Catch up quick: Having today secured a parliamentary mandate to extend the Brexit deadline, Prime Minister Theresa May plans to bring her remarkably unpopular plan up in Parliament for a third and final time next week. If she fails, it’s off to the Continent to seek a delay that could ultimately last over a year.
On Monday, Iran's Supreme Leader and Commander-in-Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presented Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF), with the order of the Zulfiqar — the country's highest military decoration, and one that hasn't been awarded since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Why it matters: Despite not having fought a conventional war since 1988, Iran is involved in countless Middle Eastern conflicts, supporting, arming, or financing forces in its "axis of resistance." Leading this axis, and often besideitsforces on the battlefield, is Soleimani.
The British pound rose by the most in nearly 2 years on Wednesday after lawmakers voted down the latest Brexit proposal — an amendment to leave the EU with no agreement in place.
The big picture: As the deadline has closed in, investors have increased rather than decreased bullish bets on the pound. The CFTC reported last week speculators had cut net short positions on sterling by half since September 2018 and reduced positions by about $1.5 billion since the week of Dec. 21.
Brexit has grabbed global news headlines, but capital markets have shown little fear and Britain's currency has even strengthened as the March 29 deadline nears with no resolution in sight.
What's happening: British government debt is trading little moved from its levels at the start of the year, and London's benchmark FTSE 100 is up more than 6% year-to-date — less than S&P 500 and European Stoxx 600, but not out of sync with global equity markets.
Malaysian prosecutors rejected early Thursday a request to free a Vietnamese woman accused of killing the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Details: Kim Jong-nam died after having liquid VX nerve agent smeared in his face at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017. Doan Thi Huong and her co-accused, Indonesian woman Siti Aisyah, deny killing him and say they believed they were part of a television prank. Aisyah was freed early on Monday Malaysia time. After it was confirmed Huong would remain in Malaysia, the judge said the defendant was not "physically and mentally" well enough to continue with the trial and adjourned the case until Apr 1, Channel NewsAsia reported.
The details: President Trump announced in October his intention to withdraw from the treaty because he said Russia was not honoring the agreement. Russia then formally suspended its part of the pact, and the U.S. formally withdrew from it on February 1. The treaty is set to end in August, when the Pentagon plans to test a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of about 600 miles, U.S. military officials who are prevented from being named under Pentagon ground rules told reporters. They plan to test a midrange ballistic missile with an approximate range of 1,800 to 2,500 miles in November.
The House of Commons on Wednesday voted 321-278 to reject the U.K. leaving the European Union without a deal.
The big picture: Parliament on Tuesday voted for the second time to reject Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, the only proposal currently on the table. On Thursday, May plans to bring a vote on extending negotiations past the March 29 deadline. That will be a tough sell in Brussels, which is also worried about a no deal outcome but only wants to give the U.K. an extension if given a clear path forward.
The big picture: The New York Times reported that experts from the U.S. played a role in the Chinese government's use of DNA samples that kept tabs on its minority Uighur population. Thermo Fisher supplied the equipment the Chinese government used to conduct the largely coerced testing, per the Times.
Paul Manafort, on the day he was sentenced to a total of 7.5 years for crimes uncovered by special counsel Robert Mueller, has been indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance for "a yearlong residential mortgage fraud scheme through which Manafort and others falsified business records to illegally obtain millions of dollars."
Why it matters: President Trump has the authority to issue pardons for federal crimes, but not for state-level crimes.
