Skip to main content

New top story from Time: Huawei Executive Returns as China Releases Two Canadians

https://ift.tt/3o7Dp7p

SHENZHEN, China — An executive of Chinese global communications giant Huawei Technologies returned from Canada Saturday night following a legal settlement that also saw the release of two Canadians held by China, potentially bringing closure to a nearly 3-year-long feud embroiling Ottawa, Beijing and Washington.

Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder, arrived Saturday evening aboard a chartered jet provided by flag carrier Air China in the southern technology hub of Shenzhen, where Huawei is based.

Her return, met with a flag-waving group of airline employees, was carried live on state TV, underscoring the degree to which Beijing has linked her case with Chinese nationalism and its rise as a global economic and political power.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Wearing a red dress matching the color of China’s flag, Meng thanked the ruling Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping for supporting her through more than 1,000 days in house arrest in Vancouver, where she owns two multimillion dollar mansions.

“I have finally returned to the warm embrace of the motherland,” Meng said. “As an ordinary Chinese citizen going through this difficult time, I always felt the warmth and concern of the party, the nation and the people.”

On the same day, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor were freed and flown back to Canada. They were detained shortly after Canada arrested Meng on a U.S. extradition request in December 2018. Many countries labeled China’s action “hostage politics,” while China accused Ottawa of arbitrary detention.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hugged the pair on the tarmac after they landed in Calgary, Alberta early Saturday, following what amounted to a high-stakes prisoner swap involving China, the U.S. and Canada.

“These two men have been through an unbelievably difficult ordeal. For the past 1,000 days, they have shown strength, perseverance and grace and we are all inspired by that,” Trudeau said earlier Friday.

Meng, 49, reached an agreement with U.S. federal prosecutors that called for fraud charges against her to be dismissed next year. As part of the deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, she accepted responsibility for misrepresenting the company’s business dealings in Iran.

Shortly before her return, the Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily newspaper declared the resolution of the case as a “glorious victory for the Chinese people” achieved through the “unremitting efforts of the Chinese government.”

“The evidence shows this was purely a case of the political persecution of a Chinese citizen with the purpose of suppressing China’s technological advancement,” the paper said. “No force can block China’s forward progress,” it added.

In an emailed statement, Huawei said it would continue to defend itself against the allegations. The company also sent a statement from Meng’s lawyer, William W. Taylor III, saying she had “not pleaded guilty and we fully expect the indictment will be dismissed with prejudice after 14 months.”

The case had caused a huge rift in China-Canada relations, with Beijing launching regular broadsides against the Canadian justice system and banning some imports from the country. In addition, two Canadians convicted in separate drug cases in China were sentenced to death in 2019. A third, Robert Schellenberg, received a 15-year sentence that was abruptly increased to the death penalty after Meng’s arrest. It wasn’t immediately clear if those prisoners might receive any reprieve.

In Shenzhen, a 20-year old job seeker at the headquarters of Huawei repeated a government view that Meng’s arrest was driven by politics and rivalry with the U.S. over technology and global influence.

“I think (this) was to stop Huawei’s development in the world,” said the man, who gave only his surname, Wang, as is common among citizens speaking to foreign media in China, where the government closely monitors all speech. “It’s a very important reason — nobody wants other countries to have better technology than itself.”

Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for phone and internet companies and a symbol of China’s progress in becoming a technological world power that has received massive government backing. It has also been a subject of U.S. security and law enforcement concerns, with officials and analysts saying it and other Chinese companies have flouted international rules and norms and stolen technology and vital personal information.

The case against Meng stemmed from a January 2019 indictment from the Justice Department under the administration of former President Donald Trump. It accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets and using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. The indictment also charged Meng herself with committing fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.

The indictment came amid a broader Trump administration crackdown against Huawei over U.S. government concerns that the company’s products could facilitate Chinese spying. The administration cut off Huawei’s access to U.S. components and technology, including Google’s music and other smartphone services, and later barred vendors worldwide from using U.S. technology to produce components for Huawei.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has kept up a hard line on Huawei and other Chinese corporations whose technology is thought to pose national security risks.

Huawei has repeatedly denied the U.S. government’s allegations and security concerns about its products.

As part of the deal with Meng, which was disclosed in federal court in Brooklyn, the Justice Department agreed to dismiss the fraud charges against her in December 2022 — exactly four years after her arrest — provided that she complies with certain conditions, including not contesting any of the government’s factual allegations. The Justice Department also agreed to drop its request that Meng be extradited to the U.S., which she had vigorously challenged, ending a process that prosecutors said could have persisted for months.

After appearing via videoconference for her hearing with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Meng made a brief court appearance in Vancouver, where she’d been out on bail while the two Canadians were held in Chinese prison cells where the lights were kept on 24 hours a day.

Outside the courtroom, Meng thanked the Canadian government for upholding the rule of law, expressed gratitude to the Canadian people and apologized “for the inconvenience I caused.”

“Over the last three years my life has been turned upside down,” she said. “It was a disruptive time for me as a mother, a wife and as a company executive. But I believe every cloud has a silver lining. It really was an invaluable experience in my life. I will never forget all the good wishes I received.”

Video was also circulated online in China of Meng speaking at Vancouver International Airport, saying; “Thank you motherland, thank you to the people of the motherland. You have been my greatest pillar of support.”

___

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, Rob Gillies in Toronto, Jim Mustian in New York and Jim Morris in Vancouver, Canada, contributed to this report.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New top story from Time: Little Recognition and Less Pay: These Female Healthcare Workers Are Rural India’s First Defense Against COVID-19

https://ift.tt/3mrDgrm Archana Ghugare’s ringtone, a Hindu devotional song, has been the background score of her life since March. By 7 a.m. on a mid-October day, the 41-year-old has already received two calls about suspected COVID-19 cases in Pavnar, her village in the Indian state of Maharashtra. As she gets ready and rushes out the door an hour later, she receives at least four more. “My family jokes that not even Prime Minister Modi gets as many calls as I do,” she says. Ghugare, and nearly a million other Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) assigned to rural villages and small towns across India, are on the front lines of the country’s fight against the coronavirus . Every day, Ghugare goes door to door in search of potential COVID-19 cases, working to get patients tested or to help them find treatment. With 8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, India has the second-highest tally in the world after the United States and its health infrastructure struggled to co

New top story from Time: House Passes President Biden’s $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Relief Bill

https://ift.tt/2ZVMCSX WASHINGTON — The House approved a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill in a win for President Joe Biden, even as top Democrats tried assuring agitated progressives that they’d revive their derailed drive to boost the minimum wage. The new president’s vision for flushing cash to individuals, businesses, states and cities battered by COVID-19 passed on a near party-line 219-212 vote early Saturday. That ships the massive measure to the Senate, where Democrats seem bent on resuscitating their minimum wage push and fights could erupt over state aid and other issues. Democrats said the still-faltering economy and the half-million American lives lost demanded quick, decisive action. GOP lawmakers, they said, were out of step with a public that polling shows largely views the bill favorably. “I am a happy camper tonight,” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Friday. “This is what America needs. Republicans, you ought to be a part of this. But if you’re not,

Sushant Singh Rajput Death Case LIVE Updates: Rhea Chakraborty to undergo CBI interrogation again today https://ift.tt/2ErYXaz

Rhea Chakraborty summoned again by CBI in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) moved one step ahead with the investigation when on Friday, it interrogated Sushant Singh Rajput's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, the main accused in the mysterious death of the actor. Rhea reached the DRDO-IAF guest house in the suburbs at 10:30 am along with her brother Showik and was interrogated for 10 long hours. During the interrogation, the actress revealed her side of the story about how she met Sushant and their live-in relationship for the last one year. The actress has been asked to appear again before the CBI. Besides Rhea, her brother Showik, Sushant's flatmate Siddharth Pithani, house manager Samuel Miranda, personal staff Neeraj Singh have also been questioned on Friday.

Just in Time for Bike Month: The Active Communities Plan Interactive Map!

Just in Time for Bike Month: The Active Communities Plan Interactive Map! By Christopher Kidd Image of the new Active Communities Plan (ACP ) interactive map  As part of our ongoing public outreach about the Active Communities Plan , the SFMTA has created a new ACP interactive map .  The release of the map comes just a couple of weeks after we began collecting feedback through our new survey .   The map shows conditions for biking, scooting and rolling across San Francisco, as well as multiple layers of analysis conducted by the Active Communities Plan team. It is meant to help users understand how different factors like comfort, safety and network quality influence whether people decide to use active transportation or not.   We want users to have the opportunity to explore and compare data, reflect on how it compares to their experiences with active transportation and provide input about what kinds of solutions work best.  The interactive map has six main layers to explore: 

New top story from Time: Latest Tests Bring Israel a Step Closer to Commercial Drones

https://ift.tt/3lyZxGe TEL AVIV, Israel — Dozens of drones floated through the skies of Tel Aviv on Monday, ferrying cartons of ice cream and sushi across the city in an experiment that officials hope provided a glimpse of the not-too-distant future. Israel’s National Drone Initiative, a government program, carried out the drill to prepare for a world in which large quantities of commercial deliveries will be made by drones to take pressure off highly congested urban roads. The two-year program aims to apply the capabilities of Israeli drone companies to establish a nationwide network where customers can order goods and have them delivered to pick up spots. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The project, now in the third of eight stages, is still in its infancy and faces many questions about security and logistics. “We had 700 test flights at the start of this year and now we are close to 9,000 flights,” said Daniella Partem, from Israel Innovation Authority, a partner in th

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J सिद्धार्थ रॉय कपूर फिल्म्स कि अगली सीरीज़ विलियम डेलरिम्पल कि बेस्टसेलर, 'द एनार्की: पर आधारित होगी

सिद्धार्थ रॉय कपूर के प्रोडक्शन 'रॉय कपूर फिल्म्स' ने हालही में अवार्ड विनिंग इतिहासकार और लेखक विलियम डेलरिम्पल की बेस्ट सेलिंग हिस्टोरिकल बुक ‘द अनार्की: द रिलेंटलेस राइज़ ऑफ़ द ईस्ट इंडिया कंपनी' के आधिकारिक राइट्स हासिल कर इसे सीरीज़ के from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/siddharth-roy-kapoor-next-web-series-will-be-based-on-anarchy-090499.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.11.231.156&utm_campaign=client-rss

New top story from Time: Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Reportedly Stepping Down Over Health Concerns

https://ift.tt/32yNoGh (TOKYO) — Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his intention to step down due to his declining health, according to reports Friday by NHK and other Japanese media. The Prime Minister’s Office said the report could not be immediately confirmed, but that Abe was believed to be meeting top ruling officials at the party headquarters. The Liberal Democratic Party spokesman did not answer the phone. Concerns about Abe’s chronic health issues, simmering since earlier this summer, intensified this month when he visited a Tokyo hospital two weeks in a row for unspecified health checkups. Abe, whose term ends in September 2021, is expected to stay on until a new party leader is elected and formally approved by the parliament. He had abruptly resigned from his first stint in office in 2007 due to his health, which was fueling concerns about his recent condition. Abe on Monday became Japan’s longest serving prime minister by consecutive days in of

New top story from Time: The Reopening of Springsteen on Broadway Brought Broadway Out of Hibernation—and One Packed Theater Into a Brighter Future

https://ift.tt/3A6wS0a The city that never sleeps is still a little sleepy, unsure of how to move its joints and muscles as it awakens from its forced hibernation . Although Times Square is now almost as brightly lit as ever, it’s remarkably hard to find a bar that will serve a drink after 11 p.m. On a late-June Saturday night, Eighth Ave. around 42nd Street was vibrating with young people: guys imported from the outer boroughs and beyond in their baggy, rumpled shorts, young women in elastic spangled mini-dresses making their first outing after a year lying in a drawer, men in mardi gras beads and the tiniest of tank tops ready to make the most of the final days of Pride month . Yet it was hard to know exactly what all these people were doing there, other than taking their place in a kind of Brownian-movement minuet under the cheerfully garish lights. Because Times Square cannot be itself while Broadway—meaning not the actual street but the constellation of live shows around

More 20 MPH Streets Coming Soon Near You

More 20 MPH Streets Coming Soon Near You By Christine Osorio Last October when California Assembly Bill 43 (Friedman) was signed into law, we posted a blog about which gave cities new flexibility in setting speed limits—specifically reducing them. “Speed Management,” a reference that is still in development, focused on reducing speed limits in key business activity districts where at least 50% are dining or retail. Since the bill went into effect last month, we’ve already started lowering speed limits by 5 MPH (from 25 MPH to 20 MPH) in the first phase of approved corridors, four of which have been implemented:  San Bruno Avenue, from Silver to Paul avenues (Completed January 2022)  Polk Street, from Filbert to Sutter streets (Completed January 2022)  Haight Street, from Stanyan Street to Central Avenue and from Webster to Steiner streets (Completed February 2022)  24th Street, from Diamond to Chattanooga streets and from Valencia Street to San Bruno Avenue (Completed

Celebrate Earth Day on San Francisco Streets!

Celebrate Earth Day on San Francisco Streets! By If you want a glimpse into how our city can become more resilient, sustainable, and connected, head out to San Francisco streets on Earth Day 2022! Across the city, San Francisco city leaders and residents are taking to the streets to chart a new future for the city—one that’s lighter on cars, and more invested in transit, active transportation, and community connections. All are welcome to join—here are a few ways to get involved:  Plan to bike, walk, or roll to school : The week leading up to Earth Day—April 18-21st—is Bike & Roll to School week ! SF Bicycle Coalition has created a range of opportunities for schools that serve anyone from Kindergarten through 12th grade to get involved. Visit their website to learn more about becoming a Bike & Roll Champion and to pledge to participate in any of the events happening this week across San Francisco. It’s a great way to highlight safe, low-carbon, and fun ways to get to school