Archives for September 2021

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia’s prime minister boasted Friday of barging uninvited into a video conference call hosted by his political opponents.

Hun Sen, an enthusiastic user of social media, said he intruded into a Zoom call made by his opponents to warn them that he and his spies were keeping a close eye on them.

Hun Sen suddenly appeared on the Sept. 9 call held by former members of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which was dissolved in 2017 by a Cambodian court ahead of the 2018 general election. The country’s courts are widely seen as doing the government’s bidding, in this case eliminating the sole credible opposition party ahead of the polls. The opposition group had been expected to present a strong challenge to Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party.

Clips of part of the video intrusion have been circulating on social media. They show Hun Sen holding a 12-minute conversation with Long Ry, a former opposition lawmaker.

In their chat, Hun Sen complained that members of the former opposition party insulted him personally even though, he claimed, he had tried to promote a “culture of dialogue.”

A spokesman for Hun Sen’s party, Sok Eysan, initially denied that the intrusion and exchange had taken place, saying the video clip was a fabrication.

Hun Sen, however, during a live television broadcast Friday marking the start of a campaign to vaccinate children for the coronavirus, acknowledged the exchange and said he had listened in on about 20 previous calls of his opponents without revealing his presence or showing his face.

He also wrote on his Facebook page about his exploit, stressing that he had not been reaching out to negotiate, but to warn them against disruptive activities.

U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia quoted Long Ry as saying that Hun Sen was able to join the Zoom meeting because one of his team members shared the meeting link or password with others so they could listen. He said he would be happy to invite Hun Sen to future meetings to discuss national issues.

“But morally, when people sneak a peak into our affairs, we are not happy,” it quoted Long Ry as saying. “In politics, I think we should employ honest and straightforward methods, and not take advantages of others by secretly sneaking into their affairs.”

Most senior members of the Cambodia National Rescue Party fled into exile after the party was dissolved. Hun Sen has been in power for more than 36 years and said repeatedly he has no intention of stepping down soon. Human rights groups and Western nations accuse his government of suppressing democratic and human rights.

Crashing other people’s Zoom conferences became a small fad last year when use of the application skyrocketed during the pandemic as many people began working at home. It is usually accomplished by obtaining a password, which is often casually circulated online to people invited to participate in the group call.

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INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — The design meetings have been going on for years. Technology has evolved throughout the process. Painstaking decisions were made time and time again, right down to what an inch or two difference in leg room between rows would mean or where cupholders should be affixed to the seats.

Finally, Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers are ready to build their new home.

The Clippers’ long-awaited, $1.8 billion, privately funded arena officially got a name Friday — Intuit Dome, it’ll be called when it opens in 2024, the team making that announcement hours before the formal groundbreaking ceremony. The practice facility, team offices for both business and basketball operations, retail space and more will all be on the site.

Ballmer, the team’s owner, simply believes it’ll be like no other building in the NBA.

“Basketball mecca! Basketball palazzo!” Ballmer, in his usual excitable way, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

He might be right.

Every detail — from the huge two-sided halo video screen that will hover over the court, to the triple-wide escalators, to how the bathrooms will be designed to get fans back in their seats as quickly as possible — has a purpose. The halo will include 44,000 square feet of 4K LED lighting, slightly more than one full acre and roughly six times the average size of other “big” screens in NBA buildings. The roof of the dome was designed to accommodate the halo, not the other way around.

Things the Clippers have seen in play at German soccer stadiums, other NBA buildings, NFL stadiums, even the Amazon Go checkout-free convenience stores all sparked various ideas that will be put into play at Intuit Dome.

“They’ve all led us here, to this vacant lot that we’re about to transform to the singular best place for fans and players throughout the world,” Ballmer said.

The Clippers currently play at Staples Center, also the home of the Los Angeles Lakers and the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings. Ballmer — who originally didn’t want to build an arena when he bought the team — wound up beginning to plot a Clippers-only home years ago and formally unveiled the project in 2019, saying then that the Clippers would break ground in 2021 and open in 2024.

So far, even with a pandemic and following some legal challenges, he’s right on schedule. The Clippers often felt like tenants at Staples Center, sometimes playing 12:30 p.m. games — which they loathed — because the Lakers or Kings would be playing later that day in the same building.

“We don’t want to play in anybody’s shadow,” Ballmer said.

Soon, they’ll have a home of their own, built to what Ballmer says are ideal specifications for basketball and music.

“Today, a construction site but tomorrow, a global destination for basketball fans, music lovers and anyone who’s ever been moved to stand with 18,000 voices that echo as one,” Clippers President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker said.

Technology will be everywhere, such as some that would allow fans to leave their seat, walk to a concession stand in the concourse, grab a beverage or snack and then — if they do as Ballmer hopes — get right back to their seat. There would be no cashier, nobody to take the order, and the customer’s account would be charged automatically. Other than the paying-for-it part, it would be akin to opening the refrigerator at home, getting a drink and going back to the couch.

Even the best suites won’t have big televisions. The reason is simple: Ballmer wants fans watching the game from their seat and being part of a home-court advantage.

“It’s about the game of basketball … and we’re trying to get you back in your seat as quickly as we can,” Ballmer said.

He wants them comfortable in those seats, too. The leg room — which will be a constant throughout the arena, from the lowest rows all the way to the very top — is going to far exceed the standard in most buildings.

“We treated like the upper bowl like the lower bowl,” Ballmer said. “Nobody gets a bad seat, no matter where you sit in the building.”

His favorite feature: It’ll be known as The Wall.

Beyond the end of the court where Clippers’ opponents will have their bench will be 51 uninterrupted rows of seats, room for about 4,700 fans, with a standing-room-only section in the middle of it all. There’s no upper or lower deck there, just row after row after row of what Ballmer hopes is a bunch of fans that, well, act like he does during games.

Again, it was designed with a purpose. Acoustics experts were brought in to ensure that The Wall generates as much sound as possible.

“I mean, if we’ve got to do it right, we’ve got to get the fans there activated,” Ballmer said.

Put simply, one of the league’s best-known fans, and one of the world’s wealthiest men — the former Microsoft CEO is generally believed to be worth around $100 billion — may be building the coolest possible basketball hangout for himself and 18,000 of his closest friends.

“That’s a very well-put statement,” Ballmer said.

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More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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SEATTLE (AP) — A Pakistan resident has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for a conspiracy to “unlock” phones from AT&T’s network, a scheme the company says cost it more than $200 million.

Muhammad Fahd, 35, of Karachi, recruited an employee of an AT&T call center in Bothell, Washington, via Facebook in 2012, and began bribing that employee and his coworkers to use their credentials to unlock phones.

That allowed the phones to be removed from AT&T’s network, even if customers had not finished paying for the expensive devices or their service contracts had not expired. The customers could then buy cheaper service for their phones.

Fahd later had workers install malware on the company’s network, allowing him to unlock the phones from Pakistan. He persisted even after the company detected the initial scheme and fired two of the workers involved, prosecutors said.

Fahd sold the illegal phone-unlocking service through online retailers, raking in millions. His extravagant lifestyle included frequent trips abroad, $1,000-a-night hotel stays in Dubai and a $30,000 watch. He bragged of hiring the British singer-songwriter Jay Sean to play his wedding for $100,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle.

He paid three AT&T workers $922,000 from 2012 to 2017 before he was arrested in Hong Kong in early 2018. More than 1.9 million phones were unlocked as part of the conspiracy, AT&T’s forensic analysis found.

The company based its $200 million loss amount on just phones that were removed from its network before customers fully paid for them — not including the amount it lost on service contracts. Prosecutors said such losses would have been passed on to consumers, in terms of higher overall prices, and shareholders.

Fahd was extradited to the U.S. in 2019, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy one year ago and was sentenced Thursday.

“This defendant is a modern-day cybercriminal who combined his technological expertise with old-school techniques such as bribery, intimidation, and exploitation,” Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman said in a news release.

Fahd apologized in a letter to U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik — but he did not go so far as to help the U.S. government recover any ill-gotten assets, prosecutors noted. They said that based on the limited records they were able to locate, Fahd made at least $5.3 million.

“Over time, I became obsessed with the money and any thought that I was doing wrong disappeared,” Fahd wrote. “I did not know it, but I was on a path to self destruction. Worse yet my misconduct destroyed the lives of those around me.”

Lasnik ordered him to pay more than $200 million in restitution.

Two AT&T workers who played smaller roles in the conspiracy were sentenced to probation. Last week Lasnik sentenced a third, Marc Sapatin, who was Fahd’s main contact at the company, to 18 months.

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PARIS (AP) — America’s oldest ally, France, recalled its ambassador to the United States on Friday in an unprecedented show of anger that dwarfed decades of previous rifts.

The relationship conceived in 18th century revolutions appeared at a tipping point after the U.S., Australia and Britain shunned France in creating a new Indo-Pacific security arrangement.

It was the first time ever France has recalled its ambassador to the U.S., according to the French foreign ministry. Paris also recalled its envoy to Australia.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a written statement that the French decision, on request from President Emmanuel Macron, “is justified by the exceptional seriousness of the announcements” made by Australia and the United States.

He said Australia’s decision to scrap a big French conventional submarine purchase in favor of nuclear subs built with U.S. technology is “unacceptable behavior between allies and partners.”

Ambassador Philippe Etienne tweeted the announcements are “directly affecting the vision we have of our alliances, of our partnerships and of the importance of the Indo-Pacific for Europe.”

The Biden administration has been in contact with French officials about the decision to recall Etienne to Paris, according to a White House official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic matter, added that the administration regrets that France made the move and is looking to engage with France in the coming days to resolve differences spurred by the U.S., U.K., and Australia security pact.

The decision represents a shocking turnaround for France under the centrist Macron, who — after an increasingly bitter relationship with former President Donald Trump — warmly clasped hands with Biden at a G-7 summit in June and confirmed that “America is back.”

Macron has not yet commented on the issue. The recall is his boldest foreign policy move yet in a four-year presidency in which he has sought to strengthen France’s diplomatic footprint and role in European policy-making, and to rally France’s neighbors around his vision for a Europe less dependent on the U.S. military umbrella.

France has pushed for several years for a European strategy for boosting economic, political and defense ties in the region stretching from India and China to Japan and New Zealand. The EU this week unveiled its plan for the Indo-Pacific.

For the first time since he came into office in 2017, Macron won’t make a speech to the annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly starting next week. Le Drian will instead deliver the French address.

Earlier Friday, a top French diplomat, who spoke anonymously in line with customary government practice, said that Macron received a letter from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday morning announcing the decision to cancel the submarine deal.

French officials then decided to reach out to the U.S. administration “to ask what was going on,” he said. He added that discussions with Washington took place just two to three hours before Biden’s public announcement.

Le Drian on Thursday expressed “total incomprehension” at the move and criticized both Australia and the U.S.

“It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed,” he said. “This is not done between allies.”

He also compared Biden’s move to those of Trump under his “America First” doctrine.

Paris had raised the issue of the Indo-Pacific strategy during the June 25 visit to Paris of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, expressing the importance of its submarine program with Australia, the French diplomat said.

“We said that it was for us a very important and critical component in our Indo-Pacific strategy,” he said. Blinken met with Macron during the visit.

The French diplomat said Australia never mentioned to France its will to shift to nuclear-powered submarines, including during a meeting between Macron and Morrison in Paris on June 15.

A recall of ambassadors is highly unusual between allied countries.

In 2019, Paris recalled its envoy to neighboring Italy after the country’s leaders made critical public comments about the French government. Last year, France recalled its ambassador to Turkey after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Macron needed mental health treatment.

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Aamer Madhani in Washington, Edith Lederer at the United Nations and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to the story.

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NEW YORK (AP) — An Australian man who pleaded guilty to securities fraud for cheating investors in his cryptocurrency fund of over $50 million was sentenced to over seven years in prison Wednesday by a judge who questioned the sincerity of his apology.

U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni in Manhattan imposed the 7 1/2-year sentence Wednesday on Stefan He Qin, 24, who told her he was “absolutely heartbroken” as he read letters from victims about the pain he’d caused investors, including family members, friends and business associates.

“Now I feel ashamed to even look them in the eye and tell them I am sorry, but I must,” he told the judge.

Authorities said the fraud occurred from 2017 to 2020 as Qin operated the fund, called Virgil Sigma.

Caproni noted that there was a charm to Qin, but she also said that a victim of his Ponzi scheme had warned her not to be taken in by his charm. She said that if his contrition were sincere, he’d never be in a courtroom again.

“But if he’s charming me the way he charmed his victims; he’s a real danger because he thinks his needs are more important than everyone else’s,” she added.

She said he deserved a measure of leniency, though, because he had cooperated with authorities as they tried to identify where money from investors went.

U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said Qin promised his investors safety, but “investors soon discovered that his strategies weren’t much more than a disguised means for him to embezzle and make unauthorized investments with client funds”

She said in a release that he doubled down on his scheme when he was faced with redemption requests.

“Qin’s brazen and wide-ranging scheme left his beleaguered investors in the lurch for over $54 million, and he has now been handed the appropriately lengthy sentence of over seven years in federal prison,” she said.

Qin pleaded guilty in February, admitting he carried out the fraud when he owned and controlled two Manhattan-based cryptocurrency investment funds, Virgil Sigma and VQR.

Qin, who was ordered to forfeit $54.7 million, told Caproni that he had learned through his crime that success, money and fame were not what was important in life.

“I know now that the world is not a video game,” he said. “I deserve the punishment that I’m going to receive today. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the pain I’ve caused. I am so, so, so sorry.”

He was ordered to report to prison Dec. 15.

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