SolarWinds hack was work of 'at least 1,000 engineers', tech executives tell Senate


True scope of the breach, which affected 100 companies and several federal agencies, is still unknown

Kevin Mandia, the FireEye CEO, Sudhakar Ramakrishna, the SolarWinds CEO, and Brad Smith, the Microsoft president, testify during a Senate hearing. Photograph: Drew Angerer/UPI/REX/Shutterstock


Kari Paul and agencies
Wed 24 Feb 2021 

Tech executives revealed that a historic cybersecurity breach that affected about 100 US companies and nine federal agencies was larger and more sophisticated than previously known.

The revelations came during a hearing of the US Senate’s select committee on intelligence on Tuesday on last year’s hack of SolarWinds, a Texas-based software company. Using SolarWinds and Microsoft programs, hackers believed to be working for Russia were able to infiltrate the companies and government agencies. Servers run by Amazon were also used in the cyber-attack, but that company declined to send representatives to the hearing.

Representatives from the impacted firms, including SolarWinds, Microsoft, and the cybersecurity firms FireEye Inc and CrowdStrike Holdings, told senators that the true scope of the intrusions is still unknown, because most victims are not legally required to disclose attacks unless they involve sensitive information about individuals. But they described an operation of stunning size.


DoJ confirms email accounts breached by SolarWinds hackers

Brad Smith, the Microsoft president, said its researchers believed “at least 1,000 very skilled, very capable engineers” worked on the SolarWinds hack. “This is the largest and most sophisticated sort of operation that we have seen,” Smith told senators.

Smith said the hacking operation’s success was due to its ability to penetrate systems through routine processes. SolarWinds functions as a network monitoring software, working deep in the infrastructure of information technology systems to identify and patch problems, and provides an essential service for companies around the world. “The world relies on the patching and updating of software for everything,” Smith said. “To disrupt or tamper with that kind of software is to in effect tamper with the digital equivalent of our Public Health Service. It puts the entire world at greater risk.”

“It’s a little bit like a burglar who wants to break into a single apartment but manages to turn off the alarm system for every home and every building in the entire city,” he added. “Everybody’s safety is put at risk. That is what we’re grappling with here.”

Smith said many techniques used by the hackers have not come to light and that the attacker might have used up to a dozen different means of getting into victim networks during the past year.
This is the largest and most sophisticated sort of operation that we have seenBrad Smith

Microsoft disclosed last week that the hackers had been able to read the company’s closely guarded source code for how its programs authenticate users. At many of the victims, the hackers manipulated those programs to access new areas inside their targets.

Smith stressed that such movement was not due to programming errors on Microsoft’s part but on poor configurations and other controls on the customer’s part, including cases “where the keys to the safe and the car were left out in the open”.

George Kurtz, the CrowdStrike chief executive, explained that in the case of his company, hackers used a third-party vendor of Microsoft software, which had access to CrowdStrike systems, and tried but failed to get into the company’s email. Kurtz turned the blame on Microsoft for its complicated architecture, which he called “antiquated”.

“The threat actor took advantage of systemic weaknesses in the Windows authentication architecture, allowing it to move laterally within the network” and reach the cloud environment while bypassing multifactor authentication, Kurtz said.

Where Smith appealed for government help in providing remedial instruction for cloud users, Kurtz said Microsoft should look to its own house and fix problems with its widely used Active Directory and Azure.

Ben Sasse questions witnesses during a Senate intelligence committee hearing on Capitol Hill. Photograph: Reuters

“Should Microsoft address the authentication architecture limitations around Active Directory and Azure Active Directory, or shift to a different methodology entirely, a considerable threat vector would be completely eliminated from one of the world*s most widely used authentication platforms,” Kurtz said.

The executives argued for greater transparency and information-sharing about breaches, with liability protections and a system that does not punish those who come forward, similar to airline disaster investigations.

“It’s imperative for the nation that we encourage and sometimes even require better information-sharing about cyber-attacks,” Smith said.

Lawmakers spoke with the executives about how threat intelligence can be more easily and confidentially shared among competitors and lawmakers to prevent large hacks like this in the future. They also discussed what kinds of repercussion nation-state sponsored hacks warrant. The Biden administration is rumored to be considering sanctions against Russia over the hack, according to a Washington Post report.

“This could have been exponentially worse and we need to recognize the seriousness of that,” said Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. “We can’t default to security fatalism. We’ve got to at least raise the cost for our adversaries.”

Lawmakers berated Amazon for not appearing at the hearing, threatening to compel the company to testify at subsequent panels.

“I think [Amazon has] an obligation to cooperate with this inquiry, and I hope they will voluntarily do so,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Republican. “If they don’t, I think we should look at next steps.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

RUSSIAN AGENT
GOP senator raises uncorroborated claims about 'provocateurs,' 'fake Trump supporters' at Capitol riot hearing

BY JOHN BOWDEN - 02/23/21 

A GOP senator used his questioning period during a joint Senate hearing Tuesday focused on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to read from an unverified eyewitness account published by The Federalist raising unproven claims about "provocateurs" and people pretending to be supporters of former President Trump participating in the riot.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked only one question during the joint hearing hosted by the Senate Rules Committee and Senate Homeland Security Committee regarding the events of the Jan. 6 riot during his allotted time period Tuesday as he read from a piece authored by J. Michael Waller, an analyst at the Center for Security Policy, describing his supposed personal observations of the violence.

In excerpts from the piece Johnson read during the hearing, the author describes seeing "an organized cell of agents-provocateurs to corral people as an unwitting follow-on force behind the plainclothes militants tussling with police," as well as "fake Trump protesters," whom he said remained nonviolent during the riot.

Other excerpts read by Johnson appeared to place the blame on Capitol Police officers for inciting the crowd to violence, claiming that, "[t]he tear gas changed the crowd’s demeanor. There was an air of disbelief as people realized that the police whom they supported were firing on them."

Assembled witnesses, including former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, were not given a chance to respond to those assertions during the hearing, and were instead directed by Johnson to respond to a list of questions the senator said he had provided them in a letter.

Law enforcement officials have not said that left-leaning activists or so-called "provocateurs" were responsible for the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6, however, the claim has been spread widely in conservative circles and uttered by allies of Trump to explain the events of the riot.

 Baby shark with a 'human' face found in Indonesia

CGTN

00:39

Fishermen in Indonesia caught and killed an adult shark Sunday and got the surprise of their lives.

Treat climate change as ‘global security threat’, David Attenborough urges

Climate crisis ‘biggest security threat humans have faced’, Sir David Attenborough tells UN

Attenborough called for tougher action to address ‘climate security risks’ at a UN Security Council session chaired by Boris Johnson

The climate crisis presents the “biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced”, Sir David Attenborough told a UN meeting held today.

Speaking at the first UN Security Council meeting on climate and security, Sir David said that the world had “left the stable and secure climatic period that gave birth to our civilisation”.

“Today, there are threats to security of a new and unprecedented kind,” he told leaders.

“These threats do not divide us. They are threats which should unite us no matter from which part of the world we come, for they face us all.

Read more
World must ‘transform relationship with nature’ to tackle burgeoning environmental crises, says UN


“If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature and ocean food chains. And if the natural world can no longer support the most basic of our needs, then much of the rest of civilisation will quickly break down.

“Please, make no mistake. Climate change is the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced.”

His words were echoed by UN secretary-general António Guterres, who described climate change as a “crisis multiplier”

“We need to protect the people and communities that are being hit already by climate disruption,” said the UN chief.

“We must step up preparations for the escalating implications of the climate crisis for international peace and security.”

António Guterres

@antonioguterres

·

11h

The climate emergency not only damages the environment; it weakens our political, economic & social systems. We need to protect countries & communities and address the specific risks the climate crisis poses to international peace & security.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1364270017051779076

Boris Johnson, who chaired the UN Security Council meeting, also said that it was “absolutely clear that climate change is a threat to our collective security”.

“Whether you like it or not, it is a matter of when, not if, your country and your people will have to deal with the security impacts of climate change,” he said.

“So let’s do what this council was created to do and let’s show the kind of global leadership that is needed to protect the peace, the security and the stability of our nations, of our regions and of our world.”

His comments came just hours after he told an annual meeting of the National Farmers’ Union that he hoped this year would see the UK selling more “Welsh lamb” and “Aberdeen Angus beef” around the world.

French president Emmanuel Macron and the US special envoy for climate John Kerry also spoke on the need to take greater action to address the security risks posed by the climate crisis.

Mr Kerry said that the climate crisis was “indisputably” an issue for the Security Council, calling it “one of the most complex and compelling security issues that we’ve ever faced”.

“When farmers can no longer make a living because the weather is so extreme and unpredictable, they become increasingly desperate. When people already impoverished lose water and heat drives them from their homes, the embers of conflict burn brighter and faster,” he added.

However, a small number of countries, including Russia, questioned whether the climate crisis was an issue that should be discussed by the UN Security Council.

A representative for Russia said: “Climate change is one of the contemporary global changes that the world is facing ... We agree that climate change and environmental issues exacerbate conflicts, but are they really the root cause of these conflicts? There are serious doubts about this.”

The issue of how climate change could be contributing to human conflict is still an active area of research among scientists.

The most recent global assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s authority on climate science, said there was some evidence to suggest that the factors that increase the risk of violent conflict within states are sensitive to climate change, but there was still more to be learned about the possible links.

A study published in 2019 which drew on the knowledge of a range of experts concluded that “climate has affected organised armed conflict within countries”. However, the study authors added that “other drivers, such as low socioeconomic development and low capabilities of the state, are judged to be substantially more influential, and the mechanisms of climate-conflict linkages remain a key uncertainty”.

At the council meeting, representatives from the least-developed countries welcomed more discussion of the security risks posed by the climate crisis. However, they also urged developed countries to meet their existing commitments on providing financial assistance to those vulnerable to climate impacts.

Under the Paris Agreement – the global climate deal aimed at curbing global temperature rise – high-income countries pledged to provide poorer nations with $100bn (£73bn) a year by 2020 to help them both tackle and adapt to the climate crisis.

But the latest figures show that high-income countries mobilised just $78.9bn (£57bn) in climate finance in 2018.

Gaston Alphonso Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said that the security threats posed by the climate crisis were a “current reality” for small island developing states.

He told the council session: “For [small island developing states], our peace and security can be decimated on multiple fronts, sometimes at a moment’s notice – whether it be through sea level rise devouring our coastal and low-lying communities and territories … or even more severe and tropical cyclones rendering our states uninhabitable.

“There is considerable need for support from developed countries, through grant and concessional financing, capacity building and technology transfer.”

Climate crisis hits 'worst case scenario' levels – Environment Agency head


Sir James Bevan says extreme flooding in UK indicates urgent need for change if humanity is to survive

Flooding in Telford after Storm Christoph in January. Bevan said the ‘reasonable worst case’ for flood incidents had happened in the UK over the last few years. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA


Matthew Taylor
Tue 23 Feb 2021 

The climate emergency is already hitting “worst case scenario” levels that if left unchecked will lead to the collapse of ecosystems, with dire consequences for humanity, according to the chief executive of the Environment Agency.

Warning that this is not “science fiction”, Sir James Bevan said on Tuesday that in recent years several of the “reasonable worst case scenarios” had happened in the UK, with more extreme weather and flooding. And he urged politicians to take action to reduce emissions and adapt to the “inevitable” impacts of the climate emergency.

Sir James Bevan: ‘Our thinking needs to change faster than the climate.’ 

Photograph: House of Commons/PA

“Much higher sea levels will take out most of the world’s cities, displace millions, and make much of the rest of our land surface uninhabitable or unusable,” Bevan told the annual conference of the Association of British Insurers. “Much more extreme weather will kill more people through drought, flooding, wildfires and heatwaves than most wars have.
Advertisement


“The net effects will collapse ecosystems, slash crop yields, take out the infrastructure that our civilisation depends on, and destroy the basis of the modern economy and modern society.

“If [this] sounds like science fiction let me tell you something you need to know. This is that over the last few years the reasonable worst case for several of the flood incidents the EA has responded to has actually happened, and it’s getting larger.

“That is why our thinking needs to change faster than the climate. And why our response needs to match the scale of the challenge.”

Bevan’s dire warning comes nine months ahead of the Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow, where the UK will host delegates and climate experts from around the world, aiming to drive action on adapting to the impacts of the climate crisis, reduce emissions and protect and restore nature.

Bevan said that what had happened in the UK in the past few years should serve as a clear warning about the course the world was on.

The stark intervention comes amid concern about the government’s efforts to tackle the climate emergency ahead of Cop26. Its flagship programme for a green recovery is in turmoil and it has come under renewed pressure after refusing to withdraw support for a new coalmine in Cumbria.

Bevan said it was time the government – and the public – put the same effort into tackling the “unseen pandemic” of the climate emergency that they had into the fight against the Covid crisis.

“We will get the environment we pay for, we will get the climate we work for,” he added

A Major Ocean Current May Be Hurtling Towards Collapse

Atlantic meridional overturning circulation - Wikipedia

The ocean may have less time than we thought before massive, irreversible shifts take place. A new study finds that a crucial ocean system may reach its “tipping point” sooner than predicted if the rate of climate change continues at a breakneck pace.

When we talk about climate change, the concept of tipping points is basically adding fuel to the already nightmare fire. Scientists now agree that climate changes could drive crucial systems on our planet to change so much that they reach a tipping point where recovery is impossible and change is inevitable.

One of the most pressing worries scientists have when it comes to tipping points lies underwater. Specifically, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, known as the AMOC, which helps shepherd warmer water to the North Atlantic. Among other things, it helps ensure Europe has relatively mild winters given its high latitude. Messing with it could be one of the fastest ways to make not just the region’s but the world’s weather run amok.

In the new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, scientists considered not just the amount of change to the oceans that could precede a tipping point, but also the rate of change. Think of it as the difference between pouring a cup of hot water very slowly into a bucket of cold water versus dumping it in all at once. While the same amount of water is being added both times, the rate at which water is being added is quite different.

To measure the impact the rate of change may have on the AMOC, the new study ran several experiments on a global ocean model. The current has been under intense scrutiny in recent years because cold, fresh water from melting Greenland glaciers has essentially been causing the current to slow down, though not stop.

“The AMOC is at risk of collapsing when a certain level of freshwater flow into the North Atlantic from increasing ice melt in Greenland is reached,” Johannes Lohmann, one of the authors of the study, said in an email. “These tipping points have been shown previously in climate models, where meltwater is very slowly introduced into the ocean. In reality, increases in meltwater from Greenland are accelerating and cannot be considered slow.”

The study modeled the increase in freshwater flowing. Lohmann said using “a large ensemble of simulations, we systematically varied the rate of change and the ocean’s initial conditions, and investigated how the collapse of the AMOC depended on these factors.”

The models ended up showing that in some cases with a more rapid rate of change, the AMOC actually collapsed before previous predictions indicated it would. If we stick to the cup of water analogy, previous studies essentially found a full cup of hot water needed to be added to the bucket for collapse, but the new findings show dumping in the water faster means you need less than a cup to trigger the collapse. The study shows that “the safe levels of global warming before such a collapse occurs may be smaller than previously thought, and may also be difficult to predict with certainty,” Lohmann said.

This study isn’t the final word on how fast the AMOC may change. Some of the modeling Lohmann and his coauthors use may merit a closer and more critical look, Dave Sutherland, an associate professor in the department of Earth sciences at the University of Oregon, who was not involved in the study, said over email. Sutherland pointed out that the study does not account for some of the specifics of the location of freshwater in Greenland, even as the findings are “important and timely” to help determine the fate of the AMOC.


“Bottom line is I think this study is important and points out the complex dynamics inherent in our climate system,” Sutherland said. “I’m worried by the details (though I’m sure some reviewers were, too), and think there could be other climate feedbacks or unresolved processes that might change their results, if not their ultimate conclusions.”

Lohmann said that the study’s findings do need to be tested further, but pointed out that the possibility of a rapid AMOC collapse should sound an alarm bell.

“Due to the potentially increased risk of abrupt climate change in parts of the Earth system that we show in our research, it is important that policymakers keep pushing for ambitious short- and mid-term climate targets to slow down the pace of climate change, especially in vulnerable places like the Arctic,” Lohmann said.

Land Absorbs Carbon Now—But It Could Emit It in Just a Few Decades
The Earth is saving our asses right now by sucking up a large hunk of humanity’s carbon pollution.…

Disha Ravi: Indian climate activist from Greta Thunberg movement granted bail


The 22-year-old was arrested for allegedly being a ‘key conspirator’ in creating the toolkit shared by Greta Thunberg

Stuti Mishra@StutiNMishra THE INDEPENDENT

A protester demands the release of climate activist Disha Ravi after her arrest by the Delhi police in connection with a toolkit shared by Greta Thunberg
(EPA)

A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to a 22-year-old climate activist who was arrested in relation to a toolkit tweeted by Greta Thunberg in support of India’s months-long farmers’ protest.

Disha Ravi, one of the founders of Fridays For Future (FFF) in India, was arrested by the Delhi police on 4 February, along with two others, for allegedly editing the ‘toolkit’ shared by the Swedish activist on Twitter.

The Delhi police allege that Ms Ravi was a “key conspirator” in creating and circulating the online document, which according to them, was compiled to defame India and spread misinformation among people. They also allege that there was a connection between the toolkit and the clashes that occurred in the national capital on Republic Day.

The police also claimed that Ms Ravi had sent the toolkit to Ms Thunberg through the Telegram app, and also “coaxed her to act on it.”

The judge in his order granting bail said the decision was taken “considering the scanty and sketchy investigation,” according to Indian media reports.

“I do not find any palpable reason to breach the rule of bail for a 22-year-old girl who has absolutely no criminal antecedents,”Indian Express quoted the Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana as saying.

The charges levied by Delhi police against Ms Ravi include sedition, criminal conspiracy, spreading disaffection against the Indian state, and promoting enmity.

On February 21, the Delhi court heard the arguments from both sides before securing its judgement, where the Delhi police claimed that the toolkit“

seemed innocuous” but intended to "instigate people” and create “public disorder." The police also raised questions over the hyperlinks included in the toolkit which they said took users to websites which “defamed the Indian Army”. 

The lawyer representing Ms Ravi told the court that there was no evidence against her and “having a difference of opinion does not amount to sedition.”

The publicly available toolkit, however, also did not include any mention of pro-Khalistan (Sikh separatist) groups that Delhi police is linking Ms Ravi with, along with numerous other charges, but contained reading material about why Indian farmers have been protesting against the new farm laws. It includes a call to action for steps to support farmers, including creating a Twitter storm and protesting outside Indian embassies.

Her arrest was criticised by several rights groups as baseless and an attempt to intimidate activists speaking against the government. Ms Ravi is one in a long list of activists arrested by the police under the Narendra Modi-led BJP government, which has been slapping stringent laws such as the one pertaining to sedition more often than other governments in the past.

According to Article 14‘s database, at least six sedition cases have been filed by the Indian government during the ongoing farmer’s protest. Sweeping arrests of activists also took place last year during the protests against India’s new citizenship amendment act during which 25 sedition cases were filed

Read more

India police arrest climate activist linked to Greta Thunberg movement over protests ‘toolkit’

Climate activist Disha Ravi, and India’s shrinking space for dissent

Disha Ravi: Arrested Indian climate activist pleads for police not to leak her private chats

Climate activist Disha Ravi, and India’s shrinking space for dissent

The arrest of a 22-year-old climate activist in India is an example of the disturbing use of legal power to clamp down on dissent in the world’s largest democracy, write Joanna Slater and Niha Masih

Ms Ravi was arrested by Delhi police for her alleged involvement in the instigation of violence during the farmers protest on 26 January, India’s Republic Day
(AFP/Getty)

As public enemies go, Disha Ravi is an unlikely candidate. The 22-year-old climate change activist works for a vegan food company and likes to join volunteer clean-up drives. Earlier this month, she helped disseminate a list of peaceful ways to support a major protest by farmers against new agricultural laws.

In today’s India, that was enough to make her a target. Over the weekend, Ravi was arrested. Police accused of her of sedition and conspiring to “spread disaffection” against the state.

Ravi’s arrest is the latest example of a disturbing trend in the world’s largest democracy. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is deploying the country’s legal machinery to suppress opponents in a clampdown on dissent not seen in decades, critics say.
Read more

India police arrest climate activist linked to Greta Thunberg movement over protests ‘toolkit’

Modi won a landslide re-election victory in 2019 that made him the most powerful Indian leader since the 1970s. But the country's independent institutions – including the judiciary and the media – have rarely appeared weaker, experts say. Researchers who study democracy around the globe recently put India among a group of nations heading towards autocracy.

Freedom of expression is being curtailed. A comedian was recently kept in jail for more than a month for a joke he did not tell as judges repeatedly denied him bail. The use of internet shutdowns to quell protests and disrupt communication has soared under the Modi government. (India now uses the tactic more than any other country, according to Access Now, an international advocacy group that tracks such suspensions.) The Indian government this month ordered Twitter to block hundreds of accounts linked to the farmer protests.

The filing of sedition cases against people who criticise politicians or governments has also jumped, shows a recent analysis by Article 14, a research and reporting website focused on democratic rights. More than 95 per cent of such sedition cases over the past decade were registered after Modi came to power, it found.

Members of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party reject any suggestion that there is a crackdown on dissent. “India is the largest democracy that humankind has ever seen, with an independent judiciary that routinely rules against the government and free media that daily provides a platform to the government's vocal critics,” says Baijayant Panda, national vice president of the BJP. “These allegations are instigated by the losers of elections in order to try and maintain their own relevance.”

Experts say previous Indian governments also targeted their opponents with politically motivated charges. But some warn that what is currently unfolding goes much further and even see parallels to an infamous period in the country's history known as the Emergency, when the then prime minister Indira Gandhi ruled by decree and suspended civil liberties

“It's a kind of smarter Emergency,” says Pratap Bhanu Mehta, one of India’s leading political scientists. There are no mass arrests of Indian politicians, as the country saw in 1975, but the ruling party has a “creeping stranglehold over all institutions” while opposition parties are weak, Mehta says. “In some sense, I think it’s much more insidious.”

Since November, tens of thousands of farmers have blocked roads in opposition to major changes to agricultural policy

Government pressure on journalists has intensified, and the mainstream media seldom criticises the government. Key agencies are headed by personnel considered loyal to Modi. India’s Supreme Court has delayed rulings on the constitutionality of major government policies, including changes to the status of Kashmir, an overhaul of campaign finance laws and a new pathway to citizenship that some believe undermines India’s secular foundations.

Tarunabh Khaitan, vice dean of the faculty of law at Oxford University, recently wrote a paper describing how India’s constitution is under assault from “a thousand cuts.” India risks becoming a democracy in name only, he said, one where elections continue but the opposition has little chance of taking power.


“We are at the precipice,” Khaitan said in an interview. “Do we jump, or can we slowly, cautiously walk back?

”
Activists from the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) protest against the arrest of Disha Ravi during a demonstration in New Delhi, on 17 February 2021
(AFP/Getty)

One case that is considered a harbinger for where India is headed began in 2018. More than a dozen activists were arrested and accused of plotting to overthrow the government, charges they denied. All of the activists worked with India’s most disadvantaged communities, including tribal people and Dalits, and were vocal critics of Modi and his party.

Last week, an analysis by a digital forensics firm in the United States concluded that key electronic evidence in the case was planted on a laptop by a hacker using malware. The findings of the forensic report help bolster long-held claims by human rights groups and legal experts that the case was unfounded. Defence lawyers have asked judges to dismiss the case against the activists, although it is unclear when the court will rule.

Students, activists, journalists and nongovernmental organisations are among those who have come under increasing pressure from the authorities. In Kashmir, the government engaged in a months-long crackdown, snapping communications and detaining mainstream politicians. Elsewhere in India, when anti-government protests break out, law enforcement authorities repeatedly find alleged conspiracies – and arrests follow.

In December 2019, protests erupted across the country in response to a new citizenship law that critics say discriminates against Muslims. Dozens of people were killed in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, in the ensuing crackdown. In February, riots broke out in Delhi that left more than 50 people dead, most of them Muslim

.
‘If you ask difficult questions or decide to do something for a good cause, you can be sent to jail’
(AFP/Getty)

In the aftermath, the police charged Muslim students and activists who engaged in protests against the citizenship law with conspiracy to commit violence. Among those arrested were a pregnant graduate student who created a WhatsApp group to coordinate protests, an activist who ran a collective to foster interreligious unity and members of a student group working for women’s rights in university settings.

Harsh Mander, 65, is one of the country's most well-known activists who has worked for years on social justice causes, including efforts to bridge divides between Hindus and Muslims. His name has been mentioned in more than a dozen charging documents connected to the Delhi riots, he says, suggesting he could be arrested at any time as part of the alleged conspiracy.

“It’s like a dagger hung over you,” Mander says. “The hope and expectation is that we would be silent.”

The government’s response to farmer protests outside Delhi is the latest litmus test. Since November, tens of thousands of farmers have blocked roads in opposition to major changes to agricultural policy. While Modi has praised farmers, he has insisted the protesters are being misled. He recently told parliament that the country was facing a class of professional agitators, whom he called “parasites”, and warned of the need to protect the nation from “foreign destructive ideology”.

Two other Indian environmental activists with the climate change group Extinction Rebellion are already facing arrest

On 26 January, clashes broke out between farmers and police officers. Authorities shut down the internet at the protest sites and made dozens of arrests. Police later connected the violence to a “toolkit” tweeted by Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg, without citing evidence and despite the fact that the document lists only peaceful modes of protest.

(A toolkit is a document created to explain any issue on the social media. It also provides information on what a person must do to address the particular issue, which could include information on petitions, details about protests and mass movements.)

The police alleged that an organisation linked to the document – the nonprofit Poetic Justice Foundation, based in Canada – had promoted a separatist movement in the state of Punjab.

Ravi, the 22-year-old environmental activist, belonged to a group of young people around the world who joined Thunberg’s Fridays for Future environmental movement. She completed a degree in business administration at a prestigious university in Bangalore.

“Countries like India are already experiencing a climate crisis,” she said in an interview with The Guardian last year. “We’re not just fighting for our future, we are fighting for our present.”


Police detain an activist during a protest against the arrest of Disha Ravi in New Delhi, on 17 February 2021
(AFP/Getty)

Friends describe Ravi as a hard-working young woman with a slightly goofy side who is the only breadwinner in her family. She is passionate about animals and the environment, says Yuvan Aves, 25, a fellow volunteer in the Indian chapter of Fridays for Future. The message from Ravi's arrest is, “if you ask difficult questions or decide to do something for a good cause, you can be sent to jail,” he says. “For something as harmless as a toolkit.”

On 14 February, Ravi reportedly told a judge in Delhi that she had made minor edits to the toolkit document but did not write it. “We wanted to support the farmers,” she said in court, according to New Delhi Television, briefly breaking down in tears. A lawyer for Ravi declined to comment.

Justice Deepak Gupta, who retired from India’s Supreme Court last year, says the contents of the toolkit that are in the public domain are “not seditious in any manner”. The use of sedition cases in recent years is “a straight-up attempt to stifle the voices of dissent”, he says.

The government has also demanded that Twitter take down hundreds of accounts linked to the farmer protests. The social media company blocked many of the accounts but refused to do the same for handles belonging to journalists, media outlets, politicians and activists, saying it did not believe the “actions we have been directed to take are consistent with Indian law”.

Meanwhile, police in Delhi say their investigation of the toolkit will continue. Two other Indian environmental activists with the climate change group Extinction Rebellion are already facing arrest in the probe. Prem Nath, a senior police official in Delhi, told reporters last week that the activists’ intent was “to propagate the toolkit worldwide”, spur protests at Indian embassies and “tarnish India’s image”.

Protesting Indian farmers vow to amass more supporters outside capital Delhi


By Danish Siddiqui



BARNALA, India (Reuters) - More than 100,000 farmers and farm workers gathered in India’s northern Punjab state on Sunday in a show of strength against new farm laws, where union leaders called on supporters to amass outside the capital New Delhi on Feb. 27.

VIDEO
https://www.reuters.com/video/?videoId=OVE0LD6QZ&jwsource=em

Tens of thousands of Indian growers have already been camped outside Delhi for nearly three months, demanding the repeal of the three reform laws that they say will hurt them and benefit large corporations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which introduced the laws last September, has offered to defer the laws but refused to abandon them, arguing that legislation will help farmers get better prices


Both sides have met for several rounds of negotiations but failed to make any headway, and farmers’ unions have vowed to carry on the protests until the laws are rolled back.

At Sunday’s rally at a grain market in Barnala, a town in Punjab, union leaders outlined plans to mobilise farmers and farm workers from across the northern state and move to a protest site outside Delhi later this month.

“We came here to make Punjab’s farmers aware of the movement in Delhi. We came to tell them what’s happening there and what will happen next,” prominent farmer leader Joginder Ugrahan told Reuters.

A sea of supporters, including tens of thousands of women, began gathering in Barnala early in the day, riding in on buses, tractors, trailers and cars. Local police estimated a crowd of between 120,000 and 130,000 eventually gathered, comprising one of the largest rallies against the laws.

Baljinder Singh, a 52-year-old farmer, said he had travelled 30 kms (18.6 miles) to attend the rally. “Our objective is that the black laws enacted by the Modi government are repealed,” Singh said, tightly grasping a flag of a farmers’ union.

In New Delhi, a senior official from Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party blamed opposition parties for attempting to prolong the agitation but said the government was open for further talks.

Nevada Senate passes bill to form 'dark sky places' program

UofA DECLARED LAKE MIQUELON IN ALBERTA A DARK SKY ZONE

CARSON CITY, Nev. — Nevada's state Senate took a step toward ensuring stargazers will continue to enjoy picture-perfect constellations on Monday, passing a bill to recognize “dark sky places” with unobstructed views of galaxies hundreds of thousands of light years away.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Legislature's upper chamber unanimously passed the proposal to create a state program aligned with the International Dark Sky Association to designate the state's stargazing havens and encourage their use for education, preservation and tourism.

“This increase in attention to Nevada and our dark skies really provides us an opportunity, especially during this pandemic, to capitalize on an asset that we have,” Lt. Gov. Kate Marshall said during a committee hearing last week.

Marshall, who is sponsoring the bill, said Nevada is known among stargazers for having some of the darkest skies in the country.

Her office has worked with the rural Nevada communities of Tonopah and Beatty on tourism initiatives to attract visitors to marvel at the celestial views away from the fluorescent glow of street lights, casinos and tall buildings that remain lit-up at night.

The International Dark Sky Association recognizes 14 dark sky sanctuaries in the world and two are in Nevada: Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada and the Massacre Rim Wilderness Area in western Nevada, near the state line with Oregon.

The bill does not include provisions to protect dark sky places from development that could bring encroaching light pollution. Marshall said the purpose of the designations was to promote tourism and economic activity for rural communities near dark sky places and their small businesses.

Maine, New Hampshire and New Mexico all have laws on their books to encourage the preservation of dark skies.

State Sen. Julia Ratti, D-Sparks, said protecting Nevada’s dark skies would complement projects underway, including the construction of an observatory in Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada. Ratti, who serves as director on the Great Basin National Park Foundation’s board, said it would be the first facility of its kind built in a national park.

The bill received support from wilderness advocates, business groups and local officials from throughout rural Nevada, including Lincoln County.

Federal agencies control 98% of the county's land, most of which is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Defence, which owns the Nevada Test and Training Range.

Marcia Hurd, the president of the Lincoln County Tourism Authority, said a lack of land for unrestricted commercial activity led to economic struggles in the county and a reliance on tourism. She hopes dark sky designations will bring additional tourists to eastern Nevada.

“Living in an area where you can clearly see the Milky Way just by stepping out your backdoor is something that everyone should have the opportunity to experience,” Hurd wrote in a letter to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources.

The bill now moves to the Assembly and must be signed by Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, before becoming law.
___

Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative . Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Sam Metz, The Associated Press