Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Trump has never heard of Salva Kiir

Mr Trump has reportedly never heard of South Sudan's president
US Senator Christopher Coons has revealed details of a conversation he had with South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, the Washington correspondent of the UK-based Guardian newspaper has reported.
Mr Coons said Mr Kiir told him that US President Donald Trump is his friend and he was looking forward to visit the White House.
The senator, who heads the Foreign Relations committee, told Mr Kiir that the US president had never heard of him, according to The Guardian's correspondent:

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Ethiopia landslide: Number of dead at rubbish dump hits 113

Rescue teams are using excavators to dig through piles of rubbish
The death toll from Saturday's landslide at a vast dump in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, has now risen to 113 people, local officials say.
A search operation at the Koshe landfill will continue overnight. As many as 150 people are believed to have been at the site during the landslide.
Meanwhile, the funerals of some of the victims have taken place.
The dump, which has served the city of four million for more than five decades, provided shelter for some.
The country is currently observing three days of mourning for those who died.
Hundreds of people attempt to make a living by scavenging at the landfill site, sifting through the rubbish for items they can sell. Some resided at the rubbish dump permanently.
More than 350 residents have now been moved from the site, the officials say.
A number of makeshift houses were buried under tonnes of waste in the landslide. Rescue teams are now using excavators to dig through piles of rubbish.
The authorities have been building Africa's first waste-to-energy plant near the landfill.
They plan to burn rubbish generated by Addis Ababa and convert it into electricity.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Ethiopia rubbish dump landslide: Search for survivors

Rescuers are using bulldozers and even bare hands to move tonnes of debris
Rescue workers are searching for survivors of a landslide that has killed 62 people at a vast dump in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.
Officials say the death toll for the Saturday night landslide at the Koshe landfill is likely to rise. A resident said 150 people were there at the time.
A number of makeshift houses are now buried under tonnes of waste.
The area has been a dumping ground for Addis Ababa's rubbish for more than five decades.
Rescuers are using bulldozers and even bare hands to move tonnes of debris as the search for survivors and dead bodies continues.
At least 10 more bodies have been recovered on Monday.
City authorities say dozens of people are still unaccounted for and could be buried under the rubble.
Dozens of others have been treated and discharged from a local hospital.
Communications Minister Negeri Lencho told the BBC that the government had appealed to the residents to leave the dump:
"We had plans to resettle the people. Unfortunately this landslide occurred in the meantime.

"But now more than 290 people living in the area have been relocated. We plan to support them so that they can live in a safe zone.
The area has been a dumping ground for more than 50 years

Katsela Mengistu, a 50-year-old father of two, is among hundreds of residents who have gathered at the site, waiting and watching anxiously for news about his family:
"I am just here waiting for news of my family members; my wife and two children - a boy and a girl. They are all buried under this landslide. The government is helping so we will just have to wait," Mr Katsela told our reporter.

Families relocated: Emmanuel Igunza, BBC Africa, Addis Ababa

Families that lived in makeshift houses near the area have gathered at the scene to seek information about missing relatives even as hopes fade of finding anyone alive.
Many of them are huddled in small groups talking in low tones, others crying and sobbing loudly.
Hundreds of people attempt to make a living here by scavenging at the landfill site, sifting through the rubbish for items they can sell.
Some people even resided at the rubbish dump permanently.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has offered his condolences to grieving families assuring them of a full investigation of the incident once rescue operations are completed.
The authorities have been building Africa's first waste-to-energy plant near the landfill.
They plan to burn rubbish generated by the capital's estimated four million people and convert it into electricity.

Friday, March 10, 2017

UAE releases 'unlawful sex' couple and drops charges


Iryna Nohai and Emlyn Culverwell met while working in the UAE
A couple jailed for a month in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over "unlawful sex" have been released and the charges against them dropped.
Ukrainian Iryna Nohai and her South African fiance Emlyn Culverwell were arrested in Abu Dhabi after a doctor discovered Ms Nohai was pregnant.
Sex outside marriage is illegal in the religiously conservative Gulf nation.
Mr Culverwell's mother had pleaded for their release, saying "the only thing they did wrong was fall in love".
Describing the phone call she received from her son on Friday to say that the charges had been dropped, Lynda Culverwell told South African media: "I didn't know if I wanted to scream or cry."
"I'm dreaming about my grand-baby‚" she added in an interview with the Times Live news website. "I have to resist calling them every two minutes."
Iryna Nohai, 27, had gone to hospital, suffering from stomach cramps.
But a local doctor reported her to the authorities after discovering she was pregnant.
When the pair failed to produce a marriage certificate they were arrested in the hospital.
South Africa's International Relations Department, which had said it was unable to offer the couple any help in the case, confirmed news of the release to local media.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Wikileaks reveals CIA hacking tools

The CIA has not said if the claims are true
Wikileaks has published details of what it says are wide-ranging hacking tools used by the CIA.
The alleged cyber-weapons are said to include malware that targets Windows, Android, iOS, OSX and Linux computers as well as internet routers.
Some of the software is reported to have been developed in-house, but the UK's MI5 agency is said to have helped build a spyware attack for Samsung TVs.
A spokesman for the CIA would not confirm the details.


"We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents," he said.
Whisteblower Edward Snowden has tweeted that the leak appears to be authentic
A spokesman for the UK Home Office was unable to comment.
Wikileaks said that its source had shared the details with it to prompt a debate into whether the CIA's hacking capabilities had exceeded its mandated powers.
The NSA faced huge embarrassment when many of its secrets were revealed by Edward Snowden, and now the CIA appears to face similar problems, the BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera said.

Hacked TVs

The effort to compromise Samsung's F8000 range of smart TVs was codenamed Weeping Angel, according to documents dated June 2014.
They describe the creation of a "fake-off" mode, designed to fool users into believing that their screens had been switched off.
Instead, the documents indicate, infected sets were made to covertly record audio, which would later be transferred over the internet to CIA computer servers once the TVs were fully switched back on, allowing their wi-fi links to re-establish.

Under a "future work" section, it is suggested that video snapshots might also be taken and the wi-fi limitation be overcome.
The CIA is alleged to have found a way to listen to conversations that took place close to Samsung TVs
Samsung has not commented on the allegations.

Apple attacks

Wikileaks also claims that as of last year, the CIA has built up an arsenal of 24 Android "zero days" - the term given to previously unknown security flaws in code.
Some of these are said to have been discovered by the CIA, but others were allegedly obtained from the UK's GCHQ agency as well as the NSA and unnamed third-parties.
Devices made by Samsung, HTC and Sony, among others, were said to have been compromised as a result, allowing the CIA to read messages on Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram and Weibo among other chat services.
It is also claimed that a specialised CIA unit was set up to target iPhones and iPads, allowing the agency to see a target's location, activate their device's camera and microphone, and read text communications.
The unit is also reported to have made use of further iOS "zero days" obtained from GCHQ, the NSA and FBI.
"It is longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters," GCHQ told the BBC.
"Furthermore, all of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate."
Other claims say the CIA:
  • was trying to find ways to infect vehicles' computer control systems. Wikileaks claims these might have been used for undetectable assassinations
  • had found ways to infect "air-gapped" computers - machines that are not linked up to the internet or other insecure networks. Methods are said to have included hiding data in images or hidden parts of computer storage
  • had developed attacks against popular anti-virus products
  • had built up a library of hacking techniques "stolen" from malware developed in Russia and elsewhere
Wikileaks describes its release as the first in a series of planned leaks about the CIA's cyber-activities, which it refers to as Vault 7.
It added that the material had already circulated among hackers who used to work for the US government as well as contractors in an unauthorised manner.

Analysis: Mark Ward, Technology reporter


Wikileaks's founder Julian Assange said there was a cyber-weapon proliferation risk
There is a huge amount of information in the CIA data dump but a lot of it, such as its apparent success in compromising smart TVs, is not that surprising. Lone researchers have managed similar hacks, so smart government agents were always going to be able to go further.
Plus, we kind of know that a lot of the modern internet-of-things gear is broken as all kinds of holes have been found in all kinds of gadgets - including cars.
What's more interesting is the work said to have been done on iPhone and Android handsets. That's because Apple works hard to make sure iOS is secure and Google has made a real effort lately to secure its operating system. For a spy agency, access to those gadgets is key because they travel everywhere with a target.
What is likely to hit the CIA the hardest is losing control of all the zero day exploits and malware detailed in the papers.
It is more than likely that the agency paid millions to build up an arsenal of tools that are guaranteed to work - largely because they are based on flaws, bugs and vulnerabilities that have never been seen before. Operating systems of all stripes are really big haystacks and the information in some of the leaks looks like a good map to all the needles hiding within.
With the zero days now largely burned the CIA may have to re-trench for a while but it will doubtless have other unused attack tools stored and ready to deploy.
What's potentially more worrying is that as information about the bugs gets out then the bad guys will pile in and use them.
We saw that with the zero days released in the much smaller Hacking Team data breach, and there is much more useful data to be found in this trove.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Trump signs new travel-ban directive

The White House releases an image of Mr Trump signing the new executive order
President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order placing a 90-day ban on people from six mainly Muslim nations.
Iraq - which was covered in the previous seven-nation order - has been removed from the new one after agreeing additional visa vetting measures.
The directive, which includes a 120-day ban on all refugees, takes effect on 16 March.
The previous order, which was blocked by a federal court, sparked confusion at airports and mass protests.

What is different about the new order?

Citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, the other six countries on the original 27 January order, will once more be subject to a 90-day travel ban.
Iraq has been taken off the banned list because its government has boosted visa screening and data sharing, White House officials said.
The new directive says refugees already approved by the State Department can enter the US. It also lifts an indefinite ban on all Syrian refugees

Iraqis, such as former US army translator Hameed Darwish, will no longer be subject to a travel ban, according to reports
Green Card holders (legal permanent residents of the US) from the named countries will not be affected.
The new order does not give priority to religious minorities, unlike the previous directive.

Critics of the Trump administration had argued that this was an unlawful policy showing preference to Christian refugees.

What does the administration say?

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly held a joint news conference on Monday morning to discuss the new directive.
America's top US diplomat said the order was meant to "eliminate vulnerabilities that radical Islamic terrorists can and will exploit for destructive ends".
Mr Sessions said that, according to the FBI, more than 300 people who entered the US as refugees are under investigation for potential terrorism-related offences.
The top US prosecutor said three of the countries were state sponsors of terrorism.
The other three, Mr Sessions said, had lost control of territory to militants such as the Islamic State group or al-Qaeda.
Mr Kelly added that unregulated and unvetted travel was putting national security at risk.
He said the US cannot tolerate "malevolent actors using our immigration system to take American lives".
None of the cabinet secretaries took any questions after the press conference

Analysis - Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington

Donald Trump has, at last, unveiled his new immigration order, and it looks like government lawyers - and not just White House political operatives like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller - have had their input.
Gone are the most controversial measures of the old order, such as preference for Christian refugees and the suspension of existing visas and green cards.
The details of the action's implementation are outlined with greater clarity this time, with more than a week before the new rules kick in.
It's still an open question as to what, if anything, this order will do to prevent violent attacks on US soil, given that past high-profile incidents have not involved individuals from any of the six named countries.
Mr Trump had promised bold action on border security, however - the kind of move that would unnerve traditional politicians and anger civil liberties advocates.
Given the early reaction from groups like the ACLU and Democratic leaders, the story is unfolding as expected.

Although Mr Trump's campaign-rally talk of sweeping Muslim bans are a thing of the past, his supporters will likely revel in the uproar and consider this latest move a campaign promise kept.

Why the delayed implementation?

This Syrian family were reunited at Chicago's O'Hare airport in February
The new order is set to take effect on 16 March.
White House officials hope the 10 days' notice will help to avoid some of the chaotic scenes at US airports that occurred on 27 January when the first executive order was announced without warning.
Travellers with valid visas who were in the air at the time found themselves detained by border officials on arrival.
Mr Trump had defended the lack of notice, tweeting that "if the ban were announced with a one week notice, the 'bad' would rush into our country during that week.

Will the new executive order face legal challenges?

Yes. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman - the state's highest ranking law enforcement officer - issued a statement on Monday saying his office is ready to take the Trump administration to court.
"While the White House may have made changes to the ban, the intent to discriminate against Muslims remains clear," he said.
"My office is closely reviewing the new executive order, and I stand ready to litigate - again - in order to protect New York's families, institutions, and economy."
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), an Arab-American grassroots civil rights organisation, immediately called for donations to fight impending legal battles ahead.

Friday, March 3, 2017

Eritrea rejects Ethiopian attack claim as preposterous


Eritrea has rejected reports that it was behind a foiled plot to attack Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam project (seeearlier post ), Bloomberg news reports . 
The Ethiopian government has said it killed 13 members of a rebel group sponsored by Eritrea who were planning to attack the vast infrastructure project.
"This whole accusation is preposterous and peddled for some sinister reason," Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel said in a message sent via Twitter, Bloomberg reports.
The minister added that he had never heard of the rebel group accused of planning the attack.
The site of the multi-billion dollar dam is located in the Benishangul region, a vast, arid land on the border with Sudan, some 900km north-west of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.