UNITED STATES
Three charged for hacks
Two men held in Israel and one US citizen believed to be living in Moscow have been charged with stealing the contact information of more than 100 million customers of US financial institutions to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal profits, authorities said on Tuesday. The theft in summer last year of data such as names, addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of more than 83 million customers of JPMorgan Chase & Co, the nation’s biggest bank by assets, was described at a news conference by District Attorney Preet Bharara as “the single largest theft of customer data from a US financial institution ever.”
UNITED STATES
Government mulls sanctions
The government could consider criminal charges or sanctions against China if it determines hackers there are violating an agreement not to conduct economic cyberespionage on US industry, a senior Department of Justice official said on Tuesday. The remarks by John Carlin, top national security attorney to the administration of President Barack Obama, came amid continuing skepticism about the effectiveness of the September agreement to curb cyberespionage and might signal a warning toward China, despite what has been widely criticized as weak US responses to years of hacking blamed on China.
UNITED KINGDOM
Aid worker could be jailed
An aid worker faces jail for trying to smuggle a young girl from a French migrant camp into Britain, triggering a flood of support online from well-wishers urging clemency. Rob Lawrie, 49, told reporters he faced a maximum sentence of five years after he was caught trying to transport four-year-old Afghan refugee Bahar Ahmadi to relatives in Britain from a migrant camp in Calais, France. Lawrie, a father of four from near Leeds in England, said Ahmadi’s father had asked him several times to take his daughter across the Channel before he agreed.
CANADA
Police make cold case arrest
Toronto police on Tuesday announced an arrest in the 25-year-old unsolved killing of an Indian schoolteacher who was visiting Canada with an eye to immigrate with his family. The suspect, now 61, was taken into custody on Monday at his home in Toronto and charged with the murder of Surinder Singh Parmar after a review of DNA and fingerprint evidence in the cold case. Parmar’s son and daughter, six and 12 years old when they lost their father, were in a “state of disbelief” when police told them they were still investigating and had made an arrest in the case, Detective Sergeant Stacy Gallant told a news conference.
SWEDEN
Researchers win prize
Three researchers were awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology for showing how parents, even criminals, can prevent a child from becoming a delinquent, Stockholm University announced on Tuesday. The researchers, two from the US and the other a Swedish national, were all recognized for their work in understanding factors that can have an impact on delinquency. University of Arizona sociology professor Travis Hirschi began his study in 1965 by gathering data on 4,077 teenagers in a crime-ridden suburb of San Francisco. Using police records, self-reported criminal activities and the teens’ own attitudes, he was able to show the importance of the child’s attachment to parents in shaping a decent attitude.
PAKISTAN
Chinese zone planned
The country’s poorest province is set to sign a deal with China yesterday allotting thousands of hectares of land for Beijing to develop a massive special economic zone in the deep sea port of Gwadar, officials said. The 40-year lease will see the government of Baluchistan hand over a 923 hectare swathe of tax-exempt land as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an ambitious US$46 billion investment plan linking western China to the Arabian Sea. The contract will allow China to build an export zone and an international airport, Baluchistan’s top provincial official said on Tuesday.
CHINA
UN rights talks ‘bad idea’
Beijing on Tuesday said it would be a “bad idea” for the UN Security Council to revive discussions on human rights in North Korea, which has been accused by a UN inquiry of abuses comparable to Nazi-era atrocities. UN diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said the council could hold another meeting on the human rights situation in North Korea next month when the US is president of the 15-member body. “I heard the suggestion, I believe it’s a bad idea,” Ambassador to the UN Liu Jieyi (劉結一) said. “The security council is not about human rights.”
JAPAN
Upskirt peeper hides in gutter
A man who hid in a drain for five hours, allegedly to snap photographs up women’s skirts, was given away when passersby spotted his hair sticking out of a grate, police and reports said. Yasuomi Hirai, 28, allegedly squeezed himself in a section of a gutter 28cm wide, with his head under a piece of iron grating, a police spokesman said yesterday. “His hair got caught at the edge of the grate, which drew the attention of some pedestrians,” the spokesman with the Hyogo prefectural police in Kobe said. The alleged offense took place in the port city in August, but police said that Hirai’s arrest on Monday came after a lengthy investigation. Police did not elaborate, but the Sports Hochi tabloid on Tuesday reported that Hirai kept himself in the small space for about five hours, holding a smart phone to take photographs from under the grate. Local reports said it was not the first time Hirai has been arrested for the same offense. He was detained two years ago after squeezing himself into a gutter allegedly for the same purpose, Sports Hochi said. Hirai reportedly told police at the time that he wanted to be reborn as “part of pavement in the next life.”
AUSTRALIA
Shark attacks surfer
A champion junior surfer was in an induced coma yesterday after being mauled by a shark off the east coast, prompting calls for the government to do more to protect beachgoers. The Ballina region where the 20-year-old was bitten by a suspected bull shark, about 750km north of Sydney, has been the site of a spate of serious attacks in recent months, including the death of a Japanese surfer in February. The surfer was heard screaming during the attack by the 3m-long animal at the tourist hub on Tuesday, police said. “He was the only surfer in the water. A person on the beach heard him scream and saw him stumble out of the water,” police inspector Nicole Bruce told the Sydney Morning Herald. “He has come out of the water with a large bite wound to his left thigh.” The surfer, named as Sam Morgan by Australian media, was flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital for surgery and was in a stable condition in an induced coma, police added.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese