The US Justice Department indicted two companies based in China and Taiwan and three individuals saying they conspired to steal trade secrets from US semiconductor company Micron relating to its research and development of memory storage devices. Source: Al Jazeera
Information Technology
A Japanese digital currency exchange has been hacked, and 6.7 billion yen ($60 million) worth of cryptocurrencies are gone. Source: The New York Times
Google says it has disabled dozens of YouTube channels and other accounts linked to an Iranian state broadcaster that it said was running a political influence campaign. Source: Radio Free Europe
Google was fined 4.3 billion euros ($5 billion) by the European Union and ordered to change the way it puts search and web browser apps on Android mobile devices, setting a global record for antitrust penalties. Source: Bloomberg
Apple launched a new $100bn share buyback scheme and lifted its dividend by 16 per cent, as it reported a 30 per cent jump in earnings and issued a confident outlook for iPhone sales in spite of concerns of a slowdown. Source: Financial Times
Cheaper Japanese cars and European cheese are on the way as the EU’s trade agreement after the European Commission announced on April 18 that it had cleared the way for an Economic Partnership Agreement with Tokyo. Source: New Europe
Russia’s state communications regulator on Tuesday said it had blocked IP addresses owned by Google and Amazon, saying they were being used by the Telegram messaging service which Moscow moved to ban this week. Source: CNBC
At the end of an anti-drug operation police officers in a neighborhood of Bagnols-sur-Ceze (Gard), officials were violently attacked by about fifty individuals, including many young adolescents. Several police vehicles were heavily degraded. Source: Actu17
Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said Thursday he was “99 per cent” sure a Paris summit aimed at reviving talks with Kosovo would be cancelled, as the former war foes remain stuck in an acrimonious diplomatic deadlock. Source Business Standarrt
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chinese President Xi Jinping sat down here Thursday for talks with Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Xi is paying a two-day state visit to the neighboring country at the invitation of Kim, chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea and chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK. Source, People’s Daily
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte today slammed his Malaysian counterpart for creating “confusion” by criticising a decision to charge four people over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had called the move by Dutch-led investigators to charge three Russians and a Ukrainian with murder for the 2014 disaster “ridiculous” and “politically motivated” against Moscow. Source Malay Mail
Dr Mahathir Mohamad has slammed the findings of the team probing the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 tragedy, saying investigators had all along wanted to accuse Russia as the culprit who shot down the plane killing all 298 on board.
“And now they said they have proof who the person is. This is ridiculous,” the prime minister told reporters at a Hari Raya open house hosted by the Prime Minister’s Department today. Source Free Malaysia Today
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in North Korea on Thursday as Beijing looks to bolster its neighbor, hit by U.N. sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs, a week before Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump meet amid a bitter trade dispute. Source: Reuters
Iran has shot down a U.S. drone which the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday was flying over southern Iran, raising fears that a major military confrontation could erupt between Tehran and Washington. Source: Reuters
Russia’s population could decrease by half by the end of this century, a new United Nations demographic report has said.
Russia has grappled with stagnating population growth in recent years despite the government’s efforts to reverse the trend as the country’s population ages and fewer people have children. In 2018, Russia’s population declined for the first time in a decade to 146.8 million, while its migration numbers hit a record low. Source The Moskow Times
Russian official has warned that the country’s armed forces are prepared to respond to any new U.S. military bases close to its borders, amid concerns in Moscow over intensified American activity in Eastern Europe.
Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the Russian State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, told the Rossiya-24 TV channel that the country’s armed forces are stronger than they have ever been and ready to respond to American deployments perceived to threaten Russia. Source NewsWeek
South Korea on Wednesday announced it would donate 50,000 metric tons of rice to North Korea through the UN’s World Food Program (WFP). It is the largest food donation from South since 2008, coming as the North faces an acute food shortage. South Korea also promised to donate $4.5 million (€4 billion) to the WFP to help fend off a humanitarian crisis. Source: Deutsche Welle
Nearly 13,000 violent rightwing extremists are living in Germany, the chief of the country’s domestic intelligence service, which is investigating the murder of a pro-refugee politician, has revealed. Source: The Guardian
Turkey’s second drill ship Yavuz will operate in a borehole near Cyprus’ Karpas peninsula, to the northeast of the island, for around three months and reach a depth of 3,300 metres (3,609 yards), Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said on Thursday. Source: Ekathimerini
he Bundesbank president has in the past opposed the ECB’s bond purchasing programmes, which were implemented during the region’s financial crisis to alleviate strains on the economy and financial system. But he told German weekly Die Zeit on Wednesday that the programmes fell within the central bank’s mandate. Source: The Irish Time
Speaking to CNBC Wednesday, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos added to Draghi’s comments and outlined some possible measures the central bank could implement. The ECB foresees “lingering softness” in the short term, in particular due to geopolitical factors and trade conflicts. The European Central Bank’s (ECB) vice president said another large bond-buying program could be an option if inflation in the region doesn’t reach its intended target. Source: CNBC
The US central bank has opened the door to an interest rate rise, in a shift in guidance that follows criticism by President Donald Trump. The Federal Reserve left rates on hold, but said uncertainties about the economic outlook could force its hand. According to the vote, one Fed policymaker advocated an immediate cut, something the president has called for. Source: BBC
The European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi pledged to boost inflation if it continued to fall short of ECB’s intended targets, signaling a major policy reversal on Tuesday. Addressing an ECB forum in Portugal, Draghi said that “additional stimulus will be required” if inflation remained low. He also said that “further cuts in policy interest rates remain part of our tools.” Source: Deutsche Welle
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Tuesday Rome would press ahead with a plan to settle overdue state payments by issuing mini-bills unless a better solution was put forward.
The mini-bills would be “a tool to pay state debts towards families and suppliers. If there is a smarter way of doing this someone should say so, otherwise we’ll stick to it,” Salvini said on the sidelines of a conference in Rome. Source: Reuters
Construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has been completed for 58.7% of its total length, the Russian gas holding said on Monday. “Construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline continues. 1,441 km of the gas pipeline were laid on the bottom of the Baltic Sea by now – 58.7% of its total length,” Gazprom says. Source Tass.
Germany’s economy “should shrink slightly” in the second quarter of 2019, the country’s central bank Bundesbank said in its monthly report published here on Monday. “Special effects that contributed to a noticeable rise in gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter (of the current year) are either expiring or being reversed,” the report said. Source Xnhuanet
Deutsche Bank is planning to overhaul its trading operations by creating a so-called bad bank to hold tens of billions of euros of non-core assets, a source close to the matter said on Monday. Source: Reuters
The Japanese owner of a tanker attacked in the Gulf of Oman claimed Friday that it was struck by a flying projectile, contradicting reports by U.S. officials and the military on the source of the blast. Source: NBC
Reports from Russian media indicate that before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum representatives from Huawei have met with the Minister of digital development and communications of Russia to discuss the possibility of using Aurora OS on future Huawei smartphones.
Aurora OS is a version of Sailfish OS in majority ownership by Russian state telecom Rostelecom and designated for the Russian market. Aurora OS is the only officially approved OS in Russia for use by government agencies and Russia plans to replace all other devices used by the state with 8 million Aurora-running smartphones in the future. Source: Nokiamob
