World
China does not seem to understand independence of Canada's judiciary: Trudeau
 |
| Spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Canada |
By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - China does not appear to understand that Canada's judiciary is independent, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday, taking a rare public swipe at Beijing at a time when bilateral ties are poor.
China says Canada must free Huawei Technologies Co Ltd Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, who is fighting extradition to the United States. She was arrested in the province of British Columbia in December 2018.
Canadian officials have repeatedly said they cannot intervene in the case.
"Canada has an independent judicial system that functions without interference or override by politicians," Trudeau told a daily briefing.
"China doesn't work quite the same way and (doesn't) seem to understand that we do have an independent judiciary."
Later in the day, Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said he was "very concerned" by Chinese plans to impose new national security legislation on Hong Kong, home to around 300,000 Canadian citizens.
"Canada ... will make its voice heard," he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The United States says it believes Meng covered up attempts by Huawei-linked companies to sell equipment to Iran, breaking U.S. sanctions against the country.
A decision on a key legal aspect of the trial over whether Meng can be extradited will be announced next Wednesday, the British Columbia Supreme Court said on Thursday.
Shortly after Meng's arrest, Chinese authorities detained two Canadian men in China on state security charges. Beijing also blocked imports of Canadian canola seed.
Trudeau said last month that China had suspended consular visits, citing the coronavirus outbreak.
"The fact that China is still linking an independent judicial system in the case of Meng Wanzhou with the arbitrary detention of two Canadians is saddening, but that's a challenge we've been working with for many months," he said on Thursday.
The Chinese Embassy was not immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Additional reporting by Moira Warburton in Toronto; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)
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Business
Senate Passes Bill to Delist Chinese Companies From Exchanges
 |
| Senate Passes Bill to Delist Chinese Companies From Exchanges |
(Bloomberg) -- The Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday that could lead to Chinese companies such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Baidu Inc. being barred from listing on U.S. stock exchanges amid increasingly tense relations between the world’s two largest economies.
The bill, introduced by Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, and Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, was approved by unanimous consent and would require companies to certify that they are not under the control of a foreign government.
U.S. lawmakers have raised red flags over the billions of dollars flowing into some of China’s largest corporations, much of it from pension funds and college endowments in search of fat investment returns. Alarm has grown in particular that American money is bankrolling efforts by the country’s technology giants to develop leading positions in everything from artificial intelligence and autonomous driving to internet data collection.
Shares in some of the biggest U.S.-listed Chinese firms, including Baidu and Alibaba, slid Thursday in New York while the broader market gained.
If a company can’t show that it is not under such control or the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or PCAOB, isn’t able to audit the company for three consecutive years to determine that it is not under the control of a foreign government, the company’s securities would be banned from the exchanges.
“I do not want to get into a new Cold War,” Kennedy said on the Senate floor, adding that he wants “China to play by the rules.”
“Publicly listed companies should all be held to the same standards, and this bill makes common sense changes to level the playing field and give investors the transparency they need to make informed decisions,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “I’m proud that we were able to pass it today with overwhelming bipartisan support, and I urge our House colleagues to act quickly.”
House Bill
Stricter U.S. oversight could potentially affect the future listing plans of major private Chinese corporations from Jack Ma’s Ant Financial to SoftBank-backed ByteDance Ltd. But since discussions on increased disclosure requirements began last year, many other Chinese companies have either listed in Hong Kong already or plan to do so, said James Hull, a Beijing-based analyst and portfolio manager with Hullx.
“All Chinese U.S.-listed entities are potentially impacted over the coming years,” he said. “Increased disclosure may hurt some smaller companies, but there’s been risk disclosures around PCAOB for a while now, so it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone.”
In a sign of broad support for the measure, Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, introduced a companion bill in that chamber. Sherman said in a statement that Nasdaq moved this week to delist China-based Luckin Coffee after executives at the company admitted fabricating $310 million in sales between April and December 2019.
“I commend our Senate counterparts for moving to address this critical issue,” Sherman said. “Had this legislation already been signed into law, U.S. investors in Luckin Coffee likely would have avoided billions of dollars in losses.”
House leaders are discussing the legislation -- and a separate Senate-passed bill to sanction Chinese officials over human rights abuses against Muslim minorities -- with lawmakers and members of the relevant committees, a Democratic aide said.
The Senate measure -- S. 945 -- is an example of the rising bipartisan pushback against China in Congress that had been building over trade and other issues. It has been amplified especially by Republicans as President Donald Trump has sought to blame China as the main culprit in the coronavirus pandemic.
GOP lawmakers have in recent weeks unleashed a torrent of legislation aimed at punishing China for not being more forthcoming with information or proactive in restricting travel as the coronavirus began to spread from the city of Wuhan, where it was first detected.
Trump escalated his rhetoric against China on Wednesday night, suggesting that leader Xi Jinping is behind a “disinformation and propaganda attack on the United States and Europe.”
“It all comes from the top,” Trump said in a series of tweets. He added that China was “desperate” to have former Vice President Joe Biden win the presidential race.
Kennedy told Fox Business on Tuesday that the bill would apply to U.S. exchanges such as Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange.
“I would not turn my back on the Chinese Communist Party if they were two days dead,” Kennedy said. “They cheat. And I’ve got a bill to stop them from cheating.”
At issue is China’s longstanding refusal to allow the PCAOB to examine audits of firms whose shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and other U.S. platforms. The inspections by the little-known agency, which Congress stood up in 2002 in response to the massive Enron Corp. accounting scandal, are meant to prevent fraud and wrongdoing that could wipe out shareholders.
Clash
Since then China and the U.S. have been at odds on the issue even as companies including Alibaba and Baidu have raised billions of dollars selling shares in American markets. The long-simmering feud came to the forefront last year as Washington and Beijing clashed over broader trade and economic issues, and some in the White House have been urging Trump to take a harder line on the audit inspections.
Last week, Trump said in an interview on Fox Business that he’s “looking at” Chinese companies that trade on the NYSE and Nasdaq exchanges but do not follow U.S. accounting rules. Still, he said that cracking down could backfire and simply result in the firms moving to exchanges in London or Hong Kong.
While not technically part of the government, the PCAOB is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The ability to inspect audits of Chinese firms that list in the U.S. is certain to come up at a roundtable that the SEC is holding July 9 on risks of investing in China and other emerging markets.
Senators Kevin Cramer, Tom Cotton, Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott are also sponsors of the bill. Rubio applauded the passage of the Kennedy-Van Hollen bill and said it incorporated aspects of a similar bill he introduced last year.
“I was proud to work with Senator Kennedy on this important legislation that would protect American retail investors and pensioners from risky investments in fraudulent, opaque Chinese companies that are listed on U.S. exchanges and trade on over-the-counter markets,” Rubio said in a statement. “If Chinese companies want access to the U.S. capital markets, they must comply with American laws and regulations for financial transparency and accountability.”
According to the SEC, 224 U.S.-listed companies representing more than $1.8 trillion in combined market capitalization are located in countries where there are obstacles to PCAOB inspections of the kind this legislation mandates.
(Updates with analyst voice in eighth paragraph. An earlier version corrected that Wuhan is a city, not a province, in 12th paragraph)
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- The Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday that could lead to Chinese companies such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Baidu Inc. being barred from listing on U.S. stock exchanges amid increasingly tense relations between the world’s two largest economies.
The bill, introduced by Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, and Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, was approved by unanimous consent and would require companies to certify that they are not under the control of a foreign government.
U.S. lawmakers have raised red flags over the billions of dollars flowing into some of China’s largest corporations, much of it from pension funds and college endowments in search of fat investment returns. Alarm has grown in particular that American money is bankrolling efforts by the country’s technology giants to develop leading positions in everything from artificial intelligence and autonomous driving to internet data collection.
Shares in some of the biggest U.S.-listed Chinese firms, including Baidu and Alibaba, slid Thursday in New York while the broader market gained.
If a company can’t show that it is not under such control or the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or PCAOB, isn’t able to audit the company for three consecutive years to determine that it is not under the control of a foreign government, the company’s securities would be banned from the exchanges.
“I do not want to get into a new Cold War,” Kennedy said on the Senate floor, adding that he wants “China to play by the rules.”
“Publicly listed companies should all be held to the same standards, and this bill makes common sense changes to level the playing field and give investors the transparency they need to make informed decisions,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “I’m proud that we were able to pass it today with overwhelming bipartisan support, and I urge our House colleagues to act quickly.”
House Bill
Stricter U.S. oversight could potentially affect the future listing plans of major private Chinese corporations from Jack Ma’s Ant Financial to SoftBank-backed ByteDance Ltd. But since discussions on increased disclosure requirements began last year, many other Chinese companies have either listed in Hong Kong already or plan to do so, said James Hull, a Beijing-based analyst and portfolio manager with Hullx.
“All Chinese U.S.-listed entities are potentially impacted over the coming years,” he said. “Increased disclosure may hurt some smaller companies, but there’s been risk disclosures around PCAOB for a while now, so it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone.”
In a sign of broad support for the measure, Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, introduced a companion bill in that chamber. Sherman said in a statement that Nasdaq moved this week to delist China-based Luckin Coffee after executives at the company admitted fabricating $310 million in sales between April and December 2019.
“I commend our Senate counterparts for moving to address this critical issue,” Sherman said. “Had this legislation already been signed into law, U.S. investors in Luckin Coffee likely would have avoided billions of dollars in losses.”
House leaders are discussing the legislation -- and a separate Senate-passed bill to sanction Chinese officials over human rights abuses against Muslim minorities -- with lawmakers and members of the relevant committees, a Democratic aide said.
The Senate measure -- S. 945 -- is an example of the rising bipartisan pushback against China in Congress that had been building over trade and other issues. It has been amplified especially by Republicans as President Donald Trump has sought to blame China as the main culprit in the coronavirus pandemic.
GOP lawmakers have in recent weeks unleashed a torrent of legislation aimed at punishing China for not being more forthcoming with information or proactive in restricting travel as the coronavirus began to spread from the city of Wuhan, where it was first detected.
Trump escalated his rhetoric against China on Wednesday night, suggesting that leader Xi Jinping is behind a “disinformation and propaganda attack on the United States and Europe.”
“It all comes from the top,” Trump said in a series of tweets. He added that China was “desperate” to have former Vice President Joe Biden win the presidential race.
Kennedy told Fox Business on Tuesday that the bill would apply to U.S. exchanges such as Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange.
“I would not turn my back on the Chinese Communist Party if they were two days dead,” Kennedy said. “They cheat. And I’ve got a bill to stop them from cheating.”
At issue is China’s longstanding refusal to allow the PCAOB to examine audits of firms whose shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and other U.S. platforms. The inspections by the little-known agency, which Congress stood up in 2002 in response to the massive Enron Corp. accounting scandal, are meant to prevent fraud and wrongdoing that could wipe out shareholders.
Clash
Since then China and the U.S. have been at odds on the issue even as companies including Alibaba and Baidu have raised billions of dollars selling shares in American markets. The long-simmering feud came to the forefront last year as Washington and Beijing clashed over broader trade and economic issues, and some in the White House have been urging Trump to take a harder line on the audit inspections.
Last week, Trump said in an interview on Fox Business that he’s “looking at” Chinese companies that trade on the NYSE and Nasdaq exchanges but do not follow U.S. accounting rules. Still, he said that cracking down could backfire and simply result in the firms moving to exchanges in London or Hong Kong.
While not technically part of the government, the PCAOB is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The ability to inspect audits of Chinese firms that list in the U.S. is certain to come up at a roundtable that the SEC is holding July 9 on risks of investing in China and other emerging markets.
Senators Kevin Cramer, Tom Cotton, Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott are also sponsors of the bill. Rubio applauded the passage of the Kennedy-Van Hollen bill and said it incorporated aspects of a similar bill he introduced last year.
“I was proud to work with Senator Kennedy on this important legislation that would protect American retail investors and pensioners from risky investments in fraudulent, opaque Chinese companies that are listed on U.S. exchanges and trade on over-the-counter markets,” Rubio said in a statement. “If Chinese companies want access to the U.S. capital markets, they must comply with American laws and regulations for financial transparency and accountability.”
According to the SEC, 224 U.S.-listed companies representing more than $1.8 trillion in combined market capitalization are located in countries where there are obstacles to PCAOB inspections of the kind this legislation mandates.
(Updates with analyst voice in eighth paragraph. An earlier version corrected that Wuhan is a city, not a province, in 12th paragraph)
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
----
World
US says it's pulling out of Open Skies surveillance treaty
 |
Trump Open Skies TreatyFILE - In this June 28, 2019, file
photo, President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin walk
to participate in a group photo at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. The
Trump administration is notifying international partners that it is
pulling out of a treaty that permits 30-plus nations to conduct unarmed,
observation flights over each other’s territory — overflights set up
decades ago to promote trust and avert conflict. The administration says
it wants out of the Open Skies Treaty because Russia is violating the
pact and imagery collected during the flights can be obtained quickly at
less cost from U.S. or commercial satellites. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh,
File) |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration notified international partners on Thursday that it is pulling out of a treaty that permits 30-plus nations to conduct unarmed, observation flights over each other’s territory — overflights set up decades ago to promote trust and avert conflict.
The administration says it wants out of the Open Skies Treaty because Russia is violating the pact, and imagery collected during the flights can be obtained quickly at less cost from U.S. or commercial satellites. Exiting the treaty, however, is expected to strain relations with Moscow and upset European allies and some members of Congress.
President Dwight Eisenhower first proposed that the United States and the former Soviet Union allow aerial reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory in July 1955. At first, Moscow rejected the idea, but President George H.W. Bush revived it in May 1989, and the treaty entered into force in January 2002. Currently, 34 nations have signed it; Kyrgyzstan has signed but not ratified it yet.
More than 1,500 flights have been conducted under the treaty, aimed at fostering transparency about military activity and helping monitor arms control and other agreements. Each nation in the treaty agrees to make all its territory available for surveillance flights, yet Russia has restricted flights over certain areas.
Last month, top Democrats on the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees in both the House and the Senate wrote to Trump accusing the president of “ramming” a withdrawal from the treaty as the entire world grapples with COVID-19. They said it would undermine U.S. alliances with European allies who rely on the treaty to keep Russia accountable for its military activities in the region.
“The administration’s effort to make a major change to our national security policy in the midst of a global health crisis is not only shortsighted, but also unconscionable,” wrote Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
“This effort appears intended to limit appropriate congressional consultation on, and scrutiny of, the decision,” they wrote.
They said they weren’t moved by the defense secretary’s argument that $125 million to replace aging aircraft used for treaty verification, which was already appropriated by Congress, is too costly. “The total cost of replacing the aircraft is a tiny portion of the overall defense budget,” they said.
Earlier this month, 16 former senior European military and defense officials signed a statement supporting the treaty, saying that a U.S. withdrawal from the treaty would be a blow to global security and further undermine the international arms control agreements.
The officials asked the U.S. to reconsider its exit. But if the U.S. leaves, they called for European states to stay in the treaty, fulfill obligations under the treaty and refrain from restricting the length of observation flights or banning flights over certain territories.
Senior administration officials said Trump last fall ordered a comprehensive review of the costs and benefits of U.S. participation in the Open Skies Treaty. At the end of an eight-month review, which included extensive input from allies, it became clear that it was no longer in America’s interest to remain party to the treaty, the officials said. The U.S. notified other members of the treaty on Thursday, and the United States will formally pull out in six months.
The senior administration officials said Russian violations of the treaty were the main reason for exiting the treaty. They said Russia has restricted flights over Moscow and Chechnya and near Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian restrictions also make it difficult to conduct observation in the Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland that is home to Russia’s Baltic fleet, they said.
Russia uses illegal overflight restrictions along the Georgian border in support of its propaganda narrative that the Russian-occupied enclaves of Georgia are independent countries. The senior administration officials said that amounted to an illegal restriction, under the treaty, coupled with a narrative that justifies Russia’s regional aggression.
The U.S. has been working on a proposal to backfill partners and allies with imagery that the U.S. would have shared from its open skies flights.
___
Associated Press Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
Trump threatens to cut off federal money for Michigan over mail-in voting
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| FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump holds cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Michigan's plan to send mail-in voting applications to all voters in the state illegal, without citing a specific law, and threatened to withhold funding to the state.
"This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!" Trump wrote in a tweet.
Trump addressed his tweet to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, his chief of staff, and the acting U.S. budget director.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Tuesday said all 7.7 million Michigan voters would receive absentee ballot applications before the state's Aug. 4 primary and the Nov. 3 general election, so that no one "has to choose between their health and their right to vote."
Michigan does not reliably line up with one political party. Republican Trump won the state in 2016 but in 2012 it went to former President Barack Obama, a Democrat. The Democrats' presumptive nominee this year, Joe Biden, served as Obama's vice president.
Republicans say mail-in voting leads to fraud and favors Democrats, while Democrats say it allows a wider group of people to participate in elections.
Cutting off federal aid to the state, led by a Democratic governor who is on Biden's short list of possible running mates, could be disastrous.
In the past two months a massive outbreak of the novel coronavirus prompted a rigorous state-wide lockdown, which then brought armed protesters to the state capital. Then on Tuesday night, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for part of the state after heavy rains broke two dams and displaced thousands of residents.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Chizu Nomiyama)
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World
Defeat, riots and recriminations: China football's darkest day
https://www.yahoo.com/news/defeat-riots-recriminations-china-footballs-darkest-day-044840838.html
Hong Kong fans hold up signs that read "Boo" in 2015 during China's national anthem before a qualifying match for the 2018 World Cup at Mong Kok stadium in Hong Kong (AFP Photo/Isaac LAWRENCE)
It is known as the "May 19 Incident" and by some estimations it haunts China's national football team 35 years on.
On May 19, 1985, China were stunned 2-1 at home by neighbours Hong Kong, then still under British rule, on one of the most infamous nights in Chinese football history.
It is notorious not just because China's hopes of qualifying for the World Cup for the first time ended in calamity.
After the match fans in Beijing rioted, smashing cars, attacking buses and threatening foreign journalists and diplomatic staff.
It began an intense rivalry between the two teams which has continued to this day, despite the UK handing back Hong Kong to China in 1997.
Recent World Cup qualifying matches between the two sides have been bad-tempered affairs with Hong Kong fans jeering the Chinese national anthem, which their team shares, since pro-democracy protests broke out in the city in 2014.
- The match -
It was a Sunday night and China needed only a draw to reach the next stage of qualifying for the Mexico 1986 World Cup.
They were expected to beat the minnows from Hong Kong easily, but in front of 80,000 fans at the Workers' Stadium a complacent China's hopes of reaching the World Cup collapsed.
With a line-up regarded as one of China's strongest in the last 40 years, they were level 1-1 at half-time but conceded in the 60th minute when Hong Kong defender Ku Kam-fai smashed in the winner.
As their World Cup hopes faded in the drizzle, Chinese supporters became frustrated by what they saw as Hong Kong's play-acting and reluctance to attack.
Cries of "Hong Kong cowards" rang out and the full-time whistle was greeted with stunned silence, followed by the stamping of feet, then fury.
Kwok Ka-ming, Hong Kong's coach at the time, told AFP ahead of the 35th anniversary of his team's momentous victory: "In 1984 then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited Beijing and the Joint Declaration was signed (agreeing to return Hong Kong to China).
"So the victory we had in the qualifiers not only meant a lot for football, but also in history."
- The riot -
Losing was one thing but doing so to "little brother" Hong Kong made it even worse.
"After we won and wanted to return to the changing room, the spectators began to hurl stuff onto the field so we couldn't make it back to the changing room and had to shelter," Kwok recalls.
Outside the stadium hundreds of fans, some drunk, rioted.
Some were armed with stones, bricks and bottles, according to reports at the time, and the atmosphere took on a distinctly anti-foreign flavour.
"An AFP correspondent taking photos was accosted by a hostile crowd of more than a hundred people, the police making no effort to intervene," said an AFP report.
"The crowd, apparently acting on the orders of plainclothes police, did not allow the correspondent to leave until they grabbed his film."
Other foreign reporters were spat at, threatened and had their cars attacked, while a staff member of the French embassy also saw his car targeted.
The hooliganism lasted about two hours with "several dozen cars" and buses were damaged. A taxi driver attempting to protect his vehicle was beaten up.
About 30 police officers were injured and 127 people were arrested.
- The repercussions -
The official Xinhua news agency called it the most serious incident in Beijing since the founding of communist China in 1949.
AFP noted that foreign residents and diplomatic circles were concerned about "a surge" in xenophobia and police failure to protect the victims.
The fallout was no less ugly for the Chinese team, who went into hiding for several days and made a public apology.
Coach Zeng Xuelin quit and later recalled the episode as "a nightmare". The Chinese Football Association chairman resigned six months later.
Lee Chun-wing, a lecturer at Hong Kong's College of Professional and Continuing Education, says there are two theories why fans reacted like they did.
Hong Kong media critical of China blamed xenophobia but Lee -- whose research interests include Hong Kong's football history -- points out that buses carrying locals were also targeted.
China in the 1980s was undergoing vast economic changes so another explanation is that fans took the opportunity to protest against price reform which had led to inflation.
China reached the World Cup in 2002, but today stand 76th in the FIFA rankings, a long way from President Xi Jinping's ambition to become a football super power.
"Probably the players and fans have always been haunted by the defeat whenever China plays a do-or-die match since then (1985)," Lee said.
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Associated Press
U.S. restriction on chipmakers deals critical blow to Huawei
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/u-restriction-chipmakers-deals-critical-052309322.html
China US Huawei Sanctions
A man wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus walks past a Huawei retail store in Beijing on Monday, May 18, 2020. China's commerce ministry says it will take "all necessary measures" in response to new U.S. restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei's ability to use American technology, calling the measures an abuse of state power and a violation of market principles. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)HONG KONG (AP) — The latest U.S. sanctions on tech giant Huawei threaten to devastate the company and escalate a feud with China that could disrupt technology industries worldwide.
Huawei Technologies Ltd. is one of the biggest makers of smartphones and network equipment, but that $123 billion-a-year business is in jeopardy after Washington announced further restrictions on use of American technology by foreign companies that make its processor chips.
Huawei spent the past year scrambling to preserve its business after an earlier round of U.S. restrictions imposed last May cut off access to American components and software.
“Our business will inevitably be impacted,” Huawei’s chairman, Guo Ping, said at a conference Monday with industry analysts.
“In spite of that, the challenges over the past year have helped us develop a thicker skin, and we are confident about finding solutions soon,” Guo said.
The company said Monday that it would need some time to “understand the impact” of the latest restrictions.
The conflict is politically explosive because Huawei is more than just China’s most successful private company. It is a national champion among industries the ruling Communist Party is promoting in hopes of transforming China into a global competitor in profitable technologies.
On Monday, China’s Ministry of Commerce warned it will protect “the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises,” but gave no details of potential retaliation. Beijing has threatened in the past to issue an “unreliable entities list” that might restrict operations of American companies in China.
Friction over Huawei adds to a broader deterioration of U.S.-Chinese relations.
The two sides have declared a truce in a trade war, but arguments over the origin of the coronavirus pandemic that is roiling the global economy have raised worries that agreement might fall apart.
Huawei is at the center of the U.S.-Chinese conflict over Beijing’s technology ambitions, which Washington worries might erode American industrial leadership.
Huawei has few alternatives if Washington refuses to allow its suppliers to use U.S. technology. The company has developed some of its own chips but even the biggest non-U.S. manufacturers such as Taiwanese giant TSMC need American components or production equipment.
“Every electronics system that Huawei produces could be negatively impacted,” Jim Handy, semiconductor analyst for Objective Analysis, said in an email. “Most China-based alternatives haven’t yet been established.”
New curbs announced Friday are the third round of sanctions aimed at cutting off Huawei’s access to U.S. technology and markets.
In a statement, Huawei criticized the U.S. decision as “arbitrary and pernicious” and warned it will affect operation and maintenance of networks installed by the company in more than 170 countries.
“The U.S. government has intentionally turned its back on the interests of Huawei’s customers and consumers,” it said.
The statement said the decision “will damage the trust and collaboration within the global semiconductor industry,” harming other industries that depend on it.
The Trump administration says Huawei is a security risk, which the company denies, and is trying to persuade European and other allies to shun its technology for next-generation telecom networks.
Chinese officials accuse Washington of raising phony security concerns to hurt a rising competitor to American tech companies.
The potential impact extends far beyond Huawei. The company spends tens of billions of dollars a year on components and technology from U.S. and other suppliers, purchases that might be disrupted if output of smartphones and other products is blocked.
U.S. suppliers already have complained to Washington that restrictions imposed last May on Huawei’s access to American components and other technology will cost them billions of dollars in lost potential sales.
The company’s telecoms market in the U.S. evaporated after a congressional panel in 2012 labeled Huawei and its Chinese competitor ZTE Corp. security risks and told phone carriers to avoid them.
Last year’s sanctions require U.S. companies to obtain government permission to sell chips and other technology to Huawei. The company can keep using Google’s Android operating system on its smartphones but lost the ability to pre-install music, maps and other Google services customers expect on phones.
Huawei has launched its own smartphone operating system and is paying developers to create apps to run on it. But the company says sales have suffered.
Despite that, Huawei reported a 2019 profit of 62.7 billion yuan ($8.8 billion) and said total sales rose 19% over a year earlier.
The sanctions highlight Huawei’s reliance on technology suppliers despite having one of the world’s biggest corporate research and development budgets.
Huawei has its own semiconductor unit, HiSilicon, but needs manufacturers including TSMC to make the most advanced chips.
Beijing has spent the past two decades and billions of dollars to create a Chinese semiconductor industry. But its biggest producer, SMIC, can only make chips that are two generations behind TSMC.
“Huawei had already begun to shift some production from TSMC to SMIC, although SMIC cannot yet produce Huawei’s latest Kirin 980 chipset,” said Neil Thomas, a research associate at U.S. think tank Paulson Institute. “But SMIC can probably manufacture earlier-generation Huawei chipsets.”
Then-chairman Eric Xu warned in March that more U.S. pressure on Huawei might provoke Chinese retaliation that could disrupt its global industry.
Beijing will not “just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered,” Xu said. “The impact on the global industry would be astonishing.”
----
World
Huawei says 'survival' at stake after US chip restrictions
Shenzhen (China) (AFP) - Huawei on Monday assailed the latest US move to cut it off from semiconductor suppliers as a "pernicious" attack that will put the Chinese technology giant in "survival" mode and sow chaos in the global technology sector.
The Commerce Department said on Friday it was tightening sanctions on Huawei -- seen by Washington as a security risk -- to include denying it access to semiconductor designs developed using US software and technology.
"The decision was arbitrary and pernicious and threatens to undermine the entire (technology) industry worldwide," Huawei said in a statement.
Huawei has largely weathered an escalating 18-month campaign by the Trump administration to isolate it internationally.
But it "will inevitably be affected" by the new American salvo, rotating chairman Guo Ping said at an annual summit of technology analysts that Huawei organises at its headquarters in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
- Survival mode -
"Survival is the key for us now," Guo said, issuing an appeal to Huawei's suppliers and customers worldwide to stand with it.
He declined to give a detailed forecast of the impact when asked by journalists.
But the Huawei statement said the US decision "will have a serious impact on a wide number of global industries" by creating uncertainty in the chip sector and technology supply chains.
US officials said Huawei had been circumventing sanctions by obtaining chips and components that are produced around the world based on American technology.
Washington last year said it would blacklist Huawei from the US market and from buying crucial American components, though it has extended a series of reprieves to allow US businesses that work with Huawei time to adjust.
On Friday it extended this reprieve by another 90 days but said these exceptions are not likely to be extended further.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had said that even as Huawei seeks to develop its own components in response to US sanctions, "that effort is still dependent on US technologies."
US officials accuse Huawei, the world's biggest supplier of telecom network equipment and number two smartphone manufacturer, of stealing American trade secrets and say it could allow Beijing to spy on global telecoms traffic.
Huawei strenuously denies the charges, saying the United States has never provided any proof of a security threat.
The sanctions against the company have been a key driver of heightened US-China trade tensions.
China's Ministry of Commerce on Sunday warned it would take unspecified "necessary measures" to protect Huawei.
US officials said the new rules would have a 120-day grace period.
A senior State Department official said the move would not necessarily deny Huawei access to these products but require a license allowing Washington to keep track of the technology.
- US trying to 'crush' rivals -
Huawei is poised to become a global leader in the coming advent of fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks and Washington has lobbied other countries to shun Huawei gear over potential security risks.
China's government has poured money into developing home-grown semiconductors -- the building blocks of tech -- but it still lags behind the US, Japan and South Korea, which analysts say is a glaring Achilles heel for Chinese companies like Huawei.
Huawei said the US was "leveraging its own technological strengths to crush" foreign companies.
The resulting disruptions to supply chains will ultimately harm US interests, it added.
Declaring Huawei was "taking the lead" in global tech, Guo suggested that Washington's pressure was fuelled by fear that the United States was falling behind technologically.
"Any other country or company with more advanced technologies may put US supremacy at risk," he told the industry conference.
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Reuters
China says opposed to latest U.S. rules against Huawei
https://www.yahoo.com/news/huawei-says-pernicious-us-chip-restrictions-threaten-global-084816226.html
The Huawei logo is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's commerce ministry said on Sunday it is firmly opposed to the latest rules by the United States against Huawei and will take all necessary measures to safeguard Chinese firms' rights and interests.
The ministry said in a statement that it urges the United States to immediately stop the wrong actions.
The Trump administration on Friday moved to block global chip supplies to blacklisted telecoms equipment company Huawei Technologies, spurring fears of Chinese retaliation and hammering shares of U.S. producers of chipmaking equipment. The new rule went into effect on Friday but would have a 120-day grace period.
China's state-run newspaper Global Times, citing an unidentified source, reported that Beijing, in response to the new limits on Huawei, was ready to put U.S. companies on an "unreliable entity list" as part of the countermeasures.
Those countermeasures include launching investigations and imposing restrictions on U.S. companies such as Apple Inc , Cisco Systems Inc and Qualcomm Inc .
"The U.S. has utilized national power and used the so-called national security concern as an excuse, and abused export controls to continue to suppress some particular companies in other countries," China's commerce ministry said in today's statement.
(Reporting by Yilei Sun, Yingzhi Yang and Se Young Lee; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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World
Huge fentanyl haul seized in Asia's biggest-ever drugs bust
Myanmar police say they have seized a huge haul of liquid fentanyl - the first time the dangerous synthetic opioid that is ravaging North America has been found in Asia’s Golden Triangle drug-producing region.
In a sign that Asia’s drug syndicates have moved into the lucrative opioid market, more than 3,700 litres of methylfentanyl was discovered by anti-narcotics police near Loikan village in Shan State in northeast Myanmar.
The seizure of the fentanyl derivative was part of Asia’s biggest-ever interception of illicit drugs, precursors and drug-making equipment, including 193 million methamphetamine tablets known as yaba. At 17.5 tonnes, that is almost as much yaba as has been seized during the previous two years in Myanmar.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the scale of the bust was unprecedented and Myanmar’s anti-drug authorities had “dismantled a significant network” during a two-month operation involving police and military. Also seized were almost 163,000 litres and 35.5 tonnes of drug precursors - substances that can be used to produce drugs - as well as weapons. There were more than 130 arrests.
The methylfentanyl discovery was an ominous indicator for the region’s illicit drug market, the U.N. agency and a Western official based in Myanmar told Reuters news agency.
“It could be a game-changer because fentanyl is so potent that its widespread use would cause a major health concern for Myanmar and the region,” said the Western official, who declined to be identified.
The head of law enforcement for Myanmar’s counter-narcotics agency, Colonel Zaw Lin, said the methylfentanyl had been verified using state-of-the-art equipment.
The seizure showed the drug syndicates' methods were changing, he said.
Fentanyl and its derivatives have caused more than 130,000 overdose deaths in the United States and Canada in the past five years, according to government agencies.
Weapons, ammunition, alongside bags of crystal methamphetamine and meth-laced yaba pills seized by Myanmar police - REUTERS
The opioid epidemic has not yet swept Asia, Europe or Australasia but there have been signs it is an emerging threat.
“We have repeatedly warned the region [that] fentanyl could become a problem but this is off the charts,” said UNODC’s Southeast Asia and the Pacific representative Jeremy Douglas.
“It is the shift in the market we have been anticipating, and fearing.”
While Myanmar police did not disclose the purity and exact make-up of the methylfentanyl found, it comes in two main variants, both more potent than fentanyl, according to the European Union’s drug monitoring agency.
Fentanyl itself is 25 to 50 times stronger than heroin.
Increasingly, drug traffickers have been mixing fentanyl and its derivatives with heroin, meth and cocaine, adding to their potency and lethality.
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Reuters
Trump says doesn't want to talk to Xi, could even cut China ties
Trump says doesn't want to talk to Xi, could even cut China ties
By Doina Chiacu and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump signaled a further deterioration of his relationship with China over the coronavirus outbreak, saying he has no interest in speaking to President Xi Jinping right now and going so far as to suggest he could even cut ties with the world's second largest economy.
In an interview with Fox Business Network broadcast on Thursday, Trump said he was very disappointed with China's failure to contain the disease and that the pandemic had cast a pall over his January trade deal with Beijing, which he has previously hailed as a major achievement.
"They should have never let this happen," Trump said. "So I make a great trade deal and now I say this doesn't feel the same to me. The ink was barely dry and the plague came over. And it doesn't feel the same to me."
Trump's pique extended to Xi, with whom the U.S. president has said repeatedly he has a good relationship.
"But I just – right now I don't want to speak to him," Trump said in the interview, which was taped on Wednesday.
Trump was asked about a Republican senator's suggestion that U.S. visas be denied to Chinese students applying to study in fields related to national security, such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
"There are many things we could do. We could do things. We could cut off the whole relationship," he replied.
"Now, if you did, what would happen? You'd save $500 billion," Trump said, referring to estimated U.S. annual imports from China, which he often refers to as lost money.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing on Friday that maintaining a steady bilateral relationship served the interests of both peoples and would be beneficial for world peace and stability.
"Both China and the U.S. should now be cooperating more on fighting the virus together, to cure patients and resume economic production, but this requires the U.S. to want to work with us on this," Zhao said.
Trump's remarks drew ridicule from Hu Xijin, editor in chief of China's influential Global Times tabloid, who referred to the president's much-criticized comments last month about how COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, might be treated.
"This president once suggested COVID-19 patients inject disinfectants," Hu said on Twitter. "Remember this and you won't be surprised when he said he could cut off the whole relationship with China."
CONCERNED, REVIEWING OPTIONS
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox Business Network China needed to provide a lot more information about the coronavirus and Trump was reviewing his options.
"The president is concerned. He's reviewing all his options. Obviously, we're very concerned about the impact of this virus on the economy, on American jobs, the health of the American public and the president is going to do everything to protect the economy and protect American workers," Mnuchin said.
"It's a difficult and complex matter and the president has made very clear, he wants more information. They didn't let us in, they didn't let us understand what was going on."
Trump and his Republican backers have accused Beijing of failing to alert the world to the severity and scope of the coronavirus outbreak and of withholding data about the earliest cases. The pandemic has sparked a sharp global recession and threatened Trump's November re-election chances.
The United States has been hardest hit by the pandemic, according to official data.
China insists it has been transparent, and, amid increasingly bitter exchanges, both sides have questioned the future of the trade deal.
Opponents of Trump have said that while China has much to answer for over the outbreak, he appears to be seeking to deflect attention from criticism over his response to the crisis.
Scott Kennedy of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank called Trump's remarks "dangerous bravado."
"Avoiding communication is not an effective strategy for solving a crisis that requires global cooperation. And cutting off the economic relationship would badly damage the American economy," he said.
Michael Pillsbury, a China analyst who has worked as an outside adviser to Trump, told Reuters he believed the president was concerned that China not only wanted to re-negotiate the Phase 1 deal, but also had not been meeting goals in purchasing from United States.
He said that according to figures cited by the China Daily, China's purchases of U.S. products in the first four months of this year were 3% less than during the same period last year.
"It's not good news for reducing the trade deficit or helping our economy recover from the coronavirus crisis," he said.
China took some additional steps towards the Phase 1 goals on Thursday, buying U.S. soybean oil for the first time in nearly two years and issued customs notices allowing imports of U.S. barley and blueberries.
An executive from Chinese state agriculture trading house COFCO said China was set to speed up purchases of U.S. farm goods to implement the Phase 1 deal.
While U.S. intelligence agencies have said the coronavirus does not appear manmade or genetically modified, Trump said in his interview that China should have stopped it at its source.
"Whether it came from the lab or came from the bats, it all came from China, and they should have stopped it," he said.
"It got out of control."
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Brunnstrom and David Lawder; additional reporting by Yew Lun Tian in Beijing; Editing by Paul Simao, Bernadette Baum Daniel Wallis, Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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World
More than 100 countries are calling for an independent investigation into the coronavirus crisis
https://www.yahoo.com/news/more-100-countries-calling-independent-125209556.html
The two-day, virtual World Health Assembly meeting has begun as more than 100 countries back a resolution calling for a probe into the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A resolution at the annual assembly calls for an investigation into the global response coordinated by the World Health Organization to the coronavirus crisis, per NBC News. A draft mentioning the need for an "impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation" of the response to COVID-19 is being supported by 116 countries out of 194, including Australia, Britain, Russia, and members of the European Union, Reuters reports. The European Union is presenting the resolution, which also mentions identifying "the zoonotic source of the virus and the route of introduction to the human population."
Chinese President Xi Jinping in a remote speech at the assembly on Monday claimed the country has acted "with openness and transparency" during the crisis, saying any investigation should only occur after the virus is under control, BBC News reports.
President Trump last month announced funding to the World Health Organization would be put on hold "while its mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic is investigated," accusing the organization of having a "dangerous bias towards the Chinese government." When Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for a coronavirus inquiry last month, Axios notes that China "accused Australia of doing the United States' political bidding." The resolution that has the support of more than 100 countries, though, doesn't actually name China, The Washington Post notes.
The United States, Reuters reports, appears likely to back the resolution at the World Health Assembly, with U.S. Ambassador Andrew Bremberg saying, "My hope is that we will be able to join consensus."
More stories from theweek.comIt's almost time for pandemic apologies
GOP Sen. Ben Sasse just gave 'the worst graduation speech of all time'
The conservative victimhood complex has made America impossible to govern
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World
Around 120 nations back Australia's demand for Chinese COVID-19 probe
U.S. mulls paying companies, tax breaks to pull supply chains from China
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-mulls-paying-companies-tax-050230070.html
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump tours face mask production facility in Phoenix, Arizona
By Andrea Shalal, Alexandra Alper and Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers and officials are crafting proposals to push American companies to move operations or key suppliers out of China that include tax breaks, new rules, and carefully structured subsidies.
Interviews with a dozen current and former government officials, industry executives and members of Congress show widespread discussions underway - including the idea of a "reshoring fund" originally stocked with $25 billion - to encourage U.S. companies to drastically revamp their relationship with China.
President Donald Trump has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas, but the recent spread of the coronavirus and related concerns about U.S. medical and food supply chains dependency on China are "turbocharging" new enthusiasm for the idea in the White House.
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order that gave a U.S. overseas investment agency new powers to help manufacturers in the United States. The goal, Trump said, is to "produce everything America needs for ourselves and then export to the world, and that includes medicines."
But the Trump administration itself remains divided over how best to proceed, and the issue is unlikely to be addressed in the next fiscal stimulus to offset the coronavirus downturn. Congress has begun work on another fiscal stimulus package but it remains unclear when it might pass.
The push takes on special resonance in an election year. While anti-China, pro-American job proposals could play well with voters, giving taxpayer money or tax breaks to companies that moved supply chains to China at a time when small business is flailing may not.
BIPARTISAN APPEAL
Both Republicans and Democrats are crafting bills to decrease U.S. reliance on China-made products, which accounted for some 18% of overall imports in 2019.
"The whole subject of supply chains and integrity of supply chains... does have a greater place in members' minds," Representative Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, told reporters May 7.
The medical supply chain and defense-related goods are top of the list.
"Coronavirus has been a painful wakeup call that we are too reliant on nations like China for critical medical supplies," said U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham in a press release on Friday. He is expected to issue a new bill this week.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley is pushing for local content rules for medical supply chains, and "generous investment subsidies" to encourage increased domestic production of a range of goods and components. Republican Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill May 10 that would bar sale of some sensitive goods to China, and raise taxes on U.S. companies' income from China.
A bipartisan bill introduced by Democratic Representative Anna Eschoo and Republican Representative Susan Brooks would commission a panel to recommend ways to cut drug supply reliance on China.
Republican Representative Mark Green's "SOS Act" proposes funding takeovers of vulnerable U.S. companies that are critical to our national security.
Lawmakers also hope to include reshoring provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a $740 billion bill setting policy for the Pentagon that Congress passes every year.
PAY TO STAY
A controversial idea being floated in Washington would allocate as much as $25 billion to companies that make essential goods to move production home, ensuring that even products far down the supply chain were sourced domestically, according to two administration officials.
No lawmaker has publicly embraced it, but several congressional aides acknowledged it is part of the broader discussion in Congress. One of the administration officials said states could administer the funds through their separate economic development organizations.
That would be a boon for states that are struggling to pay their own bills after widespread lockdowns, plummeting tax revenues, and a huge surge in COVID-related costs, one state official said.
But given longstanding concerns about the government setting "industrial policy", the notion of subsidizing industry directly is polarizing, even among Trump's top advisers.
Outright subsidies are a non-starter, said one of the two administrative sources. "Internally some are questioning why we should be providing funds to companies that have left in recent years."
(Read more at the link)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-mulls-paying-companies-tax-050230070.html
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Business
How Elon Musk was inspired to found Tesla, SpaceX after being fired from PayPal
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/elon-musk-inspired-found-tesla-125825645.html
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a long list of failures, but they’re all just a part of his success.
In 2005, he told Fast Company that at SpaceX, his private aerospace company, failure is expected.
“There’s a silly notion that failure’s not an option at NASA,” he told the magazine. “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
In fact, one significant failure -- one that eventually led him to found SpaceX -- was when he was ousted from his position as the CEO of PayPal.
ELON MUSK’S BORING COMPANY COMPLETES UNDERGROUND TUNNELS IN LAS VEGAS
In 1999, Musk started an online financial services company called X.com. The company eventually merged with a competing financial company co-founded by Peter Thiel to create PayPal in 2000, according to Business Insider.
Though Musk was named as the CEO of merged companies, his time in the role was short-lived.
Business Insider reported that in October 2000, Musk wanted to switch the PayPal servers from a Unix platform to a Microsoft Windows platform, but the other cofounders didn’t like the idea.
While he was on his way to Australia for a vacation, Musk was fired by PayPal’s board.
He remained the majority shareholder in the company and when eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Musk ended up with $180 million, FOX Business previously reported.
Even more significant than the money, though, was how Musk was inspired to move on.
“Going from PayPal, I thought, ‘Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?’” he told graduates during his 2012 commencement speech at the California Institute of Technology. “It really wasn’t from the perspective of what’s the ... best way to make money.”
ELON MUSK APPEARS TO PUT MORE PROPERTIES UP FOR SALE AFTER VOW TO ‘OWN NO HOUSE’
It was during that time that he was inspired to found SpaceX and Tesla. He founded Tesla in 2003 because it would solve the problem of sustainable energy and he founded SpaceX in 2002 because it would help “make life multi-planetary,” he told the Caltech graduates.
However, even in those ventures Musk has had failures.
In 2008, both companies were on the brink of bankruptcy, he reportedly told an audience at South by Southwest in 2018.
“I gave both SpaceX and Tesla a probability of less than 10 percent likely to succeed,” he said.
SpaceX also had several rockets and spacecraft blow up and in 2016, Tesla struggled to meet delivery goals, Vox previously reported.
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Now, however, SpaceX is valued at more than $20 billion and Tesla makes $26 billion in sales annually, according to Forbes.
Musk himself is estimated to be worth $36.1 billion and is ranked 31 on Forbes’ list of billionaires.
“Anything which is significantly innovative is going to come with a significant risk of failure,” Musk said in 2015 at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference. “But, you know, you’ve got to take big chances in order for the potential for a big, positive outcome. If the outcome is exciting enough, then taking a big risk is worthwhile.”
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Politico
Why the new X-37 space plane mission is a big deal
Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett’s announcement that Saturday's mission of the X-37B military space plane will be to demonstrate how to use satellites or other space systems to generate solar power marks a major milestone -- and one that deserves to be celebrated as a turning point for space development.
It sends a powerful signal of our intention to remain preeminent in space, and to contest leadership on grand world-changing ideas like space solar power. It provides the first tangible evidence that the new U.S. Space Force and its leadership grasp the broader significance of its role in building long-term comprehensive security beyond simply protecting America’s critical military satellites.
China has hit upon space-based solar power as an arena of great power competition, necessitating a serious response. To this end, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has recommended that the National Space Council “develop a strategy to ensure the United States remains the preeminent space power in the face of growing competition from China.”
That approach, the Commission makes clear, should include a “long-term economic space resource policy strategy, including an assessment of the viability of extraction of space-based precious minerals, onsite exploitation of space-based natural resources, and space-based solar power.”
Various estimates forecast the overall space economy to exceed a trillion dollars in the next couple of decades. But the potential of space solar power vastly exceeds that paltry sum.
Of all the potential new markets in space – such as tourism and asteroid mining – none offers the potential revenues or societal return of space solar power. None addresses as colossal a market as world energy demand. None offers the impact of an entirely green energy source which can scale to global demand. That’s why accessing the vast energy resources of space are a central component of the ambitious visions put forward by groups like the United Launch Alliance and visionaries like Jeff Bezos.
Its benefits have been known for some time; in 2008, the Pentagon’s SBSP Study Group concluded that “space-based solar power does present a strategic opportunity that could significantly advance U.S. and partner security, capability, and freedom of action and merits significant further attention on the part of both the US Government and the private sector.” More recently, in 2016, when the Defense Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the State Department held a contest for the biggest ideas that could simultaneously advance diplomacy, development and defense, space solar power swept the awards.
Like other global utilities, space solar is likely to start small, and take time to mature. In this way, it will be like the Global Positioning System. Since it became fully operational in 1995, GPS has provided over $1.4 trillion in economic benefits to the U.S. economy, and today contributes over a billion dollars every day to our economy.But it took 28 years for GPS to go from its first experiment to an operational capability, and then another five to move from a niche military capability to become a universal global public utility.
But energy security is national security. Over the past several decades, the U.S. has expended vast sums to purchase and protect foreign sources of oil and gas, and to guard their transit through contested waters. Today, America enjoys renewed geopolitical power because of the energy self-sufficiency that has been enabled by fracking and vast domestic sources of coal.
Yet as large as those resources are, they will not last forever. We are wise to diversify. And space is a logical place to do so.
The upcoming experiment on the X-37B is the first tangible step in the direction of realizing the promise of space solar. It prominently sets the Space Force, which falls under the Air Force, on a path to develop the next global utility, which will be critical to U.S. leadership.
One way solar power satellites could be constructed would be from thousands of identical "sandwich" modules each of which converts sunlight to radio frequency (RF) for wireless beaming of the energy to Earth. The unique environment in space -- brighter sunlight, radiation, vacuum -- can only be simulated on Earth. To design full systems to operate at peak thermal efficiency requires in-space testing.
Such experiments have been a longtime coming. Over the past quarter-century, space advocate organizations such as the National Space Society, Space Frontier Foundation, and Alliance for Space Development have lobbied anyone and everyone to invest in developing this transformational technology.
Now, at last, the quest for the next major global utility has found an ally in Secretary Barrett and the U.S. Space Force. Maintaining this focus – and empowering the development of space solar – is essential to keeping America’s global lead.
Peter Garretson, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, is Senior Fellow for Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington----
NBC News
Symbolism behind Space Force flag revealed as Trump touts 'super duper missile'
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-unveils-space-force-flag-190400958.html
President Donald Trump said Friday that a planned U.S. "super duper missile" could outpace those in the nuclear arsenals of foreign nations as he was presented with the official flag of the newly created military branch, Space Force, in the Oval Office.
"I call it the super duper missile and I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now," Trump said in reference to Russia and China's nuclear weapons at the beginning of the ceremony. "Space is going to be the future, both in terms of defense and offense and so many other things and already what I'm hearing and based on reports, we're now the leader on space."
Trump was presented with the flag by senior military officials, including chief master sergeant in the U.S. Space Force, Roger Towberman, and Gen. Jay Raymond, head of U.S. Space Command and the Space Force, who explained the significance behind the flag's design. He then signed the 2020 Armed Forces Day Proclamation.
"The delta in the middle, that's the symbol that space communities use for years and years and years. The North Star signifies our core value, our guiding light, if you will," Raymond said. "And the orbit around the globe signifies the space cape colors that fuel our American way of life."
The Space Force flag is first official flag for a U.S. military service in 72 years. It was produced by the Defense Logistics Agency's "Flag Room" in Philadelphia, the same operation that designs the president's personal flags.
Trump, who signed into law a measure creating the Space Force in December, called the flag "beautiful." Before the sixth branch of the U.S. military was established, the Air Force oversaw operations in space.
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Associated Press
Cuomo: Wear a mask to respect nurses who died to save us
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NEW YORK (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called face masks a sign of respect for others on a day the state reported 195 new deaths. Other data released Tuesday shows that nine out of 10 people arrested for coronavirus-related offenses in New York City have been black or Hispanic.
Here are the latest coronavirus-related developments in New York:
COVER UP
Warning that the state isn’t out of danger yet, Cuomo on Tuesday urged New Yorkers to wear masks out of respect for the nurses and doctors who have died to protect people from the pandemic, which he said had killed another 195 people.
During his daily briefing, Cuomo recounted a tense conversation about masks he had with a man while on a recent walk with his daughter. He said people should be aware that masks, which are worn to reduce the wearer’s chance of infecting others, are a sign of respect to everyone they walk past, as well as to workers pulling society through the outbreak.
“This mask says, ‘I respect the nurses and doctors who killed themselves through this virus to save other people. And I respect the nurses and the doctors, so I’m not going to infect anyone or allow anyone else to be infected unnecessarily so I don't cause more stress on the nurses and the doctors,’” Cuomo said.
New York requires people to wear face coverings when in close proximity to others in public. As people grow wearier of the extended lockdown, some complain that requirement infringes on individual liberty.
Cuomo instead stressed “reciprocal responsibility” as some upstate areas prepare to start phasing in economic activity this week.
The 195 deaths recorded in New York are a jump from 161 the previous day, but still about a quarter of the highest daily tallies just over a month ago. Hospitalization rates also continue to decline.
____
ARREST NUMBERS SHOW RACIAL DISPARITY
Nine out of 10 people arrested for coronavirus-related offenses in New York City have been black or Hispanic, police department data released Tuesday shows.
Of 125 arrested between March 16 and Sunday, 83 were black, 30 were Hispanic, 9 were white and 3 were Asian.
The New York Police Department says the pandemic-related arrests fall into broad categories such as hate crimes, domestic violence and resisting arrest. They include fights that broke out over cutting supermarket lines and a bank robbery suspect who gave a note to a teller saying, “this is a bank robbery, I have COVID.”
“These are not social distancing arrests,” the department said in a statement. “Many were responses to calls for service where there was a clear victim and police took necessary action.”
Data released Friday showed that of the 374 summonses issued through May 5 for violating social distancing orders, 52% were given to black people and 30% to Hispanic people.
The Legal Aid Society, a public defender group, called on the NYPD to release a “full and transparent accounting of all police encounters related to social distancing enforcement” including locations of each encounter and demographic details for people stopped, given summonses or arrested.
The organization also wants the department to make public the guidance it’s providing officers on social distancing enforcement.
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SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER
A federal judge has ordered Cuomo to include an American Sign Language interpreter on the screen alongside him as he delivers his daily press briefings.
U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni issued the order Monday as she considers a lawsuit filed by a disability rights group that claims Cuomo is the only governor who has failed to do.
The governor has argued that the state has provided “reasonable accommodations” to deaf New Yorkers through a separate online ASL stream and closed captioning.
But the lawsuit filed May 7 by Disability Rights New York included several examples of deaf New Yorkers who lack internet access or who don’t read or write in fluent English. Four individuals named in the lawsuit said they could access Cuomo’s widely watched briefings on television if he offered an additional accommodation of including an interpreter in the frame of his main stream.
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SALES TAX DROP
New York’s cities and counties saw a 24.4% drop in local sales tax collections in April compared to April 2019, according to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
Local governments are grappling with shortfalls as plummeting sales tax collections have left them short about $327 million compared to last year, DiNapoli said Tuesday.
New York City saw a 23.1% decline — or $141.8 million — in lost revenues in April.
“The coronavirus has hurt household finances, and the April sales tax figures show how deep it is cutting into municipal finances,” DiNapoli said.
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OTHER CORONAVIRUS DEVELOPMENTS
-New York is now investigating about 100 cases of a syndrome in children that’s thought to be related to the coronavirus. It affects blood vessels and organs and has symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock. Three children in the state have died.
- The shutdown on Broadway has been extended again — until at least early September. Although an exact date for performances to resume has yet to be determined, Broadway producers are now offering refunds and exchanges for tickets purchased for shows through Sept. 6.
- Two New England hospital systems tried the latest twist in internet matchmaking: online swap meets. As the coronavirus pandemic stretches on, online platforms have popped up to match hospitals that need masks, gowns, ventilators and even doctors with those that have extras.
- Even as President Donald Trump urges getting people back to work and reopening the economy, an Associated Press analysis shows thousands of people are getting sick from COVID-19 on the job.
- One is a Roman Catholic church in Queens; the other, a Lutheran church in Manhattan. But the COVID-19 pandemic has united the two Hispanic congregations in grief. Between them, they have lost more than 100 members to the coronavirus, and because of lockdown rules, they lack even the ability to mourn together in person.
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Hill and Villeneuve reported from Albany, N.Y. Michael R. Sisak contributed from New York.
Source: https://news.yahoo.com/mayor-52-nyc-children-diagnosed-163133686.html
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World
Feds charge NASA researcher for alleged undisclosed ties to China
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/gma/feds-charge-nasa-researcher-alleged-undisclosed-ties-china-171500717.html
The government on Monday unsealed a wire fraud charge against a University of Arkansas professor and NASA researcher with ties to the Chinese government.
Simon Saw-Teong Ang allegedly failed to disclose ties with the Chinese government and Chinese companies while also being employed as a professor at the University of Arkansas and accepting NASA research grant money.
A lawyer for Ang has not responded to an ABC News request for comment.
According to court documents, "Ang had close ties with the Chinese government and Chinese companies, and failed to disclose those ties when required to do so in order to receive grant money from NASA."
Emails in the court documents show that Ang had conversations with a researcher in China about concealing his relationship to the Thousand Talents Program, a Chinese run initiative aimed at increasing Chinese presence around the world.
"Not many people here know I am [a Thousand talents program scholar] but if this leaks out, my job here will be in deep troubles," Ang wrote. "I have to be very careful or else I may be out of my job from this university."
"Please keep this to yourself as I trust you," he wrote.
The FBI was alerted to Ang’s activity after he was mentioned in a Chinese news article highlighting some of the accomplishments of Thousand Talent Program scholars.
MORE: Amid coronavirus chaos, Russian spies see opportunity: Intelligence assessment
Court documents say that Ang held positions in China while also being employed by the University of Arkansas.
This is just the latest in a string of Department of Justice charges related to ties to China. The Justice Department recently convicted and sentenced a former Emory University professor on similar charges.
The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security also released guidance that China is targeting COVID-19 related cyber research through the cyber intrusions.
Feds charge NASA researcher for alleged undisclosed ties to China originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/gma/feds-charge-nasa-researcher-alleged-undisclosed-ties-china-171500717.html
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Politics
Trump Senate ally seeks China sanctions over COVID-19 probe
By David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading U.S. Republican senator proposed legislation on Tuesday that would authorize the U.S. president to impose far-reaching sanctions on China if it fails to give a full account of events leading to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of President Donald Trump, said he was convinced that had it not been for "deception" by China's ruling Communist Party, the virus would not be in the United States, where it has now killed more than 80,000 Americans.
Graham said China had refused to allow investigators to study how the outbreak started and added in a statement: "I’m convinced China will never cooperate with a serious investigation unless they are made to do so."
Trump critics, including some former officials, academics and columnists, have said that while China has much to answer for, the U.S. administration appears to be seeking to deflect attention from what they see as a slow U.S. response to the crisis.
Graham said his "COVID-19 Accountability Act" would require the president to make a certification to Congress within 60 days that China had "provided a full and complete accounting to any COVID-19 investigation led by the United States, its allies or U.N. affiliate such as the World Health Organization."
It would also require certification that China had closed all "wet markets" that can expose humans to health risks, and released all Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates arrested in post-pandemic crack-downs.
The bill would authorize the president to impose a range of sanctions, including asset freezes, travel bans and visa revocations, as well as restrictions on loans to Chinese businesses by U.S. institutions and banning Chinese firms from listing on U.S. exchanges.
The legislation was co-sponsored by eight other Republican senators.
China's Washington embassy did not respond to a request for comment, but Beijing has insisted it has been transparent about the outbreak, which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Trump and his Republican backers have repeatedly accused Beijing of failing to alert the world to the severity and scope of the outbreak, which has sparked a worldwide economic contraction and threatened his November re-election chances.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, whose party controls the House, said things "definitely went wrong in China" but there was a need to look at the full story and the Trump administration should not escape scrutiny.
"Let's get the story out on the table first and see what everybody's part of this problem was, to fix it going forward, and then we can decide about accountability," he told an event hosted by Washington's Meridien Center.
A Democratic House aide said China continued to hide the facts about the pandemic and there should be a full-scale international effort to account for what has happened.
But the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, charged that the U.S. State Department had ignored multiple deadlines to share with Congress information on the virus’ origins.
"If the administration wants Congress to act, they should stop stonewalling and show us the ‘evidence’ they claim to have," the aide said.
The U.S. national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, and Larry Kudlow, the national economic adviser, warned on Monday against investment of federal retirement dollars in Chinese firms given "the possibility of future sanctions will result from the culpable actions of the Chinese government" over the coronavirus.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also hinted at future sanctions on China for the devastation caused to the global economy and human life.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman)
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Business
White House Cuts Off Savings Fund’s Investment in China Stocks
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration moved on Monday night to block investments in Chinese stocks by a government retirement savings fund.
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien made the administration’s wishes known in a letter to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Scalia sent a letter to Michael Kennedy, the chairman of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, telling him to “halt all steps” associated with putting government employees’ money in a fund that includes stakes in Chinese companies, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Bloomberg News.
President Donald Trump has faulted China over the spread of the coronavirus, and questions have arisen over how faithfully the Beijing government will adhere to a recent trade agreement between the two countries. Trump has mused about punishing China for the outbreak, and the move to curtail retirement investments appears to be the first tangible step.
The Thrift Savings Plan -- the federal government’s retirement savings fund -- was scheduled to transfer roughly $50 billion of its international fund to mirror an MSCI All Country World Index, which captures emerging markets including China.
“There’s a security angle here,” O’Brien said Tuesday in an interview on Fox Business Network. He said about $5 billion of the fund would have been invested in Chinese firms. “A number of the companies they were going to be invested in were Chinese military companies or surveillance state companies. We thought that was risky for U.S. national security, but we also thought it was risky for the investors.”
O’Brien said the administration did not want to potentially fund aircraft manufacturers who do work for the Chinese military or surveillance firms that support what he called “concentration camps” for Uighur Muslims, an oppressed group in China. He also cited telecommunications firm ZTE Corp. as a company the U.S. does not want to support. “So it just wasn’t a good situation for us,” he said.
He downplayed the risk of Chinese retaliation when asked whether the measure may dampen Chinese demand for U.S. debt. “This is the safest place for anyone to put their money including the Chinese, so I’m not too concerned about that issue,” O’Brien said.
The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board oversees the fund and made a decision in 2017 that the money should be moved by mid-2020. Opponents of the transfer in recent weeks have engaged in a last-minute effort to stop it.
In the letter, Scalia said that O’Brien and Kudlow had “expressed grave concerns with the planned investment on grounds of both investment risk and national security.”
“As you know, the concerns expressed in this letter have been voiced by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress,” Scalia wrote in his letter to Kennedy.
The letter to Scalia was reported earlier by Fox Business Network.
(Updates with O’Brien interview starting in sixth paragraph.)
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/white-house-cuts-off-savings-033156289.html
Sansha city establishes two districts for better management
The scenery of Yongxing Island in Sansha City, south China's Hainan Province. Photo: Xinhua
Following approval of the State Council, the city of Sansha in South China's Hainan Province has announced the establishment of two new districts to administer waters in the South China Sea. Experts said this is normal new city planning for better scientific management and to safeguard territorial sovereignty, and should not be over-interpreted.
Xisha District is set to administer the Xisha and Zhongsha islands and surrounding waters with government located in Yongxing Island; Nansha District has jurisdiction over the Nansha Islands and its waters with government located in the Yongshu Isles.
The city of Sansha was established on July 24, 2012 to manage the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha islands, isles and waters. It is the city located at the most southern point of China with the smallest land area and population, but has the largest territory of any Chinese city. Sansha city has more than 280 islands, isles, submerged reefs and waters. Its land and water area is about 2 million square kilometers.
"Eight years after China set Sansha as a city-level administrative unit, it is now time to subdivide it with different districts to further fulfill the responsibility of safeguarding our national sovereignty," Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the People's Liberation Army Naval Military Studies Research Institute, told the Global Times.
The new city planning will also bring convenience to residents on the islands and fishermen's lives, Zhang said, noting that the move should not be over-interpreted.
Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and commentator, told the Global Times that "Sansha has continued infrastructure construction since 2012. As a city that administers the largest territory among Chinese cities, it is also responsible for managing islands, isles and waters - work that is complicated and sensitive. The newly established districts will help detail the current administrative work in the area and build Sansha into a better city."
Sansha will become a key tourist city in China. The city's scientific and detailed management work will help mobilize resources to develop tourism and energy resources, Song said.
China's move is a legitimate one as the territory within the nine-dash line historically belongs to China. Sansha's latest planning is in accordance with international and domestic laws, Song said.
Chen Xiangmiao, an assistant research fellow at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, told the Global Times that the establishment of the Xisha and Nansha districts will improve the management of its juridical area, including improving ecological protection and conducting maritime humanitarian rescues.
Source: https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1186004.shtml
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World
New Zealand still supports Taiwan at WHO despite Chinese rebuke
FILE PHOTO: China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters in Beijing
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's foreign minister on Tuesday said the country has to stand up for itself after China warned its backing of Taiwan's participation at the World Health Organization (WHO) could damage bilateral ties.
Taiwan, with the strong support of the United States, has stepped up its lobbying to be allowed to take part as an observer at next week's World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO's decision-making body - a move which has angered China.
Taiwan is excluded from the WHO due to the objections of China, which views the island as one of its provinces.
Senior ministers in New Zealand last week said Taiwan should be allowed to join the WHO as an observer given its success in limiting the spread of the novel coronavirus, drawing China's ire which asked the Pacific country to "stop making wrong statements".
"We have got to stand up for ourselves," Winston Peters, New Zealand's foreign minister, said at a news conference when asked about China's response to New Zealand's position on Taiwan.
"And true friendship is based on equality. It's based on the ability in this friendship to nevertheless disagree."
Peters said he did not think the issue would harm diplomatic ties with China, which is New Zealand's biggest trading partner.
Taiwan has reported only 440 coronavirus cases and seven related deaths, relatively low figures attributed to early and effective disease prevention and control work.
Peters praised Taiwan's response to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and said there was a lot for other countries to learn from.
"New Zealand's position on Taiwan is about its tremendous success against COVID-19," Peters said.
When asked about China's response later in the day, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand's position on Taiwan was only related to its health response to COVID-19.
"We have always taken a 'One China' policy, and that continues to be the case," Ardern said.
Speaking in Taipei, Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou expressed thanks for New Zealand's support, saying both countries were staunch supporters of freedom, democracy and human rights and that Taiwan would deepen ties with New Zealand.
Taiwan expresses regret at China's threats against New Zealand, Ou said, adding the response from China's foreign ministry was "hysterical".
Ties between neighbouring Australia and China have frayed in recent months after Canberra called for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the coronavirus that was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
China has dismissed such a probe as groundless, saying the country has been open and transparent about the outbreak.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Christopher Cushing & Simon Cameron-Moore)
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/zealand-sticks-support-taiwan-despite-032346841.html
World
Trump 'not interested' in reopening U.S.-China trade deal after report of Beijing discontent
By Andrea Shalal and Ryan Woo
Trump 'not interested' in reopening U.S.-China trade deal after report of Beijing discontent
BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he opposed renegotiating the U.S.-China "Phase 1" trade deal after a Chinese state-run newspaper reported some government advisers in Beijing were urging fresh talks and possibly invalidating the agreement.
Trump, who himself has considered abandoning the pact signed in January, told a White House press briefing he wanted to see if Beijing lived up to the deal to massively increase purchases of U.S. goods.
"No, not at all. Not even a little bit," Trump said when asked if he would entertain the idea of reworking Phase 1. "I'm not interested. We signed a deal. I had heard that too, they'd like to reopen the trade talk, to make it a better deal for them."
The Global Times tabloid reported on Monday that unidentified advisers close to the talks have suggested that Chinese officials revive the possibility of invalidating the trade pact and negotiate a new one to tilt the scales more to the Chinese side.
The Global Times is published by the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party. While not an official party mouthpiece, the Global Times' views are believed at times to reflect those of its leaders.
NEW SOYBEAN PURCHASES
Hours after the report was published, Chinese importers on Monday bought at least four cargoes, or about 240,000 tonnes, of U.S. soybeans on Monday for shipment beginning in July, and additional sales are possible, two traders familiar with the deals said on Monday.
The purchases were the latest in a recent string by China, which U.S. officials say has also begun implementing other parts of the trade deal regarding intellectual property protections.
The U.S. Trade Representative's office did not respond to repeated queries on the Global Times article.
Under the Phase 1 deal signed in January, Beijing pledged to buy at least $200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services over two years while Washington agreed to roll back tariffs in stages on Chinese goods.
Trump, who has blamed China's early handling of the new coronavirus outbreak in its central city of Wuhan for thousands of U.S. deaths and millions of job losses, said last week he was "very torn" about whether to end the Phase 1 trade deal. Those comments came just hours after top trade officials from both countries pledged to press ahead with implementing the agreement.
'TSUNAMI OF ANGER'
Rising U.S.-China tensions over the coronavirus outbreak have cast the trade deal and proposed talks on a Phase 2 deal into doubt.
The Trump administration asserted there was evidence the new coronavirus came from a Wuhan laboratory, an allegation that China has rejected. On Monday, a new source of tension opened up, with reports that the administration is planning to issue a warning that computer hackers tied to the Chinese government are attempting to steal information from U.S. researchers.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Global Times said malicious attacks by the United States have ignited a "tsunami of anger" among Chinese trade insiders after China made compromises in the Phase 1 pact.
"It's in fact in China's interests to terminate the current Phase 1 deal," a trade adviser to the Chinese government told the Global Times, citing the weakening U.S. economy and upcoming U.S. presidential elections. "The U.S. now cannot afford to restart the trade war with China if everything goes back to the starting point."
Clete Willems, a former White House trade adviser who took an active role in the U.S.-China negotiations, said China had followed through on the majority of the structural provisions in the Phase 1 deal, including new rules to protect intellectual property.
"I don't think we're at the point where we should give up on the deal. It has yielded positive results thus far," said Willems, who is now with the Akin Gump law firm in Washington.
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom, writing by David Lawder, Editing by William Maclean and Richard Chang)
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-says-not-favor-reopening-210157771.html
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The New York Times
U.S. to Accuse China of Trying to Hack Vaccine Data, as Virus Redirects Cyberattacks
WASHINGTON — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are preparing to issue a warning that China’s most skilled hackers and spies are working to steal American research in the crash effort to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus. The efforts are part of a surge in cybertheft and attacks by nations seeking advantage in the pandemic.
The warning comes as Israeli officials accuse Iran of mounting an effort in late April to cripple water supplies as Israelis were confined to their houses, though the government has offered no evidence to back its claim. More than a dozen countries have redeployed military and intelligence hackers to glean whatever they can about other nations’ virus responses. Even U.S. allies like South Korea and nations that do not typically stand out for their cyber abilities, like Vietnam, have suddenly redirected their state-run hackers to focus on virus-related information, according to private security firms.
A draft of the forthcoming public warning, which officials say is likely to be issued in the days to come, says China is seeking “valuable intellectual property and public health data through illicit means related to vaccines, treatments and testing.” It focuses on cybertheft and action by “nontraditional actors,” a euphemism for researchers and students the Trump administration says are being activated to steal data from inside academic and private laboratories.
The decision to issue a specific accusation against China’s state-run hacking teams, current and former officials said, is part of a broader deterrent strategy that also involves U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency. Under legal authorities that President Donald Trump issued nearly two years ago, they have the power to bore deeply into Chinese and other networks to mount proportional counterattacks. This would be similar to their effort 18 months ago to strike at Russian intelligence groups seeking to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections and to put malware in the Russian power grid as a warning to Moscow for its attacks on U.S. utilities.
But it is unclear exactly what the U.S. has done, if anything, to send a similar shot across the bow to the Chinese hacking groups, including those most closely tied to China’s new Strategic Support Force, its equivalent of Cyber Command, the Ministry of State Security and other intelligence units.
The forthcoming warning is also the latest iteration of a series of efforts by the Trump administration to blame China for being the source of the pandemic and exploiting its aftermath.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed this month that there was “enormous evidence” that the virus had come from a Chinese lab before backing off to say it had come from the “vicinity” of the lab in Wuhan. U.S. intelligence agencies say they have reached no conclusion on the issue, but public evidence points to a link between the outbreak’s origins at a market in Wuhan and China’s illegal wildlife trafficking.
The State Department on Friday described a Chinese Twitter campaign to push false narratives and propaganda about the virus. Twitter executives have pushed back on the agency, noting that some of the Twitter accounts that the State Department cited were actually critical of Chinese state narratives.
But it is the search for vaccines that has been a particular focus, federal officials say.
“China’s long history of bad behavior in cyberspace is well documented, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone they are going after the critical organizations involved in the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. He added that the agency would “defend our interests aggressively."
Last week, the U.S. and Britain issued a joint warning that “health care bodies, pharmaceutical companies, academia, medical research organizations and local governments” had been targeted. While it named no specific countries — or targets — the wording was the kind used to describe the most active cyberoperators: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
The hunt for spies seeking intellectual property has also accelerated. For months, FBI officials have been visiting major universities and presenting largely unclassified briefings about their vulnerabilities.
But some of those academic leaders and student groups have pushed back, comparing the rising paranoia about stolen research to the worst days of the Red Scare era. They particularly objected when Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., declared last month on Fox News that it was “a scandal” that the U.S. had “trained so many of the Chinese Communist Party’s brightest minds to go back to China.”
Security experts say that while there is a surge of attacks by Chinese hackers seeking an edge in the race for a COVID-19 vaccine, or even effective treatment, the Chinese are hardly alone in seeking to exploit the virus.
Iranian hackers were also caught trying to get inside Gilead Sciences, the maker of remdesivir, the therapeutic drug approved 10 days ago by the Food and Drug Administration for clinical trials. Government officials and Gilead have refused to say if any element of the attack, which was first reported by Reuters, was successful.
Israel’s security advisers met last week for a classified session on a cyberattack on April 24 and 25, which authorities were calling an attempt to cut off water supplies to rural parts of the country. The Israeli news media has widely blamed the attack on Iran, though they have offered no evidence in public. The effort was detected fairly quickly and did no damage, authorities said.
The rush to attribute the attack to Iran could be faulty. When a Saudi petrochemical plant was similarly attacked in 2017, Iran was presumed as the source of the effort to cause an industrial accident. It turned out to be coordinated from a Russian scientific institute.
The coronavirus has created whole new classes of targets. In recent weeks, Vietnamese hackers have directed their campaigns against Chinese government officials running point on the virus, according to cybersecurity experts.
South Korean hackers have taken aim at the World Health Organization and officials in North Korea, Japan and the U.S. The attacks appeared to be attempts to compromise email accounts, most likely as part of a broad effort to gather intelligence on virus containment and treatment, according to two security experts for private firms who said they were not authorized to speak publicly. If so, the moves suggest that even allies are suspicious of official government accounting of cases and deaths around the world.
In interviews with a dozen current and former government officials and cybersecurity experts over the past month, many described a “free-for-all” that has spread even to countries with only rudimentary cyber ability.
“This is a global pandemic, but unfortunately countries are not treating it as a global problem,” said Justin Fier, a former national security intelligence analyst who is now the director of cyberintelligence at Darktrace, a cybersecurity firm. “Everyone is conducting widespread intelligence gathering — on pharmaceutical research, PPE orders, response — to see who is making progress.”
The frequency of cyberattacks and the spectrum of targets are “astronomical, off the charts,” Fier said.
Even before the pandemic, the U.S. was becoming far more aggressive in pursuing cases that involved suspected Chinese efforts to steal intellectual property related to biological research. The Justice Department announced in January that it had charged Charles M. Lieber, the chairman of Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, with making false statements related to his participation in China’s Thousand Talents program to recruit scientific talent to the country.
But Harvard also has a joint study program underway with a Chinese institute on coronavirus treatments and vaccines. And researchers have said that international cooperation will be vital if there is hope for a global vaccine, putting the expected national competitions to be first in tension with the need for a cooperative effort.
At Google, security researchers identified more than a dozen nation-state hacking groups using virus-related emails to break into corporate networks, including some sent to U.S. government employees. Google did not identify the specific countries involved, but over the past eight weeks, several nation states — some familiar, like Iran and China, and others not so familiar, like Vietnam and South Korea — have taken advantage of softer security as millions of workers have suddenly been forced to work from home.
“The nature of the vulnerabilities and attacks has altered pretty radically with shelter-in-place,” said Casey Ellis, founder of Bugcrowd, a security firm. In some cases, Ellis said, hackers were just “kicking a baby,” hacking hospitals that were already overstretched and simply lacked the resources to prioritize cybersecurity.
In other cases, they were targeting the tools that workers used to remotely access internal networks and encrypted virtual private networks, or VPNs, that allow employees to tunnel into corporate networks, to gain access to proprietary information.
“Governments that might otherwise be reluctant to target international public health organizations, hospitals and commercial organizations are crossing that line because there is such a thirst for knowledge and information,” said John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at FireEye, a cybersecurity firm.
Even Nigerian cybercriminals are getting in on the game: They recently started targeting businesses with coronavirus-themed email attacks to try to convince targets to wire them money, or to steal personal data that could fetch money on the dark web.
“These are not complex, but clever social engineering is getting them through,” said Jen Miller-Osborn, deputy director of threat intelligence at Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company. Because Nigerian hackers are less skilled, they lack the “opsec,” or operational security, to cover their tracks.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-accuse-china-trying-hack-123436649.html
Politics
U.S. next week to start purchasing $3 billion worth of farm goods: Trump
"Starting early next week, at my order, the USA will be purchasing, from our Farmers, Ranchers & Specialty Crop Growers, 3 Billion Dollars worth of Dairy, Meat & Produce for Food Lines & Kitchens," Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.
It was unclear whether his statement referred to a $19 billion relief plan announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in April. The agency said it would buy $3 billion worth of agricultural commodities as part of that program.
The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The U.S. economy lost a staggering 20.5 million jobs in April and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7%, government data showed on Friday.
Food banks have been running short on staples as hunger soars. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted supply chains, with farmers saying they have had to destroy their produce and euthanize pigs because processing facilities have shuttered.
(Reporting by Makini Brice and Chris Prentice; Editing by Chris Reese and Dan Grebler)
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Associated Press
Trump administration tightens visas for Chinese reporters
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-tightens-visas-chinese-153730416.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is tightening visa guidelines for Chinese journalists in response to the treatment of U.S. journalists in China, as tensions flare between the two nations over the coronavirus.
The regulations don't apply to journalists from Hong Kong or Macau, two territories considered semiautonomous, according to the regulations published Friday in the Federal Register.
The agency noted what it called China’s “suppression of independent journalism , " including “an increasing lack of transparency."
It was the latest strike in a tit-for-tat over media rights between the countries. In March, China said it would revoke credentials of all American journalists at three major U.S. news organizations, in effect expelling them from the country, in response to U.S. restrictions on Chinese state-controlled media.
Tensions between the two nations have only increased in recent months as leaders trade barbs over handling of the pandemic that has crippled economies worldwide and killed more than 275,000 people, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
President Donald Trump has said the Chinese government's response was slow and inadequate. His administration has lashed out at its geopolitical foe and critical U.S. trade partner, pushing beyond the bounds of established evidence.
Trump and allies repeat and express confidence in an unsubstantiated theory linking the origin of the outbreak to a possible accident at a Chinese virology laboratory. U.S. officials say they are still exploring the subject and describe the evidence as purely circumstantial. But Trump, aides say, has embraced the notion to further highlight China’s lack of transparency.
U.S. officials also believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak — and how contagious the disease is — to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, according to U.S. intelligence documents.
China strongly rejects the U.S. version of events.
China’s official Global Times newspaper has said leaders were making groundless accusations against Beijing by suggesting the coronavirus was released from a Chinese laboratory.
The populist tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily said the claims were a politically motivated attempt to preserve Trump’s presidency and divert attention from the U.S. administration’s own failures in dealing with the outbreak.
While the virus is believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, most scientists say it was most likely transmitted from bats to humans via an intermediary animal such as the armadillo-like pangolin. That has placed the focus on a wet market in the city where wildlife was sold for food.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-tightens-visas-chinese-153730416.html
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World
China 'shocked' by U.S. reversal on U.N. coronavirus action: diplomat
NEW YORK (Reuters) - China and the United States both supported a draft United Nations Security Council resolution confronting the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday and it was "shocking and regretful" that Washington changed its mind on Friday, a Chinese diplomat said.
A U.S. diplomat refuted the Chinese comment, saying there was no U.S. agreement on the text.
For more than six weeks the 15-member council has been trying to agree on a text that ultimately aims to back a March 23 call by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres for a ceasefire in global conflicts so the world can focus on the pandemic.
But talks have been stymied by a stand-off between China and the United States over whether to mention the World Health Organization. The United States does not want a reference, China has insisted it be included, while some other members see the mention - or not - of WHO as a marginal issue, diplomats said.
Washington has halted funding for the WHO, a U.N. agency, after President Donald Trump accused it of being "China-centric" and promoting China's "disinformation" about the outbreak, assertions the WHO denies.
It appeared the Security Council had reached a compromise late on Thursday, diplomats said and according to the latest version of a French- and Tunisian drafted-resolution.
Instead of naming the WHO, the draft referenced "specialized health agencies." The WHO is the only such agency. But the United States rejected that language on Friday, diplomats said, because it was an obvious reference to the Geneva-based WHO.
"The United States had agreed to the compromise text and it's shocking and regretful that the U.S. changed its position," said the Chinese diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, on Saturday, adding that China supported the draft.
The U.S. diplomat, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no U.S. agreement on the text, which the U.S. mission to the United Nations had sent to Washington for review on Thursday.
Diplomats said that during negotiations both China and the United States had raised the prospect of a veto on the issue of whether WHO is mentioned or not. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by France, Russia, Britain, the United States or China to pass.
A State Department spokesperson said on Friday the United States had worked constructively and accused China of repeatedly blocking compromises during negotiations.
While the Security Council - charged with maintaining international peace and security - cannot do much to deal with the coronavirus itself, diplomats and analysts say it could have projected global unity by backing Guterres' ceasefire call.
French U.N. Ambassador Nicolas de Rivière on Friday said "we are still trying to achieve a positive result and trying to see if there is a possible compromise."
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Chris Reese)
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CBS News
2020 Daily Trail Markers: Every California voter to be mailed a ballot for November election
But the Republican National Committee issued a statement highlighting what it described as voter fraud that could result from vote-by-mail. "While we have always supported absentee voting, California is a case study in why automatically sending this many ballots is a problem," the RNC statement said. "Just last year, a court found that L.A. county had 1.5 million ineligible voters on their registration lists, meaning there were 112% more registered voters than adults living in the county. We are weighing our legal options to ensure the integrity of the election." Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh made a similar argument, calling it a "thinly-veiled political tactic" by Newsom to "undermine election security." "There's a vast difference between people voting absentee by mail because they can't be at the polls on Election Day versus mailing everyone a ballot," Murtaugh said. "Sending everyone a ballot - even those who didn't request one - is a wide open opportunity for fraud."
CBS News campaign reporter Musadiq Bidar reports local counties have until the end of this month to provide the state with clarity on their plans for in-person voting requirements. Newsom said if those plans are not in by May 30, a second executive order might be needed to resolve issues. California already allows vote-by mail but voters have to specifically make a request for the ballot. This executive order makes it so that every voter is automatically mailed a ballot without having to make that request.
During the March 3, 2020, presidential primary, more than 75% of California voters received a vote-by-mail ballot. Under this executive order every registered voter who is currently living in California will receive a ballot 29 days prior to Election Day. Military and voters living abroad will be mailed their ballots 45 days before Election Day. Padilla is now urging voters to make sure their registration information is up to date.
FROM THE CANDIDATES
JOE BIDEN
On Friday afternoon, Joe Biden delivered an "economic address" responding to the newest unemployment stats via the progressive news platform NowThis. He started by wearing a face mask, seemingly a symbolic gesture as he was inside his Delaware home, CBS News campaign reporter Bo Erickson reports. At the top of the speech, Biden proceeded to take off the mask off and criticized President Trump's handling of both the public health and economic response to the pandemic. Biden said the economy is "all made worse because it didn't have to be this way. Donald Trump utterly failed to prepare us for this pandemic and delayed taking the necessary steps to safeguard us from the near worse-case economic scenario we are now living." Biden also inserted some barbs toward Mr. Trump, saying that after the pandemic, the economy will need to work for everyone and ensure "everyone gets a fair shot, not just the Mar-a-Lago crowd." Biden also said "Trump-onomics" means "no strings" and "no oversight" during the pandemic financial assistance. The presumptive Democratic nominee said he would be releasing in a few weeks a full plan to revive the economy, and on Friday, he repeated stump speech objectives about the middle class being the "backbone of America."
PRESIDENT TRUMP
Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary Katie Miller tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday morning, just as the vice president was getting ready to fly to Des Moines, Iowa. Air Force Two was delayed an hour, according to pool reports, and six other staffers were asked to deplane and get tested out of an abundance of caution. Miller was not initially identified as the staffer but shortly after the news broke, Mr. Trump told reporters during a meeting with Republican members of Congress that "a young woman, Katie," tested positive. "It is a press person," the president added. Soon after, CBS News confirmed Katie Miller, press secretary to the vice president, and wife of White House adviser Stephen Miller, as the staffer in question. CBS News campaign reporter Musadiq Bidar says this leads to the possibility that the entire West Wing of the White House has now been directly or indirectly exposed to the coronavirus. Mr. Trump said "she hasn't come into contact with me," but added that she "spent time with the vice president." Earlier in the day, a senior administration official told pool reporters "the person was not on the plane and not scheduled to be on the trip" to Des Moines. According to the print pool reports, the senior administration official said "the vice president and the president have not had contact with this person recently." The official added that about 10 people in Pence's circle are tested regularly. In Iowa, Pence met with faith leaders to encourage churches to reopen responsibly. Pence told faith leaders in Des Moines he's "grateful" they are "thoughtfully and carefully" stepping back into the exercise of beliefs on the basis of "faith and not fear." The vice president also held a roundtable on securing the food supply with Hy-Vee supermarket employees.
Mr. Trump told reporters during a GOP Conference Friday he thinks COVID-19 will "go away" without a vaccine. "I feel about vaccines like I feel about tests," the president said. "This is going to go away without a vaccine. It's going to go away and we're not going to see it hopefully after a period of time. You may have some flare-ups, I guess." Trump campaign officials met at the White House with the president on Thursday ahead of an eight-figure ad blitz targeting Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Senior campaign officials confirm to CBS News campaign reporter Nicole Sganga the Trump campaign is exploring ways for the president to return to the campaign trail as states reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic. No campaign events have been formally announced. Mr. Trump has made clear he misses large rallies and hopes to return to the trail ahead of the November election, telling Fox News on Sunday, "I would hope that within maybe the last couple of months, we'll be able to do rallies in various states." Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale announced on Twtter that new campaign branded masks will be available to supporters soon. On Friday, Mr. Trump said he does not know if a sexual allegation made against Biden is true. "That's a battle he has to fight," Mr. Trump told Fox News. "I've had many false accusations made. I can tell you that many – and maybe it is a false accusation, frankly, I hope it is for his sake."
Mr. Trump said Friday he has seen the tape of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was shot while jogging in Brunswick, Georgia. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested a father and son on Thursday, charging them with Arbery's murder and aggravated assault. Mr. Trump called the tape "heartbreaking," adding that he has seen pictures of Arbery. "You know, my heart goes out to the parents and the family and friends," Mr. Trump said. "Yet we have to take it – law enforcement is going to look at it and they have a good governor in the state." The president did not indicate federal law enforcement are involved in the case at this time.
AD WARS
PAC ATTACK
The pro-Biden Super PAC Unite the Country launched a new ad today called "Deserve." CBS News political unit associate producer Sarah Ewall-Wice says it kicked off their $10 million investment ahead of the Democratic National Convention that is scheduled to take place in Milwaukee in August. In the one-minute spot, Biden's voice can be heard under a montage of old family pictures recalling how when he was a kid, his dad had to tell him he would have to leave the family in Pennsylvania to find work in Delaware. Biden has shared many times on the campaign trail the story of his dad losing his job. "For the rest of our life, my dad never failed to remind us that a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's about your place in the community. It's about being able to look your child in the eye and say, 'honey, it's going to be ok,' and know it's true," Biden can be heard saying. The ad also highlights Biden's role in leading the 2009 Recovery Act. According to Kantar Media tracking, Unite the Country has spent more than $10.5 million on ads since mid-December through late April.
CONGRESSIONAL COVERAGE
IN THE HOUSE
A poll by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in battleground districts showed more approval for how House Democrats have been handling the pandemic reports CBS News political unit broadcast associate Aaron Navarro. In the internal poll, for districts with incumbent Democrats 45% of respondents said they approve of the job of their Member of Congress, 25% disapprove and 30% didn't know enough to give a rating. The poll was conducted in 41 districts Trump won in 2016 and 16 districts Clinton won, where the battle for the House in November could play out.
The poll also gauged what issues and messages mattered most to voters, and found that the message of Republicans trying to take away healthcare resonated the most. Earlier this week, Mr. Trump said during a briefing that they want to "terminate health care under Obamacare." The Supreme Court is set to hear a case led by Republican states this fall on whether to repeal parts or all of the Affordable Care Act. The DCCC poll found that 62% of respondents in districts with Republican incumbents had raised doubts about their lawmaker's handling of COVID-19, due to the ongoing battle against the ACA.
STATE-BY-STATE
ARIZONA
Years before Biden was the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee and Mark Kelly was the best-funded Senate candidate in the country, Republicans say they were already ramping up their operation to defend Arizona. The state is now a key battleground where Democrats, citing promising polls and a recent Senate victory, hope to score a win in a state that last elected a Democrat to the White House nearly three decades ago. Arizona Democrats claim they are planning their largest ever ground operation this cycle. But Mr. Trump's team already has more than 30 staff on the ground, with thousands more Arizonans trained through their volunteer program. "The RNC understands, and the president understands, that Arizona is a top priority state and the resources are following," Greg Safsten, executive director of Arizona's Republican Party, told CBS News campaign reporter Alex Tin this week as Mr. Trump made his second visit to the state in under three months.
NEVADA
Clark County, which includes Las Vegas and is by far Nevada's most populous county, announced changes to expand access to their upcoming primary. This led Democrats to declare victory and abandon their motion against the Nevada Secretary of State over the June contest. But now Republicans have accused them of a "power grab" and a "shady deal" and a GOP official told the Las Vegas Review Journal that they could sue the county "into oblivion if we have to" over the changes. "Americans deserve to have confidence in their elections, and we will not stand idly by while Democrats try to sue their way to victory in November," GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. The threat came as Republicans have touted doubling their litigation budget to $20 million, waging court battles over a raft of coronavirus-related election changes around the country. "Republican threats will never break our commitment to fighting on behalf of Nevada voters," Molly Forgey, spokesperson for the Nevada State Democratic party, tells CBS News campaign reporter Alex Tin in a statement.
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Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/2020-daily-trail-markers-every-230824048.html
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-slams-voice-america-212044408.html
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