The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. approved Nokia's proposed buy of Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia said in a news release Monday. Nokia received approval of the transaction from the European Commission in July (see 1507240023) and said it's still waiting for approval from a "few remaining antitrust authorities in the relevant jurisdictions." The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2016, Nokia said.

Sprint is seeking FCC International Bureau approval to begin offering telecom service to Cuba, the company said in a filing posted Friday in docket 10-95. The company signed an interconnection agreement Sept. 4 with Cuban telecom company Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba to provide international service between the two countries, Sprint said.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman chose USTR General Counsel Timothy Reif as the agency’s first chief transparency officer. In a statement, USTR noted that the new position comes at a “critical time in trade policy” as the U.S. angles to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership and make progress in other trade negotiations. The agency won't appoint new general counsel, said a USTR spokesman. Lawmakers forced the agency to create the new position through a provision in the 2015 version of Trade Promotion Authority, which President Barack Obama signed into law in late June. That provision directs the chief transparency officer to “consult with Congress on transparency policy, coordinate transparency in trade negotiations, engage and assist the public, and advise the United State Trade Representative on transparency policy.” Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., an advocate for more transparency in trade, also applauded the new position.

The “new Pioneer,” in cooperation with Onkyo, is readying a portable digital audio player with 4.7-inch screen and powered by a quad-core processor working under Android Lollipop Version 5.11. The XDP 100R player was previewed Thursday in Berlin at IFA in near-ready state. The XDP 100R was introduced as the “world’s first product with MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) to deliver super hi-res audio in CD bandwidth. The new Pioneer player can download music directly from online stores such as Onkyo Music, without the need for a computer, and also access Google Play and third-party stores such as Deezer, Spotify and Tidal. The large screen can be used for YouTube, Internet radio and gaming. Onboard storage is a mix of 32 GB inbuilt memory and up to two 128 GB SD cards, making a total of 288 GB, appearing to the user as one large memory bank.

Companies from Finland, Israel, New Zealand, the U.K., the U.S. and elsewhere supported Colombian government agencies in buying surveillance equipment that allowed them to intercept communications, said a Privacy International report Wednesday, following a PI report Monday on the secret surveillance programs in Colombia (see 1508310051). “Peering behind the veil of surveillance in Colombia, a broad international network of companies are (sic) revealed to be behind some of the most significant expansions in surveillance capabilities in the country over the past ten years,” PI Advocacy Officer Matthew Rice said. “The surveillance industry has been found to be wholly complicit in these abuses,” said PI Research Officer Edin Omanovic. “Probing questions need to be asked about this cycle and how it can be placed within a human rights framework that guarantees that in the future it cannot be this easy for an agency to act outside the law.” There's an urgent need for more transparency and safeguards because the rise of the surveillance industry hasn't been met with the required protections, Omanovic said.

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai, hosting his company’s IFA news conference Wednesday in Berlin, promised the company's mantra will be to “make major strides” in innovation to create products that will touch consumers in a “deeper and even more profound way” than in the past. Sony introduced its new Xperia Z5 smartphones in a “compact” 4.6-inch screen size and a 5.5-inch step-up “premium” version that Sony is billing as the world’s first 4K smartphone. Both versions feature a variety of camera innovations, Hirai said.

An FCC order dismissing a Voice on the Net Coalition petition for reconsideration of an order imposing reporting duties on international VoIP providers was published in the Federal Register Tuesday. The order also required "submarine cable landing licensees to file reports identifying capacity they own or lease on each submarine cable," the FR said.

Huawei opened its first Middle East customer service center in Dubai as part of the company’s ongoing expansion in the region, it said Monday. The center will cater exclusively to customers using the company’s flagship device series, it said. The Middle East region, with 48 percent growth year over year in the first half 2015, played a significant role in Huawei’s growth in the period, the company said. Huawei had revenue of $9 billion in the first half, compared with $12.2 billion for all of 2014, it said. Total smartphone shipments in the Middle East and Africa are forecast to reach 155 million units this year, Huawei said, citing IDC figures, which showed Huawei as the No. 2 smartphone brand in the Middle East and Africa region with 8.9 percent of shipments in 2014. Huawei operates in more than 170 countries, with two-thirds of its revenue from markets outside of China, it said.

Despite international scrutiny after surveillance scandals in recent years, Colombia’s intelligence and police agencies built their own secret and unlawful surveillance systems that have the capability to monitor mobile and Internet communications, Privacy International said in a report released Monday. The report said the Integrated Recording System was developed in 2005 and was capable of “monitoring 3G mobile phone networks as well as trunk lines, carrying voice and data communications for the whole country,” the report said. The surveillance system was created as a result of “institutional rivalries between the different security agencies,” it said. The Administrative Department of Security (DAS), which was dissolved in 2011 after revelations it spied on journalists, judges, opposition politicians and human rights activists, also had separate surveillance capabilities. “The exposure of DAS’ secret probe should expand the existing investigation to consider whether there is more to this scandal than the abuse of one surveillance system,” said Privacy International Advocacy Officer Matthew Rice. News of a previously unheard of mass surveillance system “points out serious problems of transparency of and control over expenditures on intelligence activities, besides the obvious lack of legitimacy of deployment of mass surveillance systems in Colombia," said Juan Diego Castañeda, a lawyer and researcher at the Karisma Foundation in Colombia.

The EU will release online “detailed and extensive reports” on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations in an effort to quell concerns over transparency, said Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. “The only changes in my trade policy will be more openness, not less,” said Malmström in a Friday blog post. “That is the pledge I gave at the beginning of my mandate. I am committed to keeping that promise.” The U.S. has come under fire for insufficient transparency in TTIP and Trans-Pacific Partnership talks.