Stories from Abroad

In a recent press briefing, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that the grand jury assembled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller had returned an indictment against 12 officers of Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff (better known as Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, or GRU).

Listen to the ongoing conversations on net neutrality, and you’ll notice that the United States, like other liberal-democratic countries, believes that, in the lexicon of policymakers, a free, open, interoperable, secure, and resilient internet can be a torchbearer for an open society—and democracy more broadly.

For several hours, a Chinese government database showed that Facebook had gained approval to open a subsidiary in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Facebook said it would use the company to set up an innovation hub there. Then the registration disappeared and references to the subsidiary were partially censored in Chinese media. Now the approval has been withdrawn, apparently. 

Facebook has obtained a license to set up an office in China — a first for the social media giant, which has been shut out of China's lucrative market for years despite many attempts to break in. The $30-million subsidiary, which will open in the southern city of Hangzhou, would be set up as a start-up incubator, making minor investments and advising small businesses, according to a person familiar with the company's thinking and a Chinese business filing.

[Speech] The primary focus of my remarks will be the primary focus of my chairmanship since day one: closing the digital divide in order to make sure everyone can benefit from the Internet revolution. To date, I’ve visited roughly 90 cities in 33 states in the US, driving more than 8,500 road miles

Bowing to White House demands, Republican Senators have backed off their attempt to reimpose US sanctions on the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE. The retreat means ZTE, a company found guilty of selling US goods to Iran in violation of sanctions, will duck Commerce Department penalties that bar US companies from doing business with it. Chinese officials said those penalties would effectively put ZTE out of business.

Increasingly, African governments are looking at the internet as a threat and are using a motley of targeted shutdowns, surveillance, and arbitrary legislation to silence digital users. In the world’s least connected continent, dictators—and some democrats—are realizing they not only need the batons or bullets to stave off criticism but could also power off live feeds to undermine the vibrant conversations taking place online.

Even before the ink could dry on Europe’s record €4.3 billion ($5 billion) antitrust fine against Google, clashing interpretations rushed into the Brussels-created fray. The financial penalty would change everything for Google and Silicon Valley’s other tech giants — it was a European attack on a “great” American company, according to a tweet from President Donald Trump. Or it would change nothing. As usual, the reality is somewhere in between.

Project Loon, the Internet-delivering balloon system that grew out of Alphabet's Project X division, has announced its first commercial deal. Apparently, the recent Project X graduates will partner with Telkom Kenya to increase connectivity in the country. “Connectivity is critical. If you are not online, you are left out,” said Joe Mucheru, Kenya's information, communication, and technology minister.

President Donald Trump attacked the European Union for fining Google $5 billion for harming its competitors, tweeting that the incident proved the regional bloc has “taken advantage of the U.S., but not for long!” To President Trump, the fine appeared to serve as the latest evidence of Europe’s exploitation of the United States on a variety of matters, including trade and nations’ contributions to defense spending, and it came a day after he threatened “tremendous retribution,” particularly on European-made cars, if the EU doesn’t change its trade policies. The EU’s penalty stood in stark c