Category: All News
400,000 calls made to Japanese Embassy in China over radioactive water
Over 400,000 nuisance calls in total have been made to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing since the release of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea began in late August, Japanese government sources said Tuesday. On the back of growing anti-Japan sentiment in China, the daily number of harassing calls received by the embassy peaked at more than 40,000 on Aug 25, a day after the ocean discharge started, and has stayed at around…
Tornado at Pfizer plant accentuates US drug shortage issues
On 20 July, a tornado tore through a Pfizer plant in Rocky Mount, US, destroying part of a large facility in that makes sterile injectable drugs. The twister caused extensive damage to warehouses storing critical hospital supplies such as dopamine, potassium acetate and vitamin K1 for babies. The facility manufactures a quarter of Pfizer’s sterile injectables for US hospitals, comprising around 8% of total US consumption. While production facilities remained largely unscathed, they had to be stopped. ‘In this highly…
UK intelligence spun 2013 Syria chemical attack, leaked docs show
US officials suppressed internal assessments that Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing had an “advanced” sarin production cell even as the US publicly blamed the Assad government for a 2013 chemical weapons attack, a report reveals. Leaked documents obtained by The Grayzone show a shadowy British intelligence contractor helped sell the story that Assad was responsible – and nearly triggered Western intervention. On September 13, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) appraisal detailing the chemical…
What we know about the Marine Corps F-35 crash in South Carolina
The crash of an F-35B Joint Strike Fighter aircraft in South Carolina over the weekend has raised numerous questions about what prompted the pilot to eject and how the $100 million warplane was able to keep flying pilotless for 60 miles before crashing. Here’s what is known about the modern warplane and its latest incident: ‘Forced to eject’ A U.S. Marine Corps pilot was flying a single-seat F-35B fighter jet on Sunday when the pilot experienced a malfunction and was “forced…
Florida: West Point sued over using race as an admissions factor
West Point was accused in a federal lawsuit Tuesday of improperly using race and ethnicity as factors in admissions by the same group behind the legal challenge that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court striking down affirmative action in college admissions. Students for Fair Admissions claims the U.S. Military Academy sets benchmarks for how many Black, Hispanic and Asian cadets there should be in each class. The lawsuit filed in New York’s Southern District claims West Point is violating the Fifth Amendment…
War crimes tribunal ICC says it has been hacked
The International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Tuesday its computer system had been hacked, a breach at one of the world’s most high-profile international institutions and one that handles highly sensitive information about war crimes. The ICC said it had detected unusual activity on its computer network at the end of last week, prompting a response that was still ongoing. A spokesperson declined to comment on how serious the hack was, whether it has been fully resolved, or who might…
NYT: Evidence Suggests Ukraine Carried Out Missile Strike on Ukrainian Market Which They Blamed Russia
Ukrainian forces carried out a missile strike on a market in eastern Ukraine and then falsely blamed Russia for the attack, according to analysis from the New York Times. From The New York Times, “Evidence Suggests Ukrainian Missile Caused Market Tragedy”: The Sept. 6 missile strike on Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine was one of the deadliest in the country in months, killing at least 15 civilians and injuring more than 30 others. The weapon’s payload of metal fragments struck a…
BAE to Explore Heavy-Lift Civilian Hybrid Airship for Military Role
BAE Systems and Hybrid Air Vehicles have agreed to jointly explore a long-range hybrid airship system for security and defense applications. Hybrid’s Airlander 10 will be trialed for new ways of communication and intelligence gathering, according to BAE. It is an “alternative sustainable and cost-effective solution to air logistics and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities,” according to Hybrid. It complements “today’s networks of air, space, and surface systems.” Heavy-Lift, High-Endurance Aircraft The Airlander 10 can stay airborne for up to…
Microsoft leaks 38TB of private data via unsecured Azure storage
The Microsoft AI research division accidentally leaked dozens of terabytes of sensitive data starting in July 2020 while contributing open-source AI learning models to a public GitHub repository. Almost three years later, this was discovered by cloud security firm Wiz whose security researchers found that a Microsoft employee inadvertently shared the URL for a misconfigured Azure Blob storage bucket containing the leaked information. Microsoft linked the data exposure to using an excessively permissive Shared Access Signature (SAS) token, which allowed full…
Ramifications under trade credit & political risk insurance policies for insured’s decision to voluntarily cease business operations within a country
The ongoing imposition of sanctions against Russia arising from the attack upon Ukraine creates a number of significant issues for insurers which have written trade credit and/or political risk insurance policies. Even where sanctions have not forbidden companies’ business in Russia, many companies have voluntarily chosen to withdraw from the Russian market, in whole or in part. Companies which have voluntarily decided to withdraw from Russia are finding that their Russian counterparties are deeming the voluntary withdrawal to be…
