News About Cyber Warfare

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 26, 2025 – A government watchdog has filed a lawsuit against Trump administration security officials over their use of a smartphone application to discuss war plans, saying it is a violation of the law and a threat to democratic accountability. The lawsuit, filed by American Oversight in a D.C. court on Tuesday, comes a day after The Atlantic reported its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been inadvertently included in a group chat on the texting platform Signal with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and others as they discussed details of pending attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The attack discussed was conducted March 16. American Oversight alleges in the lawsuit that the use of the Signal app by the Trump officials violates the Federal Records Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. All federal agencies are required to retain such sensitive information, and the watchdog argues that their use of Signal — which also has an auto-delete function — threatens their preservation. The failure to retain these government communications also makes them inaccessible to Freedom of Information Act requests, potentially made by American Oversight and other organizations. American Oversight interim Executive Director Chioma Chukwu warned that the Trump officials’ use of Signal to discuss the war plans was “a five-alarm fire” and a potential crime. “War planning doesn’t belong in emoji-laden disappearing group chats. It belongs in secure facilities designed to safeguard national interests — something any responsible government official should have known” Chukwu said in a statement. “Our lawsuit seeks to ensure these federal records are preserved and recovered.” The White House has confirmed the existence of the Signal chat but has attempted to downplay the severity of the lapse. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on X claimed that no war plans or classified material were shared through the app. “The White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread,” she said.

Taipei (AFP) Mar 27, 2025 – Four Taiwanese soldiers, including three from a unit in charge of security for the president’s office, have been sentenced to prison for photographing and leaking confidential information to China, a court said. The number of people prosecuted for spying for Beijing has risen sharply in recent years, with retired and serving members of Taiwan’s military the main targets of Chinese infiltration efforts, official figures show. It comes after President Lai Ching-te announced this month plans to reinstate military judges to hear Chinese espionage cases and other offences involving Taiwanese service members. Three members of a military unit in charge of security for the Presidential Office, and a soldier in the defence ministry’s information and telecommunications command were convicted for violating national security law, the Taipei district court said on Wednesday. “Their acts betrayed the country and endangered national security,” the court said in a statement. The four received jail terms ranging from five years and 10 months to seven years for passing “internal military information that should be kept confidential to Chinese intelligence agents for several months”, the court said. The crimes took place between 2022 and 2024, the court said, adding that the four had received payments ranging from around NT$260,000 to NT$660,000 ($7,850-$20,000), it said, without specifying what kind of information was leaked. The defendants had worked for “extremely sensitive and important units but violated their duties to accept bribes, and stole secrets by photographing,” the statement said. Prosecutors said the soldiers had used their mobile phones to photograph military information. Three of the soldiers were discharged from the military before an investigation was launched in August last year following a tip-off to the defence ministry, and the fourth was suspended. Taiwan’s intelligence agency previously reported that 64 people were prosecuted for Chinese espionage in 2024, compared with 48 in 2023, and 10 in 2022. Beijing claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under its control. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been spying on each other for decades. But analysts have warned that espionage is a bigger problem for Taiwan, which faces the existential threat of a Chinese invasion.

Washington (AFP) Mar 26, 2025 – US President Donald Trump downplayed a growing scandal Tuesday after a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat about air strikes on Yemen, denying any classified information was shared and defending a top aide over the breach. Trump said he would “look into” the use of the Signal app as he put on a united front at a meeting with US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who inadvertently included The Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg in the conversation of top national security officials. As Democrats scented blood for perhaps the first time since the Republican returned to power in January, Trump doubled down by attacking Goldberg as a “sleazebag” and said “nobody gives a damn” about the story rocking Washington. Journalist Goldberg said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information in the Signal chat about targets, weapons and timing ahead of the strikes on March 15. Goldberg also revealed highly critical comments by top US officials about European allies. “There was no classified information,” Trump told reporters when asked about the chat, saying that the commercial app Signal was used by “a lot of people in government.” Waltz said US technical and legal experts were looking into the breach but insisted he had “never met, don’t know, never communicated” with the journalist. He later told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that he took “full responsibility” for the breach, saying: “I built the group; my job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.” Waltz suggested the leak was the result of him mistakenly saving Goldberg’s number under another name. “Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number?” he said. Trump meanwhile said in an interview with Newsmax later on Tuesday that someone who “worked for Mike Waltz at a lower level” may have had Goldberg’s number and somehow been responsible for him ending up in the chat. – ‘Sloppy, careless, incompetent’ – The comments came as part of an aggressive Trump administration pushback against the scandal. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe — who were both reported to be in the chat — endured a stormy Senate Intelligence Committee hearing over the leak. “There was no classified material that was shared,” Gabbard, who has previously caused controversy with comments sympathetic to Russia and Syria, told the panel. Ratcliffe confirmed he was involved in the Signal group but said the communications were “entirely permissible and lawful.” Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience running a huge organization like the Pentagon, had said Monday that “nobody was texting war plans.” But Democrats on the committee called on Waltz and Hegseth to resign. Senator Mark Warner blasted what he called “sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior.” Other White House officials also went on the attack against the Democratic narrative. “Don’t let enemies of America get away with these lies,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on X, describing the row as a “witch hunt.” Trump has repeatedly used the same term to dismiss an investigation into whether his 2016 election campaign colluded with Moscow. – ‘Freeloading’ – The Atlantic’s bombshell report has sparked concerns over the use of a commercial app instead of secure government communications — and about whether US adversaries may have been able to hack in. Trump’s special Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was included in the group, CBS News reported. The report also revealed potentially embarrassing details of what top White House officials think about key allies. Trump said he agreed with Pentagon chief Hegseth’s reported comments in the chat that European nations were “freeloading” off the United States. “Yeah I think they’ve been freeloading,” Trump told reporters. “The European Union’s been absolutely terrible to us on trade.” In the chat, a user identified as JD Vance, the US vice president, opposed the strikes saying that “I just hate bailing Europe out again” as countries there were more affected by Huthi attacks on shipping than the United States. A user identified as Hegseth replies: “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC.” The Huthi rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the “axis of resistance” of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the US. They have launched scores of drone and missile attacks at ships passing Yemen in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, saying they were carried out in solidarity with Palestinians. What is Signal and is it secure?Washington (AFP) Mar 25, 2025 – Signal is an end-to-end encrypted messaging app that is considered one of the most secure in the world by security professionals, but was never intended to be the go-to choice for White House officials planning a military operation. What differentiates it from other messaging apps, and why has its use by top Trump officials planning strikes on Yemen raised concerns? – What is end-to-end encryption? – End-to-end encryption means that any sent message travels in a scrambled form and can only be deciphered by the end user. Nobody in between — not the company providing the service, not your internet provider, nor hackers intercepting the message — can read the content because they don’t have the keys to unlock it. Signal is not the only messaging service to do this, but unlike WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage, the app is controlled by an independent non-profit — not a big tech behemoth motivated by revenue — winning it more trust with those concerned about privacy. Signal crucially goes further than WhatsApp on data privacy by making metadata such as when the message was delivered and who it was sent to invisible even to the company itself. WhatsApp, meanwhile, shares information with its parent company Meta and third parties, including your phone number, mobile device information, and IP addresses. For these reasons, Signal has always been a go-to messaging service for users especially concerned about communications secrecy, notably people working in security professions, journalists, and their sources. – Who owns Signal? – Founded in 2012, Signal is owned by the Mountain View, California-based Signal Foundation. Its history is linked to WhatsApp: the site was founded by cryptographer and entrepreneur Moxie Marlinspike, with an initial $50 million from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton. Both Signal and WhatsApp, which was bought by Mark Zuckerberg in 2014, are based on the same protocol built by Marlinspike. “We’re not tied to any major tech companies, and we can never be acquired by one either,” Signal’s website reads. Development is mainly supported by grants and donations. Very outspoken compared to other Silicon Valley bosses, Signal’s CEO is Meredith Whittaker, who spent years working for Google, is a fierce critic of business models built on the extraction of personal data. – How secure is Signal? – “Signal is a very solid platform because of the way that it goes about doing its business, the way that it frequently updates the app, the way that it uses end-to-end encryption,” said Michael Daniel, former White House cybersecurity coordinator under Barack Obama and current head of the Cyber Threat Alliance. But “it was never built or intended to be used for discussing military plans,” Daniel told AFP. The real vulnerability, Daniel said, is not so much the app itself, “but everything that goes on around it. It’s more that these (messages) are on personal devices that may or may not be stored in a secure manner or protected in the right way.” He noted that given their responsibilities, the high-level officials involved in the Yemen conversation would have communications teams capable of handling the conversation using the appropriate methods. Coincidentally, the Pentagon warned staff in a memo last week against using Signal, according to NPR, citing threats from Russian hackers. The Pentagon said that Russia was taking advantage of the app’s linked devices feature — which allows users to sign into their account from PCs and laptops — to spy on conversations. Daniel said that under normal circumstances, “it wouldn’t have been that difficult to jump off their phones and do this in the proper protocols,” he said, adding that having an outsider involved would have been impossible if the right technology was used. Matthew Green, who teaches cryptography at Johns Hopkins University and has collaborated with the development of Signal, said on Bluesky that by asking it to step up to “military grade” communications, Signal was “being asked to do a lot!” He warned that Signal, which shot up on the list of most downloaded apps after the revelation, could become a victim of its own success. “As the only encrypted messenger people seem to ‘really’ trust, Signal is going to end up being a target for too many people,” he said.

Ankara (AFP) Mar 30, 2025 – With anti-government protests sweeping across Turkey, the authorities have used all technological means to try to curb them, from restricting internet access to using facial recognition to identify protesters, who have been forced to adapt. Amid a ban on protests, nearly 2,000 people have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations that erupted on March 19 following the detention of Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on graft charges. As well as those apprehended in the streets, many others have been arrested in pre-dawn raids at their homes after being identified from footage or photos taken by the police during the demonstrations. So far, 13 Turkish journalists have been detained for covering the protests, including AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, who was charged with “taking part in illegal rallies and marches” on the basis of images shot by the police. For Orhan Sener, a digital technologies expert, the use of technology marks a major departure from 2013, when a small protest against plans to demolish Gezi Park in central Istanbul snowballed into a wave of national unrest over the rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time. “The security forces’ information technology capabilities have increased considerably since then,” Sener said. “During the Gezi movement, the protesters dominated social networks and the police weren’t able to identify them,” he said. “But today, when you join a demonstration in Turkey, your face is recognised by a camera and the system cross-references it with your profile on social networks.” – Faces masked – Faced with such a risk, many demonstrators are now covering their heads and faces with hats, masks and scarves. In Istanbul, police have frequently surrounded protesters and ordered them to uncover their faces so they can be filmed, refusing to let them go if they do not, generating widespread distress for many young people, AFP correspondents said. “Every means of pressure generates a countermeasure. We will soon see greater use of different clothing, glasses or make-up to thwart facial recognition technologies,” said Arif Kosar, who specialises in the impact of new technologies. “But I don’t think facial recognition technology is the main source of pressure today. The use of disinformation to smear the protests, or neutralise and divide them, plays a more important role,” he said. Erdogan has denounced the protests as “street terror”, accusing participants of “vandalising” a mosque and a cemetery, charges the opposition has denied. “Authoritarian regimes now know how to use the internet to their advantage. They have found ways of censoring it,” Sener said. “But above all, they use it for their own propaganda.” – ‘Moving towards a surveillance state’ – Immediately after Imamoglu’s arrest in a pre-dawn raid, which he recounted on X before being taken away, the authorities started reducing bandwidth for internet users in Istanbul, rendering access to social networks impossible for 42 hours. They also asked the social media platform X to close more than 700 accounts belonging to journalists, news organisations, political figures and students among others, the platform said. “There was no court decision behind the bandwidth reduction or the bid to block X accounts. These measures were put in place arbitrarily,” said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor and head of Turkey’s Freedom of Expression Association (IFOD). He said there was legislation being prepared that would require messaging services such as WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram to open offices in Turkey and disclose users’ identities to the authorities. “We are moving towards a surveillance state,” Akdeniz said. Since 2020, internet service providers have provided data on online activities and the identity of internet users to the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), the opposition news website Medyascope revealed in 2022. “By law, the BTK can only keep the data collected for two years. However, we have seen data going back 10 years being provided to prosecutors during the investigation into the Istanbul mayor,” Akdeniz said. “This data retention, despite the law, for purposes which are unknown, opens the way for arbitrary practices,” he said. For Sener, activism in the real world and online “used to be two different worlds, but now they are intertwined”. With facial recognition, “the government is trying to discourage people from joining demonstrations, while hindering their mobilisation through social networks,” he said. bg/hmw/gv X

London (AFP) Mar 28, 2025 – Britain’s defence ministry said Friday it had launched an urgent probe after a football fan found piles of sensitive military papers strewn across a street in northern England. Newcastle United supporter Mike Gibbard said he stumbled across the documents on his way to a game in the city on March 16. The army papers — some marked “OFFICIAL – SENSITIVE” — were spilling from a black bin bag and “spread all the way up the road”, Gibbard said on BBC Radio Newcastle on Friday. “I peered down and started to see names on bits of paper and numbers, and thought ‘what’s that?'” he said. The BBC said the papers — many of them torn — included details about soldiers’ ranks, emails, shift patterns, weapon issue records, and access information for military facilities. One sheet was headed “armoury keys and hold IDS codes,” an apparent reference to an intruder detection system. The broadcaster said several documents appeared to relate to Britain’s largest army garrison, Catterick, but security consultant Gary Hibberd told AFP the information risked compromising wider national security. “The impact and scale of this is quite big — it’s not just a blunder. This will be investigated within highest levels of the military,” Hibberd said. A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We are looking into this urgently and the matter is the subject of an ongoing internal investigation.” They confirmed that “documentation allegedly relating to the department was recently handed in to the police”. Northumbria Police told AFP that officers had been alerted to the find in the Scotswood district and had since passed on the papers to the defence ministry. A spokesman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “appropriate action will be taken in response to any potential information breach”. UK government guidelines state that sensitive documents should be incinerated, pulped or shredded — but confidential papers have ended up in several unusual places in the past. One of the most high-profile cases took place in 2008, when a British civil servant left a folder of intelligence documents marked “Top Secret” on a train seat in London. lcm/jkb/phz IDS

Washington (AFP) Mar 27, 2025 – Senior Republican and Democratic US senators issued a bipartisan call Thursday for a probe into a scandal over an accidentally leaked chat between top officials on Yemen air strikes that has engulfed Donald Trump’s White House. Republican Senator Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and ranking Democrat Jack Reed wrote to a Pentagon watchdog asking it to “conduct an inquiry” into the incident. The Atlantic magazine published the full chat — which Trump’s top security officials conducted on the commercially available app Signal rather than on a secure government platform — after its editor was mistakenly looped in. Republican Trump has dismissed the scandal as a “witch-hunt” and backed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, despite the fact that Hegseth used the app to discuss precise timings of the strikes shortly before they happened and aircraft types involved. The president told reporters on Wednesday that the prospect of a watchdog investigation “doesn’t bother me.” But Democrats have claimed that the lives of US service members could have been put at risk by the breach, and the row has raised serious questions about potential intelligence risks. In their letter, Wicker and Reed asked the Pentagon’s acting inspector general to look into the “facts and circumstances,” whether classified material was shared, and the security of communications. “If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information,” they said of The Atlantic’s story about the chat. – ‘Mistake’ – Wicker said on Wednesday that the information shared in the chat “appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified.” But the White House has gone on the offensive, denying that any classified material was shared and attacking Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who revealed that he had been erroneously added into the supposedly secret chat group. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that “we have never denied that this was a mistake” and insisted that National Security advisor Mike Waltz had taken “responsibility” for including Goldberg. US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday that the breach was unlikely to face a criminal investigation. “It was sensitive information, not classified, and inadvertently released, and what we should be talking about is that it was a very successful mission,” Bondi told a news conference. Trump and his top officials have repeatedly tried to turn the conversation towards the strikes themselves that began on March 15. Washington has vowed to use overwhelming force against the Huthis until they stop firing on vessels in the key shipping routes of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, with the rebels threatening to resume attacks in protest over the Gaza war. The Huthis said Thursday they targeted an Israeli airport and army site as well as a US warship, soon after Israel reported intercepting missiles launched from Yemen. Jeffrey Goldberg, journalist in ‘Signalgate’ chat scandal — and Trumpworld targetWashington (AFP) Mar 27, 2025 – Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg has been propelled to global fame — and put under immense pressure — after being inadvertently added to a group chat in which top US officials shared secret plans for Yemen air strikes. He has been roundly attacked by President Donald Trump, as well as by other officials, after publishing details of the sensitive exchanges on the Signal app in the run up to US strikes on rebel Houthis. Goldberg says the attacks on him are expected but misguided. “This is their move. You never defend, just attack,” said Goldberg, 59, in an interview with the BBC. “I’m sitting there, minding my own business. They invite me into this Signal chat and now they’re attacking me as a sleaze bag, I don’t even get it,” he said. “Maybe they should spend a little time thinking about why I was invited into the chat in the first place.” – Rising US journalism star – Born into a Jewish New York family, Goldberg migrated to Israel in the 1980s. He briefly served in the Israeli army during the first Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, including a stint as a guard at a Palestinian detention camp, an experience he recounts in a book on the issue. Back in the United States, he launched a stellar career with a job covering the police for The Washington Post, before moving to the prestigious New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker, according to The Atlantic’s website. He joined the Atlantic in 2007, becoming its fifteenth editor-in-chief in 2016, a position he still holds today. – The Atlantic success story – Founded in 1857 in Boston, the magazine was originally a literary and cultural monthly, publishing notable authors and essays on contemporary issues — with a particular focus on the abolition of slavery. After cutting back publication from 12 issues annually to 10, amid severe economic headwinds for traditional US media, The Atlantic has enjoyed a revival under Goldberg’s editorship. It announced last year that it had surpassed one million subscribers and was once again profitable, after winning three Pulitzer Prizes — in 2021, 2022, and 2023. – A tempestuous history with Trump – Goldberg previously drew Trump’s ire in 2020 for an article in which he reported senior US military officers hearing the president call soldiers killed in World War I “losers.” Monday’s article about his stunning inclusion in the Yemen strikes chat on Signal won him further opprobrium from the White House. Trump said: “I just know Goldberg. He’s a sleazebag. You know, his magazine’s terrible.” A White House spokesperson, Taylor Budowich, described The Atlantic as “scumbags.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who revealed secret attack plans in the chat while Goldberg was included, branded him a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who has made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.” The Atlantic has endorsed Trump’s Democratic rivals for the White House since 2016.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 31, 2025 – Most of us like satellites. They power our televisions. Allow us to find our way home from anywhere on the planet. They keep us connected to our loved ones, and they do it all from space. Floating in low orbit, these silent sentinels provide so much of the infrastructure for our modern lives. And they do this invisibly. When was the last time you saw a satellite? Or even thought about one? Right. It doesn’t come up much. And yet these invisible assets have the potential to give with one hand and take with the other, creating major cyber security risks. Satellite Overview Satellites form networks by communicating with each other and ground stations on Earth. They’re essentially high-tech relay stations positioned miles above us. These networks transmit everything from TV signals to GPS coordinates to internet data. Modern satellite networks can include thousands of individual satellites working together. Starlink, for example, has over 7,000 satellites orbiting Earth. The risks come from how these networks operate. Each satellite is basically a computer in space – with software that can be hacked. The signals traveling between satellites and Earth can be intercepted or jammed. And because satellites are hard to physically access once launched, fixing security flaws becomes extremely difficult. A compromised satellite could potentially spy on communications, disrupt critical services, or even be used to attack other satellites. This invisible infrastructure surrounds us every day. Weather forecasts, military communications, financial transactions, and emergency services all rely on satellite networks. Yet most of us never think about their security until something goes wrong. As we become more dependent on these space-based systems, protecting them becomes increasingly important for our daily lives and national security. What Could Happen So how bad could this get? A doomsday scenario would involve the total disruption of services. Everything you trust your satellite for, immediately out the window. That’s GPS support. Cell service. TV signals. It’s also weather forecasts. The impact would be hard to fully conceptualize. On the one hand, we existed as a species without satellites for most of human history. On the other hand, we’ve really come to depend on them. This James Bond-like scenario really isn’t likely. The group perpetrating this level of attack would need almost unimaginable resources, and a willingness to face incredible repercussions. An enemy nation engaging in this type of attack would most likely be initiating a war scenario. Smaller breaches are more likely. This involves compromised consumer data. Maybe very short-term disruptions of service. It’s the sort of thing you hear about, and dislike, without really feeling the impact personally. On par with any other data breach. Marriott mishandled my information. Oh no! But how does it actually impact your life? Understand, of course, that the security community already understands these risks. This might all be new information to you, but it’s not new information. Encryption technology is constantly developing alongside the risk of new threats. Occasionally, a threat will outpace our ability to catch it. For the most part though, satellites keep doing their good work without interruption. How Worried Should You Be? Satellite networks face real cyber threats today. Hackers can target satellites to steal data or disrupt services. This affects everything from phone calls to GPS. It is a threat that our national government takes seriously. A concern for nations all over the world. Modern satellites have better security, but many older ones remain vulnerable. Attacks could impact military communications, weather forecasting, and internet access. However, space agencies and companies are working hard to strengthen defenses. Do you ever read about a security breach and think something like “Oh no! None of us are safe in the digital age.” This followed by the thought, “But in what way does this story actually affect me?” Right. Because there are thousands of people working tirelessly all over the world to make sure that it doesn’t. The laws are antiquated, sure. International space law doesn’t fully address cyber attacks on satellites. The UN Outer Space Treaty from 1967 wasn’t written with cyber threats in mind. Some countries have their own laws with penalties for satellite hacking. But enforcement across borders remains difficult. Government-backed attacks pose a special risk. Nations might use satellite hacking for espionage or during conflicts. Bad actors will act badly. That doesn’t mean you should lose sleep over the problem of satellite technology. At the time of writing, Spring is upon us. Enjoy the warmer weather. Maybe start thinking about exciting events. The Master’s. Horse racing. Review past Kentucky Derby winners to make future predictions. If you’re going to look up, do it to enjoy a beautiful blue sky, or maybe admire the stars. Let the pros worry about satellite networks.

Washington (AFP) April 1, 2025 – The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on Hong Kong’s police chief, justice secretary and other officials over human rights concerns after China clamped down in the financial hub. The sanctions on Police Commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee and the others will block any interests they hold in the United States and generally criminalize financial transactions with them under US law. The sanctions mark a rare action invoking human rights by the administration of President Donald Trump, who has described China as an adversary but has shown no reluctance to ally with autocrats. The sanctions “demonstrate the Trump administration’s commitment to hold to account those responsible for depriving people in Hong Kong of protected rights and freedoms or who commit acts of transnational repression on US soil or against US persons,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. Other officials targeted in the latest sanctions include Paul Lam, the city’s secretary for justice. In response, Hong Kong strongly condemned the sanctions as “an attempt to intimidate” officials safeguarding national security and defended its moves to target pro-democracy figures abroad. The sanction list “clearly exposed the US’s barbarity under its hegemony, which is exactly the same as its recent tactics in bullying and coercing various countries and regions,” the Hong Kong government said in a statement. The commissioner’s office of China’s foreign ministry in Hong Kong also blasted the sanctions as “unreasonable” and said Beijing will take “effective measures for resolute retaliation.” Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive John Lee, is already under US sanctions. The officials were targeted in line with a US law that champions Hong Kong democracy. – Visa curbs over Tibet – The State Department also pointed to some of the officials’ roles in efforts to “intimidate, silence and harass 19 pro-democracy activists” who fled overseas, including one US citizen and four US residents. Washington’s top diplomat has been outspoken on China’s human rights record dating back to his time as a senator. In a separate action on Monday, Rubio said he was imposing visa restrictions on unspecified Chinese officials in response to denial of access to US diplomats, journalists and others to Tibet. Rubio earlier also imposed sanctions on officials in Thailand over their deportations back to China of members of the Uyghur minority. Beijing promised a separate system to Hong Kong when Britain handed over the city in 1997. China then cracked down hard against dissent, imposing a draconian national security law, after massive and at times destructive protests in favor of democracy swept Hong Kong in 2019.

Washington (AFP) Mar 31, 2025 – President Donald Trump again downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger of being banned in the United States, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app’s US business by a Friday deadline. The hugely popular video-sharing app, which has over 170 million American users, is under threat from a law that passed overwhelmingly last year and orders TikTok to split from its Chinese owner ByteDance or face a ban in the United States. Motivated by widespread belief in Washington that TikTok is ultimately controlled by the Chinese government, the law took effect on January 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration. But the Republican president quickly announced a delay that has allowed it to continue to operate; that delay is set to expire on April 5. “We have a lot of potential buyers. There’s tremendous interest in TikTok,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One late Sunday. “We have a lot of people that want to buy TikTok. We’re dealing with China also on it, because they may have something to do with it,” he said, adding “I’d like to see TikTok remain alive.” Any deal to divest TikTok from ByteDance will require the approval of Beijing, and Trump has said he may offer to reduce tariffs on China as a way to get Beijing’s approval for the sale. Trump, though he supported a ban in his first term, has lately become the app’s greatest defender, seeing it as a reason more young voters supported him in November’s election. One of his major political donors, billionaire Jeff Yass, is also a major stakeholder in parent company ByteDance. – ByteDance on board? – Several proposals for TikTok’s US business have emerged since the law began to make its way through Congress last year. But according to The New York Times, citing people involved in coming up with a solution, the most likely fix would see existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company. Additional US investors would be brought on to reduce the proportion of Chinese investors. Trump at one point said the US government could also take a stake through a newly announced national sovereign fund. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities told AFP that he believed cloud company Oracle would “play a major role” in such a deal and that “ByteDance will still control and own the algorithm” and have board seats. Much of TikTok’s US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company’s executive chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally who was also floated as a buyer of TikTok’s US activity in Trump’s first term. The arrangement would go against the spirit of the law, which is in part based on the premise that TikTok’s algorithm can be weaponized by the Chinese against US interests. But University of Richmond School of Law professor Carl Tobias said he did not expect opposition in the Republican-led Congress, or if Trump ordered another extension to the sale deadline. “Lawmakers have expressed little opposition to Trump’s actions (including ones) which federal judges have ruled violate the Constitution or congressionally-passed statutes,” he said. Other proposals include an initiative called “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” launched by real estate and sports tycoon Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity recently expressed interest in buying TikTok as did a joint venture involving YouTube mega-celebrity MrBeast. When the last deadline passed, in January, TikTok temporarily shut down in the United States, to the dismay of millions of users.

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 31, 2025 – The White House said Monday it has concluded its review into how a journalist was added to a Signal message group chat, where high-ranking officials discussed military strikes in Yemen, and declared the case “closed.” “This case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again, and we’re moving forward.” Leavitt did not specify what was discovered in the White House review or what steps were being taken to ensure group chat security in the future. The White House statement comes more than two weeks after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was inadvertently included in a group chat with top Trump administration officials as they discussed impending attacks against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Goldberg wrote in a published story last week that the first group invite came on March 11, from national security adviser Mike Waltz. The group also included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Goldberg said he was invited to join another group chat days later called, “Houthi PC small group,” where specific details outlined weaponry, targets and timing of the Yemen attack two hours before it was carried out on March 15. On Monday, Leavitt defended Waltz, saying he “continues to be an important part of Trump’s national security team.” “The president and Mike Waltz and his entire national security team have been working together very well, if you look at how much safer the United States of America is because of the leadership of this team,” Leavitt added. Last week, Trump said Waltz had taken responsibility for the mistake, adding there are no plans to fire anyone over the incident. Democrats have criticized the administration for revealing information about an impending military action with a journalist. The Senate Intelligence Committee held hearings last week to question Ratcliffe and Gabbard. The attacks against Houthis in Yemen were carried out successfully on March 15, two hours after Goldberg said he was included in the officials’ discussion. The White House has said none of the information discussed was classified.