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The Russian navy can detect any enemy and launch an “unpreventable strike” if needed, President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday, weeks after a UK warship angered Moscow by passing the Crimea peninsula. more...
Disclosures about political figures put Israel under increasing pressure over extent of surveillance
Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington, Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem and Shaun Walker in Budapest

Back in 2017, few would have disputed that Israel and Saudi Arabia were regional foes. Officially, the countries had no diplomatic ties. Yet for a small group of Israeli businesspeople attending secret meetings with Saudi officials in Vienna, Cyprus and Riyadh that summer, there were signs relations were warming. The businesspeople represented NSO Group. Their mission was to sell the Saudis NSO’s weapons–grade spyware system, Pegasus. more...
By Matt Rivers, Caitlin Hu and Jessie Yeung, CNN

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) The head of security at Haiti's presidential residence has been placed in police custody, according to a close associate, as authorities continue to investigate the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise. Dimitri Herard, who is the head of the General Security Unit of the National Palace, had been questioned at the Inspector General's office on Wednesday, then transferred to a police station in Port-au-Prince, according to associate Carl Martin, who said he is coordinating Herard's legal defense team. more...
By Anna Coren, Sandi Sidhu and Tim Lister, CNN

Dawlat Abad, Afghanistan (CNN)Over clear but unsteady video, the words ring out: "Surrender, commandos, surrender." Several men emerge from a building; they are clearly unarmed. Gunfire erupts. At least a dozen men are seen shot to death amid cries of "Allahu Akhbar" -- God is Great. The victims were members of an Afghan Special Forces unit: their executioners, the Taliban. The summary killings took place on June 16 in the town of Dawlat Abad in Faryab province, close to Afghanistan's border with Turkmenistan. more...
The Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Two men believed to be Haitian Americans — one of them purportedly a former bodyguard at the Canadian Embassy in Port au Prince — have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Haiti's president, a senior Haitian official said Thursday. Mathias Pierre, Haiti's minister of elections, told The Associated Press that James Solages was among six people arrested in the 36 hours since the brazen killing of President Jovenel Moïse by gunmen at his home in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday. Four other suspected assailants were killed in a gunfight with police and two are still missing, Pierre said. Earlier authorities had said seven suspects were killed. more...
By ZEKE MILLER and AAMER MADHANI

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan will end on Aug. 31, delivering an impassioned argument for exiting the nearly 20-year war without sacrificing more American lives even as he bluntly acknowledged there will be no “mission accomplished” moment to celebrate. Biden pushed back against the notion the U.S. mission has failed but also noted that it remains unlikely the government would control all of Afghanistan after the U.S. leaves. He urged the Afghan government and Taliban, which he said remains as formidable as it did before the start of the war, to come to a peace agreement. “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation build,” Biden said in a speech from the White House’s East Room. “Afghan leaders have to come together and drive toward a future.” more...
Henry Bushnell

The Tokyo Olympics will happen later this month amid a state of emergency, and without fans at events in the host city. The Japanese government on Thursday announced that it would re-institute strict measures to counter COVID-19 surges in the capital. The measures will take effect next week, and last the duration of the Games. Hours after the announcement, Olympic organizers walked back a previous decision to allow local spectators to attend events. Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee president Seiko Hashimoto announced at a late-night press conference that there will be no fans at competitions held in Tokyo and other areas affected by the state of emergency. more...
Prime minister says attack carried out by ‘armed commando group’ that included foreign elements
Peter Beaumont and Tom Phillips

The president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, has been assassinated in his home by a group of armed men who also seriously injured his wife, according to a statement and comments made by the country’s interim prime minister. Speaking on a local radio station, Claude Joseph confirmed that Moïse, 53, had been killed, saying the attack was carried out by an “armed commando group” that included foreigners. According to some reports and video published in the Miami Herald and elsewhere, Moïse’s killers claimed to be members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as they entered his guarded residence. In videos circulating on social media, a man with an American accent is heard saying in English over a megaphone: “DEA operation. Everybody stand down. DEA operation. Everybody back up, stand down.” more...
Zachary Basu

Russia-linked hackers suspected in this weekend's mass attack on software provider Kaseya, which could affect thousands of companies worldwide, demanded $70 million to restore data they are holding for ransom, Reuters reports.

Why it matters: The hack is the latest and most dramatic in a series of high-profile ransomware attacks this year, exposing the pandemic-style threat that this type of cybercrime poses to companies and governments around the world.

Details: Hundreds of companies were directly hit by the supply-chain attack on Kesaya's VSA software, which provides IT services to small and medium-sized businesses, according to CNET. At least 36,000 companies were indirectly impacted. more...
by Duncan Riley

Google LLC has removed nine Android apps from the Play store, including one with millions of users, after they were discovered to be stealing users’ Facebook Inc. login credentials. Discovered and detailed July 1 by malware analysts at Dr. Web, the apps, described as “stealer Trojans,” were spread as harmless software and were installed nearly 6 million times. Unlike some previous cases where malicious Android apps have been discovered, the apps in this case all provided legitimate services such as photo editing and framing, exercise and training, horoscopes and junk file removal. Apps included PIP Photo with up to 5 million installs; Processing Photo with up to 500,000 installs; Rubbish Cleaner, Horoscope Daily and Inwell Fitness with up to 100,000 installs; and App Lock Keep with up to 50,000 installs. Lockit Master, Horoscope Pi and App Lock Manager rounded out the list. more...
By Oren Liebermann, Sandi Sidhu and Anna Coren, CNN

(CNN) The last US troops have left Bagram Air Base, according to a US defense official, marking the end of the American presence at the sprawling compound that became the center of military power in Afghanistan. The full withdrawal of US troops from the country is not complete yet but expected very soon. Nearly two decades after the first American troops arrived at Bagram and helped take control of the field after the 9/11 attacks, the transfer of the field to the Afghan military proceeded without fanfare, a hushed finale that portends the imminent conclusion of America's longest war. more...
The Associated Press

CRANBROOK, British Columbia — A Canadian Indigenous group said Wednesday a search using ground-penetrating radar has found 182 human remains in unmarked graves at a site near a former Catholic Church-run residential school that housed Indigenous children taken from their families. The latest discovery of graves near Cranbrook, British Columbia follows reports of similar findings at two other such church-run schools, one of more than 600 unmarked graves and another of 215 bodies. Cranbrook is 524 miles (843 kilometers) east of Vancouver. The Lower Kootenay Band said in a news release that it began using the technology last year to search the site close to the former St. Eugene's Mission School, which was operated by the Catholic Church from 1912 until the early 1970s. It said the search found the remains in unmarked graves, some about 3 feet (a meter) deep. more...
Christina Wilkie

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced Thursday that a group of 130 nations has agreed to a global minimum tax on corporations, part of a broader agreement to overhaul international tax rules. If widely enacted, the GMT would effectively end the practice of global corporations seeking out low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland and the British Virgin Islands to move their headquarters to, even though their customers, operations and executives are located elsewhere. “For decades, the United States has participated in a self-defeating international tax competition, lowering our corporate tax rates only to watch other nations lower theirs in response. The result was a global race to the bottom: Who could lower their corporate rate further and faster? No nation has won this race,” said Yellen in a statement on the accord. more...
Tehran’s insistence signals that issue is still a serious obstacle after three months of talks in Vienna
Patrick Wintour

A US guarantee that it will never unilaterally leave the Iran nuclear deal again is vital to a successful conclusion of talks in Vienna on the terms of Washington’s return to the agreement, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, has said. His comments are the clearest official signal yet that disagreements between the US and Iran on how such a guarantee might be constructed remain a serious obstacle. Donald Trump took the US out of the nuclear deal in 2018, only three years afterhis predecessor, Barack Obama, had signed it. more...
By Ramy Inocencio

Hong Kong — Wednesday marked the first anniversary of China's central government imposing a controversial new National Security Law on the once-semiautonomous region of Hong Kong. Human rights group Amnesty International took the opportunity to warn that the once free-wheeling, international city was on the fast-track to devolving into a "police state" and "a human rights wasteland increasingly resembling mainland China." "From politics to culture, education to media, the law has infected every part of Hong Kong society and fomented a climate of fear that forces residents to think twice about what they say, what they tweet and how they live their lives," said Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Regional Director. more...
Yen Nee Lee

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday pledged a “complete reunification” with Taiwan — drawing a strong rebuke from the democratic, self-ruled island, which criticized the Chinese Communist Party’s “dictatorship.” Taiwan and mainland China are separated by the Taiwan Strait, which is only about 100 miles wide (160 km) at its narrowest point. The ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing has never controlled Taiwan, but it claims the island is a runaway province that must one day be reunited with the mainland — by force if necessary. In a speech to mark the CCP’s 100th year, Xi called “reunification” with Taiwan an “unswerving historical mission” of the party and a “common aspiration” of the Chinese people. The audience erupted in applause in response. more...
By Ben Westcott and Steven Jiang, CNN

Beijing (CNN) China's rise is a "historical inevitability" and it will no longer be "bullied, oppressed or subjugated" by foreign countries, its leader, Xi Jinping, said Thursday during an event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. "Anyone who dares to try, will find their heads bashed bloody against a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people," added Xi, in comments that later appeared to be softened in the government's own English language translation. Speaking in front of a reported crowd of 70,000 at a highly-choreographed ceremony in Tiananmen Square, Xi delivered a strongly nationalist speech in which he claimed that only the party could ensure China's continued stability, and any attempt to divide it from the country would fail. "Without the Communist Party, there will be no new China," Xi said to thundering applause and cheers. more...
Story by Reuters

Zurich Switzerland has chosen Lockheed Martin's F-35A Lightning II as its next-generation fighter jet, the government said on Wednesday, angering opponents who have pledged a new referendum to overturn what they dubbed an unnecessary "Ferrari" option. The $5.5 billion deal adds a 15th nation to the world's largest weapons project -- a family of interconnected, single-engine jets to be used by the United States and its allies and partners. It came alongside a $2.1 billion agreement to buy the Patriot surface-to-air missile system from US group Raytheon, with European competitors losing out on both deals. more...
SYLVIA HUI | AP

LONDON (AP) — Marlies Haselton has called Britain home for more than 30 years. The Dutch national married a Briton, had her children there, and considers herself “part and parcel” of the U.K. Until Britain’s divorce from the European Union, she had never given a thought to her immigration status in the U.K. Haselton, 55, is among the millions of Europeans who have freely lived, worked and studied in the U.K. for decades, but whose rights are no longer automatically granted due to Brexit. Britain’s government introduced a “settlement” plan for the country’s large European migrant community in 2019, and the deadline for applications is Wednesday. more...
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