Category: World

Snowden fingers Dropbox, Facebook, Google as hostile to privacy

Edward Snowden has hit out at Dropbox and other services he says are “hostile to privacy,” urging web users to abandon unencrypted communication and adjust privacy settings to prevent governments from spying on them in increasingly intrusive ways.

“We are no longer citizens, we no longer have leaders. We’re subjects, and we have rulers,” Snowden told The New Yorker magazine in a comprehensive hour-long interview.

There isn’t enough investment into security research, into understanding how metadata could better be protected and why that is more necessary today than yesterday, he said.

The whistleblower believes one fallacy in how authorities view individual rights has to do with making the individual forsake those rights by default. Snowden’s point is that the moment you are compelled to reveal that you have nothing to hide is when the right to privacy stops being a right – because you are effectively waiving that right.

“When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights – you don’t have to justify why you need freedom of speech.”

In that situation, it becomes OK to live in a world where one is no longer interested in privacy as such – a world where Facebook, Google and Dropbox have become ubiquitous, and where there are virtually no safeguards against the wrongful use of the information one puts there.
In particular, Snowden advised web users to “get rid” of Dropbox. Such services only insist on encrypting user data during transfer and when being stored on the servers. Other services he recommends instead, such as SpiderOak, encrypt information while it’s on your computer as well.

“We’re talking about dropping programs that are hostile to privacy,” Snowden said.

The same goes for social networks such as Facebook and Google, too. Snowden says they are “dangerous” and proposes that people use other services that allow for encrypted messages to be sent, such as RedPhone or SilentCircle.

The argument that encryption harms security efforts to capture terrorists is flawed, even from a purely legalistic point of view, Snowden said, explaining that you can still retain encryption and have the relevant authorities requesting private information from phone carriers and internet providers on a need-to-know basis.

And the penchant for close, secretive cooperation with the government will only cost companies money and jobs, Snowden added, because no one would want to buy a phone made by a company that provides inherent backdoors for third parties to access your information.

“The same rights that we inherited our children deserve to inherit the same way,” Snowden said.

“But ultimately we have to remember that political reform in the United States is not going to solve the problem globally. Governments [everywhere] are going to have their own national laws. And these can be terrible governments… so, because of that, you have to use secure communications… the real key is that companies willing to collaborate with the government and compromise their products and services do not deserve to be trusted with your data. Because if they do it for one government, they’ll do it for another government,” Snowden said.

For consumers to retain trust in the services they use, they need to fight for the very idea of privacy, to keep the topic in focus, he said, adding: “I speak with computer scientists and cryptographers every day to try to figure out how we can create solutions” for metadata to be appreciated and viewed as someone’s own private business.

“There are solutions, there are ways forward, and we need to pursue them, to work toward them,” Snowden said. “And we need to say that this is an effort worth doing.”

The whistleblower continues to lead a secretive existence in Russia, where he’s been stranded since June 2013, hiding from his own government, which is seeking to prosecute him for his crimes behind closed doors.

“I’ve told the government again and again in negotiations, you know, that if they’re prepared to offer an open trial, a fair trial in the same way that Dan Ellsberg got, and I’m allowed to make my case to the jury, I would love to do so,” Snowden said. “But to this point they’ve declined.”

Source: RT

Being a black terrorist in Africa

They were treated like terrorists, writes Malaika wa Azania.

There has been speculation about what transpired in Morocco a few days ago when a black youth ambassador for the AU landed in Morocco.

The full-time student in Grahamstown is a member of the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC) South Africa.

The CCDA-4 is organised by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca), the AU Commission (AUC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

In Casablanca in Morocco, the crisis of being a “black terrorist”, began.

Upon arrival in Morocco, at 12.10pm on Tuesday, Moroccan authorities, in spite of valid and authentic documentation, refused to grant the blacks visas.

Some people in the group were allowed to enter the country while others were denied entry.

People holding diplomatic passports, were high-ranking officials but were equally being denied entry.

The language barrier between the Afro-Saxons and the Moroccan authorities, who speak French and Arabic, was making communication a “nightmare” according the youth ambassador.

The sense of entitlement black South Africans suffer from, increased the antagonism on both sides.

Eventually Wa Azania was asked to “drink water from a toilet” because there was nothing else available.

Washing her underwear and drying it with a hand-dryer, and using her fingers to pry the plaque off her teeth, was “the most humiliating experience”, she said. ” No woman should ever have to go through that.

“We were treated like terrorists who had gone to Morocco to destabilise the government, or as asylum seekers who were refusing to be deported back to their homes,” Malaika wa Azania said.

The youth ambassador couldn’t stay in Morocco after the trauma she said, and booked onto the next available flight eventhough they were granted visas.

 

The Nobel Peace Prize 2014 awarded to youngest winner ever

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Indian Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistani Malala Yousafzai.

At 17 Malala Yousafzai has become the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the two “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”

Yousafzai, now 17, is a schoolgirl and education campaigner in Pakistan who was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman two years ago.

Satyarthi, 60, has maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, “focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain,” the Nobel committee said.

In 2012 the Nobel committee prompted a collective ‘huh?’ when the prize went to the European Union. It was unlikely that the committee would select an organisation for a third year in row.

Last year’s choice of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was similarly optimistic. At the time, the agency’s role in overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal offered a slim chance of finding a diplomatic resolution to the crisis engulfing the country. But the violence in Syria has only got worse with the US inventing and funding ISIS.

The Jagland committee’s choice was seen as an act of wishful thinking when it awarded the prize to Barack Obama in his first year of office. It looks even odder in hindsight as the US president has since launched multiple military campaigns in the Middle East.

Under Jagland’s chairmanship, the committee has chosen a high number of contentious winners. Its decision to give the award to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo infuriated Beijing. Jagland memorably presented the award to an empty chair in 2010 as Xiaobo was behind bars. Norway’s trade with China has declined since.

The Nobel committee prides itself on its independence, but it is chosen by Norway’s parliament and is made up of former politicians who are aware of the political ramifications of their decisions.

This year’s nominees included the US whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, but their chances were thus slim.

“Giving it to [Edward] Snowden would run against all political instincts. He is, after all, considered a traitor to one of Norway’s closest allies,” said Kristian Harpviken, director at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo.

 

 

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi win Nobel Peace Prize

Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head by the Taliban two years ago for advocating girls’ right to education, and Indian children’s right advocate Kailash Satyarthi won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The prize, worth about $1.1 million, will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the award in his 1895 will.

 

‘I have ebola, I’ve been to Africa’

Amid cries of racism from black leaders including Jesse Jackson, cases of Ebola have topped 8,000 now, according to official data from the World Health Organization, though many cases could actually be unreported.

The death toll continues to climb near 4,000, and officials have stressed the outbreak is unprecedented and may continue to get worse.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price made similar arguments this week that Thomas Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died because his race and lack of “privilege” kept him from receiving the care he needed.

“It is historical what has happened in this community,” said Mr. Price, who is black. “If a person who looks like me shows up without any insurance, they don’t get the same treatment.”

An American passenger was booted off a US Airways flight and screened after reportedly joking that he had Ebola and telling the rest of the flyers they were “screwed.”

During a flight from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic, the 54-year-old American – who remains unidentified – reportedly yelled, “I have Ebola, you are all screwed,” according to the Dominican news outlet Diario Libre.

He also yelled out, “I’ve been to Africa!” an airport official told Fox News Latino.

He didn’t yell “bomb,” but he might as well have. After the supposed joke was aired, there was noticeable panic and concern on the airplane, which was carrying 290 passengers. The plane was isolated as soon as it landed in Punta Cana, where a medical team outfitted with hazmat suits boarded the aircraft and removed the passenger.

After conducting a medical check, the passenger was found not to be infected with the virus. Though he was coughing on the flight, he had no fever when he was inspected. He had never been to Africa, either.

In a video captured by a passenger, an African-American can be seen being taken out of the plane by medical officials.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans supported the flight ban, according to a poll conducted in a collaboration between NBC News and SurveyMonkey.

Only twenty percent of respondents did not support a travel ban from the likes of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

As of earlier this week, neither the World Health Organization nor the White House endorsed an all-out travel ban to the US from affected nations.

Airplane cabin cleaning crews at New York’s LaGuardia International Airport began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, citing, in part, possible exposure to the Ebola virus. Meanwhile, a poll found most Americans want flights banned from Africa.

“The whole country is shivering, worried about the problems of Ebola,” said Hector Figueroa, President of 32BJ Service Employees International Union, according to CBS New York.

Cabin cleaners per plane at LaGuardia have been reduced by up to half, and the time to clean planes has been cut down to as little as five minutes, workers said, as reported by CBS New York.

 

 

Ebola death toll nears 4 000 in West Africa: WHO

The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed 3 879 people out of 8 033 cases by the end of Oct. 5, with no evidence that the epidemic was being brought under control in West Africa, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Liberia and Sierra Leone, the two worst-hit countries, still only had 21 percent and 26 percent of the bed spaces they needed, and neighbouring countries had been told to prepare for the disease to spread across their borders, the WHO said.

 

Sex could keep Ebola alive

Sex could keep the Ebola epidemic alive even after the World Health Organization (WHO) declares an area free of the disease, one of the discoverers of the deadly virus said on Tuesday.

The WHO is hoping to announce later this week that Nigeria and Senegal are free of Ebola after 42 days with no infections — the standard period for declaring an outbreak over, twice the maximum 21-day incubation period of the virus.

However, it appears the disease can last much longer in semen.

“In a convalescent male, the virus can persist in semen for at least 70 days; one study suggests persistence for more than 90 days,” the WHO said in an information note on Monday.

“Certainly, the advice has to be for survivors to use a condom, to not have unprotected sex, for 90 days,” said Peter Piot, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a discoverer of Ebola in 1976.

“If we would apply the rule for double the time, that would be 180 days — six months. I think it (90 days) is probably a compromise, for practicality,” he told a news conference in Geneva.

Ebola spreads via bodily fluids such as blood and saliva, but it has also been detected in breast milk and urine, as well as semen, the WHO says. The whole live virus has never been isolated from sweat, however.

More than 3,400 people are already known to have died in the world’s worst Ebola outbreak on record, the vast majority of them in three West African countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Source: Yahoo

Obama threatens sanctions after Zim signs Russian deal

The United States has reportedly warned Zimbabwe about its growing economic dealings with Russia after Harare recently sealed an agreement with Moscow for a US$3billion platinum mine.

According to Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru, who is thought to be President Robert Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba, the Obama administration threatened further sanctions against Zimbabwe over its ties with Russia.

Zimbabwe’s Pen East Investments has teamed up with Afronet, a consortium of three Russian partners, to form Great Dyke Investments, which is developing the US$3 billion Darwendale platinum project.

At full development in 2024, the mine will produce 800,000 platinum ounces, pushing Zimbabwe’s output over one million ounces, and create 8,000 jobs.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov visited Zimbabwe last month to conclude the deal with President Robert Mugabe.

However, according to Manheru, the deal could see Washington hit Harare with further sanctions.

Manheru wrote in the Saturday Herald:

“A week or two ago, the US government, through its local embassy, sent an official communication to the Zimbabwean Government, listing the full measure of sanctions the West, led by America, have slapped on Russia.

“The communication went further. It spelt out American expectations on Zimbabwe, namely that Zimbabwe was expected (read required) to support those sanctions by avoiding any association with companies sanctioned by the Americans and their Western allies. Or their subsidiaries or affiliates.

“And . . . yes you guess right, that targets the new US$3bn-plus platinum investment by the Russians at Darwendale! It (Zimbabwe) should not proceed or else we are under sanctions.”

Manheru said it was ridiculous for the US to refuse to lift sanctions against Harare and then demand support for its measures against Moscow.

“America then invites sanctioned Zimbabwe to support sanctions against Russia, itself a bird of the same feather!

“This is where I am tempted to tell the American government to go and hang, hang on a banana tree, bums up.”

Biden’s speech might backfire on Washington

By Liudmila Chernova

The speech of the US Vice President Joe Biden can backfire on Washington, as it embarrasses the European Union members and demonstrates the US has intimidated them, Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, believes.

“One of the possible consequences is that his speech embarrasses European governments by showing that Europe is Washington’s vassal,” Roberts told RIA Novosti on Friday. “The other is that by pressing Europeans to act against their own interests, Washington might have been too much of a bully and hurt its future influence in Europe.”

US Vice President said Thursday that the United States and US President Barack Obama, in particular, had forced the European Union members to “take economic hits to impose cost” on Russia.

“It is true that they did not want to do that. But again, it was America’s leadership and the President of the United States insisting,” Biden noted, speaking at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

“It is a known fact that Western European peoples and business interests, and even the governments themselves oppose Washington’s sanctions on Russia,” Roberts noted, underlining that many Europeans know full well that Russia is not responsible for the trouble in Ukraine. “They know that the cause is Washington’s use of the CIA and the NGOs established by the National Endowment for Democracy and other US “democracy groups” to orchestrate protests and use the protests to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine.”

“Washington forced its European vassal states to impose sanctions on Russia,” the former assistant Secretary of the Treasury said, adding that one of the US aims was to portray Russia, not Washington, as the government that is interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine and must be punished.

“By punishing Russia, the sanctions support Washington’s propaganda that it is Russia that is the aggressor,” he asserted. “This image also serves to boost the budgets of Washington’s military and security complex in order to defend NATO countries against the alleged “Russian threat.”

Another aim of the sanctions is to break up Europe’s economic and political relationships with Russia, according to Roberts.

“Washington is afraid that growing relationships between Europe and Russia will loosen Washington’s hold on Europe. European countries do not have independent foreign policies, and Washington wants to keep it that way,” Roberts stated.

In addition, Roberts thinks its goal was also to answer the Republicans’ claims that Obama had taken a weak position in foreign policy and toward Russia, as Biden’s speech comes one month before the November general elections in the US.

“Biden emphasized that Obama was strong and forced Europe to take action against Europe’s own interests. In other words, Obama gives orders to Europe just as Stalin gave orders to the Warsaw Pact,” former assistant Secretary of the Treasury said. “Obama, like Stalin, is a man of steel. The speech is a domestic political message designed to neutralize Republican criticisms of the Democrats’ foreign policy,” Roberts explained.

Over the past few months, the United States has introduced several rounds of economic sanctions against Russia, blaming Moscow for meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs – claims that Russia has repeatedly denied. The EU and US allies have followed in Washington’s footsteps, drawing up their own blacklists.

In August Moscow responded to western sanctions, implementing a one-year ban on certain food imports from the European Union, the United States, Australia, Canada and Norway.

Oz signs away nuclear material to India

Australia’s agreement to provide India with uranium could leave Canberra with no say on the use of nuclear material shipped to India, the former head of Australia’s nuclear watchdog said Friday.

“[Australian authorities] clearly left out a number of things that the Indians don’t like . . . Where Australia has given reprocessing consent in the past, it’s on the basis that we approve downstream facilities where the plutonium will be used. But under the India agreement, we’re just not doing that,” John Carlson, the former head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, was cited as saying by The Guardian.

Plutonium is created from uranium in nuclear reactors and may potentially be used in the creation of nuclear weapons.

According to Carlson, the “reprocessing consent” outlined in the sixth article of the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement means Australia has no say in how India may choose to use byproducts from energy production.

The deal appeared to waive “standard provisions” relating to nuclear safeguards, Carlson told the newspaper, noting that Australia has been allowed to track the uranium it supplies, and well as its byproducts, under every similar agreement thus far.

An agreement on nuclear cooperation between India and Australia was signed on September 5 during Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s trip to New Delhi. Australia, which holds the largest uranium deposits in the world, has previously refused to sign such an agreement because India is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

China warns US not to meddle in Hong Kong

China’s foreign minister made it clear Beijing would not allow other countries to meddle into its ‘internal affairs’, responding in this way to US Secretary of State’s call for Beijing to grant Hong Kong the “highest possible degree of autonomy.”

The American and the Chinese heads of foreign offices exchanged their views on the massive protests in Hong Kong before their talks at the US State Department on Wednesday.

“Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. “All countries should respect China’s sovereignty. And this is also a basic principle governing international relations. I believe for any country, for any society, no one will allow those illegal acts that violate public order.”

Wang added he believed the current Hong Kong leadership was able to handle the large-scale sit-ins by itself.

The remark was made after US Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated Washington’s support for “universal suffrage” in Hong Kong, the main demand put forward by protesters in the Asian financial hub.

“We support universal suffrage in Hong Kong accordant with the Basic Law, and we believe in open society with the highest possible degree of autonomy and governed by rule of law is essential for Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity,” Kerry said.

Wang Yi received the same message from Barack Obama, whom he met later the same day, according to a White House statement about the meeting.

“The United States has consistently supported the open system that is essential to Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity, universal suffrage, and the aspiration of the Hong Kong people,” the statement reads.

Protesters in Hong Kong have been demanding election reform. They’re against the central government’s August decision to only allow Beijing-approved nominees run for the city’s leader post in the next election in 2017.

Sunday’s massive crackdown on thousands of protesters, when police use of tear gas, pepper spray and baton charges did not lead to a dispersal of the crowds. What it did inspire is more anger with Hong Kong’s current leader, Leung Chun-ying, with protesters starting to demand his resignation.

On Wednesday, a leader of the pro-reform protests warned the demonstrators were ready to occupy government buildings if the city’s chief didn’t step down by the end of Thursday.

An unnamed government source close to Leung says Hong Kong’s chief executive is ready to wait for weeks for the protests to quiet down.

“Unless there’s some chaotic situation, we won’t send in riot police… We hope this doesn’t happen,” the source told Reuters. “We have to deal with it peacefully, even if it lasts weeks or months.”

Source: RT

Tutu salutes uprising in Hong Kong

The purple cleric, archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has called on “all who believe in democracy” to support the protests in Hong Kong his foundation said on Wednesday.

“I salute the courage of the hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong citizens who have participated in mass demonstrations in the territory in recent days to assert peacefully their right to have a say in the election of their leaders,” Tutu said in a statement.

“Their struggle is one that all who believe in the principles of democracy and justice should support.”

Thousands of demonstrators were blocking major roads in various districts of Hong Kong, continuing yet another colour protest that began Sunday.

Protesters are demanding reforms ahead of the 2017 elections, including the public nomination of candidates for next chief executive.

Tutu suggested that demonstrations were peaceful. He slammed the “attack on protesters” by law enforcement agencies.

“The firing of teargas at demonstrators, as happened on Sunday, was a bitter blow to what many still hope will be a peaceful, inclusive and dignified transformation process. I pray that the voices of the people of Hong Kong will never be stifled,” he said.

China said it would not intervene in the protests. The chaos could harm Hong Kong as a money destination to favour Singapore.

Liberian doctor defends ebola treatment with HIV drug

Desperate for a cure and frustrated at the massive death toll from Ebola, Dr. Gabriel; Gorbee Logan turned to a rare unconventional method, trying lamivudine, a drug used to treat HIV patients in Ebola patients under his care. The results, according to Dr. Logan, County Health Officer, Tubmanburg Hospital, has been impressive.

Word of Dr. Logan’s method is generating buzz and some suspicions even as international drug makers race the clock in search of a drug capable of beating the menacing virus. To date, the trial drug ZMAPP has been tested on some patients, but it is still uncertain whether it has been effective in treating cases it was tested on. Dr. Logan is quick to dismiss the belief of many concerned that Tubmanburg Hospital is using Anti Retrovirus Drugs (ARD) that is used to treat HIV/AIDS to treat the Ebola survivors.

Says Dr. Logan: “There is a particular type tablet that forms part of ARD referred to as Lamivudine and it is a 150 mg tablets. This medication has been doing well for some of the patients that I have treated.”

Dr. Logan’s recovery rate has been impressive as he cautions that his method only works if the patients turn themselves in on time. “When the patients come early, and they are put on this medication, they recover within three to five days. This medication is not specifically for HIV/AIDS, I want this to be clear, but an Anti Retrovirus agent that is used to treat other virus illnesses like hepatitis ‘B’. It is one of those medications that are combined with two or three other medications to treat HIV/AIDS, so it should not really be called an HIV/AIDS drugs,” He says.

Dr. Logan explains that he got the idea to try Lamivudine on Ebola patients when he read in scientific journals that HIV and Ebola replicate inside the body in much the same way. “Ebola is a brainchild of HIV,” he said. “It’s a destructive strain of HIV.”

Dr. Logan says he first tried an HIV drug called acyclovir without success. Later, he said, he tried Lamivudine on a health care worker who had come down with the virus, but showed signs of improvement and survived in only a few days.

Hopeful ‘Promise’

CNN reported recently that Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases gave thumbs up to Dr. Logan’s method because Lamivudine is a nucleotide analog, and other drugs in this class are being studied to treat Ebola. Promise Galakimene, 26, one of thirteen patients who have been successfully treated by Dr. Logan told FrontPageAfrica that she owes her life to the doctor after losing a good portion of her entire family.

Source: FrontPageAfrica

Hong Kong democracy protests chaotic

Police repeatedly fired tear gas after tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators brought parts of central Hong Kong to a standstill Sunday in protest at Beijing’s refusal to grant the city unfettered democracy.

The rare chaotic scenes — in which crowds fought running battles with riot police in the streets of the international financial hub — forced protest leaders to warn supporters to “retreat and save their lives” if rubber bullets were fired.

Protesters screamed “Shame!” at officers, many in gas masks and riot gear, as they tried to shield themselves from the clouds of gas which was last used in Hong Kong in 2005.

It marked a dramatic escalation of protests in the city, which rarely sees such violence, after a tense week of largely contained student-led demonstrations exploded into mass angry street protests.

Many officers had rubber bullet rifles slung over their shoulders, prompting protest leaders to call on demonstrators to pull back if police used them of they felt their lives were threatened.

“This is a matter of life or death. If their lives are threatened they should retreat and save their lives,” said professor Chan Kin-man, a co-founder of the Occupy Central group which threw its weight behind the protest on Sunday.

Around three thousand demonstrators blocked a major road, bringing traffic to a standstill and opening up a second significant flashpoint in the key financial hub.

A dozen police looked on helplessly as the demonstrators took over Nathan Road, chanting slogans and wrapping their eyes in clingfilm to protect themselves in the event of pepper spray being deployed, an AFP reporter said.

Beijing “firmly opposes all illegal activities that could undermine rule of law and jeopardise ‘social tranquility’ and it offers its strong backing” to the Hong Kong government, a spokesman for China’s Hong Kong and Macau affairs office was quoted by the Xinhua news agency as saying.

In a statement the Hong Kong government said it had “no intention to seek help from the PLA”.