EXPORTING FEAR — IF YOU HAVE AN OPINION OR A PLATFORM, EXPECT TO BE HACKED: "Military-grade malware from Israel-based NSO Group, the world's most infamous hacker-for-hire outfit, is being used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents." NSO is also pitching for business with American police forces. That's the claim of Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism advocacy group, and Amnesty International, which have collaborated to reveal data demonstrating that — among more than 50,000 surveilled numbers — there are more than 600 politicians and government officials (including heads of state), 189 journalists, 85 human rights activists, and 65 business executives. Citizenlab and journalists from The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and The Financial Times Vu examined the evidence. Victims include Hatice Cengiz, hacked just four days after her fiance Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in 2018, and Marisol Toledo, widow of Mexican journalist Cecilio Pineda Birto. Associated Press reported that NSO Group had previously been implicated in other spying on Khashoggi. The government of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is accused of using NSO spyware to aid its campaigns against skeptical journalists. The investigation has been branded as the "Pegasus Project" after NSO Group's flagship Pegasus spyware. Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, tweeted that the revelations demonstrate: "what we and others have been saying for years: NSO's dangerous spyware is used to commit horrible human rights abuses all around the world and it must be stopped." NOT RELATED BUT RELATED: Canada is getting a new refugee stream for journalists and people who defend human rights. CYBER — US CHARGES CHINESE HACKERS: Move over Russia, you have competition for title of world's worst hackers. The White House this morning said the U.S. Department of Justice is issuing criminal charges against four hackers from China's Ministry of State Security. The White House said that the EU, U.K., NATO, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are joining criticism of China's "malicious" and "irresponsible" cyber behavior, which is "inconsistent with its stated objective of being seen as a responsible leader in the world." This is the first time NATO has called out Chinese hacking. A senior administration official said China's Ministry of State Security "uses criminal contract hackers to conduct unsanctioned cyber operations globally, including for their own personal profit." In a statement, the White House said China conducted "cyber espionage operations utilizing the zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server disclosed in early March 2021" and "engaged in ransomware attacks, cyber enabled extortion, crypto-jacking, and rank theft from victims around the world, all for financial gain." Here's a report on China's alleged techniques. ECONOMY — WORLD'S ECONOMIC ENGINES AT RISK OF SPUTTERING: China accounts for around half of global GDP growth in 2021, but continues to crack down on its tech sector and its leaders — which account for up to 40 percent of GDP. The U.S. meanwhile accounts for around 20 percent of global GDP growth, and faces a "fiscal cliff" sometime in the next year: it cannot keep spending at the current rate forever. Unless the world vaccinates quicker and more evenly … there's not much to fill the gap. More from Ruchir Sharma , chief global strategist for Morgan Stanley Investment Management. COVID — BRITAIN GAMBLES ON WHAT TO DO ABOUT COMPETING RIGHTS. Which right matters most? Your right to be healthy or your right to be free? Does a parent or a government get to decide that for children who can't decide for themselves? Britain is lifting nearly all its Covid restrictions today amid controversy. The key data points: around 90 percent of adults have received at least one vaccine dose but less than 1 in 10 of 0-24 year olds have been vaccinated; there's around 50,000 new cases a day. One group of healthcare experts called the decision "dangerous and premature," in The Lancet. Who's right? Those who want the economy to reopen? Those who fear for young people (who are rarely hospitalized or killed by the virus)? Those who think reopening is fine as long as precautions still happen (Britons have been notoriously mask-averse during the pandemic)? We're about to find out. Amid such gambles, it's not that surprising that the Biden administration is keeping the borders closed to Britain. COVID — FACEBOOK MISINFORMATION REALITY CHECK: The White House and its allies have Facebook in their firing line , as a proxy for under-regulated tech enabling large-scale harm in society. Facebook insists it's done a lot to boost the circulation of pro-vaccine information. What it's not doing: telling us how much vaccine misinformation it has allowed to circulate. Until Facebook volunteers or is compelled by Congress or a court to share that information, there's no way to know whether it's delivering net benefit or harm when it comes to vaccine take-up. EUROPE — FLOODS OPEN NEW RISK FOR MERKEL'S WOULD-BE SUCCESSOR: German Greens and Social Democrats are getting a second chance at the chancellorship after Conservative candidate Armin Laschet passed the weekend blundering in his response to Germany's devastating floods. Laschet is premier of one of Germany's worst-affected states but has been slow to draw a connection between the floods and climate change, was caught on camera laughing through a somber speech by Germany's president in one of the flood zones, and addressed a senior female journalist as "young woman" when she questioned his support for fossil-fuel energy generation. "You don't change policy just because now we have a day like this," Laschet insisted. Back in 2002, the Social Democrat candidate Gerhard Schroede r turned his candidacy around — and won — after rushing to the scene of flooding on the River Elbe as Conservative Edmund Stoiber dithered. The Green party's candidate for chancellor, Annalena Baerbock, needs the boost: she has been hit by allegations of plagiarism and résumé inflation in recent weeks. Extreme weather reality check: As the U.S. faces its biggest known wildfire, in Oregon, Somini Sengupta argues that "the world as a whole is neither prepared to slow down climate change, nor live with it." OLYMPICS CORNER Olympic fact of the day #1: With the first wave of positive Covid tests for athletes and officials rolling in, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide's approval currently rests at 27 percent, with 61 percent of Japanese adults disapproving of his job performance. Olympic fact of the day #2: The Tokyo Olympics will be the first major test of a 2020 U.S. law criminalizing doping. The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act was developed in response to recent Russian doping scandals and asserts that the U.S. has extraterritorial criminal authority to prosecute doping as fraud — with corrupt administrators, officials, doctors and coaches the target of the law. Supporters say the law complies with the UNESCO Convention against Doping in Sport, a Senate-ratified treaty The FBI views the law as a "massive hammer." The Helsinki Commission, a U.S. Government agency that promotes human rights in wider Europe will hold a hearing Wednesday on the law's application. h/t Paul Massaro | 
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