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Busted: Thousands Of Amazon Employees Listening To Alexa Conversations

Amazon employs thousands of people to listen in on what people around the world are saying to their Alexa digital assistant, according to what is sure to be a Congressional hearing-inspiring report by Bloomberg, which cites seven people who have worked on the program. 

While their job is to “help improve” NSAlexa – which powers the company’s line of Echo speakers – the team “listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices,” which are then transcribed, annotated and fed back into the software in order to try and improve Alexa’s understanding of human speech for more successful interactions. In other words, humans are effectively helping to train Amazon’s algorithm.

In marketing materials Amazon says Alexa “lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter.” But like many software tools built to learn from experience, humans are doing some of the teaching. -Bloomberg

The listening team is comprised of part-time contractors and full-time Amazon employees based all over the world; including India, Romania, Boston and Costa Rica.

Listeners work nine hour shifts, with each reviewing as many as 1,000 audio clips per shift according to two employees from Amazon’s Bucharest office – located in the top three floors of the Romanian capital’s Globalworth building. The location “stands out amid the crumbling infrastructure” of the Pipera district and “bears no exterior sign advertising Amazon’s presence.”


Alex Jones goes on Logan Paul’s podcast “ImPaulsive”

While much of the work is boring (one worker said his job was to mine for accumulated voice data for specific phrases such as “Taylor Swift” – letting the system know that the searcher was looking for the artist), reviewers are also listening on people’s most personal moments.

Occasionally the listeners pick up things Echo owners likely would rather stay private: a woman singing badly off key in the shower, say, or a child screaming for help. The teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word—or come across an amusing recording. -Bloomberg

Occasionally Amazon listeners come across upsetting or possibly criminal recordings – such as two workers who say they listened in on what sounded like a sexual assault. 

According to the report, when things like this happen the workers will mention it in the internal chat room to “relieve stress.”

And while Amazon says that it has procedures to follow when workers hear distressing things, two of the Romania-based employees say they were told “it wasn’t Amazon’s job to interfere” when they requested guidance for such instances.

“We take the security and privacy of our customers’ personal information seriously,” said an Amazon spokesman in a statement provided to Bloomberg.

“We only annotate an extremely small sample of Alexa voice recordings in order improve the customer experience. For example, this information helps us train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems, so Alexa can better understand your requests, and ensure the service works well for everyone,” the statement continues. “We have strict technical and operational safeguards, and have a zero tolerance policy for the abuse of our system. Employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow. All information is treated with high confidentiality and we use multi-factor authentication to restrict access, service encryption and audits of our control environment to protect it.”

That said, Amazon does not mention the fact that humans are listening to recordings of some of the conversations picked up by Alexa. Instead, they have a generic disclaimer in their FAQ that says “We use your requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems.”

What Amazon records

According to Amazon’s Alexa terms of use, the company collects and stores most of what you say to Alexa – including the geolocation of the product along with your voice instructions, reported CNBCTodd Haselton last November.

Your messages, communication requests (e.g., “Alexa, call Mom”), and related instructions are “Alexa interactions,” as described in the Alexa Terms of Use. Amazon processes and retains your Alexa Interactions and related information in the cloud in order to respond to your requests (e.g., “Send a message to Mom”), to provide additional functionality (e.g., speech to text transcription and vice versa), and to improve our services. -Amazon Terms of Use

Last May, an Amazon Echo recorded a conversation between a husband and wife, then sent it to one of the husband’s phone contacts. Amazon claims that during the conversation someone used a word that sounded like “Alexa,” which caused the device to begin recording.

“Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘Alexa,’” said Amazon in a statement. “Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a ‘send message’ request. At which point, Alexa said out loud ‘To whom?’ At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customer’s contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, ‘[contact name], right?’ Alexa then interpreted background conversation as ‘right’. As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.”

The wife, Danielle, however said that the Echo never requested her permission to send the audio. “At first, my husband was like, ‘No, you didn’t,’” Danielle told KIRO7. “And he’s like, ‘You sat there talking about hardwood floors.’ And we said, ‘Oh gosh, you really did!’”

Can you disable?

Alexa does allow people to stop sharing their voice recordings for the development of new features, while a screenshot reviewed by Bloomberg reveals that the recordings provided to Alexa’s listeners do not provide the full name or address of a user. It does, however, link the recording to an account number, the user’s first name, and the device’s serial number.

“You don’t necessarily think of another human listening to what you’re telling your smart speaker in the intimacy of your home,” said UMich professor Florian Schaub, who has researched privacy issues related to smart speakers. “I think we’ve been conditioned to the [assumption] that these machines are just doing magic machine learning. But the fact is there is still manual processing involved.

“Whether that’s a privacy concern or not depends on how cautious Amazon and other companies are in what type of information they have manually annotated, and how they present that information to someone,” added Schaub.

Source: InfoWars

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Republican Mark Harris won’t run in new North Carolina election after fraud claims, citing health

Republican Mark Harris said Tuesday he will not run in the new election for North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, citing his “extremely serious” health condition.

It comes just days after the North Carolina State Board of Election unanimously voted for a new election after the district’s House race from 2018 was marred by claims of ballot fraud.

NORTH CAROLINA ELECTION BOARD CALLS NEW ELECTION IN DISPUTED HOUSE RACE

“After consulting with my physicians, there are several things that my health situation requires as a result of the extremely serious condition that I faced in mid-January,” Harris said in a statement. “One of those is a necessary surgery that is now scheduled for the last week in March.”

Harris added, “I have decided not to file in the new election for Congressional District 9.”

Last week, Harris, who outpaced Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in the contested race, said in court he has suffered two strokes since the election and was “struggling” to get through the hearing.

In his statement Tuesday, Harris threw his support behind Union County Commissioner Stony Rushing.

"The North Carolina Republican Party fully supports Dr. Harris' decision,” North Carolina Republican Chairman Robin Hayes said. “The most important thing for him to address is his health. This has been a grueling process for all involved, and we unequivocally support his call for a new election.”

Last week, Harris acknowledged a new election should be held after days of testimony in a hearing on ballot-tampering.

“I believe a new election should be called,” Harris said. “It’s become clear to me that public confidence in the 9th District has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted.”

In his sworn testimony, Harris said that he was assured by political operative – and convicted felon – Leslie McCrae Dowless that campaign workers would never collect absentee ballots, despite concerns from Harris’ son, John, that Dowless was illegally collecting and turning in ballots from voters.

One of the methods participants said Dowless used was to hire workers to collect absentee ballots from voters who received them, and then turn them over to him, according to an elections board investigation.

State election law prohibits anyone other than a guardian or close family member from handling mail-in ballots. Harris' team initially said in a legal briefing submitted to the elections board last week the board should certify him the winner -- no matter what Dowless did for the campaign.

Harris’ comments calling for a new election came a day after his son took the stand in emotional testimony that left his father in tears.

"I raised red flags at the time the decision was made to hire Mr. Dowless," John Harris said in his testimony on Wednesday.

Fox News’ David Lewkowict and Andrew O’Reilly and The Associated Press contributed to this report.  

Source: Fox News Politics

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U.S. transport chief defends FAA decision to not immediately ground Boeing 737 MAX

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary Elaine Chao speaks to the news media outside of the West Wing of the White House
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao speaks to the news media outside of the West Wing of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 4, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

April 10, 2019

(Reuters) – U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao defended the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to not immediately ground the Boeing 737 MAX fleet after a second deadly crash in March of an airplane in Ethiopia.

Chao also said the FAA will “thoroughly review” Boeing’s final software upgrade package and training revisions once the airplane manufacturer submits it. “The department’s goal is to ensure public trust in aviation safety and preserve the preeminence of the United States as the gold standard in aviation safety,” Chao told a U.S. House panel.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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McCabe slams Loretta Lynch in new book, says Clinton probe should have gone to special counsel

Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, in his new book, rails against President Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch, for her decisions and actions while the FBI investigated Hillary Clinton’s email server during the 2016 campaign, saying Lynch should have been recused from the probe and a special counsel should have been appointed instead.

McCabe wrote in “The Threat,” released Tuesday, that “the tarmac meeting was a horrible lapse in judgment by Loretta Lynch.”

Lynch came under fire in 2016 after an infamous tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton days before the FBI decided it would not recommend criminal charges against his wife for her handling of classified information on her private email server. Lynch, reacting to the criticism for meeting  with Clinton while the FBI investigated his wife, has claimed she and Clinton only discussed “innocuous things.”

TRUMP DENIES CALLING ANDREW MCCABE'S WIFE ‘A LOSER’

But McCabe said Lynch, after the outcry over the meeting, should have stepped away from the probe – which was code-named "Midyear Exam" by the FBI.

“She should have recused herself from Midyear at that point,” McCabe wrote. “She did not—she made things worse.”

McCabe suggested things would have turned out better had Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, both appointed by Obama, recused themselves even earlier from the case.

“It was a fatal choice. Had there been a competent, credible special counsel running Midyear Exam independently—the way Bob Mueller’s Russia investigation has been run – I think circumstances might have been very different, and we would not have been where we ended up in July,” McCabe said.

That's in apparent reference to when then-FBI Director James Comey came under heavy criticism during the campaign for his choice to make a public announcement explaining why Clinton was not being charged. He later explained he felt compelled to take the lead on the announcement because of the questions over Lynch’s credibility.

McCabe argued that for Lynch and Yates, “Recusal would have been a reasonable and, I would argue, better decision for those political appointees to have made." He added, "I don’t know why they didn’t do that.”

“Somehow, they saw the investigation of Hillary Clinton – former first lady and former secretary of state, current candidate for the presidency, likely nominee of the Democratic Party, who was being supported by the president of the United States, to whom they owed their jobs – as a case they could handle without prejudice,” McCabe wrote.

MCCABE: 'NO ONE' IN CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP OBJECTED WHEN TOLD OF FBI’S TRUMP PROBE

McCabe also said FBI agents mocked Lynch’s insistence to Comey to characterize the probe as a “matter” instead of an “investigation” – an apparent attempt to downplay the seriousness of it.

“This became a running joke whenever anyone at the FBI felt like Justice was dragging its feet,” McCabe wrote. He said agents would joke, “What have we become, the Federal Bureau of Matters?”

Still, McCabe said Comey was concerned about it.

“The matter of the ‘matter’ did have a serious effect on the director,” McCabe said. “It planted the question, Was the attorney general trying to minimize what we were doing? The question festered. He’d heard that the Clinton campaign was trying to avoid the word ‘investigation,’ too.”

Like Lynch, McCabe’s involvement in the Clinton case has also come under scrutiny. Trump himself has suggested McCabe was in the tank for the Clintons, drawing attention to how McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe, received donations from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's super PAC while she ran for a state Senate seat in Virginia in 2015. McAuliffe is a close Clinton ally. McCabe did not recuse himself from the Clinton investigation until a week before the election.

MEGHAN MCCAIN STUNS ANDREW MCCABE ON 'THE VIEW,' ASKS IF HE WAS NEW YORK TIMES LEAKER

In the book, McCabe denied a conflict of interest, and dismisses the accusations as a “conspiracy theory.”

McCabe was eventually fired last year by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions after an inspector general report said McCabe lied about leaking to reporters about the Clinton investigation. He defended himself, but declined to write much about that episode, citing legal reasons.

“As for my own firing and the ostensible reasons behind it, the demands and risks of an ongoing legal process put tight constraints on what I can say, although I would like to say much more,” McCabe said. “I am filing a suit that challenges my firing and the IG’s process and findings, and the unprecedented way DOJ handled my termination. I will let that action speak for itself.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Pope replaces Santiago bishop after abuse cover-up claims

Pope Francis has replaced Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati , the embattled archbishop of Santiago, Chile, after he became embroiled in the country's spiraling sex abuse and cover-up scandal.

Francis on Saturday accepted Ezzati's resignation and named a temporary replacement to govern Chile's most important archdiocese: the current bishop of Copiapo, Monsignor Celestino Aos Braco.

The 77-year-old Ezzati had submitted his resignation two years ago when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. But Francis kept him on, and he became the flashpoint of abuse survivors' ire for mishandling several cases of abuse.

Francis himself became embroiled in the scandal after initially discrediting victims during his 2018 trip to Chile.

After realizing his error, Francis summoned all Chile's active bishops to the Vatican and strong-armed them to offer their resignations.

Source: Fox News World

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China vows to cut burden of social security costs for small firms

Woman works at a workshop of a textile manufacturer in Binzhou, Shandong
FILE PHOTO: A woman works at a workshop of a textile manufacturer in Binzhou, Shandong province, China February 11, 2019. China Daily via REUTERS

March 26, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will forbid action by local governments that boost the burden of social security costs for small and micro firms, state television said on Tuesday, citing a state cabinet meeting chaired by premier Li Keqiang.

China has vowed to reduce costs for SMEs in a move to boost the once vibrant private economy, cutting trillions in taxes and fees and directing banks to increase lending to smaller firms.

From May 1, China will cut to 16 percent the social security fees companies have to shoulder, from 20 percent.

Regional governments should not take the liberty of collecting “historically overdue taxes” without central permission, the cabinet said.

Companies’ fears had grown that China would soon introduce a tougher system of collecting social security payments to beef up tax receipts.

(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk and Yawen Chen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Source: OANN

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Mexican Man in Border Patrol Custody Dies After 15-Day Hospital Stay

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Source: InfoWars

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer holds annual general meeting
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

April 26, 2019

By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger

BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.

Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.

Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.

A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.

“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.

About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.

Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.

Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.

“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.

He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.

Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.

Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.

Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.

“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.

This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.

(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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Sudan’s military, which ousted President Omar al-Bashir after months of protests against his 30-year rule, says it intends to keep the upper hand during the country’s transitional period to civilian rule.

The announcement is expected to raise tensions with the protesters, who demand immediate handover of power.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is spearheading the protests, said Friday the crowds will stay in the streets until all their demands are met.

Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the military council, said late Thursday that the military will “maintain sovereign powers” while the Cabinet would be in the hands of civilians.

The protesters insist the country should be led by a “civilian sovereign” council with “limited military representation” during the transitional period.

The army toppled and arrested al-Bashir on April 11.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

April 26, 2019

By Charlotte Greenfield

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies said Britain’s decision to allow the firm a restricted role in building parts of its next-generation telecoms network was the kind of solution it was hoping for in New Zealand, where it has been blocked from 5G plans.

Britain will ban Huawei from all core parts of 5G network but give it some access to non-core parts, sources have told Reuters, as it seeks a middle way in a bitter U.S.-China dispute stemming from American allegations that Huawei’s equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage.

Washington has also urged its allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, even as the Chinese company, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment, has repeatedly said the spying concerns are unfounded.

In New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that includes the United States, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in November turned down an initial request from local telecommunication firm Spark to include Huawei equipment in its 5G network, but later gave the operator options to mitigate national security concerns.

“The proposed solution in the UK to restrict Huawei from bidding for the core is exactly the type of solution we have been looking at in New Zealand,” Andrew Bowater, deputy CEO of Huawei’s New Zealand arm, said in an emailed statement.

Spark said it has noted the developments in Britain and would raise it with the GCSB.

The reports “suggest the UK is following other European jurisdictions in taking a considered and balanced approach to managing supplier-related security risks in 5G”, Andrew Pirie, Spark’s corporate relations lead, said in an email.

“Our discussions with the GCSB are ongoing and we expect that the UK developments will be a further item of discussion between us,” Pirie added.

New Zealand’s minister for intelligence services, Andrew Little, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken.

He added that the disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of Huawei was “unacceptable” and that he could not rule out a criminal investigation into the leak.

The decisions by Britain and Germany to use Huawei gear in non-core parts of 5G network makes it harder to prove Huawei should be kept out of New Zealand telecommunication networks, said Syed Faraz Hasan, an expert in communication engineering and networks at New Zealand’s Massey University

He pointed out Huawei gear was already part of the non-core 4G networks that 5G infrastructure would be built on.

“Unless there is a convincing argument against the Huawei devices … it is difficult to keep them away,” Hasan said.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

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FILE PHOTO: The logo commodities trader Glencore is pictured in Baar
FILE PHOTO: The logo of commodities trader Glencore is pictured in front of the company’s headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Glencore shares plunged the most in nearly four months on Friday after news overnight that U.S. regulators were investigating whether the miner broke some rules through “corrupt practices”.

Shares of the FTSE 100 company fell as much as 4.2 percent in early deals, and were down 3.5 percent at 310.25 pence by 0728 GMT.

On Thursday, Glencore said the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether the company and its units have violated some provisions of the Commodity ExchangeAct and/or CFTC Regulations.

(Reporting by Muvija M in Bengaluru)

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