
NATO and EU express solidarity with Prague after Chinese cyberattack
The Czech Republic has determined that the attack was perpetrated by a group of hackers called the Advanced Persistent Threat 31 (APT31) which is associated with the Ministry of State Security of China, the EU statement read.
According to the Czech Foreign Ministry, the attack took place in 2022. 'In recent years, malicious cyber activities linked to this country and targeting the EU and its member states have increased,' the EU's 27 members wrote.
The EU strongly condemned cyberattacks and called on China to refrain from such behaviour.
'The European Union reaffirms its strong commitment to prevent, deter and respond to malicious behaviour in cyberspace and stands ready to take further action when necessary,' the statement said. (DPA)

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Al Jazeera
8 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Iran to hold nuclear talks with 3 European powers on Friday
Iran, France, Germany and the United Kingdom will hold nuclear talks in Istanbul following warnings by the three European countries that failure to resume negotiations would lead to international sanctions being reimposed on Tehran. The talks scheduled for Friday come after foreign ministers of the E3 nations, as those European countries are known, as well as the European Union's foreign policy chief, held their first call on Thursday with Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi since Israel and the United States attacked Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago. The three European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to a 2015 nuclear deal reached with Iran, from which the US withdrew in 2018, that had lifted sanctions on the Middle Eastern country in return for restrictions on its nuclear programme. 'The meeting between Iran, Britain, France and Germany will take place at the deputy foreign minister level,' Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, was quoted by Iranian state media as saying. The E3 have said they would restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran by the end of August if nuclear talks that were ongoing between Iran and the US, before Israel launched a surprise attack, do not resume or fail to produce concrete results. Iran has accused the US of complicity in the Israeli attack, which killed top Iranian military officials, nuclear scientists and hundreds of civilians. The US also launched strikes on three major Iranian nuclear sites, claiming to have 'obliterated' them. A ceasefire took effect on June 24. 'If EU/E3 want to have a role, they should act responsibly, and put aside the worn-out policies of threat and pressure, including the 'snap-back' for which they lack absolutely moral and legal ground,' Araghchi said last week. Before the Israel-Iran war, Tehran and Washington held five rounds of nuclear talks mediated by Oman but faced major stumbling blocks such as uranium enrichment in Iran, which Western powers want to bring down to zero to minimise any risk of weaponisation. Tehran maintains that its nuclear programme is solely meant for civilian purposes. Middle East assessments Also on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a surprise meeting in the Kremlin with Ali Larijani, the top adviser to Iran's supreme leader on nuclear issues. Larijani 'conveyed assessments of the escalating situation in the Middle East and around the Iranian nuclear programme', Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the unannounced meeting. Putin expressed Russia's 'well-known positions on how to stabilise the situation in the region and on the political settlement of the Iranian nuclear programme', he added. Moscow has a cordial relationship with Iran's clerical leadership and provides crucial backing for Tehran, but it did not swing forcefully behind its partner even after the US joined Israel's bombing campaign.


Qatar Tribune
8 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
As US and Europe cut aid budgets, China's star is on the rise in Southeast Asia: Report
Agencies China's role as Southeast Asia's largest infrastructure financier is increasing its regional influence at a time when the United States and the European Union are slashing their foreign aid budgets, a new report by an Australian think tank said. With the Trump administration in the United States scrapping about US$60 billion in aid and European countries pulling back more than US$25 billion, 'the centre of gravity' in Southeast Asia's development finance landscape 'looks set to drift East, notably to Beijing, but also Tokyo and Seoul', the Lowy Institute report, which was released today, said. 'China is the single largest partner on infrastructure financing in Southeast Asia, but traditional donors combined still outspend it,' the report's lead authors, Alexandre Dayant, Grace Stanhope and Roland Rajah, wrote. 'As Western aid declines and China recalibrates its strategy, Beijing is well positioned to regain dominance.' Southeast Asia's traditional partners include countries such as the US and Australia, and international organisations such as the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. With the US expected to cut its foreign assistance by 83 per cent this year, the retrenchment of funds from Europe and tariff uncertainties undermining trade ties between the US and other countries, China is enhancing its influence in the region through infrastructure connections. Recent examples include work on high-speed railway links with Vietnam and Thailand. China International Development Cooperation Agency spokesman Li Ming told a news conference in March that China's 'principles related to foreign aid, including non-interference in internal affairs, no political strings attached and no empty promises made, will not change'.'A major country should act like a major country by shouldering its due international obligations and fulfilling its responsibilities, rather than renege on its promises, be mercenary or bullying,' he Lowy Institute report said that in 2023, China had 'ramped up' non-concessional loan disbursements by almost 50 per cent compared to 2022, accelerating major infrastructure projects such as the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway in Indonesia and the East Coast Rail Link in Malaysia. 'Even as the infrastructure race slows, China's relative importance as a development actor in the region will rise as Western development support recedes,' the report said. 'Beijing retains a substantial pipeline of infrastructure projects and has shown continued appetite to take on major projects.' Lower-middle-income economies such as the Philippines and Vietnam would engage with China when doing so aligned with their domestic priorities, the report said, while poorer economies such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – which had limited access to alternative financing – remained 'heavily reliant' on China and had 'much less room to negotiate'. There was a fourfold increase in Chinese infrastructure project commitments from a low of US$2.5 billion in 2022 to almost US$10 billion in 2023 due to the revival of the Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port project in Myanmar, the report said. It said the European Union and the governments of seven European countries – France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Austria and Italy – had announced plans last year to implement US$17.2 billion in foreign aid cuts between this year and 2029, while the United Kingdom was cutting around US$7.6 billion a year. Total development finance to Southeast Asia could decline by 8 per cent, or more than US$2 billion, to US$26.5 billion next year, according to Lowy Institute estimates based on budget documents, public announcements and calculations by other researchers.


Qatar Tribune
8 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Jensen Huang: Nvidia boss, AI visionary in black leather jacket
Agencies Relatively unknown to the general public only three years ago, Jensen Huang now stands as one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in the world as head of chip giant Nvidia. The unassuming 62-year-old draws stadium crowds of more than 10,000 people as his company's products push the boundaries of artificial intelligence. Chips designed by Nvidia, known as graphics cards or graphics processing units (GPUs), are essential in developing the generative artificial intelligence powering technology like ChatGPT. Big Tech's insatiable appetite for Nvidia's GPUs, which sell for tens of thousands of dollars each, has catapulted the California chipmaker to a market valuation of over $4 trillion, making it the first company to surpass that milestone. Nvidia's meteoric rise has boosted Huang's personal fortune to $150 billion – making him one of the world's richest people – thanks to the roughly 3.5% stake he holds in the company he founded three decades ago with two friends in a Silicon Valley diner. In a clear demonstration of his clout, he recently convinced U.S. President Donald Trump to lift restrictions on certain GPU exports to China, despite the fact that Beijing is locked in a battle with Washington for AI supremacy. 'That was brilliantly done,' said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a governance professor at Yale University. Huang was able to explain to Trump that 'having the world using a U.S. tech platform as the core protocol is definitely in the interest of this country' and won't help the Chinese military, Sonnenfeld said. Born in Taipei in 1963, Jensen Huang (originally named Jen-Hsun) embodies the American success story.