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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s pledge to help a Chinese telecommunication company that broke U.S. sanctions law sparked a backlash from lawmakers who said the move could weaken the U.S. hand in upcoming trade talks with Beijing. The Commerce Department last month banned U.S. companies from selling to ZTE Corp for seven years after it illegally shipped goods made with U.S. parts to Iran and North Korea, prompting the company to shut its main business operations last week. Trump said on Sunday that he was working with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help ZTE revive jobs. In exchange for...

Dow Jones futures today rose modestly vs. fair value, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures. President Donald Trump tweeted that it "will all work out" on U.S.-China trade. He also tweeted that he wants to help China's ZTE "get back into business, less than a month after the U.S. banned domestic companies from selling components to the telecom gear giant. That could be good news for U.S. optical stocks such as Oclaro, Finisar, Acacia Communications and Lumentum Holdings which also is an Apple iPhone supplier.

ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications company with a record of systemic corruption, is bidding for major contracts in Australia, including Telstra's 5G mobile network and a transport contract in Western Australia, even after being criminally sanctioned in the United States. An investigation by Fairfax Media has found ZTE not only paid $US12.8 million ($17 million) in bribes to secure one contract in West Africa, but had a designated internal department and multiple layers of management to approve these payments, according to a former insider. Documents show the bribes were meticulously recorded and ran to more than 20 per cent of one...

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping are working to give Chinese telecom company ZTE Corp "a way to get back into business, fast."ZTE earlier this month suspended its main operations after the U.S. Commerce Department banned American supplies to its business.As one of the world's largest telecom equipment makers, ZTE relied on U.S. companies such as Qualcomm and Intel for components.

China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier began its maiden sea trial early Sunday morning, state media reported, putting its home-made power and propulsion systems to the test. The yet-to-be-christened Type 001A carrier left a shipyard at the northeastern port of Dalian at 6.45am, Xinhua said, and sailed out of the port half an hour later. The local maritime authority has declared a restricted area in the Yellow Sea off the Dalian coast from Sunday to noon on Friday. Military observers have been watching for signs the new aircraft carrier was about to start sea trials after photos of it being...

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Open borders in action! – A 20 year-old Muslim man was shot and killed by Paris police after he had gone on a knifing campaign in which he murdered one victim and injured four others, shouting “Allahu akbar!” as went about his merry way. The man had claimed asylum as a Chechnyan refugee 10 years before. Fake analysts on CNN and MSNBC will spend the next month agonizing over what this poor man’s motivation could possibly have been. Your fake news media in action! – Well, the media campaign to downplay the...

One unintended consequence of Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement has been to bring Germany and Russia together again. German-Russian relations had soured because of alleged Russian cyberattacks and the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea. But the US President’s hardline policy on around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran has intensified the search for common ground in Berlin and Moscow. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on May 18, and on Friday morning the two spoke on the telephone. “The importance of...

[Photos] Sections of the Amnok River near Dandong, China, blocked with barbed wire fence [N. Korea] Ha Yoon Ah | 2018-05-11 13:05 Barbed wire fence in the Amnok River area, Dandong. Photo: Daily NK (taken in April 2018). Barbed wire fence in the Amnok River area, Dandong. Photo: Daily NK (taken in April 2018). It has been reported that barbed wire fences have been installed in areas of the Amnok (Yalu) River area near Dandong, Liaoning Province. The fences have sprung up in a sparsely-populated area of the river and are thought to be aimed at deterring smuggling between North...

...this time round, rejecting and violating U.S. sanctions may prove for China as well as the other signatories to be a trickier undertaking. Last time round, China and the other signatories were part of an international consensus that aimed to force Iran to accept restrictions on its nuclear program even if they at times circumvented the sanctions. China and other signatories are in the wake of the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions likely to be operating in a far more confrontational environment in which the subtext of Mr. Trump’s decision as well the positions of Saudi Arabia and Israel appears to...

In an interview that aired Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “Morning with Maria,” former Vice President Dick Cheney offered an assessment of the current threats to the United States and declared that long-term, China presents the “most serious” threat. “My concern is, I sense that there are several rising at once,” Cheney said. “We say it’s the Russians, or it’s the Chinese. I think the Chinese long-term are the most serious, have the most capability, and have made some phenomenal gains economically, which they’re now converting to better military capability, and so forth.” (please see link for full article)

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer bizarrely attacked the Trump administration Wednesday over the successful release of three American prisoners held by North Korea; suggesting the hostages were used as “bargaining chips.” Schumer offered his scathing critique just hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left the Korean peninsula with the three prisoners by his side; saying “No regime has the right to hold American citizens in captivity without cause, and under no circumstances should American citizens be viewed as bargaining chips.” “If countries in the world think they can detain Americans and get something in return, we’ll see many more...

What should be the focus of coverage when three United States prisoners are freed from North Korea? If you’re the journalists at CNN overnight, you make sure to mention the Robert Mueller investigation, Stormy Daniels and to worry about Donald Trump getting credit for these Americans returning. At 2:26 AM ET, in the early hours of Thursday, CNN’s cameras were waiting for Trump and Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song to arrive at Andrews Air Force Base. Journalist John Vause deemed this the time to speculate on scandals: “Donald Trump believes that this success in the foreign policy field...

President Donald Trump has revealed the date and location for the historic summit between the United States and North Korea. On Thursday morning, Trump tweeted that the meeting will be in Singapore on June 12th. "We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!" Trump wrote. The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2018 The hotly anticipated date and location of the summit...

A Chinese tech giant brought to its knees and delays for imported U.S. cars, apples, lumber and other agricultural products are early signs the widening trade dispute between China and the U.S. is exacting a toll on both sides. More talks aimed at resolving the conflict are planned for next week in Washington, while both sides dig in for a fight over their trade imbalance. The tech company, telecommunications equipment and smartphone maker ZTE, said Wednesday that it’s ceasing “major operations” after the U.S. last month banned it from doing business with American suppliers for seven years as a punishment...

IDF warns Syrian military not to interfere as it pummels Iranian targets in largest direct exchange between Jerusalem, Tehran By Today, 4:38 am 1 Some 20 rockets were fired at Israeli military bases by Iranian forces from southern Syria just after midnight on Thursday, sparking the largest ever direct clash between Jerusalem and Tehran, with Israeli jets targeting numerous Iranian-controlled sites across Syria. The Israeli army said the initial missile barrage was carried out by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Forces. This appeared to be the first time that Israel attributed an attack directly to Iran, which...

ZTE Corporation, a Chinese firm that sells millions of phones in the United States, has halted "major operating activities" after a US ban against the company went into effect, according to a new public filing. Some of the company's products, which includes smartphones and telecommunications equipment, appeared to no longer be for sale online on Wednesday. It was unclear exactly which of ZTE's operations were impacted. The public filing says the company has enough cash to fulfill its "commercial obligations." No further details were offered. The company did not immediately respond to a request for more information. ZTE said last...

BEIJING — Ford Motor Co's imported vehicles are being held up at Chinese ports, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, underscoring how U.S. goods are facing increased customs scrutiny in China amid a tense trade standoff. The three people said Ford and Lincoln vehicles were facing unusual delays at customs, with officials asking for extra technical checks. Two of the people said U.S.-made models of some German carmakers, mainly SUVs, being brought into China, were also affected. Ford was being asked to do extra checks on emission components, said a China-based Ford executive familiar with the matter,...

Former WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell warned the audience at the Techonomy NYC 18 conference on Tuesday about the power of Amazon and China, praised the Trump economy, and predicted that US president Donald Trump might win a second term. Sorrell pointed out that Facebook and Google should be worried about the growing power of Amazon in the ad world and the economy. "They don’t like being referred to as ‘the duopoly’ for obvious reasons," he said of Facebook and Google. "But they still have a stranglehold. The one threat to them is Amazon. Last quarter, I saw that...

The variation in surface coloration of the fuselage suggests extensive modifications to the J-15 airframe. (Photo: via Chinese search engine, sohu.com) Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) of China is developing the J-15D, a dedicated carrier-borne electronic warfare fighter. New photographs of the J-15D with jamming pods and primer coating were circulating the Internet in early May, with Chinese observers dubbing the airplane the "China Growler" or "Growler Shark" after the J-15 Flying Shark. A similar capability was tested on the land-based tandem-seat Shenyang J-16 in 2015, with the designation J-16D. The J-16 is based on the Russian Sukhoi Su-30MKK, with active...

The state-run Aviation Industry Corporation of China, or AVIC, may have given a first look at the long-rumored H-20 stealth bomber in a promotional video that apes Northrop Grumman’s famous Superbowl ad teasing what is now known as the B-21 Raider. The clip, which highlights the consortium’s various civil and military products, as well as those from its subsidiaries, has a number of other significant nods to the country’s strategic aviation capabilities, past and present. China Defense Online posted a copy of the video, which combines file footage with slick computer-generated graphics, online on May 8, 2018. Though the presentation...