Good morning. Canada is reviewing an application to impose sanctions on four Chinese surveillance-gear companies, including the world’s largest maker of the equipment, over their alleged role in human-rights violations in Xinjiang.

• Potential sanctions: Global Affairs Canada said it is conducting a review after advocacy groups called for sanctions targeting four companies: Zhejiang Dahua Technology, Tiandy Technologies, Zhejiang Uniview Technologies and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, the largest surveillance equipment company in the world with annual revenue equivalent to about $12.54 billion.
   
• Demands from advocacy groups: The four companies are accused of involvement in Chinese repression in Xinjiang, a region that is home to the Uyghur people and other minority groups, according to a submission filed by two Canadian groups. The groups want Canada to use a relatively new legal power to seize the companies’ assets, sell them and redirect the proceeds to victims of repression.
   
• The context: Canada has largely declined to follow Washington’s hawkish approach to handling alleged Chinese human-rights violations and dealing with potential threats to national security. In 2021, though, Canada sanctioned a unit in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a paramilitary organization implicated in human rights abuses, including forced labor.

U.S. accuses Russia of spending millions to influence American voters.

The Biden administration accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating a covert campaign to influence the coming U.S. presidential election and erode international support for Ukraine, blaming the Kremlin for targeting American voters with political propaganda and disinformation.

The influence campaign, which American spy agencies have concluded is aiming to help Republican nominee Donald Trump reclaim the White House, involved Putin’s inner circle and included a scheme to surreptitiously bankroll an American media startup and direct Russian public-relations companies to promote state-sponsored narratives to influence the presidential race.

ENRC seeks $290 million over botched U.K. probe.

Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. wants more than $290 million over a botched corruption investigation by the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, which opened a probe into the mining company after improperly obtaining tips from a lawyer who was working for the company.

ENRC is seeking compensation for unnecessary legal fees, increased borrowing costs and other expenses it incurred as a result of a more than 10-year-old SFO inquiry that ended in a judicial rebuke for the law-enforcement agency.

• U.S. Steel’s chief executive said the company would close steel mills and likely move its headquarters out of Pittsburgh if its planned sale to Nippon Steel collapses.
   
• SpaceX has moved to evacuate employees from Brazil and warned others against traveling to the country, a sign of how Elon Musk’s ongoing battle against Brazil’s highest court over his social-media company X is spilling out to affect some of his other businesses.
   
• U.K. antitrust officials said Microsoft’s hiring of former employees from Inflection AI and its partnership with the startup didn’t pose a threat to competition, a victory for the tech giant that has been facing significant regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic in recent months.
   
• Germany plans to reduce a stake it built in Commerzbank during the financial crisis of 2008 currently valued at about 2.56 billion euros ($2.83 billion), the latest move by a European government to exit crisis-era bailouts.

🎧 Listen to Risk & Compliance Journal’s Dylan Tokar on how Biden’s regulatory agenda is shaping up, and what the election means for far-reaching rules on climate risk disclosures and non-compete clauses.

America’s Space Force is preparing for the risk of war.

Space Force Col. Raj Agrawal commands a 500-person military unit with teams located around the world that track every man-made object in orbit, watching for potential threats.

As China and Russia build arsenals of weapons that could target American military and civilian satellites, those threats are growing, and Agrawal’s unit is part of a relatively new military branch that is quietly preparing for a new era of warfare.

• President Volodymyr Zelensky is shaking up his government as he aims to bolster Ukraine’s military and political positions ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
   
• OPEC+ members are debating delaying a production increase that was supposed to start next month amid concerns over weak oil prices, delegates in the producers’ alliance said Wednesday.
   
• Chinese leader Xi Jinping is using a three-day summit with African leaders this week to solidify political and economic ties with the continent, despite tensions over debt, several years of declining financing and broader concerns over China’s economy.

• Technology companies have embraced the efficiencies that artificial intelligence has brought to the hiring process. Now they are dealing with the downside of candidates who leverage it themselves.
   
• Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris proposed a less drastic increase in the top capital-gains tax rate on Wednesday, breaking with a plan President Biden outlined in his budget blueprint earlier this year.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun, Dylan Tokar @dgtokar and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich.

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