Hilton Hotel to be built on top of bulldozed mosque in Xinjiang | NATO's updating its response to cyberattacks | US turns to incentives against Chinese 5G (2024)

Hilton Hotel to be built on top of bulldozed mosque in Xinjiang | NATO's updating its response to cyberattacks | US turns to incentives against Chinese 5G (1)
Hilton Hotel to be built on top of bulldozed mosque in Xinjiang | NATO's updating its response to cyberattacks | US turns to incentives against Chinese 5G (2)

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  • The site where a mosque once stood in the heart of Hotan in China’s Xinjiang region is now under construction to become a commercial tower block that will house a Hampton by Hilton hotel, the Telegraph can reveal. The mosque, demolished in 2018 based on satellite images analysed for the Telegraph by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, is just one of many to disappear across Xinjiang, as China erases the region’s cultural and religious heritage as part of its forced assimilation of Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities. The Telegraph

  • President Joe Biden and leaders from the 30 countries that now make up NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, agreed at their summit in Brussels "that the impact of significant malicious cumulative cyber activities might, in certain circumstances, be considered as amounting to an armed attack," an assessment that could lead the organization to invoke its mutual self-defense clause - or Article 5. Amid the growing cyber threat, Biden on Monday called NATO's Article 5 "a sacred obligation" that is "rock solid and unshakable." ABC

  • The U.S. government is ratcheting up pressure on Beijing’s 5G ambitions overseas, offering financial incentives and other enticements to countries willing to shun Chinese-made telecom gear. The Wall Street Journal

ASPI ICPC

Hilton hotel to be built in Xinjiang after China bulldozes mosque
The Telegraph
@sophia_yan
The site where a mosque once stood in the heart of Hotan in China’s Xinjiang region is now under construction to become a commercial tower block that will house a Hampton by Hilton hotel, the Telegraph can reveal. The mosque, demolished in 2018 based on satellite images analysed for the Telegraph by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, is just one of many to disappear across Xinjiang, as China erases the region’s cultural and religious heritage as part of its forced assimilation of Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities.”The systematic campaign of cultural erasure in many ways shows how authorities in Xinjiang and Beijing view ordinary expressions of Uyghur identity, faith and culture as a strategic threat to them and Party rule,” said Nathan Ruser, a researcher with ASPI, a Canberra-based think tank.ASPI estimates that 16,000 mosques in Xinjiang – about 65 per cent of the total – have been destroyed or damaged due to Chinese government policies since 2017. The Telegraph travelled across Xinjiang over nine days to investigate the state-led cultural eradication programme and document the current state of those sites.

  • Read our report: Cultural Erasure here.

Underfunding of universities leading to blind spots on human rights
Irish Times
Chinese multinational technology company Huawei is set to invest €80 million in Irish research and development over the next two years. Huawei works with a number of Irish third-level institutions, including Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University of Limerick, University College Dublin and University College Cork. In 2019, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute raised concerns about Huawei’s involvement in the surveillance of the Uyghur minority and the use by three of Huawei’s subcontractors of forced Uyghur labour.

  • See our project: Mapping China’s Tech Giants here.

World

How NATO is updating its common defense pact to deal with global cyberattacks
ABC News
@libbycathey
President Joe Biden and leaders from the 30 countries that now make up NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, agreed at their summit in Brussels "that the impact of significant malicious cumulative cyber activities might, in certain circumstances, be considered as amounting to an armed attack," an assessment that could lead the organization to invoke its mutual self-defense clause - or Article 5. Amid the growing cyber threat, Biden on Monday called NATO's Article 5 "a sacred obligation" that is "rock solid and unshakable."

Australia

Police access SafeWA app data for murder investigation, prompting urgent law change
ABC News
@manfield_evelyn
Urgent legislation is being introduced into the WA Parliament today after police accessed QR code check-in information from the SafeWA app as part of a "high-profile" murder investigation.

New laws introduced to protect people from extreme online abuse, trolls
ABC News
@MattDoran91
Australians subjected to vile online abuse and harassment will have greater protections from trolls, if new powers pass the federal Parliament. People accused of posting and sharing the threatening material will face fines of up to $111,000 if they refuse to remove the content, and $500,000 for companies like Facebook and Twitter which fail to comply with so-called "take down notices".

CSIRO sinks China study deal over submarine fears
The Australian
@bennpackham
The CSIRO will terminate an oceans research collaboration with China’s top marine science institute following an ASIO warning that it could help the Chinese navy to hunt down Australian submarines.

Canberra certifies three data centre providers to store sensitive government data
ZDNet
@ashabeeeee
The minister responsible for whole-of-government data and digital policy Stuart Robert late on Friday announced "significant progress in implementing improved protection and security for government held data", saying the first bunch of providers had been certified to store sensitive data locally. Offering further information, the Digital Transformation Agency disclosed the three providers are Australian Data Centres (ADC), Canberra Data Centres (CDC), and Macquarie Telecom's Canberra Campus.

Home Affairs boss wants to tackle cybercrime like the British Navy fought pirates
ABC News
@tomlowrey
Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo says Australia should take on cybercriminals like the British Navy fought the pirates of the Caribbean in the 17th century.

China

Meet Wu Dao 2.0, the Chinese AI model making the West sweat
Politico
@melissahei
A new artificial intelligence model developed by Chinese researchers is performing untold feats with image creation and natural language processing — making rivals in Europe and the U.S. nervous about falling behind. The model, dubbed Wu Dao 2.0, is able to understand everything people say — the grammar too — but can also recognize images and generate realistic pictures based on descriptions. It can also write essays and poems in traditional Chinese, as well as predict the 3D structures of proteins, POLITICO'S AI: Decoded reported. Developed by the government-funded Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and unveiled last week, Wu Dao 2.0 appears to be among the world's most sophisticated AI language models.

Apple China is censoring 27 LGBTQ+ apps, report shows
Protocol
@shenlulushen
Apple's App Store in China has removed 27 LGBTQ+-related apps, either to meet the demand of the Chinese government or in a preemptive manner, a new report shows.

USA

U.S. Fight Against Chinese 5G Efforts Shifts From Threats to Incentives
Wall Street Journal
@stuwoo@drewhinshaw
The U.S. government is ratcheting up pressure on Beijing’s 5G ambitions overseas, offering financial incentives and other enticements to countries willing to shun Chinese-made telecom gear.

Critical entities targeted in suspected Chinese cyber spying
Associated Press
@AlanSuderman
A cyberespionage campaign blamed on China was more sweeping than previously known, with suspected state-backed hackers exploiting a device meant to boost internet security to penetrate the computers of critical U.S. entities.

Anti-vaxxers are weaponizing Yelp to punish bars that require vaccine proof
MIT Technology Review
@tanyabasu
Spamming review portals with negative ratings is not a new phenomenon. Throughout the pandemic, the tactic has also been deployed to attack bars and restaurants that enforced mask-wearing for safety.

Contractor Exposed the Movements of People Wearing Ankle GPS Bracelets
VICE
@lorenzofb
A company that sells GPS ankle bracelets and helps Chicago law enforcement run a program to monitor people under house arrest leaked “an enormous amount of private information.”

Bipartisan group of senators introduces $40 billion bill to close the digital divide
The Washington Post
@Cat_Zakrzewski
Three senators plan to introduce legislation Tuesday that would spend $40 billion to make broadband Internet more affordable and accessible under one of the largest bipartisan proposals to address the digital divide.

Lina Khan will chair Federal Trade Commission
Axios
@ashleyrgold@margarethmcgill
The White House has named Lina Khan as chair of the Federal Trade Commission, marking a major shift toward more aggressive enforcement aimed at the digital economy.

FBI warns that QAnon followers could engage in 'real-world violence'
Reuters
The FBI has warned that followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory could again engage in violence against political opponents out of frustration that the theory's predictions have not come true. The FBI attributes at least some of a falloff in support for QAnon to the non-occurrence of events, such as Trump's restoration, which QAnon predicted but which failed to materialize, and also to large-scale deplatforming of QAnon materials by social media companies.

North-East Asia

South-East Asia

UN Shared Rohingya Data Without Informed Consent
Human Rights Watch
The United Nations refugee agency improperly collected and shared personal information from ethnic Rohingya refugees with Bangladesh, which shared it with Myanmar to verify people for possible repatriation, Human Rights Watch said today. The agency did not conduct a full data impact assessment, as its policies require, and in some cases failed to obtain refugees’ informed consent to share their data with Myanmar, the country they had fled.

  • Explore our geospatial & OSINT project Mapping conditions in Rakhine State here.

Interpol National Cybercrime Strategy Guidebook (ASEAN)
Interpol
This project strengthens the ability of countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to combat cybercrime and work together as a region. The project also fosters regional strategic discussion, identifies trends and provides a foundation for improved information exchange.

South and Central Asia

Do check out this excellent submission to the Supreme Court E-committee's draft vision by my colleagues @PallaviBedi8,@amannair_ ,@ArinjayVyas and Garima Saxena.Some nuanced policy reccs combined with a very detailed comparative study of e-courts in other jurisdictions.

Hilton Hotel to be built on top of bulldozed mosque in Xinjiang | NATO's updating its response to cyberattacks | US turns to incentives against Chinese 5G (12)

Centre for Internet and Society @cis_india

Read our response to the Supreme Court E-committee’s draft vision document of phase III of the #ECourts project, with recommendations drafted by @amannair_, @ArinjayVyas, @pchinks, and Garima Saxenahttps://t.co/fqwzWeRbzi https://t.co/oU4OOsnq1l

10:22 AM ∙ Jun 15, 2021

UK

US, UK to cooperate on technologies, including 6G
Light Reading
The UK and US have today agreed to deepen ties on science and technology and create a new era of strategic cooperation in the field. The partnership will explore a number of areas for cooperation including research, innovation and commercialisation; defence, security, law enforcement and intelligence; and making sure technology is used as a force for good around the world. Officials from both countries will work to develop the partnership over the course of the next year.

Hilton Hotel to be built on top of bulldozed mosque in Xinjiang | NATO's updating its response to cyberattacks | US turns to incentives against Chinese 5G (13)

Dr. Joseph Lorenzo Hall @JoeBeOne

Woo! The Global Encryption Coalition (globalencryption.org) with many UK and global NGOs, took out a full-page ad today in The House, a publication of the UK Parliament, arguing the proposed Online Safety Bill would undermine and may outlaw end-to-end encryption

Hilton Hotel to be built on top of bulldozed mosque in Xinjiang | NATO's updating its response to cyberattacks | US turns to incentives against Chinese 5G (14)

globalencryption.orgGlobal Encryption Coalition

7:42 PM ∙ Jun 14, 2021

66Likes39Retweets

CMA to scrutinise Apple and Google mobile ecosystems
UK Government Competition and Markets Authority
@CMAgovUK
The CMA has launched a market study into Apple’s and Google’s mobile ecosystems over concerns they have market power which is harming users and other businesses.

Europe

NATO leaders see rising threats from China, but not eye to eye with each other
Politico
@herszenhorn@RymMomtaz
In their closing communiqué of an afternoon summit at NATO headquarters in Brussels, the leaders used remarkably forceful language to describe China as now their most troublesome rival after Russia — given Beijing’s fast-expanding nuclear arsenal, stepped-up military cooperation with Moscow, and increasing use of disinformation. “If you look at the cyber threats, the hybrid threats, if you look at the cooperation between Russia and China, then you cannot simply negate China,” Merkel said. “In this respect, I do not think that we should overestimate the importance of this, so we have to find the right balance.”

The Cybersecurity 202: Biden’s European tour signals a return to cyber diplomacy
The Washington Post
@Joseph_Marks_
When it comes to cyber diplomacy, America is back. That’s one of the key messages President Biden is sending as he this week jets across Europe in a series of top-level diplomatic meetings.

This secretive firm has powerful new hacking tools
WIRED UK
@Samuel_Woodhams
Mollitiam Industries claims to have created hackings tools that can take control of smartphones and laptops. Mollitiam Industries was established in 2018 and is based in Madrid, according to its LinkedIn page. Although not all of its clients are known, Spain’s intelligence agency and cyberspace command unit work with the company and officials in Brazil and Peru have also purchased its products, according to trade magazine, Intelligence Online.

Vodafone hands first ‘open RAN’ deals to Samsung, Dell and NEC
Financial Times
@NicFildes
Vodafone has turned to Japanese and American suppliers to fill the void left by Huawei in its 5G supply chain after the UK telecoms company awarded Europe’s first major “open RAN” contract to a host of alternative suppliers. The carrier has handed a contract to Samsung Electronics, NEC, Dell and Wind River to build Europe’s first commercial “open RAN” network. Capgemini, the French consulting group, and Keysight Technologies of the US will work on network integration.

Russia

Biden, Putin and the new era of information warfare
Financial Times
@KatrinaManson@HenryJFoy@MsHannahMurphy
The homepage of Global Research, a Canadian website that bills itself as an independent research and media organisation, is universally bleak about the prospects of western-made Covid-19 vaccines. According to the US state department, the Montreal-based non-profit is anything but independent. Instead, it said in a report published last year, the organisation is “deeply enmeshed in Russia’s broader disinformation and propaganda ecosystem”. As Joe Biden prepares to meet Vladimir Putin at a summit in Geneva on Wednesday — their first meeting since the US president took office — the efforts by Russia-linked groups to sour opinion on Covid-19 vaccines are part of what the US sees as an intensified disinformation campaign by Moscow.

Africa

France accuses CAR of complicity in disinformation campaign, suspends support
RFI
@toucanradio
France has suspended financial support and military cooperation with the Central African Republic, accusing it of backing out of political commitments, and of being complicit in a Russian-backed disinformation campaign targeting France’s presence in Africa.

Misc

Lennon Wall A Mosaic of Censored Images Commemorating the Hong Kong Protests
Net Alert
Net Alert tells stories about risks online, provides summaries of research findings, and technical explainers to help make research more accessible to wider audiences.

Tech Companies Are Training AI to Read Your Lips
VICE
@Todd Feathers
First came facial recognition. Now, an early form of lip-reading AI is being deployed in hospitals, power plants, public transportation, and more.

Events

Australian Ambassador: China Challenge Should Spur Scientific Exchanges, Tech Investment With U.S
Global Atlanta
Australian Ambassador Arthur Sinodinos told Global Atlanta, is that democracies must partner to shore up the global trading system. And that could mean deeper avenues for collaboration with the United States, now turning to “allies and partners” for scientific research collaboration and the sharing of sensitive or defense-related technologies, he said during a public interview over Zoom sponsored by Georgia State University CIBER and hosted in partnership with the Atlanta Council on International Relations.

ASPI Presents - Mapping China’s Tech Giants: Covid-19, supply chains and strategic competition
ASPI ICPC
23 June 2021
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm AEST
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre is delighted to invite you to the hybrid event re-launching our ‘Mapping China’s Technology Giants’ project on Wednesday 23 June at 5.30pm. Join us in-person or online via Livestorm. Join ASPI’s Dr Samantha Hoffman, Fergus Ryan, Jocelinn Kang and Danielle Cave as they discuss the how the Covid-19 pandemic, growing China–US strategic and technological competition, the PRC’s evolving data ecosystem, an unprecedented onslaught of sanctions from abroad, new supply chain issues and a regulatory storm at home is impacting the global ambitions of China’s technology giants.

Research

Jobs

ICPC Analyst or Senior Analyst - Cyber & technology
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has a unique opportunity for an exceptional cyber-security or technology focused analyst or senior analyst to join its centre in 2021. Please note that interviews have commenced for this position and will continue until the end of June. This role will focus on policy relevant cybersecurity analysis, informed public commentary and either original data-heavy research and/or technical analysis. Analysts usually have around 7-15 years work experience. Senior analysts usually have a minimum of 15 years relevant work experience and tend to be involved in staff and project management, fundraising and stakeholder engagement.

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Hilton Hotel to be built on top of bulldozed mosque in Xinjiang | NATO's updating its response to cyberattacks | US turns to incentives against Chinese 5G (23)
Hilton Hotel to be built on top of bulldozed mosque in Xinjiang | NATO's updating its response to cyberattacks | US turns to incentives against Chinese 5G (2024)

FAQs

Does China own Hilton hotels? ›

Hilton, which was previously 25 per cent owned by HNA Group until 2019 before the Chinese conglomerate fell into financial difficulties, had 546 hotels in 170 destinations across China as of end-June.

Are hotel chains from Hilton to Shangri La expanding across Asia on post pandemic recovery hopes? ›

Hotel chains from Hilton—the world's second largest hospitality group—to billionaire Robert Kuok's Shangri-La are accelerating expansion plans across the Asia-Pacific region, betting on a post-pandemic recovery as countries gradually reopen to international travelers.

What parent company owns Hilton? ›

Hilton Worldwide

Who is the largest shareholder of Hilton? ›

Shareholders: Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc
NameEquitiesValuation
BlackRock Advisors LLC 5.857 %14,433,3503 170 M $
Fidelity Management & Research Co. LLC 4.459 %10,989,1682 414 M $
STATE STREET CORPORATION 3.885 %9,574,6772 103 M $
Principal Real Estate Investors LLC 3.785 %9,326,8792 049 M $
1 more row

Why did the Hilton hotel close? ›

The five-star hotel which was opened in 1997 by then president Nelson Mandela closed in January 2021, citing Covid-19 restrictions and dwindling tourism numbers. The three-year closure had raised concern among tourism and hospitality bodies.

What is the negative impact of COVID on hotels? ›

For 2020, hotels experienced an 85% drop in gross operating profit (GOP) and a 103% decline in net operating income (NOI) (STR, 2021b). The freefall in lodging fundamentals induced by the pandemic is having a severe negative impact on hotel values, risks and returns.

How has the pandemic affected the hospitality industry? ›

Since February 2020, US hotels have lost in excess of $46 billion, and 4.8 million hospitality and leisure jobs have been lost. Lodging operations such as the AHLA in the USA projected occupancy rates below 20% in the last few months of 2020 (AHLA, 2020).

What hotel chains are Chinese owned? ›

Shangri-La, Aman, Banyan Tree and Mandarin Oriental are all Asian brands that have successfully established themselves internationally.

Who are the owners of the Hilton chain? ›

(formerly, Hilton Worldwide and Hilton Hotels Corporation) is an American multinational hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and resorts. Founded by Conrad Hilton in 1919, the corporation is now led by Christopher J. Nassetta. It is a publicly owned company.

Does China own Radisson hotels? ›

In August 2018, Radisson Hotel Group was sold to Aplite Holdings AB, a consortium led by a Chinese state-owned hospitality company, Jin Jiang International. According to the press release, Radisson Hotel Group had more than 1,400 hotels in operation and under development at that time.

Does Mandarin Oriental own their hotels? ›

Mandarin Oriental is the award-winning owner and operator of some of the world's most prestigious hotels, resorts and residences.

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