A powerful typhoon was forecast to bring 2 feet of rain and damaging winds to the Tokyo area this weekend, and Japan’s government warned people Friday to stockpile supplies and evacuate before it’s too dangerous. The Rugby World Cup and other events were canceled for Saturday, and flights and train services halted.“In order to protect your own life and your loved ones, please try to start evacuating early before it gets dark and the storm becomes powerful,” Meteorological Agency forecast department chief Yasushi Kajihara told a news conference.Kajihara said Typhoon Hagibis resembled a typhoon that hit the Tokyo region in 1958 with heavy rains and left a half-million houses flooded. More than 1,200 people died in that storm.Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet is to hold a disaster management meeting later Friday. “The government is doing the utmost to prepare for the approaching typhoon,” disaster management minister Ryota Takeda told reporters, and urged people to prepare early and obtain food and water. Men look at fishing boats as surging waves hit against the breakwater while Typhoon Hagibis approaches at a port in town of Kiho, Mie Prefecture, Japan, Oct. 11, 2019.Economy Minister Isshu Sugawara urged hospitals and other public facilities to check their backup power. Landfall SaturdayTyphoon Hagibis was in the Pacific advancing north-northwest toward Japan’s main island. Its winds were blowing 180 kilometers per hour (110 mph) with gusts to 250 kph (156 mph) at Friday, the weather agency said. It’s expected to weaken before landfall Saturday.Up to 800 millimeters (30 inches) of rain was forecast south and west of Tokyo, while the capital region may see 600 mm (23.6 inches) of rain from Saturday morning to Sunday morning. It’s forecast to pass out to sea by Sunday afternoon.The storm is expected to disrupt sports and holiday events on the three-day weekend that includes Sports Day on Monday. Two Rugby World Cup matches — England vs. France, and New Zealand vs. Italy — that were to be played Saturday were canceled. Qualifying for a Formula One auto racing in Suzuka was pushed to Sunday. And the Defense Ministry cut a three-day annual navy review to just Monday.Flights, trains canceledAll Nippon Airways grounded all domestic flights Saturday at Tokyo’s Haneda and Narita international airports, while Japan Airlines has canceled all but early morning flights at Tokyo airports.Central Japan Railway Co. said it will cancel all bullet train services between Tokyo and Osaka except for several early Saturday trains connecting Nagoya and Osaka in the west.Residents in Tokyo were starting to stock up on bottled water, cup noodles and other food.The typhoon is spreading fear especially in Chiba, near Tokyo, which was hit by Typhoon Faxai last month and where homes still have damage.Chiba city distributed sandbags to shield against flooding and urged residents to make sure they have enough food and water and that their phones are charged.
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Chinese basketball fans filled an arena Thursday in Shanghai for a National Basketball Association exhibition game despite the ongoing public backlash over a tweet from the Houston Rockets general manager in support of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.Video posted on social media by a Los Angeles Times reporter show Chinese fans, many wearing NBA jerseys, cheering and taking pictures as the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets made their way onto the court.  The scene as the Lakers take the court 15 minutes before this game. A fan drapes a Chinese national flag over an NBA banner during a preseason NBA basketball game between the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai, China, Oct. 10, 2019.On Tuesday, two people were removed from a Philadelphia 76ers game because they carried small signs that read, “Free Hong Kong” and “Free HK.”U.S. professional sports leagues are no strangers to political controversy. In 2016, the NFL drew attention when several African American players began sitting during the national anthem, participating in “Black Lives Matter” protests over the treatment of black people in the United States.Since then, the leagues, owners and players have negotiated over when and where political statements are appropriate. The NBA has been seen as the most permissive American professional sports league for allowing the airing of political views.An NBA statement issued earlier this week appeared to indicate that policy may shift when it comes to Chinese political views.”We recognize that the views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable,” a spokesman said.”While Daryl has made it clear that his tweet does not represent the Rockets or the NBA, the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them.”U.S. politicians criticized that position.FILE – Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks during a hearing of a Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, March 6, 2019.Missouri Senator Josh Hawley wrote a letter to the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, and the 30 NBA team owners criticizing their decision to “help the most brutal of regimes silence dissent in pursuit of profit.”Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a socialist-leaning Democrat, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz were among those signing a letter saying, “It is outrageous that the Chinese Communist Party is using its economic power to suppress the speech of Americans inside the United States. “China has been facing international pressure over its support of crackdowns against protesters in Hong Kong. The protests started in opposition to a law that would have allowed mainland China to extradite citizens from Hong Kong. The territory’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, later announced her government planned to officially withdraw the bill. The demonstrations, however, have continued over what protesters see as China’s efforts to restrict Hong Kong’s autonomy.
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The NBA called off scheduled media sessions Wednesday for the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers in Shanghai, and it remains unclear if the teams will play in China this week as scheduled.The teams were practicing in Shanghai, where at least two other NBA events in advance of the start of the China games were canceled as part of the ongoing rift that started after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey posted a tweet last week that showed support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.“Given the fluidity of the situation, today’s media availability has been postponed,” the league said. By nightfall Wednesday in China, which is 12 hours ahead of Eastern time in the U.S., the availabilities had not been rescheduled — though having them on Thursday remains possible.An NBA Cares event in Shanghai that was to benefit Special Olympics was called off, as was a “fan night” celebration that was to be highlighted by the league announcing plans to refurbish some outdoor courts in that city. And workers in multiple spots around Shanghai were tearing down large outdoor promotional advertisements for Thursday’s Lakers-Nets game.The teams are also supposed to play Saturday in Shenzhen. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver met with players from both the Nets and Lakers on Wednesday in Shanghai, telling them that the league’s intention remains to play the games as scheduled.Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has joined the list of companies that have suspended — for now, at least — ties with the NBA, and that only adds to the uncertainty over whether the China games will be played. Vivo was a presenting sponsor of the Lakers-Nets games, and on Wednesday there was no reference to the game in Shanghai on the list of upcoming events scheduled at Mercedes-Benz Arena. Other firms such as apparel company Li-Ning announced similar moves earlier this week, as the rift was just beginning.Silver said Tuesday in Tokyo that he supports Morey’s right to free speech. Several Chinese companies have suspended their partnership with the NBA in recent days, and Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said it will not broadcast the Lakers-Nets games.“I’m sympathetic to our interests here and to our partners who are upset,” Silver said. “I don’t think it’s inconsistent on one hand to be sympathetic to them and at the same time stand by our principles.”All around China, stores that sell NBA merchandise were removing Rockets-related apparel from shelves and many murals featuring the Rockets — even ones with Yao Ming, the Chinese great who played for Houston during his NBA career — were being painted over.San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich spoke out Tuesday in Miami in support of how Silver is handling the situation.“And it wasn’t easy for him to say,” Popovich said. “He said that in an environment fraught with possible economic peril. But he sided with the principles that we all hold dearly, or most of us did until the last three years. So I’m thrilled with what he said.”Other NBA coaches have not been so willing to discuss the situation. Philadelphia’s Brett Brown said he did not wish to get into specifics of the China-NBA rift, though he said he has been to that country many times and is always blown away by how popular the game is there.“Just massive amounts of basketball courts and you’re looking out and there’s no available court,” Brown said. “It’s just people playing on a court. I took a (lower-level) Australian team to China and the story comes there was 400 million viewers watching not the true national team. You’re just reminded of the popularity of the sport.”Brown’s 76ers played a Chinese team — the Guangzhou Loong Lions — on Tuesday night, and two fans said they were removed by arena security for holding signs and chanting in support of Hong Kong. The signs read “Free Hong Kong” and “Free HK.”The sentiment was not different from Morey’s since-deleted tweet last week of an image that read, “Fight For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong.”The NBA is not the first major corporation to deal with criticism from China over political differences. Mercedes-Benz, Delta Air Lines, hotel operator Marriott, fashion brand Zara and others also have found themselves in conflicts with China in recent years.After Morey’s tweet was deleted, Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta said Morey does not speak for the organization. Joe Tsai, who recently completed his purchase of the Nets and is a co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has said the damage to the NBA’s relationship with China “will take a long time to repair.”
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Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit India to hold an informal summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 11 and 12.The meeting in a coastal temple town near the southern Indian city of Chennai is expected to smooth out ties that have been strained over various issues.
 
The latest issue to cloud relations between the Asian giants is the August revocation by New Delhi of constitutional autonomy in the disputed region of Kashmir. China’s protests over the action and its strong backing of Pakistan on the issue have raised anger in India, which says the decision is an internal matter. India and Pakistan both claim the Himalayan region and have fought two wars over the territory.
 
“The forthcoming Chennai Informal Summit will provide an opportunity for the two leaders to continue their discussions on overarching issues of bilateral, regional and global importance and to exchange views on deepening India-China Closer Development Partnership,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
 Ahead of the summit, China’s envoy to New Delhi, Sun Weidong, also struck an optimistic note saying that it is “normal” for neighbors to have differences.“The key is to properly handle differences and find a solution through dialogue and consultation,” he told news agency ANI.
 
China and India are also expected to discuss issues related to their disputed boundary and trade.
 
India wants more access to China’s markets to bridge a $ 55 billion trade deficit in China’s favor while Beijing has been urging New Delhi to allow telecom equipment maker Huawei to bid for India’s proposed 5G network.
 
India has not yet said whether it would invite the company, which has been blacklisted by the United States due to national security concerns, to do so.
 
In recent years, the U.S. and India have built close strategic ties aimed at counterbalancing China’s growing influence in the region.
 
The second informal meeting between the two leaders comes a year-and-a-half after Modi and Xi met in China in the wake of a military standoff in the Himalayan mountains that had raised fears of a wider conflict between the Asian giants. The standoff involved a strategic plateau that is disputed between China and Bhutan but is also of enormous strategic significance for India.
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Officials are working urgently to retrieve the bodies of 11 elephants that died after trying to save each other from a waterfall in a national park in central Thailand.Park rangers had initially thought six adult elephants had died Saturday while trying to save a three-year-old calf that had slipped down the falls.But Monday, a drone found the bodies of five more elephants in the waters below the fall in Khao Yai National Park.Authorities have strung a net downstream to catch the bodies as they float down the fast-moving waters. There is concern that the rotting bodies will contaminate the water.Officers expect the bodies to reach the net in a few days. The elephants will be buried and the area sealed with hydrated lime to prevent contamination, the Bangkok Post reported.This is not the first such incident at the waterfall, known as Haew Narok (Hell’s Fall). In 1998, eight elephants died at the same site.Park officials put up fencing to keep the wild animals away from the area, but that has not worked.The park is home to about 300 of Thailand’s approximately 3,000 wild animals.
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The U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors Tuesday to discuss North Korea’s Oct. 2 ballistic missile launch.”The council decided to remain united on the issue and encourage DPRK and the U.S. to go back to Stockholm, to Sweden, for the discussions on this matter,” South African Ambassador Jerry Matjila said. DPRK is the acronym for North Korea’s official name.Council diplomats were briefed by U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Khaled Khiari, on the missile, which was launched from a submarine.What appears to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) flies at an undisclosed location in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA), Oct. 2, 2019.U.S. deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen represented Washington at the meeting, which lasted less than an hour. Diplomats said he did not offer any new details of the bilateral talks that broke down on Saturday in Sweden between the U.S. and North Korea.Diplomats said China linked the launch to the lack of progress in talks with the U.S.North Korea wants to see tough economic sanctions lifted, while the United States insists on maintaining “maximum pressure” until Pyongyang takes concrete steps toward the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear program.On Monday, DPRK U.N. Ambassador Kim Song said that raising the issue of its missile tests at the Security Council would “further urge our desire to defend our sovereignty,” the Reuters news agency reported.North Korean ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song speaks during a news conference in New York, Oct 7, 2019.Germany, Britain and France called for Tuesday’s discussion. Afterward, they were joined by the other European members of the council  Belgium and Poland — as well as Estonia, which will take a seat on the council in January — to express their “deep collective concern” about North Korea’s behavior.”We reiterate our condemnation of these provocative actions: They undermine regional security and stability and they are in clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” France’s U.N. ambassador, Nicolas de Riviére, told reporters on behalf of the group. “It is vital that the Security Council upholds its resolutions. International sanctions must remain in place and be fully and strictly enforced.” 
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It probably cannot quite be called the Uber for crime fighting.But that is the main public service mission now that the Uber of Southeast Asia, Grab Inc, has signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate with the Vietnamese police.Under the MOU (Memorandom of Understanding), announced on Monday, the police in Ho Chi Minh City will provide training in self defense and criminal law to drivers, while Grab Inc. will also provide education so its drivers should know how to look out for signs of criminal behavior and report it to the police.The cooperation raises questions about the line between personal privacy and public safety, as well as about the appropriate role for a private company or private individual in terms of policing efforts.”We are honored to work together with the Police Department to actively contribute to the fight against crime and make the lives of every citizen safer day by day,” Jerry Lim, the director of Grab Vietnam, said. “The coordination between the two parties not only contributes to ensure order and security in society but also protects the safety of Grab’s driver partners and customers.”Hotline
The MOU also establishes a 24 hour hotline between the police and Grab Inc., a startup that bought out rival Uber’s business in Southeast Asia last year. This comes after the alleged homicide of a Grab driver by two young men in the capital city of Hanoi. News of the alleged crime has attracted widespread attention and raised concerns of public safety.There is also some relevance in the new California law that Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft Inc., and other companies in the gig economy must recognize workers as employees with benefits, and not as independent contractors. While Grab Inc. is not covered by the California law, the ride hailing company has also emphasized that its drivers are not full time employees. That would make it unclear as to whether under the law it can require its drivers in Ho Chi Minh City to partake in the public safety training.Grab competes with Go-Viet, Be, and FastGo in Vietnam’s ride hailing sector.Competition among motorbike drivers in Vietnam includes Go-Viet, Be, FastGo and Grab. (H. Nguyen/VOA)Dangerous situations
Besides self defense moves, the training is meant to teach drivers how to identify potentially dangerous situations and common methods or tricks used by criminals. Motorbike taxi and car drivers are also supposed to learn the protocol to quickly report to the police if they suspect a possible threat to someone’s life, health, safety, or personal property.This does not address situations in which it is the driver himself or herself who may commit the crime against a customer. It also could create a slippery slope, as it is not always clear what can be perceived as a crime. The customer could see a case as his own private behavior in a car, while a driver could see it as suspicious behavior.Unlike in neighboring China, Vietnam does not have the same kind of mass surveillance. The MOU does not mean ride hailing drivers are an extension of law enforcement. Grab Inc. described the cooperation with the police as an example of the people participating in the movement to protect homeland security. Under the cooperation there is more responsibility on the individual, as drivers may have to defend themselves in dangerous circumstances or look out for criminal behavior.Self-defense
So that more drivers can know the law and principles of self defense, this training could spread around Vietnam in the future.”In parallel with the development of services, we also aim to make transportation safer for customers and drivers by constantly improving. safety standards in the field of transport in general,” Lim said. He added, “We hope that the cooperation between the two sides will create an important foundation to be able to spread throughout the country in the near future.” 
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The Trump administration is putting 28 Chinese agencies and companies on what it calls its Entity List because of alleged human rights violations against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.Groups on the list are forbidden from buying various high-tech parts and components from U.S. companies without U.S. government permission.The Commerce Department says all those on the list — including the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region security bureau — have been accused of being part of the Chinese government’s campaign of repression, arbitrary mass arrests, and spying against Muslim minorities.”The U.S. government and Department of Commerce cannot and will not tolerate the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities within China,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said. “This action will ensure that our technologies, fostered in an environment of individual liberty and free enterprise, are not used to suppress defenseless minority populations.”China denies any deliberate campaign to oppress Muslim minorities, saying it is targeting those it calls religious extremists.It also dismisses reports of brutal prison camps for Uighurs, calling them education camps and training centers where there is no mistreatment.
 
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The White House says the next round of U.S-China trade talks will begin in Washington on Thursday.”United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin will welcome a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He for continued trade negotiations between the two countries starting on October 10, 2019,” a White House statement said. “The two sides will look to build on the deputy-level talks of the past weeks. Topics of discussion will include forced technology transfer, intellectual property rights, services, non-tariff barriers, agriculture, and enforcement.”The two sides last held major talks in July but there was no major breakthrough in the trade dispute between the world’s top two economies.Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a series of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs for more than a year, sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s initial demand for changes in China’s trade, subsidy and intellectual property practices.  China says U.S. trade policies are aimed at trying to stifle its ability to compete.The situation has cast uncertainty on financial markets and left companies scrambling to cope with the effects of the tariffs.President Trump announced last month that he was postponing a new round of tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods from October 1 to October 15 “as a gesture of goodwill.”  China followed up by lifting tariffs on U.S. soybeans, pork and some other farm goods 
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A Chinese military vessel is touring the contested South China Sea and beyond to meet foreign peers and train its own sailors, spreading goodwill while tightening its claim to a disputed sea and disrupting Australia’s traditional sphere of influence.Beijing has upset a swathe of Asia since 2010 by landfilling small islets in the contested South China Sea for military use. Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines all overlap China’s claim to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway. China calls about 90% of the sea its own.The naval training ship Qi Jiguang set out in late September on a two-month tour for training and visits to foreign countries, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s China Military news service says. Brunei, East Timor, Fiji, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea were on the map for the ship’s training-and-visit mission, its second since being commissioned in 2017.“This is an unusual case as far as I can see,” said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan “I think (China) is probably exercising its soft power, particularly to try to convince the region that China is a benign power, it’s not an antagonistic power.”A goodwill mission could relieve international pressure on China from as far away as Washington to tone down its maritime expansion.Beijing began trying in 2016 to improve relations with the other South China Sea claimants after it lost a world arbitration court ruling to the Philippines over sovereignty boundaries. At the same time, Beijing has added military capacity to islets it already controls while exploring oceans normally dominated by Western-allied former Cold War rivals.Visit to BruneiThe naval training ship called first for three days from September 27 at Port of Muara in Brunei, the Chinese military news service reported. More than 300 people including representatives of the Royal Brunei Navy showed up for its arrival.Chinese naval sailors and cadets were scheduled to visit a patrol ship under the host navy, hold “professional” exchanges and contribute to a beach environmental protection activity with Bruneian navy sailors, the news service said.Brunei and China dispute sovereignty over a rectangular tract of sea extending 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the tiny oil-reliant Southeast Asian country’s coast. The tract is considered rich in gas and oil reserves.All six claimants prize the tropical sea for those reserves as well as for fisheries and marine shipping lanes. China and Vietnam have clashed there periodically since the 1970s.Most of Asia lacks Beijing’s military power or technology at sea. On three major islets in the South China Sea’s Spratly chain, China has built runways and military aircraft hangars, according to an initiative under U.S. think tank Center for Strategic & International Studies. China also operates drones at sea, and in August an 8,000-ton transport ship passed trials that could let ferry supplies to the islets.The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations is pushing China this year to sign a maritime code of conduct that would head off maritime mishaps in the disputed sea.Wider reception for China Other countries on the training ship route fall outside the South China Sea dispute but inside Australia’s traditional sphere of political influence. Australia, Japan, India and the United States belong to a group — called the “quad” – that seeks to check China’s maritime expansion. Australian Navy ships transited twice in the South China Sea earlier this year, followed at times by the Chinese military.The countries asked to receive the training ship will probably make time for it, said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at The University of New South Wales in Australia. Other navies want to know who’s who among China’s forces, he said.“Resources for everyone are finite, there’s only 365 days a year, so once you put China on the calendar it blocks out time,” Thayer said. “This is building relationships, so you always prepare to go to war, but on the other end of the scale one way of averting war is to build these relationships.”Training for a blue-water navyThe Qi Jiguang vessel is also likely to train Chinese sailors for military activity, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. The people on board might train especially for maneuvers in seas where they seldom venture, he said, part of Beijing’s broader push to form a “blue-water navy”, he said.“They are taking baby steps to certainly exploring the neighborhood further in terms of going for an area they previously did not go to,” he said.China hopes the trainer ship voyage will test responses internationally, Yang said. He expected a “moderate” reaction overall.Australia will monitor the trainer ship’s movements, Oh said. Foreign countries overall will find it “less sensitive” than a Chinese cruiser or frigate, he added.
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As the U.S. warned allies around the world that Chinese tech giant Huawei was a security threat, the FBI was making the same point quietly to a Midwestern university.In an email to the associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, an agent wanted to know if administrators believed Huawei had stolen any intellectual property from the school.Told no, the agent responded: “I assumed those would be your answers, but I had to ask.”It was no random query.The FBI has been reaching out to colleges and universities across the country as it tries to stem what American authorities portray as the wholesale theft of technology and trade secrets by researchers tapped by China. The breadth and intensity of the campaign emerges in emails The Associated Press obtained through records requests to public universities in 50 states. The emails underscore the extent of U.S. concerns that universities, as recruiters of foreign talent and incubators of cutting-edge research, are particularly vulnerable targets.Agents have lectured at seminars, briefed administrators in campus meetings and distributed pamphlets with cautionary tales of trade secret theft. In the past 18 months, they’ve requested the emails of two University of Washington researchers, asked Oklahoma State University if it has scientists in specific areas and sought updates about “possible misuse” of research funds by a University of Colorado Boulder professor, the messages show.The emails show administrators mostly embracing FBI warnings, requesting briefings for themselves and others. But they also reveal some struggling to balance legitimate national security concerns against their own eagerness to avoid stifling research or tarnishing legitimate scientists. The Justice Department says it appreciates that push-pull and wants only to help universities separate the relatively few researchers engaged in theft from the majority who are not.Senior FBI officials told AP they’re not encouraging schools to monitor researchers by nationality but instead to take steps to protect research and to watch for suspicious behavior. They consider the briefings vital because they say universities, accustomed to fostering international and collaborative environments, haven’t historically been as attentive to security as they should be.“When we go to the universities, what we’re trying to do is highlight the risk to them without discouraging them from welcoming the researchers and students from a country like China,” John Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official, said in an interview.The effort comes amid a deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and China and as a trade war launched by President Donald Trump contributes to stock market turbulence and fears of a global economic slowdown. American officials have long accused China of stealing trade secrets from U.S. corporations to develop their economy, allegations Beijing denies.“Existentially, we look at China as our greatest threat from an intelligence perspective, and they succeeded significantly in the last decade from stealing our best and brightest technology,” said William Evanina, the U.S. government’s chief counterintelligence official.The FBI’s effort coincides with restrictions put in place by other federal agencies, including the Pentagon and Energy Department, that fund university research grants. The National Institutes of Health has sent dozens of letters in the past year warning schools of researchers it believes may have concealed grants received from China, or improperly shared confidential research information.The threat, officials say, is more than theoretical.In the past two months alone, a University of Kansas researcher was charged with collecting federal grant money while working full time for a Chinese university; a Chinese government employee was arrested in a visa fraud scheme that the Justice Department says was aimed at recruiting U.S. research talent; and a university professor in Texas was accused in a trade secret case involving circuit board technology.The most consequential case this year centered not on a university but on Huawei, charged in January with stealing corporate trade secrets and evading sanctions. The company denies wrongdoing. Several universities including the University of Illinois, which received the FBI email last February, have since begun severing ties with Huawei.The University of Minnesota did the same, with an administrator reassuring the FBI in an email last May that issues raised by a best practices letter an agent forwarded “have certainly been topics of conversation (and occasionally even action) in our halls for a while now.”But the Justice Department’s track record hasn’t been perfect, leading to pushback from some that the concerns are overstated.Federal prosecutors in 2017 dropped charges against a Temple University professor who’d been accused of sharing designs for a pocket heater with China. The professor, Xiaoxing Xi, is suing the FBI. “It was totally wrong,” he said, “so I can only speak from my experience that whatever they put out there is not necessarily true.”Richard Wood, the then-interim provost at the University of New Mexico, conveyed ambivalence in an email to colleagues last year. He wrote that he took seriously the national security concerns the FBI identified in briefings, but also remained “deeply committed to traditional academic norms regarding the free exchange of scientific knowledge wherever appropriate — a tradition that has been the basis of international scientific progress for several centuries.“There are real tensions between these two realities, and no simple solutions,” he wrote. “I do not think we would be wise to create new ‘policy’ on terrain this complex and fraught with internal trade-offs between legitimate concerns and values without some real dialogue on the matter.”A University of Colorado associate vice chancellor equivocated in January on how to handle an agent’s request for a meeting, emailing colleagues that the request to discuss university research felt “probing” and like “more of a fishing expedition” than past occasions. Another administrator replied that the FBI presumably wanted to discuss intellectual property theft, calling it “bright on their radar.”FBI officials say they’ve received consistently positive feedback from universities, and the emails do show many administrators requesting briefings, campus visits, or expressing eagerness for cooperation. A Washington State University administrator connected an FBI agent with his counterpart at the University of Idaho. The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill requested a briefing last February with an administrator, saying “we would like to understand more about the role of the FBI and how we can partner together.” A University of Nebraska official invited an agent to make a presentation as part of broader campus training.Kevin Gamache, chief research security officer for the Texas A&M University system, told AP he values his FBI interactions and that the communication goes both ways. The FBI shares threat information and administrators educate law enforcement about the realities of university research.“There’s no magic pill,” Gamache said. “It’s a dialogue that has to be ongoing.”The University of Nevada, Las Vegas vice president for research and economic development welcomed the assistance in a city she called the “birthplace of atomic testing. “We have a world-class radiochemistry faculty, our College of Engineering has significant numbers of faculty and students from China, and we have several other issues of concern to me as VPR. In all of these cases, the FBI is always available to help,” the administrator, Mary Croughan, emailed agents.The AP submitted public records requests for correspondence between the FBI and research officials at more than 50 schools.More than two dozen produced records, including seminar itineraries and an FBI pamphlet warning that China does “not play by the same rules of academic integrity” as American institutions observe. The document, titled “China: The Risk to Academia,” says Beijing is using “non-traditional collectors” like post-doctoral researchers to collect intelligence and that programs intended to promote international collaboration are being exploited.Some outreach is more general, like an agent’s offer to brief New Mexico State University on “how the FBI can best serve and protect.”But other emails show agents seeking tips or following leads.“If you have concerns about any faculty or graduate researchers, students, outside vendors … pretty much anything we previously discussed — just reminding you that I am here to help,” one wrote to Iowa State.In May, an agent sent the University of Washington a public records request for emails of two researchers, seeking references to Chinese-government talent recruitment programs the U.S. views with suspicion. A university spokesman said the school hasn’t investigated either professor.Last year, an agent warning of a “trend of international hostile collection efforts at US universities” asked Oklahoma State University if it had researchers in encryption research or quantum computing.The University of Colorado received an FBI request about an “internal investigation” into a professor’s “possible misuse” of NIH funding. The school said it found no misconduct involving the professor, who has resigned.Other emails show schools responding internally to government concerns.At Mississippi State, an administrator concerned about Iranian cyberattacks on colleges and government reports on foreign influence suggested to colleagues the school scrutinize graduate school applicants’ demographics. “Have to be careful so U.S. law is not violated re discrimination but where does one draw the line when protecting against known foreign states that are cyber criminals?” he wrote.Though espionage concerns aren’t new — federal prosecutors charged five Chinese military hackers in 2014 — FBI officials report an uptick in targeting of universities and more U.S. attention as a result. The FBI says it’s seen some progress from universities, with one official saying schools are more reliably pressing researchers about outside funding sources.Demers, the Justice Department official, said the focus reflects how espionage efforts are “as pervasive, as well-resourced, as ever today.“It’s a serious problem today on college campuses.”
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Rights groups and opposition parties in Thailand are warning that a new center authorities plan to open by next month to combat the spread of fake news online may be misused to target and silence government critics.Thailand emerged from five years of military rule after tainted elections in March that returned the leaders of a 2014 coup to power. The junta sued or arrested hundreds for peacefully protesting its rule and criticizing the military, often online.Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta announced the center’s pending arrival in August, adding Thailand to the list of countries in the region fortifying their fronts against online fake news.The state-run National News Bureau of Thailand later reported that the center would open by November 1 to vet dubious news found online and respond to any falsehoods jeopardizing peace and security with the facts via Facebook, the messaging application Line, and a dedicated website. It said the center would focus on natural disasters, the economy and finance, health products and hazards, and government policy.However, opposition parties and rights groups say the track record of the junta and the government that has replaced it, led by the pro-military Palang Pracharath party, provide reason to worry.”There are serious concerns that the proposed fake news center of the government will be yet another tool for censorship, because up until now all of the anti-fake news operation of Thai authorities focus exclusively on comments of critics and dissidents … while taking no action at all against misinformation and hate campaign from sources known to be connected to the military and Palang Pracharath party,” said Sunai Phasuk, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Thailand.Buddhipongse’s staff told VOA that no one was available to comment for this story.Another common concern among critics is that the center will combine the government’s alleged bias with the power to sue and arrest.The digital economy minister “has made it clear that the center will work as an interagency coordinating point and [be] authorized to prosecute people with various laws,” Sunai said. “So all this combined together are very draconian censorship tools that [the] Thai government has been using over the past five years under military rule. Now those rules have been consolidated into one center.”FILE – Thai Minister of Digital Economy and Society, Phutthipong Punnakan, center, greets during a news conference to announce the launching of government run anti-fake news center in Bangkok, Aug. 21. 2019.Arthit Suriyawongkul, co-founder of the Thai Netizen Network, which advocates for online freedom, shared his worry.”I still hope that they would do the right job. We would love to be positive about this, because in the end … we do think that fake news and disinformation in general, actually they do some harm,” he said, referring in particular of the spread of products speciously claimed to have medicinal value.Arthit said, however, that authorities have too often applied the “fake news” label to what is really just critical opinion.”We found that the effort, most of the time, is actually targeted [at] those [who are] anti-government or dissidents in general. And sometimes it’s not actually quite clear if [the] information is actually true or false,” he said.”So I think they just use the term [for] their convenience, as an excuse to clamp down [on] expression.”Thailand is not alone.Lasse Schuldt, a lecturer with the law faculty at Thailand’s Thammasat University, said Southeast Asia has become something of a “world’s laboratory” for so-called fake news laws.While Malaysia and Singapore have attracted the most attention for recent legislation taking the issue head-on, he said other countries in the region have their own laws covering fake news. In Thailand, the Computer Crimes Act specifically criminalizes the publication or sharing of false information online.When Thailand’s anti-fake news center is finally up and running, Schuldt said it will be in the company of similarly dedicated operations in Vietnam and Indonesia.The academic said a multilayered combination of developments was driving the trend, from the viral talk of “fake news” during the 2016 U.S. election to countries in Southeast Asia adopting and adapting the language for their own purposes.”Local realities influence the discourse as well,” he said. “Singapore points in particular to its perceived vulnerability and the prevention of foreign influence. Protracted political division is the background in Thailand. And Vietnam is mostly concerned about the protection of the [Communist] Party and the state.”The spread of fake news via social media has been blamed for sparking deadly clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar and for stoking racial and religious tensions ahead of national elections in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, earlier this year. 
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