John Kerry, Iran is Cheating on JPOA, Germany Report

Posted on July 13, 2016July 13, 2016 by Denise Simon

Paging Mr. Kerry, paging Mr. Obama, paging Ben Rhodes..paging anyone, pick up on line 4.

Do we have to rely on Angela Merkel of Germany to get the truth?

In 2015: The number two man at the CIA said today he has a “high degree of confidence” that if Iran cheats on the newly-signed, controversial nuclear deal, the U.S. intelligence community would catch them in the act.

“Our assessment of the provisions that are in the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) that provide the real-time, persistent access to the cleared sites, as well as a mechanism for getting scheduled access to suspicious sites, combined with other capabilities and information that we have available to us, gives us a reasonably high degree of confidence that we would be able to detect Iran if it were trying to deviate from the requirements that they’ve signed up to in the JCPOA,” David Cohen, Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency said at the Aspen Security Forum today. “So I think our assessment is that the JCPOA gives us a good ability to detect Iranian deviation from the limitations on enrichment and the other specific elements in the JCPOA.”

When referring to access to Iranian sites, Cohen was presumably referring to the access provided to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, as stipulated in the agreement, not access by the CIA. More here from ABC.

***** So….under Obama and Kerry, is the CIA allowed to track Iranian actions and report cheating and violations?

*****

Iran cheats on nuclear deal

Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This piece is reprinted with permission and can be found on Abrams’ blog “Pressure Points.”

Hayom: The greatest imminent danger in last year’s nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was always that Iran would cheat — taking all the advantages of the deal, but then seeking to move forward more quickly toward a nuclear weapon — and that the Obama administration would be silent in the face of that cheating.

This was always a reasonable prospect, given the history of arms control agreements. Those who negotiate such agreements wish to defend them. They do not wish to say, six or 12 months and even years later, that they were duped and that the deals must be considered null and void.

Last week, Germany’s intelligence agency produced a report detailing Iranian cheating. Here is an excerpt from the news story:

“Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said in its annual report that Iran has a ‘clandestine’ effort to seek illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies ‘at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level.’ The findings by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s equivalent of the FBI, were issued in a 317-page report last week.

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored the findings in a statement to parliament, saying Iran violated the United Nations Security Council’s anti-missile development regulations. ‘Iran continued unabated to develop its rocket program in conflict with the relevant provisions of the U.N. Security Council,’ Merkel told the Bundestag. … The German report also stated, ‘It is safe to expect that Iran will continue its intensive procurement activities in Germany using clandestine methods to achieve its objectives.’

“According to an Institute for Science and International Security July 7 report by David Albright and Andrea Stricker, Iran is required to get permission from a UN Security Council panel for ‘purchases of nuclear direct-use goods.’

“While the German intelligence report did not say what specifically Iran had obtained or attempted to obtain, the more recent report said dual use goods such as carbon fiber must be reported. Iran did not seek permission from the U.N.-affiliated panel for its proliferation attempts and purchases in Germany, officials said.”

Here is a summary of that report by the Institute for Science and International Security:

“The Institute for Science and International Security has learned that Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization recently made an attempt to purchase tons of controlled carbon fiber from a country. This attempt occurred after Implementation Day of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The attempt to acquire carbon fiber was denied by the supplier and its government. Nonetheless, the AEOI had enough carbon fiber to replace existing advanced centrifuge rotors and had no need for additional quantities over the next several years, let alone for tons of carbon fiber. This attempt thus raises concerns over whether Iran intends to abide by its JCPOA commitments. In particular, Iran may seek to stockpile the carbon fiber so as to be able to build advanced centrifuge rotors far beyond its current needs under the JCPOA, providing an advantage that would allow it to quickly build an advanced centrifuge enrichment plant if it chose to leave or disregard the JCPOA during the next few years. The carbon fiber procurement attempt is also another example of efforts by the P5+1 to keep secret problematic Iranian actions.”

So Iran isn’t only being more aggressive since the signing of the JCPOA — in Iraq and Syria, for example, or in cyber attacks on the United States — but is also cheating on the deal. And what is the reaction from the Obama administration, and other cheerleaders for the JCPOA? Nothing.

John Kerry famously said, “Iran deserves the benefits of the agreement they struck.” They do not deserve to be allowed to cheat. Kerry said in April when asked if Iran would “stick to the key terms of this deal for the next 20 years” that “I have faith and confidence that we will know exactly what they’re doing during that period of time. And if they decide to try to cheat, we will know it, and there are plenty of options available to us. That I have complete faith and confidence in.”

That’s nice. But now we know they are cheating, and the option the administration appears to have chosen is silence: just ignore the problem. When asked about the German intel report and the Institute for Science and International Security report, the State Department spokesman replied, “We have absolutely no indication that Iran has procured any materials in violation of the JCPOA.”

Needless to say this kind of response will only encourage Iran to cheat more, secure in the knowledge that Obama administration officials will not call them out on it, nor choose any serious one of the “plenty of options” it says it has. This means that Iran’s breakout time will diminish, and the danger to its neighbors and to the United States will grow and grow.

From “Pressure Points” by Elliott Abrams. Reprinted with permission from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Grid Hacking Tool Found, Have a Generator Yet?

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Researchers Found a Hacking Tool that Targets Energy Grids on the Dark Web

Motherboard: A sophisticated piece of government-made malware, designed to do reconnaissance on energy grid’s system ahead of an eventual cyberattack on critical infrastructure, was found on a dark web hacking forum.

Cybersecurity researchers usually catch samples of malicious software like spyware or viruses when a victim who’s using their software such as an antivirus, gets infected. But at times, they find those samples somewhere else. Such was the case for Furtim, a newly discovered malware, caught recently by researchers from the security firm SentinelOne.

SentinelOne’s researchers believe the malware was created by a team of hackers working for a government, likely from eastern Europe, according to a report published on Tuesday.

Hacking forums, of course, are home to a lot of malicious data and software. But they are usually not places where sophisticated government-made hacking tools get exchanged.

Udi Shamir, chief security officer at SentinelOne, said that it’s normal to find reused code and malware on forums because “nobody tries to reinvent the wheel again and again and again.” But in this case, “it was very surprising to see such a sophisticated sample” appear in hacking forums, he told Motherboard in a phone interview.

“This was not the work of a kid. […] It was cyberespionage at its best.”

Shamir said that the malware, dubbed Furtim, was “clearly not” made by cybercriminals to make some money but for a government spying operations.

Furtim is a “dropper tool,” a platform that infects a machine and then serves as a first step to launch further attacks. It was designed to target specifically European energy companies using Windows, was released in May, and is still active, according to SentinelOne.

Another interesting characteristic is that Furtim actively tries to avoid dozens of common antivirus products, as well as sandboxes and virtual machines, in an attempt to evade detection and stay hidden as long as possible. The goal is “to remove any antivirus software that is installed on the system and drop its final payload,” SentintelOne’s report reads.

Security experts believe that critical infrastructure, such as the energy grid, is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks, and believe a future conflict might start with taking down the power using malware. While it might sound far-fetched, at the end of last year, hackers believed to be working for the Russian government caused a blackout in parts of Ukraine after gaining access to the power grid using malware.

It’s unclear who’s behind this cyberespionage operation, but Shamir said it’s likely a government from Eastern Europe, with a lot of resources and skills. The malware’s developers were very familiar with Windows; they knew it “to the bone,” according to him.

“This was not the work of a kid,” he said. “It was cyberespionage at its best.”

****

The dropper’s principle mission is to avoid detection; it will not execute if it senses it’s being run in a virtualized environment such as a sandbox, and it also can bypass antivirus protection running on compromised machines.

The sample also includes a pair of privilege escalation exploits for patched Windows vulnerabilities (CVE-2014-4113 and CVE-2015-1701), as well as a bypass for Windows User Account Control (UAC), which limits user privileges.

“It escalates privileges after all these checks and registers a hidden binary that it drops onto the hard drive that runs early in the boot process,” SentinelOne senior security researcher Joseph Landry said. “It will go through and systematically remove any AV on the machine that it targets. Then it drops another payload to the Windows directory and runs it during login time.” More from ThreatPost

State Dept Purged the Emails, Anti Israel

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

State Department Purged Emails About Secret Anti-Netanyahu Campaign

Key emails deleted despite requirement to archive

FreeBeacon: A State Department official deleted emails that included information about a secret campaign to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the country’s last election, according to a Senate investigatory committee that determined the Obama administration transferred tax funds to anti-Netanyahu groups.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations disclosed in a massive report on Tuesday that the Obama administration provided U.S. taxpayer dollars to the OneVoice Movement, a liberal group that waged a clandestine campaign to smear and oust Netanyahu from office.

OneVoice, which was awarded $465,000 in U.S. grants through 2014, has been under congressional investigation since 2015, when it was first accused of funneling money to partisan political groups looking to unseat Netanyahu. This type of behavior by non-profit groups is prohibited under U.S. tax law.

The investigation determined that OneVoice redirected State Department funds to anti-Netanyahu efforts and that U.S. officials subsequently erased emails containing information about the administration’s relationship with the non-profit group.

Related reading: March 2015/ Netanyahu Prevailed Against EU/USA Anti-Semitism

The disclosure comes amid a massive effort by Congress to reform the State Department’s email practices in light of former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential frontrunner’s Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified materials.

The Washington Free Beacon revealed early Tuesday that new legislation would ban all State Department officials from using private email accounts and servers, as well as mandate annual reports about the leak of classified information.

A senior State Department official admitted to congressional investigators that he deleted several emails pertaining to the administration’s coordination with OneVoice.

“The State Department was unable to produce all documents responsive to the Subcommittee’s requests due to its failure to retain complete email records of Michael Ratney, who served as U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem during the award and oversight of the OneVoice grants,” the report states.

Related reading: Jeremy Bird in Violation of the Logan Act?

Investigators “discovered this retention problem because one important email exchange between OneVoice and Mr. Ratney … was produced to the Subcommittee only by OneVoice,” the report continues. “After conducting additional searches, the Department informed the Subcommittee that it was unable to locate any responsive emails from Mr. Ratney’s inbox or sent mail.”

Ratney was ultimately forced to tell investigators that “[a]t times I deleted emails with attachments I didn’t need in order to maintain my inbox under the storage limit.”

While Ratney had the option to archive emails—as required by the department—he did not do this. Ratney claimed he was not aware of the rule, stating he “did not know [he] was required to archive routine emails.”

The deletion of the email chains appears to be a violation of the Federal Records Act, which mandates official records be archived for future disclosure purposes.

One source with intimate knowledge of the situation told the Free Beacon that the deletion of these emails is highly suspicious given the seriousness of the claims about the administration’s behavior.

Related reading: Obama’s War on Israel

“The Obama administration had the money, skills, and personnel to build a gigantic campaign infrastructure that was used to try to defeat the prime minister of an ally,” the source said. “But apparently they didn’t have what they needed to store the emails in which they did all of those things. That’s certainly a lucky break for the State Department.”

State Department officials did not immediately respond to a request for further information about the investigation and the deletion of emails.

****

Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) each signed off on the investigation, which was conducted by Portman’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In releasing the report, Portman criticized the State Department for lax oversight and for undermining a U.S. ally.

“The State Department ignored warning signs and funded a politically active group in a politically sensitive environment with inadequate safeguards,” Portman said. “It is completely unacceptable that U.S. taxpayer dollars were used to build a political campaign infrastructure that was deployed — immediately after the grant ended — against the leader of our closest ally in the Middle East.”

The investigation is notable for its bipartisan sheen. McCaskill highlighted the conclusion that it showed “no wrongdoing” by President Barack Obama’s administration but said the report “certainly highlights deficiencies in the Department’s policies that should be addressed in order to best protect taxpayer dollars.” Read more from Politico

Beijing Defiant After Ruling on S. China Sea Claims

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Hague Court Strikes Down Beijing’s South China Sea Claims

In a victory for the Philippines, an international tribunal ruled China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea are illegal, setting the stage for more tension in one of the world’s flashpoints.

US Navy Base Japan

ForeignPolicy: An international tribunal delivered a stinging rebuke to China on Tuesday, ruling unanimously that Beijing has no historic title to the huge swathe of the South China Sea that it claims.

The decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague represents the first explicit, legal repudiation of China’s claims to the waters of the South China Sea, a territorial land grab that has in recent years soured relations between Beijing and many of its neighbors, especially the Philippines. China refused to recognize the tribunal and has repeatedly said that it will ignore the decision, which is binding and not subject to appeal.

Related reading: Ramifications of Hague Decision

The much-awaited decision will almost certainly further inflame tensions in the South China Sea, which has seen frequent clashes between Chinese coast guard ships and fishermen and vessels from other countries. The United States has over the past year sought to uphold international law and freedom of navigation in one of the world’s busiest waterways by dispatching navy ships to sail through waters that Beijing has tried to fence off.

As expected, Beijing dismissed the ruling. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said the “law-abusing tribunal” had handed down an”ill-founded award.”

China’s defense ministry said its troops would “unswervingly safeguard state sovereignty, security, maritime rights and interests,” according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Read the full statement of China’s Defense Minister here.

Wary of China’s reaction to the verdict, the Philippines called for “restraint.”

“Our experts are studying this award with the care and thoroughness that this significant arbitral outcome deserves,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay told reporters.

“We call on all those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety. The Philippines strongly affirms its respect for this milestone decision,” he said.

In the wake of the ruling by the panel, which China has spent months trying to discredit, experts said Beijing could respond in a variety of ways. It could send more fighter jets to bases it is building on the disputed islets, or it could declare an air defense identification zone in part of the South China Sea, much as it did in 2013 in the East China Sea.

China could also ratchet up the fight with the Philippines by carrying out dredging and reclamation work at Scarborough Shoal, one of the features close to the Philippine coast and a reef at the center of the spat between the two countries. Or China could even try to blockade Philippine marines currently stationed at one of the tiny atolls, potentially threatening a showdown with the United States, which has a mutual defense treaty with Manila.

“The only person who knows what China’s response will be is Xi Jinping. It’s going to be his decision and nobody else’s,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative and a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an expert on the South China Sea disputes.

The ruling, capstone to a 2013 complaint brought by the Philippines, considered three broad issues. Does China, as it maintains through its proclamation of a so-called “nine dash line,” have “historic rights” to the waters around the Spratly Islands, hundreds of miles from the Chinese coast? Do those tiny reefs and rocks actually amount to islands, which would give their owner exclusive claim to the economic resources nearby? And has China, in its rush to dredge coral atolls to build artificial islands and fence off the area from the Philippines, violated the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea?

The panel found that while Chinese fishermen have in the past plied the waters around the Spratlys, that does not amount to any sort of legal claim to the resources there today.

“There was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources,” the panel ruled, “within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’.”

The tribunal also determined that none of the features in the Spratly Islands — with names like Mischief Reef and Fiery Cross Reef — amount to actual islands. That means that, regardless of which country has sovereignty over those rocks and atolls (a question the Hague panel did not consider), they do not grant any legal entitlement to a 200-mile wide exclusive economic zone in the surrounding waters.

Finally, the panel found that China had violated the Philippines’ rights in the waters off its coast, by, for example, interfering with Manila’s ability to drill for oil or fish in seas that by law belong to the Philippines.

“The Tribunal therefore concluded that China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights with respect to its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf,” the panel noted in its nearly-500 page ruling.

The tribunal also determined that China had violated environmental provisions of the international law of the sea by tearing up coral reefs to build artificial islands. And the panel also found in the past three years China has aggravated the dispute with the Philippines due to its land reclamation campaign and aggressive and illegal behavior by Chinese ships.

The panel concluded that both countries, since they ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty, are bound to comply with Tuesday’s decision.

Venezuela, Chaos in our Hemisphere, Inflation Skyrockets

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Venezuelans flee to Mexico to escape economic crisis

Kimberly-Clark: Venezuela seizes and re-opens US-owned factory

BBC: The government of Venezuela has said it has seized a factory owned by the US firm Kimberly-Clark.

The firm had said it was halting operations in Venezuela as it was unable to obtain raw materials.

But the labour minister said on Monday that the factory closure was illegal and it had re-opened “in the hands of the workers”.

Kimberly-Clark, which makes hygiene products including tissues and nappies, said it had acted appropriately.

Over the weekend it became the latest multinational to close or scale back operations in the country, citing strict currency controls, a lack of raw materials and soaring inflation.

Reuters: No to the closure” read graffiti on the firm’s gates over the weekend

General Mills, Procter & Gamble and other corporations have reduced operations in Venezuela as the country is gripped by economic crisis and widespread shortages of basic household goods.

What has gone wrong in Venezuela?

Labour Minister Oswaldo Vera, from the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV), visited the factory in Maracay and said it was illegal.

Almost 1,000 workers had asked him to re-start production, he said.

Mr Vera said: “Kimberly-Clark will continue producing, now in the hands of the workers.

“We’ve just turned on the first engine.”

The Texas-based company said in a statement: “If the Venezuelan government takes control of Kimberly-Clark facilities and operations, it will be responsible for the well-being of the workers and the physical asset, equipment and machinery in the facilities going forward.”

In just 12 hours, more than 35K Venezuelans cross Colombian border to buy food, medicine

FoxNewsLatino – Cucuta – In just 12 hours, more than 35,000 Venezuelans crossed the border into Colombia on Sunday to buy food and medicines in the city of Cucuta, when the Venezuelan government agreed to opened border crossings for one day only.

People began crossing the Simon Bolivar international bridge at 5:00 a.m. to purchase products that are scarce in Venezuela.

“We’re from here in San Antonio (and), honestly, we don’t have any food to give our children, so I don’t think it’s fair that the border is still closed,” a Venezuelan woman told EFE in Cucuta.

The woman, who preferred to not give her name, crossed the international bridge with her husband and children ages 5 and 2.

The border crossings between Tachira state and Norte de Santander province were closed on Aug. 19, 2015, by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who said he took the measure to fight smuggling and prevent members of paramilitary groups from entering Venezuela.

Maduro later ordered all crossings along the 1,378-mile border closed.

Tachira Gov. Jose Gregorio Vielma Mora said Saturday that the border would be opened on Maduro’s orders.

After the announcement, hundreds of Venezuelans began lining up to cross the Simon Bolivar international bridge.

“A second entry by Venezuelans into Colombia was planned by the Venezuelan right, with the pretext of buying food and medicines,” Vielma Mora said.

The governor was apparently referring to an incident last Tuesday, when about 500 Venezuelans from the city of Ureña crossed the closed Francisco de Paula Santander international bridge and went into Cucuta to buy food.

Norte de Santander Gov. William Villamizar, for his part, said in a Twitter post after visiting the border crossings that the humanitarian corridor “has benefited 25,000 people” who were able to buy “food and medicines.”

Villamizar spoke with some of the people streaming across the border and posed for photos with a family carrying a poster that read, “Colombia, gracias por su solidaridad con Venezuela” (Colombia, Thanks for Your Solidarity with Venezuela).

“This is super nice on Colombia’s part, very good,” Rosalba Jaimes, a San Antonio resident, told EFE.

Betty Rojas, a Venezuelan already heading home, said she and others planned to cross whenever the border was open.

“We bought rice, pasta, sugar, toilet paper, butter, everything we could bring back. We had enough for lots of stuff,” Rojas told EFE, adding that she wanted to tell the Colombian government “thank you.”

Cucuta police chief Col. Jaime Barrera said officers would “guarantee security in Cucuta’s business districts for the thousands of people coming from Venezuela.

Officers have been posted at the border crossings and at businesses across the border city, the provincial police chief said.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin visited Cucuta on Wednesday.

The president said he would try to negotiate with Maduro in an effort to reopen the border crossings.

Venezuela: Decree Grants New Powers To President, Defense Minister

Stratfor: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro issued a presidential decree July 11 granting new, sweeping powers to himself and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Sumarium reported. Maduro said the decree establishes a new program that concentrates economic and political power at the very top of government, which will enable the country to correct its economic woes and get production back on track. Moreover, all government institutions and ministries in the country will now fall under the direct control of the president and the defense minister. The president said that he will provide more information about the decree, which effectively makes Padrino Lopez a second head of state in Venezuela, within the coming days.