The Wall Street Journal - 24.02.2020

(Barry) #1

A8| Monday, February 24, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.


some suppliers may curb their
business with the aerospace
giant. Some, including Spirit
AeroSystems Holdings Inc., are
already reducing their reliance
on Boeing by pursuing more
work for Airbus and military
customers.
General Electric Co. and Sa-
fran SA, which make MAX en-
gines in a joint venture, are
also looking to expand work
with Airbus, developing an en-
gine for the A330neo jetliner
that at present is powered only
by Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC.
“The big risk is major suppli-
ers don’t bid on the next Boeing
aircraft,” said Kevin Michaels,
managing director of AeroDy-
namic Advisory LLC, which
counts large and small MAX
suppliers among its clients.
So far, most suppliers have
weathered the pause in MAX-
related business. Many have
continued production at lower
rates, stockpiling inventory
and redirecting workers to
make more parts for Airbus
and military jets.
“These guys are going to
lay off workers unless they get
support,” said Mr. Michaels.
A tight labor market for

aerospace engineers and spe-
cialized assembly staff could
make it tough to rehire work-
ers when production resumes,
suppliers said.
Some of Boeing’s largest
suppliers said on recent earn-
ings calls that the MAX pro-
duction halt would hurt sales
and profits this year. GE Chief
Executive Larry Culp said last
week that the company would
burn about $2 billion in cash
flow during the first quarter

due in part to pressure on the
joint venture with Safran.
Airbus has had its own
problems boosting output of
its rival A320neo-range jets
because of shortages of parts
and assembly snafus. It shares
many smaller suppliers with
Boeing and plans to expand its
own production over the next
several years.
Executives at a supply-
chain conference near Seattle
earlier this month said recent

agreements involving Spirit
and GE have provided more
certainty to smaller companies
that they can continue produc-
tion and prepare to resume
shipping parts to Boeing and
other suppliers.
“Most suppliers know when
production should resume and
at what rates,” said John Plue-
ger, chief executive of plane
rental giant Air Lease Corp.,
one of the largest MAX cus-
tomers.
Spirit, one of the biggest
MAX suppliers, was building 52
fuselages a month before halt-
ing output at the end of 2019,
with around 100 in storage
awaiting shipment by rail to the
Boeing plant in Renton, Wash.,
where the jet is assembled.
Boeing recently signed a
deal for the company to pro-
duce 216 fuselages this year
and will lend Spirit $225 mil-
lion this quarter. Separately, GE
and Safran have said they plan
to make engines for around 20
MAX planes a month, half their
output rate last year.
Wichita, Kan.-based Spirit
in January laid off 2,
workers, a third of whom had
made fuselages and wing parts

for the MAX.
An additional 300 workers
have been laid off at other
suppliers, including Berkshire
Hathaway Inc.’s Precision
Castparts, according to regula-
tory filings. Arconic Inc.,
which makes casts and forg-
ings for jet engines, expects to
decide in the summer whether
to cut staff.
Berkshire Hathaway, which
owns stakes in three U.S. air-
lines hit by the MAX ground-
ing, said in its annual report
published Saturday that the
halt in production may hurt
demand for some of its aero-
space products this year. How-
ever, it expects to make up a
substantial portion of this
from extra volume on other
aircraft programs.
Boeing hasn’t laid off any
staff as a result of the MAX
production halt. Some 3,
assembly workers have been
redeployed to other programs
and to develop practices to
improve the efficiency of fu-
ture MAX production, the
company said.
Boeing said it is evaluating
the impact of the production
halt on each supplier.

A Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in production last year. The
company said it plans to stockpile more parts than in the past.

GARY HE/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

central city of Qom, the source
of the outbreak and a bastion
of the conservative establish-
ment, only 43% of registered
voters cast ballots.
Supreme Leader Ali Khame-
nei on Sunday accused foreign
powers of using the virus in
their propaganda to discour-
age Iranians from voting in an
attempt to undermine the Is-
lamic Republic.
Expressing “deep apprecia-
tion” for the Iranians who
voted, Mr. Khamenei said Iran’s

election “negates the enemy’s
claim that religion is against
democracy and freedom.
“This negative propaganda
started from months before
the elections and increased as
the elections approached. And
in the last two days, with the
pretext of a disease and virus,
their media didn’t miss a
chance to dissuade people
from taking part in the elec-
tions,” he said, according to
state television.
For decades, elections have

been an important tool for the
Iranian state to portray legiti-
macy domestically and abroad.
A poor turnout will be widely
seen as a snub against the
leadership but won’t materi-
ally impact its ability to gov-
ern as it sees fit, or to crack
down on popular dissent.
The conservative victory
cements a monthslong rise of
factions that have been op-
posed to Mr. Rouhani’s at-
tempts to open Iran up and
strengthen its engagement

WORLD NEWS


out, as their tally dropped to
20 seats from 121 in the last
elections, after thousands of
their candidates were disquali-
fied. Independents won 38
seats, while the share of seats
won by women remained un-
changed at 17, Icana said.
The results weren’t a clear-
cut victory for the conserva-
tive establishment. Interior
Minister Abdolreza Rahmani
Fazli told state media Sunday
that Friday’s elections saw a
turnout of 43%, down from
62% in the 2016 vote and the
lowest in the Islamic Repub-
lic’s history.
Iran’s establishment had at-
tempted to secure a strong
turnout, which would have
provided a measure of legiti-
macy amid popular unrest at
home over its handling of an
economy battered by U.S.
sanctions.
The mass disqualification of
moderate and reformist candi-
dates and attempts by the
leadership to cover up its role
in shooting down a Ukrainian
airliner prompted calls to boy-
cott Friday’s election.
An outbreak of the corona-
virus in Iran also likely kept
some people away from poll-
ing stations. Iran’s health min-
istry on Sunday confirmed the
eighth coronavirus-related
death in the country, among
43 confirmed cases. In the

with Western countries, par-
ticularly with the 2015 multi-
lateral nuclear deal.
Their rise has been fueled
in part by the Trump adminis-
tration’s campaign of maxi-
mum pressure on Tehran. The
U.S. withdrew from the nu-
clear accord in 2018 and reim-
posed harsh economic sanc-
tions on Iran in an attempt to
coerce Iran to negotiate a new
nuclear deal and roll back its
military influence in the Mid-
dle East.
The U.S. also killed Iran’s
most prominent military com-
mander, Maj. Gen. Qassem So-
leimani, in Iraq in January.
The Iranian parliament’s
powers are limited, as the su-
preme leader has the final say
on all matters of religion and
state, including foreign policy.
But lawmakers ratify interna-
tional treaties, pass national
laws and can pressure the gov-
ernment by impeaching minis-
ters.
Even with a larger share of
moderates and reformists, the
departing parliament posed
great challenges to Mr. Rou-
hani. Most recently, a global
antiterror-financing body
blacklisted Iran for its failure
to pass anti-money-laundering
legislation, due to resistance
in parliament to the govern-
ment’s efforts to push it
through.

TEHRAN—Iran’s conserva-
tives won in a landslide in the
country’s parliamentary elec-
tions, strengthening hard-lin-
ers opposed to diplomacy with
the West. But a record-low
turnout dealt a public rebuke
to the establishment’s call for
unity in the face of escalating
tensions with the U.S.
Acknowledging the defeat
of nonconservative factions,
the moderate President Has-
san Rouhani on Sunday called
on the new lawmakers to rep-
resent not just those who
voted but all Iranians.
“Regardless of the result
and political inclinations of
those elected, we thank the
people for the sake of their
presence,” Mr. Rouhani said,
according to the IRNA state
news agency.
Conservative factions won
221 of the 290 seats in Iran’s
legislative assembly, up from
83 in the last elections in
2016, according to Icana, the
parliament’s news service. Re-
formists and moderates lost

BYARESUEQBALI
ANDSUNEENGELRASMUSSEN

Iran Election Gives Boost to Hard-Liners


Low turnout mars
conservative effort to
show widespread
popular backing

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Sunday accused foreign powers of ‘negative propaganda.’

OFFICE OF THE IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

penses this year, has ear-
marked some of those funds
for cash advances and other fi-
nancial support to suppliers to
address MAX production fluc-
tuations.
“Right now, it’s really li-
quidity and where they need
help or support,” Boeing Chief
Financial Officer Greg Smith
said at an investor conference
earlier this month.
Boeing suppliers said they
have been given three potential
schedules for resuming pro-
duction, ranging from about
100 to 300 planes this year, de-
pending on when assembly
starts. Boeing has said it
doesn’t expect approval of new
software and training regimens
required by regulators for the
plane until midyear.
The longer-term risk is that

Continued from Page One

Boeing Sets


Support for


Suppliers


FROM PAGE ONE


LONDON—A British court
on Monday is set to begin ex-
amining whether to extradite
Julian Assange to the U.S. to
stand trial on spying charges,
the latest episode in Washing-
ton’s pursuit of the WikiLeaks
founder for publishing secret
documents relating to the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars.
A lawyer for Mr. Assange
said a verdict isn’t expected
until late summer or the fall
and will almost certainly be
appealed, setting the stage for
a protracted legal tussle over
a case that has sparked debate
over the scope of press free-
dom in the internet age.
The U.S. in May charged Mr.
Assange with violating espio-
nage laws and conspiring to
hack a military computer in an
18-count indictment unsealed
following his forcible removal
by British police from the Ec-
uadorean Embassy in London,
where he had been living un-
der asylum for almost seven
years.
The Justice Department al-
leges Mr. Assange, a 48-year-
old Australian, conspired with
former U.S. Army intelligence
analyst Chelsea Manning to
break into a military computer
and obtain thousands of mili-
tary logs, diplomatic cables
and other classified docu-
ments that WikiLeaks pub-
lished online in 2010 and 2011.
The cache of raw material
painted a dark picture of the
Iraq and Afghanistan cam-
paigns. It included, among
other things, grisly descriptions
of alleged torture, video show-
ing the death of civilians and—
critically, according to U.S.

prosecutors—the identities of
U.S. intelligence sources.
Mr. Assange, who in his
pre-asylum heyday traveled
the world and appeared to
revel in his status as an anti-
U.S. gadfly, has defended his
actions as legitimate journal-
ism that deserve free-press
protections, including those
afforded by the First Amend-
ment.
U.S. authorities say Mr. As-
sange isn’t a journalist but
rather the figurehead of a
“hostile intelligence service,”
as then-Central Intelligence
Agency Director Mike Pompeo
called WikiLeaks in 2017.
That perspective gained
more traction during the 2016
election, when the organiza-
tion published emails from
Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presi-
dential campaign that U.S. au-
thorities say were stolen by
Moscow. A federal judge in
July dismissed a lawsuit
against WikiLeaks and others
for the leaks, saying the publi-
cation was justified by public
interest.
If extradited to the U.S. and
convicted on all charges, Mr.
Assange could be sentenced to
up to 175 years in prison.
In a sketch of the argu-
ments that Mr. Assange’s legal
team intend to make, Jennifer
Robinson, a U.K.-based mem-
ber of Mr. Assange’s legal
team, said his lawyers will ar-
gue against extradition on the
grounds that the U.S. authori-
ties’ pursuit of the WikiLeaks
founder is politically moti-
vated and that, if extradited,
he wouldn’t get a fair trial.
The hearing that begins
Monday is scheduled to last
five days.

BYJASONDOUGLAS

U.K. to Open Hearing


On Assange Extradition


KABUL—As the U.S. and the
Afghan Taliban started a
seven-day partial truce ahead
of a possible peace deal to end
more than 18 years of war, the
United Nations provided evi-
dence of the conflict’s massive
toll on civilians.
More than 10,000 civilians
were killed and injured from
fighting in Afghanistan for the
sixth straight year in 2019, the
U.N. said in a report. The num-
ber of civilian casualties has
now surpassed 100,000 after
more than a decade of the U.N.
documenting the war’s impact
on civilians, it said.
While the 3,403 civilians
killed in 2019 represented a
10.5% decrease from the year
before, mainly because of a re-

duction in civilian casualties
caused by Islamic State’s
branch in Afghanistan, known
as ISIS-Khorasan, deadly at-
tacks from the Taliban and
other groups increased.
“Almost no civilian in Af-
ghanistan has escaped being
personally affected in some
way by the ongoing violence,”
said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the
U.N. secretary-general’s special
representative for Afghanistan
and head of the organization’s
assistance mission there.
“It is absolutely imperative
for all parties to seize the mo-
ment to stop the fighting, as
peace is long overdue; civilian
lives must be protected and
efforts for peace are under
way,” he added.
The U.S. and the Taliban are
preparing to sign a historic

peace deal next week, after
agreeing to curtail most attacks
across Afghanistan in a deal
that took effect on Saturday.
If the two sides sign the
deal next weekend in Doha,
Qatar, the Afghan government
plans to launch its own direct
talks with the Taliban to forge
a difficult agreement to bring
the militants into the govern-
ment and end the fighting.
But the U.S.-Taliban agree-
ment faces serious hurdles.
There are widespread fears
that any momentum could be
reversed by uncompromising
militants looking to derail the
plans by triggering deadly at-
tacks over the next week. Also,
conflicts in many parts of Af-
ghanistan are fueled by local
disputes, tribal and ethnic ri-
valries, and the factions in-

volved may be only loosely af-
filiated with the Taliban
group.
The new deal stops short of
a full cease-fire, and it re-
mains unclear how the U.S.
will measure success that
paves the way for a long-term
peace agreement.
The peace process could also
come under threat from do-
mestic political developments
in Afghanistan. Opposition pol-
iticians are challenging Presi-
dent Ashraf Ghani’s victory in
the September elections, which
the country’s election commis-
sion confirmed last week.
The Taliban warned that
the announcement was at odds
with the peace process. The
group has refused to recognize
as legitimate any Afghan gov-
ernment supported by the U.S.

BYEHSANULLAHAMIRI

U.N. Details Afghan War’s Carnage


People in the Haska Mena district of Nangarhar province attended a funeral a day after a deadly explosion at a mosque in October.

GHULAMULLAH HABIBI/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

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