CLIMATE CHANGE

Oceans Great Dying 2.0: Earth’s climate moderator is warming, faster

Oceans are heating up as they cross their natural capacity to sink carbon and atmospheric heat induced by GHGs emissions. It will further disrupts life above the oceans 

By Rohini Krishnamurthy

Published: Tuesday 28 June 2022

The oceans modulate the global climate and control the planetary temperature thus the weather events like rains, storms and cyclones, floods and droughts. Human lives are intimately tied to the oceans. 

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Read the first part of the series here

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About 50-80 per cent of the oxygen produced on Earth can be traced back to the sea.

The most important role the oceans play is that of a carbon sink: Four-fifths of the global carbon cycle is circulated through them.

As the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by human activities have been growing exponentially, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report published in 2013, the oceans have by far absorbed 93 per cent of the extra energy from the greenhouse effect.

This assessment also said the oceans have absorbed more than 90 per cent of the global warming created by humans since the 1970s.

To make sense of this, without this heat absorption the global average temperatures would have jumped by almost 56 degrees Celsius. So, the oceans have saved us from far greater catastrophic levels of warming due to our carbon-guzzling existence.

The oceans must have a carrying capacity to keep on doing this job of a carbon and heat-sink. Over the years, they have been heating up. Consequently, global sea surface temperature (SST) is roughly 1 degree Celsius higher than 140 years ago. Life in the oceans is intimately linked to the level of SST.

With rising warming, the temperature below the surface also goes up, tossing the life and time of species that have evolved according to the temperature zone.

Changes in ocean temperatures and currents will lead to alterations in climate patterns around the world.

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Read DTE’s special series on the Sixth Mass Extinction

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More carbon in the atmosphere means also more of the same in the oceans being a sink. After certain level, this will increase the levels of dissolved carbon. This will further change the chemistry of the seawater by making it more acidic, thus turning the foundation of the vibrant living world in the oceans toxic.

Acidic water means many species like coral and shellfish would not be able to build their shells or skeletons leading to a collapse of the population. As a result, the balance of predator-prey food cycle would be disturbed.

Deep oceans are warming up. Scientists look at ocean heat content as an indicator of climate change. Ocean heat content is the energy accumulated by the ocean, explains Rathore. Continuous GHGs emissions are preventing heat from going back into space.

Changes in the ocean heat content were mild before the 1980s. However, since then, the heat content has been rising and moving deeper steadily, said Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. He pointed out that:

If you look at that record, you find that the oceans were fairly stable until about the 1980s, after which the top 500 meters began to warm. Warming up to the 1,000 meters depth became evident after about 1988. It reached 1,000-1,500 meters in depth in the late 1990s. And warming at 2,000 meters depth is evident after about 2005. So, it takes 25 to 30 years for the warming to penetrate to about two kilometres below the surface. We see that the heat is gradually creeping down.

Ocean heat content has impacted all the six major oceans since 1998. But the most significant warming was in the southern oceans. About 90 per cent of the net global ocean heat gain occurred in the region during 2005-2011.

Heating-up harms

Some researchers argued that the imbalance was due to human activities. The northern hemisphere has more landmasses and hence a higher concentration of aerosols, which are known to prevent heat from getting sucked into the ocean. Natural variability like ENSO, Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation created those fluctuations as well.

Saurabh Rathore, a postdoctoral researcher at LOCEAN, Sorbonne University, Paris and his colleagues decided to get to the bottom of the issue to nail down the cause.

In 2016, the team collected the data from Argo floats and fed it into 11 computer models. Each model incorporated natural variability and human-induced climate change. But the natural variability varies across the 11-climate models. For example, one may have ENSO, and the other could have incorporated Pacific Decadal Oscillation or Indian Ocean Dipole. 

They took an average of all the simulations. The natural variability is random, and they cancel each other out, leaving behind human-induced climate change on the map. The team then compared this map with the recorded observations.

“Our analysis indicated that human-induced climate change and natural variability were causing heat content to accumulate in the Southern Ocean,” Rathore said. But there is also a chance that the heat could shift to the northern hemisphere in the next decade.

The team hopes to track changes in the next 10 years, too. So far, scientists have been able to track the heat penetrating the 2000 meters depth. “Below that, we cannot say what is happening. We are still trying to acquire data to understand it fully,” he asserted.

The climate is changing so much above the oceans that it impacts their “memory”. Daisy Hui Shi, a scientist at the US-based Farallon Institute, noticed something odd while examining how marine heatwaves — unusually high sea surface temperatures — vary in the California Current region, a cold water Pacific Ocean current that moves southward along the western coast of North America.

It looked like the ocean was losing its memory. She describes ocean memory as the persistence of the sea surface temperature (SST) from one day, month, or year to the next.

“At first, we found the winter ocean memory in this region was declining throughout the 21st century in response to warming. We were very intrigued and did a further investigation into global oceans and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon,” she told DTE.

She performed simulations on how the ocean memory could change under three possible future projections: Low, medium and high. The computer simulates future variations in SST by dividing the oceans into girds. The output, which looks like a global map, was published in Science Advances in 2022.

The oceans are likely to lose almost 100 per cent of their memory in all three future pathways, she predicts. The SST fluctuates because of changes in the mixed layer depth, the top 50-100 metres of the oceans. But as warming continues, this layer could become shallower. And this means winds, for example, can change the SST more easily, leading to random fluctuations of the SST and the eventual decline in memory.

The warming of the ocean is relentless, and it has consequences, the scientist pointed out: Tropical storms and cyclones have become active and stronger and bigger, wreaking havoc by causing damage to life and property.

Watch this space for the next part of this series on the impacts of global warming on the oceans, and how climate is changing in the largest ecosystem of the planet. You can read the the first part here.

UN Ocean Conference Opens With Call For Urgent Action To Tackle Ocean Emergency

Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Press Release: UN Department of Global Communications

Spotlight on innovative and science-driven solutions for reversing ocean’s decline

Lisbon, Portugal, 27 June – With climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution exacting a devastating toll on the world’s ocean — critical to food security, economic growth and the environment — the 2022 UN Ocean Conferenceopened in Lisbon, Portugal today with a call for a new chapter of ocean action driven by science, technology and innovation.

“Sadly, we have taken the ocean for granted, and today we face what I would call an “Ocean Emergency,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told delegates at the opening of the Conference. “We must turn the tide. A healthy and productive ocean is vital to our shared future.”

The theme of the Conference, “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of Goal 14: stocktaking, partnerships and solutions,” in line with the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, stresses the critical need for scientific knowledge and marine technology to build ocean resilience.

Human activities are placing the health of the ocean in peril. According to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Global Climate in 2021 report, sea level rise, ocean heat, ocean acidification and greenhouse gas concentrations set new records in 2021. Additionally, marine pollution is increasing at an alarming rate, and if current trends continue, more than half of the world’s marine species may be all but extinct by 2100. 

The Secretary-General also stated there is good news with a legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction; a new treaty that is being negotiated to address the global plastics crisis that is choking our oceans; and a week ago multilateral action on display with a World Trade Organization agreement on ending harmful fishery subsidies. But he also noted much more needs to be done.

“Oceans are central in geopolitical balance of power,” said President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in opening remarks. “Health care, economic resources, energy, mobility, migrations, scientific and technological development, climate change, all of this is present either in the context or in the outcome of a pandemic, of war and of crisis.” 

“We must recover too much time [that] we have lost and give hope a chance, once again, before it is too late.”

The ocean – a key driver for sustainable development
In line with Sustainable Development Goal 14, human health, strong economic growth and a stable climate depend on a healthy ocean. The ocean is a vital buffer against climate change, absorbing about 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions. More than 3.5 billion people depend on the ocean for their food security, while approximately 120 million people work directly in fisheries and aquaculture-related activities. The majority of these workers live in developing countries, specifically Small-Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries.

“The United Nations proclamation of a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) supports efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health and gather ocean stakeholders worldwide behind a common framework that will ensure ocean science can fully support countries in creating improved conditions for the sustainable development of the Ocean,” said President of the Republic of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta in his introductory statement.

About the conference
More than 20 Heads of State and Government together with thousands of young people, business leaders, scientists and civil society representatives, will present fresh, bold and innovative solutions to ignite transformational change to effectively address the challenges the ocean is facing. 

In addition to the plenary sessions, there will be eight Interactive Dialogues, which will deep dive into salient areas such as addressing marine pollution, minimizing and addressing ocean acidification, deoxygenation and ocean warming and promoting and strengthening sustainable ocean-based economies, in particular for Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries. 

There will also be four Special Events and more than 250 side events. These Special events will focus on youth-led innovation, the sustainable blue economy, fresh- and saltwater interlinkages and ocean action at the local and regional level.

Political Declaration – Our ocean, our future, our responsibility
Amongst the outputs of the conference, countries will agree on an action plan that calls for a collective global response to addressing the ocean’s degradation. The final draft of the Political Declaration, to be adopted at the closing plenary, sets out specific science-based and innovative actions, taking into account the capacity challenges of developing countries, in particular Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries. 

SDG Media Zone 
Hosted by the United Nations and in collaboration with the PVBLIC Foundation and media partners, the SDG Media Zone aims to take the conversation on advancing the Sustainable Development Goals out of the policy sphere and into the public discourse.

Through a live format of interviews and panel discussions, the SDG Media Zone at the Conference will bring together UN principals, influencers and industry leaders to talk about innovative solutions and initiatives that address the global challenges that the ocean is now facing.

Key UN Ocean Conference links:

• Website: https://www.un.org/en/conferences/ocean2022
• Programme: https://www.un.org/en/conferences/ocean2022/programme
• Follow live (Official Programme): UN WebTV
• Media corner: https://www.un.org/en/conferences/ocean2022/media
• SaveOurOcean Actions: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/5-actions-you-can-take-to-saveourocean/
• Registry for Voluntary Commitments: https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/action-networks/ocean-commitments

© Scoop Media

UK’s first ‘industrial scale’ carbon capture plant opens in Cheshire

BY JAMIE DURRANI

28 JUNE 2022

The combined heat and power plant in Northwick where the carbon capture

 project has been installed
Source: © Tata Chemicals Europe

The 48m high stripper and absorber column where the carbon dioxide is 

captured in an amine sorbent and then removed
Source: © Tata Chemicals Europe

The storage site for the ultra pure liquid carbon dioxide before it is shipped 

for use in food and pharmaceutical applications
Source: © Tata Chemicals Europe

A carbon capture plant that has opened in Northwich is the largest such project in the UK. The £20 million facility will convert 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into food and pharmaceutical grade sodium bicarbonate each year.

Carbon capture technology that removes carbon dioxide from the waste streams of industrial sites is a key part of the UK’s net zero strategy. The government hopes to capture up to 30 million tonnes of CO2 each year by the early 2030s, and at least 50 million tonnes by the middle of the next decade.

But there are relatively few large-scale carbon capture facilities in operation around the world, and work is ongoing at pilot facilities to try and bring down the technology’s significant energy demands.

Now, Tata Chemicals Europe has opened the UK’s largest carbon capture facility at its chemical plant in the northwest of England. The unit will capture more than 10% of the carbon dioxide produced at the site’s combined heat and power plant (CHP).

Exhaust gases will be cooled and purified in a flue gas scrubber, before being transferred to an absorber column. There, carbon dioxide will be captured by an amine solvent. The liquid is then moved to a stripper column where it is heated with steam from the CHP. This releases the carbon dioxide as a gas, while the amine solution can be pumped back for re-use in the absorber. After a further purification step, the carbon dioxide is compressed into a liquid with a purity of more than 99.99% – suitable for food and pharmaceutical applications.

‘Our plant is really important in demonstrating the viability of the technology required to remove carbon dioxide from power plant emissions, helping to de-risk potentially larger investments in the future,’ said Tata’s managing director Martin Ashcroft. ‘Today marks a key development in our low carbon transition helping to develop more sustainable manufacturing techniques that can be applied at a global level.’

Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng noted that the ‘cutting-edge plant’, which was backed by £4.2 million in government funding, demonstrates ‘how carbon capture is attracting new private capital into the UK and is boosting new innovation in green technologies’.

Speaking to New Scientist, the University of Edinburgh’s Stuart Haszeldine, an expert in carbon capture, welcomed the project but also cautioned that as the carbon dioxide will not be stored at the Northwich site it will eventually be released into the atmosphere. ‘This is an emissions decrease, not a permanent and durable removal of the fossil carbon released from burning the methane gas,’ he said.

Jamie Durrani

Science correspondent, Chemistry World

Russia's Killnet group claims responsibility for cyberattack on Lithuanian sites

Dev Kundaliya

28 June 2022

Image: 

Russia's Killnet group has claimed responsibility for cyberattack on Lithuanian sites

'We have demolished 1652 web resources,' hackers say

Russian hacker group Killnet says it launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Lithuania on Monday in response to the country's decision to block the transit of goods subject to European Union sanctions to Russia's Kaliningrad enclave.

A Killnet group spokeswoman told Reuters that the attack will continue until Lithuania lifts the blockade.

"We have demolished 1652 web resources. And that's just so far."

Several state and private websites in Lithuania were affected by the Killnet cyberattack.

Parts of the Secure National Data Transfer Network, one of the critical components of Lithuania's strategy to ensure national security in cyberspace, were affected as a result of the flood of malicious traffic, according to Lithuania's government.

State Tax Inspectorate (STI) and B1.lt, one of Lithuania's biggest accounting service providers, were among the websites that were taken down by Killnet.

The tax authority in Lithuania said that it halted all activities due to an exceptionally high number of attempts to connect to its computers, although all data remained secure.

State institutions, transportation agencies, and media websites are the top targets, according to deputy defence minister Margiris Abukevicius.

He added that Lithuania had begun to see signs of a cyberattack as early as June 21.

Kaliningrad is situated between EU and NATO members Poland and Lithuania and gets supplies from Russia through rail and gas pipelines via Lithuania.

In response to the halted shipments to Kaliningrad, a Russian Security Council spokesperson on June 22 threatened retaliation and said that this would have a very detrimental effect on the inhabitants of Lithuania.

"It is very likely that attacks of similar or greater intensity will continue in the coming days, especially in the transportation, energy and financial sectors," Lithuania's National Cyber Security Centre said.

Russia's foreign ministry has demanded that Lithuania lifts its "openly hostile" restrictions on rail transit to Kaliningrad.

Coal, metals, building supplies and cutting-edge technology are among the products that have been sanctioned by the EU.

"If in the near future cargo transit between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of the territory of the Russian Federation through Lithuania is not restored in full, then Russia reserves the right to take actions to protect its national interests," the Russian foreign ministry said last week.

"The situation is more than serious and it requires a very deep analysis before formulating any measures and decisions," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, justified the action and said that his nation was simply implementing sanctions imposed by the EU, of which it is a member.

He said that the actions had been taken in consultation with the European Commission and in accordance with its guidelines.

Killnet first appeared at the start of Russia's invasion and has subsequently posted claims of DDoS assaults on the websites of Lithuania and other nations. According to security company Flashpoint, targets have included police agencies, airports and governments.

Last month, the Italian police's cybersecurity department blocked several attacks by Killnet during the voting and the performances of Eurovision Song Contest 2022's semifinals (10th and 12th May) and final (14th May).

Killnet threatened to destroy the online voting system for Eurovision by sending 10 billion requests, as well as to sabotage the process by adding false votes for some countries.

On the 11th May, just days before the event's final, Killnet claimed responsibility for an attack on the websites of many Italian institutions, including the Senate and the National Health Institute.

Warned of labor shortages, Amazon shows off latest warehouse robots

by Justinas Vainilavičius

22 June 2022

Image by Shutterstock

Amazon shows off its latest warehouse automation as a leaked report suggests the company faces workforce shortages.

Amazon says that its fully autonomous mobile robot, called Proteus, is equipped to navigate around human employees safely – a historically difficult task. The company says that Proteus, unlike its predecessors, works and moves around employees without a need to be confined to restricted areas.

A combination of “advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology” allows the robot to move freely around the facilities and carry out assigned tasks. In a video presentation, Proteus robots are seen carrying things around – sometimes at speed – and stopping when a human steps into a green beam in front of them.

Alongside Proteus, Amazon announced other warehouse innovations, including a Cardinal robotic arm that can identify, lift, and sort packages weighing up to 50 pounds and a computerized identification system based on machine learning technology that could simplify the parcel scanning process.
Labor pressures

The latest additions to warehouse automation are meant to let human employees “focus on more rewarding work” by releasing them from some manual tasks. However, high workforce turnover has led to warnings Amazon could soon face acute labor shortages if it does not change its employment practices.

A leaked internal document, first reported by Recode, says that Amazon “will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024” if it continues “business as usual”. California is particularly vulnerable, with its Inland Empire area east of Los Angeles mentioned as facing the most imminent risk of running out of the workforce. The region serves a pool of 20m potential customers and is a major shipping hub.

Phoenix metro area in Arizona, Memphis in Tennessee, and Wilmington in Delaware were also forecasted to face similar pressures. According to the Recode report, this has already led to a reversal of some workforce policies in Pheonix warehouses.
Mindset turnaround?

Staff attrition is notoriously high in Amazon. The leaked memo said it was 123% in 2019 before jumping to 159% in 2020. The US national average in transportation, warehousing, and utilities was 46% and 59%, respectively. The company still employs 1m people in the US, making it America’s second-largest private employer.

Initially, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has reportedly welcomed high workforce churn, driven by a grueling work environment and high injury rates. However, in his latest letter to shareholders, he promised Amazon would strive to become “Earth’s best employer” and “do a better job” for its employees, including solutions that improve workplace safety.

While the latest automation efforts point that it is taking steps in that direction, Amazon remains resistant to grassroots efforts to better workplace conditions – and fiercely opposes its workers’ attempts to unionize. Only one Amazon labor union has so far been formed in the US – in the company's Staten Island warehouse in New York. It was formed after Amazon was defeated in a court challenge in April.

 

BANKS REMAIN UNIQUELY VULNERABLE TO SOPHISTICATED CYBER-ATTACKS

June 28, 2022

By Alexander Jones, International Banker

 

The global banking industry continues to be the target of the lion’s share of cyber-attacks, meaning that the stability of banks and the financial system as a whole remains under grave threat for the foreseeable future. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has only escalated this threat as the world has increasingly shifted towards the digital realm for its financial needs, while the move towards remote living and working has made the need to remain vigilant against attacks from malicious actors more pressing, especially given the expanded security perimeters and greater number of access points that are now vulnerable to attack.

Globally, “finance and insurance” was the most-attacked industry during the 2015-2020 period, according to IBM’s “X-Force Threat Intelligence Index Report” for 2022. Of those attacks, 70 percent were on banks, 16 percent on insurance organizations and 14 percent on other financial organizations. However, the report also noted that 2021 marked the first time during the five years of producing the report that “finance and insurance” was not the most attacked industry, having been marginally overtaken by manufacturing. “The financial industry’s drop from the first place suggests that the high security standards in place at most financial organizations are yielding concrete results and that the financial services industry is doing security right,” the report noted. “In addition, hybrid cloud environments are dominant at financial services organizations, allowing for better visibility into and management of sensitive data.”

Nonetheless, cyber-risk remains as palpable a threat to banking stability as ever. “Today, the assessment that a major cyberattack poses a threat to financial stability is axiomatic—not a question of if, but when,” the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledged in March 2021. “Yet the world’s governments and companies continue to struggle to contain the threat because it remains unclear who is responsible for protecting the system. Increasingly concerned, key voices are sounding the alarm.”

Ransomware is arguably the most significant—and most frequent—form of cyber-attack, with banks frequently targeted by an expanding array of ransomware attacks. A February study by the cloud-computing firm VMware focusing on the evolving cybersecurity threats facing financial institutions surveyed 130 chief information security officers and security leaders. It found that a massive 74 percent of respondents had experienced one or more ransomware attacks, while 63 percent of those victims ultimately had to pay the ransom. VMware also found that the Conti ransomware group was the most prevalent in these attack campaigns.

US insurance company CNA Financial Corporation was subject to such an attack when its employees initiated a fraudulent browser update, resulting in CNA having to pay a hefty $40 million in ransom. “Much of the general public understands the basic profile of a ransomware attack, following attacks such as the one on Colonial Pipeline that caused a shortage of gas on the US East Coast in May 2021,” the report explained. “Attackers can choose among a well-funded ecosystem of readymade and available ransomware kits, use the kit to compromise a network, encrypt sensitive files within the network, and present a ransom note to the victim that asks for cryptocurrency in exchange for a decryption key that will unlock access to the files.”

And according to a November 2021 private industry notification from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), ransomware actors “are very likely using significant financial events, such as mergers and acquisitions, to target and leverage victim companies for ransomware infections.” The FBI also noted that before an attack, the malicious actor would have researched publicly available information regarding its chosen target, such as stock valuation, as well as material non-public information. “If victims do not pay a ransom quickly, ransomware actors will threaten to disclose this information publicly, causing potential investor backlash,” the FBI added.

Phishing scams also remain a deeply concerning threat as an attack vector for compromising financial institutions, with the “X-Force Threat Intelligence Index Report” for 2022 observing that the practice—which typically involves tricking targets into revealing sensitive information such as passwords—was the most common infection vector for financial services, leading to 46 percent of attacks against the sector in 2021. And according to PwC’s (PricewaterhouseCooper’s) “Cyber Threat Report” for 2021, the North Korea-based threat clusters Black Alicanto (also known as Dangerous Password, Leery Turtle, CryptoMimic, CryptoCore, Operation SnatchCrypto) and Black Dev 2 (Operation Gold Hunting) have been among the most frequent sources of phishing attacks against financial-services entities. These clusters are cited for “often sending spear-phishing emails to targets as well as using lure documents related to cryptocurrency, or pretending to be legitimate joint venture pitches”.

Phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) represents a particularly popular—and relatively new—method of attack on the financial-services industry, whereby operators employ the popular software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to provide an attacker with access to the resources required to execute a successful phishing attack. According to San Francisco-based cybersecurity firm Picus Security, common phishing attacks include spoofed sign-in-page development, website hosting, phishing mail-template creation, distribution of phishing emails, credential parsing and overall orchestration. “PhaaS is a game-changer in cybercrime because it eliminates several aforementioned operations, like spoofed sign-in page development and hosting. Attackers are no longer required to hack websites to host their malicious landing pages,” Picus explained in an article published on its website in March. “As a result, cybercrime becomes more accessible when a ready-made Phishing-as-a-Service solution or phishing kits are used. Now, even the most novice cybercriminal may run their own phishing campaign. For example, researchers detected a 300 percent rise in phishing attacks targeting Chase Bank between May and August 2021.”

Picus also cited web-application attacks as significant sources of cyber-attacks on financial institutions, highlighting Akamai’s “State of the Internet/Security” report for 2021, which counted a staggering 6.3 billion web attacks in 2020, of which 12 percent targeted the financial-services industry. The most common form of web attacks targeting financial services, moreover, were Local File Inclusion (LFI) (52 percent), whereby attackers nefariously induce a web application to expose sensitive files on a web server; SQL Injection (33 percent), in which attackers intercept queries that an application makes to its database; and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (9 percent), wherein attackers inject malicious scripts into trusted websites.

And an August 2021 study by cybersecurity firm Imperva Research Labs found that web-application attacks on the financial-services sector increased 38 percent between January and May of that year.

So, how can financial institutions reverse these worrying trends? “Ensure you can see the data first, then you can protect it, and all paths to it. This means protecting the organization’s websites, mobile applications, and APIs from automated attacks without affecting the flow of business-critical traffic,” Imperva advised. “It also means providing your business applications with full-function defence-in-depth with web application firewalls (WAFs), bot management, and runtime and API protection. Most importantly, it means having the capacity to discover and tag sensitive personal data as well as enrich and correlate the data to provide accurate behavioural analysis for threat prevention and mitigation.”

For banks, it is also worth consulting the recent work done by global regulators to combat cybercrime. In April 2020, for example, the Swiss-based Financial Stability Board (FSB), which globally coordinates the work of national financial authorities and international standard-setting bodies to develop effective regulatory, supervisory and other financial-sector policies, warned that “a major cyber incident, if not properly contained, could seriously disrupt financial systems, including critical financial infrastructure, leading to broader financial stability implications”.

As such, promoting resilience to cyber-threats has been one of the FSB’s highest priorities in fostering financial stability in recent years. In its October 2020 report, “Effective Practices for Cyber Incident Response and Recovery,” the FSB outlined its development in 2018 of a Cyber Lexicon to support the work of the FSB, standard-setting bodies (SSBs), authorities and private-sector participants to address financial-sector cyber-resilience, as well as a toolkit to provide financial institutions with a set of effective practices to respond to and recover from cyber-incidents to limit any related financial-stability risks.

“The toolkit, structured across seven components, comprises 49 effective practices that organisations have adopted while taking into account jurisdictions’ legislative, judicial and regulatory frameworks, the size of the organisation, the organisation’s role in the financial ecosystem and the extent to which stakeholders are affected by a cyber incident,” the report explained. “The toolkit is composed as a resource and reference guide for effective practices using common cybertaxonomies in a manner aligned to industry standards accessible to senior management, board of directors or other governance or compliance, risk, and legal professionals that interface with cybersecurity technical experts within the organisation, the SSBs or authorities.”

Greater coordination amongst global regulators will also help strengthen the industry’s resilience against large systemic cyber-attacks, with Fitch Ratings noting that such actions represent a “credit positive”. “The focus on systemic risk is to build better industry preparedness and cyber resiliency, to mitigate single points of failure and to ultimately lessen any negative effects of cyber-attacks. Growing geopolitical tensions are an added motivating factor for regulators, as a global cyber-attack on the financial system could have cascading effects,” Fitch recently observed. “Moreover, banking systems have become increasingly interconnected, and cyber risk is evolving into broader aggregations and concentrations within the financial supply chain. An incident at a single critical third or fourth-party vendor could lead to significant financial losses across the financial system.”

 

Inflation Is Not The Only Motivation Of Striking Workers

28th June 2022 / United Kingdom

https://truepublica.org.uk/

The British government set out planned changes to law last Thursday that would make it easier for businesses to use temporary staff to minimise the impact of strike action. This action alone has angered a very large swathe of the working population that has now reached even high-paid workers such as doctors.

Britain’s rail network was brought close to a standstill last week as 40,000 workers walked out in a dispute over pay and trade unions have warned the country faces a summer of disruption as workers struggling with the mounting cost of living threaten industrial action.

Now, more Unions have warned of more local government strikes.

GMB general secretary Gary Smith said industrial action would follow unless care workers were given a pay rise, adding: ‘If employers won’t work with us, if councils won’t address equal pay, then we have to be prepared to take action.’

Councils across London already face uncollected bins as workers serving some boroughs are voting on whether to strike, with more than 100 refuse staff in Croydon due to walk out for three weeks ‘as a last resort’ in a dispute over ‘poverty pay’.

Bexley LBC’s Unite members may also strike, as well as GMB members collecting waste in Wandsworth while Coventry HGV drivers have been striking for four months.

Doctors have just announced they want a 30 per cent pay increase over five years to catch up with more than a decade of frozen pay.

Barristers are on strike – and here’s why. A qualified lawyer makes his case in one sentence –  “I qualified as a lawyer about 20 years ago – as a trainee solicitor my salary was £12,000. Today the median income of a barrister doing criminal legal aid work is £12,200 p.a for the first two years.”

Local councils are taking a hit from inflation with the knock-on effect of looking to cut services as costs spiral. Taken together, inflation, energy costs and projected increases to the National Living Wage will add £2.4 billion in extra cost pressures onto council budgets this year alone, rising to £3.6 billion in 2024/25.

The absolute effects of strikes as a result of an inflation spike is one thing – but anger has erupted after years of excuses for pay restraint. We are all led to believe, that it was the disastrous effects of the bank-led financial crisis which led to austerity. Then everyone was told there was no money left – hence the suppressed wage spiral. The reality is that since the advent of unfettered economic deregulation back in the 1980s, corporate profits have soared at the cost of basic wages. An unexpected inflationary spike is simply the trigger to driving fury and impatience with what no appears to be a government taking its stance of ‘them and us’ by changing laws to help subdue strikers.

Will Boris Johnson Now Try Convince Us To Go To War?

28th June 2022 / United Kingdom

TruePublica - Critical  | Independent  | News

By TruePublica Editor: 

Why is Boris Johnson the one leader standing head and shoulders above all others when it comes to Ukraine? In his desperate struggle to stay in power at home, will he now try to convince us to go to war with Russia?

In May this year, the veteran philanthropist and former financier George Soros warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to be the “beginning of the third world war” that could spell the end of civilisation. Like him or not, Soros quite rightly pointed out that autocratic regimes were in the ascendant and the global economy was heading for a depression, especially in the West.

“The invasion of Ukraine didn’t come out of the blue. The world has been increasingly engaged in a struggle between two systems of governance that are diametrically opposed to each other: open society and closed society. The invasion may have been the beginning of the third world war and our civilisation may not survive it,” he said.

Last month, a prominent Russian state television presenter has claimed World War III had already begun due to western arms support for Ukraine. The Independent reported that Rossiya 1 presenter Olga Skabeyeva said Russia’s so-called special military operation in Ukraine was over and “a real war has started – World War III”.

This week, speaking on Russian state TV, Andrey Gurulyov, an MP who sits on Moscow’s defence committee said – ‘London will be the first strategic Nato target to be hit by Russian missiles should a third world war erupt.’ 

Yesterday, NATO’s secretary-general, announced that the 30-country alliance’s most significant transformation for a generation – putting 300,000 troops at high readiness in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was top of their agenda. This amounts to “the biggest overhaul of our collective defence and deterrence since the cold war,” Stoltenberg said.

Today, Reuters reports that – “Any encroachment on the Crimea peninsula by a NATO member-state could amount to a declaration of war on Russia which could lead to “World War Three,” Russia’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev, was quoted as saying.

As the weeks go by, the threat of global security falling into a state of battle-readiness increases. It’s not just sabre-rattling. Russia appears to be goading the West into a wider conflict. Putin is desperate – and desperate people do desperate things.

Boris Johnson is also a desperate man. He is losing his power base by the day whilst delusions of staying in power until the 2030s rattle around in his head.

The Times reports today that – privately during the summit in Germany Johnson described the strikes (on a shopping centre) as “stupid”, believing that President Putin’s attempt to threaten the West with a series of attacks had backfired. But the prime minister braced Britain for a long and costly struggle, saying that “the price of freedom is worth paying” as he compared the fight against Russian aggression to that against the Nazis.

Is Johnson so delusional that he thinks that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is an opportunity to prove his Churchillian credentials as a war-time leader? To him, all else seems to be of no significance. Back home, there is a cost-of-living crisis, a healthcare crisis, a constitutional crisis and an economic crisis – along with the now evidence-based failure of Brexit. There are strikes on the ground and more being threatened every day. A summer and winter of discontent is assured. The energy companies now believe blackouts are coming this winter. His own party are colluding to oust him due to his incompetence. For a prime minister, nothing could be worse. It’s a desperate moment.

And, so Johnson is now goading Putin by openly mocking him. The response has been simple – ‘we certainly won’t start from Warsaw, Paris or Berlin. The first to be hit will be London. It’s crystal clear that the threat to the world comes from the Anglo-Saxons’ – a Russian defence minister stated.

These types of threats have now been responded to already as the new head of the army says he believes British soldiers must be ready to ‘fight and win’, by taking on Russia – likening the situation in Europe to the run up to the Second World War.

In a speech today, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the Chief of the General Staff will say the armed forces must be placed on a war-footing to ensure they can ‘act rapidly’ if the conflict on NATO’s eastern frontier spreads. He previously told men and women only a week ago that under his command that they must be prepared ‘to fight in Europe once again’.

Today, Johnson is expected to announce extra billions for more equipment to fight Russia in Ukraine as he flies to the Nato summit in Madrid, which starts today.

The question has to be asked – is Boris Johnson the Prime Minister that Britain needs at such a crucial moment that could determine the future of everyone and everything. Johnson, unlike any other PM is commonly described as someone unfit for office, is a danger to national security, is incompetent and is creating a moral vacuum. There is much speculation that Johnson is a big drinker with some asking questions about drug-taking. If anything, Johnson, who is quite clearly unstable politically may well be unfit mentally.

Johnson needs to be removed from office because this is not about Brexit or strikes or inflation.

Netherlands tornado: One killed and ten injured in extreme weather incident in Zierikzee


By Euronews with AFP • Updated: 28/06/2022 -


The location of the tornado in the Netherlands - Copyright Euronews




At least one person has been killed and ten others injured after a rare tornado hit the town of Zierikzee in the Netherlands on Monday afternoon.

The Zeeland Safety Region, which is coordinating rescue efforts, said there was a "huge deployment of emergency services" in response to the extreme weather incident which also saw a ship run into trouble off the coast, caught in high winds.

Dutch media reports that the tornado ripped the roofs from a number of homes and caused other property damage.

The Weeronline meteorological service described the event as a "weak tornado," one of only two or three which form in the Netherlands each year.

"Unfortunately, the tornado has left one person dead and early indications are that about 10 others have been injured," Zeeland provincial authorities said in a statement, adding that "emergency services are still assessing the impact" of the rare phenomenon.

The Zierikzee housing association said that around 20 rented houses have been damaged and the municipality will provide shelter for affected residents.

One of the worst tornados to hit the Netherlands happened back in June 1967 when seven people were killed and dozens injured

In 1992, another tornado hit a campsite in Ameland, killing one person and injuring five.

 

F1 Tornado Hits Zierikzee, Netherlands - Jun. 27, 2022 windhoos in Zierikzee

COMPILATION VIDEO 14 MINUTES

Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in West Bank — Palestinian sources

Palestinian demonstrators confront Israeli forces while protesting attempts by Israeli settlers from the settlement of Eli to reportedly take control of a water spring in the village of Qaryut, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on Friday 

(AFP photo)

By AFP - Jun 25,2022 - 

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories  — A Palestinian teenager died from his wounds hours after being shot by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian sources said on Saturday.

Mohammad Hamad, 16, was shot and wounded on Friday evening near the town of Silwad, close to Ramallah in the northern West Bank, and died hours later, a Silwad councillor told AFP.

The teenager was near a road leading to the neighbouring settlement of Ofra when he was shot by Israeli soldiers, the councillor said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said dozens of Palestinians had gathered near Silwad and that "a number of suspects hurled rocks" at passing cars, "endangering civilians".

"Soldiers at the scene operated to stop the suspects in accordance with standard operating procedures, using live fire as a last resort," she told AFP.

A Palestinian was hit, she added, without giving further details.

The death comes amid a spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Nineteen people, mostly Israeli civilians — including 18 inside Israel and a Jewish settler — have been killed in attacks by Palestinians and Arabs Israelis since late March.

Israeli forces have responded with raids inside Israel and in the West Bank in which three Arab Israeli attackers and at least 46 Palestinians have been killed.

Among those killed were suspected militants but also non-combatants, including an Al Jazeera journalist who was covering a raid in Jenin.

Exxon, Imperial to sell Canada shale assets

to Whitecap for $1.5 billion

Tue, June 28, 2022

Signage is seen at an Exxon gas station in Brooklyn, New York City

(Reuters) -U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp and Imperial Oil Ltd said on Tuesday they will sell their Montney and Duvernay shale oil and gas assets in Canada to Whitecap Resources Inc for C$1.9 billion ($1.48 billion).

Exxon and Imperial, which jointly own the assets, began marketing them at the start of this year, hoping to capitalize on a rebound in oil and gas prices.

The assets were valued at up to $1 billion in January by industry insiders.

A strong run-up in commodity prices since then, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine stoking global supply concerns, has pushed up the value of oil and gas properties across North America.

U.S. crude oil futures settled at $111.76 a barrel on Tuesday, up about 49% so far this year.

Imperial's share in the sale will be around C$940 million, the companies said on Tuesday.

The assets being sold include 567,000 net acres in the Montney shale play, 72,000 net acres in the Duvernay basin and additional acreage in other areas of Alberta.

Net production from the assets is about 140 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and about 9,000 barrels of crude, condensate and natural gas liquids per day, according to the companies.

The shale assets were related to a multi-billion dollar impairment charge that Imperial and Exxon took in late 2020. The companies also own petrochemical plants and Exxon operates offshore production in Eastern Canada.

The asset sale is part of Exxon's plans to divest smaller oil and gas operations as it looks to pay down debt and reward shareholders. For Imperial, it is part of its "strategy to focus upstream resources on key oil sands assets", the company said.

The sale is expected to close before the end of the third quarter.