Category Archives: News

How Russians pay to play in other countries

The New York Times reports: For a brief moment, it seemed that the powerful adviser’s head might roll at the Castle. After he lost his long legal battle over a hefty state fine, the Czech president warned him to pay up or lose his post.

Then a guardian angel materialized from Moscow.

Lukoil, the largest private Russian oil company in an industry dependent on Kremlin approval, stepped in to pay the nearly $1.4 million fine owed to a Czech court.

The aide, Martin Nejedly, stayed on as economic adviser to the Czech president, Milos Zeman, and vice chairman of his party. Perhaps more important, he retained his office right next to the president’s in the Castle, the official palace that looms over the capital, Prague.

But the payment last spring raised questions about Russian influence-buying in the Castle, where Mr. Zeman has staked out a position as one of the Kremlin’s most ardent sympathizers among European leaders.

“Unfortunately in the Czech Republic, some advisers to the president or the prime minister are willing to cooperate with the Russians,” said Karel Randak, who retired as head of the Czech foreign intelligence service in 2007. “I am not saying that they are Russian agents — but unfortunately for some people, the money is more important than the security of the Czech Republic.” [Continue reading…]

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Turkish authorities detain Wall Street Journal staff reporter Dion Nissenbaum for 2½ days

The Wall Street Journal reports: Turkish authorities detained a Wall Street Journal staff reporter for 2½ days this past week, without permitting him contact with his family or attorneys before releasing him.

The reporter, Dion Nissenbaum, 49 years old, left Turkey to return to the U.S. on Saturday. Police took Mr. Nissenbaum from his Istanbul apartment on Tuesday evening. He was released from a detention center on Friday morning.

A person familiar with the matter said he was held for allegedly violating a government ban on publication of images from an Islamic State video.

“While we are relieved that Dion was released unharmed after nearly three days, we remain outraged at his peremptory detention, without any contact with his family, legal counsel or colleagues,” said Gerard Baker, editor in chief of the Journal. [Continue reading…]

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Ceasefire in Syria: Turkish policy sets Syria on new path

Yezid Sayigh writes: If the ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey holds, it will be welcomed by most people in Syria – but the odds seem stacked against it.

Several previous ceasefires have collapsed, and new clashes have already broken out in several parts of the country amidst sharp differences in interpretation of the latest agreement by the Syrian opposition and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But not all past ceasefire attempts have failed. And this time dramatic shifts in Turkish policy towards the Syrian conflict may alter everything.

Political investment by major external powers is clearly critical for any ceasefire deal to succeed.

The “cessation of hostilities” that was brokered by the US and Russia in February 2016 produced a major drop in levels of violence in all regime- and opposition-held areas for some two months.

Its eventual collapse was likely, but not inevitable.

Other, more localized ceasefires were mediated by Iran in the city of Homs in May 2014 and January 2015 and by Iran and Turkey in the large towns of Zabadani, Foah and Kefraya in September 2015.

These were flawed and highly coercive arrangements that had to be renegotiated repeatedly, but they allowed the evacuation of fighters and wounded and some supply of humanitarian assistance.

Russia and Turkey appear sufficiently invested politically to make the latest ceasefire work.

But in seeking to encompass all parts of Syria not under Islamic State control, they are hostage to the two parties that have the least stake in a general truce: the Assad regime and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra until ending its formal affiliation to Al-Qaeda last July.

Their gradual military escalation and counter-escalation was the principal reason for the ultimate collapse of the February cessation of hostilities agreement.

Already, the Assad regime has claimed that the latest ceasefire does not include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. But opposition spokesmen say the opposite: that only areas under IS control are excluded. [Continue reading…]

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Evidence of Russian malware found on U.S. electrical company laptop

The Verge reports: A utilities company in Vermont has detected evidence of Russian malware, according to a report this evening from The Washington Post, which cited anonymous US officials. The code is said to be connected to a Russian hacking outfit the US government has named Grizzly Steppe.

According to the company, later revealed to be the Burlington Electric Department, the code linked to Grizzly Steppe was found on just one laptop, and the laptop wasn’t connected to the electrical grid — allaying earlier fears that Russia had hacked into the nation’s electrical grid. Owned by the city of Burlington, the utility firm confirmed the breach in a post on its Facebook page.

“The grid is not in danger,” Vermont Public Service Commissioner Christopher Recchia told the Burlington Free Press. “The utility flagged it, saw it, notified appropriate parties and isolated that one laptop with that malware on it.” [Continue reading…]

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Netanyahu corruption probe expected within days

Ynet reports: An Israeli TV channel reported Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is suspected of receiving valuable gifts from two businessmen.

The Channel 2 segment was the latest in a series of reports in Israeli media saying that police are close to opening a criminal investigation against the prime minister.Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is expected to order the head of police investigations to open the probe into allegations of bribe-taking and aggravated fraud leveled against Netanyahu.

The station said Netanyahu had accepted large-scale “favors” from businessmen in Israel and abroad. It said there had been a breakthrough in the case three weeks ago, but gave no further details.

Channel 2 said Netanyahu was the central suspect in a second investigation that also involves members of his family. It said some 50 witnesses were involved in the case.

The station, along with the Ynet news site, said a formal criminal probe is expected to be opened next week. [Continue reading…]

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‘Sometimes the baby dies, sometimes the mother’: Life and death in Yemen’s hospitals

The Washington Post reports: The infant was barely breathing when his uncle brought him to the hospital in a cardboard box. He was wrapped in a blue towel, and wads of cotton were stuffed around his frail body to keep him warm.

Muhammad Haithem was just hours old, born two months premature.

His mother had gone into labor when an airstrike by a Saudi-led coalition hit near their home in the town of Abs. The hospital there was destroyed by an airstrike in August. So the baby’s uncle put him in a pickup truck and drove three hours to the nearest government hospital, recalled Ahlia Ashumali, a nurse who received the baby.

A week later, Muhammad was still teetering between life and death. He weighed four pounds and was being fed through tubes.

Surviving even birth is a struggle in Yemen. After nearly two years of war, thousands of children and adults have died from easily treatable diseases, illnesses and injuries as the health-care system collapses. [Continue reading…]

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‘They looked like they were coming out of a concentration camp’: British surgeon treats Aleppo’s wounded

The Telegraph reports: For fifteen hours a day, the flow of wounded men, women and children from the remains of Syria’s largest city did not stop.

Aleppo residents – evacuated to the safety of the countryside after a six-month siege – came with bones jutting through their skin, limbs succumbing to gangrene and shrapnel still buried in their wounds.

“They looked almost like they were coming out of a concentration camp,” said David Nott, a British surgeon who returned to Britain last week after spending eight days in Syria’s Idlib province treating the injured.

Dr Nott works in operating theatres across three London hospitals but has made repeated medical trips into Syria since fighting started in 2011.

He trained many of the doctors who worked in east Aleppo’s makeshift hospitals throughout the regime siege and Russian bombardment and wanted to be there to help when 30,000 civilians and fighters finally left the city in early December under the terms of a ceasefire deal.

Over the course of a frenetic week of surgery, he operated on 90 people, including 30 children.

“The patients were really in desperate state” after months with little food and harrowing journey out of the city through snow and freezing temperatures, Dr Nott said.

“They were coming in not just injured but dehydrated, malnourished, and psychologically traumatised.” [Continue reading…]

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Anti-regime protests break out across Syria

TheNewArab reports: Anti-regime activists defied on-going regime air-strikes across rebel-held areas of Syria on Friday to launch a series of protests against the government.

Although the country’s civil society has reacted negatively to a new ceasefire which could leave Bashar al-Assad’s regime in power at least until the next general election, activists took advantage of the lull in bombing to hold protests.

Regime forces responded to demonstrations in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus, with heavy shelling. Twenty-one civilians have reportedly died in the Damascus countryside town over the last twenty-four hours. [Continue reading…]

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Putin says he won’t deport U.S. diplomats as he looks to cultivate relations with Trump

The Washington Post reports: In a rare break from the diplomatic tradition of reciprocal punishment, Russian President Vladi­mir Putin said Friday he would not deport U.S. diplomats in a tit-for-tat response to U.S. hacking sanctions, as Russia looks to cultivate relations with the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

“We won’t create problems for American diplomats,” Putin said in a statement released by his press service Friday afternoon, adding that Russia retained the right to punish U.S. diplomats in the future. He said he would “plan further steps for restoring the Russian-American relationship based on the policies enacted by the administration of President Donald Trump.”
The surprising decision came just hours after the Russian Foreign Ministry suggested that Putin expel 35 U.S. diplomats and close two properties used by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as part of a growing diplomatic slugfest over Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The measures were suggested one day after President Obama announced he would expel 35 Russian diplomats from the United States and order the closure of Russian-owned facilities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and on Long Island in New York believed to have been used for intelligence purposes. [Continue reading…]

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Why Russia-brokered Syrian ceasefire has chance of succeeding

Patrick Wintour writes: Labelled an international pariah only months ago by Boris Johnson, and warned he would be stuck in a Syrian quagmire by a patronising Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin ends 2016 if not as the undisputed victor, then at least as the man at the centre of decision making.

It is Moscow and not Washington that is calling the shots in the Middle East.

Reeling from its cold war defeat and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet empire, Moscow was unable to save Yugoslavia from what it termed western aggression.

But in the case of Syria, it can claim it has recovered its self-respect. In the process, it has built a brutal reputation for sticking by its friends, understanding the dynamics of the region better than America, and knowing how to use military power to forge diplomatic alliances.

The US, by contrast, ends 2016 out in the cold, holding a postmortem into the failure of its peace drive with Israel.

Many will rightly warn that experience in Syria shows ceasefires are fragile and do not lead to peace talks, let alone peace deals. But the unlikely Russian-Turkish peace drive has a propitious backdrop.

No single formula or manual exists for ending a civil war. But a sense of futility born of exhaustion, a decisive change in the military balance, a recasting of the key actors and a shift in the diplomatic alliances are all key ingredients, and in the case of the Syrian civil war all four factors exist.

After five years, hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and the displacement of millions, the Syrian people have experienced the deepest depth of despair. Whatever democratic hopes led to the rebellion, those dreams seem further away than ever. [Continue reading…]

Charles Lister notes: “Although excluded from the negotiations, JFS/AQ [Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra] has said behind the scenes that it’ll abide by a ceasefire so long as it exists 100%.”

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In the age of Trump nobody knows exactly what is going on

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump edged away on Thursday from his dismissive stance on American assessments of Russian hacking, saying he would meet with intelligence officials next week “to be updated on the facts” after the Obama administration announced sanctions against Moscow.

In a brief written statement, Mr. Trump’s first response to President Obama’s sweeping action against Russia, the president-elect reiterated his call for “our country to move on to bigger and better things.” But he said that, “in the interest of our country and its great people,” he would get the briefing “nevertheless.”

The statement to some extent echoed his remarks late Wednesday, when he was asked at his Mar-a-Lago estate about Mr. Obama’s plan to take action against Russia. In otherwise opaque comments, Mr. Trump appeared to concede the need to make computers more secure.

“I think we ought to get on with our lives,” he said. “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind, the security we need.” [Continue reading…]

How to create a distraction: Give short vague answers to questions while standing alongside a flag-waving Don King.

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Russia, Turkey, Iran eye dicing Syria into zones of influence

Reuters reports: Syria would be divided into informal zones of regional power influence and Bashar al-Assad would remain president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, sources say.

Such a deal, which would allow regional autonomy within a federal structure controlled by Assad’s Alawite sect, is in its infancy, subject to change and would need the buy-in of Assad and the rebels and, eventually, the Gulf states and the United States, sources familiar with Russia’s thinking say.

“There has been a move toward a compromise,” said Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“A final deal will be hard, but stances have shifted.”

Assad’s powers would be cut under a deal between the three nations, say several sources. Russia and Turkey would allow him to stay until the next presidential election when he would quit in favor of a less polarizing Alawite candidate.

Iran has yet to be persuaded of that, say the sources. But either way Assad would eventually go, in a face-saving way, with guarantees for him and his family.

“A couple of names in the leadership have been mentioned (as potential successors),” said Kortunov, declining to name names.

Nobody thinks a wider Syrian peace deal, something that has eluded the international community for years, will be easy, quick or certain of success. What is clear is that President Vladimir Putin wants to play the lead role in trying to broker a settlement, initially with Turkey and Iran. [Continue reading…]

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Cease-fire to begin across Syria starting at midnight, Syrian army says

The Washington Post reports: A cease-fire will take effect across much of Syria from midnight Thursday, the Syrian army announced, in a deal that opposition officials hailed as a rare chance to tamp down violence in the country’s bloody war.

In a statement posted to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the military declared a “comprehensive” cessation of hostilities following “victories and advances” by Syria’s armed forces.

But it said the deal excluded “terrorist organizations” including the Islamic State and the country’s al-Qaeda affiliate, now an influential component of what remains of Syria’s armed opposition. The caveat suggested that the fighting could continue in the northwestern province of Idlib, now the rebels’ final bastion.

Their most important stronghold, east Aleppo, fell earlier this month to a coalition of forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That victory is likely to be seen as a milestone in Syria’s five-and-a-half-year war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of Assad’s most important backers, announced earlier Thursday that agreements on a cease-fire have been reached with the Syrian government, Iran and Turkey. [Continue reading…]

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The FBI/DHS report on Russian malicious cyber activity

The FBI/DHS reports: This Joint Analysis Report (JAR) is the result of analytic efforts between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This document provides technical details regarding the tools and infrastructure used by the Russian civilian and military intelligence Services (RIS) to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election, as well as a range of U.S. Government, political, and private sector entities. The U.S. Government is referring to this malicious cyber activity by RIS as GRIZZLY STEPPE.

Previous JARs have not attributed malicious cyber activity to specific countries or threat actors. However, public attribution of these activities to RIS is supported by technical indicators from the U.S. Intelligence Community, DHS, FBI, the private sector, and other entities. This determination expands upon the Joint Statement released October 7, 2016, from the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security.

This activity by RIS is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information. In foreign countries, RIS actors conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks, including attacks on critical infrastructure networks. In some cases, RIS actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack. This JAR provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government. [Continue reading…]

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Obama targets Putin’s spies over DNC hack

Michael Weiss reports: In the last news conference of his administration two weeks ago U.S. President Barack Obama said that he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to refrain from any further hacking of the U.S. election. In Obama’s words, he told Putin to “cut it out” during a tense tête-à-tête at a summit in China just weeks before the national vote that saw a prominent Putin-flatterer win the White House. Obama intimated that the hacking was also done with Putin’s express permission, if not indeed ordered by him personally. The goal of the digital tradecraft, the CIA and the FBI now agree, was to further the election of Donald Trump.

Whether the former KGB spy accused by the British government of “probably” approving the murderous irradiation of a Russian dissident at a central London hotel was impressed by “cut it out” remains unclear. But intensified sanctions may be a very different matter. And the stage is now set in the United States for a potential showdown between the Republican controlled Congress and the new Putin-apologist Republican president.

On Thursday, Obama announced that by executive order he has sanctioned nine entities and individuals over the Russian government’s alleged cyber-espionage against the Democratic Party in general and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in particular. He has also given 35 unnamed Russian intelligence operatives 72 hours to leave the United States, and has ordered restricted access to two Russian-government-run compounds, one in Long Island, the other in Maryland.

The Obama administration sanctioned both Russia’s domestic and military intelligence services, the FSB and GRU, respectively, on Thursday. The U.S. also targeted four top-ranking officials of the latter organization, including its current chief, Igor Valentinovich Korobov, and three of his subordinates — Sergey Aleksandrovich Gizunov, Igor Olegovich Kostyukov, and Vladimir Stepanovich Alekseyev. None of these men is known to be a frequent or even occasional traveler to the United States, however, and so the punishment is largely symbolic. [Continue reading…]

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Russia, Iran ties with Taliban stoke Afghan anxiety

AFP reports: Allegations over Russia and Iran’s deepening ties with the Taliban have ignited concerns of a renewed “Great Game” of proxy warfare in Afghanistan that could undermine US-backed troops and push the country deeper into turmoil.

Moscow and Tehran insist their contact with insurgents is aimed at promoting regional security, but local and US officials who are already frustrated with Pakistan’s perceived double-dealing in Afghanistan have expressed bitter scepticism.

Washington’s long-time nemesis Iran is accused of covertly aiding the Taliban, and Russia is back to what observers call Cold War shenanigans to derail US gains at a time when uncertainty reigns over President-elect Donald Trump’s Afghanistan policy.

“(Russia’s) narrative goes something like this: that the Taliban are the ones fighting Islamic State,” top US commander in Afghanistan John Nicholson said recently, denouncing the “malign influence” of external powers.

“This public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact, but it is used as a way to essentially undermine the Afghan government and the NATO effort and bolster the belligerents.

“Shifting to Iran, you have a similar situation. There have been linkages between the Iranians and the Taliban.” [Continue reading…]

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With new monuments in Nevada, Utah, Obama adds to his environmental legacy

The Washington Post reports: President Obama on Wednesday created new national monuments in a sacred tribal site in southeastern Utah and in a swath of Nevada desert, after years of political fights over the fate of the areas.

The designations further cement Obama’s environmental legacy as one of the most consequential — and contentious — in presidential history. He has invoked his executive power to create national monuments 29 times during his tenure, establishing or expanding protections for more than 553 million acres of federal lands and waters.

Environmental groups have praised the conservation efforts, but critics say they amount to a federal land grab. Some worry that the new designations could fuel another armed protest by antigovernment forces inspired by the Cliven Bundy family, such as the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon this year.

Obama’s newest designations include two sprawling Western landscapes that are under threat, yet also where local residents are deeply divided on how the land should be used.

In Utah, where the federal government owns about two-thirds of the land, the designation of another 1.35 million acres to create the Bears Ears National Monument undoubtedly will prove polarizing.

For the first time, Native American tribes will offer management input for a national monument through an inter-tribal commission. Five tribes that often have been at odds — the Hopi, Navajo, Uintah and Ouray Ute, Ute Mountain Ute and Pueblo of Zuni — will together have responsibility for protecting an area that contains well-preserved remnants of ancestral Pueblo sites dating back more than 3,500 years.

“We have always looked to Bears Ears as a place of refuge, as a place where we can gather herbs and medicinal plants, and a place of prayer and sacredness,” Russell Begaye, president of the Navajo Nation, said in a call with reporters Wednesday. “These places — the rocks, the wind, the land — they are living, breathing things that deserve timely and lasting protection.” [Continue reading…]

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Netanyahu to be investigated for bribery, fraud

The Times of Israel reports: Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has reportedly approved a full criminal investigation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into allegations of bribery and fraud.

Netanyahu will be investigated by police for two separate cases and will be called in for police questioning in the coming days, Channel 10 reported on Wednesday.

Asked by The Times of Israel, the Justice Ministry — under whose auspices the attorney general operates — declined to comment Wednesday evening on the report. There was no immediate response from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Earlier this month, Zionist Union MK Erel Margalit and Eldad Yaniv, a lawyer and Labor party activist, petitioned the High Court of Justice to demand the Attorney General answer why had not yet opened an investigation despite what they called “overwhelming evidence.”

Writing on Facebook hours before the Channel 10 report, Yaniv said that Mandelblit “realized there was no other choice but to open an investigation’ after meetings with senior investigators.

“The police have weighty proof linking Bibi to suspicions of bribery and fraud,” Yaniv wrote. [Continue reading…]

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