OSINFO - Open Sources Information

Captors' Motives Unknown At This Time

ANN REALTIME REPORTING 08.26.08 1330 EDT: Very little hard information is known at this moment... but CNN reports a Sudanese airliner was hijacked shortly after taking off from Nyala in the country's war-torn Darfur region Tuesday.

The airliner has since landed in Kifra, Libya, according to media reports. At this point, it's not known how many passengers are onboard the plane, or what the hijacker-or-hijackers' intentions may be, though some local media outlets say the three hijackers are part of a Darfur rebel group.

Indeed, such hijackings are not uncommon -- two Sudanese flights were commandeered in 2007 alone. One later landed safely in Khartoum, the plane's original destination; the second diverted to Chad, where it also made a safe landing. In both cases, the hijackers were taken into custody and no passengers were harmed.

In at least one of those cases, the hijackers said they wanted to bring international attention to the situation in Darfur, where a violent ethnic and tribal war has raged for over five years between Sudanese officials, and a number of rebel groups.

• READ: www.caaofsudan.org/ENGLISH/tender_r.htm

Ubiquity's goals are to:

Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.)

Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone (not just Web developers) to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)

Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility.

Extend the browser functionality easily.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Table of Contents

About CISC            

Introduction                        

Foundations of the Organized Crime Marketplace

Methods of Organized Crime Operation

Global Trends

Criminal Markets

Illicit Drugs
Financial Crime
Contraband Tobacco
Human Smuggling and Trafficking in Persons
Illicit Firearms
Intellectual Property Rights Crime
Vehicle-Related Crime

Feature Focus: Identity Theft and Identity Fraud in Canada

Conclusion

Evaluation Form

M K Bhardrakumar

A geopolitical convulsion measuring six points on the Richter scale is bound to produce aftershocks. The reverberations of the conflict in the Caucasus are beginning to be felt. We may be unwittingly bidding farewell to the "war on terror". In any case, the international community has lost interest in Osama bin Laden.

The United States has spotted a promising new enemy on the horizon and an engrossing war may be offering itself, with infinite possibilities. The author considers the Russia-Georgian War in the Caucusus through the lens of a new stage in global conflict.


Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

He published this article in Asia Times on August 19, 2008. Published at Japan Focus on August 21, 2008.

• Read more . . .

There is no quick fix, but an over-confident Russia is weaker than it looks

FROM Brussels this week NATO brandished a fist at Russia, warning it that there could be no "business as usual" so long as Russian forces remained in Georgia. The Russians, oddly, did not quail. If anything, President Dmitry Medvedev and his mentor and prime minister, Vladimir Putin, seem to be enjoying the world’s impotent indignation in the face of their new-found machismo. And why not? They know that the West will not fight for the territorial integrity of Georgia, a trisected statelet of only 4m people in the faraway Caucasus. They also know that they will face no serious economic punishment. As a collective, NATO may huff and puff, but the cold fact is that many of its big members need a lot of business with Russia to continue. Germany and others in Europe need to keep buying Russia’s oil and gas. America needs Russia, too, in order to secure vital foreign-policy objectives of its own, such as preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Does this mean that Russia will get away with its smash-and-grab operation? In one sense it does. Russia’s intentions were unclear this week; it drove some tanks here and there for the benefit of the cameras (

). But if it is determined to keep its forces in Georgia proper despite the ceasefire agreement brokered by France, Germany and America, it is hard to see what any outsider can do about it. Georgia’s dispute with Russia would then once again become a "frozen" conflict, except with different de facto borders.

The wider aims with which Russia is presumed to have entered Georgia have not yet been achieved, however. They include toppling its pro-American president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and using intimidation to stop Georgia and Ukraine from following the Poles, Czechs, Balts and other former dominions of the Soviet Union into the orbit of the West and thence into NATO. If it pursues sound policies, the West still stands a fair chance, despite its divisions, of thwarting these aims.

Sound policy starts with a sense of proportion. Contrary to some excitable first reactions, Russia’s ability to crush the minuscule Georgian army does not make it a superpower, and its aggression in the Caucasus need not mark the start of a new cold war. To put things in perspective, America’s GDP is ten times bigger than Russia’s and it spends at least seven times more on defence. Russia’s economy would fall off a cliff if energy prices slumped and its population, racked by ill-health and inequality, is shrinking by up to 800,000 a year. Russia can make mischief, but it cannot project military and ideological power all around the world, as the Soviet Union did during the cold war. Although it scares some neighbours (but not the Chinese), its threats make them all the more determined to stay on guard. It is surely no coincidence that after months of prevarication the Poles agreed immediately after Russia invaded Georgia to let America base missile defences (ostensibly against a future threat from Iran) on Polish territory.

To say that Russia’s strength is exaggerated is not to say that it should be allowed to escape its Georgian adventure unpunished. A weak power can be more reckless than a strong one. Russia needs to learn that in spite of their own enervating foreign wars and economic worries the members of the Western alliance can still unite in front of a challenge. But because Russia is fundamentally less strong than it likes to pretend, the West’s response can afford to be patient as well as principled.

One principle the West must insist on is the legitimacy of Georgia’s government. However foolish Mr Saakashvili was to give Russia a pretext for invasion, he should stay in office until Georgians themselves throw him out. Another principle is the right of any country, even if it is a former Soviet vassal in what Russia still counts as its own sphere of influence, to ask to join NATO. Naturally, the alliance should not admit members who are unready, or for whom it is not in the end willing to fight. On this test, Georgia might never get in. But to give Russia a veto would be to mock the sovereignty of small countries.

Just wait

As to patience, suspending business as usual should not be pushed to the point that drives Russia into the sort of sulk that will make its behaviour worse. Finding the line between disapproval, pressure and continued engagement will be hard. Too much concern for the hurt feelings of a fallen empire could be misread as weakness and so encourage further bullying. But there is vital work to be done--on nuclear proliferation and arms reduction, for example--in which the need for co-operation with Russia simply outweighs the need to punish it.

So Russia will keep its tanks in Georgia if it wants to. But the longer it does so, the less Europe will want to rely on Russia for its energy, the longer it will wait to join the World Trade Organisation, the more hostile the next American president will be and the more its nervous neighbours will be tempted to turn to the West for safety. The job now is to explain to Russia that this may not have been such a victory for machismo, after all.

OBERURSEL, Germany - (BUSINESS WIRE) - The drastic rise in classic malware attacks via e-mail is featured again and again in the media. Antivirus solutions are meant to help with the problem. But, paradoxically, these solutions themselves represent a high security risk: weak points that have been discovered in all known virus scanners are smoothing the way for attackers trying to get into company networks and are making it possible to infiltrate these networks with malicious code. In order to arm AV engines against this and especially to offer sufficient protection to companies with high security requirements, n.runs AG, a consulting company and solution-developer, has brought the “Application Protection System – Anti-Virus (aps-AV)” onto the market. This system is now available.

The SANS-Institute has registered AV engines as a gateway into their Top 20 of security risks. The weak points allow denial of service (DoS) attacks, the insertion of harmful programs into the network and the running of exploit code. By exploiting the AV components, e-mail correspondence can be read, or the security solution be caused to crash, which can lead to a breakdown of the entire e-mail infrastructure. The protection of the software can even be completely circumvented, and viruses or malware can be sent to the end-user. Because virus scanners run with high access rights and are used at central points they offer highly attractive targets for attacks. The crux is that the more AV solutions are used, the greater the risk. This problem can become the downfall of providers, for example, or organizations that are reliant on the high availability and integrity of their systems and data.

So that virus scanners can be operated efficiently and in keeping with their actual protective function, n.runs has designed the “Application Protection System – Anti-Virus (aps-AV)“, which embeds the respective AV engines in a screened-off environment. This scalable solution, which has been developed by the IT security specialists themselves, can house an unlimited number of virus scanners and secures the complete e-mail and antivirus infrastructure against attacks from outside.

aps-AV completes the security infrastructure of companies

n.runs aps-AV is part of the aps product-family and offers comprehensive protection, because it functions according to the defense-in-depth principle in a highly secure 3-tiered environment. Thanks to multiple scanning, there is an increase in the virus-recognition rate of conventional anti-virus programs and at the same time in the protection against malware. “Our system prevents all effects of attacks, such as – for example – the taking of control over the mail server or of the AV clients behind it“, explains Thierry Zoller, Senior Security Engineer of n.runs AG. “Attacks for purposes of industrial and commercial espionage, or for manipulation and compromising of the e-mail infrastructure, will in future have no chance at all“, adds Zoller.

As well as the opportunity to centralize, which leads to savings on resources and costs, the system also optimizes the performance of the servers and simplifies administration. This ensures high availability, system stability and scalability, which thus makes the antivirus solutions safe for companies and at the same time more cost-effective.

You can find further information at: http://www.nruns.com/_en/aps/press.php

Michael J. Totten
Fleeing Russian brutality, Georgians look to the West for support.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia has unleashed a refugee crisis all over the country and especially in its capital. Every school here in Tbilisi is jammed with civilians who fled aerial bombardment and shootings by the Russian military—or massacres, looting, and arson by irregular Cossack paramilitary units swarming across the border. Russia has seized and effectively annexed two breakaway Georgian provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It has also invaded the region of Gori, which unlike them had been under Georgia’s control. Gori is in the center of the country, just an hour’s drive from Tbilisi; 90 percent of its citizens have fled, and the tiny remainder live amid a violent mayhem overseen by Russian occupation forces that, despite Moscow’s claims to the contrary, are not yet withdrawing.

• Continue reading . . .

SUMMARY: The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") is publishing the names of two entities that have been identified as entities in which Rami Makhluf, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to Executive Order 13460 of February 13, 2008, "Blocking Property of Additional Persons in Connection With the National Emergency With Respect to Syria," owns, directly or indirectly, a 50 percent or greater interest. Therefore, all property and interests in property of such entities are blocked.

DATES: The identification by the Secretary of the Treasury of these two entities is effective on July 10, 2008.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Assistant Director, Compliance Outreach & Implementation, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC 20220, tel.: 202/622-2490.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Electronic and Facsimile Availability

This document and additional information concerning OFAC are available from OFAC's Web site (http://www.treas.gov/ofac) or via facsimile through a 24-hour fax-on-demand service, tel.: 202/622-0077.

Background

On May 11, 2004, the President issued Executive Order 13338 pursuant to, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq., the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq., the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, Public Law 108-175, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code. In Executive Order 13338, the President declared a national emergency to address the threat posed by the actions of the Government of Syria in supporting terrorism, continuing its occupation of Lebanon, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and undermining the United States and international efforts with respect to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq.

On February 13, 2008, the President issued Executive Order 13460 (the "Order") pursuant to, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq., the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq., and section 301 of title 3, United States Code. In the Order, the President found that the Government of Syria continues to engage in certain conduct that formed the basis for the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13338 of May 11, 2004, including but not limited to undermining efforts with respect to the stabilization of Iraq. The President further found that the conduct of certain members of the Government of Syria and other persons contributing to public corruption related to Syria, including by misusing Syrian public assets or by misusing public authority, entrenches and enriches the Government of Syria and its supporters and thereby enables the Government of Syria to continue to engage in certain conduct that formed the basis for the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13338.

Section 1 of the Order blocks, with certain exceptions, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons: Persons who are determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to be responsible for, to have engaged in, to have facilitated, or to have secured improper advantage as a result of, public corruption by senior officials within the Government of Syria.

On July 10, 2008, the Secretary of the Treasury identified two entities in which Rami Makhluf, whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to Executive Order 13460, owns, directly or indirectly, a 50 percent or greater interest. Therefore, all property and interests in property of such entities are blocked.

The list of blocked entities is as follows:

1. RAMAK (a.k.a. RAMAK DUTY FREE; a.k.a. RAMAK DUTY FREE SHOP LTD; a.k.a. RAMAK DUTY FREE SHOPS--SYRIA; a.k.a. RAMAK DUTY FREE SHOPS LTD.; a.k.a. RAMAK FIRM FOR FREE TRADE ZONES), Free Zone Area, Jamarek, P.O. Box 932, Damascus, Syria; Al Rawda Street, P.O. Box 932,

[Page Number 48432]

Damascus, Syria; Abu Ramana Street, Rawda, Damascus, Syria; Damascus Duty Free, Damascus International Airport, Damascus, Syria; Dara'a Duty Free, Naseeb Border Center, Dara'a, Syria; Aleppo Duty Free, Aleppo International Airport, Aleppo, Syria; Jdaideh Duty Free Complex, Jdaideh Yaboos, Damascus, Syria; Bab el Hawa Border Center, Aleppo, Syria; Lattakia Port, Lattakia, Syria; Tartous Port, Tartous, Syria; E-mail Address dam.d.free@net.sy (Syria); Web site http://www.ramakdutyfree.net (Syria) [SYRIA].

2. SYRIATEL (a.k.a. SYRIATEL MOBILE; a.k.a. SYRIATEL MOBILE TELECOM; a.k.a. SYRIATEL MOBILE TELECOM SA), Doctors Syndicate Building, Al Jalaa Street, Abu Roumaneh Area, P.O. Box 2900, Damascus, Syria [SYRIA].

Dated: July 18, 2008.

Adam J. Szubin,

Director, Office of Foreign Assets Control.

[FR Doc. E8-19152 Filed 8-18-08; 8:45 am]

Douglas Kammen

With the regional and global spike in food prices it is naturally imperative that East Timor corner crucial sources of food, joining a queue of food deficit countries from the Philippines to Singapore. But how and why has East Timor - a land of subsistence agriculturalists and one of the world's poorest nations- been turned into a net food importer? And what is the future of East Timor's agriculture? Apparently the food security "problem" was not understood by the World Bank which, from 1999 to 2002, prioritized irrigated rice development over and above East Timor's traditional basket of staples of which corn was dominant. Indonesian rule after the 1975 invasion did extend wet-field rice, but they also left the rice paddies abandoned in 1999. With the crisis apparent, FAO in East Timor has only belatedly acknowledged the need to address non-rice agriculture. The "problem" today is that East Timor faces down the curse of other states drawing upon hydro-carbon rents for quick fixes, namely that it is cheaper to import just about everything - food included - and that agriculture - the life and blood of the country for millennium - is left to the market or to wither. But as Kammen also stresses, problems of overcoming cronyism and corruption at the interface of state and market are central to East Timor's future.


Douglas Kammen is Assistant Professor in the Southeast Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore. He wrote this article for Japan Focus. Posted August 12, 2008.

• Read more . . .