It remains unclear how many of the 170,000 plus security personnel tasked with policing the World Cup have received training from Academi, or the exact dollar amount of the contract, though parallels between anti-insurgency operations in Iraq can already be seen in the pacification of the favelas or slums of Brazil. One April-23 report in the Spanish International news agency EFE notes that a group of 22 military officers and agents from Brazil‘s Federal Police „recently received training from US security firm Academi.“

French designed helicopters bolstering China’s air force, British jet engines driving fighter bombers and anti-ship strike aircraft, German and French engines providing the rudder to the Chinese navy – the role European exports play in China’s military is undeniable.

“Without European technology, the Chinese navy would not be able to move,“ Andrei Chang, editor of the Hong Kong-based Kanwa Asian Defense Review, told AFP.

They are carrying signs with slogans like “No Honor for War Criminals” and “War Criminals Out,” objecting to the former Secretary of State’s involvement with the Iraq War, and they’re refusing to leave the building.

The US Navy has created an online code-breaking game in an attempt to recruit the next generation of cryptologists.
The role-playing game is called Project Architeuthis and will be released on Facebook over the coming days.(…)
British intelligence agencies are turning to new imaginative ways to find recruits. MI5 has placed advertisements on the side of buses while the GCHQ has put virtual billboards into espionage based computer games.

We‘ve been among those critical of the White House for the administration‘s dangerous policy of not revealing security vulnerabilities it discovers, as it seeks to exploit them. In trying to respond to some of the criticism about this policy, the White House has put out a blog post by White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel, in which he explains how the intelligence community determines whether to withhold a vulnerability… or hoard it for its own use. He lists out three potential reasons for not disclosing:

Afghanistan has accused British and U.S. forces of secretly holding Afghans in jail, saying one man had been held for more than two years while others had „disappeared“, further souring ties between Kabul and its Western allies at a sensitive time.

The other Supreme Court case dealing with warrantless cell phone searches heard oral arguments this week, with some intermingling from a lawyer presenting the US government‘s side in a related case (US v. Wurie). We recently covered the government‘s arguments for warrantless searches in US v. Wurie, a case dealing with outdated technology — a flip phone. This case (Riley v. California) is from 2013 and deals with a smartphone, one that received a much deeper search by police officers.

Four Carabinieri paramilitary police officers have been placed under investigation on suspicion of kicking to death a former footballer in the San Frediano district of Florence last month, judicial sources said.

Mit ihrem provokativen Vorgehen versuchen Deutschland, die EU und die USA nicht nur die Rohstoffe, fruchtbaren Agrarflächen und billigen Arbeitskräfte der Ukraine unter ihre Kontrolle bringen, sie wollen vor allem Russland zurückdrängen und schwächen, dass sie als Hindernis für ihre Vorherrschaft über die eurasische Landmasse und im Nahen Osten betrachten.
Die Bundesregierung spitzt den Konflikt mit Russland auch deshalb zu, weil sie durch eine Art Kriegsschock den Widerstand gegen den Militarismus brechen will.(…)
Die Forderung, die Deutschen müssten endlich ihren „Pazifismus“ überwinden und wieder Krieg führen, findet sich auch in zahlreichen anderen Leitartikeln und Kommentaren deutscher Medien.