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Israel: Iran is smuggling missile technology to Hezbollah inside commercial flights
Iran is smuggling weapons to the terrorist group Hezbollah inside commercial flights to Lebanon, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations has charged in a letter to the UN Security Council. Such actions would violate several Security Council resolutions. The arms were either shipped directly to Hezbollah on commercial flights to Lebanon, or flown to Damascus, Syria, and then shipped to the terror group over land.
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Malware covertly turns PCs into eavesdropping devices
Researchers have demonstrated malware that can turn computers into perpetual eavesdropping devices, even without a microphone. Using SPEAKE(a)R, malware that can covertly transform headphones into a pair of microphones, the researchers show how commonly used technology can be exploited.
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Overall number of terrorism deaths falls, but increases in some countries
New edition of the Global Terrorism Index highlights a complex and rapidly changing set of dynamics in global terrorism. While on the one hand the top-line statistics highlight an improvement in the levels of global terrorism, the continued intensification of terrorism in some countries is a cause for serious concern. There was a 10 percent decline from 2014 in the number of terrorism deaths in 2015 resulting in 3,389 fewer people being killed. Iraq and Nigeria together recorded 5,556 fewer deaths and 1,030 fewer attacks than in 2014. However, with a global total of 29,376 deaths, 2015 was still the second deadliest year on record.
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Israel fortifies northern defenses against future Hezbollah attacks
The Israeli army is bolstering the country’s northern defenses in anticipation of future attacks from the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah. The Israel Defense Forces changed its doctrine towards the terror group following threats by its leader Hassan Nasrallah, who claimed that Hezbollah sought to “enter into the Galilee.”
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Israel Red Cross affiliate building underground blood bank to ensure supply during crises
Magen David Adom, the Israeli affiliate of the Red Cross, is building an underground blood bank in order to secure the country’s blood supply in case of attacks or natural disasters. “With all blood transfusions stored in an underground space, the facility will ensure that they remain unharmed even when the building is under a massive barrage of missiles,” Magen David Adom director said. The terror organization Hezbollah has an estimated arsenal of over 130,000 rockets capable of firing at Israel — more than the combined amount of the twenty-seven non-U.S. NATO member states.
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Feds sue to block acquisition of Dallas radioactive waste company
The U.S. Justice Department is suing to block a Salt Lake City-based company’s acquisition of Waste Control Specialists, the Dallas-based company that wants to expand the nuclear waste dump it operates in West Texas. If the $367 million merger with proposed buyer EnergySolutions goes through, it would “combine the two most significant competitors for the disposal of low level radioactive waste (LLRW) available to commercial customers in thirty-six states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico,” the Justice Department said.
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Georgia lawmakers mull bill prohibiting wearing hijabs, niqabs, and burqas in public
A Georgia lawmaker wants to prohibit Muslim women from wearing hijabs, niqabs, and burqas in public. The proposed law would modify the original 1951 anti-masking law which targeted Ku Klux Klan members. The purpose was to prevent them from committing violence while preserving their anonymity by wearing their Klan hoods. The bill’s sponsor said the law would be expanded to women driving on public roads, making it a misdemeanor to wear a Muslim traditional headwear while driving. The language of House Bill 3, however, suggests the prohibition would apply to any public property, not only public roads.
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Alt-right racists to flood Twitter with “fake black people” posts
White supremacists associated with the alt-right movement said they were planning to retaliate against Twitter by inundating it with postings from fake accounts pretending to be black people. The alt-right extremists said the retaliation is in response to Twitter’s banning several accounts belonging to individuals and groups associated with the racist and anti-Semitic movement. Alt-right figure Andrew Anglin of the neo-Nazi Web site Daily Stormer instructed his followers: “When you have time, create a fake black person account,” he wrote. “Just go on black Twitter and see what they look like, copy that model. Start filling it with rap videos and booty-shaking or whatever else these blacks post.”
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Kosovo arrests 19 suspects in ISIS plot to attack Israeli soccer team
Kosovo police announced on Thursday the arrest of nineteen suspects for their involvement in an Islamic State plot to attack the Israeli national soccer team. Albanian security forces revealed last week that they had thwarted an attack on a World Cup qualifying match between Israel and Albania on 12 November. The terror threat prompted officials to move the site of the game from the city of Shkodër to Elbasan, which is closer to Albania’s capital.
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Trump’s U.S. could give up the fight to stop nuclear arms from spreading
With a few notable exceptions, Democratic and Republican presidents alike have generally tried to restrain if not reverse nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons came into existence. There were failures – Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea — but the overall thrust of global politics, under U.S. leadership, has been toward nonproliferation. The United States is far from the sole global arbiter of nuclear status, but Washington wields immense power on nuclear issues. This may change now as Trump, throughout his campaign, seemed unconcerned about the further spread of nuclear weapons. The nonproliferation regime is flawed, sometimes unfair, but ultimately functional. Under the Trump administration, however, the one nation that has done more to restrain proliferation than any other might yet destroy the entire fragile edifice.
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Islam “not strongest factor” driving foreign fighters to join extremists in Syria, Iraq
A new study of foreign recruits who joined Islamist groups in the Middle East shows that the overwhelming majority had no formal religious education and had not adhered to Islam for their entire lives. Jihadist groups in fact prefer recruits who are ignorant of religion because they are “less capable of critically scrutinizing the jihadi narrative and ideology” and instead adhere unquestioningly to their group’s violent and reductive interpretation of Islam, the West Point study says. Many Western recruits who travel to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamist organization are driven to join the jihadist cause because of cultural and political identities rather than Islam itself, which is moved into a “secondary role.”
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Twitter suspends accounts of alt-right individuals, organizations
Twitter has suspended the accounts of several individuals and groups linked to the alt-right. The alt-right movement embraces white supremacists, anti-Semites, and all manner of bigots in addition to conspiracy theorists and more “traditional” rabble-rousing populists and extremists. Steve Bannon, the publisher of the alt-right’s main organ, the Breitbart News Web site, was Trump campaign CEO, and is slated to become the strategic counselor to the Trump in the White House. Twitter said that company rules prohibit “violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct, and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies.” “The great purge is upon us. But Twitter could have purged the #AltRight BEFORE we memed a President into the White House. They didn’t because they never believed it was possible,” Pax Dickinson, founder of alt-right site WeSearchr; wrote. “Banning us now is too little & too late.”
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October 2016 terrorism: The numbers
The House Homeland Security Committee has released its November 2016 Terror Threat Snapshot, which details terrorism events and trends in October 2016. Among the key points: ISIS’ message continues to resonate with American citizens as more extremists plot attacks on American soil and attempt to travel overseas to join the terror group; the threat of the “terrorist diaspora” to the West will continue to grow, particularly as fighters flee from recent offensives in Mosul and Raqqa; Iran continues to take aggressive steps to threaten U.S. interests at home and abroad, particularly in the Gulf.
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Government mass killings intensify domestic terrorism
Instances of mass killings and government violence spike domestic terrorism and allow terrorist groups to use grievances against government oppression to recruit more members, according to a new study. The authors say it is important to identify ways in which state policies influence terrorist activity or even embolden groups that end up carrying out domestic terrorism – especially as existing research about practices such as torture or extra-judicial detainment has found that human rights abuses actually increase the amount of terrorism a state faces.
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Most border arrests by Texas troopers are not for drug smuggling
Officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) have recorded 31,786 law violations along the Texas-Mexico border from late June 2014 through September 2016. Just 6 percent of the offenses were felony drug possession by “high-threat criminals,” or HTC — the criminals troopers were largely sent to stop. The other HTC priority is supposed to be human smugglers, but they made up just 1 percent of offenses. DPS has added more troopers to the border under the assumed objective that they are going after drug and human smugglers — but a close examination shows that most of their arrests are for drunk driving and misdemeanor drug possession.
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More headlines
The long view
Preventing Another 'Jan. 6' Starts by Changing How Elections Are Certified, Experts Say
The 2024 presidential election may be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, but preventing a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021 — when false claims of a stolen election promoted by Donald Trump and his allies led to an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol —will be top of mind this election year. Research finds broad support among public for nonpartisan certification commissions.
States Rush to Combat AI Threat to Elections
This year’s presidential election will be the first since generative AI became widely available. That’s raising fears that millions of voters could be deceived by a barrage of political deepfakes. Congress has done little to address the issue, but states are moving aggressively to respond — though questions remain about how effective any new measures to combat AI-created disinformation will be.
Chinese Government Hackers Targeted Critics of China, U.S. Businesses and Politicians
An indictment was unsealed Monday charging seven nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for their involvement in a PRC-based hacking group that spent approximately 14 years targeting U.S. and foreign critics, businesses, and political officials in furtherance of the PRC’s economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
LNG Exports Have Had No Impact on Domestic Energy Costs: Analysis
U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports have not had any sustained and significant direct impact on U.S. natural gas prices and have, in fact, spurred production and productivity gains, which contribute to downward pressure on domestic prices.
Don’t Buy Moscow’s Shameless Campaign Tying Biden to Its Terrorist Attack
Russia has offered many different explanations to the ISIS-K’s 22 March 2024 terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, but the most recent explanation offered by Russia is the most audacious yet: Russia now charges that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma financed the attack. Burisma is at the center of an effort by a congressional committee to impeach President Biden, but the case has all but collapsed. Hunter Stoll writes that Russia’s disinformation and propaganda apparatus appears to be searching for ways to keep Burisma in the news ahead of the U.S. presidential election.