the first Arab party ever to join an Israeli government coalition.

“We don’t want a government with the Muslim Brotherhood, who support terrorism, deny the existence of Israel and are pretty hostile to the United States. That is what we are going to bring,” Netanyahu told CNN in English at his polling station in Jerusalem.

And Netanyahu allies have talked about making changes to the judicial system. That could put an end to Netanyahu’s own corruption trial, where he has pleaded not guilty.

Netanyahu himself has been one of the main issues not only in Tuesday’s election but in the four that preceded it, with voters – and politicians – splitting into camps based on whether they want the man universally known as Bibi in power or not.

Part of the difficulty in building a stable government over the past four elections has been that even some political parties that agree with Netanyahu on the issues refuse to work with him for personal or political reasons of their own.

Regardless of whether the exit polls are correct or not, they are only exit polls, not official results.

Getting the official results is going to take some time – they could be ready as soon as Wednesday, but it might be Thursday before the final makeup of Israel’s 25th Knesset is clear.

That’s partly because parties need to win at least 3.25% of the total vote in order to get any seats in the Knesset at all, a threshold established in an effort to make coalition building easier by keeping very small parties out of the legislature.

To determine how many seats each party gets, election officials first need to determine which parties crossed the threshold. Then they can work out how many votes it takes to win a single Knesset seat, and dole out seats to the parties based on the number of votes they got.

That’s the point where the real wheeling and dealing begins.

There’s a slim chance that even if the election results look like a deadlock, a clever negotiator can pull a surprise coalition together, the way Lapid did last year.

On the other hand, even if on paper, it looks like one leader or another has the backing to form a majority government, they’ll still need to cajole the smaller parties into coalition agreements.

And those smaller parties will have demands – control of particular ministries, funding for projects or programs important to their constituents, bringing in new laws or getting rid of old ones.

Potential prime ministers will need to balance out the competing demands of rival coalition partners, each one of whom knows that they hold the keys to putting a head of government into office.

And whoever becomes prime minister – if anyone does – will face the same problems.

The cost of living is skyrocketing in Israel as in so many other places, with energy and grocery bills spiking. An Israel Democracy Institute poll this summer found that a party’s economic platform was far and away the factor most often named as a reason for choosing who to vote for. Nearly half (44%) of Israeli voters said it was the most important factor, well ahead of the quarter (24%) who said party leader was the determiner.

Any new prime minister will also need to confront the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militias that has claimed more lives on both sides this year than any time since 2015.

The Israel Defense Forces have been carrying out frequent raids for months into the occupied West Bank – particularly Jenin and Nablus – saying they are trying to apprehend known attackers and seize weapons.

As a strategy, it does not seem to have reduced the level of violence: at least one Israeli civilian was shot and killed near Hebron in the West Bank on Saturday, and others were wounded in the same incident – as were two medics who responded, one Israeli and one Palestinian. A day later, a Palestinian man rammed his car into five Israeli soldiers near Jericho. Both Palestinian attackers were killed, in a cycle of violence that the new prime minister will need to deal with – if, indeed, there is a new prime minister as a result of Tuesday’s vote.

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November 1, 2022
Netanyahu eyes comeback as Israel votes in fifth election in four years | CNN

Jerusalem
CNN
—

Israelis are heading to the ballot box for an unprecedented fifth time in four years on Tuesday, as Israel holds yet another national election aimed at ending the country’s ongoing political deadlock.

For the first time in 13 years, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not running as the incumbent. Bibi, as he is universally known in Israel, is hoping to return to power as the head of a hard-right coalition, while centrist caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid is hoping the mantle of the acting premiership will help keep him in place.

Netanyahu issued a stark warning as he cast his ballot on Tuesday morning.

When asked by CNN about fears he would lead a far-right government if returns to office, Netanyahu responded with an apparent reference to the Ra’am party, which made history last year by becoming the first Arab party ever to join an Israeli government coalition.

“We don’t want a government with the Muslim Brotherhood, who support terrorism, deny the existence of Israel and are pretty hostile to the United States. That is what we are going to bring,” Netanyahu told CNN in English, at his polling station in Jerusalem.

Lapid, who hopes he and his political allies will defy polling predictions and remain in power, cast his ballot in Tel Aviv on Tuesday with a message to voters: “Good morning, vote wisely. Vote for the State of Israel, the future of our children and our future in general.” The name of Lapid’s party, Yesh Atid, means “there is a future.”

Voter turnout five hours after polls opened was the highest it has been at that point been since 1999, the Central Election Committee said.

There had been a strong get-out-the-vote effort ahead of Tuesday, with Netanyahu barnstorming the country in a converted truck turned into a bulletproof travelling stage, and Arab parties urging Arab citizens to vote to keep Netanyahu out.

But if the final opinion polls are on target, it seems unlikely that this round of voting will be any more successful in clearing the logjam than the last four. Those polls project that Netanyahu’s bloc will fall one seat short of a majority in parliament.

Just like in the previous four elections, Netanyahu himself – and the possibility of a government led by him – is one of the defining issues, especially as his corruption trial continues. A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) in August found a quarter of respondents said the identity of the party leader they were voting for was the second most important factor in their vote.

But some top politicians on the center-right, who agree with him ideologically, refuse to work with him for personal or political reasons. So, in order to make a comeback, Netanyahu, leader of the center-right Likud party, is likely going to depend on the support of extreme right-wing parties to form a coalition – and if successful, may be forced to give their leaders ministerial positions.

Israelis are also very concerned about cost of living, after seeing their utility and grocery bills shoot up this year. In the same IDI poll, 44% said their first priority was what a party’s economic plan would do to mitigate the cost of living.

And security, always a major issue in Israeli politics, is on voters’ minds – 2022 has been the worst year in for conflict-related deaths for both Israelis and Palestinians since 2015.

A recent compilation of polls put together by Haaretz shows that Netanyahu’s bloc of parties is likely to either come up just shy of – or just reach – the 61 seats needed to form a majority in the government, while the bloc led by Lapid falls short by around four to five seats.

According to pollsters Joshua Hantman and Simon Davies, the last week of polling saw a small bump for Netanyahu’s bloc, showing it passing the 61-seat mark in six polls, and falling short in nine. The final three polls published on Friday by the three major Israeli news channels, all showed his bloc at 60 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.

Recognizing the need to eke out just one or two more seats, Netanyahu has been focusing his campaigning in places that are strongholds for Likud. Party officials have previously claimed that hundreds of thousands of likely Netanyahu voters didn’t vote.

Another major factor is the Arab turnout. Citizens who identify as Arab and have national voting rights make up around 17% of the Israeli population, according to IDI; their turnout could make or break Netanyahu’s chances. One of the parties, the United Arab List, has warned if Arab turnout falls below 48%, some of the Arab parties could fail to pass the 3.25% vote threshold needed to gain any seats in parliament.

Along with soaring grocery and utility bills and a nearly impossible housing market, Tuesday’s vote takes place against the backdrop of an increasingly tense security environment.

Earlier this year, a wave of attacks targeting Israelis killed 19 people, including mass attacks targeting civilians in Tel Aviv and other cities in Israel. There has also been a surge in armed assaults on Israeli troops and civilian settlers by Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank this year, claiming the lives of several more soldiers and Israeli civilians. According to the Israel Defense Forces, there have been at least 180 shooting incidents in Israel and the occupied territories this year, compared to 61 shooting attacks in 2021.

In the days leading up to election day, an Israeli man was killed and several injured in a shooting attack in the West Bank near Hebron. The next day, several soldiers were injured in a car ramming attack near the West Bank city of Jericho. The Palestinian attackers were killed in both cases.

Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank – and sometimes on Israeli soldiers – are also on the rise, according to the human rights group B’Tselem.

Near-daily Israeli security raids in West Bank cities have killed more than 130 Palestinians this year. While the Israeli military says most were militants or Palestinians violently engaging with them – including the newly formed ‘Lion’s Den’ militia – unarmed and uninvolved civilians have been caught up as well.

The death of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in May while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank caught worldwide attention. After several months the Israeli military admitted it was most likely their own soldiers who shot Abu Akleh – saying it was an unintentional killing in the midst of a combat zone.

Palestinian disillusionment with their own leadership’s ability to confront the Israeli occupation has led to a proliferation of these new militias – and a fear among experts that a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising, is on the way.

There are 40 political parties on the ballot, although only around a dozen parties are expected to pass the threshold to sit in the parliament. Immediately after polls close at 10 p.m. local time (4 p.m. ET), the major media networks release exit polls that give the first glimpse of how the vote went – although the official vote tally can vary from exit polls, often by small but crucial amounts.

Only a dozen or so parties are expected to pass the minimum threshold of votes needed to sit in parliament.

Once the vote is officially tallied, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will hand the mandate to form a government to the leader he considers most likely to succeed – even if they’re not the leader of the largest party.

That candidate then has a total of 42 days to try and corral enough parties to reach the magic number of 61 seats of the 120-seat Knesset, the Israeli parliament, to form a majority government. If they fail, the President can transfer the mandate to another candidate. If that person fails within 28 days, then the mandate goes back to the parliament which has 21 days to find a candidate, a last chance before new elections are triggered. Lapid would stay on as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed.

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November 1, 2022
US curbs on microchips could throttle China’s ambitions and escalate the tech war | CNN Business

Hong Kong
CNN Business
—

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s push to “win the battle” in core technologies and bolster China’s position as a tech superpower could be severely undermined by Washington’s unprecedented steps to limit the sale of advanced chips and chip-making equipment to the country, analysts say.

On October 7, the Biden administration unveiled a sweeping set of export controls that ban Chinese companies from buying advanced chips and chip-making equipment without a license. The rule also restricts the ability of “US persons” — including American citizens or green card holders — to provide support for the “development or production” of chips at certain manufacturing facilities in China.

“The US moves are a major threat to China’s technological ambitions,” said Mark Williams and Zichun Huang, analysts at Capital Economics, in a recent research report. The analysts pointed out that the global semiconductor industry is “almost entirely” dependent on the United States and countries aligned with it for chip design, the tools that make them, and fabrication.

“Without these,” the analysts said, “Chinese firms will lose access not only to advanced chips, but to technology and inputs that might over time have allowed domestic chipmakers to climb the ladder and compete at the cutting edge.” They added: “The US has chopped the rungs away.”

Chips are vital for everything from smartphones and self-driving cars to advanced computing and weapons manufacturing. US officials have talked about the move as a measure to protect national security interests. It also comes as the United States is looking to bolster its domestic chip manufacturing abilities with heavy investments, after chip shortages earlier in the pandemic highlighted the country’s dependance on imports from abroad.

Arthur Dong, a teaching professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, described the recent US sanctions as “unprecedented in modern times.”

Previously, the US government has banned sales of certain tech products to specific Chinese companies, such as Huawei. It has also required some major US chip-making firms to halt their shipments to China. But the latest move is much more expansive and significant. It not only bars the export to China of advanced chips made anywhere in the world using US technology, but also blocks the export of the tools used to make them.

With its Made in China 2025 road map, Beijing has set a target for China to become a global leader in a wide range of industries, including artificial intelligence (AI), 5G wireless, and quantum computing. At the Communist Party Congress earlier this month, where he secured a historic third term, Xi highlighted that the nation will prioritize tech and innovation and grow its talent pool to develop homegrown technologies.

“China will look to join the ranks of the world’s most innovative countries by 2035, with great self-reliance and strength in science and technology,” Xi said in the party congress report, released on October 16.

Dong said the latest US sanctions will make it harder for China to advance in AI as well as 5G, given the role advanced chips play in both industries.

“In any circumstances,” Williams from Capital Economics said, “China would find achieving global tech leadership hard to achieve.”

One dramatic, and potentially disruptive aspect of the rules is the ban on American citizens and legal residents working with Chinese chip firms.

Dane Chamorro, a partner at Control Risks, a global risk consultancy based in London, said such measures are usually “only enacted against ‘rogue regimes’” such as Iran and North Korea. The decision to use this against China is “unprecedented,” Chamorro said.

Many executives working for Chinese firms may now have to choose between keeping their jobs or acting as lawful US residents. “You can’t do both,” Chamorro said.

The ban could lead to a mass resignation of top executives and core research staff working at Chinese chip firms, which will hit the industry hard, Dong from Georgetown University said.

So far it’s not clear exactly how many American workers there are in China’s domestic chip industry. But an examination of company filings indicates that more than a dozen chip firms have senior executives holding US citizenship or green cards. At Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment China (AMEC), one of the country’s largest semiconductor equipment manufacturers, at least seven executives, including founder and chairman Gerald Yin, hold US citizenship, the latest company documents show.

Other examples include Shu Qingming and Cheng Taiyi, who currently serve as vice chairman and deputy general manager, respectively, at GigaDevice Semiconductor, an advanced memory chip firm. The Financial Times report said in a recent report that Yangtze Memory Technologies has already asked American employees in core tech positions to leave, citing anonymous sources. But it’s unclear how many.

AMEC, GigaDevice Semiconductor, and Yangtze Memory Technologies didn’t respond to requests for comments.

If these senior executives depart, “this will create a leadership and technological void within China’s chipmaking industry,” Dong said, as the country loses executives with years of chipmaking experience in an industry with “one of the most complex manufacturing processes known to mankind.”

While much of the world’s chip manufacturing is centered in East Asia, China is reliant on foreign chips, especially for advanced processor and memory chips and related equipment.

It is the world’s largest importer of semiconductors, and has spent more money buying them than oil. In 2021, China bought a record $414 billion worth of chips, or more than 16% of the value of its total imports, according to government statistics.

But some Western suppliers have already started preparing to halt sales to China in response to the US export curbs.

ASM International

(ASMIY), the Dutch semiconductor equipment supplier, said Wednesday that it expected the export restrictions will affect more than 40% of its sales in China. The country accounted for 16% of ASML’s equipment sales in the first nine months of this year.

Lam Researc

(LRCX)h, which supplies semiconductor equipment and services, also flagged last week that it could lose between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in annual revenue in 2023 as a result of the US export curbs.

The party congress, which recently wrapped up, has slowed China’s response to latest US export controls, analysts said. But as Beijing starts assessing the significance of the measures, it might retaliate. Xi is “concerned” about US plans to bolster domestic chip production as his administration moves to restrict China’s ability to make them, said US President Joe Biden in a speech on Thursday.

“This conflict is just beginning,” said Chamorro.

Chamorro said the most valuable “card” in China’s hand might be the supply of processed rare earth minerals, which Beijing could embargo. Rare earth minerals are important materials in electric vehicle production, battery making and renewable energy systems.

“These are not easily or quickly replaced and China dominates the processing and supply chain,” Chamorro said.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, is also weighing further restrictions on other technology exports to China, a senior US Commerce Department official said Thursday, according to the New York Times.

If either country takes these steps, it could shift the tech arms race between the United States and China to a whole new level.

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October 31, 2022
Lula da Silva will return to Brazil’s presidency in stunning comeback | CNN

Sao Paulo
CNN
—

Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva has been elected the next president of Brazil, in a stunning comeback following a tight run-off race on Sunday. His victory heralds a political about-face for Latin America’s largest country, after four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration.

The 76-year-old politician’s win represents the return of the left into power in Brazil, and concludes a triumphant personal comeback for Lula da Silva, after a series of corruption allegations lead to his imprisonment for 580 days. The sentences were later annulled by the Supreme Court, clearing his path to run for reelection.

“They tried to bury me alive and I’m here,” he said in a jubilant speech to supporters and journalists on Sunday evening, describing the win as his political “resurrection.”

“Starting on January 1, 2023, I will govern for the 215 million Brazilians, not just the ones who voted for me. There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, one great nation,” Lula da Silva also said.

He will take the reins of a country plagued by gross inequality that is still struggling to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Approximately 9.6 million people fell under the poverty line between 2019 and 2021, and literacy and school attendance rates have fallen. He will also be faced with a deeply fractured nation and urgent environmental issues, including rampant deforestation in the Amazon.

This will be his third term, after previously governing Brazil for two consecutive terms between 2003 and 2010.

The former leader’s victory on Sunday was the latest in a political wave across Latin America, with wins by left-leaning politicians in Argentina, Colombia and Chile. But Lula da Silva – a former union leader with a blue-collar background – has sought to reassure moderates throughout his campaign.

He has built a broad alliance including several politicians from the center and center-right, including historical opponents from the PSDB, Brazil’s Social Democrat Party. Among these politicians is his vice-president, former São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, who has been cited by the Lula camp as a guarantee of moderation in his administration.

On the campaign trail, Lula da Silva has been reluctant to show his cards when it came to outlining an economic strategy – a tendency that earned sharp criticism from his competitors. “Who is the other candidate’s economy minister? There isn’t one, he doesn’t say. What will be his political and economic route? More state? Less state? We don’t know…,” said Bolsonaro during a live transmission on YouTube on October 22.

Lula da Silva has said that he would push Congress to approve a tax reform which would exempt low-earners from paying income tax. And his campaign received a boost from centrist former presidential candidate Simone Tebet, who came third in the first round earlier this month and gave Lula da Silva her support in the run-off. Known for her ties with Brazil’s agricultural industry, Tebet said in an October 7 press conference that Lula da Silva and his economic team had “received and incorporated all the suggestions from our program to his government’s program.”

He has also received the support of several renowned economists highly regarded by investors, including Arminio Fraga, a former president of the Brazilian Central Bank.

Lula da Silva received more than 60 million votes, the most in Brazilian history, breaking his own record from 2006.

But despite the huge turnout from his supporters, his victory was by a narrow margin – Lula da Silva won 50.90% of the vote and Bolsonaro received 49.10%, according to Brazil’s electoral authority.

His biggest challenge now may be unifying a politically fractured country.

Hours after the results were announced, Bolsonaro had yet to concede defeat or make any public statement. Meanwhile, videos on social media showed his supporters had blocked highways in two states to protest against Lula da Silva’s victory.

“We will only leave once the army takes over the country,” one unidentified Bolsonaro supporter said in a video taken in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Lula da Silva will need to pursue dialogue and rebuild relationships, said Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Insper, a university in São Paulo. “The president can be an important instrument for this as long as he is not only concerned in addressing his base of voters,” he said.

With more than 58 million votes cast for his rival Bolsonaro – who had been endorsed by former US President Donald Trump – Lula da Silva will have to form “pragmatic alliances” with parts of the center and the right that bought into his predecessor’s politics, adds Thiago Amparo, professor of law and human rights at FGV business school in São Paulo.

At the same time, he will have to deliver to match supporters’ expectations, Amparo added. “Many voters went to the ballot expecting that, not just to get rid of Bolsonaro, but with memories of better economic times during Lula’s previous governments.”

Many will be watching for potential change to the 2017 Labor Reform Act, which subjected more workers’ rights and benefits to negotiation with employers, and made union contributions optional. Lula da Silva had said previously that he would revoke the act but recently changed the verb to “review” following criticisms from the private sector.

He may find that enacting his agenda is an uphill battle, Amparo warns, especially with a hostile Congress. Seats that were from the traditional right are now occupied by the far right, who are not open to negotiation and not easy to deal with, underlines Amparo.

In the latest elections, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party increased its representatives in the lower house from 76 to 99, while in the Senate it doubled from seven members to 14. Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party has also increased its number of deputies from 56 to 68 and senators from seven to eight – but overall, conservative-leaning politicians will dominate the next legislature.

That friction will require some compromises, points out Camila Rocha, a political scientist at the Cebrap think tank. “[Bolsonaro’s] Liberal Party will have the highest number of representatives and important allies and will make real opposition to the government, [Lula da Silva’s] Worker’s Party will have to sow a coalition with [traditional rightwing party] União Brasil in order to govern, which means the negotiation of ministries and key positions,” Rocha told to CNN.

Environmentalists meanwhile will be watching Lula da Silva’s administration closely, as it assumes governance not only over the Brazilian nation but over the planet’s largest forest reserves.

With destruction of the vast Amazon rainforest reaching record levels under Bolsonaro’s presidency, Lula da Silva has repeatedly said during his campaign that he would seek to curb deforestation. He has argued that protecting the forest could produce some profit, citing the beauty and pharmaceutical industries as potential beneficiaries of biodiversity.

In an interview with foreign press in August, Lula da Silva called for “a new world governance” to address climate change and stressed that Brazil should take a central role in that governance, given its natural resources.

According to the head of Lula da Silva’s government plan, Aloizio Mercadante, another tactic will be to create a group including Brazil, Indonesia and Congo ahead of the UN-led November 2022 Conference of Parties. The group would aim to pressure richer countries to finance the protection of forests as well as outlining strategies for the global carbon market.

Several experts told CNN they believed his stance on environment and the climate issue could represent a fresh start in Brazil’s international relations.

For Amparo, environmental protection could indeed be springboard for Brazil’s global leadership, a major shift after Bolsonaro warned the world away from intervening in the destruction of the Amazon. “Lula would try to reposition, almost like a rebranding, Brazil in the international arena as a power to be taken into account,” he said.

“We can expect a government that goes back to talking to the world, especially with a new stance in the environmental area,” said Melo, the Insper researcher.

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October 30, 2022
Unconfirmed Liz Truss phone hack report prompts calls for investigation | CNN

London
CNN
—

The UK government is facing calls to investigate after an unconfirmed media report claimed former British Prime Minister Liz Truss’ phone was hacked while she was foreign secretary.

The UK’s Mail on Sunday newspaper reported that private messages between Truss and international foreign ministers, including messages about the war in Ukraine, as well as messages with former finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng fell “into foreign hands.”

The paper claimed that the hack was discovered during the Conservative Party leadership campaign over the summer, which ultimately saw Truss named prime minister.

The paper also claimed that “agents suspected of working for the Kremlin” were behind the hack, citing unnamed sources.

CNN cannot independently verify the Mail on Sunday claims, whether a hack occurred or who might have been behind it.

CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

A UK government spokesperson told CNN that the government “do not comment on individuals’ security arrangements,” but added it had “robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats.”

Chair of the government’s Defense Select Committee, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, told Sky News on Sunday that Russia is “getting better and better at these cyber-attacks and hacking.”

“We take the most stringent measures to make sure it doesn’t happen,” he said adding that “it is something for the intelligence and security committee to investigate further.”

UK opposition parties have demanded an investigation into the reported claims.

The Labour Party’s shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement the report raises, “immensely important national security issues… which will have been taken extremely seriously by our intelligence and security agencies.”

The Liberal Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran also called for an “urgent independent investigation to uncover the truth” in a tweet Saturday.

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October 30, 2022
Five elections in four years: What’s the deal with Israeli politics? | CNN

Jerusalem
CNN
—

Stop us if you’re heard this one before: On Tuesday, Israelis are going to the polls to elect a new Knesset, or parliament. It’s the fifth time in less than four years that voters are casting ballots. Holding elections that often is bound to prompt some questions. Here are some answers.

Israel has a parliamentary system made up of several parties – none of which have ever received enough votes on their own to secure a majority of seats in parliament. That means parties must team up to form coalitions and reach the 61 seats needed to form a ruling government. Those coalitions can also be shaky – lose one party’s support, or sometimes even one member of parliament, and you’ve lost the majority.

The other factor is Benjamin Netanyahu. He served as prime minister for longer than anyone else in Israeli history, is in the midst of a corruption trial, and overall is a polarizing figure. Some top politicians on the center-right, who agree with him ideologically, refuse to work with him for personal or political reasons.

That made it difficult for him to build lasting governing majorities following the previous four elections, and last year, his opponents managed to cobble together a never-before-seen coalition of parties from across the political spectrum to keep him out of power. But that coalition only held together for about a year and a quarter before its leaders, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, pulled the plug and called for new elections.

Netanyahu’s center-right Likud party will almost certainly be the largest party in the Knesset after Tuesday’s vote, if the polls are correct. They’ll probably win about 30 seats, a quarter of the total, a compilation of polls by Haaretz, for example, suggests.

Current Prime Minister Yair Lapid will be hoping his centrist Yesh Atid party will come in a strong second place.

The man he partnered with to assemble the last government, Naftali Bennett, is not running this time around; his party has splintered and faces a potential electoral wipeout.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz is aiming for a strong showing at the head of a new party called National Unity, a successor to his Blue and White party which now includes former Bennett ally Gideon Saar and former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Gabi Eisenkot, making his political debut.

A far-right coalition called the Religious Zionist Party, headed by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, could be the largest extreme right-wing group ever seated in the Knesset.

On the other hand, the once-mighty Labor Party and its predecessors, which governed Israel essentially as a one-party state for its first 30 years under David Ben-Gurion and his successors, is a shadow of its former self, and is projected to win only a handful of seats.

Israel is a parliamentary democracy, where people vote for the party they support. Each party that gets at least 3.25% of the popular vote gets a certain number of seats in the Knesset based on the percentage of the total number of votes it won.

The 3.25% threshold is intended to keep very small parties out of the Knesset, an attempt to make it easier to build governing coalitions.

Israel has experimented in the past with electing the prime minister directly, separate from the Knesset, the way the US elects the president and Congress separately. It proved unwieldy and the country went back to standard parliamentary elections.

The final polls suggest that Netanyahu’s party and its potential allies are hovering right around the knife edge number of 60 seats and the drama of election night will be whether the former PM scrapes above it.

If his bloc clearly wins a majority, his path to building a government is clear and he will return to power.

If the pro-Netanyahu bloc falls below 61 seats, things are more complicated. Netanyahu would still probably have the first chance to form a government if his Likud party is the biggest in the Knesset, which could result in days or weeks of negotiations that go nowhere.

Current Acting Prime Minister Lapid could then get a chance to try to form a government, assuming his Yesh Atid party is the second largest. But his outgoing government included – for the first time in Israel’s history – an Arab party which has since fragmented into smaller parties which may not join another Israeli government (even if he invites them to, which is not certain.)

That could mean no one can build a majority government, raising the possibility of … more elections. While party negotiations are taking place and until a new government is formed, Lapid remains in place as caretaker prime minister.

Israelis are concerned about many of the same issues that people around the world are – the cost of living in particular.

They are also always focused on security. In the region, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and support of militant groups are always a worry, and more locally, violence is high this year between Israelis and Palestinians.

Some constituencies have their own specific concerns, such as the ultra-Orthodox, who want state support for their institutions and exemptions from army service; and religious Zionists, who want backing for West Bank settlements.

But overwhelmingly, Israeli elections these days are about one issue and one man: Benjamin Netanyahu.

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October 30, 2022
Time to treat North Korea’s nuclear program like Israel’s? | CNN

Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—

As a statement of intent, it was about as blunt as they get.

North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and will never give them up, its leader, Kim Jong Un, told the world last month.

The move was “irreversible,” he said; the weapons represent the “dignity, body, and absolute power of the state” and Pyongyang will continue to develop them “as long as nuclear weapons exist on Earth.”

Kim may be no stranger to colorful language, but it is worth taking his vow – which he signed into law – seriously. Bear in mind that this is a dictator who cannot be voted out of power and who generally does what he says he will do.

Bear in mind too that North Korea has staged a record number of missile launches this year – more than 20; claims it is deploying tactical nuclear weapons to field units, something CNN cannot independently confirm; and is also believed to be ready for a seventh underground nuclear test.

All this has prompted a growing number of experts to question whether now is the time to call a spade a spade and accept that North Korea is in fact a nuclear state. Doing so would entail giving up once and for all the optimistic – some might say delusional – hopes that Pyongyang’s program is somehow incomplete or that it might yet be persuaded to give it up voluntarily.

As Ankit Panda, a Stanton senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, put it: “We simply have to treat North Korea as it is, rather than as we would like it to be.”

From a purely factual point of view, North Korea has nuclear weapons, and few who follow events there closely dispute that.

A recent Nuclear Notebook column from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated that North Korea may have produced enough fissile material to build between 45 and 55 nuclear weapons. What’s more, the recent missile tests suggest it has a number of methods of delivering those weapons.

Publicly acknowledging this reality is, however, fraught with peril for countries such as the United States.

One of the most compelling reasons for Washington not to do so is its fears of sparking a nuclear arms race in Asia.

South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are just a few of the neighbors that would likely want to match Pyongyang’s status.

But some experts say that refusing to acknowledge North Korea’s nuclear prowess – in the face of increasingly obvious evidence to the contrary – does little to reassure these countries. Rather, the impression that allies have their heads in the sand may make them more nervous.

“Let’s accept (it), North Korea is a nuclear arms state, and North Korea has all necessary delivery systems including pretty efficient ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles),” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and a preeminent academic authority on North Korea.

A better approach, some suggest, might be to treat North Korea’s nuclear program in a similar way to Israel’s – with tacit acceptance.

That’s the solution favored by Jeffrey Lewis, an adjunct professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey.

“I think that the crucial step that (US President Joe) Biden needs to take is to make clear both to himself and to the US government that we are not going to get North Korea to disarm and that is fundamentally accepting North Korea as a nuclear state. You don’t necessarily need to legally recognize it,” Lewis said.

Both Israel and India offer examples of what the US could aspire to in dealing with North Korea, he added.

Israel, widely believed to have started its nuclear program in the 1960s, has always claimed nuclear ambiguity while refusing to be a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while India embraced nuclear ambiguity for decades before abandoning that policy with its 1998 nuclear test.

“In both of those cases, the US knew those countries had the bomb, but the deal was, if you don’t talk about it, if you don’t make an issue out of it, if you don’t cause political problems, then we’re not going to respond. I think that’s the same place we want to get to with North Korea,” Lewis said.

At present though, Washington shows no signs of abandoning its approach of hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nukes.

Indeed, US Vice President Kamala Harris underlined it during a recent visit to the DMZ, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

“Our shared goal – the United States and the Republic of Korea – is a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Harris said.

That may be a worthy goal, but many experts see it as increasingly unrealistic.

“Nobody disagrees that denuclearization would be a very desirable outcome on the Korean Peninsula, it’s simply not a tractable one,” Panda said.

One problem standing in the way of denuclearization is that Kim’s likely biggest priority is ensuring the survival of his regime.

And if he wasn’t paranoid enough already, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (in which a nuclear power has attacked a non-nuclear power) will have served as a timely reinforcement of his belief that “nuclear weapons are the only reliable guarantee of security,” said Lankov, from Kookmin University.

Trying to convince Kim otherwise seems a non-starter, as Pyongyang has made clear it will not even consider engaging with a US administration that wants to talk about denuclearization.

“If America wants to talk about denuclearization, (North Korea is) not going to talk and if the Americans are not talking, (North Korea) will launch more and more missiles and better and better missiles,” Lankov said. “It’s a simple choice.”

There is also the problem that if North Korea’s increasingly concerned neighbors conclude Washington’s approach is going nowhere, this might itself bring about the arms race the US is so keen to avoid.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a Korean think tank, is among the growing number of conservative voices calling for South Korea to build its own nuclear weapons program to counter Pyongyang’s.

Efforts to prevent North Korea developing nuclear weapons have “ended in failure,” he said, “and even now, pursuing denuclearization is like chasing a miracle.”

Still, however remote the denuclearization dream seems, there are those who say the alternative – of accepting North Korea’s nuclear status, however subtly – would be a mistake.

“We (would be) basically (saying to) Kim Jong Un, after all of this tug of war and rustling, (that) you’re just going to get what you want. The bigger question (then) of course is: where does that leave the entire region?” said Soo Kim, a former CIA officer who is now a researcher at US think tank RAND Corporation.

That leaves one other option open to the Biden administration and its allies, though it’s one that may seem unlikely in the current climate.

They could pursue a deal in which Pyongyang offers to freeze its arms development in return for sanctions relief.

In other words, not a million miles away from the deal Kim offered then US President Donald Trump at their summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019.

This option has its backers. “A freeze is a really solid way to start things out. It’s very hard to get rid of weapons that exist, but what is possible … is to prevent things from getting worse. It takes some of the pressure off and it opens up space for other kinds of negotiations,” said Lewis of the James Martin Center.

However, the Trump-era overtones might make this a non-starter. Asked if he thought President Biden might consider this tactic, Lewis smiled and said, “I’m a professor, so I specialize in giving advice that no one is ever going to take.”

But even if the Biden administration was so inclined, that ship may have sailed; the Kim of 2019 was far more willing to engage than the Kim of 2022.

And that, perhaps, is the biggest problem at the heart of all the options on the table: they rely on some form of engagement with North Korea – something entirely lacking at present.

Kim is now focused on his five-year plan for military modernization announced in January 2021 and no offers of talks from the Biden administration or others have yet turned his head in the slightest.

As Panda acknowledged, “There’s a set of cooperative options which would require the North Koreans being willing to sit down at the table and talk about some of those things with us. I don’t think that we are even close to sitting down with the North Koreans.”

And, in fairness to Kim, the reticence is not all down to Pyongyang.

“Big policy shifts in the US would require the President’s backing, and I really see no evidence that Joe Biden really sees the North Korean issue as deserving of tremendous political capital,” Panda said.

He added what many experts believe – and what even some US and South Korean lawmakers admit behind closed doors: “We will be living with a nuclear armed North Korea probably for a few decades to come at least.”

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October 28, 2022
Exclusive: Kanye West has a disturbing history of admiring Hitler, sources tell CNN | CNN

CNN
—

Several people who were once close to the artist formerly known as Kanye West told CNN that he has long been fascinated by Adolf Hitler — and once wanted to name an album after the Nazi leader.

A business executive who worked for West, who now goes by Ye, told CNN that the artist created a hostile work environment, in part through his “obsession” with Hitler.

“He would praise Hitler by saying how incredible it was that he was able to accumulate so much power and would talk about all the great things he and the Nazi Party achieved for the German people,” the individual told CNN.

The executive left his position and reached a settlement with West and some of his companies over workplace complaints, including harassment, which CNN has reviewed. The former executive asked not to be named due to a confidentiality agreement and fear of retribution by West. According to the agreement, West denied the executive’s allegations.

The executive told CNN that West spoke openly about reading “Mein Kampf,” Hitler’s 1925 autobiographical manifesto and expressed his “admiration” for the Nazis and Hitler for their use of propaganda.

This individual stated that people in West’s inner circle were “fully aware” of his interest in Hitler. Four sources told CNN that West had originally suggested the title “Hitler” for his 2018 album that eventually released as “Ye.” They did not want to be named, citing concern for professional retribution.

CNN has reached out to West for comment.

Universal Music Group, owner of Def Jam, which used to distribute West’s music, said in a statement to CNN Tuesday that the company’s relationship with his GOOD Music label ended last year.

“There is no place for antisemitism in our society. We are deeply committed to combating antisemitism and every other form of prejudice,” Universal Music group added.

The sources CNN spoke with did not have information about why the album was ultimately called “Ye.”

Van Lathan Jr., a former TMZ employee, who confronted West during his 2018 interview at their offices in which West said slavery “sounds like a choice,” recently claimed on a podcast that West also made antisemitic comments during their conversation that the outlet did not release publicly. That’s why Lathan said his current comments didn’t surprise him.

“I already heard him say that stuff before at TMZ,” Lathan said during an episode of the “Higher Learning” podcast earlier this month. “I mean, I was taken aback because that type of antisemitic talk is disgusting. It’s like, I’m taken aback any time anyone does that, right? But as far as [West], I knew that that was in him because when he came to TMZ, he said that stuff and they took it out of the interview. … He said something like, ‘I love Hitler, I love Nazis.’ Something to that effect when he was there. And they took it out of the interview for whatever reason. It wasn’t my decision.”

One of the sources who spoke to CNN and was at the TMZ interview said West had favorably referenced Hitler.

CNN has reached out to TMZ for comment.

The revelation of West’s alleged history of admiring Hitler comes amid a wave of inflammatory actions by West that began earlier this month. He wore a “White Lives Matter” shirt during his Yeezy fashion show in Paris on Oct. 3 and dressed several Black models in clothing with the phrase, deemed a hate slogan by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). He then posted a private text conversation on Instagram between himself and Sean “Diddy” Combs in which he claimed Combs was “controlled by Jewish people.” He followed that with a tweet in which he said he would go “death con 3 on Jewish people,” resulting in Twitter locking his account.

West’s offensive rhetoric in the last few weeks has resulted in a professional fallout for the rapper and designer. Tuesday, Adidas ended its seven-year partnership with West, calling his recent actions “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous.”

In a statement, the sportswear maker said it “does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech” and said that West’s recent comments violated the company’s “values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”

Balenciaga also cut ties with West, as has talent agency CAA. Production company MRC stated they were shelving a documentary on West, and GAP announced the company would remove Yeezy Gap merchandise from its stores and shut down the YeezyGap.com website.

In an Instagram post on Thursday captioned “LOVE SPEECH,” West appeared to reference the severed business relationships, writing, in part, “I LOST 2 BILLION DOLLARS IN ONE DAY AND I’M STILL ALIVE.”

West was referenced in banners raised by antisemitic demonstrators in Los Angeles last weekend. His comments have been condemned by the American Jewish Committee and the ADL, as well as numerous political leaders and celebrities, including his former wife, Kim Kardashian.

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October 27, 2022
Blinken says the consequences for using a nuclear weapon have been conveyed to Putin | CNN Politics

Washington
CNN
—

The consequences for Russia if it uses a nuclear weapon in its war on Ukraine have been conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.

“We’ve also communicated directly and very clearly to the Russians, President Putin about the consequences,” the top US diplomat said at a Bloomberg event. Blinken did not indicate how it was communicated to Putin or by whom, and principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel later suggested that US officials had not communicated directly with him.

“You have seen members of this administration dialogue directly with their counterparts in Russia and express these concerns and the potential for dire consequences,” which “no doubt have likely made its way to President Putin,” Patel said at a State Department briefing.

Biden administration officials have said that Moscow has been warned at the highest levels of the consequences for use of nuclear weapon in the war, but Blinken’s remark is the first explicit mention that the message has been communicated to Putin himself.

Blinken denounced Russia’s latest claim that Ukraine is considering the use of a “dirty bomb” as “another fabrication and something that is also the height of irresponsibility coming from a nuclear power.”

He said the United States has communicated directly with the Russians “about trying to use this false allegation as a pretext for any kind of escalation.”

“The reason this particular allegation gives us some concern is because Russia has a track record of projecting, which is to say, accusing others of doing something that they themselves have done or are thinking about doing,” Blinken said.

Blinken reiterated that the US is tracking the Kremlin’s nuclear saber-rattling “very carefully,” but hasn’t “seen any reason to change our nuclear posture.”

Despite Putin’s rhetoric, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Andrey Kelin told CNN on Wednesday that Russia will not use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine.

“Russia is not going to use nukes. It is out of the question,” Kelin told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

However, actions taken by Moscow in recent weeks – the “dirty bomb” allegations, attacks on civilian infrastructure, looming defeats on the battlefield, and its annual military exercise – have increased concerns, a senior administration official said.

This official told CNN that the potential collapse of parts of Russia’s military in Ukraine could be the factor that could cause Putin to turn to nuclear weapon use. As such, the US is keeping a close eye on the developments in the Kherson region, where it’s not easy for Russian soldiers to retreat.

Russia informed the US of its annual GROM exercise, which includes its strategic nuclear forces, the Pentagon said. The Kremlin said in a statement Wednesday that Putin was leading military training drills involving practice launches of ballistic and cruise missiles.

The official said it may “sounds alarmist” to cite concerns about planned exercises but noted that they cannot be viewed in a silo: they do allow Russians to practice doing things like getting missiles into place and flying bombers to sea at a time when they are being pushed into a corner on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Despite these increased concerns, US officials have not seen evidence of Russian actions that would indicate Moscow is preparing to use nuclear weapons.

“We’ve seen no need to change our own nuclear posture. We don’t have any indication that Moscow is preparing to use nuclear weapons. But this type of rhetoric is concerning for many reasons,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday.

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October 26, 2022
Opinion: Putin is trying to distract us from the blindingly obvious | CNN

Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

CNN
—

Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing his best to achieve two immediate objectives. The goal of the West must be to stop him.

First, he’s seeking to distract his nation from the blindingly obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and utterly failing to achieve even the vastly scaled back objectives of his invasion.

Second and simultaneously, Putin is playing desperately for time – hoping the political clock and the onset of winter in Europe will sap the will and energies of the Western powers that have all but eviscerated his military-industrial machine and destroyed the armed might of Russia.

Both sides – Russia and Ukraine with its western backers – are doing their best to turn the screws ahead of a winter which could ultimately decide who will win the most titanic clashes of forces in Europe since the Second World War. It’s worth a deep look at what’s in play right now.

Europe’s energy concerns

First up, there’s the West and its ability to keep supplying the Ukrainian war machine that has proven so effective in this David v. Goliath battle.

This ability to keep going depends on a host of variables – ranging from the availability of critical and affordable energy supplies for the coming winter, to the popular will across a broad range of nations with often conflicting priorities.

In the early hours of Friday in Brussels, European Union powers agreed a roadmap to control energy prices that have been surging on the heels of embargoes on Russian imports and the Kremlin cutting natural gas supplies at a whim.

These include an emergency cap on the benchmark European gas trading hub – the Dutch Title Transfer Facility – and permission for EU gas companies to create a cartel to buy gas on the international market.

While French President Emmanuel Macron waxed euphoric leaving the summit, which he described as having “maintained European unity,” he conceded that there was only a “clear mandate” for the European Commission to start working on a gas cap mechanism.

Still, divisions remain, with Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, skeptical of any price caps. Now energy ministers must work out details with a Germany concerned such caps would encourage higher consumption – a further burden on restricted supplies.

Putin’s useful friends in Europe

These divisions are all part of Putin’s fondest dream. Manifold forces in Europe could prove central to achieving success from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, which amounts to the continent failing to agree on essentials.

Germany and France are already at loggerheads on many of these issues. Though in an effort to reach some accommodation, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have scheduled a conference call for Wednesday.

And now a new government has taken power in Italy. Giorgia Meloni was sworn in Saturday as Italy’s first woman prime minister and has attempted to brush aside the post-fascist aura of her party. One of her far-right coalition partners meanwhile, has expressed deep appreciation for Putin.

Silvio Berlusconi, himself a four-time prime minister of Italy, was recorded at a gathering of his party loyalists, describing with glee the 20 bottles of vodka Putin sent to him together with “a very sweet letter” on his 86th birthday.

Berlusconi, in a secretly recorded audio tape, said he’d returned Putin’s gesture with bottles of Lambrusco wine, adding that “I knew him as a peaceful and sensible person,” in the LaPresse audio clip.

The other leading member of the ruling Italian coalition, Matteo Salvini, named Saturday as deputy prime minister, said during the campaign, “I would not want the sanctions [on Russia] to harm those who impose them more than those who are hit by them.”

At the same time, Poland and Hungary, longtime ultra-right-wing soulmates united against liberal policies of the EU that seemed calculated to reduce their influence, have now disagreed over Ukraine. Poland has taken deep offense at the pro-Putin sentiments of Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

The limits of America’s ‘blank check’

Similar forces seem to be at work in Washington where House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take control after next month’s elections, told an interviewer, “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it.”

Meanwhile on Monday, the influential 30-member Congressional progressive caucus called on Biden to open talks with Russia on ending the conflict while its troops are still occupying vast stretches of the country and its missiles and drones are striking deep into the interior.

Hours later, caucus chair Mia Jacob, facing a firestorm of criticism, emailed reporters with a statement “clarifying” their remarks in support of Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.

Indeed, while the US has proffered more than $60 billion in aid since Biden took office, when Congress authorized $40 billion for Ukraine last May, only Republicans voted against the latest aid package.

In short, there is every incentive for Putin to prolong the conflict as long as possible to allow many of these forces in the West to kick in. A long, cold winter in Europe, persistent inflation and higher interest rates leading to a recession on both sides of the Atlantic could mean irresistible pressure on already skeptical leaders to dial back on financial and military support.

This support in terms of arms, materiel and now training for Ukrainian forces have been the underpinnings of their remarkable battlefield successes against a weakening, undersupplied and ill-prepared Russian military.

At the same time, the West is turning up the pressure on Russia. Last Thursday, the State Department released a detailed report on the impact of sanctions and export controls strangling the Russian military-industrial complex.

Russian production of hypersonic missiles has all but ceased “due to the lack of necessary semi-conductors,” said the report. Aircraft are being cannibalized for spare parts, plants producing anti-aircraft systems have shut down, and “Russia has reverted to Soviet-era defense stocks” for replenishment. The Soviet era ended more than 30 years ago.

A day before this report, the US announced seizure of all property of a top Russian procurement agent Yury Orekhov and his agencies “responsible for procuring US-origin technologies for Russian end-users…including advanced semiconductors and microprocessors.”

The Justice Department also announced charges against individuals and companies seeking to smuggle high-tech equipment into Russia in violation of sanctions.

All these actions point to an increasing desperation by Russia to access vitally-needed components for production of high-tech weaponry stalled by western sanctions and embargos that have begun to strangle the Kremlin’s military-industrial complex.

Where that leaves Russia

This pressure from the West may finally be producing real results. Putin’s announced martial law in Ukrainian territories Russia now only partly controls, attacks on civilian targets deep in Ukraine’s interior, and a new, hardline commander in Ukraine, General Sergei Shurokin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” by colleagues, all suggest a growing frustration bordering on fear that the Russian people may begin noticing what has long been blindingly obvious: Putin is losing.

This is the very moment when it is so essential that Ukraine and their western supporters push on with tenacity.

Shurokin appeared on Moscow television last week to suggest the Kremlin’s new objective – that actually dates back decades – is to force Ukraine into Russia’s orbit and keep it from joining the EU and especially NATO. Shurokin said: “We just want one thing, for Ukraine to be independent of the West and NATO and be friendly to the Russian state.”

Still, there remain hardliners like Pavel Gubarev, Russia’s puppet leader in Donetsk, who voiced his real intention toward Ukrainians: “We aren’t coming to kill you, but to convince you. But if you don’t want to be convinced, we’ll kill you. We’ll kill as many as we have to: 1 million, 5 million, or exterminate all of you.”

This should be the real fear of any in the West still prepared to waffle over 100% support of Ukraine and its people.

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October 26, 2022
China’s yuan tumbles to all-time low amid fears about Xi’s third term | CNN Business

Hong Kong
CNN Business
—

China’s yuan tumbled to an all-time low on international markets on Tuesday, as investors fled Chinese assets amid fears about Xi Jinping’s shocking move to tighten his grip on power at a major leadership reshuffle.

In trading outside of mainland China, the yuan briefly plunged to around 7.36 per dollar early Tuesday, the lowest level on record, according Refinitiv, which has data going back to 2010. It then pared losses, trading at 7.33 by 1 pm Hong Kong time.

On the tightly managed domestic market, the yuan also dropped sharply on Tuesday, hitting the weakest level in nearly 15 years.

The declines came alongside a historic market rout for Chinese assets worldwide. On Monday, Chinese stocks plummeted in Hong Kong and New York, wiping out billions of dollars in their market value. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng

(HSI) Index closed down 6.4%. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index also dived more than 14%. On Tuesday, the Hang Seng

(HSI) rebounded slightly, up 0.8% by noon.

The huge sell-offs came just days after the ruling Communist Party unveiled its new leadership for the next five years. In addition to securing an unprecedented third term as party chief, Xi packed his new leadership team with staunch loyalists.

A number of senior officials who have backed market reforms and opening up the economy were missing from the new top team, stirring concerns about the future direction of the country and its relations with the United States.

International investors spooked by the outcome of the Communist Party’s leadership reshuffle dumped Chinese assets despite the release of stronger-than-expected GDP data. They’re worried that Xi’s tightening grip on power will lead to the continuation of Beijing’s existing policies and further dent the economy.

China’s leadership reshuffle “sparked worries about the continuation of market-unfavourable policies and increasing risk of policy mistakes under President Xi’s power domination in coming years,” said Ken Cheung, chief Asian forex strategist at Mizuho Bank.

“Foreign investors took action to cut their exposure on Chinese assets,” he said, adding that the Chinese currency was faced with mounting capital outflow pressure.

The Chinese yuan, together with other major global currencies, has weakened rapidly against the dollar in recent months. The greenback has surged to the highest level in two decades against a basket of major counterparts, boosted by a hawkish Fed that attempts to contain runaway inflation.

So far this year, the yuan has slumped more than 15% against the dollar, on track to log its worst year since 1994 — when China devalued its currency by 33% overnight as part of market reforms.

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October 24, 2022
Hong Kong stocks plunge 6% as fears about Xi’s third term trump China GDP data | CNN Business

Hong Kong
CNN Business
—

Hong Kong stocks had their worst day since the 2008 global financial crisis, just a day after Chinese leader Xi Jinping secured his iron grip on power at a major political gathering.

Foreign investors spooked by the outcome of the Communist Party’s leadership reshuffle dumped Chinese equities and the yuan despite the release of stronger-than-expected GDP data. They’re worried that Xi’s tightening grip on power will lead to the continuation of Beijing’s existing policies and further dent the economy.

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng

(HSI) Index plunged 6.4% on Monday, marking its biggest daily drop since November 2008. The index closed at its lowest level since April 2009.

The Chinese yuan weakened sharply, hitting a fresh 14-year low against the US dollar on the onshore market. On the offshore market, where it can trade more freely, the currency tumbled 0.8%, hovering near its weakest level on record, even as the Chinese economy grew 3.9% in the third quarter from a year ago, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Economists polled by Reuters had expected growth of 3.4%.

The sharp sell-off came one day after the ruling Communist Party unveiled its new leadership for the next five years. In addition to securing an unprecedented third term as party chief, Xi packed his new leadership team with staunch loyalists.

A number of senior officials who have backed market reforms and opening up the economy were missing from the new top team, stirring concerns about the future direction of the country and its relations with the United States. Those pushed aside included Premier Li Keqiang, Vice Premier Liu He, and central bank governor Yi Gang.

“It appears that the leadership reshuffle spooked foreign investors to offload their Chinese investment, sparking heavy sell-offs in Hong Kong-listed Chinese equities,” said Ken Cheung, chief Asian forex strategist at Mizuho bank.

The GDP data marked a pick-up from the 0.4% increase in the second quarter, when China’s economy was battered by widespread Covid lockdowns. Shanghai, the nation’s financial center and a key global trade hub, was shut down for two months in April and May. But the growth rate was still below the annual official target that the government set earlier this year.

“The outlook remains gloomy,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist for Capital Economics, in a research report on Monday.

“There is no prospect of China lifting its zero-Covid policy in the near future, and we don’t expect any meaningful relaxation before 2024,” he added.

Coupled with a further weakening in the global economy and a persistent slump in China’s real estate, all the headwinds will continue to pressure the Chinese economy, he said.

Evans-Pritchard expected China’s official GDP to grow by only 2.5% this year and by 3.5% in 2023.

Monday’s GDP data were initially scheduled for release on October 18 during the Chinese Communist Party’s congress, but were postponed without explanation.

The possibility that policies such as zero-Covid, which has resulted in sweeping lockdowns to contain the virus, and “Common Prosperity” — Xi’s bid to redistribute wealth — could be escalated was causing concern, Cheung said.

“With the Politburo Standing Committee composed of President Xi’s close allies, market participants read the implications as President Xi’s power consolidation and the policy continuation,” he added.

Mitul Kotecha, head of emerging markets strategy at TD Securities, also pointed out that the disappearance of pro-reform officials from the new leadership bodes ill for the future of China’s private sector.

“The departure of perceived pro-stimulus officials and reformers from the Politburo Standing Committee and replacement with allies of Xi, suggests that ‘Common Prosperity’ will be the overriding push of officials,” Kotecha said.

Under the banner of the “Common Prosperity” campaign, Beijing launched a sweeping crackdown on the country’s private enterprise, which shook almost every industry to its core.

“The [market] reaction in our view is consistent with the reduced prospects of significant stimulus or changes to zero-Covid policy. Overall, prospects of a re-acceleration of growth are limited,” Kotecha said.

On the tightly controlled domestic market in China, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dropped 2%. The tech-heavy Shenzhen Component Index lost 2.1%.

The Hang Seng Tech Index, which tracks the 30 largest technology firms listed in Hong Kong, plunged 9.7%.

Shares of Alibaba

(BABA) and Tencent

(TCEHY) — the crown jewels of China’s technology sector — both plummeted more than 11%, wiping a combined $54 billion off their stock market value.

The sell-off spilled over into the United States as well. Shares of Alibaba and several other leading Chinese stocks trading in New York, such as EV companies Nio

(NIO) and Xpeng, Alibaba rivals JD.com

(JD) and Pinduoduo

(PDD) and search engine Baidu

(BIDU), were all down sharply Thursday afternoon.

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October 24, 2022
Rishi Sunak: The super-rich former banker who will be the first person of color to lead Britain | CNN

London
CNN
—

Just seven short weeks ago, it looked as if it might be all over for Rishi Sunak.

The former chancellor of the exchequer – the UK’s title for its chief finance minister – made a high-stakes gamble. He launched an attack that helped to end Boris Johnson’s premiership, put himself forward as his replacement, but ultimately lost to Liz Truss. Admitting defeat, he retreated to the parliamentary back benches.

But in a sign of just how unpredictable British politics has become, Sunak has returned triumphant from the political wilderness to replace Truss, whose premiership imploded last week.

Sunak was the only leadership hopeful to secure the support of 100 Conservative members of parliament, the necessary threshold set by party officials for potential candidates. He will become the first person of color to lead the UK – and at the age of 42, he is also the youngest person to take the office in more than 200 years.

He was the last person standing after his rivals – Johnson and the Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt – fell by the wayside.

Sunak first publicly declared on Sunday morning that he would be standing in the contest. In a tweet, he wrote, “The United Kingdom is a great country but we face a profound economic crisis. That’s why I am standing to be Leader of the Conservative Party and your next Prime Minister. I want to fix our economy, unite our Party and deliver for our country.”

Other than that brief statement, he has made no big pitch for the leadership this time round.

In the last contest, over the summer, he was widely seen as the more moderate of the two candidates. Compared to Truss, he took a less ideological line on matters like Brexit and the economy. (Unlike Truss, a remainer-turned hardline Brexiteer, Sunak voted for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum.)

Like Truss, Sunak promised a tough approach to illegal immigration and vowed to expand the government’s controversial Rwanda immigration policy.

Sunak, whose parents came to the UK from East Africa in the 1960s, is of Indian descent. His father was a local doctor while his mother ran a pharmacy in southern England, something Sunak says gave him his desire to serve the public.

He will be the first Hindu to become British prime minister, securing the position on Diwali, the festival of lights that marks one of the most important days of the Hindu calendar. Sunak himself made history in 2020 when he lit Diwali candles outside 11 Downing Street, the official residence of the UK chancellor.

He has faced challenges over his elite background, having studied at the exclusive Winchester College, Oxford and Stanford universities. He is known for his expensive taste in fashion and has worked for banks and hedge funds, including Goldman Sachs.

Sunak has also been scrutinized over the tax arrangements of his wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian billionaire.

Earlier this year, Sunak and Murty appeared on the Sunday Times Rich List of the UK’s 250 wealthiest people – the newspaper estimated their joint net worth at £730 million ($826 million).

Sunak’s election on Monday marks the pinnacle of what has been a speedy rise to power. He was first elected as an MP in 2015 and spent two years on the back benches before becoming a junior minister in Theresa May’s government. Johnson gave Sunak his first major government role, appointing him as chief secretary to the Treasury in 2019 and promoting him to chancellor in 2020.

Sunak has experience of economic crisis-fighting, having guided the UK through the Covid-19 pandemic, and positioned himself as the “sound finance” candidate.

During the pandemic, Sunak put in place measures worth £400 billion ($452 billion) aimed at boosting the economy, including a generous furlough scheme, business loans and discounts on eating in restaurants. But that stimulus came at a huge cost and left the government scrambling to find savings.

Sunak was an early critic of Truss’ economic plan, which was panned by investors, the International Monetary Fund and credit ratings agencies. While he also advocated for lower taxes, he said tax could only be cut once inflation is brought under control, which could take several years.

His warning over the summer that Truss’ unfunded tax cuts could spark panic in the financial markets turned out to be true. The British pound crashed to a record low against the US dollar when Truss and her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled their plan. Prices of UK government bonds rose at the fastest pace ever, sending borrowing costs skyrocketing.

He also secured the most votes from MPs in the last leadership election – comfortably clearing the new threshold with 137 endorsements. Although Truss eventually won the decisive vote among grassroots members, Sunak was not far behind, gaining 43% of the vote.

Johnson has made no secret of the fact that he believes Sunak betrayed him by resigning from his government, triggering his resignation on July 7 after a string of scandals made his position untenable.

Johnson’s downfall followed months of revelations of parties held in 10 Downing Street while the rest of the country was under Covid lockdown restrictions. Johnson himself was fined by the police, making him the first prime minister in history found to have broken the law in office.

For a long time, Sunak stood by Johnson – especially since he too was fined in the so-called Partygate scandal.

But he turned against him after Johnson was slow to act when his deputy chief whip responsible for party discipline, Chris Pincher, was accused of sexually assaulting two men at a party in early July. (Pincher later said he had “drunk far too much,” although has not directly addressed the allegations.)

Sunak’s shock resignation from Johnson’s cabinet over the Pincher scandal set into motion a series of high-profile resignations that led to Johnson’s demise – and ultimately, to his own rise to the Downing Street.

Sunak faces an enormous task. The UK is in the midst of a deep cost-of-living crisis and soaring inequality. Financial markets are still spooked after Truss’ disastrous economic policy missteps.

The Conservative party, already unpopular after 12 years in power, has plunged itself into a state of utter chaos over the past four months and is now well behind the opposition Labour party in opinion polls. The only comfort for Sunak is that he doesn’t have to call an election until January 2025.

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October 24, 2022
Yemen Fast Facts | CNN

CNN
—

Here’s a look at Yemen, a country located on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, sharing a border with Saudi Arabia and Oman.

(from the CIA World Fact Book)
Area: 527,968 sq km (twice the size of Wyoming)

Population: 30,984,689 (2022 est.)

Median age: 19.8 years

Capital: Sanaa

Ethnic groups: Predominantly Arab; but also Afro-Arab, South Asian, European

Religions: Muslim (99.1%: an estimated 65% are Sunni and 35% are Shia) and small numbers of Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Baha’i (2020)

Unemployment: 27% (2014 est.)

Yemen is part of the Arab League.

Yemen has been mired in political unrest and armed conflict, which intensified in early 2015. Houthi rebels – a minority Shia group from the north of the country – drove out the US-backed government and took over the capital, Sanaa. The crisis quickly escalated into a multi-sided war, with neighboring Saudi Arabia leading a coalition of Gulf states against the Houthi rebels. The coalition is advised and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, among other nations.

READ: Yemen: What you need to know about how we got here

May 22, 1990 – The Republic of Yemen is created from the unification of North Yemen, the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.

May-July 1994 – A civil war between northerners and southerners begins due to disagreements between supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, from North Yemen, and Vice President Ali Salim al-Baid, from South Yemen. Troops loyal to Saleh win the war.

September 25, 1999 – Saleh wins the country’s first direct presidential election, with 96.3% of the vote. Opposition leaders allege tampering at the ballot box.

September 23, 2006 – Saleh wins reelection to a seven-year term with 77% of the vote.

September 17, 2008 – Ten people, Yemeni citizens and police officers, are killed in terrorist attack on the US embassy in Sanaa.

December 28, 2009 – A Yemen-based arm of al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), claims responsibility for a failed bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25.

January 2, 2010 – US President Barack Obama announces a new counterterrorism partnership with Yemen, involving intelligence sharing, military training and joint attacks.

January 3, 2010 – The United States and the United Kingdom temporarily close their embassies in Sanaa after they receive word that AQAP may be planning an attack on the facilities. The US embassy reopens two days later after Yemeni forces kill two AQAP militants in a counterterrorism operation.

January 2010 – A group called Friends of Yemen is established in the UK to rally support for Yemen from the international community. They later hold meetings in London and Saudi Arabia.

January 27, 2011 – Protests break out, inspired by demonstrations in neighboring countries. The unrest continues for months, while crackdowns on protesters lead to civilian deaths.

June 3, 2011 – Opposition forces launch missiles at the presidential palace, injuring Saleh and killing several others.

September 2, 2011 – More than two million people demonstrate across Yemen, demanding that the military remove Saleh from power.

September 23, 2011 – Saleh returns to Yemen after more than three months of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

September 30, 2011 – Anwar al-Awlaki, spokesman for AQAP, is killed by a CIA drone strike.

November 23, 2011 – Saleh signs an agreement in Saudi Arabia transferring his executive powers to Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s vice president, effectively ending his rule.

January 21, 2012 – Parliament approves a law that grants Saleh immunity from prosecution.

February 21, 2012 – Yemen holds presidential elections to replace Saleh. There is only one candidate on the ballot, Vice President Hadi, the acting president since November 2011. Hadi receives 99.8% of the 6.6 million votes cast, according to the government elections committee.

February 25, 2012 – Hadi is sworn in as president.

May 21, 2012 – During a rehearsal for a military parade in Sanaa, a suicide bomber kills more than 100 Yemeni troops and wounds more than 200.

May 23, 2012 – Friends of Yemen pledges more than $4 billion in aid to help the country fight terrorism and boost its economy. The amount is later increased to $7.9 billion. There are delays, however, that hold up delivery of the funds, according to Reuters.

December 5, 2013 – Militants attack a Defense Ministry hospital in Sanaa. They ram the building with an explosives-laden vehicle and gunmen battle security forces inside. At least 52 people are killed, including four foreign doctors, according to the government.

December 15, 2013 – Parliament calls for an end to drone strikes on its territory three days after a US missile attack mistakenly hits a wedding convoy, killing 14 civilians.

February 10, 2014 – State news reports that Hadi has approved making Yemen a federal state consisting of six regions: two in the south, and four in the north. Sanaa is designated as neutral territory.

September 21, 2014 – Hadi, Houthi rebels and representatives of major political parties sign a ceasefire deal. The United Nations-brokered deal ends a month of protests by Houthis that essentially halted life in Sanaa and resulted in hundreds of people being killed or injured.

January 17, 2015 – Houthi rebels kidnap Hadi’s Chief of Staff Ahmed bin Mubarak in a push for more political power. He is released 10 days later, according to Reuters.

January 20, 2015 – Houthi rebels take over the presidential palace.

January 22, 2015 – President Hadi resigns shortly after the prime minister and the cabinet step down. Houthis say they will withdraw their fighters from Sanaa if the government agrees to constitutional changes including fair representation for marginalized groups within the country. No agreement is reached.

February 11, 2015 – The United States and the United Kingdom suspend embassy operations in Yemen.

March 20, 2015 – Terrorists bomb two mosques in Sanaa, killing at least 137 and wounding 357. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.

March 22, 2015 – Houthi rebels seize the international airport in Taiz.

March 26, 2015 – Warplanes from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and other countries strike Houthi rebel targets.

December 6, 2015 – The governor of the city of Aden and six bodyguards are killed in a car bombing. ISIS claims responsibility.

December 18-19, 2015 – At least 100 people are killed as violence erupts in the Harath district of Hajjah, a strategic border near Saudi Arabia.

April-August 2016 – Direct peace talks between the warring parties take place in Kuwait, but fail after Houthi rebels reject a UN proposal aimed at ending the war. Yemeni government officials leave the discussions shortly afterward.

November 28, 2016 – The Iranian-backed Houthi movement forms a new government in the capital. Abdul Aziz Habtoor, who defected from Hadi’s government and joined the Houthi coalition in 2015, is its leader, according to the movement’s news agency Saba.

December 18, 2016 – A suicide bomber strikes as soldiers line up to receive their salaries at the Al Solban military base in the southern city of Aden. The strike kills at least 52 soldiers and injures 34 others, two Yemeni senior security officials tell CNN. ISIS claims responsibility.

January 29, 2017 – US Central Command announces that a Navy SEAL was killed during a raid on a suspected al Qaeda hideout in a Yemeni village. The Navy SEAL is later identified as William Owens. The Pentagon reports that 14 terrorists were killed during the raid. Yemeni officials say civilians got caught in the crossfire and 13 people died, including eight-year-old Nawar Anwar Al-Awalki, the daughter of Anwar Al-Awalki. The raid was authorized by US President Donald Trump, days after he was sworn in as commander in chief.

February 8, 2017 – Two senior Yemeni officials tell CNN that the government has requested that the United States stop ground operations in the country unless it has full approval.

May 15, 2017 – Save the Children reports that 242 people have died of cholera as an outbreak spreads through Sanaa and beyond.

October 16, 2017 – US forces conduct airstrikes against two ISIS training camps in what a defense official tells CNN are the first US strikes specifically targeting ISIS in Yemen.

November 4, 2017 – Houthi rebels fire a missile at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The Saudi government says that their military intercepted the missile before it reached its target. The Saudis carry out airstrikes on Sanaa in response.

November 6, 2017 – Saudi Arabia blocks humanitarian aid planes from landing in Yemen. The move is in retaliation for the attempted missile strike on Riyadh.

December 4, 2017 – Saleh is killed by Houthi rebels as he tries to flee Sanaa.

December 6, 2017 – Trump issues a statement that he has directed his administration to call for an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade.

December 21, 2017 – The International Committee of the Red Cross announces that one million cases of cholera have been reported in Yemen since the outbreak began during the spring. More than 2,200 people have died, according to the World Health Organization. It is the largest outbreak of the disease in recent history.

April 3, 2018 – Speaking at a UN Pledging Conference on Yemen, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres notes that, in its fourth year of conflict, more than three-quarters of the population, 22 million, require humanitarian aid. Regarding hunger alone, “some 18 million people are food insecure; one million more than when we convened last year.”

August 3, 2018 – The World Health Organization warns that Yemen is teetering on the brink of a third cholera epidemic.

August 9, 2018 – A Saudi-led coalition bombs a school bus, killing 40 boys returning from a day trip in the northern Saada governorate. Fifty-one people are killed in total. Later, munitions experts tell CNN that the bomb, a 500-pound laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The Saudi coalition blames “incorrect information” for the strike, admits it was a mistake and takes responsibility.

November 20, 2018 – Save the Children says that an estimated 85,000 children under the age of 5 may have died from extreme hunger or disease since the war in Yemen escalated in early 2015.

December 6, 2018 – The opposing sides in Yemen’s conflict begin direct talks in Sweden, the first direct discussions between the parties since 2016.

December 18, 2018 – A ceasefire reached in Sweden between Yemen’s warring parties goes into effect at midnight (4 p.m. ET December 17) in the strategic port city of Hodeidah.

February 2019 – A CNN investigation reveals that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have transferred US-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other groups on the ground in Yemen. The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other war zones.

May 2019 – A CNN investigation exposes the theft or “diversion” of food aid, some of which is being stolen by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, on a scale far greater than has been reported before.

June 2019 – The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) finds that the total number of reported fatalities in Yemen is more than 91,000 since 2015.

June 12, 2019 – A missile fired by Houthi rebels strikes the arrivals hall of Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia, injuring 26 people. On July 2, a second attack occurs when Houthi rebels execute a drone strike on the same airport, injuring nine civilians. according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency.

August 11, 2019 – A spokesperson for Yemeni separatists tells CNN that they have taken control of Aden, which had been the seat of the Saudi-backed government since Houthis took over Sanaa in 2014.

January 19, 2020 – At least 80 Yemeni soldiers attending prayers at a mosque are killed and 130 others injured in ballistic missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the UN Special Envoy for Yemen.

December 26, 2020 – Yemen’s new 24-member cabinet, the power-sharing government brokered by Saudi Arabia, is sworn in. The new cohesive government will have equal representatives from Yemen’s internationally recognized government and southern separatists, their coalition allies in the war against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels.

February 12, 2021 – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces the removal of Yemen’s Houthi rebels from the US list of foreign terrorist organizations, effective February 16, reversing the Trump administration’s January 2020 designation that faced bipartisan backlash from politicians and humanitarian organizations.

April 2, 2022 – Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis and their rival Saudi-led coalition agree to a nationwide truce. It is the most significant step towards ending the hostilities since the war began seven years ago, and a win for UN and US mediators who for the past year have been trying to engineer a permanent peace deal. The renewable two-month truce is meant to halt all military operations in Yemen and across its borders.

October 2, 2022 – After a rare six months of relative calm, the truce between Yemen’s warring sides expires. The two-month truce had been renewed twice but ends after the two sides fail to renew their deal.

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October 23, 2022
Start your week smart: China, Hurricane Roslyn, Boris Johnson, Red Bull, Jan. 6 | CNN

CNN
—

The 2022 midterm elections are now just weeks away, and with control of both chambers of Congress and dozens of governorships, secretaries of state and attorneys general posts on the line, it’s important to know both how and when to vote in your state. To help you plan your vote, CNN has gathered the deadlines for early in-person voting, absentee/mail-in voting and for voter registration in each of the 50 states leading up to Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Here’s what else you need to know to Start Your Week Smart.

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping has formally stepped into his norm-breaking third term ruling China with an iron grip on power as he revealed a new leadership team today stacked with loyal allies.

• Hurricane Roslyn slammed into Mexico’s Pacific coast as a major Category 3 storm today, bringing dangerous storm surge and flooding to parts of the country, forecasters said.

• Boris Johnson is trying to win enough support to make what would be a stunning comeback as Britain’s prime minister, as senior Conservative politicians declared their support for former finance minister Rishi Sunak. The two men have become the early favorites to replace Liz Truss, who announced her resignation last week.

• Dietrich Mateschitz, the owner and co-founder of the sports drink company Red Bull, has died, the company announced Saturday. He was 78. As well as turning his energy drink into a market leader, the Austrian billionaire also founded one of the most successful Formula One teams in recent history.

• The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol announced on Friday that the panel has officially sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump as it paints him as the central figure in the multi-step plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Monday

Opening statements are scheduled to begin in the sexual assault trial of disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles. Weinstein, 70, was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape charges in New York more than two years ago and sentenced to 23 years in prison. In Los Angeles, Weinstein faces multiple sexual assault charges that he pleaded not guilty to last year.

Diwali, the Hindu celebration known as the “Festival of Lights,” also begins on Monday. New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced last week that Diwali will be a public school holiday starting in 2023.

Tuesday

A Moscow regional court has set October 25 as an appeal date for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was sentenced to nine years of jail time in early August for deliberately smuggling drugs into Russia. She was arrested with less than 1 gram of cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on February 17.

In what has become one of the most closely watched Senate contests in the country, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman and Republican candidate Mehmet Oz will face each other in a televised debate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Fetterman, who had a near-fatal stroke more than five months ago, has faced a number of questions about transparency surrounding his health and recovery. Fetterman’s primary care physician released a medical report earlier this month stating that the candidate is “recovering well from his stroke” and “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”

Wednesday

Hillary Clinton – former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic nominee for President – turns 75.

Saturday

October 29 is National Cat Day. “Meh,” said cats …

Hear a story of Iranian resistance

In this week’s One Thing podcast, CNN Chief International Investigative Correspondent Nima Elbagir joins us from Northern Iraq, where some Iranian dissidents have fled a brutal crackdown in response to nationwide protests set off by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. We explore if these protests will bring lasting change and hear from one Iranian-Kurdish activist who is now taking up arms across the border. Listen here.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss announces her resignation in front of 10 Downing Street in London on Thursday, October 20.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

a drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday, October 17. A wave of drone attacks pummeled the capital city early Monday as commuters headed to work.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

ended a 15-game losing streak against Alabama. They won 52-49 with a last second 40-yard field goal.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

Mississippi to record lows.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

20th Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday, October 16. Xi is poised to secure a norm-breaking third term in power.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

as it splashes down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday, October 14, with European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines and Jessica Watkins. They are returning after 170 days aboard the International Space Station.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

James Webb Space Telescope. It shows a highly detailed view of the Pillars of Creation, a vista of three looming towers made of interstellar dust and gas that’s speckled with newly formed stars. The area, which lies within the Eagle Nebula about 6,500 light-years from Earth, had previously been captured by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, creating an image deemed “iconic” by space observers.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

found him not liable for battery on allegations he picked up actor Anthony Rapp and briefly laid on top of him in a bed after a party in 1986. Jurors deliberated for about an hour and concluded Rapp did not prove that Spacey “touched a sexual or intimate part” of him.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

warned it could take up to six months for the water to recede in the wake of the country’s “unprecedented” flooding.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

expelled from the United States on Monday, October 17.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

deadly drone attacks.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

See last week in 32 photos.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

Check out more moving, fascinating and thought-provoking images from the week that was, curated by CNN Photos.

TV and streaming

The season finale of “House of the Dragon,” the “Game of Thrones” prequel that takes place almost 200 years before the events of its predecessor, airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO. (HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.)

“Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” makes its debut on Netflix Tuesday. The new horror anthology promises “eight tales of terror” curated by the Oscar-winning director of “The Shape of Water.”

“The Good Nurse,” starring Oscar winners Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, tells the story of an infamous caregiver implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients. It begins streaming on Netflix Wednesday.

“All Quiet on the Western Front,” based on the classic World War I novel, arrives on Netflix Friday.

Baseball

Four teams remain in the battle to reach the 2022 World Series, which begins on Friday. Later today, the San Diego Padres face the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. On Saturday, the Phillies beat the Padres to take a 3-1 lead in the series. The Houston Astros, meanwhile, play the New York Yankees tonight in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. Houston leads that series 3-0.

Take CNN’s weekly news quiz to see how much you remember from the week that was! So far, 66% of fellow quiz fans have gotten eight or more questions right. How will you fare?

Christina Aguilera – Beautiful (2022 Version)

‘Beautiful’

A lot has changed about the world in the last 20 years, but Christina Aguilera still thinks you’re beautiful – despite what social media sometimes tells us. Watch the updated version of her “Beautiful” music video released last week that takes aim at the messages often delivered through social media that have negative effects on our body image and mental health. (Click here to view)

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October 23, 2022
China’s top leaders revealed as Xi Jinping cements grip on power with third term | CNN

CNN
—

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has formally stepped into his third term ruling China with an iron grip on power, breaking with recent precedent to secure another five years in power, as he revealed a top leadership body stacked with loyal allies.

On Sunday, following the close of the Communist Party Congress, seven men – namely Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Li Xi and Ding Xuexiang – were announced as members of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top ruling body.

They now compose the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s most powerful decision-making body, and will sit atop of the party to drive the world’s second-largest economy over the coming half decade.

The line-up was more stacked with staunch Xi loyalists that some watchers of elite Chinese politics had predicted – making clear that Xi has consolidated his power both in the public eye and in the closed-door meetings where leadership decisions are made.

Noticeably absent from the line-up was Hu Chunhua, 59, a vice premier outside Xi’s orbit who had previously been touted as a potential successor to Xi and a candidate for the Standing Committee.

Instead, Xi had filled the four open spots on the seven-member body with Xi long-time allies and proteges, Li Qiang, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi, clearing the path for him to rule for a third term with minimal internal resistance – and underlining that affinity to Xi trumps all else in China’s current political landscape.

“The current situation is something unprecedented … this new line-up is not a product of power sharing or horse trading among different factions, but basically it is the result or consequence from Xi’s authority,” said Chen Gang, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.

“For the party’s decision-making, I think that we have entered a really a new era, as Xi now controls almost every aspect concerning policy making and decision making … we’re seeing a kind of re-centralised bureaucracy in China, which will definitely impact the future China’s economic foreign policy trajectory,” he said.

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October 22, 2022