Free Republic

Apple’s weak China sales performance may have shocked investors, but customers and analysts have been noting the rising challenges the company faces in its third-largest market. Intensifying competition from domestic rivals, coupled with longer upgrade cycles as consumers spend more cautiously amid an economic slowdown, have stunted Apple’s China growth, with sales there nosediving by 13 per cent in the quarter ending in December to $20.8-billion and missing estimates of $23.5-billion. Shares of the company dipped about 3 per cent in early trading on Friday, following the disappointing China sales. “Apple’s sales decline in China is not surprising given the...

If you were thinking that those large pro-Palestine protests popping up everywhere seem awfully organized, you’re not wrong. Today the Free Press points out that at least four rallies, including one in New York which was later denounced as too extreme by AOC, were co-organized by a group called The People’s Forum.Based in Midtown Manhattan, The People’s Forum calls itself a “movement incubator for working class and marginalized communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad.” But a review of public disclosure forms show that multimillionaire [Neville Roy] Singham and his wife [Jodie] Evans have...

The U.S. government said it is banning telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from several prominent Chinese brands in an effort to protect the nation’s communications network. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously on Friday to expand its ban on the sale and import of Chinese technology from firms that pose an “unacceptable risk to the national security” of the United States. The decision implements the directive in the Secure Equipment Act of 2021 signed by President Biden in November that places additional restrictions on companies including Huawei and ZTE, surveillance camera makers Hikvision and Dahua, and two-way radio manufacturer...

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced it is banning telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from prominent Chinese brands, including Huawei and ZTE, citing an "unacceptable risk to national security". The five-member FCC said on Friday it had voted unanimously to adopt new rules that will block the importation or sale of the targeted products. "Our unanimous decision represents the first time in the FCC's history that we have voted to prohibit the authorization of communications and electronic equipment based on national security considerations," FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said in a statement on Friday. He added that the...

In May 2022, Mary Trump tweeted, “Hundreds of voter subversion laws are only a governor’s signature away from going into effect. Please join the Democracy Defense Fund in supporting these gubernatorial candidates who are committed to protecting our #VotingRights.”Mary Trump, the former president’s niece, has become an anti-Trump figure specializing in deranged rhetoric like calling him “mass murderer criminal Donald Trump”. DDF is a PAC that is intervening in races across the country, including in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Ohio.The Democracy Defense Fund, a nationwide PAC, was supposedly created by Mary Trump, who has no apparent background or ability to create...

Chinese tech giant Huawei’s attempt to make semiconductors without American equipment has generated global headlines as the US-China tech war takes yet another turn. It is one more strong hint – if any were needed – that the US government is in the process of creating a competitor that it won’t be able to control while forcing American companies to abandon a massive market that until now has supported their sales, profits, economies of scale and stock prices. Geopolitics have overridden America’s past devotion to open markets and the situation is not likely to change anytime soon as long as...

Updated Every four years, the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) stages a Plenipotentiary Conference at which member states decide how the organization will steer the development of communications technologies. The event is usually only of interest to telco and policy wonks.But this year's event has become a geopolitical football – and possibly a turning point for internet governance – thanks to the two candidates running in an election for the position of ITU secretary-general.The US has put forward Doreen Bogdan-Martin for the gig. She's an ITU veteran with years of experience working with global telecoms regulators. She also believes...

President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, nine years after he exposed the scale of secret surveillance operations by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Although National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has settled in Russia, he has insisted that his “ultimate goal” is to return to the U.S. But the fugitive now has begun the process of formally pledging loyalty to the Russian state. “In this era of pandemics and closed borders, we’re applying for dual US-Russian citizenship,” he tweeted Sunday. Mr. Snowden and his wife are Americans, so the real news is that he is pursuing a Russian passport. Moscow already has granted permanent residency to the former NSA contractor. Vladimir Putin’s government gave Mr. Snowden asylum in 2013, after he fled the...

Retired CIA director Mike Hayden tweeted his agreement with a British journalist’s claim on Wednesday that the Republican Party is the most “nihilistic, dangerous and contemptible” political force he had seen in the world.On Wednesday, Financial Times columnist Edward Luce tweeted, “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.”Hayden shared Luce’s tweet, adding, “I agree. And I was the CIA Director.”Hayden’s comment follows a swipe he took at former President Donald Trump last week following the FBI raid on...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) quietly killed a $100 million project to build a National China Garden in Washington, D.C. just two miles from the U.S. Capitol as the intelligence community becomes increasingly concerned that Chinese investments in the U.S. are being is to increase their spying capabilities. In 2017, local Washington officials and Chinese leaders celebrated a deal to build an ornate Chinese garden in the National Arboretum. The plan was to transform a 12-acre field in the arboretum with temples and pavilions and native Chinese shrubbery. It was believed that Chinese officials were eager to foot the...

As reported earlier by We Love Trump a Chinese company recently paid $2.6 million for 300 acres of farmland in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The parcel of land’s location near a US Air Force base that houses sensitive drone technology has lawmakers on Capitol Hill worried about potential espionage by Beijing. The Chinese firm Fufeng Group recently purchased 300 acres of farmland in North Dakota just down the road from a US Air Force base that houses sensitive drone technology near Grand Forks. The farmland is just a 20-minute drive to the Grand Forks Air Force Base. The Fufeng Group...

Since at least 2017, federal officials have investigated Chinese land purchases near critical infrastructure, shut down a high-profile regional consulate believed by the US government to be a hotbed of Chinese spies and stonewalled what they saw as clear efforts to plant listening devices near sensitive military and government facilities. Among the most alarming things the FBI uncovered pertains to Chinese-made Huawei equipment atop cell towers near US military bases in the rural Midwest. According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the FBI determined the equipment was capable of capturing and disrupting highly restricted Defense Department communications, including those...

Chinese tech giant Huawei rose to prominence because it received tens of billions from Beijing, thus allowing the firm to undercut competitors and gain market shares, said book author Jonathan Pelson.However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not shell out the money for only pure business reasons.“The CCP was not helping Huawei so that [it] can succeed as a company,” Pelson said. “They were helping Huawei so that the CCP could succeed in its geopolitical efforts, to export its philosophies and its governance principles around the rest of the world.”Pelson made the remarks during an interview with EpochTV’s “China Insider”...

Tony Podesta made $1 million lobbying the White House on behalf of Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, public disclosure forms show. Podesta earned $500,000 lobbying the "Executive Office of the President" on "Issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues" in the fourth quarter of 2021, the New York Post reported, citing public disclosure forms released last week. He pulled in another $500,000 from Huawei to lobby the "White House Office" on "Issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues" in the third quarter of 2021.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s recent cancelation of its plan to buy 50 Lockheed F-35 fighter jets worth $23 billion from the United States showed that the close trading partnership between the UAE and China could be playing a role. The cancelation means that the UAE has chosen Huawei’s 5G technology over the F-35, which is used by the US as a “favor” to form military alliances with other countries. At the US request, the UAE previously agreed to halt the construction of a logistic port that is being built by China. But this time, strong US pressure has failed...

NEW YORK ­– Taiwan’s chip fabricators signed an agreement on December 3 to create their own semiconductor equipment industry, opening an “option to decouple from the West,” in the view of a prominent US research firm. The Taiwanese initiative responds to Washington’s extraterritorial sanctions on buyers of US fabricating equipment, imposed by then-president Donald Trump in May 2020. The US asserts the right to block sales of chips produced with US machines or intellectual property. The US sanctions shut off Chinese tech giant Huawei’s access to high-end chips of 7 nanometers and below, crippling what previously was the world’s top...

p>OTTAWA—As the Liberal government prepares to unfurl its policy on next-generation mobile networks, global security experts say all signs point to the exclusion of Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies from the long-awaited blueprint. The development of 5G, or fifth-generation, networks will give people speedier online connections and provide vast data capacity to meet ravenous demand as more and more things link to the internet and innovations such as virtual reality, immersive gaming and autonomous vehicles emerge.The opposition Conservatives have long pressed the Liberals to deny Huawei a role in building the country’s 5G infrastructure, saying it would allow Beijing to spy...

Suppliers to two blacklisted Chinese companies—telecom giant Huawei and China’s top chipmaker SMIC—were approved to receive billions of dollars worth of licenses for U.S. technologies shipments between November and April, documents released by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Oct. 21 detail.Some 301 licenses worth a total of $103 billion were approved for suppliers to sell goods to Huawei and SMIC, according to the documents prepared by the Commerce Department.Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) were put on a U.S. trade blacklist, known as the “entity list,” in May 2019 and December 2020 respectively over national security concerns....

<p>KEY POINTS Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that is on a U.S. trade blacklist, paid veteran Democratic lobbyist and donor Tony Podesta $500,000 to lobby the White House during the July-September quarter.</p><p>The disclosure comes as the Biden administration is facing pressure to keep Huawei on the blacklist, which restricts the company’s access to semiconductors.</p>