Germany is considering various ways to block Huawei’s 5G mobile network as per reports. If the government does block it, it will follow other countries like Australia and the United States which has already restricted Huawei from accessing its next-gen mobile networks. Both countries have cited national security as the reason behind banning it. The US officials said that the network equipment provided by the company might have ‘backdoors’ which can be used to access confidential information and that China controls them. Huawei has refuted such concerns as baseless allegations.

The German administration has not yet decided as to what steps to take, but they are considering many options to make the security more robust and find ways to remove Huawei. They are considering enforcing stricter regulations which prevent Huawei products used in 5G. Some government sources also said that Germany might also consider making some changes in the telecommunication laws as a last resort to block Huawei’s participation. Changes in law and stricter standards will ensure Germany is in line with other countries like the US and Australia.

The countries that are taking action

• The US and its Allie Australia have banned Huawei from involvement in their 5G networks.
• New Zealand has already stopped Huawei from supplying 5G equipment since November.
• Canada is doing a review of the products shipped by Huawei and will soon come up with a decision.
• British Telecom who is the leading network provider in the United Kingdom has ordered the removal of Huawei equipment from its 5G network.
• Germany is considering banning supplies of the firms 5G networks.
• The European Union has also expressed concern over Chinese manufacturers.

What does the company say?

Even as there are fears that Huawei is being used by China to spy on other countries and to gather confidential information, the company says it is an independent company who has nothing to do with the Chinese government apart from paying taxes as it is based in China. However, there are doubts regarding this claim as the founder of Huawei was a former army employee and is a member of the communist party. Moreover, there are also concerns on the freedom that Beijing provides to businesses and could ask the Chinese firm to make modifications to the devices they export to other countries and do cyberespionage.

In a bid to appease the German government Huawei appreciated the urge to regulate standards and has supported them by opening a lab in Bonn to help with the regulation.

Nissan Motor Co which has its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan and a manufacturer of trucks and buses has many manufacturing and assembly plants across the world, and one of it is in Mississipi. The company announced that it planned to lay off up to 700 contract workers in its assembly plant in Mississipi. The official reason was given as reduction in pickup trucks and van sales. Close to 6,500 contract and direct employees work in the Canton arm of Nissan. This lay off comes after the company announced that it planned to ax 1000 employees in Mexico.

In a statement by Brian Brockman who is a spokesperson of Nissan, he said that “Nissan is adjusting production capacity at its Canton manufacturing facility to match market demand and maintain healthy inventory levels,”

The company is reducing the production shifts of Nissan Vans from its original two to one and pickup trucks from three to two shifts. He also added that some of the employees affected by this cut would be reassigned to other areas and some of them will have to remain unassigned.

The company maintained that the direct employees will not be affected by job cuts and will be retained and assigned to other areas of work. Nissan is trying to reduce jobs through buyouts of employees who are older than 55 years of age and also through attrition.

Nissan has been in crisis over the past few months after the auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn who was Nissan Chairman was arrested on charges of underreporting his pay and financial misconduct. Nissan’s board took its time to remove Ghosn as the chairman as he was the mastermind behind the bringing together of three auto giants Renault, Mitsubishi and Nissan in a three-way which together became the most prolific car sellers worldwide.

When Carlos Ghosn who was once a darling of Japan both with common people and corporates with even a comic inspired by him was arrested, the stock values of all three companies plummetted and is considered one of the reasons for Nissan being in this financial condition. His arrest had caused huge concern among many workers who worked for the three companies, especially Renault’s as the company was deeply entwined with Nissan. Currently, each of the Nissan workers in Mississipi is hoping it’s not them that is going to be fired.

Though many believe that the job cuts are a result of the arrest of its chairman Carlos Ghosn in November, the company says that the layoffs have nothing to with the arrest.

The United Arab Emirates [UAE] and Saudi Arabia disclosed an agreement saying they will co-operate with each other for developing a new cryptocurrency. The report was published on 19 January by UAE official news agency named Emirate News Agency.

By the statement, The Executive members of Saudi-Emirati Co-ordination Council organized a meeting in the capital city of UAE Abu Dhabi. Altogether there were 16 members from both the countries that participated in the meeting. The reason for organizing the meeting was to examine more about the new joint initiative the strategy of Resolve.

The Strategy of Resolve is a new joint initiative that has 7 tasks. The 7 tasks include the Development of a cross-border digital currency, civil aviation, and financial awareness youth training. As per the article, the goal of cryptocurrency is to strictly focus on banks mostly during the experiment phase in-order to gain more knowledge about the implementation of blockchain technology and to support cross border payments.

The joint Cryptocurrency project will help in researching to know the impact of central currency on the various financial policies.

This joint initiative will probably strive to safeguard the customer interest, further developing standards for technology at the same time also examining the cybersecurity threats. The initiative will also determine the impact of central currencies by identifying the risks on the monetary policies. Statement according to the Emirate News Agency

In December 2018 Cointelegraph stated that the United Arab Emirates [UAE] Central Bank will be working in partnership as a team with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority to release a new cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency will be sanctioned and accepted in the cross border exchanges that take place between the two countries.

In December 2018 itself, Cointelegraph published that- In 2019 because of its new crypto legislation the United Arab Emirates [UAE] is observing the list of most prominent destinations and is trying to connect with them for blockchain related businesses.

The Emirates News Agency based in The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has reported that the Arab nation will join hands with their neighbor Saudi Arabia to launch a new cryptocurrency, in a meeting held by “The Executive Committee of the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council” in Abu Dhabi. The report mentions that the conference in the UAE capital had a total of 16 members from the executive committee from both countries, so as to ascertain the joint initiatives outlined in the Strategy of Resolve. The committee was presided by Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future, from the UAE side, and Mohammed bin Mazyad Altwaijri, Minister of Economy and Planning, from the Saudi side.

The Strategy of Resolve includes seven strategic initiatives that follow up the bilateral cooperation in the field of civil aviation, financial awareness for Children, customs and security, entrepreneurship and development of joint cryptocurrency among the others. Saudi-Emirati Pilot cryptocurrency will be the first of its kind joint cryptocurrency in the world.

“[The project] will be strictly targeted for banks at an experimental phase with the aim of better understanding the implications of blockchain technology and facilitating cross-border payments” quoted the article.

The primary aim of such a joint venture according to the news report is “to safeguard customer interests, set technology standards and assess cybersecurity risks.” The project will also be a study on the impact of a central currency on economic policies.

The news of the cryptocurrency had been first delivered in December 2018, when Gulf News had reported that the central bank of UAE would join hands with Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA for short) to work on developing a digital currency using blockchain technology.

“This is probably the first time ever that witnesses the cooperation of monetary authorities from different countries on this topic and we hope that this achievement will foster similar collaboration in our region” Mubarak Rashed Al Mansouri, the governor of the UAE’s central bank had said then.

The economic alliance between Saudi Arabia and the UAE is one of the strongest in the world. The combined sovereign wealth funds of the Kingdom and the UAE are ranked second in the world. As per the data from the World Bank, both the countries rank eighth concerning exports of goods and services. The two countries have an oil reserve which accounts for nearly 25% of the total of the global stockpile.

Amazon has recently become the most valuable company in the world with the highest market capitalization. In the times of Amazon’s growth, Microsoft has also started involving with more retailers. Recently, Microsoft has signed a multiyear deal with Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA).

Though Amazon’s core business still lies in e-commerce, it has been expanding into many sectors along with that. It has opened brick and mortar shops through Amazon Go Stores, its Whole Foods acquisition and other efforts — and at times that’s proving to be an advantage to Amazon’s competitors in the cloud business. And recently, Amazon has reportedly been taking an interest in health care. Though not much is talked as of now, it has started its venture with acquiring online pharmacy PillPack and teaming up with J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway for financial advice for a long-term plan to improve care and reduce costs for employees.

WBA CEO and Executive Vice Chairman Stefano Pessina said he is not afraid of healthy competition from Amazon. He is hopeful that if Amazon enters into this sector, it will create an ecosystem for the sector and companies will thrive the way they deserve to. He also added that he had never believed that one company could monopolize one segment of the market. If one company is doing the right thing, it will have the ability to sustain the toughest of the competition.

As far as the deal goes, Walgreens Boots Alliance is signing up more than 380,000 employees for its Microsoft 365 cloud apps offering, including Office 365, Windows 10, and mobility and security tools. The company will transfer most of its Information Technology workloads to Microsoft’s Azure public cloud.

Walgreens Boots Alliance has almost 400 distribution centers that deliver to hundreds of thousands of doctors, hospitals, health centers, and pharmacies annually. It is also operating Walgreens and Duane Reade stores. The company has acknowledged Amazon’s acquire in the Pharma sector in the risk factor section of the latest annual report.

The deal with Microsoft will also include tests of “digital health corners” within some Walgreens stores, along with cooperation on research and development and software for managing patient engagement and chronic disease detection and record keeping.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the deal was the outcome of a conversation three years ago. He also added that the WBA went through a pretty rigorous process of really finding the right partner who can bring both world-class technologies, but also the trust as well in order to be able to help them build the ecosystem that is needed.

He also added because, ultimately, this is about broad partnerships that need to be harnessed by Walgreens in order to deliver the services they are envisioning, and they needed to find a partner who, on the technology side, has the capability to do that ecosystem orchestration and is trusted. That is something where Microsoft does obviously deliver well in, and he was glad to really bring all of that to this partnership.

Nadella said that Microsoft would work as the glue for various technology and partnerships that will bring data from multiple sources together so that the new program can be established as soon as possible.

He emphasized that the deal is not just about Microsoft. The main motive here is to orchestrate that entire ecosystem of tech providers in order to help companies like WBA transform. It should be reported here that Microsoft has recently signed partnerships for cloud service rendering with big retailers like Gap, Kroger, and Walmart. But, the Amazon Web Services also possesses a large number of retail clients like Brooks Brothers and Under Armour, as well as health-care companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb and Celgene.

In the growing market capturing by Amazon in various segments, the other companies have to play cautiously finding the right allies at the right moment to tackle the big competition ahead.

Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co may soon unveil an alliance to combine forces on commercial vehicles and may soon expand to electric vehicles and self-driving technologies. This move may save billions of dollars for both of the automakers.

Ford and Volkswagen will be soon declaring the alliance officially on Detroit auto show. As per VW Chief Herbert Diess, these two automakers have spent the last couple of months discussing cooperation in vans and other commercial vehicles. He also confirmed that the alliance would not involve any transfer of share or merger.

They also have scheduled a joint conference to provide more details of the alliance.

The two makers have confirmed that they had been looking for opportunities to cooperate with each other closely due to the recent trade frictions in the United States, Europe, and China.

The alliance also highlights the growing pressure amongst the automakers globally to manage the costs and develop electric or self-driving cars owing to the changes in legislation in many countries adopting strict emission standards.

The slowdown in the demand of cars in large markets like the United States, China has made the automakers to think about the cost cutting and advanced technology. The scope of the cooperation is yet to be ascertained fully as the talks are yet to be finalized on the area of electric cars and autonomous cars.

The alliance will let the two companies leverage upon each other’s unique capability. There might be a pooling of resources by the two companies for autonomous technology, and Ford might license Volkswagen’s MEB electric vehicles platform.

VW has confirmed in the Detroit auto show that the alliance would help VW to gain access to Ford’s midsized Ranger pickup truck platform, as the primary objective of the alliance would be to explore more on commercial vehicles. But, that doesn’t mean the alliance would be limited to commercial vehicle and electric vehicles. They would constantly be looking forward to other joint projects.

Executives of both these companies have talked about the deeper advantages of having this alliance. VW could use Ford’s plant to make vehicles whereas Ford might use the electric vehicle platform of VW.

The tie-up with Volkswagen will be a significant step for the Chief Executive of Ford Jim Hackett since he took over in May 2017 from the ousted Mark Fields with the mandate to speed up decision-making and cut costs. And, Ford recently said that it would cut thousands of jobs and discontinue loss-making models in order to cut costs to be able to absorb the shock in the car market.

After receiving criticisms worldwide for its role in eroding the local news business, Facebook has decided to invest $300 million in this segment over three years.

The Company said the investment in time and money would be a significant expansion of a plan to help newsrooms not only in the U.S. but also in abroad to create and sustain viable business models to survive.

The recipients of the investment said that earlier investments by Facebook were somehow linked to the social media company, but this time it is unique and nowhere linked to Facebook.

The investments that were made by Facebook previously in the news business segment were designed to encourage or force the media house to publish news on Facebook’s platform. Eventually, this model hurt many of the recipients as Facebook shifted its strategies.

Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of Global News Partnerships, said Facebook would continue its fight against fake news, misinformation, and low-quality news on its platform. Along with that, it has an opportunity and responsibility to help local news business to grow and thrive.

Earlier Facebook was criticized heavily for its role in promoting hate speech, misinformation, and political meddling.

The first round of investment will be done in the United States. It will help augment resources for the local news businesses for local reporting, help research how to use technology to improve news gathering and create new products, recruit trainee community journalists and place them in local newsrooms and also help fund a program modeled after the Peace Corp, which will place 1,000 journalists in local newsrooms over the next five years.

Pulitzer Center will receive the first round of investment, Report for America, Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund, the Local Media Association, and Local Media Consortium, the American Journalism Project and the Community News Project.

Fran Wills, CEO of the Local Media Consortium, an alliance of 80 news companies representing 2,200 outlets said Facebook is helping the local news businesses to create new and unique news content for the community; it will in return open multiple revenue streams by attracting advertisers. Ultimately this will help the local businesses to grow like anything.

Last December, Facebook announced making an investment of $6 million in local publishers in Britain. It also has plans to expand the investment in the existing “Accelerator” program, which was launched last year to help local media businesses like San Francisco Chronicle and the Denver Post improving their news reporting in order to attract more number of subscribers and membership donations.

Wills said that it ultimately helps the news businesses to have credible content on their platform and Facebook’s this investment also will help the local community as well.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro started his second term in office by delivering a state-of-the-nation speech on Monday and delivered a few fresh ideas to help the increasingly isolated country escape hyperinflationary collapse or a further downward spiral in 2019.

His election to the second term was full of criticisms that he had used unfair practices in 2018 elections and many countries around the world disavowed the regime.

He proposed a gamut of economic reforms including a 300 percent minimum wage hike, dialogue with business leaders, and increased use of an inexistent state-backed cryptocurrency.

As per economists and analysts, the measures declared by Maduro will not have much impact on the economy which is already in bad shape.

Asdrubal Oliveros, director of Caracas-based consultancy Ecoanalitica, said that the measures were déjà vu, it would have no ability to drag the Venezuelan economy out of the deep crisis it is experiencing.

The economists of Venezuela, however, had low expectations from Maduro’s speech. Maduro has been not very prompt in bringing economic reforms in Venezuela, and his recent plan of hiking wage by increasing the money supply will only create inflationary pressure. The measure will have more negative impacts than positive.

The new minimum wage of 18,000 bolivars per month – around $ 6.70, is enough to sustain a small family but with rising inflation, the purchasing power will be negligible or less than what it was before. It should be reported here that Venezuela has experienced very high inflation in recent times.

On Monday, Maduro told the all-powerful pro-government Constituent Assembly legislature that his second term would bring about many changes and create a boom in the Venezuelan market. He also said that others misinterpreted him as the enemy of the private sector. He also welcomed private businesses and enterprises to work in Venezuela, and he assured of every possible support for the next six years.

Maduro said in a confirming voice that there should not be any doubt that Venezuela is triumphing and it would become great, prosperous, and socialist. Agreeing to his point, the members chanted, “That’s how one governs.”

Maduro got elected to the post in 2013. People could easily relate to him as he belonged to lower middle class in his earlier days being a bus driver. But, he became infamous on the allegations of forcefully taking the power of the country in 2018 elections. He faced international ire by cuts in foreign financing and few allies abroad.

Critics in the United States and Latin America, as well as political opponents at home, are stating Maduro as a dictator. They blamed Maduro for his incapacity to bring about changes on the economic front and caused political failure.

But he has always alleged that he was a victim of U.S.-led “economic war” aimed at ousting him from power.

It should be reported here that during his previous term the Venezuelan economy was halved its size due to widespread recessions and a shortage of food and medicine have forced around 3 million citizens to leave the country.

In August 2018, the government tried to bring many reforms like devaluing the bolivar currency and lifting the minimum wage and taxes. But, these steps are seen as very little owing to the degree of crisis it is going through.

Later in the last week, the country’s opposition-led Congress, Juan Guido, said in a statement that he would replace Maduro from power with the support of the military. Several leaders in Venezuela requested Maduro to arrest Juan and prosecute him for treason. The intelligence agencies detained him for a brief period.

Even with facing allegations of being a dictator, he termed Brazil’s new right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, as the Hitler of the modern era. And he also declared that he would never bend inform of someone compromising the prosperity of Venezuela.

A senior government official said on Sunday that Poland could consider banning the use of Huawei products by the public bodies, following the arrest of one Huawei official from China in Poland last week.

And the Polish Government also is considering passing legislation to limit the use of particular products if it poses any threat to national security. As of now, no such legislation or law is existing in Poland.

Huawei has been facing the ire of western countries as the company was allegedly involving in data theft and security breach on foreign soil. And the recent arrest of a Chinese employee of Huawei along with a former Polish Security official fuelled the western allegations.

But, the Government sources denied that the move to ban Huawei products is not the direct consequence of the arrest. And, he said that after the arrest, the use of the products in Poland for Governmental purpose would definitely be reviewed.

Karol Okonski, a digital expert of the Polish Government, said they would analyze the issue further and then decide whether the use of Huawei products will be totally ended or not.

He also added that the Polish Government did not have any legislation to limit the use of particular products or ban particular products for the public. And it could not be ruled out that in future Poland would see any such legislation for security reasons which would ban certain IT company’s products.

A spokesman for Poland’s security services said that the Polish security official who was arrested by the Internal Security Agency (ISA) had been responsible for issuing security certificates to the equipment to be used by the Government for public purposes. The suspect arrested, also has worked for a number of public institutions, held important managerial positions and was also connected with institutions that protect internal security.

And distancing itself from the incident, Huawei said that it had fired the employee and the allegation made by the Polish Government has no direct relation with the Company.

It should be reported here that Huawei has replaced Apple recently and became the second largest smartphone brand in the world after the Korean giant Samsung. However, it has faced multiple allegations and scrutiny for its relationship with the Chinese Government. The United States also alleged that the Huawei devices could be used to spy on foreign citizens and Governments by China.

However, no evidence could have been produced to sustain the allegation, and Huawei has been continuously denying the charges made by the western countries. And, in the meantime, several western countries have blocked access of Huawei products to their market.

Poland’s internal affairs minister, Joachim Brudzinski, has approached the European Union and NATO to work on a joint position to decide whether to allow or ban the entry of Huawei into their market.

He said that they were examining the readiness of the European Union and NATO countries to work on a joint proposition referring to the new generation (5G) technology telecommunication infrastructure.

In response to all these, China said that the western countries are adopting unnecessary protectionist measures to keep the Chinese growth limited and retain their importance in the market. And, it also added that the steps taken by the western countries are unfair and will be treated and responded with equal responses.

Goldman Sachs has predicted to see low growth in earnings for the United States in 2019. So, terming it as a disappointment, it advised its clients to stay away from the companies most dependent and leveraged to economic growth.

In a research report, it had warned its bullish investors that the corporate profits of several big consumer brands might dip this year and investors have been advised to keep their expectation on that line.

David Kostin, the chief equity strategist for the firm, noted in the report that Weak guidance from several big companies such as Apple and Macy’s had increased the focus on S&P 500 earnings growth. He also added that the earnings had been the vital point on U.S. equities for the year 2018, but there is no doubt over continuing the same for 2019.

Fourth quarter results about earning are about to come, and it had expected to have a growth of about 22 percent all over from the previous year. The much-hyped tax cut might be one reason for this whooping growth. But, this is never happening in 2019. For the first quarter of 2019, companies are worried about the sales trend and profit earning trend. The whole world is experiencing slow growth, and it is not different in the United States as well. Due to low demand, the companies’ profit earning may get decreased.

As of now, Goldman’s expectation from the market to grow for the whole of 2019 is at 6 percent. Here the market specifies to S&P 500 companies. But, as per some economists in Goldman as well, this figure seems very ambitious.

The note states the recent developments in the macroeconomic landscape have the potential to drive up to $5 of potential downside to our 2019 EPS (earnings per share) estimate (to $168). The note also says that the prediction by its economists is an average annual real GDP growth of 2.4 percent for the US (-20 bp vs. baseline) and 3.5 percent for the whole world (-30 bp vs. baseline).

The crux of the whole story is the earnings growth per share this year can come down to as low as 3 percent this year after considering additional factors such as a stronger dollar and falling oil prices.

It also has advised its clients to decide for themselves whether they will keep on bidding on certain stocks after the low performance in the fourth quarter of 2018. The S&P 500 is up just by 3.6 percent so far in 2018 after a gain of two weeks only. Macy’s has posted its worst trading day in the last quarter, yet its stocks are high. And the tech giant Apple has already made it clear that it would make fewer iPhones for 2019 owing to a trade war and low demand in China.

Moreover, Goldman – one of the Top Wealth Management Firms is advising its client to be cautious as overall economic and earnings growth expectations are getting dipped. It is recommending its clients to stay away from the stocks which have betas to economic growth, like the materials and industrial sectors.