Bedugul Coffee: Wednesday Morning Briefing: America’s unending hostage crisis with Iran

Highlights

For nearly four decades, Iran has imprisoned American citizens and Washington has strived to free them through diplomacy, force or persuasion. Our latest Special Report looks inside America’s unending hostage crisis with Iran and examines the path President Trump is following.

China promised to retaliate if the United States takes further steps hindering trade, as the Trump administration considers slapping a 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Trump defended his trade policies yesterday in a speech in Florida and said American farmers hurt by retaliatory tariffs from China were bearing up, in a sign he is feeling some political heat on the issue.

The political consulting work undertaken by Trump’s former aide Paul Manafort in Ukraine will be under the spotlight today as his criminal trial continues.

The trial is not about tax evasion or money laundering to hide the resources required for the lavish lifestyle to which Manafort became accustomed, writes David Eckels Wade for Reuters Commentary. “This trial is about how Russia moves money and buys influence.”

World

The candidate for Zimbabwe’s main opposition party accused the ruling ZANU-PF of trying to steal a presidential and parliamentary election after official figures gave President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s party a majority in parliament.

Reuters photographer David Gray used drones to capture the worst drought in living memory that is sweeping parts of eastern Australia, leaving farmers struggling to cope and many asking questions about the future.

More than 50 boxes handed over by North Korea to the United States last week appear to hold human remains from the 1950-1953 Korean War and are likely American.

Josh Smith

@joshjonsmith

An initial forensic analysis indicates that the “remains are what North Korea said they were”, an official said. The North Koreans provided enough specifics about where each suspected body was found that U.S. officials have matched them to specific battles fought from 1950-51.

9:17 AM - 1 Aug, 2018

Sponsored by Barclays: Job security in the robot economy. As machine learning and AI become more commercially viable, will humans be replaced in the workplace? We don’t think so. Find out why.