Some commercial airlines on Wednesday rerouted flights crossing the Middle East to avoid possible danger amid escalating tensions between the United States and Iran.Australian carrier Qantas said it was altering its London to Perth, Australia, routes to avoid Iran and Iraq airspace until further notice. The longer route meant that Qantas would have to carry fewer passengers and more fuel to remain in the air for an extra 40 to 50 minutes.Malaysia Airlines said that “due to recent events,” its planes would avoid Iranian airspace.Singapore Airlines also said that its flights to Europe would be re-routed to avoid Iran.The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said it was barring American pilots and carriers from flying in areas of Iraqi, Iranian and some Persian Gulf airspace. The agency warned of the “potential for miscalculation or mis-identification” for civilian aircraft amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran.Such restrictions are often precautionary in nature to prevent civilian aircraft from being confused for ones engaged in armed conflict. The FAA said the restrictions were being issued due to “heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the Middle East, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations.’’Following the FAA, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation advised Indian commercial carriers to avoid Iranian, Iraqi and Persian Gulf airspace.At least two Kazakh airlines – Air Astana and SCAT – were considering rerouting or canceling their flights over Iran following the crash of a Ukrainian plane that killed 176 people.The plane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in the Iranian capital when a fire struck one of its engines, said Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry.Kazakhstan’s officials said that Air Astana, the country’s flagship carrier, “is currently holding a meeting on whether to reroute or ban” flights. SCAT, one of the largest airlines in Kazakhstan, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that they were also considering rerouting flights. The emergency flight restrictions follow Iranian ballistic missile strikes Tuesday on two Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops. Those strikes were retaliation for the U.S. killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike near Baghdad last week.
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The disgraced former chairman of Nissan is expected to speak to journalists in Beirut on Wednesday, more than a week after his dramatic escape from Japan ahead of his trial for alleged financial misconduct.The highly anticipated news conference by Carlos Ghosn will be first public appearance since he smuggled himself from Tokyo to Beirut, arriving in the Lebanese capital where he grew up and is regarded by many as a national hero.Dozens of local and international journalists are expected to attend. Lebanese authorities have not made any comments about the news conference and it was not immediately clear whether they intend to summon him for questioning.Ghosn’s daring and improbable escape has perplexed and embarrassed Japanese authorities after he skipped bail and managed to flee the country despite supposedly rigorous surveillance.Media reports have said that he left his residence alone, met two men at a Tokyo hotel, and then took a bullet train to Osaka before boarding a private jet hidden inside a case for musical equipment. He flew to Istanbul and was then transferred onto another plane bound for Beirut, where he arrived Dec. 30.Journalists are seen near a car entering the garage of a house believed to belong to former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn in Beirut, Lebanon, Jan. 2, 2020.Lebanese authorities have said Ghosn entered the country on a legal passport, casting doubt on the possibility they would hand him over to Japan. Lebanon last week received an Interpol-issued wanted notice – a non-binding request to law enforcement agencies worldwide that they locate and provisionally arrest a fugitive.Lebanon and Japan do not have an extradition treaty, and the Interpol notice does not require Lebanon to arrest him.Ghosn, who is Lebanese and also holds French and Brazilian passports, was expected to go on trial in Tokyo in April. In statements, he has said he fled to avoid “political persecution” by a “rigged Japanese justice system.” He also said that he alone organized his departure from Japan and that his wife, Carole, played no role.On Tuesday, Tokyo prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Carole Ghosn on suspicion of perjury. That charge is not related to his escape. Lebanon’s justice minister said Tuesday that Lebanon has not received any request related to that warrant.Japanese justice officials acknowledge that it’s unclear whether the Ghosns can be brought back to Japan to face charges.Ghosn’s former employer, Nissan Motor Co., said it was still pursuing legal action against him despite his escape, adding that Ghosn engaged in serious misconduct while leading the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance. Ghosn denies all the charges.
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Iranian state media reported Wednesday a Ukrainian passenger plane carrying 180 people crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in Tehran.There was no immediate word on injuries.The reports said the suspected cause of the crash was mechanical issues.
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Iran’s top commander Qassem Soleimani was killed last week in a U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Soleimani, who led Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was the architect of many Shi’ite and pro-Iranian proxy militia groups across the region known as the “Axis of Resistance.” Here is a look at those groups.
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The U.S. trade deficit fell in November to the lowest level in more than three years as U.S. exports rose while imports declined, putting the country on track to see the first annual decline in the trade deficit in six years.The Commerce Department said Tuesday that the gap between what America sells and what it buys abroad narrowed by 8.2% in November to $43.1 billion, the smallest deficit since October 2016.Through the first 11 months of 2019, the trade deficit is 0.7% smaller than in the same period in 2018. If that trend holds in December, the country will finish 2019 with a deficit slightly below last year’s $627.7 billion imbalance, which had been a 14.1% jump over 2017.That would mark the first year-to-year improvement since the deficit narrowed in 2013.Economists said the third monthly decline in the trade deficit should give a boost to overall growth as measured by the gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said he believed GDP growth would come in around 2% in the October-December period with the trade improvement providing much of that strength.But he cautioned that the improvement was built on a number of special factors that will not be repeated, such as the end of the strike at General Motors which boosted auto exports. Still, he said with global manufacturing starting to improve, the worst of the trade slump may be over.”The stabilization in global manufacturing activity and the trade truce with China suggest that the drag on the U.S. economy from weak growth overseas has now run its course,” Hunter said.China, U.S. tradeThe politically sensitive deficit with China declined by 15.7% to $26.4 billion. Through the first 11 months of 2019, the U.S. trade deficit with China, the largest with any country, is 16.2% lower than the same period in 2018.Trade flows between the world’s two biggest economies have been disrupted this year by the tit-for-tat trade war as both nations have imposed tariffs on the other nation’s products.Trump withdrew a new round of tariffs covering popular consumer items such as cellphones that had been scheduled to go into effect in December after progress was made in reaching a so-called phase one trade agreement. That deal is scheduled to be signed on Jan. 15 in Washington, but business executives are braced for more trade turbulence if the phase two talks covering more contentious U.S. demands do not go well.While Trump sees the U.S. trade deficit as a sign of economic weakness that can be overcome with tougher trade deals, mainstream economists said the deficit reflects an economic reality that doesn’t yield much to changes in government policy: Americans consume more than they produce, and imports fill the gap.Petroleum, goods Imports and exports of petroleum both fell in November but imports declined by a larger amount, pushing up the size of the U.S. surplus in petroleum to $832 million, the third straight month the country has run a petroleum surplus and the largest amount on record going back to 1978.In November, the United States ran a $63.9 billion deficit in the trade of goods such as autos, food and appliances. But it ran a $20.8 billion surplus in services, including education and banking.The deficit with Japan rose to $5.4 billion in November while the deficit with the countries of the European Union declined to $13.1 billion. America’s deficit with Mexico rose to $8.3 billion while the deficit with Canada totaled $1.4 billion, a drop from $3.3 billion in October.
 
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Tesla’s Shanghai factory delivered its first cars to customers Monday and chief executive Elon Musk said the electric automaker plans to set up a design center in China to create a model for worldwide sales.Musk presided at a ceremony where a half-dozen buyers wearing red Tesla T-shirts drove away new Model 3 sedans. He expressed thanks to earlier customers who he said made Tesla’s expansion in China possible by purchasing imported models from the fledgling brand.Tesla Inc. built the Gigafactory 3, its first outside the United States, following the ruling Communist Party’s 2018 decision to allow full foreign ownership in electric car manufacturing. It is due to produce the Model 3 and a planned SUV, the Model Y.Producing in China insulates Tesla from possible duty increases on imported U.S.-made vehicles from Beijing’s tariff war with Washington. Other foreign automakers including General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Co. have long had joint venture factories in China.Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk takes off his coat onstage during a delivery event for Tesla China-made Model 3 cars in Shanghai, China, Jan. 7, 2020.China is the biggest global market for electrics, but Tesla’s manufacturing launch comes at a time when sales are sagging following the end of government subsidies in mid-2019.Total electric vehicle sales fell almost 45% in November from a year earlier to 95,000. Sales for the first 11 months of 2019 were up 1.3% at just over 1 million vehicles.Musk said Tesla plans to increase investment in China and set up a design center to “create a car for worldwide sale,” but he gave no details.The Chinese-made Model 3 starts at 299,050 yuan ($42,680) following a price cut announced last month.The company said production began in December and 15 Model 3s were delivered to Tesla employees in Shanghai on Dec. 30.Sales targetsTesla faces a crowded market flooded with dozens of electric models from rivals including GM, VW, Nissan Motor Co. and China’s BYD Auto and BAIC. They are under pressure to meet government sales targets that shift the cost of promoting the technology to the industry.Automakers that fail to meet their targets can buy credits from rivals that do. That might turn into a windfall for Tesla and other brands that earn a surplus because their whole output is electric. Beijing has yet to set the price of credits.The Shanghai factory makes Tesla the first foreign auto brand with full ownership of its China operation.Other global brands work through partnerships with state-owned automakers and share their revenues. Most are expected to remain in such ventures to take advantage of their Chinese partners’ government relationships despite the ruling party’s plans to allow full foreign ownership in the whole auto industry by next year.Tesla reported earlier it delivered a total of 367,500 cars last year.The company surprised investors by reporting a $143 million profit in the quarter ending in September, raising hopes Tesla may be turning to profitability. The company lost $1.1 billion in the first half of the year.
 
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U.S. officials said Tuesday that Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general whom the U.S. killed in a drone strike, posed a distinct threat to Americans in the Middle East, but again publicly offered no specific evidence of any attack he was about to carry out.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters “multiple pieces of information” from intelligence sources were given to President Donald Trump before he made the decision to target Soleimani in last week’s attack that killed him in Iraq at the Baghdad airport.National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said Soleimani was plotting to attack American facilities where he would have killed American “diplomats, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.” But similar to Pompeo, O’Brien offered no specifics on the timing of what Trump administration officials have called an “imminent threat” that Soleimani posed.O’Brien called it “strong evidence and strong intelligence,” while adding, “Unfortunately we’re not going to be able to get into sorts of methods at this time, but I can tell you it was very strong.”Pompeo said, “We could see clearly that not only had Soleimani done all the things that we have recounted, like hundreds of thousands of massacres, enormous destruction of countries like Lebanon and Iraq, where they denied…people in those two countries what it is they want, sovereignty, independence and freedom. This is all Soleimani’s handiwork. Then we would watch as he was continuing the terror campaign in the region….”Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks about Iran at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 7, 2020.”If you’re looking for imminence, you need look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Soleimani,” Pompeo said, including the late December attack that killed an American contractor working in Iraq.Pompeo added that there were “continuing efforts on behalf of this terrorist to build out a network of campaign activities that were going to lead potentially to the death of many more Americans.”The top U.S. diplomat concluded that the drone attack “was the right decision, we got it right. The Department of Defense did excellent work. The president had an entirely legal, appropriate basis, as well as a decision that fit perfectly within our strategy on how to counter the threat of malign activity from Iran.”Iran has vowed to exact revenge for Soleimani’s killing, with O’Brien saying, “We take those seriously and we’re watching and monitoring them.” But with Trump threatening to respond to any new Iran attack, O’Brien said, “We hope that they’re deterred, and that they think twice about attacking America and its interests.”Even as threats and counter-threats ricocheted between Washington and Tehran, O’Brien said he believes the world is a safer place with the killing of Soleimani.”Look, over, over the past four months, the two greatest terrorist threats in the world, (Islamic State leader Abu Bakr) al Baghdadi and Soleimani, have both been taken off the battlefield,” O’Brien said outside the White House. “I think that makes us safer, and in fact we’ve been congratulated and told that privately by world leaders from every region in the world who’ve reached out to congratulate us for this activity.”In Iran, officials delayed Soleimani’s burial, state media reported, after more than 50 people were killed in a stampede of mourners and more than 200 others injured.Coffins of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and others who were killed in Iraq by a U.S. drone strike, are carried on a truck surrounded by mourners during a funeral procession, in the city of Kerman, Iran, Jan. 7, 2020.Tens of thousands of people had gathered to honor Soleimani in his hometown of Kerman before his planned burial, following similar ceremonies this week in Tehran, Qom and Ahvaz.Many of the mourners screamed for retaliation against the United States for the killing of Soleimani. “No compromise, no submission, revenge!” they shouted.   Soleimani’s killing has sparked fears of a wider conflict as the United States and Iran threatened strong responses to each other’s actions.Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif contended in a CNN interview that the U.S. killing of Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, constituted “state terrorism.”“This is an act of aggression against Iran, and it amounts to an armed attack against Iran, and we will respond,” Zarif said. “But we will respond proportionately – not disproportionately…we are not lawless like President Trump.”With heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, Washington has denied Zarif a visa to travel to New York for upcoming United Nations meetings. Pompeo refused to spell out the reasons behind the denial of the visa.Following the airstrike, Iran announced it was further cutting its compliance with the 2015 agreement that restrained its nuclear program. That prompted Trump, who withdrew from the deal and applied new sanctions against Iran, to tweet Monday, “IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020   
Trump also vowed late Sunday that the U.S. will strike “very hard and very fast” at as many as 52 Iranian targets if Iran attacks U.S. personnel or assets.  The number 52 represents the number of Americans Tehran took hostage in 1979 for 444 days.”They’re allowed to kill our people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people and we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way.” Pompeo said the U.S., in any new attacks on Iran, would act according to international legal constraints on warfare, under which attacks on cultural sites are considered a war crime.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rebuffed Trump’s threat on Monday, tweeting, “Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655. Never threaten the Iranian nation.”It was a reference to the U.S. mistakenly shooting down an Iranian passenger jet flying over the Persian Gulf in 1988, killing all 290 people aboard the aircraft. Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan expressed deep regret over the incident and the U.S. paid nearly $62 million in reparations to the victims’ families. 
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Rising tensions between Washington and Tehran are testing whether Joe Biden can capitalize on his decades of foreign policy experience as he seeks to challenge a president he derides as “dangerous” and “erratic.”Biden is expected to deliver lengthy remarks Tuesday in New York about President Donald Trump’s decision to approve an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The event, which would follow several days of campaigning in which Biden inconsistently highlighted his foreign policy credentials, would be among his most high-profile efforts to articulate his vision for world affairs. It would come less than a month before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses begin Democrats’ 2020 voting.But the moment presents challenges for a two-term vice president who was elected to six Senate terms. While his resume is longer than any Democratic presidential rival’s, it comes with complications.Progressives hoping to make American foreign policy less militaristic point to Biden’s 2002 vote authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq, suggesting that muddies his recent warning that Trump could push the U.S. into another endless war. Alternately, Trump and Republicans cast Biden as indecisive or weak, seizing on his opposition to the 1991 U.S. mission that drove Iraq out of Kuwait and his reluctance about the raid that killed Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in 2011, when Biden was President Barack Obama’s No. 2.Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator who voted against President George W. Bush’s  Iraq war powers request, calls it “baggage.” In a quote that Republicans recirculate frequently, former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in his memoir that Biden, though a “man of integrity,” has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”Biden himself has been inconsistent in his  pitch to voters, seemingly confident that searing criticism of Trump and implicit contrasts with less-seasoned Democratic rivals are enough to earn another stint in the West Wing.“I’ve met every single world leader” a U.S. president must know, Biden tells voters at some stops. “On a first-name basis,” he’ll add on occasion. On Chinese President Xi Jinping: “I spent more time with him face to face than any other world leader.” On Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who helped persuade Trump to withdraw U.S. special forces from Syria over widespread opposition in Washington and elsewhere: “I know who he is.”The Biden campaign’s most viral moment was a video last month, titled “Laughed At,” showing world leaders mocking Trump at a Buckingham Palace reception held during a NATO summit in London. Biden says world leaders, including former British Prime Minister Theresa May, have called him to ask about Trump.He told reporters last month that foreign policy isn’t in his Democratic opponents’ “wheelhouse,” even if they are “smart as hell” and “can learn.” Demonstrating his knowledge, Biden veered into explaining the chemistry and physics of “SS-18 silos,” referring to old Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. “It’s just what I’ve done my whole life,” he said.He’s since touted endorsements from former Secretary of State John Kerry and members of Congress with experience in the military and intelligence community.Yet Biden doesn’t always connect the dots with an explicit appeal to voters.In Iowa last weekend, Biden called the Iran crisis “totally of Donald Trump’s making,” tracing Soleimani’s killing back to Trump withdrawing from a multilateral deal in which Iran had agreed to curtail its nuclear program. The pact “was working, serving America’s interests and the region’s interests,” Biden said, questioning whether Trump “has any plan for how to handle what comes next.”Biden told an audience that Americans need “a president who provides a steady leadership on Day One,” but during a 20-minute soliloquy, Biden never discussed  his role in the Iran deal or Obama’s foreign policy generally. Days before, prior to the Soleimani strike, Biden didn’t mention the embassy attack at all as he campaigned in Anamosa, Iowa.The former vice president laments that lack of foreign policy emphasis in a Democratic primary contest that has revolved around the party’s internal ideological tussle over domestic issues including health care, a wealth tax and college tuition assistance. The international arena “isn’t discussed at all” on the debate stage, he told reporters last month, despite what he said is a deep concern among voters.“Foreign policy, commander in chief is a big deal to people,” he said, less because of a single issue and more because of Trump generally. “They just know something’s not right. It’s uncomfortable.”Biden in July offered perhaps his most sweeping foreign policy declaration to date, with a speech touting the U.S. as the preeminent world power but one that must lead international coalitions and focus on diplomacy. He pledged to end “forever wars” but did not rule out military force. He made clear he values small-scale operations of special forces while being more skeptical of larger, extended missions of ground forces.His advisers believe that reflects most Americans. “They don’t want the United States to retreat from the world … but they also don’t want us overextended without any rational strategy or exit plan,” said Tony Blinken, Biden’s top foreign policy adviser, who has worked with him since he was Democratic leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.As vice president, Biden was at Obama’s side for every major national security decision during their eight years in office. Biden led the administration’s efforts  to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression. He also took the lead on Iraq as the Democratic administration moved to bring the war it inherited there to an end.But Biden wasn’t always in lockstep with Obama on major issues. He was among the advisers who argued against the attack on al-Qaida mastermind bin Laden. Biden’s explanation of those debates has changed over the years, varying from saying he  recommended that Obama wait for clearer identification of bin Laden at the Pakistan compound where he was killed to later saying he privately told Obama to go ahead. Blinken said Biden was never against pursuing bin Laden, as some Republicans say. Recalling how Biden immediately relayed his final private conversation with Obama, Blinken said Biden told Obama to “trust your instincts.”Biden also lost an initial debate during lengthy deliberations on Afghanistan shortly after Obama took office. Biden was opposed to the idea of sending surge forces, pushing instead for a focus on counterterrorism that would have required a smaller military footprint on the ground. Obama ultimately ordered 30,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan.That could be viewed as a lesson learned after Biden initially voted to support Bush’s 2002 request to use force in Iraq. Blinken said, though, that didn’t necessarily mean Biden ever changed philosophy. His 2002 vote, Blinken said, was based on the president arguing he needed war power only as leverage for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to accept international weapons inspectors. That worked, Blinken said, then Bush decided to “go to war anyway.”Ultimately, Biden and his team believe voters are more interested in candidates’ overall profiles than in litigating old debates. They point to the 2004 Democratic primary.Howard Dean held momentum for much of 2003. Weeks before Iowa caucused, the U.S. captured Saddam. Dean declared that the military victory had “not  made America safer,” after having spent months blistering Kerry  for backing the same Iraq resolution Biden supported. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who praised Saddam’s capture, went on to win Iowa and steamrolled to the nomination. 
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Hong Kong’s health chief said Tuesday that a respiratory illness whose cause remains unknown will be added to an official list of diseases that medical practitioners are required to report to the government.The disease — an unidentified form of viral pneumonia — has sent 59 people to the hospital in the mainland Chinese city of Wuhan, in central Hubei province. As of Sunday, seven were in critical condition, while the rest were stable. Municipal authorities have ruled out SARS, the severe acute respiratory syndrome that killed 700 people in 2002 and 2003.In Hong Kong, a total of 15 patients were being treated Sunday for symptoms including fever and respiratory infection after recent visits to Wuhan. It is not clear whether they have the same illness as the Wuhan patients.Speaking at a news conference, the health chief, Sophia Chan, said the “severe respiratory disease associated with a novel infectious agent” will be added to a list of reportable infectious diseases in Hong Kong’s Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance.The regulation enables the government to take stronger measures against the spread of certain diseases, such as tuberculosis and chicken pox. Actions under the ordinance could include enforcing quarantines or limiting the movement of people who are suspected to have infections.“Under the amendment, medical practitioners will have to report suspected cases as well as carry out appropriate investigations and follow-ups to the Center for Health Protection under the Department of Health,” Chan said.
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