Pegasus controversy: Dalai Lama's advisors on list of potential targets

The closest circle of advisors around the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and staff members of other Buddhist clerics were selected as targets of potential surveillance by a client of the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group over two years,  news website The Wire reported on Thursday. The leaked database showed that phone numbers of several Tibetan officials, activists and clerics were marked from late 2017 to early 2019.
 

The list includes numbers for the staff of the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Urgyen Trinley Dorji, the third-highest ranking monk in Tibetan Buddhism, who has been living outside India since early 2017. Tempa Tsering, a long-term envoy of the Dalai Lama who currently serves as the director, India and East Asia, in his office in New Delhi, also appears on the list.  Other names in the database are of senior aides Tenzin Taklha and Chimmey Rigzen. The head of the trust that will oversee the delicate task of selecting the next Dalai Lama, Samdhong Rinpoche, was also inserted in the list in mid-2018.
 

The records also showed the phone numbers of the head of the then Tibetan government in exile, Lobsang Sangay, and several other Tibetan activists in India. The inclusion of their phone numbers, however, may not mean that they have been infected by Pegasus, as that can only be confirmed through forensic analysis of the device, the publication said. The Dalai Lama, who has spent the past 18 months isolating in his compound in Dharamsala, is not known to carry a personal phone, two sources told The Guardian. Agencies

Macron was not a target, says Pegasus maker

An official at Israeli cybers­ecurity company NSO Group said Wednesday that the firm's controversial Pegasus spyware tool was not used to target French President Emmanuel Macron, news agency AFP reported. We can “specifically come out and say for sure that the president of France, Macron, was not a target,” Chaim Gelfand, chief compliance officer at NSO Group, told the i24 News television network.

Israeli lawmaker eyes export curbs on software

Israel’s parliamentary review panel may recommend changes to defence export policy over high-profile allegations that spyware sold by Israeli cyber firm NSO Group has been abused in several countries, a senior lawmaker said on Thursday. 

French President Emmanuel Macron, who planned to convene his cabinet on Thursday over calls for investigations.