Two Chinese nationals have been charged by U.S. prosecutors with laundering more than $100 million worth of cryptocurrency that had been stolen by North Korean hackers in 2018.

Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong face charges of money laundering, conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.

U.S. authorities say North Korean hackers stole nearly $250 million from a virtual currency exchange in 2018 before laundering the money through hundreds of transactions in order to make the theft difficult to trace. The hackers are allegedly behind the theft of about $50 million from a South Korean virtual currency exchange in 2019.  

In addition to bringing criminal charges against Yinyin and Jiadong, prosecutors filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington to seize control of 113 virtual currency accounts and addresses that had been used by the duo and other co-conspirators.

“Today’s actions underscore that the [Justice] Department will pierce the veil of anonymity provided by cryptocurrencies to hold criminals accountable, no matter where they are located,” assistant attorney general Brian A. Benczkowski said in a statement.  

Yinyin and Jiadong operated virtual currency transmission services but conducted business in the United States without a permit from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.  
 

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It appears U.S. officials and the Taliban have a conflicting understanding about the commitments made within the peace plan.

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North Korea has launched two unknown projectiles, South Korea’s military reported Monday — apparently the North’s first rocket launches of the year.

The projectiles were fired from the Wonsan area toward the sea off North Korea’s east coast, said South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. It did not say what type of weapons were launched or how far they traveled.

The launch suggests North Korea will continue provocations, even as it implements emergency measures to prevent or contain a coronavirus outbreak. North Korean authorities have warned those virus containment measures are a matter of “national survival.”

North Korea last conducted a projectile launch in late November. That test came as North Korea was warning of its end-of-year deadline for the United States to offer more concessions in nuclear talks.

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Health officials in Washington state said Sunday night that a second person had died from the coronavirus.

Researchers said the virus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in the greater Seattle area.

In a statement, Public Health—Seattle & King County said a man in his 70s died Saturday. On Friday, health officials said a man in his 50s died of coronavirus. Both had underlying health conditions, and both were being treated at a hospital in Kirkland, Washington, east of Seattle.

Washington state now has 12 confirmed cases.

State and local authorities stepped up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew nationwide, with new infections announced in California, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state.

Authorities in the Seattle area said two more people had been diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus, both men in their 60s who were in critical condition, and two health care workers in California were also diagnosed.

A man in his 50s died in Washington on Saturday, and health officials said 50 more people in a nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, are sick and being tested for the virus. On Sunday night, the International Association of Fire Fighters said 25 members who responded to calls for help at the nursing facility are being quarantined.

The first U.S. case was a Washington state man who had visited China, where the virus first emerged, but several recent cases in the U.S. have had no known connection to travelers.

In California, two health care workers in the San Francisco Bay area who cared for an earlier coronavirus patient were diagnosed with the virus on Sunday, the Alameda and Solano counties said in a joint statement.

The health care workers are both employed at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, California, and had exposure to a patient treated there before being transferred to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, the statement said. That patient was the first person in the U.S. discovered to have contracted the coronavirus with no known overseas travel.

Alameda County declared a state of emergency on Sunday following the news.

Elsewhere, authorities announced Sunday a third case in Illinois and Rhode Island and New York’s first cases as worried Americans swarmed stores to stock up on basic goods such as bottled water, canned foods and toilet paper.

The hospitalized patient in Rhode Island is a man in his 40s who had traveled to Italy in February. New York confirmed Sunday that a woman in her late 30s contracted the virus while traveling in Iran. The patient is not in serious condition. She has respiratory symptoms and has been in a controlled situation since arriving in New York, according to a statement from the governor’s office.

As the fallout continued, Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar sought to reassure the American public that the federal government is working to make sure state and local authorities are able to test for the virus. Both said during a round of TV talk show appearances Sunday that thousands more testing kits had been distributed to state and local officials, with thousands more to come.

“They should know we have the best public health system in the world looking out for them,” Azar said, adding that additional cases will be reported and the overall risk to Americans is low.

As the cases ticked up, some Americans stocked up on basic supplies — particularly in areas with diagnosed cases — and began to take note of the impact on daily life. Stores such as Costco sold out of toilet paper, bottled water and hand sanitizer outside Portland, Oregon, where a case was announced Friday. Sports games and practices were canceled into the coming school week. Some churches said they would not offer communion because of fears of viral spread.

As Americans prepared, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington on Sunday said they had evidence the virus may have been circulating in the state for up to six weeks undetected — a finding that, if true, could mean hundreds of undiagnosed cases in the area. They posted their research online, but it was not published in a scientific journal or reviewed by other scientists.

Trevor Bedford, an associate professor who announced the preliminary findings on the virus in Washington state, said on Twitter late Saturday that genetic similarities between the state’s first case on Jan. 20 and a case announced Friday indicated the newer case may have descended from the earlier one. The Jan. 20 case was the first known case in the U.S.

“I believe we’re facing an already substantial outbreak in Washington State that was not detected until now due to narrow case definition requiring direct travel to China,” he said on Twitter.

Bedford did not immediately reply to an e-mail requesting an interview Sunday.

Scientists not affiliated with the research said the results did not necessarily surprise them and pointed out that for many people — especially younger, healthier ones — the symptoms are not much worse than a flu or bad cold.

“We think that this has a pretty high rate of mild symptoms and can be asymptomatic. The symptoms are pretty non-specific and testing criteria has been pretty strict, so those combinations of factors means that it easily could have been circulating for a bit without us knowing,” said Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Adam Lauring of University of Michigan called the findings “high quality work” from scientists who’ve done similar work with the flu virus for years.

“They show their data and they show their work,” Lauring said. “It’s more than a series of tweets” because the researchers back up what they found with data that they’ve shared online. “If there’s something wrong, someone will find it.”

Dr. Carlos del Rio of Emory University School of Medicine said the findings are from respected researchers in genomic sequencing and they make sense because of the geographic proximity of the two cases.

“This is a good time to reinforce the things we all should be doing to stop the spread of flu. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. If you have a cold, stay home … It’s a good time to remind ourselves of that,” he said.

Pence, named by the president to be the point-person overseeing the government’s response, said more than 15,000 virus testing kits had been released over the weekend. And, the administration is working with a commercial provider to distribute 50,000 more, he said.

The vice president said testing was among the first issues raised by governors he’s spoken with so far. Several states have begun their own testing, including Washington state, Oregon and Illinois.

“We’re leaning into it,” Pence said.

Azar said more than 3,600 people already have been tested for coronavirus and the capability exists to test 75,000 people. He forecast a “radical expansion of that” in the coming weeks.

Pence and Azar spoke a day after President Donald Trump approved new restrictions on international travel to prevent the spread within the U.S. of the new virus, which originated in China. There are now more than 80,000 cases worldwide and about 3,000 deaths.

Two Americans are now known to have died of the virus, one in Washington state and one in China.

The new U.S. travel restrictions apply to Iran, although travel there by Americans already is severely limited, as well as heavily affected regions of Italy and South Korea. Trump tweeted Sunday that any travelers from those countries will be screened when they arrive in the U.S.

The number of known coronavirus cases in the U.S. had reached76 as of Sunday, counting people evacuated from a cruise ship and the city of Wuhan in China.

Trump said Saturday at a White House news conference that he was thinking about closing the southern border with Mexico as a precaution. Azar said Sunday that Mexico has few coronavirus cases and that it would take a dramatic change in the circumstances there to prompt serious consideration of a border shutdown.

The president, Azar said, “was trying to say everything’s on the table.”

“We will take whatever measures are appropriate and necessary to protect the American people, but we don’t forecast doing that any time soon,” he said of closing the border.

Pence noted that an infectious disease expert is joining an existing White House coronavirus task force on Monday. Last week, Pence announced the addition of Debbie Birx, a State Department ambassador-at-large and medical doctor who is the administration’s global HIV/AIDS response coordinator, to the virus panel.

Despite calls by Trump and Pence for political unity in the face of the viral threat, the issue has become mired in the partisan rancor in Washington, with both Republicans and Democrats accusing each other of mining the issue for political gain.

Trump, at a political rally last week, accused Democrats of “politicizing” the issue and said their criticism of his handling of the public health challenge was their new “hoax.”

At the White House on Saturday, Trump said he was not trying to minimize the threat from the virus.

“Again, the hoax was used in respect to Democrats and what they were saying,” he said Saturday.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who emerged victorious Saturday night from South Carolina’s primary, criticized the administration over the availability of testing kits.

Biden also panned the administration’s decision to have political appointees Pence and Azar, neither of whom are scientists by training, appear on the Sunday shows, instead of an expert like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health infectious disease chief.

Biden claimed the administration doesn’t have testing kits. Pence and Azar said thousands of kits had been distributed.

Azar said he didn’t know what Biden was talking about when the former vice president said testing kits didn’t exist. Azar said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had developed a lab test for coronavirus with “historic speed.”

Pence was interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Azar commented on “Fox News Sunday,” CBS’ “Face the Nation” and ABC’s “This Week.” Biden commented on CNN.

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A right-of-center president took office in Uruguay on Sunday, promising to crack down on crime and tighten government finances after a 15-year string of left-leaning governments.

Luis Lacalle Pou, a 46-year-old surfing enthusiast and son of a former president, narrowly won the election in November in his second try for the top office.

Lacalle Pou thanked outgoing President Tabaré Vázquez who gave him the presidential sash.

“The country has built a democracy with this ceremony,” he said, celebrating the seventh presidential change since the restoration of democracy in 1985.

Lacalle Pou inherits a country of nearly 3.4 million people that had grown steadily under the outgoing Broad Front government, but rising crime in recent years dented its popularity and economists have grown concerned about a rising fiscal deficit that reached 4.9% of gross domestic product last year.

In his inaugural address, the new leader promised “to promote what was done well (and) correct what was done badly.”

Lacalle Pou, who has promised to cap government spending, said he wanted reduce the costs of production and services “to recover national competitiveness.”

He said the country faces “an emergency” of insecurity, adding that “the enormous majority of Uruguayans feel unprotected.” He campaigned on calls to bolster the country’s security forces and toughening sentences.

“In the interior of the country we used to sleep with the door open…. Even vehicles were left with doors and windows open and the key in the ignition. But lately the houses are all fenced…. We hope that this government takes some measures and can change that,” said Natalia Cardozo, a 37-year-old teacher who was participating on horseback in the inaugural; day parade.

Lacalle Pou, who spent many years in Uruguay’s congress, grew up in an intensely political family. He father Luis Lacalle Herrera was president from 1990 to 1995 and his mother, Julia Pou, was a senator. His great-grandfather Luis Alberto de Herrera was a major figure in the National Party.

He will have to depend on an ideologically diverse four-party coalition to get his programs through Congress.

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Slovak opposition led by the Ordinary People party (OLANO) won an emphatic victory in the country’s parliamentary election, as voters angry with graft routed the ruling center-left Smer that has dominated the political scene for more than a decade.

Results from 96.16% of voting districts showed Sunday that OLANO, a politically amorphous, pro-European Union and pro-NATO movement focused on fighting corruption, took 24.95% of the vote, far ahead of the ruling Smer with 18.5%.

Support for OLANO surged in recent weeks, from less than 6% late last year, concentrating a protest vote fed by the killing of an investigative journalist and his fiancée two years ago.

Seats won by other liberal and conservative parties gave OLANO a strong position to lead negotiations to form a new center-right government.

‘Let’s Beat the Mafia Together’

OLANO leader Igor Matovic has pledged to clean up politics, an ambition encapsulated in his party’s slogan: “Let’s Beat the Mafia Together.”

“We take the result as a request from people who want us to clean up Slovakia. To make Slovakia a just country, where the law applies to everybody regardless if he is rich or poor,” Matovic said after most of the votes were counted.

Matovic said he would reach out to leaders of three other parties — the liberal Freedom and Solidarity, the conservative For the People of former president Andrej Kiska, and the socially conservative, eurosceptic We Are Family — to form an alliance that would have constitutional majority of more than 90 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini from Smer acknowledged defeat and said the party’s run in the office, for 12 out of the past 14 years, may be over.

“A probable departure of our party into opposition is not such a surprise,” Pellegrini told reporters.

Smer scored its worst result since 2002. Its nationalist and Hungarian minority allies did not win any seats, the first time in decades that Hungarians will not be represented.

Killings spark change

The political shift in the euro zone member state, which has avoided fights with Brussels unlike its central European Visegrad Group neighbors Hungary and Poland, started with the 2018 killing of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée.

An investigation unearthed communications between a businessman now on trial for ordering the hit and politicians and judicial officials. The defendant has denied the charges.

The killings led to the biggest street protests in the post-communist era, forcing Smer leader Robert Fico to resign, though his party held on to power.

Matovic, 46, told Reuters last week he wanted to be a conciliatory voice toward the EU within Visegrad.

A positive signal

The former owner of regional newspapers and a lawmaker since 2010, Matovic calls himself a social conservative and economic liberal but refuses to pin down OLANO on the left-right or liberal-conservative scale.

In the European Parliament, OLANO is aligned with the center-right European People’s Party.

“I would like to send a positive signal,” Matovic said, adding that he did not want European partners to feel Slovakia was a corrupt place “where journalists and their fiancees are murdered just because someone unearthed corruption.”

He said he would strive for better education for the underprivileged Roma minority, and wanted the Roma, Hungarian and Ruthenian minorities to feel equal.

Predictions that the far-right, anti-EU and anti-NATO People’s Party could make strong gains were not borne out and the party won just more than 8%.

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As tensions continue to simmer between Turkey and Russia in the north of Syria, Ankara says another Turkish soldier was killed in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 34 in the last several days.

Turkey also is claiming to have killed large numbers of Syrian government forces and inflicted heavy material damage in retaliation.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Russia to “get out of [Turkey’s way in] Syria” and allow it to “deal with [President Bashar al-] Assad,” in a speech to supporters Saturday. “Turkey,” he said, “has entered Syria at the demand of the Syrian people and not at the demand of Assad.”

Erdogan added that Turkey has retaliated against Syrian forces for killing 34 of its soldiers:

He claims that Turkish troops have killed more than 2,000 Syrian forces, destroyed 300 of their military vehicles and bombed a chemical weapons factory east of Aleppo.  

Syrian state TV denied a chemical weapons factory had been hit, joking that “gases from such an attack would have killed several million people in Aleppo if the story were true.”

Erdogan, who attended a funeral for soldiers killed in Idlib, told mourners that “Turkey has been fighting in Syria, Libya and elsewhere, as it has done in the past, and that there will be more [soldiers killed] in the future.”

Thousands of refugees gathered Saturday along the Turkish border with Greece had to flee tear gas used by Greek forces to stop them from entering Greek soil.  Erdogan said earlier in the day 18,000 refugees had entered Greece and that the number could rise to 25,000 to 30,000.  He said Germany must send money to Turkey to deal with its refugee crisis, in order to stop the flow.

Inside Syria, Russian-backed Syrian government airstrikes continued around Idlib, and Syrian TV asserted it had recaptured the towns of Mansoura, Ziyara, Tel Wasel and Zayzoun Jedida from Turkish-backed rebel forces, killing a number of them and chasing them to Khan Safra in eastern Idlib.

Rami Abdel Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that 48 Syrian troops and their allies have been killed in Turkish attacks during the past 24 hours. Arab media reported 8 Hezbollah militiamen were killed in a Turkish drone strike on their headquarters near the town of Saraqeb.

Al-Jazeera TV-Arabic showed rebel forces in control of Saraqeb, as well as a stretch of the strategic M5 highway from Damascus to Aleppo. Damascus had recently celebrated with fanfare the recapture of the last stretch of the highway.

Talks between Turkish and Russian military advisers during the past several days apparently have failed to reach a cease-fire. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told journalists Saturday that President Erdogan will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 5.

Syrian Ambassador to the U.N. Bashar al-Jaafari told the U.N. Security Council Friday that Turkey has “failed to live up to the Sochi or Astana agreements,” in which it was “expected to rein in [rebel] forces.”  Instead, he said, “Turkey has transformed its observer posts in Idlib into war operations rooms to use against Syrian and Russian forces.”

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The leaders of a Sufi Muslim group turned themselves into the custody of the Somali government Saturday after fighting left 22 people dead in central Somalia.

Moallim Mohamud Sheikh, the spiritual leader, and Sheikh Mohamed Shakir, the chief of Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jamaa (ASWJ), are in the custody of the Somali national army in the town of Dhusamareb after the group’s militias were overpowered in a battle with government forces. Dhusamareb is the administrative capital of Galmudug state.

“Our security forces have ended the standoff and disarmed all ASWJ militias,” Osman Isse Nur, the spokesperson of the newly elected president, told VOA.

Speaking in a video posted online, ASWJ chief Sheikh Shakir said his group ceded power to the Somali national army.

“We agreed to end the fighting for the sake of the civilians. We agreed to hand over ASWJ militias to the commander general who will, in return, take responsibility for the safety of all our members, including the leader,” Shakir said in the video.

At least 22 people were killed in clashes that broke out Thursday night after ASWJ militias fired on a government checkpoint in Dhusamareeb.

The fighting continued Friday morning before spreading to the nearby town of Guricel in the Galgadud region.
 
Reports say normalcy returned to Dhusamareb Saturday as residents, who were forced to flee, came back and reopened their businesses.

Three rival politicians are claiming to be the leader of Galmudug state. Early this month, the parliament of Galmudug elected Ahmed Abdi Kariye as president. He is a former minister backed by the government. ASWJ chief Sheikh Shakir rejected the action, however, and declared himself president, while former president Ahmed Duale refused to cede power.

The Sufi group ASWJ played a pivotal role in the fight against al-Shabab militants, and early this week, a U.S. diplomat said in remarks at the U.N. Security Council briefing that internal rivalries among allies in Somalia could derail the effort to combat al-Qaida-linked insurgents.

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In another one of its many fallouts, the coronavirus is creating new strains for Europe’s 26-nation Schengen zone that allows for the free movement of people among member states. European officials say, for now, there is no reason to close borders, but the spread of the virus seems to bolster nationalist arguments for the zone to be scrapped altogether.  

Like in most places these days, the coronavirus outbreak is topping the French news. Several dozen cases have been reported so far. The government is advising precautionary measures like not shaking hands and forgoing the traditional kiss on both cheeks. The post office has suspended link with China.  

The bigger worry, for now, lies in neighboring Italy. For the moment, the borders between France and Italy remain open. However, a recent decision to allow 3,000 Italian fans to travel to the French city of Lyon for a football match sparked controversy.  

That’s just one example testing Europe’s decades-old Schengen zone. The concept of open internal borders is a cornerstone of European Union goals for closer integration—although Schengen includes several non-EU members, such as Switzerland.  

Europe Races to Ready Hospitals for Coronavirus Break Out

With public health experts warning a tipping point for coronavirus is getting closer, European authorities are racing to ready their health systems to cope with a flood of sick and highly contagious patients

As yet, the EU has not called for closing Schengen borders. However, its top official for communicable diseases, Andrea Ammon, said Europe must prepare for more serious outbreaks, like Italy’s.  

“Our assessment is that we will likely see similar situations in other countries in Europe, and that the picture may, in the coming weeks, vary from country to country,” Ammon said.

Experts say closing borders won’t prevent the virus from crossing them but that hasn’t stopped nationalist parties from pushing this move. Here’s

Among them is Marine Le Pen, head of France’s main opposition National Rally party. But speaking on French radio this week, she wrongly claimed the EU has not said a word about the coronavirus outbreak. She said the bloc has only condemned those who want more border control — proving an open-border ideology that is almost a religion.  

Nationalist politicians in Austria, Italy and Switzerland have made similar remarks. They have long lobbied for closed borders to stop migration. The coronavirus has reinforced these arguments.  

At the same time, Schengen has also been weakened by member states. A few years ago some, such as Hungary, closed their borders to counter the migration crisis. France closed its borders after the 2015 terrorist attacks on its soil.

While the Schengen system allows for temporary closures, experts say in practice some countries are turning “temporary” into a more permanent state of affairs.

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The United States said Friday that Washington was postponing a special summit with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as countries around the globe continued to fight the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). 

“As the international community works together to defeat the novel coronavirus, the United States, in consultation with ASEAN partners, has made the difficult decision to postpone the ASEAN leaders meeting previously scheduled for mid-March,” a senior administration official said. 

The U.S. and 10 nations from the Southeast Asian bloc have been eyeing a special summit to boost ties at a time when analysts say China continues to expand its influence in Southeast Asia while driving a wedge between Washington and some of its traditional allies in the region.

“The United States values our relationships with the nations of this critical region and looks forward to future meetings,” the official said. 

The summit was scheduled for March 14 in Las Vegas. Bilateral meetings between U.S. President Donald Trump and ASEAN leaders were also being planned. 

VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report from the White House. 

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw military drills on Friday, state media KCNA said on Saturday, a rare public outing amid efforts to prevent an outbreak of the coronavirus in the isolated country.

North Korea has not confirmed any cases of the virus, but state media said a month-long quarantine period had been imposed for people showing symptoms and “high-intensity” measures were taken including reinforcing checks in border regions and at airports and sea ports.

On Feb. 16, Kim made his first public appearance in 22 days to visit a mausoleum marking the anniversary of the birth of his father and late leader Kim Jong Il.

The military drill was to “judge the mobility and the fire power strike ability” on the frontline and eastern units and ended to a “great satisfaction” of Kim, KCNA said.

“Soldiers, who have firmly armed themselves with a-match-for-a-hundred idea of the Party and trained under the simulated conditions of actual battles, reduced a target islet to a sea of flames,” KCNA said.

In a separate dispatch, KCNA said Kim has also convened a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s powerful politburo where a stricter enforcement of “top-class anti-epidemic steps” was discussed to prevent the spread of the virus.

“In case the infectious disease spreading beyond control finds its way into our country, it will entail serious consequences,” Kim was quoted as telling the meeting. “No special cases must be allowed within the state anti-epidemic system.”

He instructed the officials to “seal off all the channels and space through which the infectious disease may find its way, and strengthen check-up, test and quarantine,” KCNA added.

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Roughly 20 million people in Pakistan’s most populous city, Karachi, face water shortages regularly. That is a key issue addressed by a Houston team at the Future City National Finals in Washington. Students on the team attend the Al-Hadi School of Accelerative Learning in the Houston area and most have relatives from Karachi. For VOA, Sahar Majid has more on their winning future city model. Kathleen Struck narrates.

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