Bhinneka News Online: Thursday Morning Briefing: A surveillance powerhouse walks U.S.-China tightrope

Thursday 29 August 2019

Thursday Morning Briefing: A surveillance powerhouse walks U.S.-China tightrope

Highlights

For China’s Hikvision a moment of reckoning may be at hand. Since Aug. 13, the world’s largest purveyor of video surveillance systems has not been allowed to sell to U.S. federal government agencies, thanks to a law passed last year that blocked five Chinese firms as possible security threats. That has forced the company onto a tightrope: it must assuage security and human rights concerns in the West without angering the Chinese government.

Brazil looks to neighbors for Amazon support. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he would meet with other South American countries to set common policy for defending the Amazon rain forest, while his foreign minister told Reuters the nation should be seen as an environmental hero. A Reuters report on Wednesday found that Bolsonaro’s government had weakened the federal agency charged with protecting the rain forest through budget cuts, restrictions on destroying equipment used in environmental crime, and the sidelining of an elite force of enforcement agents.

Italy’s president asked Giuseppe Conte to head a coalition of the 5-Star Movement and opposition Democratic Party, a move could that could mark a turning point in Italy’s frayed relations with the European Union. Sergio Mattarella handed Conte a fresh mandate to form a cabinet barely a week after he had resigned following a decision by the far-right League party to pull out of its coalition with 5-Star.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government challenged opponents of Brexit in parliament to collapse the government or change the law if they wanted to thwart Brexit. Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson resigned, saying she could no longer juggle the demands of being a politician with family life and after doing everything she could to mitigate the risks of Brexit. The UK government’s enforcer in the upper house also resigned. George Young, the chief whip, quit in protest at Boris Johnson’s suspension of parliament.

U.S.

Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris will announce a plan aimed at ensuring individuals with disabilities have equal access to job opportunities, education, housing and healthcare. Harris will also pledge to create senior-level White House positions for people with disabilities and use the president’s executive power to direct the Housing and Transportation departments to require that funding recipients show projects will be fully accessible before receiving the money, her campaign said.

Some children born to U.S. citizens stationed abroad as government employees or members of the U.S. military will no longer qualify for automatic American citizenship under a policy change unveiled by the Trump administration. Effective Oct. 29, certain parents serving overseas in the U.S. armed forces or other agencies of the federal government must go through a formal application process seeking U.S. citizenship on their children’s behalf by their 18th birthday, the policy states.

Hurricane Dorian took aim at the Florida coast early, whipped up by warm Atlantic waters as it threatened to become a dangerous category 3 storm. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and asked east coast Floridians load up with at least 7 days worth of supplies, such as food and water.