Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.
Fred Dufour | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump blamed China's President Xi Jinping for a trade deal falling apart between the two countries in the final week. Trump said to President Xi "you had a great deal...& you backed out" in a tweet on Monday.
Trade talks broke down last week after the White House accused China of reneging on key portions of an agreement and then hiked the tariff rate to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods on Friday.
President Trump also warned China on Monday not to retaliate to those new tariffs. It "will only get worse!," he wrote.
Trump said Friday that trade talks would continue with China but there are no official meetings planned in the future yet. China's Commerce Ministry said last week it would take countermeasures against the American tariff hike, but no official announcement has been made.
President Trump warned China in a tweet on Saturday to 'act now' on trade or face a 'far worse' deal in his second term.
White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow said Sunday that Beijing invited U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to engage in talks but travel plans have not been made. Kudlow also said that Trump and President Xi would likely meet at the June G-20 summit in Japan.
Traders reacted negatively on Monday to Trump ratcheting up the rhetoric amid this tenuous time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures indicated a drop of about 300 points at the open. While S&P 500 futures pointed to a loss of 1.1% and Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a drop of 1.5%. The Dow lost 1.9% last week as the trade deal fell apart.
How the Chinese might retaliate is being debated by experts. Some people think China will target U.S. farmers and farm exports because Trump cares about that politically. Others think China could dump more than $1 trillion worth of U.S. debt, however, experts say that would ultimately hurt China's balance sheet.
China's yuan was set for its worst daily fall in nine months on Monday. The yuan fell 0.8% to 6.9040, its weakest since December 27.
The Swedish authorities announced on Monday that they would reopen an investigation into a rape allegation against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who is serving a prison term in Britain for jumping bail as the United States seeks his extradition for his role in a huge breach of classified data.
The United States has already begun trying to extradite Mr. Assange, an effort that was expected to be prolonged and complex even before the announcement in Stockholm on Monday, and it could be further complicated by Sweden’s wish to reinstate its investigation.
British officials will determine which case takes precedence, Swedish prosecutors said, adding that if Mr. Assange were eventually extradited to Sweden, he could not be sent to the United States without the consent of Britain. The investigation stems from an accusation in August 2010 made by a Swedish woman, who said that Mr. Assange had sexually assaulted her.
Mr. Assange was removed from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London last month and promptly arrested, seven years after seeking refuge to avoid extradition in an earlier Swedish investigation into the same rape case, and then sentenced to 50 weeks for jumping bail.
With Mr. Assange in custody, the United States began the extradition process on a conspiracy charge — punishable by up to five years in prison — over his involvement in one of the largest leaks of classified materials in American history.
Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecutions, announced the decision a news conference in Stockholm on Monday, saying that the Swedish authorities would reopen their investigation because there was still probable cause to suspect that Mr. Assange had committed the crime in question.
“I take the view that there exists the possibility to take the case forward,” Ms. Persson said. The decision to reopen the preliminary investigation is not equivalent to making a decision to indict him, she said, but a European arrest warrant will be issued so that the Swedish authorities can ultimately take Mr. Assange into custody and question him.
Per Samuelsson, Mr. Assange’s Swedish lawyer, said he was surprised by the decision to reopen the investigation. “It’s not proportionate,” Mr. Samuelsson said, adding that he has not spoken to his client since last month. “He has been sentenced to 50 weeks. He faces extradition for revealing the truth about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To force him to concentrate on this old investigation is highly unreasonable.”
The Swedish investigation began in 2010, after two women accused Mr. Assange of assaulting them during separate sexual encounters while he was visiting Stockholm.
He was living in London at the time, and the Swedish authorities issued a European arrest warrant in seeking his extradition for questioning over “suspicion of rape, three cases of sexual molestation and illegal coercion.” The statute of limitations ran out on those allegations, with the exception of the rape accusation.
Mr. Assange was arrested by the British police in 2011, and after a series of failed appeals while he was out on bail, he fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy to avoid extradition.
Sweden dropped the initial investigation in May 2017, having concluded that there was no way to proceed with the case as long as Mr. Assange was holed up in the embassy, and prosecutors indicated at the time that they had not cleared him and they reserved the right to reopen their inquiry.
Last month, days after Mr. Assange was removed from the embassy, having worn out his welcome with his hosts, Sweden announced that a lawyer for the two accusers had requested that the investigation be reopened into the accusation of rape brought by one of the women.
The prosecution still falls within the country’s 10-year statute of limitations to restart it. The statute of limitations has already passed for sexual molestation and unlawful coercion accusations made by the other woman.
The same day Mr. Assange was removed from the embassy, the United States unsealed an indictment against him on a charge that stems from a leak of hundreds of thousands of documents, mostly related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were published by WikiLeaks.
The American authorities have accused Mr. Assange of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, to crack an encoded password that would have permitted her to log into a classified Pentagon network under someone else’s identity.
At Mr. Assange’s first hearing in the extradition case, held this month, he told the judge that he did not wish to surrender to the United States to be prosecuted for what he called “journalism that has won many awards.”
Mr. Assange could face additional charges in the United States, although prosecutors have appeared to be wary of pursuing a case that would treat the act of publishing information as a crime, a move that would raise questions about whether his First Amendment rights to free speech were being violated.
Ms. Manning was recently released after being jailed for two months for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks.
Ms. Persson, the Swedish prosecutor, said that because Mr. Assange has been convicted of a crime in Britain, he would serve at least 25 weeks of his sentence before he can be released and potentially transported to Sweden.
The Swedish authorities hope to question Mr. Assange while he is still in British detention, Ms. Persson said, but that would require his consent.
She also said that it would be up to Britain to determine whether the United States extradition request or the Swedish investigation takes precedence.
“This decision has been left entirely to the British authorities. The outcome of this process is impossible to predict,” she said, but added that the Swedish investigation could continue concurrently with the British process.
One of Mr. Assange’s accusers in Sweden has publicly identified herself, and the woman, Anna Ardin, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that Mr. Assange was “a man who has a twisted attitude toward women and a problem taking no for an answer.”
Last month, Ms. Ardin tweeted that she would be “very surprised & sad if Julian is handed over to the US.” She added, “For me this was never about anything else than his misconduct against me/women and his refusal to take responsibility for this.”
But Mr. Assange and his supporters have long maintained that the accusations were attempts to discredit him, and he had maintained that the effort to extradite him to Sweden were a pretext to eventually send him to the United States.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, said in a statement released shortly after the Swedish prosecutors’ announcement that the case “has been mishandled throughout.”
“This investigation has been dropped before, and its reopening will give Julian a chance to clear his name,” Mr. Hrafnsson said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.
Fred Dufour | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump blamed China's President Xi Jinping for a trade deal falling apart between the two countries in the final week. Trump said to President Xi "you had a great deal...& you backed out" in a tweet on Monday.
Trade talks broke down last week after the White House accused China of reneging on key portions of an agreement and then hiked the tariff rate to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods on Friday.
President Trump also warned China on Monday not to retaliate to those new tariffs. It "will only get worse!," he wrote.
Trump said Friday that trade talks would continue with China but there are no official meetings planned in the future yet. China's Commerce Ministry said last week it would take countermeasures against the American tariff hike, but no official announcement has been made.
President Trump warned China in a tweet on Saturday to 'act now' on trade or face a 'far worse' deal in his second term.
White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow said Sunday that Beijing invited U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to engage in talks but travel plans have not been made. Kudlow also said that Trump and President Xi would likely meet at the June G-20 summit in Japan.
Traders reacted negatively on Monday to Trump ratcheting up the rhetoric amid this tenuous time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures indicated a drop of about 300 points at the open. While S&P 500 futures pointed to a loss of 1.1% and Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a drop of 1.5%. The Dow lost 1.9% last week as the trade deal fell apart.
How the Chinese might retaliate is being debated by experts. Some people think China will target U.S. farmers and farm exports because Trump cares about that politically. Others think China could dump more than $1 trillion worth of U.S. debt, however, experts say that would ultimately hurt China's balance sheet.
China's yuan was set for its worst daily fall in nine months on Monday. The yuan fell 0.8% to 6.9040, its weakest since December 27.
Saudi Arabia claims "sabotage attacks" left two of its oil tankers damaged off the coast of the UAE, not far from the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping channel.
Nobody is casting blame yet, but it comes just days after the U.S. warned that "Iran or its proxies" could target commercial vessels in the region.
Britain says the incident highlights the danger of "a conflict happening by accident" between the U.S. and Iran.
Mike Pompeo is expected to meet European leaders as they try to keep the nuclear deal viable months after President Trump abandoned it.
Saudi Arabia said Monday two of its oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in attacks that caused "significant damage" to the vessels. One of the ships was en route to pick up Saudi oil to take to the United States, a Saudi government minister said.
The announcement by the kingdom's energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, came on the heels of a new warning to sailors in the region from the U.S. While no blame was cast at Iran or any other nation for the alleged attack on the ships, it fuelled fears that a miscommunication or small act of antagonism in the politically charged region could quickly escalate into a full conflict.
Late last week the U.S. Maritime Administration warned commercial shipping companies that from the beginning of May there had been, "an increased possibility that Iran and/or its regional proxies could take action against U.S. and partner interests, including oil production infrastructure, after recently threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran or its proxies could respond by targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, or the Persian Gulf."
The statement from the Saudi government on the alleged "sabotage attacks" off the United Arab Emirates port at Fujairah came just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets aired false reports of explosions at the port, which sits less than 100 miles from the mouth of the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping channel. Emirati officials have declined to elaborate on the nature of the sabotage or say who might have been responsible.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard rules out talks with U.S.
A total of four tankers sustained some damage on Sunday, according to UAE officials. One of the others was Norwegian owned, but officials in that country did not immediately confirm any links to the apparent attacks on the Saudi-flagged vessels.
Early Sunday, the U.S. Maritime Administration issued a new warning to sailors about the alleged sabotage, while stressing "the incident has not been confirmed." It urged shippers to exercise caution in the area for the next week.
It remains unclear if the previous warning from the U.S. agency is the same perceived threat, or part of it, that prompted the White House to order the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and the B-52 bombers to the region on May 4.
Mulvaney says U.S. "not going to war in Iran" amid rising tensions
"One of the two vessels was on its way to be loaded with Saudi crude oil from the port of Ras Tanura, to be delivered to Saudi Aramco's customers in the United States," al-Falih said. "Fortunately, the attack didn't lead to any casualties or oil spill; however, it caused significant damage to the structures of the two vessels."
Saudi Arabia did not identify the vessels involved, nor did it say whom it suspected of carrying out the alleged sabotage.
The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which oversees the region, did not immediately offer comment. Emirati officials declined to answer questions from The Associated Press, saying their investigation is ongoing.
Iran calls for details
Shortly after the Saudi announcement, Iran's Foreign Ministry called for further clarification about what exactly happened with the Saudi tankers. The ministry' spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying there should be more information about the incident.
Mousavi also warned against any "conspiracy orchestrated by ill-wishers" and "adventurism by foreigners" to undermine the maritime region's stability and security.
Tensions escalate between U.S., Iran as American warship sails toward Middle East
An Iranian lawmaker suggested in the country's parliament on Monday that the attacks on the Saudi ships could have been carried out by unspecified "saboteurs" from an also unspecified third country.
Fears of an escalation
Even without any actual accusation that Iran or its "proxies" were behind the purported attack on the Saudi tankers, the incident clearly demonstrated how high tensions are in the region, and some other countries were quick to express their concern.
Britain's Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt warned of the risks of an "accident" sparking a conflict between the United States and Iran.
"We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident with an escalation that is unintended," Hunt said in Brussels, where U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was expected to pay a hastily-arranged visit on Monday to discuss the Iran standoff with European counterparts.
Underlying the regional risk, the general-secretary of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council described the alleged sabotage as a "serious escalation" in an overnight statement.
"Such irresponsible acts will increase tension and conflicts in the region and expose its peoples to great danger," Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani said. Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen's internationally recognized government similarly condemned the alleged sabotage.
Tensions have risen in the year since President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, restoring American sanctions that have pushed Iran's economy into crisis. Last week, Iran warned it would begin enriching uranium at higher levels in 60 days if world powers failed to negotiate new terms for the deal.
Europe clings to the nuke deal
The Brussels meeting on Monday, where Pompeo was expected to turn up, was intended to thrash out ways to keep the Iran nuclear deal afloat.
The meeting between the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini comes as the Europeans struggle to keep financial supply lines open to Iran to offset the impact of U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic's shattered economy.
"We in Europe agree that this treaty is necessary for our security," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Brussels. "Nobody wants Iran to get possession of an atomic bomb and that's been achieved so far."
Mogherini said the talks would focus on "how to continue to best support the full implementation of the nuclear deal."
The White House has put mounting pressure on its European allies to abandon the nuclear deal, which was hammered out by former President Barack Obama, saying it intends to bring Iran's petroleum product income to "zero."
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van after was arrested by British police outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Britain April 11, 2019.
Henry Nicholls | Reuters
Sweden's state prosecutor said on Monday she would reopen an investigation into a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and seek his extradition from Britain.
Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson told a news conference she would continue and conclude a preliminary investigation that was dropped in 2017 without charges being brought as Assange had taken refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Assange was arrested in Britain last month after spending seven years inside the embassy. The United States is also seeking his extradition on charges relating to the public release by Wikileaks of a huge cache of secret documents.
The Swedish prosecutor's office said it would shortly request Assange be detained in his absence on probable cause for an allegation of rape and that it would issue a European arrest warrant - the process under which his extradition would be sought.
Assange is currently in prison in Britain after being sentenced to 50 weeks behind bars last month for jumping bail when he fled to the Ecuadorean embassy. The decision to reopen the investigation poses the question of whether Assange will be moved to the United States to face conspiracy charges for hacking into classified information or to Sweden.
"I am well aware of the fact that an extradition process is ongoing in the UK and that he could be extradited to the US," Persson said.
The British courts will have to rule on any extradition request and Home Secretary Sajid Javid would decide which one takes precedence once Swedish prosecutors file theirs.
Nick Vamos, lawyer at London-based firm Peters & Peters and former head of extradition at Britain's Crown Prosecution Service, told Reuters before Monday's decision that he expected a Swedish request would take supremacy.
"In the event of a conflict between a European Arrest Warrant and a request for extradition from the US, UK authorities will decide on the order of priority," a Swedish prosecutor's statement said.
Swedish prosecutors said on Monday they will reopen a rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, at the request of the alleged victim's lawyer.
Sweden's deputy director of public prosecutions Eva-Marie Persson made the announcement at a news conference in Stockholm. She said that “there is still a probable cause to suspect that Assange committed a rape.”
Swedish prosecutors filed preliminary charges against Assange after he visited the country in 2010. Assange, who has denied the charges, has avoided extradition by seeking refuge in London's Ecuadorian embassy.
Seven years later, a case of alleged sexual misconduct was dropped when the statute of limitations expired. That left a rape allegation, which couldn't be pursued while Assange was living at the embassy. The statute of limitations on that case expires in August 2020.
