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• The crisis along the Burmese border with Bangladesh has grown markedly worse since we wrote about it last week. Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims are suspected to have been killed during a Burmese military offensive targeting supposed extremists. At least 75,000 Rohinyga have fled across the border to Bangladesh, with tens of thousands more marooned in a no-man’s land without adequate food or shelter. Rights groups and leaders of Muslim countries condemned what some allege to be a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” carried out by Burmese security forces. Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel laureate who now is one of the country’s de facto civilian leaders, has become a magnet for criticism given her conspicuous silence on the plight of the Rohingya. In a letter to her Nobel prize-winning counterpart, Pakistani youth activist Malala Yousafzai condemned Burma’s abuse and neglect of the Rohingya, an ethnic minority deprived of basic citizenship rights by the state. “Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment. I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same,” Yousafzai wrote. “The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting.” • Reports emerged from the White House that President Trump is readying to scrap an Obama-era program that gave young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers” temporary guarantees they would not be deported. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program had allowed 800,000 people whose parents, in most cases, came to the United States as undocumented migrants to keep living and working in the United States without fear of deportation. The mooted cancellation of that program stirred outrage and raised the prospect of a new political battle to hit Washington. My colleague David Nakamura has more: “Moderate congressional Republicans, and even some conservatives, suggested that they are open to crafting a legislative deal that could offer permanent legal status to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have been in the country illegally since they were children. Democrats lambasted Trump for his expected decision and called on the GOP to join them to protect the dreamers… Yet the odds that a sharply polarized Congress could strike a deal — steep in the best of times — are considered especially difficult at a time when lawmakers face a busy fall agenda. Congress is under pressure to raise the federal debt limit, pass a spending bill and approve a defense authorization bill, at a time when Republicans also hope to consider a tax plan and potentially try once again to repeal the Affordable Care Act.” • Ahead of Germany’s federal elections later this month, the main party leaders faced off in televised debates on Sunday and Monday. The two heavyweights, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her social-democrat rival Martin Schulz, sparred on Sunday in a duel that “at times resembled a duet,” as my colleague Griff Witte put it. The next day saw leaders of five smaller parties go at it in a more chaotic encounter. In the Merkel-Schulz debate, both politicians spoke out against demagogues elsewhere, including Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but refrained from vicious blows against each other. “On issue after issue — including refugees, the economy and, of course, President Trump — the pair expressed occasional mild disagreement but largely refrained from serious attacks,” reported Witte. |
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A truck drives between shipping containers at a container terminal in Incheon, South Korea, in 2016. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters) Another one bites the dust? For months, President Trump has suggested he’d like to renegotiate — or outright cancel — the U.S.-South Korea free trade deal. Now, my colleagues report, he’s instructed his team to draw up a plan for withdrawal. Although Trump’s associates say he hasn’t made up his mind, they say the decision could come as early as this week. The trade agreement, signed in 2007, slashed tariffs on 95 percent of goods and strengthened intellectual-property protections. It was celebratedas an “integral part” of the effort to boost opportunities for U.S. businesses and farmers. The U.S. International Trade Commission estimated that exports to South Korea would grow by $10 billion. The head of a U.S. manufacturing lobby said it would produce “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Except it didn’t quite work. Since the arrangement went into effect in 2012, the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea, America’s sixth-largest goods trading partner last year, has more than doubled. U.S. exports to South Korea fell by $3 billion between 2011 and 2016. “As tariffs fell, American carmakers griped that South Korean regulators were erecting other barriers,” the Economist explained. “The South Korean government was accused of devaluing its currency for competitive advantage.” On its face, that looks pretty bad. But experts say the deal isn’t primarily to blame for the deficit. The U.S.-South Korea deal came into effect as trade was slowing around the world. “Without the deal, which slashed tariffs, American goods exports would have been even lower,” the Economist wrote. And some U.S. industries have benefited tremendously. Beef exports to South Korea, for example, rose 152 percent between 2011 and 2017. U.S. service industries have done well, and Korean companies have invested $23 billion in the United States. That’s more than in the previous 30 years, according to Business Insider. Experts say that withdrawing completely would lead to big increases on the tariffs levied against products the United States imports from South Korea. That would mean all kinds of everyday goods, from televisions to cellphones and automobiles, would get more expensive. South Korea would probably raise tariffs against U.S. products too, including agricultural products. It would create diplomatic headaches too, isolating South Korea as tension with North Korea roils. Canceling the trade deal is “likely to strain diplomatic relationships,” Honglin Jian, a research analyst at Credit Suisse, wrote in a note. — Amanda Erickson
Journalists watch a televised debate between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz, leader of Germany’s SPD party, in Berlin on Sept. 3. (John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) The big news The German election is now in full swing, or something like it. The big debate on Sunday night between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz, her challenger from the Social Democrats seemed to do little to change the race or threaten Merkel’s dominant position. With Merkel seemingly on track to comfortably win a fourth term later this month — her party is polling around 40 percent, far more than any of its rivals — The Post‘s Berlin-based writer Rick Noack is asking Germans to weigh in on the election, the big issues at stake and whether or not the vote even matters to them given the almost-certain outcome. Here’s how to participate or follow along with his coverage: What is this project? As Germany prepares to head to the polls, Noack will give readers in Germany and elsewhere the opportunity to follow personal updates from the ground in Berlin via messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Over the next three weeks, he’ll use those services to broadcast daily updates and occasional polls, while also replying to responses from readers. How it works Using WhatsBroadcast as our service provider, subscribers can select exactly where they want to receive updates. Updates are available in both German and English on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram. The broadcast list launched on Sept. 4 and runs through election night. Subscribers will be given a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to build a story from scratch at The Washington Post. We will also kick-start discussions around the election and hope to highlight some of them in future coverage. How can I subscribe? You can subscribe to receive updates directly to your smartphone here. If you want to subscribe via WhatsApp, simply add the number shown here as a contact in your phone and send the word “start” to activate the messages. To subscribe via Telegram, please search for our contact called “WashingtonPostGermanElection_bot” in the app, and text “start” in order to receive updates. If you prefer to subscribe to updates via Facebook Messenger, please send the word “start” to our Facebook page washingtonpostworld. |
As the Trump administration searches for a response to North Korea’s continuing tests, Foreign Policy warns that Pyongyang is trying to drive wedges between Washington and its allies in Asia, while The Post explains why it’s vital to keep America’s ties with South Korea healthy and close. In Germany, a psychologist tells Der Spiegel that the emotions of German voters are running high beneath the placid surface of the election. And in Bangladesh, a local paper urges Bangladeshis to welcome the Rohingya Muslims being forced into their country by persecution in Burma.
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The U.S. has the worst income inequality in the developed world, and the gap may be greater now than during any other era. The New York Times explores the problem by contrasting the career trajectories of two janitors. In other news, BuzzFeed explains how a teenaged Internet troll who came to the U.S. expecting freedom from persecution ended up grounded in a detention center, while The Post finds out whether or not it’s fair to call one band’s die-hard legion of fans criminals.
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American football is back for a new season, but the biggest touchdown of the weekend took place in Kazakhstan. A Soyuz capsule returned to earth
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