Reuters News Now

Tariffs

China said that it has no choice but to retaliate against new U.S. trade tariffs, raising the risk that Trump could soon impose duties on virtually all of the Chinese goods that America buys. The response to Trump’s decision to go ahead next week with 10 percent tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese goods, ratcheting up to 25 percent in January, was unusual and unexpected. It initially hit U.S. stocks, Treasuries and the dollar while stirring a rally in Chinese equities and the yuan in Asia.

Commentary: Trump's Monday announcement of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports will only be a weak blow to China, writes David Andelman, a former foreign correspondent and visiting scholar at the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School. “For years, China has been on a determined push to rid itself from a reliance on exports to drive its economic growth. And that plan has been working.”

United States

Rising flood waters threatened communities across the Carolinas as storm Florence menaced the U.S. Northeast with heavy rains and tornadoes after killing at least 32 people.

The sexual-misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may remove pressure that some Democratic senators faced to back his confirmation as a way of reassuring conservative voters in congressional elections just seven weeks away.

U.N. refugee agency gives Trump's latest cuts a weary shrug https://reut.rs/2Nl7rU0

7:08 AM - Sep 18, 2018

World

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his “historic” summit with Trump in Singapore stabilized regional security, and that he expected further progress at an inter-Korean summit aimed at reviving stalled nuclear diplomacy. Kim thanked South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in for bringing about the Singapore meeting in June as the two leaders began their third round of talks in Pyongyang.

Russia accused Israel of indirectly causing a Russian military plane to be shot down near Syria’s Mediterranean coast, and threatened to retaliate against Israel for what it described as a hostile act.

Myanmar’s democratic transition has ground to a standstill as authorities seek to silence critics while allowing hate speech, particularly against Muslim Rohingya, the head of a U.N. fact-finding human rights mission said. Follow the latest updates on Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, jailed in Myanmar.

Commentary: In a rare admission, Israel has broken its “no-comment” policy on air strikes to confirm that it has carried out over 200 attacks against Iranian targets in Syria over the last two years. In addition to those attacks, a new report claims that Israel has secretly armed and funded at least 12 Syrian rebel groups in southern Syria since 2013. Maysam Behravesh, a multimedia journalist at the TV channel Iran International, explains how these operations indicate a significant shift of Israel’s defense posture, from a limited tolerance of Iranian military presence in Syria and beyond, to zero tolerance – with far-reaching implications for regional peace and stability.

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