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New Zealand Joins US, UK in Alleging it Was Targeted by China-backed Cyberespionage

The Chinese flag flies at the Chinese Consulate in Auckland, New Zealand, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. (Jason Oxenham/New Zealand Herald via AP)
The Chinese flag flies at the Chinese Consulate in Auckland, New Zealand, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. (Jason Oxenham/New Zealand Herald via AP)
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New Zealand Joins US, UK in Alleging it Was Targeted by China-backed Cyberespionage

The Chinese flag flies at the Chinese Consulate in Auckland, New Zealand, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. (Jason Oxenham/New Zealand Herald via AP)
The Chinese flag flies at the Chinese Consulate in Auckland, New Zealand, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. (Jason Oxenham/New Zealand Herald via AP)

Hackers linked to the Chinese government launched a state-sponsored operation that targeted New Zealand's Parliament in 2021, the country's security minister said Tuesday.
New Zealand's allegation comes a day after American and British authorities announced a set of criminal charges and sanctions against seven hackers, all believed to be living in China, who targeted US officials, journalists, corporations and pro-democracy activists, as well as the UK’s election watchdog.
“The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Judith Collins, the defense minister responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau, said in a statement.
Collins said the agency had also established links between a state-sponsored entity linked to China and malicious cyber activity targeting parliamentary entities in New Zealand.
The bureau's National Cyber Security Centre "completed a robust technical assessment" following a compromise of the Parliamentary Counsel Office and the Parliamentary Service in 2021, and has attributed this activity to a PRC (China) state-sponsored group known as APT40,” Collins said.
“Fortunately, in this instance, the NCSC worked with the impacted organizations to contain the activity and remove the actor shortly after they were able to access the network," she added.
Collins said New Zealand will not follow the US and UK in sanctioning China because New Zealand does not have a law allowing such penalties, nor were there plans to introduce legislation.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters confirmed New Zealand’s concerns had been conveyed to Chinese Ambassador Wang Xiaolong.
“Foreign interference of this nature is unacceptable, and we have urged China to refrain from such activity in future,” Peters said in a statement Tuesday. “New Zealand will continue to speak out — consistently and predictably — where we see concerning behaviors like this.”
Peters met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on March 18, and said the countries share a “significant and complex relationship.”
“We cooperate with China in some areas for mutual benefit,” he said. "At the same time, we have also been consistent and clear that we will speak out on issues of concern.”
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian dismissed the allegations as “typical political manipulation" concocted by the US and UK, with whom it is in conflict over issues including Taiwan, the South China Sea, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and a wide range of trade disputes.
“For some time, the US, for geopolitical purposes, has encouraged the Five Eyes Alliance, the world’s largest intelligence organization dominated by the US, to fabricate and disseminate all kinds of disinformation about threats posed by Chinese hackers,” Lin said at a daily briefing Tuesday.

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Death Toll from Catastrophic Flooding in Texas over the July Fourth Weekend Surpasses 100

A portion of Highway 1340 is covered by the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
A portion of Highway 1340 is covered by the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Death Toll from Catastrophic Flooding in Texas over the July Fourth Weekend Surpasses 100

A portion of Highway 1340 is covered by the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
A portion of Highway 1340 is covered by the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)

The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas over the July Fourth weekend surpassed 100 on Monday as search-and-rescue teams continued to wade into swollen rivers and use heavy equipment to untangle trees as part of the massive search for missing people.

Authorities overseeing the search for flood victims said they will wait to address questions about weather warnings and why some summer camps did not evacuate ahead of the flooding that killed at least 104.

The officials spoke only hours after the operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls Christian summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, announced that they lost 27 campers and counselors to the floodwaters. Kerr County officials said 10 campers and one counselor were still unaccounted for Monday.

Searchers have found the bodies of 84 people, including 28 children, in the county home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, officials said.

With additional rain on the way, more flooding still threatened saturated parts of central Texas. Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise.

The raging flash floods, among the nation’s worst in decades, slammed into camps and homes along the edge of the Guadalupe River before daybreak Friday, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and cars. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.

Piles of twisted trees sprinkled with mattresses, refrigerators and coolers littered the riverbanks Monday. The debris included reminders of what drew so many to the campgrounds and cabins in the Hill Country — a volleyball, canoes and a family portrait.

Nineteen deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, local officials said.

Among those confirmed dead were 8-year-old sisters from Dallas who were at Camp Mystic and a former soccer coach and his wife who were staying at a riverfront home. Their daughters were still missing.

Calls for finding why warnings weren't heard

Authorities vowed that one of the next steps would be investigating whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in a place long vulnerable to flooding that some local residents refer to as “flash flood alley.”

That will include a review of how weather warnings were sent out and received. One of the challenges is that many camps and cabins are in places with poor cellphone service, Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said.

“We definitely want to dive in and look at all those things,” he said. “We’re looking forward to doing that once we can get the search and rescue complete.”

Some camps were aware of the dangers and monitoring the weather. At least one moved several hundred campers to higher ground before the floods.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said recent government spending cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service did not delay any warnings.

“There’s a time to have political fights, there’s a time to disagree. This is not that time,” Cruz said. “There will be a time to find out what could been done differently. My hope is in time we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood.”

The weather service first advised of potential flooding on Thursday and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare step that alerts the public to imminent danger.

Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months of rain. Some residents said they never received any warnings.

President Donald Trump, who signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County and plans to visit the area, said Sunday that he does not plan to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year.

“This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it,” the president said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said local and federal weather services provided sufficient warnings.

“That was an act of God. It’s not the administration’s fault that the flood hit when it did, but there were early and consistent warnings,” Leavitt said.

More than three dozen people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing, Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday.

Search-and-rescue crews at one staging area said Monday that more than 1,000 volunteers had been directed to Kerr County.

Little time to escape floods

Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

“Then they were able to reach their tool shed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their tool shed, and they all rode it out together,” Brown said.

Elizabeth Lester, a mother of children who were at Camp Mystic and nearby Camp La Junta during the flood, said her young son had to swim out his cabin window to escape. Her daughter fled up the hillside as floodwaters whipped against her legs.