US Army entirely redacts statement on Trump campaign Arlington incident

The Army said it now “considers this matter closed.”

Brett Samuels
Fri, October 25, 2024


The U.S. Army on Friday released a heavily redacted report on an incident at Arlington National Cemetery involving a staffer and aides with the Trump campaign when the former president visited the cemetery in August.

The nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight obtained a copy of the report, which offers very few details about the incident. It lists the offense in question as a “simple assault, and offers a partially redacted description of what allegedly took place.

“While working at the Arlington National Cemetery, [REDACTED] with both of [REDACTED] hands while attempting to move past [REDACTED] did not require medical attention on scene and later refused when offered. [REDACTED] rendered a sworn statement on a DA Form 2023 and stated [REDACTED] did not want to press charges,” the report reads.

But the entire statement about what took place from the cemetery employee is redacted.

Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 26 for a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack that killed 13 U.S. service members amid the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

NPR, citing an anonymous source, first reported a cemetery official tried to stop Trump staffers from filming and photographing in an area of the cemetery where soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried, known as Section 60. The source told NPR that Trump staffers pushed the official aside when they tried to stop campaign officials from entering the area.

The Trump campaign blamed the cemetery employee for the incident and accused them of having a “mental health episode” and trying to “physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”

The Army itself weighed in to defend the employee’s actions, saying they were trying to enforce rules prohibiting political activities on cemetery grounds when they were pushed aside.

“Consistent with the decorum expected at [the cemetery], this employee acted with professionalism and avoided further disruption,” the official said, adding the incident was reported to police but “the employee subsequently decided not to press charges.”

The Army said it now “considers this matter closed.”

DESANTISLAND

State alien land laws drive some China-born US citizens to rethink their politics

TERRY TANG and DIDI TANG
Sat, October 26, 2024 

Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)ASSOCIATED PRESS


Naturalized Citizens China Land Laws
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Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)ASSOCIATED PRESSMore
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

Diana Xue has always followed the politics of her husband, friends and neighbors in Orlando, Florida, and voted Republican.

This Election Day, she'll break that pattern.

When Florida's GOP-dominated Legislature and Republican governor enacted a law last year banning Chinese nationals without permanent U.S. residency from buying property or land, Xue, who became a U.S. citizen about a decade after coming from China for college, had an “awakening.” She felt then that the Sunshine State had, more or less, legalized discrimination against Chinese people.

Florida has proved reliably Republican in recent years, but Xue said, “Because of this law, I will start to help out, flip every seat I can.”

At least two dozen states have passed or proposed “alien land laws” targeting Chinese nationals and companies from purchasing property or land because of China's status as a foreign adversary. Other countries are mentioned, but experts say China is the constant focus in political discussions.

Mostly Republican legislators have pushed the land laws amid growing fears of intelligence and economic threats from China. At the time of the Florida law’s signing, Gov. Ron DeSantis called China the “greatest geopolitical threat” to the U.S. and said the law was taking a stand against the Chinese Communist Party.

Some China-born people with American citizenship are now feeling alienated by the laws to the point that they are leaning Democratic. Many are afraid of being treated wrongly because of their ethnicity.


U.S.-China tensions hit a fever pitch in February 2023 after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Montana. Shortly after, GOP-leaning states like Missouri, Texas and Tennessee introduced similar land ownership measures.

The measures all involved restrictions on businesses or people from China and other foreign adversaries, including not buying land within a certain distance from military installations or “critical infrastructure.” Under some of the laws, very narrow exceptions were made for non-tourist visa holders and people who have been granted asylum.

The National Agricultural Law Center now estimates 24 states ban or limit foreigners without residency and foreign businesses or governments from owning private farmland. Interest in farmland ownership restrictions emerged after a Chinese billionaire bought more than 130,000 acres (52,600 hectares) near a U.S. Air Force base in Texas, and Chinese company Fufeng Group sought to build a corn plant near an Air Force base on 300 acres (120 hectares) in North Dakota.

Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, raised concerns that such laws not only counter market economy principles and international trade rules, but “further fuel hostility towards the Asian and Chinese community in the U.S., intensify racial discrimination, and seriously undermine the values that the U.S. claims to hold.”

State laws banning Chinese nationals from owning land discourage Chinese investors and spook other foreign investors who would otherwise help the U.S. to rebuild its industrial base, said John Ling, who has worked for decades to attract international, especially Chinese, manufacturing projects to the U.S.

The laws have also thrown off real estate agents and brokers. Angela Hsu, a commercial real estate attorney in Atlanta, said it's been confusing to navigate a law Georgia's governor signed in April restricting land sales to some Chinese citizens.

“The brokers I’ve talked to, they’re just trying to figure out what they can do safely,” Hsu said.

On the federal level, the House in September approved a bill that would flag as “reportable” farmland sales involving citizens from China, North Korea, Russia and Iran. The odds for it to win approval from the Senate, however, are slim.

China “has been quietly purchasing American agricultural land at an alarming rate, and this bill is a crucial step towards reversing that trend,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington state.

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, of California, joined multiple Asian American organizations in opposing the bill, arguing its “broad-brush approach” of targeting people from specific countries amounted to racial profiling.

China owns less than 1% of total foreign-owned farmland in the U.S., far behind Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, the U.K., Germany or Portugal.

After Florida's land law was signed in May 2023, four Chinese nationals filed a lawsuit. In April, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing them asked a federal appeals court to block it.

The saga sparked the Chinese diaspora in Florida to mobilize. Some formed the Florida Asian American Justice Alliance. Among them was Xue. She became interested studying the Legislature and lobbying. She found that only Democrats like state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who is Iranian American, agreed the law was xenophobic.

“She said, 'This is discrimination. I’ll stand with you, and I’ll fight with you,'" Xue said.

Hua Wang, board chair of another civic engagement group, United Chinese Americans, said more people are becoming aware that these laws are directly “affecting each one of us.”

“There are people in both Texas and Florida who say for the first time they are becoming interested and they become organized,” Wang said.

Land laws passed in the name of national security echo a pattern from World War II, when the U.S. saw Japanese people as threats, said Chris Suh, a professor of Asian American history at Emory University. It's difficult to argue the laws are unconstitutional if on paper they are citizenship-based and other countries are named, Suh said.

Anti-Chinese sentiment has shaped policies going back over 150 years. Among these was the Page Act of 1875, which strategically limited the entry of Chinese women to the U.S., and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the first broad race-based immigration law.

Policies targeting foreigners hurt the bottom line of all Americans, Suh said, noting that excluding Chinese laborers from railroad work or Japanese immigrants from buying homes didn't benefit U.S. railroad tycoons and landowners.

“That's something to keep in today's context as well," Suh said. “One of the key allies of the the people who are trying to overturn the alien land law in Florida are the people who are going to lose money if they lose the potential buyers of their land.”

The law makes Chinese immigrants who achieved citizenship worry about things like racism or accusations of being a spy in their own home, Xue said.

“You think it’s nothing to do with you, but people look at you — how you look, how your last name is,” Xue said. “They are not going to ask you are you a U.S. citizen or not.”

___

Terry Tang reported from Phoenix. Didi Tang reported from Washington.

SPACE/COSMOS

'Yikes': While gaming, Musk inadvertently broadcasts 'scary' near-abort of Starship booster landing

TechCrunch · Image Credits:SpaceX

Aria Alamalhodaei
Fri, October 25, 2024 

Elon Musk occasionally posts clips of his video game plays to his social media platform X — but a recent clip includes background audio of a SpaceX engineer telling Musk how the most recent Starship flight test was “one second away” from an abort. The clip, posted on Friday, was caught by Reuters' Joey Roulette on X, but it's not clear if the conversation between Musk and Starship engineers occurred that same day.

“I want to be really upfront about scary shit that happened,” the unnamed engineer said, seemingly as Musk played Diablo IV. He went on to explain that a misconfigured component didn’t have the right “ramp up time for bringing up spin pressure” on the booster.

“We were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower,” the engineer says.

“Wow,” Musk says in response. “Yikes.”

The same engineer went on to say that right before engine startup on the booster’s descent back to Earth, a cover on the skin of the booster ripped off, apparently in a place that had been spot welded. “We wouldn't have predicted the exact right place, but this cover that ripped off was right on top of a bunch of the single point failure valves that must work during the landing burn. So thankfully, none of those or the harnessing got damaged, but we ripped this chine cover off over some really critical equipment right as landing burn was starting. We have a plan to address that.”

Musk was being briefed on the fifth Starship integrated test flight, referred to as IFT-5, which took place on October 13. SpaceX set its most ambitious mission objectives yet for that test, including returning the Super Heavy booster to the launch site and catching it with a pair of oversized “chopstick” arms that jut out from the launch tower.

The company pulled it off, and made history as a result. The full context of the conversation is not clear, as the clip posted to X is only about three minutes long, but it shows that even seemingly flawless rocket launches (and in this case, booster landings) can come perilously close to disaster. And that after each test, SpaceX is furnished with a "butt load," as the engineer put it, of post-flight data to inform future testing.

“We’re trying to do a reasonable balance of speed and risk mitigation on the booster” prior to the next flight attempt, the engineer said. The engineers note that this will be the first Starship test flight whose schedule is not set by the FAA. While SpaceX has typically outpaced the regulator in terms of launch readiness, versus the FAA’s launch license approval schedule, the FAA actually gave approval for IFT-5 and IFT-6 at the same time.

US nuclear regulator kicks off review on Three Mile Island restart


Updated Fri, October 25, 2024
By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. nuclear regulators kicked off a long-winding process to consider Constellation Energy's unprecedented plans to restart its retired Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in an initial public meeting held on Friday.

Constellation, which announced last month that it had signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft that would enable reopening the Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island, made its case before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restore its operating license for the plant.

The company also sought to extend the life of the plant and change its name to the Crane Clean Energy Center.

Three Mile Island, which is located in Pennsylvania on an island in the Susquehanna River, is widely known for the 1979 partial meltdown of its Unit 2 reactor. That unit has been permanently shut and is being decommissioned.

Members of the NRC requested details about the emergency evacuation plans for the restarted plant and information about the commercial deal with Microsoft, while imploring Constellation to quickly work on permitting related to its water use for the plant.

The NRC also raised questions about how the restart of Unit 1 would intersect with the decommissioning of Unit 2, which began last year, nearly 45 years after the partial meltdown.

Utah-based nuclear services company EnergySolutions owns Unit 2 and related infrastructure, while Constellation owns Unit 1 and the site's land.

Unit 1 shut down due to economic reasons in 2019, some 15 years before the operating license was set to expire. At the time, Constellation said it did not anticipate a restart.


Constellation now expects to restart the 835-megawatt Unit 1 in 2028, delivering power to the grid to offset electricity use by Microsoft's data center in the region.

A recent jump in U.S. electricity demand, driven in part by Big Tech's energy-intensive AI data center expansion has led to a revival of the country's struggling nuclear industry.

No retired reactor has been restarted before. The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, owned by Holtec, is also in the process of being resurrected.

Earlier this year, Constellation completed initial testing on the reactor and determined it was physically, and financially, possible to resurrect it.

"We understand how we shut it down and we have a good idea of how we are going to restart this," plant manager Trevor Orth said at the NRC meeting.

The physical work to restore Three Mile Island, which is expected to start in the first quarter of 2025, cost at least $1.6 billion, and could require thousands of workers, still needs licensing modifications and permitting.

Local activists have also vowed to fight the project over safety and environmental concerns, including the storage of nuclear waste on the site.

Scott Portzline, who is with nuclear watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert in Harrisburg, questioned the site's backup power and criticized the proposed nuclear control room simulator used for training.

"I have a constitutional right to know how my nuclear plants are operating and the utility ought to be able to answer that," Portzline said during the meeting.

Local businesses and the building trades made comments in support of plant's comeback in the meeting.

Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the NRC will be required to complete an environmental assessment within the final year of any restart. The plant will require other environmental permits, including ones for air emissions and water pollutants.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Reuters exposé of hack-for-hire world is back online after Indian court ruling

Reuters
Updated Sat, October 26, 2024 

A metro train moves past next to commercial buildings in Netaji Subhash Place area of New Delhi

(Reuters) - Reuters News has restored to its website an investigation into mercenary hacking after a New Delhi court lifted a takedown order it issued last year.

The article, originally published on Nov. 16, 2023, and titled “How an Indian startup hacked the world,” detailed the origins and operations of a New Delhi-based cybersecurity firm called Appin. Reuters found that Appin grew from an educational startup to a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians and wealthy elites around the globe.

Prior to publication, a group calling itself the Association of Appin Training Centers filed suit in a New Delhi district court to prevent the report from running. In court filings, the association claimed it was the successor to Appin’s network of educational franchises in India. It accused Reuters of damaging the reputations of these schools and their students, claims the news agency denies.

Asked for comment Friday morning India time, a lawyer for the plaintiff said they weren’t being given enough time to respond, but noted that there were multiple proceedings pending between their client and Reuters. By Saturday evening India time, the attorney hadn’t replied.

The district court granted the association an initial injunction, then ordered Reuters to take down the article on Dec. 4, 2023. Reuters removed the published report from its website while it appealed that takedown order.

On Oct. 3, 2024, the same court vacated the injunction, noting that “as yet, the plaintiff has not been able to show any prima facie case to make interference in the process of journalism.”

The lawsuit remains pending.

Union's rejection of Boeing offer threatens jobs at aerospace suppliers

By Allison Lampert

(Reuters) - Striking workers' rejection of planemaker Boeing's latest contract offer has created a fresh threat to operations at aerospace suppliers such as family-run Independent Forge.

If the strike by more than 33,000 U.S. Boeing workers persists another month, the Orange County, California supplier might need to cut its operations from five to three days a week to save money and retain workers, president Andrew Flores said.


While Independent laid off a few employees already, letting more go is not an appealing option, he said. The 22 workers who remain are critical for the company, especially when the strike eventually ends and demand for its aluminum aircraft parts rebounds.

"They are the backbone of our shop," Flores said this week. "Their knowledge, I can't replace that."

Wednesday's vote by 64% of Boeing's West Coast factory workers against the company's latest contract offer, further idling assembly for nearly all of the planemaker's commercial jets, has created a fresh test for suppliers such as Independent, which opened in 1975.

Boeing's vast global network of suppliers that produce parts from sprawling modern factories or tiny garage workshops, was already stressed by the company's quality-and-safety crisis, which began in January after a mid-air panel blow-out on a new 737 MAX.

Demand for parts has dropped, hitting suppliers after they spent heavily to meet renewed demand for planes in the post-pandemic era.


How small suppliers such as Independent navigate the strike, which began on Sept. 13, is expected to affect Boeing's future ability to bring its plane production back online.

MORE JOB CUTS?

Five Boeing suppliers interviewed by Reuters this week said continuation of the strike would cause them to furlough workers, freeze investment, or consider halting production.

Boeing declined comment.

Seattle-area supplier Pathfinder, which runs a project to attract young recruits to aerospace and trains them alongside its skilled workers, will likely need to lay off more employees, CEO Dave Trader said.

Pathfinder, which let go one-quarter of its 54 workers last month, will also need to send more of its aerospace students back to their high schools, instead of training them in the company's factories, Trader said.

Suppliers on a regular call on Thursday with Boeing supply-chain executives said they expect the strike will continue for weeks, one participant told Reuters.

About 60% of the 2.21 million Americans who work in the aerospace industry have jobs directly linked to the supply chain, according to the U.S. industry group Aerospace Industries Association.

Those suppliers' decisions to reduce staffing could create a vicious cycle, as they will put added strain on Boeing's efforts to restore and eventually increase 737 MAX output above a regulator-imposed cap of 38 after its factories re-open, analysts say.

"Once we get back, we have the task of restarting the factories and the supply chain, and it's much harder to turn this on than it is to turn it off," CEO Kelly Ortberg told an analyst call on Wednesday.

"The longer it goes on, the more it could trickle back into the supply chain and cause delays there," Southwest Airlines Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said of the strike on Thursday.

Shares of Boeing suppliers fell on Thursday. Howmet lost 2%. Honeywell and Spirit AeroSystems fell 5% and 3%, respectively, following weak results.

Spirit Aero, Boeing's key supplier, which has already announced the furlough of 700 workers on the 767 and 777 widebody programs for 21 days, has warned it would implement layoffs should the strike continue past November.

"It’s starting up the supply chain that is likely to be the biggest worry, especially if they have taken action to cut workers due to a lack of Boeing orders," Vertical Research Partners analyst Rob Stallard said by email.

A strained supply chain, Spirit Aero's challenges and increased regulatory oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration over MAX production, means it could take up to a year from the strike's end to get 737 output back to the 38-per-month rate, Stallard said.

(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal; Additional reporting by Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bangalore and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Editing by Rod Nickel)

Tens of thousands of demonstrators march across Italy calling for an end to war worldwide

Associated Press
Sat, October 26, 2024 

Demonstrators participate in a march for peace against all wars, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)ASSOCIATED PRESS

Demonstrators participate in a march for peace against all wars, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)ASSOCIATED PRESS

Demonstrators participate in a march for peace against all wars, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)ASSOCIATED PRESS

Demonstrators participate in a march for peace against all wars, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)ASSOCIATED PRESS

Demonstrators participate in a march for peace against all wars, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)ASSOCIATED PRESS


Italy Peace March
4 of 5
Demonstrators participate in a march for peace against all wars, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

ROME (AP) — Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in seven Italian cities on Saturday calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East, Ukraine and all global conflicts.

Peaceful rallies were held in Rome, Turin, Milan, Florence, Bari, Palermo and Cagliari, with the support of hundreds of associations committed to peace, disarmament and human rights.

The marches came in response to escalating violence in the Middle East and growing conflicts worldwide and denounced the diminished role of the United Nations on the global scene.

In Rome, a few thousand demonstrators marched waving a giant rainbow flag in front of the Colosseum and a banner with the slogan: “Let’s stop wars. The time for peace is now!”

“The war in Ukraine has been going on for years now and what was the result? Nothing. … There are only a lot of Ukrainian and Russian people who died, many soldiers and many children,” said Daniela Ferraci, a demonstrator in the Italian capital. “The same is happening in Gaza, in Israel, in Lebanon."

Giulio Marcon, one of the organizers of the Rome rally, said “wars are never resolving problems.”

“War brings more war, weapons bring more weapons. We must choose the path of negotiation, cease-fire and diplomacy. This is the message from this square,” he said.

Maurizio Landini, leader of Italy's CGIL trade union, called for the role of international diplomacy to be reaffirmed.

“Our strongest request is a ceasefire to let governments open a real peace conference, because the new world’s balance can’t be decided by wars,” he said on stage.


Tens of thousands of demonstrators march in Italian cities calling for peace in Gaza and Ukraine

Euronews
Sat, October 26, 2024 

Tens of thousands of people marched in various Italian cities on Saturday calling for peace in Gaza and Ukraine.

Around 10,000 people marched through the centre of Rome waving a giant peace flag in front of the Colosseum.

The demonstration was organised by the Italian Disarmament Network, the CGIL labour union, several opposition centre-left parties, the war doctors charity Emergency and various minor peace advocacies.

Many among the protesters were very concerned about the high number of civilians killed in the wars both in Gaza and Ukraine.

They urged the Italian government and the international community to revive a peace conference under the leadership of the United Nations.

Other rallies were held in Turin, Milan, Florence, Bari, Palermo and Cagliari with the support of hundreds of groups calling for peace.

The marches occurred amidst escalating violence in the Middle East, as Israel launched overnight attacks against Iran on Saturday morning.

India makes it clear it's not interested in a Western alliance

CBC
Fri, October 25, 2024 

From left: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a family photo ceremony prior to the BRICS Summit plenary session in Kazan, Russia, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Maxim Shipenkov/Associated Press - image credit)More

A meeting Wednesday between India's Narendra Modi and China's Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia was the first in five years, and will likely be viewed with dismay in Washington, Ottawa and other Western capitals.

While it probably doesn't mark the beginning of a new Beijing-New Delhi axis, it does seem to signal that India is not about to sign on to an anti-Beijing Western alliance either, despite the best efforts of the U.S. and some other countries to persuade it to do so.

"Would the U.S. be disappointed? I imagine," said Sanjay Ruparelia, a close observer of the Modi government who teaches at Toronto Metropolitan University. "I don't think publicly they would express it, but privately."

Ruparelia said U.S. relations with India have always been complicated, and that complexity has always required the U.S. to split the relationship into silos.

"On the one hand, ties have grown despite many disagreements, and quite serious ones. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, most importantly," he said.

"But you know, we've seen in the last year a new agreement on critical emerging technologies. You've seen growing defence and security partnerships. [U.S.] President Biden was reportedly the third leader in history to have his Indian counterpart at his own private residence. And that was this year — after the FBI foiled the plot to allegedly kill Mr. (Gurpatwant Singh) Pannun."

Most recently, the U.S. signed a deal to sell India Predator drones, the primary weapons used by the U.S. in its own campaigns of extraterritorial killing targeting such groups as al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

"And I'm not surprised by that," said Ruparelia. "I mean, the U.S. is the great power and they practice realpolitik more than any other power in the world."

Ruparelia said that while he takes the RCMP's statement that they have evidence linking agents of the Indian government to homicides and other acts of violence in Canada "seriously," the U.S. government clearly has "compartmentalized the issue" in order to continue working with India.

Murder claims may take a back seat to larger issues

There are multiple factors at work in Modi's decision to seek rapprochement with China. But the tensions with the West over India's alleged program of assassinating dissidents in Canada and the U.S. could not have helped to sell him on the idea of ditching India's traditional non-alignment and jumping into an alliance with the countries that have accused him.

At the same time, the geopolitical stakes between nations as large and powerful as the U.S., India, China and Russia all but ensure that the assassination allegations will end up taking a back seat to other, bigger considerations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin,host of this year's BRICS summit, will be delighted with the meeting between Xi and Modi in Russia and may seek to take some of the credit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a press conference at BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024.

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a press conference at BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (Maxim Shipenkov/Associated Press)

Putin was careful toseat himself between the Indian and Chinese leaders, offering a visual symbol of his role as facilitator of their coming-together, said Prof. Ho-fung Hung of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

"This kind of photo-op meeting, in which Putin is showing up side by side with all these world leaders, is a win for Putin because it's a kind of defiance of the U.S. attempt to isolate Russia," he said. "Putin can show to people back home that actually [he has] friends, and Russia has friends, despite all these U.S. efforts. So the U.S. is failing in isolating Russia."

Burying the clubs and hatchets

A brutal medieval battle fought at dangerously high altitude in June 2020 marked the lowest point in India-China relations in many years.

Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were reported killed in a melee with clubs and axes over disputed territory high in the Himalayan district of Ladakh.

Both sides respected the letter of their agreement to keep guns out of their border dispute, although the peaceful spirit of that agreement was forgotten in brutal hand-to-hand fighting.

Since then there have been more incidents, including asimilar brawl in December 2022 in Arunachal Pradesh, another mountainous stretch of the border more than 1,200 kilometres to the East.

An Indian army soldier keeps guard on top of his vehicle as their convoy moves on the Srinagar- Ladakh highway at Gagangeer, northeast of Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. India said Monday its soldiers thwarted “provocative” movements by China’s military near a disputed border in the Ladakh region months into the rival nations’ deadliest standoff in decades. China's military said it was taking “necessary actions in response," without giving details.More

An Indian army soldier keeps guard on top of his vehicle as their convoy moves on the Srinagar-Ladakh highway at Gagangeer, northeast of Srinagar in Indian-controlled Kashmir, on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. (Mukhtar Khan/Associated Press)

The Chinese haveparaded Indian prisoners before cameras, infuriating India and provoking street demonstrations.

China's aggressive behaviour on India's borders gave the Biden administration an opening that it seized to try to persuade India to sign up to a U.S.-led Indo-Pacific alliance aimed at countering China and Chinese expansionism.

Washington pointed to the parallels between India's experience and that of the Philippines, Vietnam, and other countries subject to extreme territorial claims by China that are often pushed usinghardball methods.

For a while, it seemed to work. India signed up to a new "security dialogue" called the Quad, which united it with the U.S., Japan and Australia. But it soon became evident that India had little interest in moving past the dialogue stage.

'Mutual trust, mutual respect'

This week, India and China announced that their border disputes were on the way to being settled, opening the door for Xi and Modi to meet in person.

"We are holding a formal meeting after five years," said Modi. "We believe that the India-China relationship is very important, not only for our people but also for global peace, stability and progress. We welcome the consensus reached on the issues that have arisen over the last four years on the border.

"Mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity should remain the basis of our relations."

Not so fast, said Ruparelia, who is writing a book on India-China relations.

"India hasn't resolved the border dispute," he said. "What they've agreed to do is to resume national patrols on either side of the dispute. In India, the media has been sort of euphoric, at least the pro-Modi media, but there haven't been any details yet.

"And the biggest outstanding question is whether the status quo ante has been restored because China crossed the line of control and then occupied a lot of territory that India claimed at its own. It's not clear whether they've retreated back to the line before the incursion in 2020."

Still, the resolution to the border dispute suggests that China is willing to be more conciliatory with India than with other neighbours, in return for India remaining true to its non-aligned traditions and refusing to join any meaningful alliance against Beijing.

"India right now is in a very good position because everybody is calling India," said Hung. "The U.S. definitely will be concerned about India getting too close with China."

But India can afford to cause heartburn in Washington, he said, and the Modi government probably knows it has little reason to fear real consequences over the alleged Pannun assassination plot.

"I think that India has the upper hand in this relation now," he said. "The U.S. really doesn't have much leverage over India about all this."

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a dual Canadian-American citizen who has been organizing non-binding referendums for Sikhs to vote for the creation of an independent homeland named Khalistan.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a dual Canadian-American citizen who has been organizing non-binding referendums for Sikhs to vote for the creation of an independent homeland named Khalistan. (CBC)

The U.S. federal indictment against Indian drug trafficker Nikhil Gupta at the end of last year brought into public view tensions that had already been building between Washington and New Delhi for months behind the scenes.

For the first time, it became clear that the U.S. was not merely backing the Trudeau government's claim that it has evidence linking Indian agents to the killing of Canadian Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar — it also had an alleged Indian government-sponsored murder plot on its own soil.

Pannun is the leader of a worldwide effort to organize referendums in the Sikh diaspora on the future of Punjab, pushing the idea of a Sikh homeland called Khalistan carved out of present-day India.

U.S. officials say they have a clear trail of electronic footprints leading back to the New Delhi headquarters of India's intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

U.S. officials had little choice but to act on that evidence, even if it meant upsetting the budding relationship with India.

U.S. President Joe Biden, center, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and other G20 leaders arrive to pay their tributes at the Rajghat, a Mahatma Gandhi memorial, in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023.

U.S. President Joe Biden, center, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and other G20 leaders arrive to pay their tributes at the Rajghat, a Mahatma Gandhi memorial, in New Delhi, India on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. (Kenny Holston/AP)

It soon emerged that President Joe Biden had himself raised the issue with Narendra Modi at the G20 Summit in New Delhi last year. Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan has been tasked with managing the diplomatic aspects of a case the administration clearly wishes did not exist, but also cannot ignore.

Sullivan has met in recent months with both his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, and with Modi himself, but has had to use some of that face-time to press India to investigate its own officials in the Pannun murder plot.

India has responded by claiming that rogue operatives were behind the conspiracy, setting up a commission of inquiry that traveled to Washington this month to report on its findings, and even placing one official under arrest.

Forced into such actions by the strength of electronic evidence in Washington's hands, Modi has simultaneously been sending signals he is not interested in ostracizing either China or Russia. Hevisited Putin in a dacha outside Moscow in early July, to theannoyance of the U.S. State Department.

Russia ties run deeper

"It's not the India-China relationship that the U.S. needs to be concerned about most, because India is also friendly with Russia," said Hung.

India's new agreement with China doesn't resolve all issues between the two countries, including India's fears about rising Chinese influence in countries that New Delhi has long considered part of its sphere of influence, such as Sri Lanka and Nepal.

India has few such structural impediments to its relationship with Moscow, said Hung.

"There's evidence showing that actually India is also helping Russia in its war effort in one way or another."


The allegations of murder plots against dissidents in Canada and the U.S. have highlighted one of the benefits of diplomacy with authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China: they don't care how you treat your dissidents and they don't give you lectures on human rights.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi walk during their meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence near Moscow, Russia July 8, 2024.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi walk during their meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence near Moscow, Russia on July 8, 2024. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via Reuters)

That understanding will likely temper U.S. pressure on India over the alleged assassination plots, in the same way that Washington has muted its criticism of India's relationship with America's rivals.

"There was the hope and expectation, I think, in some quarters in Washington that India will come on side more in the sense of therefore being more antagonistic towards China and Russia," said Ruparelia.

"But India relies on Russia for more than two-thirds of its arms. Their artillery is very much dependent on Russia. India has always been concerned about growing ties between Russia and China. They've just had this border clash. So the U.S. would understand that.

"Even on the flashpoint of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where India has been refining Russian oil and the U.S. probably is not happy about that, but at the same time, they have an interest in it because it helps keep the price of oil down, and therefore deals with inflationary pressures. So there's a whole series of factors at work."

Within all of that great power manoeuvring, the assassination plots do not loom very large. India knows that, and knows it occupies an enviable diplomatic position at the moment as the non-aligned player everyone wants on their team. And the experts say those geopolitical considerations are likely to trump all others


Xi undercut the West by negotiating a truce in China's long feud with India

Tom Porter,Hannah Abraham
Updated Fri, October 25, 2024 



China's Xi Jinping negotiated a truce with India's leader, Narendra Modi.


They agreed to a patrolling arrangement on a disputed Himalayan border.


The deal is a snub to the US, that's been building an alliance of powers to counter China.

At the BRICS summit in Russia this week, China's leader Xi Jinping and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook hands for the first time in five years.

The symbolic moment came after a deal was struck to resolve a long-standing feud between the Asian superpowers.

In the lead-up to the summit, the countries announced they had reached a patrolling agreement that would reduce tensions along a disputed Himalayan border.

The dispute had led to deadly hand-to-hand combat in recent years, taking the lives of 20 Indian troops and at least four Chinese soldiers.

After their meeting at the summit hosted by Russia's President Vladimir Putin, Xi and Modi said they would continue discussions on resolving the issue.
A setback for the US

Some analysts believe it is a development that's unlikely to be welcomed in Washington, DC.

The US has sought to recruit India to help it contain China's growing regional aggression alongside other members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a security pact that also includes Japan and Australia.

"So definitely, this is a setback for the United States of America's Indo-Pacific outlook, given the kind of rapprochement we are seeing in India-China relations, and particularly India, China and Russia coming together," Jagannath Panda, head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, told Business Insider.

"Putin, Xi, and Modi meeting definitely signals that there is a kind of understanding under the carpet that has happened, which is quite subtle," he said.

It's an assessment echoed by Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international affairs at Bucknell University.

"The thaw in India-China relations is a boon to both countries. This is particularly significant for China because India may now be less inclined to confront Beijing as part of Quad," Zhu told Voice of America. "In this sense, the effectiveness of Quad would be diluted with a less enthusiastic India."
Competition between Asia's rival powers intensifies

Tensions have been building between China and India for years.

As the two biggest economies in Asia, the countries have long jostled for regional power, with the dispute over the Himalayan border a flashpoint that led to clashes in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Amid the stand-off, Chinese vessels have reportedly surveilled the Indian Ocean in what experts told Reuters was a likely intelligence-gathering operation, while India has strengthened its security ties with China's chief global rival, the US.

In 2017 India played a key role in restarting the Quad, an alliance designed as a bulwark against growing Chinese influence and aggression in the Asia-Pacific region.

But India has long sought to balance its relationship with rival superpowers the US and China, and does not at this point want to tie itself too closely to either side, say analysts.

In addition to being a member of the Quad Alliance, it is a founding member of the BRICS, an association of non-Western economies that China has sought to transform into an alternative global economic power base to the US.

An Indian army convoy drives towards Leh, on a highway bordering China.Yawar Nazir via Getty Images

"This explains why it remains part of multilateral groupings with contradictory goals," said Praveen Donthi, a South Asia analyst with the International Crisis Group in Washington, DC, pointing to both its membership of the US-aligned Quad and China-dominated BRIC group.

The truce comes with China on the back foot diplomatically, said Panda, pointing to its damaged relations with Europe and the US after its support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"One could draw a conclusion at this point that probably the Chinese are more interested to rebuild the ties with India than the other way round," said Panda.

He said there's also the possibility that Xi has reached an agreement with Modi behind the scenes for India to remain silent if China acts on its longstanding ambition to seize back control of Taiwan.

Such a move would likely draw in the US and its other regional allies, who have pledged to help defend Taiwan's independence.

"I think China's bigger ambition and target is the Taiwan issue, and therefore they would not really like to continue the kind of tensions they were engaged in with India for the last three to four years," he said.

"Therefore, they would like to rebuild, and they would like to ensure that India does not react to the Taiwan issue so sensitively."

In any case, its a setback in US attempts to include India in a deeper security alliance, he said.

"For a long time, the US has tried to develop security and defense ties with India," said Panda.

For the time being, a truce suits both Russian and Chinese interests, Rahul Bhatia, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, said. But, he added, tensions remain.

He said that though both parties have opened discussions about the border dispute, the underlying problem remains unresolved, and future flare-ups are likely.

Donthi said the progress between the leaders could also be derailed if tensions between the US and China increase.

"This comes as a relief after four years of eyeball-to-eyeball troop deployment in the Himalayas. However, it's only the beginning," he said.

Head of NASA Not Happy That Elon Musk Has Been Secretly Taking Orders From Putin

Victor Tangermann
Fri, October 25, 2024 



Concerning

NASA administrator Bill Nelson isn't happy with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after the Wall Street Journal reported that he has been in "regular contact" with Russian president Vladimir Putin for several years — even reportedly taking orders from the despot to prevent the activation of Starlink satellites over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Nelson told Semafor during Friday's Semafor World Economy Summit that he thinks the story "should be investigated."

"If its true there have been multiple conversations with Elon Musk and the president of Russia then that would be concerning particularly for NASA and the Department of Defense," he added.

It's a notable rebuke given SpaceX's close ties to both the space agency and the Pentagon. The space company has launched plenty of national security satellites, while NASA has become reliant on its Crew Dragon spacecraft to reach the International Space Station.

Having the space company's chief executive take orders or reveal potentially incriminating secrets to the head of the United States' biggest adversary could have troubling implications — something that Nelson seems painfully aware of.
National Liability

Musk's increasingly polarizing and problematic behavior has put the space agency in a difficult position.

For his part, Nelson has maintained that Musk's antics haven't been able to rock the boat too much, since in his estimation SpaceX's president Gwynne Shotwell is the one truly in charge.

"The good news about that is that Elon has a president that he lets run the company," he told Axios last month.

But now that he has reportedly been talking with Putin, Nelson has taken a different tune.

Musk has yet to respond to the claims. A Kremlin spokesperson told the newspaper that Musk and Putin had only met once to discuss "space as well as current and future technologies."

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Musk at first seemed opposed to Putin's land grab, aiding the Ukrainian side by sending thousands of Starlink broadband satellite terminals.

But then, as the WSJ reports, his tone changed considerably in late 2022, going as far as to suggest that Ukraine should give up parts of its territory to Russia to prevent a nuclear war.



Several years later, Musk has thrown his full weight behind the reelection of former president Donald Trump. The former reality TV host's close relationship with Putin is well-established. Musk's social media network X-formerly-Twitter also hosted a two-hour chat between conservative pundit Tucker Carlson and Putin.

In short, Musk's ties with the US' largest adversaries have clearly rattled NASA's leadership.

More on Musk and NASA: NASA Is Mega Hyped About SpaceX's Imminent Starship Test Flight


NASA chief calls for investigation into report about Musk-Putin talks

Filip Timotija
Fri, October 25, 2024 

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways


NASA Administrator Bill Nelson called for The Wall Street Journal’s recent report on “secret” conversations between tech billionaire Elon Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin to be investigated.

Nelson first emphasized that NASA is “non-partisan political” and praised SpaceX for its recent work in developing spacecraft, before saying that the Journal’s Thursday report should be looked into.

“I don’t know that that story is true,” Nelson said at a conference hosted by news outlet Semafor. “I think it should be investigated.”

“If the story’s true, that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies,” he continued.

Nelson’s response comes after the Journal published a report stating Musk and Putin have been in touch since late 2022, having discussions that were confirmed to the outlet by “several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials.” The sources told the Journal the conversations were on “personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.”

The Journal reported that Russia’s president at one point asked Musk not to activate Starlink internet service over Taiwan for the sake of giving a favor to China’s President Xi Jinping, citing sources briefed on the request.

The outlet said Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

NASA and SpaceX are commercial partners, and NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 returned to Earth Friday after seven months at the International Space Station.

Earlier this year, Putin praised Musk as a “smart guy.”

“I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk. He will do as he sees fit. Nevertheless, you’ll need to find some common ground with him. Search for ways to persuade him. I think he’s a smart person. I truly believe he is. So you’ll need to reach an agreement with him because this process needs to be formalized and subjected to certain rules.”

The Hill has reached out to SpaceX for comment.

Updated at 9:04 a.m. EDT

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Putin asked Musk to switch off internet over Taiwan

Gregor Stuart Hunter
Fri, October 25, 2024 

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at the Brics summit in Kazan, Russia, this week - Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Vladimir Putin asked Elon Musk to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favour to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, security officials in the US and Europe believe.

A Wall Street Journal report said the richest man in the world has been in regular contact with the Russian leader since late 2022, citing several unnamed current and former officials in the US, Europe and Russia.

The report does not say whether Mr Musk took any action in response to Putin’s request.



However, the Kremlin on Friday denied the report. “It’s all untrue, absolutely false information published in the newspaper,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Starlink has emerged as a lifeline for Ukraine’s military as it attempts to maintain internet connectivity on the front lines in its conflict with Russia.

At the start of the conflict, the company delivered 5,000 terminals to Kyiv with the help of the US Agency for International Development.

Mr Musk, who has regularly criticised the Wall Street Journal on X, the social media network he owns, has not yet commented on the reports.

Neither Starlink nor SpaceX have responded to the claims.

Elon Musk is said to have been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin - Richard Bord/WireImage

Mr Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, which launches the Starlink satellites, has extensive contracts with the US department of defence, and he has a security clearance that gives him access to classified information. Nasa relies on his Falcon rockets to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.

Starlink is not available in Taiwan, with a map of global availability on the company’s website stating: “Service date is unknown at this time.”

China views democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to take control of the island, and has never renounced the use of force to do so.

Taiwan, which restricts foreign satellite operators, has been seeking to establish its own low-Earth orbit satellite network since the end of 2022.

Some politicians have cited Mr Musk’s conflicts of interest with China, where his electric carmaker Tesla has manufacturing facilities, as justification for building its own alternative.

This effort gained renewed urgency after shipping vessels damaged two sub-sea internet cables connecting some of Taiwan’s outlying islands near the Chinese mainland last year, almost completely cutting them off from contact with the outside world.

Some analysts viewed the outage as Beijing carrying out a dress rehearsal of its invasion tactics.

Starlink is not available in Taiwan, but is a lifeline for Ukraine’s military - Starlink/Adobe Stock

On Thursday, Taiwan’s ministry of digital affairs launched the island’s first domestically produced high-altitude balloons to serve as backup communication channels in the event of emergencies.

In February, members of US Congress said Starlink’s approach to Taiwan could threaten its government contracts.

Mike Gallagher, a Republican representative for Wisconsin, said that by not making its service available in Taiwan, SpaceX could be in breach of its contract to make the service accessible to the US government worldwide, according to a letter reviewed by The New York Times.

SpaceX “is in full compliance with all of its US government contracts”, the company said at the time.

“SpaceX notified the select committee last week that it is misinformed, but the committee chose to contact media before seeking additional information.”

Mr Musk, the world’s richest man with an estimated fortune of $270 billion (£208 billion), according to Bloomberg, has recently thrown his support behind Donald Trump, joining him on the Republican presidential campaign trail and giving away millions of dollars to sway voters in swing states.

His increased presence has led to speculation Mr Musk may be seeking greater influence in a new administration in 2025.

Trump has also made regular phone calls to Putin since leaving office, according to a recent book by veteran political journalist Bob Woodward.


Tesla CEO's Conversations with Putin Raise National Security Questions, WSJ Reports

Faizan Farooque
Fri, October 25, 2024 


Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA, Financials), has engaged in discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022, The Wall Street Journal said, citing anonymous sources.

Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Signs with BA.

Citing many current and former officials from the United States, Europe, and Russia, the Wall Street Journal said that Musk's talks with Putin included both personal and commercial affairs. Reportedly as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Putin asked Musk not to turn on Starlink, their satellite internet service, above Taiwan at one time.

Because Musk works extensively with U.S. government entities like NASA via SpaceX, these contacts have generated possible national security concerns, the Journal said. According the article, Musk also has a security clearance allowing him access to secret material.



Declining to discuss Musk's security clearance, a Pentagon spokesman said, "We do not comment on any individual's security clearance, review or status, or about personnel security policy matters in the context of reports about any individual's actions."

In October 2022, Musk said on X, the site he ownsformerly known as Twitterthat he had just once discussed space with Putin in April 2021.

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Musk and Putin simply discussed in a phone conversation about future technologies and space.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.

Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Putin since 2022, report says

Rhian Lubin
Fri, October 25, 2024

Scroll back up to restore default view.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways


Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin since 2022, according to a report – raising fresh security concerns in both the US and Europe.

Musk, whose America PAC is helping to bankroll Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, has spoken to the Russian president on the phone about business and geopolitical matters, officials with knowledge of the alleged conversations told The Wall Street Journal.

On one of the alleged calls, Putin reportedly asked Musk for “a favor” on behalf of Chinese leader Xi Jinping not to activate Starlink satellite services over Taiwan, according to the Journal.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed one telephone call took place between Musk and Putin where they discussed “space as well as current and future technologies,” the outlet reported, but denied there had been regular conversations.

The Independent has contacted Musk for comment. Musk did not respond to requests for comment from the Journal.

The alleged contact raises potential national security concerns due to Putin’s frosty relations with the US and his ongoing war in Ukraine as the presidential election looms.

The Journal reported that the Biden administration has not raised concerns about any “possible security breaches” by Musk.

Elon Musk campaigning in Pennsylvania for Trump last week (REUTERS)

An unnamed source aware of the alleged conversations between Musk and Putin told the paper that the US government is facing something of a “dilemma” because it is “so dependent” on SpaceX’s technology.

Musk has forged strong ties within the US intelligence and military services through his companies. The Tesla CEO’s SpaceX company holds multi-billion-dollar contracts with NASA and the Pentagon, The New York Times reported this week.

The company launches national security satellites into orbit and NASA contracts it to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.

“They don’t love it,” the source told the Journal, referring to Musk’s alleged contact with Putin.

Just last week, the billionaire referred to his security clearance level while rallying for Trump in Pennsylvania.

“I do have a top-secret clearance,” he said. “But, I’d have to say, like most of the stuff that I’m aware of… the reason they keep it top secret is because it’s so boring.”

A Pentagon spokesperson told the Journal it does not comment on an individual’s security clearance.

Musk has previously refuted criticism he is “pro-Russia.” On October 4, he posted on X about his company’s support for Ukraine. “SpaceX’s out of pocket cost to enable & support Starlink in Ukraine is ~$80M so far,” he said. “Our support for Russia is $0. Obviously, we are pro Ukraine.”

Vladimir Putin at the BRICS summit in Kazan on October 24. Musk is said to have spoken with Putin many times (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Musk endorsed Trump for president earlier this year and since then, his support for the Republican has been unwavering. He is now Trump’s second biggest financial backer, according to Forbes, donating almost $120 million through his PAC.

Appearing on stage with Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month, Musk claimed the former president was the only candidate “to preserve democracy in America.”



Trump, meanwhile, has previously claimed Putin “would never have gone into Ukraine” if he were president and has touted his “very good relationship” with him several times.

Putin denied having any contact with Trump at a conference yesterday following reports from Bob Woodward’s book that the pair have spoken “several times” since the Republican left the White House in 2021.

The Trump campaign told the newspaper that Musk is a “once-in-a-generation industry leader and our broken federal bureaucracy could certainly benefit from his ideas and efficiency.”

“As for Putin, there’s only one candidate in the race that he did not invade another country under, and it’s President Trump,” the spokesperson said.

“President Trump has long said that he will re-establish his peace through strength foreign policy to deter Russia’s aggression and end the war in Ukraine.”

Opinion
Elon Musk Stays Silent After Bombshell Report on Secret Putin Contact

Hafiz Rashid

THE NEW REPUBLIC
Fri, October 25, 2024 



Elon Musk has stayed unusually silent after The Wall Street Journal revealed Thursday night that the tech CEO has been speaking regularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The newspaper reported that Musk has corresponded with Putin since 2022, discussing personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions. Putin even made a request of Musk in one conversation: to refrain from setting up his satellite internet service, Starlink, over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Musk has been tweeting around the clock since the story broke at 9 p.m. EST Thursday, but has not mentioned the Journal article once, mostly sticking to right-wing conspiracies and promotion of Donald Trump. According to the Journal, Musk not only had conversations with Putin, but with other high-ranking Kremlin officials as well. He even faced “implicit threats against him,” one source said.

The report is especially concerning given that the tech mogul has come out as a strong supporter of the former president, spending millions to help Trump return to the White House. The Journal report notes that Putin and Musk have continued contact this year as Musk has ramped up his efforts to reelect Trump.

In addition to his political activism, Musk has billions of dollars in government contracts attached to his companies. SpaceX, which operates Starlink, has a $1.8 billion classified contract and launches rockets for the Pentagon and NASA. He also has a security clearance giving him access to classified information.

With all of these government connections, the fact that Musk is consistently talking to one of the United States’ foremost adversaries in Putin presents a danger to national security. His control of Starlink gives him immense power over international communications, too. And Musk’s ownership of X also potentially puts the personal information of anyone who uses the social media service at risk. An anonymous source told the Journal that the Biden administration is aware of Musk and Putin’s relationship, but hasn’t raised any concerns over security breaches.


However, “they don’t love it,” the source told the Journal.

Microsoft fires employees who organized vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza

MATT O'BRIEN
Updated Fri, October 25, 2024 

The Microsoft logo in Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside Paris, France, April 12, 2016. The company said Wednesday that Russian operatives are doubling down on fake videos to smear Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, while Chinese-linked social media campaigns are maligning down-ballot candidates who are critical of China. Meanwhile, Iranian actors who allegedly sent emails aimed at intimidating U.S. voters in 2020 have been surveying election-related websites and major media outlets, the tech giant said. 

(AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)More

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company's headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel's war with Hamas.

The two employees told The Associated Press they were fired by phone call late Thursday, several hours after a lunchtime event they organized at Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington.

Both workers were members of a coalition of employees called “No Azure for Apartheid" that has opposed Microsoft's sale of its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli government. But they contended that Thursday's event was similar to other Microsoft-sanctioned employee giving campaigns for people in need.

“We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends or loved ones,” said Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist. "But Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves."

Microsoft said Friday it has “ended the employment of some individuals in accordance with internal policy” but declined to provide details.

Mohamed, who is from Egypt, said he now needs a new job in the next two months to transfer a work visa and avoid deportation.

Another fired worker, Hossam Nasr, said the purpose of the vigil was both “to honor the victims of the Palestinian genocide in Gaza and to call attention to Microsoft’s complicity in the genocide” because of the use of its technology by the Israeli military.

Nasr said his firing was disclosed on social media by the watchdog group Stop Antisemitism more than an hour before he received the call from Microsoft. The group didn't immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on how it learned about the firing.

The same group had months earlier called on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to take action against Nasr for his public stances on Israel.

Nasr, an Egyptian-raised 2021 graduate of Harvard University, is also a co-organizer of Harvard Alumni for Palestine.

Google earlier this year fired more than 50 workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war. The firings stemmed from internal turmoil and sit-in protests at Google offices centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.

Microsoft said in its statement Friday about the firings that it remains “dedicated to maintaining a professional and respectful work environment. Due to privacy and confidentiality considerations, we cannot provide specific details.”