| We’re covering Japan’s attempts to boost its economy, Huawei’s mounting fight against its critics and the best TV shows, movies, books and more from this year. | |  By Melina Delkic | | | Workers at the main stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in July. Issei Kato/Reuters | | | The package, if passed, would continue Japan’s cycle of borrowing and spending to stoke growth and pay for its expanding social welfare costs to support a rapidly aging population. It already has the biggest debt load in the developed world relative to the size of its economy. | | | Mr. Abe said the measures were meant to help Japan keep the boost from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo going after the event. | | | Regional picture: Japan, along with China and Hong Kong, has faced economic slowdown over the past year. Factors included the trade war between the U.S. and mainland China; the effects of a political spat with South Korea; and damage from the typhoon, which exposed a need for new infrastructure. | | | Huawei argues that while the U.S. has claimed the company is a security threat, it has not provided evidence. | | | Analysis: “They want to show their customers in the U.S. that they’re a serious company, that they’re not an outlaw,” a legal expert said. “Even a small victory in the case, one that makes the F.C.C. go and start the process over again, would be a huge victory for them.” | | | Background: The F.C.C. voted last month to bar American telecommunication companies from using federal subsidies to buy equipment from Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese supplier. | | | Some rules have already loosened since the U.S. began its global push against the company. The U.S. Commerce Department began allowing some American suppliers to resume selling parts and other technology to Huawei. | | | Fires spread in the Amazon rainforest near the city of Porto Velho in September. Victor Moriyama for The New York Times | | | President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil promised to open the world’s largest rainforest to industry and scale back its protections. | | | In the absence of federal agents to enforce environmental laws, waves of loggers, ranchers and miners moved in, feeling emboldened to satisfy global demand. New figures show that more than 3,700 square miles were razed in the past year, the largest loss in a decade. | | | Quotable: “It confirms the Amazon is completely lawless,” said a climate scientist with the University of São Paulo. | | | An image drawn by a detainee, Abu Zubaydah, shows how the C.I.A. applied an approved torture technique called "cramped confinement." Abu Zubaydah, Courtesy Mark P. Denbeaux | | | The techniques, now outlawed, were approved by President George W. Bush’s administration and used in secret overseas prisons after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. | | | The interrogation program was set up for Mr. Zubaydah, who was mistakenly believed to be a top lieutenant in Al Qaeda. Subsequent analysis found that while he was a jihadist, he had known nothing beforehand about the 9/11 attacks. He has never been charged with a crime. | | | Background: The illustrations were drawn this year for inclusion in a report titled “How America Tortures,” by a professor at an American University who has served as Mr. Zubaydah’s lawyer, and some of his students. Read the report here. | | | Krista Schlueter for The New York Times | | | As the year comes to a close, our critics are giving you something to unwind with: Lists of the best albums, books, shows and movies of 2019. | | | PAID POST: A MESSAGE FROM CAMPAIGN MONITOR | | TEST: Email Marketing 101: Never Sacrifice Beauty for Simplicity | | A drag-and-drop email builder, a gallery of templates and turnkey designs, personalized customer journeys, and engagement segments. It's everything you need to create stunning, results-driven email campaigns in minutes. And with Campaign Monitor, you have access to it all, along with award-winning support around the clock. It's beautiful email marketing done simply. | | | Learn More | | | | U.S. impeachment: Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, said the House would begin drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump. When a reporter echoed Republican sentiments, asking if she “hated” Mr. Trump, she responded sharply that it was a constitutional issue, adding, “So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.” | | | North Korea: An official said the country was more upset by President Trump’s name-calling against its leader in comments to NATO leaders this week than his threat to use military force, and threatened to resume calling Mr. Trump bad names, including “dotard.” | | | Pearl Harbor shooting: A U.S. sailor opened fire at the naval base near the national memorial, fatally shooting two shipyard workers and injuring another before killing himself, the authorities said. The motive was not immediately clear. | | | Victoria Jones/Press Association, via Associated Press | | | Snapshot: Above, a sad Christmas tree in London’s Trafalgar Square. The 79-foot fir, part of an annual tribute that began after World War II, is the talk of London — and not in a good way. “It’s a present from Norway, and it’s dead,” said a market stall worker. | | | What we’re looking at: These novel gingerbread houses collected by Dwell. “They’re real architectural lookers,” writes Lynda Richardson, a Travel editor, “from midcentury modern creations and an Airstream to Philip Johnson’s Glass House.” | | | Con Poulos for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Susan Spungen. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks. | | | The Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital two years ago today. We asked our Jerusalem bureau chief, David M. Halbfinger, how that has played out. | | | Little has changed as a direct result; other countries have hardly lined up to follow suit. But the announcement now almost seems quaint. | | | U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the U.S. ambassador to Israel at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in March. Jim Young/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images | | | The Palestinians now will have nothing to do with the Trump administration as a mediator. But their reasons for that could take up another book of the Bible. | | | That’s it for this briefing. We hope your weekend makes your own best of the best list. | | Thank you
To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
