U.S. says Chinese stole trade secrets
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice said yesterday that five people in China’s People’s Liberation Army have been charged with stealing trade secrets from some of the largest U.S. companies, including Westinghouse, U.S. Steel and Alcoa.
The move was a rare instance of the U.S. charging foreigngovernment employees with economic espionage, and it increased the tensions between U.S. and Chinese officials, who have accused each other in public and in private of using military assets to initiate hacks and cyberattacks.
The authorities said the five men had worked in a 12-story white office tower on a Chinese army base on the outskirts of Shanghai that was identified in a report last year as a source of many attacks on the U.S. government and corporations.
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policies to save $548 million this year through public wage cuts, later retirement for women, a crackdown on the gray economy and incentives for investors. The steps toward narrowing Europe’s highest fiscal deficit, — more than 7 percent of gross domestic product — were a condition to start loan talks with the International Monetary Fund.
“Help from friends will be needed for a while,” Economy Minister Dusan Vujovic said at a conference with executives from the United Arab Emirates in Belgrade yesterday. “Direct help is also necessary so that we can bring our economy back to normal.”
Serbia, which started EU-membership talks on Jan. 21, will be eligible for solidarity aid of up to $1.38 billion a year from the 28-member bloc should damage exceed 0.64 percent of the country’s GDP, said Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response.
In Serbia, about 25,000 people were evacuated and 26,000 homes left without electricity overnight. Rescuers struggled to save towns and villages along swelling rivers and keep water away from the main powergenerating facilities near Belgrade, the Interior Ministry said in an email.
Serbian police ordered the immediate evacuation of villages along the Sava River near Sabac, about 50 miles west of Belgrade, the stateowned Tanjug news agency reported yesterday.
Volunteers were reinforcing the Sava River’s banks. Police sealed off the Serbian city of Obrenovac and banned its residents from returning amid disease threats.
Sunny weather is to replace rain this week, according to Serbia’s Hydrometeorological Service. The Sava is to rise in Belgrade by Wednesday, “but the Sava will not flood Belgrade,” forecaster Zorica Barborosa said.
Bosnia’s Serb republic declared a day of mourning for today, Bosnian news portal Dnevni Avaz reported.