The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Mexico security forces abducted dozens in drug war - rights group
- U.S. seeks to tackle trade-secret theft by China, others
- U.S. seeks to tackle trade secret theft by China, others
| Mexico security forces abducted dozens in drug war - rights group Posted: 20 Feb 2013 09:01 PM PST IGUALA, Mexico (Reuters) - Dozens of people were abducted and murdered by Mexican security forces over the past six years during a gruesome war with drug cartels, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, urging President Enrique Pena Nieto to overhaul the military justice system.
The rights group said that since 2007 it has documented 149 cases of people who were never seen again after falling into the hands of security forces, and that the government failed to properly investigate the "disappearances." "The result was the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades," the U.S.-based group said. (Human Rights Watch report: http://r.reuters.com/fyk26t) It recommended reforming Mexico's military justice system and creating a national database to link the missing with the thousands of unidentified bodies that piled up during the military-led crackdown on drug cartels. The report was a grim reminder of the dark side of the war on drug cartels that killed an estimated 70,000 people during former President Felipe Calderon's six-year presidency. The report also illustrates the obstacles that President Pena Nieto, who took office in December, faces in trying to stem the violence, restore order over areas of the country controlled by the drug cartels and end abuses by security forces. For nearly three years, 56-year-old shopkeeper Maria Orozco has sought to discover the fate of her son. She says he was abducted along with five colleagues by soldiers from the nightclub where they worked in Iguala, a parched town south of the Mexican capital. She says a grainy security video, submitted anonymously, shows the moment in 2010 when local soldiers rounded up the men. "We used to see the military like Superman or Batman or Robin. Super heroes," said Orozco. "Now the spirit of the whole country has turned against them." Hers was one of the cases illustrated in the Human Rights Watch report. Pena Nieto has vowed to take a different tack to his predecessor Calderon and focus on reducing violent crime and extortion rather than on going head to head with drug cartels. The government last month introduced a long-delayed law to trace victims of the drug war and compensate the families. It says it is moving ahead with plans to roll out a genetic database to track victims and help families locate the disappeared. "There exists, in theory, a database with more than 27,000 people on it," said Lia Limon, deputy secretary of human rights at Mexico's interior ministry. "It's a job that's beginning." Still, impunity remains rife. The armed forces opened nearly 5,000 investigations into criminal wrongdoing between 2007 and 2012, but only 38 ended in sentencing, according to Human Rights Watch. In its report it describes the impact of the disappearances on victims' families, a daily reality for Ixchel Mireles, a 50-year-old librarian from the northern city of Torreon, whose husband Hector Tapia was abducted by men in federal police uniforms. Neither Mireles nor her daughter has heard from Tapia since that night in June 2010. "I want him to be alive, but the reality just destroys me," said Mireles. "I just want them to give him back, even if he is dead." Since her husband's disappearance, Mireles has struggled financially, having lost his 40,000 pesos (2,065 pounds) a month salary. She has moved her daughter to a cheaper university and can barely keep up payments on her house. "I now travel by foot," she said, noting that Mexico's social security system does not recognize the disappeared. Some family members of the disappeared have asked for soldiers guilty of rights abuses to be judged like civilians, a move Mexico's Supreme Court has approved. "To us it just seems that the military is untouchable," said Laura Orozco, 36, who says she witnessed her brother's military-led abduction. "They're bulletproof." (Additional reporting by Michael O'Boyle,; Editing by Simon Gardner, Kieran Murray and Lisa Shumaker) Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| U.S. seeks to tackle trade-secret theft by China, others Posted: 20 Feb 2013 07:50 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faced with the growing theft of U.S. trade secrets, the White House said on Wednesday it was stepping up diplomatic pressure and mulling tougher laws to stem the threat to American businesses and security from China and other nations.
The plan includes working with like-minded governments to put pressure on bad actors, using trade policy tools, increasing criminal prosecutions and launching a 120-day review to see whether new U.S. legislation is needed. "A hacker in China can acquire source code from a software company in Virginia without leaving his or her desk," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at a White House event to unveil the strategy. Although the White House report did not cite China by name, many see the Asian giant as the main threat. A study released this week by a private security firm accused the Chinese military of orchestrating numerous cyber attacks against U.S. businesses, a charge Beijing has denied. The Obama administration said its strategy aims to counter what Holder called "a significant and steadily increasing threat to America's economy and national security interests." "As new technology has torn down traditional barriers to international business and global commerce, they also make it easier for criminals to steal secrets and to do so from anywhere, anywhere in the world," Holder said. Last week, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said U.S. companies suffered estimated losses in 2012 of more than $300 billion due to theft of trade secrets, a large share due to Chinese cyber espionage. The White House report listed 17 cases of trade-secret theft by Chinese companies or individuals since 2010, far more than any other country mentioned in the report. U.S. corporate victims of trade-secret theft have included General Motors, Ford, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Motorola, Boeing and Cargill. A target company can see the payoff from research investment evaporate as a result of corporate espionage and lose market position, competitive advantage and efficiencies. "We have repeatedly raised our concerns about trade-secret theft by any means at the highest levels with senior Chinese officials and we will continue to do so," said Robert Hormats, an undersecretary of state. Those cases cited mostly involved employees stealing trade secrets on the job rather than cyber attacks. Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property rights enforcement coordinator, said the effort aims to protect the innovation that drives the U.S. economy and job creation. MIXED RESPONSE Cybersecurity and intelligence experts welcomed the White House plan as a first step, but some said much more needed to be done. "You've got a nation-state taking on private corporations," said former CIA Director Michael Hayden. "That's kind of unprecedented ... We have not approached resolution with this at all." The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby, offered a lukewarm statement of support, while other industry groups expressed more enthusiasm for the effort. "We strongly endorse and applaud the administration's focus on curbing theft of trade secrets, which poses a serious and growing threat to the software industry around the world," said Business Software Alliance President and CEO Robert Holleyman. The report that laid out the strategy repeated a 2011 White House recommendation that the maximum sentence for economic espionage be increased to at least 20 years, from 15 currently. Another part of the solution is promoting a set of "best practices" that companies can use to protect themselves against cyber attacks and other espionage, Espinel said. The report also said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was "expanding its efforts to fight computer intrusions that involve the theft of trade secrets by individual, corporate and nation-state cyber hackers." In an interview, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the problem of trade-secret theft in China was a factor in the decisions of some U.S. companies to move operations back to the United States. The companies have "had very frank conversations with the Chinese, (saying) 'You know it's one thing to accept a certain level of copyright knock-offs, but if you're going to take our core technology, then we're better off being in our home country,'" Kirk told Reuters. (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Deborah Charles; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Eric Beech) Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| U.S. seeks to tackle trade secret theft by China, others Posted: 20 Feb 2013 05:44 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faced with what experts say is growing theft of U.S. trade secrets by China and other nations, the White House on Wednesday vowed to protect American businesses and economic security more aggressively and consider tougher laws at home.
The White House did not directly cite China, which many see as the main threat and did not propose new penalties on perpetrators. A study released this week by a private security firm accused the Chinese military of orchestrating numerous cyber attacks against U.S. businesses, a charge Beijing has denied. The Obama administration said its strategy aims to counter what U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called "a significant and steadily increasing threat to America's economy and national security interests." "As new technology has torn down traditional barriers to international business and global commerce, they also make it easier for criminals to steal secrets and to do so from anywhere, anywhere in the world," Holder said at a White House event to unveil the strategy. He said the perpetrators include "individuals, companies and even countries that are eager to tilt the playing field to their advantage." The plan includes working with like-minded governments to put pressure on bad actors, using trade policy tools where possible, increasing criminal prosecutions and launching a 120-day review to see whether new legislation is needed. While the report did not specifically name any country as the main culprit, it listed 17 cases of trade secret theft by Chinese companies or individuals since 2010, far more than any other country mentioned in the report. "We have repeatedly raised our concerns about trade secret theft by any means at the highest levels with senior Chinese officials and we will continue to do so," Under Secretary of State Robert Hormats said. Those cases cited mostly involved employees stealing trade secrets on the job rather than cyber attacks. U.S. corporate victims of the theft included General Motors, Ford, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Motorola, Boeing and Cargill. Last week, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said U.S. companies suffered estimated losses in 2012 of more than $300 billion due to trade secret theft, a large share due to Chinese cyber espionage. Cybersecurity and intelligence experts welcomed the White House plan as a first step, but some said much more needed to be done. "You've got a nation state taking on private corporations," said former CIA director Michael Hayden. "That's kind of unprecedented ... We have not approached resolution with this at all," he said. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby, offered a lukewarm statement of support, while other industry groups expressed more enthusiasm for the effort. "We strongly endorse and applaud the administration's focus on curbing theft of trade secrets, which poses a serious and growing threat to the software industry around the world," said Business Software Alliance President and CEO Robert Holleyman. BUILDING ON EXISTING EFFORTS Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property rights enforcement coordinator, said the new strategy improves existing government efforts to protect the innovation that drives the U.S. economy and job creation. The report that laid out the strategy repeated a 2011 White House recommendation that the maximum sentence for economic espionage be increased to at least 20 years, from 15 currently. Another part of the solution is promoting a set of "best practices" that companies can use to protect themselves against cyber attacks and other espionage, Espinel said. The report also said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was "expanding its efforts to fight computer intrusions that involve the theft of trade secrets by individual, corporate and nation-state cyber hackers." In an interview, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the problem of trade secret theft in China was a factor in the decisions of some U.S. companies to move operations back to the United States. The companies have "had very frank conversations with the Chinese, (saying) 'You know it's one thing to accept a certain level of copyright knock-offs, but if you're going to take our core technology, then we're better off being in our home country,'" Kirk told Reuters. (This story was corrected to fix Hormats' title to under secretary from deputy secretary in the eighth paragraph) (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Deborah Charles; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Bill Trott, Todd Eastham, Tim Ahmann and Cynthia Osterman) Copyright © 2013 Reuters |
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