US President Donald Trump has cancelled his much anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that was scheduled to take place in Singapore next month. In a letter to Mr Kim, the president said; “I was very much looking forward to being there with you. Sadly, based on the tremendous anger an open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time to have this long-planned meeting.” The historic meeting on Friday between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in took place in the neutral zone of Panmunjom, the site of the armistice that ended large-scale fighting in the Korean war in 1953. The summit was billed as a start to a formal end of the conflict. The US, Britain and France on Friday night launched more than 100 missiles against Syrian targets in a strike against the Assad regime’s chemical weapons capabilities, but stopped short of attacking Russian or Iranian targets in order to avoid triggering a broader conflict. The western allies had “marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality,” Donald Trump said in a national television address. The strikes were in response to a suspected poison gas attack in the Syrian town of Douma last weekend that killed at least 70 people. “The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster instead,” said Mr Trump. Tensions are rising by the minute after President Trump tweeted that an attack on Syria is imminent. Russia already stated they will defend Syria and will shoot the US missiles out of the sky. Stock market reactions we're 'mild' but US markets suffered a loss in the range of 0.5-1.0%. The United Nations begged the Western coalition and Russia to be 'gentle' and not risk a more broader war. Britain’s closest allies, led by the US, will expel more than 100 Russian officials from their national capitals in a co-ordinated diplomatic offensive aimed at isolating the Kremlin for its alleged role in the poisoning of a former spy on UK soil. Donald Trump, who was slow to link the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal to Moscow and has been criticised for trying to improve ties to the Kremlin, accounted for most of the expulsions. He gave 60 Russians in Moscow’s Washington embassy and UN mission one week to leave the country. US officials said they were intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover. But in a significant diplomatic victory for Theresa May, the British prime minister who has spent two weeks rallying support for her claim that the Kremlin was behind the Skripal attack, the US was joined by every large Nato ally — including France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Canada — in announcing Russian expulsions. Britain secured the economic prize of a 21-month Brexit transition on Monday, offering the EU concessions over sovereignty in exchange for stronger assurances that a cliff-edge exit would be avoided next year. The conditional agreement reached by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, and David Davis, the UK’s Brexit secretary, represents one of the most valuable breakthroughs for UK business since Brexit talks began. Markets welcomed what Mr Davis hailed as a “significant” moment in talks, which would allow business to stop “guessing” about the immediate aftermath of Brexit. Sterling climbed above $1.40 to the dollar to reach its highest level in three weeks. The leaders of the other 27 EU member states are expected to acknowledge the progress made at a summit on Friday, as they adopt new guidelines for Mr Barnier to negotiate a framework for future relations. Donald Trump sacked Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state on Tuesday, making the US’s top diplomat the latest casualty of a White House that has been in near-constant, open conflict with some of the president’s most senior aides. Mr Trump immediately named Mike Pompeo, the CIA director, as Mr Tillerson’s replacement, swapping a soft-spoken former ExxonMobil chief executive with a former Republican congressman with a far more hawkish foreign policy record. Five years after he set out to accumulate more power than any Chinese “paramount leader” since Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping revealed just what he intends to do with that influence. With the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament in its second and final week, Mr Xi unveiled key personnel appointments and a government restructuring that will indicate his priorities — such as a further blurring of the boundaries between the Chinese state and the ruling Communist party. The constitutional change allows Mr Xi to remain as president beyond the end of his second term in 2023 represents a doubling down on a centralisation of power that he pursued in his first five years in office. President Donald Trump is to meet Kim Jong Un within weeks, the first summit between the US and North Korea, after Pyongyang offered to suspend nuclear and missile tests. Mr Trump later hailed the breakthrough but cautioned that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang would stay in place. France and Germany’s finance ministers and most senior central bankers have joined the chorus of politicians and regulators calling for a coordinated clampdown on bitcoin and other virtual currencies.Whilst a handful of smaller European banks are breaking ranks with the rest of the sector by giving investors access to cryptocurrencies and advising on initial coin offerings, despite an intensifying effort by regulators to clamp down on the area. US Senate leaders have reached a bipartisan budget deal that would keep the government funded for two years, lifting the caps on military and domestic spending and promising an end to the budget crises that have dogged Congress. Talks on a bipartisan US immigration deal have been thrown into turmoil after reports that Donald Trump asked why people from “shithole countries” were being allowed to enter America. In comments cited by US media, Mr Trump was also said to have told lawmakers that America should instead be welcoming more immigrants from countries such as Norway. Pro-independence parties in Catalonia won an absolute majority in regional elections on Thursday in a blow to Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, that threatens to escalate the already acute tensions between Barcelona and Madrid. The three separatist parties together won 70 seats in the 135-seat assembly, less than they collectively won in the last election in 2015 but crucially just ahead of the 68-seat threshold required to form a government. Republicans say their package, the most substantial since Ronald Reagan’s reforms of 1986, is vital to energising the US economy and they view it as crucial to their chances of keeping control of Congress in midterm elections next November. The centrepiece of the package is a big cut for corporations, which will see their headline income tax rate fall from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, bringing the US broadly into line with the average rate in the developed world. Italian government made a deal to bailout the troubled bank for an amount of €5.4 billion euro. This is besides the earlier rescue of €17 billion to unwind the different Veneto banks by the Italian government. The EU approves this state bailout because of the transfer of bad loans to a bad bank and capping the salaries of senior managers. There will be a 5 year restructuring plan being announced later today. Brussels was accused of undermining EU efforts to end taxpayer bank bailouts after it allowed Italy to provide nearly €17bn in state aid for the wind-up of two stricken regional lenders. The European Commission and Italian authorities hammered out a plan over the weekend to liquidate Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, with part of their assets and liabilities being sold to Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest bank. Senior bonds are shielded from losses as part of the plan. Junior creditors and shareholders will be wiped out by the rescue. “The promise that the taxpayer will not stand in to rescue failing banks any more is broken for good.” The UK agreed to settle the issue of citizens' rights, borders and the so-called 'divorce bill' with the EU before discussions over trade begin, when formal Brexit negotiations finally got under way in Brussels on Monday. French President Emmanuel Macron has won a decisive majority in parliamentary elections (2nd round), giving him considerable power as he embarks on reforms to reinvigorate the economy and restore French influence in Europe. Mr Macron’s party La République en Marche and its centrist ally Modem secured 350 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, according to official results from the interior ministry. Emmanuel Macron’s party wins a clear majority in parliament after attracting the highest share of the vote (24%) in the first round of French legislative elections that were marked by a record low turnout and the collapse of the Socialist party. Unlike earlier expectations it seems, as the first exit polls show, that the Conservative party loses its majority in the Lower House. Pound down 1.5% versus the euro and negotiations with the EU could be a lot tougher for the UK. |
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March 2021
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