The Jim Bakker Show

Dow tops 23,000-mark for the first time on strong earnings

By Sruthi Shankar

(Reuters) – The Dow Jones Industrial Average breached the 23,000-mark for the first time on Tuesday, powered by strong earnings from UnitedHealth and Johnson & Johnson.

The blue-chip index has surpassed four similar 1,000-point milestones this year, indicating investor faith in the bull-run despite lofty stock valuations.

The broader market, however, was weighed down by losses in industrial, financial and technology stocks.

Shares of the largest U.S. health insurer <UNH.N> touched a life high, rising as much as 5.83 percent, after the company reported a stronger-than-expected profit and raised its full-year earnings forecast.

That, along with a 2.6 percent rise in Johnson & Johnson <JNJ.N>, led a 1 percent gain in the S&P healthcare sector <.SPXHC>.

Goldman Sachs <GS.N> dipped 2.07 percent despite reporting a profit beat and smaller-than-expected trading revenue fall. Morgan Stanley <MS.N> rose 0.92 percent as its wealth management business insulated the bank from weakness in trading revenue.

“There was some good earnings, real good economic data in spite of the hurricanes,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial in New York.

“We’re not seeing a market that’s galloping along here. The market from a technical perspective is tired. What you’re seeing is some hesitancy but not any major declines.”

Treasury yields and dollar gained after a report that U.S. President Donald Trump was impressed by his meeting with economist John Taylor, who is considered to favor higher interest rates than current Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.

The equity market, however, was not impacted by a report that Trump is likely to announce his choice before going to Asia in early November.

At 12:33 a.m. ET, the S&P 500 <.SPX> was down 1.1 points, or 0.04 percent, at 2,556.54 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> was down 2.98 points, or 0.05 percent, at 6,621.02.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> was up 19.47 points, or 0.08 percent, at 22,976.43, after briefly hitting the 23,000 mark, when only eight of its 30 components were making gains.

Nine of the 11 major S&P indexes were lower, led by a 0.42 percent drop in industrials <.SPLRCI> index.

General Electric’s <GE.N> 1.15 percent fall led losses in the industrial sector, while drop in shares of Microsoft <MSFT.O> and Intel <INTC.O> weighed on the tech sector.

Netflix <NFLX.O> slipped 1.15 percent after touching a record high as more subscribers signed up for its popular original content in the latest quarter.

(ht Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

California wildfire evacuees allowed home as crews search for bodies

By Paresh Dave

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (Reuters) – More evacuees were expected to return home on Tuesday in Northern California where the state’s deadliest wildfires have killed at least 41 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

Officials said they expected the death toll to rise as 88 people were unaccounted for in Sonoma County alone and search-and-rescue teams combed through gutted homes looking for bodies.

Lighter winds have allowed the 11,000 firefighters battling the flames, which have consumed more than 213,000 acres (86,200 hectares), to gain control of two of the deadliest fires in wine country’s Napa and Sonoma counties.

The Tubbs fire was 75 percent contained and the Atlas fire 70 percent contained on Monday night, said Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, which was hopeful the blazes would be fully contained by Friday.

Tens of thousands of people who fled the flames in Sonoma County and elsewhere have been allowed to return home, with about 40,000 still displaced.

Daniel Mufson, 74, a retired pharmaceutical executive and one of scores of Napa Valley residents who lost their homes in the fires, described his sense of bewilderment.

“Now we’re just trying to figure out what the next steps are. We’re staying with friends, and dealing with the issues of dealing with insurance companies and getting things cleaned up,” Mufson, president of a community-activist coalition called Napa Vision 2050, told Reuters.

The remains of a mobile home park where fatalities took place when it was destroyed in wildfire are seen in Santa Rosa.
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

CONSUMED

At least 5,700 homes and businesses have been destroyed by the wildfires that erupted a week ago and consumed an area larger than that of New York City. Entire neighborhoods in the city of Santa Rosa were reduced to ashes.

The wildfires are California’s deadliest on record, surpassing the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.

Most of the 1,863 people so far listed in missing-persons reports have turned up safe, including many evacuees who failed to alert authorities after fleeing their homes.

Hopes for victims known to have been in the direct path of the flames will dwindle as each day passes, Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano said on Monday.

About 30 vintners sustained some level of fire damage to wine-making facilities, vineyards, tasting rooms or other assets, the Napa Valley Vintners association said. But only about a half dozen reported significant losses, spokeswoman Patsy McGaughy said.

Vineyards, which mainly occupy the valley floor, appear to have been largely unscathed as the fires in Napa County burned mainly in the hillsides, McGaughy said. About 90 percent of Napa’s grape harvest had been picked and escaped potential exposure to smoke that could have tainted the fruit.

Still, the toll taken on the region as a whole has thrown the wine industry into disarray, and McGaughy said the 2017 Napa vintage will likely be smaller than it otherwise would have been.

“This is a human tragedy, there are people who have lost their lives, lost their homes, lost their business,” McGaughy said, adding Napa’s celebrated viniculture would recover.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave in Santa Rosa, Calif; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

EU defends Iran deal despite Trump, appeals to U.S. Congress

By Robin Emmott and Gabriela Baczynska

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – The European Union on Monday reaffirmed its support for a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers despite sharp criticism of the accord by President Donald Trump, and it urged U.S. lawmakers not to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

Trump defied both U.S. allies and adversaries on Friday by refusing to formally certify that Tehran is complying with the accord, even though international inspectors say it is, and said he might ultimately terminate the agreement.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg said a failure to uphold an international agreement backed by the U.N. Security Council could have serious consequences for regional peace, and also undermine efforts to check North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

“As Europeans together, we are very worried that the decision of the U.S. president could lead us back into military confrontation with Iran,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters.

After a closed-door meeting chaired by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Iran, the ministers issued a joint statement saying the 2015 deal was key to preventing the global spread of nuclear weapons.

“The EU is committed to the continued full and effective implementation of all parts of the JCPOA,” it said, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name of the accord with Iran agreed in July 2015 in Vienna.

Trump meanwhile renewed his criticism of the accord, and raised the possibility he might try to end it completely.

“We’ll see what phase two is. Phase two might be positive, and it might be very negative. It might be a total termination. That’s a very real possibility. Some would say that’s a great possibility,” the U.S. president said in Washington. He repeated his contention that the JCPOA was “a horrible deal for the United States.”

EU foreign ministers said the accord was crucial to opening up Iran’s $400-billion economy and finding a new market for European investors. Unlike the United States, the EU saw relations with Iran flourish in the late 1990s until revelations about Tehran’s nuclear plans in 2002.

“Non-proliferation is a major element of world security and rupturing that would be extremely damaging,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters. “We hope that Congress does not put this accord in jeopardy.”

Mogherini said she would travel to Washington early next month to try to muster support for the accord.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran is complying with its commitments under the accord, which Trump has branded “the worst deal ever negotiated”.

The EU still has sanctions in place against members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a major target of Trump’s criticism.

The EU ministers also discussed on Monday Iran’s ballistic missile program, which they want to see dismantled. Tehran says that program is purely defensive.

NORTH KOREA SPILLOVER

Negotiated after 12 years of talks, the accord with Iran is the most significant diplomatic success for the bloc in several decades.

Many worry that the EU’s reputation as an honest broker in a host of future conflicts may not recover if the U.S. Congress reimposes sanctions on Iran and causes the deal – which had the strong backing of Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama – to unravel.

Most U.N. and Western sanctions were lifted more than 18 months ago under the deal, though Tehran is still subject to a U.N. arms embargo, which is not part of the deal.

EU foreign ministers also approved a new batch of economic sanctions on North Korea after its atomic test last month that included an oil embargo and investment ban.

But some still hold out hope of repeating the Iran nuclear deal with Pyongyang at some future date.

Sweden is one of only seven EU countries with an embassy in Pyongyang and its foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, reiterated that Stockholm could be counted on to help negotiate if asked.

But Germany’s Gabriel warned that Trump’s decision not to certify the Iran accord could scupper such hopes, a position echoed by Mogherini, although she stressed that no such EU mediation was underway.

“My concern is that, if we want to talk to North Korea now, the possible end for the nuclear deal with Iran would jeopardize the credibility of such treaties,” Gabriel said.

(Additional reporting by Peter Maushagen in Luxembourg, Lily Cusack in Brussels and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by Gareth Jones and Alistair Bell)

U.S. states sue to block Trump Obamacare subsidies cut

U.S. President Donald Trump smiles after signing an Executive Order to make it easier for Americans to buy bare-bone health insurance plans and circumvent Obamacare rules at the White House in Washington, U.S., October 12, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dan Levine

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Eighteen U.S. states sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday to stop him from scrapping a key component of Obamacare, subsidies to insurers that help millions of low-income people pay medical expenses, even as Trump invited Democratic leaders to negotiate a deal.

One day after his administration announced plans to end the payments next week, Trump said he would dismantle Obamacare “step by step.”

His latest action raised concerns about chaos in insurance markets. The subsidies cost $7 billion this year and were estimated at $10 billion for 2018, according to congressional analysts.

“As far as the subsidies are concerned, I don’t want to make the insurance companies rich,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They’re making a fortune by getting that kind of money.”

Trump’s action took aim at a critical element of the 2010 law, his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement. Frustrated by the failure of his fellow Republicans who control both houses of Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, Trump has taken several steps to chip away at it.

Democrats accused Trump of sabotaging the law.

Democratic attorneys general from the 18 states as well as Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit in federal court in California later on Friday. The states include: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington state.

The states will ask the court to force Trump to make the next payment. Legal experts said the states were likely to face an uphill battle in court.

“His effort to gut these subsidies with no warning or even a plan to contain the fallout is breathtakingly reckless,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said. “This is an effort simply to blow up the system.”

The new lawsuit would be separate from a case pending before an appeals court in the District of Columbia in which 16 Democratic state attorneys general are defending the legality of the payments.

If the subsidies vanish, low-income Americans who obtain insurance through Obamacare online marketplaces where insurers can sell policies would face higher insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical costs. It would particularly hurt lower-middle-class families whose incomes are still too high to qualify for certain government assistance.

About 10 million people are enrolled in Obamacare through its online marketplaces, and most receive subsidies. Trump’s action came just weeks before the period starting on Nov. 1 when individuals have to begin enrolling for 2018 insurance coverage through the law’s marketplaces.

The administration will not make the next payment to insurers, scheduled for Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer expressed optimism about chances for a deal with Republicans to continue the subsidy payments.

“We’re going to have a very good opportunity to get this done in a bipartisan way” during negotiations in December on broad federal spending legislation, “if we can’t get it done sooner,” Schumer told reporters.

Trump offered an invitation for Democratic leaders to come to the White House, while also lashing out at them. “We’ll negotiate some deal that’s good for everybody. But they’re always a bloc vote against everything. They’re like obstructionists,” Trump told reporters.

The Senate failed in both July and September to pass legislation backed by Trump to repeal Obamacare due to opposition by a handful of Republican senators. One of them, Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine who had been contemplating running for governor next year, on Friday said she planned to remain in the Senate and would use her voice in reforming the healthcare system.

SHARES OF INSURERS, HOSPITALS FALL

Hospitals, doctors, health insurers, state insurance commissioners and patient advocates decried Trump’s move, saying consumers will ultimately pay the price. They called on Congress to appropriate the funds needed to keep up the subsidy payments.

Shares of U.S. hospital companies and health insurers closed down on Friday after the subsidies announcement. Centene Corp <CNC.N> closed down 3.3 percent and Molina Healthcare <MOH.N> closed down 3.4 percent. Among hospital shares, Tenet Healthcare <THC.N> finished 5.1 percent lower and Community Health Systems <CYH.N> declined 4.0 percent.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that erasing the subsidies would increase the federal deficit by $194 billion over the next decade because the government still would be obligated under other parts of Obamacare to help lower-income people pay for insurance premiums.

Trump, who as a candidate last year promised to roll back the law formally called the Affordable Care Act, received applause for his latest action during an appearance on Friday before a group of conservative voters.

“It’s step by step by step, and that was a very big step yesterday,” Trump said. “And one by one, it’s going to come down, and we’re going to have great healthcare in our country.”

Earlier on Twitter he called Obamacare “a broken mess” that is “imploding,” and referred to the “pet insurance companies” of Democrats.

Republicans for seven years had vowed to get rid of Obamacare, but deep intra-party divisions have scuttled their efforts to get legislation through the Senate, where they hold a slim majority.

Since taking office in January, Trump threatened many times to cut the subsidies. Health insurers that planned to stay in the Obamacare market prepared for the move in many states by submitting two sets of premium rates to regulators: with and without the subsidies.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the change would drive up premium costs for consumers by at least 12 to 15 percent in 2018 and cut more than $1 billion in payments to insurers for 2017.

The White House announced the cut-off just hours after Trump signed an order intended to allow insurers to sell lower-cost, bare-bones policies with limited benefits and consumer protections.

Republicans have called Obamacare an unnecessary government intrusion into the American healthcare system. Democrats have said the law needs some fixes but noted that it had brought insurance to 20 million people.

(Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley, Justin Mitchell, Steve Holland, Makini Brice, Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey in Washington, Megan Davies in New York, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, and Divya Grover in Bengaluru; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Leslie Adler)

Pentagon identifying new areas to pressure Iran, reviewing plans

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military said on Friday it was identifying new areas where it could work with allies to put pressure on Iran in support of President Donald Trump’s new strategy, which promises a far more confrontational approach to Tehran.

Trump struck a blow against the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement on Friday in defiance of other world powers, choosing not to certify that Tehran is complying with the deal and warning he might ultimately terminate it.

He also promised to address Iran more broadly, including its support for extremist groups in the Middle East.

Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Defense Department spokesman, told Reuters the Pentagon was assessing the positioning of its forces as well as planning but offered few details.

“We are identifying new areas where we will work with allies to put pressure on the Iranian regime, neutralize its destabilizing influences, and constrain its aggressive power projection, particularly its support for terrorist groups and militants,” he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said his first goal would to talk with U.S. allies in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere to gain a shared understanding of Iran’s actions.

“Certainly we intend to dissuade them from shipping arms into places like Yemen and explosives into Bahrain and the other things they do with their surrogates, like Lebanese Hezbollah,” Mattis said.

The U.S. military has long been a strident critic of Iran, accusing it directly and indirectly of trying to undermine the United States and its allies, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

The tensions escalated in recent months in Syria, where American pilots shot down two Iranian-made drones this summer.

Still, a more aggressive approach to Iran could trigger a backlash from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and forces that it backs. That includes in Iraq, where U.S. troops are fighting Islamic State and trying to keep their distance from Shi’ite militia aligned with Iran.

“U.S. forces in Iraq are quite exposed, and coalition forces are quite exposed to the risk of attack if Iranian elements so choose,” said Jennifer Cafarella, lead intelligence planner at the Institute for the Study of War, a think-tank in Washington.

The U.S. military is analyzing an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, that killed an American soldier in Iraq this month. The reappearance of the device, which Iran-backed Shi’ite militia routinely used to target American troops in Iraq before their withdrawal in 2011, has startled U.S. officials.

LINK TO IRAN?

CIA Director Mike Pompeo noted the device was detonated in an area controlled by a militia backed by Tehran.

“We do not have evidence of a direct link to Iran, but we are closely examining this tragic incident,” Pompeo said on Wednesday.

Cafarella said the killing of the U.S. soldier may have been a warning from Iran.

“I think it is possible that the Iranians have been attempting to signal their commitment to retaliate against the U.S. strategy,” she said.

Mattis said the United States was watching for any new provocations from Iran.

Asked whether he thought Tehran might retaliate, he said: “It would be ill advised for them to attack us.”

Reuters has previously reported that options to increase pressure on Iran include more aggressive U.S. interceptions of Iranian arms shipments, such as those to Houthi rebels in Yemen, It could also direct U.S. naval forces to react more forcefully when harassed by armed IRGC speed boats.

The Pentagon on Friday detailed a series of major concern about Iran, including its ballistic missile development and cyber attacks against the United States and U.S. allies.

The Pentagon promised to review U.S. security cooperation activities with allies in the region, something that could lead to alterations in U.S. arms sales and military exercises.

It also signaled a willingness to re-examine the positioning of the roughly 70,000 American troops the Pentagon says are stationed in the Middle East.

Still, Mattis said: “Right now we are not changing our posture.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali traveling with Mattis and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and James Dalgleish)

Iranians fear economic hardship, but united against Trump

By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s hardened stance towards Iran evoked a mixture of indifference and national pride among Iranians on Saturday but many were concerned about economic hardship should a multinational nuclear deal unravel.

In a major shift in U.S. foreign policy, Trump said on Friday he might ultimately terminate the 2015 agreement that lifted sanctions in return for Tehran rolling back technologies with nuclear bomb-making potential. [nL2N1MO0DH]

“Who the hell is Trump to threaten Iran and Iranians? Of course we don’t want economic hardship, but it does not mean we will be their puppet and do whatever they say,” said housewife Minou Khosravani, 37, a mother of two in the central city of Yazd.

Within minutes of Trump’s speech, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani went live on state television, ruling out any renegotiation of the deal Iran signed with major powers. He also signaled Iran would withdraw from the agreement if it failed to preserve Tehran’s interests.

Tired of economic adversity during years of tough sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme, many Iranians still fervently back the decision by Iran’s clerical rulers to resist U.S. pressure.

“I am not a regime supporter. But I side with Iran’s rulers against Trump and his illogical pressure on Iran,” said hairdresser Ziba Ghanbari, 42, when contacted by Reuters in the northern city of Rasht.

Iranians around the globe took to social media in anger.

Former official Mostafa Tjzadeh, who spent seven years as a prisoner of conscience in Iran, tweeted: “One nation, One message: No to #Trump. We are in this together.”

“Long on rhetoric, short on substance,” tweeted Niloofar Ghadiri, a journalist in Tehran.

ECONOMIC HARDSHIP

Iranian authorities say 15 percent of the country’s workforce is unemployed. Many formal jobs pay a pittance, meaning the true figure of people without adequate work to support themselves is probably far higher.

Lack of foreign investment, if more sanctions are imposed, will deepen the unemployment crisis. Currency exchange shops are refusing to sell U.S. dollars because of the uncertainty as the rial has lost value in the past days. Iranians fear new sanctions will also see the price of food, including rice, bread and dairy products, rise.

“My worry is that the economy will go back to the sanctions era when we had difficulties to find essential food and even medicine. I want my son to have a good life,” said elementary school teacher Gholamali Part, 43, in Tehran.

To improve Iran’s economy, Rouhani has rolled out the red carpet for global investors since sanctions were suspended. But so far only a few major European investors have returned to Iran’s market, including planemaker Airbus, French energy group Total and Germany’s Siemens.

Others are deterred mainly by a separate raft of sanctions Washington continues to impose in retaliation for what it calls Tehran’s support for terrorism and human rights abuses. Iran denies involvement in terrorism.

The nuclear deal was also signed by China, France, Russia, Britain, Germany and the European Union. Despite assurances by other signatories over their continued commitment, European companies could think twice about involvement in Iran if the deal cannot survive.

Hossein, like millions of Iranians who bore the brunt of the sanctions, has no high hopes. “We are going to be sanctioned again,” said Hossein, who declined to give his full name.

‘RARE UNANIMITY’

Inflation has dropped to single digits since Rouhani was first elected in 2013, but he has failed to tackle high unemployment and the gap between rich and poor is widening.

The hardline daily Kayhan, which campaigned against the deal during 18-months of the nuclear talks, wrote: “Trump keeps the nuclear pact: advantages for America, restrictions for us!”

In a report headlined “Mr Blunder’s isolation”, the moderate Arman daily wrote: “‘A rare unanimity supports Iran in the World’ is the closest definition of the mood after Trump’s speech last night.”

Some Iranians are indifferent. “I don’t care. Will there be holidays if the deal fails? That is important because I can go on a holiday with my friends,” said Arjang Bakhtiari, 19, whose family owns factories in several cities.

Trump’s decision in effect leaves the fate of the deal up to the U.S. Congress, which might try to modify it or bring back U.S. sanctions previously imposed on Iran.

The failure of the deal could be politically tricky for Rouhani, its chief architect, who has been criticized by the country’s utmost power, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for the country’s slow pace of economic recovery.

Khamenei cautiously backed the deal, but has repeatedly expressed pessimism about the United States remaining committed to it. The economic problems caused by the U.S. pressure could weaken Rouhani’s stance in Iran’s faction-ridden and complex establishment.

(Editing by William Maclean and Janet Lawrence)

U.S., Israel quit U.N. heritage agency citing bias

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) – The United States and Israel announced on Thursday they were quitting the U.N.’s cultural agency UNESCO, after Washington accused it of anti-Israeli bias.

The withdrawal of the United States, which is meant to provide a fifth of UNESCO’s funding, is a major blow for the Paris-based organization, founded after World War Two to help protect cultural and natural heritage around the world.

UNESCO is best known for designating World Heritage Sites such as the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria and the Grand Canyon National Park.

“This decision was not taken lightly, and reflects U.S. concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

Hours later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would quit too, calling the U.S. decision “brave and moral”.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova expressed her disappointment: “At the time when conflicts continue to tear apart societies across the world, it is deeply regrettable for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations agency promoting education for peace and protecting culture under attack,” she said.

“This is a loss to the United Nations family. This is a loss for multilateralism.”

Washington has already withheld its funding for UNESCO since 2011, when the body admitted Palestine as a full member. The United States and Israel were among just 14 of 194 members that voted against admitting the Palestinians. Washington’s arrears on its $80 million annual dues since then are now over $500 million.

Although Washington supports a future independent Palestinian state, it says this should emerge out of peace talks and it considers it unhelpful for international organizations to admit Palestine until negotiations are complete.

In recent years, Israel has repeatedly complained about what it says is the body taking sides in disputes over cultural heritage sites in Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories.

“Today is a new day at the U.N., where there is price to pay for discrimination against Israel,” Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said.

Netanyahu told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly last month that UNESCO was promoting “fake history” after it designated Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart – the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque – as a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger.”

An Arab-backed UNESCO resolution last year condemned Israeli’s policies at religious sites in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Under UNESCO rules, the U.S. withdrawal will become effective as of the end of December 2018. Three diplomats had told Reuters earlier on Thursday of the impending decision.

TRUMP EFFECT

The organization, which employs around 2,000 people worldwide, most of them based in Paris, has struggled for relevance as it becomes increasingly hobbled by regional rivalries and a lack of money.

UNESCO, whose full name is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is in the process of selecting a new chief, whose priority will be to revive its fortunes.

The U.S. move underscores the scepticism expressed by President Donald Trump about the need for the U.S. to remain engaged in multi-lateral bodies. The president has touted an “America First” policy, which puts U.S. economic and national interests ahead of international commitments.

Since Trump took office, the United States has abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks and withdrawn from the Paris climate deal. Washington is also reviewing its membership of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, which it also accuses of being anti-Israel.

“The absence of the United States or any large country with a lot of power is a loss. It’s not just about money, it’s promoting ideals that are vital to countries like the United States, such as education and culture,” a UNESCO-based diplomat said, warning that others could follow.

For differing reasons, Britain, Japan and Brazil are among states that have yet to pay their dues for 2017.

Russia’s former envoy to UNESCO told RIA news agency the agency was better off without the Americans.

“In recent years, they’ve been of no use for this organization,” Eleanora Mitrofanova said. “Since 2011 they have practically not been paying to the budget of this organization… They decided to exit – this is absolutely in line with Trump’s general logic today.”

After four days of secret balloting to pick a new UNESCO chief, Qatar’s Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kawari qualified for the Friday runoff.

France’s Audrey Azoulay and Egypt’s Moushira Khattab were tied in second. One will be eliminated after another vote by 58-member Executive Council on Friday. If the two finalists end level, they draw lots.

The election has exposed deep rivalries between Qatar and Egypt that has its roots in the crisis engulfing Qatar and its Gulf Arab neighbors which have severed diplomatic, trade and travel ties with Doha after accusing it of sponsoring hardline Islamist groups, a charge Qatar denies.

(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Washington, Michelle Nicholls at the United Nations, Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris and Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; editing by Peter Graff and Toby Chopra)

Trump expected to make U.S. move against Iran nuclear deal -officials

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, some 1,200 km (746 miles) south of Tehran October 26, 2010. REUTERS/IRNA/Mohammad Babaie/File Photo

By Steve Holland and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is likely to take a major step against the international nuclear deal with Iran on Friday, laying out a more aggressive approach to Iranian activities in the Middle East that risks upsetting U.S. relations with European allies.

“It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran’s government end its pursuit of death and destruction,” Trump said in a White House statement that flagged key elements of the strategy.

He is to present his plan in a 12:45 p.m. EDT (1645 GMT)speech at the White House, the product of weeks of internal discussions between him and his national security team.

U.S. officials said Trump was expected to announce that he will not certify the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers, one he has called the “worst deal ever” as it was not, in his view, in the U.S. national interest.

Trump found himself under immense pressure as he considered de-certifying the deal, a move that would ignore warnings from inside and outside his administration that to do so would risk undermining U.S. credibility abroad.

He had formally reaffirmed it twice before but aides said he was reluctant to do so a third time.

De-certification would not pull the United States out of the deal but would give the Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions on Tehran that were suspended under the pact, negotiated during the administration of President Barack Obama.

U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul told Reuters he thinks Trump “is likely to not completely pull out of the deal, but decertify compliance.”

IRANIAN WARNING

If Washington quits the deal, that will be the end of it and global chaos could ensue, Iran’s influential parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, was quoted by the Russian news agency TASS as saying during a visit to St Petersburg on Friday.

U.N. nuclear inspectors say Iran is in compliance with the accord, which limited the scope of Iran’s nuclear program to help ensure it could not be put to developing bombs in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions on Tehran.

Trump says Tehran is in violation of the spirit of the agreement and has done nothing to rein in its ballistic missile program or its financial and military support for the Lebanese Shi’ite movement Hezbollah and other militant groups.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said on Thursday the U.S. approach toward Iran is to work with allies in the Middle East to contain Tehran’s activities.

“We have footprints on the ground, naval and Air Force is there to just demonstrate our resolve, our friendship, and try to deter anything that any country out there may do,” Kelly told reporters.

European allies warn of a split with the United States over the nuclear agreement, in part because they are benefiting economically from a relaxation of sanctions.

A variety of European allies, including the leaders of Britain and France, have personally appealed to Trump to re-certify the nuclear accord for the sake of allied unity.

Germany’s government pledged on Friday to work for continued unity if Trump de-certified the deal as Berlin remain convinced the agreement was an important tool to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons.

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel underscored German views in a telephone call with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson late on Thursday, his spokeswoman Maria Adebahr told reporters.

Gabriel said on Thursday U.S. behavior was driving a wedge between Europe and its close ally United States and bringing Europeans closer to Russia and China. “It’s imperative that Europe sticks together on this issue,” said Gabriel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that if the United States withdrew from the deal, “this will damage the atmosphere of predictability, security, stability and non-proliferation in the entire world”.

U.S. MOVE AGAINST REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS

McCaul said he expected Trump also to announce some kind of action against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s most powerful security force. Trump is under a legal mandate to impose U.S. economic sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards as a whole by Oct. 31 or waive them.

U.S. sanctions could seriously hurt the IRGC as it controls large swaths of Iran’s economy. The Guards’ foreign paramilitary and espionage wing, the Quds Force, is under U.S. sanctions, as is the Quds Force commander, other officials and associated individuals and entities.

The 2015 nuclear agreement, signed by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union and Iran, has been denounced by Trump as “an embarrassment” and “the worst deal ever.”

European officials have categorically ruled out renegotiating the deal but have said they share Trump’s concerns about Iran’s destabilizing influence in the Middle East.

China has said it hopes the agreement will stay intact.

Israel, Iran’s arch-adversary in the Middle East, welcomed Trump’s anticipated announcement on Friday but voiced doubt that the tougher tack by Washington could turn around the Islamic Republic.

The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that Iran secretly researched a nuclear warhead until 2009, which Tehran denies. Iran has always insisted its uranium enrichment activity is for civilian energy purposes, not for atomic bombs.

The threat of new U.S. action has prompted a public display of unity from rival factions among Iran’s rulers. Iran will react sharply to any U.S. move against the nuclear deal with global powers, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Iranian parliament on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jonathan Landay in Washington; additional reporting by Warren Strobel in Washington, Andrea Shalal in Berlin Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Mark Heinrich)

Michigan governor denies misleading U.S. House on Flint water

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is seen at a bill signing event in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. on June 20, 2014. Picture taken on June 20, 2014. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

By David Shepardson

(Reuters) – Michigan Governor Rick Snyder denied Thursday that he had misled a U.S. House of Representatives committee last year over testimony on Flint’s water crisis after lawmakers asked if his testimony had been contradicted by a witness in a court hearing.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote Snyder earlier Thursday asking him about published reports that one of his aides, Harvey Hollins, testified in a court hearing last week in Michigan that he had notified Snyder of an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease linked to the Flint water crisis in December 2015, rather than 2016 as Snyder had testified.

“My testimony was truthful and I stand by it,” Snyder told the committee in a letter, adding that his office has provided tens of thousands of pages of records to the committee and would continue to cooperate fully.

Last week, prosecutors in Michigan said Dr. Eden Wells, the state’s chief medical executive who already faced lesser charges, would become the sixth current or former official to face involuntary manslaughter charges in connection with the crisis.

The charges stem from more than 80 cases of Legionnaires’ disease and at least 12 deaths that were believed to be linked to the water in Flint after the city switched its source from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014.

Wells was among six current and former Michigan and Flint officials charged in June. The other five, including Michigan Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon, were charged at the time with involuntary manslaughter stemming from their roles in handling the crisis.

The crisis in Flint erupted in 2015 when tests found high amounts of lead in blood samples taken from children in the predominantly black city of about 100,000.

The more corrosive river water caused lead to leach from pipes and into the drinking water. Lead levels in Flint’s drinking water have since fallen below levels considered dangerous by federal regulators, state officials have said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump scraps key Obamacare subsidies, urges Democrats to fix ‘broken mess’

By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday urged Democrats to make a healthcare deal after cutting off Obamacare subsidies to health insurance companies for low-income patients in a forceful move that sparked threats of legal action and concern of chaos in insurance markets.

“ObamaCare is a broken mess,” Trump tweeted early on Friday. “Piece by piece we will now begin the process of giving America the great HealthCare it deserves!”

The decision is the most dramatic action Trump has taken yet to weaken the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, which extended insurance to 20 million Americans.

The move drew swift condemnation from Democrats and threats from state attorneys general in New York and California to file lawsuits. Trump, a Republican, urged opponents to reach out to him.

“The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix!” Trump said in another tweet on Friday.

Trump has been frustrated by Republicans’ failure to repeal and replace the law known as Obamacare, thwarting a promise he made during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.

His decision is likely to please those among his political base who detest the Obamacare system, which many Republicans have attacked for years as an unneeded government intrusion in Americans’ healthcare.

In a nod to that same constituency, the president signed an executive order earlier on Thursday to make it easier for Americans to buy bare-bones health insurance plans exempt from Obamacare requirements.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi derided the subsidies cut-off in a joint statement, saying Trump would single-handedly push Americans’ healthcare premiums higher.

“It is a spiteful act of vast, pointless sabotage leveled at working families and the middle class in every corner of America,” they said. “Make no mistake about it, Trump will try to blame the Affordable Care Act, but this will fall on his back and he will pay the price for it.”

Insurers and proponents of Obamacare have implored Trump for months to commit to making the payments, which are worth billions of dollars. Several insurers have cited uncertainty over the payments when hiking premiums for 2018 or exiting insurance markets altogether.

Healthcare stocks have edged lower in recent days. Ending the payments could hurt shares of insurers such as Anthem Inc, Molina Healthcare Inc, Cigna Corp and Centene Corp, which are offering plans on Obamacare markets for 2018.

Trump has made the payments, guaranteed to insurers under Obamacare to help lower out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income consumers, each month since taking office in January. But he has repeatedly threatened to cut them off and disparaged them as a “bailout” for insurance companies.

For Kathryn Haydon and her husband, who bought insurance under the law’s marketplace three years ago as struggling college students in Arkansas, the subsidies reduced the cost of their $310 plan by about $250, leaving them to pay $60 each month.

“If the subsidy was not there, we would have gone without health insurance,” she said. “Our finances were extremely tight at the time for us… we would have just hoped there were no catastrophes.”

LAWSUITS

The White House said late on Thursday that it could not lawfully pay the subsidies anymore.

A White House statement said that based on guidance from the Justice Department, “the Department of Health and Human Services has concluded that there is no appropriation for cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies under Obamacare.”

“In light of this analysis, the Government cannot lawfully make the cost-sharing reduction payments,” it said.

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said in a statement he was prepared to lead other attorneys general in a lawsuit.

“I will not allow President Trump to once again use New York families as political pawns in his dangerous, partisan campaign to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act at any cost,” he wrote.

The payments are the subject of a lawsuit brought by House Republicans against the Obama administration that alleged they were unlawful because they needed to be appropriated by Congress. A judge for the federal district court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the Republicans, and the Obama administration appealed the ruling.

The Trump administration took over the lawsuit and had delayed deciding whether to continue the Obama administration’s appeal or terminate the subsidies, but in April Trump began threatening to stop the payments.

That case became more complicated in August when a U.S. appeals court allowed 16 Democratic state attorneys general to defend the payments and have a say in the legal fight.

The political turbulence has affected insurers’ decisions.

Anthem Inc, one of the largest remaining Obamacare insurers, in August scaled back its offerings in Nevada and Georgia and blamed the moves in part on uncertainty over the payments.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina earlier this year raised premiums by more than 20 percent, but said it would have only raised premiums by about 9 percent if Trump agreed to fund the payments.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that cutting off the payments would cause premiums to rise 20 percent in 2018, and that 5 percent of Americans would live in areas that do not have an insurer in the individual market in 2018.

Trump has taken other steps to undermine Obamacare. Last week, his administration allowed businesses and non-profit organizations to seek exemptions from Obamacare’s mandate that employers provide birth control in health insurance with no co-payment.

The administration also slashed the Obamacare advertising and outreach budget and halved the open enrollment period.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Brendan O’Brien and Susan Heavey and; Editing by Michael Perry and Bernadette Baum)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show