Early Headlines: Asia Stocks Mixed, Dollar Down, Oil Down, Gold Flat, Yields Down, Impeachment Vote, GOP Aide Leaking Name, France Unemployment, Deep Freeze In Rockies, Plus More - 23 Articles, 5 Graphics

Early Bird Headlines 29 October 2019

Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, published Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.

Please share this article – Go to very top of page, right hand side for social media buttons.

Notice: We have changed the form of content coverage for Early Bird. We will provide discussion only for Asia Markets news and a small number (often 1 or 2) other articles. The remainder of the content will be headlines (with links) only.

Key Articles

Global

Asia stocks mixed as hope rises on US-China trade, S&P 500 hits record high (CNBC) Major Asian markets were mixed on Tuesday as investors monitored further developments on the U.S.-China trade front, with the two economic powerhouses working toward a deal. The U.S. dollar index was lower at 97.796 after touching highs above 97.8 yesterday. Oil prices shed earlier gains to slip in the afternoon of Asian trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures 0.41% lower at $61.32 per barrel and U.S. crude futures declining 0.5% to $55.53 per barrel. Spot gold was flat at $1,491.79 an ounce as of 0320 GMT. U.S.treasury yields were lower.

U.S.

House to vote this week on impeachment inquiry procedures (The Hill) see also next article. House Democrats are setting up a vote this week on their impeachment inquiry as they move closer to a public phase of the investigation. Rep. Jim McGovern (D, MA), the chairman of the House Rules Committee, said Monday that he will introduce a resolution this week to “ensure transparency” and “provide a clear path forward” in the impeachment inquiry. The text of the resolution has yet to be released, but McGovern plans to introduce it Tuesday ahead of a markup in his committee Wednesday.

This would be the first formal vote on the new impeachment process by the House since Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) threw her support behind an inquiry in September.
Pelosi in a letter to lawmakers said the legislation would receive a vote this week. A senior Democratic aide said that the resolution is expected to hit the House floor on Thursday.

Top Republicans say impeachment resolution is too little too late (The Hill) Since Democrats announced their plans to move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry five weeks ago, Republicans have hammered their colleagues across the aisle on procedure, arguing the process Democrats have conducted lacks transparency and is illegitimate since the full House did not authorize the inquiry in a floor vote. The news of the upcoming resolution, however, did little to appease them.
Nunes Aide Is Leaking the Ukraine Whistleblower’s Name, Sources Say (The Daily Beast) A top aide to Rep. Devin Nunes has been providing conservative politicians and journalists with information – and misinformation – about the anonymous whistleblower who triggered the biggest crisis of Donald Trump’s presidency, two knowledgeable sources tell The Daily Beast.

Derek Harvey, who works for Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, has provided notes for House Republicans identifying the whistleblower’s name ahead of the high-profile depositions of Trump administration appointees and civil servants in the impeachment inquiry. The purpose of the notes, one source said, is to get the whistleblower’s name into the record of the proceedings.

France

Macron’s labour market changes begin to bear fruit (Financial Times) The French economy is proving more resistant to the global economic slowdown than more trade-dependent nations such as Germany, and economists surveyed by Reuters expect Wednesday’s figures for third-quarter gross domestic product to show a 0.2% expansion.

Ukraine

Army Officer Who Heard Trump’s Ukraine Call Reported Concerns (The New York Times) Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman of the Army, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, considered what he heard so damaging to American interests that he reported it to a superior. He is testifying to the House today (Tuesday).
White House told in May of Ukraine President Zelenskiy’s concerns about Giuliani, Sondland (NBC News) The White House was alerted as early as mid-May – earlier than previously known – that a budding pressure campaign by Rudy Giuliani and one of President Donald Trump’s ambassadors was rattling the new Ukrainian president, two people with knowledge of the matter tell NBC News. Alarm bells went off at the National Security Council when the White House’s top Europe official was told that Giuliani was pushing the incoming Ukrainian administration to shake up the leadership of state-owned energy giant Naftogaz, the sources said. The official, Fiona Hill, learned then about the involvement of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Giuliani associates who were helping with the Naftogaz pressure and also with trying to find dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

The revelation significantly moves up the timeline of when the White House learned that Trump’s allies had engaged with the incoming Ukrainian administration and were acting in ways that unnerved the Ukrainians – even before President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had been sworn in. Biden had entered the presidential race barely three weeks earlier.

Syria

After Baghdadi, a candidate to lead ISIS emerges (CNN) A long-time Al Baghdadi companion and religious scholar would seem to be a leading candidate tobecome the new ISIS leader. He is known within jihadi circles as Abdallah Qardash, but the US government identifies him as Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla and is thought to have known Baghdadi for at least 15 years. They were both detained at a US-run prison known as Camp Bucca soon after the coalition’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, though it’s unclear if that’s where they first met.