The Chinese government has banned firms that handle critical information from buying microchips made by US-based Micron Technology, on the grounds that its chips pose "relatively serious cybersecurity problems". The move was described as a response to the Biden administration's harsh steps to block Chinese chip makers' access to tools needed to make advanced chips and run powerful artificial intelligence algorithms. Analysts warned the US company could now be cut from future business from Chinese companies.
Bryan Kohberger, a criminology PhD student accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in November 2022, will appear in court on Monday for his arraignment. Kohberger is expected to enter a plea on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary. Following a six-week investigation, Kohberger was arrested on 30 December after his DNA was found on a knife sheath left behind at the crime scene. A white Hyundai Elantra, matching his, was also captured on surveillance footage driving away from the area at the time of the murders.
In a recent report released by NBC Dateline, Kohberger was believed to have broken into the home of a female student and then installed security cameras to spy on her in the weeks before he allegedly killed the four students. Kohberger had allegedly befriended the woman after moving to Pullman, Washington State, to begin a graduate program in criminal justice at Washington State University. He installed a video security system inside her home to allow him to spy on her, as he knew her wifi password and was able to tap into the cameras. NBC Dateline also reported that Kohberger’s sister feared he was involved in the students’ murders because of reasons including his behaviour and the fact that she saw spots of blood on his clothing.
Kohberger became a suspect in the case after six weeks of near-silence from law enforcement in Idaho and Pennsylvania. Law enforcement executed a search warrant at Kohberger’s apartment, where they seized various items, including cell phone records and a disposable glove, stained with blood, according to sources.
Meta hit with record fine by Irish regulator over U.S. data transfers
CBC
23-05-22 12:59
Facebook parent company Meta has been hit with a €1.2bn ($1.75bn) fine by the Irish data protection watchdog over its transfer of user data to the US and given five months to cease these transfers. The fine, which follows the company's breaching of a 2020 EU ruling on data transfer, is the largest European privacy penalty seen, and surpasses Amazon's previous record €746m fine. Facebook, which could be prevented from operating in Europe if it fails to cease data transfers, reiterated its desire to form a new agreement between the US and the EU before the five-month deadline is up.
Ukrainians are determined to continue to fight against Russian aggression, with the belief that they can prevail against heavy odds. After spending time in Kyiv with a delegation from the Renew Democracy Initiative, a pro-democracy group founded by former chess champion Garry Kasparov, the writer concluded that the Ukrainians’ determination is laudable and sensible. Despite being a city affected by constant Russian air attacks, Kyiv does not feel like a city under siege with its traffic jams and crowded bars and restaurants reminiscent of a bustling, vibrant metropolis. While there have been continuous Russian attempts to destroy electrical and heating infrastructure to create unlivable Ukrainian cities, Ukrainian resistance persists, with Russian attacks only making Ukrainians more determined to resist their onslaught. The United States and its allies should provide the necessary equipment, such as F-16s and longer-range missiles to enable Ukrainian battlefield success, rather than allowing for premature negotiations that might prolong, rather than end, the conflict.
Ford has signed supply agreements with top lithium producers Albemarle and SQM, along with three smaller developers, as it seeks to shrink what it sees as a $7bn cost gap with rivals. The companies will provide Ford with the silvery-white metal needed for electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Other auto manufacturers have sought to secure their own supplies of lithium and other EV metals, including General Motors, which has made a $650m investment in miner Lithium Americas and a $200m payment to Livent to lock in metal supplies.
The G7 summit held in Japan over the weekend took a unified approach on China's "economic coercion" and reaffirmed commitment to countering Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine. The G7 agreement marks a step forward in providing a coordinated framework to "de-risk" economic relations with China, rather than "decoupling", echoing the calls of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. With the G20 summit set to take place in New Delhi later this year, economic ties between developing countries and China and Russia remains a major issue.
Beijing has reportedly launched punitive action against American chipmaker Micron over concerns regarding its products’ network security, thus denting the tech giant’s revenues by a “single-digit percentage”. This retaliation is most likely in response to the extensive chip export controls introduced by Washington last October. Foreign policy experts suggest that the use of tough rhetoric against China may hurt the possibility of cooperation with the west. The US successfully persuaded European countries to take a harder line over China, and an early test will come this week when China’s commerce minister Wang Wentao becomes the first senior official to visit Washington since 2020. Thus, global efforts are being made to build alternative chip supply chains that have the impetus of worsening relations between China and Taiwan, the country that produces more than 60% of the world’s chips and 90% of the most advanced. As the tech battle between the US and China continues, another Big Read suggests the AI revolution is transforming education, forcing schools and universities to restructure how they teach and test students.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies has examined the path that the US will take in the growing clean hydrogen industry. The US government is currently in the early stages of its clean hydrogen development strategy and is already facing a critical decision juncture. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) introduced the 45V Hydrogen Production Tax Credit, which awards up to $3 per kg of hydrogen produced to projects with a lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions intensity of less than 0.45 kilograms per kilogram of hydrogen. Upcoming Treasury Department guidance will determine how emissions intensity of electrolysis-based hydrogen is calculated. Climate goals depend on clean hydrogen to eliminate the sector’s 100 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year.
A coalition of academics, energy companies, and environmental organisations have presented a case for the strict implementation of the clean hydrogen tax credit, arguing that weak guidelines would lead to an increase in net emissions and result in the subsidisation of hydrogen with higher emissions intensity than current unabated natural gas-derived production methods. Deliverability would require electrolyzers to source clean electricity from within their same operating region. This limits the extent to which grid congestion might curtail the clean generation resource and drive a ramp up of a local fossil fuel resource to meet the electrolyzer demand. Lastly, hourly time-matching requires electrolyzers’ electric consumption to match clean energy production down to the hour.
Set against the international perspective, there is again a strong case for a phased-in tightening of standards. It has become increasingly clear that the short-term priority is to ramp up electrolyzer deployment in order to move down the electrolytic hydrogen cost curve. The long-term and ultimate priority is ensuring that hydrogen is truly clean via hourly matching of hydrogen production with clean electricity resources from the same market. If electrolytic hydrogen does not scale, the effectiveness of hydrogen as a decarbonisation pathway will be stifled, delaying emissions reduction for harder to abate industrial sectors.
Former South Carolina Governor and US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has launched her campaign for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race. Haley has served as a governor, ambassador, and member of Congress in her term of public office. She is the first Indian American woman governor in the United States and the first Indian American to serve in a US presidential Cabinet. Haley will be the first Republican candidate to launch a full campaign platform spanning jobs and infrastructure, education, healthcare, and national security. However, the field is still developing so it is unclear how it will pan out. A week ago, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina also announced he was running for president on the Republican side. The state is key because it is the earliest in the primary process where presidential contenders have to compete to secure voter support. Whoever wins South Carolina’s presidential preference primary typically gains a major boost in visibility and support as the competition progresses across the nation.
JPMorgan Chase is to spend $15.7bn on new initiatives, including investments in technology, marketing and hiring, according to co-head of the bank’s consumer and community division, Marianne Lake. Her unit is set to spend $7.9bn on new investments, which represents an $800m increase from 2022. The announcement comes on the back of a year in which smaller lenders have faced pressure and represents the latest example of the widening gap between small and large US banks. The wider spending will be $2bn more than the bank spent last year.
Asian markets may be vulnerable to a reversal due to the uncertainty surrounding the US debt ceiling standoff. Flash purchasing managers index surveys from Japan and Australia will be released on Tuesday; any sign of deterioration could be an excuse for investors to take profits, particularly in Japan where the Nikkei has had five down days in 29 and has risen 10% in three weeks. Other possible market drivers include a correction in the USD, China's crackdown on Micron and the possibility of a US default.
The Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has been "all but lost" to Russian forces, according to reports. While Ukraine had previously emphasised fierce fighting against the Russians to keep the city, officials have now indicated that the focus is on making it difficult for Russians to hold it. The Russian coalition is engaged in "mopping up" operations to clear the few remaining Ukrainian soldiers. The struggle for the city was one of the war's lengthiest and bloodiest battles, lasting over two years.
The UK's Labour Party will use legal measures to force pension funds to invest in a proposed £50bn "future growth fund", according to Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor. While she did not believe a mandate would be required, she said such a move was "not off the table". Reeves, who is in the US to meet business and political leaders, also wants to increase the size of UK pension funds and unite clubs to work with the government-owned British Business Bank. The shadow chancellor said Labour would create a framework to enable retirement funds to invest next to the bank in promising businesses.
The US think tank, Heritage Foundation, has launched legal action against the State Department to get hold of Prince Harry's immigration records. The Foundation claims that the public has a "right to know" whether Harry, who admitted in his memoir to taking drugs, was truthful on his visa application. The US visa application form asks whether an applicant has ever violated any law related to controlled substances. Even though the US government has refused to release it following pressure from the think tank, a US court will rule on whether to compel officials to release his immigration records to the public.
E. Jean Carroll, who won a $7.4m in a sexual assault lawsuit against former US president Donald Trump earlier this month, is seeking additional damages over comments he made in response to that verdict. Appearing in a one-hour town hall broadcast by CNN, Trump repeated his claim that Carroll had manufactured the assault story. Despite a photograph from the 1990s showing him with her, Trump insisted he had never met her and dismissed her allegations as “hanky-panky”. Carroll's new legal filing seeks an amendment to a case filed against Trump in 2019, arguing that his continued comments demonstrate that he was “undeterred by the jury's verdict” and had persisted in defaming her. Trump is also under investigation in relation to allegations of election interference and mishandling classified data.
The size of China's distant water fishing fleet is increasingly seen by Washington as a national security concern as tensions continue to rise between China and the US. Elizabeth Freund Larus of the Pacific Forum said the fleet was not only depleting fish stocks worldwide but that the dual use of the vessels as both commercial and military vehicles in support of China's navy, coastguard, and maritime police was adding to the fraught relations between the two superpowers. As we have previously covered, US agencies have been instructed by President Biden to combat China's illegal fishing and labour abuses in the market.
President Biden met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to discuss preventing the United States from defaulting on its debt. Both parties emphasized that default was not an option and that a bipartisan agreement was necessary to move forward. The statement following the meeting expressed productivity and a commitment to finding a solution.
The US administration’s decision to allow allies to train Ukrainian forces to operate F-16 fighter jets, and eventually to provide the aircraft themselves, followed months of internal debate and quiet talks with allies and does not represent an abrupt change in policy. The US administration was concerned that a move to provide F-16s to Ukraine could US-Russian tensions and that the training would be difficult and time-consuming. However, a shift in US policy became apparent after Biden’s visit to Ukraine and Poland and following discussions between senior White House National Security Council, Pentagon and State Department officials. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin heard from allied defense leaders during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group seeking US permission to train the Ukrainians on F-16s and raised the matter during the NSC policy discussions leading to agreement that it was time to start training. State, Pentagon, and NSC officials are now developing a training plan and “when, where, and how to deliver F-16s” to Ukraine as part of the long-term security effort, US officials said.
US President Joe Biden has sounded positive about the prospects of Congress finding an agreement in time to avoid a default on America’s sovereign debt that would have catastrophic consequences. A meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy showed that Biden was “optimistic” about devising a bipartisan agreement, following an acknowledgment that the prospect of a debt default was on both sides’ minds. McGovern said a decision over spending cuts would have to be made since there are just ten days left before a default, and the House’s proposal for spending cuts would provide the “framework” for any deal.
Efforts by the Group of Seven (G7) to contain China's growing influence with emerging economies in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific are unlikely to alter the Global South's deepening economic ties with Beijing or encourage the nations to switch sides, according to former Singaporean diplomat and ex-UN Security Council President Kishore Mahbubani. Despite US attempts to rally countries to the Americans' cause, economic development is the prime concern for most state and ASEAN governments, driving many of them to seek close ties with both the US and China and discouraging them from taking sides, said Mahbubani, now a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. Europe will continue its strong trade ties with China; developing nations do not want to choose sides; Russia and China are not yet a bloc; and the consequence of the US-China trade war could be severe for many of these emerging nations, Mahbubani said.
