Tag: All Regions

Feb 26, 2022. (3:31 a.m. CET) SWIFT Preparing to Comply With Russian Measures  “We are engaging with European authorities to understand the details of the entities that will be subject to the new measures,” the organization said in an email. “We are preparing to comply upon legal instruction.” Feb 26, 2022. (2:12 a.m. CET) Elon Musk Activates Starlink Satellites for…

Ukraine ‘hits airfield in Russia’ with missile strike in latest blow to Putin’s forces after shooting down six helicopters and killing or capturing 800 troops around 10am local time (8am GMT) with several buildings on the site engulfed in flames. (DailyMail) Ukraine claims it has RECAPTURED airport on outskirts of Kyiv from Russian special forces, claims defense minister, as President…

Why are governments not requiring this safety precaution, which is easy to implement and has been shown in peer reviewed studies to defend against life-threatening repercussions? The precaution is known as ‘aspiration’ and consists in drawing back on the plunger once the needle has been inserted to see if any blood returns into the syringe, also clearly explained here by…

The CIA is still carrying out its own bulk surveillance program in the United States despite a legal ban on the agency carrying out domestic operations.

Gizmodo reached out to several of the people who are listed as top donors, asking them to confirm their donations, including a person with the name Thomas Siebel who donated $90,000, according to the leaked data. (Thomas Siebel is the name of an American software billionaire.)
One donor listed on the data set confirmed that he donated to the campaign. Brad Howland, who was listed as giving US$75,000 said in a written statement Monday that he supports the convoy. Howland is president of Easy-Kleen Pressure Systems in Sussex Corner, N.B. “We are thankful to be blessed enough to support their efforts to do what they have to do in a peaceful way until the government removes the mandates to restore all our freedom as pre-COVID,” he said.

Canadian troops in Latvia will soon be protected by a $227 million Swedish-designed short-range anti-aircraft system, Defence Minister Bill Blair announced Thursday in Brussels as NATO allies met to assess both the war in Ukraine and perceived threatening moves by Russia. The Canadian Army has been without a dedicated air defence to protect ground troops from attack helicopters and fast-moving…

INVESTAR, SFGP and other Montreal Real Estate Companies related to Serafino Oliverio, AKA Sergio Lopez, “considered by police to be the leader of the Montreal Mafia.”

The human rights lawyer, who was arrested on 8 September, was a member of the Hong Kong Alliance, an advocacy group which organized an annual candlelight vigil marking the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square.

Several other activists have been similarly arrested and charged under the National Security Law.

The law came into force at the end of June last year, giving Chinese central authorities greater power and control over all aspects of life in Hong Kong.

“Terrorism and sedition charges are being improperly used to stifle the exercise of fundamental rights, which are protected under international law, including freedom of expression and opinion, freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to participate in public affairs”, the Special Rapporteurs said, urging authorities to refrain from the using the National Security Law and to reconsider its application.

Named: Tom Barrack, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Donald Trump

On 10 June 2021, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee of the People’s Republic of China passed the Law of the PRC on Countering Foreign Sanctions (the “Anti-Sanctions Law”). The Anti-Sanctions Law establishes a legal regime for the protection of Chinese individuals and entities from what are deemed to be discriminatory foreign sanctions and for implementing countermeasures against such sanctions. Although…

On 16 March 2021 the UK published its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy titled “Global Britain in a competitive age”, which sets out the UK government’s overarching national security and international policy objectives through to 2025. The Review contains a number of references to the UK’s post Brexit sanctions regime and places the UK’s autonomous sanctions…

The ACLU published thousands of pages of previously unreleased records showing that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are sidestepping the constitutional right against unreasonable government search and seizure.  DHS has been buying access to and using large volumes of cell phone location information that has been “quietly extracted from smartphone apps” of U.S. citizens and others — using their…

Ukrainians’ distrust of the courts is higher than of any other government body. The Kyiv District Administrative Court has become the epitome of injustice and corruption in Ukraine.

Today, the Department of Justice announced a global resolution of its criminal and civil investigations into the opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma LP (Purdue), and a civil resolution of its civil investigation into individual shareholders from the Sackler family.  The resolutions with Purdue are subject to the approval of the bankruptcy court. “The abuse and diversion of prescription opioids has contributed…

Ukrainian citizens trust the Armed Forces of Ukraine the most (65% of respondents), followed by the church (63%) and volunteer organisations (63%). These are the results of research conducted by the Razumkov Center’s sociological service together with the Ilko Kucheriv.“Democratic Initiatives” Foundation. Within the research framework, 2,022 respondents, aged 18 and over, were interviewed in all regions of Ukraine (except…

On Monday, the Intercept published a classified internal NSA document noting that Russian military intelligence mounted an operation to hack at least one US voting software supplier—which provided software related to voter registration files—in the months prior to last year’s presidential contest. It has previously been reported that Russia attempted to hack into voter registration systems, but this NSA document provides details of how one such operation occurred.

According to the Intercept:

The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the US election and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed US government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.

While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A US intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis is not necessarily definitive.

The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into US voting systems than was previously understood. It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the document:

Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.

Go read the whole thing.