Facebook CEO warns against reversal of global thinking
Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision on Thursday of his company
serving as a bulwark against rising isolationism, writing in a letter to users that the company's
platform could be the "social infrastructure" for the globe.
In a 5,700-word manifesto, Zuckerberg, founder of the world's largest social network, quoted
Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. president during the country's 19th century Civil War known
for his eloquence, and offered a philosophical sweep that was unusual for a business magnate.
Zuckerberg's comments come at a time when many people and nations around the world are
taking an increasingly inward view.
U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to put "America first" in his inaugural address in
January.
That followed Britain's decision last June to exit the European Union.
"Across the world there are people left behind by globalization, and movements for withdrawing
from global connection," Zuckerberg wrote, without naming specific movements.
The question, the 32-year-old executive said, was whether "the path ahead is to connect
more or reverse course," adding that he stands for bringing people together.
Quoting from a letter Lincoln wrote to Congress in the depths of the Civil War, he wrote to
Facebook's 1.9 billion users: "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy
present."
Zuckerberg said that Facebook could move far beyond its roots as a network for friends
and families to communicate, suggesting that it can play a role in five areas, all of which
he referred to as "communities," ranging from strengthening traditional institutions, to
providing help during and after crises, to boosting civic engagement.
In comments on Facebook, some users praised Zuckerberg's note for staying positive, while
others declared "globalism" dead.
Facebook has been under pressure to more closely police hoaxes, fake news and other controversial
content, although the concerns have had little impact on its finances.
The company reported 2016 revenue of $27.6 billion, up 54 percent from a year earlier.
One area where Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook would do better would be suggesting "meaningful
communities."
Some 100 million users are members of groups that are "very meaningful" to them, he wrote,
representing only about 5 percent of users.
Facebook is also using artificial intelligence more to flag photos and videos that need human
review, Zuckerberg wrote.
One-third of all reports to Facebook's review team are generated by artificial intelligence,
he wrote.
Zuckerberg's letter was "a bit more ambitious and a bit more of the 30,000-foot view than
I see from most tech company CEOs," Peter Micek, global policy and legal counsel at
Access Now, an international digital rights group, said in a phone interview.
But Zuckerberg stayed away from certain subjects on which Facebook could be vulnerable to criticism,
mentioning the word "privacy" only once, Micek said.
Trump's pick for national security adviser turns down offer White House official
President Donald Trump's choice for national security adviser, retired Vice Admiral Robert
Harward, has turned down the offer, a senior White House official said on Thursday.
Harward was offered the job after Michael Flynn was fired by Trump on Monday for misleading
Vice President Mike Pence over his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United States.
The White House official said Harward cited family and financial reasons for opting not
to take the job.
Harward is a senior executive at Lockheed Martin.
Two sources familiar with the decision said Harward turned down the job in part because
he wanted to bring in his own team.
President Donald Trump's choice for national security adviser, retired Vice Admiral Robert
Harward, has turned down the offer, a senior White House official said on Thursday.
Harward was offered the job after Michael Flynn was fired by Trump on Monday for misleading
Vice President Mike Pence over his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United States.
The White House official said Harward cited family and financial reasons for opting not
to take the job.
Harward is a senior executive at Lockheed Martin.
Two sources familiar with the decision said Harward turned down the job in part because
he wanted to bring in his own team.
China's Juneyao Airlines finalizes $1.32 billion order for five Boeing 787s
China's Juneyao Airlines (603885.SS) has finalised a $1.32 billion order for five Boeing (BA.N)
787-9 dreamliners, part of a plan for new routes to North America, Europe and Australia
over the next four years.
The order represents the airline's first Boeing order and its first for widebody aircraft,
the companies said in a statement issued late on Thursday.
Juneyao said last month was planning on five firm dreamliner orders with an option for
five more.
The Shanghai-based privately owned company, which first flew in 2006, is one of several
Chinese carriers aiming to expand internationally as growth in the country's outbound tourism
market outpaces domestic tourism.
Juneyao currently operates domestic routes or short-haul international flights to neighboring
countries such as Japan, South Korea and Thailand.
It agreed to join global airline alliance group Star Alliance as a "connecting partner"
last October.
China's private placement boom on borrowed time
A three-year boom in private share placements in China, a handy way around tighter control
of public share issuance, is running on fumes as Beijing turns its sights on the speculative
excesses and dubious value the boom has engendered.
Regulators have tightly restricted new public share sales since mid-2015, blaming them for
draining cash from the rest of the share market while the country's main bourses nosedived,
but that pushed more firms into more loosely regulated private placements to raise funds.
The private placement market jumped fivefold from 2013 to 1.18 trillion yuan ($172 billion)
in 2016, dwarfing the market for initial public offerings (IPO), which raised just 147.6 billion
yuan last year.
But since the end of last year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has
been tightening its approval process for private placements, challenging the deal prices and
the purposes of the cash being raised.
Wu Kan, head of equity trading at Shanshan Finance, said the private placement market
had become a "black box" for speculative acquisitions, money misuse and even criminality as some
investors colluded with listed companies to inflate share valuations.
Market participants think a change in rules is imminent and the pendulum will swing back
towards initial public offerings (IPOs) and other public fundraising.
"Fundraising via private placement will likely shrink quite drastically this year due to
tighter regulation, but the number of IPOs will increase," said Wu, whose firm has invested
in privately placed shares.
Such deals have been popular with issuers and investors, with long lock-up periods in
exchange for big discounts, but on Jan. 20, the CSRC expressed its discomfort with companies
using the funds for backdoor listings, to invest in unrelated industries or contrive
restructurings of no obvious commercial benefit.
"The biggest problem is that some listed companies raise funds excessively.
Their funding structure is irrational, and they use the proceeds too much at will, and
in an inefficient manner," CSRC spokesman Zhang Xiaojun said.
The deals have on occasion masked market manipulation.
Last month Chinese hedge fund manager Xu Xiang was jailed for 5-1/2 years for colluding with
13 listed companies in driving up their share prices, and profiting from non-public information,
having taken part in private placements made by several of the named companies.
TIDE TURNING
The CSRC has admitted that the decade-old rules for private placements are ripe for
revision and wants to encourage alternative capital raising routes.
"CSRC will develop the market for convertible bonds and preferred shares, to curb excessive
fundraising by listed firms," Zhang said.
One of its concerns is that companies are channeling cash into high-yielding wealth
management products via the shadow-banking industry, an opaque avenue for risky lending
that is difficult for regulators to monitor and assess.
Last year, 767 listed companies spent a combined 726.8 billion yuan buying wealth management
products, the official Securities Times reported.
The private placement tide already appears to be going out.
In the first nine months of 2016, it took typically a month or two to get the CSRC's
go-ahead for a private placement, but that had stretched to more than four months in
some cases by the last quarter of 2016, according to investment bankers.
n late October, property developer Shanghai Shimao Co (600823.SS) said its 6.7 billion
private placement plan to fund acquisitions had been rejected by CSRC.
And some companies have pulled back after regulatory pushback; in August Wanda Cinema
Line Co. (002739.SZ) scrapped a plan to raise up to 8 billion yuan to buy an affiliate when
the Shenzhen Stock Exchange queried the target's lofty valuation and asked what measures it
had taken against a possible write-off in its goodwill.
Several companies have also voluntarily cut the size of their placements, including loss-making
Caihong Display Devices Co (600707.SS), which said on Jan. 23, after communication with
regulators, that it was adjusting its fundraising target down to 19.2 billion yuan from its
original 23 billion.
Meanwhile, CSRC is speeding up IPO approvals.
Pricewaterhouse Coopers expects the IPO market to rise as much as 50 percent to 250 billion
yuan in 2017.
Some investors welcome the tighter regulations on private placement, saying that inefficient
projects will be weeded out.
"It benefits investors with a focus on fundamentals," said Luan Xiaoming, fund manager at Hotland
Innovation Asset Management Co.
Appeals court suspends proceedings over Trump travel ban
.S. appeals court on Thursday suspended proceedings over President Donald Trump's travel ban for
individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries, after Trump announced a new executive order
would come soon.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had been mulling whether to reconsider its ruling
temporarily suspending Trump's directive.
In a court order, the 9th Circuit said it would put that process on hold pending further
developments.
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