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Showing posts from September 24, 2017

Dozens Arrested During Neo-Nazi March In Sweden

GOTHENBURG, Sweden:  Dozens of people were arrested on Saturday as neo-Nazis and anti-fascists clashed with police during a march by the extreme right-wing Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) in Gothenburg, Sweden on Saturday, police said. The NMR gathered hundreds of people for the march. Membership in Nazi organisations is not illegal in Sweden and the NMR had a permit from the police to march.  Swedish police said on their website that at least 20 people had been apprehended, and that one police officer had been slightly injured. A police spokesman later told Swedish state television SVT that an additional 10 people had been arrested. The police anticipated violence and had called in reinforcements from all police districts in Sweden and added 350 temporary jail beds in a police garage. Source https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/dozens-arrested-during-neo-nazi-march-in-sweden-1757128

After the Vote, Does the Kurdish Dream of Independence Have a Chance?

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ERBIL, Iraq — After a  century of yearning , the Kurds of  Iraq  have managed, at last, to pull off a vote for independence, but not without antagonizing nearly everyone in perhaps the world’s most volatile region. The question now is whether an arid, landlocked proto-state dependent on hostile neighbors can overcome is own shortcomings — and  Iraq’s disruptive retaliation  — to build a viable path to independence. With its troubled economy and dearth of democratic institutions, its prospects were already tenuous. Its best hopes lay in its oil reserves and American support, but Turkey has threatened to cut off its oil pipeline, and the relationship with the United States soured after the Kurds rebuffed its entreaties to cancel the vote. Rather than negotiate and then seek international recognition, as the United States and others had asked, the Kurds forged ahead with the referendum. But if anything, the vote, while satisfying the Kurds emotionally, may have set back their na

Russian envoy visits India, discusses Afghan peace process with officials

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative on Afghanistan visited India this week for a series of meetings with Indian officials on restoring peace in the war-ravaged country. Zamir Kabulov’s visit followed  US defence secretary Jim Mattis’s trip  to India and Afghanistan. Putin’s envoy has three decades of experience about the region and played a key role in shaping Russia’s policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is known for his open position about  US troops leaving Afghanistan  at the earliest, which doesn’t really gel well with New Delhi’s views from the security standpoint. Indian officials said the visit was part of continuing consultations on Afghanistan on topics ranging from terrorism, the Islamic State terrorist group and the future of the peace process. The Islamic State is expanding its footprints in the volatile country, a development that deeply worries Russia. For New Delhi, the visit came in the context of two developments — the Russian

A Fight for Catalonia, Whatever That Means

BARCELONA, Spain — The question of secession that is being put to voters in Spain’s Catalonia region on Sunday is being seen as a political confrontation between Madrid and Barcelona, or Spain versus Catalonia. Such a portrayal overlooks the social complexities and growing cleavages within the region of Catalonia itself, the lack of agreement in Madrid about how to respond to the secessionist movement, and the extent to which the debate over secession has also provoked irrational emotions that cannot be explained in political or economic terms. In fact, as politicians on both sides have raised the stakes, they have forced a vast number of citizens to take sides in a dispute over national identity in which they had zero interest seven years ago when I arrived in Spain. Back then, in speaking to people who were starting to struggle because of Spain’s financial crisis, I found that many couldn’t comprehend why politicians were awakening the demons of nationalism rather than solving mor

Chinese police order Muslims to hand in all copies of the Koran and prayer mats or face 'harsh punishment'

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Chinese  authorities are reportedly stepping up their campaign against Muslims in the north-western region of Xinjiang According to sources in the region, officials have been warning neighbourhoods and mosques that ethnic minority Muslim families are being forced to hand in religious items including the Koran and prayer mats. They face severe punishment if they are discovered. +6 Morning prayers: Chinese Muslims celebrate Eid which marks the end of Ramadan According to  Radio Free Asia , reports have emerged from Kashgar, Hotan and other regions of similar practices starting last week. The spokesman for the exile World Uyghur Congress group, Dilxat Raxit said they received a notification saying that every single ethnic Uyghur must hand in any Islam-related items from their own home. Copies of the Koran and related items must be handed into the government authorities, and there are will be notices being broadcast via WeChat, China's most popular social media app.  +6  Campaign: E

Ransomware has reached in the hands of common criminals: Take these steps to stay safe

NEW DELHI: In the first week of September, executives of a well-known publishing house met with a sudden crisis which had them seeking help from Delhi Police. The company had inter-connected computers through a common server across their offices in many big cities in India. All files—on more than those 150 computers across their offices—were overnight encrypted by a malware which demanded a high ransom to decrypt the data.   The company had fallen prey to the Locky  ransomware , which is believed to have affected millions of computer systems in over 70 countries, including India, in the past month.   Ransomware is a malware that hijacks computers, encrypts important files, denies access to them, and then asks the victim to pay ransoms to have the files decrypted. Ransomware spreads through downloading of malicious email attachments or visiting malicious websites.   In a short span of past eight months, four major ransomware attacks—WannaCry,  GoldenEye ,  Petya  and the latest, Locky—

Petry, co-leader of far-right AfD, to quit party altogether as strife deepens

Party co-leader Frauke Petry had already shocked her colleagues on Monday when she announced she would  not join the AfD's parliamentary group  in the Bundestag because of "dissent" with more hardline colleagues. Instead she will serve as an independent MP. The announcement soured the mood at the AfD, which was celebrating its historic feat of sending 94 MPs to the Bundestag after capturing 12.6 percent of the vote. While Petry did not say when she would officially quit the party, she said in Dresden on Tuesday that "it is clear that this step will follow," according to remarks carried by German media. Petry also stepped down from her post leading local AfD MPs for the eastern state of Saxony, prompting two more state-level lawmakers to quit the party ranks. Petry's husband Marcus Pretzell, who leads local AfD MPs in North Rhine-Westphalia state, also announced his plans to quit the party. "I spoke today with the group, and we came to a

Extra police called to Gothenburg to manage neo-Nazi demonstration

On September 30th the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) will hold a demonstration in Sweden's second city, following a previous march there earlier in the month. Gothenburg's Administrative Court has significantly shortened the original route, preventing it from passing near a synagogue where celebrations of the holy Jewish holiday Yom Kippur will be taking place, as well as the city's biggest exhibition centre, where the Gothenburg Book Fair will be held. Members of the NMR have previously suggested they will ignore the route change however, while the organization has also appealed the court’s ruling. The march is being treated by police as a "special event", and reinforcements will be brought to Gothenburg in an effort to police it. Counter-demonstrations are also expected to take place. "There will be a lot of police in Gothenburg on Saturday, both uniformed and in civilian clothing," police west district chief Klas Friberg said at a pre

Firewalls Don't Stop Hackers. AI Might.

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monsitj/iStock The cybersecurity industry  has always had a fortress mentality: Firewall the perimeter! Harden the system! But that mindset has failed—miserably, as each new headline-generating hack reminds us. Even if you do patch all your software, the way Equifax didn’t, or you randomize all your passwords, the way most of us don’t, bad actors are going to get past your heavily guarded gate, into your network. And once they do, they’re free to go wild. That’s why some in the industry are beginning to focus less on sealing borders from outside threats and more on sensing bad behavior inside as it happens—when it can be stopped. They’re shifting from military metaphors to the language of biology; they’re designing immune systems rather than barricades. Darktrace, founded by Cambridge University mathematicians and ex-British spies, uses machine learning to define what “normal” looks like for any network and all its devices and then report on deviations and anomalies in

Pakistan's contradictory crackdown on 'Red Mosque' extremism

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Authorities had recently stopped the firebrand cleric and the Shuhada Foundation from holding events at Lal Masjid. PHOTO: AFP/File  ISLAMABAD:  Despite public humiliation and periods of house arrest, the former leader of Pakistan’s notorious Red Mosque is inspiring a new generation of extremists with his old rhetoric – highlighting Islamabad’s ambivalent attempts to bring religious hardliners to heel. Ten years after the military raid on his mosque made international headlines and shocked his country, Abdul Aziz remains influential, overseeing a network of seminaries as he calls for a ‘caliphate’ to be established in Pakistan. During his time at the helm of the Red Mosque, Aziz shot to prominence for his inflammatory sermons, advocating jihad against the West and a hardline interpretation of Islam. Lal Masjid cleric announces another controversial event He spread this message among thousands of his students, mostly poor children from rural areas who are educated for

‘No one is above the law’: Russian internet watchdog threatens to block Facebook

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The head of Russian state internet watchdog Roskomnadzor has told reporters that Facebook must fulfill the demand to store personal data of Russian citizens on Russian territory or face forceful blocking as early as in 2018.  “ No one is above the law. In any case, either we will force them into observing the law or this company will stop working on the territory of the Russian Federation. There are no exceptions here ,” Aleksandr Zharov told Interfax when facing the question about the terms in which Facebook must bring their facilities in line with the Russian law demanding that all personal data of Russian citizens is stored on servers physically located inside Russia. Nationalists move to secure personal data of Russian internet users “ We will insist that the Facebook company fully observed the 242 Law. It will become precise in 2018 ,” Zharov said. “ We realize very well that Facebook has a lot of users on Russian territory and on the other hand we realize that this

CATALONIA REFERENDUM LATEST: Madrid pulls out all the stops to block independence vote

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SPAIN has launched an all-out assault on the Catalan government with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the prosecutor’s office and the judiciary all making moves to block a binding referendum on independence on October 1. By  Simon Osborne   PUBLISHED:  08:33, Thu, Sep 28, 2017   | UPDATED:  08:50, Thu, Sep 28, 2017 Catalan independence supporters take to the streets An unprecedented combination of legal action, police deployments and economic sanctions are disrupting the effort to hold the vote which has been declared illegal by Spain’s Constitutional Court. Police have been sent to hunt down ballot papers and materials related to the referendum, while media organisations have been warned not to broadcast official Catalan campaign advertisements related to the vote. More than a hundred websites related to the referendum have already been shut down by the authorities. The Catalan crisis looks set to rumble on whatever happens on Sunday Madrid has also essentially

UK counter-terror police arrest 11 in far-right National Action investigation

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Eleven people have been arrested across England and Wales as part of an investigation into neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action, Greater Manchester Police say. It comes after three alleged members of National Action, including serving British soldiers, appeared in court charged with terrorism offences. Neo-Nazi arrest: British graduate says he is a ‘prisoner of conscience’ The 11 men were arrested across the country on suspicion of offences including preparing terrorist acts, being members of a banned organization and possession of terrorism documents as part of the inquiry into the banned group. Those arrested include six men from the north west of England, one of whom is already in prison for a separate offence, two men from South Wales, two men from West Yorkshire, and one man from Wiltshire. All are between 23 and 35 years old. National Action became the first far-right organization to be outlawed in Britain last year after the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, whose