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Showing posts from March 1, 2020

Who will help solve Africa's piracy problem in the Gulf of Guinea?

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Maritime piracy has increased off the west coast of Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea, despite preventative measures. The issues lie on land rather than at sea. Is it time for the international community to intervene? Nine out of 10 maritime incidents of piracy and kidnappings for ransom are reported in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, which stretches 5,700 kilometres (3,500 miles) from Senegal to Angola. As the number of crew members kidnapped by pirates worldwide decreased, the number reported in the Gulf of Guinea increased from 78 in 2018 to 121 in 2019. From January to September last year, 82% of maritime kidnappings in the world  occurred in the Gulf of Guinea , according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).  The vast expanse has eclipsed the notorious waters off Somalia in the Horn of Africa to become the world's epicentre for pirate attacks, lootings and kidnappings. Read more:   African pirates kidnap 9 sailors from Norwegian ship PIRATE ATTACKS

Omnibus law for Indonesia’s maritime security

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For the last several months, “omnibus law” has become a popular mantra all over Indonesia. Indonesia’s president, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration is currently trying to take a big leap in creating jobs by proposing an omnibus bill on jobs and taxation. An omnibus law combines several pieces of legislation into one.  An omnibus law is a law that is created for a specific issue that might affect by changing or repealing a certain law to make it more simplified. Indeed, it has been widely known that Indonesia has many and complicated laws which sometimes contradict one another. It sometimes also causes an overlapping effect among authorities from different areas. One of the areas – which is complex and requires serious attention from the government – is the maritime security sector. Currently, Indonesia has at least 17 laws which regulate law enforcement at sea with nine law enforcement agencies in operation. Some of which are the Indonesian Navy, Ministry of Marine Affairs

Syria vows to continue war against terrorism following ‘positive’ Idlib deal

A senior adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the Arab country will continue its war against foreign-backed terrorism following a ceasefire agreement in the northwestern Idlib province. Assad's political and media adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, said “Syria fights terrorism on behalf of the whole world and it will continue to do so until it fully liberates Syrian land.” She added that terms of the ceasefire deal, agreed between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 5, were the outcome of the sacrifices and major gains of the Syrian army. Among notable terms in the ceasefire, she stressed, was the liberation of the strategic M4 and M5 highways. According to the agreement, joint Russian-Turkish patrols will secure a six-kilometer-wide corridor along the M4 highway connecting the two government-held provinces of Latakia and Aleppo. The ceasefire also consolidates Syrian control over the M5 highway which links the capita

New Putin-Erdogan deal is sugar-coating the Turks’ surrender

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This week’s meeting between Presidents Putin and Erdogan in Moscow was cast as preventing a war between Russia and Turkey in Syria. War, however, was never on the horizon. Putin called Erdogan’s bluff, and the Turk folded. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, accompanied by their respective senior national security advisers, met in Moscow on March 5. The purpose of this emergency summit was to negotiate the terms of a ceasefire that would bring an end to heavy fighting in Syria’s Idlib province that threatened to draw their two nations into direct military conflict. After more than six hours of meeting, a new agreement, packaged as an  “additional protocol”  to the  “Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the De-escalation Area as of September 17, 2018” (better known as the  “Sochi Agreement” ), was agreed to by both parties. A sputtering offensive Over the course of a week, from February 27 through March 5, Syria’s Idlib province tran

Seychelles passes new legislation against money laundering, financing terrorism

( Seychelles News Agency ) - Seychelles is intensifying its fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism after passing and signing new legislation this week. President Danny Faure assented to the  Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism Act  2020, and the  Beneficial Ownership Act  2020, in a ceremony at State House, Victoria, on Thursday. The bills were passed by the Seychelles' National Assembly on Wednesday. "The main aim is to address weaknesses that have been identified within our legal framework in regards to measures against money laundering and the implementations of measures to protect our financial sector from abuse by criminals who wish to hide their ill-obtained assets," said Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, the finance minister. The  Financial Investigation Unit  (FIU) will take on an administrative role where it will receive, analyse and disseminate reports on suspicious transactions. The unit will also keep inf

Indonesia to host Taliban at Afghan peace talks

JAKARTA: Indonesia is set to host Taliban representatives at a religious scholars’ conference in support of the Afghan peace process, officials told Arab News. Their attendance at the event follows the signing of a deal between the armed group and the US last month aimed at bringing peace to Afghanistan.  It will be held after Eid Al-Fitr celebrations in May. “We are planning to (host the conference), everything is in process,” Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told Arab News, adding that the conference sought to strengthen the role of religious scholars for a sustainable peace in Afghanistan. “We were with the Indonesian Ulema Council in Doha two weeks ago to discuss the preparations.” The conference is expected to attract 20 representatives from Afghanistan and 20 from the host country. The first such summit was held in Bogor, West Java, in May 2018. It was a trilateral meeting with representatives from Pakistan, but the Taliban was not present. Muhyiddin Junaidi, head of the interna

Third Turkish Journalist Arrested Over Coverage of Spy's Funeral

ISTANBUL - A third Turkish journalist has been arrested for reporting on the funeral of a Turkish intelligence officer purportedly killed in Libya, according to local news media reports. OdaTV editor Barış Pehlivan was arrested Friday as part of a state-led probe of OdaTV's coverage of the officer's quiet March 2 burial ceremony in the Manisa province of western Turkey. State prosecutors say Pehlivan, along with OdaTV news director Baris Terkoglu and reporter Hulya Kilinc — both of whom were detained March 4 — disclosed the agent's identity in violation of national law. Facing up to nine years in prison, Terkoglu and Kilinc Thursday rejected the charges in statements before the court. Agent already identified Kilinc said she published the officer's first name and the initial of his last name only after an opposition lawmaker had already publicly identified the deceased agent. "Since I learned that citizens and government officials also attended th

50 Pakistani fighters killed in Turkish strikes in Syria — Pakistan officials

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KARACHI: Up to 50 Pakistani fighters have been killed in military action by the Turkish army and Syrian regime forces in Syria’s last major rebel stronghold in the northwest of the country, officials told Arab News this week. Fighting has escalated dramatically in recent days in Idlib in northwest Syria, where Turkey has sent thousands of troops and military vehicles in the last month to counter Syrian government forces’ advances in the last remaining bastion held by rebels. On the opposite side in Syria’s nine-year conflict is Russia, which supports President Bashar Assad and has also carried out airstrikes in recent days. On Thursday, Turkey and Russia agreed to a cease-fire deal after talks in Moscow to contain a conflict that has displaced nearly a million people in three months. “The number of those [Pakistanis] killed is more than 50,” an official told Arab News on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media about the issue. Another government official

Microsoft Warns Of 'Devastating' Cybersecurity Threat To Windows Users: Here's What You Need To Know

Microsoft's threat protection intelligence team has warned of a "significant and growing" cybersecurity threat that can deliver a devastating payload. The FBI has warned about  how high impact a threat ransomware is , and now Microsoft is adding to the voices of vigilance. While ransomware threats such as the newly discovered strain of NetWalker that can  inject malicious code right into the Windows 10 explorer executable process  are bad enough, they are but the tip of a very worrying cyber-iceberg. The Microsoft threat protection intelligence team has described in comprehensive detail how one type of ransomware attack poses a significant and growing threat, particularly to business users, calling it one of the "most impactful trends in cyberattacks" that we face today. The good news is that despite being able to deploy what Microsoft refers to as devastating payloads, the attacks and the fallout that follows are preventable. All ransomware is not the same