Síntesis informativa - 30 de enero 2019
THE NEW YORK TIMES
‘Along the Main Road You See the Graves’: U.N. Says Hundreds Killed in Congo
Fifteen communal burial sites and 43 single graves have been found in a northwest area of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where three days of ethnic strife last month may have left nearly 900 people dead, United Nations officials said Tuesday.
The officials said the violence, between the Bununu and Batende groups in and around the town of Yumbi in Mai-Ndombe Province, flared a few weeks before the country’s presidential election on Dec. 30.
There was no indication the violence had been directly related to the election, the officials said. But it came against a backdrop of high political tensions throughout the central African country because the election had been repeatedly delayed by the government of then-President Joseph Kabila, who ruled for 17 years and was reluctant to relinquish power.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/world/africa/congo-violence-graves-ebola.html
How Bitcoin Could Help Iran Undermine U.S. Sanctions
TEHRAN — Stepping from a car into a muddy industrial site in the Iranian desert, a 22-year old European Bitcoin investor raised his voice to be heard over the roar of a gas-fired generator.
His Iranian counterparts — a bespectacled information-technology specialist, a self-described ‘‘hard-core Bitcoiner’’ and the businessman running the site — walked their foreign visitor over to gray shipping containers containing thousands of small computers. When completed and connected to the power grid, the computers would help process a cryptocurrency that, in theory at least, could enable Iran to evade United States sanctions.
The value of Bitcoin, the dominant online currency in the world, is treacherously unpredictable. But it is an emerging front in the economic war between Washington and Tehran.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/world/middleeast/bitcoin-iran-sanctions.html
THE GUARDIAN
Venezuela: Maduro accuses US of trying to 'get hands on our oil'
Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, has accused Donald Trump and the group of extremists around him of plotting to topple him in order to seize Venezuela’s oil, and warned he risked transforming the South American country into a new Vietnam.
Unable to accuse Venezuela’s government of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, they were instead waging a media campaign of fake news to justify intervening in a country that boasts the world’s biggest crude reserves, Maduro claimed.
Israel's ex-military chief launches campaign to unseat PM
Israel’s former military chief Benny Gantz has officially launched his election campaign by promising to unseat the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he accused of running a “regime” that “encourages incitement, subversion and hatred”.
Opinion polls suggest Gantz is Netanyahu’s only credible challenger, despite having until now revealed almost none of his political beliefs. After he moved himself into politics in December, polls signalled that his new party, Israel Resilience, could win a critical number of seats in the 9 April general election.
Opinion polls suggest Gantz is Netanyahu’s only credible challenger, despite having until now revealed almost none of his political beliefs. After he moved himself into politics in December, polls signalled that his new party, Israel Resilience, could win a critical number of seats in the 9 April general election.
AL JAZEERA
Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro ready for talks with opposition
Embattled president now says he will meet US-backed opposition but in the presence of international mediators.
Maduro said the talks could be held with the mediation of other countries and he mentioned Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, the Vatican and Russia as potential third parties.
He accused US President Donald Trump of organising his killing, saying he was aware of Trump's "orders" for the Colombian government and local mafia to carry it out. He offered no evidence to support the allegation.
Japan-South Korea radar spat shakes stability - when US needs it
Ahead of US-North Korea summit, analysts say latest dispute between neighbours threatens delicate regional dynamics.
Josh Doyle.- Seoul, South Korea - For the United States and its geopolitical goals in East Asia, few scenarios would be better than a trilateral alliance with Japan and South Korea that could keep China in check and contain nuclear-armed North Korea.
But plans for a united front continue to buckle under the weight of South Korea and Japan's bitter shared history, analysts say, strengthening Beijing's hand in the region and threatening efforts to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear programme before a second summit between US President Donald Trump and the North's leader, Kim Jong Un.
The speech followed Japanese allegations that a South Korean warship in December used its fire-lock radar on one of its patrol jets. Seoul denied the claim, and the issue has been snowballing since, with Seoul accusing Tokyo of making multiple aggressive fly-bys of its navy.
Trump's "America First" approach and treatment of allies has "created distrust in the US role in South Korea and Japan", said Sangsoo Lee, head of the Korea Center at the Institute for Security and Development Policy.
UAE 'used spying tool' to target Qatar's emir, other rivals
Sheikh Tamim, senior Turkish official and activists among hundreds whose iPhones were hacked, Reuters reports.
A team of former US government intelligence operatives working for the UAE hacked into the iPhones of activists, diplomats and rival foreign leaders with the help of a sophisticated spying tool called Karma.
Karma was used by an offensive cyberoperations unit in the capital, Abu Dhabi, comprised of Emirati security officials and former US intelligence operatives working as contractors for the UAE's intelligence services.
The ex-Raven operatives said Karma could remotely grant access to iPhones simply by uploading phone numbers or email accounts into an automated targeting system.
To initiate the access, Karma needed only to send the target a text message - the hack then required no action on the part of the recipient.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/uae-spying-tool-target-qatar-emir-rivals-190130110759231.html
US-China trade talks: Technology theft may be biggest hurdle
Officials from both sides are meeting in Washington, DC this week amid efforts resolve a bitter trade dispute.
Azhar Sukri.- So the stakes are high for talks this week in the US capital between US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. The International Monetary Fund lowered its 2019 global growth forecast this month, saying trade tensions could begin to hurt financial markets, risking a more pronounced slowdown.
But an even thornier issue than the US trade deficit is intellectual property. Foreign companies have long complained that they are forced to hand over proprietary technology to Chinese partners in return for permission to sell their products to China's massive population.
China has also denied that its companies engage in forced technology transfers. But last month, the government proposed a new law that "underlined protection of intellectual property rights of foreign investors and foreign companies, and encouraged voluntary technological cooperation based on business rules", according to the state-controlled Xinhua news agency.
And if Chinese growth slows down too abruptly for whatever reason, US companies that are exposed to China will be affected. US industrial equipment giant Caterpillar and chipmaker Nvidia both mentioned weakness in their China markets in their latest results.
RT
US production of new nuke warhead increases risk of nuclear war – Russian FM
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the US of bringing a nuclear conflict closer after the Trump administration ordered the production of a new nuclear warhead, the W76-2.
The warhead, known as the W76-2, is being produced at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant in the Texas Panhandle, according to the National Nuclear Security Agency. The US Navy is expected to receive the first batch of new warheads in September.
https://www.rt.com/news/450134-lavrov-nuclear-warhead-warning/
US considers early-warning radar in Japan after China unveils ‘Guam Killer’ missile – report
A US early-warning radar may soon be erected in Japan to track incoming projectiles and monitor enemy satellites, a Japanese paper revealed after China unveiled its newest ballistic missile, which puts Guam within its reach.
Washington will talk about the deployment of its Homeland Defense Radar (HDR) on Japanese soil with Tokyo, according to Yomiuri newspaper, citing sources in the US and Japanese governments. The early-warning compound would spot and track incoming ballistic projectiles, and also monitor enemy satellites in outer space.
The Yomiuri sources would not say what countries would be within reach of the radar facility, but the piece mentions the usual suspects, namely China, Russia and North Korea.
https://www.rt.com/news/450117-us-radar-japan-china-missiles/
Thought-to-speech: Scientists say their AI can read out what happens in your brain
Neuro-engineers at New York’s Columbia University say they have created a system that can translate human thoughts into recognizable speech, which would revolutionize not just medicine but communication.
By monitoring brain activity of subjects, the researchers at Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute were able to train artificial intelligence to translate thought patterns into intelligible sentences, says a paper published on Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports.
https://www.rt.com/news/450100-thought-speech-translation-ai/
‘Several thousand’ more troops headed for US-Mexico border - Pentagon
A few thousand US military service members will be sent to the border with Mexico in the coming days, the Pentagon confirmed, as another migrant ‘caravan’ made its way north from Honduras. That decision came within days of another “caravan” forming in Honduras and setting out for Mexico, with the US as their final destination. According to multiple reports, its numbers have swelled from the original 2,000 members to something like 12,000.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested additional surveillance capability and concertina wire, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. “We’ve responded with, you know, here’s how many people it would take,” Shanahan said. However, he would not disclose the exact number. When asked how many troops would be headed to the border, he said “Several thousand, and I’ll kind of leave it at that.”
President Donald Trump initially ordered almost 6,000 troops to the southern border in late October, as two migrant caravans trekked through Mexico. His critics accused him of a publicity stunt ahead of the November midterms. Some 3,600 of those troops have since returned to their bases, but 2,300 soldiers still remain on the border. Earlier this month, Shanahan authorized extending their mission through the end of September 2019. Another 2,200 National Guard troops are deployed on the border as well.
https://www.rt.com/usa/450096-pentagon-troops-border-mexico/
AL MAYADEEN
Inteligencia estadounidense confirma el compromiso de Irán con el acuerdo nuclear
El director Nacional de Inteligencia de Estados Unidos, Daniel Coates, dijo que Irán no está actualmente llevando a cabo ninguna actividad en el desarrollo de armas nucleares según las evaluaciones de la CIA.
Por su parte, la directora de la CIA, Gina Haspel, dijo que Irán sigue comprometido con las exigencias del acuerdo nuclear a pesar de la retirada de Washington del mismo.
Al menos siete mujeres y tres niños sirios mueren por bombardeo de coalición estadounidense en Deir Ezzor
Por otro lado, se reportó que durante las operaciones de peinado y desminado, unidades del Ejército y de las Fuerzas de Seguridad hallaron un escondite abandonado por terroristas, en el cual almacenaban armas y municiones, algunas de fabricación israelí.
