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Washington, March 24

The US plans to hold the NSA-level trilateral talks with Japan and South Korea next week on issues related to North Korea, making them among the most senior foreign officials to visit Washington since the start of the Biden presidency, officials here have said.

Were in the final stages of that (North Korea policy) review, and next week plan to host the national security advisors of Japan and the Republic of Korea to discuss the outcomes and other issues. This is the first time that we will have convened the trilateral at this level, a senior administration official told reporters during a conference call.

And these will be among the most senior foreign officials to visit Washington since the start of the Biden administration. We look forward to a robust discussion on a wide range of issues on how the US, Japan, and South Korea can deepen our trilateral cooperation, said the official who spoke with reporters on condition of anonymity.

The United States, the official said, is aware of military activity last weekend by North Korea that is not sanctioned under UN Security Council resolutions restricting the ballistic missile programme.

North Korea fired short-range missiles this past weekend, just days after the sister of Kim Jong-un threatened the United States and South Korea for holding joint military exercises.

The tests were confirmed by two senior Biden administration officials who told reporters on condition of anonymity.

While we take all of its military activity seriously and will continue to consult closely on this with partners and allies, we see this action in the category of most normal military activity by the North, said the official.

North Korea has a familiar menu of provocations when it wants to send a message to the US administration: ballistic missiles of various range, mobile and submarine launch platforms, nuclear and thermonuclear tests. Experts rightly recognised what took place last weekend as falling on the low end of that spectrum, the official added.

Ahead of the trilateral talks and as the policy review continues, a second administration official said that the Biden administration has also had a series of conversations with Trump administration officials to get their sense of how their diplomacy with North Korea worked out over the last four years.

We have been in touch with virtually every individual whos been involved in diplomacy with North Korea since the mid-1990s. So this has been an extraordinarily thorough process, and were nearing the conclusion of putting together our approach for North Korea, the official said.

The next step will be, the NSA-level trilateral.

I think we recognise that, you know, we are stronger if we approach these challenging issues in North Korea in partnership with Japan and South Korea, the second official said.

The official, however noted, that the administration is under no illusions about the difficulty this task presents to them.

We have a long history of disappointment in diplomacy with North Korea. It defied expectations of Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Weve had working groups. Weve tried it at the highest levels, at the head of state. And all the while, weve seen North Korea proceed ahead accordingly, the official said.

The trilateral talks will take place just days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Japan and South Korea to discuss various issues, including strengthening alliances and the push to denuclearise North Korea. PTI

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US to hold trilateral NSA-level talks with Japan, South Korea on North Korea next week - The Tribune India

The Week

"Well, guys, after 64 days in office, today President Biden held his very first press conference," Jimmy Fallon said on Thursday's Tonight Show. "Normally when a 78-year-old answers and hour of questions, they're getting a physical. It was quite the event. If you did a shot every time Biden said 'Look, folks,' you got drunker than a ship captain in the Suez Canal." Fallon obviously taped his show before Biden's press conference he suggested any of the reporters asked about the COVID-19 pandemic, for example but Late Night's Seth Meyers watched the event. Biden's presidency has been boring and popular, "and because Fox couldn't find anything else to jump on, they decided to spend weeks obsessing over the whole press conference thing," he said. "Fox has also been full of absurd and baseless speculation about what would happen at this press conference," Meyers demonstrated. "Maybe Fox News just can't believe that a president would be able to give a coherent answer to a question without a teleprompter: 'He must have had a script, he didn't suggest chugging bleach once!'" They didn't get the gaffes or blunders that they wanted. The president's opening announcement that 200 million people will get vaccinated in his first 100 days, not 100 million, "is Biden at his best, when he's got the vibe of an old-timer football coach giving his young squad an inspiration halftime speech," Meyers said. "On the other hand, he gets a little off-track when he trails off, like he did at the end of an answer on immigration." "And there were some other weird moments, too, like when Biden was asked about the tidal wave of GOP voter-suppression laws Republicans have unleashed," and he followed a perfectly good answer by saying it "makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle," Meyers said. "Jim Eagle? Are you talking about the Muppet? Jim Eagle sounds like a desperate guess on Jeopardy! for the question 'He was the lead singer of the Eagles.'" "Whatever you thought of Biden's press conference," Meyers said, "it was certainly refreshing to see a president directly answer reporters' questions without attacking anyone or melting down." There are also lots of borderline NSFW Ted Cruz jokes. Watch below. More stories from theweek.comIs Biden setting Harris up to fail?5 blisteringly funny cartoons about spring break superspreadersTrump says his supporters were 'hugging and kissing the police' during the 'zero threat' Jan. 6 Capitol siege

Read more here:
NSA Sullivan on talks with China: 'We knew it was going to be tough' - Yahoo News

The National Sheep Association (NSA) has warned that the current inability to move breeding sheep to the EU will cause problems as the breeding season progresses.

NSA chief executive Phil Stocker commented: With the UK government easing controls on imports from the EU until the end of the year and into 2022, we are seeing no reciprocal decisions from the EU and it feels as though our negotiating hand is being given away.

We are in the ridiculous position of being able to import live breeding animals into the UK now, but not able to export anything due to an absence of facilities to take breeding animals on the other side of the channel.

While most of the trade in breeding cattle results in animals being brought into the UK, for sheep, virtually all trade is based on farmers in the EU wanting to buy British-bred sheep something they are deprived of at the moment and a situation that is causing growing concern among a number of sheep breeders for who this is an important trade.

Stocker continued: Britain has a reputation for being the stockyard of the world with our genetics and high-quality animals being in strong demand.

If we lose our ability to move breeding animals across borders then others will soon step in.

I am concerned that the potential severity of the impact this could have on UK breeders is not being sufficiently recognised by Defra and ministers because of the link with the governments recent consultation on journey times and welfare in transport that in itself is resulting in a loss of confidence amongst breeders.

Even within the UK, the situation is dire with all promises made, broken, over free and frictionless trade between Great Britain [GB] and Northern Ireland [NI].

No one knew or expected what was coming, and it is going to be difficult for GB breeders to satisfy the Scrapie requirements for exporting the majority of breeding sheep to NI, with it needing three years to be part of the scheme that would allow trade to continue.

Equally as bad are the requirements for any animals coming from NI to GB for shows or sales to then not have the ability to return home without staying here for six months.

The NI protocols have silently killed off the majority of the trade for GB farmers selling commercial maternal sheep to NI, as well as a crucial part of the NI farming sector that is based on breeding high-value pedigree animals as part of the UK industry.

Stocker concluded: It feels like we are being told Britain is to become a bigger player on the global stage whereas the reality is that we cannot even trade with our closest neighbours.

RELATED STORIES

Read more from the original source:
NSA warns of problems over unlevel playing field of UK breeding animal trade - Agriland.co.uk

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Dynamic Spectrum Sharing Will Boost Operators' 5G Network Deployments" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Access to the 3.5GHz band is considered to be necessary for mobile network operators (MNOs) to roll out 5G services, but national regulatory authorities (NRAs) in some countries have not planned or released spectrum in this band.

MNOs in this situation should use dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) technology to deploy 5G non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) networks using the spectrum they already have.

MNOs will further benefit from what the analyst calls DSS+ solutions - those that can mix legacy 2G and 3G technologies with 4G and 5G on the same band and increase spectrum usage efficiency.

This report provides:

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/hp0m1h

Read this article:
2021 Analysis of How DSS and DSS+ Technologies will Help Operators as They Roll Out 5G NSA networks and Plan for SA Networks: Dynamic Spectrum Sharing...

Elon Musk recently denied that Tesla vehicles were used to spy on foreign governments after the vehicles were banned from Chinese military bases and other sensitive sites. Other reporting indicates that even the off-duty use of Tesla vehicles is being restricted for key personnel, because the Chinese government suspects that the companys vehicles were already involved in the leaking of secret information.

First, lets talk some common sense. Its extremely unlikely that Tesla volunteered to cooperate with U.S. spy agencies. Theres nothing for the company to gain from doing that, while there are billions and even worse to lose. Tesla knows that if they were caught spying for the U.S. government, theyd be shut down and probably have all of their property seized in China. Key company officials (at least as many as Beijing could capture) would likely be arrested and tried for espionage. It wouldnt be pretty at all for the company or any involved employees.

The obvious counterargument is that Elon Musk, as a U.S. citizen, would consider the spying his patriotic duty, but that argument falls even flatter. The U.S. government hasnt been very hospitable to Elon Musk or his companies in many cases. There were the bogus SEC investigations over his tweets, which I call bogus because they were dismissed (and also, seriously, how childish is it to sue over tweets?), SpaceX accuses the U.S. Air Force of favoring other companies over them for political reasons, and recently the NTSB told NHTSA that it needs to crack down on Autopilot and the FSD Beta.

If you were Elon Musk, would you be doing the U.S. government illegal favors at great personal risk? Just think that over for a bit.

Im not even persecuted by them the way Elon Musk has been, and I know that our government is highly corrupt. On the spying front, we know from things Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers revealed that our own government is heavily involved in illegal and unethical spying. Theres a whole Wikipedia article detailing the dozens of programs that never should have been. Theres the deep, deep oil company corruption of the government, which we can see quite clearly in the ongoing persecution of Steven Donziger (Im writing a whole article about this once Im done with this one).

On top of that, none of this is new. Anyone taking an honest look at J. Edgar Hoover knows that his character was accurately portrayed in The Man in the High Castle,and he was the head of the FBI for decades. Nobody dared fire him because he had dirt on everyone. There was the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the ammunition packed below civilians in the Lusitania, both lies we were told for decades after they were used to swing the U.S. into wars.

After the long train of abuses and usurpations weve seen, nobody in their right mind would want to risk their business and personal reputation to assist the U.S. government to do illegal things in other countries unless they were getting something for it (and thus were part of the corruption). Youd think that if Elon Musk did this, hed at least get some breathing room from the government, which he clearly isnt getting.

If anything, theyre going after him because he told them where to stick it.

The Chinese government wouldnt have invited Tesla into their country if they thought spying would occur, and they certainly want the company to help them achieve a better footing with regard to renewable energy. However, they do assert that sensitive details of some sort were leaked and they have reason to believe a nearby Tesla could have been involved in the leaking, and given the favored treatment the company has gotten in the past, they clearly dont have it in for Tesla.

As weve learned from Snowden, the supervillains in the CIA dont need anyones help to help themselves to things like laptop cameras. Laptop manufacturers arent giving away backdoors the NSA hacks their way into whatever hardware and servers it takes to get the information they want, and if they cant get in, they find someone to blackmail or otherwise coerce into giving them access.

I know some argue that accusing Tesla of spying is a retaliation for accusations and actions against Chinese companies like Huawei and DJI, who very well may be involved in spying. After all, the Chinese government are no angels, either. We would be fools to assume that they arent corrupt, too. Theyre spying on anything they can get away with spying on, and all while not even pretending to afford their citizens much in the way of civil liberties.

The more likely answer is that the U.S. government is actually using Teslas to spy on Chinese military and company officials without the companys knowledge. It fits their modus operandi, and they have great motivation to spy on Chinese officials. If officials are taking cameras into sensitive facilities and to their homes, its an extremely tempting target for hacking, and we know that they have the technical capability to do it.

Would they risk Musks rear to do this? Absolutely. In fact, that might be a plus for corrupt officials with dirty oil money lining their pockets.

I do have to be honest and say theres no direct evidence for any of this, but given the U.S. governments lack of scruples when it comes to things like spying, would you really put this past them? You cant sit there and seriously tell me that the NSA wouldnt do this in a heartbeat if they found a way to do it.

Either way, well know if I was right decades from now when anyone responsible for this is already dead or the statute of limitations has passed and old documents get declassified.

If I was running Tesla, Id have the best experts take a hard look at the cars and servers to look for the U.S. governments footprints. Theyre very likely all over the scene of the crime, and nobody covers their tracks perfectly.

Id also be looking at offering an optional airgap package for people dealing with sensitive information. Having a switch that disconnects all antennas and cuts power to all radios would be great. Having optional lens caps for all cameras would also be a great way to help protect trust in the companys vehicles. People guarding sensitive installations could verify that both features are enabled/in use before allowing a Tesla vehicle onto the facilitys grounds.

Either way, the company could probably use some more paranoid thinking like mine, because nobody is paranoid when there is actually someone out to get them (or their data). We have to always be on the lookout for bad actors and put ourselves in their shoes to think about what theyll do.

Featured image: People enthusiastically greet a Teslas Sentry Mode when they see its recording them, as described in this CleanTechnica article.

The rest is here:
Is The NSA Screwing Tesla? - CleanTechnica