Month: February 2019

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada and faces possible extradition to the United States, is exploring a defense that claims U.S. charges against her are politically motivated, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Monday.

Meng, the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., is the central figure in a high-stakes dispute between the United States and China. Canada arrested Meng in December at the request of the United States and last month she was charged with wire fraud that violated U.S. sanctions on Iran.

“The political overlay of this case is remarkable,” Richard Peck, lead counsel for Meng, told the Toronto newspaper in a telephone interview.

“That’s probably the one thing that sets it apart from any other extradition case I’ve ever seen. It’s got this cloud of politicization hanging over it,” Peck added.

The office of Canadian Justice Minister David Lametti and Peck did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Huawei spokesman declined comment.

In December, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Reuters interview he would intervene in the Justice Department’s case against Meng if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.

Canada fired John McCallum, its ambassador to China, in January after he said Meng could make a strong argument against being sent to the United States.

“He [Mr. McCallum] mentions some of the potential defenses – and certainly, I think any person that knows this area would see the potential for those defenses arising,” Peck told the newspaper.

Meng’s lawyers are also planning to challenge whether her alleged conduct would be deemed criminal under Canadian law, the Globe and Mail said.
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Pushpa Ithal may not fit the stereotype of the typical Silicon Valley CEO — she’s female, foreign-born, and a mother.

Nevertheless, Ithal is an entrepreneur, living the Silicon Valley dream of running her own startup.

Like her, many foreign-born tech women are finding a place in the Valley — as tech companies have become more and more dependent on foreign-born workers to create their products and services.

Silicon Valley, the global center for high-tech innovation, could be renamed “Immigrant Valley.” When it comes to technical talent, the engine of Silicon Valley is fueled by foreign-born workers, many of whom are from humble roots. And having worked hard to get here, many have ambitions beyond their day jobs.

One of them is Ithal.

On Sundays, she and her two children, ages 5 and 10, pick out the clothes the kids will wear the coming week. Each outfit is placed on a labeled hanger. Then she does the same with the week’s snacks.

“So there are no surprises for the kids,” Ithal said.

Being organized is one of Ithal’s strategies for juggling parenting and running her own startup. And while that juggle is commonplace in Silicon Valley, Ithal is part of a distinct club — foreign-born women in tech. 

Hailing from countries such as India and China, these women make up the majority of all women in certain Silicon Valley fields and are often the only females on male-dominated teams in tech companies. 

Their uniqueness does not stop there. Foreign-born women in tech are more likely to be married and have children than their U.S.-born female coworkers.

​Immigrant Valley

Born in Bangalore, India, Ithal has worked for big tech companies and startups. Her husband, also from India, has built successful startups. Starting her own firm, however, was a leap.

“I came here all the way, let’s risk it,” recalled Ithal, founder and CEO of a company called MarketBeam, which is an AI-driven social marketing company.

More than 60 percent of tech workers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, home to Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other U.S. tech firms, are immigrants, according to the Silicon Valley Institute of Regional Studies. Immigrants work at all levels of the industry. Many are executives, company founders and venture capitalists.

But foreign-born women stand out. In an industry where women make up about 20 percent of the technical workforce, many of these jobs are filled by foreign-born women.

Technical roles

Nearly three-quarters of all women in their prime working year and in technical occupations in Silicon Valley are foreign-born, according to the institute. In computers and mathematics, foreign-born women make up nearly 80 percent of the female workforce.

The numbers surprised Rachel Massaro, vice president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley and senior researcher at the institute. It’s her job to contribute to an annual index of Silicon Valley that looks at housing, transportation and population.

“I double-checked, triple-checked the number just to make sure it was even real,” Massaro said.

Many things contribute to foreign-born women dominating tech — the dearth of women seeking a technical education in the United States, and an emphasis on tech education for girls in other countries, with many seeing technical skills as a path to financial independence and possibly a work visa in the U.S.

There are also stereotypes of what women can and should do with their lives both in the U.S. and overseas.

​Working and raising children

Looking more closely at these women, Massaro found a few other surprises — 71 percent of foreign-born female tech workers ages 25-44 are married, compared to 39 percent of native-born female tech workers.

And they are more likely to be mothers — 44 percent have children, compared to 27 percent of U.S.-born female workers.

One of those women is Lingling Shi, who was born in China. She saw studying computer science as her ticket.

“Computer science, for most of us, it’s easier to apply for a green card,” she said. “It’s not my main interest, I’ll be honest.”

But Shi has succeeded in each of her jobs — she brushes up on any new technical areas online in the evenings — and is now vice president of digital banking technology at East West Bank. With her husband, who is also from China and in tech, she is raising her son.

“I guess for Chinese, the family building is most important thing,” she said.

No amount of career success would fulfill her parents’ desire for grandchildren. The message from family is clear, Shi said — “Oh, you are VP of Engineering now, but you don’t have a kid?”

Many women from India and China are “under a set of cultural expectations and norms that they will have a family right away — and they will excel in their careers,” said AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Information, who has written about immigrants in tech.

“These women are really kind of super women in the tasks that they take on,” she added.

As Silicon Valley looks to bring more women into the technical workforce, these women provide a model of how to thrive.
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Zimbabwean teachers will go ahead with a national strike from Tuesday after last-ditch negotiations with the government failed, unions said, risking more unrest after violent protests last month.

The main public sector union backed down last week on its plan to strike for better pay, citing a volatile situation after security forces cracked down on protesters in January, but teachers said they would go ahead with a work stoppage.

Government officials met teachers’ unions on Monday in Harare to try to dissuade them from walking out, and to continue negotiations, but without success.

The country’s 305,000 government workers are demanding wage rises and payments in dollars to help them to deal with spiraling inflation and an economic crisis that has sapped supplies of cash, fuel and medicines in state hospitals.

The Zimbabwe Teachers Union and Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), the two biggest teachers’ unions, said their demands had not been met and the strike was on from Tuesday.

“There is no going back, the strike is indefinite. But if government concedes to our demands tomorrow, we will call it off,” said PTUZ secretary general Raymond Majongwe.

Education Minister Paul Mavhima said he had pleaded with unions to give talks a chance as the government seeks ways to address some of their grievances.

“They should be guided by considerations of the bigger national interests and in this case it is the welfare of learners,” Mavhima told reporters.

Zimbabwe was thrown into turmoil last month when a three-day stay-at-home strike against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s decision to raise the price of fuel by 150 percent turned into violent anti-government protests.

The government introduced a subsidized bus service in major cities, forcing public taxis, which had hiked prices threefold, to cut fares.

But on Monday bakers hiked the price of bread by 60 percent, according to new prices displayed in shops. The increase follows that of other basic goods like cooking oil, rice, maize meal and beef last month.

Last week private doctors set new charges in U.S. dollars.

Zimbabweans say Mnangagwa, in office since 2017, is failing to deliver on pre-election promises to provide accessible healthcare and education and to boost employment, leading to growing frustration that analysts say could trigger further unrest.

Mnangagwa and government officials, without giving evidence, accuse Western governments of funding the opposition to cause violence and unrest, an echo of the era of former President Robert Mugabe, when authorities blamed the West for most of its troubles.
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A new report from U.N. Conference on Trade and Development warns the U.S.-China trade wars will negatively impact international trade, with the two economic superpowers emerging among the biggest losers.

U.S.-China trade discussions are underway.  If no agreement is reached by March 1, tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods will increase from 10 percent to 25 percent.  A new UNCTAD study warns the repercussions on international trade will be massive, leading to a downturn in the global economy and instability in commodities and financial markets.

Pamela Coke-Hamilton, director of UNCTAD’s Division on International Trade in Goods and Services, and Commodities, said small — and lower — income countries will suffer, as their exposure to external shocks will make it very difficult for them to maintain any level of resilience.

“Stagflation leading to job losses and higher unemployment and more importantly, the possibility of a contagion effect, or what we call a reactionary effect, leading to a cascade of other trade distortionary measures because everybody then will get in the game, and it will be very difficult,” Coke-Hamilton said.  

The study predicts higher tariffs will trigger currency wars and devaluation.  It warns the impact on global value chains and intermediate suppliers will be devastating.  For example, the U.N. report says the relocation from East Asian value chains will result in a reduction of almost $160 billion to the region.

Coke-Hamilton said the retaliatory tariffs imposed by the United States have not achieved their intended effect.  She says they have not resulted in increased domestic production, but rather will lead to a diversion of trade to third countries.

“If the tariffs rise to 25 percent,” Coke-Hamilton said. “What will occur is simple — they will limit trade from China. However, it will not be effective in protecting domestic firms.  So, suppliers in the rest of the world will be more competitive. Trade diversion affects in favor of third countries.”  

U.N. economists said the European Union will emerge as the biggest winner, capturing about $70 billion of U.S.-China bilateral trade.  They said Japan, Mexico and Canada will each capture more than $20 billion.
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British lawmakers are debating new proposals on the European Union Withdrawal Agreement this week, amid a series of stark warnings over the consequences of Britain crashing out with no deal on 29 March.

Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to negotiate changes to the Withdrawal Agreement in meetings with Brussels in the coming days, after a majority of British MPs backed calls to change the deal last week. The European Union has flatly rejected reopening the talks.

There are growing signs that uncertainty over Brexit is starting to hit investment, as Japanese car giant Nissan has announced Sunday it is moving production of the X-trail — one of its most popular SUV models — out of the UK. The decision reverses a pledge made by Nissan in the wake of the 2016 referendum.

It’s emerged that Britain offered Nissan over $100 million in 2016 to persuade it to keep its operations in the UK. The reversal was met with dismay by British lawmakers.

‘”It concerns me that they have noted the uncertainty around Brexit and I think that is a serious signal to all of us in Parliament, that now is the time to resolve that uncertainty,” Business Minister Greg Clark told reporters Sunday.

As Britain’s ties stumble, Japan and the European Union are celebrating the entry into force of a trade deal, covering a third of global GDP. Visiting Tokyo Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a Brexit deal was still possible.

“But we need to know from Britain — and this is the critical point — what it envisages,” Merkel said in a press conference.

The threat of a no deal Brexit is growing starker by the day. Government contingency plans leaked to British media purportedly entail evacuating the Royal Family from Buckingham Palace. Worst-case scenarios envisage rioting on the streets amid food and medicine shortages, as waste export restrictions create mountains of garbage.

Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU Law at HEC Paris, says neither Britain nor Europe can accurately predict the consequences of a no-deal exit.

“Obviously it’s a very complicated scenario, which entails incredible implications for citizens, for businesses on both sides of the Channel. But the other option is to rethink the Withdrawal Agreement. But not entirely — it’s just about arranging the process that might lead the Withdrawal Agreement to finally find a majority in the Houses [of Parliament].”

That might not be enough. Britain is demanding changes to the so-called “Irish backstop” clause, which seeks to keep Britain tied to EU rules until a trade deal is in place — aimed at preventing a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, which will become the EU’s external border.

But the EU is unlikely to budge, says analyst Anand Menon of the UK in a Changing Europe program at Kings College London.

“They won’t give us a time-limited backstop, because as the Irish keep staying, if it’s time-limited it’s not a backstop,” said Menon.

Reopening the Withdrawal Agreement could see other EU member states request their own changes, notably Spain’s demands for talks on the sovereignty of Gibraltar.

“Some member states could have some possible claims, certainly Spain might be one of them. But also the political context in Europe is also moving, and very fast, ahead of the next European elections,” notes Professor Alemmano.

It is a reminder that the current deadlock is just the beginning of Britain’s recasting its relationship with a fast-changing Europe — a process that could take years, if not decades.
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Nissan announced Sunday it has cancelled plans to make its X-Trail SUV in the UK — a sharp blow to British Prime Minister Theresa May, who fought to have the model built in northern England as she sought to shore up confidence in the British economy after it leaves the European Union.

Nissan said it will consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced, allowing the company to reduce investment costs in the early stages of the project.

That reverses a decision in late 2016 to build the SUV at Nissan’s Sunderland plant in northern England, which employs 7,000 workers. That plant will continue to make Nissan’s Juke and Qashqai models. The announcement Sunday made no mention of any layoffs relating to the X-Trail SUV decision.

“While we have taken this decision for business reasons, the continued uncertainty around the UK’s future relationship with the EU is not helping companies like ours to plan for the future,” Nissan Europe Chairman Gianluca de Ficchy said in a statement.

Less than two months before Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29, Britain still doesn’t have an agreement on what will replace 45 years of frictionless trade. This has caused an enormous amount of concern among businesses in Britain, which fear the country is going to crash out of the vast EU trade bloc without a divorce deal, a scenario economists predict would hurt the U.K. economy.

The Nissan decision, first reported by Sky News, is a major setback for May’s Conservative government, which had pointed to Nissan’s 2016 announcement that Sunderland would make the SUV — months after the country’s Brexit referendum — as proof that major manufacturers still had confidence in Britain’s economic future.

Nissan’s announced its plans to build the X-Trail and Qashqai models in Sunderland after the government sent a letter to company officials offering undisclosed reassurances about its ability to compete in the future.

British politicians have sharply criticized May’s Brexit deal and voted it down in Parliament.

May’s government has refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit, saying the threat strengthens her hand with EU negotiators. Parliament voted last week to give May more time to try to iron out a compromise with the bloc.

Nissan’s change of heart comes just days after Britain’s carmakers issued a stark assessment about Brexit’s impact on the industry, warning that their exports are at risk if the U.K. leaves the EU without an agreement.

Investment in the industry fell 46 percent last year and new car production dropped 9.1 percent to 1.52 million vehicles, in part because of concerns over Brexit, the Society of Motor Manufacturing said.

The group’s chief executive, Mike Hawes, described the threat of a no-deal Brexit as “catastrophic.”

He says the drop in investment is only a foreshadowing of what could happen if the U.K. leaves the EU on March 29 without a deal.

“With fewer than 60 days before we leave the EU and the risk of crashing out without a deal looking increasingly real, UK Automotive is on red alert,” Hawes said Thursday. “Brexit uncertainty has already done enormous damage to output, investment and jobs.”

 
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