Syrian war

Putin’s Attack Helicopters and Mercenaries Are Winning the War for Assad

It has now been more than two weeks since Putin announced his withdrawal, and there is more evidence that the Russian presence in Syria has not been significantly reduced. An analysis conducted by Reuters shows that Putin has sent more supplies to Syria since announcing that his mission was accomplished. While it’s likely that a large amount of this cargo is equipment to keep Russia’s bases operational, it’s also testament to the fact that the “drawdown” is just another volley from the Kremlin’s disinformation machine.

Aerospace

The Pentagon Wants Autonomous Fighter Jets to Join the F-35 in Combat

The U.S. Air Force Research Lab is moving ahead with an initiative to turn aging F-16 fighter jets into unmanned, autonomous combat aircraft. The pilotless planes will fly alongside the newer aircraft like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Speaking at a forum in Washington, Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work said he expects to see the autonomous aircraft plying the skies alongside manned jets before driverless vehicles enter service on the ground. Work spoke specifically about U.S. Air Force efforts to create autonomous wingmen for its fighter pilots that gave new life to older planes imbued with autonomous piloting technologies and teamed with next-generation aircraft.

Robots

The killer robot threat: Pentagon examining how enemy nations could empower machines

The Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian official said Wednesday that the Defense Department is concerned that adversary nations could empower advanced weapons systems to act on their own, noting that while the United States will not give them the authority to kill autonomously, other countries might.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work said the Pentagon hasn’t “fully figured out” the issue of autonomous machines, but continues to examine it. The U.S. military has built a force that relies heavily on the decision-making skills of its troops, but “authoritarian regimes” may find weapons that can act independently more attractive because doing so would consolidate the ability to take action among a handful of leaders, he said.

Intel experience

From the CIA to Gotham: Meet The Real Life Spy Who's Now Writing "Batman"

Tom King was a recent college grad intent on a writing career, when airliners struck the World Trade Center and completely changed his life. At least temporarily.

Incensed by the attack, he applied to the CIA, which lead to a seven-year career as an undercover operations officer disrupting terrorist networks in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I was one of those post 9-11 people who just wanted to do something and joined up," says King. "I started in 2002, because it took a year to get security clearance. I thought they’d make me an analyst, because I went to Columbia University as a philosophy major, but they made me an operations officer. I was one of the younger officers there."

Today, he’s applying that background to a writing career about superheroes.

Terror threat

The rise of ISIS has radically changed international law

Two years ago, virtually no one had heard of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In a January 2014 New Yorker interview, President Obama dismissed the group as “Junior Varsity.”

Since then, ISIS has emerged as one of the most wealthy, powerful and dangerous terrorist organizations that ever existed.

ISIS now possesses more than US$2 billion in stolen cash, thousands of captured tanks and bombs, as well as lucrative oil wells and refineries in the large parts of Syria and Iraq that it has taken over.

In these areas, the U.S. has determined, ISIS is committing genocide against Christians, Shia Muslims and Yazidis. Beheadings, burning people alive, mass rape – these are the methods of ISIS terror.

Legal security

Suing for Justice

Your lawsuits are good for America

As a law student at Harvard in the 1950s, I heard a professor joke that at the school they contract the law of torts in the morning and distort the law of contracts in the afternoon. We students were supposed to chuckle accordingly. We had been taught that tort law and contract law were the twin pillars of our country’s privately invoked legal system, but my fellow law students and I could not then have foreseen how weakened these twin pillars would become.

Information security

Judicial Watch: Second Federal Court Grants Discovery in Clinton Email Case

Judicial Watch announced today that U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth granted “limited discovery” to Judicial Watch into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email matter. Lamberth ruled that “where there is evidence of government wrong-doing and bad faith, as here, limited discovery is appropriate, even though it is exceedingly rare in FOIA cases.”

The court’s ruling comes in a July 2014 Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records related to the drafting and use of the Benghazi talking points (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). The lawsuit seeks records specifically from Hillary Clinton and her top State Department staff...

Nuclear security

Will the Nuclear Security Summit Help Stop Terrorists from Getting the Bomb?

Today and tomorrow, world leaders will gather for what will likely be the final international summit on security for nuclear weapons and the materials needed to make them—a key tool for preventing nuclear terrorism. The last time this group met, at the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague, they declared that preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons or weapons-usable materials remained “one of the most important challenges in the years to come.” Yet, since then, nuclear security has improved only marginally, while the capabilities of some terrorist groups, particularly the Islamic State, have grown dramatically, suggesting that in the net, the risk of nuclear terrorism may be higher than it was two years ago.

Cherchez la femme

The property manager and Putin's friends

A little-known Russian businessman from St Petersburg has provided properties to multiple women who share one common theme: President Vladimir Putin.

One of the women is Putin's younger daughter; two are close relatives of a woman Russian media have reported to be Putin's girlfriend – though the president has strongly denied any relationship.  And a fourth is a student who posed for a calendar celebrating the president's birthday. All of the properties are in upmarket gated complexes in and around Moscow.

Public records show Grigory Baevsky, a 47-year-old business associate of an old friend of Putin, sold or transferred the properties to three of the women. In the other case, Putin's younger child, Katerina Tikhonova, used the address of a flat owned by Baevsky as her own when registering a new company.

Eugenics

The return of eugenics

It’s comforting now to think of eugenics as an evil that sprang from the blackness of Nazi hearts. We’re familiar with the argument: some men are born great, some as weaklings, and both pass the traits on to their children. So to improve society, the logic goes, we must encourage the best to breed and do what we can to stop the stupid, sick and malign from passing on their defective genes. This was taken to a genocidal extreme by Hitler, but the intellectual foundations were laid in England. And the idea is now making a startling comeback.

Views & opinions

Former Spy Chief On Britain's 'Libya Mistake'

Ephraim Halevy has warned that Libya will be the "biggest problem for Europe in the months to come".

The former head of the Mossad gave a forthright assessment of the situation in an exclusive interview with Sky News.

He said: "I believe the trouble coming from Libya is going to be immense.

"I think the operation originally launched by Britain and France turned out to be the biggest mistake committed by western Europe in recent years.

"I think the result we are now seeing in Libya is a direct result of the policies that were initiated by Paris and London at the start of this campaign."

Information security

Did a Self-Identified Spy Hunter Leak an NSA Secret on LinkedIn?

James Atkinson's LinkedIn profile is epic—over 42,000 words to be more precise—outlining a long career spent in surveillance and engineering.

Or, as he calls himself at the top: "Student, Soldier, Spy Hunter, Scientist, Electronics Engineer, Computer Programmer, Cyberoperations, Computer and Digital Devices Forensics."

Part of that career, he claims, was spent working with the National Security Agency on a variety of projects, one of which, called SCARAB, caught the eye of Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Espionage

Russia Nabs Ukrainian Spy, Says He Will Be Sent Home

Russia's domestic security agency said Thursday it has captured a Ukrainian security officer who volunteered to spy for Moscow and will send him back because they believe he is a double agent.
 
The Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main KGB successor agency, said in a statement that the man, Yuri Ivanchenko, was detained on Saturday.
 
The agency said Thursday that Ivanchenko traveled to Moscow to offer his services to the FSB. It claimed that the CIA had helped the Ukrainian security service prepare Ivanchenko for the mission aimed at eventually exposing his Russian contacts.
 
The FSB said Ivanchenko, who reportedly solicited his services once before, in 2014, will be sent home and not face any charges.

Climate security

Ice melt could make seas rise 6 feet by 2100, study says

The drumbeat of warnings about the dire effects of rising sea levels accelerated this week, with two reports calling into question whether some parts of the planet will become impossible to live in.

The latest, published Thursday in the scientific journal Nature, says melting ice in Antarctica has the potential to contribute to a rise in sea levels of 1 meter -- more than 3 feet -- by the end of this century.

And it says with ice also melting in other parts of the world, seas could rise 5 or 6 feet by the end of this century, far more than predicted in a 2013 U.N. study.

"We're looking at the potential for a rate of sea level rise that we will be measuring in centimeters (rather than milliliters) per year -- literally an order of magnitude faster," said Robert DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, one of the study's authors.

Cybersecurity

When Do Law Firms Have to Disclose a Data Breach?

Cyber attacks against some of the country’s top law firms are reigniting concerns about the legal industry’s handling of data breaches.

The Wall Street Journal reported that hackers recently broke into the data systems of several prestigious white-shoe law firms, including Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, and federal investigators are probing whether the hackers intended to steal information for insider trading.

Cybersecurity experts have long warned that law firms are attractive targets for cyber fraudsters. Law firms with high-profile corporate clients possess troves of trade secrets and undisclosed deal information on their computer networks that could be exploited.

Drug trafficking

Painkiller fentanyl linked to six deaths and numerous overdoses in Sacramento area

A powerful painkiller that can be fatal even in small doses is the latest front in a nationwide epidemic of street drug abuse, recently becoming the prime suspect in a rash of overdoses that killed six people in less than a week in Sacramento County.

Experts say the rise of fentanyl is fueled by widespread prescription drug abuse that claims thousands of lives each year. Since 1999, more than 165,000 people in the U.S. have died of causes related to painkiller use.

Once centered on the East Coast, use of the drug now seems to be spreading west, probably through Mexican drug cartels, medical and law enforcement officials said.

“This is just another face of the opioid epidemic,” said Dr. Caleb Alexander, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness.

Nuclear security

Obama: How we can make our vision of a world without nuclear weapons a reality

Of all the threats to global security and peace, the most dangerous is the proliferation and potential use of nuclear weapons. That’s why, seven years ago in Prague, I committed the United States to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and to seeking a world without them. This vision builds on the policies of presidents before me, Democrat and Republican, includingRonald Reagan, who said “we seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.”

Art security

Crimes of the Art

UFO Museum’s Flying Saucer Takes Flight, Crashes

A sculpture of an alien spacecraft that long adorned the exterior of theInternational UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico, wasstolen and eventually found, smashed to pieces. The steel and fiberglass spacecraft had recently undergone repairs after it was damaged in a storm; it was being stored behind the museum in anticipation of a reinstallation on the façade. There are no suspects, and security footage of the out-of-this-world heist has been released.

Verdict: Like the moon landing video, the supposed “security footage” was obviously staged — this saucer heist was clearly the work of Martian looters.

Declassification

Declassified CIA Document Reveals Iraq War Had Zero Justification

The justification for going to war in Iraq thirteen years ago, was based on a 93-page classified document that allegedly contained “specific information” on former Iraqi leader President Saddam Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs he was apparently running.

Now that document has been declassified and it reveals that there was virtually zero justification for the Iraq war. The document reveals that there was “no operational tie between Saddam and al Qaeda” and no WMD programs.

Seismic security

New Map Shows Rise in Human-Caused Earthquake Risk

Most people associate Oklahoma with weather-related disasters: tornado outbreaks, massive wildfires, Lawrence of Arabia-style dust storms, tumbleweed maelstroms. But thanks to oil and gas wastewater injected deep into the ground, parts of the state can now also claim the dubious distinction of being among the most likely places in the United States to experience a damaging earthquake in 2016.

On Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey unveiled an earthquake hazard forecast for the central and eastern parts of the country that for the first time includes human-caused quakes, referred to in technical parlance as “induced seismicity.” The report suggests that seven million people in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Arkansas face increa

Navy

At Sea Aboard the Zumwalt

This was the third night out for the Zumwalt on her second series of builder’s sea trials, the first “alpha” trials having been carried out in early December. The ship, which will eventually go to sea with a crew of 147, was carrying 388 souls, one of the highest numbers Zumwalt likely will ever carry during a planned service life of about 40 years.

The 610-foot-long destroyer moved out slowly from the pier, making a sharp left turn, then a right to come into the channel. As she moved out of Casco Bay into the Atlantic, a slight sea was running, enough to throw spray from her sharp, wave-piercing prow and occasionally spit on the bridge. A slight glow in the darkness ahead belied the white running light on the Zumwalt’s bow – a change from the mast position required on other ships because the destroyer’s stealthy design leaves nowhere else to put it.

Health security

US Tests Potential Israeli Cure for Victims of 'Nuclear Terrorism'

An arm of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is moving into advanced testing of an Israeli product that promises to treat victims of radiation exposure from industrial catastrophes or the specter of nuclear material in the hands of terrorists. The advanced testing stage comes as world leaders converge in Washington for the fourth Nuclear Security Summit.

Developed by Pluristem Therapeutics, based in Haifa, Israel, the firm’s placenta cell therapy product — dubbed PLX-R18 — has proven to be nearly 100 percent effective in mice. Over the coming year, NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD), in collaboration with Pluristem and a US Food and Drug Administration-guided production process, will evaluate the optimal dose of cells to be injected in monkeys.

Procurement safety

European Union: The New "Procurement Code"

This past Thursday, March 3 - running the proxy law 28 January 2016, no. 11 - The Council of Ministers has preliminarily approved the legislative decree for the realization of the European directives no. 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU.

The text - which should be subject to final approval by the Government by 18 April 2016, once carried out the necessary steps to the State Council, to the Conference of Regions and to the Boards of the House and Senate - will determine, if approved and once entered into force, the abrogation of the current Procurement Code (i.e. d.lgs. no. 163/2006) and the related Regulation (i.e. d.P.R. no. 207/2010, which, to be precise, will remain in force with respect to certain sections pending the approval of the new guidelines which will replace the aforementioned Regulation).

In a general perspective, among the most significant changes introduced by the new legislative decree, it should be noted, in addition to the central role of the ANAC (to which is given a general power of control and supervision in matters of custody and execution of public contracts, in addition to database management and the editing of the replacement guidelines of the Regulation¹), to the establishment of a control room (so called "cabina di regia") at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers with the task to carry out a survey on the state of implementation of the new procurement code, examine proposals for amendment legislation and promote a national telematic procedures purchasing plan.

Counterterrorism

All of Europe Is a Battleground Against Terrorism

There is no way to sugarcoat it: the European continent, long considered one of the most prosperous, safe and multicultural regions of the world, is effectively a battlefield in the war against international terrorism.

Less than four months after eleven attackers perpetrated the worst act of violence on French soil since World War II, France's Belgian neighbor experienced a nightmare of their own during the morning rush hour on March 22. Strapped with explosive belts and reportedly carrying Kalashnikov rifles, as many as four men who are supposedly members of the Islamic State conducted three orchestrated strikes on two locations that were packed with travelers from around the world. 

Immigration security

AfD Head Frauke Petry: 'The Immigration of Muslims Will Change Our Culture'

...Petry: Germany's past is used to justify all kinds of things. People say: We have to do this or that because we Germans have weighed ourselves down with a special kind of guilt. One hears that we need to merge Germany into a larger Europe so as to forever prevent the resurrection of German nationalism. But nationalism and patriotism are regularly thrown in the same pot. Even Germany's current, disastrous migration policy can't get by without references to Germany's past. Just a few weeks ago in Dresden, the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, warned against equating guilt and responsibility, and encouraged us to have more values-based patriotism. The real responsibilities that we should draw from Germany's past are the preservation of democracy, freedom and the rule of law.

Electronic surveillance

Brazil Judge Apologizes for Releasing Tapped Rousseff-Lula Phone Calls

The federal judge overseeing the probe into a huge corruption scheme centered on Brazilian state oil company Petrobras has apologized for releasing intercepts of phone conversations between President Dilma Rousseff and her political mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, officials said.

In a document sent to the Supreme Court, which is investigating him for alleged irregularities in the release of the wiretaps, Sergio Moro admitted that he had made a mistake in doing so but denied that the move was politically motivated.

The judge based in the southern city of Curitiba, however, also justified his action by saying the controversial recordings “may eventually” contain evidence of “obstruction of justice or attempted obstruction of justice.”

Federal Police recorded the calls on the judge’s orders on March 16, the day Rousseff appointed Lula as her chief of staff, and were released a day later.

In one of the recorded phone calls, Rousseff tells Lula that she sent him a copy of his appointment “in case it’s necessary,” a remark the opposition and even a Supreme Court justice have interpreted as proof she named him to her Cabinet to shield him from prosecution.

Health security

Curing Cancer Is Within Reach

One of the most frightening words a patient can hear from a doctor is “cancer.” We know it from the experience of our families and friends, and the millions of Americans who hear it directly from their doctors each year.

In President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address, he compared the effort required to eradicate cancer to a “moonshot,” summoning the American ingenuity and scientific pursuits that sent humankind to the moon. We believe that it’s time for a full and complete national commitment to rid the world of this disease, because the truth is that ending cancer as we know it is finally within our grasp.

A key element of the cancer moonshot is to incentivize more cooperation between the government and the private sector. We recognize that while the U.S. government has tremendous resources at its disposal, we also know a lot of our best expertise exists outside the government, within the private medical and research community. 

Financial safety

This Is Where Bad Bankers Go to Prison

Kviabryggja Prison in western Iceland doesn’t need walls, razor wire, or guard towers to keep the convicts inside. Alone on a wind-swept cape, the old farmhouse is bound by the frigid North Atlantic on one side and fields of snow-covered lava rock on another. To the east looms Snaefellsjokull, a dormant volcano blanketed by a glacier. There’s only one road back to civilization.

This is where the world’s only bank chiefs imprisoned in connection with the 2008 financial crisis are serving their sentences, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its forthcoming issue. Kviabryggja is home to Sigurdur Einarsson, Kaupthing Bank’s onetime chairman, and Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, the bank’s former chief executive officer, who were convicted of market manipulation and fraud shortly before the collapse of what was then Iceland’s No. 1 lender. They spend their days doing laundry, working out in the jailhouse gym, and browsing the Internet. They and two associates incarcerated here—Magnus Gudmundsson, the ex-CEO of Kaupthing’s Luxembourg unit, and Olafur Olafsson, the No. 2 stockholder in the bank at the time of its demise—can even take walks outside, like Kviabryggja’s 19 other inmates, all of whom were convicted of nonviolent crimes.

Nuclear security

Commentary: Eliminating root causes of terrorism indispensable to nuclear security

As world leaders grapple with intensified nuclear security threats,they should not be distracted by the immediate urgency of safeguarding nuclear facilities and slack off in addressing the fundamental problem of terrorism.

Eliminating the root causes of terrorism is essential to nuclear security, as that's the only way to solve the issue at its source, ultimately removing hidden dangers and effectively preventing nuclear terrorism.

After the tragic attacks in Brussels last week that killed more than 30 people and wounded scores, the international community once again finds itself rattled and terrified.Meanwhile, the specter of the November Paris attacks that claimed 130 lives still lingers.

Cybersecurity

BAE Systems profiles today’s cybercriminals

BAE Systems, a global defence and security organisation, has unveiled some of the biggest threats to businesses by profiling six prominent types of cybercriminals, exposing how they cause harm to companies worldwide.

The company has also provided some practical ways that companies can defend against them.

Threat intelligence experts at BAE Systems have revealed ‘The Unusual Suspects’, built on research that demonstrates the motivations and methods of the most common types of cybercriminal.

The research, which is derived from expert analysis of thousands of cyber attacks on businesses around the world. The intention is to help enterprises understand the enemies they face so they can better defend against cyber attack.

Biosecurity

Zika virus command center leads biggest military operation in Brazil's history

It is the biggest military mobilisation in Brazil’s history: 220,000 army, navy and air force personnel have been called into action, as well as 315,000 public officials.

Rapid reaction units have been deployed to take the fight across the country. Local authorities are stockpiling munitions and supplies. Scientists have been enlisted to devise new weapons of mass destruction with which to defend the motherland. 

But the enemy is not a geopolitical rival or a militant group: it is the tiny Aedes aegypti mosquito which is believed to be responsible for the spread of the Zika virus.

Arms trade

Russian weaponry selling best in Latin America

Chile’s capital Santiago on March 29 – April 3 is hosting the 19^th international aerospace show FIDAE-2016, one of the largest in Latin America.

Russia is represented by fifteen organizations and weapons makers, including Rosoboronexport, Almaz-Antey, MiG, Helicopters of Russia and Bazalt. A total of 365 selections from Russia’s arms manufacturers are on display.

Latin America these days is one of the main markets for Russian defense industry products.

Details of the largest contracts for the supply of Russian weapons and military technologies to the countries of the region - in this special info bulletin from TASS.

Intenational security

NATO envoy: Russia not to passively watch US military build-up in Europe

Russia will not passively watch the US military build-up in Europe and will give an asymmetrical response to it, Russia’s Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko said on the Rossiya 24 TV channel on Wednesday.

"We see that the United States continues to reinforce its military presence in Europe," Grushko said. "However, the situation in the sphere of security forces NATO to look to the south as it is there where the real threat is being formed, so I expect that the measures for reinforcing the Alliance’s southern frontiers will be announced in Warsaw [at the NATO summit]."

Innovations & technologies

Remote controlled 'cyborg beetles' could be used to spy on TERRORISTS

Scientists have turned an insect into a cyborg which can be flown by remote control like a drone.

Experts attached electrodes and tiny radio receiver backpacks to giant flower beetles.

The modifications allowed the team to direct the three-inch bug to walk, fly left or right and even hover.

Researcher Hirotaka Sato, of Nanyang Technological University , in Singapore, said: “This technology could be an improved alternative to remote-controlled drones as it could go into areas which were not accessible before.”

It is thought the robotic insects could be used to spy on terrorists or locate earthquake survivors.

Cybersecurity

Former FBI spy hunter: Don’t trust China on ‘no hack’ pact

A former FBI investigator who helped expose Soviet double agent Robert Hanssen1 warns that enterprises should give up worrying about hackers, “who are now the good guys”, and be more worried about spies.

Veteran spy hunter turned infosec exec Eric O'Neill said that espionage has evolved and become increasingly digital as hackers have become key in exposing security bugs through bug bounties and the like. The evolution of the threat landscape has happened without corporate security mindsets catching up, he says.

Too many enterprises continue to think that they aren’t important enough to become a target for cyber-espionage from so-called APT groups but this mindset is wrong and needs to change, according to O'Neill, who argues that reconnaissance followed by spear-phishing or other social engineering attacks has become the go-to spying method of the 21st century. Much of this is targeted towards industrial espionage with China and (to a much smaller extent) Russia primarily to blame, he says.

Nuclear security

Britain braced for ISIS cyber attacks on nuclear power plants as Cameron flies for talks with Obama on how to stop jihadis seizing radioactive material

Britain must be on alert for terrorists trying to get their hands on nuclear materials or launch devastating cyber-attacks on nuclear power stations, the Government warned last night.

David Cameron is jetting to Washington to hold talks with Barack Obama and other world leaders on how to stop nuclear material falling under the control of Islamic State and other fanatics.

A senior UK Government source said: ‘You saw just last week in Belgium concerns that were raised around the security of civil nuclear sites and therefore - in the world in which we currently live - we think it’s the right thing to do.’

Climate security

Study: Antarctica ice melting far faster than predicted

Warmer air, less frigid water and gravity may combine to make parts of Antarctica's western ice sheet melt far faster than scientists had thought, raising sea levels much more than expected by the end of the century, a new study says.

New physics-based computer simulations forecast dramatic increases in melting in the vulnerable western edge of the continent. In a worst-case scenario, that could raise sea levels 46cm to 86cm by 2100 - more than an international panel of climate scientists predicted just three years ago.

Even if countries control heat-trapping gases at the moderate levels pledged in Paris last year, it would still mean seas 8cm to 31cm higher than forecast, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.