The U.S. Treasury Department has labeled China a currency manipulator (WaPo) after China’s currency weakened to beyond seven yuan to the dollar, pushing the trade dispute between the countries to its most severe point yet. Wall Street recorded its worst performance of 2019 following news of the escalation.
 
U.S. officials have long accused Beijing of manipulating its currency to gain a competitive advantage. The yuan’s depreciation, along with Beijing’s call for state-owned firms to halt purchases (FT) of U.S. agricultural goods, came after U.S. President Donald J. Trump signaled new tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. Today, China’s central bank took measures to limit the yuan’s depreciation (Bloomberg), and said it did not and will not use (Reuters) the exchange rate as a tool in the trade dispute. It also warned that the U.S. Treasury designation would “cause chaos in financial markets.”

South Korea’s military said the North has fired two short-range ballistic missiles (Yonhap) off its southwest coast, the fourth such launch in less than two weeks. After the reported launch, Pyongyang said ongoing joint U.S.-South Korea military drills violate inter-Korean agreements, and that it may seek a “new road” aside from dialogue.

Protests were held in several cities (Reuters) in Pakistan after India revoked the special status of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region. Islamabad said it will “exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps,” while the United Nations called for restraint amid the security lockdown by Indian forces. Two former chief ministers of the region who opposed revoking its status were put under house arrest (Mint).
 
Afghanistan: The United Nations and the United States condemned a Sunday bombing (VOA) on a bus carrying media professionals in Kabul that killed two people and wounded three. The attack was claimed by the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

At least twenty people were killed and dozens of others injured when a car packed with explosives (WaPo) in Cairo detonated during a collision, according to Egypt’s Interior Ministry. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
 
Syria: Government forces resumed a military campaign (Reuters) around the rebel bastion of Idlib after agreeing late last week to a conditional cease-fire. They claimed Turkey violated the terms of the truce.

Health officials said that the two-year trial (VOA) in the country’s southwest will reach some eight hundred people and will focus on health-care workers, ambulance drivers, and burial teams.
 
Tanzania: A prominent journalist was charged with leading organized crime and money laundering (Guardian) after authorities dropped sedition charges issued last week. Press freedom advocates denounced the charges as retaliation for his investigative reporting.
 
CFR’s Michelle Gavin looks at Tanzania’s authoritarian turn.

The United Kingdom plans to send warships to assist a U.S.-led effort (NYT) to protect merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Britain has so far failed to persuade other European countries to create a European-led mission in the area.
 
Bosnia: The heads of the country’s three largest ethnic parties reached an agreement to form a government (Reuters), moving to end ten months of political deadlock since October’s general election.

President Trump issued an executive order (WSJ) freezing all Venezuelan government assets in the United States and prohibiting transactions with the regime. U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will be among representatives from about sixty countries (AFP) meeting in Lima, Peru, today to discuss the Venezuelan crisis.
 
Colombia: The country will grant citizenship (NYT) to children born to Venezuelans on Colombian soil between August 2015 and August 2021, President Ivan Duque announced. The move is expected to provide some twenty-four thousand children easier access to education and health care.
 
In Foreign Affairs, Cynthia J. Arnson writes that Venezuela’s neighbors are pulling more than their weight in the refugee crisis.

Two people have died in the hospital (NYT) after being wounded in the shooting at an El Paso Walmart on Saturday, bringing the death toll to twenty-two. Speaking at the White House, President Trump condemned racism and white supremacy after two mass shootings over the weekend, but did not reiterate calls for tighter gun restrictions.