Tag: Region Asias

A Lebanese judge questioned the country’s embattled central bank governor Wednesday and confiscated his Lebanese and French passports following an arrest warrant from France over corruption charges, judicial officials said. Riad Salameh left immediately after questioning by Judge Imad Kabalan in Beirut, the officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The questioning lasted about 80 minutes, they said. France, Germany and Luxembourg are investigating Salameh and his associates over myriad alleged financial crimes, including illicit enrichment and…

WASHINGTON – The United States on Wednesday announced the approval of a US$285 million (S$385 million) sale of a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (“NASAMS”) air defence system and related equipment to Ukraine as Kyiv seeks to boost protection against Russian strikes. “Ukraine has an urgent need to increase its capabilities to defend against Russian missile strikes and aircraft,” the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement. “Acquiring and effectively deploying this capability will enhance Ukraine’s ability to…

Microsoft says a Chinese cyberespionage group it tracks as Volt Typhoon has been targeting critical infrastructure organizations across the United States, including Guam, since at least mid-2021. Their victims span a wide range of critical sectors, including government, maritime, communications, manufacturing, information technology, utilities, transportation, construction, and education. “Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that this Volt Typhoon campaign is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises,” the…

(Bloomberg) — US lawmakers are urging Washington to strike back against China for its decision to bar Micron Technology Inc.’s memory chips, threatening to further inflame tensions between the two countries. Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who leads a China-focused congressional committee, wants Changxin Memory Technologies Inc. placed on a blacklist that effectively bars dealings with American firms. That’s in response to Beijing this week blocking Micron from supplying Chinese critical infrastructure on national security grounds, an unusual move…

WASHINGTON — Boeing’s effort to build a new trainer aircraft for the Air Force is plagued by safety problems, schedule and testing delays, and the risk the T-7A Red Hawk could fall even further behind schedule, the Government Accountability Office said in a scathing report. Boeing’s relationship with the Air Force has also been strained by the T-7′s issues, GAO said in the May 18 report, with service officials describing their ties as “tenuous.” As the program proceeds and Boeing…

The U.S. government announced new sanctions against North Korea related to its army of illicit IT workers that have fraudulently gained employment to finance the regime’s weapons of mass destruction programs. North Korea maintains thousands of “highly skilled” IT workers around the world, primarily in China and Russia, which “generate revenue that contributes to its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs”, according to an announcement from the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday. These individuals, which in some…

Russia has intercepted two US Air Force strategic bombers flying over the Baltic Sea. The Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday Russia had scrambled a Su-27 fighter jet to “prevent violations of the state border” by the American bombers, AFP reported. “After removing the foreign military aircraft from the Russian state border, the Russian fighter went back to its air base,” the ministry added. The statement said that “the flight of the Russian fighter was carried out in strict accordance with international…

BUDAPEST (Sputnik) – Hungary has signed an agreement with Qatar on the purchase of natural gas, the countries plan to develop economic cooperation, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after talks with Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. “Over the past year, we have learned that Qatar is a country of key importance for Europe. The European economy has made up for a significant part of the missing Russian gas with LNG coming from here… We agreed…

  Labor authorities have recognized that the mental illness suffered by an executive of the Japanese leg of Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group Ltd was caused by bullying at the hands of the branch’s president, constituting an industrial accident, the employee’s union said Wednesday. The executive, a Japanese woman in her 50s, claims she was relentlessly scolded by the president of Swatch Group (Japan) KK, a female foreign national, and subjected to power harassment, as workplace bullying is referred to in…

Under the multi-year agreement, the two US companies will develop components for 5G devices that will be designed and manufactured in America. Apple says the deal is part of a plan it announced in 2021 to invest $430bn (£346bn) in the US economy. The move comes as a trade row centred on the technology industry intensifies between Washington and Beijing. The long-running dispute has seen the US impose a series of measures against China’s chip making industry and invest billions…

SINGAPORE – Financial institutions are required to alert the police and the financial regulator if they suspect that a transaction could be related to a crime, although there is no threshold set for when they must flag these activities. They are also required to step up their measures to manage the higher risks of money laundering and terrorism financing posed by customers such as wealthy individuals, said a Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) spokesman on Tuesday. MAS said financial institutions…

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A group of Chinese citizens living and working in Florida sued the state Monday over a new law that bans Chinese nationals from purchasing property in large swaths of the state. The law applies to land near military installations and other “critical infrastructure” and also affects citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. But Chinese citizens face the harshest restrictions. The law “will codify and expand housing discrimination against people of Asian descent…

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russian forces weren’t occupying Bakhmut, casting doubt on Moscow’s insistence that the eastern Ukrainian city had fallen. Responding to a reporter’s question about the status of the city at the Group of Seven summit in Japan, Zelenskyy said: “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.” “We are not throwing people (away) to die,” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian through an interpreter. “People are the treasure. I clearly…

Adam Kovacevich is the CEO and founder of a center-left tech industry coalition called Chamber of Progress and has worked at the intersection of tech and politics for 20 years, leading public policy at Google and Lime and serving as a Democratic Hill aide. When the Biden administration proposed new protections earlier this month to prevent law enforcement from demanding reproductive healthcare data from companies, they took a critical first step in protecting our personal data. But there remains a…

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the Russian private army Wagner claimed Saturday that his forces have taken control of the city of Bakhmut after the longest and most grinding battle of the Russia-Ukraine war, but Ukrainian defense officials denied it. In a video posted on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. He spoke flanked by about half a dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and…

The international community will not fall in line with the pro-Western rules pushed by the G7 and not allow the US-led group to dominate world affairs, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.  “China will never accept the so-called rules imposed by the few. The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values,” the statement read. The Foreign Ministry went on to…