LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain on Wednesday abruptly fired her defense secretary, Gavin Williamson, blaming him for a leak of government information about a Chinese company’s role in sensitive telecommunications infrastructure, one of the most serious such leaks in recent years. Mrs. May’s announcement was made after an investigation into a report in the Daily Telegraph about discussions in Britain’s National Security Council, of which Mr. Williamson was a member. The report suggested that Mrs. May had overruled objections from some senior council members to allow the Chinese company, Huawei, to build some elements of the next-generation cellular data network known as 5G, though the government later said that no decision had yet been made. The leak provoked a negative reaction from the United States, which has been on a campaign to pressure other countries to bar Huawei from building 5G networks.

Source: International New York Times May 01, 2019 17:14 UTC