Six In The Morning Sunday 7 July 2019

Iran nuclear deal: Government announces enrichment breach

Iran has announced it will break a limit set on uranium enrichment, in breach of the landmark 2015 deal designed to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran still wanted to salvage the deal but blamed European countries for failing to live up to their own commitments.

The US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

It has since reimposed tight sanctions affecting the Iranian economy.

The Iranian announcement marks the latest breach of the accord.

In May, Iran stepped up its production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make fuel for reactors but also for nuclear weapons.

Donald Trump 'inept' and 'dysfunctional', UK ambassador to US says

In ‘leaked’ diplomatic memos, Kim Darroch reportedly says presidency could ‘end in disgrace’

Agence France-Presse

Sun 7 Jul 2019 01.23 BST

Britain’s ambassador in the United States has described President Donald Trump and his administration as “inept” and “uniquely dysfunctional”, according to ‘leaked’ diplomatic memos published by the Mail on Sunday.

Ambassador Kim Darroch reportedly said Trump’s presidency could “crash and burn” and “end in disgrace”, in the cache of secret cables and briefing notes sent back to Britain and seen by the newspaper.

“We don’t really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” Darroch allegedly wrote in one dispatch.

Iran and France working on plan to salvage nuclear deal, Macron says

French and Iranian presidents want to find ‘conditions for talks’ between Tehran and world powers

Adam Forrest @adamtomforrest

France and Iran have agreed to work together to find conditions for resuming international talks aimed at saving the 2015 nuclear deal, French president Emmanuel Macron has said.

Mr Macron said he spoke for more than an hour with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani on Saturday, and said they are trying to find a way to resume dialogue between world powers and Iran.

It comes as Iranian officials get set to announce an increase in uranium enrichment to 5 per cent – an amount above the limit set by the landmark agreement.

The World's BankVast Chinese Loans Pose Risks to Developing World

China is the largest creditor in the world, funding infrastructure projects in the developing world in exchange for access to raw materials. A new study shows that the risk of a new debt crisis is significant.

By Bartholomäus Grill, Michael Sauga and Bernhard Zand

The future rail link cuts its way through the jungles of Laos for over 400 kilometers. Soon, trains will be rolling through -- over bridges, through tunnels and across dams built just for the line, which runs from the Chinese border in the north to the Laotian capital of Vientiane on the Mekong River.

After five years of construction, the line is set to go into service in 2021. And the Chinese head of one of the sections has no doubt that it will be finished on time. "Our office alone employs 4,000 workers," he says. There is also no lack of money: The Chinese government in Beijing has earmarked around 6 billion dollars for the project and has recently become both Laos's largest creditor and most significant provider of development aid.

Designed as a symbol of unity, Hong Kong's flag becomes the focus of protest

Written byOscar Holland, CNNHong Kong

Hong Kong's flag was designed to be a symbol of unity. Its circular arrangement of white flower petals, set prominently against a bright red background, is supposed to embody the rights and freedoms enjoyed under the "one country, two systems" principle.

But in the 22 years since it was first raised, the flag and flower emblem have become targets for pro-democracy activists -- including those who smashedtheir way into Hong Kong's Legislative Council building Monday evening, after weeks of street protests.

Demonstrators are using the city's ensign, which depicts a bauhinia flower, as a symbolic tool in their push to block a controversial extradition bill. Banners and protest art, for instance, have pictured the petals wilting, an apparent commentary on the perceived erosion of sovereignty.

RAINFOREST ON FIRE

On the Front Lines of Bolsonaro’s War on the Amazon, Brazil’s Forest Communities Fight Against Climate Catastrophe

Alexander Zaitchik

THE RIVER BASIN at the center of Latin America called the Amazon is roughly the size of Australia. Created at the beginning of the world by a smashing of tectonic plates, it was the cradle of inland seas and continental lakes. For the last several million years, it has been blanketed by a teeming tropical biome of 400 billion trees and vegetation so dense and heavy with water, it exhales a fifth of Earth’s oxygen, stores centuries of carbon, and deflects and consumes an unknown but significant amount of solar heat. Twenty percent of the world’s fresh water cycles through its rivers, plants, soils, and air. This moisture fuels and regulates multiple planet-scale systems, including the production of “rivers in the air” by evapotranspiration, a ceaseless churning flux in which the forest breathes its water into great hemispheric conveyer belts that carry it as far as the breadbaskets of Argentina and the American Midwest, where it is released as rain.