L’espionnage des temps modernes

Les responsables de l’attaque informatique contre des ministères du gouvernement canadien ne semblent pas être parvenus à leurs fins. Mais qui donc a tenté de voler des informations capitales au Canada ? Tous les regards sont tournés vers la Chine. Gouvernement ou pirates chinois ? Le but du piratage des systèmes informatiques des ministères du Revenu et de la Défense révélé mercredi par la CBC reste encore inconnu, mais ce cas allonge encore la liste des pays, entreprises ou institutions attaqués par des pirates chinois.

De Google au dalaï-lama, les talents des cyberpirates chinois ont souvent fait le tour du monde. En Chine, le piratage informatique est devenu un véritable sport national, a écrit le New York Times il y a un an. « C’est difficile de s’informer sur l’internet, en Chine, et beaucoup de gens ont trouvé des moyens assez raffinés pour déjouer la censure. Pirates ou simples citoyens désireux de s’informer, il y a une expertise poussée répandue », dit André Laliberté, spécialiste de la Chine, professeur à l’Université d’Ottawa et chercheur au centre Woodrow Wilson, à Washington.

Une autorité nationale et une stratégie pour défendre et protéger la France dans le cyberespace

L’Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information (ANSSI) rend publique la stratégie de la France en matière de défense et de sécurité des systèmes d’information. Pour se prémunir des attaques informatiques et garantir la sécurité des Français, des entreprises et de la Nation dans le cyberespace, la stratégie française pose quatre objectifs stratégiques et sept axes d’effort pour l’action publique.
À la suite de la publication du Livre blanc sur la défense et la sécurité nationale, identifiant les attaques informatiques de grande envergure contre les infrastructures nationales comme une des menaces majeures pour la France, le Gouvernement a engagé un renfort significatif des capacités nationales en matière de cyberdéfense.

US denies smuggling spy equipment into Argentina

The United States has denied charges by Argentine officials that it tried to smuggle espionage equipment into the South American country under the pretext of transporting training supplies for Argentine Federal Police. The charges were leveled on Thursday, after Argentine customs officials conducted what the US Department of State called an “unusual and unannounced” inspection of a US Air Force C-17 cargo plane that landed in the country. According to the Argentine government, the inspection turned up communications interception equipment, “powerful GPS” hardware, as well as “technological elements containing codes labeled secret”, among other items.

Police disperse anti-government demonstration in Libya

At least 14 people were injured when police dispersed an anti-government demonstration in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi in the early hours of Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported. Demonstrators gathered in front of police headquarters, chanting slogans against the "corrupt rulers of the country", the TV channel said. Police fired tear gas at the protesters and used batons to disperse them, it said. The TV channel quoted local private newspaper Quryna as saying the protesters were armed with petrol bombs and threw stones at police and government supporters. Inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Libyan protesters also called for a "Day of Rage" on Thursday in a bid to challenge the 41-year rule of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who has been accused of human rights abuses.

WikiLeaks: Zetas in Seven Guatemalan Provinces

As Guatemalan officials prepare for a full-scale counter narcotics operation, the document indicates the scale of corruption in the country. According to United States Ambassador Stephen McFarland, without outside intervention the rule of law in Guatemala would deteriorate significantly, something that has already come to pass. In the document (reproduced below), United States Ambassador Stephen McFarland expresses his concern with the deteriorating rule of law in Coban, the capital of Alta Verapaz, where the government has declared a "state of siege." If the U.S. does not intervene, he warns, “Coban will join the growing list of areas lost to narcotraffickers.” On this list, Ambassador McFarland includes the eastern border provinces of Zacapa, Izabal, Jutiapa and Chiquimula, as well as the western province of San Marcos and the densely forested Peten to the north.

Are the Mafia Moving into the Dominican Republic?

The comments came from the Dominican Presidential Advisor on Antinarcotics, Marino Vinicio Castilo, speaking to Dominican Today. The lure for organized crime of the island of La Hispaniola, made up of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, is nothing new. The island has been traditionally used by Colombian drug traffickers as a hub for shipments on their way to the U.S. In 2006, the DEA tracked over 150 such flights. A report in 2008 by the International Crisis Group (ICG) mentioned how the system was set up. Apparently, flights would land on the south of the island and the drugs were then transported by land to another exit point in the north. Money returned, and part of this was laundered in the Dominican Republic.

Brotherhood under Media Attack - A Test of Democracy

Television commentary during the Egyptian revolution has revealed the ignorance of some people about the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in what the West fears is a potential theocratic coup. There are some balanced voices however, including, James Clapper, director of National Intelligencewho told a congressional hearing that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.” However, those who are intent on defaming the MB and belying the unfolding events in Egypt and the numerous interviews and statements by MB representatives, insist that the Brotherhood supports terrorism and terrorist causes. Loosely applied in the worldwide media, the word ‘terrorism’ has become a cliché that is often misused to conjure up fear in the masses, generating distrust and hatred for specific individuals and groups. The Muslim Brotherhood is apparently under media attack.

‘Kill Switch’ Internet Bill Alarms Privacy Experts

Just as the Egyptian government recently forced the Internet to go dark, U.S. officials could flip the switch if the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset legislation becomes law, say its critics. Proponents of the bill, which is expected to be reintroduced in the current session of Congress, dismiss the detractors as ill-informed — even naive. The ominously nicknamed Kill Switch bill is sure to be a flashpoint of discussion at the RSA Conference, the nation's largest gathering of computer-security experts that takes place here this week. The bill — crafted by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Tom Carper, D-Del. — aims to defend the economic infrastructure from a cyberterrorist attack. But it has free-speech advocates and privacy experts howling over the prospect of a government agency quelling the communication of hundreds of millions of people.

Can’t We Talk About It? — The Coming Financial Crisis

At the beginning of February the financial media celebrated the rally in the markets with jovial commentators cheering as the Dow Jones closed above the 12,000 mark for the first time since 2008. “The worst is behind us,” they parroted one another. But this sanguinity may prove to be yet another extraordinary popular delusion as the possibility of a financial crisis still looms but is wholly ignored. Nothing has been learned, it seems, from 2006 when those warning of a housing bubble and impending financial crisis were practically laughed off the air.  Once again the signs are all around us.  Yet, with corporations posting record profits, who cares to listen?

Russia warns over Mideast revolt calls

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued a sharp warning to the West Tuesday over calls for the spread of democracy in the Middle East in the wake of the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Following talks in London with Foreign Secretary William Hague, Lavrov said that calls for revolution in the region were “counter-productive”. He also hit out at the United States and Europe for imposing further sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme without wider international backing. He warned that Russia would not support further measures which created “social problems” for the Iranian population. Lavrov’s visit had been billed as an attempt to rebuild relations between Britain and Russia, which have been problematic since the murder in London of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

South Sudan – a new country, new beginning in Africa

As the product of an agreement between the governments of north and south, it is highly unlikely that the subsequent referendum and secession of South Sudan will create a new precedent in international relations, nor negatively affect countries that have similar demands for border changes. From 7th to 15th January 2011, South Sudan held a referendum in which citizens chose between staying in Sudan and independence. Apart from many technical difficulties, the referendum passed peacefully and without significant incidents.
A referendum on independence is part of the peace agreement signed in 2005 between northern and southern Sudan. According to final results, 98.83% of the citizens of South Sudan voted for secession and independence.

Peak oil, climate change, political turmoil: the lesson from Egypt

Were the Egyptian people that bravely took to the streets to overthrow a tyrannical regime taking part in the world’s first peak oil revolution? It seems like out and out hyperbole at first. Hosni Mubarek ran the country in a permanent state of emergency in which he blocked free speech, intimidated anyone perceived as a threat, and operated a blatantly corrupt system that left millions of Egyptians impoverished. Tyrants get overthrown in the end, and the protesters on the streets of Egypt were clearly exercising their right to make a political choice – to remove Mubarak. After all, it’s such a romantic story that we want to buy into it: the disenfranchised youth who outsmarted the government’s spies by tweeting on Facebook to organize a brief, remarkably peaceful rebellion.

Belarus : une main de fer

Le 19 décembre 2010, le président Alexandre Loukachenko a été réélu pour un quatrième mandat présidentiel consécutif en Belarus. La communauté internationale devra traiter pendant encore cinq ans avec le dernier « dictateur » d’Europe, qualifié ainsi par les Etats-Unis pour son régime liberticide.

Le président sortant, à la tête de son pays depuis 1994, a remporté une victoire écrasante avec 79,7 % des votes laissant loin derrière son principal « adversaire », l’opposant Andreï Sannikov avec seulement 2,56 %. Aucun des huit autres candidats n’a atteint 2%.

Israel's military caught unready for Sinai front. Tantawi is no friend

Friday night, Feb. 11, as Cairo's Tahrir Square rejoiced over Hosni Mubarak exit, Israel counted the cost of losing its most important strategic partner in the region. Thirty-two years of peace with Egypt leave Israel militarily unprepared for the unknown and unexpected on their 270-kilometer long southern border: the current generation of Israeli combatants and commanders has no experience of desert combat, its armor is tailored for operation on its most hostile fronts: Iran, Lebanon's Hizballah and Syria; it is short of  intelligence on the Egyptian army and its commanders and, above all, no clue to the new rulers' intentions regarding Cairo's future relations with Israel and security on their Sinai border.

Will an unknown officer be Egypt's next ruler? Military beefs up Sinai force

While the High Army Council will need time to fix dates for presidential and parliamentary elections and the transition to civilian government, it acted within 24 hours from taking over from Hosni Mubarak to bring lawless outbreaks in Sinai under control by pumping extra strength into the peninsula on Saturday, Feb. 12.
That night Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak phoned the council head, Defense Minister Mohamed Tantawi, to thank him for transferring 900 men of two battalions of the 18th Division. It was the second time in the eighteen days of the uprising that Israel consented to injecting military units into the peninsula whose demilitarization was enshrined in the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries. The Hamas-al Qaeda outbreaks had grown into a threat to the Egyptian presence in the strategic peninsula and to Israel's border security, as reported on Feb. 8.

Egypt: The Reality of the Muslim Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood was launched in 1928 to restore a caliphate, a global religious government aimed at fighting the “non-believers” (specifically, Christians, Hindus, and Jews) and at spreading Islam. The group opposed the existence of any secular states in all Muslim societies throughout the Middle East.
The Brotherhood killed Egypt’s Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nuqrashi in 1948 and plotted to kill President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the early 1950s. An offshoot group, Islamic Jihad, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, later Osama bin Laden’s number-two man, assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat in 1981 and tried to kill President Hosni Mubarak in 1995.

Algeria shuts down internet and Facebook as protest mounts

Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone. There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.

But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime. Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. "The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria.

Towards a revolution in Algeria?

While press coverage of the Middle East and North Africa has spent the past month focused on Tunisia and Egypt, Algerian opposition groups calling for mass protests on February 12 have stirred speculation that their country, now set to be the largest in Africa (given South Sudan’s recent vote for seccession), may be the next domino to fall. Yet while Algeria is beset by many of the same problems of unemployment, corruption and governance facing its North African neighbors, a true mass revolt in the country remains unlikely – but far from impossible.

Yemen Protesters Clash with Security Forces

Yemen's government security forces clashed with anti-government protesters Saturday, after groups of mostly young men, celebrating the resignation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, tried to march on the Egyptian Embassy. Thousands of young Yemenis took to the streets of the capital Sana'a overnight and into the day Saturday to express enthusiasm over the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Eyewitnesses say that rallies took place spontaneously in parts of Sana'a, with demonstrators trying to rally in front of the Egyptian Embassy. The Yemen Post newspaper editor-in-chief Hakim Almasmari says that government security forces skirmished with the crowds. A number of demonstrators were reportedly injured in the clashes. Almasmari adds that several people were also arrested:

Mexico’s biggest freeze since 1957 means US produce price will skyrocket

The freeze reached fields as far south as southern Sinaloa. Crops in the border state of Sonora could be devastated. “The last time there was a freeze of this severity was 1957,” said Jerry Wagner, director of sales and marketing for Nogales, Ariz.-based Farmer’s Best. “It’s still too early to tell, but there’s a lot of damage.” All of the growing regions Farmer’s Best ships from suffered freezing temperatures, Wagner said. The company’s full line of vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash, was likely affected. One industry veteran told Jesse Driskill, operations manager of the Nogales office of Meyer LLC, that Mexico had not had a freeze like this in 60 years.

L’Afrique dans la guerre des métaux rares

Tantale, sélénium, cobalt… Face à l’hégémonie chinoise, les pays occidentaux ont hissé le secteur au rang d’industrie stratégique et concentrent leur attention sur l’Afrique. [...] En un an, la capitalisation boursière totale de six entreprises minières juniors spécialisées dans les métaux rares  et réparties aux Etats-Unis, au Canada et  en Australie, a connu une croissance de 30 % à 50 %, pour atteindre 7 milliards de dollars. Du jamais vu. En annonçant la réduction de ses quotas d’exportation de métaux rares, la Chine, qui contrôle 97 % de la production, a provoqué un véritable tsunami.

L’après Moubarak interroge déjà les marchés

Les analystes de Knowdys n’ont pas été les seuls à se réveiller le 11 février 2011 avec une mine déconfite. Les marchés aussi. Tous en recul, en mid-day, suite à la décision de l’armée égyptienne d’assurer la transition jusqu’à la prochaine présidentielle. Avec le départ effectif de Hosni Moubarak, les investisseurs nous pressent de questions : « Y a-t-il des risques de contagion au sud du Sahara ?»,  « Quelles pourraient être les scénarios et les conséquences?»,  « Est-il possible d’anticiper sans céder à la panique?»

Lutte antiterroriste : Moscou prêt à relancer la coopération avec Londres

La Russie est prête à reprendre sa coopération avec la Grande-Bretagne en matière de lutte antiterroriste, toutefois cela implique de rétablir la collaboration entre les services spéciaux des deux pays, a annoncé jeudi à Moscou le ministre russe des Affaires étrangères Sergueï Lavrov. "Si nos collègues britanniques sont prêts, le Service fédéral de sécurité (FSB) est prêt à relancer la coopération", a déclaré le chef de la diplomatie russe avant d’ajouter que toute collaboration dans la lutte antiterroriste était impensable sans l’implication du FSB, spécialiste dans le domaine.

Des espions chinois dans les ordinateurs des géants du pétrole

Des pirates informatiques chinois se sont introduits dans les réseaux informatiques de cinq multinationales du secteur des hydrocarbures affirme le fabricant d’antivirus McAfee. Des chinois à nouveau suspectés d’espionnage. Des hackers (pirates informatiques) agissant à partir de la Chine se sont introduits dans les ordinateurs de cinq multinationales du secteur des hydrocarbures pour espionner leurs projets en matière d’appels d’offres et dérober d’autres secrets, a fait savoir le fabricant d’antivirus McAfee dans un nouveau rapport.

The Shape of the Future

Fuel