• How Far-Right Extremists Are Exploiting Pandemic

    Far-right extremists have been linked to bombing plots tied to the coronavirus pandemic, spotted holding anti-Semitic signs at protests outside state capitols, and seen trafficking on fringe platforms in all manner of conspiracy theories about the virus. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage millions of lives and paralyze much of the economy, these extremists in the United States are seizing every opportunity to reach out to thousands of potential followers and expand their ranks.

  • Coronavirus and Its Social Effects Fueling Extremist Violence, Says Government Report

    The coronavirus pandemic and its social repercussions are fueling violence by both frustrated individuals and domestic terrorists, according to a new intelligence report by the Department of Homeland Security. Social distancing has meant the cancelation of mass gathering events that are historically appealing targets for both international and domestic terrorists, the report adds, but “the pandemic has created a new source of anger and frustration for some individuals. As a result, violent extremist plots will likely involve individuals seeking targets symbolic to their personal grievances.”

  • France, Europe Mull Controversial Coronavirus Tracing Apps

    France’s parliament votes next week on plans to use a controversial tracing app to help fight the coronavirus, as the country eyes easing its lockdown next month. Lisa Bryant writes in VOA News that French Digital Affairs Minister Cedric O says the downloadable app would notify smartphone users when they cross people with COVID-19, helping authorities track and reduce the spread of the pandemic. In a video on the ruling party’s Facebook page, O said the so-called “Stop COVID” app will fully respect people’s liberties, and will be completely voluntary and anonymous. It also will be temporary — lasting only as long as the pandemic, he added. The government wants to launch the app on May 11, the date it has set to begin easing a two-month lockdown in the country. It initially announced a parliamentary debate on the technology, but that’s been changed to a vote, after major pushback from lawmakers.

  • Senate Intel Releases Report on Intel Community Assessment of Russian Interference

    On Tuesday, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a new report, the fourth and penultimate volume in the Committee’s bipartisan Russia investigation. The latest installment examines the sources, tradecraft, and analytic work behind the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that determined Russia conducted an unprecedented, multi-faceted campaign to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “One of the ICA’s most important conclusions was that Russia’s aggressive interference efforts should be considered ‘the new normal,’” said Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), the committee’s chairman.

  • The Limits of the World Health Organization

    President Trump has characteristically tried to divert public attention from his botched response to the coronavirus pandemic by blaming others—Democrats, governors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, China. Eric Posner writes that in the World Health Organization (WHO), however, he has found the ideal piñata. It is tempting to blame the WHO itself for its problems—its notoriously complex bureaucracy, its decentralized structure, its “culture” or the persons who run it. But, Posner writers, all of those things are a result of the political constraints it operates under, as many reform-minded critics have observed.

  • Islamists Killed Dozens in Mozambique as Insurgency Intensifies

    More than fifty young people were shot dead or beheaded in northern Mozambique as an Islamist insurgency gains strength. Local and national security forces, as well as foreign mercenaries hired by the government – including the notorious Wagner Force from Russia — have been unable to keep the militants in check. The insurgents began their operations in 2017, and were initially claiming to represent the region’s resident in their disputes with the central government, but earlier this month the group’s leadership announced that the group’s aim was to turn Mozambique into a Muslim “caliphate.”

  • Coronavirus Crisis is Reviving “Blood Libels” against Jews

    The leaders of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) said that already in the first few months since the global breakout of the Coronavirus, there has been a rise in antisemitic manifestations relating to the spread of the disease and the economic recession triggered by the pandemic. “Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in accusations that Jews, as individuals and as a collective, are behind the spread of the virus or are directly profiting from it,” Dr. Moshe Kantor, President of the EJC, said.

  • “A Crippling Blow to America’s Prestige”: The Government Struggles to Meet the Moment

    The global coronavirus crisis crashed into the United States in Washington state in January and quickly brought the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world to its knees. Ben White writes that, so far, the federal response has been too small in scope and short on creative solutions to meet the greatest challenge since the Second World War. “The United States was once known for its can-do culture. We built the Panama Canal and we put a man on the moon,” said historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University. “And now we can’t get a swab or a face mask or a gown and we have no real chain of command. And we have two Americas, a Republican one and a Democratic one, and they won’t collaborate. We are not leading in the pandemic response, we are trailing other countries by a long shot. This is a crippling blow to America’s prestige around the world.”

  • Chinese Agents Helped Spread Messages That Sowed Virus Panic in U.S., Officials Say

    U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Chinese operatives have pushed false messages across social media platforms, aiming to amplify and exaggerate the actions of the U.S. government in order to sow panic, increase confusion, and deepen political polarization in the already-on-edge American public. The amplification techniques are alarming to U.S. officials because the disinformation showed up as texts on many Americans’ cellphones, a tactic that several of the officials said they had not seen before. American officials said the operatives had adopted some of the techniques mastered by Russia-backed trolls. That has spurred agencies to look at new ways in which China, Russia and other nations are using a range of platforms to spread disinformation during the pandemic. President Trump himself has shown little concern about China’s actions, dismissing worries over China’s use of disinformation when asked about it on Fox News. “They do it and we do it and we call them different things,” he said. “Every country does it.”

  • Gulf States Use Coronavirus Threat to Tighten Authoritarian Controls and Surveillance

    Governments across the Middle East have moved to upgrade their surveillance capabilities under the banner of combatting COVID-19, the disease linked to the new coronavirus. Matthew Hedges writes in The Conversation that overtly repressive policies have been commonplace across the Middle East for years, notably in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, where violent measures have been taken to control populations. As a result of technological advances, an increase in political engagement and changes of leadership, the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – have also upgraded their form of authoritarianism in recent years. This has seen policies of partial economic liberalization and market-based reforms used to obscure an increase in repression and surveillance, for example by containing the work of civil society groups. Following the pattern in which authoritarian states tend to exploit common threats, some of the GCC states are now manipulating the current pandemic to enhance their social power and control.

  • Iran’s Nuclear “Breakout” Time Reduced to 3-4 Months

    In May 2018, when President Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Iran “breakout” time was estimated to be 12-16 months. Breakout is defined as the time Iran would need to produce 25 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium (WGU), enough for a nuclear weapon. A new report says that Iran’s breakout time now is 3.1 to 4.6 months.

  • Twenty-Five Years Later, Oklahoma City Bombing Inspires a New Generation of Extremists

    On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast destroyed the building, killing 168 men, women and children and injuring hundreds more. Twenty-five years later, the Oklahoma City bombing remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history.  McVeigh and his accomplice, Terry Nichols, were not part of any large, well-funded terrorist organization; they were American extremists acting on their own. Today, their deadly legacy is one of the inspirations for a new and violent segment of the white supremacist movement.

  • Maintaining Nuclear Safety and Security During the COVID-19 Crisis

    Every major industry on earth is struggling to adapt in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes nuclear facilities and nuclear-powered vessels, which count among the critical infrastructure of dozens of nations now struggling with the pandemic, representing more than half the world’s population. Meanwhile, ISIS has already announced its intent to exploit the pandemic while a number of other violent extremist organizations are also taking pains to exploit the crisis. Without implementing extraordinary measures to maintain safety and security, nuclear installations risk compounding the crisis with a large-scale radiation release.

  • The Next Pandemic Might Not Be Natural

    Germs have killed more people than all the wars in history, and people have been trying to make use of them throughout all those wars. In the U.S., we have seen small-scale bioterrorist attacks – the Rajneeshee poisoning of restaurants in 1986 and the Amerithrax letters that were mailed in 2001. Still, the years running up to this current coronavirus pandemic not only saw the gutting of U.S. national health institutions but also a cultural groundswell of science denial in the anti-vaccination movement. Today the United States in particular is paying for that denial in livelihoods and lives. The warnings were clear. If 9/11 was a “failure of imagination,” then history will no doubt judge the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19 as a failure of courage, compassion, and, most of all, competence.

  • U.S. COVID-19 Total Tops 700,000; Cases Spike in Russia, Parts of Asia

    As COVID-19 cases in the United States passed 700,000 yesterday, researchers published early findings that suggest, as expected, the disease is more widespread than case numbers reflect. And in international developments, outbreak totals climbed in parts of Asia, including Japan, Indonesia, and Singapore, as well as in Russia. U.S. cases reached 726,645 cases, with nearly 39,000 deaths. The global total stands at 2,310,572 cases from 185 countries, with 158,691 deaths. Testing issues continue to hobble state’s plans to ease off stay-at-home orders, while the American Association for Clinical Chemistry in a statement yesterday said supply chain issues, such as personal protective equipment, swabs, and reagents are obstacles to scaled-up testing.