US, SKorea and Japan to Step Up Actions on NKorean Cyberthreats

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, center, speaks at a joint news conference with South Korea's National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong, right, and Japan's National Security Secretariat Secretary-General Takeo Akiba at the presidential office, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool Photo via AP)
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, center, speaks at a joint news conference with South Korea's National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong, right, and Japan's National Security Secretariat Secretary-General Takeo Akiba at the presidential office, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool Photo via AP)
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US, SKorea and Japan to Step Up Actions on NKorean Cyberthreats

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, center, speaks at a joint news conference with South Korea's National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong, right, and Japan's National Security Secretariat Secretary-General Takeo Akiba at the presidential office, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool Photo via AP)
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, center, speaks at a joint news conference with South Korea's National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong, right, and Japan's National Security Secretariat Secretary-General Takeo Akiba at the presidential office, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool Photo via AP)

The United States, South Korea and Japan have agreed on new initiatives to respond to North Korea's threats in cyberspace, including satellite launches and cryptocurrency abuses, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Saturday.
The national security advisers of the United States, South Korea and Japan met in Seoul on Saturday as Pyongyang warned that it would deploy more spy satellites.
Sullivan said the meeting followed up on commitments set forth at the Camp David trilateral summit hosted by US President Joe Biden in August, where leaders of the three allies pledged to deepen security and economic cooperation.
"We've also launched new trilateral initiatives to counter the threats posed by the DPRK, from its cybercrime and cryptocurrency money laundering to its reckless space and ballistic missile tests," Sullivan told reporters, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The allies' coordinated efforts would also target potential threats of economic coercion, Reuters quoted Sullivan as saying, and they have finalized work on a supply chain early warning system, agreed to at Camp David, in critical minerals and rechargeable batteries.
The Biden administration held the meeting at Camp David with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to project unity in the face of China's growing power and nuclear threats from North Korea.
North Korean state media said on Saturday that Pyongyang was determined to launch more spy satellites soon, calling space development part of its right to defend itself.
After talks with Sullivan and Japan's Takeo Akiba, South Korean national security adviser Cho Tae-yong said the three had also exchanged ideas on Ukraine and Middle East issues.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."