by Robert Whitcomb | Aug 31, 2016 | News
Donald Trump’s surprise visit to Mexico on Aug, 31 to meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto outraged many Mexicans. After all, this is the man who has characterized the nation as full of drug traffickers and rapists and has proposed building a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexican border if he becomes president.
The trip came as Mr. Trump has sought to modify a bit his demand for a crackdown on illegal aliens.
To read the Bloomberg story on this, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 25, 2016 | News
Many experts think that the the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to throw the U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump, who has expressed admiration for Mr. Putin and other dictators.
Cybersecurity experts, as well as the Hillary Clinton campaign, are now saying the Russians did last month’s hack of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Putin, a former KGB agent, and his police state have been hard at work carrying out a cyberwar against parts of the U.S. public and private sectors for several years.
Bob Gourley, a former chief technology officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency and now the co-founder and partner Cognitio, a cybersecurity consultancy, told Bloomberg:
“The software code that I have seen from the hack had all the telltale signs of being Russian, including code re-used from other attacks. This is a really big deal. Some people in the community are saying this is the Russians pretending to be a hacker, then giving that information to Julian Assange is all part of an operation.” (Assange founded WikiLeaks.)
To read the Bloomberg story, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 15, 2016 | AI World Society Summit
(June 21st, 2016) The Democratic National Committee has disclosed that Russian government hackers penetrated the DNC’s computer network to get into the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
DNC officials and security experts said that the intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC’s system that they also could read all e-mail and chat traffic, reported The Washington Post.
Russian spies have been hard at work targeting U.S. candidates, especially Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and political parties. But details on those cases were not available, The Post reported.
Inevitably, Russian government spokesman Dmitri Peskov denied the reports.
“I completely rule out a possibility that the [Russian] government or the government bodies have been involved in this.’’
Russian government hackers are considered the best in world at industrial espionage, intellectual-property theft and cyberwar (as against Ukraine and Estonia), followed by the Chinese. The theft of opposition research on Mr. Trump might be considered a bit ironic since he has lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin for his strong leadership style. Mr. Putin has become Russia’s de-facto dictator in recent years.
To read The Washington Post story, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 3, 2016 | Initiative
(June 6th, 2016) NATO’s top military officer, Gen. Petr Pavel, has denounced U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump for calling the alliance obsolete and said that such comments played into the hands of its opponents.
Chairman of NATO’s military committee Petr Pavel speaks to Reuters on the sidelines of the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore June 3, 2016. REUTERS/Edgar Su
In unusual criticism of a presidential candidate, Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said that Russian “President (Vladimir) Putin and some others may be pleased by this approach”.
“To take such an approach would be a great mistake,” he said.
Mr. Trump has criticized the NATO alliance, created in 1949, as allegedly obsolete and too costly for America.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was set up in a different era, Trump has said, when the main threat to the West was the Soviet Union. He said that it was ill-suited to fighting terrorism.
Pavel, a former Czech Republic army chief, said the NATO alliance formed in 1949 was not perfect but it had great potential to protect the security of members.
He also said about Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea:
“Freedom of navigation in this region, through the South China Sea, is crucial for any further development in the region and it’s difficult to imagine that without this freedom, there will be stability and peace in this region.’’ For more information, read this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 1, 2016 | Initiative
(June 7th, 2016) The North Korean government, via state-controlled media, has praised putative Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for his proposal to hold talks with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, calling him a “wise politician” and “far-sighted candidate” who could help unify the Korean peninsula by not being willing to defend South Korea.
“Trump said he will not get involved in the war between the South and the North, isn’t this fortunate from North Korea’s perspective?” the media said.
Mr. Trump’s remarks suggest that he would tear up U.S. foreign policy around the world.
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