System. The crew capsule was jettisoned to safety. Global news 24 hours a day, onair, and tictoc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. Im Mark Crumpton. This is bloomberg. It is 1 00 in new york, 6 00 in london, 1 00 in hong kong. Im shery ahn. Welcome to bloomberg markets. From bloomberg World Headquarters in new york, here are the top stories on the bloomberg and from around the world we are following. Restarting the ipo engine. Saudi arabia reviving preparations for a potential aramco ipo, after months of putting the planned listing on hold. The u. S. Is intensifying its trade fight with the eu over aircraft subsidies. The administration is proposing new tariffs on eu goods worth about 4 billion. A monster month for fiat. Truckof the ram pickup almost catch up to the topselling truck in america. We have the latest in auto sales. Halfway into the trading day, lets get to abigail doolittle. A down day for equities and yields. Abigail small losses at this point for the major averages. All down about. 2 . Earlier up a little bit, so investors wishywashy after all the news around the trade truce, and the rally we had yesterday. Look at the underperformance for the smallcap russell 2000, down. 8 . That does set a risk off tone, investors moving away from risk assets, moving toward haven assets. Five basisld down points. Bonds rallied again. Investors seeking the safety of bonds. It will be interesting to see what the jobs report brings on friday, whether we could see a reversal. On the day, the 10year yield is down. That is helping the yieldsensitive sectors, real estate, utilities. When yields fall, those dividends look attractive. They are the best sectors for the s p 500. In fact, since volatility started last year in the fourth quarter, that is the case. Defensive sectors leading the way. Action, have some mixed sherry talking about those auto sales coming out. Fiat chrysler have been higher on that strong quarter, better than expected excuse me, monthly sales. Up 1. 9 versus the estimate of 1 . Gm missing. Fords results are not out. Everybody waiting on tesla. Fiat chryslerct is better, expectations going into the reports for the month of june and the quarter, relative to car sales, a bit muted. At aly, if we look terminal we have, we have had this big rally on the year. Lets go back to 2018. Looking at the s p 500 for much of last year. In blue we are looking at volume. As the s p 500 was putting in an alltime high at that time, volume was declining. We see the 20day moving average reaching out. This years rally, interesting to see, coming on declining volume. Hit an alltime high yesterday, volume dipping down. Lls seem to have the losses we are seeing on the day. Shery thank you for that. We continue to see a lot of concerns across the markets. Roubini is areal living up to his name of dr. Doom. He told bloomberg that the spike in oil prices could lead to a recession next year. The consequences of this war is globalization, balkanization and decoupling of the Global Economy. We will have to redo the entire global tech chain. Eventually by next year, if this us to escalates, there will be a global recession. Markets are pricing the best and worst case sara ramirez scenarios. Let me bring you some breaking news. Nominated have someone for the commission post. We are hearing from the eu at the moment. Another nominee for ecb president , Christine Lagarde, that is according to bettel. The eu summit continues. There seems to be some nominations for the commissions top post, not to mention, Christine Lagarde for ecb president. Lets discuss what is happening, including across the markets. The leader of is the Portfolio Strategy Team at ever core isi. Lets get started with the European Union, given we are getting the latest headlines. We continue to see the eu summit there. Given how the different top positions at the eu, ecb, and who can take over mario draghi still at play, how could that affect Monetary Policy . It could affect Monetary Policy to the extent, if someone with a more hawkish that were to take over the ecb. It is unclear who is going to take on that torch of managing the ecb following draghis exit. If it is going to be lagarde, she would probably lead fairly dovish lee, which is something our policy analyst has talked about. Shery we just heard from the iell the roubini nour roubini, the fed cutting as soon as this month. Are we still expecting the Global Economy to slow down in such a way that it could cause problems . It is clear the Global Economy is slowing, but is it slowing enough to elevate Recession Risk as much as people seem to be talking about it . I think it is way overstated. It appears to be more of a normal inventory correction. Fed,u look at the atlanta expenditures are running at 2. 5 . Very healthy consumer consistent with healthy labor markets. As you work through that, production side of the economy will slow. The goods portion of the economy will slow, which is a small portion of the overall economy. Our economy is 70 services. That side is strong. Im not sure why trade uncertainty is going to change that significantly and why people should be concerned about recession, especially when Central Banks are working hard to avoid recession. We have the zero bound constraint. If you are making that bet, you are betting against a healthy u. S. Consumer that does not have a lot of imbalances, a high savings rate, and a central bank that wants to avoid the zero bound. Shery and yet, you cannot blame investors were being concerned. The latest agile data we have seen with manufacturing in decline around the world. People are concerned. , howgger question is sensitive are equity markets to to oilata, as opposed volatility, which we have seen in droves this year . There are two parts to your point. I want to address something. Im very concerned in my job about what is priced in relative to what the data is trending. It is clear the data is slowing, that is concerning. In our teams of you, investors are pricing in a much worse scenario than is warranted. That is why cyclicals fell. Questiond part of your sorry, i wanted to make that point. Shery given what we are seeing across markets, what can we expect . Is actual macro variables something that we have been writing about are having much less of an impact on s. Ctor the perception of the outlook, more so than the actual changes of macro variables. The Oil Volatility that you mentioned, having much less influence over sector and factor volatility than we have ever seen. It is a really unique period. Not only oil prices, but credit spreads, yield curve, regular indents to Investor Sentiment having less influence as to what is left over. Not only oil prices, but credit we define that as dark matter, whatever is driving shortterm. I think the narrative will shift now from that doom and gloom outlook to something more positive, if it proves to be a normal inventorywe define that e consumer is healthy, and centralbank policy is working hard to avoid a recession. Shery thanks for joining us, dennis. Tune in tomorrow on bloomberg surveillance where we will have a live interview with the cleveland fed president loretta mester. Saudi aramco moving forward with preparations for its mega ipo. This comes months after pausing plans to go public. The oil giant recently held talks with a select group of investment banks to discuss the potential roles on the offering. Joining us now is our deals reporter. We are talking about very volatile oil prices. What has changed from a few months ago . This is a monster deal they have been working on for two years before pulling the plug in october last year. It didnt have to do with Oil Volatility. The saudi government wanted a valuation of 2 trillion. The feeling was they should go into another deal first to boost that valuation. At the time, they decide to buy a big stake in a chemicals giant, and also decided to raise money earlier this year. The government raised 12 billion in bonds, which got the company familiarized with investors. The valuation was the bigger factor than the oil. That offering of debt, the most oversubscribed in history. What have they learned from that experience . Investors are open to them. We had some geopolitical issues, we had the Jamal Khashoggi incident. There were questions about how investors would embrace aramco and saudi. Gave themoffering comfort that there were investment dollars that would go to them. What portals are we going to see now is to mark we continue to talk about this 2 trillion valuation. Oil prices are very volatile, not really where they want to see them at the moment. That is the big question. This ipo they are talking about, 5 at 2 trillion, that would make it 400 billion, that is the biggest in history. So far the biggest is 25 billion, alibaba. This is a monster deal and that remains the sticking point. Can they get this valuation . They are also open to litigation in the u. S. The crown prince would love to do this as a new york listing but there are lots of questions around that as well. Nothing has been decided yet, nothing is certain. Except that aramco is starting to talk to banks about, can we bring this back to market . Timing would be a big factor, whether they can do it or not. The government has targeted doing this by the end of 2021. Shery still on the table. Nabila ahmed, thank you. Plenty more coming up. This is bloomberg. Breakingre on that news. European Union Leaders have reached an agreement on top jobs at the eu parliament. Lagarde willistine be nominated to lead the European Central bank. For more, lets go to brussels and hear from maria tadeo. Of summit talks. No decisions and finally we have more clarity. What is the latest . Record 20 hours and three days here trying to figure out who will do what in the European Commission. Names are finally out and they are all pretty clear. Christine lagarde will be nominated to replace mario draghi at the European Central bank. This is at the end of october, the big job investors have kept their eyes on. When it comes to Monetary Policy, she is someone who obviously has done the rounds across the world. Many look at her as a crisis fighter but she has never worked as a central banker. Already seen a few eyebrows raised, wondering if this is too much of a political figure going into a central bank. Also, some immediate repercussions, it will not be weidman, from the german central bank, who was seen as a disruptor, big change from mario draghi. The market is betting that they will now get loose Monetary Policy. Last week, lagarde described the Global Economy as hitting a rough patch. Can we expect some easy policy her if she heads the ecb . Maria it is too early to even campe what kind of her if she s Christine Lagarde will sit on, but at times she has been vocal saying mario draghi and his assessment of the european tonomy, the measures he took prop up the european economy were correct, on the right path. This is what the market is reading into this. The idea that in christine camplagarde, we will get continuation from mario draghi. Either way, we know the ecb is on an easing path. Clear thatade it they have to stimulate the european economy, would be prepared to do this. The theme here is, the market is looking at this as a continuation of draghi. Breaknt get that clean that break that would have come with weidman at the head of the central bank. Shery give us more insight into the commission post. Just a few months ago, we were talking about weber. What happened to him . Maria it has been a disaster for him. Of elite concept candidates, this system of political groups in europe, everyone except Emmanuel Macron agreed to, and they said for months that the head of the European Commission would be somebody that participated in european elections. Clearly that is not the case. Weber is out. The current German Defense inister, a woman known germany, but not outside of germany, not many europeans will know who she is. She did not run in this european election. Many will tell you that the lead candidate to come outl has with the negotiations with something to present back home. Shery do we have any idea what Foreign Policy could look like, especially when we are seeing moreu. S. Efforts to put constrictions on trade, including new european items added to the tariffs list . Is a job that would go in principle to a spaniard. The former minister is well known here in brussels, knows the machine inside out. He will lead for an action for the European Union. You also have iran, russia, venezuela, so many open fronts here for the European Union. This is a job that will take a lot of time. Also interesting, when you read this from a european perspective, it reflects that balance of power between italy and spain. Italy almost seen as problematic and confrontational. Spain very proeuropean. It looks like the European Council agreed to hand something to the Spanish Government to put forward the idea that spain is a right when yous look at Foreign Policy. Shery maria tadeo, thank you so much. Plenty more to come. This is bloomberg. Shery as we continue to monitor auto sales numbers, here are some of the highlights. The big headline comes from tee up chrysler, beating estimates largely owing to a monster season from ram truck. The ongoing narrative of a softer car market is continuing with toyota, honda, and nissan missing estimates. Joining us is david welch, our Detroit Bureau chief. Lets start with the positives. Tell us about the ram truck and have it could be americas topselling vehicle now. David they will have to do quite a bit to become the topselling vehicle. That still belongs to the ford fseries pickup truck. Ram did so well, they were up 56 . The number for the month matches almost what ford does on an average month. That is a big deal. Historically, ram pickups have been a distant third behind chevrolet and ford. Now they are beating chevy in sales and matching g. M. s total sales. Ram has been outselling g. M. s pickup trucks at some points. They are doing this interesting two truck strategy. They have this one trend that is beloved by customers, nice amenities inside. It is just a real departure from where the ram was before. Then they are still selling the old truck, the classic, which is 6,000 less. There is an argument between gm and ram. Is the truck greater or is in the discounting . It is a lot of both, but the bottom line is they are gaining market share on gm and ford with this strategy. They are doing it to General Motors at a difficult time. The company is ramping up through factories that make their new truck. Gm is not prepared for a market battle like this. Inventoryrying to get out there to dealers, getting their Assembly Lines going. Meanwhile, they are getting hit at the high end with this luxury pickup, and at the lower end with these discounts. Shery quickly about sedans . They are cratering right now. Some lexus sedans were down about 30 a month. Have seen forecast saying the market will bottom out at 30 . It just does not seem to have a bottom. It seems Consumers Want to buy crossover suvs and getting out of your basic sedan. Shery david welch from detroit with the latest on u. S. Car sales. Plenty more in the next halfhour, including the latest on the european leaders. This is bloomberg. Mark im Mark Crumpton with bloomberg first word news. Bank of believing governor mark carney has weighed in on the growing tensions with united dates over the subsidy dispute between boeing and airbus. He warned that rising protectionism could prompt widespread slowdowns. He also said a shift in policy is needed. Carney added Monetary Policy must address the consequences of such uncertainty. Russia wants all sides in the Iran Nuclear Agreement to do their part. The foreign minister is urging iran to carry out its obligations. Itran acknowledges stockpiled more enriched uraniums and is supposed to. Lavrov also says europe should althoug off our year on economic sanctions relief. Was injured because your cortes accuses Border Agents of using psychological warfare against migrants. Allegedly they forced migrants to drink from toilets. There is abuse in these facilities. This is them on their best behavior and they put them in rooms with no running water. These women were being told by cbp officers to drink out of the toilet. They were Drinking Water out of the toilet. And that was them knowing that a congressional visit was coming. This is cbp on their best behavior, telling people to drink out of the toilet. Mark this comes days after that theurfaced Detention Centers in texas were feeding frozen sandwiches. Cory booker has rolled out a new immigration agenda. The new jersey democratic senator says he would shift away from criminal prosecution of border crossings. If elected, he said he would also develop a new mandate for migrant Detention Centers to meet minimum standards. Global news 24 hours a day, onair, and tictoc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. Im Mark Crumpton. This is bloomberg. Shery live from bloomberg World Headquarters in new york, im shery ahn. Amanda live in toronto, im amanda lang. Welcome to bloomberg markets. Here are the top stories we are following from around the world. The central bank shuffle. Christine lagarde nominated as the replacement for mario draghi at the ecb. She would be the first woman to run euro area Monetary Policy. After 20 hours of meetings, the European Council agrees on new leaders. The next challenge, parliamentary approval. We have a live update from brussels. Stabilizing the crude market has become more elusive for opec as supply cuts failed to stop a price slide. Quick check on the markets on this holiday week in north america, the markets not likely to see any real volume. Lackluster performance. It should be noted the markets are off the lows of the session, also off the highs. We saw the markets move higher not necessarily in reaction to the word that Christine Lagarde was appointed, but the s p tracking back to breakeven. Energy, materials both weak spots for that market. We have to take a look at european stocks. They have been doing pretty well. We are talking about them doing their posting their best half of the years since 1998. European cyclicals gaining against defenses as well. Bond yields continue to drop him and not surprising given the poor manufacturing data we have u. S. Not to mention the not proposing a series of further tariffs. Lets continue our discussion on europe. European leaders have reached agreement on top jobs at the eu parliament. As foreignpolicy chief and leader of the council, Christine Lagarde will be nominated to lead the European Central bank. Brussels lets go to with maria tadeo. After 20 hours of discussions at the summit, we finally seem to have a decision. Give us the latest. Maria a decision has finally been made. Keep in mind, we were here for three days to get to this point. Negotiations broke up sunday night. We came back monday and nothing came out of that meeting. Finally after a delay, we have this session, where you have Christine Lagarde nominated to replace mario draghi at the European Central bank. French, currently head of the International Monetary fund, although she will be asked to step down from that position. The top of the European Commission, the other holy grail of european politics, is a german, who currently serves as defense minister in the Angela Merkel government. Von der leyen. Sent a shock to the system by almost eliminating the lead candidate to become head of the European Commission. A frencheeded to get woman at the top of the European Central bank by which many consider the job that matters the most. Amanda closely watched, she is a known quantity, so perhaps a relief to some to see Christine Lagarde nominated. Is this a package deal, could you approve one and reject the other . Maria this is the thing. The European Central bank is treated differently. When you look at the political jobs, looking at the European Council in European Parliament, they come as one unit. The European Parliament will have to approve them. In principle, that would happen tomorrow. There could be pushback. The question is, will this fly when it gets pushed to a vote . We just heard from Jeanclaude Juncker who hopes that is the case. Obviously, rejection of the entire package could lead to an institutional crisis in europe. Political convention will tell you leaders would not put this to a vote if they were not sure that it would be cleared in a parliamentary vote. The moment, we are seeing donald tusk speak, saying lagarde will be perfect for the ecb president job. Earlier, Jeanclaude Juncker says he things parliament will vote for the eu job package. Tell us about the procedural steps going forward. It is interesting that donald tusk said Christine Lagarde is a great fit for the european Central Banks. Prior to going into the summit, many argued the next head of the European Central bank had to be a Real Central Bank governor, someone who had served in a National Central bank, had experience with central Monetary Policy. Lagarde has a very long career in international politics, almost a crisis integer, but there is no central bank experience. Many will also tell you this is a central bank that could become more political, so that is something to keep in mind. Tomorrow there will be a vote at the European Parliament in strasburg. The question is will this be voted and cleared . Political convention will tell you that european leaders would not risk a defeat that would put everything up in the air. They have done this because they are sure they have the numbers. Amanda great to have your thoughts on this, maria tadeo. Our next guest says the decision on european leadership may be more important than all the attention given to global trade wars and iran. B. Managing director at riley. What is the relevance of what is happening in europe right now, related to the rest of the world . The eu elections that just took place are incredibly important. Bigger danger spot than china or japan. Whether the parliament will improve these people is an open question. There are a tremendous amount of nationalist in the European Parliament. Nations,ee the baltic italy, some of the southern european nations may not approve this. Even if they do by some kind of it seems clear to me the European Union from its inception was run by both germany and france. I think those days are over. Athink we will end up with significant minority or small majority, depending on the issue. Even if some of these leaders get elected, that doesnt mean their policies will be put in place by the European Parliament , which is the governmental body that has to approve them. I think it is a lot of risk in europe right now. Seeing there European Council news conference, donald tusk speaking at the moment, saying he is absolutely sure about lagardes independence. This of a concern in regard, we heard from a reporter earlier that this was a big win for Emmanuel Macron. Will the central bank become a bit more political . Yes, i think it was a big win for france just to get her nominated. She is held in very high regard. Without question, she is wellrespected, well thought of by not only economists, but people in the financial world. The problem is she doesnt have the experience to run a central bank. Im not saying that she will not do a good job, but the ecb recently talked about restarting quantitative easing, buying more sovereign debt, buy more corporate bonds. And i think it will become very political in europe. I wish her well. You do have to say, she doesnt have the experience under her belt to do Something Like this. Amanda from an investor point of view, where does it leave you on europe . We talked about the risks in the world, especially in the u. S. Market. What is your thinking about investing in europe . Investing in europe right now is a fulls game. Commentary that i send out to 5000 institutions every day, dont put money in europe, there is too much risk. We dont know what we are looking at. Which wasropean union run by germany and france, is now gone. We now have a nationalist, populist group that is very powerful within the parliament. I think what went on before is not what goes on in the future. Just in terms of the risk profile, i have said stanback and dont put any money stand back and dont put any money in europe at this time. Shery also hearing from Angela Merkel at the time saying that the eu must avoid such difficult negotiations in the future. Is this possible given what youve described in the political scene in europe at the moment . What does that mean for investors . As you said, not very positively. I think ms. Merkel is wishing and hoping and praying that the days of germany and france running the eu are over. The people dont want to admit to Something Like that, but that has been going on since its inception. Said,cent elections, as i from a variety of countries, and from a variety of agendas, have elected a huge amount of populists, whod at the core of their belief structure, do not want germany and france running the eu anymore. They want a bigger voice. Populistsi think they will havr voice as we go along, which is what makes me think investing in europe is such a risk at the present time. Shery mark grant, thank you so much. Great to have your thoughts. Coming up, opecs dilemma. Outlook counters their production cuts. This is bloomberg. Shery and this is bloomberg markets. Im shery ahn in new york. Amanda im amanda lang in toronto. Where it is opec go from here . We spoke exclusively to irans oil minister about how deep those cuts could go. Yes, i think they can do. They need to cut more. Less. Di arabia produces we have a Research Analyst at janice henderson. I want to start with the agreement we have here but also the day or question, does opec have the ability to manage production in a way that will affect the price . Do they need more tools here . Thanks for having me on. They have some tools in the near term. Longerterm, questions about their ability to continuously seed market share in perpetuity. U. S. Producers, and then you look at the next five years, additional supply coming on from nonus nonopec producers. Canada, brazil, barrels coming exxonm guyana, once starts their project. Opec, what term, they can do with the extension of production cuts, i think that they blesses oil prices. Probably keeps it above 60. Longerterm, they have some questions they need to address. Seating market share in fatuity, or if they decide to bring back barrels into the market at the expense of bringing the price back to some of the levels that we saw earlier in the decade. Shery what about geopolitical risk . How much is already priced into the markets . I dont think theres a lot of geopolitical risk priced into the barrel right now. If you look at Spare Capacity as a percentage of total daily supply, it is really not that much. It is Pretty Amazing that you can see some of the events we saw in the gulf over the past couple months and oil prices not really budging on that. Think theres a huge amount of geopolitical risk premium priced into the barrel. That is something for the oil bulls to hang their hat on. If we saw tensions in the middle east, potential supply outages elsewhere in the world, certainly we have seen venezuela lose a lot of barrels in the market. If that were to continue to go down, that does not seem to be baked into the oil price today. Amanda how much of the demand side of the equation is affecting the price . Expectation for weaker global growth. If that should worsen, what does that do for the price of oil . I think that is what you are seeing in the reaction to the price today. I thought the opec meeting was favorable for prices. Crude falling on the back of that, i think thats a reflection of mediumterm demand concerns. Predict, impossible to but if you look at some leading economic indicators, it would suggest 2020 could see demand rolling over. Haveinly the iea, eia, made consistent cuts, downward revisions to their estimates over the past couple monthly reports. Demand is a concern. Themately, that will be story for the oil markets in 2020. Shery how much of an incentive will saudi arabia have to keep prices at healthy levels, given saudi aramcos ipo is still in play . I think a huge incentive for them. If they are targeting an ipo in 2020, possibly 2021, they will want a healthy oil price. To me, that is north of 60. They would like to see something north of 70. In order to generate interest in the ipo, they will need a supportive price. That is their goal in the medium term. Walk that tight rope to manage production to keep isis in a stable range. Prices in a stable range. The will be the goal of do ipo and a versa find away from oil. Timing suggeste that saudi considers itself out of the healthy box . What was the last part of that . Areda the saudi arabia and not being punished anymore for some of the most recent incidents politically . Sure. Thats a question. Where they decide to list, still a question if they try to list in the u. S. Overall, the ipo is a sign that that is back in play for the 2020 time period, would suggest that saudi believes investors are comfortable investing money into that ipo. Shery thank you so much for that, noah barrett. Coming up, nike pulls its flag shoes ahead of the fourth of july. Why they are facing criticism. This is bloomberg. Amanda this is bloomberg markets. Im amanda lang in toronto. Shery im shery ahn in new york. Nike announcing it is pulling shoes from new york because it has the betsy ross American Flag that some are calling offensive. Critics are saying the company is bowing to Political Correctness and revisionism. For more, lets bring in evan. This is not sitting well with conservatives. Will this have much of an impact itself . Usiness of nike the stock price has not moved very much. Nike went through the same criticism 10 months ago when they introduced Colin Kaepernick as the face of the 30th anniversary campaign. The callsaffect for boycott, anger did not affect them much either. The stock price has not moved very much. Nike knows their customers very well. It makes decisions in a calculated way based on what it knows about its consumers. It wouldot a decision have made if they did not believe that it was better for business to do it this way. Amanda what about the threats from the state of arizona, do they add up to a problem . Is building a plant right outside of phoenix. They were given about 2 million from the city and state to do that. Those awards happen because the bring high wage jobs and an economic boost to the area. This company does 40 billion in sales every year. 2 million i would imagine is not enough to sink them when they are trying to build a plant. More of a symbolic move by the governor than anything else but i dont expect it to financially hurt nike. Shery what is this telling us, the fact that these shoes are now selling for thousands of dollars in the secondary market . Two things. There is so much less supply now than there was expected to be. Beforeot uncommon for issue releases, to be activity on the secondary market. Now the shoe is not even being released, so there are only a small amount given out there as releases to drum up hype. I imagine the controversy also plays into it. News, so ite in the is coveted in that regard. Im sure the controversy is playing into the fact that these shoes which would retail for a couple hundred, are now 2500 on the secondary market. A lot of story behind this which is not accurate. This is from the slavery era. The 13 stripes on the flag are, too, if you get down to it. Is this a sign of the times that for big business it is not worth having those conversations . There are businesses out there that are terrified to get caught in the political crosshairs, they dont want to be in a President Trump tweaked. And there are businesses that are willing to dive in there. We have seen nike be willing to be the company. They are not afraid, when there is a political stance to take, to make it. It can be hard forthere that art caught in the political crosshairs consumers to understand sometimes where they are. They pulled shoes last week kong protesting, but nike is not afraid of that. Amanda thank you so much for that. You can catch all kong protesti, but nike is not afraid of that. Of our interviews on the bloomberg with the function tv. From new york and toronto, this is bloomberg. Ew york and toronto, this is bloomberg. Mark im Mark Crumpton with bloombergs first word news. European Union Leaders have nominated the imf managing director to be the next of the European Central bank. She would be the first woman to hold the post. She would also be one of two women on the sixmember executive board. She will succeed mario draghi as president of the ecb when his term ends october 31. The two contenders to be britains next Prime Minister both said today they would unblock the brexit impasse by scrapping a contentious irish border provision that has harmed efforts to approved the divorce agreement with the European Union. Boris johnson and jeremy hunt traveled to Northern Ireland today. Two things. Number one, we will under no circumstances have a hard border. There will be no physical checks or infrastructure at the border in Northern Ireland. Number two, we will make sure we ave an exit from the eu, brexit that allows the holy u. K. To come out entire and undivided