• Coronavirus: Five Ways Some States Have Used the Pandemic to Curtail Human Rights and Democracy

    In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, at least 95 countries declared a national emergency, empowering governments to act in ways they would not normally to protect citizens. Such exceptional periods pose major risks for democracy and human rights, providing opportunities for leaders and states to consolidate power.

  • Remote-Control Killing: Iran Says Top Nuclear Scientist Assassinated by Machine Gun Guided Via Satellite

    A machine gun equipped with a “satellite-controlled smart system” was used to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist, a senior official with the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has said. Officials have blamed Israel for the brazen, daytime attack on 27 November in Absard, some sixty kilometers from the capital, Tehran, though it didn’t offer any evidence for the claim.

  • European Powers "Deeply Worried" By Iran's Uranium Enrichment Plans

    Britain, France, and Germany say Iran’s apparent plan to install additional advanced centrifuges at its main nuclear enrichment facility is “deeply worrying” and contrary to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. A confidential report by the UN’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Iran plans to install three more cascades of advanced IR-2m centrifuges in its underground plant at Natanz.

  • Cause of Mystery Illness of U.S. Diplomats in U.S. Embassies in Cuba, China

    Government personnel and their families at the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba, in late 2016 and the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China, in early 2017 began suffering from a range of unusual — and in some cases suddenly occurring — symptoms such as a perceived loud noise, ear pain, intense head pressure or vibration, dizziness, visual problems, and cognitive difficulties, and many still continue to experience these or other health problems. A new scientific report says that directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases, especially in individuals with the distinct early symptoms.

  • Brain Drain: China’s Campaign of Intellectual Property Theft

    Hundreds of scientists at British universities, who would be banned from almost all postgraduate study in the United States over their ties to military-linked Chinese universities, are currently researching subjects which involve knowledge useful to the creation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. A new reportexplores the number of individuals researching seven subjects considered particularly sensitive by the U.K.’s Academic Technology Approval Scheme.

  • Iran Violating 2015 Nuclear Deal Again with Use of Advanced Centrifuges: Reuters

    Reuters obtained a confidential IAEA report which says that Iran plans to install more advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges at an underground plant in breach of its troubled deal with major powers. The confidential IAEA report said Iran plans to install three more clusters of advanced IR-2m centrifuges in the underground plant at Natanz, located about 300 kilometers south of the capital, Tehran.

  • L.A. Imposes Sweeping COVID Restrictions

    Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles has issued an order for residents to stay at home and minimize other contacts. The order, which supersedes one from June, prohibits public and private gatherings of people from more than one household and states that all businesses in the city which require people to work on location must stop operations. Walking, driving, travel on public transport, bikes, motorcycles and scooters are prohibited, other than for those undertaking essential activities.

  • A New White House Spokeswoman, An Old Photo, And A Message About Russian Propaganda

    Six years ago, Jen Psaki, who was the face of the U.S. State Department, was subjected to constant trolling on the Russian-language Internet, not to mention derision from the state-controlled satellite channel that used to be known as Russia Today. Psaki is to become the White House spokeswoman when Joe Biden is formally inaugurated as president on January 20, 2021. “For anyone who hasn’t been the target of Russian propaganda,” Psaki wrote in a tweet, “the purpose is to discredit powerful messengers and to spread misinformation to confuse the public. Anyone who repeats it is (unwitting or not) simply a puppet of the propaganda machine.”

  • Teaching Anti-Terrorism: How France and England Use Schools to Counter Radicalization

    The murder of the schoolteacher Samuel Paty, beheaded by 18-year-old Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov in October 2020 after Paty had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a civic education lesson, has understandably caused shock and fear among teachers in France. Many teachers were already struggling to manage classroom discussions on sensitive topics such as the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s publication of the controversial caricatures. Some now fear for their personal safety.

  • EFF Urges Federal Appeals Court to Rehear Case Involving Unconstitutional Baltimore Aerial Surveillance Program

    In May, the Baltimore Police Department launched its Aerial Investigation Research (AIR) Pilot Program. For six months, three surveillance aircrafts operated by a private company called Persistent Surveillance Systems flew over Baltimore—covering about 90 percent of the city—for 12 hours every day. The planes produced images that even at a resolution of “one pixel per person” allowed the police to track individual’s movements over multi-day periods, especially when combined with the police’s networks of more than 800 ground-based surveillance cameras and automated license plate readers.

  • Barr: DOJ Has Found Nothing that Could Impact Election Result

    Attorney General Bill Barr has thrown cold water on the president’s false claims of massive voter fraud and a “stolen election.” Despite Department of Justice investigations turning up no evidence, and despite the fact that the president and his legal team have lost practically every legal challenge they filed — Trump and his allies are 1-39 in post-election litigation — Trump continues to spread falsehoods about the election, and continues to raise money — $170 million so far — based on these untrue claims.

  • New Book Examines Threat of ISIS in the United States

    Despite the large amount of media reporting, there had yet to be a definitive accounting of what ISIS supporters in the U.S. looked like. Researchers have collected mountains of data to try to paint at least a partially representative picture for the public, explaining why some Americans are attracted to jihadist ideology—and what we can do about it.

  • 2020 Global Terrorism Index: Deaths from Terrorism Reach 5-Year Low

    Globally, deaths from terrorism fell for the fifth consecutive year in 2019, to 13,826 — a 15 percent decrease from the prior year. In North America, Western Europe and Oceania, far-right attacks have increased by 250 percent since 2014 - they are higher now than at any time in the last fifty years. Sixty-three countries recorded at least one death from terrorism, the lowest number since 2013. The global economic impact of terrorism was $16.4 billion in 2019, a decrease of 25 percent from the previous year. IS’s center of gravity moves to sub-Saharan Africa with total deaths by IS in the region increasing by 67 percent. IS and their affiliates were also responsible for attacks in 27 countries in 2019.

  • Russian Influence Peddlers Carving Out New Audiences on Fringes

    After four years of warnings and preparations, the 2020 presidential election did not see a repeat of 2016, when intelligence officials concluded Russia meddled using a combination of cyberattacks and influence operations. But according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, as well as analysts, the good news ends there.

  • After 8Chan

    The notorious imageboard 8chan was taken offline in August 2019 after several far-right attacks revealed a connection to the site – most notably, the terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019, which left 51 people dead. A few months later in November 2019, a site known as 8kun was launched as a replacement, boasting similar freedoms and owned by the same person, Jim Watkins. What is evident is that almost a year into 8kun’s creation, the general attitude towards the site is wholly different to that of 8chan – in that the primary audience it was created for has largely rejected it as a less important and relevant site within chan culture.