Warren Buffett confronts tech-driven change while Berkshire investors question moves

Abstract: NEW YORK - Berkshire Hathaway Inc. overpaid for part of venerable food giant Kraft Heinz Co. and failed to realize the potential of Amazon.com Inc., snapping up stock in the internet retailer only after it had already risen by thousands of percent. That was the assessment by Warren Buffett and Charles Munger of two recent bets, leaving them in an unusual position on Saturday: Answering shareholder questions about whether changes are needed to an approach that has made them investing legends. At Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, holders filtered past the Kraft Heinz Co. booth featuring an inflatable ketchup bottle and a giant hot dog. The displays served as a reminder of a rough bet by Buffett, 88, and of questions about whether traditional consumer brands still carry weight in the age of internet stocks including Amazon, Berkshire’s latest investment. Investors wanted to know how Berkshire’s businesses are working to stave off the risk that the world is changing faster than the conglomerate can react. For some, the questions about strategy reminded them of the days before the dot-com bubble burst or the financial crisis occurred. “They’ve stayed relevant through lots of upheaval in their careers,” said Richard Cook, who oversees $335 million, including Berkshire shares at Cook & Bynum Capital Management. “He’s nimble enough and now understands that a lot of those brands have been overstretched and now are no longer as durable as they were.” Buffett has long searched for businesses with “moats,” or a long-term competitive advantage. Facing questions on new technology and Amazon, the billionaire investor acknowledged the shifting trends and said his managers were tasked with making sure they’re staying ahead. “The world is going to change in dramatic ways,” said Buffett, Berkshire’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Just think how much it changed in the 54 years that we’ve had Berkshire — and some of those changes hurt us,” he said, citing the namesake textile business and some shoe operations. “But we do adjust and we’ve got a group, overall, of very good businesses,” Buffett said. “We’ve got some that will be actually destroyed by what happens in this world, but I still am a card-carrying capitalist and I believe that that’s a good thing.” Kraft Heinz has been a headache for Berkshire. The food maker in February reported a $15.4 billion write-down and disclosed a Securities and Exchange subpoena. Berkshire, which reported first-quarter results Saturday, couldn’t include results from Kraft Heinz, which is late publishing certain filings. Buffett reiterated that Berkshire and 3G Capital, which partnered on the deal to create Kraft Heinz, paid too much for the Kraft assets. “The idea of Berkshire and 3G joining to own a consumer company has always confounded the Berkshire shareholders and it continues to,” said Lawrence Cunningham, a professor at George Washington University and author of the book “Berkshire Beyond Buffett.” The investment could still turn around, Cunningham said. The packaged-food giant was just one focus at the annual meeting of Berkshire shareholders. Amazon was another. An investment in Jeff Bezos’s online retailer was announced days ago by Buffett, who said it was the idea of one of his investing deputies, Todd Combs or Ted Weschler. Combs and Weschler have helped Berkshire push into tech investments like Apple Inc., and Munger, the 95-year-old vice chairman, has credited them with having “younger eyes.” Shareholders on Saturday asked about buying tech shares that had already exploded in price years ago, and whether that marks a change in Buffett’s well-known preference for value investing. Buffett said technology firms can be evaluated on a basis similar to other stocks. Munger, though, admitted that Berkshire missed opportunities, specifically with Alphabet Inc.’s Google. “We just sat there sucking our thumbs,” Munger said of failing to invest in Google. “Maybe Apple was atonement.” While Buffett has long praised Bezos, it was the growing influence of his deputies that led to the Amazon bet. Buffett mostly avoided technology stocks for years, saying he didn’t understand those operations. Since Combs and Weschler have joined, Berkshire piled into Apple, a holding that was valued at more than $48 billion at the end of the first quarter. Throughout Berkshire’s history, Buffett favored a decentralized model. He highlighted that Saturday when confronted with a question about the impact of changing consumer habits, saying the executives who run Berkshire’s diverse units are responsible for accommodating shifting markets. Jim Weber, who runs Brooks Sports, said before the meeting that fast-moving consumer and digital demands are a daily challenge as he seeks to compete with the likes of Nike Inc. and Under Armour Inc. “Every brand, typically on the premium side, has to justify its value to the customer every day,” Weber said in an interview Friday. “As soon as you’re not the big brand, you’re a niche player.” International Dairy Queen Inc.’s Troy Bader said the company is working to modernize its brand, using its app to create rewards for consumers. And Benjamin Moore & Co.’s new chief executive officer, Dan Calkins, said the paintmaker experiments with some brands to make sure it’s staying ahead of the curve. “We can’t put our head in the sand,” Calkins said Friday. Two of Berkshire’s managers, Greg Abel and Ajit Jain, fielded questions from shareholders Saturday in a move that allowed the new vice chairmen to have more of a public spotlight at the meeting. Abel has oversight of non-insurance operations while Jain runs the insurers. Jain explained how Geico competes with rival Progressive Corp. on certain metrics. Buffett’s capital-allocation strategy has also been shifting. The billionaire investor has long favored snapping up stocks of other companies or acquiring businesses outright, but that’s been hard with “sky-high” prices. That environment has made it harder for Buffett to find ways to deploy his $114 billion cash pile. But last year, Berkshire loosened its buyback policy, leading to the repurchase of $1.7 billion in stock in the first quarter. At Saturday’s meeting Buffett implied that Berkshire could become a larger repurchaser of its shares. “Twenty-five years ago that would not have been part of the thinking,” Cook said.

amazon
warren buffett
berkshire hathaway
fraft heinz


30 Percent Club launches Japan chapter to raise women's presence on company boards

Abstract: The 30 Percent Club, founded in Britain, recently launched a Japanese chapter after making a major contribution to boosting female representation on company boards in 13 economies. The local version aims to achieve 10 percent female representation on the boards of 100 major companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange by 2020 and 30 percent representation by 2030. As of April 23, the chapter had 30 members, including such corporate leaders as Shiseido Co. President Masahiko Uotani, Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Chairman Takashi Hibino and Hitachi Ltd. President Toshiaki Higashihara. Companies that have members of the chapter on their staffs will set their own targets and deadlines to increase women on their boards. The chapter’s members include executives of institutional investors. Their companies will encourage businesses they invest in to take steps to shore up female representation on their boards. Furthermore, the chapter will run diverse campaigns in cooperation with government agencies, media organizations and universities. It is a widely held view that gender diversity in senior leadership is a plus to business. Companies that have many female executives tend to be more profitable than those that do not. A greater female presence is also believed to help strengthen corporate governance, promote innovation and improve brand images. The 30 Percent Club Japan views low female representation on company boards “not as a human rights issue but as a business problem that must be addressed for sustainable growth,” said Michiko Tadamatsu, a senior manager at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting LLC who played a leading role in establishing the chapter. In Japan, women accounted for 5.3 percent of all executives at major companies in 2017, against 27.2 percent in Britain and 21.7 percent in the United States, according to OECD data.


America's $1.6 trillion student debt woe spurring suicidal thoughts: survey

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The $1.6 trillion in U.S. student debt may not pose a direct threat to the economy, but it’s causing anguish that goes far beyond financial concerns for the people who owe it. One in 15 borrowers has considered suicide due to their school loans, according to a survey of 829 people conducted last month by Student Loan Planner, a debt advisory group. Most student debt is held by people with balances on the lower end of the scale, with only 0.8 percent of the U.S. population owing more than $100,000, according to Deutsche Bank economists. They have labeled the issue as a “micro problem” for individuals, rather than a macro problem for the economy. Yet that still equates to 2.8 million people with around $495 billion in debt as of March, according to Department of Education data. Even more worrying is that it’s an increase of almost $61 billion since the end of 2017. Student loans are the second-biggest kind of debt in America behind home mortgages and often more expensive to service relative to the amount owed because interest rates are generally higher. Not to mention that unlike buying a home, an education isn’t a tangible asset that can be sold. It’s also turning into a hot political issue as next year’s presidential election approaches. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a plan to cancel loans for many borrowers, while former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper addressed some of the knock-on effects for the economy in a presentation at the Milken Institute conference earlier this week. “Of course millennials would love to buy a house,” Hickenlooper said April 30 in Los Angeles. But, “they’re buried in debt!” The following scenarios show the monthly costs associated with different levels of student debt. The first envisages a 10-year loan at 6 percent. To put the figures into perspective, a 30-year mortgage of $400,000 at current interest rates would cost about $2,000 per month. In the second scenario, loans are shown over a 20-year term with rates at 7 percent. Monthly payments are smaller but the overall burden is bigger, with total interest payments on $100,000 of debt rising above $86,000.

u.s .
debt
deutsche bank
elizabeth warren
student loans
donald trump
2020 u.s. presidential election
john hickenlooper


Boeing left airlines and FAA in dark on 737 alert linked to Lion Air crash

Abstract: CHICAGO - Boeing Co. knew months before a deadly 737 Max crash that a cockpit alert wasn’t working the way the company had represented to buyers of the jetliner. But the planemaker didn’t tell airlines or the Federal Aviation Administration of the problem with the warning light until after a Lion Air plane went down off the coast of Indonesia in October, according to a Boeing statement Sunday. The accident occurred after an erroneous reading by a single angle-of-attack sensor triggered software that pushed the jet’s nose down until pilots lost control. The faulty cockpit indicator was supposed to flash when the plane’s angle-of-attack vanes, which measure the position of the plane’s nose against the oncoming air stream, send conflicting signals. Boeing had told airlines that the so-called AOA disagree alert was standard across the Max fleet, as it had been on a previous generation of 737 aircraft. But the alert was only working on planes that had a separate angle-of-attack indicator on the cockpit display, the manufacturer said. The additional feature cost extra.

u.s .
boeing
faa
aircraft accidents
lion air


With two tweets, Trump shatters historic calm in global markets

Abstract: SINGAPORE - In the end, all it took was two tweets from Donald Trump. After weeks of warnings from many on Wall Street that price swings across global markets were too subdued, the American president’s threat to boost tariffs on China sent volatility soaring Monday. The VIX Index jumped 43 percent, the most since October — the start of a horrible quarter for U.S. equities. S&P 500 Index futures slid 1.7 percent and the Shanghai Composite fell 5.6 percent, the most since February 2016. European shares also dropped. Whether they were a negotiating tactic or a sign of something more ominous, Trump’s tweets jolted markets that had been lulled in recent weeks by signs of progress in trade talks, a dovish turn by the Federal Reserve and better-than-expected corporate earnings. Investors who had grown accustomed to cross-asset volatility at or near historically low levels were once again forced to consider that all might not be smooth sailing. “Trade had been put to the side by many market participants,” Andrew Tilton, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said on Bloomberg Television. “Market pricing assumed there would be some kind of a deal, and no further escalation in tariffs. And meanwhile the growth outlook was actually improving.” Now, “this raises the specter of a significant hit to growth should these tariffs escalate and should the uncertainty associated with that weigh on investment going forward,” he said. “It might not be as bad as it looks” but it’s “very likely to undo all of the positive momentum we’ve seen,” said Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets Asia Pacific Pty in Sydney. The question is whether this is “a last-minute negotiation tactic” or will mark a breakdown in the talks, he said. China reportedly was considering nixing the talks that were scheduled to resume Wednesday in Washington, though the Foreign Ministry said Monday afternoon that negotiators were indeed preparing to travel to the U.S. for the meetings. The ministry declined to provide details on the schedule, however. Assets across the globe were swept up by the developments. The yuan plunged the most since 2016, catching options traders off guard. WTI crude fell more than 2 percent, dropping to nearly $60 a barrel. Soybeans fell, while gold rose. The moves came amid heavy volume, even though Japan, South Korea and the U.K. are closed for holidays. Chinese state-backed funds were active in selected stocks, according to people familiar with the matter, seeking to cushion the blow from the sudden escalation in trade tensions. “If current news flow is simply posturing and relations get smoothed over and a U.S.-China deal is ultimately reached (though probably over a longer time frame than previously expected) CNH could temporarily trade back to 6.75,” according to Jason Daw, head of emerging-market strategy at Societe Generale SA in Singapore. “If it all falls apart and tariffs are raised this week and the two sides stop active dialogue, CNH could easily head to 6.90 in the second quarter.” CNH, the yuan traded offshore, was recently at 6.7819 per dollar, down 0.7 percent. Nomura Holdings Inc. strategist Charlie McElligott said it’s possible the S&P 500’s recent run-up to record levels might have given Trump enough confidence “to absorb a market drawdown and again lean into what some in the administration believe is Chinese ‘slow-playing’ — all in an attempt from to extract additional last-minute deal concessions.” It remains to be seen how U.S. markets might absorb the move in the VIX, after data last week showed hedge funds were shorting the gauge at a record rate. Some have downplayed the significance of that milestone, saying the shorts are offset by longs elsewhere, but for many it brought back memories of the “volmageddon” meltdown of February 2018. Declines in equities could breed yet a further sell-off thanks to the role of quantitative players. Moves by commodity trading advisers, or CTAs, could be triggered around 2,879 on the S&P 500, according to Nomura’s McElligott. That level would be about a 2.3 percent drop from the gauge’s close on Friday. The futures were at 2,896.50 as of 4:26 p.m. in Hong Kong, after falling as low as 2,883.50 earlier. Another “acceleration point where moves could get sloppy” is 2,890, a level important for some options strategies, he wrote. The key is whether the tweets prove to be an epic incidence of poker playing or “a raging miscalculation with vigilante markets,” McElligott said.


SoftBank has a big Sprint problem on its hands if T-Mobile takeover falls through

Abstract: NEW YORK - No one has more riding on Sprint Corp.’s $26.5 billion sale to T-Mobile US Inc. than SoftBank Group and its founder, Masayoshi Son. Sprint has been going broke for more than a decade, and the wireless carrier’s executives have told regulators the company faces “serious challenges” if the takeover by T-Mobile is blocked. With a $19 billion stake in Sprint, SoftBank will bear the brunt of the fallout if the deal collapses. “It would be a test of SoftBank’s willingness to save Sprint,” said Amy Yong, a Macquarie analyst. “The ownership stake is so high they’d probably look to save it, but plan B isn’t obvious or very attractive.” If it’s forced to absorb Sprint and the carrier’s $39 billion debt load, Tokyo-based SoftBank and Son may have to rethink other, higher-profile ventures or sell assets, analysts say. They may also have to revisit the M&A circuit, where potential Sprint buyers have been less than enthusiastic. The carrier was due to release its financial results after Tuesday’s close of markets. SoftBank “continues to believe the deal will be approved,” according to an emailed statement. Sprint declined to comment. A week ago, the companies extended the expiration of the deal agreement by three months, to July 29, as reviews by the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission continue. Analysts have started lowering the odds for approval. Last week, Raymond James analysts cut the chances to 55 percent from 80 percent. If the deal falls through, a new agreement with a new partner for Sprint would be the best option for SoftBank, but circumstances have changed over the past year for the usual list of candidates. Dish Network Corp. has been a Sprint suitor in the past but recently started building its own wireless network. Both Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications Inc. have started selling wireless service using Verizon Communications Inc.’s network. It’s not clear if either company wants to own a network. “The natural will be the cable companies, but they’ve not shown much appetite for a full-blown merger,” said Chetan Sharma, a wireless industry consultant. “They will try to go through a sales process or restructure.” Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure — together with Son, SoftBank’s chairman — led the carrier through a three-year go-for-broke recovery effort. Using steep price cuts, Sprint stopped a mass subscriber exodus. The company, based in Overland Park, Kansas, also borrowed billions of dollars, using airwave licenses and network equipment as collateral. The goal was to stabilize the business for a deal. It took three tries, but Son finally got T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom AG to agree to a takeover. The combined company, they assert, will have enough scale and resources to compete with larger rivals Verizon and AT&T Inc. — and build a new 5G network that offers a fresh menu of wireless services. Critics of the deal, federal regulators and some state attorneys general, are concerned that if the wireless industry’s two most-aggressive price-cutters are reduced to one, consumers will pay more and see less innovation. Sprint and T-Mobile executives are still fighting for approval, with Sprint casting it as a matter of survival. Future 5G services underpin their case. Sprint’s efforts to survive came at the cost of needed network spending. And without the T-Mobile merger, the No. 4 U.S. wireless carrier risks being left behind. Not lost on industry observers is the fact that Sprint owns the largest supply of midrange airwaves in the U.S., a key component of any coast-to-coast 5G network and a valuable asset trapped in a cash-constrained company. Claure has told regulators and lawmakers that losses totaling $25 billion over the past decade have left Sprint critically wounded. Without Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile, there is “no obvious path to solve key business challenges,” Sprint said in a filing. Son has said he always held the combination of Sprint and T-Mobile as central to his U.S. wireless strategy. But an even bigger worry for Sprint now may be that SoftBank’s founder has moved on. Son, the second-richest person in Japan and the largest SoftBank shareholder, is consumed by multibillion-dollar projects like the Vision Fund and focused on a goal of raising a new $100 billion fund every couple years. His commitment to Sprint is fading, analysts say, even though his company holds an 84 percent stake. “Masa Son has lost interest in being a wireless carrier,” said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics LLC. “You can see that in him selling off part of SoftBank’s wireless operations in Japan, his underinvesting in the U.S. and trying to sell Sprint to T-Mobile. So the problem is significantly beyond money.”

masayoshi son
sprint corp .
t-mobile us inc .
softbank group corp .


Gaza Sunday death toll rises to 12 in Israeli strikes: ministry

Abstract: GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP - The toll of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip rose to 12 on Sunday, the enclave’s health ministry said, as Israel carried out a series of strikes in response to dozens of rockets fired from the Hamas-run territory. The ministry said three people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in northern Gaza and two in southern Gaza, raising an earlier toll of seven. At least six of those killed were confirmed to be militants affiliated with the Palestinian territory’s leaders Hamas or the allied Islamic Jihad group. Three civilians were killed in Israel on Sunday as Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets from the enclave, Israeli authorities announced. Two were Israelis, the army said, with the nationality of the third not announced. Israeli targets included internal security headquarters in the Palestinian enclave, an interior ministry statement said. The building in Gaza City was destroyed, the statement said. Rocket fire and Israeli strikes continued Sunday evening.


Alleged Cyprus serial killer appears in court as police retrieve fifth body

Abstract: NICOSIA - A Cypriot army officer who has allegedly confessed to killing seven foreign women and girls over nearly three years appeared in court Sunday, while police said they had recovered a fifth body. Capt. Nicos Metaxas, 35, has not yet been formally charged over the murders — dubbed the Mediterranean island’s first serial killings, which have unleashed anger against what the president described as police “negligence. Police told reporters on Sunday that they had retrieved a suitcase containing the remains of a human body at an acidic man-made lake southwest of Nicosia — the second such find in eight days. The body found on Sunday at the lake near the village of Mitsero is in an “advanced state of decomposition,” police spokesman Andreas Angelides said. He said a post-mortem would be carried out but did not say whether the body was that of an adult or a child. Cypriot newspaper Phileleftheros reported that the body found on Sunday was that of a child. Metaxas has allegedly confessed to the murder of five women, alongside daughters of two of the women — a 6-year-old Filipina and a Romanian girl. The killings came to light in mid-April when unusually heavy rains brought the body of 38-year-old Filipina Mary Rose Tiburcio to the surface of the disused mine shaft where it had been hidden. That triggered a murder investigation that led to Metaxas being arrested on April 18. Days later, authorities found the body of a second woman in the shaft, believed to be Arian Palanas Lozano, 28, also from the Philippines. These are the only two women to be officially identified. The suspect then guided investigators to a well near an army firing range outside the capital, where police found the body of a third victim — a woman thought to be from Nepal. Police last Sunday recovered the remains of a fourth victim, stuffed in a suitcase at the bottom of the lake at Mitsero. Metaxas was accused by police of raping a teenager, during his court appearance on Sunday. Neophytos Shailos, head of Nicosia’s Criminal Investigation Department, told the Nicosia district court a Flipina woman, 19, came forward to file a complaint that Metaxas raped her. The police chief told the court that the suspect denied the allegation when questioned about it. At the hearing on Sunday Metaxas was remanded in custody for a further eight days. Shailos testified that the young woman said she made contact with the army officer online in 2016 when she replied to a modeling job for a photo shoot. Metaxas appeared in court without a lawyer and told the judge he had “no objections” to being remanded. Police say they have received a “deluge of information” about the suspect’s activities with 350 witness statements taken and another 150 to be processed. Cypriot authorities have been accused of failing to properly investigate the women’s disappearances due to neglect and racism. President Nicos Anastasiades on Friday fired top police officer Zacharias Chrysostomou a day after Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou announced his resignation over the case. Authorities have acknowledged that all the women and girls that the army officer has admitted to killing were reported missing to police, except the one from Nepal who was reported to immigration for being absent from her place of employment. The police said Sunday they would continue to look for a third suitcase the suspect allegedly confessed to dumping in the lake. Authorities said they were able to locate the second suitcase by using sophisticated equipment including a robotic camera flown in from the United States. “We will persist in our efforts, conducting different kinds of tests in the area and elsewhere at a later stage,” said Angelides. He said police were still assessing data found on electronic equipment belonging to the suspect.

philippines
rape
cyprus
serial killer
nicos metaxas


Egypt thought Italian student was British spy, so tortured and murdered him, says report

Abstract: ROME - Egyptian police arrested and beat an Italian student who was later found murdered because they thought he was a British spy, according to fresh testimony reported by Italian newspapers on Sunday. The account of how Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old doctoral researcher at Britain’s Cambridge University, disappeared in Cairo in January 2016 came from a witness who overheard an Egyptian intelligence agent speaking about “the Italian guy,” La Repubblica newspaper said. The conversation about the tumultuous situation in Egypt in Arabic took place at a police convention in an unnamed African country in 2017 and was related to Italian prosecutors who have now asked Egyptian authorities for more information. The Italian foreign ministry tweeted Sunday that it “supports the Rome prosecutor’s request for information, in the strong hope that it contributes to the path of justice for Giulio Regeni.” The unnamed eavesdropper learned the Egyptian’s name when he exchanged business cards with a colleague, La Repubblica said. He was one of five agents Italian prosecutors said in December last year that they were investigating for involvement in the murder of Regeni, who disappeared on his way to a Cairo metro station on January 25. “We thought he was an English spy, we picked him up, I went and after putting him in the car we had to beat him. I myself hit him several times in the face,” the intelligence agent said, according to the Correre della Sera newspaper. Regeni’s body was found days later by a roadside bearing extensive marks of torture in a case that strained the traditionally close relations between Cairo and Rome, which has accused Egypt of insufficient cooperation in the probe. Italian prosecutors believe the new testimony is credible and have sent it along with other details to Egyptian prosecutors, requesting in particular the agent’s whereabouts at the time of the overheard conversation in the summer of 2017. Egypt has always denied suggestions that its security services were involved in the death of Regeni, who was researching trade unions, a sensitive subject in Egypt. Frustrated at the slow pace of the probe, Italy withdrew its ambassador to Egypt in April 2016, but sent a new envoy to Cairo the following year. Egyptian authorities initially suggested Regeni died in a traffic accident, but later said he was killed by a criminal gang that was subsequently wiped out in a shootout with police.

murder
italy
egypt
britain
torture
la repubblica
giulio regeni


Trump says just don't do it as Robert Mueller testimony is tentatively set

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Donald Trump looked to forestall perhaps the most keenly awaited event in Washington in decades — a congressional hearing with special counsel Robert Mueller — saying “Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!” The president’s comment, in a pair of Twitter postings on Sunday, came hours after a Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee said that a “tentative date” of May 15 had been set for testimony by the former FBI director to discuss his investigation into the 2016 election. “We hope the special counsel will appear,” Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We think the American people have a right to hear directly from him.” Democrats have been eager for Mueller to testify since last month, when his report on Russian election interference and Trump’s subsequent actions to squelch the investigation became public. An appearance by Mueller, 74, whose public utterances during the two-year investigation consisted of court filings, would promise to be a dramatic day in the nation’s capital, with Democrats pushing him to expand on his inability to exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice and his differences with Attorney General William Barr over the presentation of his findings. Cicilline said a Mueller representative has agreed to the appearance, “but obviously until the date comes, we never have an absolute guarantee.” In a later tweet, the lawmaker clarified that the committee had proposed the date “but nothing has been agreed to yet.” The committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, had previously said he was hoping for an appearance by Mueller on that date. Trump wondered if Democrats were “looking for a redo because they hated seeing the strong NO COLLUSION conclusion.” “The White House has so far indicated they would not interfere with Mr. Mueller’s attempt to testify,” Cicilline said during his Fox appearance. He also said that if Barr doesn’t comply with the committee’s demands for Mueller’s report and underlying documents by the Monday 9 a.m. EDT deadline, he thinks Nadler “will ask the committee to move forward with a contempt citation.”

u.s. congress
robert mueller
donald trump
russia probe
obstruction of justice
jerrold nadler
david cicilline


Democrat hopes for accord on Robert Mueller's House testimony, possibly May 15

Abstract: WASHINGTON - A Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee says he’s hopeful special counsel Robert Mueller will appear before the committee, noting that May 15 has been proposed. Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline told “Fox News Sunday” that “we hope the special counsel will appear” at that time and that “we think the American people have a right to hear directly from him.” He later tweeted that “nothing has been agreed to yet.” The committee chairman, Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, said last week the committee was “firming up the date” for Mueller’s testimony and hoping it would be May 15. Cicilline said on Fox “obviously until the date comes, we never have an absolute guarantee” and in his tweet later, said “we hope the Special Counsel” will agree to the proposed date for his testimony. Democrats are seeking more information about Mueller’s report on his Russia investigation. Spokespeople for the Justice Department and Mueller declined comment.

u.s .
congress
robert mueller
democrats
donald trump
russia probe
david cicilline


Bernie Sanders pitches to Iowa, rails against agriculture mega-mergers

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Sen. Bernie Sanders, a top-tier candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, proposed a broad overhaul of policies affecting small-town family farmers and the agriculture industry that would include a moratorium on new agribusiness mergers. Speaking to supporters in tiny Osage, Iowa — a farming community with about 4,000 residents — Sanders also promised to steer more farm subsidies away from bigger companies and to strengthen antitrust laws governing the industry. “In rural America, we are seeing giant agribusiness conglomerates extract as much wealth out of small communities as they possibly can, while family farmers are going bankrupt and in many ways are being treated like modern-day indentured servants,” Sanders said at an event that is part of a days-long sweep through the state. Sanders is looking to position himself in Iowa, which will hold the first 2020 nominating contest. It’s a state he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential race. It also comes as he’s aggressively taking on former Vice President Joe Biden, who joined the 2020 Democratic contest days ago and leads in most polls of the field of candidates that has now reached more than 20 contenders. Echoes of T.R. In making his announcement, Sanders noted the importance of agriculture to the Hawkeye State’s economy, where about a third of economic activity is tied to farm production. Iowa is the largest U.S. corn and hog producer. Sanders’ proposal was short on detail, but he said he wants to return to the trust-busting policies that existed under former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. “If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, you know what he would say to these behemoth agribusiness companies: He would say, break them up. And, working together, that is exactly what we are going to do,” the Sanders plan said. The candidate specifically took on Bayer AG’s 2018 purchase of Monsanto Co. for $63 billion, saying the two now control nearly 80 percent of the corn seed market. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also singled out the Bayer-Monsanto merger when she vowed in late March to break up the big agribusiness “stranglehold” over farmers. She promised an antitrust challenge to reverse the deal. Sanders on Sunday said he wants to provide stronger protections for smaller farmers that do business with giant meat-packing companies. The plan posted on his website cited figures from the environmental group Food & Water Watch that showed consolidation in the pork-packing industry had contributed to an 82 percent decline in the number of Iowa hog farms from 1982 to 2007. He also said he wants to strengthen rules under the Clean Water Act, and also to begin applying the Clean Air Act to what he calls “factory farms,” industrial-scale operations that raise vast amounts of animals for slaughter. Sanders said he also wants to treat issues affecting the food supply as a national security issue.

agriculture
bernie sanders
iowa
u.s. presidential election


U.S., Russia butt heads over Venezuela before top diplomats meet

Abstract: WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressed Sunday for Russia to get out of Venezuela, while his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, called on Washington to “abandon its irresponsible plans” in the crisis-wracked country. The push and shove set the stage for a Pompeo meeting with Lavrov in Finland this week, and belied the conciliatory tone taken by U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday after what he said was “a very good conversation” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The top level contacts follow the failure of a U.S.-backed uprising on Tuesday aimed at ousting Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, that Pompeo has blamed on Russia. Diosdado Cabello, the head of the Constituent Assembly, said the powerful pro-Maduro body would strip legislative immunity from opposition lawmakers who backed the uprising. Pompeo has said Maduro had been ready to flee to Havana but the Russians, who had flown military advisers to Caracas to shore up his socialist government, talked him out of it. “The Russians must get out,” Pompeo told ABC television’s “This Week.” “I’m going to meet with Foreign Minister Lavrov in recent days. It’s very clear, we want the Russians out, we want the Iranians out, we want the Cubans out. It’s very clear.” Trump undercut Pompeo’s position on Friday, telling reporters that Putin had assured him “he is not looking to get involved in Venezuela other than he’d like to see something positive happen for Venezuela.” “And I feel the same way,” Trump added. Asked about those comments, Pompeo said: “I didn’t see the full context of those quotes.” In Moscow, Lavrov met with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and pushed back against Washington. “We call on the Americans, and all those supporting them, to abandon their irresponsible plans and to act exclusively within the boundaries of international law,” Lavrov said. Washington has given full-throated backing to opposition leader Juan Guaido, who tried but ultimately failed to ignite the anti-Maduro military uprising. Guaido, who is recognized by more than 50 countries, including the U.S., as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president, acknowledged that he fell short. “Maybe because we still need more soldiers, and maybe we need more officials of the regime to be willing to support it, to back the constitution,” Guaido told The Washington Post. “I think the variables are obvious at this point.” He has tried to keep up the pressure with street protests, but his latest call for demonstrations Saturday drew only several hundred people. The attempted uprising set off two days of violent clashes between security forces and protesters that left four dead, dozens injured and more 150 people arrested. Opposition lawmakers who backed the effort now face retribution. “The prosecutor’s office opened its file, all the requests to lift parliamentary immunity are coming to the Constituent Assembly, as it should be, and … we will certainly raise our hands to remove parliamentary immunity from all those who actively participated in that act,” Cabello said. Pompeo admitted to “bumpy roads” and said it could take “two weeks, four weeks” to remove Maduro. “But Maduro can’t feel good. He’s ruling for the moment but he can’t govern,” he said. “This is someone who cannot be part of Venezuela’s future.” Maduro, meanwhile, appeared at a military exercise on Saturday with Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, who top U.S. officials had said was in on the attempted uprising but backed out. “I told the generals and admirals yesterday: loyalty, I want an active loyalty,” Maduro said in a speech to some 5,000 troops that was broadcast nationally on radio and television. “I trust you, but keep your eyes open, a handful of traitors cannot tarnish the honor, the unity, the cohesion and the image of the armed forces,” he said. He also called on the troops to be “ready” for potential U.S. military action. Pompeo said a “full range of options” are being prepared for Trump. So far, U.S. efforts have focused on diplomatic and economic pressure on Caracas.

u.s .
vladimir putin
russia
venezuela
nicolas maduro
sergey lavrov
donald trump
mike pompeo
juan guaido


French AFP war reporter who witnessed Lee Harvey Oswald slaying dies at 94

Abstract: PARIS - A veteran French war reporter who was a witness in Dallas to the fatal shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald has died at the age of 94, his family said on Sunday In 1963, Francois Pelou, who also covered the wars in Korea and Vietnam for Agence France-Presse (AFP), was the first French journalist sent to Dallas from New York the day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Two days later, he was an eyewitness to Oswald’s shooting by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters. Describing the killing, Pelou said he saw “on the chest, on the black sweater worn by Oswald … the small flash of the revolver of his assassin. Ruby “knocked into me in order to kill Oswald. He did not shoot to injure, in a fit of anger, but to kill,” he said. Oswald “was the first to see his killer arrive, which is why I always felt like they knew each other,” he added. Pelou covered Ruby’s trial the following year and was called as a witness by the Warren Commission set up by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate Kennedy’s assassination. “Francois died on Saturday at his home in Conques-en-Rouergue,” Pelou’s wife, Caroline, told AFP by phone from the south of France. In Vietnam, where he met the famous Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci with whom he had a long relationship, he covered the Tet Offensive — the surprise assault launched by the communist north targeting more than 100 cities and outposts in southern Vietnam. “The bazooka fire shook our building … a few minutes of respite and tacatactac … the AK-47 opened fire straightaway,” he wrote in a dispatch. The offensive eventually prompted the U.S. to withdraw from the war and was a military disaster for Hanoi that lost an estimated 58,000 fighters. “The American and governmental vulnerability demonstrated after the undeniable Vietcong victory in the first phase of their offensive, is likely to be an important factor in Vietnamese political life. American power has lost its prestige,” he added. Fallaci dedicated her book “Nothing and So Be It” on the Vietnam war to Pelou. “Oriana Fallaci arrived in my bureau in 1967. We covered many events together, she would become very important in my life,” he told Toulouse’s La Depeche daily in 2016. Pelou was left with a lifelong limp after being hit in the leg by shrapnel while in Vietnam. During his career, Pelou also covered Mexico and Brazil where he was jailed for having revealed the details of a ransom deal under which dozens of political prisoners were freed to secure the release of a kidnapped ambassador. He was expelled in December 1970 for “activities contrary to national security.” Posted to Madrid in 1975, he was among the first international journalists to announce the death of dictator Francisco Franco who had ruled Spain with an iron fist from the end of the country’s civil war.

france
brazil
vietnam war
korean war
lee harvey oswald
afp
francois pelou
jack ruby
john f. obituary
kennedy dallas


Cyclone Fani death toll rises to 42 in India and Bangladesh

Abstract: NEW DELHI - The death toll from a cyclone that battered India and Bangladesh rose to 42 on Sunday as emergency teams raced to fix water supplies and roads devastated by the storm. Twenty-nine of the dead were in eastern India’s Odisha state and 13 in Bangladesh, officials in the two countries said — a fraction of the casualty numbers seen in past cyclones. Cyclone Fani barreled into Odisha on Friday, packing winds up to 200 kph (125 mph) before losing intensity as it headed toward Bangladesh. Twenty-one deaths were reported in the Hindu pilgrimage city of Puri, said Odisha special relief commissioner Bishnupada Sethi. “We are trying to confirm the identity of the victims but since communication lines have been hit, it is taking time,” Sethi told AFP. The toll in Bangladesh included six people struck by lightning, disaster management official Golam Mostofa told AFP. Thousands of trees and mobile phone towers were uprooted and roofs were torn off by the storm. Many homes have now gone three days without power. Odisha state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has announced cash and rice handouts for victims in need. He said cooked food would be supplied to some communities for 15 days. Fani was the first summer cyclone to hit India’s Bay of Bengal coast in 43 years and only the third in the past 150 years, the chief minister said. Normally the storms hit around October and November. India has earned praise from the UN and other experts for the speedy evacuation of 1.2 million people in the powerful storm’s path and minimizing the loss of life. Improved forecasting models, public awareness campaigns and well-drilled evacuation plans — backed up by an army of responders and volunteers — saw Odisha’s inhabitants spared the worst of Fani’s fury. In 1999 Odisha was hit by a super-cyclone that left nearly 10,000 dead.


'Save us from the Satans': Survivors of Sri Lanka church attack pray under tight security

Abstract: BATTICALOA, SRI LANKA - A dozen rifle-toting soldiers guarded a small community hall as day broke in the eastern Sri Lankan town of Batticaloa on Sunday morning. Around 9 a.m. local time — roughly the same time a suicide bomber killed 29 of their fellow parishioners at the evangelical Zion Church two weeks ago — worshippers streamed silently into the hall. Survivors of the attack on Easter Sunday ambled in on crutches or with an eye patch. Some clutched bibles. Many wiped away their tears. Inside, several hundred worshippers knelt on the tile floor, addressing Jesus Christ in prayer. “Come to our protection in this world where we are being hit by waves,” their voices sang out in Tamil. More than 250 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded in the attacks by Islamist militants on churches and hotels across the Indian Ocean island on April 21. The suicide bombers were identified as members of Islamist militant groups based in Sri Lanka, but Islamic State claimed responsibility. Although Islamic State gave no evidence to back up its claim, Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena told Reuters in an interview on Saturday that he believed the group orchestrated the attacks that plunged Sri Lanka in a nightmare. The government has warned that the militants were plotting more attacks, and police and military were conducting a security sweep of schools ahead of the staggered re-opening of state institutions on Monday. “Save us from the Satans who are trying to destroy our nation,” the Christian worshippers in Batticaloa chanted. Zion would need more repairs before the church could be used again. There were also no services at St Sebastian’s Church in Negambo, where at least 102 people perished. But a mass was held behind closed doors at St. Anthony’s Church in Colombo, the third church bombed that day. The suicide bomber who attacked the congregation in Zion Church was from the neighboring town of Kattankudy just across a lagoon from Batticaloa. Witnesses say Mohamed Nasar Mohamed Asath had stood close to a generator when he detonated the bomb in his backpack, amplifying the force of the blast. Fourteen children, many of whom were having breakfast in the church portico, were killed and several dozen worshippers in this largely low-income congregation were wounded, according to Zion church officials. “Why does the Lord take us through this fire?” the Rev. Roshan Mahesan said, his voice breaking, after about an hour of singing. Mahesan, who was travelling on Easter Sunday and missed the bombing, praised parishioner Ramesh Raju, who reportedly kept the bomber from entering the main church hall because he grew suspicious of him. Raju died in the blast. Worshippers also prayed for the injured, like 30-year-old Arul Prashanth who helped others before collapsing from his wounds. Shrapnel had pierced his shoulder and back. Sumathi Karunakaran, a 52 year-old homemaker, received a volley of shrapnel on the upper left side of her body before she escaped by climbing over a wall. She attended service with a bandaged eye and an arm in a sling. “I will keep on coming,” said Karunakaran, whose 22-year-old daughter Uma Shankari was still undergoing emergency care from injuries sustained in the blast. “In fact, my husband is here for the first time. He came for our daughter,” she said as parishioners walked out of the three-hour service.

christianity
terrorism
sri lanka
islamic state
maithripala sirisena
batticaloa
sri lanka attacks


41 feared killed as Aeroflot jetliner makes fiery emergency landing in Moscow

Abstract: MOSCOW - Forty-one people including at least two children are believed to have died when a Russian passenger plane made an emergency landing and was engulfed in flames at Moscow’s busiest airport Sunday, investigators said. Dramatic footage shared on social media showed Aeroflot’s Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft land at Sheremetyevo international airport, flames and black smoke pouring from its fuselage. Passengers could be seen leaping onto an inflatable slide at the front and running from the blazing plane as huge black columns of smoke billowed into the sky. “There were 78 people including crew members on board the plane,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement, adding it had headed to the northwest Russian city of Murmansk. “According to the updated info which the investigation has as of now, 37 people survived.” Another 11 people were injured, Dmitry Matveyev, the Moscow region’s health minister said earlier in the day. Three of them had been hospitalised but they were not in a serious condition, he added. Investigators said they were looking into various lines of inquiry and it was premature to draw any conclusions about the cause of the accident. Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered his condolences to the victims’ loved ones, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has also ordered a special committee to investigate the disaster. The jet carrying 73 passengers and five crew members had just left Sheremetyevo when the crew issued a distress signal, officials said. “Flight Su-1492 took off on schedule at 6:02 p.m. (15H02 GMT),” said a statement from the airport. “After the takeoff, the crew reported an anomaly and decided to come back to the departure airport. At 6:30 p.m., the aircraft made an emergency landing,” it added. The tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted one passenger, Petr Egorov, who said: “We had just taken off and the aircraft was hit by lightning. … The landing was rough, I almost passed out from fear.” “The plane sent out a distress signal after takeoff,” a source told Interfax news agency. “It attempted an emergency landing but did not succeed the first time, and on the second time the landing gear hit (the ground), then the nose did, and it caught fire,” the source added. Interfax, citing an anonymous source, said the plane had landed with its fuel tanks full because, having lost contact with air traffic controllers, it was too dangerous to dump its fuel tanks over Moscow. Several flights have been diverted to other Moscow airports or Nizhny Novgorod, some 500 km (310 miles) east of the Russian capital. The Sukhoi Superjet-100 was the first civilian aircraft developed in Russia’s post-Soviet era and at the time of its launch, in 2011, was a source of national pride. But it struggled to convince buyers from airlines outside Russia, and several foreign carriers that did buy it have since prefered to cut back its use or phase it out completely, citing its reliability. The Russian government offered subsidies to encourage Russian airlines to buy the Superjet and Aeroflot became its main operator. In September 2018, it announced a record order of 100 Superjet-100s.

russia
aeroflot
aircraft accidents
sheremetyevo
ssj100


Kim-overseen drills may have included ballistic missile in challenge to Trump

Abstract: SEOUL - Kim Jong Un oversaw a live-fire military exercise Saturday that potentially included North Korea’s first ballistic missile launch since 2017, challenging U.S. President Donald Trump’s bottom line in nuclear talks. Kim watched as “large-caliber, long-range multiple-rocket launchers and tactical guided weapons” were fired off North Korea’s eastern coast Saturday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. The state media’s report on Sunday was accompanied by a photo of what nonproliferation analysts said appeared to be the launch of a short-range ballistic missile. While such a test would violate United Nations resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea, it would stop short of breaching Kim’s pledge to refrain from testing longer-range missiles that could threaten the U.S. “We still believe that there’s an opportunity to get a negotiated outcome where we get fully verified denuclearization,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Trump had brushed off the incident on Saturday, saying in a tweet that Kim “does not want to break his promise to me.” “Kim Jong Un may be starting his ‘push-the-line’ strategy, gradually seeing how much Trump will turn a blind eye to,” said Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of its security studies program. “Not good.” South Korean markets are closed for a holiday on Monday. So-called peace stocks, or companies with business ties to North Korea, may move on Tuesday as investors assess the impact. Stocks plunged and the currency weakened after Trump’s summit with Kim was abruptly cut short in February. Neither U.S. nor South Korean authorities immediately confirmed a ballistic missile launch, which was bolstered by a satellite image from Planet Labs Inc. showing what appeared to be a single missile contrail at the exercise site. South Korea’s defense ministry said Sunday that North Korea tested “new tactical weapons” and artillery that traveled 70-240 km (40-150 miles), without mentioning “missiles.” Nathan Hunt, an independent defense researcher, said the South Korean statement was “skirting over” North Korea’s ballistic missile launch. “They did indeed test a new short-range missile, or as others call close-range ballistic missile, and this was not just an artillery drill,” Hunt said. Either way, the exercise was Kim’s most significant provocation since he launched an intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017, declared his nuclear weapons program “complete” and opened talks. Kim has expressed increasing frustration since Trump refused his demands for sanctions relief and walked out of their second summit in Hanoi in February. The North Korean leader accused the U.S. of “bad faith” during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok in late April. He had earlier told North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly that he would wait “with patience till the end of this year” for the U.S. to make a better offer. The weapon featured in the KCNA photograph appeared to be a solid-fuel ballistic missile similar to a Russian Iskander, said Melissa Hanham, a nonproliferation expert and director of the One Earth Future Foundation’s Datayo Project. North Korea had unveiled a similar weapon, which could be stored while fueled, deployed and fired with less detection time, during a military parade in February 2018. “Looks like Donald Trump is ignoring it, because it doesn’t fit into his narrative,” Hanham said. “He wants to pretend that he is making progress in North Korea and that they wouldn’t test a new missile.” The North Korean exercise came days ahead of U.S. special representative Stephen Biegun’s expected arrival in the region. The top American nuclear envoy is scheduled to travel to Tokyo on Tuesday and to Seoul on Thursday. Adding to the confusion were South Korea’s revisions of its accounts of the nature and scale of the weapons discharged from North Korea’s eastern port of Wonsan. After first calling them “missiles,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff later changed its description to “projectiles.” Japan’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that the country hadn’t detected any missiles entering its exclusive economic zone and as such there was no immediate impact to its national security. Still, South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s spokeswoman condemned the incident on Saturday, saying in a statement that it went against a September agreement between the two Koreas to halt “hostile activities.” Trump has cited Kim’s self-imposed freeze on missile and nuclear weapons tests to support his decision to continue negotiations with the North Korean leader. The exercise may also signal displeasure with South Korea’s participation in joint military drills with the U.S., despite Trump’s decision to scale down those efforts. North Korean state media has repeatedly complained about the drills in recent weeks and Kim pledged “corresponding acts” during his speech last month to the rubber-stamp parliament. Although Saturday’s exercise was the most significant since Kim’s detente with Trump, North Korea has announced more limited weapons tests in recent months. Kim personally oversaw the test-firing of a “new-type tactical guided weapon” last month, which South Korea later said appeared to be a system intended for ground combat and not a ballistic missile. North Korean media reports on the latest exercise included no references to the U.S. or South Korea. That was possibly part of an effort to limit damage to the September agreement with Seoul, said Ankit Panda, adjunct senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. “They emphasized technological sophistication and framed the exercise in fairly defensive terms,” Panda said.

u.s .
north korea
russia
kim jong un
missiles
south korea
japan
donald trump
mike pompeo
9k720 iskander


After global backlash, Brunei says it won't enforce gay death penalty

Abstract: BANDAR, SERI BEGAWAN - Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah on Sunday extended a moratorium on the death penalty to incoming legislation prohibiting gay sex, seeking to temper a global backlash led by celebrities such as George Clooney and Elton John. The small Southeast Asian country sparked an outcry when it rolled out its interpretation of Islamic laws, or sharia, on April 3, punishing sodomy, adultery and rape with death, including by stoning. Brunei has consistently defended its right to implement the laws, elements of which were first adopted in 2014 and which have been rolled out in phases since then. However, in a rare response to criticism aimed at the oil-rich state, the sultan said the death penalty would not be imposed in the implementation of the Syariah Penal Code Order (SPCO). Some crimes already command the death penalty in Brunei, including premeditated murder and drug trafficking, but no executions have been carried out since the 1990s. “I am aware that there are many questions and misperceptions with regard to the implementation of the SPCO. However, we believe that once these have been cleared, the merit of the law will be evident,” the sultan said in a speech ahead of the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. “As evident for more than two decades, we have practiced a de facto moratorium on the execution of death penalty for cases under the common law. This will also be applied to cases under the SPCO which provides a wider scope for remission.” The vastly wealthy sultan, who once piloted his own 747 airliner to meet former U.S. President Barack Obama, often faces criticism from activists who view his absolute monarchy as despotic, but it is unusual for him to respond. The sultan’s office released an official English translation of his speech, which is not common practice. “Both the common law and the Syariah law aim to ensure peace and harmony of the country,” he said. “They are also crucial in protecting the morality and decency of the country as well as the privacy of individuals.” The law’s implementation, which the United Nations condemned, prompted celebrities and rights groups to seek a boycott on hotels owned by the sultan, including the Dorchester in London and the Beverley Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. Several multinational companies have since put a ban on staff using the sultan’s hotels, while some travel companies have stopped promoting Brunei as a tourist destination.

capital punishment
brunei
sharia law
gays
hassanal bolkiah


Trump camp sending another $16 billion to farmers stung by his trade policies

Abstract: WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump is delivering another $16 billion in aid to farmers hurt by his trade policies, an effort to relieve the economic pain among his supporters in rural America. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the first of three payments is likely to be made in July or August and suggested that U.S. negotiators may be weeks away from settling a bitter trade dispute with China. The latest bailout comes atop $11 billion in aid Trump provided farmers last year. Trump, seeking to reduce America’s trade deficit with the rest of the world and with China in particular, has imposed import taxes on foreign steel, aluminum, solar panels and dishwashers and on thousands of Chinese products. U.S trading partners have lashed back with retaliatory tariffs of their own, focusing on U.S. agricultural products in a direct shot at the American heartland, where support for Trump runs high. “The package we’re announcing today will ensure that farmers will not bear the brunt of those trade actions,” Perdue said. Financial markets buckled Thursday on heightened tensions between the U.S. and China. The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 400 points in mid-day trading. U.S. crude plunged 6 percent on fears that the trade standoff could knock the global economy out of kilter and kill demand for energy. Talks between the world’s two biggest economies broke off earlier this month with no resolution to a dispute over Beijing’s aggressive efforts to challenge American technological dominance. The U.S. charges that China is stealing technology, unfairly subsidizing its own companies and forcing U.S. companies to hand over trade secrets if they want access to the Chinese market. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to discuss the standoff at a meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Osaka next month. But briefing reporters on the farm aid package, Perdue said he doubted that “a trade deal could be consummated before” the first payments to farmers in July or August. In Beijing, China held the door open to resuming talks in the tariff war with Washington on Thursday, but lashed out at limits on access to key technologies that it said might hurt global supply chains. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China hopes to restart the talks that broke down earlier this month after the U.S. hiked tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports, but only if the conditions are deemed fair. “China is open to the door of dialogue, but sincerity is indispensable to make a consultation meaningful,” Lu said at regularly scheduled briefing. “A mutually beneficial agreement must be based on mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.” Seeking to rally support for its side in the tariff war, Beijing is vehemently protesting the Trump administration’s decision last week to impose controls on exports of computer chips and other key components. The move, mainly aimed at telecom equipment maker Huawei and other Chinese high-tech companies, will hinder global cooperation in science and technology and has “harmed the vital interests of relevant enterprises and countries,” Lu said. A spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry said Washington was “using American national power to suppress Chinese companies.” This “not only seriously disrupts regular business cooperation between the sides’ enterprises, but also seriously threatens the security of the global industrial supply chain,” the spokesman, Gao Feng, told reporters. The Trump administration has singled out Huawei, accusing it of posing a security threat. As a result, U.S. allies and their companies increasingly have put cooperation with the company on hold. On Wednesday, Britain’s EE and Vodafone and Japan’s KDDI and Y! Mobile said they were holding off on the launch of Huawei smartphones, including some that can be used on next generation mobile networks, amid uncertainty about the devices from the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker. As the trade dispute drags on, battering Chinese manufacturers and raising uncertainty for investors, Beijing has stepped up efforts to sway opinion in its favor both at home and abroad. That extends even to neighboring countries whose economies are unlikely to be much affected by friction between Beijing and Washington. Speaking to members of the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization at a meeting in Kyrgyzstan, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi vowed to match “extreme pressure” from the U.S. with its own measures. The trade frictions have “aroused great concern from the international community,” Wang said. “I stress to everyone that China’s actions are not just about preserving our own legitimate rights and interests but also to maintain the norms of international relations and safeguard the international free trading system.” Wang, whose comments Wednesday were posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website, said representatives of the group had expressed “broad support” for China’s position. A security-oriented group dominated by Moscow and Beijing, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization also includes Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan and several observer states and “dialogue partners.” Beijing has already responded to Trump’s tariff hikes on $250 billion of Chinese imports by slapping penalties on $110 billion of American goods. Based on last year’s trade, that leaves about $45 billion in imports from the U.S. They include semiconductors and other critical inputs needed by fledgling Chinese tech industries. So far, Beijing has sought to win sympathy and support by burnishing its credentials as a rules-abiding member of the World Trade Organization. China has hinted it could also leverage its role as the main global supplier of rare earths used in smartphones, lightweight magnets, batteries and other components to slap back. It could also target Apple and other companies that rely on Chinese manufacturing and sales.

china
u.s .
agriculture
trade
tariffs
huawei
donald trump
trade war


Cuba gets 80 Chinese-built carriages as it looks to revive its once-great rail network

Abstract: HAVANA - Cuba’s railway system is undergoing a major overhaul, with the government pushing a program to revamp the decrepit and aging network with new cars and locomotives in the hope of restoring a rail service that was once the envy of Latin America. Cuba’s Ministry of Transportation has taken possession of 80 new Chinese-made passenger cars as part of a promised consignment of 250 rail cars and locomotives the island will receive by year’s end. At the same time, the government is busy restoring and repairing rail lines throughout the island, some with rusting rails overgrown with weeds or buried under drifting dirt. But officials acknowledge the overhaul will be challenging. The existing equipment is decades old and often lies in disrepair on the sides of rail yards.


Chief of huge MRI Ponzi scheme that straddled Tokyo and Las Vegas gets 50-year term in U.S.

Abstract: LAS VEGAS - The former head of an investment firm that operated in Tokyo and Las Vegas was sentenced Thursday to 50 years in prison, for swindling thousands of Japanese victims in what prosecutors called a $1.5 billion international Ponzi scheme that ranks among the largest-ever fraud cases in the U.S. Defendant Edwin Fujinaga, 72, also was ordered to pay nearly $1.3 billion in restitution to victims, including many vulnerable retirees in Japan who were told they were safely investing in a medical collections business that could earn a 6 percent to 10 percent annual return. Evidence at trial showed that Fujinaga instead spent lavishly on himself, buying a Las Vegas golf course mansion, a private jet, luxury cars and real estate in California wine country, Beverly Hills and Hawaii. Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro described as “offensive” Fujinaga’s efforts to apologize and present the crimes as the result of error. Fujinaga blamed changes in the dollar-to-yen exchange rate for problems while heading MRI International Inc. for more than a decade. He said he was trying to clean up a corrupt medical accounts payable industry, and that he is now so “despondent” that he has to take medication. The judge rejected his explanation, and acknowledged that the severity of his crimes approached those of convicted U.S. Ponzi schemers Bernard Madoff in New York, Allen Stanford in Houston, and Scott Rothstein in Miami. In court documents, prosecutors ranked Fujinaga several notches below Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison for swindling thousands of investors out of at least $20 billion, and Stanford, who is serving 110 years for a scheme involving more than $7 billion. They put him on par with Rothstein, who is serving 50 years in a $1.2 billion case. Navarro acknowledged that the government was only able to document $813 million in cash investments in the case because MRI’s company books were incomplete before 2009. But she agreed with prosecutor William Johnson, who said MRI had $1.56 billion in outstanding investments when the scheme collapsed in 2013. Johnson said it relied on “new investor money going out to old investors.” “Yes, I made mistakes. I tried to keep it going. I became reckless and people got hurt,” Fujinaga said Thursday, standing slightly stooped in blue jail scrubs with thinning, graying hair. He kept his hands on the defense table. “I humbly apologize to all the people of Japan for all the chaos I caused,” he said. “I’m speechless that I can’t fix it.” Navarro rejected a bid for leniency from Fujinaga’s appointed defense attorneys, who disputed the amount and calculations of investor losses. They also pointed to Fujinaga’s age and unspecified medical issues, saying he would have to live to 122 before he could be freed. The judge reminded Fujinaga that she had heard the evidence presented at trial that led jurors in November to find him guilty of 20 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. “It’s ridiculous for you to try to say it was all a mistake,” Navarro said. “I find it pretty offensive, and I’m sure it’s offensive to victims as well.” Authorities are asking Navarro to let the government seize assets and property in the case. Two former MRI executives who worked with Fujinaga — Junzo Suzuki, 70, and his son, Paul Suzuki, 40 — were arrested in Japan following Fujinaga’s trial, and are being held in U.S. custody in Nevada. They have pleaded not guilty in federal court to criminal fraud charges and face trial in October.

courts
fraud
las vegas
mri international
money-laundering
edwin fujinaga
ponzi schemes


Queen Elizabeth marks 100 years of British Airways

Abstract: LONDON - Queen Elizabeth saw the ticket from her first long-haul flight after her coronation when she visited British Airways’ Heathrow headquarters on Thursday to mark the airline’s centenary. The ticket was for a trip to Jamaica with her husband, Philip, in November 1953. “Name of passenger: HM Queen Elizabeth II” it read, specifying that the trip would be from London to Montego Bay. Staff dressed in various British Airways uniforms from the 1930s to the present day greeted the Queen as she was shown highlights from the airline’s history. Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited (AT&T), a forerunner of British Airways, started the world’s first daily international scheduled air service between London and Paris on Aug. 25 1919. Several mergers later, British Airways was founded in 1974, and privatized in 1987. It is now part of International Airlines Group, created by the merger of British Airways and Iberia in 2011.

airlines
aviation
u.k .
royalty
queen elizabeth ii
heathrow
british airways
u.k. royalty


No date set for Boeing's crash-plagued 737 Max to return to the skies

Abstract: FORT WORTH, TEXAS - Civil aviation regulators from around the world failed to make a determination Thursday on when Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft can return to the skies after being grounded following two deadly crashes. “The only timetable is to make sure the aircraft is safe to fly,” Daniel Elwell, acting head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, said at the conclusion of the daylong meeting in Texas. There was “enthusiastic agreement to continue the dialogue,” he said, but acknowledged that “each country has to make its own decision.” “If they unground relatively close to when we unground I think it would help with public confidence,” Elwell said, while adding that: “We can’t be driven by some arbitrary timeline.” Before the 737 Max crashes in Ethiopia in March and Indonesia in October, which left a combined 346 people dead, common practice was that air regulators would follow the assessment of the agency overseeing the model, in this case the FAA. On Wednesday, Elwell threw cold water on hopes of a speedy resolution, after revealing Boeing had held off submitting a proposed software fix for review after his agency raised additional questions. “Once we have addressed the information requests from the FAA, we will be ready to schedule a certification test flight and submit final certification documentation,” Boeing said in a statement. Investigators have focused on the Max’s anti-stall Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System in inquiries into the two deadly crashes. Boeing last week said the MCAS update was ready for the certification process, and U.S. airlines were hoping the planes could be back in the skies in time for part of the summer travel season. But Elwell on Thursday said the process could take one month, two months or longer. “It is all determined by what we find in our analysis of the application,” he said on the CNBC television channel. Once Boeing has submitted all documentation, the FAA will conduct a test flight and detailed analysis to evaluate the safety of the software. Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at Teal Group, said Boeing wants to avoid having to repeat the process. “There’s a lot at stake in terms of the first impression by the world’s regulators,” he said. U.S. air carriers that operate the 737 Max, including American Airlines, Southwest and United, have said they hope to have the planes flying again by mid-August at the latest. The FAA’s reputation has taken a beating since the March crash, and faced accusations of an overly cozy relationship with the aviation giant. Other aviation authorities now appear less likely to follow the U.S. agency. Michel Merluzeau of Air Insight Research, said American officials could end the 737 Max’s grounding toward the end of summer, with authorities in other countries following suit “several months” later. “We’re headed for a return to service that could drag on in time,” he said. Elwell said regulators also have yet to decide on changes to pilot training once the adjustments have been approved. The United States has differed with a number of countries on this issue, including Canada. Washington believes training on computers or tablets is sufficient for seasoned pilots but Ottawa wants to require training on flight simulators. Transport Canada said it had “full confidence” in the FAA and its processes, but did not rule out the possibility that pilots of 737 Max jets would be required to receive simulator training. Nicholas Robinson, Canada’s director-general of civil aviation, told media the training was a “possible option” but added it was too early to say if it would be mandatory. The European Aviation Safety Agency, Canada and Brazil are among those saying they will conduct their own evaluations of the MCAS fix. What China, the first country to ground the 737 Max, will do is also an unknown given the flare-up in trade frictions with the United States. About five dozen representatives from 33 countries accepted the FAA’s invitation to attend the regulators’ conference in Texas. Elwell said the closed-door meeting involved “frank questions and a frank discussion,” adding that his counterparts wanted “clarifications” on U.S. procedures. Regaining public trust will take time, according to opinion polls conducted by Southwest showing that many passengers are not yet ready to get back aboard a 737 Max jet. And pilots also have qualms. “Before the Boeing Max’s return to service, we need answers and transparency,” the European Cockpit Association said Thursday in a statement. The organization, which represents 38,000 pilots from 36 countries, said it was “deeply disturbing” that the FAA and Boeing were considering a return to service while not disclosing “the many challenging questions prompted by the Max design philosophy.” Beyond Boeing’s reputation, the 737 Max crisis comes at a major financial cost, given that the plane represented 80 percent of the company’s order backlog as of the end of last month. The company, which has suspended deliveries, is only paid at the moment of delivery and will have to indemnify air carriers for losses.

boeing
faa
aviation
737 max
air accidents


Japan's core consumer prices rose 0.9% on year in April

Abstract: Core consumer prices rose 0.9 percent in April from a year earlier due to robust demand for overseas package tours and rising energy prices, government data showed Friday. The core consumer price index, which excludes volatile fresh food items, increased for the 28th straight month after rising 0.8 percent in March, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. So-called core-core consumer prices, which exclude both fresh food and energy items, gained 0.6 percent — the largest expansion since June 2016 when they climbed 0.7 percent, the ministry said. Still, prices continued to fall short of the Bank of Japan’s 2 percent inflation target. In April, overseas package tour prices jumped 15.1 percent from a year before amid strong demand during the extended Golden Week holidays, between April 27 and May 6, to celebrate the succession of Emperor Naruhito. Accommodation costs gained 3.8 percent from a year earlier on the back of an increasing number of inbound tourists to Japan, a ministry official said. Gasoline prices rose 2.2 percent on the back of rising crude oil prices, the ministry said. Mobile phone services bills fell 4.3 percent as some mobile phone operators lowered service fees and the price of some handsets. “Prices rose for overseas package tours and accommodation fees amid the 10-day holidays, but consumption in the country remains too sluggish to push them up further,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at the Norinchukin Research Institute. Household income is unlikely to grow given spring management-labor negotiations this year ended in a smaller wage hike than the previous year, Minami added. The BOJ released its quarterly price outlook in April, expecting core consumer prices to grow just 1.1 percent in fiscal 2019 through March despite six years of ultraeasy monetary policy.


Japan, U.S. trade chiefs to meet in Tokyo ahead of Abe-Trump summit

Abstract: The top trade negotiators of Japan and the United States will meet in Tokyo on Saturday to hold talks on a bilateral deal, the Japanese government said Friday. The meeting between Toshimitsu Motegi, minister for economic and fiscal policy, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, will take place ahead of a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Donald Trump on Monday. Trump had said it is possible for the two countries to strike some sort of a deal by the time he visits Japan as a state guest, but Japanese officials did not think so, believing that it will take much longer to work out the details. Trump’s administration is seeking greater access to the Japanese market for agricultural products such as beef and pork, as American farmers have become less competitive since the entry into effect of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement including Australia and New Zealand. Japan has, meanwhile, pushed for the removal of tariffs on industrial products including automobiles, one of its biggest exports, as had been agreed before the United States withdrew from the TPP. In working-level talks in Washington earlier this week, officials from both countries confirmed that there remains a wide gap between their positions, something that was further highlighted when Trump called some auto imports a national security threat.

shinzo abe
u.s .
agriculture
trade
carmakers
tariffs
automobiles
donald trump


Japan downgrades prospects for economy due to China-U.S. trade war

Abstract: The government on Friday downgraded its assessment of the economy, adding to signs that China’s economic slowdown amid its trade conflict with the United States has been weighing on production and exports. “The Japanese economy is recovering at a moderate pace while weakness in exports and industrial production continues,” the Cabinet Office said in a monthly report. It maintained its view that the economy is seeing a moderate recovery on improving employment conditions and robust corporate earnings, but slightly changed its wording on exports and production from the previous report. It had said last month that “weakness is seen recently in exports and industrial production in some sectors.” The downgrading followed a lowered assessment in March, when the Cabinet Office cut the headline assessment for the first time in three years. Looking ahead, the latest report warned that “further attention should be given” to the fallout for the world economy from the U.S.-China trade war. Earlier this month, the Cabinet Office said in a different assessment that the world’s third-largest economy has been “worsening.” The expression was employed for the first time in more than six years. The wording, used in assessing the coincident index of business conditions for March, could be seen as signaling that the economy is heading into recession. The coincident index of business conditions for March fell 0.9 point from the previous month to 99.6 against the 2015 base of 100. The Cabinet Office had cut its economic assessment of the index in January from “weakening” to “signaling a possible turning point” in the economy. That move raised doubts about the government’s assertion that growth from December 2012 had likely surpassed the “Izanami Boom,” a 73-month streak from 2002 to 2008. A government panel will formally decide the length of the economic cycle after analyzing more data — a process that can take more than a year. The developments leading up to Friday had raised expectations that the government would stop describing the economy as recovering in the latest report. An official who briefed reporters on Friday’s report said the word “recovering” was maintained because overseas risks including China’s slowdown are unlikely to hit domestic demand hard anytime soon. “The economic fundamentals that support domestic demand, including improving employment and salary conditions as well as high levels of corporate earnings, have remained steady,” the official said. On the two differing assessments of the economy, the official said it is difficult to make a simple comparison between them. While the coincident index is made up of nine indicators, the monthly report covers a wider range of data and other factors. Among key components of the report for May, the assessment of business investment was also downgraded, with the Cabinet Office saying that “weakness is seen recently in machinery investment.” It also cut the view for industrial production, warning it showed “weakness recently.” It continued to say private consumption is “picking up” and that exports are showing “weakness.” It lifted its evaluation of public investment, citing steady government spending on public works projects. Friday’s report is likely to further complicate debate on whether Prime Minister Shinzo Abe can raise the consumption tax in October as scheduled, despite fears the move could dampen consumer spending and bring the economic recovery to an end. Speculation has already been rife over whether Abe will go ahead with the tax hike. Some believe Abe may dissolve the Lower House for a general election to determine based on voters’ sentiment whether the tax hike should be carried out as planned.

shinzo abe
economy
recession
cabinet office
economic indicators
consumption tax
trade war


Japan was still world's biggest investor at end of 2018, trailed by Germany and China

Abstract: The net balance of external assets held by the Japanese government, companies and individual investors stood at ¥341.56 trillion ($3.11 trillion) at the end of 2018, remaining the world’s largest for the 28th consecutive year, the Finance Ministry said Friday. The figure, up 3.7 percent from a year earlier and the second-largest amount on record, reflected increased overseas investment by Japanese companies, according to the ministry. In the reporting year, Germany was second with ¥260.28 trillion, followed by China with ¥236.08 trillion. Among components, direct investment in the United States stood at a record-high ¥55.63 trillion. Direct investment in China was also the largest on record, at ¥13.66 trillion. Japan’s overseas assets edged up 0.5 percent, to ¥1,018.38 trillion, rising for the 10th straight year, supported by mergers and acquisitions by Japanese firms and investment by institutional investors in foreign stocks and bonds. Overseas liabilities fell 1.1 percent to ¥676.48 trillion, down for the first time in nine years, in line with a drop in prices of Japanese stocks held by foreign investors.


U.S. FAA meets with global air regulators on fate of Boeing 737 Max

Abstract: FORT WORTH, TEXAS - The Federal Aviation Administration is meeting with international air regulators from around the world on Thursday to determine what is needed to return the grounded Boeing Co 737 Max to return it to service. Senior FAA officials will give detailed descriptions of the findings to date from the two crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia which occurred within five months of each other and killed a combined 346 people. The agency will summarize the status of three major ongoing reviews of the 737 Max and give an update of the recertification process and shed light on Boeing’s proposed revisions to its software and pilot training. Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell said on Thursday he thought travelers in the United States and around the world would respect any eventual decision by the FAA to return the plane to service. “They’ll get back on the Max and fly it again.” Boeing’s 737 Max is its fastest-selling line of planes ever, and there are now roughly 5,000 of the aircraft on order. The planemaker in April slowed production and said the two crashes had cost it at least $1 billion. Boeing shares were down 1.7 percent at $346.85 at midday on Thursday. Nearly 60 air regulators from 33 governmental agencies, including from China, Brazil, Australia, the European Union, France, Ethiopia, Indonesia and South Korea, are attending the meeting at an FAA office in Texas. The agency came under criticism in March for failing to ground the Boeing 737 Max as quickly as Europe, China and other countries. One of Thursday’s sessions is titled “Data mapping to accidents: safety actions and changes to the 737 Max training requirements.” Elwell told reporters on Wednesday the FAA would share the agency’s “safety analysis that will form the basis for our return to service decision process.” Some air regulators have said they will conduct independent reviews of the Boeing 737 Max. Elwell was asked by a reporter on Wednesday if he would delay ungrounding the plane in order to have “peace” with other regulators. “We have peace with other regulators,” Elwell said. “We’re talking to them constantly. You want to make this like, ‘We at war with the other countries over this.’ We’re not.” The FAA is still asking Boeing questions about a proposed software upgrade and training revisions and has not decided whether to require simulator training. Elwell declined to provide a time frame for how soon the agency might approve the airplane’s return to service or say if it was realistic that airlines could resume flights by August as some have suggested. Elwell told CNBC it “could definitely be a month, two months” or even longer than that. Also on Thursday, Boeing and the FAA will brief members of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the 737 Max for the first time. The FAA will not unground the plane until it obtains the findings from a multi-agency Technical Advisory Board reviewing the software fix. It consists of experts not involved in any aspect of the Boeing 737 Max certification. Boeing said last week it had completed development of the software update on the 737 Max to prevent erroneous data from triggering an anti-stall system known as MCAS that is under scrutiny following the two disastrous nose-down crashes. It must still formally submit the upgrade for approval and conduct a certification flight before the FAA can act.

europe
u.s .
boeing
faa
aviation
737 max
air accidents


Trump says 'very dangerous' Huawei may be included in U.S.-China trade deal

Abstract: WASHINGTON/BEIJING - President Donald Trump said Thursday that U.S. complaints against Huawei Technologies Co. might be resolved within the framework of a U.S.-China trade deal, while at the same time calling the Chinese telecommunications giant “very dangerous.” Washington last week effectively banned U.S. firms from doing business with Huawei, the world’s largest telecoms network gear maker, citing national security concerns. “You look at what they’ve done from a security standpoint, from a military standpoint; it’s very dangerous,” Trump said in remarks at the White House. “If we made a deal, I could imagine Huawei being possibly included in some form or some part of it.” Trump predicted a swift end to the trade war with China, although no high-level talks have been scheduled between the two countries since the last round of negotiations ended in Washington two weeks ago. Shares of S&P technology and industrial companies, bellwethers of trade sentiment, fell more than 2 percent Thursday as the market slumped in a sign the conflict was being seen as a battle not just over trade but also about who controls global technology. Earlier that day U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the chief executive of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, of lying about his company’s lack of ties to the Beijing government, which he said represented a security risk. “The company is deeply tied not only to China but to the Chinese Communist Party. And that connectivity, the existence of those connections puts American information that crosses those networks at risk,” he said. Huawei has repeatedly denied it is controlled by the Chinese government, military or intelligence services. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, who is Ren’s daughter, was arrested in Canada in December and faces extradition to the United States on charges she conspired to defraud global banks by misrepresenting Huawei’s relationship with a company operating in Iran. She and the company deny the charges. Tech companies around the world have fallen in line with U.S. curbs on the company. Panasonic Corp. said it had stopped shipments of some Huawei components, a day after U.K. chip designer Arm did the same, potentially crippling the Chinese company’s ability to make new chips for smartphones. Asked if he believed more firms would stop working with Huawei, Pompeo told CNBC in an interview Thursday: “We do. We’ve been working at the State Department to make sure that everyone understands the risks.” U.S. lawmakers moved Wednesday to provide about $700 million in grants to help U.S. telecom providers with the cost of removing Huawei equipment from their networks, and to block the use of equipment or services from Huawei and Chinese telecom firm ZTE in next-generation 5G networks. On Thursday, China’s Commerce Ministry hit back. “If the United States wants to continue trade talks, they should show sincerity and correct their wrong actions. Negotiations can only continue on the basis of equality and mutual respect,” spokesman Gao Feng told a weekly briefing. “We will closely monitor relevant developments and prepare necessary responses,” he said, without elaborating. Trump hiked tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods on May 10 and threatened to slap tariffs of up to 25 percent on an additional list of Chinese imports worth about $300 billion, prompting China to respond with levies of its own. Sources have said the trade talks stalled after China tried to delete commitments from a draft agreement that its laws would be changed to enact new policies on issues from intellectual property protection to forced technology transfers. With no resolution in sight, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Thursday announced a $16 billion aid program to help U.S. farmers hurt by the conflict, with some funds to be used to open markets outside China to U.S. products. Farmers have been among those hardest hit by the trade war. Retailers, including Best Buy Co. Inc. and Walmart Inc., are also warning that the tariffs will raise prices for consumers. The newest round will cost the typical American household $831 annually, according to research Thursday from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Of a list of 20 companies compiled by Goldman Sachs that derive a substantial portion of their sales from China, the average stock price decline since Trump’s tweet on May 5 signaling that tariff increases were coming is nearly 15 percent, compared with a 4.5 percent drop for the wider S&P 500 Index. In Thursday’s interview, Pompeo confirmed a New York Times report Wednesday that China was using high-tech surveillance to set up an intrusive policing effort that could be used to subdue its minorities, including ethnic Muslim Uighurs. The United States is considering Huawei-like sanctions on Chinese video surveillance firm Hikvision Digital Technology Co. over the issue, a person briefed on the matter said. Also feeding into tensions, the U.S. military said it sent two Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, prompting Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang to lodge “stern representations.” Taiwan is one of a growing number of flash-points in the U.S.-China relationship, along with China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea where the United States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols. Trump has embraced protectionism as part of an “America First” agenda aimed at rebalancing global trade. He is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at a G20 summit in Japan from June 28-29, around the time when the next levies could be ready, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s calculations.

china
u.s .
espionage
huawei
donald trump
mike pompeo
trade war
hikvision


Pair of Yubari melons fetch record ¥5 million at season's first auction in Hokkaido

Abstract: SAPPORO - A pair of specially grown hybrid melons cultivated in the city of Yubari, Hokkaido, fetched a record ¥5 million ($45,500) on Friday in the season’s first auction. The bid price at a Sapporo wholesale market beat the all-time high of ¥3.2 million paid in the first auction of Yubari melons last year. The premium cantaloupe is known for its soft juicy orange-colored flesh and high sugar content. The melons usually sell for ¥4,000 to ¥10,000 each and are often given as gifts in Japan. The successful bidder, Tokyo-based Pokka Sapporo Food & Beverage Ltd., said it decided to make a bid — its first at the auction — to mark the 10th anniversary of the release of its melon-flavored soda water. “As our company was founded in Sapporo, I had been thinking there must be something I can do for Hokkaido,” said President Yoshihiro Iwata, 57. The company said it plans to first display the melons at Sapporo Dome and New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, before taking them for color and scent analysis to help in the development of new products. The harvesting of melons began Thursday morning in Yubari, a city widely known for its production of the fruit, and is expected to reach its peak in early July, according to the local agricultural cooperative.