Pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria made by company in Budapest: Taiwanese company
Taipei (AP): Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorised its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria but that another company based in Budapest manufactured them.
Pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah exploded near-simultaneously Tuesday in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding more than 2,000. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.
The AR-924 pagers were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in Hungary's capital, according to a statement released Wednesday by Gold Apollo.
“According to the cooperation agreement, we authorise BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” the statement read.
Gold Apollo chair Hsu Ching-kuang told journalists Wednesday that his company has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years, but did not provide evidence of the contract.
At about 3:30 pm Tuesday, as people shopped for groceries, sat in cafes or drove cars and motorcycles, the pagers in their hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding — leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.
It appeared that many of those hit were members of Hezbollah, but it was not immediately clear if non-Hezbollah members also carried any of the exploding pagers.
The blasts were mainly in areas where the group has a strong presence, particularly a southern Beirut suburb and in the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, as well as in Damascus, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.
Experts believe explosive material was put into the pagers prior to their delivery and use in a sophisticated supply chain infiltration.
The AR-924 pager, advertised as being “rugged,” contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications once advertised on Gold Apollo's website before it was apparently taken down Tuesday after the sabotage attack. It could receive texts of up to 100 characters.
It also claimed to have up to 85 days of battery life. That would be crucial in Lebanon, where electricity outages have been common after years of economic collapse. Pagers also run on a different wireless network than mobile phones, making them more resilient in emergencies — one of the reasons why many hospitals worldwide still rely on them.
Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs said from the beginning of 2022 until August 2024, Gold Apollo has exported 260,000 sets of pagers, including more than 40,000 sets between January and August of this year. The ministry said the pagers were exported mainly to European and American countries and that it had no records of direct exports of Gold Apollo pagers to Lebanon.
For Hezbollah, the militants also looked at the pagers as a means to sidestep what's believed to be intensive Israeli electronic surveillance on mobile phone networks in Lebanon.
“The phone that we have in our hands — I do not have a phone in my hand — is a listening device,” warned Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a February speech.
He later added: “I tell you that the phone in your hands, in your wife's hands, and in your children's hands is the agent. It is a deadly agent, not a simple one. It is a deadly agent that provides specific and accurate information. Therefore, this requires great seriousness when confronting it.”
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Xi Jinping calls for 'elephant-dragon tango' on 75th anniversary of India, China ties
Beijing (PTI): In a message marking 75th anniversary of their bilateral relations, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday stressed on partnership between India and China for “mutual achievement” and the need to do the “dragon-elephant tango” to serve their fundamental interests.
Apart from President Xi's message to his counterpart Droupadi Murmu, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Prime Minister Narendra Modi too exchanged congratulatory messages to mark the occasion, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced here.
In her message, Murmu said a stable, predictable and friendly bilateral relationship will benefit both countries and the world, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The development comes amid the efforts to reset the ties after over four years of freeze due to the eastern Ladakh military standoff.
President Xi, in his message to Murmu, said China and India, both ancient civilisations, major developing countries and important members of the Global South, are at a critical stage of their respective modernisation efforts.
“The development of China-India relations demonstrates that it is the right choice for China and India to be partners of mutual achievement and realise the 'dragon elephant tango,' which fully serves the fundamental interests of both countries and their peoples,” Xinhua said quoting Xi.
Xi called on both sides to view and handle bilateral relations from a strategic height and long-term perspective, seek a way, which features peaceful coexistence, mutual trust, mutual benefit and common development, for neighbouring major countries to get along with each other, and jointly promote a multi-polar world and greater democracy in international relations.
He also said he stands ready to work with Murmu to take the anniversary of ties as an opportunity to enhance strategic mutual trust, strengthen exchanges and cooperation in various fields, deepen communication and coordination in major international affairs, jointly safeguard peace and tranquility in the China-India border area, push forward a sound and steady development of bilateral relations and contribute to world peace and prosperity.
For her part, Murmu said India and China are two major neighboring countries that are home to one-third of the world's population, noting that a stable, predictable and friendly bilateral relationship will benefit both countries and the world.
She proposed to take the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to jointly promote the sound and steady development of India-China relations, Xinhua reported.
Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun while announcing the exchange of greetings by the leaders told media briefing here that the historical course of our bilateral relations shows that being partners that contributed to each other's success and the cooperative dance of 'the dragon and the elephant' is the right choice for both sides.
Under the strategic guidance of the leaders of our two countries, China stands ready to work with India to view and handle bilateral relations with a strategic and long-term perspective and take this occasion as an opportunity to enhance strategic mutual trust and step up exchanges and cooperation in various fields, Guo said.
He was referring to how Modi and Xi provided strategic guidance for the development of bilateral relations at their meeting at Kazan in Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS summit last year.
The two sides are implementing the consensus of the two leaders and are promoting cooperation and achieving fruitful outcomes.
Both the countries should also deepen communication and coordination in major international affairs, jointly maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas and advance China-India relations on the track of sound and stable development, Guo said.
To a question about the plans by both the countries to celebrate the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations, he said the two sides have the willingness to take the occasion to advance the bilateral relations.
Details of the specific events will be released in due course, he said.
After last year's meeting between Modi and Xi, both countries held a series of high level meetings, including that of the Special Representatives (SRs) of the boundary mechanism followed by the visit of Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri to Beijing for talks to normalise relations after the four-year freeze in relations due to the Ladakh standoff.
This year, on March 25, India and China held a fresh edition of diplomatic talks in Beijing focusing on ensuring effective border management and early resumption of cross-border cooperation and exchanges, including on trans-border rivers and resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra.
In the meeting of WMCC (Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination) on China-India Border Affairs, the two sides explored various measures and proposals to give effect to the decisions taken during talks between NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Special Representatives (SR) dialogue in December.
On the following day, Gourangalal Das, the joint secretary in the MEA's East Asia division, and Liu Jinsong, the director general at the Chinese foreign ministry's department of Asian Affairs met in Beijing during which they explored ways to rebuild ties and agreed to initiate efforts to promote people-to-people exchanges, including arrangements for resumption of direct flights and to resume Kailash Manasarovar Yatra this year.
In the meeting, the two sides also discussed resumption of dialogue mechanisms in a step-by-step manner to utilise them to address each other's priority areas of interest and concern and move the relations to a more stable and predictable path, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in a press release.
