British Student Sentenced to Life for "Spying" in UAE; Jeremy Hunt: U.K. will not Halt Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia; NHK: Nissan May Face Criminal Charges in Japan; Trump Thanks Saudi Arabia for Falling Oil Prices
PAULA NEWTON, HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: Hello, I'm Paula Newton, coming up in the next half hour of QUEST MEANS BUSINESS, Europe's Economic Commissioner tells me why he can't let Italy have its own way on its budget. And we'll take a tour of one of China's busiest gadget markets where ordinary tech entrepreneurs are trying to take on the big boys. First though, these are the headlines on Cnn at this hour. The UAE's Attorney General says the life sentence handed to a British PHD student can be appealed. Matthew Hedges was found guilty of being a British spy, a charge both he and the British government strongly deny. He was jailed after a hearing that lasted just five minutes. Britain's top diplomat is warning the UAE, there will be consequences. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt says the U.K. will not end arm sales to Saudi Arabia. He says that would mean Britain's leverage in efforts to end the war in Yemen would be in his words reduced to zero. Saudi Arabia is a key player in the war supporting Yemen's government against Houthi rebels. Now, in the past few minutes, British Prime Minister Theresa May said she'll return to Brussels for more talks Saturday. Her meeting today with European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker didn't really reach a deal on Britain's future relationship with the EU. In addition, a tiny British territory of Gibraltar at the southern tip of Spain has become a sticking point in Brexit negotiations. And Spain is threatening a veto over the issue. In an exclusive interview with Cnn, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is not planning to step down as chairman and threw his support behind COO Cheryl Sandberg despite recent calls from investors to shake-up management. Shares of Facebook have been down more than 20 percent this year. Prosecutors in Tokyo are considering bringing criminal charges against Nissan Motors, that's according to NHK; Japan's public service broadcaster. Now, the news comes after two days -- two days after the arrest of Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn on suspicion of underreporting his earnings and other financial misconduct. Nissan did not comment on the report. Donald Trump has thanked Saudi Arabia for the recent fall in oil prices after he signaled he was going to keep backing that government despite the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Now, oil prices are recovering from heavy selling on Tuesday and Brent is now up more than 2 percent. As you can see there, though, as our current chart shows, it's essentially flat, never a dull moment on oil commodities. Oil prices are getting -- this is from his tweet, "oil prices are getting lower. Great! A big tax cut for America and the world. Thank you, Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!" Instructions directly from the president. Now earlier, I asked our emerging markets editor John Defterios what might be the president's end game when it comes to the price of oil.</s>JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: He's basically suggesting he's going to get political cover to Mohammad bin Salman; the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, wants to get $450 billion of military contracts overtime, and it wants to lower oil price as the bonus for giving Saudi Arabia blanket coverage here going forward. Two members of the OPEC community actually sent me that tweet via WhatsAPP with the signals of alarm because this puts undue pressure, Paula, on Halid al-Falih; who is the Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia. Remember a week ago, Monday, it was here in Abu Dhabi, we had him on a panel and he declared it was necessary to take a million barrels a day off the market. Half of that was going to come from Saudi Arabia itself. One source told me a u-turn would be absolutely catastrophic here for OPEC and non-OPEC in this alliance they developed two and a half years ago. They even say it's not even good for the oil and gas patch in the United States. Before OPEC and non-OPEC players intervened, Paula, between 2015 and '16, they had the unemployment rate at just over 8 percent. After 2016 going into 2017, the oil patch saw the unemployment rate cut in half to 4 percent. Donald Trump has something completely else in mind and that's the pump for his base, but nothing else I candidly find quite surprising.</s>NEWTON: Yes, the clash of the economics and the politics, so this is extraordinary. You're teeing up that very contentious OPEC meeting quite well. You know, we're used to the tweets from Donald Trump, but how else does he disrupt things?</s>DEFTERIOS: You know, it's extraordinary here because right now, the momentum is working against the OPEC producers and even Russia because we had so much intervention coming from Donald Trump. First and foremost, one source said to me we had no idea he was going to give eight exemptions to Iran. So that's added at least another million to 1.4 million barrels a day and for the next few months, he has a trade dispute with China. And this could dampen growth in 2019. China is a major importer of oil, so we could see the surplus growing when it comes to China. And we cannot forget, Paula, U.S. shale production is booming. Overall, U.S. output last year climbed by 2 million barrels a day, expectations are in 2019, they're going to add another 1.5. It's like adding a UAE or a Kuwait to the market every single year. So this is going to keep that downward pressure on prices going forward, I think.</s>NEWTON: OK, a budget showdown between the EU and Italy, I know what you're thinking, it's happened before, not this way. Brussels accuses Rome of breaking the rules. We ask an EU Commissioner if the rules can change.