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The Morning Risk Report: U.S. Imposes Penalties on Turkey, Aiming to Stop Incursion Into Syria
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Turkey-backed Syrian rebel fighters at the border town of Tel Abyad, Syria, wave their weapons on Monday. PHOTO: KHALIL ASHAWI/REUTERS
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Good morning. President Trump authorized sanctions and raised steel tariffs on Turkey, while threatening more-powerful financial penalties if Ankara continued a military offensive in northern Syria launched after Mr. Trump decided to withdraw U.S. troops from the region.
The sanctions the U.S. Treasury imposed Monday target Turkey’s Defense, Interior and Energy ministers and their departments. The U.S. warned that any person or business doing business with them risked also being blacklisted, including banks losing access to dollar markets. Mr. Trump also said that the U.S. would raise the tariff rate on steel imported from Turkey to 50%, after lowering the rate from that level back in May.
The Treasury said it would issue waivers to ensure sanctions didn’t disrupt the entire country’s energy needs, and will allow officials and contractors conducting business for the U.S. government to work with the blacklisted officials and offices.
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Latest: Volkswagen delayed final approval for a new car plant, becoming the first major international company to reconsider an investment in Turkey following its incursion in northern Syria. The company is planning to build a facility with the capacity to assemble around 300,000 cars a year.
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Libra Defections Shows Project Not Ready, Mnuchin Says
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Large financial companies backing out of Facebook’s Libra project likely reflects concerns about whether the cryptocurrency could meet U.S. rules including those designed to curb money laundering, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC in an interview. “They are not up to par and I assume some of the partners got concerned and dropped out until they meet those standards,” Mnuchin said.
Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and eBay on Friday withdrew from the coalition formed to help launch Libra, ahead of a meeting to discuss the future of the payments network. Mnuchin says Libra would have to stand up to scrutiny from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which the U.S. Treasury Department oversees.
—Bowdeya Tweh
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Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, has been President Trump’s personal lawyer since 2018. PHOTO: CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS
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Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are examining Rudy Giuliani’s business dealings in Ukraine, including his finances, meetings and work for a city mayor there, according to people familiar with the matter. Investigators also have examined Mr. Giuliani’s bank records, according to the people.
Witnesses have been questioned about Mr. Giuliani since at least August by investigators, who also want to know more about Mr. Giuliani’s role in an alleged conspiracy involving two of his business associates, the people said. The investigation is being led by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.
Mr. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing and on Monday said he hadn’t been informed of any investigation. “They can look at my Ukraine business all they want,” he said.
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Margrethe Vestager made a name for herself as Europe’s top antitrust enforcer by slapping record fines on U.S. tech companies. Now she says those fines don’t work. As she prepares to start an unprecedented second term as the European Union’s competition commissioner, this time with added powers as the EU’s digital-economy policy maker, Ms. Vestager is shifting her focus from fining giants to preventing market abuses. Fines are “not doing the trick,” she told EU lawmakers recently, despite having hit Google with penalties totaling $9.4 billion in recent years. “We have to consider remedies that are much more far-reaching.”
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran had evidence that an Iranian tanker damaged in the Red Sea was attacked with rockets fired from boats, warning that those responsible would face consequences but stopping short of blaming anyone. Experts have raised questions over the Iranian allegation that the damage was caused by missiles. Tensions in the region have soared as Iran pushes back against damaging sanctions that the Trump administration imposed on Tehran after pulling out of the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal last year.
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Dan Ehman’s property is in the ‘inundation zone’ of a planned dam in Embarrass, Minn. A full-blown failure would send a wave of waste through the area. PHOTO: STEPHEN MATUREN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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The world’s biggest mining giants have spent months and millions of dollars re-evaluating their dams in the wake of a January mine-waste dam collapse in Brazil that killed 270 in a tsunami of sludge—the deadliest of its type in half a century.
Institutional investors are scrubbing their portfolios, looking for companies with risky structures—and helping to publicize potential stability issues. And environmentalists are getting new support from residents, some of whom are learning for the first time about the potential dangers of the dams in their communities.
The U.S. remains one of the countries where the type of dam used in the Brazil disaster, known as an upstream design, is still being built. They are effectively banned in parts of Canada, in many situations in the European Union and now, in Brazil itself. A planned dam outside of Embarrass, Minn., uses the design. Last month a court suspended permits for the mine until the builder makes clear how it has assessed the Brazil disaster.
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The Vatican’s security chief, Domenico Giani, bottom right, stood next to Pope Francis following a Mass in St. Peter's Square on Sunday. PHOTO: ALESSANDRA TARANTINO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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The Vatican’s head of security, Domenico Giani, resigned over leaks connected to a widening financial scandal over the Holy See’s investments in London real estate.
The affair, sparked by costly property dealings in London’s upscale Chelsea district, has already led to the suspension of five Vatican employees, including a senior Vatican financial supervisor, according to Vatican officials and a person familiar with the matter. So far the Vatican has kept the nature of any suspected wrongdoing secret.
The Vatican said Mr. Giani “bears no personal responsibility for the leak,” whose perpetrator remains unknown, and had resigned “out of love for the church and faithfulness” to the pope.
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David Calhoun, Boeing’s new chairman, is described as a pragmatic and disciplined leader. PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER GOODNEY/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Boeing’s boardroom shake-up puts David Calhoun, a powerful behind-the-scenes figure, in position to control the aerospace giant’s response to the 737 MAX crisis, one of the most fraught episodes in the company’s history.
Senior officials at some Boeing customers said they found the move to appoint Mr. Calhoun chairman reassuring amid the MAX’s prolonged grounding following two deadly crashes. They said his experience in the industry and handling other challenging situations should help the Chicago plane maker navigate the turmoil as it tries to restore public confidence.
Boeing faces unrest from airlines losing money because of a flight ban that regulators won’t lift until they approve fixes to a flight-control system implicated in the crashes that claimed 346 lives.
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Harley-Davidson's LiveWire electric motorcycle has a suggested retail price of $30,000. PHOTO: HARLEY-DAVIDSON/REUTERS
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Harley-Davidson stopped production and deliveries of its first electric motorcycle after discovering a problem related to the vehicle’s charging equipment, a major setback for a product the company is counting on to rejuvenate sales.
The motorcycle maker said it has suspended production of the LiveWire model as it conducts tests to investigate the problem. Harley is banking on the electric bike to help jump-start sales in its core U.S. market. The company in July cut its forecast for motorcycle shipments and reported weaker results in its latest quarter.
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