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.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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