MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Super Typhoon Man-yi battered the Philippines on Saturday, with the national weather forecaster warning of a “potentially catastrophic and life-threatening” impact as huge waves pounded the archipelago’s coastline.

More than 650,000 people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi, which is the sixth major storm to hit the country in the past month.

Man-yi brought maximum wind speeds of 195 kilometers (121 miles) per hour as it made landfall on the sparsely populated island province of Catanduanes as a super typhoon, the weather service said, adding that gusts were reaching 325 kilometers (201 miles) an hour.

A “potentially catastrophic and life-threatening situation looms for [the] northeastern Bicol region as Super Typhoon ‘Pepito’ further intensifies,” the forecaster said hours before it made landfall, using the local name for the storm and referring to the southern part of the main island of Luzon.

Waves up to 14 meters (46 feet) high pummeled the shore of Catanduanes, while Manila and other vulnerable coastal regions were at risk from storm surges reaching up to more than three meters over the next 48 hours, the forecaster said.

The weather forecaster said winds walloping Catanduanes and northeastern Camarines Sur province — both in the typhoon-prone Bicol region — posed an “extreme threat to life and property.”

Power was shut down on Catanduanes ahead of the storm, with shelters and the command center using generators for electricity.

“We’re hearing sounds of things falling and things breaking while here at the evacuation center,” Catanduanes provincial disaster operations chief Roberto Monterola told AFP after Man-yi made landfall.

“We are unable to check what they are as the winds are too strong. They could be tree branches breaking off and falling on rooftops,” Monterola said, adding there had been no reports of casualties.

At least 163 people died in the five storms that pounded the Philippines in recent weeks, left thousands homeless and wiped out crops and livestock.

Climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window of time.

Evacuations

Man-yi could hit Luzon — the country’s most-populous island and economic engine — as a super typhoon or typhoon on Sunday afternoon, crossing north of Manila and sweeping over the South China Sea on Monday. 

The government urged people Saturday to heed warnings to flee to safety.

“If preemptive evacuation is required, let us do so and not wait for the hour of peril before evacuating or seeking help, because if we did that, we will be putting in danger not only our lives but also those of our rescuers,” Interior Undersecretary Marlo Iringan said.

In Albay province, Legazpi City grocer Myrna Perea sheltered with her husband and their three children in a school classroom alongside nine other families after they were ordered to leave their shanty.

Conditions were hot and cramped — the family spent Friday night sleeping together on a mat under the classroom’s single ceiling fan — but Perea said it was better to be safe.

“I think our house will be wrecked when we get back because it’s made of light materials — just two gusts are required to knock it down,” Perea, 44, told AFP. “Even if the house is destroyed, the important thing is we do not lose a family member.”

Back to ‘square one’

In Northern Samar province, disaster officer Rei Josiah Echano lamented that damage caused by typhoons was the root cause of poverty in the region.

“Whenever there’s a typhoon like this, it brings us back to the medieval era, we go [back] to square one,” Echano told AFP, as the province prepared for the onslaught of Man-yi.

The mayor of Naga city in Camarines Sur province imposed a curfew from midday Saturday in a bid to force residents indoors.

All vessels — from fishing boats to oil tankers — were ordered to stay in port or return to shore.

The volcanology agency also warned that heavy rain dumped by Man-yi could trigger flows of volcanic sediment, or lahars, from three volcanos, including Taal, south of Manila.

Man-yi hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season — most cyclones develop between July and October.

Earlier this month, four storms were clustered simultaneously in the Pacific basin, which the Japan Meteorological Agency told AFP on Saturday was the first time such an occurrence had been observed in November since its records began in 1951.
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LOPBURI, Thailand — Marauding monkeys won’t face slingshots anymore in the historic Thai city of Lopburi, where they have been rounded up and sterilized after turning rampant over the past four years.

Before COVID-19 shut Lopburi, some of its 58,000 residents casually fed the 3,000 long-tailed macaques that lived alongside and even threw an annual fruit banquet for them, drawing tourists to “Monkey City,” a three-hour drive north of Bangkok.

The macaques, believed to bring good fortune, also inhabit nearby forests and have long been a part of the city’s history.

But after Lopburi came out of the pandemic lockdown in mid-2022, its residents found that the monkeys, without people feeding them, had become unruly.

Troops of macaques had taken over buildings, often confronting residents, stealing food and causing accidents. Gangs of monkeys also fought in brawls, shocking locals. Some residents resorted to caging themselves within their homes.

“Their method is robbery — by all means,” said Wisarut Somngam, a local researcher with Ecoexist Society, a non-governmental organization, where he is studying the situation.

“They were ready to snatch anything off your hands, any bags they suspect contain food or items like mobile phones.”

Small children, elderly women and even policemen carried around slingshots to try and scare away the macaques.

Reuters journalists made half a dozen trips to Lopburi this year, including during the height of the monkeys’ aggression in early 2024.

As complaints mounted after February, authorities armed with slingshots and traps sprang into action to catch the primates that had wreaked havoc and even scared some residents into putting up metal bars at their homes for protection.

“We have to cage ourselves inside, we have no freedom even on the premises of our own homes,” said Jirat Buapromart, 54. “They are ready to steal anything they can from us.”

Authorities capture 1,600 monkeys

By May, authorities stepped up the push against the monkeys, including boosting sterilization efforts that began during the pandemic.

“Our goal is to neuter all the monkeys, 100% of them,” local veterinarian Patarapol Maneeorn from the government wildlife department said in September.

The monkeys would then be put into a designated area where they will be looked after, he said.

Five months after the start of the government’s campaign, Lopburi’s primate pandemonium has finally come under control, with around 1,600 monkeys in captivity.

Some animal rights groups agree with authorities on neutering the monkeys, but not putting them in cages.

“The monkeys are suffering because currently they’re in a cage that is not designed for them,” said Edwin Wiek, founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand. “It’s not proper for them.”

Wiek pressed the government to increase funding to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, which has personnel trained in animal care and treatment.

Monkeys still draw tourists

For some residents, the return of calm on the streets of Lopburi is a relief. “Things have become a little easier because most of the monkeys were captured. Life is easier,” said clock maker Chalit Nithiwkram, 64.

Business was also improving, he said: “If there were monkeys, no customers would dare to come by and park their cars here.”

For others, Lopburi and its monkeys are inseparable.

“Monkeys are part of Lopburi’s identity,” said Supaporn Reanprayoorn, 38, who runs a store near a temple where monkeys often gathered. She sometimes gave them snacks.

“Let tourists take pictures with them — just a hundred or two.”
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STATE DEPARTMENT — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Taiwan’s envoy to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Lin Hsin-I, on Thursday ahead of the bloc’s Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Lima, Peru.

The discussion centered on economic cooperation, as Blinken highlighted in a social media post.

“Met with Lin Hsin-i in Lima. We spoke about our growing economic relationship and our enduring shared commitment to foster an open, dynamic, and peaceful Indo-Pacific,” Blinken wrote on X.

The pull-aside meeting, which lasted about 20 minutes, was not previously announced in Blinken’s official schedule.

“We discussed our important economic cooperation,” Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, who also participated in the meeting, told reporters during a phone briefing late Thursday.

In a readout, Taiwan said that Blinken and Lin exchanged views on strengthening the U.S.-Taiwan partnership and discussed strategies for ensuring regional peace and stability.

Lin, a former vice premier of Taiwan and a senior presidential adviser to President Lai Ching-te, was chosen to represent Taiwan at this year’s APEC leaders meetings in Peru.

On Friday, the White House announced that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s leading advanced semiconductor producer, will receive up to $6.6 billion in CHIPS & Science Act funding. That supports TSMC’s $65 billion investment to build three facilities in Arizona, creating tens of thousands of jobs by the decade’s end.

The White House called it the largest foreign direct investment in a completely new project in U.S. history.

Taiwan’s role in APEC

APEC, an international forum comprising 21 member economies from the Pacific Rim, promotes free trade and economic cooperation across the Asia-Pacific region. Although Taiwan holds full membership in APEC, it faces restrictions due to pressure from China and has to send special envoys instead of its presidents to the annual leaders meetings.

Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, it has never governed Taiwan but continues to view the self-ruled democracy as part of its territory.

Upcoming Biden-Xi talks

Blinken will accompany U.S. President Joe Biden at Saturday’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, marking the third in-person talks between the two leaders.

Biden is expected to “underscore the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and express his concerns that the PRC’s increased military activities around Taiwan are destabilizing and eroding the status quo,” according to U.S. officials.

On Friday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian urged Washington to abide by the “one-China principle” and not allow Taiwan President Lai to transit through the United States, urging Washington to take “concrete actions to uphold China-U.S. relations.”

Lin was asked to comment on a Reuters report that Lai plans to stop in Hawaii and maybe Guam on a visit to Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific in coming weeks.

The U.S. one-China policy differs from the PRC’s one-China principle, which Washington has said it does not subscribe to.

The U.S. says it remains committed to its long-standing, bipartisan 0ne-China policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances.

Chinese officials have rejected the Taiwan Relations Act, calling the U.S. law governing its relations with Taiwan “illegal and invalid.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with leaders of South Korea and Japan Friday to come up with a “coordinated” response to the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to help Moscow’s war against Ukraine and on Pyongyang’s nuclear threat more broadly, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Lima, Peru.

Pyongyang’s troop deployment is a “significant development,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Lima, Wednesday.

“We are going to treat it with the seriousness with which it deserves to be treated,” he said.

Sullivan said the trilateral summit will allow leaders to prepare for any potential “provocative” move from Pyongyang, including nuclear testing and ballistic missile launches, as the U.S. prepares for a change of administration when Donald Trump takes office in January.

“Transitions have historically been time periods when the DPRK has taken provocative actions,” Sullivan said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The United States has an “extended deterrence” policy that aims to prevent adversaries from attacking allies, including South Korea and Japan. The policy states Washington will come to their aid if they are attacked, potentially including use of American nuclear capabilities.

No specific announcement on extended deterrence will be announced at a trilateral level in Lima, Sullivan said. However, the trilateral meeting will be an opportunity to “ensure that each of these two bilateral dialogues are working to reinforce one another, and that there aren’t gaps and seams between them.”

The leaders are set to announce establishment of a trilateral secretariat as part of their efforts to “institutionalize” three-way cooperation that began as a series of leaders’ dialogues on economic security, intelligence sharing, and defense policy coordination. The trilateral leaders’ dialogues began in May 2023 on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, and then at Camp David in August that year.

The trilateral effort is one of Biden’s signature regional security initiatives to push Seoul and Tokyo to overcome years of animosity and work together to deter common adversaries, North Korea and China.

The leaders are also set to bolster trilateral exercises, Sullivan said.

“We’ve made progress on technology protection, on supply chain diversification, on missile warning and the sharing of data with respect to miswarning in all of those areas,” he said. “We expect to take further steps tomorrow.”

U.S., Japanese and South Korean militaries Thursday launched joint exercises in waters south of the Korean peninsula and west of Japan, the final drills under the Biden administration.

During his first term Trump advocated for friendlier ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and pressured Tokyo and Seoul to take on a larger share of U.S. defense burden-sharing.

A day before Trump’s reelection, the U.S. and South Korea a finalized a new agreement for Seoul to pay $1.19 billion in 2026 to support U.S. troops, an 8.3% increase from the previous year. 
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BANGKOK — China is likely to continue its aggressive naval approach toward the Philippines amid their disputes in the South China Sea, experts say.

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has signed two new maritime laws to protect Manila’s disputed territory: the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act.

According to the Philippines Presidential Office, the Philippine Maritime Zones Act “seeks to designate the country’s archipelagic sea lanes, which would create routes over the country’s water and airspace.”

The act also “declares the Philippines’ maritime zones in accordance with the standards set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act establishes a system of archipelagic sea lanes and air routes, through which foreign vessels and aircraft shall exercise the right of archipelagic sea lanes passage.”

Raymond Powell, director of Sealight at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, says the introduction of the laws is necessary for Manila’s long-term strategy of resistance against Beijing.

“Passage of the Philippines’ new maritime laws is a necessary step in its lawfare against China’s maritime aggression, which has reached the scale of an occupation of large swaths of the West Philippine Sea,” Powell told VOA.  Lawfare is a name given to using political and judicial action in a dispute.

Malaysia is also protesting the Philippines new maritime laws. Malaysia’s deputy foreign minister, Mohamad Alamin, says the laws touch upon Malaysia’s overlapping claims of territory that borders Sabah on Borneo Island.

But it’s China that claims almost all of the South China Sea under its nine-dash line designating its territory.

In 2016 the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that China’s claims have no legal basis under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

China has long ignored that ruling. Beijing and the Philippines both claim the Second Thomas Shoal of the Spratly Islands, which China calls the Nansha Islands. The Scarborough Shoal, or Huangyan Island, is also contested between the two countries. Beijing seized the island in 2012.

In recent years, the overlapping claims escalated when Philippine vessels faced aggressive encounters from Chinese ships while operating in the contested waters.

Powell said Manila’s signing of maritime laws is part of a long-term strategy.

“The Philippines now not only has a PRC [People’s Republic of China] military base at Mischief Reef, deep within its lawful exclusive economic zone, China now controls access to several key features, such as Scarborough, Sabina and Second Thomas Shoals. With Beijing now behaving as an imperial occupation force, Manila needs a comprehensive, long-term strategy of resistance to raise the costs of that occupation. Lawfare will be a key component to that campaign,” he said.

China has already opposed the Philippines new maritime laws, calling them a serious infringement. Beijing summoned the Philippines’ ambassador to protest last week, while China’s embassy has warned Manila of its “unilateral” actions.

“China will continue to take necessary measures in accordance with the law to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights,” the embassy said in a statement, according to Reuters.

Jay Batongbacal, a maritime expert, told VOA’s Mandarin Service that China opposes resistance from the Philippines to serve its own interests.

“The fundamental source of insecurity really is that China’s interests in the South China Sea have always been defined and driven by its military and strategic objectives of establishing and gaining dominance and control in the first and second island chains,” he said.

Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, says the laws help Manila challenge China’s claims.

“The laws do not fundamentally change things on the ground, but they do have their purposes. The law allows the Philippines to assert their own effective control and create a legal basis to challenge China’s claims,” he told VOA.

But China will push back aggressively, he added.

“We should expect more aggressive behavior,” he said. “We just saw them draw baselines around Scarborough Shoal, a low tide elevation, which is totally illegal in international law. China just hates it when states move to advance their legal claims. It is still stinging from 2016 when the Permanent Court of Arbitration tossed out each of their legal clams of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.”

China has responded by publishing on Sunday new baselines outlining its claims over Scarborough Shoal, and on Wednesday, Beijing conducted air and naval combat drives at the disputed shoal.

Since Marcos became president in 2022, Manila has reinvigorated its relations with the U.S., which had been distanced under previous Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, despite the U.S., and the Philippines being long-time mutual defense partners.

Under Marcos, the Philippines has given U.S. troops more access to its military bases and conducted joint naval exercises. Manila is also aiming to buy midrange missiles from Washington to bolster its defense, while China claims the action will undermine peace in the region.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will travel to the Philippines later this month as part of a series of Asia-Pacific meetings in the region.

But with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in January, questions remain about Washington’s role between the two countries.

“The Philippines needs to be able to convince President-elect Trump of its continued value as U.S. partner in the Indo-Pacific,” Vincent Kyle Parada, a former defense analyst in the Philippines Navy, told VOA’s Mandarin Service. “While bipartisan consensus against China remains strong, Marcos Jr. should anticipate a more quid pro quo or a transactional relationship with Washington and work to rely on his foreign policy initiatives with the U.S.,” he added. 
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wellington, new zealand — A vote in New Zealand’s parliament was suspended and two lawmakers ejected on Thursday when dramatic political theater erupted over a controversial proposed law redefining the country’s founding agreement between Indigenous Maori and the British Crown.

Under the principles laid out in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guide the relationship between the government and Maori, tribes were promised broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British. The bill would specify that those rights should apply to all New Zealanders.

The bill has scant support and is unlikely to become law. Detractors say it threatens racial discord and constitutional upheaval, while thousands of New Zealanders are traveling the length of the country this week to protest it.

Despite its unpopularity, however, the proposed law passed its first vote on Thursday after dominating public discussion for months, due to a quirk of New Zealand’s political system that allows tiny parties to negotiate outsized influence for their agendas. It also reflects unease among some New Zealanders about more rapid progress in recent years toward upholding the promises made to Maori when the country was colonized.

184-year-old treaty provokes fresh debate

For decades after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, differences between the English and Maori texts and breaches by New Zealand governments intensified the disenfranchisement of Maori.

By the middle of the 20th century, Indigenous language and culture had dwindled, much tribal land was confiscated and the Maori were disadvantaged on every metric. As the Indigenous protest movement surged in the 1970s, lawmakers and the courts slowly began to elucidate what it understood the treaty to promise Maori: partnership with the Crown, participation in decision-making and protection of their interests.

“What all of these principles have in common is that they afford Maori different rights from other New Zealanders,” David Seymour, leader of minor libertarian party ACT and the bill’s author, said Thursday.

To those who have championed the treaty, that is the point. Work has involved billion-dollar land settlements, embrace of the Maori language, guaranteed representation in central and local government and attempts through policy to reverse the stark inequities Indigenous people still face.

But Seymour – who is Maori – said no law or court had actually settled for good a definition of the treaty’s principles, and that had caused division. His bill filled “a silence this parliament has left for five decades,” he said.

Lawmakers vote for bill they oppose

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon disagrees, though his party voted for the bill Thursday to fulfil the political deal with Seymour that handed Luxon power. Without enough seats to govern after last October’s election, Luxon curried support from two minor parties – including Seymour’s ACT, which won less than 9% of the vote – in return for political concessions.

Luxon told Seymour his party would vote for the treaty bill once, while promising publicly that it would go no further.

The treaty’s principles had been negotiated and debated for 184 years, Luxon told reporters Thursday, and it was “simplistic” for Seymour to suggest that they could be resolved “through the stroke of a pen.”

Government lawmakers made awkward speeches in parliament explaining that they opposed the bill before voting for it to jeers from opponents, who demanded they break ranks. Luxon was spared that; he left the country for the meeting of leaders from the Asia-Pacific APEC bloc hours before the vote.

His political horse-trading drew scorn from opposition lawmakers.

Fraught, outraged response

“Shame! Shame! Shame on you, David Seymour,” roared Willie Jackson, a veteran Maori lawmaker. “Shame on you for what you’re trying to do to this nation.”

Jackson was thrown out of the debating chamber by Speaker Gerry Brownlee for calling Seymour a liar.

“You are complicit in the harm and the division that this presents,” said Rawiri Waititi, a lawmaker from Te Pāti Maori, an Indigenous group, speaking to all who advanced the bill.

“If you vote for this bill, this is who you are,” Green party leader Chloe Swarbrick told Luxon’s lawmakers.

No one deviated from their planned votes and the bill passed. But not before one final flashpoint.

Rare outburst

When asked how her party’s lawmakers would vote, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of Te Pāti Maori stood and began a ringing haka – a rhythmic Maori chant of challenge – which swelled to a roar as first opposition lawmakers, and then spectators in the public gallery, joined in.

An irate Brownlee was unable to quiet the fracas as opponents approached Seymour’s seat. The live broadcast of Parliament’s proceedings was cut and Brownlee ordered the public be removed before the vote resumed.

He suspended Maipi-Clarke, 22, from Parliament for a day.

The bill will proceed to a public submission process before another vote. Seymour hopes for an outpouring of support to change Luxon’s mind about vetoing it.

The proposal will shortly roil Parliament again. Thousands of protesters are due to arrive in the capital, Wellington, on Tuesday for what is likely to be one of the largest race relations marches in New Zealand’s history.
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hong kong — Hong Kong’s high court on Thursday sentenced a man to 23 years and 10 months in prison for being the leader of an alleged plot to attack police with explosives during the city’s pro-democracy and anti-China protests in 2019.

The man, Ng Chi-hung, had been charged under the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Ordinance, for offences linked to a conspiracy to use explosives and firearms to endanger life.

Another defendant, the leader of a group known as the ‘Dragon Slayers’ which was active during the 2019 protests, was sentenced to 13 years and six months imprisonment.

The long jail terms come amid a protracted national security clampdown by China in the global financial hub, and is the first time the UN anti-terrorism ordinance has been used in Hong Kong since 2002. 
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MANILA, Philippines — The fifth major storm in three weeks approached the Philippines on Thursday, prompting more largescale evacuations and a United Nations request for emergency funds to help the government ease the plight of hard-hit villagers.

Typhoon Usagi had sustained winds of up to 185 kph and gusts of up to 230 kph and was forecast to strengthen further before slamming Thursday afternoon into the coast of Cagayan province at the northern tip of Luzon, the country’s most populous agricultural region.

Another storm was brewing in the Pacific and may hit the northern Philippines this weekend, according to forecasters.

The country’s weather agency warned of life-threatening tidal surges of up to 3 meters in coastal areas of Cagayan and seven other nearby provinces and clusters of islands, and urged all ships to remain in port or immediately take shelter.

Typhoon Toraji blew away from the northern Philippines just two days ago after unleashing floods, knocking down power lines and forcing more than 42,000 people to evacuate their homes.

The government has struggled to deal with the impact of the last four major storms, which left at least 160 people dead, displaced millions and devastated farmland and infrastructure, mostly in the northern Luzon region.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has spent more than 1 billion pesos ($17 million) for food and other aid for hundreds of thousands of storm victims, Welfare Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao said.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, who oversees disaster-response efforts, sought the help of neighboring countries, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, in providing additional aircraft to transport food, water and other aid to villages isolated by the storms. The United States, Manila’s longtime treaty ally, deployed cargo aircraft with food and other assistance.

The U.N. Humanitarian Country Team in the Philippines said it was raising $32.9 million to help the government provide assistance to about 210,000 people in critical need of aid and protection, especially women, children and people with disabilities, in the next three months.

“The Philippines is facing an exceptionally challenging tropical cyclone season, with successive cyclones reaching unprecedented locations and scales,” the U.N. team in said in its emergency plan. “Local authorities, who are often impacted themselves, are overwhelmed as they simultaneously respond to the crisis and coordinate rescue efforts for affected families.”

The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year. It is often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines. 
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washington — A hack of U.S. telecommunications systems linked to China that initially appeared to focus on the American presidential campaigns goes much deeper, according to investigators, and is likely part of a vast effort by Beijing to spy on the United States.

The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned on Wednesday that the breach first detected late last month has now “revealed a broad and significant cyber espionage campaign.”

The two agencies said in a statement that their investigation has confirmed Chinese-linked hackers compromised the networks of multiple U.S. telecommunication companies, gaining access to a potential treasure trove of information.

Specifically, they said the hackers would have been able to access customer call records and infiltrate the private communications of a select number of government officials and politicians.

Additionally, the hackers appear to have been able to copy information requested by U.S. law enforcement as a result of court orders.

“We expect our understanding of these compromises to grow as the investigation continues,” the FBI and CISA said.

“We encourage any organization that believes it might be a victim to engage its local FBI field office or CISA,” they added.

The two agencies first announced they were investigating a breach of U.S. telecommunications systems in late October, less than two weeks before U.S. voters cast their ballots in nationwide elections.

Word of the breach followed a report by The New York Times that Chinese hackers were thought to have broken into telecommunications networks to target the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump — including phones used by Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

The Trump campaign confirmed the breach in a statement to VOA. Separately, a person familiar with the investigation told VOA that people affiliated with the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris were also targeted.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington at the time dismissed the U.S. hacking allegations as disinformation, calling the U.S. “the origin and the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks.”

The embassy has yet to respond to the latest FBI and CISA allegations.

U.S. intelligence agencies warned for months that foreign adversaries were using a combination of cyberattacks and influence operations to meddle with the November 5 U.S. presidential election.

In addition, reports issued by private cybersecurity firms indicated a significant uptick in activity by actors linked to Russia, China and Iran.

All three nations have repeatedly denied accusations of election meddling.

U.S. agencies, led by CISA and the FBI, have long warned that China-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. computer systems and networks, in some cases hiding for years.

The China-linked group, known as Volt Typhoon, has been “positioning itself to launch destructive cyberattacks that would jeopardize the physical safety of Americans,” according to an advisory issued in February.

“What we’ve found to date is likely the tip of the iceberg,” CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement at the time.
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet November 16 on the sidelines of the 2024 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC summit in Lima, Peru, the White House announced Wednesday.

The meeting follows the leaders’ last in-person engagement a year ago on the sidelines of the APEC summit in California, and their 2022 meeting in Bali on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

Biden and Xi are expected to revisit areas of cooperation, particularly the resumption of military-to-military contacts, efforts to combat the global fentanyl crisis and nascent work to deal with the risks of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, a senior administration said in a briefing with reporters Wednesday.

The U.S. president will also express “deep concern” over Beijing’s support for Moscow’s war against Ukraine, and the deployment of North Korean troops to aid Russia, said the official, who requested anonymity to speak on the upcoming meeting. The official said Biden will also reiterate his “longstanding concern” over China’s “unfair trade policies and non-market economic practices” that hurt American workers.

The official added Biden will raise Chinese cyber-attack efforts on U.S. civilian critical infrastructure as well as Beijing’s increased military activities around Taiwan and the South China Sea while also underscoring the importance of respect for human rights.

The meeting is likely to be the last between Biden and Xi ahead of the incoming administration of Donald Trump in January. The president-elect has appointed ardent China critics in key foreign policy positions that could lead to a more confrontational U.S. posture toward Beijing. They include Republican Congressman Mike Waltz as Trump’s pick for national security adviser and Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.

Whatever the next administration decides, they’re going to need to find ways to manage the “tough, complicated relationship” between the U.S. and China, the official said in response to a question from VOA.

“Russia, cross-strait issues, the South China Sea and cyber are areas the next administration is going to need to think about carefully, because those are areas of deep policy difference with China, and I don’t expect that will disappear,” the official said.

Xi is also likely anticipating what the Trump administration plans to do about global trade, particularly whether he will enact promises to impose steep tariffs on all Chinese goods.
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ZHUHAI, China — Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai removed wreaths, candles and even bottles of Chinese alcohol laid at the scene of the deadliest mass killing in the country in a decade, as the government scrambled to respond and censor the outrage online.

On Monday, a male driver angry at his divorce settlement rammed his car into a crowd at a sports center in the city of 2.5 million, killing 35 people and injuring 43, but the government took almost a day to announce the death toll.

This prompted an outrage on Chinese social media, where posts complaining about the government’s slow response and raising questions about the mental health of a nation shaken by a recent spate of similar killings, were being quickly removed.

Despite the efforts to clear the site in Zhuhai, which is near Macau, delivery drivers on motorbikes kept dropping off fresh flowers on Wednesday morning, even as authorities erected temporary barriers around the makeshift vigil area and deployed security personnel.

“The authorities hadn’t released any information – some colleagues mentioned it and I couldn’t believe it at first, but it was confirmed later,” said a 50-year-old man who identified himself as Zheng who brought flowers to the site.

“It’s just a spontaneous feeling I had. Even though I don’t know them personally, I had family members who passed away in the past, so I understand that feeling,” said Zheng.

Some wreaths carried handwritten notes: “Strangers travel well. May there be no demons in heaven,” read one. On another: “May there be no thugs in heaven. Good will triumph over evil. Rest in peace.”

After initially allowing journalists to briefly speak to the people laying the flowers, a handful of security personnel sporting light blue uniforms and caps told reporters not to talk to the people or to film specific messages on the bouquets.

The attack happened as Zhuhai captured China’s attention with the People’s Liberation Army’s largest annual airshow, where a new stealth jet fighter is on display for the first time.

China’s state broadcaster CCTV did not mention the attack in its 30-minute midday news bulletin. Instead, the program led with President Xi Jinping’s departure for the APEC summit in Peru and devoted a portion of the airtime to the airshow.

Other state media, such as China Daily’s Chinese language website, also prominently displayed the news of Xi’s upcoming visit to Peru. The current affairs part of China Daily’s website and the local area page did not mention the incident either.

Hundreds of rescue personnel were deployed to provide emergency treatment, and more than 300 healthcare workers from five hospitals worked around the clock to save lives, state media’s Beijing Daily reported on Tuesday.

There was no indication that the attack was related to the airshow. But it was the second such incident to occur during the Zhuhai airshow: in 2008, at least four people were killed and 20 injured when a man drove a truck into a crowded schoolyard during the airshow. Police said that attacker had been seeking revenge over a traffic dispute.

Xi, cited by CCTV on Tuesday, ordered all-out efforts to treat the injured and demanded severe punishment for the perpetrator. The central government has dispatched a team to provide guidance on handling of the case, CCTV said.

Violent crime is rare in China due to tight security and strict gun laws. However, a rise in reports of knife attacks in large cities has drawn public attention to safety in public spaces.

The deadliest attack Reuters was able to identify in recent years in China took place in Urumqi, in China’s western Xinjiang region, in 2014, in which suicide bombers killed 39 people and four of the five attackers also died.
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white house — President Joe Biden and President Prabowo Subianto met Tuesday at the White House, marking the 75th anniversary of U.S.-Indonesia relations, part of a multination visit by the newly inaugurated leader of Southeast Asia’s largest economy.   

“I will work very hard to strengthen Indonesia and United States relationship,” said Prabowo, who goes by his first name.    

Biden said he looks forward to deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the highest level among nontreaty allies, which the two countries signed in 2023. “That includes deepening our security cooperation,” he said before their meeting. 

In brief remarks to the press, Biden twice raised an issue of concern for Washington: freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. He said he wanted to strengthen the U.S. partnership with Indonesia, “by advancing [a] free and open Indo-Pacific.”   

“We’ll discuss, also, global challenges, including in Gaza and the South China Sea,” he said.   

China’s nine-dash line 

The White House meeting came days after Prabowo’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where Indonesia and China signed a series of agreements valued at about $10 billion and focusing on infrastructure, green energy, digital technology and agriculture.

“In the present situation, geopolitical and geoeconomic, Indonesia and China have become very close partners in many, many fields,” Prabowo said.   

One of the deals is to jointly develop fisheries, and oil and gas exploration in waters around Indonesia’s Natuna Islands where China’s “nine-dash line” marking its expansive claims in the South China Sea overlaps with Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.  

Critics say the agreement risks implicitly validating China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, which, according to the United Nations, has no basis in international law.  

VOA asked the White House whether Biden was specifically referring to this deal in his meeting with Prabowo. 

“We continue to encourage Indonesia to work with their legal experts to make sure any agreement they make with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is in accordance with international law, especially the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.   

Beijing claims the major shipping route almost entirely, infringing into the EEZs of Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. All but Indonesia formally dispute the Chinese claim while Taiwan makes a claim to the sea similar to Beijing’s.   

“It’s a big deal for Indonesia,” as a non-claimant country in the South China Sea dispute that supports the concept of a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Klaus Heinrich Raditio, author on South China Sea issues and lecturer at Indonesia’s Driyarkara School of Philosophy. “People will question our position,” he told VOA. 

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry clarified Sunday that it remains firm in rejecting China’s nine-dash line. 

Beijing’s claim, Jakarta said, “does not comply” with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and “therefore has no bearing” on Indonesia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over the North Natuna Sea. 

Jakarta’s agreement with Beijing highlights a “new phase of building the China-Indonesia community with a shared future,” according to the joint statement.  

This reference supports “China’s vision of a new global order that is anti-Western hegemony,” Raditio said. 

It’s unclear whether this language was an intentional signaling of a geopolitical shift or merely an overlook from a new administration eager to bolster ties with great powers. The Indonesian Embassy in Washington has not responded to VOA’s queries.    

“Most likely, it is a bureaucratic mistake,” Raditio said. “We put too much attention on economic cooperation. How many investments that we can attract from China? We kind of sideline other important issues.”    

Prabowo’s outreach to Trump 

Just as important to Jakarta as the White House meeting is Prabowo’s outreach to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Jakarta is gearing up for Trump’s new administration that begins in January.  

“Wherever you are, I’m willing to fly to congratulate you personally, sir,” Prabowo said in a call to Trump that was posted Monday on his social media.  

The Trump team has not responded to VOA’s queries on the conversation.  

U.S. foreign policy under Trump “may become more transactional and more focused on elements related to U.S.-China, competition,” said Andreyka Natalegawa, associate fellow for the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.    

“The downside risk of this as it relates to Southeast Asian countries, is that it may limit some of the decision-making space they have in their diplomatic affairs,” Natalegawa said.   

Prabowo has voiced ambitions to raise Indonesia’s international profile and has made early foreign policy moves, including a surprise decision to join Southeast Asia’s largest economy to the BRICS bloc.     

BRICS, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is a growing group of emerging economies seen as a counterweight to the West. In October, BRICS added Indonesia as one of the group’s 13 new “partner countries.” 

The move could be a shift away from the position taken by Prabowo’s predecessor, Joko Widodo, who took in massive amounts of infrastructure investments from Beijing but remained mostly nonaligned geopolitically.  

The White House visit marks a milestone for Prabowo, who was barred from entering the U.S. under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations over his role in abducting activists of the 1998 “Reformasi” movement that ousted President Suharto, Prabowo’s then father-in-law. 

The Trump administration lifted the visa ban for then-Defense Minister Prabowo, for his visit in 2020.   
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