China spy site in Cuba cause for concern says White House and Congress

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A Chinese spy base or facilities in Cuba that could intercept signals from nearby U.S. military and commercial buildings have been running before 2019, when they were upgraded, according to a Biden administration official.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said the spy base was an issue that the Biden administration had inherited from former President Donald Trump. After President Joe Biden took office, his administration was briefed about the base in Cuba as well as plans China was considering to build similar facilities across the globe, the official said.

The existence of an agreement to build a Chinese spy facility in Cuba, first reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal and also reported by The New York Times and other news outlets, prompted a forceful response from Capitol Hill. In a joint statement, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the panel’s top Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, said they were “deeply disturbed by reports that Havana and Beijing are working together to target the United States and our people.”

John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said the reports were “not accurate.” He added that “we have had real concerns about China’s relationship with Cuba, and we have been concerned since Day 1 of the administration about China’s activities in our hemisphere and around the world.”

But a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence cited in Thursday’s reports insisted that China and Cuba had struck an accord to enhance existing spy capabilities.

Carlos F. de Cossio, a deputy foreign minister of Cuba, wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the reports on spying facilities were “slanderous speculation.”

Some of the Biden administration’s critics in Congress questioned the administration’s response.

“Why did the Biden administration previously deny these reports of a CCP spy base in Cuba? Why did they downplay the ‘silly’ CCP spy balloon?” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chair of the House select committee looking into strategic competition with China, said in a statement Saturday, referring to the Chinese Communist Party by its initials.

The Biden administration has been working to counter China’s continued efforts to gain a foothold in the region and elsewhere, an administration official said, chiefly by engaging diplomatically with nations that China was pursuing as potential hosts for such bases. The official added that the administration had slowed China’s plans but declined to give specifics.

Honduras embassy in China: Honduras opened an embassy in Beijing on Sunday, Chinese state media reported, months after the Central American nation broke off relations with Taiwan to establish diplomatic ties with China.

China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his Honduran counterpart Enrique Reina took part in the inauguration of the embassy Sunday morning, China’s official CCTV said. The report said Honduras needed to determine the embassy’s permanent location and would increase its number of staff.

Qin pledged that China would establish a new model with Honduras of “friendly cooperation” between countries with different sizes and systems, according to a statement from China’s Foreign Ministry. The symbol of the two sides’ strengthening diplomatic ties came during Honduran President Xiomara Castro’s six-day visit to China.

Montenegro elections: A recently formed centrist group that advocates Montenegro joining the European Union was projected to win the Balkan country’s early parliamentary election Sunday, but without enough votes to form a government on its own, according to independent vote monitors.
The Center for Democratic Transition pollsters group said that based on all of the votes counted, the Europe Now movement won 26% of the vote, while the coalition led by the Democratic Party of Socialists of former President Milo Djukanovic got 23%.

The unofficial results were based on pollster projections and on results from representative samples from individual polling stations. The state election commission is to announce the official election results in coming days.

The vote Sunday was expected to put an end to political divisions and years of instability that hampered the small NATO-member country on its route to joining the European Union.

But, the political instability is likely to continue, with no clear winner and difficult coalition talks ahead.

‘Unabomber’ suicide: Ted Kaczynski, known as the “Unabomber,” who carried out a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23, died by suicide, four people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Kaczynski, who was 81 and suffering from late-stage cancer, was found unresponsive in his cell at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, around 12:30 a.m. Saturday. Emergency responders performed CPR and revived him before he was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead later Saturday morning, the people told the AP. They were not authorized to publicly discuss Kaczynski’s death and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Mexican soldiers face trials: Mexico’s Defense Department said Saturday that 16 soldiers will be tried on military charges related to the killing five men in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo last month.

The department said the 16 soldiers were arrested Thursday and will be held at a military prison in Mexico City while awaiting trial before a military tribunal. The soldiers have been charged with violating “military discipline.”

The department said those trials would proceed independently of any charges that might be brought by civilian prosecutors. Under Mexican law, any abuses by soldiers involving civilians must go through civilian courts, but separate charges can be filed in military tribunals.

Mexico’s president described the May 18 slayings of five men caught on security camera footage as an apparent “execution” in the cartel-dominated city across from Laredo, Texas.

Underwater record: A university professor who spent 100 days living underwater at a Florida Keys lodge for scuba divers resurfaced Friday and raised his face to the sun for the first time since March 1.

Dr. Joseph Dituri set a new record for the longest time living underwater without depressurization during his stay at Jules’ Undersea Lodge, submerged beneath 30 feet of water in a Key Largo lagoon.

The diving explorer and medical researcher shattered the previous mark of 73 days, two hours and 34 minutes set by two Tennessee professors at the same lodge in 2014.