Almost got singed:
"Protests target trash incinerator
BEIJING — Thousands of people took to the streets of a southern Chinese town on Saturday, some clashing with police, to protest a proposed garbage incinerating plant, participants and eyewitnesses said. The demonstration in Guangdong province was the latest to highlight how Chinese have become increasingly wary of the environmental hazards but still lack public forums to voice their concerns (AP)."
Protests? In China?
"Editor, employees at China financial news site face extortion allegations" by Didi Tang | Associated Press September 05, 2014
BEIJING — Police in Shanghai detained the chief editor and several employees of an influential Chinese financial news site on allegations they extorted money from companies by threatening to publish negative news about them, state media said Thursday.
The case surrounding the website for the 21st Century Business Herald is the latest scandal involving news corruption in China, where extortion schemes have plagued the state-owned media, especially outlets specializing in financial news.
Several weeks ago, financial news managers at state broadcaster China Central Television were placed under police investigation for alleged graft.
Business news in China is especially fertile territory for corruption because many business executives are willing to pay bribes to win a competitive edge and many poorly trained journalists turn to extortion to make extra money, said Tong Bing, a journalism professor at Shanghai-based Fudan University.
Here it is a business and political model with journalists willingly participating in the fraud.
The corruption is enabled by the country’s lack of true press freedom in which one news outlet could expose corruption in another, Tong said.
Sorry I've turned so, so sour on pot-hollering kettle war media, folks. Sorry.
In the latest case, the chief editor and a deputy editor of the website, and executives from two public relations agencies, were among eight people detained by police in China’s financial hub of Shanghai, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The financial news site confirmed in a brief online statement that several of its employees were taken away on Wednesday night in a police investigation but did not give details.
Xinhua said the management of the website colluded with public relations agencies to blackmail renowned companies or those trying to be listed on an exchange by threatening them with negative coverage. The suspects and their companies profited handsomely from the scheme, trading favorable coverage for money or exorbitant advertising contracts, Xinhua said.
The news site said it will cooperate with the investigation. ‘‘We will deal with related matters with a responsible attitude,’’ its statement said.
Chinese newspapers, broadcasters, and other media are all owned by the state or the ruling party. But they must support themselves financially and, so long as they work within official censorship guidelines, most can make their own editorial decisions.
Low-paid journalists routinely accept money from companies to attend events or report on them and sometimes to suppress information about scandals.
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Related: China to control approval to show foreign TV online
You know what comes with TV?
"China sentences 3 to death, 1 to life in prison for knife attack that killed 31" Washington Post September 13, 2014
BEIJING — An upsurge in Xinjiang-related violence, which Beijing says is inspired by a combination of separatism and Muslim religious extremism, prompted the authorities to tighten already suffocating controls in the region, including over Islamic religious practice.
I see a U.S.-sponsored destabilization effort to keep China busy on the western front.
Chinese authorities have said the group responsible for the Kunming attack was trying to leave the country ‘‘to join jihad’’ abroad but when prevented from doing so, hatched a plot to carry out a terrorist attack within China.
According to the Kunming court’s microblog, the attack was planned at a hair salon in Gejiu, not far from the Vietnamese border, with the group making black jihadi flags and watching videos made by overseas Islamist extremist groups....
The attack on the station, in which 141 people were also wounded, shocked China....
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Can't be any more direct than that:
"Pharmacist tied to outbreak a ‘scapegoat,’ lawyer says" by Milton J. Valencia and John R. Ellement | Globe Staff September 11, 2014
A pharmacist from the Massachusetts company linked to tainted drugs that killed 64 people fears that federal prosecutors have chosen him to be the “scapegoat’’ for the medical disaster, his lawyer said Thursday.
Glenn Adam Chin was arraigned in US District Court on a one-count mail fraud indictment stemming from the investigation into the New England Compounding Center, where the tainted prescription drugs were allegedly made and then shipped across the country.
US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office and the Justice Department’s consumer protection branch have been investigating the compounding center since a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak began in fall 2012. Prosecutors said 751 patients fell ill after receiving contaminated medicine and 64 died.
Chin, who authorities allege was a supervising pharmacist at a New England Compounding lab where some of the tainted drugs were created, is the only person connected to the company who is currently facing criminal charges, though prosecutors said the investigation remains ongoing.
His lawyer, Stephen J. Weymouth, said Chin fears he has been chosen to bear the punishment for all those involved.
Glenn Adam Chin, a supervising pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, was trying to board a plane to Hong Kong, officials said.
“He fears the US government is trying to make him a scapegoat out of this,’’ said Weymouth, who was temporarily appointed to represent Chin, pending a review of the defendant’s financial status. “I am sure that someone needs to be blamed, but I am not sure it is him.’’
Don't take it personally, they do it all the time.
Chin was arrested at Logan International Airport in Boston last week as he and his family prepared to board a plane for Hong Kong.
Weymouth said Chin was not trying to flee the country but was traveling with his grandmother, wife, and their two children, ages 2 and 6, for a vacation.
That's when they busted him? After eating lunch with his family?
Weymouth said Chin had a round-trip ticket and noted that the rest of his family flew to Hong Kong after Chin was taken into custody.
“He had documentation showing he was going to Hong Kong,’’ Weymouth said. “It was a return trip.’’
Weymouth said Chin has been out of work for months, since the tainted drugs were traced back to New England Compounding.
“He’s nervous. He’s anxious,’’ Weymouth said. “He’s depressed. He’s confused. He doesn’t know what is going to happen.’’
Chin, a Canton resident, was released Thursday on $50,000 unsecured bond. He is under house arrest and agreed to surrender his passport and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. Weymouth said he may seek to change bail conditions in coming weeks.
Prosecutors said that if convicted, Chin faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
According to the criminal complaint filed last week by Benedict Celso, a special agent for the Food and Drug Administration, Chin supervised four pharmacists and 10 pharmacy technicians in so-called “clean rooms,” and was personally responsible for compounding steroid stock solutions.
Celso wrote that Chin employed “unsafe practices” including improper sterilization and testing.
Chin was in charge on June 29, 2012, when one batch of methylprednisolone acetate was made. Chin, the federal complaint alleges, “directed that filled vials be sent out of the clean room for shipment to NECC customers.’’
On Aug. 7, 2012, Michigan Pain Specialists in Brighton, Mich., ordered 400 vials of the material, the complaint alleged. New England Compounding sent the requested vials, each of which included the abbreviation for “injectable’’ on the label, indicating the medicine “was sterile and fit for human use,” the complaint said.
Over the next two months, doctors at the Michigan clinic injected 625 patients with the compound, the complaint alleges.
After receiving the injections, 217 patients contracted fungal infections; 15 of them died, according to the complaint.
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Related:
"NEW USO FACILITY -- A ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the opening of a transplanted USO center Friday at Logan International Airport. The event was attended by military service members (right) as well as members of the Boston Bruins, New England Patriots, Boston Celtics, and New England Revolution. A tile inlay from the old USO facility at the airport was also presented (Boston Globe September 13 2014)."
This country has such a mid-1940s German feel to it theses days.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Airport workers take crucial step toward forming union
"Xi Jinping to Chinese tourists: Cut back on instant noodles" by Adam Taylor | The Washington Post News Service September 18, 2014
WASHINGTON — The behavior of Chinese tourists abroad has been something of a sore spot for Beijing in recent years. Now Xi Jinping, China’s president, has waded into the debate with a request: Please stop eating so many instant noodles.
‘‘Let me interrupt and say something here,’’ Xi was reported to have said during an official visit to the Maldives, according to Bloomberg News. ‘‘We should also educate our citizens to be civilized when traveling abroad. Don’t litter water bottles, don’t destroy their coral reef. Eat less instant noodles and more local seafood.’’
Xi’s comments were lighthearted and reportedly provoked laughter. However, as the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time blog points out, they were prompted by real-life events.
Last year, the South China Morning Post reported that a number of luxury resorts in the Maldives had begun limiting the hot water available to Chinese tourists, in a bid to stop them from eating instant noodles instead of ordering room service.
Being a frugal consumer is frowned upon.
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Before getting into this next item one has to ask who ultimately benefits from the new Red Scare?
"China hacked US military contractors, investigators say" by Jack Gillum | Associated Press September 18, 2014
WASHINGTON — China’s military hacked into computer networks of civilian transportation companies hired by the Pentagon at least nine times, breaking into computers aboard a commercial ship, targeting logistics companies, and uploading malicious software onto an airline’s computers, Senate investigators said Wednesday.
A yearlong investigation announced by the Senate Armed Services Committee identified at least 20 break-ins or other unspecified cyber events targeting companies, including nine successful break-ins of contractor networks. It blamed China’s government for the most sophisticated intrusions, although it did not provide any detailed evidence.
I'm sick of seeing my lying, looting government and its mouthpiece media blaming China for everything.
The Senate report did not identify which transportation companies were victimized.
Investigators said China’s military was able to steal e-mails, documents, user accounts, and computer codes. They also said China compromised systems aboard a commercial ship contracted by Transcom for logistics routes, and hacked into an airline the US military used.
The committee’s chairman, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said the hacking put at risk the security of US military operations. He called his committee’s findings ‘‘very disturbing.’’
Verging on WAR, 'eh? I guess since China has chilled things in the region something is needed to flog the war agenda forward. Thanks. Levin.
China’s government did not immediately respond Wednesday to telephone messages and e-mails requesting comment in Beijing, its embassy in Washington, and offices at the United Nations.
They must get tired of responding to the false accusations and flogging, and who can blame them?
The newly declassified Senate report says defense contractors have generally failed to report to the Pentagon hacker break-ins of their systems as required under their business agreements.
Ea$ily under$tandable. Report it and you out the job.
Levin, whose staff investigated the break-ins with the committee’s top Republican, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, said government agencies also failed to share information among themselves about intrusions. He said that hampers the government’s ability to protect national security.
Thirteen f***ing years after 9/11 and they still ain't talking?
So which US intelligence agency is doing the hacking, or how many are?
For instance, the committee said some contractors that contacted the FBI about break-ins may have not separately reported the intrusions to Transcom because the firms assumed the bureau had notified the Pentagon. Levin said he and Inhofe were working on streamlining the reporting process.
I love lame-ass excuses, don't you?
Federal data show more than $4 billion in contracts went to firms in 2012 and 2013 for the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, a Transcom partnership with private airlines that supplements Pentagon airlifts during wars or natural disasters. Six of 11 companies that investigators contacted about cyber intrusions were Civil Reserve airlines.
The largest recipient of reserve fleet funding during that period, FedEx Corp., did not answer questions from the AP on Wednesday asking whether it was a victim of hacking. In a written statement, it instead said generally it was ‘‘confident in the integrity and safety of our systems, including those supportive of our government contracts.’’
Wow, even FedEx is tied up with the military-industrial teat.
Other Transcom contractors included firms that have since filed for bankruptcy and ended operations, including Georgia-based World Airways Inc.
The significant intrusions were characterized as ‘‘advanced-persistent attacks,’’ a category of threats so sophisticated they are frequently associated with foreign governments.
And Israel leads the toil of that suspects list every time!
Of those intrusions, Transcom was made aware of only two, which the committee’s report said was troubling.
Some intrusions appeared to come from mundane ruses that targeted employees by e-mail, a practice known as spear-phishing. In 2013, for example, an unnamed Civil Reserve airline was the victim of a phishing attack that investigators suspect led to malicious software being downloaded on the airline’s network.
I wonder who would want to.... aaaaah, never mind.
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Related: Home Depot Was Hacked
They had help from home, too.
"Home Depot confirms breach in US, Canada stores" by Marley Jay | Associated Press September 09, 2014
NEW YORK — Home Depot confirmed on Monday that its payment systems have been breached and said the hack could affect customers who used credit and debit cards at its more than 2,000 US and Canadian stores.
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The home improvement chain is the latest retailer to have a data breach. Others include Target, grocer Supervalu, restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s, and the thrift store operations of Goodwill. The breaches have rattled shoppers’ confidence in the security of their personal data.
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Forrester Research analyst John Kindervag said the Home Depot breach could affect similar numbers of shoppers or cards, noting that months’ worth of data may have been compromised. ‘‘From what I’m hearing, people think this will be as big as Target or bigger,’’ he said in a telephone interview.
Retailers, banks, and card companies have responded to the breaches by increasing security by speeding the adoption of microchips in US credit and debit cards. Home Depot plans to have chip-enabled checkout terminals at all of its US stores by the end of this year.
NSA all set to receive data.
The Atlanta company said its IT department is looking into the breach and is working with outside firms, its banking partners, and the US Secret Service. The company added that customers will not be held responsible for fraudulent charges.
And nothing will come of it because we know back to where it leads.
The possible breach at Home Depot was first reported by Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security, a website that focuses on cybersecurity. Krebs said multiple banks reported ‘‘evidence that Home Depot stores may be the source of a massive new batch of stolen credit and debit cards’’ that went on sale on the black market earlier Tuesday.
Krebs said a preliminary analysis indicates the breach may have affected almost all of Home Depot’s US stores.
The Target hack was described as the second-largest credit card breach in US history and cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses, as well as affecting its profit and sales.
Target’s chief information officer and chief executive both stepped down in the months after the hack, and Kindervag noted that it remains to be seen how Home Depot will respond and how other businesses will deal with similar breaches in the future.
The financial information $ecurity field is becoming an indu$try.
Cui bono?
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"Prosecutors target credit card thieves overseas" by Eric Tucker | Associated Press September 13, 2014
WASHINGTON — Criminals from around the world buy and sell stolen credit card information with ease in today’s digital age. But if they commit their crime entirely outside the United States, they may be beyond the reach of federal prosecutors.
Justice Department officials are seeking a tougher law to combat overseas credit card trafficking, an increasingly lucrative crime that crosses national boundaries.
Authorities say the current law is too weak because it allows people in other countries to avoid prosecution if they stay outside the United States when buying and selling the data and don’t pass their illicit business through the United States. The Justice Department is asking Congress to amend the law to make it illegal for an international criminal to possess, buy or sell a stolen credit card issued by a US bank no matter where in the world the transaction occurs.
Though prosecutors do have existing tools and have brought international cybertheft cases in the past year, the Justice Department says a new law is needed at a time when criminals operating largely in Eastern Europe are able to gobble up millions of stolen credit card numbers and commit widespread fraud in a matter of mouse clicks. Companies and banks, too, have been stung by faraway hackers who have siphoned away personal information.
It's the Jewish mafia and they are off limits.
‘‘It’s a very simple fix, and it makes perfect sense to fix it,’’ Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, the Justice Department’s criminal division chief, said in an interview. ‘‘This is a huge law enforcement issue when it’s our financial institutions and our citizens’ credit card data that’s being stolen . . . by overseas people who never set foot in the United States.’’
The problem, though certainly not new, has evolved to the point that ‘‘a lot of these folks who are trafficking in these devices are overseas,’’ Caldwell said.
The issue is more than hypothetical, Caldwell told a Senate subcommittee, as law enforcement agencies have identified criminals in other nations who are selling large quantities of stolen credit cards without passing the business through the this country.
Officials say the crime is facilitated by online marketplaces where participants, cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet and trading data with the ease of eBay commodities, advertise, buy, and sell credit card information stolen in data breaches.
Oh, I see. This is also about identifying commentators like me.
The credit cards are valued at different prices, generally depending on the balance, and swapped on Web forums that often operate in foreign languages and are primarily hosted in non-US countries.
The cards are sometimes used to purchase valuable goods and sometimes converted into gift cards, Caldwell said. Some schemes dispatch bands of criminals to make withdrawals from automated teller machines.
‘‘It’s a well built-up and sophisticated marketplace,’’ said Chris Wysopal, a computer security specialist and chief technology officer of the software-security firm Veracode.
Aren't they one of the companies going public and getting boatloads of money?
The legislative request comes as prosecutors deal, more generally, with a growing cybercrime threat. Several recent cases illustrate the ease with which cybercriminals have managed to steal personal information.
Every time my paper says such and illustrates or emphasizes some point it means agenda-pushing at its maximum and the likely influence of $elf-$erving false flags and such.
In June, prosecutors charged a prolific Russian hacker accused of running an operation that infected computers with malicious software, captured bank account numbers and passwords, and then siphoned away millions of dollars. The man, Evgeniy Bogachev, remains at large.
Related: Russia Hacking Way Into Ukraine
Yeah, everything always leads back to those this government wish to wage war upon.
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