Economy

Illustration image Ng Han Guan / AP 

 

Economy 

Data: Alibaba is suspected of espionage in Europe  

 

Belgium's intelligence service, VSSE, has monitored tech giant Alibaba's logistics hub in Europe following suspicions of espionage, writes the Financial Times.  

 

Alibaba has a logistics center at the cargo airport in Liége, Belgium. VSSE has worked there to detect possible espionage operated by Chinese actors, the intelligence service told the newspaper.  

 

Alibaba, for its part, denies that it did anything wrong. The company signed an agreement with Belgium in 2018 to open the hall in Líege.  

 

According to sources to the newspaper, the surveillance involves a software system that compiles sensitive financial information. 

 

 

Illustration image. Ng Han Guan / AP  

 

The accusations against Huawei  

Taiwan is investigating companies suspected of helping 

 

Huawei Taiwanese authorities are to investigate four domestic companies suspected of helping Huawei establish a chip industry in China, Nikkei reports.  

 

The country's Finance Minister Wang Mei-hua states that it has not been possible to confirm that the companies have violated US sanctions against Huawei, the newspaper writes.  

 

The US government has imposed export restrictions against Huawei on chips containing US technology or equipment.  

 

 

Illustration picture Malin Hoelstad / SvD / TT / Svenska Dagbladet 

 

IT threats to society  

Hackers want to sell underwear on the Riksbank's Facebook  

 

The Riksbank's Facebook account has been hacked, reports Dagens Industri.  

 

The account was hacked on Thursday evening last week and the matter has been reported to the police. 

 

- Someone has entered our Facebook account and tried to post commercial ads and has not succeeded, says the Riksbank's head of communications Ann-Leena Mikiver to the newspaper.  

 

The ads are for women's underwear for older women. Facebook owner Meta is working to restore the account.  

 

A damaged Russian armored car Efrem Lukatsky / AP  

 

Russian invasionRussian reactions  

More one-time taxes to finance Russia's war  

 

Russia has embarked on increasingly erratic measures to boost government revenues to finance rapidly rising defense spending. That's what the Financial Times writes. 

 

Russia's government aims to spend the equivalent of $108 billion on defense next year, three times as much as in 2021, and 70 percent more than planned for this year.  

 

To make the equation come together, the government has started relying more on revenue from irregular one-off taxes and fees. For example, through "voluntary donations" that Western companies have to pay when they leave the country, according to the newspaper.  

 

- They are constantly looking for new ways to scrape together money, says Konstantin Sonin, an economist at the University of Chicago, to the newspaper and points out that the top priority of the decision-makers is to ensure that the military receives the funds they need.