Month: September 2023

It’s never been easy for the leaders of the world’s largest economies to find common ground, but Russia’s war on Ukraine has made it even harder for the Group of 20 meeting to reach meaningful agreements this year. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this year’s host, has pledged Ukraine won’t overshadow his focus on the needs developing nations in the so-called Global South, but the war has proved hard to ignore. “New Delhi will not want to distract from the main agenda, which is to address issues of concern for the Global South,” said Nazia Hussain, an associate research fellow …

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Rescuers from across Europe rushed to a cave in Turkey on Thursday, launching an operation to save an American researcher who became trapped almost 1,000 meters below the cave’s entrance after suffering stomach bleeding. Experienced caver Mark Dickey, 40, suddenly became ill during an expedition with a handful of others, including three other Americans, in the Morca cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains, the European Association of Cave Rescuers said. While rescuers, including a Hungarian doctor, have reached and treated Dickey, it could be days and possibly weeks before they are able to get him out of the cave, which …

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South Korean officials say North Korea has likely been invited to join Russia and China for the first time in trilateral naval exercises that experts see as a response to the newly cemented strategic cooperation among South Korea, Japan and the United States. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is believed to have proposed the joint naval drills during a visit to Pyongyang in July, according to South Korean lawmaker Yoo Sang-bum. Yoo said National Intelligence Service Director Kim Kyou-hyun briefed about the proposal at a closed-door meeting on Monday. China and Russia have held annual joint naval exercises for over …

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Russia’s cyber operations may not have managed to land the big blow that many Western officials feared following Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but Ukrainian cyber officials caution Moscow has not stopped trying. Instead, Ukraine’s top counterintelligence agency warns that Russia continues to refine its tactics as it works to further ingrain cyber operations as part of their warfighting doctrine. “Our resilience has risen a lot,” Illia Vitiuk, head of cybersecurity for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said Thursday at a cyber summit in Washington. “But the problem is that our counterpart, Russia, our enemy, is constantly also …

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, are pledging deeper economic cooperation as the list of international sanctions on Russia grows. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. …

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The United Kingdom pledged on Thursday to find the former army soldier suspected of terrorism who escaped from prison by hiding under a food delivery van. Daniel Abed Khalife is believed to have escaped from a medium-security London prison on Wednesday by leaving the prison kitchen where he was working and fastening himself to the bottom of a van. “Daniel Khalife will be found, and he will be made to face justice,” U.K. Justice Minister Alex Chalk told parliament on Thursday. The 21-year-old terrorist suspect is now the subject of a nationwide manhunt, which includes enhanced security checks at ports …

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The United States and Britain on Thursday sanctioned 11 people who are part of the Russia-based Trickbot cybercrime hacking group, accusing it of targeting critical government infrastructure and businesses, along with hospitals, during the coronavirus pandemic. A U.S. Treasury statement said the blacklisted targets included “key actors involved in management and procurement” for Trickbot, which it said has ties to Russian intelligence services. Treasury undersecretary Brian Nelson said in a statement, “The United States is resolute in our efforts to combat ransomware and respond to disruptions of our critical infrastructure.” Ransomware refers to the demand for payments to unlock computer …

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