It’s My Way Or The Huawei: Telecom operators in South East Asia aren’t hanging up on Chinese telecoms giant Huawei despite US insistence that the company is spying for the Chinese government, stealing trade secrets and breaking US sanctions on Iran. The firm has consistently denied it is a security threat, and says it would never hurt its customers. Huawei is one of the main providers of telecommunications equipment for operators conducting 5G trials in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Industry sources say competitors can’t match Huawei on cost and technological capability, and believe the company is a year ahead of other challengers in terms of what it can offer customers. (BBC)
Additional read: “Huawei Was a Czech Favorite. Now? It’s a National Security Threat.” (NYT)
Duterte VS Freedom Of Speech: Maria Ressa, 55, an award-winning newswoman and frequent critic of Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested and charged with cyber libel Wednesday at the headquarters of Rappler, the news outlet she runs in the Philippines. She is a former CNN bureau chief and was one of four journalists, including the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, named by Time Magazine as 2018’s Person of the Year. Ressa launched Rappler in 2012 along other high profile journalists. It has since become known for its thorough investigations into corruption and the extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s war on drugs. Duterte has threatened and intimidated the news media, repeatedly targeting Rappler of spreading “fake news.” Ressa was denied bail. (NPR)
The Spy Who Betrayed Me: A 39-year-old Farsi-speaking former counterintelligence specialist has been indicted by the Justice Departmentand charged with conspiracy, computer intrusions, identity theft and providing classified information to the Islamic Republic. Monica Witt, a native Texan who holds dual US-Iranian citizenship, served in the US Air Force from 1997 to 2008. She learned to speak Farsi before deploying overseas for four years to conduct classified missions collecting signals intelligence. While in the military she had top secret clearance, giving her access to intelligence materials that contained the real names of American sources and clandestine agents. In 2012 she attended a conference in Iran sponsored by the anti-American Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp. She returned to the US, but defected to Iran a year later. Prosecutors say Witt provided Iranian security officials with the code name and classified mission of a US Defense Department special access program, and also did research to help Iranian authorities target her former co-workers within the American intelligence community. Four Iranian nationals were named in the same indictment with Witt. (NPR)
Additional read: “Iran Bus Bombing Kills 27 Revolutionary Guards and Wounds 13.” (NYT)
Breaking Kim: Methamphetamines are illegal in North Korea, but the gifting of crystal meth for birthdays, graduations and holidays like the Lunar New Year is an open secret. Meth production in North Korea has been going on for decades, and like other private economic activities there, it has effectively become legal “because officials take bribes to look the other way, and because the state indirectly benefits from a food chain of bribes that goes all the way to the top,” according to a political scientist who has studied North Korean drug trafficking networks. (NYT)
Additional read: “El Chapo Is Behind Bars, but Drugs Still Flow From Mexico.” (NYT)
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