LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/08/reporter-who-exposed-huge-indian-data-breach-rachna-khaira-named-in-government-criminal-complaint
A journalist who broke the story that personal records of 1.2 billion Indians Could be purchased online for less than £6 has been named in a criminal complaint filed by the government agency responsible for the data.
Senior Indian journalists and national press associations criticised the complaint against Rachna Khaira as "Unfair, unjustified and a direct attack on the freedom of the press".
Others, including the people alleged to have sold access to the database, were also named in the complaint, which police will investigate to decide whether any criminal charges should be brought.
Late on Monday the Indian law and IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, clarifies the focus of the criminal complaint was the unknown parties who had allegedly sold Aadhaar data.
LINK: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/08/kushner-under-fire-receiving-30m-israeli-firm-while-shaping-middle-east-policy
President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is once more under intense scrutiny after new reporting revealed that his lucrative financial relationship with Israel has deepened even as his influence over U.S.Middle East policy-from his leading role in Trump's effort to "Derail" a U.N. votes against Israel to his sway over the president's Jerusalem move-has continued to grow.
While Menora executive Ran Markman insisted that Kushner's role in directing America's Middle East policy "Didn't make us do the deal," critics raised pointed questions about the ethics of the transaction.
Describing Kushner as "The worst and most oppressive kind of slum lord," The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald asked, "Are you comfortable with having Jared Kushner be the beneficiary of huge amounts of Israeli financing at the sametime he's overseeing U.S. foreign policy on Israel?".
The Times report comes just days after the Wall Street Journal revealed that the Trump transition team's failed effort to undermine a 2016 United Nations Security Council resolution condemning illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank-led in part by Kushner and encouraged by Israeli Government officials-"Was wider and more intense than has been reported."
LINK: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/08/kushner-under-fire-receiving-30m-israeli-firm-while-shaping-middle-east-policy
A German soccer player with Turkish-Kurdish roots on Monday said that he was shot at while driving on the A4 Autobahn near the western German town ofDüren.
Deniz Naki, who currently plays for a Kurdish team, told German newspaper die Welt that he had been driving in the far-right lane on the highway on Sunday Night when he "Suddenly heard shots." He said that the shots came from a black car driving in the left lane.
"The murder attempt on Deniz Dersim Naki makes it clear: Members of the[Turkish] opposition in Germany are not safe. I worry that Erdogan's hit squads will continue until every person that bothers them is silent," she wrote, adding: "This serious threat level cannot continue to be understated."
Naki was raised in Düren and played for the German clubs FC St. Pauli as wellas SC Paderborn.
LINK: http://www.newsweek.com/saudi-arabia-gay-wedding-video-goes-viral-causes-stir-gulf-kingdom-773686
Saudi authorities are investigating a video claiming to show a gay wedding ceremony in the country, according to regional media reports.
Footage of two men in Saudi dress walking down an aisle at an alleged wedding ceremony has gone viral in the Gulf kingdom.
Images of an alleged gay wedding in Saudi Arabia were circulated on social media and by regional news outlets.
The footage caused a stir on social media, with conservative Saudis and others from the Muslim world condemning the wedding.
LINK: http://www.newsweek.com/saudi-arabia-gay-wedding-video-goes-viral-causes-stir-gulf-kingdom-773686
China accounts for more than two-thirds of the world's processing power devoted to bitcoin mining.
It's also home to some of the world's leading creators of mining hardware, which usually also operate large mining pools-groups of miners who agree to add up their resources to improve their odds of finding bitcoin.
The latest crackdown on bitcoin mining comes amid China's efforts to better distribute electricity to places where power is undersupplied.
An employee with Beijing-based Bitmain, which runs some of the world's largest mining facilities, told Quartz that the company hasn't heard anything from the Xinjiang government regarding its mining operations there.
