Wealth Club

US Prosecutors are walking back their claim that a now-jailed Russian woman, Maria Butina, traded sex in exchange for a job wihin a "special interest organization," reports the Washington Post. 

Following the July arrest of Butina, 29, Assistant US Attorney Erik M. Kenerson said that she was offering "sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization." 

Now, months later, the government is backpedaling: 

The concession came in a late-night court filing Friday in which prosecutors said Maria Butina, 29, should stay in custody as a flight risk but wrote “the government’s understanding of this particular text conversation was mistaken.” -Washington Post

The 2015 text exchange between Butina and a married, longtime friend who does public relations work for a Russian gun rights group, and did her a favor by renewing her car insurance, reads:

"I don’t know what you owe me for this insurance[.] They put me through the wringer," her friend texted her in Russian.

"Sex," responded Butina, who added: "Thank you so much. I have nothing else at all. Not a nickel to my name."

The man later replied: "Think of something!! . . . Sex with you does not interest me." 

Prosecutors say that their mistake shouldn't derail the government's overall case - which is not part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election. 

Separate of the text exchange in question, Butina allegedly worked with South Dakota-based GOP Paul Erickson, whom she met in Moscow in 2015, after which a romantic relationship ensued. 

Butina moved to the US on a student visa in 2016, graduating from American University in Washington DC with a master's degree in international relations earlier this year. After her July arrest on charges of acting as a foreign agent without registering with the US government, Butina was transferred to another prison in August. 

Erickson, who has strong ties to both the National Rifle Association and the Russian gun rights community, allegedly attempted to develop a back-channel between the NRA and the Russian government. In May, 2016, Erickson sent an email to Trump campaign adviser Rick Dearborn and Jeff Sessions with the title "Kremlin connection," seeking a meeting between then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an annual NRA convention. 

Butina, meanwhile, allegedly tried to use Erickson to introduce her to influential political figures in order to arrange a meeting between Trump and her boss, Russian central banker Alexander Torshin.

The Trump campaign declined the invitation, however Torshin and Butina did have a brief interaction with Donald Trump Jr. at a dinner. 

Butina is accused of trying to cultivate “back-channel” relationships with the Republican Party’s leading presidential candidates and develop close ties to the NRA to provide Russian officials “with the best access to and influence over” the party.

Butina allegedly was assisted by Erickson, who helped introduce her to influential political figures and who sought to organize a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Alexander Torshin, Butina’s colleague and a Russian central banker, at a May 2016 NRA convention. -Washington Post

US prosecutors on Friday argued that Butina should remain in jail pending trial, providing additional evidence that Torshin coordinated her activities - claiming that at his direction she drafted language which would persuade the Russian foreign ministry to let him attend the meeting at the NRA event, which she called a "unique opportunity." 

Prosecutors have cited Moscow's vehement protests of Butina's detainment in making their case that she is a Russian operative. 

Prosecutors also cited Moscow’s vehement protests of her case — including six consular visits to Butina in jail, four diplomatic notes, two personal complaints by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the official Kremlin Twitter account placing Butina’s face as its avatar — in telling the judge they “confirmed her relationship with, and value to, her own government.” -Washington Post

The Russian embassy has complained that Butina is being subjected to unwarranted strip searches and denial of proper medical care in an effort to "break her will." Her defense attorney, Robert Driscoll, claims she has suffered health problems in jail and has been denied proper treatment. 

"There’s no allegation of espionage, there’s no allegation of classified information, there’s no allegation she was paying anyone off, there’s no allegation she was recruiting spies. None of the things you would typically see in an espionage case," Driscoll told RT in August

“The significance of defendant Butina to the government of the Russian Federation is evident in light of the Russian government’s actions since her arrest,” prosecutors wrote, adding “so too, does it underscore her risk of flight.”

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Are you a good listener?

If you’re going to lead, you need to be. A 2018 article from Harvard Business Review states “managers who listen well are perceived as people leaders, generate more trust, instill higher job satisfaction, and increase their team’s creativity.”

If you want to lead, you’ve got to use your ears.

I’ve learned that truth several times over the course of my leadership career. In fact, as a young leader, my highest priority was expressing my ideas and convincing others to buy into them. I was less interested in listening to feedback or learning what others had to say. As a result, I experienced my share of leadership “misses”—initiatives, ideas, or plans that simply didn’t connect with the people I led.

It took me a while to realize the cost of not listening—in fact, I sat down and made a list of the ways that not listening was hurting my leadership:

• Few people were willing to share anything with me
• My leadership was based on assumptions
• My ideas were the only ones being implemented
• No one was taking ownership of tasks except me
• My team was disconnected

All of those are terrible circumstances for a leader to face, and even more so when they’re self-inflicted wounds. As I’ve become a better listening leader, I’ve learned that the people who follow leaders are continually asking three questions: Do you like me? Can I trust you? Can you help me? Leaders cannot accurately answer those questions if they aren’t listening for them.

Listening is one of the core habits of leaders who connect with their people. I outline all seven habits in The Communication Shift in my new book, Leadershift: 11 Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace. I could spend a lot of time talking about any one of those seven habits, but for this post I want to share with you the four changes I made to become a better, more effective listener.

I Reminded Myself to Listen Well Every Day

Whether it’s one-on-ones or group meetings, listening well begins with being intentional. To keep myself accountable to my intention to listen well, I devised a simple plan: any time I met with someone, I would take notes on a legal pad. At the top of t page, I would write a large, block L that stood for listen. During those meetings, I would occasionally stop and look at that L as a reminder to shut up and pay attention to what the other person or people were saying.

I Stopped Interrupting

As a young leader, talking to people often sparked ideas in me. When that happened, I often became so excited about sharing my new thought that I stopped listening to the other person’s ideas and started listening for a chance to share my own! And if I didn’t hear a natural break in the conversation, I sometimes created one by interrupting.

Hear me on this: when you interrupt another person, you’re effectively saying, “What I want to say is more important than what you want to say.” It may be unintentional, but when you devalue or invalidate the ideas of others because you’re too busy interrupting the train of thought with your own, you create a disconnect. As leaders, you can’t afford those kinds of lapses. You need to stop interrupting.

I Started Asking Questions

When someone you’re talking to asks you great questions, don’t you feel like they’re really engaged with the conversation? Questions push for greater clarity, deeper context, and further conversation. They also happen to be a literal invitation for the other person to talk! Questions are also a sign of a great listener because people who actively listen become naturally curious about the person speaking and what’s being said. Here’s a leadership truth I discovered that’s served me well: my ears never got me into trouble. When I learned to ask questions, I became a much better listener.

I Invited People to Keep Me Accountable for Listening

The final step I took to become a better listener was to ask others to let me know whenever they felt I wasn’t listening to them. Why did I take that step? Because not listening was a blind spot for me, and I needed help to see it. Whenever someone called me out for not listening, I apologized, closed my mouth, and concentrated on listening. There’s nothing like accountability for keeping you honest!

The people you lead are hungry for connection with you, and one of the fastest and most effective ways to connect with others is to listen well. When our people know we are not only listening, but listening well, it creates a connection that strengthens the entire team and reinforces that positive behavior across the organization.

Emerging markets can add summer 2018 to the unhappy list of sell-offs that have made them less lucrative than US stocks over the past decade. Yet the recent brush with bear market status should not be regarded as evidence of a systemic crisis.

Dollar strength has marked a dividing line between the US and the rest of the world. But the countries whose currencies, bonds and stocks are most affected are those whose problems were already well-known and largely self-created.

This week, the Argentine peso and Turkish lira fell to record or near record lows. Both economies rely heavily on foreign funding to fill gaps left by budget deficits. Argentina has deluged credit markets with bonds issued at high yields since 2016, drawing in some $100bn. Turkey has compounded its deficit and inflation problems with an insistence on keeping rates low. It makes sense that the cost to insure against Turkish default, measured by five-year credit default swaps, should reach a decade high.

There is less logic to falls in stocks and bonds from countries with low levels of foreign currency debt and stronger balance sheets. The sell-off means Thailand’s 10-year government bond yield has jumped 20 basis points to 2.8 per cent in the past fortnight, in spite of the country’s current account surplus. Saudi Arabia is benefiting from a rise in oil prices. Yet its 10-year bond yield rose a similar amount.

The argument for contagion also ignores the 5 per cent growth expected in emerging markets this year and efforts to reduce vulnerability by issuing longer-dated debt. The average bond maturity in Mexico is eight years. In South Africa it is 16. The Bank for International Settlements points out that this exceeds maturities in many developed economies.

The emerging market sell-off may linger on as US growth prompts further rate rises. But it ranks nowhere near the worst five of recent decades. Growth is sustainable. Prices will rebound.

The taxonomy of contemporary classical music—new music, contemporary music, whatever you want to call it—is a thorny issue. That ambiguity makes rating the year’s best offerings difficult, if not impossible, but embracing the big picture of musical diversity these 10 albums, listed alphabetically, have delivered all year long—they provided excitement, asked questions, and delivered disparate sorts of beauty. These are the best contemporary classical albums of 2018. 

Erik Carlson and Greg Stuart
Eva-Maria Houben: Duos

German composer Eva-Maria Houben is a leading light of the Wandelweiser Collective, a bold post-Cagean network who often embody these thoughts of hers: “Music may exist ‘between’: between appearance and disappearance, between sound and silence, as something ‘nearly nothing.’” These four pieces for violinist Erik Carlson and percussionist Greg Stuart—the latter a trusted collaborator of the best known Wandelweiser figure in the U.S., Michael Pisaro—are deliriously minimal, with scores that sketch out only the most basic of precepts. The score for the piece “Duo II,” for instance, is some prescribed pitches and loose instructions, like “a drone, rarely interrupted (perhaps only once) for a while.” These demand the performers make plenty of choices on their own (much like Cage’s work), and the musicians have clearly spent a great deal of time developing each piece for maximum impact. That said, this is music that demands full immersion in its resonant universe, where extended notes, mostly voiced by Carlson, unfold leisurely, taking their time to explore a microscopic sonic environment: one that almost puts the focus on the silence between tones, more than what the musicians themselves are producing.

Vicky Chow
Michael Gordon: Sonatra

Over the last few decades, New York composer Michael Gordon has steadfastly advanced the cause of classic minimalism, following in the footsteps of Glass, Reich, and Reilly. But nothing he’s ever done has riveted me like Sonatra, a demanding solo piano gem in sonata form—actually “somewhere between sonata and Sinatra,” the composer has written—played here by Vicky Chow of Bang on a Can All-Stars. Long skeins of notes cascade down the length of the piano in major and minor third intervals, in breathlessly exhilarating fashion; with each cycle, the patterns begin to shift almost imperceptibly. During the second section, Chow digs into the right side of the piano, delivering glassy notes with numbing precision—there’s a jazz-like virtuosity in the percussiveness—and when notes begin heading downward, there’s the sensation of Nat King Cole’s charming melodic touch, albeit with a razor-like drive and maniacal, tightly-coiled heft.

Describing his own piece, Gordon has written, “Eventually they start cascading and intersperse with glissandos half the length of the keyboard, sounding to me like the performer has at least four hands.” It’s an accurate observation. The second half of the album contains the same piece, played on a piano using just intonation: a melding of two different just tunings, developed by keyboardist Wendy Carlos. For ears used to Western tuning, this system always sounds a bit off at first, but as the piece gallops along, the listener adjusts, and begins to absorb mind-warping psychoacoustic effects that recast the piece in a whole new light.

Ghost Ensemble
We Who Walk Again

This spry New York group takes serious inspiration from the Deep Listening philosophy of Pauline Oliveros. The album includes a rambunctious version of Oliveros’s 1980 text score “Angels & Demons,” and the ensemble’s interpretation of her directive to represent “collective guardian spirits” is manifested in an appealingly loose set of overlapping, gently discordant long tones, occasionally ruptured by knotty bass rumbling that slowly intensifies. The general drone is steadily punctured by internal skirmishes between the instruments—sometimes fricative, sometimes piercing. Strings, accordion, and reeds coalesce in wonderfully sour harmonies—a collective move that still allows for each instrumentalist to freely express their individual personalities. The album opens with “60 Degree Mirrors,” a wonderful work by the group’s oboist Sky Macklay that draws inspiration from “geometric-mosaic patterns.” The work toggles between sustained astringent pitches highlighted by serene, rippling waves and stirring, ominous surges of sound. The combined effect delivers a woozy merry-go-round effect, a warped ride both exhilarating and a bit scary. They conclude with “Wind People,” a massive drone of lapidary detail by the group’s accordionist Ben Richter, that thrums, throbs, and glides with surging and ebbing density.

Thrainn Hjalmarsson
Influence of Buildings on Musical Tone

On this dazzling portrait-cum-album, the young Icelandic composer Thrainn Hjalmarsson expands ideas he gleaned from a 1927 essay—which gives the collection its title—by a British architect and theoretician about the relationship between sound and architecture. Its ideas are put into practice on the title piece, magnificently performed by Caput Ensemble; all five pieces are performed primarily by musicians from the composer’s homeland. The sounds found here approximate the sonic properties of a traditional Iceland turf house, with harmonic-laced arco lines, some bristling with dissonance, others snaking in the upper registers, engaged in an exploration of a confined space. The sounds produced by the 12-member Icelandic Flute Ensemble on “Grisaille” are no less arresting. The title refers to a painting method where grey monochrome imitates the dimensions of sculpture, and the bracing harmonies of clustered flutes portray something ominous, shadowed by slightly ethereal washes that do nothing to alleviate the exquisite tension. “Persona” is a solo piece for the remarkable cellist Kristín Haraldsdóttir that navigates a series of abrasive tones marbled generously with silence—a transmission from beyond that again makes stunning use of space. “Mise en Scène,” performed by the German-Iceland group Ensemble Adapter, blends percussive thwacks, unpitched breaths, ghostly flutes, and dynamic scratches, while the closing piece, “Lucid/Opaque” calls on the wonderful musicians of the Nordic Affect collective to articulate its elliptical, aerated melody. A real knockout.

Kukuruz Quartet
Julius Eastman Piano Interpretations

The resurrection and rediscovery of the powerful music composed by Julius Eastman—a gay African-American composer who died penniless and homeless in 1990—has been one of the great stories in contemporary classical music over the last few years, and this dynamic Swiss four-piano ensemble has added fuel to the movement with this stunning collection. The Kukuruz Quartet features four of Switzerland’s boldest new music pianists, and while they didn’t form with the goal of tackling Eastman’s work, it has become something of a mission for them. This beautifully recorded effort allows the rhythmic vitality and electric dynamics of Eastman’s work to seethe, simmer, and explode. His “Fugue no. 7” aims to capture the ringing of European church bells ricocheting across a town with four pianos, and the massive gap between the piano’s high and low ends is masterfully exploited to such a purpose; the low end hits here like a crushing bomb. There’s almost a punk fury to the way one of the ensemble numbers counts off out loud (as Eastman did in his own recording) between sections of the furious yet transcendent epic “Evil N**ger,” as waves of meticulously registered lines send sonic shockwaves that practically thrust the listener backwards. On the other hand, “Buddha” is a work of stunning fragility, with inside-the-piano machinations that whisper. The album concludes with a masterful reading of Eastman’s classic “Gay Guerrilla.”

Mabel Kwan
Georg Friedrich Haas: Trois Hommages

Chicago pianist Mabel Kwan, a core member of Ensemble Dal Niente, brings a crisp, patient precision to these three solo pieces by Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas, composed between 1982-84—presented here, on record for the very first time. All three works employ two separate pianos, each played with one of the performer’s hands, tuned a quarter-tone apart to produce a 24-note scale—a simultaneous embrace of an even temperament and a rejection of its limitations. Each study is dedicated to an important 20th century composer. The monumental Hommage à György Ligeti offers a pummeling exercise in rhythm; as Kwan hammers through a series of dyads and chords with forceful staccato, the harmony of the two instruments cycles through moments of clarity and dissonance. Hommage à Josef Matthias Hauer offers a dramatic shift toward the elegiac, saluting the fellow Austrian who developed a 12-tone theory just prior to Schoenberg. As the piece unfolds, elegant arpeggios gently extend from five notes at the start to eight by the climax, one section at a time, with the trickle of sounds underlining the peculiarities of the tuning, producing effects ranging from sweet to deliciously sour. (At the end, it almost sounds like Kwan is playing an inside-out boogie-woogie.) The album closes with another thrumming composition, Hommage à Steve Reich, which deftly embraces the American minimalist’s trademark exploration of polyrhythm.

Josh Modney
Engage

Violinist Josh Modney has consistently demonstrated jaw-dropping technical skill and deep, exploratory impulses through his work in Wet Ink Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, and alongside Zs guitarist Patrick Higgins, but he outdoes himself on this powerful solo effort. Modney organized the double-album into three discrete programs, all utterly astonishing. The first includes some dazzling interactive components, such as Sam Pluta’s reactive electronics on “Jem Altieri With a Ring Modulator Circuit,” where acoustic and electronic sounds dance in wild, breathtaking patterns, or the way Kate Soper’s voice virtually becomes one with Modney’s violin on her “Cipher.” The second program opens with a transformation of Bach’s “Ciaccona” in just intonation, followed by the duo piece “the children of fire come looking for fire” by and with Modney’s Wet Ink collaborator, pianist Eric Wubbels, also in just intonation. Both pieces are physically demanding, and produce wild psychoacoustic effects. The collection concludes with five solo improvisations where Modney pushes the boundaries of his instrument and his body without any kind of treatments, alternate tunings, or editing. As a whole, the album stands as powerful testimony to sound-seeking by one of today’s most intrepid experimentalists.

Doug Perkins and Karl Larson
Robert Honstein: An Economy of Means

These two gorgeous works by Robert Honstein present a kind of minimalist composition that refuses to be limited by austerity. The title piece is a stunning vehicle for percussionist Doug Perkins, exclusively playing the vibraphone here. The six exquisite movements alternate between deeply contemplative, glacially slow passages with billowing, ghostly overtones, meticulously produced by both precise mallet work and luxuriant bowing, while other movements cleave to a more kinetic sort of minimalism, with technically complex cycling patterns. Occasionally, Perkins prepares his instrument with sheets of tin foil—producing a wonderful, subtle buzz like the sound of a West African mbira—and even manila folders, which provide a damping effect. Elsewhere, he bangs his mallets on the outer frame of the instrument to create a clanky sound, with each extended technique deftly enfolded into the orderly flow. Grand Tour is performed with equal poise by pianist Karl Larson. The seven-movement piece reflects on the composer’s time in Venice, Italy, but it’s less about a tourist’s visit than a complicated, internal dialogue with the city. The composition is bookended by two versions of “Per,” a fragile string of haunting single notes that hang in the air precariously, but then Larson bangs out the steeplechase motion of “Strada Nuova,” setting up a toggling action between spare melancholy and churning movement.

Tyshawn Sorey
Pillars

For more than a decade, composer and percussionist Tyshawn Sorey has artfully and convincingly forged deep connections between improvisational practice and rigorous composition, often restraining his powerful performances in service of the ensemble-oriented explorations of his sublime trio with pianist Cory Smythe and bassist Chris Tordini. He ups the ante in a big way on Pillars, a triple-album, featuring three-hour-plus iterations of the titular piece magnificently brought to life by an agile, elastic octet. While there’s no missing the profound influence of like-minded pioneers such as Anthony Braxton and Bill Dixon, Sorey stakes out his own turf. The music flows through seductively languid sequences that bleed organically into one another. The ensemble emphasizes a visceral low-end presence, with no less than four bassists (Joe Morris, Carl Testa, Zach Rowden, and Mark Helias), to say nothing of sporadic bursts of thunderous drumming. This is all patiently embroidered by the spiky guitar of Todd Neufeld, the fat-tone trombone gurgles and cries of Ben Gerstein (and, at times, the composer himself), and tart smears of sound from trumpeter Stephen Haynes. The ensemble’s improvisatory excellence accordingly complements Sorey’s deft, masterfully plotted structural elements, enabling the producer to make another dazzling leap forward in a storied career already punctuated by impressive accomplishments.

Yarn/Wire
Images of Duration

The New York ensemble Yarn/Wire—the quartet of pianists Laura Barger and Ning Yu, and percussionists Russell Greenberg and Ian Antonio—tackle one of the most fascinating and ambitious works in their compelling repertoire. This is a new piece by Alex Mincek of Wet Ink Ensemble. Images of Duration, which takes its title from writings by philosopher Henri Bergson, explores the ways humans perceive time and objects in shifting ways over extended durations—with changing scale and understanding. Barger and Yu tuned their respective pianos a quarter tone apart from the other (which results in unusual harmonics), while percussionists Greenberg and Antonio deploy tuned gongs, air canisters, waterphones, white noise machines, and even baby monitors, in addition to standard drums, tuned percussion, and chimes.

As a whole, the hour-long piece covers vast terrain, nearly all of it riddled with exquisite tension—in both the most quiet, fragile passages and the most tumultuous, punishing ones. Mincek dedicates the piece to painter Ellsworth Kelly, known for his two-dimensional landscapes where depth occasionally surfaces through the use of reliefs, and the music mirrors that methodology, with sustained, ominous expanses of sound marked by sudden, fleeting instrumental eruptions. The way it’s paced allows the listener to bask in those shifts, sensing the overarching connectivity of the soundscape while highlighting the changes in perspective as it all unfolds. Even beyond that exercise in perception, the actual sounds, motion, and structure offer a thrilling experience.

–Peter Margasak

US President Donald Trump talks to opera performers at the Forbidden City in Beijing on November 8, 2017. US President Donald Trump toured the Forbidden City with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

• President Donald Trump scored an outright victory in his ongoing trade spat when Chinese President Xi Jinping backed off his "Made in China 2025" push.
• "Made in China 2025" is a plan to make Xi's China a tech and manufacturing superpower, and bore his name, making it a humiliating defeat for him to revisit it. 
• China has also slowly started to cave in on the tariff war as the US addresses other irritants in the US-China relationship, mainly with the Chinese tech company Huawei. 
• The US has sounded alarm bells about Huawei as a security risk and asked Canada to extradite the company's CFO.
• China responded in anger but continued to appease Trump on trade, while Huawei basically groveled to get back on the West's good side. 
• But Xi may be playing the long game and throwing Trump some positive headlines while nothing changes on the ground. 

President Donald Trump scored an outright victory in his ongoing trade spat with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the strongest leader in Beijing since Chairman Mao had to back off a key policy push.

But Xi may have lost the battle to win a larger war. 

Xi’s "Made in China 2025" economic strategy unraveled this week as the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported that top Chinese officials plan to change course. 

The policy, which Xi intended to turn China into a manufacturing and tech superpower, emphasizes "indigenous innovations" and "self-sufficiency" in advanced industry and tech, to the exclusion of other nations.

But now China will reportedly ditch its quotas and open up its economy to foreign firms. 

Read more: China looks like it's going to give Trump a huge symbolic trade war win, fueling hope for a big deal

"It's amazing that they’ve backed down because Xi put his name personally on it," John Hemmings, the director of the Asia Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society told Business Insider. 

China also buckled by placing its first major order of US soybeans since Trump's trade war kicked off. On Friday, China said it would cut tariffs on US cars from 40% to 15%.

The tariff stood at 25% before the start of the trade war, making this an overall cut.

"The fact that Xi is dumping a policy that has his name all over it is huge," Hemmings said of the Made in China reversal.

He added that the new willingness to play ball with Trump on trade amounted to a "very slow incremental cave-in on the tariff war."

Huawei on its knees

Lisa Duan, a visitor from China, holds a sign in support of Huawei outside of the B.C. Supreme Court bail hearing of Huawei CFO Meng WanzhouDavid Ryder/Reuters

On the surface, these favorable developments seem to follow a pleasant dinner on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina, where Trump and Xi talked trade and left with a 90-day period to iron out their differences and get all tariffs removed.

But just after the dinner, the US had Canada detain the CFO of Huawei, China's tech giant and the world's biggest maker of smartphones, on allegations of bank fraud. 

China reacted with its usual fury, demanding the release of Meng Wanzhou, the CFO, while making a tenuous argument that Canada had violated her human rights.

China warned the US and Canada of "grave consequences" if Meng wasn't released, and appeared to make good on those on Thursday by detaining two Canadian businessmen in the country.

Read more: China makes good on threats with 2 Canadian citizens detained in escalating Huawei fight

In the same period, the UK and Canada, staunch US allies in a tight-knit intelligence sharing network, denied Huawei the right to build 5G networks in their countries.

Both countries cited security concerns with Huawei, largely seen as an extension of the Chinese government which many fear will spy on the West. 

In response, Huawei more or less groveled for a chance to get back on the West's good side. 

"Anything needed to do this transformation we are committed to do this," Vincent Peng, the head of Huawei in western Europe told the Financial Times. "Restructure the organisation, rebuild the processes, rebuild the products... Process, personal skills, engineering capability, anything," he added.

"Chinese tech guys realize if they don’t have access to US markets and components," they could go bankrupt within days, said Hemmings, the analyst.

The day after Canada detained Meng, global stocks tumbled for fear that the trade talks would run astray. But they didn't. 

Read more: Weak data out of China shows wounds of Trump's trade war

China's government said it would "immediately implement the consensus reached by the two sides [in Argentina] on farm products, cars and energy." So far, China has done so.

So, while apparently outraged over the fate of the Huawei CFO and willing to take action against unrelated Canadians, China has quickly given in to Trump's trade demands. 

Lose the battle, win the war?

Chinese President Xi Jinping greets U.S. President Donald Trump at a welcoming ceremony November 9, 2017 in Beijing, China.Thomas Peter-Pool/Getty Images

China's new willingness to smooth over the trade war may acknowledge a simple fact of the tariffs: They're small potatoes. 

Read more: Forget the car tariffs and other cosmetic trade fixes. If you want to know where the US-China relationship is going, keep an eye on the Huawei case

In August 2017, retired senior Department of Defense officials wrote in The New York Times last fall that Chinese intellectual property theft cost the US as much as $600 billion a year, calling it "the greatest transfer of wealth in history."

This alleged theft, which the US says China carries out via forced technology transfers, espionage, and cyber crime, greatly overshadows any trade deficit. 

China may have been willing to sweep the tariffs under the rug to ease US pressure on its tech ambitions, said Hemmings.

"China still has grand geopolitical ambitions to which its industrial and tech companies are a big part of," Hemmings said.

"Xi seems to have taken a hit personally" by scaling back the grand "Made in China" ambitions, "but we’ll see how real it is on the ground, whether tech transfers actually stop."

The last major set of US negotiations China bore close witness to happened over North Korea. On that score, Trump held a feel-good meeting with Kim Jong Un with broad talk of denuclearization which hasn't even come close to happening six months later. 

Read more: Kim Jong Un soundly defeated Trump on the nuclear issue — but Trump may win the big game

Perhaps cooler heads in China that watching this display feel they can throw Trump a few positive headlines, take a face-losing defeat, and then press on with a plot most experts agree has the end goal of replacing the US as the world's great superpower.

In a slew of attacks that have become commonplace in Egypt and increasingly daring and dastardly in their manner, just last week saw a frontal attack on the tourism industry in this nation. Three Vietnamese tourists and one local tour operator were killed when a bomb blast hit their bus, just a couple of miles away from the Gaza pyramids.

Though no organisation has yet taken responsibility for the attacks, it is a foregone conclusion that this was the work of the Wilayat Sinai, the Islamic State affiliate in Egypt.

The important element in this movement (Wilayat Sinai) is the geography of its birth — the Sinai peninsula. Specifically so, the Northern Sinai. The Sinai Peninsula, a triangular province (about the size of Uttarakhand), is home to an increasingly aggressive branch of the Islamic State as well as smaller jihadist cells. This sparsely populated desert region between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea has become one of Egypt’s biggest worries and brings trouble to the doorstep of Israel.

Foreign fighters — largely from Libya, the Maghreb, and Europe — have migrated to the Sinai, where they constitute a majority of the Sinai Province’s fighting force by mid-2017.

Wilayat Sinai, known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) before its leadership pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014, has done everything possible to undermine the state of Egypt. From driving fear in the heart of the largest ethno-religious minority — the Coptic Christians (by bombing Coptic churches in 2017, one Church of which is the seat of the Coptic papacy), to bombing of the Russian airliner that killed all 224 passengers and crew, to attacking outposts of the Egyptian army in the Sinai to beheading international tourists in resorts, the attacks are only getting bolder and more frequent.

The Egyptian army launched a large-scale operation dubbed “Sinai 2018” in February to rid the Sinai of jihadists after a dastardly attack on a Sufi mosque which killed more than 300.

While the military measures are proving to be ineffective against an increasingly efficient terrorist organisation, the scorched earth measures of the army are also alienating the local Bedouin tribesmen, who reside in the Sinai.

Lack of state control here serves the smuggling syndicates well who are known to financially support the Wilayat Sinai in keeping the state away.

While the coastal regions of southern Sinai have been developed to cater to tourists are relatively better off, the area’s infrastructure in the north stays medieval. Many communities remain without adequate water supplies, medical facilities, or educational access. This, over years, has created a sense of dis-enfranchisement and frustration in the North, which has been capitalised by the extremists.

Though the Al-Sisi government plans to develop the central and northern parts of the Sinai, and has unveiled a master development plan (massive agricultural, industrial and mining production sites) — financing ($16 billion) and security will be severe stumbling blocks. Also, any flushing activity here will only get the organisation to slip into the mountainous area between Sinai and Gaza (making combing operations even more difficult). For a location as strategic as the Sinai, bordering the Suez Canal and connecting the Levant to Africa, it remains to be seen how this notoriously complex issue will pan out in the coming years.

The writer is a geo-political analyst

Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday unveiled a sweeping new proposal for universal child care aimed at providing licensed early childhood care for every family in the country at a cost of no more than 7 percent of that family's income.

For families making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, under Warren's plan, child care would be free.

"In the wealthiest country on the planet, access to affordable and high-quality child care and early education should be a right, not a privilege reserved for the rich," Warren wrote in a blog post on medium.com Tuesday announcing the proposal.

According to Warren, her child care plan rests upon four policy pillars:

1. The federal government will partner with local providers — states, cities, school districts, nonprofits, tribes, faith-based organizations — to create a network of child care options that would be available to every family.

2. These options would include locally-licensed child care centers, preschool centers, and in-home child care options.

3. Local communities would be in charge, but providers would be held to high national standards to make sure that no matter where you live, your child will have access to quality care and early learning.

4. Child care and preschool workers will be doing the educational work that teachers do, so they will be paid like comparable public school teachers.

Warren's plan is projected to cost around $700 billion over 10 years, money which she said would come entirely from the proceeds of her proposed "ultra-millionaire tax."

"The Ultra-Millionaire Tax asks the wealthiest families in America — those with a net worth of more than $50 million — to pay a small annual tax on their wealth," Warren wrote. According to a research paper Warren cited, by two economists at the University of California, the fully implemented millionaire's tax could raise as much as $2.75 trillion in government revenue over the next decade.

Within the crowded 2020 Democratic primary field, Warren's ambitious proposal is likely to elevate the issue of child care beyond its relatively limited reach four years ago. In 2016, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had major child care expansion plans built into their policy platforms. But neither candidate invested real political capital into promoting their respective plans, and voters took little notice of them.

Warren's plan could also deepen already emerging fault lines between more progressive Democrats like Warren and 2020 Democratic candidates who have staked out more pragmatic territory, like Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

Appearing on a CNN town hall Monday night, Klobuchar took the rare step of rejecting several of the Democratic party's more ambitious universal benefits proposals, including universal free four-year college tuition, and a Medicare-for-all type universal healthcare program.

"No. I am not for free four-year college for all," Klobuchar said during the broadcast, catching many in the audience by surprise. "If I was a magic genie and could afford to give that to everyone, I would," she added, before explaining several steps she would take to make college easier to afford.

Klobuchar, who announced her White House run last week, has not yet weighed in on Warren's "ultra-millionaire's tax," but already, the former Minnesota federal prosecutor appears to favor a more practical approach to governing than some of her fellow 2020 Democrats.

Klobuchar did, however, sign on as a sponsor of the 2017 Child Care for Working Families Act, a bill introduced by Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, Wash., and Rep. Bobby Scott, Va. that also seeks to make child care affordable for every working family, but through different means than Warren's bill.

Earlier this month, Klobuchar was one of only three Democratic presidential hopefuls in the Senate who voted in favor of a government spending bill that avoided a government shutdown and included more than a billion dollars in restricted funds that President Donald Trump plans to use to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also voted for the spending bill, while four other 2020 contenders in the upper chamber, Sens. Warren, Cory Booker, N.J., Kamala Harris, Calif., and Kirsten Gillibrand, N.Y. all opposed it.

When you let anger bubble away, it can cause an eruption. This can cloud your judgment, damage your relationships, and destroy the trust you have with others. So, how can you keep it in check?

Here are eight ways to restrain the rage…

1. Recognize the warning signs. When you're angry, your heart rate rises and you breathe faster. Be vigilant, so you deal with these symptoms before they build up.
2. Have a "time-out." Avoid "leaping in" with an angry response. Instead, calm yourself down by counting to 10 before you act.
3. Catch your breath. Try to slow your breathing. This will help you to stay calm and to think clearly.
4. Exercise regularly. Doing this releases calming chemicals, like dopamine and serotonin, into your body. This will improve your state of mind and make you less prone to anger.
5. Find some quiet time. Practicing relaxation techniques like mindfulness   or centering    can help you to cope with stress over the longer term.
6. Avoid alcohol. Overindulgence can lower your inhibitions and make you more prone to outbursts.
7. Express your emotions. When we keep things inside for too long, frustrations can build up. So, talk about your feelings with friends and loved ones.
8. Let it go. Sometimes we have no choice but to let an issue go, even if we think it's unfair. But, doing this will allow you to move past grudges or bitterness, and toward peace.

To learn more about how to recognize and respond to anger, read the article here   .

Source: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/videos/anger-video-transcript.htm

PledgeMusic Co-Founder Malcolm Dunbar has been promoted to Global President and COO in the wake of former CEO Dominic Pandiscia’s exit from the company.

Dunbar (pictured), was previously President of UK and Europe.

Co-Founder Jayce Varden has also returned to the company and Scott Graves has re-joined as President of the North American territory.

PledgeMusic says that it has a new financial team in place under the leadership of Richard Vinchesi, a partner at one of PledgeMusic’s larger investors, Sword, Rowe & Company.

The direct to fan platform claims to have “established a commitment” from Nashville based music business financier Lyric Financial “to help expand its working capital and improve payable processing.”

“PledgeMusic plays a fundamental role in the global music industry.”

Eli Ball, Lyric Financial 

“I have been a fan of PledgeMusic since its inception. PledgeMusic plays a fundamental role in the global music industry,” said Lyric Financial Founder & CEO Eli Ball.

“Not only do they provide a critical funding tool for artists, but also, a home for over three million music fans to engage with their favorite artists and to discover new artists.

“It is this dual role that makes PledgeMusic such a key tool for all artists, big or small. I am excited about the moves the company is making to reorganize in order to better serve the artist and fan communities. Lyric Financial is proud to be a partner with PledgeMusic. We look forward to supporting them as they continue to grow their world-class platform.”

In the coming weeks, PledgeMusic will be rolling out a new backend and additional tools, an upgraded payment system and real time analysis of campaigns.

The company claims to have distributed over $100 million in artist payments through 50,000+ projects since it was launched in 2009.Music Business Worldwide