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Showing posts from December 18, 2011

Somalia:Pirates hold ship carrying suspicious containers off the coast of Somalia

24 Dec 24, 2011 - 12:31:18 AM GARA’AD, Somalia Dec 24 2011 (Garowe Online) - A ship carrying suspicious containers is being held 40 km north of Gara’ad a pirate hub on the coast of Somalia, Radio Garowe reports. The ship is an unknown ship having no registration according to the mayor of Gara’ad Abdikarim Kayton, the ship is also carrying 60 closed containers of an unknown substance. Pirates on board the ship have said that the containers are carrying poison or some sort of chemicals according to local sources. The ship’s captain who is of Yemeni descent has been killed by pirates and the rest of his crew is being held hostage. Local authorities of Gara’ad have chased the pirates north of the town and have spoken to local media about their speculation of what the ship is carrying. Mayor Kayton who spoke to reporters stated that, “It is unclear of what the ship is carrying or where the ship was headed before pirates had hijacked, for all we know there are containers carryin

Cyber attacks growing threat, report warns

24/12/2011 The number of cyber attacks against government departments and private companies has increased over the past year, the National Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism warns. Companies and ordinary citizens are more at risk than government departments, the service warns in its first Cyber-Security report. Cyber attacks are becoming more frequent and are expensive to combat, the report notes. Cyber crime, the report says, is attracts more and more criminals because it requires little money, the profits are big and the likelihood of getting caught is minimal. Both national police and the armed forces are setting up special teams to deal with the growing threat from cyber crime, the government announced in response to the report. The cyber teams will closely cooperate with the military and general intelligence services. As of January, the new Nationaal Cyber Security Centrum NCSC will provide advice to companies and ordinary citizens on how to prevent and respond cyber attacks.

Germany: Neo-Nazi terror and the secret service

By Dietmar Henning 24 December 2011 Every week new details emerge about the murders carried out by the three far-right terrorists from Zwickau, responsible for killing nine immigrants and a police officer, three bomb attacks and 14 bank raids between 2000 and 2007. These details can lead to only one conclusion: Uwe Mundlos, Beate Zschäpe and Uwe Böhnhardt acted under the very eyes of the German security authorities and were partially aided by them. The group called itself the “National Socialist Underground” (NSU). In reality, it was not very deep underground. Its members attended demonstrations, concerts and other events, several times holidaying on the Baltic Island of Fehmarn, travelled abroad, and had many supporters and accomplices in right-wing circles—and apparently also within the secret services. Of 20 supporters of the three terrorists that are now known, all were members of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), or were in close contact with it. Insid

How the Soviet Union Transformed Terrorism

The USSR developed two tools that changed the world: airplane hijackings and state-sponsorship of terror Pilot Juergen Schumann sits in the open door of Lufthansa airplane Landshut at the airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Oct. 15, 1977, prior to being killed by members of the Red Army Faction who had hijacked the flight / AP This post is part of a 12-part series exploring how the U.S.-Russia relationship has shaped the world since the December 1991 end of the Soviet Union. Read the full series here. In the 1960s and 70s, the Soviet Union sponsored waves of political violence against the West. The Red Brigades in Italy and the German Red Army Faction both terrorized Europe through bank robberies, kidnapping, and acts of sabotage. The Soviets wanted to use these left-wing terror groups to destabilize Italy and Germany to break up NATO. State-sponsored terrorism was a deeply Soviet phenomenon, but its practice did not stop when the Soviet Union ended. While state sponsorshi

Pick of the week: Anjoliena jolie's in the land of blood and honey

Pick of the week: "In the Land of Blood and Honey" delivers a downbeat, erotic fable from the Bosnian war I’m here to recommend “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” which is a vivid, downbeat foreign-language melodrama set during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, crafted in a highly credible imitation of the Eastern European filmmaking style. But let’s be real, folks — if this really were a movie by a Bosnian director unknown in the West, with a cast entirely drawn from the former Yugoslavia, I wouldn’t be writing this article and you wouldn’t be reading it. Oh, I might see it (or I might not), but only because I’m that sort of person. If I managed to stick a two-paragraph review up on Salon at some point, only foreign-film aficionados and those with some personal stake in the Bosnia conflict — a war almost no one wants to think about today — would ever read it. But this Romeo-and-Juliet story about the love affair between a Bosnian Serb officer and the Muslim woman who becomes

Attacks Shake Iraq Again Amid Political Crisis

Baghdad, Dec 24 (Prensa Latina) Two persons were seriously injured in a bombing in the capital, a day after a string of 14 attacks that caused 65 deaths, said official sources amid a tense political crisis. Iraqi Police reported that a presenter of channel Baghdad TV and her daughter were severely injured, on Friday night due to the detonation of an explosive device planted under her car that was parked in a north area of the capital. The attack occurred just 24 hours after several areas of the city were shaken on Thursday by 14 serial bombings, killing at least 65 people and 176 were wounded, according to an updated report that also warned about the increasing sectarian violence. In fact, Iraq's Sunni Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi, accused the prime minister, Shiite Nouri Al-Maliki, of dragging this country into a sectarian war from the campaign against his faith community, taking into account the sudden resurgence of violence. The tension between both Muslim faiths le

Troops, Protesters Clash In Yemeni Capital

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — More than 100,000 protesters who entered Yemen’s capital Sunday after a 4-day march from another city were attacked by elite troops loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who opened fire with guns, water cannons and tear gas. Medical officials said at least three protesters were killed, including a woman. The crowd of protesters had marched from Taiz, a city that has been a major opposition center 170 miles (270 kilometers) to the south. The first of its kind protest, called the March of Life, aimed to put pressure on the country’s new government not to grant Saleh immunity from prosecution. The violence underlined the continuing turmoil in Yemen even after Saleh signed a U.S.- and Saudi-backed deal last month by which he handed his powers to his vice president and committed to step down completely in return for immunity. Protesters who rallied by the thousands for the past 10 months rejected the deal, demanding Saleh be tried for his bloody crackdown

Iran's War on Narcotics: Police Seize 580kg of Narcotics inNorthwestern Iran

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Law Enforcement Police troops have discovered and seized over half a ton of different types of narcotics in the country's Northwestern province of Zanjan during the last nine months, a provincial police chief announced on Saturday. Commander of the anti-narcotics squad of Zanjan's Law Enforcement Police Marefatollah Jouzi said that since the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2011) police forces have seized 580kg of narcotics throughout the province. He said that police have exercised 37 drug-combat plans during the aforementioned period to intensify the war on narcotics, adding that 30 drug rings have been disbanded and 2,600 drug-traffickers and dealers have been arrested for drug related crimes during the police operations. Jouzi further said that enemies are trying to change addiction behaviors in Iran in a bid to encourage addicts replace conventional narcotics, like opium, hash and heroin, with synthetic drugs as this kind of

EU to Support Anti Money Laundering Efforts in Peru

The European Union is to provide support to Peru to combat money laundering from the illicit drug trade, the head of the EU’s delegation in Peru, Hans Allden, said. “It is a clear priority of the European Union to reinforce the ambitions of Peru and other countries (in Latin America) regarding money laundering, in a wider context of the battles against international crime,” state news agency Andina reported Allden as saying. Allden added that the EU would support Peru’s implementation of its 2012 to 2016 national plan against drug trafficking, and hoped that the plan would have measureable results. He said Peru’s plan to combat drug traffic from several fronts at the same time was ambitious, implementing efforts to combat money laundering at the same time as coca leaf eradication efforts and controls on chemical supplies in the coca-growing areas. This week Ricardo Soberon, head of Peru’s drug strategy agency, Devida, made a presentation to 14 EU ambassadors regarding the plan and P

FARC commander demobilizes along with 9 other guerrillas

The commander of the 30th Front of leftist rebel group FARC, Jaime Renteria Mosquera, alias "Jefferson," demobilized Friday along with nine other guerrillas from his unit. Jefferson's group surrendered to authorities in the western town of Bahia Malaga, in the Pacific department of Valle del Cauca, under Colombia's Justice and Peace Law, which guarantees procedural benefits to guerrillas who decide to demobilize. "After 12 years of being in the organization, he [Jefferson] makes the decision to demobilize and benefit from the demobilization plan. It will be done in an individual process as with the other members of his organization," said the commander of the Colombian Navy, Roberto Garcia Marquez. The FARC's 30th Front led drug trafficking activities in the areas near the Yurumangui river and was responsible for multiple attacks against civilians on Colombia's Pacific coast, according to Caracol Radio. Jefferson's group had suffered heav

Heroes Of The Taj Hotel: Why They Risked Their Lives by ALIX SPIEGEL

On Nov. 26, 2008, terrorists simultaneously attacked about a dozen locations in Mumbai, India, including one of the most iconic buildings in the city, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. For two nights and three days, the Taj was under siege, held by men with automatic weapons who took some people hostage, killed others and set fire to the famous dome of the hotel. The siege of the Taj quickly became an international story. Lots of people covered it, including CNN's Fareed Zakaria, who grew up in Mumbai. In a report that aired the day after the attacks, Zakaria spoke eloquently about the horror of what had happened in Mumbai, and then pointed to a silver lining: the behavior of the employees at the Taj. Apparently, something extraordinary had happened during the siege. According to hotel managers, none of the Taj employees had fled the scene to protect themselves during the attack: They all stayed at the hotel to help the guests. "I was told many stories of Taj hotel employees

27 kurdish rebels killed in turkey

Ankara: Turkish security forces claim to have killed 27 Kurdish rebels in a helicopter-backed offensive in southeast Turkey, days after another major anti-PKK offensive. The rebels, including an alleged senior commander, were killed in a five-day long attack targeting caves and other hideouts on Mt Cudi in Sirnak province, which borders Iraq, the office of the governor said late on Friday. Five other rebels, suspected members of the autonomy-seeking Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were captured alive, it added. Pro-Kurdish news agency Firat confirmed clashes in Cudi, but made no mention of any rebel deaths. The announcement came two days after another major offensive against the autonomy-seeking group, also backed by airpower, left 21 suspected rebels dead in Diyarbakir province, some 300 kilometers (190 miles) away. The rebels, branded as terrorists by the United States and the European Union, are fighting for autonomy in Turkey's mainly

US: Al-Qaeda Faces Severe Financial Strain Due To Sanctions

(RTTNews) - The United States says that its designation of key members of al-Qaeda targeting a core al-Qaeda financial channel has drained the terror outfit's financial streams, and that it is "in a much worse financial position today than" it was a decade ago. This was stated at a special briefing by Assistant Director for Threat Investigations & Analysis Robert A. Hartu and Assistant Director of the Terrorism & Financial Intelligence Office Eytan Fisch to offer a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the location of Iran-based senior al-Qaeda facilitator and financier Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, better known as Yasin al-Suri. They said the designation of Suri and five other members of his al-Qaeda network on July 28 this year not only targeted a core al-Qaeda financial channel, but helped expose an agreement between Iran and the terror organization that allows the latter to move funds and operatives through Iranian territory. Responding to a

Yearender: Occupy Wall Street rings alarm over U.S. inequality

NEW YORK, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- They marched, chanted and gave speeches. They started from a private park on Wall Street in September 2011 and promised to carry on into the coming years. They caught attention from around the world and were joined by fellow protestors in Washington DC, in Portland, and in many other cities across the country. They are Occupy Wall Street protestors, who have sounded the alarm to U.S. policymakers over severe inequality in the country. "All they are doing is expressing themselves and letting their voices be heard," Doug Chalmers, professor emeritus of political science from Columbia University, told Xinhua. "They are angry at the inequality and impunity of the rich." ECONOMIC INEQUALITY FUELS THE RAGE "I think that the OWS movement is still doing a good job of keeping attention on the crucial issue of out-of-control income inequality and not getting distracted by the anti-war, anti-government or working class themes that mot

News laws to fight money laundering &terrorism passed by Parliament

At the Fifth Session of the Third Parliament which began in October and will continue until late next year, an Anti- Money Laundering and Combating of Financing of Terrorism Act were passed while a new Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) with powers to request and obtain any information that it considers relevant to an unlawful activity including money laundering and financing of terrorism was also passed as part of the Bank of Sierra Leone Act, 2011. According to new Act, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) may request and obtain any information that it considers relevant to an unlawful activity, money laundering activities or financing of terrorism and that is publicly available, including commercially available databases or information that is collected, or maintained or stored in databases, maintained by Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies. The FIU may enter the premises of a reporting Agency during business hours to inspect any record kept under section 41 and may as

Terrorist attacks in Damascus a "serious warning to government, opposition alike": analysts

DAMASCUS, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Syrian analysts and observers regarded the brazen bombing of two security centers in Damascus on Friday as "a serious warning to the authorities and the opposition alike," calling for convening an immediate national conference to find an outlet to the intractable impasse. Two suicide car bombers struck Friday the headquarters of the intelligence department building and the Region Security Branch in central Damascus, killing at least 40 people and wounding 150 others, an official told Xinhua. Syrian state TV immediately apportioned blame on al-Qaida and said initial investigations point out that al-Qaida group is behind the two blasts. "The bombings against the intelligence headquarters are a very serious warning as they are the start of terrorist attacks by al- Qaida," Ali Mahfouz, a political researcher and a member of the "Third Way" movement, which advocates a middle-of-the-road opinion between the regime and the gove

Interpol seeks arrest of breast implant company founder

0 PARIS: Interpol said Friday it is seeking arrest of Frenchman Jean-Claude Mas, founder of the breast implant company at the centre of a widespread women's health scare. Mas, 72, whose picture appears on the Interpol website, is listed as being sought in Costa Rica for offences concerning "life and health." France's health ministry Friday advised 30,000 women with breast implants made by now-bankrupt Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) to have them removed, saying that while there is no proven cancer risk, they could rupture dangerously. Tens of thousands of women in over 65 countries around the world have the same implants, made from industrial rather than medical quality silicone. Most of them live in South America and western Europe. PIP was shut down and its products banned last year after it was revealed to have been using the non-authorised silicone gel. Source http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Interpol-seeks-arrest-of-breast-implant-company-

Falklands II? South America blocks UK ships to islands

LONDON: Nearly 30 years after the United Kingdom went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, tension between the two nations ratcheted up once again with the British foreign office warning Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against closing their ports to ships bound for the South Atlantic islands. The sea bed in the region is learnt to possess vast mineral and oil wealth. Argentina, which claims sovereignty over the islands, along with Brazil and Uruguay, has barred British vessels from reaching the Falklands using a maritime blockade. A former British Naval chief called on Whitehall to send a nuclear submarine to the region. Earlier, a statement issued by presidents of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay said UK's ships "should not dock in Mercosur ports; and if that were to happen, they should not be accepted in another Mercosur port". Mercosur is a trading block comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The statement added that "all measures that

Militants kill National Conference activist in Kashmir

6 SRINAGAR: Separatist guerrillas Saturday morning shot dead a ruling National Conference activist in this Jammu and Kashmir summer capital, police said. Bashir Ahmad Bhat, a shopkeeper by profession, was shot at from close range in the densely populated Batmaloo area, barely two kilometres from city centre Lal Chowk. "Bhat was rushed to SMHS hospital where he succumbed to injuries," a police officer said. In 1996, Bhat's father Muhammad Jamal Bhat, a block president of the National Conference, was also killed by separatist guerrillas in the same area. The area is now being searched by the security forces. No group has so far taken responsibility for the murder. Source http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Militants-kill-National-Conference-activist-in-Kashmir/articleshow/11229766.cms

5 biggest security headaches of 2011

--TOI Tech Dubbed as 'The Year of hack', 2011 was marked by change, challenge, and chaos in information security history. With threats evolving in their sophistication, pervasiveness and frequency, the profile of a hacker also underwent a transformation owing to increasing rise in cyber crime that were designed to go under the radar and steal sensitive data from individuals, businesses and governments. Michael Sentonas, vice president and chief technology officer- APAC, McAfee, summarises security highlights of 2011. Hactivism A portmanteau of hacking and activism, 'Hacktivism' refers to using the skills of hacking to achieve an activist's goal. 2011 saw a rising tide of hacktivism among people who wanted their voices to be heard or who wished to attack the reputations of businesses and other organisations. In addition to defacement (the primary activity of hacktivists) and distributed denial of service, these attackers utilised social media for newer soph

6 DHS Cybersecurity Achievements in 2011

Not all federal agencies are equal when it comes to securing government IT assets. Whether through decisions made at the White House or provisions found in cybersecurity legislation before Congress, the Department of Homeland Security - among civilian agencies - is gaining more sway on how non-military, non-intelligence IT is secured. Whether one agrees with the elevation of DHS to lead the federal government's efforts in IT security, the department was busy in the cyber domain this past year. Whether one agrees with the elevation of DHS to lead the federal government's efforts in IT security, the department was busy in the cyber domain this past year. Here are six 2011 initiatives DHS touted that it contends demonstrates its critical role in IT security: The department's United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team responded to more than 100,000 incident reports, and released more than 5,000 actionable cybersecurity alerts and information products. U.S.-CERT provi

Capacity to Meet Threat to Internal Security Improved Overall Security Situation Remains under Control

Ministry of Home Affairs23-December, 2011 19:00 IST Capacity to Meet Threat to Internal Security Improved Overall Security Situation Remains under Control YEAR-END REVIEW Ministry of Home Affairs Government took several measures during the year to build capacity to meet the challenge to internal security. There was marked improvement in the situation in North East where various insurgent outfits signed agreements with the centre. There has been significant decline in the incidents of violent killings of the civilians and the security forces in the North Eastern States due to the consistent efforts by Ministry of Home Affairs. Dialogues/negotiations with Underground Outfits have been held and Suspension of Operation (SoO) has also been signed. Situation in J&K showed considerable improvement with far fewer incidents of violence, as compared to the last year. Left wing extremism and terror remained major concerns. Maoists were kept engaged with one of their top leade