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Service Quality and Reputation
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Russian spies claim they can now collect crypto keys—but don’t say how
Putin gave KGB’s successor agency two weeks to deal with encrypted services.
ArsTechnica: Russia’s intelligence agency the FSB, successor to the KGB, has posted a notice on its website claiming that it now has the ability to collect crypto keys for Internet services that use encryption. This meets a two-week deadline given by Vladimir Putin to the FSB to develop such a capability. However, no details have been provided of how the FSB is able to do this.
The FSB’s announcement follows the passage of Russia’s wide-ranging surveillance law, which calls for metadata and content to be stored for six months, plus access to encrypted services, as Ars reported back in June.
The new capability seems to go even further, since the FSB notice (in Russian) speaks of obtaining the “information necessary for decoding the electronic messaging received, sent, delivered, and (or) processed by users of the ‘Internet’ network.”
Being able to decode Internet communications would seem to imply getting hold of any crypto keys that are used. However, as an article on The Daily Dot points out, it is still not clear what the new laws will require: “No one seems to know what this new law means in the slightest. Or, more accurately, the people who do know are keeping mum.”
Three of the services that are likely to be most affected by the new requirements are Facebook’s WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber. Ars has asked all three for clarification on what the Russian authorities have asked for, and what information the companies are or will be providing, but has not yet received any reply. This post will be updated with responses when they are received.
The Daily Dot quotes Russian technologist Anton Nesterov as saying that it’s not even clear whether the new legislation applies to VPNs or basic SSL keys, nor whether mainstream electronic payment systems must hand over their keys as a matter of routine.
Nesterov also points out the dangers involved in providing this information, not least because leaks of such valuable data are always a risk.
*****
In part from CSO: Networks at some 20 organizations in Russia — including scientific and military institutions, defense contractors, and public authorities — were found to be infected with the malware, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said Saturday. The range of infected sites suggests that the targets were deliberately selected as part of a cyber-espionage operation, the FSB said.
Analysis of the attack showed that filenames, parameters and infection methods used in the malware are similar to those involved in other high-profile cyber-espionage operations around the world.
The software was adapted to the characteristics of each PC targeted, and delivered in a malicious email attachment, the FSB said.
Once installed, it downloaded additional modules to perform tasks such as monitoring network traffic, capturing and transmitting screenshots and keystroke logs, or recording audio and video using the PC’s microphone and webcam.
The FSB is working with ministries and other government agencies to identify all the victims of the malware, and to limit its effects, it said.
Russia is said to be the source, not the target, of another government-related cyber-attack. Last week, evidence emerged suggesting Russian involvement in an attack on computers at the Democratic National Committee, where recent data leaks have tarnished the campaign of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Rival republican candidate Donald Trump last week suggested Russian spies should infiltrate Clinton’s email system in search of 30,000 messages allegedly missing from an investigation into her use of a private email server for official correspondence while secretary of state.
At least the police in the UK noticed something and asked officials for an inquiry. An investigation was performed and you gotta hand it to the Brits, they are so proper and careful, but did the right thing. Question is, was it enough. Further, we must look inward and ask if our own State laws and the IRS are doing the same thing when it comes to charities and foundations? Two come to mind immediately, the Clinton Foundation(s) and those that are advocates of Islamic organizations when the Holy-land Foundation case left many un-indicted co-conspirators.
TWO British charities that raised cash for ISIS and promoted Al-Qaeda respectively have been struck of the register after separate investigations by the regulator.
The Charity Commission has released reports on two separate organisations that claimed to be raising cash to help victims of the war in Syria, and Kurdish Muslims in Birmingham, but were in fact funding and promoting terrorists.
In one case, charities set up by Adeel Ul-Haq, 21, of Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, raised money through social media that was used to buy a high-powered laser pointer, night-vision goggles and a secret waterproof money pouch.
Ul-Haq was jailed for 12 months in February after a separate police investigation found he funded terrorism by sending money to an ISIS fighter in Syria.
Ul-Haq used Twitter to appeal for cash “to help people in war-torn Syria crisis, but instead sent it to the ISIS fighter.
He was jailed for a further five years for helping another person travel to Syria.
The Charity Commission report said the regulator was unable to account for much of £12,500 raised by Ul-Haq, but at least some of it went into another unnamed person’s bank account.
Some of this cash was then used to buy the specialist items oneBay, that the watchdog suspected would be used for terrorism.
The report said: “While recognising that it is not illegal to purchase such items, the inquiry was extremely concerned by the use of charitable funds to purchase a night-vision scope and its potential usage given that it can be used for hunting or surveillance.”
Ul-Haq never registered any charities with the commission, but the regulator took action as he was effectively acting as an official trustee and he had taken the donations on trust that they would help people in Syria.
The regulator found Ul-Haq breached his fiduciary duty to protect and apply charitable funds for the purposes for which they were raised and that there was evidence the second trustee had committed misconduct and mismanagement by allowing the charitable funds to be mixed in the same account as her own personal funds.
The second, unnamed, female trustee was ordered to repay any other charitable money in her account to Ul-Haq’s account, which was frozen by the commission at the start of the investigation.
However, she faced no police charges.
This cash and remaining funds in Ul-Haq’s account, plus money seized in a police raid of his home, totalled about £4,500, and was donated to two genuine charities working in Syria, which the commission has not named.
Ul-Haq been disqualified from acting as a charity trustee in the future.
At least £2,000 of money had been sent to a genuine charity, it was found.
A second charity probed by the commission was the Birmingham-based Didi Nwe Organisation.
Its website featured articles by Mullah Krekar, viewed as an associate of Al-Qaeda by the United Nations.
Didi Nwe also paid £14,000 to its chair of trustees between May 2010 and February 2013 and could not explain why, according to a statutory inquiry report published by the commission.
The charity trustees were found to have committed misconduct and mismanagement, failed to keep financial records, and were unable to show how the charity was furthering its causes of providing education and relieving poverty among Kurdish Muslims in Birmingham, the report said.
The commission launched an inquiry after the charity’s chair, referred to only as Trustee A, was stopped by police returning to the UK from France with around £1,800 in cash, which he claimed were charitable donations. Read more here. The report is found here.
Conclusions
The commission concluded that the First Trustee had solicited charitable funds from the public via Twitter for a specific purpose but had breached his fiduciary duty to protect and apply those funds properly for the purposes for which they were raised. The commission concluded that the items the First Trustee purchased on eBay with the charitable funds, including a laser pen, a money wallet and night vision scope, could not be used for furthering the charitable purposes for which the funds were raised and raised serious concerns about what the intended purpose of their use was.
There was evidence of misconduct and mismanagement by the Second Trustee in mixing charitable funds with her own personal funds.
Charitable funds raised by or donated to the First Trustee were not accounted for; there was a serious risk of further misapplication, in breach of duty, to any remaining funds or any funds which could be recovered if the First Trustee was to remain a trustee of the funds. The commission took regulatory action to remove the First Trustee as a trustee, the effect of which was to disqualify him from beinga trustee.
On 10 February 2016 the First Trustee was convicted under section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006 (preparation of terrorist acts) and section 17 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (entering into or becoming concerned in a terrorist funding arrangement) and received 5 years imprisonment. The commission issued a public statement following this conviction.
Zerohedge: This’s time to keep my word and here’re the docs I promised you.
It’s not a report in one file, it’s a big folder of docs devoted to Hillary Clinton that I found on the DNC server.
The DNC collected all info about the attacks on Hillary Clinton and
prepared the ways of her defense, memos, etc., including the most
sensitive issues like email hacks.
As an example here’re some files:
This’s time to keep my word and here’re the docs I promised you.
It’s not a report in one file, it’s a big folder of docs devoted to Hillary Clinton that I found on the DNC server.
The DNC collected all info about the attacks on Hillary Clinton and
prepared the ways of her defense, memos, etc., including the most
sensitive issues like email hacks.
Most notable among these files is the file called “Clinton Foundation Vulnerabilities Master Doc FINAL” which, as the title implies, is an extensive 42-page summary of how the Clinton Foundation views its biggest vulnerabilities based on mentions, references and attacks from the press.
Here are some of the section titles:
THE CLINTON FOUNDATION RECEIVED DONATIONS FROM INDIVIDUALS TIED TO SAUDI ARABIA WHILE CLINTON SERVED AS SECRETARY OF STATE
AN EMBATTLED BUSINESSMAN WITH “TIES TO BAHRAIN’S STATE-OWNED ALUMINUM COMPANY” GAVE BETWEEN $1 MILLION AND $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION
A VENEZUELAN MEDIA MOGUL WHO WAS ACTIVE IN VENEZUELAN POLITICS DONATED TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION DURING CLINTON’S TENURE AS SECRETARY OF STATE
GERMAN INVESTOR WHO HAS LOBBIED CHANCELLOR MERKEL’S ADMINISTRATION GAVE BETWEEN $1 MILLION AND $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION, SOME OF WHICH WAS DURING MRS. CLINTON’S TENURE AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT
THE CEO OF AN AMSTERDAM BASED ENERGY COMPANY DONATED AT LEAST $1 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION AND LATER ANNOUNCED AT THE 2009 CGI MEETING A $5 BILLION PROJECT TO DEVELOP ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY POWER GENERATION IN INDIA AND CHINA
INDIAN POLITICIAN AMAR SINGH, WHO HAD DONATED AT LEAST $1 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION, MET WITH HILLARY CLINTON IN SEPTEMBER 2008 TO DISCUSS AN INDIA-U.S. CIVIL NUCLEAR AGREEMENT
THE CLINTON FOUNDATION RECEIVED ADDITIONAL DONATIONS FROM INDIAN BUSINESS INTERESTS PRIOR TO HER BECOMING SECRETARY OF STATE
BILLIONAIRE STEEL EXECUTIVE AND MEMBER OF THE FOREIGN INVESTMENT COUNCIL IN KAZAKHSTAN LAKSHMI MITTAL GAVE $1 MILLION TO $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION BEFORE CLINTON BECAME SECRETARY OF STATE
SOON AFTER SECRETARY CLINTON LEFT THE STATE DEPARTMENT, THE CLINTON
FOUNDATION “RECEIVED A LARGE DONATION FROM A CONGLOMERATE RUN BY A
MEMBER OF CHINA’S NATIONAL PEOPLE’S CONGRESS”
…AND THE CLINTON FOUNDATION DEFENDED ITS PARTNERSHIPS WITH BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC CORPORATE INTERESTS
POWERFUL AND CONTROVERSIAL CORPORATE INTERESTS BASED IN THE U.S. ALSO DONATED TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION
AMONG THE CLINTON FOUNDATION DONORS REVEALED IN 2009 WERE SEVERAL FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS WHO HAD GIVEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
WHEN HILLARY CLINTON BECAME SECRETARY OF STATE IN 2009, BILL CLINTON AGREED TO STOP ACCEPTING CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION FROM MOST FOREIGN COUNTRIES
IN THE PAST, SOME OBSERVERS HAD LINKED FOREIGN GOVERNMENT DONATIONS TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION AND SECRETARY CLINTON’S WORK AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT
THE CLINTON FOUNDATION CAME UNDER INTENSE SCRUTINY IN FEBRUARY 2015 WHEN IT WAS REVEALED THAT THE FOUNDATION HAD ACCEPTED DONATIONS FROM FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS AFTER SECRETARY CLINTON LEFT THE STATE DEPARTMENT
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TIED FOREIGN GOVERNMENT DONORS TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION’S ENDOWMENT FUNDRAISING UNDER SECRETARY CLINTON
CLINTON FOUNDATION ANNOUNCED THAT SHOULD HILLARY CLINTON DECIDE TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT, THE FOUNDATION WOULD FOLLOW APPROPRIATE PROCEDURES FOR ACCEPTING DONATIONS FROM FOREIGN DONATIONS, JUST LIKE IT HAD HAD UNDER SECRETARY CLINTON…
REPORTS THAT STATE DEPARTMENT LAWYERS DID NOT EXHAUSTIVELY VET BILL CLINTON’S PAID SPEECHES DURING SECRETARY CLINTON’S TENURE RAISED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ROLE CLINTON FOUNDATION DONATIONS MAY HAVE PLAYED IN ORGANIZING THOSE SPEECHES
SOME CONSERVATIVES USED THE FOREIGN DONATIONS CONTROVERSY TO IMPLY THAT THE CLINTON FOUNDATION IS NOT A CHARITY AND QUESTION THE FOUNDATION’S CHARITABLE WORK
THE CLINTON FOUNDATION HAS ACCEPTED DONATIONS FROM INDIVIDUALS, SOME OF WHOM HAD TIES TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS, DURING HER TENURE AS SECRETARY OF STATE
THE CLINTON FOUNDATION RECEIVED MONEY FROM A FOUNDATION FORMED BY FORMER UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER VICTOR PINCHUK
WALL STREET JOURNAL COLUMNIST MARY O’GRADY CITED A CONTRACT BETWEEN TWO CLINTON DONORS FOR HAITI AID AS EVIDENCE OF A CONFLICT OF INTEREST FOR THE CLINTONS
There is much more in the full document presented below (link).
* * *
One important thing to note: according to an interview that Motherboard conducted with Guccifer2 on Tuesday, the hacker makes it clear he is not Russian. He is, in fact, from Romania, just like the Original Guccifer.
“I’m a hacker, manager, philosopher, women lover,” Guccifer 2.0 told Motherboard on Tuesday in a Twitter chat. “I also like Gucci! I bring the light to people. I’m a freedom fighter! So u can choose what u like!”
The hacker, who claimed to have chosen the name in reference to the notorious hacker who leaked the George W. Bush paintings and claims to have hacked Hillary Clinton’s email server, denied working for the Russian government, as several experts believe.
“I don’t like Russians and their foreign policy. I hate being attributed to Russia,” he said, adding that he was from Romania, just like the first Guccifer.
When asked to explain how he hacked into the DNC in Romanian, “he seemed to stall us, and said he didn’t want to “waste” his time doing that. The few short sentences he sent in Romanian were filled with mistakes, according to several Romanian native speakers.”
The hacker said he left Russian metadata in the leaked documents as his personal ”watermark.” He also said he got kicked out of the network on June 12, when the DNC “rebooted their system.”
A senior DNC official said in an emailed statement that “our experts are confident in their assessment that the Russian government hackers were the actors responsible for the breach detected in April, and we believe that the subsequent release and the claims around it may be a part of a disinformation campaign by the Russians.”
Guccifer 2.0 also said the DNC isn’t the only victim of his hacks, but declined to name any others because “my safety depends on it.”
It appears the Clinton Foundation was one of the other hacks.
Finally, when asked why he targeted the DNC, “Guccifer 2.0 said he simply did it to follow the lead of Marcel Lazar, the original Guccifer, and that he doesn’t “care at all” about Donald Trump. The hacker declined to say whether he knew him personally, “cause I care for Marcel.” “I think we must fight for freedom of minds,” he wrote. “Fight for the world without Illuminati.”
Good luck.
* * *
So while we are going through the full data dump (found here), here is the leaked document revealing the “Clinton Foundation’s Vulnerabilities.”
The LIBERTAD Act, known as the Helms-Burton law as stated in the text, Fidel and Raul Castro cannot be part of the governing structure. Cuba has supported and provided safe haven to members of the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Both are U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). The Obama administration would therefore need to remove ETA and FARC from the FTO list, before removing Cuba from the state-sponsors-of-terrorism list.
The State Department terrorism report also makes references beyond ETA and FARC — most significantly that Cuba harbors several fugitives of U.S. justice. Terrorists, murderers, and other violent criminals are being protected, well fed, and supported by the Communist regime. Among these is a woman convicted of first-degree murder, Joanne Chesimard. Also known as Assata Shakur, she is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list for executing a New Jersey State Police trooper. With the help of the Black Liberation Army, she broke out of prison and found refuge in Cuba. According to the FBI, Chesimard “continues to profess her radical anti-U.S. government ideology.” Read more here from NRO.
Russia may build a large international airport in Cuba with investors from the United Arab Emirates, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview with a newspaper in Abu Dhabi.
Manturov told newspaper The National that Russia is in discussions with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala investment company to invest in building a hub in Cuba for flights to Latin America. Russia is ready to invest $200 million in the project. More here.
For a complete list and timeline of sanctions against Cuba, go here. Most of the sanction activity occurred in 2016 due to the Obama White House normalizing relations with the country, the Castro brothers and appeasing Russia. It must also be noted that Cuba has been propping up Venezuela for many years.
October 10, 2003: In response to a crackdown on human rights by the Castro regime, President George W. Bush announced a measure to tighten sanctions on the country, including increased border inspections of travelers and shipments between the two countries.
May 2009: The Obama administration lifted restrictions on Cuban-Americans traveling and sending money to Cuba, also allowing U.S.-based telecommunications firms to seek business on the island. More here.
Why is any of this important? Who is who and breaking sanctions perhaps via the United Arab Emirates and shadow companies?
Bloomberg: Cuba has only one 18-hole golf course: the government-run Varadero Golf Club, about two hours east of Havana. Built on the 1930s estate of chemicals magnate Irénée du Pont, it was refurbished in the 1990s when the government turned to tourism to bolster its economy after the fall of the Soviet Union. Du Pont’s former residence, Xanadú Mansion, serves as the clubhouse. On the third floor, a wood-and-marble bar offers sweeping views of the Florida Straits.
The course, expanded by Canadian architect Les Furber, is largely flat and littered with palm trees, and the greens fee runs $70. One reviewer described it as “inoffensive golf at its finest.” Yet lining up a putt on the 8th or 18th holes, both of which are right on the azure water, even a duffer can’t miss Cuba’s potential. With fertile soil, plentiful green coastline, and topography that spans plains, rolling hills, and rugged mountains, the island is a golf course architect’s Shangri-La.
On an afternoon late last year, the golfers teeing off included a group of U.S. executives from the Trump Organization, who have the enviable job of flying around the world to identify golf-related opportunities. The company operates 18 courses in four countries, including Scotland and the United Arab Emirates. It would like to add Cuba. Asked on CNN in March if he’d be interested in opening a hotel there, Donald Trump said yes: “I would, I would—at the right time, when we’re allowed to do it. Right now, we’re not.” On July 26 he told Miami’s CBS affiliate, WFOR-TV, that “Cuba would be a good opportunity [but] I think the timing is not right.”
That, however, hasn’t stopped some of his closest aides from traveling to Cuba for years and scouting potential sites and investments. The U.S. trade embargo, first established in 1962, prohibits U.S. citizens from traveling to the island. But over the years, the U.S. has carved out allowances for family visits, journalism, and other social causes. Most commercial activity is still forbidden, though, with a few exceptions, such as selling medical supplies or food. Golf isn’t on that list.
The Varadero Golf Club after its redesign.
Photographer: David Alan Harvey/Magnum Photos
Trump Organization executives and advisers traveled to Havana in late 2012 or early 2013, according to two people familiar with the discussions that took place in Cuba and who spoke on condition of anonymity. Among the company’s more important visitors to Cuba have been Larry Glick, Trump’s executive vice president for strategic development, who oversees golf, and Edward Russo, Trump’s environmental consultant for golf. On later trips, they were joined by Jason Greenblatt, the Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, and Ron Lieberman, another Trump golf executive. Glick, Greenblatt, and Lieberman didn’t respond to requests for interviews. Melissa Nathan, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, declined to answer a list of detailed questions.
In a series of telephone interviews, Russo confirmed he’s traveled to Cuba about a dozen times since 2011. Although he’s spearheading the company’s Cuban golf efforts, according to three people familiar with his role, Russo says these trips haven’t been on behalf of the Trump Organization. He says he’s taken at least one with Glick to go bird-watching and “check out some habitats”—activities that could conceivably qualify for exemptions to the travel ban.
Despite saying his trips with Trump executives were unrelated to the Trump Organization, Russo referred questions about those trips to Eric Trump, the 32-year-old son of the Republican presidential nominee and the company’s executive vice president for development and acquisitions, including golf. “In the last 12 months, many major competitors have sought opportunities in Cuba,” Trump said in an e-mailed statement. “While we are not sure whether Cuba represents an opportunity for us, it is important for us to understand the dynamics of the markets that our competitors are exploring.”
So which was it: a little birding? Keeping an eye on the competition? Maybe neither. According to Antonio Zamora, a well-known Cuban-American lawyer, who says he’s advised the Trump Organization on Cuba for about a decade, he and Russo visited a prospective golf site east of Havana in an area called Bello Monte several years ago.
Russo, Trump’s environmental consultant, enjoys Havana in a photo posted to Facebook in December.
Based in Miami, Zamora took part in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion but is now an outspoken critic of the U.S. sanctions. “An embargo that has been in place by a world power like the United States for 50 years and has not accomplished anything substantial is a disgrace,” Zamora writes in his 2013 book, What I Learned About Cuba By Going To Cuba. “This is not what great powers do.” He advises U.S. investors throughout Latin America. He’s circulated conceptual drawings of a Trump tower in Havana beside refurbished versions of the Hotel Neptuno-Triton, a dilapidated pair of 1970s buildings in the city’s business district, according to a person who saw them. (Zamora denies this.)
Zamora does say that he discussed with the Trump Organization the possibility of teaming up with a foreign company to give Trump a minority position in a venture. He says the deal failed to materialize. Zamora dismisses any legal concerns about this, saying he’s been to Cuba dozens of times for conferences, and that the U.S. Department of the Treasury doesn’t bother with these kinds of trips. “It’s a nonissue,” he says.
Farhad Alavi, managing partner of Akrivis Law Group in Washington and an adviser to companies on U.S. sanctions, says that, before 2015, exploring most potential deals in Cuba was “not even in the realm of what Treasury might have licensed.” He adds that “prior to 2015, a fact-finding trip by a U.S. person for a business activity, like building a golf course or hotel, was prohibited. It’s not under one of the categories of permissible travel to Cuba.”
In January 2015, the Treasury Department broadened an exception for “professional research.” That’s viewed by attorneys to encompass all sorts of potential investment activity—short of signing deals. To finalize an investment in Cuba requires a specific license from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Marriott each announced in March they’d received authorization. (A Treasury spokeswoman says it is agency policy not to confirm or deny whether specific licenses have been issued.) Russo says the Trump Organization hasn’t secured one.
“Professional research” makes it easier for companies to explore business opportunities in Cuba, but it may not put the Trump Organization in the clear. Golf could be seen as promoting tourism, which remains illegal for U.S. companies. (President Barack Obama can’t change that—the tourism ban cannot be repealed without an act of Congress.) “If the Treasury Department believed that a new golf course in Cuba were intended to attract tourists from outside Cuba, then U.S. persons who meet in Cuba to develop the golf course could be charged with promoting tourism in Cuba,” says Richard Matheny, chair of the national security and foreign trade regulation practice group at Goodwin Procter in Washington. “This is unlawful under the current sanctions.”
“You can’t help but say, ‘Wow, here’s a hotel that could be renovated’
Golf’s history in Cuba is tinged with the absurd. In the 1950s the country staged tournaments that weren’t on the official PGA Tour but still attracted top players. In 1958 famed mobster Meyer Lansky—who’d been deported from the U.S. a decade earlier and was running a number of successful casinos in Cuba—set out to build the greatest hotel Havana had ever seen and further showcase the sport. With backing from Frank Sinatra, his Monte Carlo de La Habana was to feature a casino, a helicopter landing pad, and several glorious courses.
Lansky’s timing was spectacularly bad. A few weeks after construction started, Fidel Castro began his final rebel offensive against Cuba’s president, General Fulgencio Batista. On New Year’s Eve, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic. Castro rolled into Havana a few days later, and Lansky soon halted work. Castro declared golf “a game of the idle rich and exploiters of the people” and plowed over almost all the island’s courses. Even so, a series of early 1960s photographs shows Castro and his fellow revolutionary Che Guevara hamming it up with golf clubs. Castro was a baseball player, but Che took up golf as a young man and was rumored to have a 4 handicap. Last year a Cuban composer and an American librettist staged an opera in Havana based in part on those photos.
Guevara (left) and Castro (third from right) get in a round—and a photo op—in the early 1960s.
Photographer: Carlos Nunez/Prensa Latina/AP Photo
These days, Cuban officials actively promote golf development. A 200-page brochure published by the government late last year, Portfolio of Opportunities for Foreign Investment, features three hoped-for golf developments around the island, including two under contract with British and Chinese developers. The government also reportedly has a deal with Spanish airline Air Europa to develop a hotel and golf course at Playa El Salado, about 25 miles west of Havana. The Trump Organization has a particular interest in that development, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Although it’s not clear if Donald Trump is aware of his aides’ activities in Cuba—he didn’t return phone calls for this article—he’s demonstrated a familiarity with the rules for investing there. In his March interview with CNN, he said he wouldn’t enter Cuba “on the basis that you get a 49 percent interest, because right now you get a 49 percent interest.” The exchange was an apparent reference to Cuban law limiting foreign investors’ stakes in Cuban operations to less than 50 percent. Trump didn’t mention the more onerous U.S. regulations limiting investment in Cuba. He said he likely favored Obama’s efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, “but I’d want much better deals than what we’re making.”
Encouraged by the White House’s loosening of regulations, plenty of other U.S. companies, including Airbnb, Google, PayPal, and Western Union, are gradually entering Cuba, but they must still carefully navigate the embargo. In late June, Starwood began managing a refurbished hotel in Havana’s main business district, the first U.S.-managed hotel in Cuba in 60 years. At a June event in Manhattan, a Starwood executive repeatedly referred to the “business travelers” who would be attracted by the property, apparently mindful of the perils of promoting tourism.
The repercussions of breaking the embargo are real. Violators are still being penalized, even for ventures only remotely connected to Cuba. In February, the Treasury Department alleged that two Cayman Islands subsidiaries of the energy-services company Halliburton had been involved in oil drilling off the shore of Angola, as part of a consortium in which the Cuban government held a 5 percent stake. Halliburton agreed to pay the U.S. $304,706 to settle the matter.
For the Trump Organization, there’s a further concern: the potential conflicts of interest posed by Trump’s far-flung business empire should he be elected president. In addition to his operations in the U.S., Trump operates in Azerbaijan, Brazil, Georgia, Israel, Turkey, and several other countries. Federal conflict-of-interest laws do little to prevent presidents from continuing to exert influence over their businesses—even as they exercise powers that could broadly benefit those interests.
“Make sure that whatever you do is absolutely legal in every way, and at some point, when it’s legal, I’d be interested in it”
Russo, 70, lives in Key West, Fla. He first encountered the Trump Organization in 2002. The former chairman of the town planning board in Bedminster, N.J., Russo helped Trump get authorization for his golf course there. Though he has no formal environmental training, he appears before local regulators around the country seeking approval for Trump projects.
On the phone, he’s friendly, a talker, but the first to admit his memory’s not the best. “I don’t remember last night,” he says. He was unsure how many times he and Glick, Trump’s golf chief, had traveled to Cuba. He says he took Glick on at least one trip to Cuba for some bird-watching.
“He was into it. And that’s the thing. I’m going to Cuba, I’m bringing people to Cuba. And I know people from Trump, I know people outside of Trump. So if somebody from Trump wanted to come with me, I don’t think that means they were representing anything having to do with the Trump Organization. They just enjoyed the environment, like you or I would.” Russo says that on his travels in Cuba, “you can’t help but say, ‘Wow, here’s a hotel that could be renovated,’ or, ‘This is a particular spot that would be perfect for this or perfect for that,’ and I would only hope that someday that the Trump Organization or other investors could develop something nice over there.”
Courtesy of Digital Library of the Caribbean, University of Florida
Asked if he’s discussed Cuban opportunities with Donald Trump, Russo says: “I don’t remember exactly what our conversations were. But you would have to realize that talking to Donald Trump is, you know, it’s a very complicated experience.” He added later that Trump admonished him on Cuba to “make sure that whatever you do is absolutely legal in every way, and at some point, when it’s legal, I’d be interested in it.”
Glick, 49, is close to the Trump family and has worked for Trump for nine years. He recently traveled with Eric Trump, checking the status of the company’s developments in Bali, Dubai, Manila, and Aberdeen, Scotland, according to pictures posted by the two men on their Twitter accounts. He sits on the board of Eric’s foundation. Although he has no formal campaign role, he’s a fierce advocate for Trump’s White House run, excoriating Hillary Clinton on social media almost daily. He accompanied both adult Trump sons at the Republican National Convention during TV interviews. One person recalled a conversation with Glick after he returned from Cuba during which he described the company’s ambitions for golf on the island. Glick didn’t respond to requests for comment.
For his part, Russo gets that even now, pursuing golf in Cuba is problematic. “I would interpret golf as tourism, and therefore it can’t be done at this time,” he says. He maintains his dozen or so trips have all been environmental—and for birding—with only the most casual inquiries into golf-related properties. “Given the nature of the regulations and OFAC’s licensing trends, I would be quite surprised if it authorized multiple trips to Cuba for nonspecialist, nonexpert, random bird-watching,” says Alavi, the U.S. sanctions adviser.
In February 2013, Zamora, the Cuban-American lawyer, set up a nonprofit in Miami called the Florida-Cuba Environmental Coalition. Its directors include Russo and several advisers for investors in Cuba, including some who have consulted for the Trump Organization. Certain “environmental” projects qualified as one of the reasons U.S. citizens could travel to Cuba legally in 2013. When he’s asked about the nonprofit, Russo’s memory falters again. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a meeting. I didn’t even know my name was on that group,” he says.
Larry Glick, Ed Russo, Ron Lieberman, and companion on the links in Cuba in a photo posted on Facebook.
Another board member of the coalition, Dominic Soave, is a Havana-based business consultant from Canada who’s made introductions for Trump executives in Cuba, according to two people familiar with the matter. He’s also circulated a set of drawings of Havana with a Trump tower. “I really haven’t been advising anyone,” says Soave. He, Zamora, and two other directors say their nonprofit has taught sustainable fishing techniques to Cuban fishermen. The group has also promoted the Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament in Cuba, helping Americans get licenses to take part.
A second nonprofit, the American-Cuban Golf Association, was set up last year by Russo’s wife, Jennifer Hulse, and lists a residence in Key West as its address. The group lists her and her husband as directors. The organization’s third director is David Schutzenhofer, who runs the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. Schutzenhofer did not return calls prior to publication.
Asked about the golf nonprofit, Russo first seems confused: “What is that supposed to do?” he asks. “Am I listed on that also?” He eventually explains that the group was intended to provide cross-cultural golf instruction: Cubans teaching golf to Americans and vice versa. “You should know that the organization was my idea and had nothing to do with the Trump Organization,” Hulse wrote in an e-mail. “One of my passions in life is golf, and I would like to find a way to bridge the distance between our countries through love of the game.”
A couple of Hulse’s cultural exchanges may have taken place toward the end of last year. Photographs and a video posted to Hulse’s Facebook page in December show her husband and Greenblatt, the Trump chief legal officer, at the Floridita restaurant in Old Havana, a favorite of Hemingway’s. Another set of pictures, posted a month earlier, shows Russo, Glick, Lieberman, and Soave listening to a live performance of Hotel California in the lobby of the Parque Central hotel in Old Havana.
Still another series finds the men playing at the Varadero course. One shot shows Russo teeing off, with Glick and Lieberman waiting their turn. Below the pictures of the Trump executives golfing, one Facebook friend asked: “How is the golf course?”
Hulse replied: “Not spectacular but it’s the only one in Cuba right now. Plans to build many more in the near future.”
MilitaryTimes: On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, a retired Navy four-star took the stage to pay tribute to veterans. Behind him, on a giant screen, the image of four hulking warships reinforced his patriotic message.
But there was a big mistake in the stirring backdrop: those are Russian warships.
While retired Adm. John Nathman, a former commander of Fleet Forces Command, honored vets as America’s best, the ships from the Russian Federation Navy were arrayed like sentinels on the big screen above.
These were the very Soviet-era combatants that Nathman and Cold Warriors like him had once squared off against.
The lady in the red jacket is a Congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi served two tours of duty in the Middle East, and she continues her service as a Major in the Army National Guard.
“The ships are definitely Russian,” said noted naval author Norman Polmar after reviewing hi-resolution photos from the event. “There’s no question of that in my mind.”
Naval experts concluded the background was a photo composite of Russian ships that were overflown by what appear to be U.S. trainer jets. It remains unclear how or why the Democratic Party used what’s believed to be images of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at their convention.
A spokesman for the Democratic National Convention Committee was not able to immediately comment Tuesday, saying he had to track down personnel to find out what had happened.
The veteran who spotted the error and notified Navy Times said he was immediately taken aback.
“I was kind of in shock,” said Rob Barker, 38, a former electronics warfare technician who left the Navy in 2006. Having learned to visually identify foreign ships by their radars, Barker recognized the closest ship as the Kara-class cruiser Kerch.
“An immediate apology [from the committee] would be very nice,” Barker said. “Maybe acknowledge the fact that yes, they screwed up.”
The background — featured in the carefully choreographed hour leading up to the president’s Sept. 6 speech accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination — showed four ships with radar designs not used in the U.S. fleet.
For example, the ship in the foreground, on the far right, has a square radar antenna at the top of its masthead. That is the MR-700 Podberezovik 3-D early warning radar, commonly identified as “Flat Screen” for its appearance, a three-dimensional early warning radar mounted on the Kerch, said Eric Wertheim, editor of “Combat Fleets of the World.”
Similarly, the third ship has a MR-310 “Head Net” air search radar, shaped like two off-set bananas, at its masthead and is mostly likely the guided missile destroyer Smetlivyy. The first two ships seem to be Krivak-class frigates, but it’s hard to discern from the silhouette, experts said.
But the fact they are Russian ships is not in doubt. In addition to the ship’s radar arrays and hulls, which are dissimilar from U.S. warships, the photo features one more give-away: a large white flag with a blue ‘X’ at the ships’ sterns.
Polmar, who authored “The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy,” recognized the blue ‘X’-mark: “The X is the Cross of St. Andrew’s, which is a Russian Navy symbol,” Polmar said. (An anchored U.S. warship, by contrast, flies the American flag on its stern.)
Based on this specific group of these ship types, one naval expert concluded that this was most likely a photo of the Black Sea Fleet.
“Ships are all Black Sea Fleet,” A. D. Baker III, a retired Office of Naval Intelligence analyst, told Navy Times after looking at the image. “These four ships, at the time the photo was taken, constituted the entire major surface combatant component of the Black Sea Fleet,” Baker said, noting the photo was likely to be six years old or older. (The Kerch is now on the list to be scrapped, Baker said.)
Barker, the former sailor who first spotted the errors, believes the seven aircraft streaking by are F-5 jets, a trainer used by the U.S. Navy. Asked to explain how he reached that conclusion, the former airplane spotter ticked off a list: “Twin engine, single rudder, with hard points on the wingtips, with that silhouette is going to make them F-5s.”
Meanwhile, how about understanding what Russia is up to today?
Kommersant newspaper provided a few details about a new orbital surveillance system being developed for the Russian Ministry of Defense. The new system, consisting of three brand new Razdan-class satellites, is set to be lifted into orbit between 2019 and 2024 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The system will complement and eventually replace the Persona-class optical-electronic satellites presently used by the military. The new satellite is being developed by the TsSKB-Progress research and production center.
Unfortunately, very little information has been made public about the new surveillance satellite’s capabilities. In any case, Kommersant reported that the Razdan will feature a significant improvement over the capabilities of its predecessors, including a new high-speed secure radio channel. The second and third satellites launched are also expected to feature new optics with an objective lens diameter of 2 meters.
Much more is known about Razdan’s predecessor, the 14F137 Persona. Between 2008 and 2015, the Russian military launched three Persona-class surveillance satellites. The first was lost in 2008 due to a technical fault. The second and third devices (launched in June 2013 and June 2015, respectively) remain in perfect working order, and rumor has it that they are being actively used in Russia’s anti-terrorist operation in Syria.
The satellites are charged with providing the Russian General Staff with highly detailed operational imagery. Moreover, the military’s need for operational intelligence in Syria has proven so great that the military has turned to using civilian satellites of the Resurs and Kanopus class. More here.
The lady in the red jacket is a Congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi served two tours of duty in the Middle East, and she continues her service as a Major in the Army National Guard.