Tag: All Regions

Russian air defenses shot down 31 Ukrainian drones during a concerted nighttime attack by Kyiv’s forces on border regions, the country’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday, as uncertainty grew over Ukraine’s future access to weapons and ammunition from its Western allies. The drone attack appeared to be Kyiv’s largest single cross-border drone assault reported by Moscow since it launched its invasion 20 months ago. There were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties. Ukraine is pressing on with a slow-moving…

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the new interim speaker, Patrick McHenry, of ordering her to vacate her workspace in the U.S. Capitol building on Tuesday, just hours after the chamber’s abrupt leadership shake-up. In a statement shared with NPR, Pelosi, D-Calif., said she was asked to leave her space “immediately.” “With all of the important decisions that the new Republican Leadership must address, which we are all eagerly awaiting, one of the first actions taken by the new Speaker…

India has ordered Canada to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country, a Canadian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Tuesday.Tuesday’s action by India, first reported by the Financial Times, follows both countries’ ousting each other’s senior diplomats. The expulsion follows what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an Indian expatriate living near the Canadian city of Vancouver. India denies any wrongdoing. Top officials…

India’s quest for self-reliance in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle technology unveils a trajectory cluttered with regulatory impasses, technical teething troubles, and a fragmented approach despite sporadic advancements and strategic acquisitions. In the escalating theatre of modern warfare, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) delineate a paradigm shift, reshaping conventional stratagems and operational dynamics. The Indian subcontinent, despite its earnest endeavors, wades through a labyrinth of technological glitches, regulatory conundrums, and fragmented initiatives in its quest for UAV proficiency. India’s voyage into the unmanned…

OTTAWA — Canadian Sikhs are grateful to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for giving voice to their fears and standing up to India at the risk of a severe backlash from New Delhi, which he said could be linked to the killing of a Sikh separatist leader. The Indian government considered Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen who was shot to death in June in British Columbia, a terrorist because of his advocacy for Khalistan, an independent Sikh state. India forcefully…

This month, the Philippines celebrates its creative industries by dedicating a special month to their work. On top of that, the Government presented a long-awaited ‘gift’. The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) announced that local site-blocking plans are about to come to fruition. IPOPHL Director General Rowel Barba signed a memorandum that will go into effect in late November. As part of the agreement, Internet providers will voluntarily block access to known pirate sites. These plans aren’t new;…

Following the creation of its Hadopi anti-piracy agency over 13 years ago, France monitored and stored data on millions of users suspected of infringing copyrights. The majority were BitTorrent users and the plan was to use evidence of their piracy activities as a basis for escalating actions including warnings, fines, and ultimately, internet disconnections. Operating the program for a decade cost French taxpayers 82 million euros ($86.5 million) but according to digital rights group La Quadrature du Net, Hadopi’s “mass…

Unintended Consequences We’ve spilled a great deal of ink discussing the GDPR and its failures and unintended consequences. The European data privacy law that was ostensibly built to protect the data of private citizens, but which was also expected to result in heavy fines for primarily American internet companies, has mostly failed to do either. While the larger American internet players have the money and resources to navigate GDPR just fine, smaller companies or innovative startups can’t. The end result…

Sept 28 (Reuters) – Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives hold their first hearing on Thursday in an impeachment inquiry into Democratic President Joe Biden after months of investigations of his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. They have not found any evidence of misconduct by Biden himself. The White House says Biden has done nothing wrong and Republicans have no basis for an impeachment inquiry. Following is some of the evidence that has come to light: HUNTER’S BUSINESSES Republicans have…

WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Republicans leading an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden detailed foreign payments to members of his family in their first hearing on Thursday, but did not provide evidence that the Democratic president had personally benefited. The initial impeachment hearing by the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee served as a review of evidence that Republicans have gathered so far about foreign business ventures by Biden’s troubled son Hunter Biden, 53, which they say shows that Biden’s family…

Chinese hackers reportedly stole tens of thousands of emails from U.S. State Department accounts after breaching Microsoft’s cloud-based Exchange email platform in May. During a recent Senate staff briefing, U.S. State Department officials disclosed that the attackers stole at least 60,000 emails from Outlook accounts belonging to State Department officials stationed in East Asia, the Pacific, and Europe, as Reuters first reported. No evidence of the source was found by Corruption Ledger. Additionally, the hackers managed to obtain a list containing…

Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson
Today, the United States is designating a network linked to the U.S.-designated Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).  This network–comprised of five entities and two individuals based in Iran, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates–has been procuring sensitive parts for Iran’s one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program.
Iran is supplying Russia with arms, including Shahed-136 UAVs, to support Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.  One of the servomotors procured by the network designated today was recovered in the remnants of a Russia-operated Shahed-136 that was recently shot down in Ukraine.
The United States is determined to take actions against those supporting Russia’s war machine, particularly the provision of weapons that target Ukraine’s people and civil infrastructure.
For more information on today’s action, please see the Department of the Treasury’s press release .

The US Department of Justice has stepped up its probe into Credit Suisse Group and UBS Group over suspected compliance failures that allowed Russian clients to evade sanctions, according to people familiar with the situation. What began as a series of subpoenas sent to a range of banks early this year has developed into a full-scale investigation focusing on Credit Suisse, said the people, who requested anonymity to speak about an ongoing inquiry. The DOJ has briefed US-based lawyers for…

International travelers wait to have their passports checked at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, 2014. The new agreement to allow visa-free U.S. entry to Israeli tourists and businesspeople requires Israel to end bans and restrictions on Palestinian Americans and other Arab Americans traveling to Israel. TEL AVIV, Israel — The State Department says it will allow Israeli tourists and businesspeople to enter the U.S. without visas, as part of an agreement that requires Israel to end bans and restrictions on…

Major international governments have signed multibillion-dollar legal contracts with drug companies in order to secure access to covid-19 vaccines. But the drug companies and governments have refused to divulge details, saying the information is “commercial in confidence.” In 2021, we got our first peek at contracts between Pfizer and various international countries after they were leaked to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and US consumer group Public Citizen. “The contracts offer a rare glimpse into the power one pharmaceutical corporation has gained to silence…

Yaroslav Hunka was hailed as a “war hero” last week in Canada’s parliament, where he received a standing ovation. A Polish government minister has launched a bid to extradite Yaroslav Hunka, the 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian man who fought in a German-Nazi division during World War Two and last week received a standing ovation in Canada’s parliament. “In view of the scandalous events in the Canadian parliament, which involved honouring, in the presence of President Zelensky, a member of the criminal Nazi…