Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Europe Edition

Trump, Mosul, Duterte: Your Friday Briefing

Good morning.

We’re trying something new for our readers in Europe: a morning briefing to jump-start your day.

What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at europebriefing@nytimes.com.

Here’s what you need to know:

Video
bars
0:00/2:30
-0:00

transcript

One-Liners Abound at the Al Smith Dinner

Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump took turns poking fun at each other at the charity dinner.

N/A

Video player loading
Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump took turns poking fun at each other at the charity dinner.CreditCredit...Damon Winter/The New York Times

• Both major American political parties expressed concern over Donald J. Trump’s refusal to commit to abiding by the outcome of the Nov. 8 election, a position he repeated a day after his acrimonious final debate with Hillary Clinton.

“I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win,” he said at a rally in Ohio, a state where he still has a chance for victory.

Later, Mr. Trump was booed at a charity dinner in New York, above, where he and Mrs. Clinton both spoke.

Image
Credit...Alastair Grant/Associated Press

• The European Union summit meeting in Brussels underscored how member countries’ domestic politics are undercutting the bloc’s ability to act.

Bulgaria, Romania and the Belgian region of Wallonia still have reservations about a free-trade pact with Canada. Opinions diverged diametrically over sanctions on Russia. Only opposition to the “Brexit” vote appears to have stirred some glimmers of unity.

“The E.U. is becoming more and more ungovernable,” an analyst said.

Video
bars
0:00/3:03
-0:00

transcript

How ISIS Is Fighting for Mosul

The Islamic State is using guerrilla warfare tactics, including booby traps and tunnels, to defend the city from an imminent assault by Iraqi forces.

tk

Video player loading
The Islamic State is using guerrilla warfare tactics, including booby traps and tunnels, to defend the city from an imminent assault by Iraqi forces.CreditCredit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times

• Kurdish forces opened a new front in the Iraqi campaign to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State.

Our reporting team is on the front lines as thousands of pesh merga fighters attack from the north.

And in the Syrian city of Aleppo, few residents used Russia’s brief unilateral cease-fire to escape the fighting. Many said leaving the besieged city could be more dangerous than staying.

• President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines deepened his rapprochement with China, agreeing to resume talks on disputes in the South China Sea and declaring a “separation from the United States.”

But he did not scrap the 70-year-old treaty alliance with Washington or the accord that gives the United States access to five military bases.

Image
Credit...Sherborne School/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• Britain will posthumously pardon thousands of men who were convicted of what decades ago was a crime: having or seeking gay sex.

The measure has been nicknamed Turing’s Law, after Alan Turing, the mathematician central to the development of the computer. He committed suicide in 1954, after being convicted on charges of homosexuality.

• Top-secret U.S. hacking tools were found in a huge trove of stolen documents held by a contractor for the National Security Agency.

Investigators believe the case is the largest instance of mishandled classified documents in American history.

Image
Credit...Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Infighting at the I.M.F. has raised questions about its promise to become more transparent. An internal review was unusually blunt in its critique of how the fund handled Greece’s debt crisis.

• Big investors are souring on U.S. hedge funds.

More than $50 billion has been pulled out of them this year, the biggest exodus for the industry since the financial crisis.

Image
Credit...Nintendo

Nintendo provided the first glimpse of its portable game console, the Nintendo Switch.

“Whoever survives this is going to win,” says a veteran energy analyst. Big Oil’s major players have adjusted to two years of low prices and may emerge stronger than ever.

• The euro fell against the dollar to its lowest level since March after the European Central Bank left its benchmark interest rate and stimulus policy unchanged. The pound also fell. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

Image
Credit...RDImages/Epics/Getty Images

• Atlas Obscura: “Paying Rent to the Queen.” In an annual ceremony, London hands over an ax, a knife, six horseshoes and 61 nails for the use of a forge and a tract of moorland rented in the 13th century. But no one remembers where these two sites are.

• Bloomberg: “The Cult of Putin — and Trump — Grows in Crimea.” The peninsula is in the midst of a tourism boom, as Russians flock to see President Vladimir V. Putin’s acquisition with their own eyes. (An American presidential candidate has some fans there, too.)

• Scoop: “One of Europe’s Richest Parties.” A look at assets held by Macedonia’s governing party, the conservative VMRO-DPMNE. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for Dec. 11.

• The Economist: Delusion Chronicle.” An Israeli novelist asks how anyone could serve Hitler or Stalin.

Video
bars
0:00/2:03
-0:00

transcript

Evictions Mean Chaos for Calais Children

The French authorities plan to raze a makeshift camp for migrants outside the port city of Calais. Among those in the camp are about 1,000 unaccompanied children, raising questions over where they will be resettled.

N/A

Video player loading
The French authorities plan to raze a makeshift camp for migrants outside the port city of Calais. Among those in the camp are about 1,000 unaccompanied children, raising questions over where they will be resettled.CreditCredit...Thibault Camus/Associated Press

• We visited the migrant camp in the French port city of Calais, above, that the authorities plan to raze soon. Volunteers are deeply concerned about where the hundreds of unaccompanied children living there will go.

• Spain’s highest court overturned a bullfighting ban in Catalonia, saying the region’s politicians could regulate but not outlaw the sport.

• In Britain’s by-elections, the Conservative Party held on to former Prime Minister David Cameron’s seat. Bernie Sanders’s brother, Larry, who contested the seat for the Green Party, won 3.5 percent of the vote. The Labour Party held the seat of Jo Cox, a member of Parliament who was murdered in June.

• In Egypt, a sugar shortage has plunged the sweet-toothed population into a panic, amid broader frustration with the government’s handling of the economy.

“The people are going to snap,” one Egyptian said.

• Abundant use of rosemary might be one reason so many of the residents of the Italian hamlet of Acciaroli, near Naples, live past 90.

“At 95, they have brains more like someone who is 50, and at 50, you’re still thinking a lot about sex,” said one researcher.

Image
Credit...Frank Franklin II/Associated Press

Switzerland has long been a popular destination with foreign officials who are seeking discreet banking services.

But while their money may be hidden, their arrival in the Swiss city of Geneva isn’t any longer.

This month, when a private jet sometimes used by the son of the authoritarian ruler of Equatorial Guinea arrived, a tweet appeared: “A dictator’s plane landed at #gva airport.”

The United States views the son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, as a kleptocrat, saying he once went on a $100 million American shopping spree.

François Pilet, a journalist, is part of the team behind the GVA Dictator Alert.

Mr. Pilet and his cousin, a former Google software engineer, wrote a computer program to track the comings and goings of the world’s powerful and wealthy to the city.

Here’s how it works: The program regularly scans an antenna that collects transponder codes from the planes entering and exiting Geneva. If there’s a match with a plane linked to an authoritarian government, it triggers a tweet.

“Switzerland is still one of the best places for corrupt dictators to hide their money,” Mr. Pilet said. “Every time we see dictators arrive in Geneva, we should ask ourselves, Why is this guy coming?”

Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes.com.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT