NORTH KOREA
State-backed North Korean hackers have stolen over $400 million in cryptocurrency by using fake video calls to steal people’s identities. According to the FBI, over the past 18 months, more than 900 victims have fallen prey to this scheme, which the FBI has dubbed ‘FaceStealer’. The news comes a week after Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, revealed that hackers had used fake job interviews to steal a record $6.3 billion from the company.
CHINA – UNITED STATES
Tech billionaire Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of Nvidia, a manufacturer of AI chips, after it emerged that he had had two extramarital affairs: one with Alice Huang, suspected of being a Chinese spy, and another with Kimberly Powell, a senior executive. Huang has stated that he is willing to appear before Congress to discuss whether US national security has been compromised. The company’s shares plummeted at the opening of US markets, shortly after Huang’s resignation, and although they recovered slightly, they closed down by more than 4 per cent.
INDIA
India has launched an investigation to clarify how telecoms officials blocked certain websites on the basis of forged court orders, whilst the police have requested documents from the ministry as part of a criminal investigation, officials said on Thursday. Earlier this year, a department within the Ministry of Telecommunications ordered internet service providers to block 129 illegal gambling websites, but Reuters revealed that the directives were based on forged court orders.
MALAYSIA
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Thursday that he had not yet accepted the resignation of Democratic Action Party (DAP) leader Anthony Loke from his post as Transport Minister. Speaking ahead of this weekend’s state elections, Anwar rejected accusations of disloyalty towards the King regarding the issue of the conditional pardon granted to former Prime Minister Najib Razak – the reason why Loke had tendered his resignation – stating that he continues to enjoy a good relationship with the monarch. Loke had first announced his resignation in September, in protest against the conditional royal pardon granted to Najib, who had been convicted of corruption.
TURKEY
Nine of the eleven suspects detained in connection with an explosion at the HABAŞ steelworks in Izmir, which killed 19 workers, have been arrested, whilst the company’s chairman, Mehmet Rüştü Başaran, has been released under house arrest. The Aliağa Public Prosecutor’s Office is conducting an investigation into the explosion that took place on 9 November in the Aliağa district. Nine suspects have been remanded in custody by a duty judge. Meanwhile, Turkey has signed 10 loan agreements worth $5.1 billion with multilateral development banks to accelerate its green transition, on the sidelines of COP31, which is taking place in Antalya until 20 November.
RUSSIA – NATO
Russia could conclude bilateral non-aggression pacts with individual NATO countries, which could then receive further individual security guarantees from Moscow, as stated by Aleksey Drobinin, director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the Collective Security Forum in Moscow. Another option would be defensive alliances, in which participants commit to assisting one another in the event of an attack; Drobinin cited as examples the Eurasian CSTO alliance and the agreements between Russia, Belarus and North Korea, as well as Moscow’s agreement with Iran: in the event of aggression, the parties undertake not to support each other’s adversaries.
KAZAKHSTAN
Almaty, Kazakhstan’s main city, found itself completely flooded following a series of torrential downpours: the roads, pavements and pedestrian areas were all under water, and even the metro entrance had been flooded. At the junction of Abai and Žarokov streets, water began to flow down the stairs towards the Alatau underground station. Civil protection services and groups of volunteers are working round the clock to try to mitigate the worst effects of the bad weather.
