Japanese PM Abe to pick hawkish ally for defence in cabinet rejig |
- Japanese PM Abe to pick hawkish ally for defence in cabinet rejig
- Family of ‘Star Trek’ actor sues Fiat Chrysler over rollaway death
- Hackers accessed Telegram messaging accounts in Iran, researchers say
- US$89,000 ice cream truck joins Boston police force
- Goodbye, Song Kee Fishball Noodles
| Japanese PM Abe to pick hawkish ally for defence in cabinet rejig Posted: 02 Aug 2016 06:34 PM PDT
Inada, the ruling party policy chief, shares Abe's goal of revising the post-war, pacifist constitution, which some conservatives consider a humiliating symbol of Japan's World War Two defeat. The 57-year-old lawyer regularly visits Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine for war dead, which is seen as a symbol of Japan's past militarism in China and South Korea. Japan's relations with Beijing and Seoul have often been frayed by the legacy of Japan's military aggression before and during World War Two. "Ms Inada is an ultra-conservative politician and this will be taken as preparation for achieving constitutional revision and adopting a stern stance toward China," said Takashi Kawakami, a security expert at Takushoku University. Inada would be the second woman to hold the defence post. Abe is trying to rekindle economic growth and cope with several diplomatic challenges as he ponders the possibility of staying in office after his term as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ends in 2018. He is expected to travel to China in September for a Group of 20 summit, and may meet Chinese President Xi Jinping there. Sino-Japanese ties have also been strained by a row over tiny isles in the East China Sea and China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. Abe, who took office in December 2012, will retain his right-hand man, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, along with Finance Minister Taro Aso and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, media reported. Economics Minister Nobuteru Ishihara may be kept on along with Health, Welfare and Labour Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki. Public broadcaster NHK has said Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko would become trade and industry minister. Shigeru Ishiba, minister for regional revitalisation, was expected to leave the cabinet, media reported, to prepare for a run at replacing Abe as prime minister when his term as LDP leader expires. Abe will also appoint a new LDP executive line-up today. The expected appointment of Toshihiro Nikai, 77, a big-spending advocate with good ties with China, as LDP secretary general was seen as signalling Abe's hopes for a third term. Nikai has said he would support an extension for Abe, which would require a change in party rules. Yesterday, Abe's outgoing cabinet approved 13.5 trillion yen (RM541.9 billion) in fiscal steps to try to revive the economy. Some analysts worry Abe will devote too much energy to trying to revise the constitution after his ruling bloc and allies obtained the two-thirds majorities in both houses of parliament needed to begin the process. Changes must also be approved in a referendum. — Reuters  |
| Family of ‘Star Trek’ actor sues Fiat Chrysler over rollaway death Posted: 02 Aug 2016 06:33 PM PDT
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, is believed to be the first wrongful death complaint linked to the Fiat Chrysler recall in April of more than 1.1 million cars and SUVs because of vehicles that roll away after drivers exit them. Yelchin, 27, was killed on June 19 when his 2015 Grand Cherokee, which was covered under the recall, rolled backward in the steep driveway of his Los Angeles home and crushed the actor against a brick wall and fence. The 18-page lawsuit points to a transmission gear-selector design it describes as "defective" as being the cause of numerous driverless rollaway mishaps like the one that killed Yelchin. Gary Dordick, the attorney representing Yelchin's parents, said Fiat Chrysler had sent a recall letter to the actor that was received seven days after his death. The undated letter addressed to Yelchin was displayed at the news conference and said "your vehicle may roll away, striking and injuring you, your passengers, or bystanders, if the vehicle's engine is left running, the parking brake is not engaged, and the transmission is not in the "PARK" position before exiting the vehicle." Dordick said Yelchin had returned to his home on the evening of June 19 to pick up something he had forgotten and exited the car, "believing the vehicle to be in park." The Russian-born actor, whose parents were both celebrated figure skaters in the former Soviet Union, was best known for playing the young starship navigator Pavel Chekov in the movie reboot of Star Trek. "In spite of our unbelievable grief, we decided to come here to prevent other families from the same tragedy," his father, Victor Yelchin, said in tearful remarks to reporters. His wife, Irina Yelchin, said of her son, "He was very special, but now he's very special because his death might just save some other life." The automaker said in a statement it had not been served with a lawsuit and declined to comment on it, but expressed its "sympathies to the Yelchin family for their tragic loss." The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has said that the gear selectors in question clearly pose a safety issue that has led to hundreds of crashes and dozens of injuries. The problem has been tied to at least 68 injuries, 266 crashes and 308 reports of property damage. Yelchin's death marked the first known fatality linked to the issue. The recall applies to 811,000 vehicles in the United States, covering the 2014-2015 model years of the Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicle and 2012-2014 Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 sedans. Fiat Chrysler announced in June that it would soon furnish software upgrades to address the problem in all recalled vehicles. — Reuters |
| Hackers accessed Telegram messaging accounts in Iran, researchers say Posted: 02 Aug 2016 06:27 PM PDT
The attacks, which took place this year and have not been previously reported, jeopardised the communications of activists, journalists and other people in sensitive positions in Iran, where Telegram is used by some 20 million people, said independent cyber researcher Collin Anderson and Amnesty International technologist Claudio Guarnieri, who have been studying Iranian hacking groups for three years. Telegram promotes itself as an ultra secure instant messaging system because all data is encrypted from start to finish, known in the industry as end-to-end encryption. A number of other messaging services, including Facebook Inc's WhatsApp, say they have similar capabilities. Headquartered in Berlin, Telegram says it has 100 million active subscribers and is widely used in the Middle East, including by the Islamic State militant group, as well as in Central and South-east Asia, and Latin America. Telegram's vulnerability, according to Anderson and Guarnieri, lies in its use of SMS text messages to activate new devices. When users want to log on to Telegram from a new phone, the company sends them authorisation codes via SMS, which can be intercepted by the phone company and shared with the hackers, the researchers said. Armed with the codes, the hackers can add new devices to a person's Telegram account, enabling them to read chat histories as well as new messages. "We have over a dozen cases in which Telegram accounts have been compromised, through ways that sound like basically coordination with the cellphone company," Anderson said in an interview. Telegram's reliance on SMS verification makes it vulnerable in any country where cellphone companies are owned or heavily influenced by the government, the researchers said. A spokesman for Telegram said customers can defend against such attacks by not just relying on SMS verification. Telegram allows — though it does not require — customers to create passwords, which can be reset with so-called "recovery" emails. "If you have a strong Telegram password and your recovery email is secure, there's nothing an attacker can do," said Markus Ra, the spokesman. Iranian officials were not available to comment. Iran has in the past denied government links to hacking. Rocket kitten The Telegram hackers, the researchers said, belonged to a group known as Rocket Kitten, which used Persian-language references in their code and carried out "a common pattern of spearphishing campaigns reflecting the interests and activities of the Iranian security apparatus." Anderson and Guarnieri declined to comment on whether the hackers were employed by the Iranian government. Other cyber experts have said Rocket Kitten's attacks were similar to ones attributed to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards. The researchers said the Telegram victims included political activists involved in reformist movements and opposition organisations. They declined to name the targets, citing concerns for their safety. "We see instances in which people... are targeted prior to their arrest," Anderson said. "We see a continuous alignment across these actions." The researchers said they also found evidence that the hackers took advantage of a programming interface built into Telegram to identify at least 15 million Iranian phone numbers with Telegram accounts registered to them, as well as the associated user IDs. That information could provide a map of the Iranian user base that could be useful for future attacks and investigations, they said. "A systematic de-anonymisation and classification of people who employ encryption tools (of some sort, at least) for an entire nation" has never been exposed before, Guarnieri said. Ra said Telegram has blocked similar "mapping" attempts in the past and was trying to improve its detection and blocking strategies. Cyber experts say Iranian hackers have become increasingly sophisticated, able to adapt to evolving social media habits. Rocket Kitten's targets included members of the Saudi royal family, Israeli nuclear scientists, Nato officials and Iranian dissidents, US-Israeli security firm Check Point said last November. Popular in the Middle East Telegram was founded in 2013 by Pavel Durov, known for starting VKontakte, Russia's version of Facebook, before fleeing the country under pressure from the government. While Facebook and Twitter are banned in Iran, Telegram is widely used by groups across the political spectrum. They shared content on Telegram "channels" and urged followers to vote ahead of Iran's parliamentary elections in February 2016. Last October, Durov wrote in a post on Twitter that Iranian authorities had demanded the company provide them with "spying and censorship tools." He said Telegram ignored the request and was blocked for two hours on Oct. 20, 2015. Ra said the company has not changed its stance on censorship and does not maintain any servers in Iran. After complaints from Iranian activists, Durov wrote on Twitter in April that people in "troubled countries" should set passwords for added security. Amir Rashidi, an internet security researcher at the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, has worked with Iranian hacking victims. He said he knew of Telegram users who were spied on even after they had set passwords. Ra said that in those cases the recovery email had likely been hacked. Anderson and Guarnieri will present their findings at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas tomorrow. Their complete research is set to be published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank, later this year. — Reuters |
| US$89,000 ice cream truck joins Boston police force Posted: 02 Aug 2016 06:24 PM PDT
Festooned in balloons and unveiled to the public on Monday, the blue-and-white van is marked with police insignia and has "Free Ice Cream" written in large blue letters underneath a serving hatch. "If you had told me 30 years ago that the Boston Police Department would have an ice cream truck as part of its patrol force... I would've said you were crazy," said city police commissioner William Evans. The truck is part of a city community policing effort set up in 2010 to reach out to children. The initiative has already handed out more than 120,000 free pots of chocolate and vanilla ice cream. A police spokeswoman told AFP that the truck had been donated by the Boston Police Foundation and was valued at US$89,000. Although it will not make daily patrols it will be out in force at community events or on particularly hot days in the city, she said. "I absolutely love the new truck," Evans said. "The goodwill it generates between my officers and our city's young people is undeniable and nothing short of remarkable." Police said the ice cream is donated by a local Massachusetts dairy. — AFP |
| Goodbye, Song Kee Fishball Noodles Posted: 02 Aug 2016 06:18 PM PDT
Announcing its closure on Facebook on Monday (Aug 1), the owners said that the stall has ceased operations on July 30, without elaborating why. They also thanked customers for their support and added that they appreciated their patronage in the past few years. The post has since received more than 140 shares. Song Kee Fishball Noodle at Upper Serangoon Road was a popular supper haunt and was known for its springy al-dente noodles, fishballs that are firm with a bouncy bite and juicy handmade fish dumplings. It would see packed crowds, with long queues that required a waiting time of 30 to 45 minutes. Customers who saw the news were taken aback by the closure. One Facebook user, Daren Cher commented: "What happened?! I haven't got a chance to have my last try at your outlet." Another, Amelia Ang, called it "shocking news". "I thought my friends (were) kidding me. The best authentic fish ball noodles I have ever eaten in the entire Singapore. Let's hope for (a) miracle." The stall's co-owner, Chua Poh Seng, was once named a "Singapore Hawker Master" in the Fishball Noodle category as part of Singapore Hawker Masters 2013 — which aimed to find the best hawkers in various categories. According to The Straits Times then, Chua ran the stall with his two older brothers, Chua Soo Meng and Chua Soo Chai. The stall first opened in Toa Payoh in 1966, before moving to Jurong East in 1989. It stayed there for about 20 years, before moving to the current location near the Bartley Road junction around five years ago. When TODAY visited the stall in the afternoon, the shutters were down, and the place was deserted. TODAY then visited another stall, which bore the same name, at Toa Payoh Lorong 5. A staff, who said he was related to Chua but declined to be named, said the owners "still wish to continue" but "one of the owners there suffers from rheumatism and the other has a bump on his hand". He added that the sickness deterred them from working efficiently, which led to the store closing. Asked if it would reopen, he said: "Not anytime soon," adding that "they are looking into other trades — buying and selling cars". Vanessa Yeo, 32, who is a huge fan of the stall, is surprised and disappointed about the closure. "It's one of my favourite fishball noodles," said Yeo, who works in a bank. She had found out about the stall through a friend four years ago, and visits it once every three months. "The fishballs (there) are homemade and they are big — very generous," she shared. "Other ingredients like the fish dumplings and the stuffed beancurd that they make themselves is very good. The chilli as well," she added. Asked if she would consider visiting other stalls like the one at Toa Payoh, Yeo, said while it is an inconvenient location for her, she would try it "if I get the chance to". — TODAY |
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