The only surprising thing about the proposal advanced by China’s Communist Party to eliminate term limits for the country’s president and vice president is that anyone is surprised.
Throughout his first term, President Xi Jinping worked assiduously to enhance his power and prolong his tenure at the expense of the collective leadership. The important question now is where will an untethered Xi focus his attention?
Jews in Ethiopia have threatened to stage a mass hunger strike if the Israeli government slashes immigration funding intended to help them reunite with their relatives in Israel, the The Associated Press reports.
The backdrop: Israel airlifted about 14,500 Ethiopian Jews in 1991 during a civil war in Ethiopia, and in 2015 it vowed to bring remaining Ethiopian Jews to join their relatives, the AP reports. But that effort has been reportedly stalled. Per the AP, there are about 8,000 Jews in Ethiopia who have relatives in Israel.
Deutsche Welle reports that Fancy Bear, the believed-Russian hackers behind the DNC hacking in 2018, hacked the computer networks of Germany's internal ministry and dwelled in the network for as much as a year. German officials confirmed to Reuters that a hack took place, but made no such attribution.
Why it matters: Though Germany was mum about who was behind this most recent hack, its parliamentary body, the Bundestag, announced in 2016 it had been attacked by Fancy Bear.
Israel is concerned by what it sees as a policy difference with the U.S. on countering Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, officials say. The issue is going to be discussed again in the White House meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump on Monday.
The bottom line: A senior Israeli official who deals with the Iranian activity in Syria told me the U.S. is not doing enough to help counter Iranian entrenchment. He added that there is a big gap between the American rhetoric against Iran and the action.
"It is comfortable for the Americans to let us be their sub-contractor against Iran in Syria. We are very worried", the official told me.
Fancy Bear, the believed-Russian espionage group thought to be behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, appears to be targeting North American and European foreign affairs officials, including a European embassy in Moscow, according to a Palo Alto Networks report.
Why it matters: No matter what the intent, any attack from Fancy Bear will stir up questions about Russia and the U.S.'s inaction after the 2016 election. Though cyber espionage is generally considered fair game by most foreign countries — it's the leaking of information and other malicious damage associated with Russian campaigns that is problematic — Fancy Bear's 2016 exploits make it harder to treat as a traditional espionage actor.
The details: The diplomats were sent Microsoft Excel files laced with malware in emails that appear to be calendars for upcoming events from the industry publication Jane's Defense Weekly.
A believed-Iranian hacking group nicknamed Chafer that previously focused on domestic surveillance has been turned loose on the international air transport industry, according to a new report from Symantec.
The bottom line: Iran has other options in its cyber offensive, including more sophisticated government-lead groups. But with this rapid expansion of Chafer's portfolio, "[m]ore then likely, their mandate will broaden in the next few years," said Symantec Technical Director Vikram Thakur.
Kim Jong-un and his family used illegally-obtained passports from Brazil in order to apply for Western visas, Reuters reports.
Why it matters: One senior Western security source told Reuters the passports showed "the desire for travel and points to the ruling family's attempts to build a possible escape route." The ruling family of the reclusive nation used the passports, which were full of fake information, to travel to Japan, Hong Kong, and Brazil.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Monday sent a letter to Treasury Sec. Mnuchin, asking that the Committee for Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) review Broadcom's proposed takeover of Qualcomm. His big concern is that the deal could result in a controversial Chinese company with effective control over U.S. telecom infrastructure, via future development of 5G technology.
Why it matters: This is a highly unusual request, and not only because the two chipmakers haven't yet agreed to merge.
Chinese censors took swift action to ban certain words and phrases from Weibo, China's version of Twitter, amid fallout from the Communist Party's proposal to do away with presidential term limits, the Guardian reports.
The big picture: The move shows just how swift China's autocratic regime can be, especially as use of the letter "N" was blocked from the service for a period of time. Victor Mair, a China expert at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in a blog post that the decision came about “probably out of fear on the part of the government that ‘N’ = ‘n terms in office’, where possibly n > 2.”
