Monthly Archives: July 2023

Russia Looks to Economic Redistribution to Shore Up the Regime – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Posted: July 17, 2023 at 2:22 pm

In Russia, last years exodus of Western companies and Russian entrepreneurs is creating opportunities to entrench the regime, as a wartime redistribution of assets belonging to those who left the country promises to enrich what remains of the middle class and bind it to the state.

In any discussion over the future of Russias economy, the issues raised are always the same: Western sanctions, growing war spending, and the redirection of trade flows to Asia. Left unaddressed, however, are two additional trends: increasing nationalization and a new wave of privatization. Seemingly mutually exclusive, these developments could prove entirely compatibleand may well transform Russias social structure and further entrench the countrys political system.

A great many assets have changed hands since Russias invasion of Ukraine. Many were left behind by Western companies that pulled out of the country, chief among them retailers and food and drink chains (like McDonalds, IKEA, and Starbucks), automakers (such as Ford and Mercedes), and retail banks (including Home Credit and Socit Gnrale).

Exiting Russia has become more difficult with time. In August 2022, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree banning foreign investors from unfriendly countries (as determined by the Russian government) from selling or transferring their stakes in strategic companies operating in Russias financial and energy sectors, from which only he may grant exemptions. Later, in December, the government introduced a rule forcing foreign companies leaving Russia to dispose of their assets at a discount of no less than 50 percent of market value.

In March 2023, those requirements were expanded to include a compensation payment to the state, while in April, Putin authorized the expropriation of foreign-owned assets in response to the seizure and freezing of Russian assets abroad. The first firms to fall victim to the latter measure were the local subsidiaries of Finlands Fortum and Germanys Uniper, both energy companies, which may not have been formally nationalized but are unlikely to ever be reclaimed by their former parents.

The holdings of foreign companies aside, state assets have remained attractive. The former Accounts Chamber head Alexei Kudrin, when making the case for large-scale privatization, pointed out that the state sector generated more than half of Russias GDP in 2019. In the oil and gas sector, nearly 75 percent of revenues came from state companies.

Still another source of assets for redistribution have been those Russian entrepreneurs who liquidated their assetsincluding parts of the internet services giant Yandex, the telecom company Vimpelcom, and online bank Tinkoffand moved abroad, voluntarily or not.

As a result, there is an unprecedented turnover of heavily discounted assets in Russia today, from those belonging to the state to those relinquished or otherwise lost by foreign companies and Russian businesspeople. Now the authorities must decide what to do with them all.

One of the options is privatization, a strategy close to the heart of state bank VTB CEO Andrei Kostin, whose bank acquired the rival Otkritie group last December in one of the largest deals in Russian banking historywithout an auction or much concern for antitrust restrictions.

Kostins privatization drive is wide-ranging, targeting everything from Russian Railways to the Transneft oil pipeline company to the Rostec defense conglomerate and even cognac makers. Thanks to its status as Russias second biggest bank, not even record losses in 2022 will prevent VTB from taking part in the carving up of assets at bargain prices.

Kostin is joined in backing privatization by the governments financial and economic bloc, led by central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, and Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov. Their preference, however, is for limited rather than mass privatization.

Kostins argument in favor of privatizationthat it must be introduced to generate interest among investors and stem the outflow of capitalis telling. According to the central bank, the volume of transfers to foreign banks tripled in 2022, suggesting that most people who wished to get their money out of Russia did so then.

At the same time, nearly 30 percent of the total amount deposited in Russian banks came from those with more than 10 million rubles in savings. This group of people, representing just 0.1 percent of depositors (probably about 20,000 people), evidently cannot or do not wish to move their money abroad.

The same can be said of several other tens of thousands of Russians working in government, particularly at security and supervisory agencies. Their wealth can no longer be transferred abroad, and they largely lack the knowledge and experience to invest in Asia, making their funds a dead weight gathering dust in anticipation of better times and a new round of redistribution.

What can the authorities do? The answer is clear: acquire the abandoned assets at the maximum discount, then redistribute them in such a way as befits their industry. Financial firms, natural resources, and other energy companies will be absorbed by state banks and companies in a kind of quasi-nationalization or pseudo-privatization that Russia has perfected over time.

Nonstrategic assets, such as in retail, will be redistributed among the nouveau riche and the upper middle class: generally, the generations aged 3555 and university-educated, whose wealth has come from either state-adjacent projects such as roadbuilding, or senior positions at state companies and private firms with Western investors. According to Forbes, a significant part of Western assets have already been awarded to the old oligarchs, the former CEOs of Western companies Russian subsidiaries, and entrepreneurs from the provinces. Also in the mix are Asianespecially Chinesecompanies, which can count on their governments support.

Public servants, including representatives of the security state, may also get in on the action, having enriched themselves through petty corruption, though they will be sure to involve themselves strictly through proxies.

All this may combine to shore up Putins regime. Russias social structure had started to resemble an hourglass as the middle class contracted and emigrated. Now that same middle class may also be able to benefit from the countrys current direction, turning a structure that looked like it might break in half at any minute into a far more stable trapezoid shape.

The regimes economic foundation will now consist of the states expanded asset base in natural resources, energy, and heavy industry. Meanwhile, at the top of the new social hierarchy will be the trusted lieutenants of the president and their heirs, along with select officials holding significant stakes in state-adjacent companies or directorships. The more the state brings under its control, the more such people there will be.

The middle layer of Russias social structure will be shaped by the redistribution of assets among those well-off Russians forced to focus on the domestic market by international sanctions. In return for their loyalty, they will receive high-quality assets at a significant discount, which may turn them into a pillar of the regime and a source of patriotic optimism and even radicalism. There could even be a peoples privatization, in which the wealthy are awarded minority stakes in state companies.

Much will depend on the avoidance of catastrophe on the Ukrainian front, the continued apathy of the public sector, and the success of Russias pivot to Asia. Yet the effect could be to extend the regimes lifespanand it may well even enable a transition of power down the road.

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AI and the potential challenges to human dignity – The Tablet

Posted: at 2:21 pm

Irish philosopher Dr Gerard Casey has criticised the drive towards transhumanism saying, Christians should resist any policies or procedures that diminish human dignity or contribute to the displacement of human beings from the Biblical commission.

In a talk titled Christians in a post-human world: a sneak look at our near future, organised by the Iona Institute, the former head of the Department of Philosophy at University College Dublin spoke about artificial intelligence and a possible transhuman or a post-human future. This postulates the merging of humans with technology to allow them to transcend their physical and intellectual limits and achieve a kind of immortality.

Transhumanism, and its precursor and ally transgenderism, baulk at the restrictions, as they see it, that the human body imposes on them, he said, arguing that transhumanism rejects the bodys limits to human health, cognitive functioning, immortality and the cosmological animation of the universe.

You might say that transhumanism wants human beings to leave the world. AI wants humans to do it by ceasing to exist; transhumanists want human beings to be transformed into a new species.

For Christians embodiment is not an optional extra to being human he underlined. We are essentially embodied creatures. What you say at Mass every Sunday is, I believe in the resurrection of the body.

He continued, As the Word was made flesh, so too our ultimate destiny is the resurrection of the body. For Christians, the end of the world is not the end of the story but an introduction to a reconstituted world in which the dead will be raised incorruptible. We shall be changed and live in the presence of God.

On the challenges of AI to education he said that if he was still a university lecturer, he would get rid of all continuous assessments and insist on exams being held in places screened for electronic devices.

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The World Is Toxic. Welcome to the Metabolic Era – WIRED

Posted: at 2:21 pm

Kim Kardashians newest range of products, launched in late 2022post SKIMS shapewear, post SKKN facewearis a menacing set of raw concrete forms for storing bathroom products: a gray tissue box, Q-tip tin, wastebasket. Dry, brutal, and mysterious, the items look like you hired one of Gary Larsons cavemen to decorate your vanity with found objects.

Having the concrete material and monochromatic design are important for my mental wellness, Kim said in a recent interview with Architectural Digest. Concrete for wellness? I imagine her removing her shoes and socks and planting her feet on the gritty sidewalk, grounding herself on the concrete slab, gathering power from the sprawling gray. Kim abandoning her activated charcoal and turning to powdered concrete to treat her gut problems and ensure clearer skin. Jade egg? No, concrete egg. Wellness concrete!

Concrete does not, objectively, promote wellness. It is responsible for 8 percent of the worlds C02 emissions. Concrete dust ruins the lungs of those who inhale it regularly. Concrete cityscapes exacerbate flooding and degrade joggers joints. Thanks to a reliance on concrete for construction, the world is running out of certain types of sand. Other high-end brands have sold home products made of concrete, like Comme des Garons concrete-clad perfume bottles, but these usually use the material for its brutal and rough-hewn qualities, not to promote wellness. Kim is an alchemist though. She has taken a material that is undeniably a product of industrial modernity, imbued with a centurys worth of architectural and ideological baggage, and reconfigured it as healthy, intimate, and integral to self-care.

Always ahead of the curve, Kim may have hit on something the rest of us are just coming around to. The idea that we might stopstop producing plastic, stop building cement megastructuresseems out of the question. Decades of activism, policy work, and think tank-ery have done little to stem the tide of globalized capitalism and the torrents of plastic water bottles, polyester blend clothing, and Squishmallows that discharge from its perpetual motion machines. Blowing up a pipeline or fomenting revolution requires networks of solidarity and logistical capability that most people cant imagine acquiring. Meanwhile, the microplastics are already in our blood.

Whats left is the alternative that Kim and her concrete line seem to offer: that we can learn how to metaphorically (or literally) digest the toxic brutality of the built environment and transform it into something elseor let it transform us. Im just putting little pieces of fibreglass into my cereal to get my body used to it, tweets one nihilistic wiseass. Were entering our metabolic era.

Nonhuman systems offer metaphors to help us comprehend and describe our own existence, and structures of behavior we might mimic to cope with intolerable conditions. Over the past decade, you may have noticed mushrooms and fungi embraced as the objects of this kind of attention. The fungal imaginary is powerful because it envisions a world where endless growth is possible, and might even be environmentally beneficial. We can build anything as long as we make it out of mushrooms. Houses, bridges, burgers, clamshell packages for said burgers. Fungi also offer a powerful, nonhuman other we can turn to for inspiration: Mushrooms can grow at the end of the world, form vast underground networks, and offer mystic insight.

More recently, though, metabolic metaphors and processes are emerging alongside, and sometimes overtaking, fungis place in the cultural ether. At the more practical end, digestive processes are cropping up as popular solutions to all kinds of crises: compost, vermiculture, bacteria to digest just about anything, biohacks for your gut microbiome. Elsewhere, the metaphor of metabolism is called on to describe the way people process emotions and build feedback loops, and the growth of cities.

Unlike the fungal model, the metabolic imaginary lets us envision a world in which we can get rid of anything. If the drive for endless growth has led to a world too full of bullshit and toxicity, perhaps we can chew it all up and digest it without harm, engineer bacteria to metabolize it, or transfigure it into something new and strange. There is no big other in metabolism, no consciousness to commune with or learn from. Where the fungal era has been about venerating unknowable nonhuman maybe-intelligence and believing that hope can be dredged from ruin, the metabolic era is about submission, subsumption by the great enzyme, the desire for transformative annihilation. Metabolism is an impulse that makes sense at the end of the usable world. If weve exhausted our current ways of being and the planets existing materials, we must embrace radical breakdown.

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Biden’s Cyber Command and NSA nominee seen as a pick for continuity – The Record from Recorded Future News

Posted: at 2:21 pm

President Joe Bidens nominee to head U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency is considered to be cast from the same mold as their current leader and has played a critical role in binding the two entities closer together, according to former officials who have worked alongside him.

At his first Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Air Force Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, Cyber Commands deputy chief, will explain how he plans to fill the shoes of Paul Nakasone, the Army general who has won praise from fellow national security leaders and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle since 2018, when he took over the two premier agencies for combating foreign cyberthreats and digital espionage.

This is somebody that will remain very calm, open-minded and clear-headed in the most difficult or trying of times. I saw that from General Nakasone, I see those same characteristics in Tim Haugh, said retired Lt. Gen. Charles Tuna Moore, who served as the commands No. 2 until he was succeeded by Haugh last October.

If confirmed, Haugh will inherit a dual hat leadership arrangement that has been in place since 2009, when Cyber Command was created.

Haughs nomination comes at a time when the Biden administration is on a charm offensive to persuade Congress to reauthorize a controversial foreign intelligence law before it expires at the end of the year. The law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allows the NSA to scoop up vast amounts of intelligence from U.S. technology providers about foreign espionage and overseas national security threats.

The law, which Nakasone has been a vocal supporter of, has attracted bipartisan concern from privacy advocates about how data belonging to Americans is incidentally collected and searched, particularly by FBI analysts.

Meanwhile, just over five years after being elevated to a combatant command, Cyber Command has come into its own, incorporating missions like election security and ransomware and instituting its own subordinate unit.

Both organizations will be integral to defending next years presidential election from foreign interference from adversaries like Russia, China and Iran.

Haugh appears Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Senate Armed Services Committee shares jurisdiction over Haughs nomination and is expected to hold its hearing before the August recess.

Haugh (pronounced HAWK) was commissioned as a military intelligence officer over 30 years ago, rising through the ranks to lead organizations within the Air Force related to surveillance and reconnaissance and information activities before joining Cyber Command, starting as the deputy commander for Joint Task Force Ares a unit that was created in 2016 to fight the Islamic State online.

Once he was brought in to brief senior leaders and they were so impressed that he was asked to attend some of the commands National Security Council deputy- and principal-level meetings, according to Moore.

That was not a normal type of thing to have happened, he said. But, because of his knowledge and understanding of what was going on and a lot of the issues we were trying to work through the interagency process to get approval up to the president, he was requested to attend those meetings.

Haugh next served as the commands director of intelligence before being tapped in 2018 to helm the Cyber National Mission Force, whose teams are considered to be the Pentagons top digital operators.

At that point in time, it was very obvious that he was going to be not just a contender, but in my mind, the contender from the Air Force perspective to run Cyber Command and NSA one day, said Moore, now a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University.

Who else had the intelligence background, and now was building the CYBERCOM background and experience and understanding other than Tim Haugh? I didn't see anybody like that.

In his CNMF post Haugh also became the first co-lead of a joint election security task force with the NSA, originally called the Russia Small Group, that sought to protect the midterm election from foreign hackers. It was a totally new mission for both organizations following Moscows multi-pronged assault on the 2016 presidential race.

He and Anne Neuberger, the NSAs co-lead and Nakasones senior policy adviser at the time, really paved a lot of new ground and helped set the direction ultimately for what we built off of that small group for subsequent election influence operations, according to Jon Darby, NSAs former director of operations. Neuberger is now Bidens deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology.

The work required a different mindset for the two organizations together to focus on outcomes. Who could actually do something? How would we collectively inform other parts of the government that had the authorities to take some kind of action? Darby said.

Notably, the effort led to Cyber Commands initial hunt forward missions, deploying personnel to Montenegro, North Macedonia and Ukraine to glean new malware samples and see adversary tools and techniques firsthand.

The election offered a unique rallying point to force both organizations into a closer working relationship and a closer understanding and respect for one another than otherwise might have been possible, said Gavin Wilde, who was at NSA as a Russian specialist and was a member of the small group in 2018 and 2020.

In 2019, Haugh received his third star six weeks after receiving his second and was named as the inaugural head of his services first information warfare unit, dubbed 16th Air Force (Air Forces Cyber).

It acts as the Air Forces component within Cyber Command and NSA and is home to a host of portfolios, including cyber, information operations, electronic warfare and weather. The organization also provides defensive and offensive cyber operations to certain combatant commands, including U.S. European Command, which has taken point in coordinating U.S. military assistance to Ukraine since Russias unprovoked invasion last year.

The assignment, after his brief stint as a major general, caught a lot of peoples attention, according to Darby, who retired last year after nearly 40 years at NSA.

In my view, it's getting the right types of skills in those senior positions, which was, frankly, problematic at Cyber Command in the past because people would rotate in and out, he added.

Haugh is a sharp guy who knows both [signals intelligence] and cyber, which is a requirement for anybody that's going to be in that dual-hat role, said Darby.

Haugh had a way of making that more cohesive approach, along with actually taking action against foreign hackers, culturally acceptable not only at NSA but across the federal government where many were not used to working with the then burgeoning cyberwarfare unit, according to Wilde, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He embodies that right person at the right time for the right job.

While Haughs nomination is unlikely to stir up much opposition, his hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee comes as he and over 200 military members are stuck in a blanket hold by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who is blocking senior military promotions in protest of the Pentagons policy on service members traveling for abortion care.

If eventually confirmed, Haugh faces challenges at both organizations that could dog him throughout his tenure, including years-long concerns about Section 702 as well as Cyber Commands low readiness levels, which the Pentagon has scrambled to address, and has caused Congress to consider the idea of establishing a Cyber Force.

There are also perennial questions about the dual-hat leadership structure at Cyber Command and NSA, even though the Biden administration conducted a high-profile review of the arrangement and found it was beneficial to U.S. national security.

Moore said people shouldnt expect some gigantic change at either entity once Haugh assumes command, though I'm sure there's some things in his mind that he's been thinking about for a long time that he thinks can improve the mission sets.

I won't be surprised if you see some of those things deal with bringing CYBERCOM and the National Security Agency even closer together in terms of how they work more effectively and efficiently, he speculated. But time will tell.

Recorded Future

Intelligence Cloud.

Martin Matishak is a senior cybersecurity reporter for The Record. He spent the last five years at Politico, where he covered Congress, the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community and was a driving force behind the publication's cybersecurity newsletter.

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5 Reasons to Work for the NSA – ClearanceJobs – ClearanceJobs

Posted: at 2:21 pm

In a technology-driven world, the importance of the National Security Agencys work continues to grow. Whether youre an established cleared professional or a new secret squirrel if you have a passion for tech and a commitment to protecting our nations security, here are five reasons to consider a career with the NSA.

Every employee at the NSA is required to hold a security clearance, from director to cafeteria worker. Thats due to the critical nature of the Agencys mission. They are at the forefront of technological advancements, giving employees access to state-of-the-art technology, resources, and training.

The NSA allows its tech-focused employees the opportunity to digitally defend our national security. The Agency plays a crucial role in protecting the country from various threats, including terrorism, cyberattacks, and foreign espionage, helping to maintain stability in an increasingly complex world.

Not only does the Agencys work keep the nation safe, but the 24/7 threat-hunting, mitigating and defending the NSA does helps our allies keep their citizens safe as well.

While much of the NSAs work is cyber and tech-focused, the Agency is a fully functioning organization, meaning they look for people from all backgrounds. Whether you have a technical background or possess strong analytical and problem-solving skills, the NSA provides career growth and development avenues.

You might be surprised to learn that NSA employees enjoy a healthy work-life balance. Although their work is important and can be demanding, they know how crucial time away is for productivity and, ultimately, national security. The Agency also offers a competitive salary and solid benefits.

For more on the NSA and the latest security and defense news, visit ClearanceJobs.com.

Phoebe Wells is a writer, marketer and podcast host living in the Adirondack mountains of Upstate NY. She works full-time in marketing but operates a content marketing and copywriting business. Phoebe previously worked as a news anchor for iHeartRadio, writing, hosting and producing the award-winning true crime podcast Upstate Unsolved. When she's not writing, Phoebe can be found on her yoga mat, connecting with nature, or watching hockey with her partner and two huskies.

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I will do my best as NSA: Ribadu promises – FRCN HQ – Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria

Posted: at 2:21 pm

July 16, 2023July 17, 2023196

The National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu says the worrisome security situation in the country should be of concern to all Nigerians.

He stated this in Abuja when he received the executive and members of the Adamawa Community Association on a congratulatory visit.

Ribadu explained that the responsibility given to him as the National Security Adviser was the most crucial task as all parts of the nation was yarning for peace and security.

The NSA gave the assurance that despite the enormous expectations, he would ensure that he performs his duties professionally with dedication and patriotism to ensure the nation was secured for all.

He called on all Nigerians especially the Adamawa Community to support the Federal Governments effort towards ensuring the country was free of all criminal activities.

The President Adamawa Community Association Alhaji Bawuro Yahya who congratulated the National Security Adviser on his appointment charged him to be a good ambassador of the state while discharging his duties.

Alhaji Bawuro Yahya told the NSA that the Adamawa Community Association would work closely with him to ensure that he delivered on his mandate efficiently.

He thanked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for finding the Son of Adamawa worthy for a sensitive position of the National Security Adviser and expressed the hope that Nuhu Ribadu would deliver on his mandate.

Reporting by Hamza Alkali, editing by Daniel Adejo

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Plateau killings: Reps ask NSA to declare national emergency – TheCable

Posted: at 2:21 pm

The house of representatives has asked Nuhu Ribadu, national security adviser (NSA), to declare a national emergency on killings in Plateau state.

The lower legislative chamber passed the resolution during the plenary session on Tuesday following the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Dachung Bagos, a lawmaker from Plateau state.

The rising insecurity in the north-central state took a new twist in recent weeks as incidents of violent attacks, killings, kidnapping, and arson have been recorded in some parts of the state.

TheCable reported how nine people were killed when gunmen attacked a community in Mangu LGAon Saturday. Houses and properties were also razed during the attack.

Following the incident, Caleb Mutfwang, governor of the state, imposed a 24-hour curfew in the LGA.

While moving the motion, Bagos said there has been an increase in the rate of insecurity and killing of innocent souls, including some communities within his constituency.

The attacks have been occurring in some parts of Plateau state for some months now with crops in farmlands completely destroyed, he said.

Seven miners of my immediate constituency were gruesomely killed in cold blood on the 9th of July, 2023 around Farin Lamba of Jos South LGA, Plateau state.

Most of my people live in fear of the unknown due to insecurity and can no longer access their farmlands with ease which is their main source of livelihood.

The lawmaker, who represents Jos south/ north federal constituency, said if the insecurity situation is not addressed, citizens will experience food shortages as Plateau is one of the main producers of food crops in the country.

Following the adoption of the motion, the lawmakers asked Olukayode Egbetokun, acting inspector-general of police (IGP), to investigate the killings and ensure culprits are made to face justice.

On Monday, Bagos asked his constituents to defend themselves in the face of assault, adding that they have the constitutional right to do so.

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7th Deputy NSA Meeting of Colombo Security Conclave held in … – ANI News

Posted: at 2:21 pm

ANI | Updated: Jul 12, 2023 23:50 IST

Male [Maldives], July 12 (ANI): The 7th Deputy NSA level meeting of the Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) was hosted by the Maldives on 12 July 2023. Member States India, Maldives, Mauritius and Sri Lanka met in the virtual format. Bangladesh and Seychelles participated as Observers, a press release from the Ministry of External Affairs said. The Indian delegation was led by Deputy National Security Adviser, Vikram Misri. The delegation of Maldives was led by Aishath Nooshin Waheed, Secretary, of the National Security Advisors Office of the Republic of Maldives. Delegation of Mauritius by Yoidhisteer Thecka, Principal Coordinator Security Matters, Prime Ministers Office, Republic of Mauritius and delegation of Sri Lanka by General Shavendra Silva Chief of Defence Staff of Sri Lanka. Member States reviewed the decisions taken at the 5th NSA level Meeting held in Maldives on 09-10 March 2022 and the 6th Deputy NSA level meeting held in Kochi, India on 07 July 2022. They also reviewed the progress of activities under the different pillars of cooperation and discussed new proposals for activities in 2023-2024. The 8th Deputy NSA meeting will be held in the first quarter of 2024, the press release informed further.

A number of activities have been held under the five pillars of cooperation of the CSC which include Maritime Safety and Security, Countering Terrorism and Radicalization, Combating Trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime, Cyber Security, Protection of Critical Infrastructure and Technology and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief. Over the past year, India hosted a number of events including the First CSC Oceanographers and Hydrographers Conference where member and observer states shared knowledge and best practices relating to oceanography and hydrography and discussed collaborative ways to address the regional challenges related to the Oceans; the maiden CSC Coastal Security Conference which focused on the greater role and responsibilities of the Coast Guards of Member and Observer States in ensuring security of coastlines and beyond, and the third edition of Maritime Law Workshop. A number of training programmes were also held by India on the investigation of terrorism cases, countering trafficking and organized crime and drug law enforcement. (ANI)

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Young shepherd from region wins NSA North Sheep trophy … – Darlington and Stockton Times

Posted: at 2:21 pm

Winning the Ali Johnson Perpetual Trophy and achieving first place was Michael Hogg from Washington, Tyne & Wear, who is a regular attendee of Darlington Farmers Auction Mart, second place was awarded to Ben Graham from Longwitton and third place was awarded to Oliver Dean from Brampton.

Vickers and Barrass Chartered Surveyors and Darlington Farmers Auction Mart co-sponsored the event and were impressed with the standard of entries.

Adam Barrass, managing director of Vickers and Barrass, said: The next generation of farming is hugely well supported by Vickers & Barrass and we have a long history in sponsoring next generation competitions over many years at various shows across the county. As farmers ourselves, our farming roots are important to us.

"This year, we enjoyed seeing such enthusiastic young farmers enter this competition. Winner, Michael, has an impressive approach to his enterprise, which was great to see. Ben and Oliver were worthy runners up, in a very competitive field

Vickers & Barrass and Darlington Farmers Auction Mart are also attending Sedgefield Show on August 12, Wolsingham Show on September 2 and Eggleston Country Show on September 16, year and would be delighted to chat about the industry with the next generations there.

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Evelyn M. Witkin, Who Discovered How DNA Repairs Itself, Dies at … – The New York Times

Posted: at 2:20 pm

Evelyn M. Witkin, whose discovery of the process by which DNA repairs itself opened the door to significant advances in the treatment of cancer and genetic defects, died on Saturday in Plainsboro Township, N.J. She was 102.

Her son, Joseph, said her death, in a rehabilitation facility, resulted from complications of a fall.

In a career that began at the dawn of modern genetic research in the late 1940s, Dr. Witkin explored the ways in which radiation both damaged DNA and generated a repair mechanism, what she came to call the SOS response.

The repair mechanism produces an enzyme that in turn creates replacement parts for the damaged DNA. But its an imperfect process that can at times turn out slightly different versions, or mutations what scientists call mutagenesis.

Her insight into the SOS response, which Dr. Witkin developed with Miroslav Radman, then a scientist at the Free University of Brussels, shed new light on how solar radiation and chemicals in the environment affect humans genetic makeup.

She discovered the first coordinated response to stress in cells, Joann Sweasy, a geneticist at the University of Arizona who studied under Dr. Witkin, said in a phone interview. And thats so incredibly important for understanding evolution, and for understanding mutagenesis in terms of tumors.

Dr. Witkin was still a graduate student at Columbia when she spent the summer of 1944 working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, on the north shore of Long Island. Though she had no background in microbiology her research until then had been with fruit flies on her first day there she was assigned to generate mutations in cultures of the bacteria E. coli.

She placed several under a germicidal ultraviolet lamp. Almost all of them died. But four colonies survived.

At this point, I asked, Why did they survive? Maybe a mutation made them resistant, Dr. Witkin told The New York Times in 2016.

That single question set in motion nearly a half-century of research for Dr. Witkin, first at Cold Spring Harbor and then at the Downstate Medical Center at the State University of New York, in Brooklyn, and finally at Rutgers University, where she worked from 1971 until retiring in 1991.

She won the National Medal of Science some years later, in 2002, but the pinnacle of her career came in 2015, when she and another geneticist, Stephen J. Elledge, won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the highest honor in the medical sciences after the Nobel Prize.

She had a remarkable ability to see into fundamental biological questions, Donna L. George, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania who studied under Dr. Witkin, said by phone. The central tenets of her ideas were validated, sometimes decades later, by the development of new experimental techniques and molecular probes.

Evelyn Ruth Maisel was born on March 9, 1921, in Manhattan. Her father, Joseph, was a pharmacist who died when Evelyn was 3. Her mother, Manya (Levin) Maisel, then married Jacob Bersin, another pharmacist, who moved the family to Forest Hills, Queens.

Evelyn attended New York public schools and studied zoology at New York University. During her senior year, she joined a group of students who were protesting the universitys policy of benching Black athletes whenever its sports teams played opponents from segregated schools.

They rallied around the case of a Black football player, Leonard Bates, who was to be left behind when the team traveled to the University of Missouri. They collected 4,000 names on a petition to let him play and organized 2,000 students to protest outside the central administration building.

No Missouri compromise! they chanted. Let Bates play!

Mr. Bates did not play against Missouri or, later, against other segregated teams. Other Black athletes faced similar discrimination. The protests continued through the school year, until the university put an end to them by suspending seven of the movements leaders, including Evelyn.

She had been planning to continue into graduate work at N.Y.U., but now, having also lost a graduate assistantship as punishment, she set her sights on Columbia. She graduated from N.Y.U. in the fall of 1941 and immediately went uptown to begin her doctorate.

My having gone to Columbia was the greatest blessing that ever happened to me professionally, she told the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation in 2016. She wasnt sure shed have been a National Medal of Science laureate, she said, if New York University hadnt decided that I was a bad girl in 1941.

She was already interested in genes, and especially in a theory espoused by the Russian scientist Trofim Lysenko that denied their existence and insisted that environment shaped evolution.

At Columbia, she worked with another Russian-born researcher, Theodosius Dobzhansky, considered a founder of evolutionary genetics. He not only disabused her of Dr. Lysenkos ideas; he also introduced her to a paper by Salvador Luria and Max Delbrck proving that bacteria had DNA.

Reporting on it for Dobzhanskys class, I jumped up and down with excitement, she told The Times. At the time, one of the big questions involved how genetic mutations occurred. Thanks to Luria and Delbrck, I now saw how we could use bacteria models to answer that.

She married Herman Witkin, a psychologist, in 1943. He died in 1979. Along with her son, Joseph, a doctor who is also a founding member of the rock n roll group Sha Na Na, she is survived by four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Another son, Andrew, died in 2010.

Dr. Witkin stayed at Cold Spring Harbor until 1955, when she moved to SUNY Downstate. She later joined the faculty at Douglass College in New Jersey, at the time an all-womens institution attached to Rutgers. In 1983 she became the director of the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, also at Rutgers, where she stayed until retiring.

In 2021, on her 100th birthday, the Waksman Institute renamed one of its premier research laboratories for her.

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Evelyn M. Witkin, Who Discovered How DNA Repairs Itself, Dies at ... - The New York Times

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