A firefighter is seen near flames from a forest fire in Cabanoes, near Lousa, Portugal, October 16, 2017. REUTERS/Pedro Nunes

 

Washington

 

Like the deal-maker he says he is, U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be keeping his options open as his Republican Party threatens to erupt into full-scale war. Former strategist SteveBannon, who helped mastermind Trump’s election campaign but left the White House in August, appeared at a gathering of conservative activists and declared: “Right now, it’s a season of war against a GOP establishment.” 

 

Trump declared Obamacare “dead” and “gone,” but urged Republicans and Democrats in Congress to craft a short-term fix of healthcare markets under the 7-year-old law that critics say he has effectively sabotaged. 

 

Senate Republicans gained crucial support for a vote on a budget resolution that is vital to Trump’s hopes of signing sweeping tax reform legislation into law before January.

 

A judge questioned attorneys defending the Trump administration about a classified report the government is using to justify its latest ban on citizens of some countries from entering the United States. 

 

Reuters TV: Trump and McConnell try to bury their feud.

 

Business

 

World equity markets held close to all-time highs, as investors latched on to rising bets on higher borrowing costs in the U.S. and Britain. 

 

Airbus has agreed to buy a majority stake in Bombardier CSeries jetliner program, giving a powerful boost to the Canadian plane and train maker in its costly trade dispute with Boeing. The deal, which would come at no cost for Europe’s largest aerospace group, would give Airbus a 50.01 percent interest in CSeries Aircraft Limited Partnership, which manufactures and sells the jets, the companies said. 

 

Trade ministers from the United States, Canada and Mexico wrap up a contentious round of NAFTA trade talks marked by aggressive U.S. demands that have left the future of the 23-year-old free trade pact in doubt. The proposals to drastically reshape the North American Free Trade Agreement to help shrink U.S. trade deficits have cast a pall over the modernization talks, leaving some participants and analysts wondering how the NAFTA partners can avoid an impasse.

 

Netflix added more subscribers than expected around the world in the third quarter and projected growth in line with Wall Street forecasts, saying it had a head start on rivals as internet television explodes globally.

 

Embattled Kobe Steel said the U.S. Justice Department is asking the steelmaker to provide documents related to its data falsification scandal. That came after a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that data tampering on products went on for more than a decade, deepening the crisis that has sliced off about $1.6 billion off its market value in just over a week. 

 

World

 

Iraqi forces completed an operation to take control of all oil fields operated by state-owned North Oil Company in the Kirkuk region, a senior military officer said. 

 

U.S.-backed militias have completely taken Syria’s Raqqa from Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The fall of Raqqa city, where Islamic State staged euphoric parades after its string of lightning victories in 2014, is a potent symbol of the jihadist movement’s collapsing fortunes. 

 

Hate crimes in Britain surged by the highest amount on record last year, official figures showed, with the vote to leave the European Union a significant factor.

 

The sun is seen after the Met Office reported that storm Ophelia has drawn dust north from the Sahara, near Exeter, Britain, October 16, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville

 

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared the southern city of Marawi liberated from pro-Islamic State militants, although the military said 20-30 rebels were holding about 20 hostages and still fighting it out. 

 

Taliban suicide car bombers and gunmen attacked a provincial Afghan police headquarters, killing at least 33 people, including the police chief, and wounding 160, in the deadliest of a series of attacks across the country, officials and militants said. 

 

The son of Malta’s best-known investigative journalist said his mother was killed by a car bomb because of her work exposing political corruption. Daphne Caruana Galizia, who wrote about graft across Malta’s political divides on her blog, was murdered on Monday soon after she left her home in the north of the island.

 

China

 

China’s official Xinhua news agency attacked Western democracy as divisive and confrontational, praising on the eve of a key Communist Party Congress the harmony and cooperative nature of the Chinese system. 

 

Nothing will concentrate the minds of North Korean leaders more than a Chinese oil embargo. Nearly 90 percent of the country’s petroleum comes across the border, giving Beijing enormous  leverage. Read more with Breakingviews.

 

North Korea

 

The United States is not ruling out the eventual possibility of direct talks with North Korea, Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan said, hours after Pyongyang warned nuclear war might break out at any moment. 

 

North Korea warned countries at the United Nations in a statement: don’t join the United States in military action against the Asian state and you will be safe from retaliation.

 

Cyber-security firm BAE Systems said it believes the North Korean Lazarus hacking group is likely responsible for a recent cyber heist in Taiwan, the latest in a string of hacks targeting the global SWIFT messaging system. 

 

Cyber

 

Microsoft’s secret internal database for tracking bugs in its own software was broken into by a highly sophisticated hacking group more than four years ago, according to five former employees, in only the second known breach of such a corporate database. 

 

Commentary: China’s ‘Big Brother’ tech gives surveillance new reach

 

China’s President Xi Jinping and those around him are using technological breakthroughs to cement their power and increase mass surveillance of their citizens, writes columnist Peter Apps. Chinese researchers have developed programs that can identify people simply by their walking styles; CCTV feeds are often broadcast live online and authorities are developing a data-gathering plan to allocate a "social credit score" designed to predict who might be a disruptive influence. "This push for loyalty will form a quiet backdrop to proceedings at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party in Beijing this week," says Apps.