The House Judiciary Committee said Tuesday it was preparing subpoenas of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former attorney general Jeff Sessions as it probes Trump’s alleged obstruction of the Russia investigation.

The Democrat-led committee said it intends to authorize subpoenas of up to 12 current and former administration officials if they don’t readily agree to testify in its investigation.

The officials also include former national security advisor Mike Flynn, former White House chief of staff John Kelly, former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, and former White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn.

Committee chairman Jerry Nadler said they wanted to question the individuals on Trump’s actions to interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian election meddling investigation, as well as about the administration’s policy of separating families who arrive in the country as undocumented immigrants.

The committee wants to question them “as part of our ongoing investigation into obstruction, corruption and abuse of power by the president and his associates,” Nadler said in a statement.

The committee recently interviewed two top sources for Mueller’s investigation, former senior White House officials Hope Hicks and Annie Donaldson.

Both provided Mueller significant information supporting his depiction of a number of alleged acts of obstruction by Trump.

But in closed-door interviews with the committee, both refused to answer numerous questions on the same subject, saying the White House had directed them not to reply based on a claim of Executive Branch “confidentiality interests.”

…

Uma Valeti slices into a pan-fried chicken cutlet in the kitchen of his startup, Memphis Meats. He sniffs the tender morsel on his fork before taking a bite. He chews slowly, absorbing the taste.

“Our chicken is chicken … you’ve got to taste it to believe it,” Valeti says.

This is no ordinary piece of poultry. No chicken was raised or slaughtered to harvest the meat. It was produced in a laboratory by extracting cells from a chicken and feeding them in a nutrient broth until the cell culture grew into raw meat.

Memphis Meats, based in Emeryville, California, is one of a growing number of startups worldwide that are making cell-based or cultured meat. They want to offer an alternative to traditional meat production that they say is damaging the environment and causing unnecessary harm to animals, but they are far from becoming mainstream and face pushback from livestock producers.

“You are ultimately going to continue the choice of eating meat for many generations to come without putting undue stress on the planet,” said Valeti, a former cardiologist who co-founded Memphis Meats in 2015 after seeing the power of stem cells to treat disease.

The company, which also has produced cell-grown beef and duck, has attracted investments from food giants Cargill and Tyson Foods as well as billionaires Richard Branson and Bill Gates.

A report released in June by consulting firm A.T. Kearney predicts that by 2040, cultured meat will make up 35 percent of meat consumed worldwide, while plant-based alternatives will compose 25 percent.

“The large-scale livestock industry is viewed by many as an unnecessary evil,” the report says. “With the advantages of novel vegan meat replacements and cultured meat over conventionally produced meat, it is only a matter of time before meat replacements capture a substantial market share.”

But first cultured meat must overcome significant challenges, including bringing down the exorbitant cost of production, showing regulators it’s safe and enticing consumers to take a bite.

“We’re a long way off from becoming a commercial reality because there are many hurdles we have to tackle,” said Ricardo San Martin, research director of the alternative meat program at the University of California, Berkeley. “We don’t know if consumers are going to buy this or not.”

As global demand for meat grows, supporters say cell-based protein is more sustainable than traditional meat because it doesn’t require the land, water and crops needed to raise livestock — a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Many consumers would love to eat meat that doesn’t require killing animals, said Brian Spears, who founded a San Francisco startup called New Age Meats that served its cell-based pork sausages to curious foodies at a tasting last September.

“People want meat. They don’t want slaughter,” Spears said. “So we make slaughter-free meat, and we know there’s a massive market for people that want delicious meat that doesn’t require animal slaughter.”

Finless Foods, another startup in Emeryville, is making cultured fish and seafood. It’s produced cell-based versions of salmon, carp and sea bass, and it’s working on bluefin tuna, a popular species that is overfished and contains high levels of mercury. The company has invited guests to sample its cell-based fish cakes.

“The ocean is a very fragile ecosystem, and we are really driving it to the brink of collapse,” CEO Michael Selden said. “By moving human consumption of seafood out of the ocean and onto land and creating it in this cleaner way, we can basically do something that’s better for everybody.”

The emerging industry moved a step closer to market in March when the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration announced plans to jointly oversee the production and labeling of cell-based meat.

Food-safety advocates will be watching to ensure the agencies provide rigorous oversight and protect people from bacterial contamination and other health threats, said Jaydee Hanson, policy director at the nonprofit Center for Food Safety.

“It will be important for the public that this be well regulated,” Hanson said. “Do these really solve the environmental problem? Do they really solve the animal welfare problem? That needs to be part of the review as well.”

If cultured-meat companies use genetically modified cells, they would face even greater scrutiny from consumers and government regulators, Hanson said.

Cell-based meat companies also face resistance from U.S. livestock producers, who have been lobbying states to restrict the “meat” label to food products derived from slaughtered animals and have been raising questions about the safety, cost and environmental effect of cultured meat.

“There’s still many, many unknowns about these cell-based products,” said Eric Mittenthal, vice president for sustainability at the North American Meat Institute. “We really don’t know if it’s something consumers will accept from a taste perspective. We don’t know if it’s going to be affordable.”

Uma Valeti at Memphis Meats said he wants to help educate people about the benefits of cell-based meats and eventually open up its production facility to show people how its meat is made.

The company is focused on reducing the cost of cultured meat and producing larger quantities. A plate of chicken that used to cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce can now be made for less than $100, Valeti said.

Memphis Meats hopes to sell its cell-based meat within the next two years, starting with restaurants, then moving into grocery stores, assuming it passes USDA and FDA inspections.

“We’re actually preserving the choice of eating meat for people,” Valeti said. “Instead of saying, ‘Give up eating meat or eat a meat alternative,’ we’re saying continue eating the meat that you love.”

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Uber is already known for its global ride-hailing service, food delivery arm, and electric bike rentals. Now it has inspired a comedy action movie.

“Stuber,” which begins its international roll-out on Wednesday, revolves around a mild-mannered Uber driver who picks up a Los Angeles detective who turns out to be on the trail of a brutal killer.

Wild ride for driver

Desperate to increase his Uber ratings, driver Stu is drawn into a wild ride involving shootouts, chases, strip clubs and crime bosses.

Director Michael Dowse said Uber Technologies neither sponsored the film and was not involved in any way with making the movie.

“There’s no sponsorship. We never reached out to them for permission or anything like that,” Dowse told Reuters Television.

“We vetted it all legally and stuff and the opinion was that because everyone uses it so much, it’s fair game. As long as you’re not derogatory about it and as long as you use it as it’s used in real life and you’re not making stuff up about how it’s used, you’re free to go. And it’s a better title than ‘Stiffed’,” he said.

Former wrestler plays cop

Former wrestler Dave Bautista plays police officer Vic, who needs a driver to get around Los Angeles after undergoing eye surgery.

Kumail Nanjiani plays Stu, who also works a day job and drives for Uber to supplement his income — hence earning him the nickname Stuber.

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Growing numbers of young people whizzing around Europe’s big cities on electric scooters may represent a nightmare for some pedestrians and motorists, but for Swedish sharing startup VOI they offer a path to positive cashflow.

VOI cofounder and chief executive Fredrik Hjelm said safety was an important consideration and VOI had drawn up a code of conduct with the authorities in Stockholm for all operators after a fatal accident involving an e-scooter.

“Accidents are always very tragic and sad but since we’re in transportation, unfortunately there’s always a risk of accident. We can do everything we can on product operations and education but ultimately we’re in the hands of the users,” he added.

Critics have also said VOI and other operators could face the fate of Asian bike operators GoBee and Mobike, which crashed out of Europe due to price wars, vandalism and regulation.

Hjelm said the sector had learnt from past mistakes, with VOI upgrading to a model with longer-range swappable batteries to eliminate transport costs and increase product life.

European startups VOI, Dott and Tier and U.S. rivals Bird and Lime have already put thousands of e-scooters on the roads of European cities, betting commuters will take to the two-wheelers in a region where far fewer own cars than in the United States.

In France, e-scooters have been banned from sidewalks and in Britain they are not permitted on roads or pavements.

Hjelm said that VOI is already making a profit in several cities, including its hometown Stockholm, where its e-scooters accounts for about 70% to 80% of those on the roads.

“Our estimate is for VOI to be cashflow positive around late next year, but within three years for sure,” Hjelm told Reuters in an interview at VOI’s headquarters.

“Price wars never end well for anyone. So what you see now in the market is the more experienced players like VOI and Lime have rather been able to increase our average price point,” Hjelm said.

Open to tie-ups

High-profile investors including Google, Uber and Volkswagen are increasingly getting into scooters as new modes of transport emerge from developments in electric and driverless vehicles.

Hjelm expects the number of players to narrow within a year and said that VOI was open to discussing tie-ups.

“Automotive companies understand their business model is threatened. This ‘sell one car to one customer’ won’t work in the future because it’s not sustainable from an environmental point of view and not what the consumers want anymore,” he said.

“We’re in quite a stable financial position right now but we’re also always out in the market talking to potential partners and investors,” he added.

VOI, which has raised slightly more than $80 million, already operates in 25 cities including Paris and Berlin and said on Monday it had reached 5 million rides since launching in September.

Hjelm, who launched VOI as a solution to address congestion, pollution and the difficulty getting around that he experienced when working in Moscow, said VOI would be in 50 to 60 cities by year end, with a focus on Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Micromobility growth

Barclays estimates that micromobility — transport using electric-powered one-person vehicles like e-scooters and e-bikes — could make up $800 billion in revenues by mid-2020s and total 1 trillion personal miles, or 4% of global transport.

Most of the e-scooter growth has been driven by 20- and 30-year-olds willing to pay for convenience, driving the growth of companies like ride-hailing service Uber and food courier service Deliveroo.

Hjelm said VOI was introducing cargo bikes, which would allow children or groceries to be transported, and e-bikes and was exploring adding e-mopeds and electric or transit pods.

“VOI should become partner to cities that are restricting cars and want to transform urban transportation. E-scooters are part of the solution with e-bikes, mopeds etc in conjunction with public transportation,” he said.
 

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The backstage of the Grand Ole Opry, a radio staple since 1925, is a place where you might run into your favorite country star, drop a letter in a singer’s mailbox or take a peek inside a dressing room where an impromptu jam session is happening. 

Every year, 1 million people come to the Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee, to see a performance, or event, or take one of the backstage tours that allow fans to see behind the red curtain on the “show that made country music famous.” 

And a new feature this year on those tours is an immersive film that explains the history of the unique institution while showing video clips of over 100 different artists on stage. The 14-minute film is hosted by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood and is projected onto three screens inside the new Circle Room, which is the first stop for fans on the Opry’s daily tours. 

Country singer Jeannie Seeley is coming up on her 52nd year as a member of the Grand Ole Opry, one of only three living female artists who have been members longer than 50 years. The singer who had a hit with “Don’t Touch Me” in 1966, has seen the radio program, the Opry House and its tours transform and be updated over the years. 

“It is so alive. It is so realistic,” said Seeley of the new film. “I think the pacing they did creates that excitement.”

The film is projected onto thousands of reflective threads that make up the screens, and the movement of the threads, as well as the curve of the screen creates a sense of dimension. Brooks and Yearwood seem almost like they are standing on a replica of the circle of wood that artists stand in on the real Opry stage. 

“It struck me how difficult it is to represent so many eras and so many people and cover 94 years,” Seeley said. “It struck me how well they did that.”

The film features archival footage of iconic stars from Roy Acuff, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash and Reba McEntire, and clips of artists like Carrie Underwood and Darius Rucker being surprised with an invitation to become Opry members. The daytime tour also features a guided tour throughout the venue, including Studio A where “Hee Haw” was filmed, the dressing rooms and the stage. 

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Uruguay’s government says a court in Italy has sentenced 24 people to life in prison for their involvement in human rights crimes committed during the “Operation Condor” offensive by South American governments to hunt down dissidents within the region and beyond.
 
South American dictators set up Operation Condor in the 1970s as a coordinated effort to track down their opponents across borders and eliminate them.
 
An appeals court in Rome ruled Monday against members of the military, police and others who once formed part of the former dictatorships of Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. Some of the convicted were Italian citizens.
 
The case was initiated 20 years ago by families of the victims.
 
The sentences were confirmed by Uruguayan Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa.

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The U.S. State Department has approved the possible sale to Taiwan of M1A2T Abrams tanks, Stinger missiles and related equipment at an estimated value of $2.2 billion, the Pentagon said on Monday, despite Chinese criticism of the deal.

China’s Foreign Ministry said last month when the possible sale was first reported that it was seriously concerned about U.S. arms sales to self-ruled Taiwan, and it urged the United States to halt the sales to avoid harming bilateral ties.

The sale of the weapons requested by Taiwan, including 108 General Dynamics Corp M1A2T Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles, would not alter the basic military balance in the region, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.

DSCA notified Congress on Monday of the possible arms sale, which it said could also include mounted machine guns, ammunition, Hercules armored vehicles for recovering inoperative tanks, heavy equipment transporters and related support.

Reuters reported last month that an informal notification of the proposed sale had been sent to the U.S. Congress.

The United States is the main arms supplier to Taiwan, which China deems a renegade province. Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in March that Washington was responding positively to Taipei’s requests for new arms sales to bolster its defenses in the face of pressure from China. The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide it with the means to defend itself.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry confirmed it had requested those weapons and that the request was proceeding normally. 

The U.S. commitment to providing Taiwan with the weapons to defend itself helps Taipei’s military raise its combat abilities, consolidates the Taiwan-U.S. security partnership and ensures Taiwan’s security, the ministry said last month in a statement.

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The first Democratic presidential debate for the 2020 elections brought a decades-old civil rights issue back into the public spotlight: whether to bus children to racially integrate schools.

One of the most defining moments of the debate came when U.S. Senator Kamala Harris challenged former Vice President Joe Biden’s record for not supporting the type of busing that she experienced as a black schoolgirl in California.

The exchange garnered headlines and brought the topic of busing, which had been a national issue in the 1970s but had largely fallen out of the public conversation, back into the spotlight.

What is busing?

Busing was a tool that many U.S. communities used to overcome racial segregation in public schools.

Following the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, legal racial segregation in schools was outlawed across the United States. However, because of demographic trends and housing policies, many U.S. neighborhoods remained segregated, and as a result schools were effectively segregated because students attended schools in neighborhoods where they lived. 

In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, courts ruled that local jurisdictions were not doing enough to promote desegregation in schools and began mandating busing to address the problem. Federal agencies oversaw and enforced busing efforts, including collecting data about the race of students and withholding money from noncompliant schools.

Who was bused?

Both black students took buses to majority-white schools and white students to majority-black schools in court-ordered busing.

However, Brett Gadsden, the author of a book about desegregation efforts in Delaware, “Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism,” said, “African American students disproportionally shouldered the burden” of efforts to desegregate schools.

Gadsden, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, said black students were forced to travel longer distances and for many more years than white students.

Why was it controversial?

Busing proved to be intensely controversial nationwide. Supporters argued busing was necessary to integrate schools and to give black and white students equal access to resources and opportunities.

Critics argued that busing was dangerous and costly, and many parents did not want their children to have to travel great distances to get to school. 

While much of the opposition to busing came from whites, the black community was also divided about its merits. 

Gadsden said black critics cited the burden their children had to shoulder in terms of distance traveled and time spent on buses. They also complained that historically black schools were closed, and black administrators and teachers lost their jobs as a result of busing policies, while similar demands were not made of white schools, Gadsden said. 

In Boston, anti-busing protests turned violent in 1974, with demonstrators throwing bricks and bottles at school buses.

Political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said in a Twitter post following the Democratic debate that busing was so unpopular in the 1970s that Democrats running for office often had a choice to “be a profile in courage and lose, or oppose busing in whole or in part & win to fight another day on stronger ground.”

Biden’s stance

During the 1970s when Biden was a freshman U.S. senator representing Delaware, he worked with conservative senators to oppose federally mandated busing. 

In a 1975 interview with a Delaware newspaper that was first resurfaced by The Washington Post, Biden said, “I do not buy the concept, popular in the ’60s, which said, ‘We have suppressed the black man for 300 years and the white man is now far ahead in the race for everything our society offers. In order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race.’”

During the Democratic debate, Biden defended his position against mandated busing in the 1970s, arguing that he did not oppose voluntary busing by communities, only federal mandates. “I did not oppose busing in America; what I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education,” he said.

Harris responded by saying the federal government needed to be able to step in and mandate busing in some areas because “there was a failure of states to integrate public schools in America.”

Schools today

While some communities still champion voluntary busing measures, most busing efforts ended by the turn of the century. Local and national court rulings in the 1990s said many communities had succeeded in improving the integration of their schools and allowed busing programs to end. 

The Civil Rights Project at UCLA said in a May report  to mark the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation in schools is again on the rise and has been growing “unchecked” for nearly three decades, “placing the promise of Brown at grave risk.”

The report said white students, on average, attend a school in which 69% of the students are white, Latino students attend schools in which 55% of the students are Latino, and black students attend schools with a combined black and Latino enrollment averaging 67%. 

Gadsden agreed there is “a lot of segregation in schools now” but said there is little political will to go back to the era of busing. “Federal courts now are not particularly sympathetic to challenges to school segregation,” he said, also noting there is no great appetite in the U.S. Congress to introduce measures to advance school desegregation.  

After the debate, Harris told reporters that “busing is a tool among many that should be considered.” however, when pressed on whether she supported federally mandated busing today, she said she would not unless society became as opposed to integration as it was in the 1970s.

Some critics say Harris’ position on busing today is not that much different from Biden’s.

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When people are recovering from an illness or injury, they often don’t think of nutrition, but it may be key to getting their health back.

When Monika McComb returned home from the hospital, she didn’t think about nutrition as being essential for a full recovery.   

“I was really, really weak. I could hardly even walk with a cane,” McComb said. 

McComb didn’t associate her weakness with malnutrition until she was evaluated; but, researchers from Advocate Health Care and Abbott were conducting a study to evaluate the role nutrition plays in reducing hospital admissions. 

Suela Sulo, a researcher from Abbott, says malnutrition is rarely taken into account in dealing with patients who are in recovery.

“Malnutrition is invisible to the eye, and therefore it remains under diagnosed and underrated,” Sulo said. 

McComb enrolled in a home health care program and was given a detailed nutrition plan. 

Most Americans have access to food, but one in three patients in home health care is malnourished or has some nutritional deficiency that puts his or her health — and recovery  — at risk. Katie Riley is the chief nursing officer with Advocate Aurora Health.

“Nutrition is not the primary reason why patients usually come to home health; however, it is important for us to pay attention to the nutrition to promote their strength and get them recovered quicker,” Riley said.

Abbot funded a study in partnership with Advocate Health Care to find a way to reduce hospitalizations, cut medical costs and promote patients’ health. 

Suela Sulo said the researchers found that when patients on home health care received education about nutrition along with nutritional drinks, they were nearly 20 percent less likely to be hospitalized or re-hospitalized in the 90 days after an injury or illness. 

“Through identifying the patients with malnutrition risk, feeding them with the right nutritional drinks, you are increasing their chances of recovering faster, not going back to the hospital, or not going to the hospital in the first place.”

One of the study’s goals was to create a program that patients could follow on their own, one reason they were educated about nutrition. Gretchen VanDerBosch says anyone can become malnourished and not realize it. She says educating patients about nutrition is so important.   

“Because they’re educated, they actually continue their supplements and start it back up, and their outcome is so much improved, they have more strength, they heal quicker, have fewer falls, they have less readmissions,” VanDerBosch said. 

The researchers say they hope other health care programs and hospitals can use the study to help other patients as well. 

As for Monika McComb, she says she feels stronger and has more energy than she had at the start of the program. She credits support from the home health nurse and the focus on nutrition for her improved health.

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Iraq’s security and paramilitary forces began Sunday a military operation along the border with Syria aimed at clearing the area of Islamic State group militants, the military said in a statement.

Although Iraq declared victory against IS in July 2017, the extremists have turned into an insurgency and have carried out deadly attacks in the country.

The military said the operation that began at sunrise was being carried out by Iraqi troops and members of the Popular Mobilization Forces that largely consist of Iran-backed militias.

It said the operation will last several days and was the first phase of the Will of Victory Operation securing the western province of Anbar and the central and northern regions of Salahuddin and Nineveh.

“We press on the hands of our heroic forces that will achieve victory with the will of its heroes against the gangs of Daesh,” said Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi using an Arabic acronym to refer to IS. “May God protect you and make you victorious.”

IS once held large parts of Syria and Iraq where it declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremists lost in March the last territory they controlled in Syria.

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She vowed to stay out of politics and even dropped the French far right’s signature name – Le Pen – from her moniker. But Marion Marechal, a former star lawmaker who’s still only in her 20s, is now tip-toeing back into the political arena, and is already causing trouble.

Widely seen as a potential party leader, the 29-year-old’s discreet meetings in recent days to build bridges with enemy conservatives, crippled by their crushing defeat in European Parliament elections, are further unsettling the mainstream right.

The forays into forbidden territory by the woman once voted the most popular in the far-right National Rally party (formerly the National Front) led by her aunt, Marine Le Pen, have also raised questions about Marechal’s political intentions – and whether a new war within the Le Pen clan is afoot.

Marechal is the darling of her controversial grandfather, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a National Front co-founder expelled by daughter Marine for repeating anti-Semitic remarks that got him convicted. Marechal is more conservative than her aunt. Addressing a major forum for American conservatives last year, she decried the European Union and said France is becoming “the little niece of Islam.”

To Jean-Marie’s disappointment, Marion dropped out of politics two years ago, refusing to seek a new mandate as a National Rally lawmaker to found a private school in Lyon seen as a training ground for far-right leaders.

She denies speculation she is making an end-run around Aunt Marine for a comeback. Nevertheless, the noise created after at least two below-the-radar meetings became known underscores Marechal’s potentially pivotal role in the power politics of the French right.

A dinner in late June between Marechal and more than a dozen officials and lawmakers of The Republicans, or LR, caused a firestorm within the main conservative party. The conservative mainstream has long been extremely wary of liaisons with France’s far right, but the meeting suggested that some conservatives may believe the only way to survive is by joining forces with the likes of Marechal.

Senate leader Gerard Larcher, of the LR, said those who met at a Paris restaurant with Marechal have placed themselves “outside” the party.

“I have always said there was a firewall between us and the National Rally,” party, he said on LCI TV. “Whether you like it or not, this (dinner) was a breach.” Those who attended risk exclusion from the party, Larcher said, making clear that for him they already had “placed themselves outside the values of our political formation.”

Meanwhile, France’s powerful business lobby Medef invited Marechal to speak about the rise of populism at its annual summer gathering – but then canceled the whole panel after the idea left many aghast.

The National Rally came to the forefront of French politics with its win in the European Parliament elections in May. The party bettered President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and hopes to maintain momentum ahead of municipal elections next year.

In a TV interview in early June, she said she wanted to build a “grand alliance of the right” – though she insisted her intentions were devoid of personal ambition.

She had some stinging words for the National Rally, saying it is “indispensable to political life, but unfortunately it isn’t sufficient.” Defending the nation, and countering Macron’s progressives, needs “other voices from other movements, currents” to create alliances.

Marechal has been regarded as a potential presidential candidate in the 2022 election, or later, raising occasional tensions with her aunt, who was roundly defeated in 2017 by Macron after making it to the runoff. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon praised her as a “rising star” – on a stage he shared with Marine Le Pen at an important National Rally congress.

If Marine Le Pen is wary that her niece is setting the stage for a return to politics, neither she nor her camp is saying so.

Le Pen was politely dismissive of her niece’s initiatives.

“That Marion wants to build bridges with people of the traditional right closer to us than to Emmanuel Macron, so much the better,” she said in an interview with BFMTV this month after her niece’s remarks. As for Marechal’s “regret” about short-comings of the National Rally, Le Pen took a diplomatic dig.

“One should not be pessimistic when one is young,” she said.

…

African leaders met on Sunday to launch a continental free-trade zone that if successful would unite 1.3 billion people, create a $3.4 trillion economic bloc and usher in a new era of development.

After four years of talks, an agreement to form a 55-nation trade bloc was reached in March, paving the way for Sunday’s African Union summit in Niger where attendees will unveil which
nation will host the trade zone’s headquarters, when trading will start and discuss how exactly it will work.

It is hoped that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) — the largest since the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994 — will help unlock Africa’s long-stymied economic potential by boosting intra-regional trade, strengthening supply chains and spreading expertise.

“The eyes of the world are turned to Africa,” Egyptian President and African Union Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said at the summit’s opening ceremony.

AfCFTA “will reinforce our negotiating position on the international stage. It will represent an important step.”

Africa has much catching up to do: its intra-regional trade accounted for just 17% of exports in 2017 versus 59% in Asia and 69% in Europe, and Africa has missed out on the economic booms
that other trade blocs have experienced in recent decades.

Economists say significant challenges remain, including poor road and rail links, large areas of unrest, excessive border bureaucracy and petty corruption that have held back growth and
integration.

Members have committed to eliminate tariffs on most goods, which will increase trade in the region by 15-25% in the medium term, but this would double if these other issues were dealt with, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates.

The IMF in a May report described a free-trade zone as a potential “economic game changer” of the kind that has boosted growth in Europe and North America, but it added a note of caution.

“Reducing tariffs alone is not sufficient,” it said.

Divergent interests

Africa already has an alphabet soup of competing and overlapping trade zones — ECOWAS in the west, EAC in the east, SADC in the south and COMESA in the east and south.

But only the EAC, driven mainly by Kenya, has made significant progress towards a common market in goods and services. These regional economic communities (REC) will continue to trade among themselves as they do now. The role of AfCFTA is to liberalise trade among those member states that are not currently in the same REC, said Trudi Hartzenberg, director at Tralac, a South Africa-based trade law organization.

The zone’s potential clout received a boost on Tuesday when Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, agreed to sign the agreement at the summit. Benin has also since agreed to join.
Fifty-four of the continent’s 55 states have signed up, but only 25 have ratified.

One obstacle in negotiations will be the countries’ conflicting motives.

For undiversified but relatively developed economies like Nigeria, which relies heavily on oil exports, the benefits of membership will likely be smaller than others, said John Ashbourne, senior emerging markets economist at Capital Economics.

Nigerian officials have expressed concern that the country could be flooded with low-priced goods, confounding efforts to encourage moribund local manufacturing and expand farming.

In contrast, South Africa’s manufacturers, which are among the most developed in Africa, could quickly expand outside their usual export markets and into West and North Africa, giving them
an advantage over manufacturers from other countries, Ashbourne said.

The presidents of both countries are attending the summit.

The vast difference in countries’ economic heft is another complicating factor in negotiations. Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa account for over 50% of Africa’s cumulative GDP, while its six sovereign island nations represent about 1%. “It will be important to address those disparities to ensure that special and differential treatments for the least developed countries are adopted and successfully implemented,” said Landry Signe, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Africa Growth Initiative.

Regulations governing rules of origin, removal of non-tariff barriers and the development of a payments and settlements system are expected to be unveiled at the summit.

…