Daily: 02/27/2019

UK’s Labor Party to Back Proposal for Public Brexit Vote 

Britain’s opposition Labor Party will put forward or support an amendment in favor of a public vote to prevent a damaging Brexit, the party’s Brexit spokesman said on Wednesday. 

British lawmakers voted 323-240 against a Labor proposal for a permanent customs union with the EU.

“Disappointed the government has rejected Labor’s alternative Brexit deal,” Labor Member of Parliament Keir Starmer said. “That’s why Labor will put forward or support an amendment in favor of a public vote to prevent a damaging Tory Brexit.”

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Fed to Stop Shrinking Portfolio This Year, Powell Says 

The Federal Reserve will stop shrinking its $4 trillion balance sheet later this year, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday, ending a process that investors say works at cross-purposes with the Fed’s current pause on interest rate hikes. 

“We’ve worked out, I think, the framework of a plan that we hope to be able to announce soon that will light the way all the way to the end of balance sheet normalization,” Powell told members of the House Financial Services Committee in what were his most detailed remarks to date on the subject. 

“We’re going to be in a position … to stop runoff later this year,” he said, adding that doing so would leave the balance sheet at about 16 percent or 17 percent of GDP, up from about 6 percent before the financial crisis about a decade ago. 

The U.S. gross domestic product is currently about $20 trillion, suggesting the Fed’s balance sheet would be between $3.2 trillion and $3.4 trillion. 

The Fed has been trimming its balance sheet — bulked up by trillions of dollars of bond-buying during the post-crisis years to help keep interest rates low and bolster the economy — by as much as $50 billion a month since October 2017. As recently as a few months ago it had expected to keep shrinking its portfolio for another couple of years. 

New tack

But in a series of meetings that began in November, the Fed has been devising a new approach. With rising demand for currency around the world, and from U.S. banks for reserves held at the central bank, Fed policymakers now believe a big balance sheet is necessary just to ensure it has proper control over the short-term interest rates it sets to manage the economy. 

In addition, Fed policymakers now say balance sheet policy should take financial and economic conditions into account. 

Questions about the plan remain, including whether the Fed will adjust the maturities of its Treasury portfolio, and how it will go about shedding the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) it accumulated during its asset-buying days. 

Powell said the Fed still has a bunch of decisions ahead of it. 

“The one on MBS sales is really closer to the back of the line — really, we have to decide about the maturity composition, things like that, and we’ll be working through that in a very careful way,” Powell said.  “Markets are sensitive to this.” 

Powell’s remarks on the balance sheet came toward the end of more than two hours of testimony before the Democrat-led House panel that includes several new members, including New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

But the Green New Deal advocate and Bronx populist asked no questions during the debate, and much of what Powell said on Wednesday repeated comments made Tuesday to the Republican-controlled Senate Banking Committee, including that the economy is on solid ground and the Fed would be patient on raising rates. 

Inflation goal unchanged

Powell was asked, as he was in the Senate, about the Fed’s plan to rethink its policy framework this year. He assured lawmakers that the Fed is merely trying to refine its approach so it can meet its current 2 percent inflation goal. 

“We are not looking at a higher inflation target, full stop,” he said. 

Powell also repeated his warnings against a failure by Congress to raise the debt ceiling, saying there would be “bad consequences” should the United States default on its debt payments. 

Powell by law appears two times a year before Congress to brief members of the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee on monetary policy and the state of the economy. 

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Кошториси ОВК, інструкції сисадмінам і зустріч з керівництвом ПА ОБСЄ – 27 лютого у ЦВК

У Центральній виборчій комісії України 27 лютого відбулася низка підготовчих заходів до проведення виборів президента 31 березня. Як йдеться у повідомленні на сайті ЦВК, у середу комісія зареєструвала кількох довірених осіб від кандидатів у президенти, затвердила єдині кошториси видатків окружних виборчих комісій на загальну суму понад 885 мільйонів гривень, внесла зміни до переліку звичайних та спеціальних виборчих дільниць.

Крім того, у відомстві відбувся інструктаж системних адміністраторів Інформаційно-аналітичної системи «Вибори президента України» всіх 199 окружних виборчих комісій.

27 лютого у ЦВК відбулася зустріч із керівництвом Парламентської Асамблеї ОБСЄ про виклики напередодні голосування.

«Неодноразово доводиться дізнаватися зі ЗМІ, що з Держреєстром виборців виникають певні проблеми. Проте чомусь ні журналісти, ні кандидати офіційно не звертаються до ЦВК з цього приводу», – повідомила делегації ОБСЄ голова ЦВК Тетяна Сліпачук.

Раніше сьогодні Служба безпеки України повідомила, що її фахівці запобігли масштабній кібератаці на комп’ютерне обладнання, яке забезпечує роботу офіційного сайту Центральної виборчої комісії. 

Вибори президента відбудуться 31 березня 2019 року. Центральна виборча комісія зареєструвала 44 претендентів на цю посаду.

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Помпео вказав на «незмінну позицію» США – Крим має бути під контролем України

Сполучені Штати підтверджують свою незмінну позицію, що Крим є українською територією і повинен повернутися під контроль України. Про це йдеться в заяві держсекретаря США Майка Помпео, опублікованій на сайті Держдепартаменту 27 лютого.

«П’ять років тому російська окупація Кримського півострова України викликала ескалацію російської агресії. Росія намагалася зруйнувати міжнародний порядок, підірвала основні людські свободи і послабила нашу загальну безпеку. Світ не забув цинічну брехню, яку Росія використала для виправдання своєї агресії і маскування спроб анексії української території», – йдеться в заяві.

За словами держсекретаря США, авторитетні держави не повинні проявляти толерантність при «застосуванні Росією сили проти мирного сусіда».

Крім того, у заяві йдеться, що Сполучені Штати, як і раніше, серйозно стурбовані посиленням репресій «російським окупаційним режимом» у Криму.

У березні 2014 року Росія окупувала та анексувала український півострів Крим. Верховна Рада України офіційно оголосила 20 лютого 2014 року початком тимчасової окупації Криму і Севастополя Росією. 7 жовтня 2015 року президент України Петро Порошенко підписав закон про це.

Міжнародні організації визнали окупацію і анексію Криму незаконними і засудили дії Росії. Країни Заходу запровадили низку економічних санкцій проти Москви. Росія заперечує окупацію півострова і називає це «відновленням історичної справедливості».

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Meet Elon Tusk: Tesla Chief Changes Twitter Display Name

Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk changed his Twitter display name to “Elon Tusk” in another late-night flurry of tweets on Wednesday, which also promised news from his electric carmaker Tesla Inc later this week.

In a series of tweets to his 25 million followers following charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week, Musk accused the regulator of failing to read Tesla’s annual reports and said its oversight was “broken”.

On Wednesday, he changed his display name and added an elephant tag.

Social media platforms have featured a number of memes involving wordplay around Musk’s name this week.

He also promised Tesla would have “news” at 2 p.m. California time on Thursday. The company, deep in debt as it ramps up production of its popular Model 3 sedan, is due to repay a $920 million convertible bond a day later.

Musk had promised last year to have his public statements vetted by the company’s board, as part of a settlement with the SEC that headed off demands for him to resign as Tesla CEO.

Tesla did not immediately respond to request for comment.

 

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Volvo’s Polestar Unveils Electric Car Touted as Tesla Rival

Volvo’s electric performance brand Polestar is unveiling a battery-powered compact car touted as a rival to Tesla’s Model 3.

The Polestar 2 is a five-door vehicle with a panoramic glass roof, an all-vegan interior and a battery with enough capacity to drive 500 kilometers under European tests for range measurement, or 275 miles under U.S. testing rules.

With 408 horsepower, it should accelerate from zero to 100 kph (0-62 mph) in under five seconds. Polestar said Wednesday that the car’s U.S. price for the launch version will be $55,500 after tax incentives; later a lower-priced version with less range is envisioned.

The car, to be shown at next month’s Geneva auto show, becomes available in 2020.

Volvo Car Group, headquartered in Goteborg, Sweden, is a subsidiary of Chinese automaker Geely.

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Key Comments from Trump’s Ex-Attorney Testimony

Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former long-time personal attorney, is testifying Wednesday before a congressional panel about his dealings with Trump through the years, during the 2016 presidential campaign and in the first months of his presidency two years ago.

His testimony is occurring about two months before he is set to begin a three-year prison term for financial crimes, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.

Trump, in Vietnam for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un, assailed Cohen on Twitter, saying he “was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He did bad things unrelated to Trump. He is lying in order to reduce his prison time.”

Here are some of Cohen’s comments from his prepared statement at the opening of the hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform:

“Never in a million years did I imagine, when I accepted a job in 2007 to work for Donald Trump, that he would one day run for president, launch a campaign on a platform of hate and intolerance, and actually win. I regret the day I said ‘yes’ to Mr. Trump.  I regret all the help and support I gave him along the way.”

“I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist.  He is a conman.  He is a cheat.”

Cohen said he was providing the congressional panel with several pieces of evidence to support his account. Cohen described one of them as “a copy of a ($35,000) check Mr. Trump wrote from his personal bank account   after he became president –  to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign.”

He also submitted “a copy of an article with Mr. Trump’s handwriting on it that reported on the auction of a portrait of himself he arranged for the bidder ahead of time and then reimbursed the bidder from the account of his non-profit charitable foundation, with the picture now hanging in one of his country clubs.”

Cohen admitted lying to Congress in previous testimony, saying, “I lied to Congress about when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia. I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016.  That was false   our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign.”

“In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.”

“To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.”

“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation  only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the ‘greatest infomercial in political history.’ He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign for him was always a marketing opportunity.”

“A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time. The answer is yes. Mr. Trump knew from (political adviser) Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails.  In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone.  Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone.  Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with (WikiLeaks founder) Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.'”

“Mr. Trump is a racist. The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries ‘shitholes.’ In private, he is even worse. He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole.’ This was when Barack Obama was president of the United States. While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way. And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”

“Mr. Trump is a cheat. It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.”

“Mr. Trump is a conman. He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife (first lady Melania Trump) about it, which I did. Lying to the first lady is one of my biggest regrets. She is a kind, good person. I respect her greatly   and she did not deserve that.”

Trump claimed a bone spur in his foot to avoid serving during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, but Cohen said, “When I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery. He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment. He finished the conversation with the following comment. ‘You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.”

“I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now.

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Could Kim Jong Un Survive Prosperity

President Donald Trump’s message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been simple and clear: give up your nuclear weapons and a flood of wealth will soon be yours for the taking.

But here’s a nagging question: Is that really what Kim wants?

With Trump and Kim descending on Hanoi for their second summit , there has been a persistent suggestion that Kim will look around at the relative prosperity of his Vietnamese hosts — who are certainly no strangers to U.S. hostility — and think that he, too, should open up his country to more foreign investment and trade.

Trump himself has been the primary cheerleader.

On Wednesday morning he tweeted: “Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize. The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un. We will know fairly soon – Very Interesting!”

For sure, North Korea could have a brighter future.

“Using the words ‘great economic power’ is a Trumpian exaggeration, but a useful one,” said William Brown, a North Korea economy expert and former CIA analyst. “The truth is North Korea quite easily could become a prosperous country, growing faster than any of its neighbors and catching up with them in terms of income per capita. It has what it takes.”

Brown cited North Korea’s strong human capital, low wages and high levels of verbal and math literacy. He also noted it has a potential bonanza of natural resources such as lead, zinc, rare earths, coal, iron ore and hydropower. He agreed with Trump about location — saying North Korea sits “between four big economies that are far richer but increasingly moribund.”

But girding against a foreign threat is a time-tested justification for giving a leader extraordinary powers and limiting individual freedoms, like travel and expression. Opening up to foreign capital and bringing his country in line with international financial standards means giving up a great deal of control.

Control, for Kim, is the most important commodity of all.

While his country is far more dynamic than many outside observers realize, opening up in the pursuit of wealth is for Kim an extremely dangerous proposition. It seems clear he wants to revitalize the economy, but it is anything but apparent he’s ready or even interested in opening up any more than he needs to in order to achieve that narrow goal.

As Kim arrived in Hanoi, back in Pyongyang the ruling party’s daily newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, printed a commentary vowing the nation will stay the course the Kim family has set for the past three generations.

“The revolutionary cause of juche (self-reliance) and the cause of socialism are sure to triumph” under the guidance of the party and the people “who remain faithful to the cause of the party with indomitable mental power,” it said.

Kim’s primary objectives have focused on the development of infrastructure projects, building up the tourism industry and strengthening government regulation of the country’s expanding market-style economy.

“The statements from Trump at North Korea as the next economic powerhouse seem to assume that were the nuclear weapons out of the picture, North Korea would immediately open its doors and society to anyone wanting to come in and invest,” said Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein, a fellow at the Henry L. Stimson Center and editor of North Korea Economy Watch. “But the regime will want to maintain the main facets of social control.”

Silberstein said the government isn’t likely to let foreign businesspeople roam freely around the country anytime soon. He added that Kim has focused on promoting special economic zones because they have the potential for high growth while remaining isolated “walled gardens.”

In the immediate future, Kim’s goals are pragmatic.

He is seeking to get in front of the grassroots market forces that are growing all around him and undercut support for trade sanctions that are limiting his options and drying up government coffers.

His government is especially interested in moving ahead on projects with South Korea, including the re-opening of a tourist resort at Mount Kumgang and an industrial center near the city of Kaesong that were both built with massive funding from the South. North Korea is also hurting badly from its inability to export its minerals and coal.

Having nuclear weapons is what got him to the point where he could meet directly with a U.S. president. So he would be foolish to throw that away without a significant reward. On the other hand, if he goes deep down the capitalist path, like South Korea, Kim could risk undermining his regime’s own legitimacy.

The story of Vietnam, north and south, is in that sense a cautionary tale. The economic reforms and growth of today’s Vietnam only came after unification. For North Korea, the South represents a rival that not only still exists, but is richer and its people are allowed far greater individual freedoms.

Silberstein believes that is not an insurmountable fear for Kim.

“Market reforms are already happening and have been for quite some time, it’s just that Kim Jong Un never formally announced an overhaul of the system,” he said, adding that under Kim, market trade has been allowed to expand, and has even been encouraged by the state to do so. Enterprises have received unprecedented freedom to plan their own production and dispose of a large share of their profits themselves.

“The same has happened in agriculture, and from what we know, the results have been successful,” he said. “I strongly believe that Kim wants to take this process of liberalization further, though it will likely never be called ‘reforms,’ only ‘improvements.’”

“The tricky part is how to balance letting loose on some of the strict social control, such as opening up space for private investments both from abroad and from the general public, changing the governance of private property, massively upgrading communications infrastructure and the like, with still keeping information about the outside world away or at least regulated.”

Silberstein suggested that if given a choice between social controls or economic reforms, Kim will choose control.

“Whatever might happen, they’ll proceed cautiously,” he said.

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Конгрес США опублікував законопроект про нові санкції проти Росії

Нова пропозиція сенаторів про санкції більш жорстка, ніж минулорічна – експерти

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Трамп про свого екс-адвоката: він бреше, щоб зменшити собі термін ув’язнення

Президент США Дональд Трамп розкритикував намір свого колишнього адвоката Майкла Коена виступити зі звинуваченнями на його адресу в Конгресі.

«Він робив погані речі безвідносно до Трампа. Він бреше, щоб зменшити собі термін ув’язнення», – написав Трамп у Twitter.

Раніше західні ЗМІ, цитуючи текст свідчень Коена, повідомили, що колишній адвокат президента США на свідченнях у комітеті в Палаті представників планує заявити, що Дональд Трамп заздалегідь знав про витік електронного листування, який зашкодить його суперниці на виборах Гілларі Клінтон.

У витягах зі свідчень, які Коен має виголосити на засіданні комітету в Палаті представників, також вказано, що екс-адвокат вважає Трампа «расистом», «аферистом» і «шахраєм». Він також обіцяє надати документи на підтвердження своїх слів.

У січні колишній адвокат президента США Майкл Коен визнав, що платив за фальсифікацію онлайн-опитувань на користь Дональда Трампа в 2014 і 2015 роках.

У грудні 2018 року Коена засудили до трьох років в’язниці. Його визнали винним в ухиленні від сплати податків, порушенні закону про фінансування виборчої кампанії і наданні неправдивої інформації Конгресу.

Трамп раніше неодноразово називав Коена людиною, яка не заслуговує на довіру.

 

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Boeing Unveils Unmanned Combat Jet Developed in Australia

Boeing on Wednesday unveiled an unmanned, fighter-like jet developed in Australia and designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft in combat for a fraction of the cost.

The U.S. manufacturer hopes to sell the multi-role aircraft, which is 38 feet long (11.6 meters) and has a 2,000 nautical mile (3,704-kilometer) range, to customers around the world, modifying it as requested.

It is Australia’s first domestically developed combat aircraft in decades and Boeing’s biggest investment in unmanned systems outside the United States, although the company declined to specify the dollar amount.

Defense contractors are investing increasingly in autonomous technology as militaries around the world look for a cheaper and safer way to maximize their resources.

Boeing rivals like Lockheed Martin and Kratos Defense and Security Solutions are also investing in such aircraft.

Four to six of the new aircraft, called the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, can fly alongside a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, said Shane Arnott, director of Boeing research and prototype arm Phantom Works International.

“To bring that extra component and the advantage of unmanned capability, you can accept a higher level of risk,” he said.

The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in the United States said last year that the U.S. Air Force should explore pairing crewed and uncrewed aircraft to expand its fleet and complement a limited number of “exquisite, expensive, but highly potent fifth-generation aircraft” like the F-35.

“Human performance factors are a major driver behind current aerial combat practices,” the policy paper said. “Humans can only pull a certain number of Gs, fly for a certain number of hours, or process a certain amount of information at a given time.”

In addition to performing like a fighter jet, other roles for the Boeing system early warning, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance alongside aircraft like the P-8 Poseidon and E-7 Wedgetail, said Kristin Robertson, vice president and general manager of Boeing Autonomous Systems.

​”It is operationally very flexible, modular, multi-mission,” she said. “It is a very disruptive price point. Fighter-like capability at a fraction of the cost.”

Robertson declined to comment on the cost, saying that it would depend on the configuration chosen by individual customers.

The jet is powered by a derivative of a commercially available engine, uses standard runways for take-off and landing, and can be modified for carrier operations at sea, Robertson said. She declined to specify whether it could reach supersonic speeds, common for modern fighter aircraft.

Its first flight is expected in 2020, with Boeing and the Australian government producing a concept demonstrator to pave the way for full production.

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, is home to Boeing’s largest footprint outside the United States and has vast airspace with relatively low traffic for flight testing. 

The Boeing Airpower Teaming System will be manufactured in

Australia, but production lines could be set up in other countries depending on sales, Arnott said.

The United States, which has the world’s biggest military budget, would be among the natural customers for the product.

The U.S. Air Force 2030 project foresees the Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter working together with stealthy combat drones, called the “Loyal Wingman” concept, said Derrick Maple, principal analyst for unmanned systems at IHS Markit.

“The U.S. has more specific plans for the wingman concept, but Western Europe will likely develop their requirements in parallel, to abate the capabilities of China and the Russian Federation and other potential threats,” he said.

Robertson declined to name potential customers and would not comment on potential stealth properties, but said the aircraft had the potential to sell globally.

“We didn’t design this as a point solution but a very flexible solution that we could outfit with payloads, sensors, different mission sets to complement whatever their fleet is,” she said. “Don’t think of it as a specific product that is tailored to do only one mission.”

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Russia’s Ex-Cybersecurity Chief Gets 22-year Sentence in Jail

A Russian military court convicted a former senior counterintelligence officer and a cybersecurity firm executive of treason Tuesday, concluding a case that initially aroused speculation of a manufactured effort to punish the source of leaks about Russian campaign hacking.

 

Moscow’s District Military Court heard several months of evidence and arguments behind closed doors before it found Col. Sergei Mikhailov, an ex-officer at Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and Kaspersky Lab executive Ruslan Stoyanov guilty.

 

The basis for the charges remains murky given the top-secret nature of the criminal proceedings. Russian media have reported the case centers on accusations that Mikhailov contacted Stoyanov to pass information from an FSB probe of a Russian businessmen Pavel Vrublevsky to an analyst with alleged ties to the FBI.

 

Mikhailov, the deputy head of cyber intelligence at the domestic security agency, also known as FSB, received a 22-year prison sentence and was stripped of his military rank and decorations, which included the elite “For Services to the Fatherland.”

 

The court gave Stoyanov 14 years. The two men listened to the verdicts and sentences from a glass cage inside the courtroom, flanked by masked men.

 

After the pair were arrested and charged in December 2016, the timing led some people to suggest the actions were linked to the 2016 U.S. presidential election and a possible mole who tipped off U.S. intelligence agencies about Russian interference.

 

Later news reports said Mikhailov was prosecuted for passing on details about an unrelated case to an American cybercrime analyst.

 

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the Russian security services and co-author of “Red Web” told The Associated Press on Tuesday he still thinks the criminal case against Mikhailov and Stoyanov was a direct response to U.S. officials investigating election-related hacking.

 

“Their arrest… was a direct follow-up to the outcry in the U.S. over the Russian meddling,” Soldatov said. “Mikhailov was the top FSB officer in charge of maintaining contacts with Western security agencies in the cyber-sphere, something that went out of fashion after the last scandal.”

 

Inga Lebedeva, Stoyanov’s defense lawyer, said secrecy rules prevented her from providing details about the trial. But Lebedeva said after the verdicts were given that allegations involving potential meddling in the U.S. elections did not come up.

 

She alleged the charges were trumped up to appease the Russian businessman Mikhailov was accused of passing on information about, Pavel Vrublevsky.

 

“The case has been concocted at Vrublevsky’s orders” Lebedeva alleged.

 

Vrublevsky, who testified during the long trial, rejected her accusation. It was not the content of the information Mikhailov allegedly passed on to the American analyst that constituted treason, but that he shared information about an active FSB investigation with a foreign citizen.

 

The businessman alleged Mikhailov abused his position at the FSB to go after internet entrepreneurs like him and “turn them into cybercriminals,” thus “whipping up cyber-hysteria around the world.”

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EPA Defends Enforcement Record, Despite Drop in Penalties

The Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement chief on Tuesday defended the Trump administration’s work, despite a report by her own agency showing that civil and criminal crackdowns on polluters have dropped sharply in the past two years.

Assistant administrator Susan Bodine, who heads the office of enforcement, said the idea that EPA is soft on enforcement is “absolutely not true,” adding that the agency is giving states a greater role in regulation and enforcement and stressing education and voluntary compliance by companies.

Bodine told a House subcommittee that a media “narrative” about lax enforcement “discredits the tremendous work of the compliance and assurance staff” at EPA.

“A strong environment program doesn’t mean we have to collect a particular dollar amount or pick up a number of penalties,” Bodine said.

But Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said EPA’s own statistics show an agency that’s “sitting on its hands” and “giving polluters a free pass. And it’s putting our health and environment at risk.”

When EPA enforcement activities go down, “pollution goes up. That’s a fact,” said DeGette, who chairs an Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

The EPA has been one of the most active agencies in carrying out President Donald Trump’s deregulatory goals. Environmental and public health groups say the business-friendly rollbacks place public health and the environment at greater risk, a claim Democrats repeatedly made at Tuesday’s hearing.

The hearing was the first oversight hearing on EPA since Democrats reclaimed the House majority last month.

Congress has enacted a series of laws to protect health and the environment, “and this panel will not sit back and allow this administration to simply ignore those laws,” DeGette said. “We expect the EPA to do its job.”

Historically low levels

The latest numbers from EPA show its overall enforcement activities for 2018 were at historically low levels, according to an agency report earlier this month.

The EPA assessed polluters a total of $69 million in civil penalties in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the lowest dollar amount since EPA created the enforcement office in 1994, the report showed.

Inspections and evaluations dropped to about 10,600, half the number EPA conducted at its peak in 2010.

Civil investigations carried out by the agency declined to 22 last year, down from 40 in 2017 and 125 in 2016, the last year of the Obama administration.

Criminal fines and restitution tumbled, from $207 million in 2016 and $3 billion in 2017, which includes a $2.8 billion fine against Volkswagen over emissions-rigging in a case initiated under the Obama administration — to $86 million last year.

Rep. Frank Pallone, who chairs the full energy panel, told Bodine there was “no way to sugarcoat these numbers.”

Pallone, D-N.J., said it appears that under Trump, the EPA “is relying on industry to voluntarily come forward and disclose when they are not in compliance” with federal laws.

Pallone scoffed at that idea and said EPA must have a robust enforcement presence, with active inspections and investigations and, where appropriate, referrals to the Justice Department.

Pallone and other Democrats questioned Bodine about reports that EPA has lost 17 percent of its enforcement staff since 2017. Bodine disputed that, saying the agency has 607 enforcement employees of 649 authorized by Congress. More inspectors are being hired, including eight in March, she said.

‘Carrot and stick’ approach

Bodine challenged Democrats’ contention that higher penalties lead to improved compliance.

“Enforcement is a critical tool but it’s not an end to itself,” she said, adding that EPA uses a “carrot and stick” approach that ranges from helping companies better understand their obligations to supporting state enforcement actions “all the way to putting people in jail for knowing and egregious violations that endanger public health or the environment.”

Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., said Bodine appeared to be making excuses.

“I think it’s fairly clear EPA is not doing its job as it should,” said Castor, who chairs a special House committee on climate change.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Bodine replied.

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Cameroon Cracks Down on Illegal Fuel Trade

Cameroonian police officers, assisted by members of the country’s elite corps, seized hundreds of containers of fuel illegally transported from Nigeria by suspected Central African Republic rebels in the northern town of Mbe, Cameroon.

Rigobert Ojong, a member of a task force of military, police and civil society members created three weeks ago to stop the illegal fuel trade, said the group received a tip that the fuel was on its way to the C.A.R., where it would be used by rebels fighting the central African state’s government. 

“We have put aside personnel dedicated to this fight, within the framework of this task force, and we have been able to intercept about 1,500 drums of fraudulently imported fuel. If we go by the price in the black market, we are talking about more than 3 billion CFA francs [$5 million] a year,” Ojong said.

Cameroon’s government says an unknown quantity of oil is smuggled from Nigeria through its territory because the border is so porous. The military says it has opened an investigation to track dealers who might be collaborating with rebel groups in the C.A.R.

Alleged corruption

Businessman Patrice Essola, who supplies fuel to the C.A.R. from Cameroon, says illegal trade with C.A.R. rebels is facilitated by corrupt government officials in both countries.

He said the rebels and traffickers work in collaboration with corrupt Cameroonian military officials and C.A.R. border immigration staff to import the fuel from Nigeria. Some of the tankers and trucks that smuggle the fuel are even protected by corrupt officials while in Cameroon and in the C.A.R., Essola added.

Kildadi Taguieke Boukar, governor of the Adamawa region that shares a border with the C.A.R., denies corrupt military officials assist rebels and smugglers, but said investigations had been opened.

Each time the traffickers are arrested, they answer charges in courts of law, Boukar said, but added the task is very, very difficult because Cameroon’s borders with Nigeria and the C.A.R. are very porous. All of the fuel will be taken to C.A.R. authorities, he said.

C.A.R. violence, peace deal

In January, Cameroon said 300 of its citizens had been abducted by suspected C.A.R. rebels within the past two years, along with at least 5,000 cattle. Local border communities asked the government to authorize self-defense groups to be equipped with guns to face rebels who they said continued to cross to their villages for supplies.

The C.A.R. was plunged into turmoil in 2013 when Muslim rebels known as the Seleka seized power in the majority-Christian country. A band of mostly Christian militias, called the anti-Balaka, rose up to counter the Seleka. Thousands of people have been killed in the violence and more than one million are internally displaced. An estimated 570,000 people have fled to neighboring countries, with about 350,000 in Cameroon.

On Feb. 2, the U.N. mission in the C.A.R., known as MINUSCA, and the African Union announced that a peace deal between the C.A.R. government and 14 rebel groups had been reached after sponsored talks in Sudan. They called on the C.A.R.’s neighbors to help bring peace by not allowing their borders to be used for supplies or as a hiding ground for fighters who refuse to respect the deal.

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Boeing Nominates Former UN Ambassador Haley to Join its Board

U.S. aerospace manufacturer Boeing said on Tuesday it has nominated Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a close ally of President Donald Trump, to join its board of directors at the company’s annual shareholders meeting on April 29.

If elected by Boeing shareholders, she would help guide the future of America’s largest exporter, with a network of suppliers across the United States and the world, as Washington and Beijing have been locked in intense negotiations to end a trade war.

Haley’s nomination comes as Boeing grapples with a major decision: whether to launch an all-new jetliner known as NMA, a midsize plane that would serve a niche market falling between narrow- and wide-body aircraft.

The world’s largest planemaker has said it would make a final launch decision in 2020 on the new program, which is expected to define competition with archrival Airbus SE.

Viewed as a rising Republican Party star, Haley has often been mentioned as a future presidential candidate. Her counterparts at the United Nations saw her as a voice of clarity in the Trump administration.

Haley, 47, is the first female governor of South Carolina and a three-term legislator in the South Carolina House of Representatives. As governor in 2015, Haley was a key opponent of a campaign by Boeing’s largest labor union to form a collective bargaining unit at its 787 Dreamliner factory in South Carolina – though the machinists were later successful in forming a small bargaining unit there.

Boeing has faced growing scrutiny over its links to the Trump administration after a former senior planemaking executive, Pat Shanahan, was named deputy defense secretary and later acting defense secretary. The 31-year Boeing veteran has recused himself, however, from matters relating to the aerospace company.

The U.S. government has been weighing the purchase of an advanced version of the F-15 Boeing fighter. Last year, Boeing’s defense side had a series of wins, including the U.S. Air Force’s next training jet, which could be worth up to $9.2 billion, as well as a contract to replace UH-1N Huey helicopters worth $2.4 billion over the life of the programs.

In a press release, Muilenburg praised Haley’s record in government and industry partnership.

“Boeing will benefit greatly from her broad perspectives and combined diplomatic, government and business experience to help achieve our aspiration to be the best in aerospace and a global industrial champion,” Muilenburg said.

Based on total compensation for Boeing’s other 13 board members, Haley can expect to earn more than $300,000, well above her salary as U.N. ambassador.

Separately on Tuesday, the shareholders of Brazilian planemaker Embraer SA approved a deal to sell 80 percent of the Sao Paulo-based company’s commercial jet division to Boeing, a move that could reshape the global market for aircraft of up to 150 seats.

Boeing shares were flat at $427.88 a share in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Poll: Brazilians Split on Pension Reform, But Back Bolsonaro 

Brazilians are split on a proposed overhaul of the country’s pension system, a poll showed on Tuesday, while most said they approve of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s performance.

In one of the first major surveys since Bolsonaro’s Jan. 1 inauguration, 45.6 percent of respondents said they disapprove of the proposed pension reform, while 43.4 percent said they approve. The rest said they did not know or did not respond.

It was the first time a poll, conducted by the MDA institute and commissioned by the CNT transportation lobby, directly asked respondents if they approved of pension reform.

Other polls in the past year have shown large swings in voter opinion on pension reform, from over two-thirds against to figures in line with the MDA survey.

Bolsonaro’s proposal to address a widening pension deficit by raising taxes, delaying retirements and creating individual savings accounts is the cornerstone of his economic agenda.

Last week, the president delivered his proposal to Congress, aiming to save over 1 trillion reais ($266 billion) in the next decade. Most economists agree the system must be overhauled to shore up public finances and foster growth.

On Bolsonaro’s popularity, 57.5 percent approved of his performance, while 28.2 percent disapproved and 14.3 percent did not offer an opinion.

In the survey, 38.9 percent said Bolsonaro’s government was “good” or “excellent,” 29 percent said it was “regular” and 19 percent said it was “bad” or “terrible.”

MDA surveyed 2,002 Brazilians between Feb. 21 and 23. The poll has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.

 

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Mobile World Congress Overshadowed by Huawei 5G Spying Standoff

Robots, cars, drones and virtual-reality gaming sets connected by cutting-edge 5G networks are among the thousands of futuristic gadgets on display at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

While there is much excitement over how 5G will transform our everyday lives, the conference is overshadowed by the standoff between the United States and Beijing over the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, which the U.S. says could be used by the Chinese government for espionage.

Some U.S. cities and parts of Asia are already operating 5G mobile networks. They offer speeds of over a gigabyte per second and low latency — in other words, practically instant connections with no delay.

Experts say that opens up whole new fields of connectivity, from new generations of virtual reality gaming and communication, to remote robotic surgery.

The technology promises to transform not only the mobile phone in your pocket — but also the world around us, says Paul Triolo of the Eurasia Group, who spoke to VOA from the conference.

“The really key aspects of 5G, like some of the low latency communications and massive sensor, massive machine-to-machine communications, that’s more about industry and industrial uses. And that gets into thing like critical infrastructure so you’re going to have a lot more non-personal or industrial data flying around and that really has people concerned. For example, military forces in countries like the U.S. will also leverage large parts of the commercial network,” said Triolo.Chinese firm Huawei is a big presence at the Mobile World Congress and a big player in 5G network technology.

Washington has banned the company from 5G rollout in the United States, citing Chinese legislation requiring companies to cooperate with the state — raising fears Huawei 5G networks overseas could be used as a ‘Trojan horse’ to spy on rivals.

Attending the Mobile World Congress Tuesday, the U.S. State Department’s Deputy Secretary for Cyber Policy Robert L. Strayer urged allies to do the same.

“We will continue to engage with these governments and the regulators in these countries to educate them about what we know and keep sharing the best practices for how we can all successfully move to next generation of technology. I´ll just say there are plenty of options in the West,” Strayer told reporters.

Huawei’s management has said the company would never use ‘back doors’ for espionage — and the Chinese government has dismissed the accusations.

Australia, New Zealand and Japan have followed Washington’s lead and restricted Huawei’s involvement in 5G. Europe remains undecided — but the industry needs clarity, said analyst Paul Triolo.

“The European community in particular and also the U.S. have to clarify what these policies mean, what a ban would mean or what some kind of a partial ban would mean, if there’s really a middle ground that can be found here.”

Vodafone’s CEO Nick Read told the Barcelona conference that banning Huawei could set Europe’s 5G rollout back another two years.

The eye-catching gadgets show the potential that 5G networks are about to unleash. But the question of who controls those networks, and the data they carry, looms large over this futuristic world.

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