…As Russian fighter intercepts U.S. reconnaissance plane over Black Sea***
China and the African Union on Monday dismissed a report in French Media which said that Beijing had bugged the regional bloc’s headquarters in the Ethiopian capital.
An article published Friday in Le Monde, quoting anonymous AU sources, reported that data from computers in the Chinese-built building had been transferred nightly to Chinese servers for five years.
After the massive hack was discovered a year ago, the building’s IT system including servers was changed, according to the Media.
During a sweep for bugs after the discovery, microphones hidden in desks and the walls were also detected and removed, the newspaper reported.
The 200 million dollars headquarters was fully funded and built by China and opened to great fanfare in 2012. It was seen as a symbol of Beijing’s thrust for influence in Africa, and access to the continent’s natural resources.
As in the Ethiopian capital, China’s investments in road and rail infrastructure are highly visible across the continent.
At a 2015 summit in South Africa, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged 60 billion dollars in aid and investment to the continent, saying it would continue to build roads, railways and ports.
Chinese and African officials gathered in Addis Ababa for the bloc’s annual summit both denied the Media’s report.
China’s ambassador to the AU, Kuang Weilin, called the article “ridiculous and preposterous” and said its publication was intended to put pressure on relations between Beijing and the continent.
“China-Africa relations have brought about benefits and a lot of opportunities. Africans are happy with it. Others are not.”
Asked who, he said: “People in the West. They are not used to it and they are simply not comfortable with this.”
Asked about the report, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who assumed the African Union chairmanship this year, said he did not know anything about it.
“But, in any case, I don’t think there is anything done here that we would not like people to know,” he told reporters after a meeting of African heads of state.
“I don’t think spying is the speciality of the Chinese. We have spies all over the place in this world,” Kagame said. “But I will not have been worried about being spied on in this building.”
His only concern, he said, was that the AU should have built its own headquarters, instead of China.
“I would only have wished that in Africa we had got our act together earlier on. We should have been able to build our own building.”
In the meantime, a Russian fighter jet intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance plane near the Black Sea on Monday, both countries said, but that was all they agreed on.
The U.S. Navy said its EP-3 Aries plane was flying over the Black Sea in international airspace when it was intercepted by a Russian Sukhov SU-27fighter jet.
Millitary officials said the Russian pilot flew in an “unsafe” manner, tracking the U.S. plane for more than 2½ hours — and at one point coming within 5 feet of the U.S. plane.
The Russian jet crossed “directly through the EP-3’s flight path, causing the EP-3 to fly through the SU-27’s jet wash [wake turbulence],” the Navy alleged.
“The Russian military is within its right to operate within international airspace, but they must behave within international standards set to ensure safety and prevent incidents,” it said.
But the Russian Defense Ministry gave a sharply different account: The U.S. plane was getting close to Russian airspace, it said, and its pilot approached at a safe distance.
“The crew of the fighter followed [the U.S. plane], avoiding the violation of the airspace of the Russian Federation with observance of all necessary security measures,” the Defense Ministry said. “After the spy plane of the U.S. Navy changed the flight path from the airspace of the Russian Federation, the Russian SU-27 fighter returned to the airfield.”
Russia insisted that the interception “took place in strict accordance with international rules of airspace use.”
The EP-3 Aries series of planes, the Navy’s only land-based reconnaissance aircraft, uses a wide range of equipment to detect electronic transmission from deep within targeted territories, allowing it to pick up signals intelligence far inland even when it is flying offshore, according to U.S. Naval Air Systems Command. The nimble Sukhoi SU series is Russia’s advanced twin-engine fighter jet, roughly equivalent to the U.S. F-15 Eagle.
Additional report from NBC
