The Looming Military Showdown with Russia

Posted on April 5, 2016April 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

(CNN)Demonstrating its commitment to a “free” and “secure” Europe, the United States deployed 12 F-15C Eagles and approximately 350 airmen to Iceland and the Netherlands on Friday, the Air Force announced.

U.S. aircraft units from the 131st Fighter Squadron at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts and the 194th Fighter Squadron at Fresno Air National Guard Base in California will support NATO air surveillance missions in Iceland and conduct flying training in the Netherlands.

The F-15s are not the only package of American fighters being sent to Europe in an effort to deter further Russian aggression in the region.

In February, the U.S. said it will send six F-15s to Finland as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which the United States initiated in 2014 to reassure NATO allies after Russian military intervention in Ukraine. These aircraft are scheduled to deploy next month.

Although it maintains a small coast guard force, Iceland is the only country in NATO that does not have a military.

The F-15s are part of the U.S.’s Theater Security Packages, a rotational force used to augment existing Air Force capabilities in Europe, according to the Air Force.

It is also somewhat of a secret that while Russia was taking over yet another country outside of Crimea and Ukraine, meaning Syria, Russia was in fact testing pilots, electronic warfare and newly developed ordnance obscured with the dropping over older and prohibited cluster unguided munitions.

TurkishWeekly: Russia’s engagement in Syria presents an apposite opportunity for the Russian military to test the effectiveness of its modernization program even though its involvement in the conflict is very limited.

Some of the modern Russian munitions with modern precision technology include the Kh-25 laser-guided missile and the KAB-500S Glonass satellite-guided bomb. However, these weapons are used in limited numbers, according to the defense consultancy company IHS. A Russian military expert Mikhail Barabanov said “There have been no casualties, the intensity of action is quite high, and new types of weapons — such as satellite-guided bombs, cluster munitions with smart elements, and cruise missiles — have been tested.” Barabanov believes it is still too early to judge the success of the new equipment.

In 2014, Russia has been flying bombers in Northern Europe to likely test NATO’s defense systems and responsive actions by NATO members.

FreeBeacon: Six Russian aircraft, including two Bear H nuclear bombers, two MiG-31 fighter jets and two IL-78 refueling tankers were intercepted by F-22 fighters on Wednesday west and north of Alaska in air defense identification zones, said Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Two other Bears were intercepted by Canadian jets on Thursday.

Additionally, Russia has introduced and has been testing a new stealth AMUR 1650 attack submarine. In February of 2016, it was announced by a U.S. Navy Vice Admiral that Russia’s activities are at Cold War levels.

Putin is challenging NATO in Europe and the Obama administration is responding with all the guidance being coordinated by General Breedlove. Europe requires hard military assets and is receiving them while the same goes for the Baltic States.

The possible showdown could come at the time the West is most vulnerable, not only for Europe dealing with a migrant and economic crisis but for the United States when a new president and administration takes over. It worked for al Qaeda just a mere few months into the Bush administration.

Russia is anything but bashful having made this declaration less than a week ago.

Russian Officials: Russia Is Ready To Militarily Answer NATO’s Growing Potential In Europe

MEMRI: In recent days, tensions have risen between the U.S. and Russia over the U.S. decision to increase the budgets and activities of NATO forces in Eastern Europe. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has stated that Russia is ready to respond to NATO’s growing potential in Europe. On March 25, 2016, he denounced the upgrade of NATO troops in Europe, in particular near Russia’s borders, thus compelling Russia to react. “NATO continues to build up its military potential in Europe, including in close vicinity to the Russian borders. No doubt, this situation cannot but concern us. We are forced to respond to it,” the minister said.[1]

Shoigu added that in 2016, Russia’s Western Military District will be upgraded with over 1,100 pieces of military hardware, including Sukhoi Su-35 advanced fighter jets, Koalitsiya-SV and Msta-SM self-propelled howitzers, and S-400 antiaircraft missile systems. The District has set up a new 1st Tank Army headquartered in the Moscow area. During 2016, Russia will raise its alert levels and conduct 800 operative and combat training drills to boost the military’s response readiness.[2] More here.

Add in the emerging threats of Iran and North Korea, the West has a trifecta of a military showdown.

Who is APT6?

Posted on April 5, 2016April 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

Darkhotel APT hackers campaign ‘followed’ global CEOs using hotel networks

A state-backed espionage group has spent years targeting senior executives from large global companies using a specialised Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) that can follow and steal data from them as they move around the globe from hotel to hotel, Kaspersky has revealed.

TechWorld: Interestingly, despite some smarts, the sophistication level isn’t always top drawer, which points towards China rather than the US or Russia. The victim list is another hint at that too.

“Overall, victims in our sinkhole logs and KSN data were found across the globe, with the majority in Japan, Taiwan, China, Russia, Korea and Hong Kong,” (in that order) noted Kaspersky Lab’s researchers.

US executives were on the list but far below the prevalence for targeting Japanese CEOs and managers. And the attackers seem to go after almost everyone with the right job title, with sectors hit including electronics, finance, manufacturing, pharma, cosmetics, chemicals, automotive, defence, law, military and even NGOs – the last one has been an obsession for Chinese actors. More here.

FBI Says a Mysterious Hacking Group Has Had Access to US Govt Files for Years

Motherboard: The feds warned that “a group of malicious cyber actors,” whom security experts believe to be the government-sponsored hacking group known as , “have compromised and stolen sensitive information from various government and commercial networks” since at least 2011, according to an FBI alert obtained by Motherboard.

The alert, which is also available online, shows that foreign government hackers are still successfully hacking and stealing data from US government’s servers, their activities going unnoticed for years. This comes months after the US government revealed that a group of hackers, widely believed to be working for the Chinese government, had for more than a year infiltrated the computer systems of the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM. In the process, they stole highly sensitive data about several millions of government workers and even spies.

In the alert, the FBI lists a long series of websites used as command and control servers to launch phishing attacks “in furtherance of computer network exploitation (CNE) activities [read: hacking] in the United States and abroad since at least 2011.”

Domains controlled by the hackers were “suspended” as of late December 2015, according to the alert, but it’s unclear if the hackers have been pushed out or they are still inside the hacked networks.

“Anybody who’s been in that network all this long, they could be anywhere and everywhere.”

“Looks like they were in for years before they were caught, god knows where they are,” Michael Adams, an information security expert who served more than two decades in the US Special Operations Command, and who has reviewed the alert, told Motherboard. “Anybody who’s been in that network all this long, they could be anywhere and everywhere.”

For Adams, this alert shows that the US government still is not in control of what’s going on inside its most sensitive networks. This alert, he said, is an admission of that.

“It’s just flabbergasting,” he told me. “How many times can this keep happening before we finally realized we’re screwed?”

The FBI wouldn’t comment on the alert, only saying that it was just another example of a routine notice to private partners, “provided in order to help systems administrators guard against the actions of persistent cyber criminals.”

This group of “persistent cyber criminals” is especially persistent. The group is none other than the “APT6” hacking group, according to sources within the antivirus and threat intelligence industry. There isn’t much public literature about the group, other than a couple of old reports, but APT6, which stand for Advanced Persistent Threat 6, is a codename given to a group believed to be working for the Chinese government.

“This is one of the earlier APTs, they definitely go back further than 2011 […] more like 2008.”

“This is one of the earlier APTs, they definitely go back further than 2011 or whatever—more like 2008 I believe,” Kurt Baumgartner, a researcher at the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab, told me. (Baumgartner declined to say whether the group was Chinese or not, but said its targets align with the interest of a state-sponsored attacker.)

Kyrk Storer, a spokesperson with FireEye, confirmed that the domains listed in the alert “were associated with APT6 and one of their malware backdoors,” and that the hackers “targeted the US and UK defense industrial base.”

Another researcher at a different security company, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the hacker’s activities, said this was the “current campaign of an older group,” and said there “likely” was an FBI investigation ongoing. (Several other security companies declined to comment for this story.)

At this point, it’s unclear whether the FBI’s investigation will lead to any concrete result. But two years after the US government charged five Chinese military members for hacking US companies, it’s clear hackers haven’t given up attacking US targets.

1 Person a Year Ago, Lead to Panama Papers, Ripple Effect

Posted on April 5, 2016April 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

What banks aided in the accounts of the global elites to hide their wealth? Did our own governmental financial gurus know about this? Well yes. Encryption was also used. Ahem….

Ah yeah sure —>> WSJ: The U.S. Justice Department said Monday it is reviewing documents published by international media outlets to see if the papers constitute evidence of corruption that could be prosecuted in the U.S. Also Monday, French prosecutors opened an investigation into whether French nationals or financial institutions have used Panama to evade taxes.

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IndiaExpress: Two global companies were under mounting pressure, and threats were flying. For years, the Swiss banking giant UBS and a Panama law firm named Mossack Fonseca embraced each other in a mutually profitable relationship. UBS had customers who wanted offshore shell companies to keep their finances hidden. And Mossack Fonseca, one of the largest creators of offshore companies in the world, was happy to sell them.

Oh, ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s son is on the investigation list.

AhramOnline: Mubarak’s eldest son Alaa was revealed to be involved in dealing with Mossack Fonseca through his British Virgin Islands firm Pan World Investments Inc., which is managed by Credit Suisse. Alaa and Gamal were released from prison in January 2015 after serving the maximum pre-trial detention period of 18 months.Their release decision overturned a lower court conviction that saw the pair given four-year jail sentences and a three-year sentence for the elder Mubarak. They were charged with embezzling public funds earmarked for the renovation of presidential palaces and using the money to spruce up private properties. A Cairo court dropped other graft charges against the two sons in late 2014. More here.

Panama Papers: HSBC, UBS, Credit Suisse, other banks helped wealthy hide assets

OneIndia: New Delhi, April 5:The Panama Papers leak, claimed by many as the “world’s biggest”, has created ripples across the world, upsetting the rich and mighty with accounts in tax havens. But there is confusion about who actually leaked the papers.The leak turned out to be a Monday mayhem for around 214,000 hidden offshore companies after a group of global journalists, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), got hold of the papers of the practically unknown law firm Mossack Fonseca based in Panama.

So who leaked the ‘Panama Papers’ — a collection of over 2,600 GB of data comprising more than 11 million documents?According to reports, over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, detailing how the firm set up and sold anonymous offshore companies around the world.In the months that followed, the number of documents continued to grow far beyond the original leak.Ultimately, Süddeutsche Zeitung acquired about 2.6 terabytes, or 2,600 GB, of data –making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with.The source, who contacted the German newspaper’s reporter, Bastian Oberway, via encrypted chat wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return, apart from a few security measures, the daily said on its website.

After getting their hands on the data, the Süddeutsche Zeitung decided to analyse the data in cooperation with the ICIJ as the consortium had already coordinated the research for past projects that the daily was also involved in.In the past 12 months, around 400 journalists from more than 100 media organisations in over 80 countries have taken part in researching the documents. The team included journalists from the Guardian and the BBC in England, Le Monde in France, La Nación in Argentina and The Indian Express in India.In Germany, Suddeutsche Zeitung journalists cooperated with their colleagues from two public broadcasters, NDR and WDR. Journalists from the Swiss Sonntagszeitung and the Austrian weekly Falter have also worked on the project, as have their colleagues at ORF, Austria’s national public broadcaster.The international team initially met in Washington, Munich, Lillehammer and London to map out the research process.

Beijing is censoring searches about the Panama Papers

China would rather its citizens didn’t talk too much about the Panama Papers.

CNN: A coalition of news organizations has seized global attention with a barrage of reports based on a massive document leak from a law firm in Panama. The reports, which CNN hasn’t been able to independently verify, allege top officials and people connected to them around the world hid wealth through secret offshore companies.

China’s online censors are restricting many search results and discussions on social media involving the terms “Panama Papers” and “Panama.” They’re also censoring use of the names of relatives of current and former Chinese leaders — including President Xi Jinping — that are mentioned in the reports.

At a news briefing Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei declined to comment in response to repeated questions about the reports, which he described as “pulled out of nowhere.”

It’s not against the law to have offshore financial holdings, and the leaked documents don’t necessarily indicate illegal activity. But the personal finances of Chinese leaders and their family members is a hugely sensitive issue for the ruling Communist Party, which is in the midst of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign led by Xi. More here.

Border Security Facts or Not

Posted on March 23, 2016March 23, 2016 by Denise Simon

March 23, 2016

National Security and Border Threats

Key word, key term for entry: CREDIBLE FEAR = immediate entry, on the fly on asylum.

Horowitz: What is Homeland Security Hiding Behind Immigration Numbers?

CR: As Americans ominously observe the raging fire of suicidal immigration policies implemented by our European friends across the pond, one of the first questions on their minds is: how many of these Islamic radicals have been admitted to our country? The answer is we don’t even know how many people in total have come to our country since 2013 because the Department of Homeland Security has refused to publish that data or make it available to Congress.

It is already March 2016, yet the public and members of Congress still do not have any of the immigration data for 2014, much less 2015.

Over the past year we’ve been posting data on the number of immigrants, naturalized citizens, and immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries we have accepted in recent years. The immigration and naturalization trends are skyrocketing across the board, particularly from Muslim countries. Roughly 680,000 immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries have been given green cards from 2009-2013. But notice we have no data since 2013.

While data on refugees can be pulled from the State Department’s database (when it is working) and information on some non-immigrant visas can be pulled from the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, the public is in the dark as to the number of people who have been granted green cards in total (and the breakdown by country) without access to the annual “Yearbook on Immigration Statistics” from the Department of Homeland Security.

It is already March 2016, yet the public and members of Congress still do not have any of the immigration data for 2014, much less 2015. Typically, the statistics are published during the spring of the following year. The release of data has gotten progressively slower since the INS was restructured into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, but the Obama administration has consistently stonewalled on publishing data. For example, it wasn’t until last week that HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement published its 2014 report on refugees. But even Obama’s DHS had the 2013 data posted by June of 2014. Why is there still no data on 2014 two years later?

With evidence from Census data indicating a surge in immigration overall and a spike in immigration from the Middle East, why is it that in a first world country we don’t even know how many people have come in since the advent of ISIS? Given the terrorism threats and the growing population from the Middle East, wouldn’t it be nice to know how many people from predominantly Muslim countries have been granted green cards over the past two years?

Given the influx of Central American illegal immigrants, shouldn’t we know how many were granted asylum and how many children were granted Special Immigrants Juvenile Status, which leads to a pathway to citizenship?

Given Obama’s unprecedented move of advertising and recruiting immigrants to become naturalized citizens last year, shouldn’t we know how many have signed up and from where they originated?

The notion that even members of Congress don’t know the details of who is being added to our civil society until two years later is patently absurd and dangerous. Congress should have the full reports the following year and topline data every month.

Unfortunately, there aren’t enough members of Congress who care enough to exercise proper oversight over this administration’s violation of our sovereignty.

Cuba: Where is Barack and the Pope on This?

Posted on March 20, 2016March 20, 2016 by Denise Simon

Traveling with a delegation of about 80, Barack Obama has arrived in Cuba, something no sitting president has done since Calvin Coolidge. It is not clear who Obama will have meetings with, but his first stop was the recently fully opened U.S. embassy.

Meanwhile, there are real things going on in Havana that many are ignoring especially media and the entire diplomatic delegation. Obama calls this a new day in relations but it is hardly so when it comes to human rights.

The Pope played a large role in re-starting talks but it all began in earnest at the Nelson Mandela funeral.

The average salary for Cubans is $20.00 USD per month. All monies that flow into the island have two destinations, the Castro regime and the military.

Facts about Cuba: Venezuela ships 100,000 barrels of oil to Cuba a day. Only a few years ago, Putin forgave $32 billion in Cuban debt. Cuba has a long history of human rights violations such that John Kerry’s advance trip, ahead of Obama’s was cancelled due to major disputes with diplomatic personnel. Cuba’s military is known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces and all people between the ages of 17-28 have mandatory service.

Russia has an intelligence and spy base in Lourdes, Cuba as does China which is located in Bejucal, Cuba. Both of these bases spy on telecom transmissions, phone, satellite ad internet.

Chinese telecommunications spybase in Bejucal, Cuba Bejucal Lourdes

Meanwhile……

Violent Arrests of Pro-Democracy Activists Precede Obama Landing in Cuba

Hours before President Barack Obama landed in Havana to meet with high-ranking members of the island’s repressive communist regime, more than 50 pro-democracy dissidents were beaten and arrested, shoved into buses to be shipped into the nation’s jails to prevent them from disturbing official activities.

Breitbart: At least 50 of those arrested are members of the Ladies in White, a mostly-Catholic dissident group comprised of the wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters of prisoners of conscience. The Ladies in White members joined a larger group of anti-communist dissidents in Havana following their weekly attendance at Mass. Service this Sunday is especially important to Catholics as they celebrate Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.

“It was brutal, there are people with fractures and contusions,” Antonio Rodiles, leader of the dissident group Estado de SATS, told the Spain-based Diario de Cuba. “They hit us with everything.” The newspaper notes that Rodiles spoke to them via telephone, and the chaos of mass arrests happening around him threatened to drown out his own voice on the phone. Rodiles was subsequently arrested.

In addition to the 50 members of the Ladies in White and Antonio Rodiles, Danilo Maldonado, an artist known as “El Sexto,” was arrested in the fray.

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Maldonado was recently released from prison after serving a ten-month sentence for painting the names “Fidel” and “Raúl” on the backs of two pigs for an Animal Farm-themed art project.

The protesters all carried signs and chanted slogans directed at President Obama, calling for him to reconsider his friendly stance towards dictator Raúl Castro. The Ladies in White marched holding a sign reading “Obama, Nothing Has Changed Here.” Another group of dissidents held a sign reading “Obama, traveling to Cuba is not fun. No more violations of human rights.”

While Sunday’s arrests yielded much more dramatic images due to the unusually high number of media representatives on the island for President Obama’s visit, there is evidence that the communist government has been working all week to keep the nation’s most vocal opponents of communism silent. On Saturday, a man named Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez was arrested for placing a sign on his window reading “Neither Obama nor Castro, Freedom for Cuba.” He was taken to the hospital after his arrest for severe body aches, a sign he was beaten by police during his arrest.

Pérez was among more than 200 arrested yesterday, according to Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) leader José Daniel Ferrer, who attested to the arrest of 209 members of his group in Oriente, the eastern end of Cuba. In contrast, the Cuban government arrested about 250 dissidents throughout the entirety of Pope Francis’ visit in September.

In addition to those taken to jail, at least one is being held under house arrest without charge. The man: Zaqueo Báez, who made international headlines in September for daring to approach Pope Francis’ vehicle in Havana and say the word “freedom” within earshot of the pontiff. Báez was beaten severely in front of the pope and taken to prison, facing criminal charges for disturbing the peace. Pope Francis later denied any knowledge of the incident despite his proximity to it.

The Cuban dissident community has loudly opposed President Obama’s visit, arguing that his presence on the island would embolden the Cuban government to act more violently against pro-democracy activists. “These sorts of visits bring a lot of collateral damage,” dissident Marta Beatriz Roque said in February.

Studies of Castro regime behavior following President Obama’s announcement in December 2017 that he would be establishing diplomatic ties with the Castro dictatorship show that Havana has become more oppressive and violent against those who demand to live in a democratic society. “There has been no substantial improvement in regard to human rights and individual freedoms on the island… [The Cuban government] has adapted its repressive methods in order to make them invisible to the scrutinizing, judgmental eyes of the international community, but it has not reduced the level of pressure or control over the opposition,” a report by the Czech NGO People in Need concluded in December.