Wednesday 15 August 2018
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BUSINESS DAY
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FINANCIAL TIMES
YouTube: How vloggers became the new Oprah Winfreys
Shale boom zaps volatility in US natural gas market Page A5
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World Business Newspaper
FBI fires agent who sent anti-Trump messages
Peter Strzok was removed from Mueller’s investigation in December Kadhim Shubber
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he FBI has fired Peter Strzok, a former top special agent who was removed from the investigation into Russian election meddling after his antiTrump texts emerged, according to his attorney. Aitan Goelman, Mr Strzok’s lawyer, said in a statement that David Bowdich, the deputy director of the FBI, ordered his firing on Friday afternoon. Mr Goelman said the FBI official in charge of employee discipline had recommended a less severe punishment: demotion and 60-day suspension. “The decision to terminate was taken in response to political pressure,” said Mr Goelman. The FBI issued a statement late on Monday afternoon that said that Mr Bowdich had the “authority to review and modify any disciplinary findings and/or penalty as deemed necessary in the best interest of the FBI”. Donald Trump, who has used Mr Strzok’s texts to argue that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt”, seized on the agent’s dismissal to repeat his criticisms of Robert Mueller’s probe. “Agent Peter Strzok was just fired from the FBI — finally,” he tweeted. “Based on the fact that Strzok was in charge of the Witch Hunt, will it be dropped?” Mr Strzok, a 21-year veteran of the FBI, was a senior agent on the investigation in to Hillary Clinton’s private email server and then the agency’s investigation into Russia’s activities during the 2016 election. He is the latest senior FBI official to lose their job in the fallout from the politically fraught investigations. In March, Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director, was fired days before he was due to retire for misleading investigators about
leaking to the media about the Clinton investigation. Mr McCabe has denied being dishonest. Mr Strzok was removed from the Russia probe led by Mr Mueller, the special counsel, in December after it emerged that he had exchanged antiTrump texts with Lisa Page, a lawyer at the FBI who he was having an affair with. Ms Page left the FBI in May. One of the texts that became public later was an exchange during the 2016 election in which Ms Page asked Mr Strzok: “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” He replied: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” Mr Strzok became a target of attacks by Mr Trump and Republicans, who grilled him in July at a testy hearing of the house judiciary and oversight committees. Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chair of the judiciary committee, threatened to hold Mr Strzok in contempt after he refused to answer certain questions about the ongoing Russia investigation on the order of the FBI. The former FBI agent has consistently denied that he allowed his personal views to affect the decisions he made in his job. “After months of investigations, there is simply no evidence of bias in my professional actions,” he said in his opening statement at the July hearing. He was criticised by Michael Horowitz, the FBI’s inspector general, who said in a report in June that Mr Strzok’s texts had “sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling” of the Clinton investigation. Mr Horowitz found no evidence of bias in the decisions made by the FBI in the Clinton probe, but raised questions about Mr Strzok prioritising the Russia investigation over newly discovered Clinton emails shortly before the 2016 election. The Clinton investigation had ended months earlier when James Comey, the former FBI director, decided against bringing charges.
Brussels steps up legal threat to Poland over judicial reform Warsaw and European Commission in bitter stand-off over rule of law Mehreen Khan
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russels has stepped up threats of legal action against the Polish government over contentious reforms to its judiciary in the latest sign of deteriorating relations between the EU and Warsaw. The European Commission on Tuesday urged Poland to rectify a law that would force supreme
court judges to retire early, or face being sued at the European Court of Justice. Warsaw has a month to respond. The commission has been in a bitter two-year stand-off with Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party over a revamp of the Polish judiciary, which Brussels argues is eroding the rule of law. The EU in July issued a formal Continues on page A4
Peter Strzok was a senior agent on the investigation in to Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the agency’s probe into Russia’s activities during the 2016 election © Getty
Shale boom zaps volatility in US natural gas market Surge in production allows prices to defy hot summer demand Gregory Meyer
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hen US natural gas futures passed a milestone this month, they did so quietly: volatility fell to the lowest levels since the market’s debut nearly 30 years ago. The event seemed improbable. Volatility usually fades when commodity stocks are ample. Yet US gas stocks are 19.5 per cent below average. When the winter starts they are set to be at their lowest in more than a decade. This situation is the latest example of how the world’s largest gas market has been transformed by shale drilling. While demand for gas is galloping, it has been met by waves of supply that show no sign of abating. Conditions that put traders on edge a decade ago get shrugs. Like much of the northern hemisphere, the US this year is experiencing extremely hot weather. Cooling degree days — a measure of air-conditioning demand — are
expected to top 1,000 by the end of the season, ranking the summer of 2018 among the top five for heat, according to Commodity Weather Group. That has required more generation from electric power plants that increasingly run on gas. Natural gas “power burn” surged to a record 37.7bn cubic feet per day during July, according to S&P Global Platts. Exports have also fed demand. The US is now a net exporter of gas to the tune of 2bn cu ft/d, the Energy Information Administration estimates. The volumes flow through new pipelines to Mexico and liquefied natural gas export terminals recently opened on the coasts of Louisiana and Maryland. The strong summer use of gas follows a winter when heating demand left gas stocks depleted. While producers will bank additional supplies over the summer and autumn, EIA forecasts that stocks at the end of the “injection season” in October will amount to just 3.3tn cu ft — the lowest
for that month since 2005. “It does create some concern that under the right conditions we could see some fireworks for prices,” said Rich Redash, head of North American gas and power research at S&P Global. For now, though, gas prices have been a damp squib. Nymex September gas futures on Monday settled at $2.930 per million British thermal units, inside its range of $2.50-$3.50 over the past year. Daily price moves have also been subdued. Realised 30-day volatility for front-month gas futures this month dropped to the lowest level since 1991, the year after the New York Mercantile Exchange first listed the benchmark Henry Hub gas contract, Bloomberg data show. Volatility and prices have declined as production continues to surprise the market. Output has surged from shale formations such as the Marcellus and Utica in the north-east and the Permian and Haynesville centred around Texas.
Turkish lira rebounds 6% after streak of steep falls No sign of Turkey backing down as Erdogan urges Apple boycott Adam Samson and Laura Pitel
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urkey’s currency has found its footing after two days of intense selling that ricocheted across the currencies market. In early London dealings, the lira rose 6 per cent, with one dollar buying 6.49 units of the currency. The move comes after a 6.3 per cent fall on Monday and a 13.8 per cent drop last Friday — which has left the currency down by a quarter this month alone, even after the bounce higher on Tuesday. Turkey’s equities market was also boosted. The BIST 100 index of leading Istanbul stocks was up 2.4 per cent in morning action, with the banks sector up 4.5 per cent. Other currencies, which had faced ructions on Monday, were also calmer. The South African
rand climbed 2.4 per cent, while the Mexican peso rose nearly 1 per cent. MSCI’s broad EM currencies index was up 0.27 per cent after a 0.66 per cent fall on Monday. But there was no sign of Turkey backing away from a confrontation with the US that helped triggered the lira’s woes. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appear to open another front on Tuesday, urging Turks to boycott Apple and other US technology companies in retaliation for US sanctions against his country. “If they have the iPhone, there is Samsung on the other side,” he told ruling party members. “In Turkey we have Vestel Venus phones.” Shares in Vestel, a Turkish home appliances and electronics producer, rose sharply following his comments. The US has been pressuring
Turkey to release an American pastor it had detained, a move that prompted US sanctions against a duo of senior Turkish government officials. Mr Erdogan maintained that Turkey would not retreat despite the pain inflicted on the nation’s currency, which has lost more than 40 per cent of its value since the start of the year. “What is this you’re doing?” he asked the US. “What is it that you are trying to accomplish? What do you want to do? You should know: the character of this nation is not one that wavers.” Sarah Sanders, the US press secretary, said on Monday afternoon Washington time that national security adviser John Bolton met with Turkish ambassador Serdar Kilic at the White House.