Connect with us

World

Hackers claim Belarus fertilizer plant infiltrated to demand political prisoner release

Published

on

Hackers claim Belarus fertilizer plant infiltrated to demand political prisoner release

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Belarusian hacker activist group claims to have infiltrated computers at the country’s largest fertilizer plant to pressure the government to release political prisoners.

The state-run Grodno Azot plant has made no comment on the claim by the Belarusian Cyber-Partisans group to have done damage including destroying backup systems and encrypted internal mail, document flow and hundreds of PCs. However, the company’s website has been unavailable since Wednesday, the day the group claimed the attack.

A POLITICAL PRISONER IN BELARUS SMUGGLES OUT ACCOUNT OF BEATINGS AFTER WRITING ON TOILET PAPER

Group coordinator Yuliana Shametavets told The Associated Press from New York on Friday that because the plant works with dangerous substances including ammonia the attack was designed to affect only documentation.

The group posted photos on social media that it it claimed showed screens of compromised plant computers.

Advertisement

A Belarusian hacker activist group claims to have infiltrated computers at the country’s largest fertilizer plant to pressure the government to release political prisoners. (Maksim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Grodno Azot, with about 7,500 employees, is a key producer in the country, whose economy relies heavily on chemical industries.

A harsh crackdown on the opposition in Belarus began after protests swept the country in August 2020 in the wake of presidential elections whose disputed results gave authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office.

Human rights activists say some 35,000 people were arrested in the course of the crackdown and that there are nearly 1,400 political prisoners behind bars today. They include many of the country’s most prominent opposition figures and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of the Viasna human rights group.

Advertisement

The 2020 protests were the largest and most sustained show of dissent in Belarus since Lukashenko came to power in 1994. Workers struck in protest at several major plants, including Grodno Azot.

Cyber-Partisans said its claimed hack was punishment for “bullying, pressuring & conducting political repression against the company’s employees.”

World

Extinction Rebellion protesters chain themselves up outside G7 summit

Published

on

Extinction Rebellion protesters chain themselves up outside G7 summit

One protester accused G7 leaders of “taking no measures” while another stressed the need for “radical action”.

ADVERTISEMENT

Climate activists from Extinction Rebellion have chained themselves at the gate of the G7 media centre to protest against what they say is a lack of action in climate change policy.

The G7 gathering in a luxury resort in Puglia, Italy is formally focused on migration, global conflicts and the spread of artificial intelligence.

Italy is hosting the summit of the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations, hosted by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni in Borgo Egnazia.

In nearby Fattizze d’Arneo, activists have gathered in a campsite to protest and hold thematic panels.

The G7 summit is focused on global conflicts, the spread of artificial intelligence and Africa, in particular Italy’s longstanding concern about uncontrolled migration to Europe from the continent.

Advertisement

Climate change will also be discussed however. In Greece on Thursday the authorities had to close down the Acropolis in Athens during the afternoon for a second day as the country sweltered under unseasonably high temperatures.

According to the Climate Analytics policy institute, G7 countries are responsible for 21% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2021.

Its members are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The G7 is an informal forum with an annual summit to discuss economic policy and security issues.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

World

South Africa's Ramaphosa set to be re-elected despite ANC hammering

Published

on

South Africa's Ramaphosa set to be re-elected despite ANC hammering
Cyril Ramaphosa was set on Friday to be re-elected as South Africa’s president, having brokered a deal with the opposition for a government of national unity after his African National Congress’s worst election result since the end of apartheid.
Continue Reading

World

Cambodian authorities burn $70M of seized illegal drugs in major crackdown

Published

on

Cambodian authorities burn $70M of seized illegal drugs in major crackdown
  • Cambodian authorities have destroyed over seven tons of illicit drugs and ingredients.
  • 4.1 tons of the destroyed substances were drugs like heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, ecstasy and ketamine.
  • Gen. Meas Virith said the destroyed drugs had a wholesale value of $22.7 million and a street value of nearly $70 million.

Cambodian authorities on Friday destroyed more than seven tons of illicit drugs and the ingredients for them, as a drug-fighting official said educating people about their danger is the best way of combating the illegal trade.

Some 4.1 tons of the destroyed items were drugs including heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, ecstasy and ketamine that had been confiscated from traffickers across the country, the National Authority for Combating Drugs said. The remaining 3.2 tons were various chemicals and other ingredients used to produce illegal drugs, it said.

Gen. Meas Virith, secretary general of the drug-fighting agency, said the drugs that were burned in a brick kiln at a ceremony on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, had an estimated wholesale value of $22.7 million and a street value of nearly $70 million. Had they not been seized, they could have harmed millions of people, he said.

CAMBODIA’S PIONEERING POST-KHMER ROUGE ERA PHNOM PENH POST NEWSPAPER WILL STOP PRINT PUBLICATION

He said the best way now to fight illegal drugs is by educating Cambodians from all walks of life about the dangers they pose. To teach people not to use or traffic illicit drugs is better than just cracking down on those criminally involved, he said.

Cambodian officers burn drugs inside a brick kiln during a drug destruction ceremony to mark the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on June 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Advertisement

“As you are aware, if we use only crackdown measures, then we need to do so repeatedly. Let’s say this year we burn these things, and next year we will do it again,” he said. “But if we invest in drug education, awareness and protection, then drug activities would be reduced.”

Meas Virith said the authorities pursued more than 3,800 drug-related cases in the first five months of this year, arresting more than 10,000 people, including foreigners.

The production and trafficking of synthetic drugs, especially methamphetamine, are at record highs in Southeast Asia and pose a major threat to its societies, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

“Seizures of crystal methamphetamine have increased year-by-year in Cambodia for the seventh year in a row, reaching over 1.4 tons in 2023, showing the ongoing expansion of the market for the drug in the country,” the U.N. agency said in a report last month.

Advertisement

“The amount of heroin seized doubled in 2023. This increase in heroin seizures was observed in multiple countries in East and Southeast Asia, possibly indicating a reinvigoration in the heroin market in the region after declining seizures the previous year.”

Continue Reading

Trending