BoE seeks details of UK exposure, Venezuelans march, Tata

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The Bank of England has asked large British lenders to detail their current exposure to Deutsche Bank and some of the biggest Italian banks, including Monte dei Paschi, amid mounting market jitters over the health of Europe’s financial sector.

The request was made in recent weeks by the BoE’s Prudential Regulation Authority as investors sold off Deutsche and Monte dei Paschi, both of which have been the subject of scrutiny over their capital levels. (FT)

In the news

Venezuelans gather for mass march against Maduro Anti-government protesters readied for a march dubbed “the taking of Venezuela” after the unpopular socialist government suspended a referendum that sought to remove President Nicolás Maduro from office. In Caracas, shops closed and security troops blocked roads as protesters made their way through the capital, waving flags and banners that read: “Down with the dictatorship, the narcostate”. (FT)

Ousted Tata chief slams predecessor, claims dismissal was 'illegal' Cyrus Mistry condemned his firing from the helm of India's Tata Group, blasting the record of predecessor Ratan Tata and claiming that five of the conglomerate’s major businesses faced writedowns worth $18bn. Mr Mistry was sacked as chairman abruptly on Monday and will be temporarily replaced by Ratan Tata, who led the group for 21 years until December 2012, when Mr Mistry became the first non-family member to lead the company in its roughly 150-year history. (FT)

Russia scraps plan to refuel warships in Spanish enclave Moscow cancelled a planned refuelling stop for its warships in the port of Ceuta amid fears that the battle group would be used to escalate the bombardment of Aleppo. Madrid had faced intense international pressure not to allow the refuelling of Russian warships in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in north Africa that has been used by the Russian navy for many years. (FT)

Gambia joins exit queue for International Criminal Court Set up to tackle genocide and crimes against humanity, the ICC has been accused by Gambia of unfairly targeting African nations. South Africa said last week it would withdraw and Burundi has also said it will leave. Nine of the ICC’s 10 investigations have been Africa based. (BBC)

Chinese military drone maker targets listing The Nanyang Technology unit, which it hopes to list on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, makes armed drones and two types of air-to-ground missile eagerly sought by Middle-Eastern and African buyers who have been refused drones by the US for fear of how they will be used. (FT)

Duterte gives foreign troops two years to get out Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has told delegates at the Philippine Economic Forum in Tokyo that he wants his country to be free of foreign troops within two years. The US maintains a large military presence in the Southeast Asian nation.(NAR)

It's a big day for

CETA Well, maybe. European Council President Donald Tusk said it was still possible that the EU-Canada trade deal torpedoed by Belgian politicians could be signed on Thursday. (Reuters)

Food for thought

Three refugees Germany welcomed 1m migrants last year — the FT is following the journey of three of them. Read Ahmad’s story. Read Aziz’s story. Read Nazir’s story. Learn more about the project here (including the first instalments of each man's story from June). Here the three men answer reader questions. (FT)

The people behind Amazon's "human cloud" Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace for chores done by people sitting in front of a computer. The "artificial artificial intelligence" platform has been around for more than a decade, but the tasks are changing as computers get smarter and workers are now helping to train machines, refining their AI capabilities to become more human-like. Meet the people teaching the computers that will definitely not one day take over the world. (FT)

The meaning of Bob Dylan's silence The Nobel laureate isn't returning the calls of the people who want to give him the prize — perhaps he's taking a page from Jean-Paul Sartre, who was kind of taking a page from Mr Dylan, writes Adam Kirsch. (NYT) 

Sluggish global trade growth is here to stay Martin Wolf on how the political obstacles to big new liberalising agreements have risen higher. (FT)

Patient Zero did not bring Aids to the US For decades, a gay French-Canadian flight attendant named Gaétan Dugas was accused of bringing the virus to North America. But a new study in Nature definitively traces how HIV first spread to the US, clearing his name. (BuzzFeed)

In pop culture there are no bad police shootings US laws are structured such that police officers are rarely charged, let alone convicted, when they shoot and kill someone — American pop culture has spent the better part of a century telling audiences that there is no such thing as a bad shooting by an officer. (WaPo)

DNA: the future of data storage? How a synthetic version of our genetic code could become the world’s most efficient hard drive. (WSJ)

Video of the day

Germany’s refugee backlog A data-driven look at what happens to Syrian refugees who have reached Germany, which faces a staggering increase in applications, leaving many refugees in limbo. (FT)