CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Holding the world to ransom: the top 5 most dangerous criminal organisations online right now

July 7, 2021 

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog!

These words from Peter Steiner’s famous cartoon could easily be applied to the recent ransomware attack on Florida-based software supplier Kaseya.

Kaseya provides software services to thousands of clients around the world. It’s estimated between 800 and 1,500 medium to small businesses may be impacted by the attack, with the hackers demanding US$50 million (lower than the previously reported US$70 million) in exchange for restoring access to data being held for ransom.

The global ransomware attack has been labelled the biggest on record. Russian cybercriminal organisation REvil is the alleged culprit.

Despite its notoriety, nobody really knows what REvil is, what it’s capable of or why it does what they does — apart from the immediate benefit of huge sums of money. Also, ransomware attacks often involve vast distributed networks, so it’s not even certain the individuals involved would know each other.

Ransomware attacks are growing exponentially in size and ransom demand — changing the way we operate online. Understanding who these groups are and what they want is critical to taking them down.

Here, we list the top five most dangerous criminal organisations currently online. As far as we know, these rogue groups aren’t backed or sponsored by any state.
DarkSide

DarkSide is the group behind the Colonial Pipeline ransom attack in May, which shut down the US Colonial Pipeline’s fuel distribution network, triggering gasoline shortage concerns.

The group seemingly first emerged in August last year. It targets large companies that will suffer from any disruption to their services — a key factor, as they’re then more likely to pay ransom. Such companies are also more likely to have cyber insurance which, for criminals, means easy moneymaking.

DarkSide’s business model is to offer a ransomware service. In other words, it carries out ransomware attacks on behalf of other, hidden perpetrator/s so they can lessen their liability. The executor and perpetrator then share profits.

Groups that offer cybercrime-as-a-service also provide online forum communications to support others who may want to improve their cybercrime skills.

This might involve teaching someone how to combine distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and ransomware attacks, to put extra pressure on negotiations. The ransomware would prevent a business from working on past and current orders, while a DDoS attack would block any new orders.
REvil

The ransomware-as-a-service group REvil is currently making headlines due to the ongoing Kaseya incident, as well as another recent attack on global meat processing company JBS. This group has been particularly active in 2020-2021.

REvil’s HappyBlog web site showing US$70m ransom demand. Author provided

In April, REvil stole technical data on unreleased Apple products from Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese company that assembles Apple laptops. A ransom of US$50 million was demanded to prevent public release of the stolen data. It hasn’t been revealed whether or not this money was paid.
Clop

The ransomware Clop was created in 2019 by a financially-motivated group responsible for yielding half a billion US dollars.

The Clop group’s speciality is “double-extortion”. This involves targeting organisations with ransom money in exchange for a decryption key that will restore the organisation’s access to stolen data. However, targets will then have to pay extra ransom to not have the data released publicly.

Historical examples reveal that organisations which pay a ransom once are more likely to pay again in the future. So hackers will tend to target the same organisations again and again, asking for more money each time.

ClopLeaks website showing directly downloadable ransom files. Author provided

Syrian Electronic Army

Far from a typical cybercrime gang, the Syrian Electronic Army has been launching online attacks since 2011 to promote political propaganda. With this motive, they have been dubbed a hactivist group.

While the group has links with Bashar al-Assad’s regime, it’s more likely made up of online vigilantes trying to be media auxiliary for the Syrian army.

Their technique is to distribute fake news through reputable sources. In 2013, a single tweet sent by them from the official account of the Associated Press, the world’s leading news agency, had the effect of wiping billions from the stock market.

The fake AP tweet from the Syrian Electronic Army. www.theatlantic.com/

The Syrian Electronic Army exploits the fact that most people online have a tendency to interpret and react to content with an implicit sense of trust. And they’re a prime example of how the boundaries between crime and terror groups online are less distinct than in the physical world.
FIN7

If this list could contain a “super villain”, it would be FIN7. Another Russian-based group, FIN7 is arguably the most successful online criminal organisation of all time. Operating since 2012, it mainly works as a business.

Many of its operations have been undetected for years. Its data breaches have exploited cross-attack scenarios, wherein the data breach serves multiple purposes. For example, it may enable extortion through ransom while also allowing the attacker to use data against victims, such as by reselling it to a third party.

In early 2017, FIN7 was alleged to be behind an attack targeting companies providing filings to the US Security and Exchange Commission. This confidential information was exploited and used to obtain ransom which was then invested on the stock exchange.

As such, the groups made huge sums of money by trading on confidential information. The insider trading scheme facilitated by hacking went on for many years — which is why it’s not possible to quantify the exact amount of economic damage. But it’s estimated to be well over US$1 billion.
Organised crime vs organised criminals

When it comes to complex criminal organisations, techniques evolve and motives vary.

The way they organise themselves and commit crimes online is very different from your local offline gang. Ransomware can be launched from anywhere in the world, so it’s very difficult to prosecute these criminals. Matters are made even more complicated when several parties coordinate across borders.

It’s no wonder the challenge for law enforcement agencies is significant. It’s crucial that authorities investigating an attack are sure it was indeed perpetrated by who they suspect. But to know this, they need all the help they can get.

Authors

Roberto Musotto

Research fellow, Edith Cowan University

Brianna O'Shea

Lecturer, Ethical Hacking and Defense, Edith Cowan University

Paul Haskell-Dowland

Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan University
Disclosure statement

POST-FORDISM 2.0

Bugatti merges with Rimac and announces a hybrid/electric future
By Loz Blain
July 06, 2021


Bugatti and Rimac have merged to form Bugatti Rimac, with Mate Rimac as CEO, in a blockbuster deal
Bugatti Rimac

After months of rumors, the blockbuster hypercar business deal of the decade is now official: storied brand Bugatti, with its 112-year history of ultra-exclusive automaking, is now majority owned by 12-year-old Croatian electric hypercar upstart Rimac Automobili.

Bugatti was founded in France back in 1909, and made some of the world's most famous and influential race cars, luxury cars and sports cars. It was a high-end, boutique automotive powerhouse right through until the death of its founder Ettore Bugatti in 1947, after which things slowly trickled to a halt in 1963.

The brand was resurrected in the late 1980s to build the EB110, a V12 supercar with a carbon fiber chassis, but really rocketed into prominence again when Volkswagen acquired Bugatti in 1998 and set about building the world's first production hypercar.

The Bugatti Veyron smashed every paradigm in the supercar world to create a class all of its own. It was the most powerful production car in history, debuting with 1,001 horsepower. It was the fastest, too, with its Super Sport version averaging 431.072 km/h (267.856 mph) to seize the title of world's fastest production car between 2010 and 2017, when it was displaced by Koenigsegg's Agera. Bugatti's follow-up car, the Chiron, was unofficially the first car in the world to break the 300-mph (482.8-km/h) mark.


The Chiron and Nevera are two of the most important hypercars of this generation. The Porsche is pretty decent too.
Bugatti Rimac

It's fair to say Volkswagen thoroughly reinvigorated the Bugatti brand under its stewardship, and now it's passing the torch to 33-year-old wunderkind Croatian EV genius Mate Rimac as the electric era dawns.

Rimac, of course, has just launched his own groundbreaking hypercar. The Rimac Nevera, some 12 years in the making, is itself a technological wonder, a 1,914-horsepower, 1,741 lb-ft (2,360-Nm) AWD all-electric widowmaker that can catapult you to 60 mph (96 km/h) from a standstill in 1.85 seconds.


Under the terms of the deal announced today, a new company has been created, called Bugatti Rimac. This isn't the world's most imaginative name, but we can see why they steered clear of Bumac or Rimatti.

Bugatti Rimac will be 55 percent owned by Rimac Group, with the other 45 percent owned by Porsche. Mate Rimac will be CEO, and this new entity will own both Bugatti Automobiles and Rimac Automobili. Both companies will continue to have their own factories and distribution networks.

Rimac and Bugatti will keep their separate headquarters and production facilities for the time being
Bugatti Rimac

Does this mean Bugatti is going fully electric? Surprisingly enough, no. It'll continue to manufacture its current range, including the Chiron, for the moment, and while upcoming products will definitely be fusions of Bugatti and Rimac DNA, Top Gear reports the combustion engine will live on in future hybrid Bugattis alongside fully electric cars – and Rimac won't be confining Bugatti just to the hypercar realm, hinting that the brand might expand back into the ultra-luxury realm as well in the coming years.

Rimac Group is also splitting out its EV technology business into a new, fully independent entity called Rimac Technology, which will continue to sell powertrain, battery, infotainment, e-axle, connectivity and other technologies developed for the Nevera hypercar to other manufacturers, including Porsche, Koenigsegg, Hyundai, Aston Martin, Pininfarina and others. This company stays 100 percent under Rimac Group ownership.

Rimac also recently announced an €200-million (US$238-million) Rimac Campus development to house the companies, including Rimac's own test track, kindergarten and gym. Spread across a 100,000-square-meter (1,076,400-sq-ft) location just outside Zagreb, the Croatian capital, and ready to accommodate a workforce two and a half times bigger than the 1,000-odd employees currently working for Rimac, the new campus begins construction in the next few months and is scheduled for completion in 2023.


You can watch the entire launch event, set in a spectacular castle in Dubrovnik, in the video below.

Rimac Live Event — Bugatti Rimac Announcement

Source: Rimac/Bugatti

WORTH REPEATING
Iceland’s short work week trial declared an “overwhelming success”
By Rich Haridy
July 05, 2021



A trial looked at how reducing a work week to 35 or 36 hours affected worker well-being and productivity
johnkwan/Depositphotos


A massive five-year trial in Iceland exploring the effects of a shorter working week is reporting significantly positive outcomes. The results suggest cutting just four or five hours from a standard work week can lead to dramatic increases in worker well-being and improvements in productivity.

The five-day, 40-hour work week was well and truly entrenched in the 20th century. Previously, the industrial revolution resulted in work dominating life to such an unhealthy extent it wasn’t unusual for people to work 16 hours a day, six days a week. Across the late 1800s demand for better regulation of work hours ultimately culminated in US federal laws setting the maximum work week at 40 hours, with overtime for hours worked beyond that threshold.

More recently there has been a growing push to again cut our standard work week down. This primarily has come from several prominent “four-day week” experiments, showing great benefits in cutting the work week down from five days.

A significant New Zealand trial in 2018 found widespread improvements in productivity and worker engagement after asking workers to deliver the same output as usual across a four-day work week. Their pay remained the same, the participants simply worked 30 hours across four days instead of 37.5 hours over five days. A Swedish trial saw similar benefits testing six-hour work days.

These experiments with alternative work weeks take a number of forms, from reducing one’s total work hours over five days to cramming extra hours into a four-day week. The Iceland trial demonstrates how broadly a shortened work week can be applied, looking at around 2,500 workers across a variety of industries.

The trial first started small, initiated by the Reykjavik City Council. A few dozen employees were offered 40 hours of pay but directed to only work 35 or 36 hours every week. Early results proved successful and over the subsequent years the trial was expanded to include a number of different workplaces, including schools, hospitals and police.

Across all metrics the experiment was found to be a success. Productivity either improved or remained the same in the vast majority of workplaces trialed. And worker well-being and health dramatically improved.


“This study shows that the world’s largest ever trial of a shorter working week in the public sector was by all measures an overwhelming success,” says Will Stronge, director of research at Autonomy, a UK organization tasked with analyzing the data. “It shows that the public sector is ripe for being a pioneer of shorter working weeks – and lessons can be learned for other governments.”

Unlike other trials testing more strict formulas, such as a specific four-day work week, this trial tasked its participants with finding their own individual ways of making the shorter week work. Some workers took a half day off once a week, others took a full day off every fortnight.

Workplaces changed internal processes to maintain productivity across shorter hours. This manifested in briefer, more focused meetings and new strategies for increased workflows.

Shift workers saw restructured shift patterns, with amended and often flexible start or end times. Even police stations experimented with different work hours, finding benefits to changing conventional shift patterns.

“In a police station, hours for investigative officers were shortened every other week, so that workers would leave one hour early on Monday to Thursday (8:00 to 15:00), and four hours early on Fridays (8:00 to 12:00),” the report states. “The next week they would work longer days (8:00 to 16:00). This way every other week was shortened by eight hours. Staff working around the clock had a different pattern.”

The report notes the key to successfully deploying a shortened work week is, “flexibility in how tasks were completed, how hours of work and shifts were constructed, combined with interest and engagement in the process of shortening hours from the workplace.”


The trial has proved so successful in Iceland that since its completion 86 percent of the country’s entire working population has either directly moved to a shorter work week or been offered that opportunity.

The report notes a significant amount of evidence correlating increased productivity with shorter work hours. It’s unsurprising people feel better when they work less but perhaps what is surprising is how productivity generally increases when people work shorter hours.

As work hours increased between 2005 and 2015 productivity per hour decreased
Alda, Association for Democracy and Sustainability, 2021

Data spanning 10 years reveals most wealthy European countries show productivity per hour dropping as working hours increase. This relationship reverses as work hours reduce, with a correlation often seen between increased productivity and shortened work hours.

Gudmundur Haraldsson, a researcher working on the new report, says the findings from this massive trial present a roadmap for future work reforms, demonstrating how shorter work weeks can improve outcomes for both businesses and individuals.

“The Icelandic shorter working week journey tells us that not only is it possible to work less in modern times, but that progressive change is possible too,” says Haraldsson. “Our roadmap to a shorter working week in the public sector should be of interest to anyone who wishes to see working hours reduced.”


Sources: Autonomy, Alda

1933

World's first 3D-printed school tackles classroom shortages in Africa
By Nick Lavars
July 05, 2021

Having completed the world's first 3D-printed school in Malawi, 14Trees now hopes to carry out similar projects in Kenya and Zimbabwe
CDC Group

Through pioneering projects in Mexico, China, Texas and elsewhere, we're starting to see how 3D printing can make building construction a whole lot more cost effective. An affordable housing venture in Africa named 14Trees has now leveraged the technology to produce the world's first 3D-printed school in Malawi, where students started taking their first lessons late last month.

14Trees is a joint effort between the UK's CDC Group and construction multinational LafargeHolcim, and is looking to help address housing shortages in Africa. As we've seen with other 3D-printed construction projects, the team uses a large extruder to form the walls of structures before the finishing touches, like windows, doors, roofing and various fittings, are added by skilled workers.

This approach can greatly reduce the time of construction and its impact, with CDC Group claiming the technique reduces the environmental footprint of constructing new buildings by 50 percent. 14Trees began scaling up its operations in Africa late last year, and recently completed the first 3D-printed "affordable" house in Africa, printing the walls in just 12 hours.

Along with a housing shortage, there is also a great need for new schools in Malawi, with UNICEF estimating that the shortage of 36,000 classrooms in the country would take 70 years to build. With the help of 3D printing, 14Trees believes this gap could be addressed in as little as 10 years.


Classes began at the world's first 3D-printed school in Malawi on June 21
CDC Group

The organization's first school was built in the district of Salima, with the walls printed in just 18 hours, compared to the several days required by conventional methods. It was then officially transferred to a village community in the Yambe zone, with classes then beginning on June 21.

“Before, we had 12 schools in the Yambe zone; we now have 13 – with this new 3D-printed school," says Juliana Kuphanga Chikandila, a Primary Education Advisor in Malawi. "To increase our supply of education to children, we need a total of four more primary schools in the Yambe zone, but as a district, we need approximately 50 more schools to serve those in need. I am very impressed by the new building – its durability and design provide the space and facilities that students did not have before; teaching and learning can now happen inside and outside the classroom."


With the world's first 3D-printed school now complete in Malawi, 14Trees will now look to build on this proof of concept with further projects in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Elsewhere, a 3D-printed school is also planned for Madagascar, with construction to take place sometime this year.

The short video below offers a look at the 14Trees 3D printing process.

14Trees pioneers 3D printing technology in Africa for affordable housing and schools

Source: CDC Group

UK Ministry of Defence developing missiles that talk to each other
By David Szondy
July 03, 2021



The CSTWD program will allow next-generation missiles like the Spear 3 to communicate with one another


The British Ministry of Defence is investing £3.5 million (US$4.8 million) in the Defence Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl) for the Co-operative Strike Weapons Technology Demonstrator (CSWTD) program to develop new systems that will allow missiles in flight to communicate with one another.


Back in the 1960s, the first laser-guided munitions were nicknamed "smart bombs." These could simply be steered toward their target by a pilot or weapons officer, but five decades later we're seeing an emerging generation of weapons that are smart in the very real sense that they can gather data, assess situations, and alter their plans to achieve their objectives.

The problem is that for such weapons to be effective, they need to be able to operate as a team rather than in a top-down fashion. The current generation of missiles can talk to their launcher, but not to one another. This is a considerable drawback with weapons that are able to adapt to their situation and need to inform their fellow missiles of the situation.

To remedy this, the CSWTD will look at developing both new hardware and new software that will make missiles more cooperative, as well as studying how to apply them to real-world scenarios. The new program is part of a larger £6-billion (US$8-billion) research and development budget by the ministry.


The two-year project began in April 2021 and the new technology could be integrated into a smarter integrated network of missiles within five years.

"Currently missiles can communicate with the launch platform but not each other," says a Dstl scientist identified as Charlie. "The aim of this program is to investigate how inter-missile communication and cooperative behaviors can be technically achieved to solve UK military challenges"

Source: Ministry of Defence

  

Fronius rolls out its first customer SolHub solar-to-hydrogen station
By Loz Blain
June 30, 2021

Visualization of the SAN Biotech Park under construction in Herzogenburg, with its huge 1.5 MW solar array on top
SWAP Arcitectur / Janusch - the visual collective / SAN Group

Well-respected Austrian solar energy company Fronius has broken ground on its first customer green hydrogen hub, giving us a good look at what it'll take to run a fleet of vehicles on green hydrogen produced entirely on-site using solar panels.

The first Fronius SolHub is under construction as part of SAN Group's new hydrogen facility in Herzogenburg, Lower Austria. Producing an average of around 100 kg of clean hydrogen a day, it'll be used as a filling station for SAN's own hydrogen vehicles. SAN is also working out deals with other companies interested in potentially running their own similar hubs, to use this facility as a demonstrator of sorts.

The aim here is to generate hydrogen fuel in a completely standalone, self-contained and clean fashion, and to do so, the SolHub requires some 1.5 megawatts of photovoltaic panels. That's not a small installation – the average home rooftop system is typically around 3-6 kilowatts, to put things in context. For 1.5 MW of solar, you're looking at some 5,000 or more panels, taking up close to 100,000 square feet (9,000 square meters) of space.

A prototype SolHub unit at Fronius's research and development site
Fronius

One hundred kilograms of green hydrogen a day will fully fuel around 16 typical fuel cell passenger cars, or power some 1,500 km (930-odd miles) of bus or truck travel.

Fronius is investing quite a bit on hydrogen, and is soon to begin construction on a new "hydrogen competence center" in Steinhaus, where it plans to accelerate R&D as well as production of H2 systems. This first SolHub installation is expected to be complete and commissioned by the spring of 2022.

Source: Fronius

 

Colombia used ‘excessive’ force against protesters: IACHR

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urges Colombia to make structural changes to its militarised police force.

Demonstrators clash with police during anti-government protests in Medellin on June 28, 2021 [File: Santiago Mesa/Reuters]

By Megan Janetsky

7 Jul 2021

Bogota, Colombia – The Colombian government used “excessive and disproportionate” force during mass protests earlier this year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) said in a long-awaited report released on Wednesday.

The IACHR, an autonomous body in the Organization of American States, called on the South American nation to make structural changes to its militarised police force, which has been accused of committing “egregious” abuses against protesters.

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Violent protests erupt in Colombia anew over ‘egregious abuses’

Colombia to ‘modernise’ police after protest violence criticism

“The response of the state was characterised by an excessive and disproportionate use of force, in many cases, including lethal force,” IACHR President Antonia Urrejola said during a press conference.

The protests, known as the Paro Nacional, erupted in April as a pushback against a controversial tax reform bill and inequalities caused by the pandemic.

After the largely peaceful demonstrations resulted in a harsh crackdown by police forces, the protests quickly expanded into a reaction to state violence, gripping the South American country for months.

Human Rights Watch has confirmed that 34 people – largely protesters and civilian bystanders – were killed during the protests. Other activist organisations put that death count even higher.]

Other alleged human rights violations, including sexual abuse by riot police, forced disappearances and many injuries, prompted the visit of the human rights panel in early June.

The highly critical IACHR report followed a detailed investigation into the state’s response to the protests, which included testimony from more than 500 people including government officials, human rights defenders and violence victims in protest hotspots like the cities of Cali and Bogota.

The commission documented law enforcement’s indiscriminate use of firearms against protesters and civilians not participating in protests, gender-based violence and the use of violence against journalists and medical staff.

It also called on President Ivan Duque‘s administration to investigate abuses and protect the right to protest.

The report was welcomed by international observers like Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Andes director of the Washington Office on Latin America, who said the report also rejects the narrative by Duque and his party that protesters are vandals and criminals.

“They’ve been blaming the opposition, blaming everybody and not looking inward,” Sánchez-Garzoli said. “I think this report shows that attitude is not what the international community accepts.”

Demonstrators gather at the Los Heroes monument during a protest to demand government action to tackle poverty, police violence and inequalities, in Bogota on May 28 [File: Santiago Mesa/Reuters]

The human rights panel offered more than 40 recommendations to the Colombian government, most notably urging it to separate Colombian police from the country’s military.

Like the army, Colombian police fall under the jurisdiction of the country’s defence ministry, a product of decades of armed conflict.

But that structure has led to militarised law enforcement – notably by the riot police, ESMAD – that has been heavily criticised by the Colombian public and international observers.

Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, said the recommendations “lend credibility” to longtime calls to demilitarise police forces.

“In a country under conflict it makes sense to have all military and police authorities under this same chain of command, but that’s not the same case today,” Guzmán said.

While Duque has pledged police reforms including increased officer training and different disciplinary standards for officers, Guzmán doubts that the Duque administration will implement many of the suggestions made in the report.

The government already has rejected a number of the suggestions, while Duque and members of his party criticised the report on Wednesday morning, continuing to decry “acts of vandalism” and “roadblocks that violate the rights of citizens”.

“No one can recommend that a country be tolerant of criminal acts,” the president said to a group of journalists on Tuesday.

While protest organisers have temporarily suspended the demonstrations, Guzmán predicted only more protests are on the horizon if significant changes are not made.

“The underlying reasons people have for protesting aren’t resolved: unemployment, unequality, corruption, urban poverty,” he said. “As there’s no reform for police – how police conduct their jobs, how police deal with protests – that’s likely to be a trigger for future unrest.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Fire erupts on ship at Dubai port after explosion that rocks city

No reports of casualties at Jebel Ali Port, one of world’s largest, as authorities say fire is under control.

Plumes of smoke rise from a container ship anchored in Dubai's Jebel Ali port as emergency services try to contain the fire, in Dubai, UAE [WAM/Handout via Reuters]

7 Jul 2021

A container ship anchored at one of the world’s largest ports in Dubai caught fire late on Wednesday, local authorities said, after an explosion shook the commercial hub of the United Arab Emirates.

The blaze sent up giant orange flames on a vessel at the crucial Jebel Ali Port, the busiest in the Middle East, which sits on the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula – but authorities said the situation is under control.

“A fire caused by an explosion within a container on board a ship at Jebel Ali Port has been brought under control; no casualties have been reported,” the Dubai Media Office (DMO) said on Twitter.

The combustion unleashed a shock wave through the city, shaking buildings and windows in neighbourhoods as far as 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the port.

At least three residents in the area of the blast, the cause of which remains unknown, reported windows and doors in their homes were shaken as a result of the incident.

There were no immediate reports of casualties at the port, which is also the busiest port of call for American warships outside of the US.

Early on Thursday, the Dubai government issued a statement saying that emergency services had brought the blaze under control. Authorities posted footage on social media of firefighters dousing giant shipping containers.

The glow of the blaze was visible in the background as civil defence crews worked to contain the fire.

The extent of damage caused to the sprawling port and surrounding cargo was not immediately clear. The cause of the fire also was not immediately known.

Port officials said they were “taking all necessary measures to ensure that the normal movement of vessels continues without any disruption”.

Mona al-Marri, director-general of the DMO, told Al-Arabiya TV that this incident “could happen anywhere in the world” and that the government’s communication office worked to issue statements quickly to avert rumours from spreading as the cause of the fire is being investigated.

The office said the ship, which was not identified, was preparing to dock at one of the berths “away from the port’s main shipping line”.

Al Arabiya said the Dubai government claimed the ship’s crew had been evacuated in time.

At approximately 11:45pm local time (07:45 GMT) residents of Dubai recording with their phones from high-rises posted frantic videos on social media showing a fiery ball illuminating the night sky.

Clemence Lefaix, who is staying near the blast site, posted a photo of a bright orange light against the night sky in front of apartment buildings.

“I was outside on my balcony. My friend saw something yellow coming [like] the sun. I took the picture and after [there was] a sound,” Lefaix told the AFP news agency.

The Jebel Ali Port at the northern end of Dubai is the largest constructed deep-water harbour in the world and serves cargo from the Indian subcontinent, Africa and Asia.

Operated by the Dubai-based DP World, the port has four sprawling container terminals that can berth some of the world’s largest ships. The port is not only a critical global cargo hub, but a lifeline for Dubai and surrounding emirates, serving as the point of entry for essential imports

DP World describes Jebel Ali Port as a “gateway hub” and a “vital link in the global trade network” that connects eastern and western markets. The company did not immediately issue any public statement on the blast.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

Trump brutally mocked after social media users track down the 'clown show' lawyers behind his latest lawsuit

Travis Gettys
July 07, 2021


President Donald Trump speaking with reporters on the White House lawn (screengrab)

Donald Trump claimed he would hold technology companies "very accountable" with the help of some "tobacco lawyers," and social media users who weren't banned from Twitter cracked up in laughter.

The twice-impeached one-term president announced he was suing Facebook, Google and Twitter for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights by kicking him off their social media platforms, but his threats weren't taken especially seriously by those who are still allowed to post content.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mRNA vaccine technology moves to flu: Moderna says trial has begun

Moderna aims for one seasonal shot for flu, COVID-19, respiratory viruses RSV and HMPV.

BETH MOLE - 7/7/2021

Enlarge

Moderna has given out the first doses of an mRNA-based influenza vaccine to participants in an early-phase clinical trial, the company announced Wednesday.

Moderna ultimately plans to test the vaccine on about 180 people in the Phase 1/2 randomized, stratified, observer-blind trial. The trial will look at safety, different doses, and immune responses.

The vaccine, called mRNA-1010, is designed to target four lineages of influenza viruses that circulate seasonally each year, just like the current quadrivalent flu vaccines on the market. The four virus lineages are those identified by the World Health Organization as the ones to target for disease prevention each year—seasonal influenza type A lineages H1N1 and H3N2 as well as influenza type B lineages Yamagata and Victoria. If mRNA-1010 is shown to be effective against the yearly plague in later-stage trials, Moderna aims to eventually bundle it with three other mRNA-based vaccines to create a yearly, one-stop shot.

In addition to influenza, this envisioned combination shot would target two other common, respiratory viruses that circulate alongside influenza—respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV)—as well as the COVID-19 coronavirus, SARS-COV-2, which some experts have speculated could become seasonal. Currently, there are no licensed vaccines against either RSV or hMPV. And it's unclear if SARS-CoV-2 will become seasonal and/or if annual booster vaccines will be necessary.

"We believe that the advantages of mRNA vaccines include the ability to combine different antigens to protect against multiple viruses and the ability to rapidly respond to the evolution of respiratory viruses, such as influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and RSV," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. "Our vision is to develop an mRNA combination vaccine so that people can get one shot each fall for high efficacy protection against the most problematic respiratory viruses."

Vaccine design

While the company is aiming high with its seasonal megashot, the influenza component alone stands to offer a significant improvement over current shots. To humanity's chagrin, available quadrivalent and trivalent annual flu vaccines tend to have low efficacy, generally in the range of only 40 percent to 60 percent. Some years, the vaccines' efficacy is even lower.


Moderna expects it can beat those numbers. Soaring on the success of its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine—which had a remarkable 94 percent efficacy in late-stage clinical trials—Moderna will aim its more advanced, targeted mRNA vaccine platform to fight influenza. The company currently has three mRNA-based vaccine candidates in development. After mRNA-1010, there's mRNA-1020 and mRNA-1030.

In general, mRNA vaccines work by delivering to human cells a snippet of a virus's genetic code, which is in the form of messenger RNA (mRNA). This type of RNA generally acts as an intermediary, communicating coded instructions from DNA to the cell's molecular machinery that translates the code into proteins. The mRNA snippets in the vaccines, however, communicate the blueprints for viral proteins, which the immune system can use for target practice. Once the cell's machinery translates the vaccine's mRNA code into a viral protein, the immune system uses that protein to train virus-targeting antibodies and cellular defenses.

To prevent COVID-19, the mRNA vaccines include the code for a portion of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Copies of this protein jut from the virus's spherical body and help the virus break into human cells. As such, they're an easy and effective target for antibodies and other immune responses.

To prevent flu, mRNA vaccines could target key proteins that similarly jut from the influenza virus, namely hemagglutinin (HA or H) and neuraminidase (NA or N). Like spike, these proteins are critical for the flu virus's ability to invade human cells. But HA and NA come in different forms, which are represented in flu viruses' names as H and N (as in H1N1 and H3N2).

mRNA advantages

The mRNA-based vaccine strategy offers a highly precise way to target influenza viruses' HA and NA compared with current flu vaccines, which often rely on presenting whole viruses, weakened or inactivated, to the immune system. And the mRNA-based design makes the vaccines easy to tweak. If, for instance, a flu virus appears one season with a slightly different version of HA—as it very often does—the vaccine's coding would potentially take just an update to tailor that year's shot. This is a change that could be potentially be done swiftly, too.

When variants of SARS-CoV-2 began raising concern earlier this year, the CEO of BioNTech—which co-developed an mRNA-based COVID-19 with Pfizer—said the company could adjust its mRNA vaccine in just six weeks, if needed.

Perhaps the biggest advantage the mRNA-based strategy has over current flu vaccine, though, is that it doesn't involve eggs. Current flu vaccines are most often manufactured using fertilized hen eggs. Vaccine makers inject the virus into the eggs and allow the virus to create legions of clones. Then, vaccine makers harvest the viruses, purify them, weaken or kill them, and use them for vaccines. It's cheap and simple, and it's a method that has been used for decades.

But it's also time consuming, it requires a lot of eggs, and it may not produce high-efficacy vaccines. Weak or inactivated virus vaccines lack the precision of other vaccine strategies, like mRNA or recombinant proteins. With a whole virus, the immune system may try to attack many different features of the virus, some of which may not be very useful for thwarting the invader.

Flu toll

Moreover, humans are, well, different from chickens. And sometimes in the manufacturing process, flu viruses can begin to adapt to their fowl conditions. This appeared to be a problem in the 2017-2018 flu season, when a circulating H3N2 flu virus strain seemed to pick up a mutation in its HA during egg-based vaccine manufacturing. The mutation may have made the virus better at infecting chicken eggs, but in the vaccine, the mutation seemed to result in people developing antibodies that weren't as good at defeating the H3N2 virus circulating in humans.

That flu season, the influenza vaccine was estimated to have an overall efficacy of just 38 percent. The efficacy against type A influenza viruses specifically, which include H3N2, was just 30 percent. The 2017-2018 flu season ended up being the worst in the decade, with estimates of hospitalizations up to 810,000 and deaths up to 61,000.

Still, health experts urge everyone, every year, to get their flu shot. The flu, however benign it may sometimes seem, is a devastating infectious disease. Even a low-efficacy vaccine can help. The CDC estimates that influenza has sickened between 9 million and 45 million people every year since 2010. And in each of those years, it sent between 140,000 to 810,000 people to the hospital and killed between 12,000 to 61,000 people. In addition to the human costs, the economic burden of all of that is estimated to be $11 billion per year.