TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2016

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Seoul blames N Korean govt organization for email scams SEOUL: An organization likely run by North Korea’s government hacked into the email accounts of dozens of officials, journalists and others in South Korea this year, Seoul officials said yesterday, the latest cyber attack that the South blames on its rival. The organization sent phishing emails to government officials, journalists and professors who specialize in North Korean affairs to try to trick them into giving away their passwords, Seoul’s Supreme Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The passwords for at least 56 of the email accounts were eventually leaked, according to the statement. Seoul authorities were investigating whether any confidential government information was stolen, but the prosecutors’ office said there had been no reports of leakage of sensitive information. The statement said the contents of the phishing emails, a China-based IP address and a web-hosting service provider were the same ones used in a previous North Korean cyberattack. It didn’t identify the suspected organization. South Korea accuses North Korea of launching a series of cyber attacks in recent years, but the North has dismissed the allegations. Last week, South Korean police said they believe North Korea was behind the recent leakage of personal data for

more than 10 million users of an online shopping site. South Korea said last year that North Korea has a 6,000-member cyber army dedicated to disrupting the South’s government and military. The figure was a sharp increase from a 2013 South Korean estimate of 3,000 such specialists. North Korea’s hacking technology has been improving every year, according to Simon Choi at Seoul-based anti-virus company Hauri Inc. He said the North has carried out many more cyber attacks than is publicly known, making it difficult for South Korea to fend off all of them. Many previous alleged North Korean cyber attacks failed to infiltrate the targeted computer systems at businesses and government agencies. But in several cases, hackers destroyed hard drives, paralyzed banking systems or disrupted access to websites. One attack was so crippling that a South Korean bank was unable to restore its online services for more than two weeks. The Koreas have been divided by the world’s most heavily fortified border since the Korean War ended in 1953 with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Earlier this year, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test explosion and conducted a prohibited long-range rocket launch, prompting worldwide condemnation and tougher UN sanctions. —AP

PAJU, SOUTH KOREA: A North Korean army soldier, right, looks at the south side as a South Korean soldier, left, stands guard at the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War. —AP

China releases prominent human rights lawyer on bail Condemning campaign against legal activism

QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte delivers his first State of the Nation Address before the joint session of the 17th Congress on July 25th, 2016. —AP

Philippines, rebels want peace talks despite feud over truce MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said yesterday his government would pursue peace talks with communist guerrillas despite an initial setback when he withdrew a ceasefire order after the rebels killed a militiaman in an attack. Duterte also announced he would release a top rebel couple, Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, from detention in another move to bolster the resumption of peace negotiations scheduled for Aug. 20-27 in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. “It’s always a rocky road. There is no negotiation that comes easy to us, especially given the turmoil of our country,” Duterte said in a speech before swearing in new officials at the presidential palace. “We are hoping that we could just talk, maybe we did not understand each other. And so, the best way is really is to talk again and find out whether it is reachable or beyond our reach,” he said. Duterte declared a ceasefire on July 25 but withdrew it five days later after the rebels killed a militiaman in a landmine attack in southern Davao del Norte province and failed to declare their own truce by Saturday. The president held a Cabinet meeting yesterday to discuss how his government would pursue talks with the communist insurgents and two groups of Muslim rebels in the country’s south, while excluding the brutal Abu Sayyaf extremist group. The Maoist guerrillas said in a statement on Sunday that they still fully back the resumption of long-stalled talks and were willing to declare a unilateral cease-fire simultaneously with the government when the talks resume.

Withdrawal of truce Duterte withdrew his truce order before the guerrillas could announce their own ceasefire on Saturday, the rebels said, adding it was “quite capricious” for the president “to have imposed such ultimatums of a few hours or several days for the Communist Party of the Philippines to act in accordance with his whims.” “It is advisable for (Duterte) to exercise a little more prudence and display more measured temperament ... in order to avoid such impulsive acts as imposing ultimatums by the hour on a conflict that has spanned nearly fifty years,” the rebels said. Following the lifting of the government ceasefire, army troops and police killed a New People’s Army rebel in a clash yesterday with up 20 guerrillas who were reportedly extorting money from villagers in Malimono town in southeastern Surigao del Norte province, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla said. Duterte suggested yesterday that he was open to declaring a new government ceasefire with communist insurgents. The decades-long communist insurgency has left about 150,000 combatants and civilians dead since it broke out in the late 1960s. It also has stunted economic development, especially in the countryside, where the Maoist insurgents are active. Under Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, peace talks stalled over the government’s refusal to heed a rebel demand for the release of some captured guerrillas. Duterte, however, has agreed to the release of detained rebels, who would be involved in peace talks, and designated two allies of the guerrillas to Cabinet posts in concessions aimed at fostering the talks. —AP

TIANJIN: China released a prominent human rights lawyer on bail amid protests yesterday outside a northern city court, where supporters of other jailed lawyers and activists condemned the secrecy surrounding the government’s yearlong campaign against legal activism. The release of Wang Yu, who was detained last July, coincided with videos of an alleged confession by Wang posted on the websites of two Hong Kong media outlets in which she renounced her legal work and said “foreign forces” were using her law firm to undermine and discredit the Chinese government. Wang’s Beijing-based firm, Fengrui, has been at the center of a vast case in which dozens of lawyers and activists have been detained, questioned or charged with subversion since July last year. Wen Donghai, a lawyer for Wang, told The Associated Press on Monday that he had learned from media reports that Wang had been released but had not seen her. Li Yuhan, another lawyer representing Wang, said Wang’s mother did not know of her release. The AP could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos, and Phoenix TV, one of the outlets that interviewed Wang, declined to disclose where and when the interview took place. Wang’s release Wang’s reported release and confession were an unexpected bombshell for China’s small but burgeoning human rights community on a day when many believed the head of the Fengrui firm, Zhou Shifeng, and three activists were standing trial behind closed doors in northern China. Flanked by Western diplomats, around two dozen supporters gathered outside the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court calling for information to be disclosed about the four, who were indicted in mid-July. Supporters included the wife of Gou Hongguo, one of the activists who was charged with subversion and thought to be standing trial yesterday, even though there were no visible signs of a trial in progress aside from a heavy presence of plainclothes security officers outside the courthouse. Court officials reached by phone said they had no information about the cases. Several hundred people nationwide have been questioned, with some detained and arrested, in the crackdown that has sent a chill through China’s legal system. Nearly two dozen people remain in detention and face charges, the most serious of which include subversion of state power, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. In her video interview, Wang denounced Zhou, the law firm’s head, as an unqualified lawyer and said all of the firm’s lawyers had received training in how to use Western universal values, human rights and democracy to “attack and smear” the Chinese government. She accused unidentified foreign powers of hatching a plot to smuggle her 16-year-old son to the United States and denounced the American Bar Association for awarding her its newly created “ABA International Human Rights Award.” “Regarding this award, my attitude is to

not recognize it, identify with it or accept it. This award is just another way for them to use me to attack and smear the Chinese government,” said Wang, who was seated in a garden at what appeared to be a western-style villa. “I am a Chinese. I can only accept awards from the Chinese government,” Wang said. Series of alleged confessions Wang’s statement is the latest in a series of alleged confessions that have appeared in Chinese state media - and, more recently, in Hong Kong outlets - with the apparent goal of settling high-profile political cases before they go to trial. Zhao Wei, a 24-year old legal assistant who was seized last July, was released in early July and similarly told the South China Morning Post newspaper that she regretted her activism. After their release by Chinese authorities earlier this year, Peter Dahlin, a Swedish non-profit worker, and Lam Wing Kee, a Hong Kong bookseller, recanted confessions they made while in

TIANJIN, CHINA: Li Wenzu, center, wife of imprisoned lawyer Wang Quanzhang, holds a paper that reads “Release Liu Ermin” as she and supporters of a prominent Chinese human rights lawyer and activists stage a protest outside the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court yesterday.—AP detention to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. An overseas Chinese news site and activist groups that track the prosecutions of Chinese rights activists had reported rumors that Zhou, the law firm’s head, Gou and the two others might be put on trial on Monday. Wives of lawyers and activists who were detained in the crackdown staged a small demonstration outside the courthouse next to diplomats from the United States, Britain and six other Western countries that have publicly denounced Beijing’s crackdown. Fan Lili, the wife of Gou, fell to the ground in tears following a confrontation with a plainclothes police officer while dozens of security

False earthquake alert triggers panic in Japan TOKYO: An erroneous alert yesterday that a massive earthquake had hit the Tokyo area sent many in Japan into a brief panic and disrupted some train services. The Japanese Meteorological Agency sent the alert just after 5 p.m., saying a magnitude -9.1 quake had struck. Some people who have Smartphone apps that alert them to quakes got warnings popping up on their screens. The agency’s alert, which was canceled within seconds, set off alarmed chatter on Twitter. The meteorological agency said it was investigating why the alert got sent. An agency official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, said the reason may have been lightning hitting a seismograph, an instrument that monitors quakes. Following the alert, some Tokyo train services shut down temporarily. Japan is among the most quake-prone nations in the world. A magnitude-9 quake off the country’s northeast coast in March 2011 set off a giant tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and sent three nuclear reactors into meltdowns. —AP

agents who blanketed the street watched, filming with smart phones and video cameras. “My son is 16 months old now and he has never even met his father. How can you be like this? Let him come home,” Fan said. “All I’m here for today is to ask whether they are holding his hearing aid. why did they beat me?” Local officials later persuaded the family members, supporters and diplomats to move from the courthouse gate. Family members say they have not been permitted to visit the jailed lawyers and activists since they were taken away more than a year ago. Chinese authorities, they say, have also refused to identify the legal counsel they have appointed to represent the defendants instead of the lawyers appointed by their families. Chinese state media have previously accused the Fengrui firm’s lawyers and associated activists of disrupting social order by organizing protests and stirring up trouble for personal gain. Rights groups say the activists are being targeted for organizing protests and social

TOKYO: This photo illustration shows people with their smart phones showing an erroneous megaearthquake alert with a magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter scale, and an intensity of 7 out of 7 on the Japanese scale, for Tokyo Bay yesterday. —AP

media campaigns to raise awareness of legal rights and hot-button social issues. Jiang Tianyong, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer, said the level of secrecy was unusual. In the past, high-profile dissidents such as writer Liu Xiaobo had family-appointed lawyers and relatives present at their trials. Jiang said the disappearances, presumably into police custody, of at least two of the presumed defendants’ wives as they were headed to Tianjin on Sunday were strong indications that a trial was under way. “This is unprecedented ... a completely secret operation,” said Jiang. “From beginning to end, it’s a black box.”—AP

New Tokyo governor says defying party secured win TOKYO: Tokyo’s new governor Yuriko Koike yesterday credited her landslide victory to having stood up to the powers that be in Japan’s ruling party who didn’t want her to run. Koike, 64, was elected Tokyo’s first female governor in the Sunday vote, winning more than 2.9 million votes, far outpacing the nearly 1.8 million ballots cast for closest challenger Hiroya Masuda. Masuda, a former governor of Iwate prefecture in northern Japan, was the favored candidate of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner. The LDP spurned Koike, an LDP member, for failing to seek its approval before announcing her candidacy, with a top party official calling her ‘selfish’. Koike, however, had the last laugh after her campaign drew huge crowds during street rallies ahead of the vote. ‘I fought this race without support from the party, and people joked I was like the sole player in a theatre company,’ she told reporters early yesterday. ‘But in the end it allowed us to move freely rather than restricting us.’

Financial scandal The election was called after previous governor Yoichi Masuzoe resigned over a financial scandal involving the lavish use of public funds on hotels and spa tripsóthe second successive Tokyo leader to quit. A key challenge facing Koike will be to get a grip on Tokyo’s troubled path to hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics, which has been plagued by scandals and cost overruns. She vowed late Sunday to be transparent on the budget and restore the trust of voters in the sprawling metropolis of 13.6 million people. Her defeat of Masuda, a veteran administrator who had won plaudits as governor of northeastern Iwate for 12 years, was a huge embarrassment for the conservative party. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the governmentís top spokesman, expressed disappointment that Masuda lost but hinted the LDP could work with Koike. ‘It is important for the central government to cooperate (with the new governor) for the benefit of the Japanese people,’ he said. — AFP