The Washington Post - 03.03.2020

A12 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAy, MARCH 3 , 2020

had not voted for Likud. He also expressed fear of what the intrac- table division was starting to do to the country. The lack of government stability was one r isk, he said, and deepening civic anger was another. “I know people who vote for different parties than their fami- ly, and it causes real tension for them,” he said, before heading off to join the throngs of Israelis crowding local parks, malls and cafes for the rest of the day off. Pinkosov, the bus driver, had just voted without fear or confu- sion, casting his third ballot in a row for the religious Shas party that is part of Netanyahu’s coalition. “I killed two birds with one stone, voting for Shas and voting for Netanyahu to stay,” Pinkosov said with pride as his wife and daughter nodded in agreement. None expressed any doubt about Netanyahu’s integrity or commitment to Israel. Israel’s Arab political parties also celebrated the early results. The group of Arab Israeli parties, which ran together again under the Joint List banner, won 14 or 15 seats, according to the three exit polls, maintaining a place as the Knesset’s third-largest fac- tion. The Arab vote has grown over each of the past three elections, reflecting greater political participation by Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. “our public w ent to the polls i n droves in the past two hours,” said Ayman odeh, a Knesset member from Haifa and leader of the Joint List. “It means that we have a responsible public that understood the enormity of the times.” The final stretch of the latest campaign had largely devolved into a mud fight. Political com- mentators noted Sunday that tac- tics had reached a new and dirty low even by Israel’s rough-and- tumble standards, after voice re- cordings of political a dvisers that reflected badly on their candi- dates — one working with Netan- yahu and one working with Gantz — were leaked to the press over the weekend. [email protected] [email protected]

state of Israel’s political system and how it is working for them. “It’s getting surreal,” said Galia meir, 42, who declined to say which party’s ballot she had just dropped into the box. “This time, people are more confused and unsure about how to vote. Every time, clarity is going down and down. The longer this goes on, the more the slogans just make us lose trust in our leaders.” meir, an attorney at the fi- nance ministry, has fretted at seeing the wheels of government grind to a near-halt in the year of political limbo. “I’ve seen proj- ects that were approved but are stalled without money from the budget,” she said. razi Elbaz, a coder and part- time musician in a black Vans T-shirt, would say only that he

dozen special biohazard voting places staffed by paramedics. The fears of infectious disease had been o nly the latest worry for an electorate anxious from non- stop politicking, adding hand- washing to the hand-wringing. “I’m totally following it, and I’m totally frustrated,” Jon Pollin, a Jerusalem-based tech executive who had voted twice before for the liberal meretz party but was thinking of switching this time t o Gantz’s Blue and White party. “A nd I’m going to be even more frustrated when we’re right back here for a fourth election.” In modi’in, a city of almost 93,000 halfway between Jerusa- lem and Tel Aviv, voters at Dorot Elementary School expressed a mix of fatigue, exasperation and growing uncertainty over the

a few votes in play and that this election was all about turnout,” said Jonathan rynhold, a profes- sor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “He did not have to convince people to vote for him, but he needed to get people to go out and vote.” While the election was the third in less than a year, turnout outpaced the previous two elections, a surprise for many political observers who had predicted voters would stay away because of spiking coronavirus fears and electoral exhaustion. The final tally put turnout at 71 percent, the highest since 2015. Hundreds of voters who are in precautionary quarantine because of possible exposure to coronavirus donned masks and gloves and went to more than a

The prime minister also pushed back relentlessly against the corruption allegations, blast- ing what he said was a rigged justice system that was desperate to remove him from office. “He does amazing things, and everybody around the world knows t his,” s aid bus driver Yehu- da Pinkosov, 63, a Netanyahu supporter from modi’in. “The left is just looking for ways to hurt him and remove him.” T he Likud party put tremen- dous energy into motivating its traditional voters. And in the end, they rallied to Netanyahu’s side, turning out in higher num- bers than in the previous elections. “Netanyahu got people to come out and vote for him. He realized correctly there were only

yahu’s main rival, Benny Gantz, a
ramrod-straight former military
chief who presented himself as
the ethical antithesis of Netanya-
hu. While Gantz’s p erformance as
a political newcomer produced
solid results in the first two
elections, he seems to have fallen
short monday.
Gantz was defiant early Tues-
day, telling supporters that he
would fight on.
“I'm not afraid of a long jour-
ney,” Gantz said. “I'm not afraid
at all.”
Exit polls from three Israeli
television stations gave Netanya-
hu’s Likud either 36 or 37 seats,
with Gantz’s Blue and White
party taking 32 or 33 seats. Ne-
tanyahu’s overall coalition,
which includes several allied reli-
gious and right-wing parties,
co mbined for 59 seats in each of
the exit polls. That is better than
his bloc’s position after the previ-
ous election but a seat less than
after the election last April. Ne-
tanyahu was not able to form a
government after either vote.
officials results are expected
by early Tuesday and, if they
confirm the exit polls, could sig-
nal a continuation of the stale-
mate that has plagued Israeli
politics for months.
“Sixty seats doesn’t guarantee
anything,” said former U.S. am-
bassador to Israel Dan Shapiro.
“A fourth election is still possi-
ble.”
Gantz’s Blue and White party,
which was formed a year ago as a
center-left alternative to the
prime minister’s coalition, did
well enough in the April election
to deny Netanyahu an outright
victory, by a single seat. In the
September do-over vote, Gantz’s
side won more seats in the Knes-
set but failed to cobble together a
governing coalition.
While campaigning ahead of
the three-peat election, Netanya-
hu waged a diplomatic blitz,
including a visit to the White
House to join President Trump
for the release of his middle East
peace plan and another to mos-
cow to bring home an Israeli
backpacker jailed on drug charg-
es.

ISRAEL from A

Embattled Netanyahu shows strength in Israeli election

ODED BALILTY/ASSOCIATED PRESS Supporters of P rime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrate in Tel Aviv after the first exit poll results are reported.

BY CAROL MORELLO

In a major escalation of a
media war between Beijing and
Washington, the Trump adminis-
tration on monday ordered four
Chinese news outlets operating
in the United States to reduce the
number of Chinese nationals
working on their staffs by more
than a third.
The action comes on the heels
of a State Department decision
on feb. 18 requiring five Chinese
news organizations considered
organs of the government to reg-
ister as foreign missions and
provide the names of employees.
China responded by expelling
three Beijing-based Wall Street
Journal reporters, condemning
as “racist” an essay that ran in the
news outlet’s opinion section crit-
icizing China’s response to the

coronavirus outbreak. U.S. officials said that by march 13, the Chinese news outlets can have no more than 100 Chinese citizens on staff, down from 160 currently employed by the five outlets. The officials said it was an effort to bring “reciproc- ity” t o the U.S.-China relationship and to encourage the ruling Chi- nese Communist Party to show a greater commitment to a free press. They noted that only 75 American reporters are known to be working in China. “A s we have done in other areas of the U.S.-China relationship, we seek to establish a long-overdue level playing field,” Secretary of State mike Pompeo said in a statement. “It is our hope that this action will spur Beijing to adopt a more fair and reciprocal approach to U.S. and other foreign press in China. We urge the Chinese government to immediately uphold its international commitments to respect freedom of expression, including for mem- bers of the press.” In announcing the move, senior administration officials cit-

ed the disappearance of citizen journalists chronicling the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wu- han. In a report by the foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, called “Control, Halt, Delete,” 8 in 10 correspondents said they had encountered interference, ha- rassment or violence while re- porting and described the envi- ronment for journalists as deteri- orating. “We’re witnessing an assault on free speech inside of China that goes even beyond what it was a decade ago,” s aid an administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of ano- nymity under administration rules for briefing reporters. The caps were imposed pro- portionately on four of the five designated outlets: Xinhua News Agency at 59, the China Global Te levision Network at 30, the parent company of the China Daily at nine and China radio International at two. The fifth designated outlet, the distributor for the People’s Daily, was not capped because it has no Chinese citizens working in the United

States. All the outlets employ Ameri- cans as well as Chinese, so the caps will not eliminate their abili- ty to cover news in the United States. But State Department officials refused to call the affected employees journalists, saying they work for propaganda organs. officials said it will be up to the news organizations to determine which Chinese citizens to let go by the march 13 deadline. It i s not clear how many will have to leave the country or when because it depends on the type of visas they have. The government in Beijing and the four outlets were notified of the restrictions monday morn- ing. A U.S. official declined to speculate on how Beijing may respond but said that if they retaliate against foreign reporters in Beijing, “all options are on the table.” An administration official said it would be “a shame” if Beijing retaliates against reporters working in China, predicting it could lead to a pullback of investor

confidence in the country. “A merican news outlets aren’t part of the U.S. government,” the official said. “That’s the beauty of our system. They’re completely independent. It w ould be a shame if China decided it wanted to take things out on them.” Every year, hundreds of Chi- nese citizens are granted visas allowing them to report in the United States, though it was not immediately clear how many are currently working as reporters. The move against employees of China’s government-controlled media comes amid an escalating series of critical statements by Pompeo about Beijing. He has repeatedly criticized the government’s maltreatment and deten- tion of muslim Uighurs, warned U.S. allies of risks associated with technology from the Chinese company Huawei and castigated Beijing’s expanding economic in- fluence in developing countries. Pompeo has said Beijing is intent on international domina- tion, and during a January visit to London, he called the Chinese Communist Party “the central

threat of our times.” Now, as the world braces for the spreading coronavirus that originated in China, Pompeo has taken the battle to the journalis- tic arena. After China expelled the Wall Street Journal reporters, Pompeo issued a statement deriding Bei- jing’s reaction, suggesting it was acting juvenile. “mature, responsible countries understand that a free press re- ports facts and expresses opin- ions,” Pompeo said in a statement. “The correct response is to present counter arguments, not restrict speech.” Then, Pompeo accused China of covering up the magnitude of the coronavirus outbreak and allowing it to spread and endanger people around the world. “Expelling our journalists ex- poses, once again, the governance issue that led to SArS and, now, the coronavirus, namely censor- ship,” he said in a news confer- ence, applauding the “brave reporters” covering the outbreak in China. [email protected]

Trump administration orders 4 Chinese news outlets in U.S. to reduce staffs

Considered propaganda arms for Beijing, firms caught up in media war

BY SPENCER S. HSU AND ELLEN NAKASHIMA

The United States on monday
charged two Chinese nationals
with laundering more than
$100 million in stolen cryptocur-
rency from a 2018 cyberattack
linked to North Korea’s illicit nu-
clear missile and weapons devel-
opment program.
The new indictment, accompa-
nied by sanctions and a civil for-
feiture complaint seizing 113 cryp-
tocurrency accounts filed in fed-
eral court in Washington, marks
the first and largest enforcement
action of its kind by the United
States to deter North Korea’s cryp-
tocurrency financing.
“The hacking of virtual curren-
cy exchanges and related money
laundering for the benefit of
North Korean actors poses a grave
threat to the security and integrity
of the global financial system,”

said T imothy J. S hea, U.S. attorney for Washington. The charges come after a U.N. sanctions monitoring panel reported last summer that North Korea has raised up to $2 billion for its weapons development program through cyberattacks, including “increasingly sophisticat- ed” r aids against financial institu- tions and cryptocurrency exchanges to steal, launder and generate funds. Large-scale attacks by North Korea on cryptocurrency exchanges that deal in virtual money such as bitcoin and Ethereum and rely on blockchain technology “generate income in ways that are harder to trace and subject to less government oversight and regulation than the traditional banking sector,” the U.N. expert panel reported in August. “The United States will contin- ue to protect the global financial system by holding accountable those who help North Korea en- gage in cybercrime,” Treasury Sec- retary Steven mnuchin said. The charges and enforcement actions monday are linked to an estimated $250 million in stolen funds. About $68 million of the

funds l aundered b y the t wo defen- dants flowed to nine named Chi- nese banks, the government said. The case underscores the role played by China’s banking system that has agitated relations between Beijing and Washington, people familiar with the case said. The U.S. Treasury Depart- ment’s office of foreign Assets Control alleged that Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong provided material support for “a malicious, cyber- enabled activity” and assisted an attack by Lazarus Group, a North Korean government cyber group that has carried out the bulk of North Korea’s malicious hacks against U. S. and foreign banks, corporations and other targets. The Trump administration in September sanctioned the group, whose accused exploits include an attempted ransomware attack on hundreds o f thousands o f Wanna- Cry users in 2017, and the 20 14 hack of Sony Pictures after it backed a satirical m ovie depicting the assassination o f North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The Treasury Department at that time sanctioned the Lazarus Group and two subgroups dubbed Bluenoroff and Andariel, saying

all three are controlled by North Korea’s primary intelligence agency, the reconnaissance Gen- eral Bureau. North Korea has resorted to hacks against financial institu- tions to obtain income in the face of global sanctions imposed over its nuclear program that have starved its access to foreign cur- rency and the world banking system, experts say. The U.S. indictment, handed up Thursday and unsealed monday, comes amid a renewed rise in tensions over North Korea’s missile threat. North Korea on monday launched two short-range projectiles off its east coast in its first weapons test in three months. The test came a year after Kim’s f ailed summit meeting with President Trump and amid allegations that nuclear talks have bro- ken down. Pyongyang has pledged never to give up its nuclear weapons, which the United States and its allies say must be the goal of any negotiations. North Korea has separately denied allegations of orchestrating cyberattacks and cyberheists. The U.S. actions will be seen by

North Korea as part of the administration’s “hostile policy,” said Jung Pak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former CIA analyst. “ It highlights that the two countries are on par- allel tracks.... T hey’re going to lob missiles. We’re going to do what we’re doing, which is desig- nate, investigate,” Pak said. The U.S. charges appear to bol- ster the U.N. panel’s accusations on Pyongyang’s “deceptive prac- tices” and exploitation of weak enforcement by cryptocurrency exchanges and foreign banks. U.S. criminal filings allege that Tian and Li received funds from North Korean co-conspirators who had attacked four cryptocurrency exchanges since 2017. Court documents do not name the exchanges, but the details link them to publicly reported hacks that the U.N. panel tied to North Korea’s revenue generation efforts. They include a December 2017 hack on Youbit that took 17 percent of its assets and s ent it into bankruptcy, a $49 million hack on Upbit in November 2019, and $30 million stolen in June 2018 from Bithumb — a ll three of South Korea. much of the laundered money

came from a nearly $250 million, previously undisclosed hack in 2018 of another Asian exchange, court documents said. The intru- sion came after an employee un- wittingly downloaded malware while communicating with a po- tential client, the documents said. U.S. court documents allege that Tian and Li sent roughly 2,500 deposits with $67.3 million in stolen funds to nine Chinese banks: China Guangfa Bank, Agri- cultural Bank of China, China Ev- erbright Bank, China CITIC Bank, China minsheng Bank, Huaxia Bank, Industrial Bank, Pingan Bank and Shanghai Pudong De- velopment Bank. Tian and Li are not in U.S. custody and are assumed by U.S. authorities to be in China U.S. court filings did not accuse the banks of any wrongdoing. regulators said banks are typical- ly required under “know your cus- tomer” regulations to question clients and identify the source of such large deposits, and to report suspicious transactions, several people familiar with the process said. [email protected] [email protected]

2 Chinese nationals charged in cryptocurrency scheme linked to N. Korea

U.S. says they laundered $100 million stolen in 2018 cyberattack

The Washington Post - 03.03.2020

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