Loukanikos, photographed for TIME by Peter Hapak, November 15, 2011. PETER HAPAK FOR TIME
Loukanikos — the word means sausage in Greek — has showed up for numerous demonstrations in Athens over the last few years. Here are some photos taken of him. More…
An estimated 50,000 people gathered in Moscow on an island near the Kremlin Saturday in protest. Days earlier, parliamentary elections that saw Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party garner nearly 50% of the vote were met with widespread allegations of vote-rigging. More…
"Condom with teeth" by Rape Ax
This post is a subject on a topic which is very delicate – especially to the women who have suffered through this act of violence. This is a topic which must never be hushed nor considered “dirty,” but rather treated as exactly what it is… a real act of violence which occurs daily to thousands of women throughout the world. I know several women who have been through this horrific act, and just the other day, a close friend of several years who is 53 told me she was raped when she was 18, and disclosed the specifics, which was her vehicle breaking down only 50 miles away from home – and the look on her face brought tears to my eyes. Even after all these years, she still suffers. More…
According to The Guardian:
The City of London Corporation has attached eviction notices to tents outside St Paul’s Cathedral, telling activists to move them from the public highways by 6pm on Thursday or face legal action.
It is the latest development in a month-long saga that has pitted the protest movement Occupy London against the corporation, the local authority for the Square Mile, and St Paul’s. Both institutions own the land around the church but only the corporation is pressing ahead with court proceedings.
The notice is addressed to “each and every person taking part in and/or having erected tents or other structures at St Paul’s Churchyard EC4″.
It reads: “Through the erection of tents and other structures, you and others involved in the Protest Camp have taken possession and control of the Red Land from the City of London Corporation without its consent.
“The Protest Camp is therefore a trespass. It is also an unreasonable obstruction of the highway. The Protest Camp does not have planning permission and causes significant harm to the area.”
Stuart Fraser, policy chairman for the corporation, told Channel 4 News on Monday he was prepared to use “all legal measures” including riot police to remove them. More…
I have such a love/hate relationship with these false prophets. I am completely entertained by their stories of the upcoming Armageddeons. I especially find how they derive the dates to be completely and utterly ridiculous. Christmas came early for me this year as I truly had a field day with May 21st, Reverend Camping’s Judgment Day. On the flip side, though, I abhor how these prophets brainwash their followers into donating all their money; More…
Footage obtained through the Herald Sun of police in Australia, pulling, dragging and arresting ‘Occupy’ protesters in Melbourne’s City Square.
The paper reports that, on Friday, nearly 100 Occupy-protesters were arrested while 20 suffered minor injuries. A police officer and a protester were taken to the emergency room. Eight police cars were damaged during the protest, police told the newspaper.
Story from the Listening Post on Al Jazeera English discusses how quickly this movement spread throughout the world and the impact with the media. Comparisons against the uprisings which occurred within the Arab Nations. The first 8:40 in this video are on this topic, then the Listening Post moves on to other such coverage as the controversy in France with the allegation of spying on journalists, and the website which was taken down due to keeping an eye on the French police. Propaganda wars between North and South Korea. The closing piece is about a video called “♫ PHOTOSHOP IN REAL LIFE Music Video” which is included below the Listening Post.
A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, collapsing dozens of buildings into piles of twisted steel and chunks of concrete. Desperate survivors dug into the rubble with their bare hands, trying to rescue the trapped and injured.
I was torn about posting this video, it is graphic. You feel as though you are there. But I decided it should be shared…. it is your choice to watch.
In the very beginning at about 6 seconds, even though the cell phone camera is moving all over, you can see Gaddafi’s mouth moving…. probably pleading.
Update post publishing: When I first watched this, I thought he was dead by mid-video. I watched it a few more times, and he is still alive… pleading as they lift him in the back of the transport. I did change the title to reflect this is not the video showing him being killed.
Al Jazeera has acquired exclusive footage of the body of Muammar Gaddafi after he was killed in his hometown, Sirte.
Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of Libya’s National Transitional Council, confirmed that the ousted leader had been killed on October 20, 2011 near Sirte.
“We announce to the world that Muammar Gaddafi has been killed at the hands of the revolutionaries,” Ghoga told a news conference in Benghazi.
The news came shortly after the NTC captured Sirte after weeks of fighting.
Just across the wires, Gaddafi has been confirmed dead. Photo. Video footage of body.
Al Jazeera: Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a NTC military chief, has confirmed that Muammar Gaddafi has died of his wounds after being captured near Sirte.
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According to Reuters, ousted Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been captured by Libya’s National Transitional Council. According to the report, National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid told Reuters’ Samia Nakhoul that “He’s captured. He’s wounded in both legs … He’s been taken away by ambulance.”
Later, Reuters reported that Gaddafi had died of his wounds.
Very powerful speech…. American diplomats led a walkout at the U.N. General Assembly Thursday as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fiercely attacked the United States and major West European nations as “arrogant powers” ruled by greed and eager for military adventurism.
One year ago, Pakistan suffered the worst flooding in its history, a slow-moving disaster that left some 2,000 dead and another 11 million homeless. Nearly one million are still without permanent shelter, and meanwhile, the flooding has returned. Though it’s not on the same scale as last year’s flood, this summer’s damage is still significant.
High water from monsoon rains has killed more than 200 people since early August, damaging or destroying some 670,000 homes and affecting more than 5 million people, according to the government and the United Nations. The disaster has once again overwhelmed the capacity of the government to assist, and the UN has asked for $357 million in international aid. Gathered here is a handful of recent images from Pakistan, where residents are once again coping with flooding on a massive scale.
(FP Photo Above/HO/Department of Conservation NZ)
A lost penguin is getting a lift home to Antarctica on a New Zealand research vessel.
FIGHTING FIT AND cheeky as ever, the world’s most famous emperor penguin is set to leave Kiwi captivity for his Antarctic home. Happy Feet captured the world’s attention in June when he washed up on a beach north of Wellington, more than 3000km from home.
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libyan rebels who took control of Moammar Gadhafi’s sprawling compound made a surprising discovery in one of the buildings: a photo album with pictures of Condoleezza Rice.
Though maybe the discovery isn’t that surprising. Over the years, the Libyan leader’s comments and actions related to the former secretary of state have raised a few eyebrows. More…
An Italian radio program’s story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.
Various pictures showing buildings and business before and after the riots started.
(Below) London Riots Carpet Right store in Tottenham’s main shopping area before, during, and after.
(Below) London Riots Paradise Gems retailer on High St in Tottenham before and after.
(Below) London Riots Pawn Shop on Oakfield Rd in Croydon before and after.
(Below) London Riots Reeves Furniture store in Croydon before and after.
(Below) London Riots Royal Mansions on London Rd in Croydon before and after.
The Malaysian student, Ashraf Haziq, who was mugged and robbed on video, is now recovering in a hospital with a broken jaw. One of the robbers has possibly been identified, according to Channel 4 News out of the UK.
Out of this internet viral video is possibly another form of robbery. A site called “Something Nice for Ashraf” has been created asking for donations and provides a direct link to PayPal. No other information provided.
Smells fishy to me. According to a comment I received from a Malaysian citizen, the Malaysian government will fully compensate him for his full expenses. I clicked on the donation link simply to check it out, which does go into PayPal, but no where does it show who is receiving these donations. Could be anybody. And where is the proof that even one penny goes to Ashraf? I checked out the twitter name on the site, @jamiecowen, and there is little to no information there, either. An avatar with a “Save the Children” emblem in it… but anyone can create and upload that for their avatar. A few tweets… nothing more. An legitimate organization asking for donations for a cause always provides a LOT more information and proof than this donation site does.
If Malaysia is going to reimburse, then why is this person accepting donations for Ashraf?
Do not get me wrong… I feel horrible about what happened to Ashraf. But that does not automatically make this site legit only because I – or we – want it to be. This whole donation setup sounds like a scam to me. If so, this is just as bad as those people are who robbed him out of his rucksack as he stood their bleeding.
Perfect example of how the media attempts to control the news….
Description provided in video:
“Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots. Speaking about the mistreatment of youths by police leading to an up-roar and the ignorance of both police and the governement. Intelligent black male. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE! “
Over the past several days, people have been rioting in the streets of London, looting, injuring others, and creating complete mayhem. Why? Apparently this was incited by the shooting and death of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old resident of Tottenham. Who is Mark Duggan? In searching various news stories, blog postings, and the like on the internet, who he is depends upon which site you read. Those in defense of his shooting portray him as a thug. Those defending Mark describe him as “a good man. He was a family man.” His fiancee has, according to Guardian.co.uk website, admitted he is “known to the police and said he had spent some time on remand, but denied he was ever imprisoned.” What actually occurred to bring on this shooting? I doubt we will ever know the true, actual facts. The police will tell one story, and the witnesses will state another. Or possibly somewhere in between. This may have been a justifiable shooting, or it may not have been… I do not know. I was not there.
Many articles are portraying him as a “gangsta.” But then, I honestly do not trust a lot of the media. The images of him online do show a gangster persona, but where are other pictures of him? Surely he has not had just three or four pictures taken of him in his life. When possible I prefer to read facts from various viewpoints and usually determine that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. A significant percentage of mainstream news sites and channels only tell you what they want you to know, not what is actual. Or tell you what they think will bring the views, the hits, the attention, and the money. More…
Source: Document.no – translated to English
NINA HJERPSET-ØSTLIE
Several of the surviving young people from the massacre at Utøya tells of yet another culprit. Several have described the man, who has been wearing police uniforms as Anders Behring Breivik did, look:
- We have heard exactly the same witness descriptions that there should be a culprit number two. We worked on high pressure to clarify the situation last night and are still working hard to clarify whether there is a number two, said police inspector Einar Aas Oslo Police District told VG.
32 year old Anders Behring is charged with both the Oslo-bomb and massacre, according to Penal Code section 147a of terrorist acts. The bomb in the government building killed seven people and at least 84 youths were shot and killed the bugs. The application continued after death, and police can not rule out that the death toll will rise.
TV2 reported in writing that the police have just arrested a Nordic-looking young boy Sundvollen. More…
By NILS MYKLEBOST and KARL RITTER
Associated Press
OSLO, Norway (AP) — A Norwegian who dressed as a police officer to gun down summer campers killed at least 80 people at an island retreat, horrified police said early Saturday. It took investigators several hours to begin the realize the full scope of Friday’s massacre, which followed an explosion in nearby Oslo that killed seven and that police say was set off by the same suspect.
The mass shootings are among the worst in history. With the blast outside the prime minister’s office, they formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191.
Police initially said about 10 were killed at the forested camp on the island of Utoya, but some survivors said they thought the toll was much higher. Police director Oystein Maeland told reporters early Saturday they had discovered many more victims.
“It’s taken time to search the area. What we know now is that we can say that there are at least 80 killed at Utoya,” Maeland said. “It goes without saying that this gives dimensions to this incident that are exceptional.”
Maeland said the death toll could rise even more. He said others were severely injured, but police didn’t know how many were hurt.
A suspect in the shootings and the Oslo explosion was arrested. Though police did not release his name, Norwegian national broadcaster NRK identified him as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik and said police searched his Oslo apartment overnight. NRK and other Norwegian media posted pictures of the blond, blue-eyed Norwegian.
A police official said the suspect appears to have acted alone in both attacks, and that “it seems like that this is not linked to any international terrorist organizations at all.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that information had not been officially released by Norway’s police.
The motive was unknown, but both attacks were in areas connected to the ruling Labor Party government. The youth camp, about 20 miles (35 kilometers) northwest of Oslo, is organized by the party’s youth wing, and the prime minister had been scheduled to speak there Saturday.
A 15-year-old camper named Elise said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes.
“I saw many dead people,” said Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, didn’t want her to disclose her last name. “He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water.”
Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. “I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock,” she said.
She said it was impossible to say how many minutes passed while she was waiting for him to stop.
At a hotel in the village of Sundvollen, where survivors of the shooting were taken, 21-year-old Dana Berzingi wore pants stained with blood. He said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting.
Several victims “had pretended as if they were dead to survive,” Berzingi said. But after shooting the victims with one gun, the gunman shot them again in the head with a shotgun, he said.
“I lost several friends,” said Berzingi, who used the cell phone of one of those friends to call police.
The blast in Oslo, Norway’s capital and the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, left a square covered in twisted metal, shattered glass and documents expelled from surrounding buildings. Most of the windows in the 20-floor high-rise where Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his administration work were shattered. Other buildings damaged house government offices and the headquarters of some of Norway’s leading newspapers.
The dust-fogged scene after the blast reminded one visitor from New York of Sept. 11.
Ian Dutton, who was in a nearby hotel, said people “just covered in rubble” were walking through “a fog of debris.”
“It wasn’t any sort of a panic,” he said, “It was really just people in disbelief and shock, especially in a such as safe and open country as Norway. You don’t even think something like that is possible.”
Police said the Oslo explosion was caused by “one or more” bombs.
The police official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Oslo bombing occurred at 3:26 p.m. local time (1:26 p.m. GMT), and the camp shootings began one to two hours later. The official said the gunman used both automatic weapons and handguns, and that there was at least one unexploded device at the youth camp that a police bomb disposal team and military experts were working on disarming.
The suspect had only a minor criminal record, the official said.
Sponheim said seven people were killed by the blast in downtown Oslo, four of whom have been identified, and that nine or 10 people were seriously injured.
Sponheim said a man was arrested in the shooting, and the suspect had been observed in Oslo before the explosion there.
Sponheim said the camp shooter “wore a sweater with a police sign on it. I can confirm that he wasn’t a police employee and never has been.”
Aerial images broadcast by Norway’s TV2 showed members of a SWAT team dressed in black arriving at the island in boats and running up the dock. Behind them, people who stripped down to their underwear swam away from the island toward shore, some using flotation devices.
Sponheim said police were still trying to get an overview of the camp shooting and could not say whether there was more than one shooter. He would not give any details about the identity or nationality of the suspect, who was being interrogated by police.
Oslo University Hospital said 12 people were admitted for treatment following the Utoya shooting, and 11 people were taken there from the explosion in Oslo. The hospital asked people to donate blood.
Stoltenberg, who was home when the blast occurred and was not harmed, visited injured people at the hospital late Friday. Earlier he decried what he called “a cowardly attack on young innocent civilians.”
“I have message to those who attacked us,” he said. “It’s a message from all of Norway: You will not destroy our democracy and our commitment to a better world.”
Evgeny Kaspersky is one of Russia’s top Internet virus hunters and IT entrepreneurs. In a SPIEGEL interview, he discusses a raft of recent hacker attacks on multinationals, the “total professionals” behind the Stuxnet virus and his fear of both personal and widespread cyber violence.
‘I Fear the Net Will Soon Become a War Zone’
SPIEGEL: Mr. Kaspersky, when was the last time that a virus hunter like you fell victim to a cyber attack?
Evgeny Kaspersky: My computer was almost infected twice recently. When someone returned my flash card to me at a conference, it was infected with a virus. But then our own virus program helped me. The second time, the website of a hotel in Cyprus was infected. These kinds of things can happen to anyone, no matter how careful you are. I need protection just like anyone else. After all, a specialist on sexually transmitted diseases also relies on condoms for protection.
SPIEGEL: Virologists sometimes rave about the deadly perfection of the viruses they study. Do you still ever get excited yourself about the technology of a computer virus?
Kaspersky: The more sophisticated a virus is, the more exciting it is to crack its algorithm. I’m happy if I can do it. Okay, sometimes there’s a little professional respect involved, too. But it has nothing to do with enthusiasm. Every virus is a crime. Hackers do bad things. I would never hire one.
SPIEGEL: You and your company are the winners of a new era in warfare.
Kaspersky: No, because this war can’t be won; it only has perpetrators and victims. Out there, all we can do is prevent everything from spinning out of control. Only two things could solve this for good, and both of them are undesirable: to ban computers — or people.
SPIEGEL: Although your company Kaspersky Lab now employs more than 2,000 employees, it’s a small business compared with antivirus software makers like McAfee and Symantec. Can you ever catch up with them?
Kaspersky: We’re certainly trying. Russia is our most important competitive advantage. Moscow produces the world’s best programmers. It has a large number of outstanding technical universities. And although Russians can’t build cars the way you Germans can, they do write brilliant software.
SPIEGEL: You were once trained as a cryptologist by the KGB. Does that at all hinder your expansion in the West?
Kaspersky: No, but the fact that we are a company with Russian roots does. We occasionally sense a certain amount of suspicion. Nevertheless, we are now No. 1 in Germany, are growing rapidly in the United States and even have customers within NATO.
SPIEGEL: Who?
Kaspersky: A defense ministry. I won’t reveal the name of the country.
SPIEGEL: Which countries do most viruses come from?
Kaspersky: It’s hard to say because viruses unfortunately don’t carry ID cards. We can at least usually identify the originator’s language, and that’s at the moment the inventor communicates with his virus and gives it a command.
SPIEGEL: Russian programmers don’t only do good things. We assume that they also dominate the virus business.
Kaspersky: Based on the number of programmed viruses, we are in third place behind China and Latin America. Unfortunately, Russians are also among the most sophisticated and advanced players in criminal cyber activity. These days, they invent viruses and complex Trojan programs on demand. They launder money through the Internet. However, the largest number of harmful programs are written in Chinese. This means that they can be coming directly from the People’s Republic, but also from Singapore, Malaysia and even California, where there are Mandarin-speaking hackers.
SPIEGEL: Surprisingly enough, very few viruses seem to be coming from India even though it’s a rising star in the IT world.
Kaspersky: In general, the crime level in India is low. It’s probably a matter of the mentality. India and China have roughly the same population, the same computer density, a similar standard of living and similar religious roots. But China spits out viruses like they were coming off an assembly line.
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Part 2: Amateurs and Professionals
SPIEGEL: Why is Russia producing some of the most dangerous hacker rings but very few world-class software companies like your own?
Kaspersky: There are a few, but I see a basic problem: In Russia, the level of technical training has traditionally been high, and it has been transferred from teachers to students for generations. But there are no teachers who know how to build a business with this training because, over seven decades of communism, doing business was never allowed to be the focus. Most of today’s business leaders are around 50, which means they were born during the Soviet era. They often have a type of Iron Curtain in their minds. They like to go abroad for vacation; but when they do business, they limit themselves to countries that once belonged to the Soviet Union because that’s where people speak their language and understand them culturally. I hope to see a new generation that is no longer afraid of other cultures and that speaks English.
SPIEGEL: The Russian search engine Yandex recently raised $1.3 billion (€912 million) in its initial public offering in New York, which was the highest IPO figure in the industry since Google…
Kaspersky: …which is an unbelievably important signal for many people here. A Russian company has shown that it can be successful with the power of our brains rather than with our natural resources. There is an American dream, and now there is a Russian dream, as well: to make money without oil and gas.
SPIEGEL: You once described yourself as an extremely paranoid person. What is the worst possible disaster that a computer viruses could cause?
Kaspersky: In the Soviet days, we used to joke that an optimist learns English because he is hoping that the country will open up, that a pessimist learns Chinese because he’s afraid that the Chinese will conquer us, and that the realist learns to use a Kalashnikov. These days, the optimist learns Chinese, the pessimist learns Arabic…
SPIEGEL: …and the realist?
Kaspersky: …keeps practicing with his Kalashnikov. Seriously. Even the Americans are now openly saying that they would respond to a large-scale, destructive Internet attack with a classic military strike. But what will they do if the cyber attack is launched against the United States from within their own country? Everything depends on computers these days: the energy supply, airplanes, trains. I’m worried that the Net will soon become a war zone, a platform for professional attacks on critical infrastructure.
SPIEGEL: When will that happen?
Kaspersky: Yesterday. Such attacks have already occurred.
SPIEGEL: You’re referring to Stuxnet, the so-called “super virus” that was allegedly programmed to sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities.
Kaspersky: Israeli intelligence unfortunately doesn’t send us any reports. There was a lot of talk — on the Internet and in the media — that Stuxnet was a joint US-Israeli project. I think that’s probably the most likely scenario. It was highly professional work, by the way, and one that commands a lot of respect from me. It cost several million dollars and had to be orchestrated by a team of highly trained engineers over several months. These were no amateurs; these were total professionals who have to be taken very seriously. You don’t get in a fight with them; they don’t mess around.
SPIEGEL: What kind of damage can a super virus like this inflict?
Kaspersky: Do you remember the total power outage in large parts of North America in August 2003? Today, I’m pretty sure that a virus triggered that catastrophe. And that was eight years ago.
SPIEGEL: Firemen tend to describe the dangers of fire in particularly dramatic terms because they make their money fighting fires. Aren’t you just trying to scare people about viruses because that’s your bread and butter?
Kaspersky: If I were only interested in the money, my company would have gone public by now. Believe it or not, my primary concern is making the world a cleaner place. Money is important; but if I do my job well, that will take care of itself.
SPIEGEL: Hackers have recently been taking aim at companies like Lockheed Martin, Google and Sony…
Kaspersky: …simply because they can now infiltrate their well-protected security systems to access secret information. This puts companies at risk, but it also jeopardizes entire nations. It’s a matter of private industrial espionage, but countries are also involved.
SPIEGEL: Are you saying that governments are behind many of the attacks?
Kaspersky: I don’t rule it out.
SPIEGEL: Google has claimed that the attack on its e-mail services was traced back to China.
Kaspersky: I have no information pointing toward China as the actual originator. Professionals do their work through proxy servers. They can be located in China but controlled from the United States. Perhaps it was just competitors — but people then pointed the finger at China. Anything can happen in our business.
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Part 3: Sources of Future Threats
SPIEGEL: In 2007, Estonia provoked the Russians when it moved a Soviet-era war memorial. Do you think the Kremlin was behind the subsequent cyber attack on the small country?
Kaspersky: Not the government, but enraged Russian spammers who directed special computer networks known as “botnets” against Estonia. It became the prototype of a belligerent cyber attack on a country. The attackers didn’t just cripple government websites; they also sent so many spam e-mails that the entire Internet channel to Estonia quickly collapsed. The country was cut off from the world. The banking system, trade, transportation — everything ground to a halt.
SPIEGEL: Could Russian hackers figuratively “checkmate” Germany?
Kaspersky: (laughing) We won’t do that. If we did, who would buy our natural gas?
SPIEGEL: A number of computer geeks and hackers have banded together into an elusive online group known as “Anonymous,” which is constantly staging fresh guerilla cyber campaigns. What are your thoughts about it?
Kaspersky: I don’t think Anonymous has done any major damage yet. But I also don’t support this group. Some of these people have good intentions and are merely trying to draw attention to security loopholes. But there are also those with bad intentions. Imagine you left the key in your front door. Some would call to let your know, whereas others would spread the news throughout the entire city that your front door is open. That’s Anonymous; it’s unpredictable.
SPIEGEL: In the future, terrorist organizations like al-Qaida could also wage cyber wars.
Kaspersky: Terrorists primarily use the Internet for communication, propaganda and recruiting new members and funding sources. So far, highly qualified cyber criminals have had enough sense to not get involved with terrorists. But, in the future, we should count on seeing cyber attacks on factories, airplanes and power plants. Just think of Die Hard 4…
SPIEGEL: …in which Bruce Willis had to fight his way through an army of young hackers.
Kaspersky: Half of the film is Hollywood fiction, but the other half is quite realistic. That really worries me.
SPIEGEL: Your 20-year-old son Ivan was recently kidnapped by a gang but liberated unharmed a few days later. How dangerous is it to be rich in Russia?
Kaspersky: More dangerous than it is in Munich, but not as dangerous as it is in Colombia, where I usually traveled in an armored car when I was there on vacation. The children of successful entrepreneurs are kidnapped in other countries, too. Thank God the Russian authorities and my security service were able to rescue Ivan. My son was partly to blame for his kidnapping: He had broadcast his address on Facebook even though I’d been warning him for years not to reveal any personal information on the Internet. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter make it easier for criminals to do their work.
SPIEGEL: Your son is studying mathematics and works as a programmer. Do you expect him to take over your company one day?
Kaspersky: If he’s good, maybe so.
SPIEGEL: Silicon Valley is teeming with Russian scientists. Didn’t you ever want to emigrate to America?
Kaspersky: Once, in 1992. I had just returned to Moscow from Hanover, from my first trip to the West. At the time, I could do nothing but shake my head in disgust over my country. The prosperity gap was enormous. It’s become significantly smaller today. And because I travel so much, I know there are pros and cons everywhere — whether social, economic or political.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Kaspersky, thank you for this interview.
Interview conducted by Matthias Schepp and Thomas Tuma
Another grand solar display is about to take place for the viewing of many people around the world. On Wed., June 15th, the longest total lunar eclipse since July 2000 will take place and it will occur during June’s full moon, starting at 1:24 a.m. EST and lasting until 7 a.m. EST. Unfortunately, those in North America won’t be able to witness the eclipse but those in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia will. It will be visible completely over Africa, and Central Asia, visible rising over South America, western Africa, and Europe, and setting over eastern Asia. In western Asia, Australia and the Philippines, the lunar eclipse will be visible just before sunrise.
Total lunar eclipses occur when the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, casting a deep shadow through which the moon then travels. The moon will appear to darken and turn a deep red before returning to normal. The Earth’s shadow will block the full moon for a full 100 minutes. This 100-minute duration of the total lunar eclipse on Wednesday will only be three minutes short of the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century that will occur on July 27, 2018. The total number of total lunar eclipses during this century will be 85.
Details from White Wolf Pack
