Tag Archives: Security

Some churches have started protecting themselves with guns

Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still

Important Takeaways:

  • More than half of Protestant churches rely on armed members as part of their security plans, a survey of pastors shows.
  • While recent mass shootings occurred at a retail store in El Paso, Texas, and a downtown entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, they were still felt in houses of worship, which haven’t been immune to such attacks. And some churches have started protecting themselves with guns.
  • About 81% of churches have at least one security measure in place and 54% rely on armed congregants as part of their security, according to a survey of 1,000 pastors conducted by the evangelical research group Lifeway Research.
  • “While loving one another is a core Christian teaching, churchgoers still sin, and non-churchgoers are invited and welcomed. So real security risks exist whether a congregation wants to acknowledge them or not.”

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Brawl breaks out at baseball game as American society seems on the verge of a clash

Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Important Takeaways:

  • Brawl ensues at White Sox game, security hardly anywhere to be found
  • A huge brawl broke out at Saturday’s Chicago White Sox game for over two minutes with several spectators involved.
  • Fists were flying all over the place before a woman was dragged from behind over a row of seats on the first-base side.
  • One lone security guard attempted to make peace, while another pair of women were throwing haymakers at one another.

Read the original article by clicking here.

China says Taliban expected to play ‘important’ Afghan peace role

KABUL (Reuters) -China told a visiting Taliban delegation on Wednesday it expected the insurgent group to play an important role in ending Afghanistan’s war and rebuilding the country, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Nine Taliban representatives met Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on a two-day visit during which the peace process and security issues were discussed, a Taliban spokesperson said.

Wang said the Taliban is expected to “play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan,” according to an account of the meeting from the foreign ministry.

He also said that he hoped the Taliban would crack down on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as it was a “direct threat to China’s national security,” referring to a group China says is active in the Xinjiang region in China’s far west.

The visit was likely to further cement the insurgent group’s recognition on the international stage at a sensitive time even as violence increases in Afghanistan. The militants have a political office in Qatar where peace talks are taking place and this month sent representatives to Iran where they had meetings with an Afghan government delegation.

“Politics, economy and issues related to the security of both countries and the current situation of Afghanistan and the peace process were discussed in the meetings,” Taliban spokesperson Mohammed Naeem tweeted about the China visit.

Naeem added that the group, led by Taliban negotiator and deputy leader Mullah Baradar Akhund, was also meeting China’s special envoy for Afghanistan and that the trip took place after an invitation from Chinese authorities.

Asked about the Taliban visit, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in New Delhi that it was a “positive thing” if Beijing was promoting a peaceful resolution to the war and “some kind of (Afghan) government … that’s truly representative and inclusive.”

“No one has an interest in a military takeover by the Taliban, the restoration of an Islamic emirate,” he said in an interview with CNN-News18 television.

Security in Afghanistan, with which China shares a border, has been deteriorating fast as the United States withdraws its troops by September. The Taliban has launched a flurry of offensives, taking districts and border crossings around the country while peace talks in Qatar’s capital have not made substantive progress.

“(The) delegation assured China that they will not allow anyone to use Afghan soil against China,” Naeem said. “China also reiterated its commitment of continuation of their assistance with Afghans and said they will not interfere in Afghanistan’s issues but will help to solve the problems and restoration of peace in the country.”

(Reporting by Kabul bureau; Additional reporting by Beijing bureau; Editing by Kevin Liffey, William Maclean and Grant McCool)

Biden White House in talks with airlines on vaccine passports; will issue guidance

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration is in extended discussions with U.S. airlines and other travel industry groups to provide technical guidance for vaccine passports that could be used to ramp up international air travel safely, industry officials said.

The administration has repeatedly made clear it will not require any businesses or Americans to use a digital COVID-19 health credential, however. It will also publish guidelines for the public.

The key question, airline and travel industry officials say, is whether the U.S. government will set standards or guidelines to assure foreign governments that data in U.S. traveler digital passports is accurate. There are thousands of different U.S. entities giving COVID-19 vaccines, including drugstores, hospitals and mass vaccination sites.

Airline officials say privately that even if the United States does not mandate a COVID-19 digital record, other countries may require it or require all air passengers to be vaccinated.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday that the administration would provide guidance “that provides important answers to questions that Americans have, in particular around concerns about privacy, security, or discrimination, soon.”

On March 22, major U.S. airlines and other travel groups urged the White House to “develop uniform Federal principles for COVID-19 health credentials” that would ensure they can “securely validate both test results and vaccination history, protect personal data, comply with applicable privacy laws, and operate across local, state and international jurisdictions.”

Singapore on Monday said it will start accepting visitors who use a mobile travel pass containing digital certificates for COVID-19 tests and vaccines, while Iceland said last month it is opening its borders to all visitors who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 without mandatory testing or quarantine.

Psaki said on Tuesday that the U.S government will not require Americans to carry a credential. “There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential,” she said.

Psaki noted that there is a push “in the private sector to identify ways that they can return to events where there are large swaths of people safely in soccer stadiums or theaters.”

She added “that’s where the idea originated, and we expect that’s where it will be concluded.”

(Reporting by David Shephardson and Heather Timmons; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. closing National Mall, landmarks in Washington ahead of inauguration

(Reuters) – The National Park Service said Friday it was immediately closing the National Mall and iconic U.S. landmarks in Washington to visitors through at least January 21 amid an unprecedented boost in security ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

The Mall includes landmarks like the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials and Washington Monument. The area around the White House has also been closed as has a key bridge over the Potomac River that connects Virginia to Washington as well as East and West Potomac Parks including Hains Point, which are near the Mall.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Hacking against corporations surges as workers take computers home

By Joseph Menn

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hacking activity against corporations in the United States and other countries more than doubled by some measures last month as digital thieves took advantage of security weakened by pandemic work-from-home policies, researchers said.

Corporate security teams have a harder time protecting data when it is dispersed on home computers with widely varying setups and on company machines connecting remotely, experts said.

Even those remote workers using virtual private networks (VPNs), which establish secure tunnels for digital traffic, are adding to the problem, officials and researchers said.

Software and security company VMWare Carbon Black said this week that ransomware attacks it monitored jumped 148% in March from the previous month, as governments worldwide curbed movement to slow the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 130,000.

“There is a digitally historic event occurring in the background of this pandemic, and that is there is a cybercrime pandemic that is occurring,” said VMWare cybersecurity strategist Tom Kellerman.

“It’s just easier, frankly, to hack a remote user than it is someone sitting inside their corporate environment. VPNs are not bullet-proof, they’re not the be-all, end-all.”

Using data from U.S.-based Team Cymru, which has sensors with access to millions of networks, researchers at Finland’s Arctic Security found that the number of networks experiencing malicious activity was more than double in March in the United States and many European countries compared with January, soon after the virus was first reported in China.

The biggest jump in volume came as computers responded to scans when they should not have. Such scans often look for vulnerable software that would enable deeper attacks.

The researchers plan to release their country-by-country findings next week.

Rules for safe communication, such as barring connections to disreputable web addresses, tend to be enforced less when users take computers home, said analyst Lari Huttunen at Arctic.

That means previously safe networks can become exposed. In many cases, corporate firewalls and security policies had protected machines that had been infected by viruses or targeted malware, he said. Outside of the office, that protection can fall off sharply, allowing the infected machines to communicate again with the original hackers.

That has been exacerbated because the sharp increase in VPN volume led some stressed technology departments to permit less rigorous security policies.

“Everybody is trying to keep these connections up, and security controls or filtering are not keeping up at these levels,” Huttunen said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) cybersecurity agency agreed this week that VPNs bring with them a host of new problems.

“As organizations use VPNs for telework, more vulnerabilities are being found and targeted by malicious cyber actors,” wrote DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The agency said it is harder to keep VPNs updated with security fixes because they are used at all hours, instead of on a schedule that allows for routine installations during daily boot-ups or shutdowns.

Even vigilant home users may have problems with VPNs. The DHS agency on Thursday said some hackers who broke into VPNs provided by San Jose-based Pulse Secure before patches were available a year ago had used other programs to maintain that access.

Other security experts said financially motivated hackers were using pandemic fears as bait and retooling existing malicious programs such as ransomware, which encrypts a target’s data and demands payment for its release.

(Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Franciso and Raphael Satter in Washington; Editing by Peter Henderson and Christopher Cushing)

Taiwan tells agencies not to use Zoom on security grounds

(Reuters) – Taiwan’s cabinet has told government agencies to stop using Zoom Video Communications Inc’s conferencing app, the latest blow to the company as it battles criticism of its booming platform over privacy and security.

Zoom’s daily users ballooned to more than 200 million in March, as coronavirus-induced shutdowns forced employees to work from home and schools switched to the company’s free app for conducting and coordinating online classes.

However, the company is facing a backlash from users worried about the lack of end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions and “zoombombing”, where uninvited guests crash into meetings.

If government agencies must hold video conferencing, they “should not use products with security concerns, like Zoom”, Taiwan’s cabinet said in a statement on Tuesday. It did not elaborate on what the security concerns were.

The island’s education ministry later said it was banning the use of Zoom in schools.

Zoom did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Taiwan would be the first government formally advising against use of Zoom, although some U.S. schools districts are looking at putting limits on its use after an FBI warning last month.

Zoom Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan last week apologized https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/04/01/a-message-to-our-users to users, saying the company had fallen short of the community’s privacy and security expectations, and was taking steps to fix the issues.

Zoom competes with Microsoft’s Teams, Cisco’s Webex and Google’s Hangouts.

Taiwan’s cabinet said domestically-made conferencing apps were preferred, but if needed products from Google and Microsoft could also be considered.

Zoom’s shares dipped 1% in premarket trading on the Nasdaq. They have lost nearly a third of their market value since touching record highs late March.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; editing by Patrick Graham)

Gunman in Texas church, victims identified as local men

(Reuters) – The gunman who opened fire in a Texas church on Sunday, killing two before being shot dead by parishioners, was identified as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, who lived in the nearby town of River Oaks, state officials said on Monday.

His two victims killed at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, were identified as Anton Wallace, 64, of Fort Worth and Richard White, 67, also of River Oaks, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

A live video caught the terrifying moment when the gunman stood next to the pews wearing a dark hood and started firing a long gun before members of the church’s volunteer security team shot him in the church located in a suburb northwest of Fort Worth.

“A man entered the church and sat with parishioners. During the service, the man removed a shotgun from his person and fired the weapon,” the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement.

“The gunman has been identified as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, 43, from River Oaks,” the statement said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told reporters on Monday the shooter had been to the church several times in the past and may have been mentally ill, but authorities were still investigating a possible motive.

“They welcome people who are transient or homeless into their church. They welcomed this guy into their church,” Paxton said.

CRIMINAL RECORD

Local TV station NBC DFW, citing unidentified law enforcement sources, said Kinnunen had a criminal record that included charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2009. A Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman did not immediately confirm that.

The Fort Worth Fire Department said three people, including the suspected shooter, were transported from the scene in critical condition on Sunday. Two, including the suspect, died en route to the hospital, said Macara Trusty, a spokeswoman for local emergency services provider MedStar, said in a phone interview. The third died later, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Two more people sustained minor injuries as they ducked for cover inside the church, Trusty said.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick praised the church’s volunteer security guards for taking down the shooter.

“Because of the quick action of these two men, this evil event was over in six seconds,” he said in a statement issued on Sunday.

One of the two guards said in a Facebook post that he was acting against evil. “The events at West Freeway Church of Christ put me in a position that I would hope no one would have to be in, but evil exists and I had to take out an active shooter in church,” he said.

Patrick said a new state law allowing concealed carry in places of worship enabled the parishioners to stop the gunman. The law, which took effect in September, was passed in the wake of a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017 that left 26 dead.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton praised the law and encouraged other states to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons for defense in case of active shooters. Gun control advocates and some religious leaders have criticized such laws, arguing that weapons have no place in houses of worship.

“I do hope that through this tragedy, more churches will prepare the way this church did, not just in Texas but really across the nation,” Paxton said. “This is the model for the future.”

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; editing by Bill Tarrant and Dan Grebler)

Iran says top waterways won’t be as safe if its oil exports cut to zero

FILE PHOTO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during the cabinet meeting in Tehran, Iran, August 14, 2019. Official President website/Handout via REUTERS

GENEVA (Reuters) – If Iran’s oil exports are cut to zero, international waterways will not have the same security as before, its president said on Wednesday, cautioning Washington against upping pressure on Tehran in an angry confrontation between the longtime foes.

The comment by President Hassan Rouhani coincided with a remark by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that Tehran might act “unpredictably” in response to “unpredictable” U.S. policies under President Donald Trump.

“World powers know that in the case that oil is completely sanctioned and Iran’s oil exports are brought down to zero, international waterways can’t have the same security as before,” Rouhani said while meeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to Khamenei’s official website.

“So unilateral pressure against Iran can’t be to their advantage and won’t guarantee their security in the region and the world.”

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen since Trump’s administration last year quit an international deal to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and began to ratchet up sanctions. Iranian officials have denounced the new penalties as “economic warfare”.

In a speech at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Zarif appeared to echo Rouhani’s tone.

“Mutual unpredictability will lead to chaos. President Trump cannot expect to be unpredictable and expect others to be predictable. Unpredictability will lead to mutual unpredictability and unpredictability is chaotic,” Zarif said.

Global commodity trading has been rocked in recent months after a series of attacks on international merchant vessels, which the United States has blamed on Iran, and the seizure of a British tanker. Tehran has denied the accusations.

Washington, which has by far the strongest Western naval contingent in the Gulf, has been calling for its allies to join it in an operation to guard shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital gateway for the world’s oil industry.

So far, Britain, Australia and Bahrain have joined the U.S.-led security mission to protect merchant vessels traveling through key Middle East waterways.

Reiterating Iran’s chilly response to the security mission, Iranian Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, a deputy commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, said no one can secure the Gulf other than Iran and countries of the region, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

“Securing the Persian Gulf is the responsibility of Iran and the countries of the region,” Fadavi said. “Other than us, no one can secure the Persian Gulf.”

(Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh; additional reporting by Simon Johnson in Stockholm and Tuqa Khalid in Dubai, Editing by William Maclean)

Security tight in Tiananmen 30 years after students ‘died for nothing’

Thousands of people take part in a candlelight vigil to mark the 30th anniversary of the crackdown of pro-democracy movement at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, China June 4, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

By Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina

BEIJING (Reuters) – Tourists thronged Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Tuesday amid tighter-than-usual security, although most visitors approached by Reuters said they were unaware of the bloody crackdown on student-led protests 30 years ago or would not discuss it.

Paramilitary officers keep watch in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China June 4, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Paramilitary officers keep watch in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China June 4, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

The anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, when Beijing sent troops and tanks to quell pro-democracy activists, is not spoken of openly in China and will not be formally marked by the government, which has ramped up censorship.

A 67-year-old man surnamed Li, sitting on a bench about a 10-minute walk from the square, said he remembered the events of June 4, 1989, and its aftermath clearly.

“I was on my way back home from work. Changan Avenue was strewn with burned-out vehicles. The People’s Liberation Army killed many people. It was a bloodbath,” he said.

Asked if he thought the government should give a full account of the violence, he said: “What’s the point? These students died for nothing.”

Among the students’ demands in 1989 were a free press and freedom of speech, disclosure of leaders’ assets and freedom to demonstrate. However, exiled former protest leaders say those goals are further away in China than ever before because the government has in the past decade suppressed a civil society nurtured by years of economic development.

Tiananmen also remains a point of contention between China and many Western countries, which have implored Chinese leaders to account for giving the People’s Liberation Army the order to open fire on their own people.

China’s foreign ministry denounced criticism by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who called for China to release all political prisoners and offered his salute to “the heroes of the Chinese people who bravely stood up 30 years ago in Tiananmen Square to demand their rights”.

Thousands of people take part in a candlelight vigil to mark the 30th anniversary of the crackdown of pro-democracy movement at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, China June 4, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Thousands of people take part in a candlelight vigil to mark the 30th anniversary of the crackdown of pro-democracy movement at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, China June 4, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing in Beijing that Pompeo had “maliciously attacked China’s political system”.

Some people in the United States were so accustomed to wagging their tongues on the pretext of democracy and human rights and interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, that they turned a blind eye to their own problems, he added.

“The Chinese people have seen their hypocrisy and evil motives,” Geng said. “These lunatic ravings and babblings are destined for the garbage heap of history.”

China has never released a final death toll from the events on and around June 4. Estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to thousands.

TIGHT SECURITY

Security was heavy in and around the square itself, with no signs of any protests or memorials.

Hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes police monitored the square and its surroundings, conducting spot ID checks and inspecting car trunks. Thousands of visitors lined up at security checkpoints to enter the square, many carrying tour group flags.

A male tourist in his 30s near the square, who gave his family name as Zhang, said he had no idea about the anniversary.

“Never heard of it,” he said. “I’m not aware of this.”

An older woman applying grout to a building close to the square’s southern entrance said: “That’s today? I’d forgotten.” She quickly waved away a Reuters reporter when security guards approached. Her colleague, a younger man, said he had never heard of the events in the spring and summer of 1989.

Rights groups said authorities had rounded up dissidents in the run-up to the anniversary. Amnesty International said police had detained, put under house arrest, or threatened dozens of activists in recent weeks.

The United Nations had received reports of detentions, threats and increased censorship ahead of the anniversary, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in Geneva.

“We have made our concerns known to the Chinese government and we are working to also verify these reports that we have received,” she said.

While no public events to mark the anniversary will be tolerated in mainland China, demonstrators gathered in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997. There will also be events in self-ruled and democratic Taiwan, which China claims as its own.

One online censor, who worked a shift of more than 12 hours until early morning on Tuesday for Twitter-like social media site Weibo, said content removed included memes, video game references and images including Tuesday’s date.

“Some accounts are totally taken down, but mostly the content is just removed,” said the censor. “People like to play games and see what is possible to post.”

Financial information provider Refinitiv, under pressure from China’s government, has removed from its Eikon terminal Reuters news stories related to the anniversary.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina; Additional reporting by Cate Cadell in BEIJING, Yimou Lee in TAIPEI, David Lawder in WASHINGTON and Stephanie Nebehay and Marina Depetris in GENEVA; ; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)