Our picksRussia’s No-Clinical-Trials Vaccine | Rare-Earth Mistakes | Lattice-Based Cryptography, and more

Victims of Libyan-Backed Terrorism Face New Compensation Battle (Paul Peachey, The National)
U.K. yet to confirm if it will publish a report by former charity regulator into the decades-old compensation claims

Alleged ISIS Member Living Off Benefits in the U.K. (Jamie Prentis, The National)
Mother-of-nine Natalie Bracht rejects accusations that she went to Syria and led a group of female Isis fighters

Pro-Iran Troll Posed as WHO Official to Push Racist Coronavirus Hoax (Adam Rawnsley, Daily Beast)
They managed to trick Twitter into giving them a verified account. And then the trolls used it to push horrifically racist disinformation about a COVID-19 vaccine.

Russia Says Coronavirus Vaccine Is Ready, Thorough Clinical Trials Be Damned (Benjamin Hart, New York Magazine)
As governments and pharmaceutical companies around the world race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, Russia made a startling announcement on Monday that it already has one ready to go, and that the government will undertake a mass vaccination effort in the fall. There’s just one problem: It might not, you know, work.

On Rare Earths, the Pentagon Is Making the Same Mistake Twice (James Kennedy, Defense One)
Its investment in a California mining venture is pretty much exactly the wrong approach to securing access to vital materials.

Cutting Corners in the Race for a Vaccine (Alexander Chernyshev et al., Der Spiegel)
Russia, China and India are racing to find a coronavirus vaccine. But international standards are not always being respected. Some researchers have even tested their remedies on themselves.

What is Lattice-Based Cryptography & Why Should You Care (Joël Alwen, Medium)
Or how do we protect today’s encrypted information against tomorrow’s quantum attacks?

Why Terrorism Continues in Nigeria and How to Turn the Tide (Sheriff Folarin, The Conversation)
For ten years, the Nigerian authorities have engaged the terror group Boko Haram in the northeast without making much headway. After what appeared to be some success in 2015 and 2016, there was a resurgence of Boko Haram violence in 2017. This worsened with the emergence of Islamic State in West Africa and, in more recent times, banditry and kidnap gangs all over the northern Nigeria region. Having studied this crisis over the years as a political scientist, my view is that it is rooted in ethnic, religious and partisan politics and corruption.