Tuesday, 14 May 2019

Tuesday Morning Briefing: China says agreed with U.S. to keep talking over trade war

Top News

“We hope that the U.S. side does not misjudge the situation and not underestimate China’s determination and will to safeguard its interests,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a daily news briefing. China and the United States have agreed to keep talking about their trade dispute, as President Donald Trump said he thought recent discussions in Beijing would be successful. The slightly more optimistic comments came after both sides ramped up their trade war, with China announcing details of new tariffs against U.S. imports on Monday.

'Like me, a little controversial' said President Trump as he praised Hungary's Prime Minister and brushed off concerns about threats to democratic norms in Hungary during Viktor Orban’s tenure. “He’s a respected man. And I know he’s a tough man, but he’s a respected man,” Trump said, when asked whether he had concerns about a weakening of democracy in Hungary. Welcoming the right-wing Hungarian leader for a meeting in the Oval Office, Trump lauded him for being tough on immigration, a policy area in which the two leaders have similar visions.

U.S. health authorities recorded 75 new cases of the measles in the latest week, mostly in New York state, bringing the nationwide total to 839 cases in the country’s worst outbreak of the virus since 1994, federal health officials said on Monday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 9.8% increase in measles cases as of May 10, a resurgence that public health officials have attributed to the spread of misinformation about the measles vaccine.

The Trump administration asked Congress on Monday to increase NASA spending next year by an extra $1.6 billion as a “down payment” to accommodate the accelerated goal of returning Americans to the surface of the moon by 2024. The increased funding request, announced by Trump on Twitter, comes nearly two months after Vice President Mike Pence declared the objective of shortening by four years NASA’s previous timeline for putting astronauts back on the moon for the first time since 1972. The proposed increase would bring NASA’s total spending level for the 2020 fiscal year to $22.6 billion.

Tech

WhatsApp urges users to upgrade app after report of spyware attack. Facebook’s WhatsApp urged users to upgrade to the latest version of its popular messaging app following a report that users could be vulnerable to having malicious spyware installed on phones without their knowledge.

With private fitting rooms, members-only stores and clever apps, U.S. department stores are reinventing their old and tested loyalty programs to fend off the challenge from e-commerce giant Amazon.com and other online rivals. Over the past two years, major U.S. retailers, including Macy’s, Nordstrom, Kohls Corp and others, have spent billions of dollars to overhaul existing programs or launch new loyalty schemes.

Huawei is a private company that is not controlled by the Chinese government and would refuse to hand over information to Beijing although no such request has been made, the firm’s Vice President of Western Europe said. The United States has told allies not to use Huawei’s technology to build new 5G telecommunications networks because of concerns it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying, an accusation the firm has denied.

The United States faces stiff challenges as it moves to create its own electric vehicle supply chain, industry analysts say, with the extent of the country’s metal reserves largely unknown and only a few facilities to process minerals and produce batteries. “China has a huge head start,” said Gavin Montgomery, a battery and mining analyst at the Wood Mackenzie consultancy. “They’ve just been at this a lot longer than the rest of the world.” Legislation making its way through the U.S. Congress aims to help offset those gaps, but China remains the global EV sector leader, a dominance seen by some as difficult to supplant.

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World

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North Korea says ship seizure by U.S. violates spirit of Trump-Kim summit

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British Prime Minister told to ditch Brexit talks with Labour

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U.N. investigators urge nations to snap financial ties with Myanmar military

The world must cut off financial and other support for Myanmar’s armed forces, a U.N. fact-finding mission said, repeating a call for top generals to be prosecuted for abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

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