Friday Morning Briefing: Pentagon warns on risk of Chinese submarines in Arctic
Share
May 3, 2019
Reuters News Now
United States
Deepening Chinese activities in the Arctic regioncould pave the way for a strengthened military presence, including the deployment of submarines to act as deterrents against nuclear attack, the Pentagon said. The assessment is included in the U.S. military’s annual report to Congress on China’s armed forces and follows Beijing’s publication of its first official Arctic policy white paper in June.
Huawei said it will “vigorously oppose” a motion filed by U.S. prosecutorsto disqualify its lead defense lawyer from a case accusing the Chinese company of bank fraud and sanctions violations. According to a filing in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, the U.S. government sought to remove James Cole from the case. Cole was the No.2 official at the Justice Department between 2011 and 2015, a period when the United States was obtaining information on how Huawei might have been doing business in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.
Immigrant rights groups asked a U.S. courtto reverse a Trump administration decision that allows asylum seekers who cross the border illegally to be held without bond. The groups, which include the American Civil Liberties Union, say an April 16 decision by U.S. Attorney General William Barr violates the asylum seekers’ rights under U.S. law and puts thousands of people at risk of being detained for months or years while they wait for their cases to work their way through a backlogged immigration court system.
A Vietnamese woman who spent more than two years in a Malaysian prisonon suspicion of killing the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was freed on Friday, her lawyer said. Doan Thi Huong, 30, was charged along with an Indonesian woman with poisoning Kim Jong Nam by smearing his face with liquid VX, a banned chemical weapon, at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017. Malaysian prosecutors dropped a murder charge against Huong last month after she pleaded guilty to an alternate charge of causing harm.
Microsoft announced new tools for software makers aimed at making technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain easier for businesses to use. Microsoft released the tools ahead of its software developer conference next week in Seattle.
General Motors is considering a $1 billion investment at its Missouri assembly plant where it builds vans and trucks, state officials said. Missouri Governor Mike Parson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that GM, in a closed-door meeting, had outlined a plan to invest in the plant and add jobs.
U.S. employers likely maintained a strong pace of hiring in April while steadily increasing wages for workers, pointing to solid economic growth and moderate inflation pressures.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk personally owes $507 million to Wall Street banks involved in Tesla’s stock and debt sale, backed by his stake in the electric car maker, a company filing showed.
Tesla will raise up to $2.3 billion in new capital, renouncing what Elon Musk called a “Spartan diet” and easing Wall Street concerns about the money-losing company’s ability to overcome a drop in sales and build new product lines.
