Wednesday Morning Briefing: Abandoned by the UAE, Sudan’s Bashir was destined to fall

Special Report

The downfall of Omar al-Bashir: Reuters interviewed a dozen sources with direct knowledge of events leading up to the coup to piece together how Bashir finally lost his grip on power. They described how Bashir mishandled one key relationship - with the United Arab Emirates who had previously pumped billions of dollars into Sudan’s coffers. But at the end of 2018, as Sudan’s economy imploded and protesters took to the streets, Bashir found himself without this powerful, and wealthy, friend.

Highlights

China denounced British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt as “shameless”, saying it had made a diplomatic complaint to London after he warned of consequences if China neglected commitments made when it took back Hong Kong in 1997. Boris Johnson, who could be Britain’s prime minister by the end of the month, said he backed the people of Hong Kong every inch of the way and cautioned China that the “one country, two systems” should not be cast aside. The chaotic scenes of protesters rampaging through Hong Kong’s legislature, trashing furniture and daubing graffiti over walls have sent jitters through the business community, which worries about the impact on the city’s status as a financial hub.

The United States and Germany slammed China during a closed-door United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday for detaining more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims, accusing Beijing of depriving them of their rights, diplomats said. China has been widely condemned for setting up detention complexes in remote Xinjiang. It describes them as “education training centers” helping to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.

Iran will boost its uranium enrichment after July 7 to whatever levels it needs beyond the cap set in the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, President Hassan Rouhani said, defying U.S. efforts to force Tehran to renegotiate the pact. Iran announced this week it has stockpiled more low-enriched uranium than is permitted under the accord, a move that prompted Donald Trump - who withdrew the United States from the deal last year - to warn Iran was “playing with fire”.

At least 40 killed in strike on Libya migrant detention center, official says. An air strike hit a detention center for mainly African migrants in a suburb of the Libyan capital of Tripoli late on Tuesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 80, a health official said. It was the highest publicly reported toll from an air strike or shelling since eastern forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive three months ago with ground troops and aircraft to take the capital, base of Libya’s internationally recognized government.

United States

The record surge of Central American families at the U.S. southwest border has begun to ease after tougher enforcement efforts in Mexico but conditions in migrant detention facilities remain dire, according to Mexican and U.S. officials. The U.S. government’s internal watchdog said migrant holding centers in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley were dangerously overcrowded, publishing graphic pictures of cells holding twice as many people as they were built for.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has lost support among African-Americans after taking heat on racial issues during the party’s first debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The survey, conducted from Friday to Monday in the days following the debate in Miami, found 22 percent of adults who identify as Democrats or independents said they supported Biden, down 8 percentage points from a similar poll conducted earlier in June. Support for Biden among blacks, a critical Democratic voting bloc, was cut in half, with about two out of 10 saying they backed Obama’s former vice president, compared with four out of 10 in the June poll.

Trump administration retreats on census citizenship question. In a stinging defeat for Trump, his administration ended its effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census, saying that it will begin printing forms that do not include the contentious query. But, nevertheless, Trump later indicated he would still try to get the “most vital” question included on the questionnaire.

Battle tanks were seen on a train in Washington ahead of a July Fourth celebration highlighting U.S. military might that Democrats say Trump may turn into a re-election campaign rally. Amid questions about the cost and tone of the event, White House officials said the Republican president will avoid politics and stick to patriotic themes in his speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Thursday.

Tech

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Tesla set a record for quarterly vehicle deliveries in a triumphant response to months of questions about demand for its luxury electric cars, sending shares up 7% after hours. Tesla did not comment on profit - which is still elusive - but the robust deliveries could help jumpstart investor sentiment on Tesla, which has been challenged in recent months.

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Samsung Electronics' second-quarter profit likely halved as Huawei woes worsen chip glut

Samsung Electronics is likely to say second-quarter profit more than halved when it reports preliminary earnings, data showed, as a drop in memory chip shipments to China’s embattled Huawei exacerbated a price-squeezing supply glut.

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