Live Tv
Rtv Plus
Poland finds spy devices in government meeting room
Deutsche Welle
07 May 2024, 18:07
Polish security services say they have discovered wiretapping devices in a meeting room. The two intelligence agencies involved have not said who they believe is behind the bugging attempt.
A Polish security services official on Tuesday said that devices had been located and taken apart in a government meeting room that was about to be used by ministers.
It was unclear how long the devices had been there, the official said declining to speculate on who had planted them.
What we know about the discovery
"The State Protection Service, in cooperation with the Internal Security Agency, detected and dismantled devices that could be used for eavesdropping in the room where the meeting of the Council of Ministers is to be held today in Katowice," spokesperson Jacek Dobrzynski wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"The services are conducting further activities in this matter," he added.
The Cabinet was meeting in Katowice, a southwestern Polish city where Prime Minister Donald Tusk was attending an economic conference.
Dobrzynski told Poland's TVN24 television that the equipment could register both audio and video. "It's tough to say whether these were devices installed years ago and not discovered earlier" or installed more recently, he said.
The Cabinet normally holds a weekly meeting in Warsaw but held it in Katowice because of the conference.
Who might be behind the wiretaps?
The discovery comes as Poland and other NATO members find themselves increasingly targets of Russian espionage in the wake of Moscow's invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
It was revealed a day after a Polish judge fled to neighboring Belarus and reportedly asked for asylum over spying allegations that he claimed were "fabricated."
In March, Polish authorities said they had carried out searches in connection with a suspected Russian spy network in Poland using intelligence provided by the Czech Republic.
Polish prosecutors have started an espionage investigation into the judge.
A Russian historical reenactment fan was also last month jailed in Poland for spying on the European Union country's military on behalf of the Kremlin.
Comments
CCIA releases report 'US Threats and Sabotage to the Security and Development of Global Cyberspace'
The internet is a shared home for mankind. In order to maintain its global hegemony, the United States has abused its information technology and resource advantages, engaging in wiretapping and espionage, creating public opinion, manipulating public sentiment, undermining rules, decoupling supply chains. These actions run counter to the global digitization process and have made the US the world's largest perpetrator of cyberattacks, producer of cyber weapons, and disruptor of cyberspace order.
To expose the hegemony and bullying behavior of the United States in cyberspace, the China Cybersecurity Industry Alliance (CCIA) has organized the compilation of the report "US Threats and Sabotage to the Security and Development of Global Cyberspace" (both Chinese and English versions) (hereinafter referred to as the "Report").
The Report, from the perspective of cybersecurity expertise, employs empirical analysis to closely track the specific actions of the United States that threaten and undermine global cyberspace security and development.
Drawing on reports and articles published by government departments, global cybersecurity companies, research institutions, and news media in recent years, it integrates various analytical processes and research results to systematically analyze the serious threats and damages caused by the United States to global cyberspace security and development, as well as to world peace and stability, and the civilization and progress of human society.
The Report is divided into six sections based on behaviors and timeline, mainly covering the US infiltrates and subverts foreign governments via the Internet, performs indiscriminate cyber surveillance and espionage, attacks and deters against other countries in the cyberspace, triggers a cyber arms race, abuses political measures to disrupt the global industry and supply chain, and sabotages cyberspace rules and order.
The following is the full text of the Report:
US Threats and Sabotage to the Security and Development of Global Cyberspace
Preface
Cyberspace is the home of mankind. But to maintain hegemony, the US abuses its IT and resource advantages and extended hegemony to the cyberspace. It conducts cyber espionage and theft, shapes and manipulates public opinion, breaks rules and seeks decoupling and disrupts supply chains. It has been the biggest cyber attacker, cyber weapon maker, and cyber order breaker in the world. It is seriously threatening the development and security of the global cyberspace, the peace and stability of the world, and the civilization and progress of human society.
1.Infiltrating and subverting foreign governments via the Internet
The US uses the Internet as a subversion instrument. Against the target countries, it performs ideological infiltration and control, spreads fake news, smears their governments, incites the people, misleads public opinion, interferes with their internal affairs and subverts their state power via the Internet.
Since 2003, many abnormal regime changes have happened in the Eurasian region. As shown in Georgia's "Rose Revolution", Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" and Kyrgyzstan's "Tulip Revolution", protests and riots happened in elections and evolved into overall political crises. Dubbed as the "second CIA", the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is long funded by Congress and the White House. On March 29, 2022, Damon Wilson, president and CEO of NED, acknowledged the US had planned "color revolutions" in the region via the Internet.
In 2011, the so-called "Arab Spring" originated from Tunisia, overwhelmed West Asia and North Africa, and caused social turmoil, tens of thousands of casualties and a loss of one trillion dollars. Based on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, the US shaped public opinion, incited people, and advocated Western values. It incited people to take to the streets to trigger social turmoil and regime changes. On February 25, 2022, the former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that "We did some of that in the Arab Spring" in an interview with MSNBC when talking about interfering with other countries via the Internet.
In August, 2022, Stanford Internet Observatory and the research company Graphika jointly published a report Unheard Voice: Evaluating five years of pro-Western covert influence operations. The report showed popular social media outlets like Twitter, Meta and Instagram had a number of interconnected sham accounts funded by the US government. The accounts used deceptive tactics to cover covert campaigns for almost five years to support the US and its allies and oppose countries including Russia, China and Iran.
2. Performing indiscriminate cyber surveillance and espionage
The US takes "national interests" as an excuse, and abuses its IT and industrial advantages to spy on the world in cyberspace massively, systemically and indiscriminately. From civilians to national leaders, politicians to international organizations, diplomatic missions to firms, no one can be exempt from the US intelligence agencies even including the US allies. The US data theft has breached global Internet users' privacy, trampled on human rights and infringed upon the sovereignty of other countries.
In 2007, the National Security Agency(NSA) started a top-secret surveillance program PRISM to monitor global communication, including that of the US citizens, from the servers of nine such Internet giants as Google, Facebook and AOL. In June, 2013, the former defense employee and subcontractor Edward Snowden disclosed to The Guardian and The Washington Post secret files of PRISM. The files showed the US government had been tracking real time data including emails, live chats, videos, audios, files and photos and monitoring everything about the targets. On June 7, 2013, the then US President Obama acknowledged the program. The Washington Post later noted that the NSA's surveillance was covert and might be illegal.
In 2015, WikiLeaks published that the US spied on 35 Japanese targets including Japanese cabinet members and Mitsubishi. In February, 2020, The Washington Post, ZDF and SRF published a joint investigation report and revealed the CIA and the German Federal Intelligence Service used a Swiss communications encryption firm Crypto AG to spy on governments and firms by covertly controlling Crypto's encryption products sold to 120 countries.
In May, 2021, DR reported the NSA and the Danish Intelligence Service wiretapped leaders of EU countries including then German Chancellor Angela Merkel. On May 31, 2021, President Macron and Chancellor Merkel attended a virtual Franco-German Council of Ministers meeting and requested the US and Denmark to explain. "This is unacceptable among allies", said President Macron.
In early April, 2023, The Washington Post and many media outlets reported a leak of many US military intelligence documents on the Ukraine crisis. The leaked documents showed the US eavesdropped on the UN Secretary-General Guterres and leaders of other countries such as the Republic of Korea and Israel. On April 18, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN had officially expressed to the US its concern on the above mentioned media reports.
3. Attacking and deterring other countries in the cyberspace
Based on its cyber advantages, the US uses cyber deterrence as a major instrument of its hegemony. Cyber deterrence is increasingly becoming its preference in international relations. The US frequently attacks other countries in cyberspace, uses cyberspace as a main battlefield of a new Cold War, and adopts a "defend forward" tactic based on all its state power including politics, economy, diplomacy and the military. In particular, the US takes civilian critical infrastructure cyber attacks as a new method to maintain hegemony and achieve political, economic and military objectives. This greatly harms the security, development and social stability of other countries.
In December 2010, the Stuxnet virus was used to attacked the Iranian Natanz Nuclear Power Plant. It destroyed a number of centrifuges and delayed related nuclear projects. On June 1, 2012, New York Times reported Stuxnet originated from a program "Olympic Games" of the US government around 2006. This was the first cyber weapon attack in the real world. The US was so excited to find the cyber warfare cost much lower than the traditional warfare that it soon established cyber forces. It has been the initiator and source of global cyber warfare.
"Equation Group" is a cyberattack group with notorious track records. But the US supports it in cyber attacks globally. On August 13, 2016, a famous hacking group "The Shadow Brokers" revealed in social media that the leaked data showed the "Equation Group" had hit over 45 countries in over ten years. The attack manual and string of malware program were exactly the same with those of PRISM. The evidence indicated the link between the "Equation Group" and the US NSA.
In 2018, the US published the DoD Cyber Strategy, which initiated the "hunt forward" principle of cyber warfare, and extended its cyber defense line to other countries. In the mid of October, 2022, the US Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) published policy documents on cyber warfare. Based on the documents, the objective of the US cyber operations was to "own the domain"; the US cyber forces put critical infrastructure as legitimate targets during times of cyber conflicts; and pursued preemptive strike as an offensive strategy. This showed the US militaristic ambition to seek hegemony in cyberspace. Since 2018, CYBERCOM has conducted over 40 operations in over 20 countries including Estonia, Lithuania and Ukraine. It used the so-called "situational awareness" and the "defend forward" methods to uncover, locate and expose adversaries' cyber operations to conduct cyber deterrence and strikes. In December, 2022, French COMCYBER commander Aymeric Bonnemaison told the parliament that the US CYBERCOM's hunt forward operations in Europe were "quite aggressive". Hunt forward operations were only excuses of the US cyber espionage and attacks and had made its European allies very uneasy.
On June 1, 2022, Sky News reported that Paul Nakasone, Commander of US CYBERCOM and Director of National Security Agency, acknowledged in an interview that in December, 2021, the US sent a cyber force to Ukraine and stayed there for about three months. In the Ukraine crisis, the US also "conducted a series of operations across the full spectrum; offensive, defensive,(and) information operations." This was the first time that a senior US official confirmed the US cyber attacks against another country.
On September 5, 2022, China's National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and Qihoo 360 Technology Co Ltd published a Report on the Cyber Attacks of NSA on China's Northwester Polytechnical University (NPU). The report showed NPU's network had been repeatedly attacked by overseas hackers attributed to Office of Tailored Access Operation(TAO) under NSA for years. TAO infiltrated and controlled NPU's critical information infrastructure with over 41 dedicated cyber weapons to steal key network equipment configuration, network management data, and operation and maintenance data.
On July, 26, 2023, Wuhan Municipal Emergency Management Bureau published a statement that CVERC and Qihoo 360 detected a cyber attack from overseas organization on its earthquake monitoring center. Some front-end station collection points of earthquake reporting data had been implanted with backdoor programs. The media later reported that the recent investigation found very complex backdoor malware that fit the characteristics of US intelligence agencies. This was the latest example of the US cyber attack on China's critical Chinese infrastructure with a clear military reconnaissance purpose.
4. Triggering a cyber arms race
The US is the culprit of cyber arms race. It viewed cyberspace as a new battlefield, introduced new combat concepts, and conspired to dominate this new battlefield. Early in 2009, the US founded the first cyber command in the world and continued to strengthen cyber forces. It had built dozens of large intelligence-gathering systems and developed a huge armory of cyber weapons. Instigated by the US, its allies soon followed suit and the cyber arms race is getting white-hot globally.
By 2015, the US had developed over 2,000 cyber weapons including worms, Trojans, logic bombs and trapdoors. EternalBlue was a tool accidentally leaked from the NSA's cyber armory. It was later changed into the WannaCry virus. On May 12, 2017, the WannaCry ransomware attack erupted, hit about 300,000 computers in over 150 countries, and caused a loss of up to 8 billion dollars.
On August 18, 2017, CYBERCOM was elevated to the US 10th combatant command as equal to the US Central Command. Until September, 2018, the US Cyber Mission Force(CMF) had had 133 cyber teams, including 13 Cyber National Mission Teams, 68 Cyber Protection Teams, 27 Cyber Combat Mission Teams and 25 Combat Support Teams.
5. Abusing political measures to disrupt the global industry and supply chain
The US government uses political security and ideology as an excuse, overstretches the "national security" concept and hypes up the "China threat narrative". It ignores China's adherence to the independent foreign policy of peace over the decades, smears China's great contribution to the global cyberspace and voice of justice, and forces its allies to take sides. It ignores the international order after WW2, the basic principles of cyberspace, and the UN consensus on "developing and implementing globally interoperable common rules and standards for supply-chain security". It abuses its export control measures, oppresses foreign firms or entities with political, economic and financial measures, and creates "exclusive small cliques". It has disrupted global trade, violated market laws, undermined market rules and trade order, and destabilized global industry and supply chain.
The US Department of Commerce has put a number of firms and entities on the "Entity List" of export control and caused chaos in the global supply chain. Taking China as an example, more than 1400 Chinese entities were on the list spanning industries including telecommunication, finance, and transportation before September, 2023. The list included technology firms like Huawei and SMIC, and research and education entities like Harbin Institute of Technology and the Institute of Computing Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In May, 2019, the US gathered 32 countries for the "Prague 5G Security Conference" in Czech Republic, jointly published the "Prague Proposals", and conspired to ban China's 5G products from the policy, security, technological and economic aspects. The US also pressed European, Asian and African countries to ban Huawei's 5G products. Globally, many media and industrial experts argued that banning Chinese companies from 5G was an embarrassing request against global digitalization and its future development.
In September, 2021, the US used "increasing supply chain transparency" as an excuse and forced hundreds of major firms throughout the semiconductor supply chain including Apple, Microsoft, Intel, TSMC and Samsung to submit their confidential information including customer information, sales data, chip inventories and expansion plans. The request put their confidential corporate information at the risk of leakage, cut their advantages in price negotiations with the US firms, eroded the trust and confidence of global customers and undermined the semiconductor supply chain in the world.
In August, 2022, US President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act and forced international firms to side with the US. Based on the Act, the US government requested foreign firms like TSMC and Samsung who would benefit from the American chip industry subsidies to set up chip plants in the US. In this way, the US could dominate the industry chain of high-end chips and harass the chip industry of other countries.
In April, 2024, US President Biden signed a package of "Foreign aid bills", which included forcing ByteDance to divest its TikTok US business within nine months, or it would banned in United States. This regulation fully reflects the United States' double standard to maintain its cyber hegemony of controlling and manipulating international public opinion platforms. On one hand, it advocates freedom and democracy internationally while selling social media platforms it controls to nearly all countries worldwide. On the other hand, it broadens the notion of national security, exploiting legal measures for coercive and predatory actions.
6. Sabotaging cyberspace rules and order
The US deems itself the "leader" of cyberspace and makes most of the defects of cyberspace like unsound regulations and imbalanced development to strengthen its "superpower hegemony". It puts its own interests over the interests of the world and puts the global cyberspace into a "security dilemma", "promise-breaking deadlock" and "trust-breaching panic".
On September 23, 2019, the US and another 27 countries published a Joint Statement on Advancing Responsible State Behavior in Cyberspace. This statement distorted and tampered with the framework of responsible state behavior and deviated from the consensus the US and its cohorts had agreed with. This fully illustrated the US all-time principle of applying international law in a selective and utilitarian way. The US deliberately ignored the aspiration of the international society to build a "peaceful cyberspace" and divided the cyberspace into "peacetime" and non-peacetime. Its intention was to legalize its offensive military operations in cyberspace and make the cyberspace a new battlefield. Such behavior maliciously aggravated cyber conflict risks among countries and was detrimental to cyberspace peace and security.
On April 28, 2022, the US gathered over 50 countries and jointly published a Declaration for the Future of the Internet. It openly affirmed "to promote and sustain an Internet that is global and interoperable". In reality, it discarded multilateral platforms like the UN, created "small cliques" based on ideology, and undermined the international order and rules with "gang rules" of blocs. The so-called declaration was a latest example of US intention to divide the cyberspace and trigger cyber confrontation.
Conclusion
Cyberspace is a shared space of mankind. Every country has shared interest and future in cyberspace, and aspires to a peaceful, secure, open, cooperative and orderly cyberspace. But the US recklessly maintains its cyber hegemony, pursues "absolute security" of itself at the cost of other countries, and even pursues a way of undermining and splitting the cyberspace. The US vicious deeds impede global digitalization, run against the history, and must be denounced by the world. For the interest of mankind, governments of conscience, firms, social organizations, scholars and netizens aspiring to fairness, justice and freedom should strengthen dialogues and cooperation, promote development, maintain security, pursue joint governance and shared benefits, build a community with a shared future in cyberspace, and work for a brighter future for mankind.
Source: China Daily
China trying to develop world ‘built on censorship and surveillance’
Rights group warns the Digital Silk Road is enabling China to export its brand of digital authoritarianism across the world.
China is exporting its model of digital authoritarianism abroad with the help of its far-reaching tech industry and massive infrastructure projects, offering a blueprint of “best practices” to neighbours including Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam, a human rights watchdog has warned.
In 2015, two years after kicking off its massive Belt and Road initiative, China launched its “Digital Silk Road” project to expand access to digital infrastructure such as submarine cables, satellites, 5G connectivity and more.
Article 19, a United Kingdom-based human rights group, argues that the project has been about more than just expanding access to WiFi or e-commerce.
The Digital Silk Road “has been just as much about promoting China’s tech industry and developing digital infrastructure as it has about reshaping standards and internet governance norms away from a free, open, and interoperable internet in favour of a fragmented digital ecosystem, built on censorship and surveillance, where China and other networked autocracies can prosper”, the watchdog said in a report released in April.
The 80-page report describes how the Chinese state is inextricably linked to its tech industry, a key player in the Digital Silk Road project, as private companies like Huawei, ZTE, and Alibaba serve as “proxies” for the Communist Party.
China has signed dozens of technical standard agreements with 49 countries participating in the Belt and Road, while other countries in the region including Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Thailand have agreed on further communiques with Beijing on digital infrastructure.
The Asia Pacific region is particularly important to Beijing, Article 19 said, as it holds a “strategic significance for China as it rolls out next-generation technologies and seeks global partners in normalising its authoritarian approach to internet governance”.
Some countries, like Cambodia, have modelled their digital governance on China, according to Article 2019. Since 2021, the Southeast Asian country has been working to build a “National Internet Gateway” in the style of China’s “Great Firewall” that limits access to many Western media outlets, Wikipedia, and social media sites like Facebook and X.
Others have also expressed concern about the project.
“The Cambodian government says this will bolster national security and help crack down on tax fraud. But the impact on Cambodian network connections will affect anyone who connects with those networks, which could have serious consequences for social and economic life, as well as potentially endanger free expression,” the Internet Society warned in December.
Nepal and Thailand are both reportedly interested in building a similar firewall, according to Article 19, and have played an active role in monitoring ethnic minority Tibetans and Uighurs living abroad on behalf of Beijing.
Under President Xi Jinping, the line between the Communist Party and the Chinese state has blurred considerably. The Party has also extended its influence deep into the private sector, with cells established in more than 90 percent of China’s top 500 companies, according to Article 19.
These companies, including tech giants, have been drafted into Beijing’s “united front” influence campaign to improve China’s image abroad and expand its global influence, Article 19 said, despite promises that they are independent of the state.
Concerns about data, privacy and potential influence campaigns have helped energise a push in the United States to ban TikTok, the wildly popular China-owned video app. Those behind the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act argue the app could allow the Chinese government to access user data and influence Americans.
Security concerns have also affected the businesses of companies like Huawei and ZTE not only in the US but in other democracies including Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the UK. In the US, the two firms have been designated “national security threats” and banned from the construction of critical infrastructure.
Beyond China’s borders, the closer ties between the state and tech companies have also raised questions about how issues like data privacy or censorship will be handled abroad by Chinese tech companies, who operate undersea cables that grant them de facto control of huge swaths of global internet traffic.
Article 19 said it was “plausible that China would share such data with allied authoritarian governments or exploit it as part of its influence operations over others. Without greater transparency and oversight, it is impossible to rule out these concerns.”
Source: Aljazeera
World Uyghur Congress praises UN effort for release of 43 Uyghurs
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) on Wednesday released a statement appreciating the voice raised by the United Nations for the release of 43 Uyghur refugees held in Thailand, a statement by the WUC stated.
The UN letter urged the Thai government to provide information on the decade-long arbitrary detention of the Uyghur men, their access to medical care, and the detention conditions where they are being held while expressing their concerns about the held Uyghur prisoners. Additionally, the letter seeks information from the Thai authorities on their prolonged incommunicado detention and asks if measures are being taken to facilitate communication and visitation rights with families and legal representatives.
According to the letter written in February this year, the detention conditions of 43 Uyghur migrant individuals may amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or even torture which has reportedly caused the deaths of five Uyghur migrant detainees, including two minors.
The UN experts also expressed "serious concern" regarding the forcible return of 109 Uyghurs in 2015 "without an assessment of their protection needs under international human rights and refugee laws" They also urged the Royal Thai government to safeguard the human rights of migrants, ensuring full adherence to the principle of non-refoulement.
"There needs to be an end to the indefinite and arbitrary detention of the Uyghur men in Thailand. they should not be detained for fleeing from a repressive environment out of fear of the genocidal policies in East Turkistan." Dolkun Isa the president of World Uyghur Congress stated regarding the matter.
The same press statement in by the WUC mentioned that, Uyghurs are increasingly recognized as a persecuted group in East Turkistan, who face arbitrary detention, mass surveillance, separation of families, torture, forced labour and other human rights atrocities. Those residing outside China continue to face state-led repression abroad. Uyghurs living in third countries without firm settlement status are particularly vulnerable to detention and forced return, with many experiencing harassment and intimidation from local authorities, often acting on behalf of Chinese authorities.
Additionally, since March 2014, at least 43 Uyghur men have been held at the IDC Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Centre in Bangkok, Thailand under inhumane and overcrowded conditions. The men were part of a larger group of 350 Uyghur refugees who fled China in 2014, attempting to reach Turkey through Thailand to escape persecution in East Turkistan.
In July 2015, 173 Uyghur women and children were transferred to Turkey, while 109 men, women, and children were forcibly returned to China, where their current whereabouts are unknown. Since 2014, a reported number of five Uyghurs, including two children, have died within the Thai Immigration Centres due to catastrophic conditions. Detainees are confined indoors 24 hours a day in overcrowded, unsanitary cells without access to adequate food,physical exercise, or appropriate medical treatment, according to WUC press statement.
The WUC conclusively urged the Thai authorities and Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin to immediately release the detained Uyghurs and to resolutely avoid refoulement, while enabling resettlement options as soon as possible.
Source: Beijing Bulletin
Hajj visas can only be used to visit Mecca, Medina and Jeddah: Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has announced new restrictions on issuing Hajj visas. The visa will only allow travel to Jeddah, Madinah and Mecca.
According to the Gulf News report, the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah of Saudi Arabia has clarified that pilgrims will only be allowed to perform the formalities of the Holy Hajj in 2024 on Hajj visas.
Saudi Arabia has announced new restrictions on issuing Hajj visas. Where it is mentioned that the visa will only allow travel to Jeddah, Madinah and Mecca.
According to the Gulf News report, the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah of Saudi Arabia has clarified that the visa will only allow pilgrims to perform the formalities of the Holy Hajj in 2024.
The ministry said the visa would only allow travel between Jeddah, Madinah and the cities of Mecca.
This visa will not be valid outside the three designated cities. This visa will not work for work or residence in the country.
This visa will be valid only for the Hajj season.
If the restrictions are violated, the person who violated the rules will be deported to his home country and may face a possible ban on participating in the Hajj in the future.
French president urged to put human rights, Tibet at heart of Xi Jinping talks
Before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to France, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organizations the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) and the French Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH) are calling on President Emmanuel Macron to place the issue of human rights—particularly in Tibet—at the heart of his discussions with his Chinese interlocutor.
On May 6 and 7, President Xi Jinping will pay an official visit to France, marking his first trip to Europe since 2019. The visit, which follows Macron’s trip to China in April 2023, is part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Franco-Chinese relations.
In an important first, days ahead of the visit, Macron had a timely encounter with the sikyong (president) of the Tibetan government-in-exile Penpa Tsering on April 30 at the Élysée Palace during an award ceremony of the Legion d’Honneur for former Senator André Gattolin, a longstanding friend of Tibet. During the event, Penpa Tsering presented the French president with a photo of his meeting with the Dalai Lama in 2016 autographed by the Tibetan spiritual leader and urged him not to forget Tibet, according to the Central Tibetan Administration (the official name of the Tibetan government-in-exile). It was a consequential moment, as just a few days earlier, the Chinese government had once again described the Central Tibetan Administration as a “separatist entity.”
Vincent Metten, EU policy director for the International Campaign for Tibet, said: “We understand that the agenda between the two presidents will be dense given the many international crises such as in Ukraine and in the Middle East, but this must not be done at the expense of exchanges on human rights, which are in a deplorable state throughout the country as well as in Hong Kong, Xinjiang (Uyghur region) and Tibet, where a latent conflict has been going on for over 60 years and poses a threat to regional and international security.”
Tibet is of strategic importance as a corridor between South and East Asia. Lasting peace in the region can only be achieved through a peaceful resolution of the Tibetan conflict.
In Freedom House’s 2024 report, Tibet received a score of negative 2 out of 40 for political rights and a score of 2 out of 60 for civil liberties. Tibet’s overall score of 0 out of 100 is its worst in at least eight years.
The Chinese government’s aggressive assimilation policy, illustrated by the boarding schools where over 1 million Tibetan children are placed, threatens to eradicate Tibetan culture and identity. This policy was condemned by numerous states during China’s fourth Universal Periodic Review by the United Nations Human Rights Council in January.
“It is important to reshape relations between France and China in order to put human rights at the heart of French foreign policy. President Macron must forcefully denounce, both privately and publicly, the repression in China and in France, the so-called transnational repression, which affects Chinese human rights activists and defenders, Hong Kongers, Uyghurs and Tibetans,” insists Patrick Baudouin, president of the French NGO Ligue des droits de l’Homme.
Ahead of the Chinese president’s visit, LDH, FIDH and ICT sent in January 2024 a letter to the French minister of foreign affairs stressing that this visit represents an opportunity to place respect for human rights at the heart of Franco-Chinese relations.
According to Maryse Artiguelong, vice-president of LDH and FIDH: “The conflict in Ukraine highlights the threat posed to international order and security by authoritarian regimes such as Russia and the People’s Republic of China. Their aggressive foreign policies and repressive domestic policies are inextricably linked: Anyone who does not oppose China’s human rights violations risks one day facing its aggressive foreign policy.”
FirstElement Fuels opens world’s first hydrogen station for commercial trucks
FirstElement Fuel, the largest hydrogen refueling provider in California with 80-percent market share has recently opened the world’s first hydrogen fueling station for heavy-duty commercial trucks just outside the Port of Oakland.
FirstElement is opening the first ever commercial heavy-duty hydrogen refueling station, which opened to the public this week for tours and demonstrations, the first of its kind for the first time ever. The company claims that its hydrogen pumps can “fill” a truck’s hydrogen tanks into ten minutes per 80-kg fill, they are expected to fill 200 trucks hydrogen tanks per day.
On Tuesday, a ceremony to mark the station's opening was held, and the ceremony was attended by state officials including Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Tyson Eckerle, clean transportation advisor for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s business development office. CARB and the California Energy Commission provided primary funding for the Oakland station.
At least 30 Hyundai Xcient semi trucks using the fueling station currently, as well as a number of Nikola hydrogen fuel-cell-powered trucks, according to the company.
The Xcient trucks of Hyundai have a 400- to 500-mile range depending on load weight and onboard storage capacity of 68.6 kg of hydrogen at 700 bar of pressure. The 6x4 tractors have two 90 kW hydrogen stacks, a 72 kW/hour battery and a 350 kW motor.
Fuel cell tractors hold several advantages over similarly spec’d battery electric vehicles. At 500 miles of range, a fuel cell vehicle has an available payload of 52,000 pounds. A battery-electric vehicle with similar range requires an additional 9,000 pounds of powertrain weight, resulting in just a 43,000-pound payload capacity, says Jerome Gregeois, director of commercial vehicle development at the Hyundai America Technical Center.
However, FirstElement Fuel’s Port of Oakland station uses a cryopump to convert liquid hydrogen into cold, compressed hydrogen in a single stage. To retrofit the station with Bosch’s next-generation cryopump capable of dispensing 100 kg in 10 minutes, the company is partnering with Bosch Rexroth.
Dave Hull, regional vice-president, Bosch Rexroth says "Cold is like gold,". "You've got all this cold energy. All my career I worked to get rid of heat. You can take that energy and run a whole station's refrigerators for Rock Star energy drinks, or air conditioning. Bosh has a whole division of heat pumps and building technologies."
Notably, hydrogen costs continue to rise. Added efficiency is essential to actual energy and cost savings, rather than a lifeline for the gas industry and tier 1 auto suppliers like Bosch.
Russia Victory Day parade: Won't allow any threats — Putin
"Russia will do everything to prevent global confrontation, but we will not allow anyone to threaten us," Vladimir Putin told soldiers in Moscow. May 9 is a public holiday in Russia, marking Nazi Germany's capitulation.
Russia holds major annual Moscow military parade marking Nazi Germany's capitulation in WWII.
President Vladimir Putin told troops that Russia was trying to prevent global confrontation, but that it would not tolerate threats.
He said the country's nuclear forces were 'always' at combat readiness.
Western leaders are not attending but several of Russia's allies dispatched delegations.
Russia marks the anniversary a day later than western Europe and the US, and Ukraine, which changed from May 9 to May 8 last year
Putin says May 9 'unites all generations'
President Vladimir Putin praised what's become Russia's most important secular holiday during Thursday's speech.
"The Victory Day unites all generations," he said. "We are going forward relying on our centuries-old traditions and feel confident that together we will ensure a free and secure future of Russia."
Some 9,000 troops took part in the event, and around 1,000 of them had served in Ukraine since the 2022 invasion.
Missiles and other hardware, plus a notably smaller number of tanks than usual, perhaps suggesting the toll of attrition in Ukraine, were also on display.
