Tax inspectors raid Huawei offices

Financial allegations could make nice change from accusations of being Beijing's eavesdropping machine

Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor

Fri 18 Feb 2022

The Indian Government's Income Tax Department has raided the local offices of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei as part of an investigation into whether or not the controversial company has met its local taxation obligations.

Huawei's Indian outpost has acknowledged the visit from tax authorities and verified Indian media reports that stated several local staff were interviewed. It also asserted that it does its very best to comply with Indian laws.

In India, Huawei sells consumer electronics and Wi-Fi routers, and tries to sell telecoms gear – but was last year excluded from 5G rollouts.

In response to the raid, China's Ministry of Commerce on Thursday expressed its displeasure at what it described as "suppression" of Chinese companies in India. Ministerial spokesperson Gao Feng said China has "serious concerns" about India's actions, and said foreign investment is already suffering as a result.

Perhaps Gao didn't read The Register's February 14th story about Foxconn sinking at least $100 million into a new chipmaking plant in India, or our coverage of Chinese company Wistron investing in India to take advantage of server manufacturing subsidies – a scheme that also lured Dell, Singapore's Flextronics, and Foxconn.

News of the Huawei raid came as India this week banned another 54 made-in-China apps from distribution in local app stores, again on grounds that the apps endanger users' privacy. That brings the total of banned apps to over 300. India has also explicitly set out its stall as an alternative destination for global manufacturers who have found reliance on China worrying. The two nations' militaries have also skirmished along mountainous and ill-defined borders in the Himalayas.

China's Gao said the Ministry he represents hopes India will improve its business environment and treat all foreign investors – including Chinese companies – in a fair, open, and non-discriminatory manner.

Western nations hope China does the same, noting that the Middle Kingdom requires joint ventures with local firms and limits foreign entities' investments in Chinese companies. ®

US prosecutors: Chinese walkie-talkie-maker Hytera stole Motorola secrets

India bans drone imports to help local manufacturers take off

US carriers want to junk three times more Chinese comms kit than planned

Alarm raised after Microsoft wins data-encoding patent

This is why we can't have nice things, potentially

Thomas Claburn in San Francisco

Thu 17 Feb 2022 


Microsoft last month received a US patent covering modifications to a data-encoding technique called rANS, one of several variants in the Asymmetric Numeral System (ANS) family that support data compression schemes used by leading technology companies and open source projects.

The creator of ANS, Jarosław Duda, assistant professor at Institute of Computer Science at Jagiellonian University in Poland, has been trying for years to keep ANS patent-free and available for public use. Back in 2018, Duda's lobbying helped convince Google to abandon its ANS-related patent claim in the US and Europe. And he raised the alarm last year when he learned Microsoft had applied for an rANS (range asymmetric number system) patent.

Now that Microsoft's patent application has been granted, he fears the utility of ANS will be diminished, as software developers try to steer clear of a potential infringement claim.

"I don't know what to do with it – [Microsoft's patent] looks like just the description of the standard algorithm," he told The Register in an email. The algorithm is used in JPEG XL and CRAM, as well as open source projects run by Facebook (Meta), Nvidia, and others.

The Register asked Microsoft whether it intends to seek royalties for its patent but the company has not responded.

"This rANS variant is [for example] used in JPEG XL, which is practically finished (frozen bitstream) and [is] gaining support," Duda told The Register last year. "It provides ~3x better compression than JPEG at similar computational cost, compatibility with JPEG, progressive decoding, missing features like HDR, alpha, lossless, animations.

"There is a large team, mostly from Google, behind it. After nearly 30 years, it should finally replace the 1992 JPEG for photos and images, starting with Chrome, Android."

But now, he said, Microsoft's patent could make JPEG XL adoption more difficult.
The tangled web of patents

Others don't consider the situation to be that dire. Jon Sneyers, senior image researcher at Cloudinary and editor of the JPEG XL spec, told The Register in an email message, "As far as I know, this patent doesn't affect JPEG XL. At least Microsoft has not declared to ISO that it does, even though they have had plenty of time to do so if they thought it did, and Microsoft is participating in JPEG so they are aware of the technology used in JPEG XL. But of course I am not a lawyer."

In a phone interview, Timothy Lee, a reporter for Full Stack Economics who covered Google's attempt to secure an ANS-based patent three years ago, said that the proliferation of patent applications related to ANS illustrates the problem with the way software patents work.

"Companies try to make minor improvements on technologies and then patent those," he explained. "Then you end up with a patent thicket where there are only so many to implement, and if all of those ways are patented, it becomes difficult to figure out a way around it."

Another problem, he said, is that there's no standard terminology for software patents. Unlike drug patents, where chemical formulas can be specified, software patents may describe the same thing in different ways.

"It becomes quite a minefield when you are an open source developer who doesn't have the time or resources to hire a patent lawyer," he said.

Bradley Kuhn, policy fellow at Software Freedom Conservancy, told The Register in an email that the SFC opposes the patenting of software algorithms completely.

"We think it's risible that any company, and in particular Microsoft, can claim on one hand to support Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and on the other hand continue to build their giant patent portfolios that will ultimately have chilling effects on FOSS innovation," said Kuhn.

"Microsoft has a long history of patent aggression against FOSS; it was not too long ago that they were shaking down Linux users and Android distributors over patents, and we would expect more shakedowns to come on this and other patents."

Kuhn said attempts to extract patent rent tend to happen behind closed doors, to pressure smaller companies into an "acqui-hire" deal or secure huge licensing payments. The SFC, he said, would gladly work with any company to develop a clear, permanently binding FOSS-friendly patent license.

"What we have regarding software patents is a patchwork of inadequate 'patent promises' and other incomplete solutions," said Kuhn. "For example, despite Microsoft being a member and licensee in the Open Invention Network (OIN, a for-profit industry-controlled consortium), our initial analysis shows that OIN protection will not meaningfully extend to FOSS uses that could infringe this patent.

"Similarly, standards bodies have a very poor track record in protecting FOSS from patent problems. These situations show the real downsides of allowing Big Tech to police themselves on their bad patent policies." ®

Third time's a harm? Microsoft tries to get twice-rejected compression patent past skeptical examiners

Apple, Broadcom allowed to press Ctrl-Z on billion-dollar Wi-Fi patent payout to Caltech

Nvidia CEO Huang jointly files patent for software tech in the metaverse

Google: We disagree with Sonos patent ruling so much, we've changed our code to avoid infringement

WeChat, AliExpress added to US Notorious Markets list

Trade watchdog admits China is #1 ... at cranking out counterfeit products, sometimes with forced labor

Laura Dobberstein

Fri 18 Feb 2022 

An updated US Trade Representative's Office register of online and physical markets that reportedly sell or facilitate fake goods has added AliExpress and WeChat to its already China-heavy list.

Released on Thursday, the 2021 Notorious Markets List names 42 online markets and 35 physical facilities accused of copyright infringement or facilitating substantial trademark counterfeiting. Of the markets included, around 20 per cent are based in China. Of the counterfeit kit seized by US authorities in 2020, 79 per cent of it came from China, and that haul accounted for 83 per cent of counterfeit goods by value.

Counterfeiting is not just about cheap knockoffs of designer handbags: fake routers are easy to find and The Register has often read about fake external hard disks that sometimes pack a low-capacity thumb drive and weights to give the device appropriate heft.

"China continues to be the number one source of counterfeit products in the world," according to the document [PDF] detailing the list.

For the first time since the yearly report began in 2011, the list names Alibaba's AliExpress and the Tencent-owned WeChat e-commerce platform.

Alibaba has experience of the list as its e-commerce platform Taobao has made it for the fifth year in succession. Other Chinese entities tied to the nation's big tech platforms include Baidu's cloud storage service Baidu Wangpan, B2B cross-border e-commerce platform DHGate, and social commerce app Pinduoduo.

Complaints from rights holders about the sites typically founder as responses to copyright claims are seldom swift and it is hard to have counterfeit products removed from sale. Many platforms are also accused of of not conducting due diligence to keep bad actors hawking fake goods off thier sites in the first place.

In addition to the six online platforms, nine brick-and-mortar Chinese markets were listed.

The Office reported that foot traffic had declined at many physical counterfeit Chinese markets due to growth in online sales. To avoid confiscation of goods in raids, sellers maintain less physical inventory and offer a larger range online. The physical shops then serve as points of contact for buyers and online sales fulfilment.

The Trade Rep was careful to note that the list is not exhaustive, nor does it reflect legal violations, government analysis of intellectual property, or enforcement-related matters.

However, it did note that enforcement has been somewhat ineffective – as shown by the number of repeat offenders appearing on the list.

In a canned statement, US Traade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai said the sale of counterfeit goods contributes to "exploitative labour practices" and "undermines critical US innovation."

The reminder feels necessary, as the document often reads like a tour guide book – with such nuggets as this one about a Shanghai market:

Described by online tourist directories as "an underground maze" connected to a metro station near Shanghai's popular sights, this market hosts numerous stalls openly offering counterfeit apparel and fashion accessories.

Rights holders report that authorities have not conducted any recent raids on the market and that the majority of the goods are counterfeit.

Beyond the counterfeit merchandise openly on display, some sellers of counterfeit merchandise allegedly also offer "high end" counterfeits on demand via delivery.

Those finding themselves tempted should know the 2021 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy referred to China as "the country with the greatest number of products made with forced labour, including state-sponsored forced labour."

China has credibly and repeatedly been accused of operating forced labour camps – particularly in Xinjiang, a region whose inhabitants are mostly members of the Muslim Uyghur minority.®

Google's Chrome OS Flex could revive old PCs, Macs

India's Reserve Bank deputy governor calls for crypto ban

We get the privacy we deserve from our behavior

Construction starts on another Asia-Europe undersea cable

Redundancy may not be a bad idea after damage to sister links

Laura Dobberstein

Mon 21 Feb 2022 

Construction has begun on a 19,200km submarine cable running from Singapore to France, Singaporean telco Singtel said on Monday.

The company claimed the new optical-fibre cable system, called the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 6 (SEA-ME-WE 6), would offer one of the lowest latencies between these regions at a transfer rate of 100 terabytes – or 40,000 high-def videos – per second.

Its exact route goes from Singapore to Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, India, Pakistan, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.


Click to enlarge

Singtel exec and cable consortium chairperson Yue Meng Fai said in a canned statement that the cable has been in the works for over two years as rising demand for connectivity amid global digitalization was predicted.

Turns out that prediction was not wrong, as broadband needs have increased even more significantly thanks to pandemic consumption habits.

The cable won't be ready until around Q1 2025.

As the name suggests, there are a few iterations of the SEA-ME-WE cables. The SEA-ME-WE 3, 4, and 5 all connect Europe to Asia, with some extending beyond.

In 2013, three scuba divers were arrested trying to sever SEA-ME-WE 4. That same cable, along with SEA-ME-WE 3, was damaged in 2008 by a ship's anchor. The incident took out 75 per cent of Egypt's internet access and had a ripple effect in other regions.

Given both its history and that digitalization is not expected to slow down any time soon, redundancy doesn't seem like a bad idea here. ®

Indonesia's new mega-telco to build 18,000km submarine cable to the US

China builds 'free trade data port' inclusive of submarine cable landing station

New submarine cable to link Japan, Europe, through famed Northwest Passage

New cable incoming! Hawaiki Nui set to connect Sydney, Singapore, and LA by 2025

AI-created faces now look so real, humans can't spot the difference

The uncanny valley has become shallow and short

Laura Dobberstein

Mon 21 Feb 2022 

Humans can no longer reliably tell the difference between a real human face and an image of a face generated by artificial intelligence, according to a pair of researchers.

Two boffins – Sophie Nightingale from the Department of Psychology at the UK's Lancaster University and Hany Farid from Berkley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department in California – studied human evaluations of both real photographs and AI-synthesized images, leading them to conclude nobody can reliably tell the difference anymore.

In one part of the study – published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA – humans identified fake images on just 48.2 per cent of occasions.

In another part of the study, participants were given some training and feedback to help them spot the fakes. While that cohort did spot real humans 59 per cent of the time, their results plateaued at that point.


Faces used in the study. Click to enlarge

The third part of the study saw participants rate the faces as "trustworthy" on a scale of one to seven. Fake faces were rated as more trustworthy than the real ones.

"A smiling face is more likely to be rated as trustworthy, but 65.5 per cent of our real faces and 58.8 per cent of synthetic faces are smiling, so facial expression alone cannot explain why synthetic faces are rated as more trustworthy," wrote the researchers.

The fake images were formed using generative adversarial networks (GANs), a class of machine learning frameworks where two neural networks play a type of contest with one another until the network trains itself to create better content.

The technique starts with a random array of pixels and iteratively learns to create a face. A discriminator, meanwhile, learns to detect the synthesized face after each iteration. If it succeeds, it penalizes the generator. Eventually, the discriminator can't tell the difference between real and syenethesised faces and – voila! – apparently neither can a human.

The final images used in the study included a diverse set of 400 real and 400 synthesized faces representing Black, South Asian, East Asian and White faces. Male and female faces were included – unlike previous studies that primarily used White male faces.

White faces were the least accurately classified, and male White faces were even less accurately classified than female White ones.

"We hypothesize that White faces are more difficult to classify because they are overrepresented in the StyleGAN2 training dataset and are therefore more realistic," explained the researchers.

The scientists said that while creating realistic faces is a success, it also creates potential problems such as nonconsensual intimate imagery (often misnamed as "revenge porn"), fraud, and disinformation campaigns as nefarious use cases of fake images. Such activities, they wrote, have "serious implications for individuals, societies, and democracies."

The authors suggested those developing such technologies should consider whether the benefits outweigh the risks – and if they don't, just don't create the tech. Perhaps after recognizing that tech with big downsides is irresistible to some, they then recommended parallel development of safeguards – including established guidelines that mitigate potential harm caused by synthetic media technologies.

There are currently ongoing efforts to improve detection of deepfakes and similar media, such as building prototype software capable of detecting images made with neural networks. A Michigan State University (MSU) and Facebook AI Research (FAIR) collaboration last year even suggested the architecture of the neural network used to create the images.

But The Register recommends against taking any of Meta's deepfake debunking effort at … erm … face value. After all, its founder has been known to put out images himself that will never ever ever ever leave the uncanny valley, thereby proving that, as narrow as that valley has become as a result of this study, it's here to stay. ®

NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg: Donetsk, Luhansk are part of Ukraine; Russia undermines Ukraine's territorial integrity

 22.02.2022

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued a statement on Russia's recognition of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" condemning this decision, which undermines the territorial integrity of Ukraine and violates the Minsk agreements.

"I condemn Russia's decision to extend recognition to the self-proclaimed 'Donetsk People's Republic' and 'Luhansk People's Republic.' This further undermines Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, erodes efforts towards a resolution of the conflict, and violates the Minsk Agreements, to which Russia is a party," Stoltenberg said.

He said that in 2015 the UN Security Council, which includes Russia, confirmed its full respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

"Donetsk and Luhansk are part of Ukraine. Moscow continues to fuel the conflict in eastern Ukraine by providing financial and military support to the separatists. It is also trying to stage a pretext to invade Ukraine once again," the NATO Secretary General said.

At the same time, Stoltenberg said the alliance supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. "Allies urge Russia, in the strongest possible terms, to choose the path of diplomacy, and to immediately reverse its massive military build-up in and around Ukraine, and withdraw its forces from Ukraine in accordance with its international obligations and commitments.

Minsk agreements cease to exist — Putin

The Russian president recalled that Kiev authorities have publicly said they were not going to implement this document

MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/. The Minsk agreements are non-existent after the recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics (DPR and LPR), Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

"In this sense, no, the Minsk agreements are non-existent now. Why should they be implemented if we recognize the independence of these republics?" he told a news conference.

The Russian president recalled that Kiev authorities have publicly said they were not going to implement the Minsk agreements and in those conditions Russia could not tolerate genocide of the Donbass people any longer. That was why Russia had to recognize the Donbass republics.

"They are not going to implement - what else can be said? And the top officials have already said it in public. What is to be expected then? Shall we wait for the continuation of sufferings of these people, this genocide of nearly four million people who are living on these territories? It is simply impossible to look at it. <…> It could not be tolerated any longer," he said.

Russia, in his words, has always been interested in the implementation of the Minsk agreements as they were a result of a compromise. "I would like to stress once again that we have been interested in the implementation of this Package of Measures because it was a result of a compromise," he said, adding that he was among the authors of this document on the part of Russia.

But, since the signing of the Minsk accords, Ukraine has been seeking to reduce all the efforts toward their implementation to zero. "The Minsk agreements were killed long before yesterday’s recognition of the Donbass republics. And not by us, not by these republics, but by Kiev’s current authorities," Putin stressed.

On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR). Treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance were signed with their leaders. Putin instructed the foreign ministry to establish diplomatic relations with the Donbass republics and the defense ministry to ensure peace on their territories.

Egypt: Protests outside Giza factory after worker commits suicide

Asem Afifi reported to have been unable to pay debts after his wages were not paid for months

The factory, which is owned by Egypt's Universal Group, is located in 6th of October city in the Giza Governorate, about 30km from Cairo (Screengrab)

By MEE staff
Published date: 22 February 2022 

Fellow Egyptian workers held protests outside their factory in Giza on Tuesday after a colleague Asem Afifi committed suicide. The worker was reported to have been unable to pay his debts because his salary had not been paid for months.

The factory, which is owned by Egypt's Universal Group, is located in 6th of October city in the Giza Governorate, about 30km from Cairo.

The Egyptian Network for Human Rights told Middle East Eye that security workers fired tear gas at protesters outside the factory who were demonstrating over Afifi's death.

Workers said Afifi had killed himself by throwing himself in front of a car on Tuesday.

More than 2,500 workers at the factory originally held a strike in September after their wages had not been paid for three months.

The strikers also complained about poor working conditions, including the ending of payments for workers injured during their work.

Living conditions for workers and the poor have fallen significantly in recent times, in part due to "structural adjustment" policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund.

The Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services, an Egyptian non-governmental organisation, said it had monitored 8,041 violations of workers' rights over the past year.

It said delayed salary payment represented the highest number of violations of workers’ rights in 2021, amounting to 36 percent of the total.

Palestinian Authority asks US Congress to probe 'Israeli apartheid'

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh says 'real enemy of peace is settlements'

Shtayyeh called on US lawmakers to form a special committee to probe "practices of persecution and apartheid" committed by Israel (AFP/File photo)

By MEE staff
Published date: 22 February 2022

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has warned US members of Congress that the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories could explode if Israel is not pressured to return to the peace process.

During a meeting with a delegation of 30 US lawmakers in Ramallah on Monday, Shtayyeh called on the legislators to form a special committee "to investigate the practices of persecution and apartheid carried out by Israel against the Palestinian people".

"Israel does not want the two-state solution or the one-state solution," Shtayyeh told the congressional delegation, according to the Palestinian state-run news agency Wafa.

Pelosi calls Israel's creation the 20th century's 'greatest political achievement'

Read More »

"All it wants is the continuation of the fait accompli, which is a deteriorating reality that will lead to an explosion of the situation," he said.

A growing number of human rights organisations are reporting that Israel's treatment of Palestinians amounts to crimes of apartheid.

Shtayyeh added that the "real enemy of peace is settlements", referring to Israel's building of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Another congressional delegation of Republican lawmakers also met with Shtayyeh on Monday.

The meeting followed an earlier meeting last week between US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - the first high-ranking meeting between US and Palestinian officials since the Biden administration took office.

Pelosi, who led a delegation of Democratic House members to Israel last week, also met with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Her visit, where she called Israel's creation the "greatest political achievement of the 20th century", was criticised by Palestinian activists and progressive groups who noted that it came after days of unrest in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where supporters gathered outside the home of the Salem family, who are facing imminent expulsion.
Unfulfilled promises

Palestinian-US relations soured under the Trump administration, which cut all funding to the Palestinian Authority and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem in a departure from years of US policy that avoided recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.


Since entering office last year, US President Biden has sought to reverse some of the damage done by the Trump administration by restoring hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians while also pledging to reopen the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's diplomatic mission in Washington and the American consulate in Jerusalem.

The US consulate, which served Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, had been open for almost 175 years until it was shut down in March 2019 when former US President Donald Trump signalled support for Israel's claim on Jerusalem as its capital.

US Congress forms caucus to promote more normalisation with Israel

Read More »

In May, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the US was planning to reopen the consulate, reiterating US President Joe Biden's position during his election campaign in 2020.

The plan, however, has hit a snag, as Israeli officials and Biden administration officials have been at odds over the issue, which Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid previously said could break up the fragile coalition government currently heading up the country's parliament.

Shtayyeh pointed out that many promises, including the reopening of the US consulate, have remained unfulfilled - while also bringing up the issue of Israel's retention of tax revenues.

Last year, Israel announced it would withhold $180m in tax revenue it collected last year on behalf of the PA, which amounts to roughly seven percent of its total revenue.

Earlier in February, Abbas held a phone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The US State Department said that during the call, Blinken had discussed with Abbas the necessity for reforms within the PA, while the PA said that Abbas stressed the importance of ending the Israeli occupation.

Credit Suisse leaks: Muffled Jordanian anger emerges after King Abdullah revelations

Local media is studiously quiet, while Jordanians struggling in the kingdom's stuttering economy find outlets for their frustrations online

Jordan's King Abdullah II arrives to meet Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Downing Street, in London (Reuters)

By Mohammad Ersan in Amman
Published date: 22 February 2022 

If Jordanians heard about their king and queen being implicated in this week's Credit Suisse leaks, they didn't hear about it from local media.

Internationally, King Abdullah II and Queen Rania were named by several outlets as beneficial owners of a number of secret accounts at the Swiss bank, two of several figures from around the world who were revealed to have held millions with Credit Suisse.

Yet the response in Jordan from major local media outlets and official sources was largely muted on Monday.

No Jordanian outlet published the details of the investigative report about the royal couple's accounts, thought to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Credit Suisse leaks: From King Abdullah to Mubarak's sons, the Middle Eastern figures involved

Read More »

At 6pm on Monday the Royal Court issued a detailed reply to the investigations. Most media outlets published the response without giving details of the investigation itself.

"Any allegations that link the funds in these accounts to public funds or foreign assistance are defamatory, baseless, and deliberate attempts to distort facts and systematically target Jordan’s reputation as well as His Majesty’s credibility, especially coming after similar reports published last year that were based on leaks from previous years," said the Royal Court.

The statement said the majority of the money reported on had related to the replacement of planes the monarch had inherited from his father King Hussein, including the sale of a $212m Airbus 340 plane that was replaced with a less costly Gulfstream jet currently used by Abdullah.

Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh also weighed in on Monday claiming “Jordan and its leadership are being targeted".

“Jordan and Egypt are targeted from sources of ideological black evil on the basis of its steadfast positions regarding national issues," he said.

This scene was a repeat of what happened when the Pandora Papers were published last year showing that King Abdullah owned properties worth $100m in the US and UK. At that time, media silence forced many activists and politicians to turn to social media, particularly Clubhouse and Twitter, to discuss internal issues.

'Do I practice my right and ask the king what the source is of your millions in those accounts here and there while we are deep in debt and we are almost dying of hunger?'

- Nuha Faouri, activist

Then, as now, many Jordanians have been less than willing to accept claims from the government that all those involved have clean hands.

Activist Nuha Faouri told Middle East Eye that Jordanians had the right to ask where the money had come from.

"Why don’t you ask oh cowards? What are you afraid of? I am a citizen of Jordan named Nuha Faouri," she said.

"Do I practice my right and ask the king what the source is of your millions in those accounts here and there while we are deep in debt and we are almost dying of hunger?”

'Please respect us?'

A number of discussion rooms opened on Clubhouse following the Credit Suisse revelations. One had 70 participants using the title "Is Jordan being targeted?" The room is moderated by opposition figure Alaa Fazaa who has been living as a political refugee in Sweden since 2013.

Participants in the Clubhouse room criticised the king and demanded that the money stored in the accounts - one of which was revealed at one point to have been worth 230m Swiss francs ($250m) - be returned to Jordanians.

"If the sources of the money are known, why was the money stashed in a secret Swiss account and not in local banks?” asked one group participant.

On Twitter, using the hashtag "Jordan is not in good shape", a participant named Maya Raham asked: "Please respect our minds a little bit. Are we naive people to this degree that we believe in these lies!!!"

'Regardless of the leaks and their reasons, there is a high level of mistrust between citizens and the leadership because of this absence of transparency'

- Lamis Andoni, analyst

Ahmad Milhem tweeted in response to the Royal Court statement: “Are we to believe that money to help Jordanian and Islamic holy places are paid for from secret Swiss accounts? Please respect us?"

Much of the anger has stemmed from the fact that Jordan is currently struggling with serious economic problems which have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Protests have broken out across the country against financial hardship and high youth unemployment.

Abdullah has been accused of doing too little to tackled the entrenched corruption and nepotism that has flourished through the Jordanian state.

"The importance of these Swiss accounts is that they were kept secret to protect from leaks. This is a lesson that there should be transparency from the royal court in such cases and what the money is being used for," said political analyst Lamis Andoni.

She added that the tightly controlled response from the mainstream media in Jordan to the revelations would only serve to heighten suspicions.

"They received clear instructions from the Royal Court not to publish anything related to this investigation," she told MEE.

"Regardless of the leaks and their reasons, there is a high level of mistrust between citizens and the leadership because of this absence of transparency."
Is Jordan being targeted?

A well-known former member of the Jordanian parliament, Hind al-Fayez, criticised the Royal Court's response to the revelations.

Pegasus: Jordanian officials and journalists demand probe into hacking of their phones

Read More »

“Their statement proved that the king owns millions instead of spending it on his people and in developing the country," he said.

“According to the statement of the Royal Court, the money is inherited from his father and as cost of the airplanes. But the king has five brothers and six sisters, should not they be dividing the money between them?"

Oraib Rantawi, director of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies, gave an interview to the local Radio al Balad, asking sarcastically that the government reveal the identity of those who it claims are targeting Jordan.

“I find it hard to accept the repeated words that Jordan is targeted by foreign forces. Why doesn’t the government do its own leaks to local journalists about who these foreign bodies are?" he said.

"Jordanian media is unable to check into this issue due to the restrictive nature of the media laws that are handicapping journalists’ freedom. If the government wants us to believe in their official position, they should tell us who is targeting Jordan?"

ZIONIST MURDER STATE

Israeli soldiers kill 14-year-old Palestinian boy in occupied West Bank

Mohammed Shehadeh's killing comes a week after Israeli forces shot and killed multiple Palestinians

Mohammed Shehadeh was accused by Israel of throwing a Molotov cocktail before being shot by soldiers in the occupied West Bank town of al-Khader (Twitter)

By MEE staff
Published date: 22 February 2022 

Israeli forces fatally shot a 14-year-old Palestinian teenager on Tuesday near the city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The teen, identified as Mohammed Shehadeh, was accused by the Israeli military of throwing a Molotov cocktail before being shot by soldiers in the West Bank town of al-Khader.

The Israeli forces "identified three suspects who arrived at a location where Molotov cocktails were repeatedly thrown at Israeli vehicles recently," the military said.

Israel's military said soldiers gave Shehadeh medical aid at the scene where he was later pronounced dead; while Palestinian news outlets reported that a medical crew from the Red Crescent was prevented from reaching him.

The Palestinian news outlet Wafa reported that confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians in al-Khader continued late on Tuesday.

The killing of Shehadeh comes a week after Israeli forces shot and killed multiple Palestinians.

Nihad al-Bargouthi, 20, succumbed to bullet wounds in the abdomen after being shot by Israeli soldiers on 15 February at the entrance of the village of Nabi Saleh, northwest of Ramallah.

Several days prior to this, Mohammad Akram Abu Salah, 17, was shot in the head by Israeli troops as they stormed Silat al-Harithiya village late on Sunday to demolish the home of a man accused of killing an Israeli settler.

The rights group Defence for Children International - Palestine (DCI) said earlier on Tuesday that Israel is continuing to withhold the bodies of nine Palestinian children its forces killed.

The nine Palestinian children were all under 18 at the time of their deaths, which occurred between 2016 and December 2021, with the youngest being two 15-year-olds: Yousef Mohammad Odeh from Jenin and Mohammad Nidal Musa from Nablus.

DCI said in December that 2021 was the deadliest year for Palestinian children since 2014, as Israeli forces killed 76 Palestinians under 18, 15 of them in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and 61 in the besieged Gaza Strip.