US to slash Pakistan’s defence aid to $ 150 million

Agencies
August 2, 2018

Washington, Aug 2: Amidst tensions in bilateral ties, the US Congress has passed a defence spending bill capping its security-related aid to Pakistan at USD 150 million, significantly below the historic level of more than USD one billion per year.

The National Defense Authorisation Act-2019 (NDAA-19), however, removes certain conditions – like action against Haqqani Network orthe Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) -- as was the case in the past few years for disbursement of US aid to Pakistan.

The Senate passed the conference report on NDAA-19 by 87 to 10 votes yesterday afternoon. The House of Representatives had passed the conference report last week. It now heads to the White House for President Donald Trump's assent.

"The legislation reduces the total amount of funds provided for reimbursement to Pakistan to USD 150 million. This is a significant reduction from the USD 700 million that was authorised through Coalition Support Fund (CSF) last year," Anish Goel, who was part of Barack Obama's White House National Security Council, told PTI.

However, in doing so, the legislation gets rid of the certification requirements for Pakistan's action against the Haqqani Network and it also gets rid of the authority to reimburse Pakistan for counter-terrorism, he said.

"Hence, the Pentagon no longer has any tools to put pressure on Pakistan to undertake counter-terrorism activities or action against the Haqqani Network," Goel, who till recently was a senior staffer in the Senate Armed Services Committee, said.

During the previous Obama administration, Pakistan used to get nearly 1.2 billion aid from the US under the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 also known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act.

US President Donald Trump since assuming office has been tough on Pakistan over its inaction against terror groups. Trump in August last year unveiled his new South Asia policy and asked Pakistan to do more against such groups.

The US in January suspended more than USD 1.15 billion security assistance to Pakistan, accusing it of harbouring terror groups like the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network within its border and showing unwillingness to take "decisive actions" against them.

The US has also voiced its disapproval of growing Chinese involvement in Pakistan, adding to tensions in bilateral ties. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday had cautioned the IMF against a possible fresh bailout for Pakistan's new government to pay off Chinese lenders who have invested in the strategic China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Joshua White, who was also a part of Obama's White House National Security Council team and worked on Pakistan, said this year's defense legislation significantly reduces the amount of security assistance that Pakistan can theoretically receive outside of traditional Foreign Military Financing.

"It makes Pakistan ineligible for Coalition Support Funds (CSF), but adds Pakistan to a list of countries that can receive a related form of assistance designed to help partner nations bolster border security," White told PTI and observed, "This legislation is a mixed blessing for Pakistan."

"On one hand, these new border security funds will be capped at USD 150 million per year, significantly below historical levels of CSF. On the other hand, the legislation does away with the onerous reporting requirements and certifications that have, in practice, made it difficult for Pakistan to receive such funds," he said.

The former White House official noted that it is important to consider this legislation in the current political context.

The Trump administration has effectively frozen security assistance to Pakistan, and this new legislation will do nothing in the short-term to change that, he said.

"It does, however, mean that if the administration decides to resume some form of modest security assistance in the future, it will be authorised by the Congress to do so without having to produce detailed reports and make difficult certifications regarding Pakistan's support vis-a-vis the Haqqani Network and other threats to the United States," White said.

"Over the longer term, that could prove to be a win for Pakistan," he said, while noting that in theory, the new funding authority does not permit counter-terrorism assistance, but only assistance related to border security.

"In practice, these terms are so malleable that I do not expect that the Pentagon would find itself very limited as to the kind of support it could provide," White said.

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News Network
May 12,2020

Washington, May 12: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation and cybersecurity experts believe Chinese hackers are trying to steal research on developing a vaccine against coronavirus, two newspapers reported Monday.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are planning to release a warning about the Chinese hacking as governments and private firms race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported.

The hackers are also targeting information and intellectual property on treatments and testing for COVID-19.

US officials alleged that the hackers are linked to the Chinese government, the reports say.

The official warning could come within days.

In Beijing Foreign Affairs ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian rejected the allegation, saying China firmly opposes all cyber attacks.

"We are leading the world in COVID-19 treatment and vaccine research. It is immoral to target China with rumors and slanders in the absence of any evidence," Zhao said.

Asked about the reports, President Donald Trump did not confirm them, but said: "What else is new with China? What else is new? Tell me. I'm not happy with China."

"We're watching it very closely," he added.

A US warning would add to a series of alerts and reports accusing government-backed hackers in Iran, North Korea, Russia and China of malicious activity related to the pandemic, from pumping out false news to targeting workers and scientists.

The New York Times said it could be a prelude to officially-sanctioned counterattacks by US agencies involved in cyber warfare, including the Pentagon's Cyber Command and the National Security Agency.

Last week in a joint message Britain and the United States warned of a rise in cyber attacks against health professionals involved in the coronavirus response by organised criminals "often linked with other state actors."

Britain's National Cyber Security Centre and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said they had detected large-scale "password spraying" tactics -- hackers trying to access accounts through commonly used passwords -- aimed at healthcare bodies and medical research organisations.

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Agencies
July 17,2020

Washington, Jul 17: US President Donald Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow has said that TikTok may cut off ties to its Chinese parent and become a 100 per cent American company to circumvent demands to ban it as India has done.

"I think TikTok is going to pull out of the holding company which is China-run and operate as an independent American company," he told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

The US has not made a final decision on whether to ban it - which has been suggested by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he said.

TikTok being divested by ByteDance Technology Company "is a much better solution than banning or pushing away", said Kudlow, who is the Director of the National Economic Council.

He said that its services will be located in the US and "it will become an hundred per cent American company".

If it becomes a US company without Chinese links, India may have to reconsider the ban on the short video app wildly popular in the country.

India banned TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps on June 29 citing threats to its defence and national security.

The ban came after a deadly clash between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

Under Beijing's National Security Law, all Chinese companies have to provide intelligence requested by the government, creating risks for users and their countries.

India was TikTok's biggest market outside of China, where it operates as Douyin.

There were about 200 million users in India and over 300 million downloads.

The US comes next with over 30 million users for the app.

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Agencies
March 28,2020

Canadian researchers are developing a DNA vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and has currently infected nearly 5,00,000 people worldwide and crippled the global economy.

Entos Pharmaceuticals, a health-care biotechnology company headed by a University of Alberta researchers, develop new therapeutic compounds using the company's proprietary drug-delivery platform and has begun manufacturing vaccine candidates against the novel coronavirus.

"Given the urgency of the situation, we can have a lead candidate vaccine within two months. Once we have that it's a race to get it into clinical trials," said John Lewis, CEO of Entos and a Professor at the University of Alberta in Canada.

Lewis said in comparison to a traditional vaccine, DNA-based vaccines hold several advantages.

Nucleic acids are introduced directly into the patient's own cells, causing them to make pieces of the virus--tricking the immune system into mounting a response without the full virus actually being present, the researcher said.

According to the company, the approach is recognised as being easier to move into large-scale manufacturing, offers improved vaccine stability and works without needing an infectious agent.

In the current absence of a vaccine for COVID-19, several companies around the world are mounting efforts to begin similar work.

The first clinical trial using a DNA-based vaccine developed by Moderna Inc.in the US on March 13.

Their approach allows for antibodies to be made in the human trial volunteers against a specific protein on the surface of the coronavirus that lets the virus enter human cells.

The hope is that the antibodies will stop the interaction.

Though this approach is designed to be effective against COVID-19 specifically, Lewis said Entos is taking a different tack.

The company plans to use plasmid DNA to amplify the production of key coronavirus surface and structural proteins with each injection, with an eye to the bigger picture.

"Many of the structural proteins in the virus are pretty well conserved across all the coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS," said Lewis.

"We're hoping that if we express more of the structural proteins that are common to most coronaviruses, we can inhibit the current COVID-19, and also potentially protect against all coronaviruses both past and future," Lewis added.

To move the project forward quickly, the company is seeking financial support from both provincial and federal levels of government.

"We have the opportunity to save a lot of lives, and I think it's really upon us and governments to find solutions for that," Lewis said.

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