Investigation: Israeli Spyware Was Used to Target Phones of Journalists and Activists Worldwide

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By Washington Post. Private Israeli spy software was used to hack dozens of smartphones that belonged to reporters, human rights activists, business executives and the fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a sweeping investigation by the Washington Post and 16 other news organizations.

The military-grade spyware was reportedly licensed by the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group. The investigation discovered that the hacked phones were on a list of more than 50,000 numbers based in countries known to surveil people.

The list of numbers were shared with the Post and other media organizations by Paris-based journalism nonprofit Hidden Stories and human rights group Amnesty International.

NSO Group denied the findings of the report in several statements, arguing that investigation includes “uncorroborated theories” based on “misleading interpretation of leaked data from accessible and overt basic information.” (Read more from “Investigation: Israeli Spyware Was Used to Target Phones of Journalists and Activists” HERE)

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Israeli-Made Spyware Used to Monitor Journalists and Activists Worldwide

By OCCRP. In Hungary, Szabolcs Panyi exposed spy intrigue and murky arms deals. In India, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta probed the ties between business and political interests. In Azerbaijan, Sevinj Vaqifqizi caught vote-rigging on tape.

Separated by thousands of miles, these journalists have one thing in common: their governments considered them a threat.

All three were among dozens of journalists and activists around the world whose smartphones were infected by Pegasus: spyware made by Israeli firm NSO Group that is able to secretly steal personal data, read conversations, and switch on microphones and cameras at will.

The attacks were revealed by The Pegasus Project, an international collaboration of more than 80 journalists from 17 media organizations, including OCCRP, and coordinated by Forbidden Stories.

The phones of Panyi, Thakurta, and Vaqifqizi were analyzed by Amnesty International’s Security Lab and found to be infected after their numbers appeared on a list of over 50,000 numbers that were allegedly selected for targeting by governments using NSO software. Reporters were able to identify the owners of hundreds of those numbers, and Amnesty conducted forensic analysis on as many of their phones as possible, confirming infection in dozens of cases. The reporting was backed up with interviews, documents, and other materials. (Read more from “Israeli-Made Spyware Used to Monitor Journalists and Activists Worldwide” HERE)

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Russia Sends Former U.S. Marine To Soviet-era Prison

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A former U.S. Marine who is serving a nine-year sentence in Russia was being transferred from a remand cell in Moscow on Friday to the Mordovia region which has a large number of tough, Soviet-era prisons.

Trevor Reed was convicted last year of endangering the lives of two policemen in Moscow while drunk, a charge he denied. He said the ruling was “clearly political”, and Washington called the trial “theatre of the absurd”. . .

“This morning Trevor Reed was (taken) from Moscow, he will serve his punishment in one of Mordovia’s (prison) colonies,” Alexei Melnikov, a member of a prison oversight commission was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency. (Read more from “Russia Sends Former U.S. Marine To Soviet-era Prison” HERE)

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Data Shows Illegal Border Crossings on Pace To Top 1M This Month

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More than 1 million illegal crossings of the US-Mexico border will have been attempted over the first seven months of 2021, preliminary data indicates — defying expectations that the illegal immigration crisis would ease as temperatures climbed.

While US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have yet to release the official number of border encounters that took place last month, The Washington Examiner reported that initial calculations put the total at 188,000, an increase of just over 4 percent from the 180,034 apprehended in May.

If confirmed, the number of southwestern border stops would be the most in any month of June for at least 21 years. It would also be an 80 percent increase over the number of apprehensions in June 2019 and a whopping 469 percent increase over the number of encounters in June 2020, when migration patterns were affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Most shockingly, it puts CBP on track to make its 1 millionth border stop of 2021 sometime this month. The last time at least 1 million stops were recorded at the US-Mexico border in a calendar year was in 2006, and the milestone wasn’t reached until December of that year. (Read more from “Data Shows Illegal Border Crossings on Pace To Top 1M This Month” HERE)

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Cuba Protests: 5,000 Arrested, Police Target Religious Leaders

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Independent media confirmed the arrests of at least 5,000 people since protests against communism erupted in Cuba on Sunday, a total including those known to be under investigation but not the disappeared.

The human rights group Cuban Prisoners Defenders submitted a list of 162 people to the United Nations on Wednesday suspected of being the victims of forced disappearances, meaning their families have reported them missing, but police have not confirmed their arrest. Cuban police regularly detain individuals perceived to be opposed to the Communist Party for participating in peaceful protests, practicing journalism, or being involved with religious groups not controlled by the Party. The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization, revealed in a report published this month that Cuba has enacted over 30,000 arbitrary arrests against perceived dissidents in the last five years.

Protests erupted in Cuba on Sunday calling for an end to the communist regime. The protests attracted thousands of people in nearly every major city in the country – spanning the entire island – and prompted Cuban police to respond by opening fire on protesters, beating them publicly, using attack dogs to maul them, and otherwise violently repressing them. President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who represents the public face of the Castro family regime, also called on civilians to violently attack protesters on the streets in an “order of combat” issued late Sunday. . .

In addition to targeting journalists and members of known civil society groups, Cuban regime agents have assaulted and detained religious leaders. The most prominent case so far of such an assault occurred in Camagüey where Father Castor José Álvarez Devesa, a Catholic priest who had prominently criticized the regime, received a public beating before going missing for nearly 24 hours. Álvarez resurfaced late Monday after an international campaign demanding to know his whereabouts. (Read more from “Cuba Protests: 5,000 Arrested, Police Target Religious Leaders” HERE)

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Despite Being Accused of Sex Abuse Inside Vatican, Powerful Figures Helped This Teen Become a Priest

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The warnings started coming eight years ago, sent to some of the most powerful figures in the Roman Catholic Church, alerting them to a potential sex abuse crime that stood out from other church cases.

The profile of the alleged abuser, by itself, was unusual: not a priest, but rather a teenage altar boy, who was said to have coerced a peer to engage in various sex acts night after night over six years. And then there was the purported location: inside the Vatican’s own walls, at a youth seminary for the 15 or so altar boys who served the pope. . .

For a church trying to better contend with abuse and coverup across its empire, the warnings about Gabriele Martinelli were a direct institutional test. The events described in the anonymous letter, as well as in accounts from the alleged victim and a witness, were said to have taken place right under the church’s nose. By 2013, the complaints about Martinelli had been communicated to the pope and a who’s who of cardinals and bishops. The next year, the Vatican’s third-ranking official wrote a letter that referred to the accusations and asserted that the pope “knows the case well.” . . .

But a Washington Post review of more than 2,000 pages of documents, most never previously reported, reveals that more powerful figures within the church hierarchy discounted warnings as they facilitated Martinelli’s rise. Centrally responsible for Martinelli’s fate were Cardinal Angelo Comastri and Bishop Diego Coletti, who quickly dismissed the claims against Martinelli as “calumny,” according to Coletti’s own account. Neither prelate is involved in the trial or any other known church disciplinary process. (Read more from “Despite Being Accused of Sex Abuse Inside Vatican, Powerful Figures Helped This Teen Become a Priest” HERE)

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DEA Informant Arrested, Allegedly Involved In Plot To Assassinate Haitian President

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In a stunning development, one American arrested in connection with the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse has been identified as a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency asset who handed authorities the warlord who carried out the last coup in the troubled Caribbean country, reports said Monday.

What’s more, DEA officials have come out and said that while one of their agents was linked to the murder of Moïse, the agency itself was not involved in the plot. In addition, DEA officials claim that the agent called in after the assassination and that he was advised to turn himself in to authorities, the Miami Herald reported.

The paper reported further that the operative has been identified as Joseph Vincent, 55. (Read more from “DEA Informant Arrested, Allegedly Involved In Plot To Assassinate Haitian President” HERE)

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Mass Rioting Leaves 45 Dead In South Africa (VIDEO)

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At least 45 people have died in South Africa during violent riots over the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma — with even cops seemingly caught helping themselves during shocking scenes of mass looting.

Sporadic violence first broke out last Thursday when Zuma, 79, started serving his 15-month sentence for defying a court order to appear at an inquiry investigating corruption during his nine years in office.

But it soon grew to some of the worst violence seen there in years — spreading from Zuma’s home in KwaZulu-Natal province to the country’s biggest city, Johannesburg, and surrounding Gauteng province, and to the Indian Ocean port city of Durban.

Shocking videos showed hundreds of people swarming through shopping districts and climbing up through almost completely empty shelves. Some malls were even torched. . .

Many of the deaths have been blamed on chaotic stampedes to steal food, electric appliances, liquor and clothing, officials have said.

(Read more from “Mass Rioting Leaves 45 Dead In South Africa (VIDEO)” HERE)

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Feds: NYC Journalist Targeted By Iranian Operatives In Twisted Kidnapping Plot (VIDEO)

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Four Iranian intelligence operatives schemed to kidnap a Brooklyn-based journalist and smuggle her to Iran in a bid to silence her criticism of human-rights abuses in the Islamic republic, federal authorities said Tuesday.

In a series of tweets, writer and activist Masih Alinejad acknowledged she was the target, and she did the same in an email to The Post, without commenting further. . .

Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss, who didn’t identify Alinejad by name, said she would have faced a fate that’s “uncertain at best” if the plan hadn’t been foiled by the FBI. . .

The ring, led by Iranian intelligence official Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, allegedly began conspiring to kidnap Alinejad inside the US since as least as early as June 2020.

Earlier, Iranian government officials in 2018 tried in vain to induce her relatives in Iran to invite her to a third country where she would have been arrested or detained and then imprisoned in Iran, authorities said. (Read more from “Feds: NYC Journalist Targeted By Iranian Operatives In Twisted Kidnapping Plot (VIDEO)” HERE)

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U.S. Socialist Group, Linked To AOC And ’Squad’ Dems, Backs Cuban Communists Amid Violent Crackdown

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New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other House Democrats affiliated with the far-left Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have so far remained silent while the DSA appears to back Cuba’s communist regime against protesters demanding freedom.

Ocasio-Cortez, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush make up the four DSA members in Congress. All four members have yet to speak out about the ongoing protests in Cuba and none of their offices returned Fox News’ requests for comment by press time.

The DSA International Committee on Monday declared its solidarity with the “Revolution” – the term used by the communist regime – “in this moment of unrest.” The DSA’s national arm also echoed Cuba’s president in blaming America’s trade embargo with the communist regime for the unrest. . .

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, broke his silence on the Cuban protests in a late-night tweet Monday that urged the Cuban government to “refrain from violence” while criticizing the U.S. for its embargo. (Read more from “U.S. Socialist Group, Linked To Aoc And ’Squad’ Dems, Backs Cuban Communists Amid Violent Crackdown” HERE)

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Taliban Surge In North Afghanistan Sends Thousands Fleeing

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. . .As the Taliban surge through northern Afghanistan — a traditional stronghold of U.S.-allied warlords and an area dominated by the country’s ethnic minorities — thousands of families like Sakina’s are fleeing their homes, fearful of living under the insurgents’ rule.

In the last 15 days, Taliban advances have driven more than 5,600 families from their homes, most of them in the northern reaches of the country, according to the government’s Refugee and Repatriations Ministry.

In Camp Istiqlal, family after family, all from the Hazara ethnic minority, told of Taliban commanders using heavy-handed tactics as they overran their towns and villages — raising doubts among many over their persistent promises amid negotiations that they will not repeat their harsh rule of the past. (Read more from “Taliban Surge In North Afghanistan Sends Thousands Fleeing” HERE)

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