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• Communities in Indonesia’s Dairi district continue to protest a zinc and lead mine being developed by a Chinese-backed company.
• They warn the PT Dairi Prima Mineral (DPM) mine poses unacceptable risks to human life and the environment, given the potential for its waste dam to collapse in the earthquake-prone region.
• There are 11 villages located around or downstream of the proposed tailings dam, making the prospect of its collapse potentially disastrous. Some homes and houses of worship lie less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the dam, while an entire village of 2,010 people, called Pandiangan, is just 1.8 km (1.1 mi) from the dam.
• This would make the project illegal if it was built in China, since that country’s regulations prohibit the construction of a tailings dam within a kilometer of a populated area, according to Emerman.
• These concerns are borne out in a series of independent analyses of the project’s environmental impact assessment, which experts say fails to live up to the standards the developers claim to follow.
• Despite the questions over the assessment, the Indonesian government has issued environmental approval for the project, which local communities are now challenging at the Supreme Court.

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• The Chinese government’s rejection of recommendations to end its deepening human rights crisis reflects its disdain for international human rights reviews at the United Nations, human rights nongovernmental organizations said in a joint statement released on June 25, 2024.
• In a disingenuous effort to paper over its refusal to engage to improve its appalling record made clear by latest Universal Periodical Review (UPR) in January 2024, the Chinese government said it would accept 290 of the 428 recommendations, partially accept 8, note 32, and reject 98 of the recommendations made. The 290 accepted ones include those the government said it “accepted and being implemented” and those “accepted and already implemented.”
• However, none of the “accepted” recommendations address concerns raised by UN member states about crimes against humanity, torture, forced disappearance, persecution of human rights defenders and journalists, or other grave and well-documented violations.
• In this context, the numerous acceptances by the Chinese government does not mean actual intention to improve its rights record. No one should confuse a high number of accepted recommendations with any real commitment by Beijing on human rights.
• Beijing’s responses to UPR recommendations also include hostility towards the process and towards UN human rights mechanisms. The government has challenged the authority of the UPR to address topics Beijing insists are a matter of “sovereignty,” and disparaged the professionalism of UN human rights experts.
• The Chinese government also falsely proclaimed the August 2022 OHCHR report on human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which that office alleged may constitute crimes against humanity, as “completely illegal and void.”

Reports surface days before UN summit on Afghanistan that will exclude Afghan women and debate on women’s rights

• In more than one case the arrests and sexual abuse that young women faced while in custody earlier this year led to suicide and attempted suicide.

• In one case, a woman’s body was allegedly found in a canal a few weeks after she had been taken into custody by Taliban militants, with a source close to her family saying she had been sexually abused before her death.

• Girls and women also say they had been subjected to beatings and intimidation while in detention.

Amina*, a 22-year-old medical student, said she spent three nights in a Taliban prison after being arrested in January 2024. She said she was interrogated by an older man who asked her about her menstruation and whether she was married or not.

“I fell at his feet and begged him, ‘Please, kill me but don’t harass me’,” she said. “He said: ‘Since you are keen to die, I will kill you, but before that, let us have fun with you.’

“Then he started touching my private parts,” Amina said. “I fainted twice during the interrogation, but every time, he poured cold water over my head.”

Amina said what happened to her happened to every girl taken to that interrogation room and left alone with the man.

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• A previously undocumented Chinese-speaking threat actor codenamed SneakyChef has been linked to an espionage campaign primarily targeting government entities across Asia and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) with SugarGh0st malware since at least August 2023.

• SneakyChef uses lures that are scanned documents of government agencies, most of which are related to various countries' Ministries of Foreign Affairs or embassies, according to security analysts.

Archived link

• A previously undocumented Chinese-speaking threat actor codenamed SneakyChef has been linked to an espionage campaign primarily targeting government entities across Asia and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) with SugarGh0st malware since at least August 2023.

• SneakyChef uses lures that are scanned documents of government agencies, most of which are related to various countries' Ministries of Foreign Affairs or embassies, according to security analysts.

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Russia's exiled chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt was speaking after gunmen killed 19 people in the mainly Muslim region of Dagestan in southern Russia in attacks on churches, synagogues and the police.

"The Russian authorities during the last years have used the law enforcement authorities to repress any kind of opposition to the Kremlin, opposition to the war and any movements like the LGBT movement which was declared as extremist. People are sent to prison for criticising the war," Goldschmidt said in a video interview from Berlin.

"So instead of using law enforcement and the interior ministry and FSB (security service) to provide security for Russian citizens, it's being used to eradicate any opposition to the regime. And here we see the results, that such terrorists like ISIS are able to again and again mount successful attacks against houses of worship, against cultural events." [...]

Putin offers condolences

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin expressed his deep condolences over Sunday's attacks, but it has not commented on who was to blame or why authorities failed to stop them.

[...]

Goldschmidt himself left Russia soon after the start of the war and has encouraged more Jews to follow his example rather than stay on in what he called a "semi-totalitarian" country.

"Tens of thousands of Jews left, and I'm happy they left," he said. "We are worried for all of those who are still there."

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The Russian division of the Bank of China has suspended operations with Russian lenders sanctioned by the United States in order to avoid being hit with secondary sanctions, the Kommersant business newspaper reported Monday, citing industry insiders.

The Bank of China’s Russian division — which specializes in yuan payments between Russia and China — is the second-largest Chinese banking subsidiary in the country [...]

Experts [said that this] would likely increase fraud risks given the subsequent shift to opaque intermediaries to process payments between Russian and Chinese entities.

“This is not very good news for the Russian market,” an anonymous industry insider was quoted [...]. “There will be additional costs both in time and the price of processing payments.”

"But the most important problem is that payments go beyond the banking sector, resulting in the state having less control,” the source added.

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Lai Ching-te once again called on China to accept the existence of Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that is claimed by Beijing but where its courts have no jurisdiction.

Democracy is not a crime and autocracy is the real “evil,” Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said Monday after China threatened to impose the death penalty in extreme cases for “diehard” Taiwan independence separatists.

China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has made no secret of its dislike of Lai, who took office last month, saying he is a “separatist,” and staged war games shortly after his inauguration.

On Friday, China ramped up its pressure on Taiwan by issuing new legal guidelines to punish those it says support the island’s formal independence, though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction on the democratically governed island.

Asked about China’s move at a news conference at the presidential office in Taipei, Lai first reiterated his sympathy for recent flooding in southern China before responding.

“I want to stress: Democracy is not a crime; it’s autocracy that is the real evil. China has absolutely no right to sanction Taiwan’s people just because of the positions they hold. What’s more, China has no right to go after Taiwan people’s rights across borders,” he said.

According to China, anyone who does not uphold “reunification” is therefore a Taiwan independence supporter, Lai added.

“I also want to call on China to face up to the existence of the Republic of China and have exchanges and dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected, legitimate government,” he said, using Taiwan’s formal name. “If this is not done, relations between Taiwan and China will only become more and more estranged.”

Taiwan said that since Thursday, there has been a sharp increase in Chinese military flights as Beijing carried out a “joint combat readiness patrol” near the island.

From Thursday to Sunday, Taiwan says it detected 115 Chinese military aircraft operating nearby, getting as close as 31 nautical miles from the southern tip of the island.

Taiwan has said that for the past four years China has carried out regular military activity around the island as part of a “gray zone” pressure campaign.

Lai rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. He has repeatedly offered talks with China but been rebuffed.

China says any move by Taiwan to declare formal independence would be grounds to attack the island.

The government in Taipei says Taiwan is already an independent country, the Republic of China, and that it does not plan to change that. The Republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war against Mao Zedong’s Communists.

Lai also faces domestic challenges, as his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost its majority in parliament in the same election in January that brought him to power.

Speaking at the same news conference, Lai said he would ask the constitutional court to stay a package of contested parliament reforms the opposition has passed and consider whether they comply with the constitution.

The opposition says the reforms, which among other things criminalize contempt of parliament by government officials, are needed to bring more accountability, but the DPP says they were forced through without proper discussion.

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Even by conservative measures, researchers say that China's subsidies green-tech products such as battery electric vehicles and wind turbines is multiple times higher compared to the support granted to countriesin tbe European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The researchers conclude that the EU should use its strong bargaining power due to the single market to induce the Chinese government to abandon the most harmful subsidies.

TLDR:

• Quantification of overall Chinese industrial subsidies is difficult due to "China-specific factors”, which include, most notably, below-market land sales, but also below-market credit to state-owned enterprises (SOEs), support through state investment funds, and other subsidies for which there are no official numbers.
• Even when taking a conservative approach and considering only quantifiable factors of these subsidies, public support for Chinese companies to add up to at least €221.3 billion, or 1.73% of GDP in 2019. Relative to GDP, public support is about three times higher in China than in France (0.55%) and about four times higher than in Germany (0.41%) or the United States (0.39%).
• Large industrial firms such as EV maker BYD are offered disproportionately more support. The industrial firms from China received government support equivalent to about 4.5% of their revenues, according to a research report. By far the largest part of this support comes in the form of below-market borrowing.

Regarding electrical vehicles, the researchers write:

China’s rise to the world’s largest market and production base for battery electric vehicles has been boosted by the Chinese government’s longstanding extensive support of the industry, which includes both demand- and supply-side subsidies. Substantial purchase subsidies and tax breaks to stimulate sales of battery electric vehicles (BEV) are, of course, not unique to China but are also widespread within the EU and other Western countries, where (per vehicle) purchase subsidies have often been substantially higher than in China. A distinctive feature of purchase subsidies for BEV in China, however, is that they are paid out directly to manufacturers rather than consumers and that they are paid only for electric vehicles produced in China, thereby discriminating against imported cars.

By far the largest recipient of purchase subsidies was Chinese NEV manufacturer BYD, which in 2022 alone received purchase subsidies amounting to €1.6 billion (for about 1.4 million NEV) (Figure 4). The second largest recipient of purchase subsidies was US-headquartered Tesla, which received about €0.4 billion (for about 250,000 BEV produced in its Shanghai Gigafactory). While the ten next highest recipients of purchase subsidies are all Chinese, there are also three Sino-foreign joint ventures (the two VW joint ventures with FAW and SAIC as well as SAIC GM Wuling) among the top 20 purchase subsidy recipients.

Archived link

Even by conservative measures, researchers say that China's subsidies green-tech products such as battery electric vehicles and wind turbines is multiple times higher compared to the support granted to countriesin tbe European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The researchers conclude that the EU should use its strong bargaining power due to the single market to induce the Chinese government to abandon the most harmful subsidies.

TLDR:

• Quantification of overall Chinese industrial subsidies is difficult due to "China-specific factors”, which include, most notably, below-market land sales, but also below-market credit to state-owned enterprises (SOEs), support through state investment funds, and other subsidies for which there are no official numbers.
• Even when taking a conservative approach and considering only quantifiable factors of these subsidies, public support for Chinese companies to add up to at least €221.3 billion, or 1.73% of GDP in 2019. Relative to GDP, public support is about three times higher in China than in France (0.55%) and about four times higher than in Germany (0.41%) or the United States (0.39%).
• Large industrial firms such as EV maker BYD are offered disproportionately more support. The industrial firms from China received government support equivalent to about 4.5% of their revenues, according to a research report. By far the largest part of this support comes in the form of below-market borrowing.

Regarding electrical vehicles, the researchers write:

China’s rise to the world’s largest market and production base for battery electric vehicles has been boosted by the Chinese government’s longstanding extensive support of the industry, which includes both demand- and supply-side subsidies. Substantial purchase subsidies and tax breaks to stimulate sales of battery electric vehicles (BEV) are, of course, not unique to China but are also widespread within the EU and other Western countries, where (per vehicle) purchase subsidies have often been substantially higher than in China. A distinctive feature of purchase subsidies for BEV in China, however, is that they are paid out directly to manufacturers rather than consumers and that they are paid only for electric vehicles produced in China, thereby discriminating against imported cars.

By far the largest recipient of purchase subsidies was Chinese NEV manufacturer BYD, which in 2022 alone received purchase subsidies amounting to €1.6 billion (for about 1.4 million NEV) (Figure 4). The second largest recipient of purchase subsidies was US-headquartered Tesla, which received about €0.4 billion (for about 250,000 BEV produced in its Shanghai Gigafactory). While the ten next highest recipients of purchase subsidies are all Chinese, there are also three Sino-foreign joint ventures (the two VW joint ventures with FAW and SAIC as well as SAIC GM Wuling) among the top 20 purchase subsidy recipients.

Hacking group RedJuliett compromised two dozen organisations in Taiwan and elsewhere, report says.

A suspected China-backed hacking outfit has intensified attacks on organisations in Taiwan as part of Beijing’s intelligence-gathering activities on the self-governing island, a cybersecurity firm has said.

The hacking group, RedJuliett, compromised two dozen organisations between November 2023 and April of this year, likely in support of intelligence collection on Taiwan’s diplomatic relations and technological development, Recorded Future said in a report released on Monday.

RedJuliett exploited vulnerabilities in internet-facing appliances, such as firewalls and virtual private networks (VPNs), to compromise its targets, which included tech firms, government agencies and universities, the United States-based cybersecurity firm said.

RedJuliett also conducted “network reconnaissance or attempted exploitation” against more than 70 Taiwanese organisations, including multiple de facto embassies, according to the firm.

“Within Taiwan, we observed RedJuliett heavily target the technology industry, including organisations in critical technology fields. RedJuliett conducted vulnerability scanning or attempted exploitation against a semiconductor company and two Taiwanese aerospace companies that have contracts with the Taiwanese military,” Recorded Future said in its report.

“The group also targeted eight electronics manufacturers, two universities focused on technology, an industrial embedded systems company, a technology-focused research and development institute, and seven computing industry associations.”

While nearly two-thirds of the targets were in Taiwan, the group also compromised organisations elsewhere, including religious organisations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea and a university in Djibouti.

Recorded Future said it expected Chinese state-sponsored hackers to continue targeting Taiwan for intelligence-gathering activities.

"We also anticipate that Chinese state-sponsored groups will continue to focus on conducting reconnaissance against and exploiting public-facing devices, as this has proved a successful tactic in scaling initial access against a wide range of global targets,” the cybersecurity firm said.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its embassy in Washington, DC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Beijing has previously denied engaging in cyber-espionage – a practice carried out by governments worldwide – instead casting itself as a regular victim of cyberattacks.

China claims democratically ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, although the Chinese Communist Party has never exerted control over the island.

Relations between Beijing and Taipei have deteriorated as Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party has sought to boost the island’s profile on the international stage.

On Monday, Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te hit out at Beijing after it issued legal guidelines threatening the death penalty for those who advocate Taiwanese independence.

“I want to stress, democracy is not a crime; it’s autocracy that is the real evil,” Lai told reporters.

Lai, whom Beijing has branded a “separatist”, has said there is no need to formally declare independence for Taiwan because it is already an independent sovereign state.

Hacking group RedJuliett compromised two dozen organisations in Taiwan and elsewhere, report says.

A suspected China-backed hacking outfit has intensified attacks on organisations in Taiwan as part of Beijing’s intelligence-gathering activities on the self-governing island, a cybersecurity firm has said.

The hacking group, RedJuliett, compromised two dozen organisations between November 2023 and April of this year, likely in support of intelligence collection on Taiwan’s diplomatic relations and technological development, Recorded Future said in a report released on Monday.

RedJuliett exploited vulnerabilities in internet-facing appliances, such as firewalls and virtual private networks (VPNs), to compromise its targets, which included tech firms, government agencies and universities, the United States-based cybersecurity firm said.

RedJuliett also conducted “network reconnaissance or attempted exploitation” against more than 70 Taiwanese organisations, including multiple de facto embassies, according to the firm.

“Within Taiwan, we observed RedJuliett heavily target the technology industry, including organisations in critical technology fields. RedJuliett conducted vulnerability scanning or attempted exploitation against a semiconductor company and two Taiwanese aerospace companies that have contracts with the Taiwanese military,” Recorded Future said in its report.

“The group also targeted eight electronics manufacturers, two universities focused on technology, an industrial embedded systems company, a technology-focused research and development institute, and seven computing industry associations.”

While nearly two-thirds of the targets were in Taiwan, the group also compromised organisations elsewhere, including religious organisations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea and a university in Djibouti.

Recorded Future said it expected Chinese state-sponsored hackers to continue targeting Taiwan for intelligence-gathering activities.

"We also anticipate that Chinese state-sponsored groups will continue to focus on conducting reconnaissance against and exploiting public-facing devices, as this has proved a successful tactic in scaling initial access against a wide range of global targets,” the cybersecurity firm said.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its embassy in Washington, DC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Beijing has previously denied engaging in cyber-espionage – a practice carried out by governments worldwide – instead casting itself as a regular victim of cyberattacks.

China claims democratically ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, although the Chinese Communist Party has never exerted control over the island.

Relations between Beijing and Taipei have deteriorated as Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party has sought to boost the island’s profile on the international stage.

On Monday, Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te hit out at Beijing after it issued legal guidelines threatening the death penalty for those who advocate Taiwanese independence.

“I want to stress, democracy is not a crime; it’s autocracy that is the real evil,” Lai told reporters.

Lai, whom Beijing has branded a “separatist”, has said there is no need to formally declare independence for Taiwan because it is already an independent sovereign state.