2016 - news

[lavender1]

www.atlasobscura.com/articles/giant-snowballs-have-appeared-on-the-siberian-coast?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page

Giant Snowballs Have Appeared on the Siberian Coast
Nature is getting ready for a fight.

by Eric Grundhauser November 04, 2016
Siberian Times

Nature is getting ready for an epic snowball fight, and it looks like they’re stocking up ammo in Arctic Russia. According to the Siberian Times, villagers near the Gulf of Ob seem to have started finding accumulations of perfectly rounded snowballs created by a rare coastal phenomenon.

Located above the Arctic Circle, the small village of Nyda, with a population of just over 2,000, sits on the Gulf of Ob, a freezing arm of the Kara Sea. Just over a week ago members of the village started noticing that at one spot on the coast, fields of giant snowballs had begun to spontaneously appear. Ranging from the size of a tennis ball to the size of volleyballs, the icy spheres came from seemingly nowhere, but have an uncanny uniformity.

Even the older generation in the village say they have never seen anything like it, but a village spokesperson quoted in the article seems to have found the answer. Apparently as the tide came in, it contacted a layer of frost, covering the beach in ice, and then as the water slowly receded, it left bits of ice that spun on the wet sand creating spheres. The odd phenomenon was confirmed by a representative of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, quoted in the Siberian Times story.

Whatever the cause, the citizens of Nyda look like they are set for the best snowball fight of all time.

[lavender1]

abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/magnitude-53-earthquake-hits-central-oklahoma-43347965

Earthquake Rocks Central Oklahoma Oil Town

By justin juozapavicius, associated press

CUSHING, Okla. — Nov 7, 2016, 1:31 AM ET


A sharp earthquake centered near one of the world's key oil hubs Sunday night triggered fears that the magnitude 5.0 temblor might have damaged key infrastructure in addition to causing what police described as "quite a bit of damage" in the Oklahoma prairie town of Cushing.

City Manager Steve Spears said a few minor injuries were reported and questioned whether some of the community's century-old buildings might be unsafe. Police cordoned off older parts of the town to keep away gawkers.

"Stay out of the area," Spears told residents during a late-night news conference.

Emergency officials evacuated an assisted living center catering to the elderly in Cushing.

Assistant City Manager Jeremy Frazier said that while damage was reported at the Cimarron Tower after the quake, no injuries were reported among the home's residents.

It wasn't immediately known how many people lived at the building in downtown Cushing. Tulsa television station KOTV said some of those taken from the home were moved to the Cushing Youth Center.

Frazier said the temblor caused the most damage in and around Cushing's century-old downtown. A number of brick facades had collapsed, and window panes in several buildings shattered. Frazier said city leaders could do a better assessment after sun-up.

Cindy Roe, 50, has lived in Cushing all her life and said she's never felt anything like Sunday's quake.

"I thought my whole trailer was going to tip over, it was shaking it so bad," she said. "It was loud and all the lights went out and you could hear things falling on the ground.

"It was awful and I don't want to have another one."

Megan Gustafson and Jonathan Gillespie were working a shift at a McDonald's in Cushing when the quake hit.

"It felt like a train was going right through the building, actually," Gustafson, 17, said Sunday night as she and her co-workers stood behind a police barricade downtown, looking for damage. "I kind of freaked out and was hyperventilating a bit."

Gillespie, also 17, described the building as shaking for about 10 seconds or so.

But he said he wasn't as alarmed as Gustafson because he lives in an area that has experienced multiple earthquakes, especially in recent years.

"I didn't think it was anything new," he said.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission said it and the Oklahoma Geological Survey were investigating after the quake, which struck at 7:44 p.m. and was felt as far away as Iowa, Illinois and Texas.

"The OCC's Pipeline Safety Department has been in contact with pipeline operators in the Cushing oil storage terminal under state jurisdiction and there have been no immediate reports of any problems," the commission's spokesman, Matt Skinner, said in a statement. "The assessment of the infrastructure continues."

Assistant City Manager Jeremy Frazier said two pipeline companies had reported no trouble but that the community hadn't heard from all companies.

The oil storage terminal is one of the world's largest. As of Oct. 28, tank farms in the countryside around Cushing held 58.5 million barrels of crude oil, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The community bills itself as the "Pipeline Crossroads of the World."

The Cushing Police Department reported "quite a bit of damage" in the town of 7,900. Spears said some damage was superficial — bricks falling off facades — but that some older buildings might have damaged foundations that would be difficult to assess until daylight.

Fearing aftershocks, Police Chief Tully Folden said people needed to stay out of downtown, where photos posted to social media showed piles of debris at the base of commercial buildings.

The Cushing Public School District has canceled classes Monday in order to assess the earthquake damage.

Oklahoma has had thousands of earthquakes in recent years, with nearly all traced to the underground injection of wastewater left over from oil and gas production. Sunday's quake was centered one mile west of Cushing — and about 25 miles south of where a magnitude 4.3 quake forced a shutdown of several wells last week.

Spears said at the news conference that earthquakes are no longer out of the ordinary.

"I was at home doing some work in my office and, basically, you could feel the whole house sway some. It's beginning to become normal," Spears said. "Nothing surprises you anyway."

The U.S. Geological Survey said initially that Sunday's quake was of magnitude 5.3 but later lowered the reading to 5.0.

According to USGS data, there have been 19 earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past week. When particularly strong quakes hit, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission directs well operators to seize wastewater injections or reduce volume.

A 5.8 earthquake — a record for Oklahoma — hit Pawnee on Sept. 3. Shortly afterward, geologists speculated on whether the temblor occurred on a previously unknown fault.

\!!

[lavender1]

www.reuters.com/article/us-nicaragua-election-idUSKBN13108W?il=0

Nicaragua's Ortega on course for landslide reelection

By Enrique Pretel and Alexandra Alper | MANAGUA

Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega powered toward his third consecutive term as president of the poor Central American country on Sunday, as voters cheered years of solid growth and overlooked criticisms he is installing a family dynasty.

By fusing his militant past with a more business-friendly approach, Ortega stands in stark contrast to many once-dominant Latin American leaders, whose popularity has plummeted in recent years after failing to guarantee gains in economic prosperity.

The 70-year-old former guerilla fighter, who is running with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, had 72.1 percent of votes, with 66.3 percent of polling stations counted, the electoral board said.

The announcement sent hundreds of his leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party supporters out into the streets of Managua to celebrate.

Ortega's main opponent, the center-right Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) candidate Maximino Rodriguez, was a distant second with 14.2 percent of votes, the board said.

"I'm euphoric, thanking God for this opportunity, this triumph, so the people continue to reap benefits," said Ana Luisa Baez, 55, a widow and mother of four who runs a small store out of her home.

"Thanks to the (Sandinista) revolution, I have faith I'll be able to keep moving forward, because we are backed by a good government," she added, as car horns honked and motorcycle riders wove through Managua's Plaza de las Victorias waving red and black Sandinista flags.

Girls in sequined mini-skirts danced to Latino pop music on a stage in the square in celebration.

Speaking after casting his vote on Sunday evening, Ortega, a one-time foe of the United States government, couldn't resist taking a potshot at Nicaragua's northern neighbor just days before U.S. voters decide on their next leader.

"Now it's us, the Nicaraguans, who decide, because we no longer have a single Yankee general here," Ortega said, referring to years of U.S. interference in the country's affairs.

"It's we Nicaraguans who count the votes, this is a sovereign democracy."

FIGHTER

Emerging as leader of the Sandinista movement that toppled dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, Ortega led the country during the 1980s, when a civil war against U.S.-backed Contra rebels killed some 30,000 people and unleashed an economic crisis.

After losing the 1990 election, Ortega threatened to fade into history, but the former fighter managed to orchestrate a return to power when he became president in the 2006 election.

Opponents have accused Ortega of trying to set up a "family dictatorship" since he appointed relatives to key posts, and after his Sandinistas pushed constitutional changes through Congress that ended presidential term limits in 2014.

The opposition views Murillo's vice presidential bid as further evidence of Ortega's power grab, particularly given that rumors have long swirled over his supposed health problems.

"Ortega gets his way and he doesn't care if he violates the rights of others," said Maximino Rodriguez, candidate of the center-right Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC), Ortega's closest rival, polling at 8 percent support.

"Supposedly he fought against the Somoza dictatorship, and the Sandinistas themselves regard Ortega as worse than Somoza," he added, arguing Ortega was trying to cling to power.


PATH TO AUTOCRACY?

Hernan Selva, a 22-year-old engineering student and Ortega supporter, dismissed as "the kicks of a drowning man" the complaints by Rodriguez, who fought the Sandinistas in the 1980s as part of the right-wing paramilitary Contras.

Despite the United States and international organizations having voiced concern about Ortega's stranglehold on power, the World Bank acknowledges that poverty has fallen almost 13 percentage points under his rule.

A substantial part of those gains have been funded by Venezuelan petrodollars that have underpinned social programs, helped private business and slashed energy costs.

Ortega has also forged alliances with the business sector, helping Nicaragua to achieve average growth rates of 5 percent in the past five years.

Despite some ups and downs, Ortega and U.S. President Barack Obama have maintained a relatively cordial relationship, demonstrating Ortega's shift from a leftist firebrand to a diplomat who maintains ties with a Cold War enemy.

But democracy remains a touchy subject.

A U.S. bill known as the Nica Act seeks to condition financial assistance to Nicaragua on improvements in democracy, human rights and battling anti-corruption, leading Ortega's government to decry "interference" from Washington in September.

(Additional reporting by Ivan Castro; Editing by Simon Gardner and Toby Chopra)

[lavender1]

www.thelocal.se/20161109/northern-swedes-take-it-easy-while-stockholm-drowns-in-snow

www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/stockholm-schneedecke-von-39-zentimeter-hoehe-bedeckt-die-stadt-a-1120652.html

www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2012-12/06/content_15991109.htm

\!!

[lavender1]

www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37932231

www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/10/obama-to-welcome-trump-to-white-house-for-first-meeting-since-election/


www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/michelle-obama-meets-melania-trump-in-private-at-the-white-house-20161110-gsmuf3.html


\!!

[lavender1]

www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/earthquake-live-two-fatalities-confirmed-reports-come-in-looting-evacuated-homes

[lavender1]

Nov 13, 2016 16:37:59 GMT -5 lavender1 said:

www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/earthquake-live-two-fatalities-confirmed-reports-come-in-looting-evacuated-homes

www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/nov/14/new-zealand-earthquake-evacuations-tsnuami-east-coast-south-north-islands


www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37970775

[lavender1]

Nov 13, 2016 16:37:59 GMT -5 lavender1 said:

www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/earthquake-live-two-fatalities-confirmed-reports-come-in-looting-evacuated-homes

www.stuff.co.nz/national/nz-earthquake/86429681/seismologists-record-2-metre-shift-south-of-marlborough

www.spa.gov.sa/viewstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1559950

www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/neuseeland-erdbeben-schob-sued-und-nordinsel-enger-zusammen-a-1121946.html

[lavender1]

www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/18/uk-set-approve-most-extreme-spy-bill-history-western-democracy

Published on
Friday, November 18, 2016
by
Common Dreams
UK Set to Approve Most Extreme Spy Bill in 'History of Western Democracy'

"Snooper's charter" poised to become law by end of 2016 after passing both houses of Parliament this week
by
Nadia Prupis, staff writer


The bill codifies the statutes revealed in 2013 by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden. (Photo: Blogtrepreneur/flickr/cc)

The U.K. surveillance bill known as the "Snooper's charter" is poised to become law after passing both houses of Parliament this week. It only needs to be approved by Royal Assent, which is expected to happen by the end of the year.

The Investigatory Powers (IP) Bill is, as transparency advocates describe it, the most extreme surveillance law ever passed by a democracy. Approved amid the chaos of the post-Brexit vote and President-elect Donald Trump's historic upset, the bill has implications that reach far beyond its borders.

Jamie Killock, executive director of the civil liberties organization Open Rights Group, said Thursday, "The passing of the IP Bill will have an impact that goes beyond the U.K.'s shores. It is likely that other countries, including authoritarian regimes with poor human rights records, will use this law to justify their own intrusive surveillance powers."

Open Rights Group summarized the bill's most pertinent provisions:

Internet Service Providers could be obliged to store their customers' web browsing history for a year. The police and government departments will have unprecedented powers to access this data through a search engine that could be used for profiling.
The security services will continue to have powers to collect communications data in bulk.
The police and security services will have new hacking powers.
The security services can access and analyze public and private databases, even though the majority of data will be held about people who are not suspected of any crimes.

The bill codifies the statutes revealed in 2013 by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, "as well as increasing surveillance by the police and other government departments," Killock continued. "There will continue to be a lack of privacy protections for international data sharing arrangements with the U.S. Parliament has also failed to address the implications of the technical integration of GCHQ [the U.K.'s Government Communications Headquarters] and the NSA."

The United Nations privacy chief Joseph Cannataci previously called the bill "worse than scary," saying at an Internet Governance Forum panel in Brazil last week, "It is the golden age of surveillance, [governments have] never had so much data. I am just talking about metadata, I haven't got down to content."

"Mass surveillance is alive and well but governments are finding ways of making that the law of the land," Cannataci said. He also criticized the U.K. media and pro-surveillance members of parliament for what he called "an offensive" to distort the debate and push new powers into law.

"[D]o a media analysis of the way the British establishment is trotting out news about the law and the need for the law and ask yourselves the question 'If this is not orchestrated then what is?'" he said.

Matt Burgess, a Wired UK reporter who has done extensive coverage on the bill, wrote on Twitter that the snooper's charter has "been described as being worse than China's, yet is passed incredibly easily. 2016."

Snowden also wrote, "The U.K. has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes farther than many autocracies."

Killock noted in an op-ed for Newsweek last week that "ll of these practices appear to have existed for many years, in secret and without a Parliamentary vote. Hidden creative interpretations of our existing laws allowed so-called 'bulk powers' to gather information about millions of people, secretly tap internal cables belonging to Google or Yahoo! and to hack foreign companies, such as Belgium's national telecoms provider, turning them into [GCHQ] surveillance conduits. The only reason we know, of course, is because of Edward Snowden's actions, revealing what the U.S.'s NSA and Britain's GCHQ were up to."

The bill was passed just a day before Trump selected the hawkish Tea Party Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo to head the CIA. Pompeo is a proponent of mass surveillance who has previously called for Snowden to receive the death penalty.

"You'd think the sheer revocation of democracy and failure of accountability would be enough to outrage British MPs," Killock wrote in Newsweek. "You'd think this shift from targeted phone taps focused on specific known criminals to one of blanket surveillance to start fishing for new suspects would deserve a principled national debate."

"Apparently not."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

\!!

[lavender1]

netzfrauen.org/2016/11/19/sri-lanka/

Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission says torture is routine even as it reports drop in cases

By PK Balachandran newindianexpress

COLOMBO: The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL), which became an independent commission last year following the 19 th. Amendment of the constitution, says that torture continues to be “routine” in the police stations of Sri Lanka but has seen a drop in the number of reported cases after the regime change in January 2015.

In its latest report, the HRCSL says that in 2010, immediately after Eelam War IV, a total of 566 cases of torture were reported. This rose to 600 in 2013. But it came down to 489 in 2014. It fell further in 2015, but only marginally to 420. A sharper fall was seen in the first eight months of 2016, with 208 cases being reported.

However, a source in the commission told Express that given the inadequacies in reporting and the still to addressed deficiencies in the investigative mechanisms available to the commission, the actual numbers may be higher. This is evident in the commission’s observation that “torture is routine” during questioning by the police in the initial stages of an investigation irrespective of the nature of the crime. Corrupt police officers resort to torture to intimidate hapless citizens into meeting their rapacious demands.

Looking at the places in which torture is resorted to, Police Headquarters accounts for the bulk of it. In 2010, the Head Quarters (HQ) accounted for 369 of the 566 reported cases. In 2013, HQ accounted for 380 of 600 cases. In 2014, it was 329 out of 489 cases. In 2015, it was 315 of 420 cases, and in the first eight months of 2016, it was 160 out of 208 cases.

Interestingly, most complaints came from Anuradhapura district, a Sinhalese-majority area, and not from the Tamil majority or Tamil-speaking districts of North and East Sri Lanka.

In 2010, 58 cases were reported from Anuradhapura district in contrast to 02 from Jaffna, 05 from Trincomalee and 06 from Vavuniya. In 2013, the figures were 49 from Anuradhapura, nil from Jaffna, 10 from Trincomalee, and 05 from Vavuniya. In 2015, 40 cases were reported from Anuradhapura, nil from Jaffna, 02 from Trincomalee, and 10 from Vavuniya. In the first eight months of 2016, 14 cases were reported from Anuradhapura, 02 from Jaffna, 03 from Trincomalee and 04 from Vavuniya.

Again, commission sources said that there could be under reporting from the Tamil majority areas.

Many cases of torture cannot be proved because of a shortage of Judicial Medical Officers (JMCs). Out of the 65 sanctioned posts of JMO, only 35 have been filled.

The forms of torture vary from beating up with hands to squeezing the genitals and suspending a person upside down and rotating him. The suspect could be handcuffed with one hand behind his back and the other drawn over his shoulder. Prison conditions are also appalling, with prisoners cooped up in dark, 5 ft by 7 ft cells .They are not allowed to come out at night even to answer nature’s call.

Torture goes unrecorded because a police rule allowing legal aid at the time of arrest and first questioning is not observed. Police fib the day and time of arrest to get round the rule that a suspect has to be produced in court in 24 hours.

This year, the government tried to change the law to allow legal aid only when the accused is produced in court. But stiff opposition from Tamil MPs made the government take it back for reconsideration.

According to the HRCSL, as of May 2016, there were 111 persons detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Of these, 29 had not yet been indicted. And among these, there was a person who had been in prison since 2002. Forty-one of the PTA detainees had gone on appeal. One of them had been in jail for 14 years waiting for his appeal to be heard.

Among other recommendations, the HRCSL has sought a re-definition of torture to include “causing severe suffering.”

Netzfrau Ursula Rissmann-Telle

[lavender1]

Nov 18, 2016 23:58:05 GMT -5 lavender1 said:

www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/18/uk-set-approve-most-extreme-spy-bill-history-western-democracy

Published on
Friday, November 18, 2016
by
Common Dreams
UK Set to Approve Most Extreme Spy Bill in 'History of Western Democracy'

"Snooper's charter" poised to become law by end of 2016 after passing both houses of Parliament this week
by
Nadia Prupis, staff writer


The bill codifies the statutes revealed in 2013 by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden. (Photo: Blogtrepreneur/flickr/cc)

The U.K. surveillance bill known as the "Snooper's charter" is poised to become law after passing both houses of Parliament this week. It only needs to be approved by Royal Assent, which is expected to happen by the end of the year.

The Investigatory Powers (IP) Bill is, as transparency advocates describe it, the most extreme surveillance law ever passed by a democracy. Approved amid the chaos of the post-Brexit vote and President-elect Donald Trump's historic upset, the bill has implications that reach far beyond its borders.

Jamie Killock, executive director of the civil liberties organization Open Rights Group, said Thursday, "The passing of the IP Bill will have an impact that goes beyond the U.K.'s shores. It is likely that other countries, including authoritarian regimes with poor human rights records, will use this law to justify their own intrusive surveillance powers."

Open Rights Group summarized the bill's most pertinent provisions:

Internet Service Providers could be obliged to store their customers' web browsing history for a year. The police and government departments will have unprecedented powers to access this data through a search engine that could be used for profiling.
The security services will continue to have powers to collect communications data in bulk.
The police and security services will have new hacking powers.
The security services can access and analyze public and private databases, even though the majority of data will be held about people who are not suspected of any crimes.

The bill codifies the statutes revealed in 2013 by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, "as well as increasing surveillance by the police and other government departments," Killock continued. "There will continue to be a lack of privacy protections for international data sharing arrangements with the U.S. Parliament has also failed to address the implications of the technical integration of GCHQ [the U.K.'s Government Communications Headquarters] and the NSA."

The United Nations privacy chief Joseph Cannataci previously called the bill "worse than scary," saying at an Internet Governance Forum panel in Brazil last week, "It is the golden age of surveillance, [governments have] never had so much data. I am just talking about metadata, I haven't got down to content."

"Mass surveillance is alive and well but governments are finding ways of making that the law of the land," Cannataci said. He also criticized the U.K. media and pro-surveillance members of parliament for what he called "an offensive" to distort the debate and push new powers into law.

"[D]o a media analysis of the way the British establishment is trotting out news about the law and the need for the law and ask yourselves the question 'If this is not orchestrated then what is?'" he said.

Matt Burgess, a Wired UK reporter who has done extensive coverage on the bill, wrote on Twitter that the snooper's charter has "been described as being worse than China's, yet is passed incredibly easily. 2016."

Snowden also wrote, "The U.K. has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes farther than many autocracies."

Killock noted in an op-ed for Newsweek last week that "ll of these practices appear to have existed for many years, in secret and without a Parliamentary vote. Hidden creative interpretations of our existing laws allowed so-called 'bulk powers' to gather information about millions of people, secretly tap internal cables belonging to Google or Yahoo! and to hack foreign companies, such as Belgium's national telecoms provider, turning them into [GCHQ] surveillance conduits. The only reason we know, of course, is because of Edward Snowden's actions, revealing what the U.S.'s NSA and Britain's GCHQ were up to."

The bill was passed just a day before Trump selected the hawkish Tea Party Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo to head the CIA. Pompeo is a proponent of mass surveillance who has previously called for Snowden to receive the death penalty.

"You'd think the sheer revocation of democracy and failure of accountability would be enough to outrage British MPs," Killock wrote in Newsweek. "You'd think this shift from targeted phone taps focused on specific known criminals to one of blanket surveillance to start fishing for new suspects would deserve a principled national debate."

"Apparently not."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

\!!

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/extreme-surveillance-becomes-uk-law-with-barely-a-whimper?CMP=fb_gu

'Extreme surveillance' becomes UK law with barely a whimper

Investigatory Powers Act legalises range of tools for snooping and hacking by the security services
The Investigatory Powers Act

Ewen MacAskill

Saturday 19 November 2016 07.00 GMT
Last modified on Saturday 19 November 2016 12.56 GMT


A bill giving the UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world has passed into law with barely a whimper, meeting only token resistance over the past 12 months from inside parliament and barely any from outside.

The Investigatory Powers Act, passed on Thursday, legalises a whole range of tools for snooping and hacking by the security services unmatched by any other country in western Europe or even the US.

The security agencies and police began the year braced for at least some opposition, rehearsing arguments for the debate. In the end, faced with public apathy and an opposition in disarray, the government did not have to make a single substantial concession to the privacy lobby.

US whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted: “The UK has just legalised the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies.”

Snowden in 2013 revealed the scale of mass surveillance – or bulk data collection as the security agencies prefer to describe it – by the US National Security Agency and the UK’s GCHQ, which work in tandem.

But, against a backdrop of fears of Islamist attacks, the privacy lobby has failed to make much headway. Even in Germany, with East Germany’s history of mass surveillance by the Stasi and where Snowden’s revelations produced the most outcry, the Bundestag recently passed legislation giving the intelligence agencies more surveillance powers.


The US passed a modest bill last year curtailing bulk phone data collection but the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election is potentially a major reverse for privacy advocates. On the campaign trail, Trump made comments that implied he would like to use the powers of the surveillance agencies against political opponents.

The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Strasburger, one of the leading voices against the investigatory powers bill, said: “We do have to worry about a UK Donald Trump. If we do end up with one, and that is not impossible, we have created the tools for repression. If Labour had backed us up, we could have made the bill better. We have ended up with a bad bill because they were all over the place.

“The real Donald Trump has access to all the data that the British spooks are gathering and we should be worried about that.”

The Investigatory Powers Act legalises powers that the security agencies and police had been using for years without making this clear to either the public or parliament. In October, the investigatory powers tribunal, the only court that hears complaints against MI6, MI5 and GCHQ, ruled that they had been unlawfully collecting massive volumes of confidential personal data without proper oversight for 17 years.

One of the negative aspects of the legislation is that it fails to provide adequate protection for journalists’ sources, which could discourage whistleblowing.

One of the few positives in the legislation is that it sets out clearly for the first time the surveillance powers available to the intelligence services and the police. It legalises hacking by the security agencies into computers and mobile phones and allows them access to masses of stored personal data, even if the person under scrutiny is not suspected of any wrongdoing.

Privacy groups are challenging the surveillance powers in the European court of human rights and elsewhere.

Jim Killock, the executive director of Open Rights Group, said: “The UK now has a surveillance law that is more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy. The state has unprecedented powers to monitor and analyse UK citizens’ communications regardless of whether we are suspected of any criminal activity.”

Renate Samson, the chief executive of Big Brother Watch, said: “The passing of the investigatory powers bill has fundamentally changed the face of surveillance in this country. None of us online are now guaranteed the right to communicate privately and, most importantly, securely.”

Trump’s victory started speculation that, given his warm words for Vladimir Putin, he might do a deal with the Russian president to have Snowden sent back to the US where he faces a long jail sentence. Snowden has lived in Russia since leaking tens of thousands of documents to journalists in 2013.

But Bill Binney, a former member of the NSA who became a whistleblower, expressed scepticism: “I am not sure if the relationship a President Trump would have with President Putin would be bad for Snowden.

“In Russia, he would still be an asset that maybe Putin would use in bargaining with Trump. Otherwise, Snowden does have a large support network around the world plus in the US and Trump may not want to disturb that. Also, I think any move to get Snowden out of Russia and into US courts would also open up support for at least three other lawsuits against the US government’s unconstitutional surveillance.”

This article was amended on 19 November 2016. The act has not yet received royal assent, as stated in an earlier version.

www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2016-11/grossbritannien-ueberwachungsgesetz-snoopers-charter/komplettansicht

\!!

[lavender1]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/21/japan-earthquake-73-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-fukushima/

news.sky.com/story/tsunami-warning-for-fukushima-after-strong-earthquake-hits-japan-10666944

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/japan-earthquake-tsunami-warning_us_583363a7e4b099512f8445dd

Powerful Earthquake Strikes Off The Coast Of Japan
Japan’s Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami advisory.
11/21/2016 04:20 pm ET |


TOKYO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3 hit northern Japan on Tuesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, generating a tsunami that hit the nation’s northern Pacific coast.

The earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, was centered off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 km (6 miles) and struck at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT) the agency said.

A 60 cm (2 foot) tsunami had been observed at Fukushima’s Onahama Port and a 90 cm (3 foot) tsunami at Soma soon after, public broadcaster NHK said. The region is the same that was devastated by a tsunami following a massive earthquake in 2011.

A tsunami warning of up to 3 meters (10 feet) has been issued.

One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo news agency reported, citing fire department officials.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, known as Tepco, said on its website that no damage from the quake has been confirmed at any of its power plants, although there have been blackouts in some areas. Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant caused Japan’s worst nuclear disaster when it was knocked out by the 2011 tsunami.

Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there was no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from Fukushima harbors as tsunami warning signals wailed.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake in Japan on record. The massive tsunami it triggered caused world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.

An Iwaki city fire dept official said there was smoke or fire at Kureha’s research center in a petrochemical complex in Iwaki city at 6:17 a.m., but it was extinguished at 6:40 a.m. Other details were not clear, he said, adding that no other major damage in the city has been reported at the moment.

One hotel in Ofunato, badly hit by the 2011 quake, told guests to stay in the facility, which is on high ground.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially put Tuesday’s quake at a magnitude of 7.3 but down graded it to 6.9.

All nuclear plants on the coast threatened by the tsunami are shutdown in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest of the country. Even when in shutdown nuclear plants need cooling systems operating to keep spent fuel cool.

\!!

[lavender1]

www.straitstimes.com/world/americas/deadly-hurricane-hits-nicaragua-costa-rica

www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-otto-idUSKBN13J1I0?il=0

www.thejournal.ie/tsunami-earthquake-central-america-3101326-Nov2016/


\!!

[lavender1]

watchers.news/2016/11/24/italy-flood-liguria-piedmont-november-2016/

[lavender1]

earthquaketrack.com/p/indonesia/recent

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/07/earthquake-rocks-indonesias-aceh-province-several-dead/