TheNewsGuru

Tag: U.S.

  • Ethiopia crash: U.S grounds 737 MAX jets as boeing shares fall drastically

    Ethiopia crash: U.S grounds 737 MAX jets as boeing shares fall drastically

    United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued an emergency order to ground Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 aircraft after a crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people.

    “We are going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 MAX 8 and the 737 MAX 9 and planes associated with that line,” Trump told newsmen at the White House.

    According to him, the FAA is prepared to make an announcement very shortly regarding the new information and physical evidence received from the site, and from other locations and through a couple of other complaints.

    Boeing shares, which were up earlier in the session, fell 2 per cent to 367.70 dollars.

    The shares have fallen about 13 per cent since the crash, losing more than 25 billion dollars of market value.

    Meanwhile, Germany’s federal agency responsible for investigating air accidents will not analyse the black box from the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed on Sunday, casting uncertainty over the process of finding out what may have caused the disaster.

    “This is a new type of aircraft with a new black box, with new software. We can’t do it,” said Germout Freitag, a spokesman for Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU).

    The move leaves unclear the destination of the black box, which may yield vital details of what caused the Boeing Co 737 MAX 8 to plunge to the ground, killing 157 people.

    A spokesman for Ethiopian Airlines had said earlier that the black boxes recovered from the crashed plane would be sent to Germany for analysis.

    Canada also grounded 737 MAX jets, saying satellite data suggested similarities to a previous crash involving the same plane model.

    Countries around the world have grounded the 737 MAX jets or banned them from flying over their airspace since the Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed soon after taking off from Addis Ababa on Sunday.

    The still unexplained crash followed another involving a Boeing 737 MAX in Indonesia five months ago that killed 189 people.

    Although there is no proof of any link, the twin disasters have spooked passengers, led to the grounding of most of Boeing’s 737 MAX fleet and hammered shares in the U.S. plane maker, the world’s largest.

  • Senate approves Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general

    William Barr, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the new attorney-general, was approved on Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee and his confirmation process now moves to the full Senate.

    Barr is virtually assured of approval in the Senate, where Trump’s Republican Party holds a majority.

    The previous Attorney-General, Jeff Sessions, was fired by Trump in November.

    Barr’s nomination is being closely watched – and came under scrutiny at the committee level – in part because the Justice Department oversees the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into the 2016 Russian election interference.

    The nominee was attorney-general once before, under president George HW Bush.

    Democrats on the Judiciary Committee voted no on Barr, in part citing concerns over the Mueller probe.

    Meanwhile, it remains unclear if acting Attorney-General, Matt Whitaker, will appear before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, where he is expected to face questions on the Mueller probe, among other topics.

    The House is controlled by the Democrats.

    Whitaker took umbrage with a subpoena power taken by the committee chairman Jerry Nadler, which could force the top judicial official to answer questions he deems to fall under executive privilege.

    Nadler said he might need the “threat” of the subpoena to get answers during the Friday session.

    It remains unclear if the Democrats will drop the subpoena, which came after Whitaker agreed to appear voluntarily and was issued less than 24 hours he was due to appear before the committee.

  • Trump predicts ‘complicated but great’ 2019

    U.S. President Donald Trump has predicted that year 2019 would be a “complicated but great” year.

    Trump, who stated this in his New Year message, also reeled out his administration’s achievements, which he said had surpassed all others in the U.S. history in the first two years.

    “I just want to wish you a very very happy New Year. It’s going to be a great year, complicated but great. People make it overly complicated actually.

    “But I will tell you, there has never been an administration, and I’m very proud of this, that’s done more than Trump administration in the first two years of office.

    “Our economy is doing great. Wages are rising for the first time in many many years.

    “People are getting more money, they’re working one job instead of two or three.

    “Also, we’re working on new trade deal. We made a trade deal with Mexico, we made a deal with Canada, we made that deal with South Korea.

    “Everybody said that couldn’t happen. We terminated the horrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal.

    “Then you look at North Korea, we’re doing really well. Rockets aren’t being fired, missiles aren’t being fired, we’re in no rush.”

    Trump also said one of his administration’s achievements was moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in Israel adding that “I promised it and I did it”.

    He, however, regretted that in spite of the fact that the U.S. was doing so well as a country, there was the need for it to build walls to secure its borders.

    Trump said: “You don’t have borders, you don’t have a country. We don’t want drug traffickers or human traffickers or illegal people with criminal records to come in.

    “Our border patrol, our ICE (Immigration and Customs Endorsement) agents, our military, we’ve done great.

    “But you can never do it perfectly unless you have a wall. So we have to have a wall as part of border security and we are working on it.”

    The U.S. President also hinted on his preparedness to continue so as to complete eight years as a president.

    He said: “We had a great two years, I’m working hard for you, I’m fighting for you, we’re going to win, we’re going to win all the way, we’re going to win in everything we do.

    “So happy New Year and let’s enjoy the next year and then we’re going to enjoy the following year and then we have four more and everything is going to be so beautiful,” he said.

     

  • Trump may visit U.K. May 2019 after country’s departure in March

    U.S. President Donald Trump may visit Britain in May 2019 after the country’s departure in March from the European Union, the U.S. Ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, said on Monday.

    Asked whether a state visit, promised by Prime Minister Theresa May last year, could be rescheduled to coincide with a commemoration of the end of World War II in May, Johnson told BBC radio: “Between you and me, I think that would be a good time.’’

    Trump visited Britain in July and although it was not a formal state visit after wide public protests, he met Queen Elizabeth.

    Brexit marks a watershed in Britain’s diplomatic relations with the world as it tries to reshape ties to Europe and bolster its long-standing “special relationship” with the U.S. under Trump’s presidency.

    Asked if Trump would like to come again for a state visit, Johnson said: “I would think the President would be in favour of it and looking forward to it because that was mentioned when he was over here.

    “So if we can do that, it would be, I think, a big positive.’’

    He said a deadlock in Britain’s parliament, which means that it is unclear what shape Brexit will take, meant a solution was necessary.

    “The country is in need of leadership.’’

    Johnson reiterated Trump’s view that the U.S. was looking forward to a “quick, very massive bilateral trade deal’’ after Brexit.

    However, he said that did not “look possible” under the current terms on which Prime Minister Theresa May has agreed to a draft deal to leave the EU.

    Trump said in November that May’s deal sounded like it would be good for the EU and cast doubt on how that would affect US-UK trading arrangements.

     

  • Brazil follows U.S. lead, to move its embassy to Jerusalem

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Brazil’s President-elect Jair Bolsonaro told him that it was a matter of “when, not if” he moves his country’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

    The far-right Bolsonaro, who takes office on Tuesday and is hosting Netanyahu and the leaders of other countries for his inauguration, has said he would like to follow the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump and move the embassy.

    But he has come under intense pressure from Brazil’s powerful agriculture sector not to do so, as it could hurt Brazilian exports to Arab nations.

    Such a move by Bolsonaro would be a sharp shift in Brazilian foreign policy, which has traditionally backed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    The Arab League had told Bolsonaro that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would be a setback for relations with Arab countries, according to a letter seen by Reuters earlier in December.

    “Bolsonaro told me it was “when, not if” he moves the embassy to Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said on Sunday during a meeting with leaders of Brazil’s Jewish community in Rio de Janeiro.

    “We attach enormous importance to Brazil, and Brazil in the context of Latin America,” he added. “This heralds a historic change.”

    Netanyahu, who met with Bolsonaro on Friday, said that the Brazilian accepted his invitation to visit Israel, a trip that is likely to take place in March.

    Netanyahu is the first Israeli prime minister to visit Brazil.

    After he met the Israeli leader, Bolsonaro said that “we need good allies, good friends, good brothers, like Benjamin Netanyahu.”

     

  • Judge dismisses $5 million lawsuit filed against Google

    A US judge who cited a lack of “concrete injuries” on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit filed against Google by consumers who claimed the search engine’s photo sharing and storage service violated their privacy.

    Edmond Chang, a US District Judge in Chicago, granted Google’s motion for summary judgment, saying the court lacked “subject matter jurisdiction because plaintiffs have not suffered concrete injuries”.

    The suit was filed in March 2016 alleging Alphabet’s Google violated Illinois state law by collecting and storing biometric data from people’s photographs using facial recognition software without their permission through its Google Photos service.

    Plaintiffs had sought more than $5 million collectively for the “hundreds of thousands” of state residents affected, according to court documents.

    Plaintiffs had asked the court for $5,000 for each intentional violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, or $1,000 for every negligent violation, court documents said.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs as well as officials with Google could not immediately be reached to comment.

    Google had argued in court documents that the plaintiffs were not entitled to money or injunctive relief because they had suffered no harm.

    The case is Rivera v Google, US District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 16-02714.

     

  • US considers executive order to ban purchase of Huawei, ZTE products

    U.S. President Donald Trump is considering an executive order in the new year to declare a national emergency that would bar U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by China’s Huawei and ZTE.

    Three sources familiar with the situation disclosed this to Reuters on Thursday.

    It would be the latest step by the Trump administration to cut Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp, two of China’s biggest network equipment companies, out of the U.S. market.

    The United States alleges that the two companies work at the behest of the Chinese government and that their equipment could be used to spy on Americans.

    The executive order, which has been under consideration for more than eight months, could be issued as early as January.

    It would direct the Commerce Department to block U.S. companies from buying equipment from foreign telecommunications makers that pose significant national security risks.

    While the order is unlikely to name Huawei or ZTE, a source said it is expected that commerce officials would interpret it as authorisation to limit the spread of equipment made by the two companies.

    The sources said the text for the order has not been finalised.

    The executive order would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law that gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States.

    The issue has new urgency as U.S. wireless carriers look for partners as they prepare to adopt next generation 5G wireless networks.

    The order follows the passage of a defense policy bill in August that barred the U.S. government itself from using Huawei and ZTE equipment.

    China’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that she did not want to comment on the order as it had not been officially confirmed.

    “It’s best to let facts speak for themselves when it comes to security problems,” Hua said.

    “Some countries have, without any evidence, and making use of national security, tacitly assumed crimes to politicise, and even obstruct and restrict, normal technology exchange activities,” she added.

    “This in reality is undoubtedly shutting oneself off, rather than being the door to openness, progress and fairness.”

    Huawei and ZTE did not return requests for comment.

    Both in the past have denied allegations their products are used to spy.

    The White House also did not return a request for comment.

    The Wall Street Journal first reported in early May that the order was under consideration, but it was never issued.

    Rural operators in the United States are among the biggest customers of Huawei and ZTE, and fear the executive order would also require them to rip out existing Chinese-made equipment without compensation.

    Industry officials are divided on whether the administration could legally compel operators to do that.

    While the big U.S. wireless companies have cut ties with Huawei in particular, small rural carriers have relied on Huawei and ZTE switches and other equipment because they tend to be less expensive.

    The company is so central to small carriers that William Levy, vice president for sales of Huawei Tech USA, is on the board of directors of the Rural Wireless Association (RWA).

    The RWA represents carriers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers.

    It estimates that 25 per cent of its members had Huawei or ZTE equipment in their networks, it said in a filing to the Federal Communications Commission earlier this month.

    The RWA is concerned that an executive order could force its members to remove ZTE and Huawei equipment and also bar future purchases, said Caressa Bennet, RWA general counsel.

    It would cost $800 million to $1 billion for all RWA members to replace their Huawei and ZTE equipment, Bennet said.

    Separately, the FCC in April granted initial approval to a regulation that bars giving federal funding to help pay for telecommunication infrastructure to companies that purchase equipment from firms deemed as a threat to U.S. national security.

    Analysts have said this was aimed at Huawei and ZTE.

    The FCC is also considering whether to require carriers to remove and replace equipment from firms deemed a national security risk.

    In March, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said “hidden ‘back doors’ to our networks in routers, switches — and virtually any other type of telecommunications equipment – can provide an avenue for hostile governments to inject viruses, launch denial-of-service attacks, steal data, and more.”

    In the December filing, Pine Belt Communications in Alabama estimated it would cost $7 million to $13 million to replace its Chinese-made equipment, while Sagebrush in Montana said replacement would cost $57 million and take two years.

    Sagebrush has noted that Huawei products are significantly cheaper.

    When looking for bids in 2010 for its network, it found the cost of Ericsson equipment to be nearly four times the cost of Huawei.

     

  • Facebook’s Sandberg cites need to do more after reports of Russia meddling

    Facebook Inc’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said on Tuesday the company needs to step up its efforts to curb misinformation.

    Sandberg said this after research revealed that Russia-backed organizations targeted African-Americans.

    The groups targeted were those who favored Hillary Clinton in order to suppress voter turnout during the 2016 election.

    U.S. intelligence agencies had earlier concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help U.S. President Donald Trump by undermining Democratic candidate Clinton.

    “Two independent reports commissioned by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were released Monday on the Russian Internet Research Agency’s (IRA) use of technology around the 2016 election .

    The reports suggest that the IRA’s efforts had a disproportionate impact on communities of color,” Sandberg said in a blog post here.

    “We know that we need to do more: to listen, look deeper and take action to respect fundamental rights,” Sandberg said.

     

  • NDDC seeks U.S govt’s support on programmes

    Mr Nsima Ekere, Managing Director, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has called on the U.S. government to support NDDC’s human and capital development programmes for the region.

    Ekere said this in a statement by Dr Ibitoye Abosede, Director Corporate Communications of the commission in Port Harcourt.

    Ekere spoke when he received Mr F. John Bray, U. S. Consul-General to Nigeria, who led a delegation from the Consulate in Lagos to NDDC headquarters.

    He said that providing such assistance would enhance peace and security as well as promote sustainable regional development.

    He said: “It is noteworthy that you (Bray) are coming at the onset of our political season. We expect some assistance from the U.S. government.

    “We have specific concerns in the Niger Delta, especially during an election period like this; which is principally in the area of security.

    “The U.S. government can use its influence to prevail on our politicians to allow democracy to thrive in Nigeria.

    “If politicians can be made to play by the rules, it will help in the process of maintaining peace and security during and after the elections,” he said.

    Ekere noted that Bray’s visit was indication that the U.S. government was interested to deepen the conversation on the challenges and growth of the region.

    The managing director said that in spite progress made that the region was still faced with huge unemployment and poverty level, attributing it to bad leadership.

    “Most times what makes the political process explosive and dangerous is the attitude of some sit tight office holders, who do not believe political process is a referendum on performance.

    “The reason the constitution allows us to conduct elections every four years is so that those that did well could be considered to continue, while non-performing others are kicked out.

    “They (office holders) should be honest enough to allow that process to evolve, so that the citizens can have their say in governance system,” he said.

    Bray, in his remarks said that the U.S. government was keeping an eye on happenings and developmental programmes in the Niger Delta, especially as the elections drew closer.

    “As part of that; we are visiting key political institutions and figures.

    “We are trying to work out ways our government can engage with Nigerians, candidates, INEC and security agencies as we go into the elections,” he said.

    “The United States Government does not support any candidate. We support a clean, fair process in which the choices of the Nigerian people will prevail.

    “The interest of the United States is to see a free, fair, transparent and non-violent election in Nigeria in 2019.

    Bray said that the US would follow events closely to ensure credible and peaceful elections held in Nigeria.

     

  • U.S. lawmakers grill Google Chief on censorship, bias, personal data

    U.S. lawmakers started a hearing with the Chief Executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, on Tuesday on censorship, bias and personal data.

    The hearing took place amid accusations that the company is engaging in censorship in China and allegations by conservatives that the Company had a liberal political bias.

    The chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee also raised concerns about how Google stores and handles personal data, including the location of users and browsing habits.

    Google is also under pressure over data leaks.

    “I think it is fair to say that most Americans have no idea the sheer volume of information that is collected,’’ Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said.

    He also noted that it was nearly impossible to avoid Google.

    One study estimates Google runs 90 per cent of internet searches.

    Pichai said the collection of data was something that users opted into and called it “transparent,’’ while urging customers to review their privacy setting.

    Republicans like Goodlatte accused Google of a liberal bias, a theme expected to come up during the hearing.

    Pichai outright rejected this claim and insisted individual engineers could sway the leanings of search results.

    Reports have indicated Google is working with China to develop a search engine that would fit into the country’s censorship system and government efforts to track citizens.

    Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Majority Leader in the House said the committee must check whether U.S. companies were serving as “instruments of freedom’’ or of control.

    The United States needs to know Google “is on the side of the free internet,’’ he added.