Video: Demonstrators attempt to break into parliament in Kiev
Author Archives: News Sources
GCHQ and NSA targeted private German companies
Der Spiegel reports: Documents show that Britain’s GCHQ intelligence service infiltrated German Internet firms and America’s NSA obtained a court order to spy on Germany and collected information about the chancellor in a special database. Is it time for the country to open a formal espionage investigation?
The headquarters of Stellar, a company based in the town of Hürth near Cologne, are visible from a distance. Seventy-five white antennas dominate the landscape. The biggest are 16 meters (52 feet) tall and kept in place by steel anchors. It is an impressive sight and serves as a popular backdrop for scenes in TV shows, including the German action series “Cobra 11.”
Stellar operates a satellite ground station in Hürth, a so-called “teleport.” Its services are used by companies and institutions; Stellar’s customers include Internet providers, telecommunications companies and even a few governments. “The world is our market,” is the high-tech company’s slogan.
Using their ground stations and leased capacities from satellites, firms like Stellar — or competitors like Cetel in the nearby village of Ruppichteroth or IABG, which is headquartered in Ottobrunn near Munich — can provide Internet and telephone services in even the most remote areas. They provide communications links to places like oil drilling platforms, diamond mines, refugee camps and foreign outposts of multinational corporations and international organizations.
Super high-speed Internet connections are required at the ground stations in Germany in order to ensure the highest levels of service possible. Most are connected to major European Internet backbones that offer particularly high bandwidth.
The service they offer isn’t just attractive to customers who want to improve their connectivity. It is also of interest to Britain’s GCHQ intelligence service, which has targeted the German companies. Top secret documents from the archive of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden viewed by SPIEGEL show that the British spies surveilled employees of several German companies, and have also infiltrated their networks. [Continue reading…]
China seizes $14.5 billion assets from family, associates of ex-security chief
Reuters reports: Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) from family members and associates of retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the centre of China’s biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades, two sources said.
More than 300 of Zhou’s relatives, political allies, proteges and staff have also been taken into custody or questioned in the past four months, the sources, who have been briefed on the investigation, told Reuters.
The sheer size of the asset seizures and the scale of the investigations into the people around Zhou – both unreported until now – make the corruption probe unprecedented in modern China and would appear to show that President Xi Jinping is tackling graft at the highest levels.
But it may also be driven partly by political payback after Zhou angered leaders such as Xi by opposing the ouster of former high-flying politician Bo Xilai, who was jailed for life in September for corruption and abuse of power. [Continue reading…]
IPCC report: climate change felt ‘on all continents and across the oceans’
The Guardian reports: Climate change has already left its mark “on all continents and across the oceans”, damaging food crops, spreading disease, and melting glaciers, according to the leaked text of a blockbuster UN climate science report due out on Monday.
Government officials and scientists are gathered in Yokohama this week to wrangle over every line of a summary of the report before the final wording is released on Monday – the first update in seven years.
Nearly 500 people must sign off on the exact wording of the summary, including the 66 expert authors, 271 officials from 115 countries, and 57 observers.
But governments have already signed off on the critical finding that climate change is already having an effect, and that even a small amount of warming in the future could lead to “abrupt and irreversible changes”, according to documents seen by the Guardian. [Continue reading…]
No NSA reform can fix the American Islamophobic surveillance complex
Arun Kundnani writes: Better oversight of the sprawling American national security apparatus may finally be coming: President Obama and the House Intelligence Committee unveiled plans this week to reduce bulk collection of telephone records. The debate opened up by Edward Snowden’s whistle-blowing is about to get even more legalistic than all the parsing of hops and stores and metadata.
These reforms may be reassuring, if sketchy. But for those living in so-called “suspect communities” – Muslim Americans, left-wing campaigners, “radical” journalists – the days of living on the receiving end of excessive spying won’t end there.
How come when we talk about spying we don’t talk about the lives of ordinary people being spied upon? While we have been rightly outraged at the government’s warehousing of troves of data, we have been less interested in the consequences of mass surveillance for those most affected by it – such as Muslim Americans. [Continue reading…]
Beware the surveillance reform Trojan horse: what’s not in the new NSA laws?
Stopping the government from holding onto of all Americans’ phone metadata would undoubtedly be a good thing for American privacy, but if you read between the legislative lines, the government might not be curtailing mass surveillance so much as permanently entrenching it in American law.
Rep Justin Amash, one of the NSA’s leading critics in the House, said of the Intelligence Committee bill: “It doesn’t end bulk collection but actually puts more Americans in danger of having their constitutionally protected rights violated.” While the Obama plan is undoubtedly more promising, with court requests and much more, Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union has several important questions about the proposal that need to be answered before anyone will really be able to judge. And the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez detailed why neither of these proposals are as good as the USA Freedom Act, which may now be getting boxed out. [Continue reading…]
U.S. cyberwarfare force to grow significantly, defense secretary says
In his first major speech on cyber policy, Hagel sought to project strength but also to tame perceptions of the United States as an aggressor in computer warfare, stressing that the government “does not seek to militarize cyberspace.”
His remarks, delivered at the retirement ceremony of Gen. Keith Alexander, the outgoing director of the National Security Agency and Cyber Command, come in advance of Hagel’s trip to China next week, his first as defense secretary. The issues of cyberwarfare and cyber-espionage have been persistent sources of tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Hagel said that the fighting force at U.S. Cyber Command will number more than 6,000 people by 2016, making it one of the largest such forces in the world. The force will help expand the president’s options for responding to a crisis with “full-spectrum cyber capabilities,” Hagel said, a reference to cyber operations that can include destroying, damaging or sabotaging an adversary’s computer systems and that can complement other military operations.
But, Hagel said, the military’s first purpose is “to prevent and de-escalate conflict.” The Pentagon will maintain “an approach of restraint to any cyber operations outside of U.S. government networks.”
Although some U.S. adversaries, notably China and Russia, which also have formidable cyber capabilities, may view his remarks with skepticism, Hagel said the Pentagon is making an effort to be “open and transparent” about its cyberforces and doctrine. The hope, senior officials said, is that transparency will lead to greater stability in cyberspace. [Continue reading…]
How Google and Apple avoid ruinous competition
Mark Ames writes: [O]ne the most interesting misconceptions I’ve heard about the ‘Techtopus’ conspiracy [between tech giants in Silicon Valley] is that, while these secret deals to fix recruiting were bad (and illegal), they were also needed to protect innovation by keeping teams together while avoiding spiraling costs.
That was said to me, almost verbatim, over dinner by an industry insider, who quickly understood he’d said something wrong — “But of course, it’s illegal, so it’s wrong,” he corrected himself.
The view that whatever Jobs and Google did to deny workers wages and lock up talent was necessary for innovation is likely much more widely held than publicly uttered. And yet, all the evidence in the pre-trial demonstrates the very opposite: That the non-solicitations stifled innovation.
A perfect example of this can be found in emails (Update: embedded below) and deposition testimony which have emerged, and been reviewed by PandoDaily, in the run up to the trial. The episode occurs in the spring of 2006, just a year after Google and Apple first forged their core secret non-poaching agreements. [Continue reading…]
Putin calls Obama to discuss Ukraine
After weeks of provocative moves punctuated by a menacing buildup of troops on Ukraine’s border, Mr. Putin’s unexpected telephone call to Mr. Obama offered a hint of a possible settlement. The two leaders agreed to have their top diplomats meet to discuss concrete proposals for defusing the crisis that has generated the most serious clash between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.
But it remained uncertain whether Mr. Putin was seriously interested in a resolution that would go far enough to satisfy the United States, Ukraine and Europe, or instead was seeking a diplomatic advantage at a time when he has been isolated internationally. While the White House account of the call emphasized the possible diplomatic movement, the Kremlin’s version stressed Mr. Putin’s complaints about “extremists” in Ukraine and introduced into the mix of issues on the table the fate of Transnistria, another pro-Russian breakaway province outside his borders. [Continue reading…]
Turkish security breach exposes Erdogan in power struggle
Reuters reports: Turkey’s spymaster discusses possible military intervention in Syria with army and civilian chiefs, and days later their words are broadcast on the internet for all the world to hear.
The breach appeared to highlight a disturbing truth for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan: that Turkey can no longer keep even top-level security planning secret, despite his purge of thousands of officials to root out a covert network of enemies he accuses of trying to sabotage the state and topple him.
“This crisis is one of the biggest in Turkish history,” a senior government official, who declined to be named, told Reuters. “A serious concern has certainly emerged regarding what follows now…If a meeting such as this has been listened to, others may have. We do not know who is in possession of them.”
Erdogan was out of public action on Friday, resting his voice strained by campaigning for local elections this weekend – the first in a string that will decide the future of a man who has reformed Turkey fundamentally but is now accused by critics of authoritarian and divisive tendencies. [Continue reading…]
Reuters also reports: If Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is fighting the toughest battle of his political career as corruption allegations swirl and elections approach, Turkey’s conservative Anatolian heartlands appear to have his back.
Here, far from dividing his pious core supporters, the graft scandal and bitter power struggle with a U.S.-based cleric have served only to stir more devotion to a man they see as Turkey’s greatest modern leader, delivering hospitals and schools and breaking the grip of secular elites over the past decade.
The run-up to pivotal local elections on Sunday has been overshadowed by a corruption affair that has seen almost daily recordings published anonymously on social media claiming to show illicit dealings by Erdogan’s inner circle.
One senior official called the crisis “one of the biggest in Turkish history” and the government has responded by blocking Twitter and YouTube, drawing public anger and international condemnation.
But in Konya, a conservative city that gave Erdogan’s AK Party 70 percent of the vote in a 2011 general election, many see the scandal as the prime minister does: part of a “dirty plot” to unseat him by ruthless and immoral political enemies.
UN brands polio outbreak in Syria and Iraq ‘most challenging in history’
According to the World Health organisation (WHO), the Iraqi case – found in a six-month-old unvaccinated child in Baghdad – is related to the outbreak in Syria, fuelling fears that the virus is spreading around the Middle East.
“The current polio outbreak in Syria – now with one confirmed case in Iraq – is arguably the most challenging outbreak in the history of polio eradication,” said a spokesman for the UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).
“Seriously damaged health infrastructure, poor health access and utilisation because of insecurity inside Syria, and massive movements of vulnerable and at-risk populations in and out of Syria – all make controlling the outbreak and rendering health protection to Palestine refugees in Syria and across the region very challenging.” [Continue reading…]
Obama may allow air defense help for Syria rebels
President Barack Obama’s possible shift would likely be welcomed by Saudi Arabia, which has been pressing the White House to allow the man-portable air-defense systems, known as “manpads,” into Syria. Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia on Friday evening for meetings with King Abdullah.
Allowing manpads to be delivered to Syrian rebels would mark a shift in strategy for the U.S., which until this point has limited its lethal assistance to small weapons and ammunition, as well as humanitarian aid. The U.S. has been grappling for ways to boost the rebels, who have lost ground in recent months, allowing Syrian President Bashar Assad to regain a tighter grip on the war-torn nation.
The actual manpad shipments could come from the Saudis, who have so far held off sending in the equipment because of U.S. opposition. [Continue reading…]
Defense: FBI wanted marathon suspect as informant
In court filings Friday, the defense asked a judge to order federal prosecutors to turn over any evidence on brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, arguing that it could help persuade a jury to spare Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death penalty if it supports the defense theory Tamerlan was the “main instigator” of the deadly bombing.
Dzhokhar’s lawyers say they want records of all FBI contact with Tamerlan based on information from the Tsarnaev family and others that the FBI “questioned Tamerlan about his Internet searches, and asked him to be an informant, reporting on the Chechen and Muslim community.”
The defense notes that a report issued earlier this week by the House Homeland Security Committee suggests that government agents monitored Tamerlan and his communications during 2011 and possibly 2012. The report said the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted a threat assessment of Tamerlan, an ethnic Chechen from southern Russia, in response to a 2011 alert from the Russian government that he was becoming radicalized.
Dzhokhar’s lawyers wrote: “Any surveillance, evidence, or interviews showing that Tamerlan’s pursuit of jihad predated Dzhokhar’s would tend to support the theory that Tamerlan was the main instigator of the tragic events that followed.” [Continue reading…]
The alarmist claims that the alliance can’t defend Europe from Russia are preposterous
A bizarre example of this is a March 26 New York Times story headlined “Military Cuts Render NATO Less Formidable as Deterrent to Russia.” The normally seasoned reporters, Helene Cooper and Steven Erlanger, note that the United States “has drastically cut back its European forces from a decade ago.” For instance, during “the height of the Cold War” (which was actually three decades ago, but let that pass), we had about 400,000 combat-ready forces defending Western Europe—whereas now we have about 67,000. In terms of manpower, weapons, and other military equipment, they write, “the American military presence” in Europe is “85 percent smaller than it was in 1989.”
Yet the article contains not one word about the decline of Russia’s “military presence” in Europe since that time. It only takes one word to sum up that topic: disappeared. The once-mighty Warsaw Pact—the Russian-led alliance that faced NATO troops along the East-West German border—is no more. And its erstwhile frontline nations—East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland—have been absorbed into the West, indeed into NATO. This is hardly an esoteric fact, yet its omission makes the Times’ trend lines seem much scarier than they really are.
Nor, even with its own borders, is the Russian army the formidable force it once. According to data gathered by GlobalSecurity.org, Russian troop levels have declined since 1990 from 1.5 million to 321,000. Over the same period, tank divisions have been slashed from 46 to five, artillery divisions from 19 to five, motorized rifle divisions from 142 to 19, and so it goes across the ranks.
In short, the United States “drastically cut back its European forces” because there’s no longer a threat to justify those forces. Nor does Putin’s seizure of Crimea augur a resumption of that threat—not to any degree that warrants anything like a restoration of NATO circa ’89. [Continue reading…]
The notorious Gitmo prisoner as a young man
Sawalha and everyone else knew his friend as Hani, who was a huge fan of Jackson and would sometimes “dance foolishly” when Sawalha put a cassette of the King of Pop’s music into a tape deck.
Eventually, they scored a grainy copy of the video and watched it over and over again as they tried to mimic Jackson’s signature dance moves.
Those were the innocent days of the mid-1980s, Sawalha said, before Hani became an alleged terrorist mastermind.
In November, Al Jazeera exclusively obtained six volumes of diaries Abu Zubaydah wrote between 1990 and eight days before his capture in Pakistan, 12 years ago Friday. The diaries, translated from Arabic to English by government translators, contain revelatory details about the Afghan civil war, the birth of Al-Qaeda, the rise of international terrorism and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11.
It was Al Jazeera’s first report on Abu Zubaydah’s diaries, the publication of volume one of the documents and the subsequent media attention about Abu Zubaydah’s normality that caught Sawalha’s attention.
He read the diary and spotted his name in a crucial entry, one of the most important in terms of understanding how Abu Zubaydah ended up embracing jihad.
In that June 1990 entry, Abu Zubaydah wrote that one night, while driving home with friends in Riyadh, he had disagreed sharply with Sawalha over the way jihad should be waged in Palestine. [Continue reading…]
Disembodied: The Internet’s ability to make us active in places we are not present
Neighbors told reporters that Farrenkopf travelled abroad for business, which is why, they assumed, they never saw her, and had taken it upon themselves to manicure her lawn. Farrenkopf had left her job as a contractor with Chrysler Financial a few months before her death, according to USA Today, so no one was expecting her at work. Her family lived far away and had lost touch with her, according to Reuters.
Farrenkopf also had a bank account with a very large sum in it, and — this is the postmodern crux of the story — she had set up her mortgage and utility bills to be paid automatically from it. As her body decomposed in her garage, the funds went out regularly. Last year, Farrenkopf’s money finally ran out. Her mortgage payments stopped, and the bank foreclosed on the house. Earlier this month, a contractor employed by the bank was examining the home when he discovered Farrenkopf’s body — which has been called “mummified” — in her car in the garage. Since then, police have been attempting to piece together the details of her life and death, to find some answers to the mystery of who she was and why she is gone.
Between those two moments — when she died and when her body was discovered — she was a kind of Schrödinger’s cat, biologically dead but also, in a way, among the living, paying for her power and phone, the roof over her head. Until her body surfaced, Farrenkopf’s institutional ties were the only things keeping her “alive.” [Continue reading…]
Pentagon alarmed as Russian troops mass near Ukraine border
Such an incursion could take place without warning because Russia has already deployed the array of military forces needed for such an operation, say officials briefed on the latest U.S. intelligence.
The rapid speed of the Russian military buildup and efforts to camouflage the forces and equipment have stoked U.S. fears, in part because American intelligence agencies have struggled to assess Russian President Vladimir Putin’s specific intentions.
The troop movements and the concealment—involving covering up equipment along the border—suggest Mr. Putin is positioning forces in the event he decides to quickly expand his takeover of the Crimea peninsula by seizing more Ukrainian territory, despite Western threats of tighter sanctions.
Still unknown, however, is Mr. Putin’s plan, or whether he has one. [Continue reading…]
Meanwhile, Reuters reports: Ukraine’s deposed president Viktor Yanukovich called on Friday for each of the country’s regions to hold a referendum on its status within Ukraine, instead of presidential elections planed for May 25, Russia’s state Itar-Tass news agency reported.
“As a president who is with you with all my thoughts and soul, I urge every sensible citizen of Ukraine: Don’t give in to impostors! Demand a referendum on the status of each region within Ukraine,” Yanukovich, who fled to Russia last month, was quoted as saying in an address to the people of Ukraine.
His comments, after Moscow annexed Crimea following a referendum there in favour of joining Russia this month, echo Russia’s call for Kiev’s new leaders to enact nationwide constitutional reforms that may grant broader powers to the country’s regions.
A Palestinian Bantustan won’t end the conflict
But in this case the prisoner issue serves as a substitute for, not an indication of, substantive political progress. The entire four-part prisoner release was itself a product of two things: PLO Chairman Abbas’ weakness – he failed to achieve either a settlement freeze or terms of reference for an Israeli withdrawal, prisoners were his fallback; and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cynicism – the releases are an easier domestic political sell and provide the opportunity (repeatedly) for depicting Abbas as a “terrorist-hugger.”
The current prisoners dilemma will likely pass, but the deeper malaise and impasse surrounding Israeli-Palestinian affairs remains.
The logic of the current U.S.-led effort is apparently predicated on the assumption that by offering Israel unprecedented security deliverables within a two-state deal (under a package put together by U.S. General John Allen), together with front-loading recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, that Netanyahu would then be unable to dodge a serious negotiation on territory. That logic, combined with the ever-present American unwillingness to deploy any leverage viz its Israeli ally. Predictably enough, the Israeli leadership has pocketed the American concessions, demanded that the Palestinians follow suit, and asked for more. [Continue reading…]
