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
Several hundred people have begun a journey of housands of kilometers through Central America to the US. The migrants are hoping for a more humane approach to migration under President-elect Joe Biden. Source Deutsche Welle
Craft had planned to visit Taipei this week, in the teeth of strong objections from China which views the island as its own territory. But the trip was cancelled by the State Department as part of a bar on all travel ahead of the transition to the incoming Biden administration. Source Reuters
- Italy’s former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said two ministers from his Italia Viva party would resign, effectively triggering the government’s collapse.
- Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he hoped Renzi would not pull his ministers from the Cabinet, warning the country would not be able to understand why the government had collapsed amid the ongoing health crisis.
- The southern European nation is no stranger to political conflicts, tensions and scandals. Source CNBC
The investigators of the brigade of repression of banditry (BRB) of the DRPJ Paris arrested, this Tuesday, January 12, in the early morning, twelve people suspected of engaging in a vast traffic of arms throughout France. Source Actu17
A protest action in Brussels turned into riots on Wednesday evening. Demonstrators threw stones at officers and set fire to a police station, among other things. The demonstration was in response to the sudden death of a detainee. Source NU.NL
The former Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini on Saturday appeared before a Palermo judge in connection with a 2019 incident during which he blocked migrants at sea. He faces charges of abduction and of failing to carry out an act as public official. Source InfoImmigrants
A breakdown in Pakistan’s national power grid plunged the country into darkness on Saturday night, according to officials, leaving tens of millions of people without electricity in all main cities including the capital, Islamabad.
The electricity distribution system in the nation of more than 210 million people is a complex and delicate web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns countrywide. Source Pakistan
Two Gorillas at the San Diego Zoo in California have tested positive for COVID-19, with several more symptomatic. The infections are believed to be the first ever reported in non-human primates anywhere in the world. Source DW
The police were targeted twice this Saturday evening in Cenon, in the suburbs of Bordeaux (Gironde). In particular, they came under firework mortar fire. Evening of tensions for the police in Cenon on Saturday. Police officers from the Departmental Intervention Company (CDI) checked several suspects in the Palmer city following fireworks mortars. Source Actu17
Starting this week and running through at least Inauguration Day, armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitals and at the US Capitol, according to an internal FBI bulletin obtained by ABC News.
“As of 10 January, armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the US Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,” the bulletin said. Source ABC1
The Danish Energy Agency has received a new schedule from Nord Stream 2 AG for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the kingdom’s exclusive economic zone, which is a condition for the continuation of the project. Source World Pipelines
Russian oil drilling giant Gazprom Neft opened a crypto mining farm running on associated gas energy unlocking the power of Russia’s oil and gas resources for the needs of bitcoin (BTC) mining, reports Yahoo Finance. The venue for cryptocurrency mining is on one of the company’s oil drilling sites in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug in Siberia. It is using the associated gas from Gazprom Neft’s oil field as an energy source and has its own power plant to transform this gas into electricity. Source Realnoevremya
The United States’ trade deficit surged to its highest level in more than 14 years in November as businesses boosted imports to replenish inventories, offsetting a rise in exports. Source Reuters
U.S. bankruptcy filings hit their lowest level since 1986 last year thanks to unprecedented fiscal and monetary support from the Fed and Congress.
By the numbers: Total bankruptcy filings for the year fell to 529,068 filings across all chapters, while total filings in the month of December was 34,304, the lowest monthly total since January 2006, according to a release from legal services company Epiq AACER. The number of total 2020 filings was about 1/3 of the number seen in 2010. Source Axios
Italy is working on a plan to take on about 14 billion euros ($17 billion) of UniCredit’s impaired loans to make a takeover of state-owned Monte dei Paschi more attractive for the country’s second-biggest bank, sources told Reuters.
Volkswagen Group has liquidated its unit in Turkey after cancelling plans to establish its first factory in the country, Turkish television channel BloombergHT reported on Tuesday.
The decision to shutter the firm was registered with the Turkish Trade Registry and a call to creditors was issued on Monday, BloombergHT said. Source Ahval
The former head of one of China’s biggest asset management companies has been sentenced to death for corruption, in a relatively rare instance of the country meting out the death penalty for financial crimes. Source FT
Russian natural gas transported to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline touched 28.8 million cubic metres per day, as of Jan. 3, to feed homes and factories as northern China faces frigid weather conditions, national oil and gas pipeline giant PipeChina said. Source Business Recorder
Dec. 22, France’s national statistic agency INSEE reported that, the country’s public debt hit 2,674.3 billion euros (around USD3,255.93 billion) before the end of the July-September period of the present year, making up for 116.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Source MenaFN
14 December France has ordered a dozen public and private bodies to keep their deposits at the Treasury, government documents show, as it quietly builds up safeguards to reinforce its cash flow during the pandemic and ahead of Brexit. Source Reuters
“We have completed this work,” the consortium said in an emailed statement, referring to the pipe-laying in the German economic zone.
The consortium building the pipeline, led by Russian gas giant Gazprom with Western partners, has still to lay more than 100-km of pipeline, although more than 90% of the project has been completed. Source Reuters
GRNQ announced today that it believes in the ongoing mass adoption of $BTC by banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and institutions and endorses its belief that bitcoin, as the world’s most widely-adopted cryptocurrency, is a reliable future store of value. We believe the strategic management of our balance sheet, combined with the implementation of our $BTC Fund and crypto strategy will produce significant future value for the Company. Source Market Screener
