juliette: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the weekend business around the world. the u.k. has a new pm. boris johnson promises he is the man who can lead britain out of the eu. pm johnson: we are going to get brexit done on october 31. >> it will be a very tall order for boris johnson to deliver. juliette: u.s.-china trade

talks on again, but the path to a deal remains elusive. joe: officials have been cautioning not to expect a whole lot. juliette: police and protesters clash again in hong kong. u.s. authorities plan an antitrust as growth in the eurozone shows signs of further shrinking, the ecb makes a key decision on stimulus. >> mario draghi made it clear the european central bank has one way to go, and that is lower when it comes to rates. juliette: earnings reports continue to roll out fast and furious. frank: we have been successful with pricing. sergio: the revenue pressure is not sustaining in the industry. >> it is the teflon company. >> from central banks to brexit, the week's top interviews. >> there is a certain small probability this could be dangerous. >> what is happening to the u.k. economy is not entirely driven by brexit. juliette: it is all straight ahead on "bloomberg best." hello and welcome.

i'm juliette saly. this is "bloomberg best," your weekly review of the most important business news, analysis, and interviews from bloomberg television around the world. let's start with a day by day look at the top headlines. on monday, optimism grows on signals the u.s. and china might be preparing to restart trade talks. scarlet: face-to-face negotiations between top chinese and u.s. trade negotiators could be restarting soon after a number of goodwill gestures by beijing over the weekend. that is according to chinese state media. >> what we are seeing with the chinese moves on agricultural purchases, what we are seeing from our reporting out of beijing, it looks like they are about to start buying again, soybeans and possibly some pork and other agriculture commodities. that is all about goodwill measures, if you will. we should not take that to mean a deal is suddenly at hand.

>> ceo's of major tech companies paid a visit to the white house to discuss the economy and status of the u.s. ban on huawei equipment sales. what was the outcome of the meeting? >> according to the white house, the ceo's of the companies expressed support for national security restriction for huawei. they also asked for timely decisions on when there would be exceptions to that ban. we still don't know how the companies and the trump administration are making distinctions between what the national security risk is and what isn't. jonathan: boris johnson will be the next british prime minister, johnson promising to take the u.k. out of the eu by the halloween deadline. pm johnson: i say to all the doubters, dude, we are going to energize the country. we are going to get brexit done on october 31 and take advantage of all the opportunities that will bring in a new spirit of can do.

guy: he has a razor thin majority to work within the house of commons behind me. it is going to be a very tall order for boris johnson to deliver. >> the only way i can see this going through with a deal -- actually, the only way i can see this going through is if he can persuade the european union to do something, to give him something which he can then sell to his party as removing the irish backstop. this is the bit of the brexit deal they don't like. my mental image of this is a very small runway in a very dense jungle on which he is trying to land a very large plane. >> senior u.s. trade officials are to fly to china on monday for the first high-level face-to-face talks since may. robert lighthizer and his team

will be in shanghai through wednesday for talks that are expected to be a broad review of the issues that are dividing the u.s. and china. any reason for some cautious optimism? >> i would be very cautious. this is the first breakthrough since president trump and president xi announced the temporary truce in the trade war last month of the g20 meetings, but the administration officials have been really cautioning not to expect a whole lot. it is something of a breakthrough, but one that doesn't portend to any quick resolution. [bell ringing] scarlet: we have equities closing right around their session highs and it all changed just before 2:00 p.m. bloomberg reporting that face-to-face trade talks are back on. caroline: nothing like a sprinkling of trade earnings and some mood music around the u.s. and china to help galvanize the risk. francine: deutsche bank, germany's biggest lender, lost 3.2 billion euros in the second quarter. a bigger net loss than expected. trading revenue dropped 12% in the second quarter and again underperformed its biggest u.s. rival. >> we are continuing to execute on the restructuring as quickly

as we can, and with the execution comes the recognition of the steps we have taken. this quarter, we are recognizing about 3.4 billion of costs associated with the transformation, so we get a good portion of the accounting impact already behind us in the second quarter. in the balance of the year, we are working to take severance and restructuring charges in the second half as we execute on the restructuring. emily: facebook out with second-quarter earnings, proving yet again the company can grow both advertising and users while feeling the heat from regulators worldwide. just hours after facebook announced a settlement with the federal trade commission to end of row into the company's privacy policy and practices, the company confirmed it is now being investigated by the ftc on antitrust as well. with all of these controversies and all of these scandals, all of the scrutiny, how did facebook seem to keep beating the odds?

>> you know what? it is the teflon company, it really is. every quarter, i say the same thing. they have been able to grow their revenue, grow their user base despite mounting challenges and this quarter, more of the same. >> they just keep raking in the dough, they are a brilliantly well-designed advertising platform, especially for smaller businesses, there is not another place to go where results can be achieved that are similar. that is a great thing for the company. but long-term, is it going to affect them? it is absolutely going to affect them, no question about that. francine: boris johnson has wasted no time in shaking things up. he has appointed brexit hardliners to several key positions. the former home secretary making a big promotion for the home office, and another brexiteer has been made foreign secretary. anna: essentially, this is boris

johnson doubling down on his brexit commitment, recommitting to the 31st of october as a brexit headline. and then we see him shaping a cabinet that will help them deliver brexit. >> he is bringing alongside all those people who were rebelling against mrs. mays deal, and one of the conditions to be in the cabinet seems to be a willingness to accept the no deal brexit at the end of october. but remember, he will have every single one of them, including some labour people as well, in order to get a deal across, so it will not be incredibly challenging to do that. alix: the ecb is dovish as the central bank issues a rate cut in the face of a weakening economy and lowered expectations. >> economic stimulus continues to be necessary to ensure financial conditions remain very favorable and support the expansion. >> mario draghi made it clear that the european bank only has

one way to go and that is lower. he also made it clear that the european central look at all the tools that are available for qe2. he did not give any details on qe2. he did not really elaborate much on what it could look like. of course now, we will look at a situation where they will be speculating the entire summer what is going to actually happen. september, do we look at a rate cut? how big is the rate cut going to be, and do we actually get other policies? do we get clear guidance on qe2, and clearing accompanied by that rate cut? emily: google having a bounce back quarter that saw revenue topped analyst estimates. shares from google's online properties climbed to more than $27 billion. >> the good news for google is they were able to stop the decelerating ad revenue for the first time in about a year. they were able to decrease that a little bit. but i think the story remains from last quarter, which is the digital advertising ecosystem is

significantly more competitive today even than it was a year ago. obviously facebook and amazon being the new entrant as the third-largest digital advertising company that is out there for advertisers to put their dollars into, so i think there is more competition, and that is what is feeding this new normal that we are going to expect when we look at google's earnings going forward. paul: amazon fell in extended trade after reporting a lower than expected profit and shredding its forecast. it says it will continue as cycle of continuing to improve delivery time and boost topline growth. what are the takeaways from this amazon result? >> spending is back at amazon. they told us last quarter they will be spending some $800 million on trying to turn their two-day delivery pledge into a one-day delivery pledge. that has been more expensive

than they thought it was going to be, and it indicated to investors it is going to continue at least for the next two quarters, rolling it out in the u.s. and internationally to try to increase the speed of delivery and integrate growth in the core retail business. vonnie: t-mobile has won the u.s. nod for the sprint sale, merger included. this is exactly what we were expected. does this mean that the two companies can go ahead with the deal? >> pretty much. they still have some stakes they need to be in front of and make sure they get aboard, but yes, it is a momentous occasion for the two companies, and this has been five years in the making. marcelo: it will be -- i call it a very strong race to see who can provide the best 5g. we feel very confident combined we are going to be able to do that, because the sprint 5g

spectrum that we have, called the mid-band, combined with the low band of t-mobile, gives us the ability to build an advanced network. so there will be some great competition, and i think the big beneficiary of this will be the american consumer with more choices and obviously better prices. so we are definitely going to bring competition up. vonnie: u.s. growth slowing in the first quarter, but not much as expected for the headline number, at any rate. consumer spending pushing gdp growth to 2.1%, despite a drop in investments and exports. >> business investment really, i think, taking it on the chin over concerns of an escalating trade war. i would be more encouraged if we were looking at diversified growth, meaning that it was contributions from exports and business investments and a whole array of categories -- housing -- but that wasn't the case. it is consumers going it alone type of economy, which would be good enough to prop up growth at a pace that is sustainable, low 2% territory, but certainly would be more encouraging for the economic outlook if we were seeing a bunch of contributions.

juliette: still ahead as we review the week on "bloomberg best," an exclusive conversation with former federal chairman alan greenspan. plus, bank of england governor mervyn king says brexit is hardly britain's only economic problem. coming up, more of that week's intriguing earnings reports. >> what we are seeing in the u.s. is business growing yet the cavalry footprint is going down. juliette: this is bloomberg. ♪

juliette: this is "bloomberg best." i'm juliette saly. the earnings drumbeat could be heard loud and strong this week. let's continue our round up with results from more european banks, starting with swiss lender ubs.

>> ubs saw a revival in its fortunes in the second quarter after what sergio ermotti called one of the worst starts to the year in recent history. record profit at its wealth management business and a strong investment bank performance have helped them post the highest net income in almost a decade. >> if you look at the performance we had in the second quarter, it is a strong one, but that does not make us complacent about the environment. it is quite clear that if i look at, for example, the investment bank activities, the revenue pressure is there to stay in the industry. we are acting from a position of strength and a position which we constantly look at how to improve our business, and not one-off initiatives that we let will make a difference. we need to take advantage of our position in the market. >> santander's second-quarter

profit hit by cost cuts along with a restructuring. the bank reached an agreement with unions to dismiss 3000 workers, 10% of its spanish workforce. the lender is also closing 140 branches in the u.k., eliminating jobs in poland. it is a big shakeup. >> santander has delivered the strongest quarterly performance in years, reflecting the progress we have made in our digital transformation. it is clearly a relationship between customers and banks is changing. customers are channeling more and more transactions online than through the physical distribution network, and we have to continually adjust to that new way of digital these relationships. anna: julia fair has reported the slowest inflows in at least seven years. net new money grew by 3.2% in the first half of the year, meaning switzerland's

third-largest bank missed its medium-term goal for growth from 4% to 6%. >> net inflows are quite robust from the core wealth management business, particularly from europe, asia to the middle east. you're right. we had some outflows. and we are actually in the target range of 4% to 6%. if i look at margins and revenue, compared to the second half of last year, they have substantially recovered. we also have benefited from better markets, and what is very important going lowered, the cost program that i explained in february is nicely on track. matt: german asset manager dws had a 4.2 billion euros in inflows in the quarter, so it was actually a very big, bright spot for deutsche bank, the parent company.

the asset management business has really turned around 700 billion euros in assets under management. what is going right for dws? >> what is going well for us, we have a diversified portfolio of asset classes, spanning passive and active, and we can respond to our clients needs, and we see strong inflows in passives and alternatives in particular. vonnie: shares of coca-cola up 5%, posting their biggest gains in four years, pushing coke to a record. the beverage giant got another boost, less sugar. i want to ask you about the north american unit, though. we did see a little bit of a weakness there. you managed to raise prices in north america, but are you losing sales and what to do about that? >> when you look at the north

american business, we have a very clear strategy we have been pursuing, which is to drive engagement with consumers and one of the legs of that is using smaller packages so we are looking for transaction growth, even if it means a little bit less volume. we would like in future quarters to see the volume increase slightly, but our strategy in north america is really about expanding the portfolio, creating value, and growing the revenues. i think the sign of the strategy working is we will see more households buying more of our products, and penetration of households in the u.s. going up. what we are seeing in the u.s. is the business growing, yet the carbon footprint going down. >> shares of tesla are tumbling in after-hours trading, double-digit losses, down 11%. the electric carmaker reported a larger second-quarter loss than expected and is cutting its four-year forecast for capital

expenditures. the company still aggressively pushing ahead with expansion in china. at least they kept their forecast for deliveries. carl: yes. they also kind of walked back from the idea of making profits in the third-quarter and later this year, but we see from the results that the model 3, as we suspected, sells for less than the model s and the model x, and now the makeup of the company is one where it is selling three to four times more model 3s than those other vehicles, the models at tesla are really under pressure. matt: volkswagens operating profit fell 8.1% on fading demand in key markets come a but the world's biggest carmaker is sticking to its full-year outlook. >> you are right, you refer to sales being down 4%, but we have still been able to grow operating profit by special items by 2%. our mix is improving and we have been successful with pricing. we know we are forecasting into a potentially difficult second half, but a strong foundation gives us a comfort to stick to

our guidance for the full year. paul: nissan's troubles far from over. the carmaker doubled its plants job losses and unveiled new production cuts after reporting a 99% plunge in first-quarter profit -- horrible numbers. so what is the issue with nissan's job cuts plan? >> nissan is basically producing too many cars, and we can see that from the way sales plummeted and the way incentives were being used, especially in the u.s., to move cars. i think some scale of job cuts or certainly necessary, but the problem is where the job cuts are located. if you are looking where they are cutting jobs so far, north america, europe, talk of indonesia as well, and to some extent japan. they need to think about their extent of the japanese export operation, which is about half of the revenue for the japanese operation in the global mix. ♪

juliette: you're watching "bloomberg best." i'm juliette saly. all eyes will be on the fed next week as the fomc is expected to cut rates, despite generally strong economic conditions. this week, former fed chairman eral reserve chairman alan greenspan spoke exclusively with bloomberg's david westin and said an insurance cut could make a lot of sense. alan: forecasting is very tricky. certain forecast outcomes have far more negative effects than others, so in that sense, you will act to reduce the risk of those types of events, and that

is a valuable thing to do. i remember very distinctly, on a number of occasions, we cut rates, not because we thought it that it was highly probable that it would be necessary, but the probability of what would happen if indeed it did happen was very large, relative to other events. so it is relative balance, and you consider that there's certain probability events that could be very dangerous, it pays to act to see if you can send it off. david: one thing we talk about now is for the need to cut rates, perhaps of uncertainty. chair powell talked about that, in his testimony was quite specifically,

as well as anemic and slowing global growth. do lower rates help or remedy for trade uncertainty and/or slowing growth? alan: it is not something i recall being active in that type of activity, but they might and they might not. i don't think that in and of itself it is a reason to act, but there is a relative trade oaths to this day. juliette: coming up on "bloomberg best," more of the week's top news in business and finance. activist investor carl icahn pushes for more seats on occidental's board, and congress works out a deal to raise the u.s. debt ceiling that nobody is very happy with. and up next, more telling compelling conversations. former bank of england governor mervyn king is fed up with the

battle over brexit, and he says he knows why it has been dragging on. mervyn: so far, the thing that matters more than anything else is that parliament has voted for nothing. juliette: this is bloomberg. ♪

juliette: welcome back to "bloomberg best." i'm juliette saly. this week, a new nasdaq file stock exchange opened in china, shanghai's star market. the first day saw a trading frenzy as the 25 companies that made their debut rose an average 140%, although the exuberance faded a bit as the week went on. bloomberg's selina wang caught up with china renaissance group's ceo, fan bao, at the launch of the new exchange, and asked how this new stock venue will distinguish itself. bao: what's different is

where to find the timetable, and it is all about disclosures, in the end. it's not about whether you meet a certain requirement for those things. at the end of the day, it is about disclosures. so that's a process for us, who actually represent a lot of chinese tech companies both here and overseas, we are quite familiar with. it is actually a quite interesting change of the concept. and how much do you see this shifting the balance of listing from new york and hong kong to mainland china? i mean, the u.s. is still a very attractive place given the opportunity to raise u.s. dollars amid capital control rules. fan bao: i think these are different markets. u.s., hong kong, china, including the stock markets, they'll all have a different focus. the u.s., i think, if you are large cap company, the u.s. is the best place to go because it is most liquid, the broadest capital market in the world. hong kong, obviously, it has

connections and liquidity to the china markets, and if you are a consumer company with a unique business model, hong kong is probably your top pick. and if you are hard tech company, the technology driven or based economy, semiconductor, china is probably the best choice. from our perspective, it is we are invested as well. it is always good to have more options. i think eventually the chinese tech companies entrepreneurs also will find that they will group toward different selections. juliette: the u.k. has a new prime minister, but it faces the same question it did before boris johnson took office on wednesday -- what will happen to britain's economy as it heads towards an uncertain divorce from the european union? former bank of england governor mervyn king tells bloomberg how the country might use fiscal and monetary policy tools to meet this challenge.

mervyn: in terms of a macroeconomic response, if there were a weakening of the u.k. economy, and i think it's important to make clear that what is happening to the u.k. economy is not entirely driven by brexit. one of the great mistakes of the past three years amongst many commentators is just to assume that everything that's happening in britain is a result of brexit. it isn't. we are part of a bigger world economy which itself is slowing. other parts of the world -- europe, the united states -- are thinking about how much policy space they have. i think we have quite a lot, if it were thought to be appropriate to ease either monetary or fiscal policy. but that is a judgment to be made by the respective authorities further down the road. but it is there if we need it, that isn't the big challenge. the big challenge is actually for parliament to come to a view as to what we are going to do, and so far the thing that matters more than anything else is that parliament has voted for nothing. it has voted against everything.

it's voted against remain, against eight different varieties of brexit, against the no-deal brexit. it hasn't voted for anything. and that is the source of the deadlock in which we find ourselves. vonnie: so what is the solution, lord king? because on the demand side of things, you say in "the end of alchemy" that demand is impervious to monetary policy, that it can't stimulate demand, but that's the global economy slowing argument. and then, on the political side of things, we know that the u.k. has already entered a technical recession thanks to exit. what is to be done? can the boe do anything by easing? mervyn: so i think we need greater cooperation within the world economy. i think the federal reserve is quite likely to ease monetary policy, to see continued growth in the u.s. the bigger problems i see lie within the european union. they are exporting deflation to the rest of the world. they have a very large current accounts surplus. the trade surplus of china has

, for the moment disappeared, is the big issue on the international front. the issue is the current account surplus of the european union. i see no prospect of them being willing to face up to tackle that for some considerable time. juliette: well, if trade tension is the leading downside risk for markets, geopolitical shocks are certainly close behind. this week, bloomberg's kevin cirilli sat down with the u.s. secretary of state, mike pompeo, one of the world's most influential actors in diplomacy and foreign policy. they had plenty of hotspots to discuss. sec. pompeo: iran has this long history of lying behavior. so our mission is that when we came in to create as much stability in the middle east as we could. we watched iran engaging in this behavior. we had a terrible deal that the previous administration had entered into, that had as one of its major side effects creating enormous wealth for the leadership inside of the islamic republic of iran. they were using that money in

malalign ways, and we broke out of the deal and put pressure on the regime and are forcing them to make tough decisions about how they're going to behave. kevin would you go to tehran? :sec. pompeo: sure, if that's the call. i would love to go there. kevin: would you appear on iran television? sec. pompeo: i would welcome the chance to speak directly to the iranian people. i've talked about this before. he drives around new york, he drives around in the most wonderful city in america and speaks to the media and talks to the american public, gets to put iranian propaganda into the american airwaves. i'd like a chance to go, not do propaganda, but speak the truth to the iranian people about what heir leadership has done and how it has harmed iran. kevin: just within the last 24 hours, the north koreans have fired a new short range ballistic missile. how does this impact denuclearization talks with kim jong-un? sec. pompeo: president trump has been incredibly consistent. we want diplomacy to work. we want chairman kim to deliver on the promise he made to president trump, which was that

he would denuclearize. i was there they day they signed the document. i have heard chairman kim tell me this is really no less than half a dozen times. a diplomatic way forward. there is a negotiated solution to this. we look forward to the opportunity, but chairman kim told president trump you would send his working team to negotiate with hours. kevin: next week, right? sec. pompeo: it will be a couple weeks, i anticipate. more important than the date, if we wait two weeks or four weeks or six weeks, to make sure we have enough conversations to have productive dialogue when the teams get together. that's the real objective. if it takes us another two weeks or four weeks, so be it. ♪

juliette: this is "bloomberg best." i'm juliette saly. let's continue our global tour of the week with the top stories in business, finance, and

politics with a victory for the ruling coalition in japan's upper house election. >> japanese prime minister shinzo abe has won the upper house election, but has fallen short of a super majority that would have let him push through his revised constitution. he didn't win the super majority, fine, but he won. so what does that mean if he tries to move ahead? michael: it is another mandate for shinzo abe as he attempts to become the longest-serving japanese prime minister. by november he will be the longest in modern history in japan, but he also solidified his mandate to push forward with the sales tax increase. that is due to take effect in october. ok, he might not have gotten that super majority to push forward for the constitutional revision, but at least he can have the next three years or so until the next upper house election to sway the lawmakers and move the ball forward on

what he calls his mission, and that is to revise the constitution, to basically legalize in the constitution the self-defense forces, which is not in place right now. >> let's focus on turkey. the nation's new central bank governor delivering the biggest interest rate cut, 17 years of putting president erdogan's policy goals into practice. president erdogan has a different view of economics than many of us. he believes that high rates contribute to high inflation. how much pressure is he going to put on the new central bank governor to deliver a series of rate cuts like this? >> president erdogan thinks that if turkey lowers interest rates, inflation rates will fall, too. that is an unusual view on how the cost of money in the cost of interact with each other. how far he will go i think will depend on how the lira reacts. the president may have certain ideas about the economy, but he

is a pragmatist, a pragmatic politician, and he will look at how the lira reacts, how it is taking a toll on the rest of the economy, including inflation and unemployment. guy: germany's industrial crisis seems to be getting a little bit worse. manufacturing fell to its deepest slump in seven years as trade tensions weakened abroad and water levels on the rhine river all taking their toll. >> it shows the hopes that a rebound in europe, that weakness was over -- unfortunately, it really isn't going to happen. the german manufacturing sector has jumped from 53% to 43% in 18 months. it's not all about china, it's not all about the trade war, this is a real change in the economy, and it is showing the business model is not working, and even though services and the wages are holding up nicely in germany, there are certainly no problems on the fiscal side, the main engine of growth has the real problems.

anna: oil has extended gains as tensions in the persian gulf remain elevated. the u.k. has demanded the immediate release of the senate impairer, which was seized by iran in the strait of hormuz on friday. prices elevated by 1.5% this morning. what is iran doing to try to find markets for its oil? in the midst of the sanctions from the u.s. and others, this is proving very difficult for them. >> we are watching the tankers move out of iran full, they are moving largely to the east, and we are seeing them enter in china should chinese buyers take that oil and should they have access, that the u.s. could attempt to seize or take through sanctions, again, should the chinese take the iranian oil. but the iranians are not sitting still. they are shipping that oil and trying to get it to market.

yousef: the european governments have agreed to assemble a naval mission to provide safe passage for ships through the persian gulf. >> i don't think it is surprising that the u.k. is going to its european allies and asking for help, and that they would join in an effort to try and make sure that the strait of hormuz stays open, limiting iran's ability to disrupt it. because the u.k. seems to be very keen to separate itself from what the u.s. president is doing. jeremy hunt was quite clear about that, saying they are still are sticking to the policy of wanting to ensure that a nuclear deal sticks and continues, and they are not aligned with president trump on his policies. matt: president trump announced a bipartisan deal to suspend the debt ceiling and boost spending levels for two years. this averts the risk of damaging payments default. trump praised the deal on twitter, calling it a "real compromise." who won, jody, in terms of this deal, or is it a real compromise?

jody: well, it's a compromise in the sense that they needed to get this done, so they all gave in, and nobody is really happy about it. conservatives think that there was too much given away. house progressives don't like that they didn't get enough domestic spending. this will send the annual budget deficit above $1 trillion likely next year, which of course makes budget hawks very unhappy. the u.s. department of justice emily the u.s. department : of justice is poised to open a broad antitrust review into big tech, putting alphabet, amazon, apple, and facebook in the spotlight. regulators are looking specifically at whether u.s. tech companies are so big, they stifle competition. this, of course, ratcheting up pressure on tech giants already facing scrutiny from europe to capitol hill. >> i think what we are looking at here is a sort of complement

to an actual task force that the federal trade commission announced a couple months ago. so the ftc and the doj, they share antitrust oversight. so i think we are looking at the complementary task force, which is especially interesting to me, we had believed that the doj and ftc had basically split up the companies. the doj would only be looking at google and apple. now it seems like they will he taking something much more high-level that could be doing criminal referrals to other parts of the agency. they could be working with the ftc, and some of these companies could actually be facing scrutiny from both agencies. vonnie: facebook has agreed to pay a record $5 billion in fines to resolve u.s. investigations into years of privacy violations. this is a big slap in the face to facebook, but does it actually change anything regarding facebook's future policies? >> i don't think it does, vonnie. the decision here from the ftc imposes a $5 billion penalty, and it imposes some restraint on the business going forward, but not likely anything that will change its basic core business model.

shery: former special counsel robert mueller finally testified on capitol hill, but democrats hoping for a jumpstart on their case against president trump were largely disappointed. >> mueller never went beyond the report. he declined to even read from the report, which would have given the democrats the soundbite, probably, that they were looking for. so there was no new news here from his testimony. his answers were very short. they were very terse. it is likely that the battle lines that existed before he arrived at the capitol are still there. >> the chinese government office in hong kong have condemned what they call the siege of the building by pro-democracy protesters. police fired tear gas late sunday night to disperse a group

that had infiltrated the office after people mass marched on the city streets. six straight weeks, and now there's a liaison office. why is this such an important target at this point in time? >> this is the chinese liaison office, a nondescript building in a nondescript part of town, but some of the radical protesters, they contend that this building is ground zero for beijing's influence peddling and attempts to interfere with the "one country, two systems" system, which is supposed to keep hong kong's administration system separate from that of the rest of china. what is more alarming is that in a residential part of the new territories, over near the chinese border, around about the same time yesterday, a group of organized pro-government demonstrators, i suppose, attacked people who looks like they looked like protesters, and they attacked them on the metro. this is a new, disturbing, darker part of the protests , which are taking place here in hong kong at the moment.

vonnie: activist investor carl icahn is stepping up his attack on occidental petroleum in his letter to shareholders, saying its leaders rushed the deal to purchase anadarko in order to stop occidental from being taken over itself. >> essentially, what carl icahn is trying to do is get four members on the board of occidental. and he has to go through this convoluted process, he has to get a record date and get shareholders to support his effort to remove and replace four directors. carl: this is a good example of somebody that goes in and does this deal in a panicked way over a very short period of time and spends billions of billions of billions of dollars of shareholders' money, overpaying for it. i think there will be a day when we are very much needed on that board, because really, that board does not hold the ceo accountable and the chairman is not accountable, and i think the chairman is at fault greatly

here, because the chairman has a lot of power on the board, and i think they are both greatly at fault for the way they conducted this. shery: softbank has announced it is launching a second vision fund, this time worth $108 billion. what do we know about this second vision fund? >> first, we know it will be named, very sensibly, vision fund 2. we know softbank will contribute $38 billion, which is quite a bit more than what they put in their original fund of $28 billion. it is in line with what we have been hearing, that they are looking to take a much more active role and a much more controlling stake in the fund. so far, only softbank has committed the money, but there's a list of companies that have signed a memorandum of understanding, and it is pretty much all new names. we know that apple and foxconn have signed up for the second fund, although we don't know how much they contributed.

these are two original investors from the first fund that sealed the deal and launched a whole vehicle will about two years ago, so it will be very interesting to see if they will come back for more. ♪

juliette: the stock venue designed for those tech startups got off to a positive start on monday. i might actually be downplaying it a little bit, if you take a look at that performance we have seen so far. on their first day, all 25 stocks rose on their debut, some seeing double digit if not triple digits when it comes to that stock price. we put it all on the terminal for you. juliette: there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg, and we always enjoy showing you our favorites on bloomberg television. maybe they will become your favorites.

here's another function you will find useful, quic . it will lead you to our quick takes, where you can get important context and fast insight into timely topics. here's a quick take from this week. >> china's spies have got a lot of unwanted attention recently, thanks in part to political and trade tensions between china and the u.s. many of those spies work for the country's main intelligence agency, the ministry of state security, or mss. in december 2018, one of china's top tech executives was arrested in canada on a u.s. extradition request. soon after, mss agents abruptly detained two canadians in china. then, days later, the u.s. publicly named two of mss' alleged assets as part of their sweeping indictment involving hacking on a global scale. the series of events has people asking, what exactly is the mss? this is your bloomberg quick

take on china's elusive spies. compared with the u.s., the mss is something of a mashup. it conducts intelligence operations abroad, like the cia, counterespionage at home, like the fbi, and cyber snooping, like the nsa. >> when you hear the details of how the mss operates, you think it wouldn't be out of place in a spy movie. the number of employees is classified, and the exact location of its headquarters is an unknown, though it is thought to be a nondescript building in beijing. it doesn't have a public website or press office. >> what's clear is that the mss is key to president xi jinping's efforts to tighten control over security. its head is an ex-police chief who helped direct nationwide

anti-graft campaigns. in 2015, national security law extended the mss' power to outer space in the deep sea as well as the internet. >> the mss benefits from close ties between the state in chinese tech giants like baidu and alibaba and tencent, all of which have the ability to mine personal data. other government departments are required to cooperate with the mss and provide support for its activities. >> the mss operates secret detention facilities within china and is known for its harsh treatment of dissidents. for example, the blind civil rights lawyer was under house arrest for 19 months before he fled to the u.s. embassy in beijing in 2012 and eventually moved to new york. >> so the organization has developed a fearsome reputation, and that is based on how much power it has and the vague limitations on that power. these, including foreigners, have alleged violations of their basic rights while in the custody of security agents, and some have talked about daily six-hour interrogations, not

having access to lawyers, or confinement in cells under lights that never go out. >> media reports have noted some key mss victories, including the possibility that they monitored president donald trump's calls made on unsecured cellular devices. there was also a report that the mss had dismantled cia operations in china over several years, killing a dozen or more of the agency's sources reportedly in one of the worst u.s. intelligence breaches in decades. >> this is an organization that is completely immune to the global microscope. a senior mss officer was arrested in belgium and extradited to the u.s. in 2018 on charges of conspiring to steal trade secrets from top aviation companies. but you have to remember, this is still an organization that is very powerful. that was reportedly the very first time a spy for china's government had ever been brought to america to face charges. juliette: that was just one of the many quick takes you can find on the bloomberg. you can also find them at bloomberg.com, along with all the latest business news and analysis 24 hours a day. that will be all for "bloomberg best" for this week. thanks for watching. i'm juliette saly.

this is bloomberg. ♪ . .

emily: i'm emily chang and this --, we are there at bloomberg headquarters in new york. , this week, an in-depth look at the presidential candidate who plans to beat trump at his own game. a >> and the public face of the brexit campaign. boris johnson is now the new british prime minister. he