ECONOMY/RELIGION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TURKEY: “Turkey’s battered lira weakened 3 percent on Friday [8-17-18] after a Turkish court rejected an American pastor’s appeal for release, drawing a stiff rebuke from President Donald Trump, who said the United States would not take the detention ‘sitting down.’ The case of Andrew Brunson, an evangelical Christian missionary from North Carolina who has lived in Turkey for two decades, has become a flashpoint between Washington and Ankara and accelerated a widening currency crisis. The lira TRYTOM=D3 has lost nearly 40 percent of its value against the dollar this year as investors fret about President Tayyip Erdogan’s influence over monetary policy. Heavy selling in recent weeks has spread to other emerging market currencies and global stocks and deepened concerns about the economy, particularly Turkey’s dependence on energy imports and whether foreign-currency debt poses a risk to banks. Borrowing costs may rise further after both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s ratings agencies cut Turkey’s sovereign credit ratings deeper into ‘junk’ territory late on Friday.”
–Daren Butler, David Dolan, Humeyra Pamuk, “Turkey’s lira falls 3 percent, Trump won’t take pastor’s detention ‘sitting down’,” Reuters, August 16, 2018 10:08 pm