Category: Defense and National Security

  WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense asked Congress to authorize the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as part of the trilateral AUKUS agreement with the U.K. Three legislative proposals, submitted on May 2 and first posted online Tuesday, would greenlight the sale of two Virginia-class submarines to Australia, permit the training of Australian nationals for submarine work and allow Canberra to invest in the U.S. submarine industrial base. Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, the top Democrat on…

President Joe Biden canceled his trips to Papua New Guinea and Australia next week to continue debt ceiling talks with congressional leaders that he held Tuesday at the White House. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the president would to return to Washington on Sunday, following the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, “in order to be back for meetings with congressional leaders to ensure that Congress takes action by the deadline to avert…

U.S. law enforcement officials on Tuesday announced a series of criminal cases exposing efforts by Russia, China and Iran to steal sensitive U.S. technologies. The five cases, which spanned a wide range of protected U.S. technologies, were brought by a new “strike force” created earlier this year to deter foreign adversaries from obtaining advanced U.S. innovation. “These charges demonstrate the Justice Department’s commitment to preventing sensitive technology from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and Iran,”…

Natalia Arno, the U.S.-based chief of the Free Russia Foundation, says there are suspicions she may have been poisoned, “possibly by some nerve agent,” after falling ill during a recent trip to Europe, amid a report that at least two other Kremlin critics have experienced similar episodes since 2020. Arno, who previously kept silent about what she experienced during a trip to Prague in early May, wrote about the ordeal on Facebook on May 16 after the website Agentsvo published…

  WASHINGTON – The US Justice Department said on Tuesday it has charged a former Apple Inc engineer with attempting to steal the firm’s technology related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars, and then fleeing to China. The case was among five announced on Tuesday aimed at countering efforts to illicitly acquire American technology by nations including Russia and China. The actions were the first announced by a “strike force” formed in February in part to keep sensitive technologies away…

In October, reports indicated that the FBI believed it had enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes. The Justice Department reportedly ordered the team’s removal, according to the New York Post. An IRS criminal supervisory special agent came forward to Congress in April seeking whistleblower protection to share with lawmakers information that allegedly showed the investigation into potential tax crimes by the younger Biden was being mishandled. Now, the whistleblower’s attorneys claim the team’s removal from the investigation…

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.

Iran Press TV Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has plotted in private to launch bold attacks inside Russia, according to leaked documents. Zelensky, who till recently was refused long-range weapons to use in attacks against Russia, behind closed doors sketched out plans earlier this year for major military actions such as occupying cities and villages inside Russia, bombing a pipeline that transfers Russian oil to Hungary, and using long-range missiles to hit targets on the Russian side of the border. The…

Pyongyang, May 15 (KCNA) — Kim Sol Hwa, researcher of the Institute for Japan Studies of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, issued the following article titled “What is final aim of Japan’s Military Collusion with NATO” on May 14:

The unprecedented military nexus between Japan and NATO has recently aroused great concern and vigilance of the international community. A typical example is that Japan is planning to open the NATO liaison office in Japan for the first time in Asia…

Beijing vows to ‘fight back resolutely and forcefully’ but denies that its diplomat intimidated a politician. By Paul Eckert for RFA 2023.05.09 — China expelled a Canadian diplomat in Shanghai on Tuesday, a day after Ottawa announced it would expel a Chinese diplomat accused of trying to intimidate a Canadian politician. The tit-for-tat expulsions follow years of strained ties between the major Pacific trade partners, and come amid mounting Canadian public concern about Chinese influence operations in the country in…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Washington Post in an interview published on Tuesday that the White House did not inform him about a leak of secret US documents that grabbed attention around the world in April.

“I did not receive information from the White House or the Pentagon beforehand,” Mr Zelensky was quoted as saying.

“It is unprofitable for us,” he added. “It is not beneficial to the reputation of the White House, and I believe it is not beneficial to the reputation of the United States.”

The materials posted online offered a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on April 12 that the Pentagon document leaks contained a mixture of true and false information about his country’s military, and downplayed its negative impact.

Japan’s defense ministry said on Tuesday it scrambled a jet fighter after spotting a suspected Chinese drone between the Japanese island of Yonaguni and Taiwan.

The drone flew towards Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines, the ministry said in a statement.

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden told Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the White House on Monday that the US commitment to the defence of its ally was “ironclad,” including in the South China Sea where Manila is under pressure from China.

Mr Marcos, on the first White House visit by a Philippines leader in 10 years, stressed the importance of the United States as his country’s sole treaty ally in a region with “arguably the most complicated geopolitical situation in the world right now.”

US officials said the leaders would agree new guidelines for stronger military cooperation, as well as stepped up economic cooperation, underscoring a dramatic turnaround in US-Philippine relations over the past year.

“The United States remains ironclad in our commitment to the defence of the Philippines, including the South China Sea,” Mr Biden told Mr Marcos in the Oval Office, reaffirming a 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty that calls for the United States to act in the event of an armed attack on the Philippine military.

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) The United States should engage with other democracies around the world to help Taiwan fend off threats from China, former U.S. national security adviser and outspoken China hawk John Bolton told a pro-Taiwan independence event in Taipei on Saturday.

“The U.S. response to help Taiwan against the Chinese threat has to be fully global,” Bolton said at the Global Taiwan National Affairs Symposium hosted by the World Taiwanese Congress, suggesting the establishment of “new structures of deterrence” against China.

Taiwan is “the center of gravity of the Chinese threat” to the world, said Bolton, who served as national security adviser under President Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019 and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006.

Two commanders in the Massachusetts Air National Guard were temporarily suspended last week in connection with a federal investigation into alleged classified intelligence leaker Jack Teixeira, the Air Force confirmed Thursday.

Col. Sean Riley, commander of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod, suspended the head of the subordinate 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron where Teixeira worked. The commander in charge of supporting airmen like Teixeira, who are mobilized on full-time, active-duty Title 10 orders, was suspended as well, according to Air Force spokesperson Rose Riley.

In addition to temporarily removing the commanders from their jobs, the Department of the Air Force has also revoked their access to classified networks and information, Riley told Air Force Times. Reuters first reported the development on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — The House committee dedicated to countering China is preparing bipartisan proposals for the fiscal 2024 defense authorization bill that would accelerate U.S. munitions production and arms transfers to Taiwan, its chairman told Defense News in an exclusive interview.

The committee is drawing on lessons learned from the Taiwan tabletop wargame it held last week as it drafts its proposals, which aim to ramp up production of high-priority munitions, help clear the $19 billion arms sale backlog to Taipei and bolster Pentagon cybersecurity cooperation with the island nation.

“We’re hoping to get consensus on a series of proposals that the committee can endorse that would be tailor-made for insertion into this year’s [National Defense Authorization Act],” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said Thursday.