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Monday, March 30, 2015

Health security



Rambam The National Poison Control Center  (NPCC) -- whose aim is to speed up treatment in the event of accidental poisoning and make it unnecessary to go to hospital emergency rooms if there is no danger -- now receives most of its queries from the public. In the past, it preferred to be consulted by physicians, but it recognized the importance of being available round the clock to people -- mostly parents -- who fear their child has swallowed something dangerous. 
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


635632936793218840--PMP6299Undaunted 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



Navy dolphinThe dolphin and the drone — and their respective handlers — will spend the morning training for a possible order to deploy to the Persian Gulf or some other international trouble spot to detect underwater mines, or maybe to guard a port against a terrorist threat. The mammal is Puanani, a bottlenose dolphin, a sleek 7 feet, 10 inches long and 427 pounds. The machine is an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, or UUV, Kingfish version, 11 feet long, 600 pounds.
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


Diplomats gather in Lausanne for a final round of negotiations before the March 31st deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement on limits to Iran’s nuclear programme. 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"



Satellite dish at GCHQ monitoring centre in Cheltenham. Alex Younger claimed its collection and use of data ‘appropriately and proportionately’ is essential.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 don’t regret my office romance — and neither should youI 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


US-SecretService-StarLogo.svgA 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
The National Security Agency building at Fort Meade, Md. The National Security Agency has been extensively involved in the U.S. government's targeted killing program, collaborating closely with the CIA in the use of drone strikes against terrorists abroad, The Washington Post reported Wednesday Oct. 16, 2013 after a review of documents provided by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden.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.
Cybersecurity



Prince William was choppered into Britain’s top-secret spy agency under a cloak of extreme secrecy, in a bid to protect his family as whispers intensify that William and several other younger royals have had their personal email and social media accounts hacked.  
Terror threat
U.S. Army has issued a worldwide urgent security messageThe 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
Russia's consul general to Klaipėda Vladimir Malygin, MP I. Rozova of the Russian Alliance  iand MEP W. Tomaszewski of the Polish Election Action at a veterans meeting in Klaipėda"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


NSA headquarters building in Fort Meade, Maryland.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.
International security

Netanyahu in Tel AvivThe White House on Wednesday pointedly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's successful reelection campaign and suggested his newly declared opposition to a Palestinian state could jeopardize America’s unwavering support for Israel at the United Nations.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Combating drug trafficking

  
Crying soldier (Shutterstock)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


Police cadets.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


% of homicide by firearms by country - 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

File Image: Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyThe 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-SPACE-DEFENCE 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

Representational image (Photo: AFP)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.


Anti-communist witch-hunts 
There would be no future in Canada for David Shugar and his wife, Grace, after he was accused of being a communist spy. The couple settled in Poland, where he still lives at age 99. Grace died in 2013. They were married for 72 years. A posse of burly RCMP officers, reeking of liquor, unceremoniously bundled him into the back of a car and whisked him to a secret detention centre in Ottawa, where he would be interrogated for four weeks on suspicion of spying for the Soviet Union.


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


Swedish Security Service.pngSweden, 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

NSA Surveillance_Cham640The 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, pictured, revealed the practice'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
surveillanceYou 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


Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Ottawa, Monday March 23, 2015.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.