Category: Leaks

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday officially declared Evan Gershkovich to be “wrongfully detained” by Russia. The Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested in Yekaterinburg last month and charged with espionage. “Journalism is not a crime. We condemn the Kremlin’s continued repression of independent voices in Russia, and its ongoing war against the truth,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said in a statement. Blinken’s designation means that the State Department will now involve its office that negotiates the release of “wrongfully detained” Americans abroad, and provide “all appropriate support” for Gershkovich.

The Department of Defense has sent over a criminal referral to the DOJ to trigger the probe, according to Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh. Meanwhile, an internal investigation has been launched to “review and assess the validity” of the documents, which “appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material.”  Photographs of scanned briefing slides were first posted on a messaging platform called Discord in January, but went unnoticed until last week. Since then, more documents have appeared on Twitter and Telegram as well, with the latest batch emerging on Friday.  According to Financial Times, their release has “sown chaos and paranoia among Washington’s national security apparatus ahead of a critical moment” in the Ukraine conflict, just as Kiev is about to launch a highly anticipated “counter-offensive.”

A California-based owner of a Tesla vehicle has sued the electric carmaker in a prospective class action lawsuit accusing it of violating the privacy of customers. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday. It came after reports on Thursday that groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras between 2019 and 2022. Henry Yeh, a…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has launched an investigation into the possible release of Pentagon documents that were posted on several social media sites and appear to detail U.S. and NATO aid to Ukraine, but may have been altered or used as part of a misinformation campaign. The documents, which were posted on sites such as Twitter, are labeled secret and resemble routine updates that the U.S. military’s Joint Staff would produce daily but not distribute publicly. They are…

French President Emmanuel Macron sought to rally citizens around a plan to save water on Thursday and stressed that protests will not stop reforms, in a nod to both climate change and an unpopular pension bill.

The water-saving plan includes 50 measures, such as fixing leaking pipes, adapting the way farmers and the nuclear industry use water and making water more expensive for those who use it in excess of basic needs.

“In the face of change, there are necessarily constraints, we must explain them, share them and make each and every one aware of their responsibilities,” Macron said.

This was the president’s first major policy announcement and public outing after weeks focused on the pension bill, which has triggered fierce protests across the country. With the water plan, Macron and his government are looking to move to other topics.

“There are protests, but it does not mean everything must stop,” Macron said.

The BNSF train derailed in the town of Raymond, roughly 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of Minneapolis, around 1 a.m., according to a statement from Kandiyohi County Sheriff Eric Tollefson.

This latest derailment happened as the nation has been increasingly focused on railroad safety after last month’s fiery Norfolk Southern derailment that prompted evacuations in East Palestine, Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border.

Residents in that town of about 5,000 remain concerned about lingering health impacts after officials decided to release and burn toxic chemicals to prevent a tank car explosion. State and federal officials maintain that no harmful levels of toxic chemicals have been found in the air or water there, but residents remain uneasy.

Last week, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen announced that his government could corroborate a report by the Russian gas giant Gazprom, the operator of the undersea pipeline, about a strange object found near Nord Stream 2. The company sent pictures of the item to Danish authorities, while the Russian government made a formal inquiry through its embassy, the minister said. Copenhagen treats the discovery seriously and will investigate further, Rasmussen pledged at the time.

The object was mentioned last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a TV interview. He said it was found during a Gazprom survey about 30 kilometers away from where the pipeline was breached. The device may be an antenna used in remotely detonating a charge, the president suggested, citing experts.

Moscow asked for permission to explore further, Putin added, necessary because the object is located in Denmark’s exclusive zone. Russia could organize a mission “on its own, jointly with [the Danes], or, better yet, with an international group of experts in explosives who are trained to work at such depth.” Rasmussen said such permission would not be granted, triggering a rebuke from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

A massive 20,000-gallon tank was found to be leaking ammonia at a facility in Auburndale, Florida early on Wednesday morning, a city spokesperson told a local Fox affiliate, noting that all employees were evacuated from the plant. Residents living in a two-block area near the plant were also asked to take shelter following the discovery, though the order was lifted several hours later, after fire crews successfully capped the leak. Clean-up operations were reportedly completed sometime around 3:30pm. There have…

CHISINAU, Moldova — On Friday, John Kirby, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, made a surprise announcement at a White House press briefing. U.S. intelligence, he said, had determined that the Kremlin was plotting to topple another European democracy. “Russian actors, some with current ties to Russian intelligence, are seeking to stage and use protests in Moldova as a basis to foment a manufactured insurrection against the Moldovan government,” Kirby declared. As if on schedule, Moldova experienced an antigovernment…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday dismissed allegations that Ukrainians could be behind the blasts that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year, and insisted the U.S. was to blame. Putin spoke after The New York Times, The Washington Post and German media published stories last week citing unidentified U.S. and other officials as saying there was evidence Ukraine, or at least Ukrainians, may have been responsible. The Ukrainian government has denied involvement.

Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper and German public broadcasters ARD and SWR reported that investigators believed five men and a woman used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company in Poland to carry out the attack. German federal prosecutors confirmed that a boat was searched in January but have not confirmed the reported findings.

Putin rejected the notion as “sheer nonsense.”

The Russian president has rubbished Western media reports that a “pro-Ukrainian group” was behind the attacks </p><div><p>Russian president Vladimir Putin has dismissed as<em> “nonsense”</em> recent claims that the attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines might have been carried by <em>“Ukrainian activists.”</em> The president made the remarks on Tuesday during his visit to an aircraft plant in the capital city of Russia’s Buryatia republic, Ulan-Ude. “I’m sure this is complete nonsense. An explosion of this kind – of such power,…

An analysis by Global Affairs Canada argues that Saudi Arabia is the “principal guarantor” of affordable oil for Western countries, as well as an important market for Canadian companies, The Breach reported on Monday, citing the seven-page document. Canadian weapons are crucial to maintaining Riyadh as an “integral and valued security partner,” the report claimed.  The analysis stands in contrast to Trudeau’s statements suggesting that he would like to cancel a CAN$14.8 billion ($10.8 billion) contract to export military vehicles…

Did China interfere in Canada’s elections? We don’t know. But journalists must not rely on friendly leaks for the truth.

The Pentagon’s efforts to improve U.S. force posture in the Pacific have yielded a flurry of major agreements, with allies motivated by China’s behavior. The Chinese Coast Guard ship made its presence known. First, the ship sped near the Philippine patrol vessel Malapascua close to the Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the hotly contested South China Sea. Then, it allegedly came within 150 yards, blocking the Philippine ship’s path in what government officials later described as “dangerous maneuvers,” before the Chinese crew pointed what Manila called a green “military grade” laser at some of the Philippine crew, temporarily blinding them.

China denied it was operating unsafely, but Philippine officials were unassuaged. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. summoned Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian to express “serious concern.”

A cellist is accused of helping Vladimir Putin channel $50 million into Swiss accounts. 4 bankers are also accused of not having checked the real source of the money. Putin is believed by some to have accrued vast wealth during his time as Russian leader. Four bankers have been accused of helping Vladimir Putin’s cellist best friend channel millions of dollars through Swiss bank accounts for the Russian president. Sergey Roldugin, a concert cellist, is accused by prosecutors of making…