Politico: Republicans gobsmacked by Trump’s tariffs

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) called it “bad news” and predicted imminent retaliation from the key U.S. allies. Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said there is "mounting evidence that these tariffs will harm Americans." And Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) warned that similar policies 90 years ago sparked the Great Depression.

“This is dumb. Europe, Canada, and Mexico are not China, and you don’t treat allies the same way you treat opponents,” Sasse said. “‘Make America Great Again’ shouldn’t mean ‘Make America 1929 Again.'"

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker called the move an “abuse of authority only intended for national security purposes.” [...]

Indeed, trade is the area where Republicans have grown most uncomfortable with the president. They generally tolerate his over-the-top Twitter account and have grown accustomed to his coarse rhetoric, in part because he has enacted and supported many of the center-right policies that the GOP has pursued for years, such as confirming conservative judges and cutting taxes.

Republicans worry that Trump’s protectionist trade policies could undermine all that and threaten a healthy economy before the midterm elections. Yet House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have shown no interest in passing legislation to block Trump’s tariffs or require congressional approval, a move that would essentially bring Capitol Hill to a standstill.

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Haaretz: Return of Mussolini: Will Italy's Powerful Anti-immigrant Populists Really March on Rome?

Under Italy's constitution, the president serves as an arbiter above the political fray, and he is in charge of choosing government ministers in consultation with the prime minister-designate. Past presidents have vetoed multiple names for top cabinet posts, and each time the leading coalition submitted a different, more acceptable, candidate and went on its merry way to form a government. [...]

The firebrand populist demanded that the president immediately dissolve parliament and call new elections, "otherwise, we'll see you all in Rome," a not-too-veiled reference to the 1922 March on Rome that brought Benito Mussolini to power. [...]

The deal was based on an improbable mix of ultra-liberalist policies – such as introducing a flat tax rate – and socially-minded moves such as reducing the retirement age and granting citizen stipends. How the coalition could have fulfilled such costly, crowd-pleasing promises without further inflating Italy's enormous public debt (now at 132 percent of GDP) remains a mystery.

But that is beside the point, because this unprecedented yellow-green alliance (named after the colors of the 5 Stars and League) was not really planning to govern. There are still vast differences and strong rivalries between the nationalist, xenophobic League and the social-media-addicted conspiracy theorists of the 5 Stars, and their pact, backed by a slim parliamentary majority, was unlikely to last long. 

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Haaretz: How the Saudi-led Blockade of Qatar Actually Made the Tiny Emirate Stronger

As the crisis continued fears of a Saudi-led military incursion into Qatar grew - although with the U.S.’s largest military base in the Middle East located in the country that seemed unlikely. Doha turned for support to Turkey, which deployed troops to Qatar and, along with Iran, sent food and supplies. In the following months there were regular complaints of Qatari and UAE jet interceptions, reports of a missing Sheikh and even a Saudi plan to turn Qatar into an island - cutting the peninsula off with a maritime-canal, turning the border area into a military zone and nuclear waste site.

In the initial weeks after the blockade was announced, Qatar’s imports dropped nearly 40 percent from the same time a year earlier.  Today those numbers have returned to normal as Doha, the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas, responded by developing new trade routes, propping up its banks with state money and helping local firms develop domestic output of some goods - including food. Qatar has also begun to develop the world’s largest LNG field that it shares with Iran in the Persian Gulf. [...]

Human Rights Watch has praised Qatar in its World Report 2018 - entitled, “Qatar: Year of Crisis Spurred Rights Reforms.” The report credits Qatar for a range of significant human rights reforms during 2017 that if fully implemented “would usher in some of the most progressive human rights standards in the gulf region.” [...]

Qatar is one of the most heavily invested countries in the world. For such a small country, it wields an oversized influence on global politics largely because it has invested hundreds of billions of its energy wealth, through its national wealth fund, in companies and property (there is a “Qatari quarter” in London) overseas - although it is nowhere in the ballpark of countries like China or Norway.

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BBC4 Analysis: #metoo, moi non plus

Do French women really think differently about sexual harassment - and if so, does feminism have national borders?

Catherine Deneuve was one of 100 prominent women who signed an open letter to Le Monde critiquing the #metoo movement.

"We believe that the freedom to say yes to a sexual proposition cannot exist without the freedom to pester," they wrote.

Have the French mastered a more sophisticated approach to relations between men and women, based around seduction - or is this a myth that sustains male power?

Parisian journalist Catherine Guilyardi investigates.

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The Guardian: Gay, black and HIV positive: America's hidden epidemic

If you are a black, gay man in America, your risk of contracting HIV is one in two. Leah Green travels to Atlanta, Georgia, which has the largest gay and black community in the country. She finds out how stigma, education and structural racism continue to feed into this startling statistic.