Mohammad Zargham News

U.S. President Joe Biden will visit the Port of Baltimore on Wednesday to discuss how the $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed by the U.S. Congress helps the American people by upgrading ports and strengthening supply chains, the White House said on Sunday.Biden on Saturday called the bill a once-in-a-generation investment.

Swiss-Dutch company Allseas said last week it had suspended its pipe-laying activities in the Nord Stream 2 Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline in anticipation of U.S. President Donald Trump's signing of a defense policy bill."In anticipation of the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Allseas has suspended its Nord Stream 2 pipelay activities," the company said in a statement dated Dec.

Samsung heavy industries Co Ltd has agreed to pay more than $75 million in criminal penalties to resolve a U.S. investigation of a scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Brazil, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.Samsung Heavy has admitted to paying about $20 million to a Brazilian intermediary between 2007 and 2013 knowing that parts of it would be paid as bribes to officials in Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras SA for a contract which facilitated the sale of a drill ship by Samsung Heavy…

Iran must immediately release a vessel it seized in the Gulf and its crew, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Thursday."The United States strongly condemns the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy’s continued harassment of vessels and interference with safe passage in and around the Strait of Hormuz," the spokesperson added in an email to Reuters after Iran said it had seized a foreign tanker smuggling fuel in the Gulf."Iran must cease this illicit activity and release the reportedly seized crew and vessel immediately."Reporting by Mohammad Zargham

The Trump administration is weighing a range of options to fund public infrastructure projects, including private-sector investments and a higher tax on gasoline, U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said on Tuesday. Trump will donate his quarterly salary to the Transportation Department to help fund infrastructure projects, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at a daily White House news briefing. (Reporting by Steve Holland, Lisa Lambert and Mohammad Zargham; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Leslie Adler)

SBM Offshore NV, a Netherlands-based maker of offshore oil drilling equipment, and its U.S. subsidiary, SBM Offshore USA Inc, agreed to settle criminal charges of bribing officials in five countries and pay a $238 million penalty, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday. The companies agreed to settle charges related to schemes lasting more than a decade involving bribery of foreign officials in Brazil, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan and Iraq, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Justice Department said in a statement. SBM Offshore USA pleaded guilty on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the statement said.

A U.S. Navy destroyer fired three warning shots at four Iranian fast-attack vessels near the Strait of Hormuz after they closed in at high speed and disregarded repeated requests to slow down, U.S. officials said on Monday. The incident, which occurred on Sunday and was first reported by Reuters, comes as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20. In September, Trump vowed that any Iranian vessels that harassed the U.S. "This was an unsafe and unprofessional interaction, and that is due to the fact that they were approaching at a high level of speed with weapons manned and disregarding repeated warnings," Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a briefing.

Actions by Iranian vessels in several encounters with U.S. warships in the Gulf this week are cause for concern and increase risks of miscalculation, the White House said on Friday.   The intentions of the Iranian vessels in the incidents is not clear, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a news briefing, but the behavior is unacceptable and "in a compressed space like the Strait of Hormuz it increases the risk associated with possible miscalculations."   (Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Writing by Mohammad Zargham)

A U.S. Navy ship fired warning shots after an Iranian fast-attack craft approached two U.S. ships in the northern Gulf on Wednesday, a U.S. Defense official said. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said three warning shots were fired from a .50 caliber gun after warning flares did not work. The incident started with three Iranian vessels, but there was only one Iranian vessel around by the time the warning shots were fired, the official said. The official added that at one point an Iranian vessel came within 200 yards (193 meters) of a U.S. ship.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday warned China against what he called "aggressive" actions in the South China Sea region, including the placement of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island, and said they would have consequences. "China must not pursue militarization in the South China Sea," Carter said in a wide-ranging speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "Specific actions will have specific consequences." He did not elaborate. The U.S. defense chief took aim at both Russia and China for their actions to limit Internet access, as well as state-sponsored cyber threats, cyber espionage and cyber crime. In his prepared remarks, Carter drew a contrast between such behavior by Russia and China and what he described as much healthier U.S.

U.S. The U.S. Navy plans to conduct patrols within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands in the South China Sea about twice a quarter, a U.S. defense official said on Monday. "We're going to come down to about twice a quarter or a little more than that," the official said. "That's the right amount to make it regular but not a constant poke in the eye. China's naval commander told his U.S. counterpart last week that a minor incident could spark war in the South China Sea if the United States did not stop its "provocative acts" in the disputed waterway.

Emergency crews recovered on Friday the bodies of nine people from the wreckage of a sightseeing plane that remains teetering on a steep rock face after crashing in Alaska, a rescue official said. Eight passengers and the pilot were killed when the aircraft, an excursion flight booked via a cruise ship, went down during a tour of the Misty Fjords area of southeast Alaska on Thursday afternoon, flight operator Promech Air said. A helicopter pilot spotted the wreckage against a granite rock face about 800 feet (240 meters) above Ella Lake, according to an Alaska State Trooper report. The bodies were recovered by a team of eight crew members…

Officials reopened a stretch of Southern California coastline on Friday after closing it because of tar balls that washed ashore, in a phenomenon authorities are examining for any possible link to an oil pipeline spill. Officials had closed the 4-mile (6-km) stretch of shore in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, on Wednesday after beachgoers stepped on tar balls, said Long Beach Fire Department spokesman Jake Heflin. Clean-up workers collected dozens of gallons of oil on the shore and the U.S. Coast Guard collected samples to determine its origin, Heflin said. Tar balls are a naturally occurring phenomenon on beaches in the region, but officials say the high numbers in recent days have raised questions about their origin. Long Beach officials reopened the beachfront on Friday, Heflin said.

The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 33 Cuban migrants from an overloaded boat taking on water off the southeast Florida coast on Wednesday, two days after 11 Cubans were pulled from the waters off the coast of Miami, officials said. Some of the 33 Cubans jumped in the water when they were spotted on Wednesday morning about 7 miles (11 km) east of Boca Raton, Florida, the Coast Guard said in a press release. "Upon our assets arriving on scene, the suspected migrants were taken aboard Coast Guard smallboat and safely transferred to a Coast Guard Cutter for basic medical attention if needed," the Coast Guard said. Two men are still missing from the group found clinging to debris from their wrecked raft on Monday.

President Barack Obama appointed a former White House adviser as U.S. Ebola "czar" on Friday as the global death toll from the disease that has hit mostly three West African countries rose to more than 4,500. Amid growing concerns about the spread of the virus in the United States, authorities said a Texas health worker who may have had contact with specimens from an Ebola patient was quarantined on a cruise ship. Obama, facing criticism from some lawmakers over his administration's handling of efforts to contain the virus…

It may be five years before a nuclear waste dump in New Mexico closed by a radiation leak is fully operational again, and the facility will need at least $240 million to pay for the initial recovery, a U.S. Energy Department official said on Tuesday. Operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, where radiological debris from U.S. nuclear labs and weapons sites is disposed of in a salt mine half a mile (1 km) below ground, were suspended in February after an accident released high levels of radiation and contaminated 22 workers. Findings from a preliminary investigation of the accident suggest at least one barrel of plutonium-tainted waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory near Santa Fe ruptured after being stored at the underground dump.

Brazil hopes that during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping it can boost ties with its biggest trade partner beyond the exchange of commodities for manufactured goods, but that may be wishful thinking. Accords China will sign with Brazil when Xi meets with President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday focus on improving infrastructure to make sure raw materials China is hungry for make it to port, with railways a top priority. Brazilian officials are portraying Xi's state visit as a milestone in deepening a strategic partnership that will lead to Chinese investments in Brazil's manufacturing industry. Trade between China and Brazil soared to $83.3 billion last year from $3.2 billion in 2002, with iron ore, soy and oil making up the bulk of Brazilian exports.

Kidnappers in Nigeria's Niger Delta region released three Dutch nationals held since May 4, Anka Mustapha, a spokesman for Bayelsa state's Joint Task Force, which includes the military and police, told Reuters on Saturday. The kidnapping of expatriates by armed gangs seeking ransom money has been rife in the oil-producing Delta region, although it has tailed off since a 2009 amnesty was signed with militant groups there. Foreign companies have also improved their security. "Yes they have been rescued (released) and handed over to their country's ambassador," Mustapha said. He declined to give further details. Nigeria has Africa's largest population and it has become the biggest economy on the continent, overtaking South Africa.

Six U.S. senators urged their colleagues on Friday to support legislation reaffirming U.S. support for freedom of navigation, saying they consider China's recent actions in the South China Sea troubling. China this week accused Vietnam of intentionally colliding with its ships in the South China Sea after Vietnam asserted that Chinese vessels used water cannon and rammed eight of its vessels during the weekend near an oil rig China deployed in a disputed area. "These actions threaten the free flow of global commerce in a vital region," Democratic Senators Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Ben Cardin of Maryland and Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida, Jim Risch ofIdaho and John McCain of Arizona said in a joint statement.

Eike Batista, who was Brazil's richest man for most of the past decade, is under investigation for allegedly engaging in insider trading while he chaired his now-bankrupt oil-producing and shipbuilding firms, securities industry watchdog CVM said on Friday. In a statement sent to Reuters, Rio de Janeiro-based CVM confirmed that Batista is a respondent in six of nine probes that executives of his Grupo EBX conglomerate are facing for breaching securities rules. In two of them, regulators are examining whether Batista allegedly took advantage of his access to privileged information.

An alliance of shipping interests and a billionaire car dealer launched a newspaper ad on Monday protesting retired English soccer star David Beckham's plans for a soccer arena at the port of Miami, saying it threatens the city's plans to capitalize on the expansion of the Panama Canal. "We cannot jeopardize well-paying jobs, like crane operators, longshore workers, and mechanics, for low-paying stadium jobs, such as concession sales," the Miami Seaport Alliance said in a full-page ad that ran in the Miami Herald and its sister Spanish-language paper, El Nuevo Herald. The group, led by John Fox, who has retired as Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's head of governmental affairs…

A day after an international deal in Geneva to defuse the East-West crisis in Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists vowed not to end their occupation of public buildings and Washington threatened further sanctions on Moscow if the stalemate continued. Leaders of gunmen who have taken over city halls and other sites in and around Donetsk this month in pursuit of demands for a Crimea-style referendum on union with Russia rejected the agreement struck in Geneva by Ukraine, Russia, theUnited States and European Union and demanded on Friday that the leaders of the Kiev uprising must first quit their own government offices. Moscow renewed its insistence that it has no control over the "little green men" who…

Oleo e Gas Participacoes SA, the bankrupt oil company controlled by Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista, received a $44 million offer for five oil exploration and production blocks in Colombia, the company said on Friday. The offer involves $30 million in cash and the assumption of $14 million in future exploration obligations in Colombia, Oleo e Gas said in a statement. It did not give the name of the investor or company making the offer. Oleo e Gas was formerly known as OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA. If approved by a bankruptcy judge, creditors and Oleo e Gas shareholders, the sale will help the Rio de Janeiro-based company pay for leases on offshore oil production ships and its share of investments in output in Brazil, the company said.