Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei on Monday said it expects to lose $30 billion in sales over the next two years after being blacklisted by the U.S. 

“We did not expect they would attack us on so many aspects,” CEO Ren Zhengfei said at the company’s headquarters, according to Reuters.

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“We cannot get components supply, cannot participate in many international organizations, cannot work closely with many universities, cannot use anything with U.S. components, and cannot even establish connection with networks that use such components.”

Ren added that he expects a revival in business in 2021, the first time a new administration could possibly take control of the White House.

The Department of Commerce blacklisted Huawei in May, a move that barred U.S. firms from working with the company, arguing Huawei’s products pose a national security risk.

Implementation of the ban was delayed by 90 days to give tech companies more time to prepare for the change.

The firm has denied its products pose a security threat.

The Trump administration has also urged allies globally to not buy equipment from Huawei.

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Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiOcasio-Cortez claps back at Trump after he cites her in tweet rejecting impeachment Ocasio-Cortez claps back at Trump after he cites her in tweet rejecting impeachment GOP nervous that border wall fight could prompt year-end shutdown MORE (D-Calif.) denounced President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump cites tax cuts over judges as having biggest impact of his presidency Trump cites tax cuts over judges as having biggest impact of his presidency Ocasio-Cortez claps back at Trump after he cites her in tweet rejecting impeachment MORE on Monday for reviving plans to repeal and replace ObamaCare, saying Democrats would “fight relentlessly” against it.

“The American people already know exactly what the President’s health care plans mean in their lives: higher costs, worse coverage and the end of lifesaving protections for people with pre-existing conditions,” Pelosi said in a statement.

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She was responding to Trump’s comments in an interview with ABC that aired Sunday night, where he said “we’ll be announcing that in about two months, maybe less,” when asked about his ObamaCare replacement plan.

Democrats are eager to highlight Trump’s attacks on ObamaCare, given that protecting the health care law and its guarantees for people with pre-existing conditions was a central theme of Democrats’ successful campaign last year to win back the House.

Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, have been pressing Trump to abandon talk of repealing ObamaCare and instead focus on less incendiary issues such as reducing prescription drug prices.

Pelosi pointed out that Trump is supporting a lawsuit currently making its way through the courts seeking to overturn all of the Affordable Care Act.

“President Trump has waged an assault on health care since the start, and continues to order the Justice Department to ask the courts to destroy protections for people with pre-existing conditions and strike down every other protection and guarantee of affordable health care for America’s families,” she said.

House Democrats held events on improving ObamaCare and lowering drug prices across the country over the weekend, and Pelosi said Democrats “will continue to fight relentlessly to protect and strengthen hard-working families’ affordable health care.”

Trump has long promised a plan for “great” health care, but his administration has not yet produced one, instead deferring to congressional Republicans’ replacement plans during the repeal push in 2017.

The Trump administration has also recently been emphasizing other health care priorities, including lowering drug prices and protecting patients from getting “surprise” medical bills in the emergency room.

The New York Times on Sunday fired back at President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump defends Stephanopolous interview Trump defends Stephanopolous interview Buttigieg on offers of foreign intel: ‘Just call the FBI’ MORE, who said its story about U.S. attacks on a Russian power grid amounted to “a virtual act of Treason.”

“Accusing the press of treason is dangerous,” the Times’s communications account tweeted. “We described the article to the government before publication. As our story notes, President Trump’s own national security officials said there were no concerns.”

It emphasized a section of its article stating that National Security Council officials said they had no national security concerns about the details in the story. 

The Times recently reported that the U.S. was ramping up digital attacks on Russia’s power grid. Two administration officials told the Times that they believed the president was not briefed in detail on certain measures. Officials were reticent to detail the activity to Trump because of concerns that he might try to interfere or discuss it with foreign officials, according to the Times. 

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Trump blasted the story as “NOT TRUE” on Twitter. 

“Do you believe that the Failing New York Times just did a story stating that the United States is substantially increasing Cyber Attacks on Russia,” he tweeted. “This is a virtual act of Treason by a once great paper so desperate for a story, any story, even if bad for our Country.”

“ALSO, NOT TRUE! Anything goes with our Corrupt News Media today,” the president continued. “They will do, or say, whatever it takes, with not even the slightest thought of consequence!” 

Democratic presidential candidate Pete ButtigiegPeter (Pete) Paul ButtigiegButtigieg on Biden’s Iraq War vote: ‘that vote was a mistake’ Buttigieg on Biden’s Iraq War vote: ‘that vote was a mistake’ Buttigieg on offers of foreign intel: ‘Just call the FBI’ MORE said in an interview that aired Sunday that U.S. tensions with Iran are “disturbingly reminiscent” of the lead-up to the Iraq War. 

“There’s no question that Iran has a pattern of malign activities. There’s also no question that there is a pattern that is disturbingly reminiscent of the run-up to the war in Iraq in some cases being driven by the same people,” Buttigieg said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I mean, the fact that one of the architects of the Iraq war is the President’s national security adviser right now, when the President himself has pretended that he was against the Iraq War all along. This is shocking,” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor said referring to national security adviser John BoltonJohn Robert BoltonUS ramping up digital attacks on Russia’s power grid: report US ramping up digital attacks on Russia’s power grid: report US-Iran tensions rise: Five things to know about oil tanker attack MORE. 

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Buttigieg has previously made similar comments, although tensions with Iran have heightened in recent days. The U.S. blamed Iran on attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman Thursday, accusing the country of using limpet mines on the tankers. Iran has denied involvement.

Secretary of State Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard PompeoUS-Iran tensions rise: Five things to know about oil tanker attack US-Iran tensions rise: Five things to know about oil tanker attack The US must do its part in closing the largest outdoor prison in the world MORE doubled down on blaming Iran on Sunday, saying in a “Fox News Sunday” appearance that it is “unmistakable what happened here.” 

Buttigieg is among two dozen people running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. 

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuBenjamin (Bibi) NetanyahuMORE’s Cabinet on Monday officially moved to rename a settlement in Golan Heights after President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump defends Stephanopolous interview Trump defends Stephanopolous interview Buttigieg on offers of foreign intel: ‘Just call the FBI’ MORE.

The settlement, currently known as Bruchim, will be rebranded “Ramat Trump,” or “Trump Heights,” according to the Associated Press.

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Israel captured the territory from Syria in 1967 and annexed it in 1981, which the majority of the international community has mostly condemned as illegal. In March, Trump signed an executive order recognizing it as Israeli territory.

“Few things are more important to the security of the state of Israel than permanent sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” said U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, who attended the Sunday ceremony. “It is simply obvious, it is indisputable and beyond any reasonable debate.”

Despite the decision to rename the 30-year-old settlement, there are still numerous bureaucratic hurdles before the settlement can be developed, particularly with Netanyahu preparing for Israel’s national election later this year, according to the AP.

Zvi Hauser, an opposition lawmaker and former cabinet secretary to Netanyahu, said the Sunday ceremony was for PR purposes and accomplished little.

“There’s no funding, no planning, no location, and there’s no real binding decision,” he said, according to the AP.

Trump himself responded to the move on Twitter Sunday afternoon, thanking Netanyahu for the “great honor.”

 

 

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Different stories are emerging about an attack on two oil tankers after the Trump administration blamed Iran for the incident.

U.S. Central Command has released a video it says shows Iranians removing a magnetic mine from one of the tankers as evidence to support the allegation against Iran.

But experts continue to debate whether the video indeed proves the U.S.’s claim. And the owner of the Japanese tanker in the video has disputed a key aspect of the U.S.’s narrative.

Here are five things to know about the attack.

What happened in the Gulf of Oman

While most Americans were still asleep early Thursday morning, reports of two oil tankers being attacked in the Gulf of Oman began to surface.

According to a timeline released by U.S. Central Command (Centcom), the U.S. Navy received two distress calls, one at 6:12 a.m. local time from the Norwegian-owned Front Altair and another at 7 a.m. local time from the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous.

Pictures and video of the Altair aflame quickly circulated online.

The USS Bainbridge guided missile destroyer was in the area and responded, arriving at 11:05 a.m. local time and taking in the entire 21-person crew from the Courageous, according to Centcom.

The incident came amid heightened tensions between the United States and Iran after the U.S. military deployed more forces to the region in response to unspecified threats from Iran.

It also came weeks after similar attacks on four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. U.S. officials had already said those attacks were caused by Iranian limpet mines, magnetic naval mines named after an aquatic snail.

The United States is blaming Iran

Hours after Thursday’s attack, Secretary of State Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard PompeoThe US must do its part in closing the largest outdoor prison in the world Trump rejects Iran’s denial about attack on oil tankers, pointing to video Trump rejects Iran’s denial about attack on oil tankers, pointing to video MORE publicly blamed Iran, saying, “It is the assessment of the United States government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible.”

Pompeo did not present any evidence to back up his assertion, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif denied Iran’s involvement by saying the U.S. leveled the accusation without “a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence.”

But late Thursday night, Centcom released video and photos it said did support the allegation.

The two photos show the Courageous at different angles with a hole in the hull as well as an object protruding from the hull. The hole is labeled “damage,” while the object is labeled “likely mine.”

The video, meanwhile, shows a small boat approaching the Courageous and then those aboard the boat removing the object from the side of tanker. Centcom described the video as showing an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Gashti Class patrol boat “removing the unexploded limpet mine.”

In an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning, President TrumpDonald John TrumpDC board rejects Trump Hotel effort to dismiss complaint seeking removal of liquor license on basis of Trump’s ‘character’ DC board rejects Trump Hotel effort to dismiss complaint seeking removal of liquor license on basis of Trump’s ‘character’ Mexico’s immigration chief resigns amid US pressure over migrants MORE cited the video in blaming Iran, suggesting Iran was trying to cover up its involvement.

“Iran did do it, and you know they did it because you saw the boat,” Trump said. “I guess one of the mines didn’t explode, and it has probably got essentially Iran written all over it, and you saw the boat at night trying to take the mine off and successfully took the mine off the boat, and that was exposed, and that was their boat. That was them, and they didn’t want the evidence left behind.”

Outside analysts, allies have doubts

Centcom’s release has done little to quell the debate about what happened.

“The evidence that the U.S. has presented so far is neither clear nor conclusive. What is needed is an impartial international investigation,” Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said in an email.

An analysis written by Jon Alterman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that Pompeo did not characterize the level of confidence in his assessment as is standard for intelligence despite being the former CIA director.

“I presume that there is some other evidence that has not been made public that has been shared with allies,” Alterman wrote. “And I don’t know of any contravening evidence against the assessment that Secretary Pompeo laid out yesterday, but I am struck at how much skepticism I am hearing from former senior U.S. government officials and from abroad.”

Bellingcat, an open-source investigation group, said the small boat shown in Centcom’s video matches a type of vessel known to be used by the IRGC.

But it said it could not verify the object removed was a mine or who placed it there in the first place.

“It should be stressed that we have no insight into what the motivation was to remove the object, something that can only currently be speculated on with the available evidence,” Bellingcat added on Twitter.

Many U.S. allies have also notably not joined in attributing the attack to Iran.

Germany, in particular, specifically said the Centcom video was not enough to prove Iran is to blame.

“The video is not enough. We can understand what is being shown, sure, but to make a final assessment, this is not enough for me,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Oslo.

Still, the United Kingdom backed up the United States on Friday.

“It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — attacked the two tankers on 13 June. No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible,” the U.K. Foreign Office said in a statement.

Japanese tanker owner contradicts U.S.

Further adding to the confusion is the fact that the operator of the Courageous contradicted a key part of the U.S.’s narrative Friday.

Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, Kokuka Sangyo President Yutaka Katada said those aboard the ship reported seeing “flying objects” just before the attack.

He said he believes those objects could have been bullets.

“I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship,” he said.

In other words, he does not think the damage to the tanker was caused by a limpet mine.

Centcom did not explicitly say the damage on the Courageous was caused by a mine, but that was the strong suggestion. And in the cases of the May tanker attacks, U.S. officials did explicitly say Iranian limpet mines were used.

Critics warn risk of war is escalating

Regardless of whether Iran did in fact carry out the attack, the risk of war between the United States and Iran has escalated after the incident, some experts and lawmakers are warning.

Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersKamala Harris rallies with McDonald’s workers striking for higher wages Kamala Harris rallies with McDonald’s workers striking for higher wages Playing fast and loose with the economic facts MORE (I-Vt.), who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, warned Friday that war with Iran would be “an unmitigated disaster.”

“Attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman are unacceptable and must be fully investigated,” Sanders said in a statement. “But this incident must not be used as a pretext for a war with Iran, a war which would be an unmitigated disaster for the United States, Iran, the region and the world.”

Vaez said Thursday’s incident is not itself likely to be a “casus belli,” a Latin phrase meaning an act that provokes war.

But he added that the situation grows more dangerous with each incident.

“Reality is that through its hostile policy toward Iran, the Trump administration has created an environment ripe for inadvertent conflict,” he said. “But each cycle of escalation is bringing the two sides to the brink of a catastrophic confrontation that could easily trigger a regional conflagration.”

In its statement Thursday, Central Command said it does not seek war but stressed the United States will defend itself.

“The United States has no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the Middle East,” Centcom spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said. “However, we will defend our interests.”

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The U.S. is reportedly ramping up attacks on Russia’s electric power grid. 

The move is a warning to Moscow of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to unleash cybertools in a more aggressive manner, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing current and former government officials. 

The officials told the newspaper that the U.S. was deploying computer code within Russia’s grid and other targets along with other actions to combat Russian disinformation and hacking in the 2018 elections. 

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Proponents of the action reportedly said it was warranted given alerts from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI that Russia had inserted malware that could hurt U.S. power plants, oil and gas pipelines and water supplies. 

The administration did not tell The Times specifically what it was doing under the new authorities that were given to the U.S. Cyber Command by the White House and Congress last year.  

The Cyber Command is the Defense Department branch that coordinates the military’s online operations. The Hill has reached out to the Defense Department for comment. 

“It has gotten far, far more aggressive over the past year,” one senior intelligence official told The Times. “We are doing things at a scale that we never contemplated a few years ago.” 

Two administration officials told The Times that they did not think President Tump was informed in detail about the move to put implants, code that can be used to surveil or attack, in the Russian grid. 

The newspaper reported that power grids have been a place of battle for several years. 

The Times also noted that national security adviser John BoltonJohn Robert BoltonGulf tanker attack leads to spike in oil prices Trump on disputed claim of Russian withdrawal from Venezuela: ‘Ultimately I’m always right’ Trump on disputed claim of Russian withdrawal from Venezuela: ‘Ultimately I’m always right’ MORE said publicly on Tuesday that the U.S. was more widely looking at digital targets in an attempt  “to say to Russia, or anybody else that’s engaged in cyberoperations against us, ‘You will pay a price.’”

 

President TrumpDonald John TrumpDC board rejects Trump Hotel effort to dismiss complaint seeking removal of liquor license on basis of Trump’s ‘character’ DC board rejects Trump Hotel effort to dismiss complaint seeking removal of liquor license on basis of Trump’s ‘character’ Mexico’s immigration chief resigns amid US pressure over migrants MORE called for the ouster of London’s mayor Saturday after a series of stabbing attacks in the city over Friday night and Saturday morning left three dead and two others injured.

In a tweet, the president retweeted right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins, who wrote that five stabbings over the course of 24 hours were just daily life in “[London Mayor Sadiq] Khan’s Londonistan.”

“LONDON needs a new mayor ASAP. Khan is a disaster – will only get worse!” Trump added.

Trump later called Khan “a national disgrace who is destroying the City of London.”

Trump has feuded publicly with Khan for years, and earlier this month referred to the mayor as a “stone-cold loser” just ahead of his first state visit to the United Kingdom and London.

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“.@SadiqKhan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly ‘nasty’ to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom,” Trump tweeted earlier this month

“He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me,” he added at the time.

Khan at the time responded, calling Trump a “poster boy for the alt-right” and adding that the insult was the “sort of behavior [he’d] expect from an 11-year-old.”

Hopkins, a former contestant on Trump’s reality TV show “The Apprentice,” previously wrote for several British tabloids including the Daily Mail and the Sun, and has been the target of criticism in the past for pushing racist “white genocide” theories about immigration in the U.K. and the U.S.

After the premiere of the hit Netflix series “Dear White People” in 2017, Hopkins tweeted and later deleted a message that read: “Dear Black People: If your lives matter why do you stab and shoot each other so much.”

Updated 7:34 p.m. Rachel Frazin contributed.

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One of the largest wildlife preserves in Africa said a full year has passed since an elephant was killed by poachers, The Associated Press reported Saturday.

“It is a remarkable achievement,” James Bampton, country director with the Wildlife Conservation Society, told the outlet.

The Niassa reserve, an area larger than Switzerland and located in a remote part of northern Mozambique, is managed by the New York-based organization, which manages the reserve with Mozambique’s government and other partners.

The last elephant killed by a poacher in the Niassa reserve was on May 17, 2018, according to Bampton.

The conservation group credited Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi for personally authorizing a new rapid intervention police force and granting the elephants “a genuine chance for recovery.”

Bampton said the new elite unit was formed to combat poaching, adding that the rangers are better armed and have “a bit of a reputation of being quite hard.” The team is able to arrest suspected poachers and compile a case against them within 72 hours for a local prosecutor to take over, the outlet noted.

“Just being caught with a firearm is considered intent to illegal hunting,” Bampton said. The charges can carry a maximum prison sentence of 16 years.

Using aerial patrols has aided the anti-poaching squad in monitoring the sprawling reserve, however it will take years for Niassa’s elephant population to return to its former size. 

A survey found the poaching over the years had cut the number of elephants on the reserve from about 12,000 to little over 3,600 in 2016.

The elephant population across Africa has plummeted from an estimated several million around 1900 to 415,000, according to surveys in recent years.

Bampton said he estimates there are fewer than 2,000 elephants in Niassa, but unpublished estimates suggest that there may be as many as 4,000 elephants as of October 2018.

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