Huawei will not bow to US pressure: founder

Beijing (AFP) – Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is ready to deal with Washington’s crackdown and will reduce its reliance on US components, its founder told Japanese media. President Donald Trump effectively barred Huawei from the US market on Wednesday and added it to a list which would restrict US sales to the firm amid an escalating trade war with Beijing.

“We have already been preparing for this,” Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei told a group of Japanese journalists Saturday in his first interview since Trump’s move. Ren said Huawei would continue to develop its own components to reduce its dependence on outside suppliers. Huawei is a rapidly expanding leader in 5G technology but remains dependent on foreign suppliers. It buys about $67 billion worth of components each year, including about $11 billion from US suppliers, according to The Nikkei business daily.

The usually elusive Ren, 74, has come out of the shadows in recent months in the face of increasing pressure on his company. Ren’s army background and Huawei’s opaque culture have fuelled suspicions in some countries that the firm has links with the Chinese military and intelligence services. Huawei is also the target of an intense campaign by Washington, which has been trying to persuade allies not to allow China a role in building next-generation 5G mobile networks. US government agencies are already banned from buying equipment from Huawei. “We have not done anything which violates the law,” Ren said, adding the US measures would have a limited impact. “It is expected that Huawei’s growth may slow, but only slightly,” he said, according The Nikkei. A former army technician, Ren founded Huawei in 1987 with only $5,000, according to company lore.

Huawei now claims to have nearly 190,000 employees, operates in 170 countries, and reported revenue of more than $100 billion in 2018. Ren said his company would not yield to pressure from Washington. “We will not change our management at the request of the US or accept monitoring, as ZTE has done,” he said, as quoted by The Nikkei, referring to fellow Chinese telecoms giant ZTE which was also targeted by Washington. ZTE came close to collapse last year after US firms were banned from selling it vital components over its continued dealings with Iran and North Korea. Trump later reversed the decision and in return ZTE had to pay a $1 billion fine and accept monitoring by the US Commerce Department.

https://www.breitbart.com/news/huawei-will-not-bow-to-us-pressure-founder/

Trump and Australia’s Scott Morrison Reaffirm Alliance, Friendship After General Election

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been re-elected to continue on with the job in a general election on May 18 that has been described by the press for left-leaning populists as another a “shock” election victory. The 51-year-old received a congratulatory phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump early on Sunday, May 19. Trump called the result a “great win!”

According to the White House, the two leaders reaffirmed the “critical importance” of the long-standing alliance and friendship between the United States and Australia, and they pledged to continue their close cooperation on shared priorities. Center-left Labor, which has governed Australia for only 38 of its 118 years as a federation, had been rated an overwhelming favorite, both in opinion polls and with odds-makers, to topple the conservative Liberal-National coalition government in an unlosable election after the government’s six years in power.

Instead, Morrison—who became prime minister only last August when a contentious internal party vote dumped Malcolm Turnbull as its leader—swept the coalition to victory with what is likely to be an increased representation in Parliament. The result is much the same as the last election, which delivered the government a single-seat majority in 2016. Since then, public expectations have taken a roller coaster ride based on the media’s reporting of polls. Opinion polling has been a factor in Coalition and Labor governments ousting four of their own prime ministers in the past decade.

Sydney University political scientist Stewart Jackson said the polls that had put Labor ahead of the government for the past two years were too consistent for too long to be credible. “That indicates ‘herding,’ where the pollsters themselves are getting results that they don’t think are right and are adjusting them,” Jackson said. “Because statistically, polls should never come up like that.” Martin O’Shannessy, who headed the respected Newspoll market research company in Sydney for a decade until 2015, said he was “shocked” by the government’s victory, given the polling. “It’s not possible to tell exactly how the current polls are being conducted because they don’t have the same method statement that polls in the past have had,” O’Shannessy said.

Until Saturday, Newspoll had accurately predicted the winner of every Australian state and federal election since its inception in 1985. Australia has made voting compulsory, so pollsters’ surveys of Australians’ party preferences usually come close to the election result. Newspolls are published every few weeks and are reported by the Australian media like a game score of the government and opposition’s popularity and achievements.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-and-australias-scott-morrison-reaffirm-alliance-friendship-after-general-election_2928458.html

>>6537104

I hadn't realized they were using quantum entanglement. I agree with POTUS on this, it is dangerous.

Trump Admin Kicks Off Plan to Foster Israeli-Palestinian Peace

First step of plan will aim to boost Palestinian, Middle East economy

The Trump administration has started to implement its multi-faceted plan to foster peace between Israel and the Palestinians, a process that will begin in June when Bahrain hosts a forum to promote economic development in key Palestinian territories, according to senior administration officials. The Trump administration's long rumored peace plan is just beginning to spill into public view, with senior officials organizing a June 25 business forum in Bahrain that will bring together a range of political and business officials in the region to develop methods to spur growth in the Palestinian economy. The economic aspect is just one piece of the plan, officials said, explaining that a political component includes specific details on what peace would look like. Officials were mum on Sunday about specifics regarding that portion of the peace plan.

The forum, dubbed "Peace to Prosperity," will bring together top business leaders with their political counterparts and include workshop sessions with Trump administration officials in which they will present a roadmap to help bolster the perpetually ailing Palestinian economy. The goal, U.S. officials say, is to reform the Palestinian economy so that it can support itself as a functioning state. "The people who have seen the product we put together so far think it's very thoughtful," a senior administration official, speaking only on background, told reporters Sunday afternoon.

The economic portion of the administration's plan, which is being spearheaded by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, has been "met with very, very good feedback," the senior official said. "Everyone liked it and asked that we come present it in the region." A subsequent statement issued by the White House said that the forum would seek to promote investment and stability in the region. U.S. officials see this as key to getting both the Palestinians and Israelis to the negotiating table to they can hash out specific details of future statehood. "‘Peace to Prosperity' will facilitate discussions on an ambitious, achievable vision and framework for a prosperous future for the Palestinian people and the region, including enhancements to economic governance, development of human capital, and facilitation of rapid private-sector growth," the White House said. "If implemented, this vision has the potential to radically transform lives and put the region on a path toward a brighter future."

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is playing a key role in the financial aspect of the plan, said the forum would provide an opportunity for leaders across the region to comment on the Trump administration's plan and provide advice. "I look forward to these important discussions about a vision that will offer Palestinians exciting new opportunities to realize their full potential," Mnuchin said. "This workshop will engage leaders from across the entire Middle East to promote economic growth and opportunity for the people in this important region." The "workshop underscores the close strategic partnership between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United States as well as the strong and shared interest in creating thriving economic opportunities that benefit the region," Bahrain Minister of Finance and National Economy Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said in a statement included by the White House.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/trump-admin-kicks-off-plan-to-foster-israeli-palestinian-peace/

Exclusive: Google suspends some business with Huawei after Trump blacklist - source

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware and software products except those covered by open source licenses, a source close to the matter told Reuters on Sunday, in a blow to the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has sought to blacklist around the world. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will immediately lose access to updates to the Android operating system, and the next version of its smartphones outside of China will also lose access to popular applications and services including the Google Play Store and Gmail app. Details of the specific services were still being discussed internally at Google, according to the source. Huawei attorneys are also studying the impact of the U.S. Commerce Department’s actions, a Huawei spokesman said on Friday. Huawei was not immediately reachable for further comment. Representatives of the U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately have comment.

Huawei will continue to have access to the version of the Android operating system available through the open source license that is freely open to anyone who wishes to use it. But Google will stop providing any technical support and collaboration for Android and Google services to Huawei going forward, the source said. On Thursday the Trump administration officially added Huawei to a trade blacklist, immediately enacting restrictions that will make it extremely difficult for the technology giant to do business with U.S. companies.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-alphabet-exclusive/exclusive-google-suspends-some-business-with-huawei-after-trump-blacklist-source-idUSKCN1SP0NB

Bank staff flagged Trump, Kushner transactions for watchdog: NYTimes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anti-money laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank AG recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving entities controlled by President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The newspaper, citing five current and former Deutsche Bank employees, said executives at the German-based bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees’ advice. The reports were never filed with the government. The Times said the transactions, some of which involved Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to the former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes, according to the newspaper.

The Times reported the bank employees viewed the decision not to report the transactions as a result of a lax approach to money laundering laws. They said there was a pattern of bank executives rejecting reports to protect relationships with lucrative clients, according to the newspaper. One employee who reviewed some of the transactions said she was terminated last year after raising concerns about the bank’s practices, the Times reported. The Times quoted a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman as saying investigators were not prevented from escalating activity identified as potentially suspicious. The spokeswoman described as “categorically false” any suggestion that bank staff were reassigned or fired in an effort to quash concerns related to any client. She also said Deutsche Bank has intensified efforts to combat financial crime.

A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, which oversees many of Trump’s business interests, said the company was not aware of any flagged transactions and currently has no operating accounts with Deutsche Bank, according to the Times. “The New York Times tries to create scandalous stories which are totally false when they run out of things to write about,” a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies said in a statement to Reuters.

Officials at Deutsche Bank and the Trump Organization were not immediately available to Reuters for independent comment. The Times said the nature of the transactions was not clear. At least some of them involved money flowing back and forth with overseas entities or individuals, which bank employees considered suspicious. The report surfaces at a time when congressional and New York state authorities are investigating the relationship between Trump, his family and Deutsche Bank, and demanding documents related to any suspicious activity. Trump has sued in court in an attempt to block U.S. House of Representatives subpoenas for his financial records that were sent to Deutsche Bank, Capital One Financial Corp and the accounting firm Mazars LLP.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutsche-bank/bank-staff-flagged-trump-kushner-transactions-for-watchdog-nytimes-idUSKCN1SP0PB

>>6537605

Indeed, we are!