Trump's image of America is straight out of Shogun: columnist

Krystina Alarcon Carroll
May 27, 2025

An AI image of Donald Trump dressed as a Japanese Shogun. (MidJourney)

President Donald Trump's economic policies are turning the U.S. into 'a nation of serfs,' according to Slate senior writer Ben Mathis-Lilley.

“So far, the story of the Trump administration when it comes to the economy is a tale of two countries,” Mathis-Lilley wrote. He believes, “What country America is becoming at any given time depends on which member of the administration is speaking on television and/or what mood Trump is in.”

“The first country is a more dynamic version of the current one, in which the stock market keeps rising and America remains an international center of innovation and production,” Mathis-Lilley said.

However, the second version of the U.S. Mathis-Lilley called a “modern version of shogunate Japan,” which is a reference to the hereditary Military government that led Japan from 1192 through 1867.

In this second world Mathis-Lilley claimed, “Tariffs are enormous and permanent, foreign professionals are actively excluded from the country, science and medical research is nonexistent, children’s dolls are as precious as gold, and Americans are funneled into manual labor jobs like making screws for Apple.”

Mathis-Lilley called American citizens in this reality, “A nation of serfs—who are happy, despite being serfs in 2025, because the country has been returned to its prior state of cultural homogeneity (read: most of the population is white people) and spiritually rewarding manual labor.”

“Financial markets would very much like the first country, rather than North Korea with Energy Drinks,” the senior writer said. However, “The administration’s Isolated Peasantry Caucus has been racking up some wins.”

This includes the GOP-controlled House pressing “forward last week with a budget bill that would create $4 trillion in deficits (LOL!) in order to cut the heck out of tax rates for millionaires and billionaires.”

He also railed against “The administration told Harvard it has to expel all its international students.” Mathis-Lilley said the move “probably doesn’t make the world’s smartest and most innovation-generating biomedicine and computer science graduate students more likely to apply to U.S. schools."

Another issue Mathis-Lilley foresees is the “slowdown of vaccine approval under vaccine-truther Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”

What he found most concerning is how the markets reacted to Trump’s “out of nowhere” social media post, claiming that Trump informed Apple CEO Tim Cook "that he intends to eventually put a 25 percent tariff on iPhones unless they’re entirely manufactured and assembled in the United States.

Mathis-Lilley noted "Apple stock, as they say, took a tumble.”

Mexicans face wall of impunity in search for justice

By AFP
May 27, 2025


"There is still no justice," says Estanislao Mendoza, whose son Miguel Angel has been missing for a decade - Copyright AFP Mandel NGAN

Arturo Ilizaliturri and Samir Tounsi

From parents whose children were murdered or are missing to a man imprisoned for two decades with no sentence — many Mexicans seeking justice feel they face a wall of corruption and impunity.

The government says the justice system is rotten and that elections beginning on Sunday allowing voters to choose all judges and magistrates will help to clean it up.

Critics say the world-first vote will only politicize the judiciary.

Here are four high-profile cases illustrating the flaws of a justice system in a country where criminal groups use threats, bribes and violence to wield influence.


– ‘Nothing has changed’ –

“It’s been 10 years and nothing has changed,” said Estanislao Mendoza, whose son Miguel Angel was one of 43 students from a teacher training college who disappeared in the southern state of Guerrero in 2014.

The case, one of the country’s worst human rights atrocities, has come to symbolize a missing persons crisis that has seen more than 120,000 people vanish.

Investigators believe the students were abducted by a criminal group with the help of corrupt police, possibly because a bus they commandeered to travel to a demonstration had drugs hidden inside.

This month, a former senior judge was arrested and accused of helping to conceal videos that allegedly showed the tragedy unfolding.

But despite dozens of arrests, there have been no convictions and the remains of only three victims have been identified.

“For us there is still no justice, because of the corruption of the judges,” Mendoza, a 65-year-old farmer, told AFP.

– Justice ‘not being served’ –

The disappearance of five young Mexicans in Lagos de Moreno in the western state of Jalisco in August 2023, allegedly at the hands of drug traffickers, also shook a country that has become inured to kidnapping and killing.

The case was particularly shocking because the criminals filmed the young men being tortured and forced to attack each other.

Five suspects are being prosecuted but relatives are still waiting for the young men — or their remains — to be found and identified.

Armando Olmeda, whose 22-year-old son Roberto Carlos is one of the victims, feels that justice “is not being served” for the people who need it.

“We have trusted the authorities,” but so far they have “not done their job properly,” the 55-year-old told AFP.

– ‘Worst enemy’ –

The judicial system seems designed “to protect everyone except the citizen thirsty for justice,” said Mario Escobar, whose 18-year-old daughter Debanhi disappeared in April 2022 in the northern state of Nuevo Leon.

Her body was found in a motel water tank, triggering a public outcry over the nation’s femicide crisis.

A photo taken on the night Debanhi disappeared, showing her standing in the dark by the roadside after an altercation with a taxi driver, made her a symbol for women’s rights in a country where about 10 women or girls are murdered every day.

Hypotheses suggested by investigators ranged from an accidental blow to the head to suffocation.

Time is the “worst enemy,” Escobar said.

“It passes very quickly without any justice for us.”

– ‘Justice was denied’ –

Israel Vallarta, accused of belonging to a kidnapping gang, has been in preventive detention awaiting trial since 2005 in a case that sparked a diplomatic rift between Mexico and France.

His ex-partner, Frenchwoman Florence Cassez, was freed in 2013 after the Supreme Court ruled that police violated her rights by staging her arrest on national television.

“In the case of my family, access to justice was denied,” said Vallarta’s sister Guadalupe.

Five of Vallarta’s relatives were also accused of belonging to the same gang.

“I spent six years and nine months in prison because of my last name,” said his nephew Alejandro Cortez Vallarta, who alleged authorities took him to a “torture chamber” to force a confession.

“There was a lot of corruption,” he said. “I experienced it firsthand.”

China not trying to ‘replace’ US in Colombia: ambassador


By AFP
May 27, 2025


China's ambassador to Colombia Zhu Jingyang says the Asian nation is not seeking to replace the US as Bogota's top trading partner - Copyright AFP

 Raul ARBOLEDA

China is not seeking to “replace” the United States as the top trading partner of Colombia, Beijing’s ambassador to Bogota, whose president has announced a pivot to China, told AFP on Tuesday.

Until recently Colombia was one of the United States’ closest trade and security partners in Latin America.

But the country’s first leftist president Gustavo Petro, who has crossed swords with his US counterpart Donald Trump, is trying to steer more trade towards China.

China’s ambassador to Bogota denied that Beijing was seeking to topple the United States from its pole position in Latin America.

“China is coming to offer our collaboration, not to replace anyone, nor seeking to take someone’s place,” Zhu Jingyang told AFP on the sidelines of a media briefing.

Earlier this month, Colombia formally joined China’s vast Belt and Road (BRI) infrastructure program.

Bogota’s accession boosted Beijing’s efforts to deepen ties with Latin America, a key battleground in its confrontation with the Trump administration.

It came in the wake of a showdown between Trump and Petro over deportation flights which ended in humiliation for Colombia.

After initially denying entry to US military planes carrying deported Colombians in January, Bogota sent its own planes to bring them home to avoid hefty US tariffs threatened by Trump.

The business community in Latin America’s fourth-biggest economy has expressed fears that Petro’s rapprochement with China could damage Colombia’s trade with the United States.

The State Department’s special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, warned recently that the United States might start buying flowers and coffee — two of Colombia’s top exports to the United States — from other Latin American countries instead.

Zhu accused the Trump administration of using “intimidation” and “blackmail” to try keep Colombia in its orbit.

Two-thirds of Latin American countries have already joined the Belt and Road Initiative.

SE Asia, Gulf and China three-way talks ‘response to call of times’


By AFP
May 27, 2025


Chinese Premier Li Qiang (L) attended the ASEAN gala dinner on Monday, alongside Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail - Copyright POOL/AFP FAZRY ISMAIL

Rebecca BAILEY and Isabelle LEONG

Chinese Premier Li Qiang said Tuesday that the first-ever summit between his country, Southeast Asian leaders and Gulf states was “a response to the call of the times” in a geopolitically uncertain world.

The trade-dependent economies are looking to insulate themselves after US President Donald Trump blew up global trade norms by announcing a slew of tariffs targeting countries around the world this year.

Though he subsequently instigated a 90-day pause for most, the experience has spurred the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and others to accelerate efforts to diversify their trading networks.

On Tuesday the Malaysian capital hosted the inaugural summit between ASEAN, China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — a regional bloc made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Li told the meeting that “against the backdrop of a volatile international situation”, the summit was “a pioneering work of regional economic cooperation”.

“This is not only a continuation of the course of history, but also a response to the call of the times,” he said.

ASEAN has traditionally served as “a middleman of sorts” between developed economies like the United States, and China, said Chong Ja Ian from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

With Washington looking unreliable these days, “ASEAN member states are looking to diversify”.

“Facilitating exchanges between the Gulf and People’s Republic of China is one aspect of this diversification,” he said.



– ‘Timely and calculated’ –



Beijing has suffered the brunt of Trump’s tariffs and is also looking to shore up other markets.

China and ASEAN are already each other’s largest trading partners, and Chinese exports to Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam surged by double digits in April — attributed to a re-routing of US-bound goods.

Premier Li’s participation is “both timely and calculated”, Khoo Ying Hooi from the University of Malaya told AFP.

“China sees an opportunity here to reinforce its image as a reliable economic partner, especially in the face of Western decoupling efforts.”

At dinner on Tuesday, Li urged ASEAN and the GCC to “persist in opening up”.

Beijing and Washington engaged in an escalating flurry of tit-for-tat levies until a meeting in Switzerland saw an agreement to slash them for 90 days.

Chinese goods still face higher tariffs than most though.

According to a draft statement seen by AFP, ASEAN will express “deep concern… over the imposition of unilateral tariff measures”.

But the bloc earlier this year said it would not impose retaliatory duties.



– ‘Centrality’ –



ASEAN has historically avoided choosing a side between the United States and China.

China is only Southeast Asia’s fourth largest source of foreign direct investment, after the United States, Japan and the European Union, noted NUS’ Chong.

At a press conference at the tail-end of the talks, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim vowed ASEAN would continue engaging both Washington and Beijing.

“The… ASEAN position is centrality,” Anwar said, adding “if it means working with the Chinese, yes we’ll do that.”

However, “it makes a lot of sense to continue to engage and have reasonably good relations” with the United States, he added.

Dialogue with Washington was particularly important as Malaysia has become a hub for semiconductors, he said.

State-of-the-art chips have become a focal point of Washington’s trade restrictions, as they try to prevent China from undermining US dominance in artificial intelligence.

Anwar said Monday he had written to request an ASEAN-US summit this year, with his foreign minister saying Washington had not yet responded.

Closer alignment with Beijing presents problems of its own.

On Monday, Philippines leader Ferdinand Marcos said there was an “urgent need” to adopt a legally binding code of conduct in the South China Sea.

Beijing has territorial disputes with five ASEAN member states in the area, with China and the Philippines having engaged in months of confrontations in the contested waters.

Anwar raised the South China Sea with Li and the Philippines, saying: “I’m not saying all issues can be resolved now but there was real positive engagement.”

Data breaches rise in UK across Q1 2025


By Dr. Tim Sandle
May 27, 2025

DIGITAL JOURNAL


New cybercrime crime gangs are looking to extort money from companies and individuals - Copyright AFP/File ATTA KENARE

A data breach happens when confidential and sensitive data gets exposed to unauthorized third parties. In 2025 so far, a total of 2.2 million accounts have been breached in the UK, the 6th-highest count in the world, the company Surfshark’s analysis shows.

The data was collected by from 29,000 publicly available databases and aggregated by email address. This data was then anonymized and then analysed statistically. Countries with a population of less than 1 million people were not included in the analysis.

The UK ranks 6th globally and ranks first within Northern Europe, although this is high the figure represents a 49 percent decrease in Q1 2025 over Q4 2024.

This includes big brands such as M&S, Co-op, and Harrods, firms that have been forced to halt online operations to deal with cybercrime.

Global patterns

In descending order, the ten most breached countries in Q1 2025 were the US (16.9M), Russia (4.4M), India (4.2M), Germany (3.9M), Spain (2.4M), the UK (2.2M), France (2.1M), Canada (0.89M), Argentina (0.79M), and South Sudan (0.73M).

The countries with the highest breach density in Q1 2025 (number of leaked accounts per 1,000 residents) were South Sudan (61), Spain (51), the US (49), Germany (46), Slovenia (45), Israel (37), the UK (32), France (32), Russia (30), and Norway (25).

UK’s run-rate

In terms of the rate of breaches for the UK, 17 accounts are being leaked in the UK every minute throughout 2025 so far and since 2004, the UK has had a total of 368 million user accounts exposed. 79 million of them have unique email addresses, which means an average user email was breached four times.

Breaking this down further, the level of breaches represents a total of 79.2 million unique emails were breached from UK. 238.4 million passwords were leaked together with British accounts, putting 65% of breached users in danger of account take over that might lead to identity theft, extortion or other cybercrimes. Statistically, an average British has been affected by data breaches around 5 times.

Furthermore, the UK has had a total of 1.2 billion personal records exposed since 2004. On average, each email is breached with 3.1 additional data points.

Future action

The future threat remains relatively high. Cyberthreats continue to evolve and attackers are constantly adapting their tactics. To protect personal and organizational data, it remains essential for users to follow strong security practices, regularly update passwords, enable two-factor authentication, and stay informed potential risks.

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Second suspect in New York bitcoin kidnapping surrenders to police



By AFP
May 27, 2025


Kidnappings targetting crypto enterpreneurs have become

 increasingly frequent around the world

 - Copyright AFP

 Giuseppe CACACE

A second suspect in the alleged kidnapping and torture of an Italian bitcoin investor in New York surrendered on Tuesday, authorities said.

Police on Friday arrested John Woeltz, 37, of Kentucky, on suspicion of brazenly kidnapping and torturing an Italian cryptocurrency entrepreneur for weeks in a luxury Manhattan townhouse in order to extort his bitcoin password.

New York City Police Chief Jessica Tisch said on Fox 5 that the second suspect in the case, William Duplessie, was also taken into custody Tuesday morning.

“We do have someone that we were looking for, Mr Duplessie, in custody. As of this morning, 7:45, he turned himself in at our 13th precinct,” Tisch said.

“We know he is going to be charged with Mr Woeltz with kidnapping and false imprisonment of an associate in Soho,” said.

Duplessie, who according to US media is 33 and comes from Miami, Florida, surrendered to police clad in black pants and a white shirt, photos from the scene showed.

The name of the alleged victim has not been published, but US media reports identified him as Italian bitcoin entrepreneur Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan.

According to reports, Carturan arrived in New York from Italy on May 6 and went Woeltz’s home.

There, Woeltz, described by the New York Post as “Kentucky’s crypto boss,” and Duplessie confiscated the victim’s electronic devices and passport, and demanded access to his bitcoin accounts, according to police.

After the victim refused, the two men tortured him for two weeks, tying his wrists, hitting him with a rifle, pointing a gun at his face, threatening to throw him off the roof of the five-story building and promising to kill his family members, media reports said.

Several details of the story remain murky, including exactly why the victim had agreed to come to the townhouse in an upscale SoHo neighborhood, and whether he revealed anything of use to the kidnappers.

France foils new crypto kidnapping plot, arrests over 20: source


By AFP
May 27, 2025


French police foiled a new kidnapping plot Monday in the western city of Nantes - Copyright AFP 

Sébastien DUPUY

Sabine COLPART

France has foiled the latest in a spate of kidnapping plots targeting cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, and detained more than 20 people over that attempt and another against crypto boss Pierre Noizat’s family, a police source said Tuesday.

The new kidnapping attempt, near the western city of Nantes, was foiled on Monday before it was carried out, the police source said, without providing further details.

It came after a series of attempted abductions targeting cryptocurrency traders and their families, prompting one prominent crypto entrepreneur to call on authorities to “stop the Mexicanisation of France”.

Authorities on Monday and Tuesday arrested 24 people as part of a probe into the Nantes abduction attempt, as well as an investigation into the attempted kidnapping in mid-May of Noizat’s pregnant daughter and young grandson.

Noizat is the CEO and co-founder of Paymium, a French cryptocurrency exchange platform.

“The entire commando unit was arrested,” said the police source, referring to the attack on Noizat’s family.

The public prosecutor’s office said it would issue a statement at a later date, probably on Friday.

In an interview with BFM television, Noizat has praised his “heroic” son-in-law and a neighbour armed with a fire extinguisher, who thwarted the attempted kidnapping in broad daylight in the heart of Paris.

The kidnappings have raised concerns about the security of wealthy crypto tycoons, who have notched up immense fortunes from the booming business.



– ‘Rise in kidnappings’ –



French authorities have also been investigating the May 1 abduction of a crypto-millionaire’s father who was later rescued by police.

The victim, for whom a ransom of several million euros was demanded, was freed after being held for more than two days, in a raid on a house outside Paris.

Six people have been charged in connection with that kidnapping.

Five of them — aged 18 to 26 — were being prosecuted for organised extortion, kidnapping and false imprisonment involving torture or acts of barbarity by an organised gang, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in early May.

On January 21, kidnappers seized French crypto boss David Balland and his partner. Balland co-founded the crypto firm Ledger, valued at the time at more than $1 billion.

Balland’s finger was cut off by his kidnappers, who had demanded a hefty ransom. He was freed the next day, and his girlfriend was found tied up in the boot of a car outside Paris.

At least nine suspects have been charged in that case, including the alleged mastermind.

Ledger co-founder Eric Larcheveque, who received a ransom demand when Balland was kidnapped, urged authorities to “stop the Mexicanisation of France”.

Mexico has been plagued by drug-linked murders and disappearances for decades.

“For several months now, there has been a rise in sordid kidnappings and attempted kidnappings. In broad daylight. In the heart of Paris,” Larcheveque said on X.

“Today, to succeed in France, whether in crypto-assets or elsewhere, is to put a target on your back.”

In mid-May, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau held an emergency meeting with crypto currency leaders, with the ministry announcing plans to bolster their security.

sc-mca-ekf-as/jhb

EU investigates four porn platforms over risks to children


By AFP
May 27, 2025



Raziye Akkoc

The EU kickstarted an investigation on Tuesday into four pornographic platforms over suspicions they are failing to stop children accessing adult content in breach of the bloc’s mammoth digital content law.

The European Commission said its investigations into Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos “focus on the risks for the protection of minors, including those linked to the absence of effective age verification measures”.

The commission, the European Union’s tech regulator, accused the platforms of not having “appropriate” age verification tools to prevent children from being exposed to porn.

An AFP correspondent only had to click a button on Tuesday stating they were older than 18 without any further checks to gain access to each of the four platforms.

The commission found the four platforms did not have “appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors”.

They also did not have the measures in place to prevent negative effects on children as well as users’ mental and physical wellbeing, the commission said.

“Online platforms must ensure that the rights and best interests of children are central to the design and functioning of their services,” it added.

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) forces the world’s biggest tech companies to do more to protect European users online and has strict rules to safeguard children and ensure their privacy and security.

Under the law, “very large” online platforms with at least 45 million monthly active users in the EU have even greater obligations, and they are regulated by the commission rather than national authorities.

Fearful over children’s access to adult content, the commission said it will work with national authorities to make sure smaller porn platforms apply the same rules.

“Our priority is to protect minors and allow them to navigate safely online. Together with the digital service coordinators in the member states we are determined to tackle any potential harm to young online users,” EU digital tsar Henna Virkkunen said.

– Protecting children –

The EU also said it would remove Stripchat from the list of “very large” platforms since it now had fewer than 45 million monthly active users on average, with its probe to focus on the period when it fell under its purview.

Brussels stressed the launch of formal proceedings does not prejudge the investigation’s outcome and there is no deadline for its completion.

Violations, if proven however, risk fines of up to six percent of a firm’s global turnover. Platforms found guilty of serious and repeated violations can also be banned from operating in Europe.

The EU in parallel has invited the public including parents to help prepare guidelines for the protection of children online and is developing an age-verification app.

The DSA, which has a wide remit, sits within the EU’s powerful legal weaponry to regulate Big Tech.

Brussels has launched a wave of probes under the DSA since 2023 including into Meta’s Facebook and Instagram as well as Elon Musk’s X social media platform and TikTok.

‘Kisses from Prague’: The fall of a Russian ransomware giant


By AFP
May 27, 2025


A screenshot of the site of cyber-crime group 'LockBit' 

- Copyright AFP Raul ARBOLEDA

Didier Lauras

The sudden fall of a ransomware supplier once described as the world’s most harmful cybercrime group has raised questions about Moscow’s role in its development and the fate of its founder.

LockBit supplied ransomware to a global network of hackers, who used the services in recent years to attacks thousands of targets worldwide and rake in tens of millions of dollars.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, that steals data and prevents a user from accessing computer files or networks until a ransom is paid for their return.

LockBit supplied a worldwide network of hackers with the tools and infrastructure to carry out attacks, communicate with victims, store the stolen information and launder cryptocurrencies.

According to the US State Department, between 2020 and early 2024 LockBit ransomware carried out attacks on more than 2,500 victims around the world.

It issued ransom demands worth hundreds of millions of dollars and received at least $150 million in actual ransom payments made in the form of digital currency.

But LockBit was dealt its first devastating blow in February 2024 when the British National Crime Agency (NCA), working with the US FBI and several other nations, announced it had infiltrated the group’s network and took control of its services.

Later that year, the NCA announced it had identified LockBit’s leader as a Russian named Dmitry Khoroshev (alias LockBitSupp).

The US State Department said it was offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest.

Lockbit, which the NCA said was “once the world’s most harmful cybercrime group”, sought to adapt by using different sites.

But earlier this year it suffered an even more devastating breach and received a taste of its own medicine.

Its systems were hacked and some of its data stolen in an attack whose origins were mysterious and has, unusually in the cybercrime world, never been claimed.

“Don’t do crime. Crime is bad. Xoxo from Prague,” said a cryptic message written on the website it had been using.



– ‘Others grow back’ –



“Lockbit was number one. It was in survival mode and took another hit” with the leak, said Vincent Hinderer, Cyber Threat Intelligence team manager with Orange Cyberdefense.

“Not all members of the group have been arrested. Other, less experienced cybercriminals may join,” he added.

However, observations of online chats, negotiations and virtual currency wallets indicate “attacks with small ransoms, and therefore a relatively low return on investment”, he said.

A French cyberdefence official, who asked not to be named, said the fall of LockBit in no way represented the end of cybercrime.

“You can draw a parallel with counterterrorism. You cut off one head and others grow back.”

The balance of power also shifts fast.

Other groups are replacing LockBit, which analysts said was responsible in 2023 for 44 percent of ransomware attacks worldwide.

“Some groups achieve a dominant position and then fall into disuse because they quit on their own, are challenged or there’s a breakdown in trust that causes them to lose their partners,” said Hinderer.

“Conti was the leader, then LockBit, then RansomHub. Today, other groups are regaining leadership. Groups that were in the top five or top 10 are rising, while others are falling.”

In a strange twist, the LockBit data leak revealed that one of its affiliates had attacked a Russian town of 50,000 inhabitants.

LockBit immediately offered the town decryption software — an antidote to the poison.

But it did not work, the French official told AFP.

“It was reported to the FSB (security service), who quietly resolved the problem,” the official said.



– ‘Complicit’ –



One thing appears to be clear — the field is dominated by the Russian-speaking world.

Among the top 10 cybercrime service providers, “there are two Chinese groups”, said a senior executive working on cybercrime in the private sector.

“All the others are Russian-speaking, most of them still physically located in Russia or its satellites,” said the executive, who also requested anonymity.

It is harder to ascertain what role the Russian state might play — a question all the more pertinent since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“We can’t say that the groups are sponsored by the Russian state but the impunity they enjoy are enough to make it complicit,” argued the French official, pointing to a “porosity” between the groups and the security services.

The whereabouts and status of Khoroshev are also a mystery.

The bounty notice from the US State Department, which said Khoroshev was aged 32, gives his date of birth and passport number but says his height, weight and eye colour are unknown.

His wanted picture shows an intense man with cropped hair and bulging muscular forearms.

“As long as he doesn’t leave Russia, he won’t be arrested,” said the private sector expert. “(But) we’re not sure he’s alive.”

“The Russian state lets the groups do what they want. It’s very happy with this form of continuous harassment,” he alleged.

In the past, there was some cooperation between Washington and Moscow over cybercrime but all this changed with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

French expert Damien Bancal cites the case of Sodinokibi, a hacker group also known as REvil, which was dismantled in January 2022.

“The FBI helped the FSB arrest the group. During the arrests, they found gold bars and their mattresses were stuffed with cash,” he said.

But since the invasion of Ukraine, “no-one is cooperating with anyone any more”.

Asked if the US has questioned Moscow about Khoroshev after the bounty was placed on his head, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Unfortunately, I have no information.”

Telegram’s Durov repeats claim France interfered in Romania vote

By AFP
May 27, 2025


Durov was arrested in France in 2024 - Copyright AFP/File Thomas SAMSON

The co-founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, on Tuesday repeated his allegation that French intelligence pressured him to interfere in this month’s Romanian presidential election.

Durov’s renewed claim during the Oslo Freedom Forum contradicted a denial by the DGSE, the foreign intelligence service of France, where he faces charges related to criminal activity on the Telegram platform.

“I was indeed asked by the head of French intelligence, Nicolas Lerner”, to turn off conservative Romanian Telegram channels ahead of the election, Durov said in an appearance by video after French judicial authorities denied his request to travel to Norway.

“It’s very important to be very transparent about what kinds of request we receive,” added Durov, who did not provide fresh evidence for his claim.

The 40-year-old, who holds French and Russian passports, was detained in Paris in August 2024 and is under investigation over illegal content on his popular messaging service.

The Romanian election, re-run due to alleged Russian interference after a first-round vote put a far-right candidate ahead, ultimately saw pro-European centrist Nicusor Dan defeat nationalist George Simion.

Romania’s constitutional court on Thursday denied Simion’s challenge to the results, which he based in part on claims of French and Moldovan interference. The court called his allegations “completely false and unfounded”.

The DGSE last week said it has contacted Durov in the past “to firmly remind him of (Telegram’s) responsibilities… concerning prevention of terrorist and child pornography threats”.

But it “refuted vigorously” his allegations about attempted Romanian election interference.

Durov also said Tuesday that Telegram “received a demand from the French police to shut down a public channel on Telegram which was organised by far-left protesters and demonstrators”.

The channel “seemed completely legitimate, and we refused to comply, despite the obvious personal risks I’m taking”, he added.

Durov was allowed in March to travel to Dubai, where his company is based, but French judicial authorities have more recently stopped him travelling to the United States to meet investors or to Norway for the Freedom Forum, organised by the Human Rights Foundation, a non-profit organisation.

He called the investigation “frustratingly slow”, adding that Telegram was “held at higher standards than most other platforms” — with the likes of Facebook or Snapchat “protected by this big American government”.

Since his arrest, Durov had appeared to bow to Paris’s demands for stronger efforts to ensure illegal content — such as child abuse and drug trading — was not on Telegram.

Peru arrests extortion gang that used Nazi symbols to sow terror

By AFP
May 27, 2025

Peruvian police on Tuesday captured a gang of Venezuelan and Colombian extortionists accused of using Nazi symbols to intimidate their victims - Copyright AFP TOMAS CUESTA

Police in Peru have captured a group of extortionists that used Nazi insignia to intimidate their victims, authorities said Tuesday.

The five suspects from Colombia and Venezuela were arrested in raids on two homes, one in the capital Lima and another in the neighboring city of Huaral.

In addition to weapons and explosives, police discovered around 100 stickers depicting an eagle with a swastika, an emblem of the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler.

Investigators found an oil painting of late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar with a wad of dollars sticking out of his shirt pocket.

Police chief Juan Mundaca said the authorities were investigating whether the stickers were the same as those that appeared on the homes and cars of extortion victims.

Prosecutor Jose Silva said the gang had threatened business owners in the Huaral area, as well as a judge.

Peru is battling a steep surge in gang violence, characterized by a wave of killings linked to extortion rackets.

Criminal gangs such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, which operates across Latin America, are accused of holding entire communities to ransom and of gunning down people who refuse to pay protection money.

This is not the first time that criminal gangs in the Andean nation have been caught using Nazi symbols.

In May 2023, police seized 58 kilograms of cocaine bricks destined for Belgium which were wrapped in a Nazi flag and stamped with Hitler’s name.

  BOYCOTT CHIQUITA!  

‘State of emergency’ in Panama after strike leads to layoffs


By AFP
May 27, 2025


Vehicles drive through banana plantations belonging to a subsidiary of US banana Chiquita Brands in Bocas del Toro, Panama - Copyright AFP Mandel NGAN

The Panamanian government on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in one province after US banana giant Chiquita Brands laid off about 5,000 workers following a strike that had ground its production to a halt.

Workers went on strike a month ago in the province of Bocas del Toro, blocking roads and halting school instruction to protest a pension reform approved by Congress.

Construction workers have also been striking for the past month over the pension reforms.

The “state of emergency” declaration allows the government to speed past bureaucratic hurdles to address economic or social crises quickly. Bocas del Toro lives off tourism and banana production.

Chiquita, which employed more than 7,000 workers, laid off about 5,000 of them last week for what they called unjustified abandonment of work.

The company claims the strike has cost it $75 million in losses and caused irreversible damage to the production of bananas.

Right-wing Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino warned Friday that more jobs are on the line if the strikes continue.