Iran, Boeing, Carlos Ghosn: Your Wednesday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/briefing/iran-boeing-carlos-ghosn.html

Version 0 of 1.

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning. It’s busy.

We’re covering Iranian missile strikes against U.S. forces in Iraq and the crash of a Boeing passenger jet shortly after takeoff from Tehran.

Amid concerns of full-scale war in the Middle East, Iran fired ballistic missiles today at two military bases in Iraq where American troops are stationed. We have live updates.

The strikes came in response to the killing in Baghdad last week of a top Iranian military commander. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted after the strikes that his country had “concluded” its attacks on American forces and did “not seek escalation or war.”

Response: The Pentagon said it was still assessing damages at the bases, and President Trump tweeted that they appeared to be minimal. Here’s what we know so far.

Catch up: The missile strikes came hours after state-run Iranian news outlets reported a deadly stampede during the funeral procession for Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in his hometown, Kerman, in southeastern Iran, on Tuesday.

In Washington: The Trump administration has offered little detail about the strikes, other than saying that the general was plotting imminent attacks. Democrats say the intelligence they have seen is too vague.

A Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 carrying at least 170 people on Wednesday crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran because of technical problems, according to the Iranian state news media.

Local news reports said the Ukraine International Airlines plane was bound for Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and added that there were no survivors.

The crash comes not only amid escalating tensions between Iran and the United States, but at a time when Boeing is under intense scrutiny after the crashes of two 737 Max jets in less than five months that killed a total of 346 people. (The 737 Max and the 737-800 are different models.)

Related: The Max has been grounded worldwide since March, as the company struggles to get a fix approved by regulators. New safety risks have recently emerged with the plane, which the company may need to assess on the 737 NG, the predecessor to the Max.

Paris and Washington are racing to reach a compromise in a digital tax dispute that may result in hefty American tariffs on French wine, cheese, handbags, cookware and more.

The United States says the planned tariffs are a response to France’s new 3 percent tax on the revenue that companies earn from providing digital services to French users. The tax targets Facebook, Google and other American technology giants that don’t have much of a physical presence in Europe and have long paid few taxes there as a result.

Background: American officials have called the French tax “unreasonable” and “discriminatory.” But the Trump administration has yet to make the kind of progress negotiating new trade terms with Europe that it has with China, Mexico and Canada.

Why this matters: International negotiators are developing a broader framework for digital taxes that they hope will head off such conflicts. But France has vowed to retaliate with its own levies if no deal is struck, and other European countries are in the process of establishing similar digital taxes.

Yesterday: The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said he and the U.S. Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, would redouble their efforts to find a compromise before their meeting this month on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Today in Beirut, Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn is expected to hold his first news conference since his Hollywood-esque escape from Japan last month.

Mr. Ghosn faces charges in Japan of financial crimes from his days as chairman of the Nissan-Renault automaking alliance. Reporters will be listening for fresh details on how he managed to evade the Japanese authorities and flee to Lebanon, via Turkey, with help from a former United States Green Beret.

Mr. Ghosn, who is Lebanese and also holds French and Brazilian passports, said in a statement this morning that Nissan, one of Japan’s industrial crown jewels, had removed him to block further integration with the French carmaker Renault.

Editor’s take: Carlos Tejada, our Asia business editor, predicts that Mr. Ghosn will most likely renew his attacks on Nissan when he addresses the news media today.

Yesterday: Japan said it had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Ghosn’s wife, Carole Ghosn, a citizen of both Lebanon and the United States who is suspected of giving false testimony. The U.S., unlike Lebanon, has an extradition treaty with Japan, but both countries have broad discretion over how they act on such warrants.

Gabriel Matzneff, 83, has written books about his sexual pursuits with girls and boys in their early teens, or younger. He once called sleeping with a child “a holy experience.”

Instead of canceling him, France’s literary elite spent years showering him with acclaim.

But a new book — in which Vanessa Springora, now 47 and the head of a publishing company, recounts being seduced by the famous writer when she was 14 — has fueled an intense debate over France’s historically lax attitude toward sex with minors.

Spain: Parliament narrowly approved Pedro Sánchez as prime minister on Tuesday, ending months of political stalemate and creating a fragile minority government whose survival might hinge on its ability to bring to an end the long-simmering dispute over Catalonia.

Libya: The European Union’s foreign policy chief, along with the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany, France and Italy, on Tuesday condemned “continuing outside interference” in the Libyan conflict. The statement came a day after Libyan rebels swept into the key coastal city of Surt, and during a week in which Turkey is dispatching troops to the country.

Cyprus: A British woman who was convicted last month of lying to the authorities was given a four-month suspended sentence on Tuesday. She had accused a dozen Israelis of raping her in a resort town, but later retracted her statement. The woman said she had been pressured by the authorities to change her account.

Impeachment: A day after the former White House national security adviser said he would testify if the Senate subpoenaed him, the chamber’s Republican majority leader said that he planned to move forward with President Trump’s impeachment trial without committing to calling witnesses or hearing new evidence.

Facebook: The social network said it would remove “deepfakes,” videos that are heavily manipulated by artificial intelligence in ways that are meant to mislead viewers. The policy will not extend to parody or satire.

Snapshot: Above, the W.J. DeFelice Marine Center in Louisiana. Across the United States, education centers and marine laboratories like this one are bracing against the impacts of rising seas and a changing climate.

BAFTA nominations: “Joker” received 11 nominations for the EE British Academy Film Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, the most of any film.

What we’re reading: This 2018 essay by Elizabeth Wurtzel, who changed the way mental illness was viewed with her 1994 book “Prozac Nation.” After she died on Tuesday of breast cancer at age 52, her admirers shared it repeatedly on Twitter as representative of her unsparing style.

Cook: Get over a midweek cooking slump with black bean tacos with avocado and spicy onions.

Read: Sean Adams’s dystopian debut novel, “The Heap,” is a cutting satire about demolished ambition and communal life.

Smarter Living: Griping isn’t always a good thing. But it can be a useful tool in helping us process emotions.

Some 3,500 soldiers in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division were ordered onto planes at Fort Bragg a few days ago for a rapid deployment to the Middle East amid peaking tensions with Iran. Dave Philipps, who covers veterans and the military for The Times, gave us this about the history of the base.

Fort Bragg is one of the largest U.S. bases. It covers parts of four North Carolina counties and is home to about 50,000 active-duty soldiers — one-tenth of the force. Some call it “the nation’s 911” because some of its troops can deploy in as little as 18 hours.

It has another distinction. Along with nine other installations in the southeastern U.S., Fort Bragg is named for a Confederate official in the Civil War. Maj. Gen. Braxton Bragg commanded the Army of Mississippi until he was removed after being routed by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

Many of these bases were created in the first part of the 20th century, when world wars pushed the Army to expand. It looked the other way when local officials named them after men who took up arms against the country.

Though monuments to the Confederacy have been toppled all over the South in recent years, the Army has made no moves to change base names, despite congressional efforts to force it.

Yesterday’s briefing misstated the number of Republican-controlled seats in the United States Senate. The Republicans hold 53 seats, not 67. (Your humble briefing writer meant to say that a vote by 67 senators is needed to remove a president at an impeachment trial.)

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Mike

Thank youTo Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode explores the background of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Sky-blue (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Ten articles from The Times were among the 100 that best captured the world’s attention last year, according to Chartbeat, a technology company that tracks online audiences.