US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has sought to recruit some of the top oil industry guns to serve as Washington's foreign policy tools to crack down on "bad actors" like Venezuela, Russia and Iran. [...]

The US aviation regulator is hoping the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max series airliners is as “short as possible” but says it will take “months” for the necessary software updates. [...]

US agricultural exports to China are forecast to fall significantly in crop year 2019, an official in President Donald Trump’s administration said this week, noting that the damage was a result of the administration’s own trade policies with China. [...]

Earlier, Russian media reported that US sanctions against two Russian tech companies involved in the production of the cutting-edge medium-range jet airliner had cut off access to US and Japanese-made components necessary for the plane's revolutionary composite wing design. [...]

Scientists, environmental groups, doctors and citizens around the world are appealing to all governments to halt telecommunications companies’ deployment of 5G (fifth generation) wireless networks, which they call “an experiment on humanity and the environment that is defined as a crime under international law.” Research has shown that wireless radiation can cause DNA damage, neuropsychia [...]

The Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said he would like to see Google, Facebook and other major social media behemoths broken up like the federal government did to Standard Oil more than a century ago. [...]

Chinese investments in North America and Europe fell by 73 percent last year as a result of tightened US scrutiny of foreign takeover deals and Beijing’s restrictions on outbound investments. Data from law firm Baker & McKenzie showed that Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into the United States have also turned negative, falling to the lowest in seven years. [...]

Rick Sanchez takes a look at China’s response to the Trump Administration tariffs imposed on Beijing, as US telecom giant Apple losses 64 billion dollars of its value. Apple CEO Tim Cook blames the tit-for-tat and the Trump administration’s trade war with China. Is Apple blameless, or is this a show of force as Apple falls third in the market behind Samsung and Huawei? Host of Boom Bust Bar [...]

Aside from the trade wars, Apple has been hurt by a boycott in China and its own apparent arrogance towards Chinese laws. Apple had to cut its revenue outlook for the latest quarter, citing what it called an "economic deceleration" in China and emerging markets, according to a report by Agence France-Presse. [...]

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that alleged Google’s nonconsensual use of facial recognition technology violated users’ privacy rights, allowing the tech giant to continue to scan and store their biometric data. [...]

Businessmen from Saudi Arabia have expressed an interest in investing in Russia's Crimea, according to the region’s ministry of construction and architecture. "Representatives of the foreign [Saudi - Ed.] delegation expressed an interest in starting projects and setting up businesses in the republic," the ministry said, following a meeting with the Saudi businessmen. [...]

The country with the largest mineral reserves in the world, Russia, is the second top exporter of rare earth minerals. Its natural resources are estimated at tens of trillions of dollars. It has abundant supplies of oil, natural gas, timber and valuable minerals, such as copper, diamonds, lead, zinc, bauxite, nickel, tin, mercury, gold and silver. [...]

SpaceX founder Elon Musk praised the Russian-built RD-180 rocket engine for looking awesome but said his bitter rivals Lockheed and Boeing ought to be ashamed of using it during their launches. The eccentric tech billionaire said a few nice words about the RD-180 on Twitter, while mocking his competitors at the same time. [...]

The world’s largest construction vessel, Pioneering Spirit, will begin laying pipes for the Nord Stream 2 project in the Finnish exclusive economic zone next week, Nord Stream 2 AG said in a statement. [...]

The volume of trade between Russia and Austria has been steadily growing, reaching $4.2 billion since January year-on-year, said Russia’s trade representative in Austria Aleksandr Potemkin. [...]

Syrian flag carrier Syrian Air is discussing with Russia the purchase of new MC-21 passenger jets, the airline's CEO, Talal Abdulkarim, told Sputnik on Thursday. 'Some time ago, we contacted the Russian side directly to discuss a purchase of MC-21 jets. Our company wants to be the first in buying these aircraft from this high-tech brand', Abdulkarim said in an interview. [...]

Earlier, Germany voiced support for the construction of the second Nord Stream pipeline amid criticism from US President Donald Trump, who has urged EU countries to abandon the project and buy American liquefied natural gas (LNG) instead. [...]

General Motors will lay off 14,700 factory and white-collar workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it restructures to cut costs and focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles. The reduction includes 8,100 white-collar workers, some of whom will take buyouts and others who will be laid off. [...]

Florida is suing two major US drugstore chains, Walgreens and CVS, for their alleged contributions to the opioid crisis in the state and nationally. On Friday, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the two drugstore chains had been added to a state-court lawsuit filed last year against Purdue Pharma, which manufactures OxyContin (an opioid with a high risk for addiction and dependence) [...]

For the first time, leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies have failed to issue a joint communique, as tensions between the US and China over trade and investment poisoned their annual summit. Pointing to the “two big giants in the room,” the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation’s (APEC) chair, Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, informed Sunday’s closing news conference [...]

By not showing up, the US president - and thereby the nation he represents - loses ‘face’ in Asia, according to reports. US President Donald Trump skipped two major summits in Asia: the East Asian Summit hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Papua New Guinea, leaving US Vice President Mike Pence and [...]

Global investors report that after all the data is sorted it is now cheaper to build a new solar or wind farm than to maintain an existing coal plant. [...]