Thought Censors Growing Bolder

Today’s liberal authoritarian thought police are weaponizing the financial industry.

By Donald Jeffries

In September 2018, PayPal summarily cancelled the account of alternative media figure Alex Jones. The abrupt move had followed several other high-profile cancellations by the online financial giant over the course of that year. Now, however, PayPal’s actions appear to be the opening salvo in weaponizing the financial industry against conservatives as conventional banks are moving to follow suit.

Earlier this month, Chase, one of the giants of the banking world, informed Martina Markota of right-wing alternative news site Rebel Media that it was terminating service for her business. No explanation was provided.

Former Infowars reporter Joe Biggs recently revealed that Chase had closed his account, too, although they later reinstated it after a storm of criticism on social media.

Earlier in February, Chase shut down services for the online store run by Enrique Tarrio, a black conservative of Cuban heritage, who heads the Proud Boys organization. A short time later, Chase notified Tarrio that his personal account was being closed as well. Tarrio has faced the full brunt of “liberal” censorship, having been banned from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and PayPal, among other lesser-known social media outlets.

Kingdom Identity

In August 2018, both Mastercard and Discover blacklisted right-wing critic of Islam Robert Spencer, while Mastercard and Visa cut off service to high-profile conservative David Horowitz.

Popular online funding platform Patreon created a firestorm of criticism late last year, when it eliminated services to left-of-center Carl Benjamin, more commonly known as Sargon of Akkad.

Plenty of well-known figures such as far-left podcaster Sam Harris, libertarian talk-show host Dave Rubin, and psychologist Jordan Peterson quit Patreon in protest.

All these companies have been under intense pressure from the likes of the Southern Poverty Law Center and Color of Change to cease doing business with open supporters of Donald Trump. Color of Change, in fact, proudly boasts of having removed some 158 funding sources from so-called “white supremacist sites.”

The left-leaning Electronic Frontier Foundation was one of the few honest liberal voices to express alarm about this overt suppression, warning that banks and other payment processors were becoming “de facto Internet censors.” Laughably, Chase Bank told Breitbart News that it would “never close an account for political reasons.”

On top of YouTube’s new crusade to deny the public the opportunity to view “conspiracy videos,” Project Veritas recently published damning disclosures from a former Facebook insider. Courageous Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe relies heavily on such insiders, and has noted, “Our future depends on those who are willing to give up everything for what they believe.”

The anonymous insider was fired from Facebook in 2018 and subsequently joined Project Veritas. In an exclusive interview, the insider told Project Veritas, “I saw things that were going on that I personally found to be troubling.” The insider claimed that Facebook instituted a routine suppression of conservative pages, which was done under the code name “Action Deboost Live Distribution.”

Jacobson on William Cooper, at the AFP Online Store.

The insider, identified only as a female, went on to say, “I would see [this term] appear on several different conservative pages. I first noticed it with an account that I can’t remember, but I remember once I started looking at it, I also saw it on [conservative activist] Mike Cernovich’s page, saw it on [conservative comedian] Steven Crowder’s page, as well as the [news website] Daily Caller’s page.”

Crowder’s page had been shut down previously in 2016, in a dispute that was eventually settled out of court. Crowder’s attorney Bill Richmond told Project Veritas, “Louder With Crowder is investigating the allegations of concealed stream throttling by Facebook. The accusations are deeply troubling given the previously settled dispute with Facebook uncovered by Gizmodo.com, which found the show was targeted by Facebook workers with secret audience restrictions on political grounds alongside other prominent conservative voices.”

Cernovich commented, “Facebook, or an individual at Facebook, has the unilateral power to create false allegations against someone he or she doesn’t like.”

The danger in this “deboost” algorithm is that it doesn’t send the user any warning or notification.

The insider stated that she’d never noticed the tag on any left-wing pages of controversial figures like former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Most shockingly, Project Veritas learned that the deboost tag was tied to an artificial intelligence system designed to block suicide and self-harm posts.

Other Facebook documents revealed a campaign to “control trolling,” whose primary author, Seiji Yamamoto, is an advocate of addressing “the perimeter of hate speech.” The insider noted that this referred to “things that aren’t actually hate speech but that might offend somebody—anything that is perceived as hateful but no court would define it as hate speech.”

Yamamoto also wrote about “destructive behaviors . . . red-pilling normies to convert them to their worldview.” There were disturbing references to “bad content” and a proposed “Troll Twilight Zone.” Also mentioned were limiting the bandwidth and causing technical glitches to “troll accounts,” which would be triggered “leading up to important elections.”

Red pilling refers to the process of an individual going from a liberal (blue) to a conservative (red) as they access new information that shatters their liberal assumptions.

The insider had been fired by Facebook just after Project Veritas released undercover video of Twitter employees discussing “shadow banning” and other abuses of privacy.

All this ideologically driven censorship should outrage the civil libertarians that remain in this country.

Donald Jeffries is a highly respected author and researcher whose work on the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations and other high crimes of the Deep State has been read by millions of people across the world. Jeffries is also the author of two books currently being sold by AFP Book Store.

FAA warns Southwest, union prolonged dispute could pose safety concerns

March 8, 2019

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration warned Southwest Airlines Co and a union representing its mechanics in a letter on Friday that their prolonged contract dispute could pose safety concerns.

The letter warned that a “breakdown in the relationship” between the airline and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association “raises concerns about the ongoing effectiveness of the airline’s safety management system.”

Southwest and the union did not immediately comment on the letter, which noted that the FAA is neutral on the labor dispute.

Southwest and the union, which have been in contract negotiations since 2012, are locked in an escalating battle that last week saw the airline file a lawsuit asking a federal judge to intervene.

CEO Gary Kelly said earlier this week the dispute is costing Southwest millions of dollars in lost revenues a week as well as millions of dollars in costs related to flight cancellations and delays.

The union – which represents more than 2,400 Southwest mechanics – disparaged the comments as “a way to distract the public from Southwest’s own degrading safety standards.”

An FAA spokesman told Reuters: “As a standard practice, we have increased oversight at this time.”

The FAA letter, from the associate administrator for aviation safety, Ali Bahrami, said he wrote to “emphasize the importance of ensuring cooperatively, in accordance with FAA standards, the highest level of safety in the airline’s operations.”

The FAA trusts the airline and union will work to ensure “that any judicial order that might result from the litigation does not constrain appropriate safety activities,” it added.

Dallas-based Southwest, one of the largest domestic U.S. carriers, has said it is committed to operating a safe fleet and that every maintenance report is investigated.

An unprecedented number of out-of-service aircraft in recent weeks at four of Southwest’s maintenance locations has forced the airline to delay or cancel hundreds of flights.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by James Dalgleish and Sonya Hepinstall)

Southwest shares drop as mechanics dispute escalates

February 20, 2019

By Tracy Rucinski and Ankit Ajmera

(Reuters) – Southwest Airlines Co’s shares fell more than 5 percent on Wednesday after the low-cost U.S. carrier said it was investigating whether a conflict with its mechanics union was leading to a spike in flight cancellations.

The escalating labor dispute, one of the biggest to hit a top-four U.S. airline in more than a decade, comes amid a series of recent corporate headaches for the carrier.

Dallas-based Southwest was forced to delay its planned Hawaii launch due to the recent U.S. government shutdown and on Wednesday cut its first-quarter revenue growth forecast.

That followed news on Monday that the Federal Aviation Administration initiated a probe against the carrier in 2018 regarding weight and balance performance data.

Shares of Southwest fell 5.7 percent to close at $54.41 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

The airline has canceled hundreds of flights since Feb. 15 due to a mixture of inclement weather and unscheduled maintenance issues that have put what it called an unprecedented number of aircraft out of service.

Southwest said there was no common theme among the maintenance issues, which followed the latest round of negotiations with the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA). The union represents about 2,400 Southwest mechanics and has been in contract talks with management since 2012.

Southwest Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven said on Tuesday that the carrier would investigate why the number of aircraft unable to fly due to mechanical issues had doubled and said the airline remained committed to operating a safe fleet.

Last week the company declared an operational “emergency” and demanded all mechanics turn up for work.

AMFA disputed the carrier’s characterization of the maintenance issues on its website and said Southwest has the lowest mechanic-to-aircraft ratio of any major carrier.

“Negotiations and the degradation of safety culture are two entirely different items,” Bret Oestreich, AMFA’s national director, told Reuters.

The dispute comes at time when aviation deaths around the world have been falling. 2018 was the third-safest year ever in terms of the number of fatal accidents worldwide, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

Eric Schiffer, CEO of Reputation Management Consultants, said Southwest’s handling of the aircraft disruption had likely “highlighted a safety concern when there didn’t need to be one.”

“And whenever an airline is associated with risk, it impacts shares and sales,” Schiffer said in an interview on Wednesday.

American Airlines Group Inc is also in contract talks with its mechanics unions and asked for a federal mediator to facilitate negotiations last September. American’s mechanic contracts have not been updated since it merged with US Airways in 2013.

Southwest canceled 444 flights on Wednesday, about 20 percent of total cancellations across the United States, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.com. It was not clear how many of the cancellations were due to weather.

The next round of mediated contract talks with the mechanics union is scheduled for March 12, Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said.

Southwest said it had already enhanced a contract offer that the union walked away from last fall.

SHUTDOWN HIT

Earlier on Wednesday, Southwest said it expected a $60 million sales hit from the recent U.S. government partial shutdown, four times its previous estimate.

While the 35-day U.S. shutdown ended on Jan. 25, King said passenger demand and bookings continued to suffer due to uncertainty over a potential second shutdown before a government deal was reached on Feb. 14.

As a result, Southwest trimmed its first-quarter growth forecast for revenue per available seat mile to a range of 3 to 4 percent from a previous range of 4 to 5 percent.

Southwest, which flies more domestic flights than legacy peers like American, said it is hopeful that first-quarter demand softness is temporary.

However, the more than month-long hiatus in U.S. government decision-making has delayed the federal authorization process for Southwest’s plans to launch service to Hawaii, which it had hoped to begin early this year.

That process is currently under way, though the carrier has as yet been unable to announce a launch date.

Goldman Sachs said this means the airline will have a shorter window to sell tickets to Hawaii, forcing it to discount heavily at a time when most rivals expect an improvement in ticket prices. It issued a “sell” recommendation on the stock.

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and Ankit Ajmera and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Patrick Graham and Matthew Lewis)

Golf: Kuchar apologizes to caddie over pay dispute

February 15, 2019

By Rory Carroll

(Reuters) – Matt Kuchar apologized to caddie David Ortiz on Friday and said he will pay him the amount he asked for after Ortiz criticized the golfer for giving him only $5,000 of the nearly $1.3 million he earned by winning the Mayakoba Classic in November.

Earlier this week Kuchar shrugged off the outcry over the payment and said Ortiz, who had stepped in as an emergency replacement, should be “happy” with the pay, despite regular caddies earning payouts of up to 10 percent of a player’s take from a tournament.

“For a guy who makes $200 a day, a $5,000 week is a really big week,” he told Golf.com on Wednesday in comments he says now make him “cringe.”

“This week, I made comments that were out of touch and insensitive, making a bad situation worse,” Kuchar, who has won more than $46 million over the course of his career according to ESPN, said in a statement on Friday.

“They made it seem like I was marginalizing David Ortiz and his financial situation, which was not my intention,” he said.

“I let myself, my family, my partners and those close to me down, but I also let David down.

“I plan to call to call David tonight, something that is long overdue, to apologize for the situation he has been put in, and I have made sure he has received the full total he has requested.”

Ortiz had reportedly sought $50,000 for helping the 40-year-old earn his first PGA Tour victory in four years.

Kuchar added that he planned to make a donation to the Mayakoba Classic to be distributed to philanthropic causes in the Mexican cities of Playa del Carmen and Cancun.

(Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Michael Avenatti Surrenders Control of Law Firm – Report

Creepy Porn Lawyer accused of hiding millions

Source: Fox News

Michael Avenatti agreed Wednesday to give up financial control of his law firm to settle a dispute with a former partner who claimed the celebrity lawyer hid millions in order to fund his lavish lifestyle and avoid having to pay a $10 million judgment.

Jason Frank, a former partner at Eagan Avenatti, accused Avenatti in a court filing of spending extravagantly: $13,000 in rent for his Los Angeles apartment; a $3,640 payment on his Ferrari; $150,000 for his coffee company; $53,600 on his ex-wife; and $232,875 for his auto racing team, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Frank also claimed that Avenatti hid millions in legal fees from creditors during bankruptcy proceedings and asked the court to appoint a receiver to take possession of the firm’s bank accounts, computers and other assets.

Read more

Airbus to scrap A380 superjumbo production as sales slump

February 14, 2019

By Tim Hepher

TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) – Europe’s Airbus is scrapping production of the A380 superjumbo, with lackluster sales forcing it to abandon a dream of dominating the skies with a 21st century cruiseliner.

The world’s largest airliner, with two decks of spacious cabins and room for 544 people in standard layout, was designed to challenge Boeing’s legendary 747 but failed to take hold as airlines backed a new generation of smaller, more nimble jets.

Confirming a shake-up first reported by Reuters, Airbus said on Thursday the last A380 would be delivered in 2021.

The move comes after Emirates – the largest A380 customer – was forced to reduce its orders for the iconic superjumbo after an engine dispute and a broader fleet review, opting to order a total of 70 of the smaller A350 and A330neo instead.

Without the anticipated level of demand from the Gulf heavyweight, Airbus said its assembly lines would dry up.

“This was a joint decision. We cannot run after illusions and we have to take the only sensible decision and stop this program,” Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders said.

Airbus said it would enter talks with unions in coming weeks over the 3,000-3,500 jobs potentially affected. Enders later said the company could not guarantee all would keep their jobs.

The jobs at risk are mainly in France and Germany but there could also be an impact in Spain and Britain too.

Airbus took a charge of 463 million euros for shutdown costs, but is expected to be forgiven some 1 billion euros of outstanding European government loans under a funding system that stands at the center of a trade dispute with Boeing.

Airbus shares rose 5 percent on investor relief that Airbus would close a long-running chapter of losses on the A380, also buoyed by stronger than expected 2018 results.

Airbus will produce 17 more of the planes including 14 for Emirates and 3 for Japanese airline ANA.

As part of the restructuring, Emirates placed a new order for 40 A330-900neo jets and 30 A350-900 aircraft, partially restoring a purchase of A350s which it canceled in 2014.

Responding to behind-the-scenes concerns from airline customers from Asia to Europe, Enders stressed Airbus would continue to support the A380 as long as it remains in service.

LEADING BUYER ‘DISAPPOINTED’

Emirates, which had built its global brand around the A380 and Boeing 777 and which has 100 of the Airbus superjumbos in its fleet, said it was disappointed by the closure.

“Emirates has been a staunch supporter of the A380 since its very inception,” said Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum.

“While we are disappointed to have to give up our order, and sad that the program could not be sustained, we accept that this is the reality of the situation,” he added.

The decision came after Emirates failed to reach an engine agreement with Britain’s Rolls-Royce, which said on Thursday it noted the decision to shut down the program.

The A380 will remain a pillar of the Emirates fleet well into the 2030s, the airline said.

Emirates’ local rival Etihad of Abu Dhabi also disclosed it was cutting some Airbus and Boeing jet orders, highlighting growing questions over the growth of Gulf airlines.

Making its maiden flight in 2005, the A380 was a major step in Airbus’s efforts to compete on equal terms with Boeing and challenge what had been a cash cow for its arch-rival.

But sales of the industry’s largest four-engined jets have fallen due to improvements in lighter twin-engined alternatives, such as the Boeing 787 and 777 or Airbus’s own A350.

“What we are seeing here is the end of the large four-engined aircraft,” Enders said after halting the program in his last major decision before stepping down in April.

“There has been speculation that we were 10 years too early; I think it is clear that we were 10 years too late,” he added.

The prospect of a premature halt to A380 production emerged last month as part of a restructuring of Emirates orders first reported by Reuters.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Airbus was poised to ax the superjumbo.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Alexander Smith and Keith Weir)

Did Jeff Bezos Just Trash The National Enquirer’s Deal With Prosecutors?

When Jeff Bezos published correspondence between his lawyers and the legal team at National Enquirer owner American Media International – exposing the tabloid for purportedly trying to blackmail him with “dick picks” unless he dropped an investigation into the Inquirer’s reporting – he might have had an another motive beyond standing up for all of those who have been bullied by AMI.

Bezos

According to Bloomberg, by exposing the correspondence, legal experts believe Bezos may have been trying to trash AMI’s deal with federal prosecutors made in exchange for the company’s – and that of its CEO, David Pecker – cooperation against the Trump Administration.

Legal experts told BBG that the AMI’s tactics amounted to “textbook extortion”. And if prosecutors agree, the company could be prosecuted for its role in the “Catch and Kill” tactics used to suppress a story about a former Playboy model with whom President Trump allegedly had an affair. According to the plea agreement, the company agreed not to commit any crimes for three years.

Under the Sept. 20 agreement, the tabloid publisher was supposed to refrain from all illegal activity for a three-year period. The agreement says that if New York-based AMI commits any crime, it can be prosecuted for the ones it was granted immunity against, including perjury and obstruction of justice.

The disclosure Thursday by Amazon.com Inc.’s chief executive officer that AMI threatened to publish revealing photos of him unless he halted an investigation into whether an earlier expose of his relationship with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez was politically motivated is “textbook extortion” and could lead to criminal prosecution, according to some legal experts.

New York law explicitly makes it a crime to threaten to expose a secret or publicize material that will expose someone to “contempt or ridicule,” said Zachary Elsea, a litigator with Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LLP in Santa Monica, California. The emails from AMI that Bezos posted explicitly threaten to embarrass him, according to Elsea.

“This could be construed as criminal conduct,” Elsea said.

Of course, this type of explicit blackmail isn’t that far removed from the “weaponized” journalism tactics employed by the Washington Post. But we digress…

The Enquirer’s lawyers threatened to publish lewd images and texts exchanged between Bezos and Sanchez unless the CEO called off his investigation into the tabloid and publicly admitted that the Enquirer’s probe into Bezos wasn’t politically motivated.

And while the optics certainly aren’t great, AMI has teams of lawyers at its disposal, and it’s difficult to imagine the company moving ahead with something like this without first considering all legal ramifications. So, it’s extremely likely that AMI will be able to defend its behavior. For example, the company might argue that the emails were taken out of context, and that the messages were merely examples of two lawyers trying to resolve a thorny legal dispute.

And while the tabloid could run into trouble if prosecutors determine that it obtained the photos and texts via illegal means, the tabloid has insisted – and most of the reporting on the subject seems to support – the notion that they were leaked to the tabloid by somebody close to Bezos and/or Sanchez.

AMI may defend against any extortion accusations by claiming that the emails are between lawyers who are simply trying to resolve a dispute, with AMI offering a compromise solution, according to Robert Schwartz, an attorney with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP in Los Angeles.

“The Enquirer has a lot of lawyers and wouldn’t do this kind of thing without first talking it through with them,” Schwartz said.

The tabloid could run into trouble, however, if it turns out that it illegally obtained the private pictures of Bezos, according to Schwartz.

“There are plenty of prosecutors in New York who don’t feel beholden to the president and who will want to explore any shady behavior by the National Enquirer,” Schwartz said.

Whether or not prosecutors decided to act or investigate, as Bezos’ investigation soldiers on, we imagine we’ll be seeing some less-than-flattering leaks about Pecker and the Enquirer surfacing in the pages of WaPo in the not-too-distant future.

Oil hits 2019 high near $64 on Venezuela sanctions, OPEC

February 4, 2019

By Alex Lawler

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil hit a two-month high close to $64 a barrel on Monday as OPEC-led supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against Venezuela’s petroleum industry offset forecasts of weaker demand and an economic slowdown.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies began a new round of supply cuts in January. These curbs, led by Saudi Arabia, have been compounded by involuntary losses that the Venezuelan sanctions could deepen.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, hit $63.63 a barrel, the highest since Dec. 7, and was up 23 cents at $62.98 as of 1145 GMT.

U.S. crude hit a 2019 high of $55.75 and was later up 5 cents at $55.31.

“You have the sanctions on Venezuela, on top of the reduced supply from Saudi Arabia,” said Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix. “There’s no sign of overhang in the crude oil markets.”

OPEC supply fell in January by the largest amount in two years, a Reuters survey last week found. That offset limited compliance with the output-cutting deal so far by non-OPEC Russia.

The U.S. sanctions on Venezuela will limit oil transactions between Venezuela and other countries and are similar to those imposed on Iran last year, some analysts said after examining details announced by the government.

Underlining the lack of excess supply, Jakob cited a rapidly clearing West African crude market and the structure of Brent crude futures, in which the first-month contract is trading near the price of the second month.

While OPEC and its allies are cutting output, the United States is expanding supply. Nonetheless, figures on Friday showed a drop in the number of U.S. oil rigs to their lowest in eight months, lending prices some support.

(Graphic: U.S. oil output, drilling levels – https://tmsnrt.rs/2S87iVI)

“This points to a less pronounced rise in U.S. oil production,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank. “The oil market is more or less balanced,” he added, citing the drop in OPEC output to a level close to forecast demand for the group’s crude.

The main drag on prices has been concern about a possible slowdown in demand this year due to a weaker outlook for economic growth and developments such as the U.S.-China trade dispute.

U.S. President Donald Trump last week said he would meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the coming weeks to try to settle the dispute, and there are hopes that the two sides will come to an agreement.

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore; editing by Dale Hudson)

DP World chairman says 2019 will be challenging

February 3, 2019

DUBAI (Reuters) – The chairman of Dubai’s DP World said on Sunday the port operator was facing a challenging 2019 and the U.S.-China trade dispute had created uncertainty in the market.

Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem said he expected both sides to reach an agreement and that the company would be able to cope, whatever happened with U.S.-China trade negotiations.

(Reporting by Alex Cornwall; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

China calls for harmony as it welcomes Qatar emir amid Gulf dispute

January 31, 2019

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a return to “unity and harmony” on Thursday as he welcomed gas-rich Qatar’s emir to Beijing, amid a festering dispute that has seen some Arab states lead by Saudi Arabia severing relations with Doha.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic, trade and transport ties with Qatar in June 2017. They accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism and cultivating ties with Saudi Arabia’s regional foe, Iran.

Qatar, which denies the charge, says the boycott seeks to curtail its sovereignty, while the row has defied mediation efforts by Kuwait and the United States which sees Gulf unity as essential to containing Iran.

The rift has shown no sign of being resolved soon. Qatar has been bolstering ties with its supporters, such as Turkey, with trade between those two expected to have risen by more than half in 2018.

China has largely stayed out of the dispute, calling for the problem to be resolved via talks, though has played host to senior Qatari officials since the spat began, including in December to Qatar’s foreign minister.

Meeting in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Xi told Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani that regional cooperation was an important basis for prosperity in the Gulf region, Chinese state television reported.

China supports the efforts of the Gulf Cooperation Council to seek an “appropriate resolution to disputes and contradictions via political and diplomatic means, to return unity and harmony between Gulf and Arab countries”, Xi said.

“China is willing to continue to play a constructive role according to the wishes of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries,” Xi added, according to the report, which did not make direct mention of the Gulf rift.

In remarks in front of reporters, Xi called Al Thani “an old friend and a good friend”.

Al Thani told Xi that he was very happy with his personal friendship with him.

“We are ready to have bigger investments in China, in infrastructure or in any other field we see as important for us,” he said.

“We are happy to provide China with liquid gas and we are ready to provide China with more in the near future. I am very happy to be in China.”

Last October, state energy giant Qatar Petroleum said it had signed a five-year agreement to supply China with 600,000 tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) per year.

Earlier in January, state-owned Qatar Airways said it had acquired a 5 percent stake in China Southern Airlines, in a move to gain access to the fast-growing Chinese market.

China has traditionally played little role in Middle East conflicts or diplomacy, despite its reliance on the region for oil, but it has been trying to raise its profile, especially in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman visited Beijing in 2017.

However, China has had to walk a fine line, as it also has close ties with both Iran and Israel.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Virginia Judge Indefinitely Postpones Manafort Sentencing

The Virginia judge who presided over Paul Manafort’s summer trial where he was ultimately convicted on eight counts, including five counts of tax fraud and three of failure to disclose foreign bank accounts (mistrials were declared on another ten) has postponed what was supposed to be a Feb. 8 sentencing indefinitely, Politico and NPR reported.

The sentencing is believed to be suspended until Manafort’s battle with a Washington DC court, where he has been fighting accusations levied by Mueller that he continued to lie to prosecutors in violation of his plea agreement, has been resolved.

The sentencing is being delayed because the outcome of the Washington court dispute could have some bearing on the results, according to a court filing.

Amy Berman Jackson, the judge in the Washington case, is expected to hold a private hearing on Feb. 4 to determine whether Manafort lied to prosecutors in violation of his agreement. If he’s found guilty, he could face an additional 10 years in prison on top of the seven to 10 years he was expected to receive for the charges stemming from the Virginia case.

NATO-Russia meeting fails to break deadlock over Russian missile

January 25, 2019

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A meeting between NATO and Russian envoys on Friday failed to resolve a dispute over a new Russian cruise missile that Western allies say is a threat to Europe, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.

Without a breakthrough, the United States is set to start the six-month process of pulling out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) on Feb. 2.

“The treaty is in real jeopardy,” Stoltenberg said. He said Russia had shown no willingness to compromise, but that he and European nations such as Germany held out hope for diplomatic progress during the six-month withdrawal process.

“The sooner Russia comes back into compliance, the better. The treaty has no value if it is not respected, the problem are the Russian missiles in Europe,” he told a news conference after a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council.

Washington, backed by its NATO allies, accuses Moscow of developing a new Russian missile, the Novator 9M729/SSC-8, that violates the Cold War-era INF pact, designed to keep land-based nuclear-capable missiles out of Europe.

Russia denies that. It says the missile’s short range puts it outside the treaty and has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to abandon a treaty that it wants to leave anyway so as to develop new missiles.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Kevin Liffey)

Canada set to provide Nokia C$40 million for 5G research

January 24, 2019

(Reuters) – The Canadian government will provide C$40 million ($30 million)in funding to telecom network equipment maker Nokia for research on 5G wireless technology.

The funding to Finland-based Nokia will help understand how data is routed, how optical networks are managed and cybersecurity, a spokeswoman for the office of minister of Innovation, Science & Economic Development said in an email on Thursday.

The deal will be announced on Friday.

Canada is currently studying the security implications of 5G networks, but unlike some allies has not announced that equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will be excluded.

Ottawa is also locked in a bilateral dispute with China after Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, on a U.S. extradition request.

(Reporting by Shanti S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Government Shutdown Halts SEC Prosecution Of Hedgie Accused of Fabricating Financials, Stealing From Investors

A hedge fund manager who allegedly made remarkable, and fraudulent, promises to his investors – that he would never lose their money – has seen the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against him stall as a result of the recent government shut down.

Statim Holding’s Joseph Meyer was accused of stealing from his clients after making the “too good to be true” claim, but that case is now in limbo, according to Bloomberg. The SEC had hoped that Meyer would not pull assets from a Statim hedge fund. Meyer refused the SEC’s request, according to a January 17 court filing, and SEC attorneys are now trying to get an injunction to prevent him from withdrawing even more funds. Meanwhile, Meyer through his lawyer, claims that he hasn’t done anything wrong.

His lawyer, Steve Sadow, said: “Mr. Meyer and Statim Holdings Inc. will respond in detail to the SEC’s allegations. But suffice it to say for now that we dispute the allegations, will vigorously contest them in court and look forward to vindication by a open-minded, fair and impartial jury.”

Source: StatimHoldings.com

The halt of this case is yet another example of the tangible ways that the government shutdown is preventing federal agencies from doing their job. The Securities and Exchange Commission has stopped opening new investigations and has seen its staff dwindle to just 300 employees, from its normal 4500, as a result of the shutdown.

The hedge fund’s incredible returns, including a year where it allegedly made 91%, had been previously discussed by Bloomberg. The SEC claims that the profits were a result of misconduct, including the fund manager’s propensity to pay his living expenses using investor capital. They also claim that he doctored financial statements.

The SEC’s complaint says: “The purported guarantees and loss protection were illusory. Meyer simply concocted numbers that had no apparent connection to any share class and then reported these exaggerated returns to investors.”

A hearing has been set for February 19 to adjudicate whether or not Meyer can be barred from pulling assets. It had been previously been reported that Meyer was being investigated in Georgia and the SEC opened their case about a week after that report went public.

Meyer’s capital under management is also under dispute. An April 2018 regulatory filing stated that its assets under management were $32.9 million, but Meyer has reportedly told investors that the firm manages hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, in April 2015, he allegedly told one prospective client that he had $1.8 billion under management.

Meyer had claimed previously that his exorbitant returns were a result of a “computerized trading system” that he designed. He also claimed that most of the fund’s investments were in treasury bonds. His fund returned 24% in 2015, 91% in 2014, and 13% in 2013, according to Meyer, which seems a bit of a stretch for a fund invested in treasurys.

Naturally, the SEC claims that he didn’t own any treasury bonds between late 2013 and August 2016. In fact, as of August 2016, the SEC claims that 33% of the fund was invested in a gold ETF and that 37% of the fund was invested in a 3X S&P 500 ETF. At least he didn’t claim he was using split-strike conversions.

Alec Baldwin Pleads Guilty After Punching Man In Dispute Over Parking Spot

Actor Alec Baldwin, who is best known for portraying President Trump on Saturday Night Live, has pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment following an incident last year when he punched a man during a dispute over a parking space in New York City, according to Fox News.

The actor appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday where he agreed to attend a short anger management program as part of his plea. Because Baldwin didn’t have a record (despite numerous incidents where he got aggressive with photographers and was famously thrown off a flight after refusing to stop playing “Words with Friends” on his phone), the DA felt comfortable recommending a violation charge of harassment in the second degree.

Baldwin

The actor will need to pay a charge of $120 and provide proof of payment and completion for the classes by March 27. As part of the deal, photos and video of the incident will be destroyed.

The actor’s lawyer declined to comment on the plea. Police said that Baldwin and the man had started arguing and shoving each other after the man parked in a spot that Baldwin said a family member had been holding for him. In addition to the incidents cited above, Baldwin was handcuffed back in 2014 after getting into a dispute with a police officer.

The NYPD said at the time that Baldwin, who had no identification on him, “refused to [identify] himself, became belligerent, cursing and yelling. He was then placed in handcuffs.”

Baldwin went on a twitter rant after the arrest where he accused the police of allowing the media to “terrify” his daughter.

Kremlin downbeat on Japan peace deal chances before Abe visit

January 21, 2019

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin on Monday played down the notion that Russia and Japan would be able to swiftly clinch a World War Two peace deal or resolve a decades-old territorial dispute, a day before the two countries are due to hold talks on the issues.

Japan is seeking a peace deal with Russia it hopes will end a dispute over islands captured by Soviet troops in the last days of World War Two, a disagreement that has long soured bilateral relations.

The islands are known as the Southern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has launched a diplomatic campaign to strike a deal with Moscow.

Abe and President Vladimir Putin are due to hold talks in Moscow on Tuesday after Tokyo and Moscow agreed to intensify their search for a solution.

The Kremlin warned on Monday that neither Russia nor Japan would abandon their national interests however, that everyone should be realistic about the difficulty of clinching a deal, and that negotiations were still in their early phases.

When asked about a report from Japan’s Kyodo news agency which cited unnamed government sources as saying Abe planned to propose signing a peace treaty if Moscow handed back control of two of the disputed islands, the Kremlin declined to comment.

“Let’s wait for tomorrow’s talks,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“Again though, we urge everyone to be realistic and to proceed from the fact that we must seek a solution with constant respect for the national interests of the two countries.

“No one is going to give ground on their national interests,” said Peskov.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Andrew Osborn; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)

U.S. chipmakers may give clues on China hazard

January 19, 2019

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Intel Corp <INTC.O> operates mostly outside the Apple-sphere, and that is exactly why whatever it says next week about business in its vital Chinese market matters so much for investors.

Apple <AAPL.O> rattled global markets this month when the iPhone maker cut its revenue outlook for the first time in 15 years, blaming factors like the U.S.-China trade dispute and a slowdown in the Chinese economy.

Upcoming quarterly scorecards from Intel, Texas Instruments <TXN.O> and other chipmakers, as well as Ford Motor Co <F.N>, will shed light on whether Apple made a convenient excuse for its own troubles or revealed a strengthening headwind faced by global companies that rely on China for a big chunk of their sales.

“They should give us a good gauge of what is happening in China beyond smartphones because Texas Instruments is mostly industrials and autos, and Intel is PCs and servers, and they’re not being driven by the Apple smartphone situation,” said Daniel Morgan, a portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company in Atlanta.

Underscoring Wall Street’s sensitivity to China trade, the S&P 500 <.SPX> jumped 1.3 percent on Friday after a report that China has offered to go on a six-year buying spree to ramp up U.S. imports in order to reconfigure the relationship between the two countries. [.N]

U.S. stock markets will be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

China accounts for almost a quarter of Intel’s revenue, while modem chips for iPhones, the focus of recent concerns about Apple, account for just a tiny part of Intel’s business.

While most Intel processors sold in China are used to build laptops and servers for export, Chinese consumers and companies also purchase many of those devices.

With the tariff war already taking a toll on China’s trade sector and increasing the risk of a sharper slowdown in the world’s second largest economy, U.S. multinationals will face pressure to be cautious about their outlooks for 2019.

“Anyone doing business in China, especially if you are an American company – I don’t think you can come out with super-positive guidance,” said Stephen Massocca, Senior Vice President at Wedbush Securities in San Francisco.

Texas Instruments and programmable chipmaker Xilinx <XLNX.O>, both reporting on Wednesday, and Intel, reporting on Thursday, are among the S&P 500 companies most reliant on China for their revenue. Investors will listen closely to what those companies may say about how the China trade dispute and the country’s cooling economic expansion are affecting demand for their products.

Also on Wednesday, Ford’s quarterly report will give investors a glimpse of the automaker’s progress trying to reverse a sales slump in China, the world’s biggest car market.

Other chipmakers and related companies reporting next week include ASML Holding <ASML.AS>, Lam Research <LRCX.O>, SK Hynix <000660.KS> and Western Digital <WDC.O>.

LOWER EXPECTATIONS

Fears about the impact of the trade conflict on U.S. technology companies crystallized this month after Apple <AAPL.O> cut its sales forecast, blaming China’s economy.

Diminished expectations for chipmakers account for most of a recent steep drop in expectations for tech sector earnings growth in 2019, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

In October, analysts on average forecast S&P 500 technology companies would increase their earnings per share by 8.5 percent in 2019, according to Refinitiv. But expectations for 2019 tech EPS growth have since withered to just 2.2 percent.

Still, many Silicon Valley companies remain in favor among investors. Technology was the third most recommended sector among 13 big research firms recently surveyed by Reuters, behind healthcare and financials.

With the S&P 500 recently trading at 15 times expected earnings, down from 18 times a year ago, a key argument for Wall Street bulls is that the stock market has become undervalued after December’s selloff. But if Apple’s warning about slow China demand is repeated by Intel, Texas Instruments and others, the S&P 500 may appear less of a bargain at current levels.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index <.SOX> is down about 15 percent from its high in March 2018, as chipmakers struggle with a cooling smartphone industry and slower demand for memory chips used in cars, industrial equipment and other markets.

While Wall Street gained this month due to optimism that the trade dispute will be resolved, China for years has struggled to maintain its pace of economic growth. Even a quick end to the trade dispute would not guarantee a return to strong results from U.S. companies’ China operations.

“Trade may be pointed to as a reason for issues with input costs or weakness in sales, but I think that just as important is the fact that the economy in China is slowing, and they are incremental buyers for both semiconductors and cars,” said Patrick Palfrey, an earnings analyst at Credit Suisse.

In Intel’s October quarterly conference call, Interim Chief Executive Bob Swan said the company was working to reduce the impact on its supply chain from potential new tariffs.

Analysts, on average, expect Intel to report fourth-quarter revenue up 11 percent to $19 billion, and to forecast 2019 revenue will rise 3 percent to $73.2 billion, according to Refinitiv.

Analysts expect Texas Instruments to grow net income by 10 percent in the December quarter then shrink in 2019, according to Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by David Gregorio and Rosalba O’Brien)

Greek PM Tsipras wins confidence vote, eyes Macedonia accord

January 17, 2019

By Renee Maltezou and Michele Kambas

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won a confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday, clearing a major hurdle for Greece’s approval of an accord to end a dispute over Macedonia’s name and averting the prospect of a snap election.

Tsipras called the confidence motion after his right-wing coalition partner Panos Kammenos quit the government on Jan. 13 in protest over the name deal signed between Athens and Skopje last year.

Parliament gave Tsipras 151 votes, meeting the threshold he required in the 300-member assembly. His leftist Syriza party has 145 seats in parliament while additional support was gleaned by defectors of Kammenos’s ANEL party and independents.

“I call upon you with hand on heart to give a vote of confidence to the government which gave battle, which bled, but managed to haul the country out of memorandums and surveillance,” Tsipras said, referring to Greece’s international lenders who kept the country on a tight leash for years.

He described the vote as a ‘vote of confidence in stability’.

“Our only concern is to continue to address the needs and interests of the Greek people,” Tsipras told journalists.

Greek opponents of the agreement say Macedonia’s new name – the Republic of North Macedonia, reached after decades of dispute between Athens and Skopje, represents an attempt to appropriate Greek identity.

Macedonia is the name of Greece’s biggest northern region. The deal was signed between the two countries in mid-2018, contingent on ratification of parliaments in both countries and a necessary step for the tiny Balkan state to be considered for European Union and NATO membership.

The Macedonian parliament ratified the pact last week. It has yet to be brought to a vote by Greece, though that is expected this month.

Tsipras, whose four-year term expires in October, has faced down parliament before on the Macedonia deal. He survived a no-confidence vote mounted by the opposition when the two states agreed on a compromise in June 2018.

But setting the stage for more acrimony over an issue which is a red flag for many Greeks, opposition parties have decried the deal as a national sell out, while demonstrators plan to protest in central Athens on Jan. 20. Past protests have drawn hundreds of thousands.

“This is a nationally-damaging agreement,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis, head of the main opposition New Democracy conservatives, told parliament during the confidence debate.

He repeatedly called the administration “a ragbag government” clutching at straws to stay in power.

“Elections are the only solution for the country to move ahead … for Greeks to take their fate into their hands. Just leave.” he said.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Greek PM set to squeak through confidence motion over Macedonia deal

January 15, 2019

By Renee Maltezou

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made an impassioned appeal to parliament for support on Tuesday, the eve of a confidence vote he is expected to survive by a whisker with the support of a handful of opposition lawmakers.

Tsipras called the confidence vote following the resignation of Defence Minister Panos Kammenos and his right-wing Independent Greeks’ party over an accord to end a long dispute between Greece and Macedonia by changing Macedonia’s name.

As parliament opened two days of debate, Tsipras said it was a “patriotic duty” to proceed with the agreement, knowing it would have a political cost. He called on lawmakers to support him, saying that his government had pulled Greece from international bailouts and a debt crisis and has more work to do in the nine months that remain before its term ends in October.

“There are times that one is judged not for his words but for his acts. There are times of critical decisions and of responsibilities,” Tsipras said.

“Addressing you all, I urge you to speak clearly and with honesty, listen to your conscience and respect the people’s interest. I call on you to give a clear response: Do you trust this government to continue?,” Tsipras said.

The vote is expected on Wednesday night.

The prime minister said last week he could call a snap election if he failed to win a majority of 151 votes.

His leftist Syriza party has 145 seats in the 300-seat chamber and the support of one independent lawmaker. Despite the resignation of Kammenos, four lawmakers from the right-wing Independent Greeks have said that they will still back Tsipras.

On Tuesday, he received another endorsement from a member of parliament from the centrist To Potami party, reaching the 151 MP mark.

The fate of the Macedonia name deal hinges on the outcome of the confidence vote, as the opposition has vowed to reject it.

The deal, reached last year, is intended to resolve a dispute that has kept Greece’s northern neighbor excluded from the EU and NATO over its name.

Greece argues that the name Macedonia represents a territorial claim over a Greek province by the same name, and has blocked the former Yugoslav republic from joining Western institutions. Under the deal, Macedonia will change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia, and Greece will accept it.

Macedonia’s parliament last week passed an amendment to the constitution to rename the country, leaving it up to Greece to ratify the deal.

Greek opponents of the agreement say Macedonia’s new name still represents an attempt to appropriate Greek identity. Groups opposing the deal will rally in central Athens on Sunday.

(Editing by Peter Graff)

21 Dead Bodies Found Near U.S.-Mexico Border

21 dead bodies discovered along US Mexico border

Police have discovered the dead bodies of 21 people, some burned, close to the U.S.-Mexico border near Texas. 

The bodies were found near the remains of seven burned-out vehicles near the border town of Miguel Aleman in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas.

Cbsnews.com reports: President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the killings Wednesday appear to have been part of a dispute between gangs. He said details would be released once all the information was gathered.

A Tamaulipas state official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said investigators had counted 21 bodies at the scene.

The area around Miguel Aleman had long been dominated by the Zetas drug cartel, which was locked in a battle for control of crime in the Rio Grande Valley with the rival Gulf cartel.

The Zetas cartel has since splintered, and the deaths in Miguel Aleman appear to have resulted from a dispute between the Gulf cartel and one of the Zetas factions, the Northeast cartel.

Tamaulipas has been a major conduit for drug shipments and has also been the scene of some of the worst massacres and fiercest fighting in Mexico’s drug war.

That war left 28,689 people dead in Mexico in 2017, according to government statistics — the highest number ever recorded, and likely was even more deadly.

But as CBS News’ Haley Ott discovered in December, there are at least 36,265 more people in the country who have simply vanished amid the bloodshed. Known as desaparecidos, or “the disappeared,” some are abducted, others are caught in the crossfires of the cartel-related violence that permeates Mexican society.

Many are presumed dead, but without bodies, their families are left without answers, and sometimes with the grim burden of trying to find their missing loved ones’ remains on their own. Watch the full report in the player at the top of this page.

Greece’s Tsipras calls confidence vote after ally quits coalition

January 13, 2019

By Angeliki Koutantou and Renee Maltezou

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday said he would call a confidence vote in his government after his coalition ally quit, leaving him bereft of a parliamentary majority and raising the possibility of snap elections.

Earlier, Greece’s right-wing defense minister resigned in protest at a deal ending a long running dispute with Macedonia over its name, saying he was taking his other six ministers in cabinet with him.

Panos Kammenos’s Independent Greeks party had seven MPs, enough to get Tsipras’s administration past the threshold of 150 deputies in the 300-member parliament. Tsipras’s Syriza party has 145 seats and also the support of one independent lawmaker.

“I have taken my decision and have informed the president of parliament that we will immediately move to the process outlined by the constitution for the renewal of the confidence in my government,” Tsipras told journalists.

The confidence vote is expected to take place later this week. Kammenos said he would not support Tsipras in the vote.

Syriza is trailing between eight and 12 points behind the main conservative New Democracy party, which also opposed the deal with Macedonia, in pre-election polls.

A firebrand leftist, Tsipras was elected in 2015 on a platform of anti-austerity but was forced into a third international bailout to bring back Greece from the brink of bankruptcy. The country exited a bailout program in mid-2018.

MACEDONIAN WRANGLE

Kammenos, who forged a coalition pact with Tsipras in 2015, never concealed his hostility to the deal with Skopje, which renames the tiny Balkan country Republic of North Macedonia.

Greece has a province called Macedonia and long demanded Skopje change its country name to remove what Athens considered to be an implied claim to Greek sovereign territory.

Macedonia’s aspirations to European Union and NATO ties had been blocked by Greece over the name dispute.

Kammenos said that any deal including “Macedonia” in the name of the Balkan state to Greece’s north was unacceptable as the name was irrevocably tied to Greek civilization and culture.

He called the accord a national sell-out and had repeatedly threatened to leave if it came before the Greek parliament for ratification – expected later this month.

The government hopes, however, that the pact will still pass with the support of center-left and independent lawmakers.

Macedonia’s parliament ratified the deal by passing an amendment to the constitution on Friday.

The two countries struck the deal on the new name in June last year, but Macedonia will start using it only after the parliament in Athens also approves the change.

(Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

After Monsanto patent ruling, Indian farmers hope for next-gen GM seeds

January 11, 2019

By Rajendra Jadhav and Mayank Bhardwaj

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Monsanto’s victory this week in a patent case in India regarding genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds has raised hopes among farmers that the company will now launch its next-generation seeds.

India approved Monsanto’s GM cotton seed trait in 2002 and an upgraded variety in 2006, helping transform the country into the world’s top producer and second-largest exporter of the fiber. But newer traits have not been available since the company withdrew an application in 2016 seeking approval for the latest variety due to a royalty dispute with the government and worries over patent claims. (https://reut.rs/2jbDq80)

Nevertheless, the new herbicide-tolerant variety seeped into Indian farms and many cotton growers openly sowed them last year, prompting a government investigation that is ongoing. Monsanto has said local seed companies have illegally attempted to “incorporate unauthorized and unapproved herbicide-tolerant technologies into their seeds”.

“We don’t understand legal issues but we want new technologies,” Shrikant Kale, a cotton grower in Yavatmal district in the western state of Maharashtra, said by phone. “If the court verdict helps seed companies in bringing new technology, then it would be good for us as well.”

Nearly a dozen other farmers in three Maharashtra districts said they planted the illegal cotton variety in June after buying seeds from the gray market, and that they would be happy to use it legally if Monsanto launched it.

“Illegal sales mean that there’s always a risk of buying spurious seeds and we buy such smuggled seeds as there is no alternative,” said Vijay Niwal, another cotton farmer in Maharashtra.

“We don’t mind paying a few hundred rupees more for seeds if they help us in saving thousands of rupees on managing weeds.”

India’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Monsanto can claim patents on its GM cotton seeds, after the company appealed an earlier ruling by the Delhi High Court that the world’s biggest seed maker could not claim such patents.

Monsanto owner Bayer <BAYGn.DE> welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision. It said in a statement to Reuters on Friday that it was confident of “defending any challenge to our patent by presenting solid scientific evidence”, and that the company would seek a ruling on “infringement of the patent” in India.

Asked about plans to launch new products in India, Bayer said: “Protection of intellectual property encourages innovation that is essential to providing India’s farmers with access to breakthrough technologies”.

But two industry sources aware of the company’s plans said that a dispute over royalties paid by local companies that license its technology remained a hurdle to seeking fresh approval to sell a new variety of cotton seeds. India’s agriculture ministry has twice slashed royalties in the past two years, apart from cutting cotton seed prices.

“The government could step in again to decide the rate of royalty, which could be really miniscule in comparison with the cost of developing a really good product,” said one of the sources, declining to be named as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

“Biotechnology research is very expensive and if the government arbitrarily fixes the rate for expensive, cutting-edge technologies then that becomes a major hurdle in launching new products.”

The agriculture ministry did not respond to an email seeking comment.

“SELF-RELIANCE” GROUP

The court ruling has been criticized by a nationalist group that has links to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and favors non-GM technologies and “India first” economic policies. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch, which loosely translates to National Forum for Self-Reliance, said the government needs to amend the country’s patent law to negate the court verdict.

Industry executives say several foreign agrichemical companies had to scale down projects, fire scientists, or pull applications to sell products in India because of government-mandated cuts in royalties and a lower court’s order in April that rejected Monsanto’s patent claim.

They said the Supreme Court verdict overturning the lower court order could set a precedent for any future patent dispute and encourage fresh investments in one of the world’s biggest farm markets, whose seed industry is worth around $3 billion a year.

“The entire biotechnology space has been liberated,” said Ram Kaundinya, director general of the Federation of Seed Industry of India that represents foreign and local seed companies including Monsanto and Syngenta <SYENF.PK>.

“There was uncertainty in this area for the last three to four years, which led to a reduction in investments. There are still some issues regarding price control but those are not as big as validity of patents.”

Many biotechnology companies working on corn and other GM crops will now push hard to get government approvals for their seeds, he said, declining to name the companies.

DowDuPont <DWDP.N>, which in August last year told the Indian government it was putting off trials needed for approval to sell a GM corn variety, did not respond to a call seeking comment.

A public relations firm for Syngenta directed Reuters to Kaundinya for comment.

But permitting GM food crops is a big call for India, which so far only allows genetically modified cotton seeds.

The country spends tens of billions of dollars in importing food, as dated technologies, poor yields, shrinking farms and unreliable weather patterns afflict the country of 1.3 billion people. But opponents of GM crops say they threaten the country’s biodiversity and are too expensive for Indian farmers.

Annual sales of GM cotton seeds is estimated at $500 million, and Monsanto-developed seeds now control 90 percent of India’s cotton acreage.

(Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj and Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Krishna N. Das/Raju Gopalakrishnan/Susan Fenton)

U.S. Navy ship sails in disputed South China Sea amid trade talks with Beijing

FILE PHOTO: Chinese ships are seen during a search and rescue exercise near Qilian Yu subgroup in the Paracel Islands, which is known in China as Xisha Islands, South China Sea

BEIJING (Reuters) – A U.S. guided-missile destroyer sailed near disputed islands in the South China Sea in what China called a “provocation” as U.S. officials joined talks in Beijing during a truce in a bitter trade war.

The USS McCampbell carried out a “freedom of navigation” operation, sailing within 12 nautical miles of the Paracel Island chain, “to challenge excessive maritime claims”, Pacific Fleet spokeswoman Rachel McMarr said in an emailed statement.

The operation was not about any one country or to make a political statement, McMarr said.

The statement came as trade talks between China and the United States were under way in Beijing, the first round of face-to-face discussions since both sides agreed to a 90-day truce in a trade war that has roiled international markets.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said that the conduct of the U.S. ship had violated China’s and international law, and China had lodged “stern representations”.

“We urge the United States to immediately cease this kind of provocation,” he said, adding that China had sent military ships and aircraft to identify and warn off the ship.

Asked about the timing of the operation during trade talks, Lu said resolving issues would benefit the two countries and the world.

“Both sides have the responsibility to create the necessary positive atmosphere for this,” he said.

China claims almost all of the strategic South China Sea and frequently lambastes the United States and its allies for freedom of navigation naval operations near Chinese-occupied islands.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan have competing claims in the region.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in December agreed to put on hold a spiraling trade dispute of tit-for-tat import tariffs on hundreds of billions worth of goods.

Trump has imposed tariffs to pressure Beijing to change its practices on issues ranging from corporate espionage to market access and industrial subsidies. China has retaliated with tariffs of its own.

Fears have grown in recent months that the dispute is just one vector in a bilateral relationship that is fast cooling across the board, with top administration officials sharply criticizing Beijing for everything from human rights abuses and its influence operations in the United States.

The two countries are also at odds over regional security, including Washington’s overtures to the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.

China and the United States have in the past repeatedly traded barbs over what Washington says is Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea by building military installations on artificial islands and reefs.

China defends its construction as necessary for self-defense and says that it is rather Washington that is responsible for ratcheting up tensions in the region by sending warships and military plans close to islands Beijing claims.

(Reporting by Philip Stewart in Washington and Christian Shepherd and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Beijing Trade Talks Conclude: China, US To Release “Message” Thursday

After the ‘mid-level’ talks between US and Chinese delegations in Beijing were extended for a third day on Wednesday, the negotiations have reportedly wrapped up, with both sides touting that they are “serious” about coming to an agreement, and that significant progress has been made, according to CNBC.

With the US delegation on its way back to Washington, China’s Foreign Ministry hinted that the talks had been a success and said it would soon release a statement on the outcome.

The Editor-in-Chief of China’s Global Times said that “though arduous” the trade talks were productive and that both sides were waiting for the US delegation to arrive back in Washington before delivering official statements on the outlook for a deal.

Meanwhile, US Under Secretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Ted McKinney told a group of reporter’s at the delegation’s hotel that he thought negotiations “went just fine.”

“It’s been a good one for us,” he said.

US markets climbed on Tuesday even as traders priced in a slightly more hawkish Fed as many apparently bought in to the narrative that both sides are doing everything in their power to come to an agreement (with equities moving higher after Bloomberg reported that Trump is desperate for a deal because he hopes it might send stocks back toward ATHs).

Trump

Though there were some reports that the two sides were further apart than some of the headlines let on.

However, people familiar with the talks told Reuters on Tuesday that the two sides were further apart on Chinese structural reforms that the Trump administration is demanding in order to stop alleged theft and forced transfer of U.S. technology, and on how Beijing will be held to its promises.

In another sign of confidence, China has approved another large order of US soybeans while also approving five GMO crops for import – its latest effort to boost imports from the US in accordance with one of Trump’s key demands.

In what is widely seen as a goodwill gesture, China on Tuesday issued long-awaited approvals for the import of five genetically modified crops, which could boost its purchases of U.S. grains as farmers decide which crops to plant in the spring.

On Monday, Chinese importers made another large purchase of U.S. soybeans, their third in the past month.

Trump and other White House officials have insisted that the US has leverage because of China’s rapidly cooling economic growth and the fact that its market dropped 25% last year (though Chinese stocks have slightly outperformed the US since the US imposed its first round of China-specific tariffs in July) . However, China has insisted that the trade strife harms both countries equally, and that it would not yield to any “unreasonable concessions.”

China is keen to put an end to its trade dispute with the United States but will not make any “unreasonable concessions” and any agreement must involve compromise on both sides, state newspaper the China Daily said on Wednesday.

The paper said in an editorial that Beijing’s stance remains firm that the dispute harms both countries and disrupts the international trade order and supply chains.

Setting the meeting off to an auspicious start, Liu He, China’s top economic official, dropped in and greeted the US trade delegation – led by Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish – on Monday. We now await confirmation that Liu and a delegation of more-senior officials will travel to Washington next week for the next round of talks.

The US and China have agreed to a “hard” deadline for an agreement of March 2.

US Navy Sends First Ship Into Black Sea Since Kerch Strait Incident

The US Navy has confirmed the dock-landing vessel USS Fort McHenry has entered the Black Sea at moment tensions with Russia remain high following the Kremlin’s seizure of three Ukrainian vessels in November in the Kerch Strait. This marks the first US vessel to enter the region since the Nov. 25th incident, which Russia said was an illegal and provocative violation of its territorial waters, and which as a result Ukraine has called on NATO powers, including the US and UK, to beef up its presence in the area to counter Russian aggression. 

The USS Fort McHenry, via Wikimedia Commons

Navy officials stated the Fort McHenry transited the Dardanelles Strait en route to the Black Sea on Sunday, according to Stars and Stripes military newspaper, while noting the operation is a “regularly scheduled Black Sea operation” — though also referencing the dispute between Russia and Ukraine as part of the statement. 

“We routinely operate in the Black Sea consistent with international law and the Montreux Convention and will continue to do so,” Cmdr. Kyle Raines, spokesman for the 6th Fleet, said. “We also continue our call for Ukraine and Russia to seek a diplomatic resolution to their dispute.”

While Russia has in recent years viewed any NATO-member vessel in the Black Sea, especially the United States, as an intrusion on its sphere of influence, the Fort McHenry is unlikely to provoke further hostilities as it possesses little offensive capability. Its weapons are commonly described as merely “defensive” in nature, including machine guns, small cannons, with its most significant being short-range anti-missile systems.

But Russia could be sensitive to what may be the West upping surveillance vessels dispatched to the region, given that days after the Kerch Strait incident, Britain sent the HMS Echo, a UK Royal Navy survey vessel and monitoring ship, to the Black Sea. At the time there were calls from top British commanders to send a much more powerful and capable Type 45 destroyer, or guided missile warship, to counter perceived Russian aggression toward Ukraine. 

Though at the end of November Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Russian military buildup in Crimea meant that Ukraine is “under threat of full-scale war with Russia” in an apparent effort to hype a coming conflict and attract the support of Western allies, calm has ensued with no further direct military confrontations. 

However, deployment of more offensive-capable US or British battleships would put Russian forces on high alert that a potential confrontation with the West in the Black Sea could be on the horizon, but it appears for now cooler minds are prevailing. 

We Are Change TV.US