Author: 5amResearch

  WASHINGTON – After three years of largely self-imposed isolation because of Covid‑19, China is finally reopening. But US airlines are not lining up to reinstate the once-abundant services between the world’s two largest economies. In pre-pandemic 2019, direct flights between the United States and China by carriers from both countries averaged 340 per week. Today there are a maximum…

PARIS – The traces of genetic material that humans constantly shed wherever they go could soon be used to track individual people, or even whole ethnic groups, scientists said on Monday, warning of a looming “ethical quagmire”.

A recently developed technique can glean a huge amount of information from tiny samples of genetic material called environmental DNA, or eDNA, that humans and animals leave behind everywhere – including in the air.

The tool could lead to a range of medical and scientific advances, and could even help track down criminals, according to the authors of a new study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

But it also poses a vast range of concerns around consent, privacy and surveillance, they added.

WASHINGTON – The FBI lacked “actual evidence” to investigate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and relied too heavily on tips provided by Trump’s political opponents to fuel the probe, US Special Counsel John Durham concluded in a report released on Monday.

The report marks the end of a four-year probe launched in May 2019 when then-Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham, a veteran prosecutor, to probe potential missteps by the FBI when it launched its early stage “Crossfire Hurricane” inquiry into potential contacts between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

That Crossfire Hurricane investigation would later be handed over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in March 2019 concluded there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

In his new 306-page report, Durham concluded that US intelligence and law enforcement did not possess any “actual evidence” of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia prior to launching Crossfire Hurricane.

He also accused the bureau of treating the 2016 Trump probe differently from other politically sensitive investigations, including several involving Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

WASHINGTON – A Massachusetts man has been arrested for providing information about Chinese dissidents in the United States to China’s government, the Justice Department said Monday. Litang Liang, 63, of Brighton, was arrested on May 9 on charges of acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) without notifying US authorities, according to the department.

The announcement of Liang’s arrest came on the same day as a court in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou revealed that a 78-year-old US citizen, John Shing-wan Leung, had been sentenced to life in prison for espionage. The Justice Department said Liang, between 2018 and 2022, had passed information about Boston-area residents, dissidents and groups, including “community organisations with pro-Taiwan leanings,” to Chinese government officials.

Pharmacy services provider PharMerica has disclosed a massive data breach impacting over 5.8 million patients, exposing their medical data to hackers.

PharMerica is a pharmacy services provider in 50 U.S. states, operating 180 local and 70,000 backup pharmacies, and serving 3,100 medical facilities nationwide.

According to a data breach notification submitted to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, hackers breached PharMerica’s system on March 12th, 2023, stealing the full names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers (SSNs), medications, and health insurance information of 5,815,591 people.

The firm discovered the intrusion on March 14th, 2023, and its investigation determined on March 21st that client data had been stolen. However, notices of a data breach were sent to impacted individuals only last Friday, May 12th, 2023.

airBaltic, Latvia’s flag carrier has acknowledged that a ‘technical error’ exposed reservation details of some of its passengers to other airBaltic passengers. Passengers also reported receiving unexpected emails which addressed them by the name of another customer. The Riga-based airline, incorporated as AS Air Baltic Corporation operates flights to 80 destinations and is 97% government-owned. Although the air carrier says the…

A former executive fired from TikTok’s parent company ByteDance made a raft of accusations against the tech giant Friday, including that it stole content from competitors like Instagram and Snapchat, and served as a “propaganda tool” for the Chinese government by “suppressing or promoting content favorable to the country’s interests.”

The allegations were made in a complaint last week by Yintao Yu, the head of engineering for ByteDance’s U.S. operations from August 2017 to November 2018, as part of a wrongful termination lawsuit filed earlier this month in San Francisco Superior Court. Yu claims he was fired for disclosing “wrongful conduct” he saw at the company.

In the complaint, Yu alleges the Chinese government monitored ByteDance’s work from within its Beijing headquarters and “provided guidance on advancing core communist values.”

A state investigation released last week found that elected and appointed officials actively worked to benefit a prominent Bergen County developer, confirming claims made by another developer in a lawsuit years ago.

The New Jersey State Commission of Investigation report outlined how many Edgewater officials had connections to Fred Daibes, a local developer with property along the Hudson River, and that some of the ties included business contracts and, in one case, discounted rent for a luxury apartment.

Accusations, lawsuits and the most recent investigation have tied up the borough and its officials for years.

BERLIN – The German security authorities believe that China is still conducting police activities on German soil even though Beijing assured Berlin in February that it had ceased to do so, the German foreign and interior ministries said on Monday.

“The security authorities continue to assume that there are two so-called overseas police stations in Germany,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said at a regular press conference.

Berlin called on Beijing in November to shut down extraterritorial police stations in the country.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will pledge to send more weapons to Ukraine including attack drones and air defence systems, as the country’s president, Mr Volodymyr Zelensky, made a surprise visit to Britain. 

Mr Sunak will host Mr Zelensky on Monday at the prime minister’s countryside retreat Chequers north of London on the heels of similar visits by the Ukrainian leader to France, Germany and Italy. The pledge of additional military support from Britain comes as Kyiv’s forces prepare for a counter-offensive to take back territory occupied by Russian forces. 

Britain will confirm the transfer of hundreds of air defence missiles and further unmanned aerial systems, including hundreds of new attack drones with a range in excess of 200km.

HONG KONG – Fierce competition for new mortgage customers is driving banks in Hong Kong to offer the highest cash rebates in nearly two decades.

The deals – offered as a percentage of the principal loan amount – ramped up from about 1.3 per cent last year to as much as 2.6 per cent currently, the highest in over 17 years, according to Centaline Mortgage Broker data.

Banks such as HSBC Holdings and Bank of China (Hong Kong) are using the incentive as a way to draw in clients, while property transactions remain subdued in the city’s real estate market that’s still reeling from an exodus of residents last year amid its zero Covid policy. Lenders are also getting squeezed as a cap on lending rates in the city crimps margins.

WASHINGTON/BERLIN – Leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) nations plan to tighten sanctions on Russia at their summit in Japan this week, with steps aimed at energy and exports aiding Moscow’s war effort, said officials with direct knowledge of the discussions.

New measures announced by the leaders during the May 19-21 meetings will target sanctions evasion involving third countries, and seek to undermine Russia’s future energy production and curb trade that supports Russia’s military, the people said.

Separately, US officials also expect G-7 members will agree to adjust their approach to sanctions so that, at least for certain categories of goods, all exports are automatically banned unless they are on a list of approved items.

NEW YORK – A crowdfunding effort supporting the man charged over the chokehold death of a homeless person in New York has raised more than US$1.6 million (S$2.14 million) on a platform known for facilitating funding of far-right figures.

The death earlier this month of Jordan Neely, a Michael Jackson impersonator who often performed on the subway, sparked outrage after it was caught on camera.

Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old US Marine veteran, was charged with manslaughter in the second degree and released on bail. The charge accuses Penny of “recklessly” causing the death of 30-year-old Neely, but it stops short of saying he had intent to kill.

The online fund supporting him was set up by the law firm Raiser & Kenniff, P.C., which is representing Penny.

WASHINGTON – Google, a unit of Alphabet, has agreed to pay US$8 million (S$10.7 million) to settle claims it used deceptive advertisements to promote the Pixel 4 smartphone, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Friday.

The search and advertising giant, which also makes Android smartphone software and owns YouTube, has been scrutinised for antitrust and consumer protection infractions by both the federal government and state attorneys general. The federal government has filed two antitrust lawsuits.

In this instance, Paxton’s office alleged that Google hired radio announcers to give testimonials about the Pixel 4 even though the company had refused to allow them to use one of the phones.

“If Google is going to advertise in Texas, their statements better be true,” Paxton said in a statement. “In this case, the company made statements that were blatantly false, and our settlement holds Google accountable for lying to Texans for financial gain.”

TOKYO – Japan’s SoftBank Group reported an annual net loss of 970 billion yen (S$9.6 billion) for the year ended March 31, with the Vision Fund unit posting a quarterly investment loss due to weakness in tech valuations.

Chief executive Masayoshi Son’s attempt to bestride the tech investing industry has suffered a series of high-profile reversals after outsized bets through SoftBank’s first Vision Fund turned sour and investments made at bubbly valuations via a smaller second fund slumped.

With key architects of that strategy having left, Mr Son has focused on shoring up the balance sheet, cutting his stake in e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and stepping back from trademark presentations to focus on the listing of chip designer Arm.

LONDON – Britain is set to formally blacklist Russia’s mercenary force Wagner group as a terrorist organisation to increase pressure on Russia, The Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Wagner mercenaries have spearheaded Russia’s months-long assault on Bakhmut in the industrial Donbas region.

After two months of building a legal case, proscription or a formal blacklisting of the group was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks, the newspaper reported citing a government source.