BitGou: Tuesday Morning Briefing: The thin evidence against a jailed Venezuela opposition official

2019年6月11日星期二

Tuesday Morning Briefing: The thin evidence against a jailed Venezuela opposition official

Reuters Exclusives

Venezuela intelligence agents' evidence of treason against a jailed senior aide to opposition leader Juan Guaido contradicts itself in ways that suggest it was cobbled together after his arrest, according to sealed court records reviewed by Reuters.

Japan’s Tokyo Electron, the world’s No.3 supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, will not supply to Chinese clients blacklisted by Washington, a senior company executive told Reuters. The decision shows how Washington’s effort to bar sales of technology to Chinese firms, including Huawei Technologies, is ensnaring non-American firms that are not obliged to follow U.S. law.

Highlights

Hong Kong geared for more protests, including strikes, transport go-slows and even picnics, against a proposed extradition law that would allow people to be sent to China for trial, even as the city’s leader vowed to push ahead with the bill.

Congressional Democrats struck a rare deal in their wide-ranging probes of Trump, with the U.S. Justice Department agreeing to hand over more evidence from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia inquiry. The compromise came just before a House panel heard testimony for more than four hours from John Dean, a historic figure from the Watergate era. Before Dean spoke to the House Judiciary Committee, Trump took the opportunity on Twitter to slam the former White House counsel under President Richard Nixon as a “sleazebag attorney.”

North Korean state media called on the United States to “withdraw its hostile policy” towards Pyongyang or agreements made at a landmark summit in Singapore a year ago might become “a blank sheet of paper”. The statement on state news agency KCNA, echoing a similar warning last week, reflected the stalemate since a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Hanoi in February collapsed.

Turkey chafes at U.S. pressure over Russian defenses. Relations between the two NATO members have been strained on several fronts including Ankara’s plans to buy Russia’s S-400 air defense systems, the detention of U.S. consular staff in Turkey, and conflicting strategy over Syria and Iran. The standoff threatens to bring U.S. sanctions, which would hurt Turkey’s already recession-hit economy, and raise questions over its role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Business

China will respond firmly if the United States insists on escalating trade tensions, the foreign ministry said after Trump said further tariffs were ready to kick in if no deal was reached at June’s G20 summit. On Monday, the U.S president said he was ready to impose another round of punitive tariffs on Chinese imports if he cannot make progress in trade talks with Xi in Osaka. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang would not be drawn on confirming a Xi-Trump meeting at G20, saying information would be released once it was available to the ministry.

Exclusive: Zambian government has no plans to seize First Quantum. Zambia has no plans to seize the assets of Quantum Minerals and the copper producer intends to stay in the country despite the government’s move to wrest control of a rival miner, government and industry sources told Reuters.

The head of Amazon’s cloud computing division said the company would work with any government agency that followed the law, in contrast with rival Microsoft, which has touted its rejection of controversial sales. “We will serve the federal government, and they will have to use the technology responsibly,” Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services, said at the 2019 Code Conference after being asked if the company worked with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Apple supplier Foxconn announced a leadership overhaul that will see more executives involved in the running of its daily operations, as Chairman Terry Gou seeks to run in Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election. Reuters exclusively reported last Thursday on the overhaul, which marks a major shift in Foxconn’s corporate leadership that has seen 68-year-old Gou hold a tight grip on the firm’s daily operations and strategic decisions.

Chinese companies and investors are lining up in spades to take part in Shanghai’s new Nasdaq-style tech board, with a groundswell of patriotic support surging further after the U.S. blacklisting of telecom firm Huawei inflamed trade tensions. In the two months since the application period began, 120 firms - many in industries such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence and biotech - have sought permission to list, aiming to raise a combined $16 billion.

World

Four bodies found as salvage crews lift capsized Hungarian boat

Salvage crews recovered four bodies as they slowly lifted the wreck of a boat two weeks after it capsized on the Danube River in Budapest with a group of South Korean tourists on board, officials said.

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European Union: Top Jobs

The 2019 European Parliament election has led to a major reshuffle of top jobs in the EU institutions. National leaders sitting in the European Council are bargaining with the European Parliament on the succession.

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