US soldier pleads guilty to selling defense information to China

A US Army intelligence analyst pleaded guilty on Tuesday to providing sensitive defense information to China. (US Army/Department of Defense)

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Updated 14 August 2024

AFP

August 14, 2024 01:05

US soldier pleads guilty to selling defense information to China

Schultz potentially faces decades in prison. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for January 23, 2025

Updated 14 August 2024

AFP

August 14, 2024 01:05

WASHINGTON: A US Army intelligence analyst pleaded guilty on Tuesday to providing sensitive defense information to China, including documents about US weapons systems and military tactics and strategy.
Sergeant Korbein Schultz, who held a top-secret security clearance, was arrested in March at Fort Campbell, a military base on the Kentucky-Tennessee border.
Schultz pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to obtain and disclose national defense information, exporting technical data related to defense articles without a license, conspiracy to export defense articles without a license, and bribery of a public official, the Justice Department said in a statement.
According to the charging documents, Schultz provided dozens of sensitive US military documents to an individual living in Hong Kong who he believed to be associated with the Chinese government.
He was paid $42,000 for the information, according to the Justice Department.
Among the documents handed over by Schultz was one discussing the lessons learned by the US Army from the Ukraine-Russia war that it would apply in a defense of Taiwan.
Other documents discussed Chinese military tactics and preparedness and US military exercises and forces in South Korea and the Philippines.
Other documents included information related to the HH-60 helicopter, the F-22A fighter jet, the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft and missile systems.
“Governments like China are aggressively targeting our military personnel and national security information and we will do everything in our power to ensure that information is safeguarded from hostile foreign governments,” said Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch.
Schultz potentially faces decades in prison. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for January 23, 2025.
Schultz’s arrest came less than a year after the arrests of two US Navy sailors in California on charges of spying for China.
Petty officer Wenheng Zhao was sentenced to 27 months in prison in January after pleading guilty to charges of conspiring with a foreign intelligence officer and accepting a bribe.
Zhao and another US sailor, Jinchao Wei, were arrested in August.

Topics: Korbein Schultz US China US Army

Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’

Updated 23 December 2024

AFP

December 22, 2024 22:18

Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’

Trump: “He wasn’t born in this country”

Updated 23 December 2024

AFP

December 22, 2024 22:18

WASHINGTON: Could Elon Musk, who holds major sway in the incoming Trump administration, one day become president? On Sunday, Donald Trump answered with a resounding no, pointing to US rules about being born in the country.
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a Republican conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.
The US Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born US citizen.
Trump was responding to criticism, particularly from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest person as “President Musk” for the outsized role he is playing in the incoming administration.
As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump also assured the crowd: “No, no that’s not happening.”
The influence of Musk, who will serve as Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has become a focus point for Democratic attacks, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.
And there is even growing anger among Republicans after Musk trashed a government funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.
Alongside Trump, Musk ultimately helped pressure Republicans to renege on a funding bill they had painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that would have resulted in a government shutdown just days before Christmas.
Congress ultimately reached an agreement overnight Friday to Saturday, avoiding massive halts to government services.

Russian president meets Slovak PM as Ukraine gas transit contract nears expiry

Updated 55 min 24 sec ago

Reuters

December 22, 2024 22:35

Russian president meets Slovak PM as Ukraine gas transit contract nears expiry

Fico has also been a rare senior EU politician to appear on Russian state TV following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine

Updated 55 min 24 sec ago

Reuters

December 22, 2024 22:35

MOSCOW: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin met Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in the Kremlin on Sunday, a rare visit by a European Union leader to Moscow as a contract allowing for Russian gas to transit through Ukraine nears expiry.
Slovakia is dependent on gas passing through its neighbor Ukraine, and it has ramped up efforts to maintain those flows from 2025 while criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for refusing to extend the contract expiring at the end of the year.
Fico’s trip to Moscow was only the third by an EU government head since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Slovak opposition politicians called the visit a “disgrace.”
Fico said on Facebook after the meeting that top EU officials were informed of his trip on Friday.
He said it came in response to talks last week with Zelensky, who, according to the Slovak leader, had expressed opposition to any gas transit through Ukraine to Slovakia.
“Russian President V. Putin confirmed the readiness of the (Russian Federation) to continue to supply gas to the West and Slovakia, which is practically impossible after Jan. 1, 2025 in view of the stance of the Ukrainian president,” Fico said.
Fico came to power in 2023 and shifted Slovakia’s foreign policy. He immediately stopped state military aid to Kyiv, has said the war with Russia does not have a military solution, and has criticized sanctions against Moscow.
His visit to the Kremlin follows Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who visited in April 2022, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who went to Moscow last July. EU allies had criticized both of those visits.
Russian television showed Putin and Fico shaking hands at the start of their talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting had been arranged a few days ago.
In the talks, Fico said he and Putin exchanged opinions on the military situation in Ukraine, chances of a peaceful end to the war and on Slovak-Russian relations “which I intend to standardise.”

GAS TRANSIT
Slovakia, which has a long-term contract with Russia’s Gazprom, has been trying to keep receiving gas through Ukraine, saying buying elsewhere would cost it 220 million euros ($229 million) more in transit expenses.
Ukraine has repeatedly refused to extend the transit deal.
Fico pushed the subject on Thursday at a EU summit that was also attended by Zelensky, who reiterated his country would not continue the transit of Russian gas.
The Slovak prime minister, who has said his country was facing a gas crisis, has also spoken of solutions under which Ukraine would not transit Russian-owned gas, but rather gas owned by someone else.
Hungary has also been keen to keep the Ukrainian route, but it will continue to receive Russian gas from the south, via the TurkStream pipeline on the bed of the Black Sea.
Ex-Soviet Moldova has also relied on gas transiting Ukraine to supply its needs and those of its separatist Transdniestria enclave, including a thermal plant that provides most of the electricity for parts of Moldova under government control.
The acting head of Moldovagaz, the country’s gas operator, Vadim Ceban, said it could provide gas for Transdniestria acquired from other sources. But the pro-Russian region would have to pay higher prices associated with those supplies.
Ceban said Moldovagaz had made several appeals to Gazprom to send gas to Moldova through TurkStream and Bulgaria and Romania.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Slovakia President Vladimir Putin Robert Fico

Ho Chi Minh City celebrates first metro

Updated 22 December 2024

AFP

December 22, 2024 22:07

Ho Chi Minh City celebrates first metro

Updated 22 December 2024

AFP

December 22, 2024 22:07

HO CHI MINH CITY: Thousands of selfie-taking Ho Chi Minh City residents crammed into train carriages Sunday as the traffic-clogged business hub celebrated the opening of its first-ever metro line after years of delays.

Huge queues spilled out of every station along the $1.7 billion line that runs almost 20 kilometers from the city center — with women in traditional “ao dai” dress, soldiers in uniform and couples clutching young children waiting excitedly to board.

“I know it (the project) is late, but I still feel so very honored and proud to be among the first on this metro,” said office worker Nguyen Nhu Huyen after snatching a selfie in her jam-packed train car.

“Our city is now on par with the other big cities of the world,” she said.

It took 17 years for Vietnam’s commercial capital to reach this point. The project, funded largely by Japanese government loans, was first approved in 2007 and slated to cost just $668 million.

When construction began in 2012, authorities promised the line would be up and running in just five years.

But as delays mounted, cars and motorbikes multiplied in the city of nine million people, making the metropolis hugely congested, increasingly polluted and time-consuming to navigate.

The metro “meets the growing travel needs of residents and contributes to reducing traffic congestion and environmental pollution,” the city’s deputy mayor Bui Xuan Cuong said.

Cuong admitted authorities had to overcome “countless hurdles” to get the project over the line.

Topics: Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam metro

Suspect in German Christmas market attack held on murder charges

Updated 22 December 2024

Reuters

December 22, 2024 17:31

Suspect in German Christmas market attack held on murder charges

Suspect strongly critical of German authorities as well as Islam in the past
Saudi Arabia repeatedly flagged to Germany concerns over posts on suspect’s social media, according to sources

Updated 22 December 2024

Reuters

December 22, 2024 17:31

MAGDEBURG: A man suspected of plowing a car through crowds at a German Christmas market in an attack that killed five people and injured scores faces multiple charges of murder and attempted murder, police said on Sunday.
Friday evening’s attack in the central city of Magdeburg shocked the country and stirred up tensions over the charged issue of immigration.
The suspect, who was in custody, is a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric who has lived in Germany for almost two decades. The motive for the attack remained unclear.
There were scuffles and some “minor disturbances” at a far-right demonstration attended by around 2,100 people on Saturday night in Magdeburg, police said. They added that criminal proceedings would follow, but did not give details.
Protesters, some wearing black balaclavas, held up a large banner with the word “remigration,” a term popular with supporters of the far right who seek the mass deportation of immigrants and people deemed not ethnically German.
Other residents gathered to pay their respects to the dead.
A sea of flowers stretched out in front of St. John’s Church in Magdeburg, close to the scene of the crime, which attracted a steady stream of tearful mourners over the weekend.
“This is my second time here. I was here yesterday. I brought flowers and it moved me so much and I had to know today how many flowers were brought,” local resident Ingolf Klinzmann told Reuters.
A sign commemorating the victims bore in large lettering the word “Why?.”
A magistrate ordered the suspect, identified in German media as Taleb A., into pretrial custody on charges of murder on five counts as well as multiple counts of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm, police said in a statement.
Reuters could not immediately ascertain if the suspect had a lawyer.
Those killed were a nine-year-old boy and four women aged 52, 45, 75 and 67, the police statement said. Among the wounded, around 40 had serious or critical injuries.
Authorities said the suspected attacker used emergency exit points to drive onto the grounds of the Christmas market, where he picked up speed and plowed into the crowds, hitting more than 200 people in a three-minute attack. He was arrested at the scene.
German authorities have not named the suspect and German media reports have given his name only as Taleb A. in keeping with local privacy laws.

MOTIVE UNCLEAR
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement on Sunday that the criminal investigation would leave no stone unturned.
“The task is to piece together all findings and paint a picture of this perpetrator, who does not fit any existing mold,” Faeser said.
“This perpetrator acted in an unbelievably cruel and brutal manner — like an Islamist terrorist, although he was clearly ideologically hostile to Islam,” she added.
The suspect had been strongly critical of German authorities as well as Islam in the past.
He had voiced support on social media platform X for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and for US billionaire Elon Musk, who has backed the AfD.
The AfD has strong support in the former East Germany where Magdeburg is located. Opinion polls put it in second place nationally ahead of elections in February.
Its members, including the candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel, planned a rally in Magdeburg on Monday evening.
Saudi Arabia had repeatedly flagged to Germany concerns over posts on the suspect’s social media, according to a Saudi source and a German security source.
The Christian Democrats, Germany’s main opposition party, and the Free Democrats, who were part of the coalition government until its collapse last month, called for improvements to Germany’s security apparatus, including better coordination between federal and state authorities.
“The background must be clarified. But above all, we must do more to prevent such offenses, especially as there were obviously specific warnings and tips in this case that were ignored,” Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the leftist BSW party, told the Welt newspaper.
The BSW, a new political party with far-left roots, has also condemned unchecked immigration and has gained considerable support ahead of the Feb. 23 election.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose Social Democrats are trailing in opinion polls, attended a service for victims in Magdeburg’s cathedral on Saturday.

Topics: Germany Magdeburg Christmas market

Minorities fear targeted attacks in post-revolution Bangladesh

Updated 22 December 2024

AFP

December 22, 2024 17:16

Minorities fear targeted attacks in post-revolution Bangladesh

In the chaotic days following Hasina’s August 5 ouster there was a string of attacks on Hindus
Muslim Sufi worshippers as well as members of the Baul mystic sect have also been threatened

Updated 22 December 2024

AFP

December 22, 2024 17:16

DHAKA: For generations, the small Hindu temple outside the capital in Muslim-majority Bangladesh was a quiet place to pray — before arsonists ripped open its roof this month in the latest post-revolution unrest.
It is only one of a string of attacks targeting religious minorities since a student-led uprising toppled long-time autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina in August.
“We don’t feel safe,” said Hindu devotee Swapna Ghosh in the village of Dhour, where attackers broke into the 50-year-old family temple to the goddess Lakshmi and set fire to its treasured idols on December 7.
“My son saw the flames and doused them quickly,” said temple custodian Ratan Kumar Ghosh, 55, describing how assailants knew to avoid security cameras, so they tore its tin roof open to enter.
“Otherwise, the temple — and us — would have been reduced to ashes.”
Hindus make up about eight percent of the mainly Muslim nation of 170 million people.

In this photograph taken on December 3, 2024, Hindu devotees pray at Dhakeshwari Temple in Dhaka. (AFP)

In the chaotic days following Hasina’s August 5 ouster there was a string of attacks on Hindus — seen by some as having backed her rule — as well as attacks on Muslim Sufi shrines by religious hard-liners.
“Neither I, my forefathers or the villagers, regardless of their faith, have ever witnessed such communal attacks,” temple guardian Ghosh told AFP.
“These incidents break harmony and trust.”
Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to India, where she is hosted by old allies in New Delhi’s Hindu-nationalist government, infuriating Bangladeshis determined that she face trial for alleged “mass murder.”
Attacks against Hindu temples are not new in Bangladesh, and rights activist Abu Ahmed Faijul Kabir said the violence cannot be regarded out of context.
Under Hasina, Hindus had sought protection from the authorities. That meant her opponents viewed them as partisan loyalists.
“If you analyze the past decade, there has not been a single year without attacks on minorities,” Kabir said, from the Dhaka-based rights group Ain o Salish Kendra.
This year, from January to November, the organization recorded 118 incidents of communal violence targeting Hindus.
August saw a peak of 63 incidents, including two deaths. In November, there were seven incidents.
While that is significantly more than last year — when the group recorded 22 attacks on minorities and 43 incidents of vandalism — previous years were more violent.
In 2014, one person was killed, two women were raped, 255 injured, and 247 temples attacked. In 2016, seven people were killed.
“The situation has not worsened, but there’s been no progress either,” said businessman and Hindu devotee Chandan Saha, 59.
Political rulers had repeatedly “used minorities as pawns,” Saha added.
The caretaker government has urged calm and promised increased security, and accused Indian media of spreading disinformation about the status of Hindus in Bangladesh.
Dhaka’s interim government this month expressed shock at a call by a leading Indian politician — chief minister of India’s West Bengal state Mamata Banerjee — to deploy UN peacekeepers.
Hefazat-e-Islam, an association of Islamic seminaries, has led public protests against India, accusing New Delhi of a campaign aimed at “propagating hate” against Bangladesh. India rejects the charges.
Religious relations have been turbulent, including widespread unrest in November in clashes between Hindu protesters and security forces.
That was triggered by the killing of a lawyer during protests because bail was denied for an outspoken Hindu monk accused of allegedly disrespecting the Bangladeshi flag during a rally.
Bangladeshi hard-line groups have been emboldened to take to the streets after years of suppression.
Muslim Sufi worshippers as well as members of the Baul mystic sect — branded heretics by some hard-liners — have also been threatened.
“There’s been a wave of vandalism,” said Syed Tarik, a devotee documenting such incidents.
Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner appointed the country’s “chief adviser,” has called for dialogue between groups.
Critics say it is not enough.
“To establish a peaceful country where all faiths coexist in harmony, the head of state must engage regularly with faith leaders to foster understanding,” said Sukomal Barua, professor of religion at Dhaka University.
Sumon Roy, founder of Bangladesh’s association of Hindu lawyers, said members of the minority were treated as a bloc by political parties.
“They have all used us as tools,” Roy said, explaining that Hindus had been previously threatened both by Hasina’s Awami League and its rival Bangladesh National Party.
“If we didn’t support AL we faced threats, and the BNP blamed us for siding with the AL,” he said. “This cycle needs to end.”

Topics: Bangladesh Minorities in Bangladesh

US soldier pleads guilty to selling defense information to China

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