Espionage: It’ll take years for US, Europe to unpack China’s and Russia’s spying sprees
First it was SolarWinds, a reportedly Russian hacking campaign that stretches back almost a year and has felled at least nine US government agencies and countless private companies. Now it’s Hafnium, a Chinese group that’s been attacking a vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange Server to sneak into victims’ email inboxes and...
Multitude of coronavirus variants found in the US, but the threat is unclear
For the scientists who have spent the past year poring over hundreds of thousands of coronavirus genomes, the United States has been an enigma. Despite having world-leading genome sequencing infrastructure and experiencing more Covid infections than any other country, the United States has until recently lagged far behind in sequencing...
Terrorism? Day hacker tried to poison water supply of a Florida city of 15,000
Around 8am last Friday, an employee of a water treatment plant in the 15,000-person city of Oldsmar, Florida, noticed that his mouse cursor was moving strangely on his computer screen, out of his control, as local police would later tell it. Initially, he was not concerned; the plant used the...
On the trail of QAnon: How Trump turned conspiracy theory research upside down
For people around the world, the now-iconic images of a man in a horned headdress roaming the US Capitol during the January 6 insurrection came as a shock. For Kate Starbird, the images were frighteningly familiar. ‘QAnon Shaman’ – the online persona of Jacob Anthony Chansley, or Jake Angeli –...
New report says Trump stole $400m from campaign fund
Former US President Donald Trump has shifted money from campaign donors into his personal businesses, Forbes magazine reports in new revelations that are expected to further stoke resentment of his Republican party sympathisers. The Trump Organisation is heavily indebted, reportedly owing around $400 million. Campaign donor money was moved both...
It’s time Trump learnt what happens when the law stops being polite and gets real
This week, we start the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. For those of you who have been sent here by a family member trying to save you from Newsmax, here’s a quick recap of how we got here: After losing his bid for re-election, Trump spent two-and-a-half months...
Facebook’s oversight board to decide whether to give Trump bullhorn back
In the wake of this month’s violent insurrection at the US Capitol, Facebook suspended the account of the inciter-in-chief Donald Trump. On January 7, citing the danger that the president’s posts might incite further violence, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would keep Trump off the platform “indefinitely and for...
Biden at his inauguration: Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire
Joe Biden was sworn-in on Wednesday as the 46th president of the United States, marking the official start to an administration that must now turn its attention to the global coronavirus pandemic, economic turmoil and deep divisions about the state of American politics and leadership. Forty-eight years after he entered...
Republicans: An angry mob will not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation
President Donald Trump helped provoke the swarms of his supporters who stormed the US Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday. The damning remarks on the Senate floor came as the Kentucky Republican and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democratic-New York), worked to hash out details on Trump’s...
Election of a black president created violent backlash we’re witnessing in the US
Watching the storming of the Capitol last week, many progressive critics of American foreign policy concluded that the country’s chickens were finally coming home to roost. This was the blowback from America’s many military interventions, forever wars and coup attempts. Regime change had returned to Washington. For these critics, the...
