Feds Quietly Reveal Chinese State-Backed Hacking Operation

Prosecutors say Chinese hackers from a mysterious cybersecurity firm stole corporate secrets from three big firms.

A U.S. flag is adjusted ahead of a news conference between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing on Jan. 27, 2016. (Jacquelyn Martin/AFP/Getty Images) 

BY ELIAS GROLL-NOVEMBER 30, 2017, 10:57 AM

Prosecutors in the United States this week quietly outed what appears to be a Chinese state-linked hacking ring, an escalation in Washington’s campaign to pressure China over its trade practices and efforts to steal intellectual property from U.S. firms.

In an indictment unsealed on Monday, federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh allege that a trio of Chinese nationals and their cybersecurity firm Boyusec hacked three companies — industrial giant Siemens, the economic analysis firm Moody’s, and the GPS navigation company Trimble — and made off with sensitive company documents.

The indictment names Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao, and Xia Lei. The first two are co-founders of Boyusec, while Xia was an employee. With prosecutors scrutinizing the firm, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Boyusec disbanded earlier this month.

Prosecutors made no mention in court documents of any links between Boyusec and the Chinese state, a departure from a high-profile case in 2014 from the same office that publicly linked alleged hackers to Chinese government ministries. Then, the local FBI office drew up wanted posters of the Chinese army hackers and published photographs of the accused in their army uniforms.

But a trove of public evidence and research by private security firms strongly suggests that Boyusec is an affiliate of China’s powerful Ministry of State Security and appears to operate as a cover for cyber-espionage.

“There has been a lot of accumulated evidence that these guys are tied to the state,” said John Hultquist, the director of analysis for the computer security firm FireEye.

Despite the seemingly clear links between Boyusec and the Ministry of State Security, American officials have described the case as a routine criminal prosecution rather than one that implicates a Chinese intelligence agency.

“The indictment makes no allegations regarding state sponsorship,” said Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle, who added that prosecutors only “included the allegations that we are prepared to prove in court with admissible evidence.”

There could be several reasons for a cautious approach from the department. The evidence linking Boyusec to the Chinese government could be weak, or too sensitive, to reveal in open court. At the same time, Washington and Beijing are trying to work together to rein in North Korea’s increasingly brazen weapons program, which could counsel a more cautious approach to naming and shaming. (U.S. and Chinese defense officials met Wednesday.)

Though fairly obscure, Boyusec was known to U.S. officials. In November 2016, a Defense Department intelligence assessment reportedly concluded that Boyusec was close to the Ministry of State Security and that it was working with the tech giant Huawei to “produce security products that will be loaded into Chinese-manufactured computer and telephone equipment,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.

“The doctored products will allow Chinese intelligence to capture data and control computer and telecommunications equipment,” the paper reported, citing anonymous officials. Pentagon officials did not respond to questions this week about the report.

In May, an anonymous blogger under the moniker “intrusiontruth” publicly named Wu and Dong and described Boyusec as a contractor for Chinese intelligence. In a series of blog posts, the anonymous author used a series of domain name registrations to identify Boyusec’s founders and to tie them to a hacking outfit known as APT3.

The security firm Recorded Future quickly chimed in with research of its own and backed the anonymous blogger’s conclusions. The firm concluded that Boyusec is a part of APT3 (for “advanced persistent threat”) and has worked as a contractor for China’s Ministry of State Security.

Security researchers use the term “APT3” as a moniker for a set of techniques, computer code, and hacking activity tied to a Chinese actor. It remains unclear whether Boyusec and its founders make up the entirety of the hacking operation known as APT3 or whether the firm is merely one component of APT3.

APT3 has been active since at least 2010, using valuable hacking exploits known as “zero days” to penetrate corporate targets and even the computers of Chinese dissidents.

“Many targeted organizations in the commercial sector were consistent with the stated research and development goals of the Chinese state,” Hultquist said. The group’s targets include defense firms and companies with advanced commercial technologies that could serve Beijing’s economic and military modernization agendas.

Going after political dissidents offers additional indications of state involvement, Hultquist said. “When you target dissidents you get a good idea of who you’re dealing with,” he said.

Chinese officials denied this week that they knowingly allowed APT3 and Boyusec to operate from its shores. “China firmly opposes and cracks down hard on all forms of cyberattacks in accordance with the law,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang toldreporters.

Still, U.S. reticence to call out Chinese state responsibility for the hacks represents something of a departure from the approach begun in that 2014 case, which was seen as a shot across the bow of Chinese state-sponsored hackers and a watershed moment for U.S. law enforcement. In 2015, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping reached a landmark agreement in which they pledged not to carry out economic espionage for commercial gain, though Beijing seems not to be fully honoring the pact.

Hornbuckle, the Justice Department spokesman, said U.S. officials sought Beijing’s assistance but “received no meaningful response” and decided to go public with the indictment.

David Hickton, the former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh who oversaw the 2014 investigation, said Monday’s indictment represents the “continuation of the campaign we started” to “apply law to the digital space.”

“In a global economy, we have to protect innovation and research and development,” said Hickton, who now directs the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security. “We can’t let it be taken by cyber means.”

Judge thrown off bench for witness tampering in wife’s federal corruption trial

Former utilities executive Stacey Pomrenke enters the federal courthouse in Abingdon, Va., with her husband and then-Judge Kurt Pomrenke before her sentencing on corruption charges in August 2016. Kurt Pomrenke’s contacts with witnesses in the case resulted in his expulsion from the bench. His wife is now in prison. (Andre Teague/Bristol Herald Courier)

This post has been updated to reflect Pomrenke’s sentencing on Thursday.

By Tom Jackman November 30 at 5:55 AM

A juvenile and domestic relations judge in southwest Virginia was removed from the bench Monday by the Virginia Supreme Court, effective immediately, after he admitted contacting two key witnesses in a pending federal corruption case against his wife.

Kurt J. Pomrenke, 64, was elected to the bench in 2013 to oversee juvenile and domestic court cases in Washington and Smyth counties and Bristol City along the Virginia-Tennessee border. He is only the second Virginia judge in the past 23 years to be removed by the state Supreme Court, court records show, with the other being a juvenile and domestic judge who resolved some visitation issues with a coin flip.

Pomrenke also has been found guilty of contempt of court by a federal judge in Bristol in connection with his wife’s case and on Thursday was sentenced to two months in prison and ordered to pay the maximum allowable fine of $1,000. His wife, Stacey Pomrenke, a former chief financial officer of Bristol Virginia Utilities, is serving a 34-month prison sentence on multiple charges of conspiracy, extortion and wire fraud, as well as contempt of court, in part for her husband’s contact with potential witnesses in the case.

Kurt Pomrenke, in a hearing before the state Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission, which handles complaints against judges, conceded that his actions were wrong and violated the state Canons of Judicial Conduct. The canons require judges to “uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary” and to “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the judge’s activities.” Pomrenke suggested that he only be censured, but the Supreme Court thought his actions were “particularly damaging to the integrity of the judicial process and the confidence of the citizens of the Commonwealth that a sitting judge in the Commonwealth would attempt to improperly influence two potential witnesses in his wife’s federal criminal trial.”

Pomrenke did not respond to a request for comment. His attorney, John E. Lichtenstein, said in a statement that Pomrenke was “disappointed but respects the action of the Supreme Court of Virginia.”

“He will assess his position, but his focus now is on the needs of his family,” Lichtenstein said in the statement. “He is, and will always be, deeply grateful for the opportunity to have served the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in the 28th Judicial District.”

Pomrenke’s downfall began with the 2015 indictment of his wife on 15 corruption-related counts. She had been the chief financial officer of the city’s electric, water and sewer utility since 2003, and prosecutors alleged that she pressured BVU’s vendors for tickets to ballgames and auto races, money to pay for BVU employee parties, awarded bonuses to BVU employees without reporting them for tax purposes, and other executive chicanery. Her husband, a judge and former BVU board member, was granted access to pre-trial discovery in the case over the government’s objection.

The thank-you note and business card sent by then-Judge Kurt Pomrenke to a potential witness in the case against his wife. (U.S. District Court)

Three weeks after his wife’s indictment, Pomrenke sent a handwritten note to her boss, the BVU chief executive Donald L. Bowman, with his business card included in a “thank you” envelope. “I just wanted to sincerely thank you for your kindness and understanding support for Stacey during these horrible times,” Kurt Pomrenke wrote. “It is horrible what our government is doing to her. She will be proven innocent.”

Bowman is a lawyer and had been cooperating with the widely publicized investigation of corruption at BVU, and had made his cooperation known in the news media, the Supreme Court noted. He was shocked to receive the note from Pomrenke, and drove directly to the U.S. attorney’s office in Abingdon, Va., to show it to them. This note, and an email that Stacey Pomrenke sent to five friends asking for their support, caused prosecutors to try to revoke her bond, which the judge denied. Instead, U.S. District Judge James P. Jones charged her with contempt of court for attempted witness tampering. He later found her guilty of this, and added two months to her 32-month corruption sentence in August 2016.

Next, on the eve of his wife’s trial in February 2016, then-Judge Pomrenke left a voicemail for a BVU employee expected to testify during the trial. “Hey, Connie, this is Kurt,” the judge said, according to the Supreme Court. “Um, when you’re testifying in that trial there might be a couple of things that you could do that would really help Stacey. If you could kinda slip in when you have a chance just little remarks like how Stacey did a great job, or Stacey was the one that took care of the employees … just something like that even though it’s not directly in response to the questions.”
That didn’t sit too well with Jones.

Bowman didn’t end up testifying in the trial but the employee, Connie Moffatt, did. The jury convicted Stacey Pomrenke on 14 of 15 charges, and three days later the judge directed the government to prosecute her for contempt of court, based on both email and her husband’s contacts with Bowman and Moffatt.

Meanwhile, a complaint was filed with the judicial review commission against Kurt Pomrenke. The judge responded with a three-page letter to the commission explaining his actions, claiming that he and his wife “had no idea of Bowman’s close continuing relationship with the prosecutors.” He then attached an email written by Bowman that he said was received in his wife’s pretrial discovery, even though he had been ordered not to disclose any of that material to anyone.

This caused federal prosecutors to file a motion in July asking for Pomrenke to be held in contempt of court for disclosing the discovery materials. Jones convicted him in September of willfully violating the order not to disclose. “As a lawyer and judge,” Jones said, according to Virginia Lawyer’s Weekly, “Judge Pomrenke had the maturity, knowledge and legal experience to understand the necessity to obey court orders.” He faces a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000 at sentencing Thursday, though jail seems unlikely.

The state Supreme Court then took up a finding from the judicial review commission that Pomrenke had violated the judicial canons, and had admitted it. “We cannot escape the conclusion,” wrote Chief Justice Donald W. Lemons, “that having a sitting judge who apparently attempted to manipulate trial testimony would tend to impair public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of not only that judge, but also that of all the other members of the judiciary, and our entire system of justice. … We conclude that Judge Pomrenke’s actions are of sufficient gravity to warrant removal.”

L. Steven Emmert, an appellate lawyer who writes about Virginia’s appeals courts, said, “The word that comes to mind is unthinkable. It’s something that any judge with a good sense of propriety should know is wrong.” Emmert said that “if the only issue had been the note to the boss [Bowman], the Supreme Court might have let him off.” But the voicemail to the woman who actually did testify was too much, he said.

Pomrenke’s removal leaves only two judges to hear all of the juvenile and domestic cases in two counties and Bristol City, and cases he was currently hearing would be distributed to them. Emmert said the circuit court could appoint a temporary successor, who could either be replaced or elected by the General Assembly next year, or it could leave the spot open until the General Assembly elects a successor, who probably wouldn’t take the bench until spring, at the earliest.
The court’s opinion terminating Pomrenke’s judgeship is below:

How to defeat capitalism

Class struggle is back as the main determining factor of our political life – even if the stakes appear to be totally different, from humanitarian crises to ecological threats, class struggle lurks in the background and casts its ominous shadow

by Slavoj Zizek-Nov 28, 2017

( November 28, 2017, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sometimes, the best way to appreciate a piece of news is to read it alongside another piece of news – only such a confrontation enables us to discern the true stakes of a debate.

Let’s take reactions to one incisive text: in the summer of 2017, David Wallace-Wells published the essay titled “Uninhabitable Earth” which immediately became a legend. It clearly and systematically describes all the threats to our survival, from global warming to the prospect of a billion climate refugees, and wars and chaos all this will cause.

Rather than focusing on the predictable reactions to this text (accusations of scaremongering and so on), one should read it together with two facts linked to the situation it describes.

First, there is, of course, Trump’s outright denial of ecological threats; then, there is the obscene fact that billionaires (and millionaires) who otherwise support Trump are nonetheless getting ready for the apocalypse by investing into luxury underground shelters where they will be able to survive isolated for up to a year, provided with fresh vegetables, fitness centres, and everything else you could possibly imagine.

Another example is a text by Bernie Sanders and a piece of news about him which just hit the press. Recently, Sanders wrote an incisive comment on the Republican budget where the title tells it all: “The Republican budget is a gift to billionaires: it’s Robin Hood in reverse.” The text is clearly written, full of convincing facts and insights – so why didn’t it find more echo?

We should read it alongside the media report about the outrage which exploded when Sanders was announced as an opening night speaker at the upcoming Women’s Convention in Detroit. Critics claimed it was bad to let Sanders, a man, speak at a convention devoted to the political advancement of women’s rights. No matter that he was to be just one of the two men among 60 speakers, with no transgender speakers (a fact that was apparently accepted as unproblematic.)

Lurking beneath this outrage was, of course, the reaction of the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party to Sanders: its uneasiness with Sanders’s leftist critique of today’s global capitalism. When Sanders emphasises economic problems, he is accused of “vulgar” class reductionism.

So should we conclude from all this that our task is to depose Trump as soon as possible? When Dan Quayle, not exactly famous for his high IQ, was Vice President to Bush Senior, a joke was running around according to which the FBI had a secret order what to do if Bush dies: to kill Quayle immediately.

Let’s hope the FBI has the that same order for Mike Pence in the case of Trump’s death or impeachment – Pence is, if anything, much worse than Trump, a true Christian conservative.

What makes the Trump movement minimally interesting is its inconsistencies – recall that Steve Bannon not only opposes Trump’s tax plan but openly advocates raising taxes for the rich up to 40 per cent, plus argues saving banks with public money as “socialism for the rich” – surely not something Pence likes to hear.

Steve Bannon recently declared war, but against whom? Not against Democrats from Wall Street, not against liberal intellectuals or any other usual suspects but against the Republican Party establishment itself. After Trump fired him from the White House, he is fighting for Trump’s mission at its purest, even if it is sometimes against Trump himself – let’s not forget that Trump is basically destroying the Republican Party.

Bannon aims to lead a populist revolt of underprivileged people against the elites – he is taking Trump’s message of a government by and for the people more literally than Trump himself dares to do. That’s why Bannon is worth his weight in gold: he is a permanent reminder of the antagonism that cuts across the Republican Party.

The first conclusion we are compelled to draw from this strange predicament is that class struggle is back as the main determining factor of our political life – a determining factor in the good old Marxist sense of “determination in the last instance”: even if the stakes appear to be totally different, from humanitarian crises to ecological threats, class struggle lurks in the background and casts its ominous shadow.

The second conclusion is that class struggle is less and less directly transposed into the struggle between political parties, and more and more a struggle which takes place within each big political party.

In the US, class struggle cuts across the Republican Party (the Party establishment versus Bannon-like populists) and across the Democratic Party (the Clinton wing versus the Sanders movement).

We should, of course, never forget that Bannon is the beacon of the alt-right while Clinton supports many progressive causes like fights against racism and sexism. However, at the same time we should never forget that the LGBT+ struggle can also be coopted by the mainstream liberalism against “class essentialism” of the left.

The third conclusion thus concerns the left’s strategy in this complex situation. While any pact between Sanders and Bannon is excluded for obvious reasons, a key element of the left’s strategy should be to ruthlessly exploit division in the enemy camp and fight for Bannon followers.
To cut a long story short, there is no victory of the left without the broad alliance of all anti-establishment forces. One should never forget that our true enemy is the global capitalist establishment and not the new populist right which is merely a reaction to its impasses.

Saudi Arabia, like the Nazis, uses 'hunger plan' in Yemen

The Saudis and their partners in crime have rained destruction on Yemen and presided over an impending famine

Belen Fernandez-Thursday 30 November 2017

Last month, Saudi Arabia expanded its repertoire of ludicrous antics by bestowing citizenshipupon a robot named Sophia - a move presumably meant to augment the veneer of modernity and progress the tyrannical Saudi authorities strive to maintain.

In a recent interview with the Khaleej Times, an Emirati newspaper, Sophia speculated that "it might be possible to make [robots] more ethical than humans" and that there are only two options for the future: "Either creativity will rain on us, inventing machines spiralling into transcendental super intelligence[,] or civilisation collapses."

Granted, many members of the global human population are presently grappling with far more mundane issues - such as how to survive under Saudi-led bombardment and blockade, as happens to be the case in neighbouring Yemen. There, residents might be forgiven for assuming civilisation had already collapsed.

READ MORE►

For Saudi Arabia in Yemen, it's Operation Shoot Yourself in the Foot

Impending famine

Forget rains of creativity: the Saudis and their partners in crime have instead rained destruction on Yemen, in addition to presiding over an impending famine. Instrumental to the war effort is the United Arab Emirates, a territory that similarly seeks to conceal its brutal essence behind a facade of modern development, flashy buildings and malls with ski slopes.

Other bellicose contributions have come from further afield. The New Yorker magazine notesthat "Saudi armed forces, backed by more than $40 billion in American arms shipments authorised by the Trump and Obama administrations, have killed thousands of civilians in air strikes" in Yemen.

Naturally, the US is also responsible for plenty of do-it-yourself savagery, including drone attacks on Yemeni wedding parties.

But back to the famine - since, after all, nothing says modernity and progress like inflicting mass starvation.

Consider, for example, the words of fourth-century Roman military expert Vegetius, who was clearly very cutting-edge 17 or so centuries ago: "It is preferable to subdue an enemy by famine, raids and terror, than in battle where fortune tends to have more influence than bravery."

The increase of the infectious disease is slowing, but still infecting around 5,000 people a day (AFP)

Nazis' 'hunger plan'

More recent wartimes have also seen hunger wielded as a weapon. In a June 2017 essay for the London Review of Books titled "The Nazis Used It, We Use It," Alex de Waal catalogues the reliance on starvation as an "effective instrument of mass murder" in World War II. While "forced starvation" was, of course, "one of the instruments of the Holocaust," the Nazis had also devised a "hunger plan" for swathes of the Soviet Union in accordance with German agri-territorial designs.

(Interestingly, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also likes to talk about Nazis on occasion - as when he told New York Times foreign affairs columnist-cum-one-man-Saudi-PR-firm Thomas Friedman that Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei is "the new Hitler of the Middle East", and that "we don't want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East.")

The Nazis, meanwhile, were hardly the only 20th-century profiteers from famine. De Waal writes that "about 750,000 German civilians died of hunger" courtesy of Britain's blockade of Germany during World War I, and that "the name chosen for the aerial mining of Japanese harbours in 1945 by the US Air Force was Operation Starvation."

For Saudi & Co, US complicity in criminal endeavours is pretty much assured so long as Saudi oil revenues continue to translate into big bucks for the US arms industry

As for more contemporary instances of depriving civilian populations of necessary survival materials, the UN sanctions against Iraq of the early 1990s come to mind - as does the 1996 response by then-US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright to estimates that half a million Iraqi children had died because of them: "We think the price is worth it."

Not everyone agreed - as was clear in a December 1995 New York Times article about a report compiled by two US-based scientists for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. The report dealt with the impact of sanctions, such as a drastic increase in Iraqi children "affected by 'wasting', or emaciation requiring urgent attention."

The Times article quotes the report's authors: "The United Nations humanitarian arm offers palliatives for the alleviation of suffering while the UN Security Council is intent on continuing the sanctions."

Weaponised journalism

Flash forward to 2017 and the UN's urgent warnings regarding the imminence of catastrophic famine affecting millions in Yemen, and one can't help but suspect that Sophia is probably right about the superior ethics of robots.

And just when it seemed the panorama couldn't get any bleaker, the Saudi-led Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition - an alliance of 40 countries - has apparently detected a golden opportunity in Friday’s deadly attack on an Egyptian mosque.

Reuters reports that, at a Sunday meeting in Riyadh of coalition defence officials to “galvanise” the “counterterror” entity, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that the attack in Egypt was "a very painful occurrence" and that "[t]he biggest threat from terrorism and extremism is not only killing innocent people and spreading hate, but tarnishing the reputation of our religion and distorting our belief."

Fair enough points - but perhaps they'd be more effectively made by someone not currently terrorising Yemen.

Luckily for Saudi & Co, US complicity in criminal endeavours is pretty much assured so long as Saudi oil revenues - not to mention contributions to regional chaos - continue to translate into big bucks for the US arms industry.

READ MORE►

Desperate and forgotten: The bombs keeps on falling and Yemenis keep on dying

Assisting the US political establishment, meanwhile, is an obsequious media that enjoys portraying the Saudi royals as innovative and reform-minded pioneers.

In his way-too-long write-up of his exclusive interview with Mohammed bin Salman, the aforementioned Friedman manages a single mention of Yemen, which he reduces to "a humanitarian nightmare" rather than the direct work of human beings whom Friedman is whitewashing.

This is the same Friedman, of course, who once determined that "the problem with Saudi Arabia is not that it has too little democracy. It's that it has too much".

His other dubious feats include prescribing a "new rule of thumb" after chewing qat in the Yemeni capital in 2010: "For every Predator missile we fire at an Al-Qaeda target here, we should help Yemen build 50 new modern schools."

Unfortunately, weaponised journalism doesn't appear to be going out of style. And as Yemen now prepares for 21st-century starvation, ethical famine, too, is raging.

- Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin magazine.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo: Saida Ahmad Baghili, an 18-year-old Yemeni woman pictured in October, is a victim of malnutrition (AFP)

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Pope's Myanmar speech avoids reference to Rohingya

Pope's Myanmar speech avoids reference to Rohingya - BBC News

Before his speech Pope Francis met Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi

28 November 2017

Pope Francis has delivered a keynote speech in Myanmar, demanding "respect for each ethnic group" but without referring specifically to its Muslim Rohingya community.

Rights groups had urged the Pope to use the term to back the community.

However, the Catholic Church in the country had told him the term could cause difficulties for Catholics.

Myanmar has been accused of ethnic cleansing, with 620,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh since August.

• What you need to know about Rohingya crisis
• Myanmar's persecuted minority in pictures

Myanmar's government rejects the term Rohingya, labelling the community "Bengalis". It says they migrated illegally from Bangladesh so should not be listed as one of the country's ethnic groups.

Although he made no direct reference to the Rohingya, the Pope's speech was a strong defence of ethnic rights.

He said: "The future of Myanmar must be peace, a peace based on respect for the dignity and rights of each member of society, respect for each ethnic group and its identity, respect for the rule of law, and respect for a democratic order that enables each individual and every group - none excluded - to offer its legitimate contribution to the common good."

Media captionPope Francis is welcomed on his arrival in Myanmar

Francis said Myanmar's greatest treasure was its people and that they had "suffered greatly, and continue to suffer, from civil conflict and hostilities that have lasted all too long and created deep divisions".

"As the nation now works to restore peace, the healing of those wounds must be a paramount political and spiritual priority."

He added: "Religious differences need not be a source of division and distrust, but rather a force for unity, forgiveness, tolerance and wise nation-building."

• Why won't Aung San Suu Kyi act?
• Myanmar army exonerates self on Rohingya crisis

Francis has used the term Rohingya in the past, in support of what he has termed his Rohingya "brothers and sisters".

Some were upset at his refusal to do so again.

"We are very much disappointed that he did not mention the Rohingya crisis," activist Mohammad Zubair told the AFP news agency from Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Amnesty International also said it was "disappointing"- though it did applaud his calls for respect toward all ethnic groups.

"Pope Francis' visit has also helped focus international attention on Myanmar and the horrific crimes being carried out against the Rohingya people on a daily basis by Myanmar authorities," its deputy campaign director for the region, Ming Yu Hah, said.

The BBC's Jonathan Head, in Yangon, says the Pope has also met a senior ultra-nationalist Buddhist monk and the armed forces commander, and his comments there may have been more forthright.

After meeting the pope on Monday, military chief Gen Min Aung Hlaing claimed "there is no discrimination between ethnic groups in Myanmar". Amnesty called his comments "the real scandal of the visit".

Before his speech, Pope Francis held talks with Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

In her speech, Ms Suu Kyi also made no direct reference to the Rohingya Muslims.

However, she accepted the situation in Rakhine state had "most strongly captured the attention of the world".

Media captionRohingya girls say they were forced into sex work in Bangladesh

She said that "social, economic and political" issues had "eroded trust and understanding, harmony and co-operation between different communities in Rakhine".

Ms Suu Kyi has been criticised for her lack of action over the issue. On Monday, the Nobel Peace Prize winner was stripped of the Freedom of the English city of Oxford, with local councillors saying they no longer wished to honour those who turned a blind eye to violence.

Myanmar has denied UN accusations that the treatment of the Muslim community amounts to ethnic cleansing. It says the crackdown in Rakhine state, which began after deadly attacks on police posts by Rohingya militants, is to root out violent insurgents.

The 80-year-old Pope is on the second day of a four-day visit to the country.

In an earlier 40-minute meeting in Yangon with leaders of the Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, Jewish and Christian faiths, the Pope also made no direct reference to the Rohingya, according to Vatican officials who gave a briefing on the meeting.

Cancer drug offers tantalising hope for HIV cure

Patient given nivolumab, a new generation cancer drug, shown to have a reduced reservoir of dormant HIV cells and a boosted immune response

An electron microscope image showing an H9 T cell, blue, infected with HIV, yellow. Photograph: AP

Nicola Davis and agencies-Friday 1 December 2017 00.05 GMT

A new generation cancer drug has raised hopes for those living with HIV after it was found to reduce the reservoir of dormant HIV cells in the body and boost the immune response of a patient.

Doctors say the effect the cancer drug nivolumab appeared to have on the patient offers a tantalising hope that it might provide a way to eradicate the virus from patients.

“This first report of a successful depletion of the HIV reservoirs opens new therapeutic perspectives towards an HIV cure,” the authors of the study write in a letter to the journal Annals of Oncology.

The results are based on findings from a 51-year-old man who had HIV since 1995, and was being treated for lung cancer. After relapsing less than six months after surgery and first-line chemotherapy, he was given the drug nivolumab.

The man then showed a dramatic reduction in reservoirs of HIV-infected cells and increased activity from CD8 “killer” T-cells, a key immune system attack weapon.

“This is the first demonstration of this mechanism working in humans. It could have implications for HIV patients, both with and without cancer, as it can work on HIV reservoirs and tumour cells independently,” said Prof Jean-Philippe Spano, head of the medical oncology department at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital AP-HP in Paris, who led the research. “The absence of side effects in this patient is also good news, and suggests this could be an optimum treatment for HIV-infected patients with cancer.”

But, the team also urge caution, noting that in another patient with HIV where nivolumab was administered there was no drop in the reservoir of dormant cells, while they also note the need to study the toxicity of such drugs in those with HIV.

The drug appears to have the effect of “waking up” white blood cells that are infected with HIV but which are lying low in reservoirs around the body and are not producing HIV. In this state the cells are unable to be attacked by anti-retroviral therapy or the immune system, but when reactivated – and the cells start to produce HIV – they can be.

“Increasingly, researchers have been looking into the use of certain drugs that appear to re-activate the latent HIV-infected cells,” said Spano. “This could have the effect of making them visible to the immune system, which could then attack them.”

If the reservoirs are cleared of dormant infected cells, patients could potentially be cured.
The patient, the team note, has been given 31 injections of nivolumab, administered every 14 days since December 2016. While the man’s HIV levels initially increased, they then dropped and the activity of certain T-cells, including CD8 “killer” T-cells, rose.

By 120 days after treatment began the team say a dramatic and sustained drop in the levels of dormant infected cells was observed.

Experts warn it is too soon to celebrate, noting that it was not clear if the reservoirs would regrow, and that results from other cancer patients with HIV who had been given nivolumab were as yet unreported.

Prof Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the caution was merited. “We need larger randomised trials to see if this or similar anti-cancer drugs might have a notable effect on the HIV reservoir,” he said. “Until we have such data, talks of cure are premature, but it could lead to new approaches in dealing with HIV.”

The news comes on the same day that a new study into a vaccine against HIV is launched, covering countries including South Africa, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The trial, which involves 2,600 sexually active women followed up over three years, will explore the efficacy of a placebo compared to a vaccine based on two shots and which is designed to provide protection against multiple strains of HIV.

Another boost comes from the New England Medical Journal, which bears further good news, revealing that a US-funded programme to prevent HIV is having a positive effect in Uganda’s rural Rakai District.

The approach, which included making anti-HIV drugs freely available to those with the virus as well as offering condoms, advice and voluntary male circumcision, led to a 42% drop in the rate of new HIV infections between the start of the programme in the early 2000s and 2016.

Sri Lanka Massacred Tens of Thousands of Tamils While the World Looked Away

Sri Lankan soldiers recorded these terrible crimes on their mobile phones and camcorders—and over the past four years, more and more of this footage has emerged.

Isaipriya, the much-loved presenter and actress, reading the news on Tamil Tiger TV. Her death would shock the world.
This article appears in the August Issue of VICE Magazine

Callum Macrae-Aug 4 2015, 8:00pm

To the Tamils of northeast Sri Lanka and to much of their global diaspora, Isaipriya was a star: a presenter and actress who came to symbolize the Tamil resistance.

Sri Lanka Massacred Tens of Thousands of Tamils While the World Looked Away.docx by Thavam on Scribd