US officials say two Chinese citizens acting on behalf of their country’s main intelligence agency carried out an extensive hacking campaign to steal data from government agencies and companies in the United States and nearly a dozen other countries.

The two, identified as Zhu Hua and Zhang Jianguo, worked in China to hack into computers to steal intellectual property and confidential business and technological data, according to an indictment, unsealed on Thursday. 

US authorities said the two worked in association with the Chinese ministry of state security.

Hacking targets included the US Navy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and companies involved aviation, space and satellite technology, the indictment said.

All told, prosecutors say, the alleged hackers stole “hundreds of gigabytes” of data, breaching computers of more than 45 entities in 12 states. They are not in custody and the United States does not have an extradition treaty with China.

“China’s goal, simply put, is to replace the US as the world’s leading superpower and they’re using illegal methods to get there,” FBI Director Chris Wray said at a news conference.

The companies targeted by China were a “who’s who” of US businesses, Wray said.

The US Justice Department accused China of breaking a 2015 pact to curb cyber espionage for corporate purposes.

In an operation coordinated with US allies in Europe and Asia, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the inditement of the duo aimed to rebuff “China’s economic aggression”.

“We want China to cease its illegal cyber activities,” Rosenstein said.

On Thursday, the United Kingdom said it was joining allies in holding the Chinese government responsible for the global hacking campaign.

“This campaign shows that elements of the Chinese government are not upholding the commitments China made directly to the UK in a 2015 bilateral agreement,” the statement said.

Heightened tensions

The indictments came amid heightened tensions over trade, hacking and geopolitical issues between Washington and Beijing.

On October 30, the US indicted 10 Chinese nationals, including two intelligence officers, over a five-year scheme to steal engine technology from US and French aerospace firms by hacking into their computers.

Earlier that month, the Department of Justice obtained the unprecedented extradition of a senior Chinese intelligence official from Belgium to stand trial in the United States for running the alleged state-sponsored effort to steal US aviation industry secrets.

In early December, Canada arrested an executive of China’s leading Huawei telecommunications company at Washington’s request.

The US plans to charge her with fraud charges related to sanctions-breaking business dealings with Iran.

Since then, China has detained three Canadians, in an apparent bid to pressure Ottawa into fully releasing the Huawei executive, who is now out on bail.

And, according to reports, US officials believe Chinese government-linked hackers were behind the theft of data on some 500 million guests of hotel giant Marriott, first reported on November 30.

The results of Bosnia’s presidential elections, specifically its Croat seat, have deepened diplomatic discord between Croatia and Bosnia.

Since the October 7 poll, critics have accused Zagreb of undermining Bosnia’s sovereignty by meddling in its political affairs.

Zeljko Komsic, leader of the Democratic Front party, won the Croat seat of Bosnia’s triumvirate presidency, beating incumbent Dragan Covic, the nationalist leader of Bosnia’s main Croat party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

HDZ’s sister party in Croatia, led by Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, supported Covic financially and politically to secure his win, yet Komsic still won by more than 70,000 votes.

Since then, Croatia has denied the legitimacy of Komsic’s re-election – his third term since 2006 – arguing that he was heavily supported with votes by Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) who outnumber Croats living in the Federation entity.

HDZ representatives claim that presidency members can only be legitimately elected by members of their “own people” and that votes should be counted from cantons with a clear Croat majority in order to outvote Bosniaks.

According to Bosnia’s constitution formulated under the Dayton peace agreement in 1995, Bosnian citizens living in the Federation entity vote for the Croat and Bosniak member of presidency, while Bosnians living in the Serb-run entity of Republika Srpska vote for the Serb member of presidency.

For months, Croatia has been lobbying the EU and NATO to force Bosnia to reform its electoral law and constitution, to ensure “equality among the three constituent people”.

Last week, the Croatian parliament adopted a declaration (81 voted for, four abstained and 11 against) calling for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) to enact these changes after a three-day deliberation.

The resolution is not binding, but Bosnia views it as yet another attack on its sovereignty.

The Zagreb government is working directly against the professed interests of the EU in its present approach to Bosnia.

Jasmin Mujanovic, political scientist

Jasmin Mujanovic, a political scientist who focuses on southeastern Europe, told Al Jazeera that the push represents the most serious effort by HDZ in Croatia to undermine Bosnia in decades.

“The combination of threats, disinformation, and brinkmanship has created the impression of virtual irredentism as far as their relationship with Bosnia and Herzegovina is concerned,” Mujanovic said.

“It’s also alarming because it represents a sharp departure from the established EU approach to [Bosnia and Herzegovina]. So while officials in Brussels are calling for dialogue and, in the long term, constitutional reform to address the structural flaws with the Dayton constitution, the HDZ is insisting upon a reactionary, zero-sum programme that actually strengthens the most problematic, segregationist aspects of Bosnia’s legal order.

“In other words, the Zagreb government is working directly against the professed interests of the EU in its present approach to Bosnia.”

‘Deeply concerned’

Earlier in December, Carl Bildt, Christian Schwarz-Schilling and Paddy Ashdown, three former governors of Bosnia and Herzegovina, urged the EU to stop Croatia from interfering in Bosnia’s political affairs.

In a joint letter submitted to Federica Mogherini, the former high representatives wrote that they were “deeply concerned by Croatia’s continued meddling”, advising that any electoral reform should aim to make Bosnia more cohesive rather than divide it further along ethnic lines.

“Neither [Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitution nor election law] state that presidency members must be elected by members of their ‘own group’.

“To the contrary, electoral rules … provide a rare crossing-voting mechanism aiming to incentivise moderation over divisive, fear-mongering platforms.”

The priority is for the government to be formed, they advised.

Croatia rejected the letter, with Plenkovic responding that no one knows Bosnia better than Croatia and that as a signatory of the Dayton peace accords in 1995 which ended the war, Croatia has an obligation to look after all Croats in the diaspora, according to Croatia’s constitution.

This, however, is not stipulated in the peace accords.

“No one in Dayton ever thought that such provisions would occur on the ground, that Bosniaks who number three times more than Croats could pick both members of the presidency. That makes no sense,” Plenkovic told media, adding that as long as he is president, he won’t give up on the issue.

According to Bosnia’s 2013 census, Croats account for 15.43 perent of the population, the vast majority of whom live in the Federation.

Some Croats are now unhappy because their preferred nationalist candidates don’t always win Croat-designated seats in Bosnia’s elaborate power-sharing arrangements. That does not prove inequality of Croats as a constituent people.

Daniel Serwer, former US envoy to Federation entity

Daniel Serwer, who served as the US special envoy for the Federation entity and helped to negotiate the Dayton peace accords, explained that the Croat question is a political – not legal – issue.

“The Bosnian Croats got a good deal at Dayton in 1995, when Croatia was vital to routing Serb forces,” Serwer told Al Jazeera.

“Some Croats are now unhappy because their preferred nationalist candidates don’t always win Croat-designated seats in Bosnia’s elaborate power-sharing arrangements. That does not prove inequality of Croats as a constituent people. It demonstrates political ineffectiveness of particular candidates.”

Critics of the HDZ have pointed out that in any case, two-thirds of Croats didn’t vote for Covic according to Bosnia’s Central Election Commission.

Furthermore, HDZ’s proposal would isolate Croats living in Bosniak-majority cantons as they would not be able to vote.

A condition for NATO membership

Croatia has raised the issue at EU meetings several times.

In October, Croatian MEPs warned in a joint letter to the European Parliament that “developments” following the election results “might affect the stability of Bosnia and the wider region”.

During a meeting in November with Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, Croatian HDZ MP Miroslav Tudjman said they had made electoral and constitutional reform a condition for Bosnia in order to continue its Euro-Atlantic integration and eventually join NATO.

However, Croatian political analyst Zarko Puhovski told Al Jazeera that the lobbying and the recently adopted declaration don’t amount to violating Bosnia’s sovereignty as it doesn’t exist.

“Bosnia is half a state, half a protectorate … it’s not a state in the full sense,” Puhovski said, referring to the international Office of the High Representative which holds ultimate authority over Bosnian officials.

“It is unclear how you can have in one country three constituent people, but two entities. [The country] was set up crooked from the start. Once it’s set up crooked, it’s hard to straighten it.”

Puhovski explained that a civic society with a one-person one-vote system, that would abolish problematic ethnic lines, would require a complete reconstruction of the Dayton accords, which has no chance of happening.

A third entity

The demand for a third electoral unit would be a step towards creating a third, Croat entity, said analysts.

Serwer explained in his blog that HDZ’s argument is not legal, but political.

“The ruse of electoral illegitimacy and the resulting crisis is simply another effort toward the HDZ’s territorial ambitions of creating a so-called ‘third entity’. In this, the HDZ leaders are publicly backed by the Government of Croatia and the Russian Federation,” Serwer wrote.

Mujanovic told Al Jazeera that the issue centres on the HDZ’s pursuit of permanent power by maintaining and further deepening the country’s “segregationist regime”.

“The creation of a so-called third entity is the most obvious way to do this; the HDZ is deeply envious of the one-party regime Dodik has built in the Republika Srpska; they want the same in Western Herzegovina,” Mujanovic said.

“But if they can’t have a third entity, they are prepared to settle for certain, ‘virtual’ versions thereof, which is what most of their machinations regarding the elections law are about.

“In fact, in the past Dragan Covic has explicitly referred to his preferred solutions to this issue as the creation of ‘virtual election units’, in other words, a third entity at the level of the electoral law,” Mujanovic said.

Mario Karamatic, head of the Bosnian Croat caucus in the House of Peoples, told local media this week that Bosnian Croat political parties are indeed discussing the recreation of the separate Croat republic, “Herceg-Bosna”, which was dismantled following the peace accords.

The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia had ruled that it was a project of a “joint criminal enterprise” in which Croatia held parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina under a state of occupation, with the goal of annexing the territory.

The Trump administration will compel certain asylum seekers to remain in Mexico during the course of their asylum hearings, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said today.

Nielsen said in a written statement that migrants who arrive at the border “illegally or without proper documentation” could be returned to Mexico for the duration of their immigration proceedings.

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“Aliens trying to game the system to get into our country illegally will no longer be able to disappear into the United States, where many skip their court dates,” she said in the statement. “Instead, they will wait for an immigration court decision while they are in Mexico.“

The announcement came as the secretary was set to testify at an oversight hearing before a House Judiciary Committee this morning. Democrats were expected to grill Nielsen over the death of a 7-year-old girl in Border Patrol custody last week.

The Mexican government will temporarily authorize migrants who have received a notice to attend a hearing before a U.S. immigration judge to wait in Mexico, according to an announcement on the Mexican Foreign Ministry website.

At least one person has been killed in protests that have swept across Sudan over the rising costs of bread and fuel. 

The death came in the city of Gedareif where a state of emergency has been declared due to the protests. A state of emergency has also been declared in Atbara, about 320km north of the capital Khartoum, after protesters set the ruling National Conference Party offices on fire. 

Protests also spread to several other cities, including Khartoum and Port Sudan. 

Residents told Al Jazeera that the protests were triggered after bread prices increased from one Sudanese pound ($0.02) to three Sudanese pounds ($0.063).

Demonstrators are calling for the “overthrow of the regime”, a slogan that was common during the Arab Spring uprisings that swept through the region in 2011.

Hatem al-Wassilah, the governor of the Nile River state, told Sudania 24 TV that a curfew will be imposed in Atbara from 6pm local time (16:00 GMT) to 6am (4:00 GMT).

Scenes from anti-Gov demonstrations in the city of Atbara in north east Sudan triggered by bread crisis. pic.twitter.com/lJ9pysJfP7

— Wasil Ali (@wasilalitaha) December 19, 2018

“The protests began peacefully and then turned to violence and vandalism … We declared a state of emergency and a curfew and the closure of schools in the city,” he said.

Prices triple

Bread prices have more than tripled since the start of this year after the government decided to stop importing wheat from overseas.

Officials had hoped the move would create competition between private companies importing wheat, and therefore act as a check on price rises – but a number of bakeries have since stopped production, citing a lack of flour.

This forced the government to increase flour subsidies by 40 percent in November.

In October, Sudan sharply devalued its currency from 29 pounds to the dollar to 47.5 after a body of banks and money changers set the country’s exchange rate.

The move led to further price increases and a liquidity crunch, while the gap between the official and black market rates has continued to widen.

Sudan lost between 75 and 80 percent of its oil reserves in 2011 after the southern part of the country became an independent nation, denying the north billions of dollars in revenues.

In a separate development on Wednesday, leading opposition figure Sadiq al-Mahdi returned to the country after nearly a year in self-imposed exile.

Mahdi was overthrown in 1989 by a group of military commanders close to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir‘s National Congress Party.

“The regime has failed and there is economic deterioration and erosion of the national currency’s value,” Mahdi, who heads the Umma party, told thousands of his supporters.

His party has argued that Bashir must go in order to improve the country’s image abroad and attract crucial investment and aid.