Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar both made history Tuesday by winning their elections and becoming the first Muslim women to be elected to the U.S. Congress. Source: Hürriyet Daily News
Immigration
The draft legislation, likely to be submitted to parliament on Friday, has come under attack from both the opposition and members of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s party, but business leaders say it is desperately needed. Source: NDTV
He spoke a day after Austria said it would follow the United States and Hungary in backing out of the UN pact over concerns that it would blur the line between legal and illegal migration. A minister in Poland’s arch-conservative government has also recommended his country quit the agreement. Source: Cyprus Mail
President Trump said Wednesday that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if billionaire philanthropist George Soros or someone else is funding the caravan of Central American migrants moving toward the U.S.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Trump told reporters outside the White House when asked if “someone” is paying for the caravan. Source The Hill
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States could send as many as 15,000 troops to the border with Mexico, as he hardens his stance against a caravan of migrants fleeing violence and poverty in Central America. Source: Reuters
Visiting Berlin for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s African business summit, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi spoke to DW about political turmoil in his country, migration issues, and when a leader should step down. Source: Deutsche Welle
Austria will not sign on to a landmark UN pact regulating global migration. The right-wing government of Sebastian Kurz is following in the footsteps of leaders from the United States and Hungary. Source: Deutsche Welle
Eskom said on Friday unplanned breakdowns at its plants were affecting just under 12,000 megawatt of generating capacity, forcing it to burn diesel and use water from pumped storage schemes to augment its base load. Source Iol
Strikes are continuing in France today (Friday December 13) with some unions threatening to carry on through Christmas, after Prime Minister Édouard Philippe spoke to a mixed response this week. Source Connextion
Turkey is close to sealing an agreement with Russia on joint missile production and securing know-how via a technology transfer to develop its own defense systems, Head of Defense Industries Presidency (SSB) İsmail Demir said Friday. Source Daily Sabah
The death toll from four separate attacks in Iraq’s Saladin and Diyala provinces has risen to 15, local security sources said on Dec. 13. The sources, who asked not to be named due to security concerns, said a total of 11 members of the Hashd al-Shaabi militia were killed in two truck bomb explosions near its military checkpoint in Samarra city in Saladin. Source Hurriyet Daily
A vote by the United States senators that recognizes the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as genocide is a shameful example of the politicization of the history for political purposes, Turkish officials have criticized, urging Washington that this is a campaign to further hit Turkish-American ties. Source Hurriyet Daily
Libyan Commander Khalifa Haftar urged his forces to advance towards the centre of Tripoli on Thursday in what he said would be the “final battle” for the capital.
Advertising. Haftar, who heads the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), launched an offensive in April to try to take control of Tripoli which stalled on the outskirts of the city. Source France24
A man who threatened to attack police officers with a knife was killed Friday morning by officers in the La Défense business district near Paris, police and union sources reported. Source France24
With Turkey having drillships hunt for oil and gas in Cypriot waters in defiance of international law, the Italian Navy has sent a frigate near where the Italian energy company Eni – which had been scared off previously by a Turkish warship – is operating.
The frigate Federico Martinengo made a stop in the port of Larnaca in what the Italian government said was part of a patrol operation and in the protection of national interests without specifying its duties. Source The National Herald
France’s CGT union said on Thursday there would be no break in transport strikes over the Christmas period unless the government backed down on pension reform. “No Christmas break unless the government comes to its senses,” Laurent Brun, head of CGT’s railway branch, said on the Franceinfo radio station. Source France24
The three main police union organizations announced Thursday evening that they are suspending their protest movement after having obtained guarantees as to the maintenance of a specific pension scheme, and not only for civil servants who are on the ground. Source Actu17
“It’s getting more and more disturbing.” Colonel Patrice Gerber, deputy departmental director of the fire and rescue service of Bas-Rhin, describes as “strictly unacceptable” the multiplication of attacks against firefighters everywhere in France. According to him, and while four senators published a report on the subject on Wednesday, December 11, there are on average two attacks per week in the Bas-Rhin. Source France Blue
- Diplomat Wu Ken warns ‘there will be consequences’ if the Chinese telecoms giant is excluded and floats possibility of German cars being banned on safety grounds
- German politicians are seeking to pass a bill to exclude ‘untrustworthy’ firms from 5G network amid ongoing security fears surrounding company
China’s auto sales sank 5.4% in November from a year earlier, putting the industry’s biggest global market on track to shrink for a second year. Source: CityNews
The business mood of Japan’s big manufacturers sank to a near seven-year low in the fourth quarter, a closely watched central bank survey showed, as the U.S.-China trade war and soft global demand weighed on the export-reliant economy. Source Japan Times
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York boosted its repo operations Thursday, increasing planned capital injections as its key lending rate faces year-end pressures.
The central bank lifted its limit for operations scheduled between December 31 and January 2 to $150 billion from $120 billion, according to a Thursday release. Source Markets Insider
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu fired a shot across the bow of anyone who would try to stop his country’s drillships from operating in Cypriot waters, indicating military force would be used. Cavusoglu told the pro-government A Haber news channel that Turkey “has the right to prevent” any unauthorized drilling in waters that it says fall within its own continental shelf. Asked specifically if Turkey could use military means to stop such drilling, Cavusoglu said “of course.” Source The National Herald
Germany on Thursday (12 December) warned Washington to mind its own business after US lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill that would sanction contractors working on a Russian pipeline to Germany. The EU also opposed sanctions against ‘companies doing legitimate business’. Source Euractiv
Rosneft holds key meetings with METI and Jogmec over $157bn project. Participating in the project will help Japan diversify its energy supply away from the Middle East, from where it currently imports almost 90 per cent of its oil. Source: Financial Times
Celadon Group (OTC: CGIP) will file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 no later than Wednesday, December 11, according to internal sources. The Indianapolis-based, publicly-traded trucking carrier employed more than 3,200 drivers and took in more than $1 billion in gross revenue as recently as 2015. Source Freight Waves
South Africa’s state power company intensified rolling blackouts to a record, signaling a deepening crisis at the debt-ridden utility and raising the risk of a second recession in as many years. Source Bloomberg
The Italian government is ready to follow up emergency aid for Alitalia by injecting hundreds of millions of euros of loans into its struggling steel industry if Rome cannot find a private sector solution for a dual industrial crisis that has shaken its fragile coalition government. Source Financial Times
The New York Federal Reserve on Monday accepted $25 billion in bids from primary dealers in a 28-day repurchase agreement (repo) operation, a move intended maintain stability in short-term funding markets through the volatile year-end period. The operation was oversubscribed with $43 billion of bids submitted, according to the New York Fed’s website. Source Reuters
