TheNewsGuru

Tag: Russia

  • Facebook’s Sandberg cites need to do more after reports of Russia meddling

    Facebook Inc’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said on Tuesday the company needs to step up its efforts to curb misinformation.

    Sandberg said this after research revealed that Russia-backed organizations targeted African-Americans.

    The groups targeted were those who favored Hillary Clinton in order to suppress voter turnout during the 2016 election.

    U.S. intelligence agencies had earlier concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help U.S. President Donald Trump by undermining Democratic candidate Clinton.

    “Two independent reports commissioned by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were released Monday on the Russian Internet Research Agency’s (IRA) use of technology around the 2016 election .

    The reports suggest that the IRA’s efforts had a disproportionate impact on communities of color,” Sandberg said in a blog post here.

    “We know that we need to do more: to listen, look deeper and take action to respect fundamental rights,” Sandberg said.

     

  • Ukraine’s farcical drama – Owei Lakemfa

    By Owei Lakemfa.

    When the Ukrainian government, against warnings by Russia, this Sunday, sent a tug boat, the Yani Kapu, and two gunboats, the Nikopol and the Berdyansk into the Kerch Strait in the Crimea controlled by the latter, it could not have been hoping for a joyous reception.

    It could also not have hoped that the small naval ships would over run Russian positions in the waters which Russia had barricaded since September. The barricade had followed an earlier drama of a claim of sovereignty by the same ships enacted in the same waters. This time, Russia seized the three ships and two dozen sailors including the intelligence officers on board.

    What might be surprising is Ukraine’s cry of “provocation” by Russia. It is also claiming a Prisoner of War status for the sailors, while Russia is treating them as criminal trespassers.

    Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s act of sending the three naval ships to breach Russian military defences in the Crimean waters is like a child slapping an adult, and then crying that the latter is reacting. It is unclear why Poroshenko decided to provoke Russian reaction. It might be part of an understanding with the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organsiation (NATO) to provoke war in the Black Sea.

    If this were the case, it means the Ukrainians learnt nothing from the five-day Russo-Georgian War. Georgia, led by President Mikheil Saakashvili believing that NATO would fight on its side, had in 2008, taken on the Russian Army. But NATO did not lift a finger, leaving the Georgians to be crushed by Russia. There is nothing to indicate today, that were war to break out between Ukraine and Russia, NATO would risk a Third World War by attacking Russia.

    On the other hand, the provocation could be part of Ukraine’s tactics to get the West impose fresh sanctions against Russia; but if it were to succeed in doing this, of what benefit will it be? What were the effects of earlier Western sanctions on Russia over the same Ukraine?

    Ukraine has enacted on the world stage a number of farcical drama presentations against Russia in order to turn the international community against its neigbour. So far, the most childish is the Tuesday, May 29, 2018 fake assassination of Russian exile journalist, Arkady Babchenko. The Ukrainian security services staged scenes in which the journalist was ‘shot’ three times, subsequently, declared dead and wheeled to the mortuary. The Ukrainian government went on to show footages of the alleged assassin, Valid Lurakhmanov, a ‘notorious Chechen hitman’. There was outrage across the world against Russia. A few days later, the Ukrainian Government produced Babchenko alive at a press conference saying it had faked the assassination for “propagandistic effect”.

    The Ukrainian government this Wednesday followed up its latest drama with an unrelated declaration of Marshall Law which it claims it introduced with the sole purpose of boosting Ukraine’s defence in the light of a growing aggression from Russia. While the state of emergency includes what it says is a partial mobilization and strengthening the country’s air defence and anti-terrorism measures, the government quite curiously included curtailing fundamental human rights in the measures. No such measures were introduced in 2014 and 2015 when the country witnessed an escalation of war in the Eastern part including the Crimea. It is not unlikely that the new law is aimed at curtailing the opposition as the Presidential elections approach.

    Stripped of all its melodrama, the real issue in contention is the Crimea which both countries claim. Crimea became part of the Russian Empire in 1783. So when the Russian Revolution took place in 1917, it was part of the successor Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Ukraine was also part of the Soviet Federation. In October 1921, Crimea became an autonomous Republic within the USSR. However, in 1946, it was stripped of this status, and in 1954, merged with Ukraine. As the USSR began to unravel in 1990, Crimea sought to regain its old status as an autonomous republic. But the process was still on when Ukraine became an independent country with Crimea, which has a 70 percent Russian stock, as an integral part.

    However, in the post-Cold War era, there was an ideological struggle with Eastern Ukraine being pro-Russia, and the rest of the country including the capital Kiev, leaning more to the West. These differences were reflected in the country’s elections. The 2004 Presidential elections resulted in a run-off in which Viktor Yanukovych a pro-Russian politician from the East was declared the winner. A protest in the capital Kiev followed. Called the Orange Revolution, the Presidential elections were upturned and the Supreme Court ordered new elections in which the rival candidate, Viktor Yushchenko was declared winner.

    However, Yanukovych again won the 2010 elections. This time, all agreed he was the clear winner and was sworn into office. However in 2014 there were again pro-West demonstrations in Kiev over the refusal of the government to sign a trade deal with the West; the Ukraine – European Union Association Agreement. Unlike the bloodless Orange Revolution protests, this was quite bloody with over 100 persons killed. This led to a coup in which President Yanukovych was ousted. He fled to Eastern Ukraine where the populace took up arms and declared themselves independent from the rest of the country. Half the Ukrainian soldiers stationed in the East defected to the side of the rebels and that war in which over 10,000 people have been killed, is still on.

    Crimea was part of the country that took up arms against the Kiev coup plotters. On May 25, 61 of the 64 parliamentarians at a sitting, voted for a referendum on autonomy, and 55 of them voted to remove the regional government. The Crimea population voted to rejoin Russia, and were accepted.

    The Ukrainian authorities claim that the votes in Crimea Parliament and the referendum were secured under duress and that the Crimea remains part of sovereign Ukraine. It is this sovereignty, Ukraine tried to assert by sending the three naval ships to the Kerch Strait in the Crimea.

    The disputes in Ukraine are likely to go on for a long time, but I think the country shot itself in the foot by using the populace of one part of the country to overthrow the legitimately elected government led by politicians from another part of the country. If Ukraine were to reunite, it will take more than the antics of the leadership in Kiev. For instance, it may need to consider the restoration of the Yanukovych administration as part of national reconciliation. If this seems far- fetched, so does the reunification of the country.

  • Ukraine bans entry to Russian adult men

    Ukraine has banned Russian adult men aged 16 to 60 years from entering Ukraine, the head of the border service, Petro Tsygykal, said in a televised meeting on Friday.

    “Today, the entry of foreigners is limited, primarily citizens of the Russian Federation – non-admission of citizens of the Russian Federation aged from 16 to 60, male,” Tsygykal said.

    Ukraine imposed martial law this week, citing fears that Russia was planning a full scale invasion after Russian vessels fired on and captured Ukrainian ships recently.

    On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he hoped the international community could help calm tensions between Russia and Ukraine over a ship standoff near Crimea.

    Guterres urged Russia to respect “the territorial integrity of Ukraine’’ and “avoid the worst’’ after Russia seized Ukrainian naval ships and their crews in a dispute over maritime access.

    “I hope the situation can be contained without escalation and is calling for international efforts for meaningful dialogue,’’ the UN chief said.

    NAN

  • Google suffers services interruption as traffic reroutes to China, Russia

    Google suffers services interruption as traffic reroutes to China, Russia

    Google on Monday suffered interruption of services due to a configuration error made by an internet service provider in Nigeria during a network upgrade that resulted in traffic being rerouted to China and Russia.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports MainOne, a major internet service provider, confirmed the development, but said “we are not aware that any Google services were compromised as a result”.

    “In the early hours of Tuesday, MainOne experienced a technical glitch during a planned network upgrade and access to some Google services was impacted. The error was accidental on our part; we are not aware that any Google services were compromised as a result. We promptly corrected the situation at our end and are doing all that is necessary to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” the ISP said.

    Prior to MainOne’s explanation, there have been speculations that Monday’s 74-minute data reroute to China and Russia might have been intentional, in what has been described as data hijacking.

    According to experts’ analyses, the type of traffic misdirection involved can knock essential services offline and facilitate espionage and financial theft. They can also be used to block access to information by sending data requests into internet black holes. Experts say China, in particular, has systematically hijacked and diverted U.S. internet traffic.

    However, according to MainOne’s spokesman, Tayo Ashiru, the problem was as a resulted of human error, saying “Everyone is pretty confident that nothing untoward took place”.

    He said engineers mistakenly forwarded to China Telecom addresses for Google services that were supposed to be local. The Chinese company, in turn, sent along the bad data to Russia’s TransTelecom, a major internet presence.

    Ashiru said MainOne did not yet understand why China Telecom did that, as the state-run company normally doesn’t allow Google traffic on its network.

    Explaining why the traffic rerouting resulted in disruption of Google services, Alex Henthorn-Iwane, an executive at the network-intelligence company, ThousandEyes, said the traffic diversion into China created a detour with a dead end, preventing users from accessing the affected Google services.

    He said Monday’s incident offered yet another lesson in the internet’s susceptibility to “unpredictable and destabilizing events. If this could happen to a company with the scale and resources available that Google has, realize it could happen to anyone.”

    The diversion, known as border gateway protocol route hijacking, is built into the internet, which was designed for collaboration by trusted parties – not competition by hostile nation-states. Experts say it is fixable but that would require investments in encrypted routers that the industry has resisted.

    ThousandEyes said the diversion at minimum made Google’s search and business collaboration tools difficult or impossible to reach and “put valuable Google traffic in the hands of ISPs in countries with a long history of Internet surveillance.”

    Most network traffic to Google services – 94 percent as of Oct. 27 – is encrypted, which shields it from prying eyes even if diverted. But work was interrupted on services like G-Suite, which Google CEO Sundar Pichai in February said had more than 4 million businesses as customers. G-Suite and Google Cloud combined generate about $4 billion in revenue each year.

    Google did not quantify the disruption other than to say in a statement that “access to some Google services was impacted.”

    The internet giant also said it had no reason to believe the traffic hijacking was malicious.

    Google Search, cloud hosting, and G-Suite collaborative business tools were among services disrupted.

     

  • Facebook blocks more accounts linked to foreign entity

    Facebook blocks more accounts linked to foreign entity

    Facebook on Tuesday said it blocked more accounts, in addition to the about 115 accounts it blocked over the weekend, in the run-up to the US midterm elections that saw Democrats capture US House majority.

    The company said a website claiming to be associated with Russia-based Internet Research agency published a list of Instagram accounts they claimed to have created.

    “We had already blocked most of these accounts yesterday, and have now blocked the rest,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cyber-security policy said in a statement, without disclosing the number of additional accounts blocked.

    The social network had blocked accounts on the eve of the US midterm elections after authorities tipped it off to suspicious behaviour that may be linked to a foreign entity, the company said in a blog post on Monday.

    Eighty-five of the removed accounts were posting in English on Facebook’s Instagram service, while 30 others were on Facebook and associated with pages in French and Russian, the post said.

    The company said it needed to do further analysis to decide if the accounts are linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency or any other group.

    Both Facebook and Twitter have taken down millions of posts and shuttered accounts linked to influence operations by Russia, Iran and other actors in the run-up to Tuesday’s US elections.

    US intelligence agencies concluded a Russian-state operation carried out a campaign of hacking and misinformation to undermine the 2016 presidential election.

    Russian agents believed to be connected to the government had been active in spreading divisive content and promoting extreme themes ahead of US midterm elections, but they were working hard to cover their tracks, according to government investigators, academics and security firms.

    Social media companies say they are now more vigilant against foreign and other potential election interference after finding themselves unprepared to tackle such activity in the US presidential election.

     

  • Russia plans to create long-term base on moon

    Russia plans to create long-term base on moon

    Russia plans to create a long-term base on the surface of the moon as part of its lunar programme and study the satellite with the help of robot avatars, Roscosmos Chief, Dmitry Rogozin. said on Tuesday.

    “This is about creating a long-term base, naturally, not habitable, but visited.

    “But basically, it is the transition to robotic systems, to avatars that will solve tasks on the moon surface,’’ local media reported.

    Rogozin said the first landing of Russian cosmonaut on the moon is scheduled for 2030, though he did not specify how much time it might take to progress from the start of manned flights to the moon to the creation of full-fledged base.

    “The Russian programme is more ambitious than what the U.S. did for its lunar programme in the 1960s and 1970s,’’ he said.

    The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth and is Earth’s only permanent natural satellite.

    It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar system, and the largest among planetary satellites relative to the size of the planet that it orbits.

     

  • Mid-term elections: U.S. warns Russia, China, Iran to stay off

    Mid-term elections: U.S. warns Russia, China, Iran to stay off

    The U.S. has warned against foreign interference in its mid-term elections, particularly from Russia, China and Iran.

    All the 435 House of Representatives seats, representing the 50 states are up for grabs in the election, holding on Tuesday.

    Thirty five of the 100 senate seats are being contested and gubernatorial elections are to be held in 36 states.

    “The United States will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from Russia, China, Iran or other nations,” U.S. law enforcement agencies warned.

    The agencies are the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – in coordination with federal, state, local and private sector partners nationwide.

    In a joint statement, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, DNI Director Dan Coats, and FBI Director Christopher Wray said they were continuing efforts to protect the elections.

    “Our agencies have been working in unprecedented ways to combat influence efforts and to support state and local officials in securing our elections, including efforts to harden election infrastructure against interference.

    “Our goal is clear: ensure every vote is counted and counted correctly.

    “At this time we have no indication of compromise of our nation’s election infrastructure that would prevent voting, change vote counts or disrupt the ability to tally votes.

    “But Americans should be aware that foreign actors – and Russia in particular – continue to try to influence public sentiment and voter perceptions through actions intended to sow discord.

    “They can do this by spreading false information about political processes and candidates, lying about their own interference activities, disseminating propaganda on social media and through other tactics,” the agencies said.

    They, however, said the American public could mitigate these efforts by remaining informed, reporting suspicious activity and being vigilant consumers of information.

    The agencies said actions that interfered in the elections were a threat to U.S. democracy and identifying and preventing this interference was one of our highest priorities.

    “On Sept. 12, President Trump signed an executive order that makes clear the U.S. government will not hesitate to defend our electoral processes or punish those who attempt to undermine them.”

    “Our agencies have been making preparations for nearly two years in advance of these elections and are closely engaged with officials on the ground to help them ensure the voting process is secure.

    “Americans can rest assured that we will continue to stay focused on this mission long after polls have closed,” the agencies said.

  • Breaking: U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions fires back at Trump

    U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has fired back at President Donald Trump following Trump’s comment that he “never took control” of the Justice Department.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Sessions had recused himself from the Department of Justice’s investigation into links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

    This resulted in President Trump lambasting Sessions in an interview with Fox News, in which he said he only hired Sessions as Attorney General because of loyalty during his presidential campaign.

    “What kind of man is this?” Trump queried of Sessions.

    “Jeff Sessions recused himself, which he shouldn’t have done. Or he should’ve told me. Even my enemies say that ‘Jeff Sessions should’ve told you that he was going to recuse himself’.

    “And by the way he was on the campaign, you know the only reason I gave him the job is because I felt loyalty – he was an original supporter. He was on the campaign, he knows there was no collusion,” Trump said.

    Sessions, firing back at Trump, in a statement released by Sarah Isgur Flores, Justice Department spokesperson, said, the Department of Justice will not be “improperly influenced by political considerations”.

    “I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President’s agenda – one that protects the safety and security and rights of the American people, reduces violent crime, enforces our immigration laws, promotes economic growth, and advances religious liberty.

    “While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.

    “However, no nation has a more talented, more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the United States.

    “I am proud to serve with them and proud of the work we have done in successfully advancing the rule of law,” the statement read.

     

  • U.S. to hit Russia with new sanctions on Aug. 22

    U.S. to hit Russia with new sanctions on Aug. 22

    Russia-U.S. confrontation is extending to the economic and trade field as Washington is poised to hit Moscow new and powerful sanctions on Aug. 22.

    Russia views the move as a declaration of “economic war”.

    The U.S. State Department said that Washington would impose new sanctions on Russia on or around Aug. 22 over the alleged poison attack on ex-Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, in the British city of Salisbury in March.

    According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the U.S. restrictions will possibly include a ban on foreign assistance to Russia and sale of military and dual-use items to the country, as well as renunciation of providing state loans and other financial aid.

    U.S. State Department officials estimated that the sanctions might affect hundreds of millions of dollars worth of exports, dealing a blow to about 70 per cent of the Russian economy.

    It might also result in approximately 40 per cent fall in workforce.

    “All I can say is if they ban banking operations or the use of any currency, we will call it the declaration of an economic war,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday.

    “And we’ll have to respond to it – economically, politically or in any other way, if need be. Our American friends should make no mistake about it,” he warned.

    News about the upcoming U.S. sanctions has thrown Russian ruble to a record low since 2016.

    The currency traded 67.72 per U.S. dollar on the spot market at the Moscow Exchange on Friday.

    Russian stocks also tumbled on Friday, with the ruble-denominated MOEX Russia Index falling 1.5 per cent and the U.S. dollar-denominated RTS Index dropping 3.68 per cent.

    Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov attributed the ruble depreciation partly to the new U.S. sanctions.

    But he added that the unstable situation on developing markets were also to blame.

    In spite the volatility, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s financial system was “fairly stable”, adding that it had proved its resilience in difficult times.

    Peskove said that Russia’s broader economy was recovering from years of recession.

    The Russian federal service for state statistics said on Friday that the country’s GDP grew 1.8 per cent in the second quarter of the year, up from 1.3 per cent in the first three months.

    Russia’s trade surplus surged 78 per cent year-on-year in June to reach 15.5 billion dollars, the Russian Central Bank said on Friday.

    On Aug. 5, Russia started imposing additional import tariffs of 25-40 per cent for a range of U.S. goods, including road construction, oil and gas industry, metal processing machinery as well as fiber-optics.

    The volume of the new Russian tariffs, in retaliation for U.S. extra tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and of 10 per cent on aluminum starting March 23, will amount to 87.6 million dollars a year.

    The U.S. also seeks to contain Moscow’s energy sector, which the Russian economy heavily depends on.

    Medvedev on Friday criticised Washington for forcing European countries to buy more U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) and complicating the construction of a new Russian gas pipeline to Europe.

    Russia’s Nord Stream two will expand the existing Nord Stream main gas pipeline by linking Russia and Germany via the Baltic seabed, bypassing Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and other eastern European and Baltic countries.

    U.S. President Donald Trump lashed the German government for agreeing on the project in July at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in Brussels, saying that the pipeline would make Germany dependent on Russia.

    Peskov said Trump’s criticism was aimed at promoting sales of U.S. LNG to Europe and the Kremlin considered this to be a manifestation of unfair competition.

    Xinhua/NAN

  • US sanctions Russian bank over North Korea transaction

    US sanctions Russian bank over North Korea transaction

    The United States Treasury on Friday sanctioned Russia’s Agrosoyuz Commercial Bank for allegedly facilitating a financial transaction on behalf of a North Korean official involved in the country’s nuclear programme.

    “Today’s action targets a Russian bank for knowingly facilitating a significant transaction on behalf of an individual designated for weapons of mass destruction-related activities in connection with North Korea,” a statement said.

    Any property of the bank is blocked and US persons cannot do transactions with the institution.

    The US also put in place measures against a facilitator for a North Korean bank and two front companies for that institution, the Foreign Trade Bank, which the Treasury said is the main foreign exchange bank of Pyongyang.

    The move comes even as US President Donald Trump continues to laud his efforts to negotiate a nuclear-disarmament deal with North Korea and regularly points to his relationship with that country’s dictator, Kim Jong-Un.

    This week, North Korea returned the remains of US servicemen killed in the Korean War.

    (NAN)