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posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 02 2018, @04:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-coal-for-you dept.

The sanctions are part of a crackdown on smuggling of North Korean commodities in violation of UN sanctions resolutions.

The UN Security Council has blacklisted 27 ships, 21 companies and a businessman for helping North Korea breach sanctions, as the United States keeps up pressure on Pyongyang despite its recent overtures towards talks.

The sanctions were passed on a request from the US and they are part of a global crackdown on the smuggling of North Korean commodities in violation of UN sanctions resolutions, which were adopted in response to Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The sanctions designations were approved as the US moves to open talks with North Korea on its nuclear drive, with a summit possible between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un by the end of May.

Despite the diplomatic opening, the US has made clear they will keep the pressure on Pyongyang to shift course by pressing on with sanctions.

"We want to thank the members of the Security Council, as well as Japan and South Korea, for working with us to keep up the pressure and for their commitment to implementing UN Security Council resolutions and holding violators accountable," Haley added on Friday. 

Twenty-one shipping and trading firms were hit by an assets freeze. Three of them are based in Hong Kong including Huaxin Shipping, which delivered shipments of North Korean coal to Vietnam in October.

Twelve North Korean firms were blacklisted for running ships involved in illegal transfers of oil and fuel, according to the document.

Two other companies, Shanghai Dongfeng Shipping and Weihai World Shipping Freight, also based in China, were blacklisted for carrying North Korean coal on their vessels.


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Thursday March 29 2018, @07:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-ya-gonna-call? dept.

Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

The government of Ecuador has confirmed that it has cut off internet access in its embassy in London to Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, saying that he was putting the country's international relations at risk.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Ecuador said that the step had been taken because Assange had failed to abide by an agreement not to interfere in the South American country's relations with other states.

"The government of Ecuador warns that Assange's behaviour, through his messages on social networks, put at risk the country's good relations with the United Kingdom, the other states of the European Union, and other nations," the statement said.

[...] Ecuador temporarily cut Assange's internet connection in 2016, over fears that he was using it to interfere in the US presidential election, but it was later restored.

Also at the Miami Herald and teleSUR.


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Wednesday March 28 2018, @03:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the he-would-say-that-wouldn't-he dept.

North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un has visited Beijing for his first known trip outside of North Korea since he took power in 2011:

North Korea's enigmatic young leader, Kim Jong-un, made an unannounced visit to Beijing, meeting with President Xi Jinping weeks before planned summit meetings with American and South Korean leaders, Chinese and North Korean state news media reported on Wednesday.

[...] Mr. Kim made the trip to China at the invitation of Mr. Xi, North Korea's state-run Korean Central Television reported soon after the announcement in China. Mr. Kim was accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol-ju, as well as by his senior advisers, it said.

Mr. Kim told the Chinese leader that he was open to dialogue with the United States, including a potential summit meeting with President Trump, and was committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, according to an account published by China's news agency Xinhua.

"If South Korea and the United States respond with good will to our efforts and create an atmosphere of peace and stability, and take phased, synchronized measures to achieve peace, the issue of the denuclearization of the peninsula can reach resolution," Mr. Kim said, according to Xinhua's summary of his meeting with Mr. Xi.

Experts remain cynical:

Yang Xiyu, one of China's leading experts on North Korea, said that Mr. Kim was clearly trying to repair the North's deeply strained relations with Beijing, its traditional ally and benefactor, while opening new ties with its enemy South Korea. Even so, Mr. Yang said, that did not signal that Mr. Kim was willing to give up his nuclear arsenal, though he has told South Korean envoys that he was prepared to discuss the possibility. "He is starting a new game where he could make concessions on denuclearization," Mr. Yang said. "At most, he will cut the grass, but he will not pull out the roots."

Also at Reuters and Bloomberg.

See also: How does Kim tell North Korea he's giving up nuclear weapons?


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Monday March 26 2018, @11:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the does-any-other-nation-do-this? dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

UPDATE, March 23, 2018: President Donald Trump signed the $1.3 trillion government spending bill—which includes the CLOUD Act—into law Friday morning.

"People deserve the right to a better process." Those are the words of Jim McGovern, representative for Massachusetts and member of the House of Representatives Committee on Rules, when, after 8:00 PM EST on Wednesday, he and his colleagues were handed a 2,232-page bill to review and approve for a floor vote by the next morning.

In the final pages of the bill—meant only to appropriate future government spending—lawmakers snuck in a separate piece of legislation that made no mention of funds, salaries, or budget cuts. Instead, this final, tacked-on piece of legislation will erode privacy protections around the globe.

[...] As we wrote before, the CLOUD Act is a far-reaching, privacy-upending piece of legislation that will:

  • Enable foreign police to collect and wiretap people's communications from U.S. companies, without obtaining a U.S. warrant.
  • Allow foreign nations to demand personal data stored in the United States, without prior review by a judge.
  • Allow the U.S. president to enter "executive agreements" that empower police in foreign nations that have weaker privacy laws than the United States to seize data in the United States while ignoring U.S. privacy laws.
  • Allow foreign police to collect someone's data without notifying them about it.
  • Empower U.S. police to grab any data, regardless if it's a U.S. person's or not, no matter where it is stored.

Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-deflected-cloud-act-passes

See also: As the CLOUD Act sneaks into the omnibus, big tech butts heads with privacy advocates


Original Submission

posted by mrpg on Sunday March 25 2018, @08:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the true-or-false dept.

From the Vox:

Many American pundits seem to firmly believe that the country stands at a precipice in which young, left-wing college students and recent graduates are the leading edge of a rising tide of illiberalism that comes in the form of “political correctness” and poses a clear and present danger to free speech and rational discourse.

[...] The alarm about student protesters, in other words, though not always mistaken about particular cases, is generally grounded in a completely mistaken view of the big-picture state of American society and public opinion, both on and off campus.

[...] Since the 1970s, the General Social Survey has posed a question about whether five hypothetical speakers should be allowed to give a speech in your community — a communist, a homosexual, an opponent of all religion, a racist, and a person who favors replacing the elected government with a military coup.

Justin Murphy of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom aggregated trend data about all five kinds of speakers and found that public support for free expression has been generally rising


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Monday March 19 2018, @12:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the psychological-warfare-in-peacetime dept.

The Guardian has an article about a whistleblower from Cambridge Analytica, who claims to have devised a strategy to "weaponize" Facebook profiles, in order to use those profile for targeted advertising to sway the US elections in 2016.

The Cambridge Analytica Files: ‘I created Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower

(The Guardian headline titles are often crap). I read a few older articles, presumably by the same author: she had a series of articles in March--May 2017 about Cambridge Analytica being used as a weapon to convince British voters to vote for Brexit in the referendum. It seems that her investigative journalism encouraged this wistleblower to "come out" and be interviewed by her.

Here's one: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others (Churchill), but when does advertising cross the line into psychological warfare against your own population?

Additional coverage at The Register


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday March 15 2018, @04:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the blockchain-architecture dept.

"The blockchain method primarily used by those engaging in cryptocurrency transactions is a decentralized mechanism where all the information is stored in blocks, can be viewed and altered by registered users. In the case of Sierra Leone elections, allows the votes to be seen by voters who are registered within the system, in the public ledgers, but only allowed authorized persons to make any changes, this, in turn, prevents the chances of fraud since the voting information is available to all the blockchain users."

URL: https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Sierra-Leone-Announces-Run-Off-Elections-Becomes-First-Country-With-Blockchain-Powered-Elections-20180314-0013.html

I would personally like it if they would explain the mechanics of their so-called "blockchain" to us mortals.

As I understand a blockchain, it is an extensible data structure that (when used in a bitcoin context) incorporates sequentially applied, recursively structured self-referential checksum mechanisms to counter efforts at tampering with the contents of the blocks; usually, via recursive encryption.

~childo


Original Submission

posted by mrpg on Wednesday March 14 2018, @01:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the aku-soku-zan dept.

Japan PM, finance minister under fire over suspected cover-up of cronyism

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his close ally, Finance Minister Taro Aso, faced growing pressure on Monday over a suspected cover-up of a cronyism scandal that has dogged the premier for more than a year.

Copies of documents seen by Reuters showed that references to Abe, his wife and Aso were removed from finance ministry records of the discounted sale of state-owned land to a school operator with ties to Abe's wife, Akie.

Abe, now in his sixth year in office, has denied that he or his wife did favors for the school operator, Moritomo Gakuen, and has said he would resign if evidence was found that they had. Excised references seen by Reuters did not appear to show that Abe or his wife intervened directly in the deal.

Suspicion of a cover-up could slash Abe's ratings and dash his hopes for a third term as leader of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Victory in the LDP September leadership vote would put him on track to become Japan's longest-serving premier. The doubts are also putting pressure on Aso to resign.

Moritomo Gakuen is the school at the center of the scandal.

Previously: Land Deal for Nationalist School Linked to Japanese Prime Minister Abe by Critics

Related: Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Wins Election, Could Revise Pacifist Constitution


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Wednesday March 07 2018, @08:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the real-progress-or-false-hope? dept.

foxnews.com/us/2018/03/06/trump-cites-possible-progress-in-talks-with-nkorea.html

Trump commented Tuesday on Twitter after the South Korean government announced that North Korea has agreed to halt tests of nuclear weapons and missiles if it holds talks with the U.S. on denuclearization. South Korea and North Korea have also agreed to hold summit talks in late April.

Trump tweeted: "Possible progress being made in talks with North Korea. For the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned. The World is watching and waiting! May be false hope, but the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction!"

The Associated Press has some additional information:

While the offer of talks could ease tensions, the adversaries will still have to overcome deep mutual suspicion. The U.S. has consistently demanded North Korea give up its nukes, which the reclusive socialist state had previously insisted was off the table until Washington abandoned its "hostile policy" toward it. At a minimum, the Americans wanted a halt in nuclear and missile testing for talks to begin.

"Maybe this is a breakthrough. I seriously doubt it," Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told a Senate hearing Tuesday. He said his doubts are grounded in what he called failed efforts by previous U.S. administrations to negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear program.

Coats said Kim is "very calculating" and views his nuclear capabilities as "essential to his well-being as well as the well-being of his nation."

[...] Vice President Mike Pence said the U.S. would remain "firm in our resolve" whichever direction talks with North Korea go. "All options are on the table and our posture toward the regime will not change until we see credible, verifiable and concrete steps toward denuclearization," Pence said in a statement.

[...] On returning from Pyongyang, Chung Eui-yong, South Korea's presidential national security director, said North Korea expressed willingness to hold a "candid dialogue" with the United States to discuss its nuclear disarmament and establish diplomatic relations. Chung said North Korea "made it clear that it won't resume strategic provocations like additional nuclear tests or test-launches of ballistic missiles" while such talks are underway.

[...] But the administration will have difficult questions of its own as it gauges North Korea's intentions. An initial hurdle could be presented by U.S.-South Korean military drills that were postponed during the Olympics and are due to resume next month. North Korea is likely to push for a suspension of the drills which it views as a provocation and a threat, and may ask for relief from U.S.-led economic sanctions.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday February 25 2018, @01:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the vox-populi dept.

We had submissions from three Soylentils with different takes on the NRA (National Rifle Association) and the public response in the wake of an attack at a Parkland, Florida high school.

Public Outcry Convinces National Companies to Cut Ties with NRA

Common Dreams reports:

In the latest sign that the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida tragedy may be playing out differently than the fallout from other mass shootings, several national companies have cut ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA).

[Car rental companies] Alamo, Enterprise, and National--all owned by Enterprise Holdings--announced late on [February 22] that they would end discounts for the NRA's five million members. Symantec, the security software giant that owns Lifelock and Norton, ended its discount program on Friday as well.

The First National Bank of Omaha also said it would stop issuing its NRA-branded Visa credit cards, emblazoned with the group's logo and called "the Official Credit Card of the NRA". The institution is the largest privately-held bank in the U.S., with locations in Nebraska, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and South Dakota.

Additional coverage on TheHill, MarketWatch, Independent and Politico.

The NRA Just Awarded FCC Chair Ajit Pai With a Gun for His 'Courage'

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai joined the pack at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday alongside fellow Republican commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Brendan Carr—the architects of the recent order repealing net neutrality protections passed in the Obama era.

Upon taking the stage, it was announced that Pai was receiving an award from the National Rifle Association: a handmade Kentucky long gun and plaque known as the "Charlton Heston Courage Under Fire Award."

https://gizmodo.com/the-nra-just-awarded-fcc-chair-ajit-pai-with-a-gun-for-1823273450

These Companies are Sticking by the NRA

Fallout continues from the mass murder in Florida. The National Rifle Association is taking it up the wazoo. A national boycott is emerging. If you are old enough, you will remember that this is what brought down Apartheid in South Africa.

From the Huffington Post:

In what may be a pivotal moment for American gun law reform, the National Rifle Association has become the object of intense pushback from anti-gun activists and survivors of last week's mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 dead.

All the attention prompted the gun-rights group to break from its usual strategy of keeping quiet after mass gun deaths. NRA officials have gone on the attack to rail against the "politicization" of a tragedy, and going so far as to suggest that members of the media "love mass shootings" because of the ratings they supposedly bring.

The uproar has once again presented companies affiliated with the NRA, and its powerful pro-gun lobby, with a question: to cut ties, or to continue a relationship with a large but controversial group?

The NRA partners with dozens of businesses to spread its pro-gun message and provide discounts to its members, who number 5 million, according to the group. But this week, some companies have begun to jump ship.

Facing pressure from consumers, the First National Bank of Omaha said Thursday it would stop issuing NRA-branded Visa credit cards after its contract with the group expires. Enterprise Holdings, which operates the rental car brands Enterprise, National and Alamo, says it will end its discount program for NRA members next month, along with Avis and Budget. Hertz is out, too.


Original Submissions: #1, #2, and #3.