China’s ZTE Paid US Tech Firms $2.3b for Parts in 2017

he true cost of United States sanctions against ZTE is starting to emerge. In a stark announcement earlier this week, the Chinese telecom giant confirmed it was shutting down “major operating activities.”

The news came less than a month after the US Commerce Department banned ZTE from buying US-made components, such as semiconductors, for seven years, effectively wrecking its supply chain, ATimes reported.

Problems started to pile up for ZTE as soon as the US ruling highlighted how the company had violated a sanctions settlement. Earlier, ZTE had pleaded guilty to the original charges and agreed to pay $892 million in fines.

“As a result of the denial order, major operating activities have ceased,” the company said in a Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing. “As of now, the company maintains sufficient cash and strictly adheres to its commercial obligations subject in compliance with laws and regulations.”

But a report from Reuters has since revealed the financial fallout of the decision, stating: “The company paid over $2.3 billion to 211 US exporters in 2017, a senior ZTE official said. ZTE paid over $100 million each to Qualcomm, Broadcom, Intel and Texas Instruments. As one of the world’s largest telecom equipment makers, ZTE relied on US companies such as Qualcomm and Intel for components.

“The extent of the impact of the Commerce Department ban on US suppliers was noted by the ZTE official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, as Chinese and US government officials discuss a Washington visit next week by China’s top economic envoy Liu He for the second round of trade talks.”

Companies in the US are estimated to provide up to 30% of the components used in ZTE’s products, which includes smartphones and complex equipment for telecommunications networks.

As a result of the ban, the Shenzhen-based group will be unable to access Qualcomm processors and Android devices with Google Mobile Services software.

It will also disrupt ZTE’s overseas operations. This, in turn, will affect the company’s ability to provide services, such as repairs to infrastructure for clients in other countries and regions.

Before the US components ban, ZTE was providing services for 100 million users in India, 300 million users in Indonesia and 29 million users in Italy, the official told Reuters.

On Friday, Asia Times reported that the group might sell-off its successful smartphone business, according to the online site AAStocks Financial News with potential buyers including domestic rivals Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi.

“If ZTE is truly considering selling its mobile handset business, then the potential end for the company is near,” Earl Lum, the president of EJL Wireless Research, a consultancy and research firm based in the US, said.

https:// financialtribune.com/articles/world-economy/86280/china-s-zte-paid-us-tech-firms-23b-for-parts-in-2017

Rouhani says Iran may remain part of nuclear accord

DUBAI (Reuters) - President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that Iran would remain committed to the 2015 nuclear deal if its interests were protected, while his foreign minister hoped the pact could be redesigned without Washington as a member.

The U.S. withdrawal from the accord on Tuesday was a “violation of morals”, Rouhani said in remarks carried by state television.

“If the remaining five countries continue to abide by the agreement, Iran will remain in the deal despite the will of America,” he said.

President Donald Trump’s pullout has upset European allies, cast uncertainty over global oil supplies and raised the risk of conflict in the Middle East.

It has also highlighted divisions among Iran’s political elite.

Rouhani made similarly conciliatory comments on Tuesday, and on Saturday, foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif began a tour of other signatory nations in an attempt to save the deal.

Zarif said in Beijing on Sunday: “We hope that with this visit to China and other countries we will be able to construct a clear future design for the comprehensive agreement.”

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Zarif’s tour would improve understanding of Iran’s position and help Tehran protect its legitimate interests.

“China is willing to maintain communication and coordination with all relevant parties, including Iran, and take an objective, fair and responsible attitude to continue to safeguard the …agreement,” Wang said.

Rouhani has said Iran will stay committed to the deal, which China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany also signed, provided those powers ensured Iran was protected from sanctions.

The three European states have recommitted to the agreement, but senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said on Friday that Europe was not to be trusted.

On Sunday, the head of the Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics responsible for choosing Iran’s supreme leader, said Rouhani should apologise for not having obtained guarantees from world powers for the agreement.

“It is necessary for the president to honestly and openly apologise to the people over the damages caused by the nuclear accord,” Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a top conservative, said in a statement carried by state media.

The head of the elite Revolutionary Guards also warned against relying on foreign powers.

“America’s exit aims to break the Iranian people’s resistance, which is not new … but today’s problem is not U.S. sanctions, it’s that some officials look towards outside rather than looking at domestic potentials,” Guards commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari said, the state news agency IRNA reported.

On Wednesday, Jafari cast doubt on European nations’ ability to save the accord.

With the deal opposed by hardliners at home, some analysts say the pragmatic Rouhani may now be a lame duck leader.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was hopeful that the United States and Europe could agree on how to deal with Iran, after Trump threatened to sanction European companies that continue doing business there.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Pompeo said the United States was not aiming at Europe when it withdrew from the deal.

“I’m hopeful in the days and weeks ahead we can come up with a deal that really works, that really protects the world from Iranian bad behaviour, not just their nuclear programme, but their missiles and their malign behaviour as well,” he said

White House National Security Adviser John Bolton said sanctions could be imposed on European companies.

It’s possible. It depends on the conduct of other governments,” Bolton said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

https:// uk.reuters.com/article/uk-iran-nuclear-rouhani/rouhani-says-iran-may-remain-part-of-nuclear-accord-idUKKCN1IE0CH

Most foreign envoys absent as Israel, U.S. launch embassy festivities

Monday’s slated opening of the new embassy follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition in December of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a decision he said fulfilled decades of policy pledges in Washington and formalised realities on the ground.

The Palestinians, who want their own future state with its capital in east Jerusalem, have been outraged by Trump’s shift from previous administrations’ preference for keeping the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv pending progress in peace efforts.

Those talks have been frozen since 2014. Other major powers worry that the U.S. move could inflame Palestinian unrest in the occupied West Bank and on the Gaza Strip border, where Israel reinforced troops in anticipation of the embassy opening.

Most countries say Jerusalem’s status should be determined in a final peace settlement, and say moving their embassies now would prejudge any such deal.

Addressing dignitaries at the Foreign Ministry, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the Israeli prime minister urged others to follow Washington’s lead.

“Move your embassies to Jerusalem because it’s the right thing to do,” Netanyahu said. “Move your embassies to Jerusalem because it advances peace, and that’s because you can’t base peace on a foundation of lies.”

Netanyahu said that “under any peace agreement you could possibly imagine, Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital”.

Jerusalem, which is sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians, was decorated with roadside flowerbeds in the design of the U.S. flag and posters reading “Trump make Israel great again”.

“Tragically, the U.S. administration has chosen to side with Israel’s exclusivist claims over a city that has for centuries been sacred to all faiths,” the general delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to the United States said.

EUROPEAN RIFT

Attending the Foreign Ministry gathering were representatives from Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic, but none from western European Union states - suggesting a rift within the bloc over Trump’s Jerusalem move.

The EU mission in Israel tweeted on Friday that the bloc would “respect the international consensus on Jerusalem … including on the location of their diplomatic representations until the final status of Jerusalem is resolved”.

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https:// uk.reuters.com/article/uk-israel-usa-embassy-reception/most-foreign-envoys-absent-as-israel-u-s-launch-embassy-festivities-idUKKCN1IE0ZG

Trump after Paris attack: 'Changes to our thought process on terror must be made'

President Trump on Sunday called for a change in mindset for how countries deal with terrorism.

In a tweet, the president remarked on Saturday's stabbing attack in Paris, where one person was killed and four others were wounded by a knife-wielding assailant.

"So sad to see the Terror Attack in Paris. At some point countries will have to open their eyes & see what is really going on. This kind of sickness & hatred is not compatible with a loving, peaceful, & successful country! Changes to our thought process on terror must be made," Trump tweeted.

The president didn't elaborate any further, but he previously has remarked on the threat posed by foreign-born terrorists entering the U.S. In January, responding to a brief report from the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, Trump tied the matter to the immigration debate going on at the time.

"New report from DOJ & DHS shows that nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign-born. We have submitted to Congress a list of resources and reforms … we need to keep America safe, including moving away from a random chain migration and lottery system, to one that is merit-based," Trump tweeted in January.

Officials in Paris are reportedly investigating the stabbings by a 20-year-old Frenchman born in Chechnya, who was shot dead by police and so-far has no been identified, as a terror attack. Witnesses say the knife-man shouted “Allahu Akhbar” as he wielded a kitchen knife and went after pedestrians. The Islamic State also claimed responsibility for the attack.

Previously there was a terror attack in France in March, where a gunman pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Trump's tweet Sunday followed a condemnation of the "terrorist attack" by the White House.

"The United States strongly condemns yesterday’s terrorist attack in Paris. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with the French people and their government against this vicious act of terrorism, and pledge any assistance needed. Acts like this only strengthen the resolve of the global coalition to defeat ISIS and drive it out of existence," said the statement from White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

Trump spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday. The pair discussed trade and the Iran deal, according to the White House.

The Trump administration has committed itself to destroying the Islamic State. On Thursday he celebrated the capturing of the five leaders within the Islamic State as the result of a three-month Iraqi-U.S. military operation in Syria and Turkey.

"Five Most Wanted leaders of ISIS just captured!" Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-after-paris-attack-changes-to-our-thought-process-on-terror-must-be-made

Bill pushes NASA to hunt for alien life

A proposed bill in Congress seeks millions of dollars that could be used in the search for alien life.

Introduced in the House, the legislation recommends setting aside $10 million for both fiscal 2018 and 2019 for NASA to partner with private sector and philanthropic organizations "to search for technosignatures, such as radio transmissions, in order to meet the NASA objective to search for life’s origin, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe."

If passed and signed into law, the bill could could pave the way to NASA resuming funding dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life for the first time in 25 years. In the early 1990s, the funding effort was diffused by Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan over frustration with a lack of results.

Over the intervening years, NASA has contributed to the search for alien life in other ways, for instance finding planets believed to have the right conditions to support life.

Researchers with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said worked with them to work on the bill's language about funding for the space search. When pressed for a statement by the Atlantic to confirm he was the author of the measure, Smith's office only issued a general statement on astrobiology: "It’s clear that the scientific community and the public is very interested in this research."

Jill Tarter, who is former director of SETI research, warned this new legislation does not guarantee funding for the SETI Institute. She was part of the effort in 1992 that involved radio telescopes in Puerto Rico and California tuning into the stars.

“This is an authorization bill, not an appropriations bill,” Tarter told Fast Company. “Even if it passes, the appropriators may not provide any SETI funding in their bill. But if they do, that would be a very big deal.”

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bill-pushes-nasa-to-hunt-for-alien-life

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Six world powers adopt nuclear deal with Iran

Aims for decade-long cap of nuclear work; Israel united in opposition; "historic" agreement sent to Congress; Obama, Rouhani hail "cooperation."

VIENNA – World powers have adopted a final, comprehensive agreement with Iran that will govern its nuclear program for over a decade.

The deal culminates a two-year diplomatic effort in which the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, led by the United States, have sought to end a twelve-year crisis over Iran's suspicious nuclear work.

Formally known as the the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 159-page document amounts to the most significant multilateral agreement reached in several decades. Its final form is roundly opposed in Israel— by the government, by its opposition, and by the public at large.

The JCPOA allows Iran to retain much of its nuclear infrastructure, and grants it the right to enrich uranium on its own soil. But the deal also requires Iran to cap and partially roll back that infrastructure for ten to fifteen years, and grants the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, managed access to monitor that program with intrusive inspections.

In exchange, the governments of Britain, France, Russia, China, the US and Germany have agreed to lift all UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic— once Iran abides by a set of nuclear-related commitments.

"We have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in this region," US President Barack Obama declared in the early hours of Tuesday morning from Washington. The deal, he said, "has the full backing of the international community."

The moment Tehran receives sanctions relief— including access to an estimated $100 billion in frozen assets overseas— will be on "implementation day," as one senior administration official put it on Tuesday morning in Vienna. That date is not set, and is entirely reliant on the pace of Iran's initial haste in preparing for life under the deal.

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https:// www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-nuclear-deal-reached-408871

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