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      China Claims Britain’s MI6 Recruited Chinese Couple as Spies

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      The accusation from China came a few weeks after Britain charged three men with assisting Hong Kong’s intelligence service.China’s top security ministry accused Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency on Monday of persuading a married couple working for unnamed central Chinese government bodies to become spies for the British government, the latest in a volley of continuing espionage accusations between the two countries.In a post on its official WeChat account, China’s Ministry of State Security said MI6 British intelligence officials had lured a man with the surname Wang, who worked for a Chinese government agency with part-time consulting work that paid him a high salary during his visit to Britain as part of an exchange program.The Chinese ministry said MI6 trained Mr. Wang to become a spy and ordered him to return to China to gather intelligence. It said that his wife, who has the surname Zhou, also agreed to spy for Britain. China said the matter was under further investigation, but it is not clear whether the couple are being detained by the Chinese authorities.This is the latest in a series of back-and-forth espionage accusations between Beijing and London, a source of escalating tension between the two countries.Last month, three men in Britain were charged with gathering intelligence for Hong Kong, a former British colony now under Chinese rule, to pursue pro-democracy activists living in Britain.China has condemned these latest accusations. It said that Britain had leveled a series of “groundless and slanderous” accusations of spying and cyberattacks against Beijing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      South Africa Confronts Israel and Its Own Democracy

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      Lydia Polgreen and Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeIn a special intercontinental episode of “Matter of Opinion,” Lydia Polgreen reports from South Africa as the country challenges Israel for its attack on Rafah in southern Gaza.The post-apartheid nation has emerged as a critical leader and a moral voice in some (but not all) superpower struggles. Yet back at home, South Africa’s 30 years of multiracial democracy is undergoing major political upheaval. What does the nation’s recent election offer young nations hoping for postcolonialist democracy? Lydia opens her reporter’s notebook and explores these questions with the South African journalist William Shoki and her editor, Max Strasser.(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the audio player above.)Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Kim Ludbrook/EPA, via ShutterstockMentioned in this episode:“Many voters are hooked on their abusive rulers” by William Gumede in the Sunday Times“South African election turns populist as parties play anti-foreigner card” by David Pilling and Monica Mark in the Financial Times“Neither Settler Nor Native” by Mahmoud MamdaniThoughts? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Phoebe Lett and Derek Arthur. It is edited by Jordana Hochman. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carole Sabouraud, Sonia Herrero and Pat McCusker. Our fact-checking team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads. More

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      After Biden’s Push for Truce, Netanyahu Calls Israel’s War Plans Unchanged

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      The timing of the remarks seemed to rebuff the president’s hopes for a speedy end to the war. But some analysts said the prime minister was aiming at domestic supporters, not the White House. A day after President Biden called on Israel and Hamas to reach a truce, declaring that it was “time for this war to end,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday reiterated that Israel would not agree to a permanent cease-fire in Gaza as long as Hamas still retains governing and military power.In his statement, Mr. Netanyahu did not explicitly endorse or reject a proposed cease-fire plan that Mr. Biden had laid out in an unusually detailed address on Friday. Two Israeli officials confirmed that Mr. Biden’s proposal matched an Israeli cease-fire proposal that had been greenlit by Israel’s war cabinet. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.But the timing of Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks, coming first thing the next morning, seemed to put the brakes on Mr. Biden’s hopes for a speedy resolution to the war, which has claimed the lives of more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.“Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in the statement released on Saturday morning. Biden administration officials and some Israeli analysts said they believed that Israel still supported the proposal Mr. Biden described on Friday, and that Mr. Netanyahu’s statement on Saturday was more tailored to his domestic audience and meant to manage his far-right cabinet members, rather than to push back against the White House. Mr. Biden is eager for the war to end, with the American presidential election just five months away.But Mr. Netanyahu’s domestic political worries could prove paramount. On Saturday night, two of Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners — Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir — threatened to quit his government should he move forward with the proposal. Mr. Ben-Gvir labeled the terms of the agreement a “total defeat” and a “victory for terrorism.” If both of their parties left his coalition, it could mark the end of Mr. Netanyahu’s government.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Warnings of Election Meddling by China Never Reached the Prime Minister

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      A watchdog agency found roadblocks to the flow of information both within the spy agency and the public service.It can be a bit difficult to keep tabs on the various inquiries and examinations into foreign interference in Canadian elections, particularly by China.The embassy of China in Ottawa. Several inquiries are looking into possible election meddling by the country.Ian Austen/The New York TimesOttawa’s latest growth industry was largely created by a series of leaks of highly classified intelligence that first appeared in The Globe and Mail, and then Global News, that described attempts by the Chinese government to meddle in the last two elections with the goal of returning the Liberals to power, if again with a minority government.First was a report from a group of senior civil servants that found that while China, Russia and Iran had tried to subvert the 2019 and 2021 federal votes, their efforts had failed.Next, David Johnston, the former governor general, looked at the body of evidence that produced the leak. Mr. Johnston stepped down before finishing his inquiry after the opposition argued that his close ties to the Trudeau family meant that his assessment would not be independent. But, in a preliminary report, he concluded that foreign powers were “undoubtedly attempting to influence candidates and voters in Canada.” But Mr. Johnston added that, after looking at everything, he found that “several leaked materials that raised legitimate questions turn out to have been misconstrued in some media reports, presumably because of the lack of this context.”At the end of March, a committee of Parliamentarians who had been cleared to review classified intelligence turned over its election interference report to the government. The censored, public version of its findings has yet to be released.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Haiti Names New Prime Minister to Try to Lead Country Out of Crisis

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      Garry Conille is taking on the office just ahead of the arrival of a Kenyan-led international police force charged with helping restore order to the violence-torn nation.An experienced international aid official, Garry Conille, was unanimously appointed prime minister of Haiti by a Presidential Transition Council on Tuesday, which tasked him with leading the country out of its current crisis until elections for a new president can be held.Mr. Conille will take on his new role just as a U.N.-backed security mission led by Kenyan police is scheduled to begin operations in the violence-torn Caribbean nation, which is battling to restore political stability and tackle armed gangs who control large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince.Fluent in English, French and Creole, Mr. Conille’s credentials include a 25-year career working for the United Nations and other aid agencies. He also briefly led Haiti as prime minister over a decade ago during another period of crisis following the devastating 2010 earthquake.But Mr. Conille has spent many of the last few years outside the country, and his perhaps rusty domestic political skills are sure to be tested by the highly volatile situation he will encounter as prime minister.He will not, however, have to face any political battles with Haiti’s fractious Parliament, which has sat vacant for months because of the country’s inability to hold elections amid the violence and turmoil.“He is a safe choice to appease the international community, but he’s also spent the last two decades working mostly outside Haiti in the U.N. system,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Lawmakers Visit Taiwan and Vow Support in Face of Chinese Military Drills

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      A bipartisan delegation promised to stand by the island’s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, after Beijing surrounded the self-governing island with naval vessels and aircraft.After China performed two days of military drills intended to punish Taiwan, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas on Monday stood alongside the island nation’s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, and issued a promise.“The United States must maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or coercion that would jeopardize the security of the people of Taiwan,” Mr. McCaul, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said. “That is what we stand for, and that is what we continue to say.”Mr. McCaul, a Republican, traveled this week to Taipei with a bipartisan delegation of other American lawmakers in an attempt, he said, to show that the U.S. government stood in lock step with Mr. Lai and Taiwan.The trip, which will last through the week, comes at a fraught time: Just days after Mr. Lai was sworn into office and vowed in his inaugural address to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty, China responded by surrounding the self-governing island with naval vessels and military aircraft. Before the lawmakers arrived, the Chinese government had publicly warned them to “seriously abide by the one-China policy” and “not to schedule any congressional visit to Taiwan.”Just a few days ago, China “conducted two days of military drills in the Taiwan Strait to express their displeasure with President Lai,” Lin Chia-lung, Taiwan’s foreign minister, told Mr. McCaul at a news conference on Monday. “You can say in this critical time, it is a powerful display,” Mr. Lin added.Even as many Republicans in Congress balked at providing continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine, support for Taiwan has remained a largely bipartisan endeavor. A number of conservatives have argued that the United States should pull back its investments in Ukraine and instead bolster deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region. In April, the House voted to approve $8 billion for Taiwan in a lopsided 385-to-34 vote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Do Not Allow Putin to Capture Another Pawn in Europe

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      The Georgians call it the Russian Law. It was passed recently by the Parliament in the Republic of Georgia, purportedly to improve transparency by having civil society and media groups that get some of their funds from abroad register as groups “carrying the interests of a foreign power.” But the tens of thousands of Georgians who have taken to the streets again and again against the law know its real goal — to suppress those who would hold the government to account, and to move the country into the orbit of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.The law has drawn stiff rebukes from the United States and Europe. The State Department has announced visa restrictions on officials behind the foreign-agent law and Congress has threatened further sanctions. European Union officials have warned that it could block Georgia’s bid for membership only six months after the country was granted candidate status. This is a serious threat for a country where polls show about 80 percent of the population supporting a Western political orientation.The clash over the foreign-agent law in a small country nestled in the Caucasus Mountains has been largely overshadowed by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Yet it is also at its core an East-West struggle over Georgia’s political path, a contest with cardinal implications for the region’s future. Georgia, in fact, was the first neighboring country invaded by Russia post-Soviet Union, in 2008, to block its westward drift.Now the ruling party, Georgian Dream, seems to share Russia’s goal, though it has generally avoided openly siding with Russia. Launched 12 years ago by the billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili — who made his money in Russia — as a broad and ill-defined opposition movement, the party has taken an increasingly anti-Western stance in recent years. In a speech in Tbilisi, the nation’s capital, last month, Mr. Ivanishvili inveighed against a “global war party” that, he said, was “appointed from outside” and was using nongovernmental organizations to take control of Georgia. Georgian Dream has also echoed other Russian attacks on purported Western decadence.The foreign-agent bill marks the most overt political attack on Western influence the party has taken. When first introduced last year, massive public protests forced the government to pull it back. But the government revived it this spring, and despite even larger and angrier protests, the protests were as large and angry, the Parliament passed the bill on May 14.The pro-Western president of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, whose position is largely ceremonial but allows her to block legislation, promptly vetoed the measure, arguing that in essence and spirit it was “a Russian law that contradicts our Constitution and all European standards, and therefore an obstacle to our European path.” Though Georgian Dream has more than enough votes to override the veto, it has not done so yet, and there are reports that it might be prepared to let it stay on the shelf in exchange for Western aid and other perks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      G7 Finance Ministers Close Ranks as Tensions with Russia and China Fester

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      Western economic officials projected a united front, and braced for retaliation, as they prepped tougher sanctions and tariffs.Top finance officials from the world’s advanced economies moved toward an agreement on Saturday over how to use Russia’s frozen central bank assets to aid Ukraine and pledged to unite against China’s dumping of cheap exports into their markets, aiming to marshal their economic might to tackle twin crises.The embrace of more ambitious sanctions and protectionism came as finance ministers from the Group of 7 nations gathered for three days of meetings in Stresa, Italy. The proposals under consideration could deepen the divide between the alliance of wealthy Western economies and Russia, China and their allies, worsening a global fragmentation that has worried economists.Efforts by the Group of 7 to influence the two powerful adversaries have had limited success in recent years, but rich countries are making a renewed push to test the limits of their combined economic power.In a joint statement, or communiqué, that was set to be released on Saturday, policymakers said they would stay united on both fronts as geopolitical crises and trade tensions have emerged as the biggest threats to the global economy.“We are making progress in our discussions on potential avenues to bring forward the extraordinary profits stemming from immobilized Russian sovereign assets to the benefit of Ukraine,” the statement, which was reviewed by The New York Times, said.Regarding China, the finance ministers expressed concern about its “comprehensive use of nonmarket policies and practices that undermines our workers, industries, and economic resilience.” They agreed to monitor the negative effects of China’s overcapacity and “consider taking steps to ensure a level playing field.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More