Syrian surprise: How Trump's phone call changed the war

ANKARA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s declaration in a phone call with Tayyip Erdogan that he was pulling U.S. troops from Syria has stunned Turkey and left it scrambling to respond to the changing battlefield on its southern border. In the phone call two weeks ago, Trump had been expected to deliver a standard warning to the Turkish president over his plan to launch a crossborder attack targeting U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northeast Syria, U.S. officials say. Instead, in the course of the conversation Trump reshaped U.S. policy in the Middle East, abandoning a quarter of Syrian territory and handing Ankara the job of finishing off Islamic State in Syria.

“Trump asked: ‘If we withdraw our soldiers, can you clean up ISIS?’”, a Turkish official told Reuters. He said Erdogan replied that Turkish forces were up to the task. “Then you do it,” Trump told him abruptly. To his national security adviser John Bolton, also on the call, Trump said: “Start work for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria.” “I have to say it was an unexpected decision. The word ‘surprise’ is too weak to describe the situation,” said the official, one of five Turkish sources who spoke to Reuters about the Dec. 14 call between the two leaders.

Trump’s decision was also a shock in Washington, where senior administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, tried for days to change the president’s mind, U.S. officials said. When Trump made clear he would not back down, Mattis and a senior official coordinating the fight against Islamic State, Brett McGurk, both resigned. On a visit to a U.S. air base in Iraq this week, Trump said that military commanders had repeatedly requested extensions for the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria - requests that he finally turned down because he said Islamic State was largely beaten. “We’ve knocked them silly. I will tell you I’ve had some very good talks with President Erdogan who wants to knock them out also, and he’ll do it,” he told American troops.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey/syrian-surprise-how-trumps-phone-call-changed-the-war-idUSKCN1OR0PW

Wells Fargo to pay $575 million in settlement with U.S. states

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) will pay $575 million to settle claims made by U.S. states that the bank created phony accounts and committed other customer abuses, according to a statement by the Iowa attorney general’s office. Two years ago, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $190 million to settle federal government claims that the bank created phony customer account, and improperly referred and charged customers for various financial services products. The deal announced on Friday will settle similar claims by attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The settlement was reported earlier by Reuters. “This agreement underscores our serious commitment to making things right in regard to past issues as we work to build a better bank,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan said in a statement.

As of the end of the third quarter of 2018, Wells Fargo had set aside $400 million of the settlement amount and expects to allocate the remaining $175 million by the end of this year, the company said in the statement. As part of the settlement, Wells Fargo will create a customer restitution review program to refund customers who have not gotten compensation from remediation efforts already in place. The bank will also create a website outlining the existing remediation programs.

Friday’s settlement marks the most recent in a long list of penalties related to Wells Fargo’s sales scandal, which initially related to the bank opening millions of accounts in customers’ names without their permission. It has since touched on businesses ranging from mortgage banking to auto lending. After reaching settlements with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Los Angeles city attorney and the New York attorney general, Wells Fargo still faces probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor, according to its most recent securities filing. So far, the scandals have resulted in over $2 billion in fines and an unprecedented growth restriction imposed by the Federal Reserve.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-homes/u-s-pending-home-sales-fall-unexpectedly-in-november-idUSKCN1OR14Q?il=0

Tesla names Oracle's Ellison to board, ending U.S. charges

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc on Friday named Oracle Corp co-founder Larry Ellison, a shareholder and self-described close friend of Chief Executive Elon Musk, to its board to the provide independent oversight demanded by U.S. regulators after Musk tweeted about taking the electric carmaker private. Tesla said Ellison and Walgreens Boots Alliance’s global head of human resources, Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, joined the board as independent directors, effective Dec. 27.

Musk on Aug. 7 tweeted that he was considering taking the company private and had secured funding. The SEC subsequently filed fraud charges against him, citing what it said were his “false and misleading” tweets. Under a court-approved agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk agreed to pay a $20 million fine and step aside as Tesla’s chairman for three years to settle charges that could have forced his exit. Tesla also agreed to pay a $20 million fine. Tesla further consented to the appointment of an independent chairman, two independent directors and a board committee to control Musk’s communications. Prior to his Tesla appointment, Ellison did not sit on boards other than Oracle’s. But he served as a director at Apple at a critical time for that company – in the five years after Steve Jobs returned to the helm of the then struggling computer maker in 1997, helping oversee one the greatest turnarounds in corporate history.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-directors/tesla-names-oracles-ellison-to-board-ending-u-s-charges-idUSKCN1OR0ZY?il=0