The Jim Bakker Show

Nepal bank latest victim in heists targeting SWIFT system

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – A bank in Nepal is the latest victim in a string of cyber heists targeting the global SWIFT bank messaging system, though most of the stolen funds have been recovered, two officials involved in the investigation confirmed on Tuesday.

Hackers last month made about $4.4 million in fraudulent transfers from Kathmandu-based NIC Asia Bank to countries including Britain, China, Japan, Singapore and the United States when the bank was closed for annual festival holidays, according to Nepal media reports.

All but $580,000 of the funds were recovered after Nepal asked other nations to block release of the stolen money, Chinta Mani Shivakoti, deputy governor of the Central Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), told Reuters.

Brussels-based SWIFT said last month that security controls instituted after last year’s $81 million theft from Bangladesh’s central bank helped thwart some recent hacking attempts, but it warned that cyber criminals continue to target SWIFT customers.

SWIFT or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication is a co-operative owned by its user banks. It declined to comment on the NIC Asia Bank hack, saying it does not discuss specific users.

Representatives with NIC Asia Bank, one of dozens of private banks in Nepal, were not available for comment.

The chief of Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau, Pushkar Karki, confirmed to Reuters that his agency was investigating the theft.

KPMG is also involved in the investigation, according to Nepali media reports. KPMG representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

The central bank intends to release guidelines on how to thwart such incidents after investigations are completed, according to Shivakoti.

“The incident showed there are some weaknesses with the IT department of the bank,” Shivakoti said.

SWIFT said in a statement on Tuesday that it offers assistance to banks when it learns of potential fraud cases, then shares relevant information with other clients on an anonymous basis.

“This preserves confidentiality, whilst assisting other SWIFT users to take appropriate measures to protect themselves,” it said.

“We have no indication that our network and core messaging services have been compromised,” SWIFT added.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma, additional reporting by Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore and Jim Finkle in Toronto; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Matthew Lewis)

Dollar slips on fears over U.S. tax reform troubles

By Jemima Kelly and Polina Ivanova

LONDON (Reuters) – The dollar slipped to a one-week low against the yen on Wednesday, weighed down by worries over possible delays to Donald Trump’s tax reform plans, evidence of the U.S. president’s waning popularity as well as lower Treasury yields.

The Washington Post, citing unidentified sources, reported on Tuesday that Senate Republican leaders are considering a one-year delay in the implementation of a major corporate tax cut to comply with Senate rules.

Any potential delay in the implementation of tax cuts, or the possibility of proposed reforms being watered down, would tend to work against the U.S. currency, analysts said.

The so-called “Trumpflation trade” – bets that Trump’s policies would boost growth and inflation, meaning a faster pace of interest rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve – had driven the dollar to 14-year highs in the aftermath of his election, and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields to their highest since 2014 at more than 2.6 percent <US10YT=RR>.

They, and the dollar, have since fallen back.

There had been some talk of a revival of the Trumpflation trade, with the greenback rising to a 3-1/2-month high against a basket of currencies <.DXY> last month after the U.S. Senate approved a budget blueprint for tax reform.

But the latest report fed doubts over whether Trump could indeed push that program through.

“Fed rate expectations and the news flow regarding..tax reforms are two key elements in terms of the dollar’s performance,” said Jeremy Stretch, head of G10 foreign exchange strategy at CIBC Capital Markets in London.

“We have seen rate support for the dollar in terms of U.S. yields diminishing…so I think that’s certainly limiting dollar gains and keeping the dollar index away from … recent highs,” he added.

The dollar was last down 0.4 percent at 113.52 yen <JPY=>, its weakest so far this month, falling from an eight-month high of 114.735 touched on Monday.

It was also down 0.1 percent against its basket at 94.870 and down 0.1 percent against the euro, which was trading at $1.1591 <EUR=>.

“If the story is true that they’re considering a delay of one year to the corporate tax cut,…big differences (among members of Congress) will need to be sorted, so we continue to be dubious on that proceeding,” said MUFG’s European head of global markets research in London, Derek Halpenny.

Halpenny added that a Wall Street Journal poll on Tuesday showing Trump’s approval rating falling sharply, even in counties that had voted for him, was adding to a picture of an increasingly unpopular president, which could potentially embolden members of Congress to oppose his plans and further weaken the dollar.

(Reporting by Jemima Kelly and Polina Ivanova in London; Additional reporting by Shinichi Saoshiro in Tokyo; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Catalan strike severs road links as secessionist leaders regroup

By Silvio Castellanos

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) – A general strike called by pro-independence campaigners in Catalonia severed transport links on Wednesday, as leaders of its secessionist movement sought to regain political momentum after failing to agree a joint ticket to contest an election.

Protesters shut down roads, causing huge tailbacks into Barcelona, and some public transport ran minimum services in response to calls for action by two civic groups — whose heads were imprisoned last month on sedition charges — and a labor union.

People stood across dozens of major highways in the region waving placards and chanting “freedom for political prisoners”, TV and video images showed, while minor scuffles were reported on social media as police attempted to move protesters.

While many smaller stores left their shutters closed, most larger shops and businesses in the region appeared to be open as normal.

An uphill task awaited the political heavyweights of the independence campaign, whose parties jointly ran Catalonia for the last two years until Madrid sacked the region’s government in response to its independence push.

Deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont’s center-right PDeCAT and the leftist ERC of former regional vice president Oriol Junqueras had until midnight on Tuesday to agree a new pact, but they failed to meet that deadline, meaning they will contest the Dec. 21 vote as separate parties.

The central government in Madrid called the election last month after assuming control of Catalonia following its parliament’s unilateral independence declaration.

Puigdemont is in self-imposed exile in Belgium, while Junqueras is in custody on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

‘JUNCKER WON’T MEET ME’

Puigdemont, who faces the same charges and is the subject of a extradition request from Madrid, had ambitions to garner support for his independence campaign in the heartland of the European Union.

But that hope has fallen flat, and in an interview published on Wednesday he renewed criticism of the bloc’s executive.

“(EU Commission President Jean-Claude) Juncker welcomes mayors, governors … but he doesn’t want to meet me,” Puigdemont told Belgian Daily De Standaard.

“I’ve always been a convinced European … But the people who are running the EU now, are wrecking Europe … The gap between the Europe of the people and the official Europe is increasing.”

Catalonia’s secessionist push has plunged Spain into its worst political crisis in four decades, triggered a business exodus and reopened old wounds from the country’s civil war in the 1930s.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has been unwavering in his opposition to any form of independence for Catalonia, said he hoped next month’s election would usher in “a period of calm” and business as usual for the region.

“I’m hoping for massive participation in the election.. and, after that, we’ll return to normality,” he said in the Madrid parliament building on Wednesday.

An opinion poll released on Sunday by Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia showed Junqueras’ ERC could garner between 45 and 46 seats in Catalonia’s 135-strong regional assembly while Puigdemont’s PdeCat would win just 14 or 15.

In order to reach the 68-seat threshold for a majority, they would then have to form a parliamentary alliance with anti-capitalist CUP.

ERC and PDeCAT could still reach an agreement after the vote, but by standing together they could have held more seats, polls and projections from the 2015 election results showed.

Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told a banking conference in Madrid he hoped the election would revive the Catalan success story “during which it has enjoyed great economic and cultural prosperity together with a high level of self-governance.”

For some Catalans who ignored Wednesday’s strike — called by the CSC union and supported by civic groups Asamblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) and Omnium Cultural — that moment is already overdue.

“Why should I strike, nobody is going to raise my salary. In this world we have to work and not argue so much,” Jose Luis, a construction worker, told Reuters TV as he walked through Barcelona on his way to work.

“The politicians should work more and stop their silliness.”

(Additional reporting by Paul Day in Madrid and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels; writing by John Stonestreet; editing by Paul Day)

Trump warns ‘rogue regime’ North Korea of grave danger

By Steve Holland

BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in China on Wednesday seeking help to rein in North Korea after warning the North’s leader that the nuclear weapons he is developing “are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger.”

Trump used some of his toughest language yet against North Korea in a wide-ranging address in Seoul that lodged specific accusations of chilling human rights abuses. He called on countries around the world to isolate Pyongyang by denying it “any form of support, supply or acceptance.”

“Do not underestimate us and do not try us,” Trump told North Korea as he wrapped up a visit to South Korea with a speech to the National Assembly before heading to Beijing, where he was making his first official visit.

Trump painted a dystopian picture of the reclusive North, saying people were suffering in “gulags” and some bribed government officials to work as “slaves” overseas rather than live under the government at home. He offered no evidence to support those accusations.

Trump’s return to harsh, uncompromising language came a day after he appeared to dial back the bellicose rhetoric that had fueled fears across east Asia of the risk of military conflict. On Tuesday, Trump had even offered a diplomatic opening to Pyongyang to “make a deal.”

He went mostly on the attack in Wednesday’s speech but did promise a “path to a much better future” if North Korea stopped developing ballistic missiles and agreed to “complete, verifiable and total denuclearization” – something Pyongyang has vowed never to do.

“We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. We will not be intimidated,” he told South Korean lawmakers. “And we will not let the worst atrocities in history be repeated here, on this ground we fought and died to secure.”

The North defends its nuclear weapons and missile programs as a necessary defense against what it says are U.S. plans to invade. The United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war, denies any such intention.

“The world cannot tolerate the menace of a rogue regime that threatens it with nuclear devastation,” Trump said, speaking as three U.S. aircraft carrier groups sailed to the Western Pacific for exercises – a rare show of such U.S. naval force in the region.

‘STATE VISIT-PLUS’

In Beijing, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping resumed their “bromance” struck in April at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, making small talk as they toured the Forbidden City – which was shut down to tourists – with their wives before taking in a Chinese opera performance.

While the sprawling palace complex in the political and cultural heart of Beijing is a regular stop for visiting dignitaries, it is rare for a Chinese leader to act as a personal escort, confirmation of the “state visit-plus” treatment that China had promised for Trump.

Trump has threatened action over China’s wide trade surplus with the United States and called on Beijing to do more to rein in ally and neighbor North Korea, but has expressed admiration for Xi and held off on imposing trade measures.

During his two-day visit, Trump will ask China to abide by U.N. resolutions and cut financial links with North Korea, a senior White House official said on the plane from Seoul.

He also plans to discuss with Xi the long-contentious trade imbalance, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said at a ceremony with U.S. business leaders where $9 billion worth of deals were signed.

Trump believes any talks with North Korea would require it to reduce threats, end provocations and move toward denuclearization, and that no deal can be achieved without denuclearization, the official added.

Trump and Xi were scheduled to hold formal talks on Thursday.

Before leaving for Beijing, Trump cited China as one of the countries that must fully enforce international sanctions against Pyongyang and downgrade diplomatic and commercial ties.

“To those nations that choose to ignore this threat or, worse still, to enable it, the weight of this crisis is on your conscience,” he said.

While Trump will try to convince Xi to squeeze North Korea further with steps such as limits on oil exports and financial transactions, it is not clear if Xi, who has just consolidated his power at a Communist Party congress, will agree to do more.

China has repeatedly said its leverage over Pyongyang is exaggerated by the West and that it is already doing all it can to enforce sanctions.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China fully and strictly implements U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea, but will investigate if there have been any contraventions.

‘GRAVE DANGER’

During his speech in Seoul, Trump directed his words at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“The weapons that you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger,” he said. “Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face.”

However Trump, whose strategy has stressed sanctions and military pressure instead of diplomacy, did not spell out any new approach.

North Korea has made clear it has little interest in negotiations at least until it develops a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, something U.S. intelligence officials say it may be just months away from achieving.

“North Korea is a country ruled by a cult,” Trump said in a speech that was interrupted several times by applause and ended with a standing ovation.

He stopped short of repeating the derisive nickname “little Rocket Man” that he has used to describe the young North Korean leader.

Kim, for his part, has called Trump “mentally deranged.”

The speech came after Trump’s attempt to make an unannounced visit to the heavily fortified border separating North and South Korea was aborted when dense fog prevented his helicopter from landing, officials said.

A visit to the DMZ, despite his aides’ earlier insistence he had no plans to go there, would have had the potential to further inflame tensions with North Korea.

Trump and his wife Melania were greeted at Beijing’s airport by a military band playing a festive tune and school children jumping up and down and waving American and Chinese flags.

They descended from a red-carpeted staircase rolled up to the main door of Air Force One. That was in contrast to a 2016 visit to China by his predecessor, Barack Obama, who was forced to exit his plane from a lower door in what was seen as a snub.

And while in China, Trump will not be deterred from using Twitter, his favored form of communication, despite its being banned there, according to an administration official.

“The president will tweet whatever he wants,” the official told reporters on Air Force One.

“I’m sure we’ve got the gear aboard this airplane to make it happen.”

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Christine Kim, Josh Smith and Soyoung Kim in SEOUL, Ben Blanchard, Benjamin Kang Lim and Tony Munroe in BEIJING, and Mike Stone in WASHINGTON; Editing by Paul Tait, Michael Perry and Nick Macfie)

Texas church gunman escaped mental facility in 2012 while facing court-martial

By Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Maria Garza

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – The former U.S. serviceman who committed the deadliest mass shooting on record in Texas escaped from a mental hospital in 2012 as he faced court-martial on domestic violence charges for which he was later convicted, a police report revealed on Tuesday.

The report also disclosed that police who were alerted to Devin Kelley’s escape were advised that he posed a “danger to himself and others” after being “caught sneaking firearms” onto the U.S. Air Force base in New Mexico where he was stationed.

The person who reported the escape, according to the report, further warned that Kelley, then aged 21, had been “attempting to carry out death threats” against his military commanders and “suffered from mental disorders.”

He was apprehended without incident at an El Paso, Texas, bus station shortly after he had run off, according to a police report filed in that city.

Kelley’s troubled Air Force background has been a focus of investigators in the tiny Texas town of Sutherland Springs since he stormed into a church there on Sunday with a semi-automatic assault rifle and opened fire on worshipers.

Authorities have said 26 people were killed in the assault, including the unborn child of a pregnant woman who was among the dead. Another 20 people were wounded, half of them still listed in critical condition as of Tuesday.

Officials said Kelley, 26, killed himself during a failed getaway attempt after he was wounded by an armed civilian who tried to stop him. Two handguns belonging to the killer also were recovered.

A major sporting goods dealer in San Antonio later confirmed that Kelley twice passed a required criminal background check when he bought guns there during the past year, despite having a criminal record that should have prevented those purchases.

Kelley was found guilty by court-martial in 2012 of assaulting his first wife and a stepson while serving at Holloman Air Force Base, where he was assigned to a logistics readiness unit, the Pentagon reported on Monday.

But the Air Force also acknowledged it inexplicably failed to enter his conviction into a government database that all licensed firearms dealers are required to use to screen prospective gun buyers for their criminal history.

Federal law prohibits anyone from selling a gun to someone who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence against a spouse or child.

On Capitol Hill, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas, called the failure to transmit Kelley’s record into the National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) system an “appalling” lapse.

The Air Force has opened an inquiry into the matter, and the U.S. Defense Department has requested a review by its inspector general to ensure other criminal cases have been reported correctly, Pentagon officials said.

Two U.S. senators, Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democratic Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, said they planned to co-sponsor legislation aimed at ensuring that anyone convicted of domestic violence, whether in civilian or military court, would be blocked from legally purchasing a gun.

Firearms experts said the case involving Kelley, who spent a year in military detention before his bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force in 2014, exposed a previously unnoticed weak link in the system of background checks.

BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS AS STUDENT

Texas public school records also showed Kelley had numerous behavior problems as a student, including nine suspensions for such issues as drugs, insubordination, profanity, skipping classes and dishonesty between sixth grade and high school graduation.

His private adult life appears to have likewise been marked by turbulence.

After divorcing the woman he was convicted of assaulting, Kelley remarried in 2014, but authorities have said he became embroiled in some unspecified domestic dispute with her parents that involved him sending threatening text messages to his mother-in-law.

Kelley’s in-laws occasionally attended services at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs but were not there when he attacked worshipers during Sunday prayers, authorities said.

“We have some indication of what the conflict was between the family,” Freeman Martin, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a Tuesday news conference. It was not clear what role, if any, the dispute played as a motivating factor in Sunday’s violence.

Kelley’s cell phone was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab at Quantico, Virginia, but specialists were not immediately able to gain electronic access to the device, said Christopher Combs, the FBI’s special agent in charge in San Antonio.

The massacre, which ranked as the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in Texas history, and one of the five most lethal ever in the United States, rekindled an ongoing debate over gun ownership, which is protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Guns are part of the fabric of life in rural areas.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters he believed stricter reviews of gun purchases would not have stopped Sunday’s rampage.

“There would have been no difference,” Trump said during a visit to South Korea. He added that stricter gun laws might have prevented the man who shot Kelley from acting as he did. “You would have had hundreds more dead.”

(Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in New York, Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Idrees Ali traveling with U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis; Writing by Scott Malone and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Shumaker)

Hungry South Sudanese refugees risk death in return home for food

By Jason Patinkin

PALORINYA, Uganda (Reuters) – Oliver Wani found sanctuary from South Sudan’s civil war in a Ugandan refugee camp. But when the food ran out, he returned home only to be killed in the conflict he had fled.

The 45-year-old farmer was one of more than a million South Sudanese living in sprawling camps just across the border in northern Uganda, seeking refuge from the four-year war that has devastated their homeland.

But funding gaps and organizational problems often delay or reduce their meager rations, driving some desperate families back to the lands they fled and underscoring the struggle to cope with Africa’s biggest refugee crisis in two decades.

Refugees from South Sudan have been arriving in Uganda at an average rate of 35,000 a month this year. The Bidi Bidi camp was home to 285,000 people at the end of September, according to the U.N.’s refugee agency, making it the biggest in Africa.

The U.N. agency (UNHCR) said funding had only covered 32 percent of $674 million requested to help refugees in Uganda in 2017 and the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) said it was facing a $71 million shortfall for the next six months.

Wani, who cared for his elderly parents, received no food in October because distributions had been delayed, his father Timon said. The memory of the crops Oliver had left behind proved too tempting and he returned to South Sudan to find food.

Two weeks later, other returning refugees recognized his remains alongside another dead refugee on a forest path in South Sudan, where the ground was littered with bullet casings.

“He went back to look for food,” said Timon, a tall, thin man who wiped away tears with his handkerchief as he spoke at a memorial service for his first-born child in the Palorinya refugee camp. “I’m heartbroken.”

DESPERATE REFUGEES

The four-year war in oil-rich South Sudan, a country only founded in 2011, has forced more than a third of its 12 million citizens to flee their homes. Tens of thousands have died, some in ethnic killings, others from starvation and disease.

Palorinya is the second biggest camp in northern Uganda after Bidi Bidi and alone houses 185,000 refugees.

Each refugee is supposed to get 12 kg of grain, 6 kg of dry beans, cooking oil and salt each month, but the U.N.’s WFP said this was delayed in October because grain was scarce in Uganda and the roads to Palorinya were bad.

Food distributions did not start camp until Oct. 26, WFP said. It takes two weeks to complete a distribution, so tens of thousands of refugees did not get any food that month.

Desperate, some returned to the war zone. At least eight refugees from Palorinya were killed in South Sudan after returning to look for food in October, according to family members and the Anglican church, which tracks civilian deaths.

In August and September, when rations were distributed normally, just two refugees from the camp were killed when they returned to find food, the church diocese in South Sudan’s volatile Kajo Keji region said.

Modi Scopas John, chairman of a Refugee Welfare Committee in Palorinya, said refugees were returning home every day.

“If you have nothing to eat, what do you do?” he asked, perched on a plastic chair under a spindly tree. “You have to look for food.”

FOOD SHORTAGES

Wani was killed in Kajo Keji, where the government and two rebel groups are battling for control in a war sparked by a feud between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar.

Next to Wani lay the body of Yassin Mori, 35, who had also left Palorinya to look for food, according to Mori’s two brothers who ventured into South Sudan to look for him.

Mori left two wives and nine children behind.

“Now we need support because we are left with his children and widows,” Taha Igga, one of the brothers, said at a memorial service in the Ugandan refugee camp.

Mutabazi Caleb, from aid group World Vision, which runs the distributions, said that Palorinya is two months behind other camps in its food distributions.

WFP said it had substituted half the cereal ration with money in September in some other camps so refugees could buy food and was expanding its infrastructure to prevent future delays.

But refugees said even when food arrives, it doesn’t last a month. Of the 12 kg of grain, refugees said they sell one to pay for grinding the rest into flour, and another to buy soap, which is in short supply.

They also complained that the beans were sometimes inedible.

“They are not okay, others are rotten, and they are smelling,” said mother-of-four Liong Viola, 32, picking through her sack of shriveled legumes during an Oct. 26 distribution.

WFP country director El Khidir Daloum said it was investigating the complaint and, “is committed to providing our beneficiaries with the highest quality of food”.

John, the Refugee Welfare Committee chairman, said he urged people to stay in the camps.

“At least let us die here of the hunger rather than go back to South Sudan and be killed like a chicken,” he said.

But hungry refugees often ignore the pleas. At dusk last Saturday, Pastor Charles Mubarak packed extra clothes into a plastic bag to take back into South Sudan where he hoped to harvest cassava fields he left behind when he fled in January.

“As a family, we are 10 in number, and I’m not in position to feed them,” he said. “If I get killed I get killed once, but dying of hunger is too difficult.”

Mubarak kissed each neatly folded shirt as he placed them in the bag.

“If they give us the food rations, I wouldn’t think of going back to South Sudan,” he said. “Food is life.”

(Reporting by Jason Patinkin; editing by Katharine Houreld and David Clarke)

Russia opposes U.S. draft U.N. resolution on Syria chemical probe extension: RIA

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia opposes a draft U.N. resolution to extend the mandate of an international inquiry into chemical weapons attacks in Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday.

Ryabkov’s comments came hours after Russia rejected a report by the international inquiry blaming the Syrian government for a deadly toxic gas attack, casting doubt on the U.N. Security Council’s ability to extend the investigation’s mandate before it expires next week.

Russia last month cast a veto at the United Nations Security Council against renewing the investigation’s mandate.

“I stress that we are in no way raising the question of ending this structure’s activities,” RIA state news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying. “We are in favor of its maintenance, but on a different basis.”

The draft U.N. resolution by the United States says Syria must not develop or produce chemical weapons, and it calls on all parties in Syria to provide full cooperation with the international probe.

The investigation by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) — was unanimously created by the 15-member Security Council in 2015 and renewed in 2016 for another year. Its mandate is due to expire in mid-November.

The investigation found that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was to blame for a chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people in April, according to a report sent to the Security Council on Oct. 26.

Russia, whose air force and special forces have bolstered the Syrian army, has said there is no evidence to show Damascus was responsible for the attack. Moscow maintains that the chemicals that killed civilians belonged to rebels, not Assad’s government.

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Puerto Rico board asks Congress for backing in fight with governor

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The federally appointed oversight board that manages Puerto Rico’s finances asked Congress for support on Tuesday in its fight with the island’s governor over who should take charge of halting efforts to restore electric power after Hurricane Maria.

The storm knocked out Puerto Rico’s power grid more than six weeks ago, and federal and territorial authorities have been slow to make progress on the massive project. As of Monday, 42 percent of the bankrupt island’s electricity had been restored.

Power shortages affecting hospitals, schools and businesses have prompted as many as 100,000 Puerto Ricans to flee for the mainland – a level of migration that could further hurt the local economy, lawmakers on the House Natural Resources Committee were told during a hearing.

A month after the hurricane, the oversight board moved to appoint retired Air Force Colonel Noel Zamot as an emergency manager for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). But Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello has said the board overstepped its authority and is fighting the appointment in court.

Given the urgency of restoring the power, Natalie Jaresko, the board’s executive director, asked lawmakers to clarify that the board has the power to appoint Zamot, review contracts and set a fiscal plan, suggesting that federal aid be made contingent on it.

“We would appreciate a legislative affirmative of those, and/or conditioning of appropriations on those powers as you see fit,” Jaresko told lawmakers.

She said the price tag for rebuilding the storm-battered island – home to 3.4 million Americans – was as high as $100 billion.

Lawmakers had planned to grill Ricardo Ramos, PREPA’s executive director, at the hearing. But on Monday night, the utility said he was too busy to attend the hearing.

Rossello was slated to testify to the committee next week, said its Chairman Rob Bishop, a Republican.

The House committee has asked PREPA to explain the circumstances surrounding the awarding of a $300 million contract to Whitefish Energy Holdings, a small Montana company that had been hired to rebuild the island’s power grid.

Bishop said documents submitted to the committee by PREPA late on Friday “raise other questions.”

“We do not want another situation like Whitefish to happen again,” Bishop said.

Zamot told lawmakers he was ready to name experts to help with the power restoration project as soon his appointment is confirmed.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are still determining how much it will cost to fix the power grid, Zamot added, saying he expected estimates in two weeks.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Susan Thomas and Tom Brown)

World stocks index dips after breaking record, oil near 2-1/2-year high

By David Randall

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A global rally in stocks paused on Tuesday, halting a nine-day advance that had sent the most widely tracked index of world stock markets to record highs.

All three of Wall Street’s major indexes dipped in U.S. afternoon trading, sending the MSCI 47-country ‘All World’ index <.MIWD00000PUS> down slightly after it had hit record highs above 500 points after Japan’s Nikkei <.N225> notched its best level since 1992 and Germany’s DAX <.GDAXI> scored a record high. The index is up nearly 20 percent for the year to date.

“You’ve had almost a perfect backdrop for equities,” said Pictet Asset Management’s global strategist Luca Paolini. “You have acceleration in nominal growth, earnings are between 10-15 (percent higher) globally and whatever you look at is pretty much in double digits.”

After hitting all-time highs shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> fell 11.21 points, or 0.05 percent, to 23,537.21, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 2.8 points, or 0.11 percent, to 2,588.33 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 24.31 points, or 0.36 percent, to 6,762.13.

Financial stocks <.SPSY> led the U.S. market lower, with the S&P 500 financial sector losing 1.2 percent, the largest decline of any sector. U.S. Treasury yields hit a two-week low.

Oil prices fell slightly after posting the biggest rise in six weeks following the Saudi crown prince’s move to tighten his grip on power and crank up tensions between the kingdom and Iran.

U.S. crude <CLcv1> fell 0.28 percent to $57.19 per barrel and Brent crude futures <LCOcv1> were last at $63.73, down 0.84 percent after touching a peak of $64.65.

The dollar was also on the move amid signs of more change at the Federal Reserve, while President Donald Trump’s Republican party pushes ahead with its tax cut program.

The dollar index <.DXY> rose 0.24 percent, with the euro <EUR=> down 0.28 percent to $1.1576 – the single currency’s lowest since mid-July. The Japanese yen weakened 0.23 percent to 113.97 per dollar <JPY=>, while sterling <GBP=> was last trading at $1.3153, down 0.13 percent on the day.

The Mexican peso lost 0.83 percent to 19.17 pesos to the U.S. dollar <MXN=>. The Canadian dollar <CAD=> fell 0.61 percent versus the greenback at C$1.28 per dollar.

Benchmark 10-year notes <US10YT=RR> last rose 2/32 in price to yield 2.3127 percent, from 2.32 percent late on Monday.

The 30-year bond <US30YT=RR> last rose 12/32 in price to yield 2.7778 percent, from 2.796 percent late on Monday.

Germany’s 10-year bond yields <DE10YT=RR> held near two-month lows at 0.338 percent after the European Central Bank firmed up its plans to reinvest the proceeds of its 2.5 trillion euro stimulus program. [GVD/EUR]

(Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Dan Grebler and James Dalgleish)

Canadian groups seek to overturn Quebec ban on Muslim veil

By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) – Two Canadian groups on Tuesday asked a court to overturn a new Quebec law that bans observant Muslim women from wearing a full-face veil when providing or receiving government services.

The National Council for Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Quebec Muslim resident Marie-Michelle Lacoste asked a provincial court to declare the law invalid, arguing that it discriminates against Muslim women and violates equality and freedom of religion protections in the Canadian and Quebec constitutions.

The provincial Liberal government that backed the law, passed on Oct. 18, has rejected claims that it targets Muslim women. It argues that the ban on all face coverings was necessary for security reasons and to facility communication and identification of people. Debate has focused on the niqab, a veil worn by a small minority of Muslim women that covers the whole face save for the eyes.

Opponents of the law say it targets a visible minority that has been subject to threats and violence in the primarily French-speaking province. Quebec had about 243,000 Muslims as of 2011, according to Statistics Canada.

The government believes the law is constitutional and will defend it in court, Isabelle Marier St-Onge, a spokeswoman for Quebec Justice Minister Stephanie Vallee, said by phone on Tuesday.

The law affects teachers, police officers, hospital employees and daycare workers in government agencies, and users of public services, from school to mass transit systems.

“Such blatant and unjustified violations of freedom of religion, as well as of the equality guarantees of the Quebec and Canadian Charters, have no place in Quebec or Canada,” the groups’ court submission said.

The plaintiffs stand a good chance of success, said political scientist Emmett Macfarlane, who has written extensively about Canada’s constitution and Supreme Court.

“It’s a pretty clear case, where we know who’s being adversely affected and we know it’s a distinct minority,” Macfarlane said.

In January a gunman walked into a Quebec City mosque and shot six people to death. A French-Canadian university student has been charged as the sole suspect.

France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria have imposed restrictions on the wearing of full-face veils in public places. Denmark plans to institute its own ban.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Jim Finkle and Richard Chang)

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