Health security
Monday, March 30, 2015
Terror threat
The deadly terror attacks in Paris in January underscored the
risk facing Western Europe as jihadis return home from fighting in Syria
and Iraq. But the place that most foreign jihadis call home isn't Western
Europe. It's Russia.The number of Russian nationals fighting alongside Islamic
State forces in Syria and Iraq has roughly doubled over the past year, to a
range of 1,500 to 1,700, according to recent estimates by the head of
Russia's FSB security agency and by the Kremlin's envoy to Chechnya.
Human
trafficking
Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe described tens of thousands women forced into sex slavery for
Japanese troops during WWII as victims of human trafficking during a recent
interview, and said Monday the remark was made based on an argument that claims
those "comfort women" fall into this category.
Defense
Undaunted by a
potential slowdown in the British defense sector post the May 7 election,
Raytheon UK CEO Richard Daniel says he is looking to export markets to help
offset what could be a difficult time domestically.
"About half of my business is already export, but we are looking
for further international growth and a lot of my team will be focused on
overseas markets," he said.
Defense
Combating extremism
The issue of how violent extremist organizations get their money can’t
get enough attention. Especially with the growing nexus between groups like the
Iranian-backed Hizballah and drug trafficking organizations, who operate in the
same shadowy spaces. It is a nexus that includes not only drugs, but human
trafficking, arms smuggling, wildlife products like ivory, industrial waste
and, most worrisome, the potential transport of radiological or nuclear
weapons.
Nuclear security
High-level
negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme enter their last day on Tuesday before
a deadline for agreeing the outline for a comprehensive settlement, with top
diplomats still struggling to overcome persistent obstacles.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, his Iranian opposite number, Mohammad Javad Zarif, alongside foreign ministers from France, the UK,
Germany and China worked late into the evening on two consecutive nights in an
effort to break the deadlock.
Information
security
When three buildings collapsed and
ignited a blaze in New York, a smartphone app brought the live video feed to
anyone online wanting to watch.
The
disaster took place, coincidentally, the same day as the launch of Twitter's
new livestream app Periscope, which became a window for the breaking news
event. The event showed how Periscope and rival app Meerkat, which can deliver
live video through Twitter to anyone online, could become an important tool for
citizen journalism.
Yemen knot
Ousted
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has teamed up with Iranian-backed Houthi
rebels to reclaim power in Yemen. Yemeni army commanders loyal to him together
with the Houthis have taken control of the capital Sanaa and put the
internationally recognized President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi under house arrest.
When Hadi managed to escape to the southern city of
Aden and declared it Yemen’s temporary capital and received wide international
and regional backing, Saleh and the Houthis tried to kill him.
Opponents "unconstrained by
consideration of ethics and law"
Britain’s
intelligence agencies are engaged in a “technology arms race” with terrorists,
cybercriminals and other “malicious actors” bent on causing the country harm, the head of MI6 has warned. Alex
Younger said the agencies were facing opponents
“unconstrained by consideration of ethics and law” who were exploiting internet
technology to put lives at risk.
Electoral
security
With State Duma elections only 18 months
away, several questions arise. How can Russia achieve truly democratic
elections? Will the authorities make good on their threat to bar the real
opposition from participating? Will government officials manipulate the
elections as they have done in the past? Keep in mind that manipulation of the
election results is more than simply falsifying the tally on voting day. Even
the most careful control of the count means little if the opposition is not
permitted to participate in the elections.
Office work security
I sing the praises of the office hookup. Where else but in the
shadow of the copy machine can one meet a lover or a candidate for a drunken
one-night stand who’s likely to have been drug-tested, vetted for a criminal
record and checked for gnarly, communicable diseases?
As a public service to hard-up dudes and
dudettes (or people of both or no genders), The Post published a story ahead of
Saturday, Valentine’s Day — which I think of as the Super Bowl of sex.
Guarding the President
A bi-partisan group of House lawmakers March 26
introduced legislation aimed at reforming the Secret Service, which has been
plagued by a series of scandals, low morale and security lapses over the last
few years. The bill (H.R. 1656) – dubbed the Secret Service Improvements Act of 2015 – essentially
implements many of the recommendations that an independent panel tasked with
reforming the agency issued to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson last
December.
Incident at NSA
Two people tried
to ram the main gate to enter the headquarters of the National Security Agency
at Fort Meade, Maryland on Monday, according to a federal law enforcement
official briefed on the investigation. An NSA police officer shot one of the
people dead and seriously injured the second.
A law enforcement official had
previously reported that both of the people involved were men. Aerial shots
show two vehicles at an intersection that appear to be damaged.
Terror threat
The U.S. Army has issued a
worldwide urgent “security awareness message” to soldiers on how to protect
their social media accounts, and their homes, from attacks by the Islamic State
terrorists or other extremists.
The message lists over a dozen safety steps, including to make sure
personnel check the door peephole before letting someone in their homes, to
fortify doors, to hold family meetings on security and to greatly tone down
social media postings so terrorists do not know personal connections or daily
comings and goings.
Persona non grata
"In April (of 2014), Foreign Intelligence
Service agent Malygin was sent out of Lithuania who, under the disguise of the
Russian consul general in Klaipėda, maintained contacts with heads of
municipalities, representatives of Russian compatriot organizations and top
management of strategic companies," the department said in an assessment
of threats to national security.
Attention devoted to foes and friends/Today as two years ago
The
United States conducted counterintelligence operations against Iran, China and
Cuba, but also against Israel, classified documents obtained by the Washington
Post revealed on Thursday. The top secret 178-page summary for the U.S.
government's National Intelligence Program, which was leaked by former CIA
contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that
has never been subject to public scrutiny.
Legends of intelligence
Spadolini
is involved in the anti-Nazi Resistance too. In an article published in 2007,
Jean-François Crance remembers “…his war [was] generous, dangerous, reckless!”
Spadò performs in Germany from September 1940 to February 1941. In Berlin he
embodies the „God of War‟ in the operetta “Die Lustige Witwe”, during Franz
Lehar‟s 70th birthday, in front of Adolf Hitler and the most important Nazi
hierarchs.Sunday, March 29, 2015
Combating drug trafficking
According to an independent report commissioned by the Colombian government and
FARC rebels, United States soldiers and military contractors are responsible
for sexually abusing at least 54 children between 2003 and 2007 — but they were
not prosecuted because of immunity clauses in the American diplomatic treaties
with the government.
Policing
A
bullying culture in the police means that junior officers are often too scared
to confront their bosses over misconduct, a highly critical report has found.The
review, which uncovered cases of racism and sexism, warned there was a
“bullying boys’ club culture” that gave a consistent message that “challenge is
career-limiting”.
Weapons
- The more firearms a country has the more deaths by
firearms occur. Surprising? Opportunity facilitates use.
- Conflict regions where guns are available have
proportionately higher rates and % of death by firearms. When people use
firearms to settle disputes (personal or tribal) people get killed.
- Countries with fewer firearms have fewer deaths by
firearms.
- In other words, there is a positive correlation
between the availability of weapons and their use to kill people and other
living things.
Underwater spies
The robotic series that remade crusade in skies will shortly extend to a
low sea, with underwater view “satellites,” drone-launching pods on a sea
building and unmanned ships sport submarines, reports AFP. The pods could launch
surveillance drones in the air or at sea or provide a communications link when
American forces are facing electronic jamming, said Jared Adams, spokesman for
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Outer space
Japan
on Thursday successfully launched a replacement spy satellite, its aerospace
agency said, as an existing device comes to the end of its working life.Tokyo
put spy satellites into operation in the 2000s after its erratic neighbor North
Korea fired a mid-range ballistic missile over the Japanese mainland and into
the western Pacific in 1998.
Political games
On some level, the
reports that Israel spied on Iran-U.S. nuclear talks don't come as a
shock. Just last year, German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that
Israel had eavesdropped on Secretary of State John Kerry during Middle East
peace talks. Jonathan Pollard, who was arrested in November 1985 after
passing secret documents to Israel while working as a civilian analyst for the
U.S. Navy, has become a cause celebre among some Israelis.
Old spying methods are still alive
A
pigeon caught near the India-Pakistan border by the Gujarat police has left the
home ministry flummoxed.In a detailed report, the police explained how it
caught the pigeon, with a chip on one leg, a ring with code “28733” on the
other, and writing in Urdu or Arabic on its wings. The Coast Guard, forest
department, forensic experts and Gujarat’s anti-terrorism squad were alerted
last week, but conflicting versions have come from different agencies.The MHA
officials, perplexed, said that they may ask the Gujarat police to put all
pigeons in the state under scanner.
Espionage
A
court in Egypt has sentenced a man and woman to lengthy jail terms and slapped
them with large fines after convicting them of spying for Israel, a judicial
official said Saturday.Their two accomplices -- Israeli intelligence officials
-- were sentenced in absentia to life terms, the official added.The man, Ramzy
al-Shebini, was sentenced to life, and the woman, Sahar Salama, to 15 years. In
Egypt, a life term generally means 25 years.
Terror
threat
Sweden, once cited by Osama bin Laden as the kind of country al Qaeda did
not attack, is facing a rising threat from Islamist militants because of the
crises in Iraq and Syria,
its spy chief said in an interview on Friday.
Anders Thornberg told Reuters the number of Swedes traveling to fight in
those countries had tripled in the past year, and record immigration to the
Nordic country was making it vulnerable to infiltrators from militant groups.
Cybersecurity
The NSA’s
“Equation Group” is apparently behind the infection with malware of hard drive
firmware on computers used by nations considered “enemies” by the United
States. The installation of the malware is believed to have required access to
trade secrets of IT manufacturers as well as physical access to the soon-to-be
infected computers. Popular Science in their article “The World’s Most Sophisticated
Malware Ever Infects Hard Drive Firmware“suggests
that the NSA intercepted computers in transit through global logistical chains.
Secret source of funding
In 1963, I was a
20-year-old college senior who’d never been out of the country. With parents of
modest means, summers meant working for spare cash, not backpacking through
Europe or lounging on the beaches of Majorca. So when an invitation came to
spend a month traveling through Southeast Asia as part of a student delegation,
I leapt at the chance.
Intelligence sources
According to a bombshell report by ProPublica, Hillary Clinton may have had a
network of individuals providing her with intelligence outside the State
Department: Starting weeks before Islamic militants attacked the U.S.
diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, longtime Clinton family confidante
Sidney Blumenthal supplied intelligence to then Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton gathered by a secret network that included a former CIA clandestine
service officer, according to hacked emails from Blumenthal’s account.”
NSA surveillance
The US's National
Security Agency considered abandoning its secret programme to collect and store
American calling records in the months before leaker Edward Snowden revealed
the practice, current and former intelligence officials say, because some
officials believed the costs outweighed the meagre counter-terrorism benefits.
Privacy security
You send an email to a reporter saying
that you’ve got proof of criminal wrongdoing by a government official … or a
big bank. You never receive a response.
Or you send an email to an expert on
monetary policy asking if the Federal Reserve’s policies help the rich at the
expense of the little guy … or an expert on radiation asking if the Fukushima
accident might endanger public health. You never receive a
response
Changing culture of intelligence
sharing
NATO’s top commander
in Europe said Wednesday that alliance nations must be willing to share their
intelligence faster if its new rapid-reaction force is to be effective in
countering threats.“Now we only share our intelligence well when we are
scared,” U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove told a conference in the Netherlands. NATO
defence ministers agreed last month to create a quick-reaction force of 5,000
troops to meet challenges from Russia and Islamic extremists.
Terror threat
Last year the
Azerbaijani Ministry of National Security carried out consistent measures to combat terrorism, separatism, religious
extremism and other crime cases aimed at destabilizing the sociopolitical
situation in the country. 33 persons who took part in combat operations within
illegal armed groups in the Syrian Arab Republic and 4 Azerbaijani members of
the terrorist organization operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan were brought
to justice.
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