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By  Olga Kharif January 17, 2020 Terrorism financing  scheme s using cryptocurrencies are growing in sophistication, according to researcher Chainalysis Inc., which helps law enforcement track digital-coin transactions. In one instance, terrorists collected crypto donations worth tens of thousands of dollars in just one campaign last year, a much quicker way to raise funds than prior efforts, the New York-based firm said in a report Friday. It also made it much harder for researchers to track movement of funds than prior, more simple campaigns, Chainalysis said. In 2019, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (AQB), the military wing of Hamas and a designated terrorist organization, collected money through a website that generated a new Bitcoin address for every donor to send funds to, the first verified example of such technology deployed by a terrorist organization, Chainalysis said. A previous effort that started in 2016 used a single Bitcoin address for donations. The A...

January 28th, 2020 ISLAMABAD: Additional Director of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Dr Ehsan Sadiq on Monday said implementation of First Information Report (FIR) reforms could improve the criminal justice system considerably. He was speaking at the launch of research publications at the Center of Research and Security Studies (CRSS). “There have been many attempts at fixing the FIR system, especially three landmark Supreme Court decisions from 2018 and 2016. In addition, the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, the Federal Ombudsman, the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, The Police Reforms Committee, and the Attorney General of Pakistan, all have provided various proposals to reform the FIR system at various points in time. The problem is not the lack of rules, or options to reform, the problem is the implementation.” Dr. Ehsan Sadiq said. The event centred around the launch of four research publications that look at national security...

Hemani Sheth    January 28, 2020     In recent developments regarding the hacking of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ phone, Facebook has placed the blame on Apple iOS for the data being leaked through the phone. In a recent interview with BBC, Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs & Communications, Nick Clegg alleged that it was a fault in the iOS and not Facebook-owned WhatsApp that was infected by the spyware. The Amazon CEO’s phone was allegedly affected by spyware through a 4.4 MB malicious video file sent via WhatsApp by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, on May 1, 2018, according to reports by  The Guardian  and the  Financial Times . Clegg, in the BBC interview, claimed that it must have been the operating system that was affected when the video was opened and not WhatsApp that led to the hacking. Since WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, it cannot be hacked, he said in the interview. BBC also shared a vid...

Afshan Subohi January 27, 2020   PAKISTAN’S economy is oozing negative vibes. It’s facing one crisis after another and consumer confidence shows no signs of bottoming out. At the same time, the eroding value of money and assets must be driving people crazy, making them vulnerable, scared and prone to overreaction. This is certainly not a good time to test their wits. The growing stress among some four million depositors of the Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) regarding the intended steps to make the institution compliant to Finance Action Task Force (F ATF ) requirements needs to seen in this context. It is good that the semi-autonomous body is seen to be moving in the desired direction to deal with the perceived risk of its products being used to launder dirty money or finance terror. This was necessary. However, it seems that the cost of adjustments has either not been understood or assumed to be too insignificant to merit attention. ARTICLE CONTINUES A...

Jan 28, 2020 The Indian Data Protection bill 2019 which aims to help consumers exercise their privacy rights needs a proper structural framework else personal data of millions of users in the country will be at stake, leading industry experts said on Monday. As the world observes Data Privacy Day on January 28, experts and leading industry bodies have already demanded clarification in several areas of ambiguity that exists in the draft Bill. The Personal Data Protection Bill 2019, which was introduced in Lok Sabha in the winter session last year, has been referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) of both the Houses. The JPC has been constituted under the chairmanship of New Delhi MP Meenakashi Lekhi for examination and report. “Although the Indian Data Protection bill aims to play an important role in fabricating regulations for governing the increasingly data-driven landscape, without a structural framework data privacy becomes a cause of concern, Lovneesh Chanana,...

Eli Lake 25-01-2020 It’s hard to overestimate just how much damage Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has done to his country in the last 15 months. Yet it’s also difficult to see how the U.S. can defend its interests in the region without his cooperation. The damage became visible on Oct. 2, 2018, when a Saudi hit team lured Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to murder him. The latest revelation is a hacking campaign against Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com Inc., who also owns the Washington Post. As a UN report released Wednesday notes: “The information we have received suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in surveillance of Mr. Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia.” A security consultant for Bezos made a version of this claim last year. The UN report fills in more details. It says that Bezos and the crown prince, known as MBS...

Updated  24.01.20 China is swiftly building a 1,000-bed hospital dedicated to patients infected with a new virus that has killed 26 people, sickened hundreds and prompted unprecedented lockdowns of cities during the country's most important holiday. On the eve of the Lunar New Year, transportation was shut down Friday in at least 10 cities with a total of about 33 million people. The cities are Wuhan, where the illness has been concentrated, and nine of its neighbors in central China's Hubei province. “To address the insufficiency of existing medical resources,” Wuhan authorities said in a Friday notice, the city is constructing a hospital modeled after the Xiaotangshan SARS hospital in Beijing. The facility will be a prefabricated structure on a 25,000- square-meter (270,000-square-foot) lot, slated for completion Feb. 3. The SARS hospital was built from scratch in 2003 in just six days to treat an outbreak of a similar respiratory virus that had spread from China to...

   Olga Kharif 17 January 2020 Terrorism financing  scheme s using cryptocurrencies are growing in sophistication, according to researcher Chainalysis Inc., which helps law enforcement track digital-coin transactions. In one instance, terrorists collected crypto donations worth tens of thousands of dollars in just one campaign last year, a much quicker way to raise funds than prior efforts, the New York-based firm said in a report Friday. It also made it much harder for researchers to track movement of funds than prior, more simple campaigns, Chainalysis said. In 2019, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (AQB), the military wing of Hamas and a designated terrorist organization, collected money through a website that generated a new Bitcoin address for every donor to send funds to, the first verified example of such technology deployed by a terrorist organization, Chainalysis said. A previous effort that started in 2016 used a single Bitcoin address for d...

Published on  January 24, 2020 The Indian seed sector lost one of its biggest export markets when the governments of India and Pakistan suspended trade relations between the two countries. The political climate hasn’t been the most favourable in recent times, but this New Year is an opportunity to separate politics and economics for the benefit of farmers on both sides of the border. India loses more from the trade embargo. Pakistan has been our third top destination for fruit and vegetable seeds for many years. In 2018-19, India exported fruit and vegetable seeds worth $17,528,530 and in 2017-18 that number was $14,160,248. It is a $3 million increase from the previous year, and perhaps wealth generated from the trade would have grown as Indian seeds are very popular in Pakistan because of similar agro-climatic conditions, quality and unmatched culinary value. Export avenues Remember, this wealth is generated only from the trade of fruit and vegetable seeds. What about o...