Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 175

US soldier pleads guilty to selling secrets to China

A US Army analyst has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to sell military secrets to China, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has said. Sgt Korbein Schultz was arrested in March after an investigation by the FBI and US Army counterintelligence alleged that he was paid $42,000 (£33,000) in exchange for dozens of sensitive security records.The criminal conspiracy began in June 2022 and continued

Ex-PM's daughter picked as youngest ever Thai leader

Thailand's parliament has picked Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of billionaire tycoon and former leader Thaksin, as prime minister. At 37, she will be the country's youngest PM and the second woman in the post, after her aunt Yingluck. Her selection comes just two days after former PM Srettha Thavisin was dismissed by a constitutional court. Both are from the Pheu Thai Party, which came

Norman Pearlstine: "My Dinner with Jiang Zemin"

My first memories of China go back almost 50 years. Sitting in front of our 10-in. Philco television, over milk and peanut-butter sandwiches, my closest third-grade friends and I watched, with fascination and terror, the grainy news footage of Chinese soldiers crossing the Yalu River into Korea. It was 1950, the year after Mao Zedong and the communists had taken control of China, exiling General

The Hidden Stories of China's Past

“To destroy a country’s people, start with destroying their history,” Gong Zizhen (1792-1841), a famous Chinese poet and intellectual from the Qing dynasty, wrote over a hundred years before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rose to power.Today, Xi Jinping and the CCP exercise a tighter control than ever over China’s past. The CCP Propaganda Department and other government entities censor all

Japan lifts 'megaquake' warning after one week

Japan has lifted its warning about a potential “megaquake”, one week after it was issued. The warning told people to be alert but not evacuate, saying the probability of a major earthquake was higher than usual but it was not imminent. The Japanese government said it was no longer asking people to take special precautions and they were free to “go back to normal lifestyles”. Following the warning

Riding the Trans-Mongolian Railway, one of the world’s most epic train journeys

Horses were Mongolia’s chief means of getting around for thousands of years, and they remain an integral part of the national identity. But in modern times, the iron horse has gained popularity as an excellent way to cross this vast central Asian nation.Stretching 2,215 kilometers (1,376 miles) from Mongolia’s northern border with Russia to China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the south,

The West needs China for clean energy. It will pay a price to break free

The United States and Europe are racing to narrow China’s commanding lead in clean energy technologies, throwing subsidies at local manufacturers and hiking tariffs on Chinese imports in a strikingly protectionist turn. China’s dominance in clean energy supply chains presents a conundrum for governments trying to green their economies and meet fast-approaching climate targets while protecting

No golds for India: Why the world’s most populous country punches below its weight at the Olympics

The competition was tight until the very last shot. India’s Abhinav Bindra was level with his closest rival going into the final round of the men’s 10-meter air rifle at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.Then, with a near-perfect shot, Bindra won India’s first-ever individual Olympic gold.It was a historic achievement that many in India hoped could prove a turning point for the giant country

Beijing’s Baltic confession exposes undersea vulnerability

China has finally acknowledged that the Hong Kong-flagged ship NewNew Polar Bear was responsible for damaging critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. The incident – which Beijing is calling an “accident” – occurred in October 2023 and involved the Chinese ship damaging the 77 kilometre Balticconnector pipeline, an essential energy source for Finland along with an undersea data cable

US ill-prepared for a nuclear showdown with China

China’s nuclear expansion has put a spotlight on the US nuclear arsenal’s outdated state, forcing a critical rethink of US nuclear strategy amid a possible lowered threshold of nuclear weapons use over Taiwan. This month, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a report saying that the evolving nuclear dynamics in the Indo-Pacific region, driven by China’s rapid nuclear