The first international agreement to protect the world’s oceans aims to create “international parks” in the high seas.

By Jackie Gu, Reuters

PUBLISHED MARCH 30, 2023

After almost 20 years of negotiations, United Nations member countries have agreed upon an international treaty to protect oceans of the world that lie outside national borders.

These waters, known as “high seas,” occupy nearly two-thirds of the world’s oceans. Because they are considered international waters, they lie outside the jurisdiction of any state and have until now never been legally protected, meaning that the marine life in these areas has been under threat from a free-for-all of unregulated exploitation – including overfishing, pollution from ships and human-induced climate change.

Tiếp tục đọc “Changing Tides” →

March 7, 2023

By David Leonhardt, The New Yrok Times

Good morning. We tell you about a real-life spy caper involving a General Electric engineer and his handler in Nanjing.

Illustrations by Hokyoung Kim

Intelligence Inc.

The invitation seemed like an exciting honor. Hua, as The New York Times is referring to him, was an engineer at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, and a Chinese aeronautical university had asked him to come back to China in 2017 to deliver a lecture about his field.

But Hua knew that GE might deny him permission to give the talk out of a concern that it would betray proprietary information. So he accepted the invitation — and traveled to Nanjing — without telling his bosses. When a suspicious F.B.I. agent later interviewed him about the trip, Hua dissembled and said he was only visiting friends and family.

By this point, Hua was facing likely criminal charges for lying to a federal agent, and he agreed to participate in a counterintelligence operation rather than being charged. Over the next six months, one of his hosts in Nanjing — a Ministry of State Security employee who had posed as a regional economic development official — tried to persuade Hua to download sensitive material from GE computers. All the while, the F.B.I. was coaching Hua and ultimately hoping to set up a meeting in a European country where Hua’s handler could be arrested and extradited to the United States.

Tiếp tục đọc “A real-life spy story” →

[TĐH:Summarizing the ASEAN’s countries’ votes:

Members:

In favor (8): Bruinei, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore

Abstensions (2): Vietnam, Laos.

Observers (2): In favor: Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste

Total: 10 in favors, 2 abstentions]

141 members of the 193-nation body voted in support of the nonbinding, largely symbolic resolution.

Monitors show result of a United Nations General Assembly vote for a U.N. resolution upholding Ukraine’s territorial integrity and calling for a cessation of hostilities after Russia’s invasion. | Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo

By MIA MCCARTHY, Reuters

02/23/2023 04:37 PM EST

The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday adopted a resolution calling for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine, almost exactly one year after it invaded the neighboring country.

In the 193-member body, 141 members voted in support of the resolution, exceeding the two-thirds threshold needed to pass.

Tiếp tục đọc “U.N. calls for Russia to leave Ukraine” →

AStory Killers: inside the deadly disinformation-for-hire industry

THE STORIES

In the age of false news

“Team Jorge”

The “masters of perception”

Digital influencers

Insider

The Gravediggers

Simone McCarthy, CNN

When Antony Blinken makes an expected trip to Beijing in the coming days for what would be the first visit to China by a US secretary of state since 2018, he will be cutting a stark contrast to the scene in the Chinese capital one year earlier.  Then, Chinese leader Xi Jinping welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the opening of the Beijing Olympics – meeting for talks and dinner in Putin’s honor, and declaring a “no limits” partnership between the two neighbors. Weeks later, as Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine starting an invasion that would devastate the country and cause a humanitarian crisis, Chinese leaders did not shrink from that declaration.  Though Beijing claimed impartiality in the conflict and no advance knowledge of Russia’s intent, it also refused to condemn Moscow. Instead, it parroted Kremlin lines blaming NATO for provoking the conflict – further fracturing relationships with both Europe and the US.  Tiếp tục đọc “Putin and Xi are as close as ever, and that’s a problem for the US “ →