We’re covering the complexities of U.S.-China trade relations, Syria’s secret network of torture prisons and a South Korean TV show starring North Korean defectors.
U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are just the beginning
The standoff between the world’s two largest economies may last decades, even with a trade agreement.
The Trump administration, increasingly wary of China’s growing economic muscle, is trying to limit its influence around the world beyond trade, experts and academics say. It is increasing scrutiny of Chinese researchers, targeting commercial espionage and erecting barriers to Chinese investment in American companies.
A trade pact is unlikely to ease the tension. “We’ve got decades of painful negotiating with China ahead,” said one expert.
Progress toward a trade deal nearly collapsed over the weekend, with officials returning to Beijing empty-handed and the Trump administration raising tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.
What’s next? American and Chinese officials both said they’d continue to negotiate and could meet in Beijing next month.
Global impact: Countries that have long shared deep ties with the U.S., including Australia, Japan, Germany and South Korea, are reorienting themselves for a future in which China is as economically important as the U.S.
Inside Syria’s secret torture prisons
During the last eight years of Syria’s civil war, the Syrian government is believed to have detained and tortured hundreds of thousands of civilians in a sprawling system of secret prisons where horrific forms of torture were routine. The prison system was the government’s main weapon to crack down on opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.
A Times investigation found that the prisons had far more victims than the Islamic State had, accounting for 90 percent of disappearances tallied by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent monitoring group.
Details: Nearly 128,000 detainees never emerged from the prison system and are presumed to be dead or still in custody, according to the Syrian Network, and almost 14,000 were “killed under torture.”
How we know: Over seven years, The Times interviewed dozens of survivors and relatives of dead and missing detainees, reviewed government documents detailing prison deaths and crackdowns on dissent, and examined hundreds of pages of witness testimony in human rights reports and court filings.
Takeaways: Top officials who reported directly to Mr. al-Assad knew about the atrocities. And even as the war winds down, arrests, torture and executions at the secret torture prisons are accelerating.Here’s what else we know about the prisons.
Indigenous Australians claim climate change inaction violates their rights
Today a group of Indigenous Australians will submit a landmark claim at the U.N.: that Australia’s failure to reduce carbon emissions violates their rights, including the right to maintain their culture.
The group lives on the low-lying islands of the Torres Strait northeast of the continent. But climate change has intensified cyclones and pushed tides higher, flooding homes and roads, turning well water brackish, and eroding Indigenous Australians’ sacred sites.
“Their culture is unique to that region,” said a lawyer with the company lodging the claim. “That’s the crux of their argument.”
Impact: While the U.N. can’t force Australia to take action, the case could increase pressure on the government and on others around the world to protect marginalized people and communities most vulnerable to climate change.
If you’re following the Indian elections …
Echoes of 2004
“The hour of reckoning has come,” Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared. “The situation is in our favor.”
The year was 2004, and Mr. Vajpayee was aiming for a second term. For the first time, his Bharatiya Janata Party had survived a full term, and his government could claim a range of achievements. Triumph at the polls was widely expected.
But the opposition Congress party cobbled together an alliance that surprisingly bested the B.J.P. and remained a dominant political force for a decade.
“Every B.J.P. government lives in fear of the ghost of 2004,” said Milan Vaishnav, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Narendra Modi is the B.J.P.’s first prime minister since. And the shadow of 2004 looms.
The victories of the booming economy in Mr. Vajpayee’s era didn’t trickle down to rural voters — a fact that also seems broadly true today, Mr. Vaishnav said. Then, as now, unemployment was a major concern.
But there’s at least one crucial difference between the two prime ministers. Mr. Vajpayee was considered a moderate leader of the right-wing Hindu party, while Mr. Modi has been amping up Hindu nationalist rhetoric.
Send us your feedback or questions on this series here.
Here’s what else is happening
The Philippines: Candidates opposed to President Rodrigo Duterte face an uphill battle in the Senate elections today amid Mr. Duterte’s widespread popularity. The vote could end up weakening the upper chamber’s independence if the president’s allies are elected.
New Zealand: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will travel to France on Wednesday to sign an accord, called the Christchurch Call and crafted with President Emmanuel Macron, urging global social media companies to stamp out violent and extremist content. “None of us wants to see digital platforms used for terrorism,” said Ms. Ardern in an Op-Ed for The Times. Representatives from Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter were set to attend.
Pakistan: Prime Minister Imran Khan, who vowed in last year’s election not to take assistance from the International Monetary Fund, agreed to accept a $6 billion I.M.F. bailout for the country’s debt-ridden economy. The nation already owes the institution $5.8 billion from past bailouts.
Russia: Two weeks before European Parliament elections, websites and social media accounts linked to the Kremlin and far-right groups are spreading disinformation in an attempt to encourage discord and amplify distrust in centrist parties, according to E.U. investigators, academics and advocacy groups.
Hong Kong: Anger over a bill that would let people suspected of crimes be extradited to China led to chaos in the legislature over the weekend, reflecting deep divisions over the proposal. The government says the bill would keep the semiautonomous city from turning into a haven for criminal suspects, but opponents worry it could provide Beijing with the opportunity to erode Hong Kong’s legal system.
Snapshot: Above, the so-called defector beauties from North Korea in an episode of a South Korean TV show about reunification that has attracted a loyal audience.
Rihanna: The pop star’s fashion line, Fenty, officially became a part of LVMH, making her the first woman to create an original brand for the luxury group, the first woman of color at the top of an LVMH maison and the first new house to join the gilded roster since 1987.
Notre-Dame: Since a fire in April ruined the roof of the Parisian landmark, France has been consumed by what should replace the spire. Small architectural and design firms have offered some answers, ranging from the madcap to the modern.
What we’re reading: This article in The Atlantic.Michael Roston, a science editor, writes: “Astronauts are heroic, but they’re also like us. This delightful article delves into their binge-watching habits as they orbit our planet aboard the International Space Station.”
Now, a break from the news
Cook: Here’s a low-stress dinner to start the week: a chicken, artichoke and broccoli bake with herb bread crumbs.
Listen: Liam Byrne is dragging the viol out of the musty early-music attic.
Read: A collection of Oliver Sacks’s final essays is one of nine books we recommend.
Go: Our Frugal Traveler columnist tried to get a taste of Prague on $57 a day without skimping on beer or the sights.
Smarter Living: Underlying social anxiety could lead you to pick at your skin to relieve stress or to distract yourself. For help, seek the counsel of a licensed skin care specialist or a dermatologist. And keep your skin-cleaning routine to a minimum: one cleanser, one toner, a serum and a moisturizer.
And offering better products or adopting more efficient processes are two ways to grow your business.
And now for the Back Story on …
The Robin Hood Foundation
And you thought the Met Gala was big.
Several thousand guests, most of them very rich but not necessarily famous, gather tonight in New York for the Robin Hood Foundation’s annual benefit.
It’s the party of the year for the Wall Street set.
Last year’s event saw the charity’s founder, Paul Tudor Jones, in feathered cap and tights, elicit million-dollar pledges from his audience (total raised: more than $54.5 million). Since 1988, the foundation has raised and distributed about $3 billion to fight poverty in New York City.
The Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga and The Who have headlined in the past. This year, Shawn Mendes performs “If I Can’t Have You,” timed to a light show on the Empire State Building and simulcast on iHeartMedia (whose CEO, Robert Pittman, is on the Robin Hood board).
Also on its boards are Jeff Bezos’s mother and stepbrother; Michael Bloomberg’s daughter; Katie Couric; a host of hedge-fund billionaires; and Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.
That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.
— Alisha
Thank you To Mark Josephson, Eleanor Stanford and Kenneth R. Rosen for the break from the news. Victoria Shannon, an editor on the briefings team and one-time business editor, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at [email protected].
P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about a call to break up Facebook by one of its co-founders. • Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: ingredient in dough (five letters). You can find all of our puzzles here. • The New York Times’s publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, noted in his annual State of the Times speech this year that Times readers have started fund-raising campaigns in response to our coverage, including for Iraqi orphans, struggling rural schools, hurricane victims, starving Venezuelans and families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Alisha Haridasani Gupta writes the Morning Briefing. @alisha__g
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Your Monday Briefing
Your Monday Briefing
Good morning,
We’re covering the complexities of U.S.-China trade relations, Syria’s secret network of torture prisons and a South Korean TV show starring North Korean defectors.
U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are just the beginning
The standoff between the world’s two largest economies may last decades, even with a trade agreement.
The Trump administration, increasingly wary of China’s growing economic muscle, is trying to limit its influence around the world beyond trade, experts and academics say. It is increasing scrutiny of Chinese researchers, targeting commercial espionage and erecting barriers to Chinese investment in American companies.
A trade pact is unlikely to ease the tension. “We’ve got decades of painful negotiating with China ahead,” said one expert.
Progress toward a trade deal nearly collapsed over the weekend, with officials returning to Beijing empty-handed and the Trump administration raising tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.
What’s next? American and Chinese officials both said they’d continue to negotiate and could meet in Beijing next month.
Global impact: Countries that have long shared deep ties with the U.S., including Australia, Japan, Germany and South Korea, are reorienting themselves for a future in which China is as economically important as the U.S.
Inside Syria’s secret torture prisons
During the last eight years of Syria’s civil war, the Syrian government is believed to have detained and tortured hundreds of thousands of civilians in a sprawling system of secret prisons where horrific forms of torture were routine. The prison system was the government’s main weapon to crack down on opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.
A Times investigation found that the prisons had far more victims than the Islamic State had, accounting for 90 percent of disappearances tallied by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent monitoring group.
Details: Nearly 128,000 detainees never emerged from the prison system and are presumed to be dead or still in custody, according to the Syrian Network, and almost 14,000 were “killed under torture.”
How we know: Over seven years, The Times interviewed dozens of survivors and relatives of dead and missing detainees, reviewed government documents detailing prison deaths and crackdowns on dissent, and examined hundreds of pages of witness testimony in human rights reports and court filings.
Takeaways: Top officials who reported directly to Mr. al-Assad knew about the atrocities. And even as the war winds down, arrests, torture and executions at the secret torture prisons are accelerating. Here’s what else we know about the prisons.
Indigenous Australians claim climate change inaction violates their rights
Today a group of Indigenous Australians will submit a landmark claim at the U.N.: that Australia’s failure to reduce carbon emissions violates their rights, including the right to maintain their culture.
The group lives on the low-lying islands of the Torres Strait northeast of the continent. But climate change has intensified cyclones and pushed tides higher, flooding homes and roads, turning well water brackish, and eroding Indigenous Australians’ sacred sites.
“Their culture is unique to that region,” said a lawyer with the company lodging the claim. “That’s the crux of their argument.”
Impact: While the U.N. can’t force Australia to take action, the case could increase pressure on the government and on others around the world to protect marginalized people and communities most vulnerable to climate change.
If you’re following the Indian elections …
Echoes of 2004
“The hour of reckoning has come,” Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared. “The situation is in our favor.”
The year was 2004, and Mr. Vajpayee was aiming for a second term. For the first time, his Bharatiya Janata Party had survived a full term, and his government could claim a range of achievements. Triumph at the polls was widely expected.
But the opposition Congress party cobbled together an alliance that surprisingly bested the B.J.P. and remained a dominant political force for a decade.
“Every B.J.P. government lives in fear of the ghost of 2004,” said Milan Vaishnav, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Narendra Modi is the B.J.P.’s first prime minister since. And the shadow of 2004 looms.
The victories of the booming economy in Mr. Vajpayee’s era didn’t trickle down to rural voters — a fact that also seems broadly true today, Mr. Vaishnav said. Then, as now, unemployment was a major concern.
But there’s at least one crucial difference between the two prime ministers. Mr. Vajpayee was considered a moderate leader of the right-wing Hindu party, while Mr. Modi has been amping up Hindu nationalist rhetoric.
Send us your feedback or questions on this series here.
Here’s what else is happening
The Philippines: Candidates opposed to President Rodrigo Duterte face an uphill battle in the Senate elections today amid Mr. Duterte’s widespread popularity. The vote could end up weakening the upper chamber’s independence if the president’s allies are elected.
New Zealand: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will travel to France on Wednesday to sign an accord, called the Christchurch Call and crafted with President Emmanuel Macron, urging global social media companies to stamp out violent and extremist content. “None of us wants to see digital platforms used for terrorism,” said Ms. Ardern in an Op-Ed for The Times. Representatives from Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter were set to attend.
Pakistan: Prime Minister Imran Khan, who vowed in last year’s election not to take assistance from the International Monetary Fund, agreed to accept a $6 billion I.M.F. bailout for the country’s debt-ridden economy. The nation already owes the institution $5.8 billion from past bailouts.
Russia: Two weeks before European Parliament elections, websites and social media accounts linked to the Kremlin and far-right groups are spreading disinformation in an attempt to encourage discord and amplify distrust in centrist parties, according to E.U. investigators, academics and advocacy groups.
Hong Kong: Anger over a bill that would let people suspected of crimes be extradited to China led to chaos in the legislature over the weekend, reflecting deep divisions over the proposal. The government says the bill would keep the semiautonomous city from turning into a haven for criminal suspects, but opponents worry it could provide Beijing with the opportunity to erode Hong Kong’s legal system.
Snapshot: Above, the so-called defector beauties from North Korea in an episode of a South Korean TV show about reunification that has attracted a loyal audience.
Rihanna: The pop star’s fashion line, Fenty, officially became a part of LVMH, making her the first woman to create an original brand for the luxury group, the first woman of color at the top of an LVMH maison and the first new house to join the gilded roster since 1987.
Notre-Dame: Since a fire in April ruined the roof of the Parisian landmark, France has been consumed by what should replace the spire. Small architectural and design firms have offered some answers, ranging from the madcap to the modern.
What we’re reading: This article in The Atlantic. Michael Roston, a science editor, writes: “Astronauts are heroic, but they’re also like us. This delightful article delves into their binge-watching habits as they orbit our planet aboard the International Space Station.”
Now, a break from the news
Cook: Here’s a low-stress dinner to start the week: a chicken, artichoke and broccoli bake with herb bread crumbs.
Listen: Liam Byrne is dragging the viol out of the musty early-music attic.
Read: A collection of Oliver Sacks’s final essays is one of nine books we recommend.
Go: Our Frugal Traveler columnist tried to get a taste of Prague on $57 a day without skimping on beer or the sights.
Smarter Living: Underlying social anxiety could lead you to pick at your skin to relieve stress or to distract yourself. For help, seek the counsel of a licensed skin care specialist or a dermatologist. And keep your skin-cleaning routine to a minimum: one cleanser, one toner, a serum and a moisturizer.
And offering better products or adopting more efficient processes are two ways to grow your business.
And now for the Back Story on …
The Robin Hood Foundation
And you thought the Met Gala was big.
Several thousand guests, most of them very rich but not necessarily famous, gather tonight in New York for the Robin Hood Foundation’s annual benefit.
It’s the party of the year for the Wall Street set.
Last year’s event saw the charity’s founder, Paul Tudor Jones, in feathered cap and tights, elicit million-dollar pledges from his audience (total raised: more than $54.5 million). Since 1988, the foundation has raised and distributed about $3 billion to fight poverty in New York City.
The Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga and The Who have headlined in the past. This year, Shawn Mendes performs “If I Can’t Have You,” timed to a light show on the Empire State Building and simulcast on iHeartMedia (whose CEO, Robert Pittman, is on the Robin Hood board).
Also on its boards are Jeff Bezos’s mother and stepbrother; Michael Bloomberg’s daughter; Katie Couric; a host of hedge-fund billionaires; and Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.
That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.
— Alisha
Thank you
To Mark Josephson, Eleanor Stanford and Kenneth R. Rosen for the break from the news. Victoria Shannon, an editor on the briefings team and one-time business editor, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at [email protected].
P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about a call to break up Facebook by one of its co-founders.
• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: ingredient in dough (five letters). You can find all of our puzzles here.
• The New York Times’s publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, noted in his annual State of the Times speech this year that Times readers have started fund-raising campaigns in response to our coverage, including for Iraqi orphans, struggling rural schools, hurricane victims, starving Venezuelans and families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Alisha Haridasani Gupta writes the Morning Briefing. @alisha__g
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