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Israel succeeded Wednesday in its year-long mission to kill Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the man accused of being one of the masterminds of the October 7, 2023 attacks.

But while Sinwar’s death is a huge blow for Hamas, it does not signal the immediate demise of the group. Hamas has vowed to continue fighting, saying that the killing of leaders – including Sinwar – does not mean the end of their movement.

A Friday statement from Hamas’ political office confirming Sinwar’s death said: “Hamas each time became stronger and more popular, and these leaders became an icon for future generations to continue the journey towards a free Palestine.”

As rumors swirl about Sinwar’s successor, here’s what we know about what’s next for Hamas:

It is unclear whether Sinwar himself left any instructions on who should replace him, but his younger brother Mohammed Sinwar is seen by many as his heir apparent. Like his brother, Mohammed is a hardline militant who recently became Hamas’ military commander.

Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy chief of Hamas’ political bureau who helped found Hamas, could also be a contender to become Sinwar’s replacement. He spent five years living in the United States before the FBI designated him as a terrorist. He was eventually deported.

Khaled Meshaal, the group’s former political chief, is also seen as a powerful contender for the role. Meshaal is well known internationally, having met with top officials including former United States President Jimmy Carter, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the past.

However, he might face difficulty over his past support for a Sunni uprising against Syrian President Bashar al Assad as Hamas, itself a Shia group, is supported by Shia-majority Iran.

Sinwar’s deputy Khalil Al Hayya is seen as another powerful contender for the role. He acted as the chief negotiator for Hamas during recent ceasefire talks in Cairo and is based in Qatar.

Both Meshaal and Al Hayya have been among Hamas’ top-ranking officials for many years. And both have been the targets of Israeli assassination attempts in the past. In 1997, Israeli Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists sprayed a poisonous substance into Meshaal’s ear. The incident was widely publicized as the Israeli intelligence service agents were captured in Jordan.

Israel has killed Hamas’ previous leaders: In 2004 they killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. A few weeks later, his successor Abdel Aziz Rantisi was killed.

While Hamas has always managed to recover from multiple assassinations on its leadership, it is hard to say how they will now regroup, given how Hamas’ organizational structure changed under Sinwar’s rule.

Sinwar had consolidated power during the war, becoming Hamas’ sole decision maker in Gaza following the killing of the other two top Hamas officials there.

Mohammed al-Masri – popularly known as Mohammed Deif – was the commander of Hamas’ military arm, the Al-Qassam Brigades, and was killed in an Israeli airstrike in July. Deif’s deputy Marwan Issa was killed in March, according to the Israeli military. Hamas never acknowledged their deaths.

Sinwar became Hamas’ most senior leader after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital Tehran in July. Iran blamed the killing on Israel. The Israel Defense Forces did not comment on the accusation.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

In his first television interview since leaving Venezuela, Edmundo González Urrutia explained the role of the Spanish government in his departure from the Latin American country. The former diplomat also reiterated that he believes he is “more useful outside than inside,” free and not detained, to solve Venezuela’s political crisis.

Venezuela has been in a state of crisis since the country’s July presidential vote, in which authoritarian incumbent Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner by the country’s electoral authority – a body stacked with his allies – with 51% of the vote.

But tens of thousands of tallies published by the opposition suggested a win for Gonzalez. Venezuela’s opposition and multiple Latin American leaders refused to recognize Maduro’s victory, which sparked deadly protests during which thousands were arrested.

‘I had to negotiate with the regime’s envoys’

González described the days before he fled his home country. He first took refuge in the Dutch embassy because he had three summonses from the Venezuelan Public Ministry and an arrest warrant. “What awaited me was the raid of my house,” he stated. He claims he was in the Dutch embassy for 32 days “without anyone noticing I was there.”

Later, with his wife and team, he decided “the best option was to seek asylum in a friendly country like the Kingdom of Spain.” After two days at the Spanish ambassador’s residence in Caracas, González managed to leave Venezuela after signing a document at the Spanish embassy “that was initially going to be confidential” but “those who signed on behalf of the government took it upon themselves to disclose.”

The document in question accepts the ruling of the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela (TSJ), which ratified President Maduro’s victory in the July 28 elections. The Venezuelan government has yet to provide detailed results by voting center or “table” to support that announcement.

In September, González said on social media that he signed the document after several hours “of coercion, blackmail, and pressure” in the presence of Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly.

“I had to negotiate with the regime’s envoys” to leave the country, he said. “The legal weakling there was me: either I signed that [document] or I didn’t leave.”

The version of events shared by Venezuela’s National Assembly president, Jorge Rodríguez, differs from González. On September 18, Maduro’s representative assured in a press conference that they had not coerced the former diplomat and that he was the one who decided to contact the government.

González said that he never specifically requested the presence of Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez at the meeting.

“There were only four people, so someone took them without the proper authorization of the host, the ambassador himself,” he said.

The former diplomat said his last hours in Venezuela “were very tense” because he faced the prospect of leaving the country freely with his wife or staying at the embassy “without the possibility of leaving.”

He said that at the airport, he was just waiting to board the plane “to end this nightmare.”

Would María Corina Machado go into exile? González hopes not

González said leaving the country was a personal decision “that was appropriate to keep confidential,” so he only informed María Corina Machado — who was disqualified from running in the elections and backed González’s campaign — two days before his departure.

González said he explained his reasons to her, and the opposition leader agreed.

The candidate said he has maintained “permanent” contact with Machado and that they have a very fluid relationship.

This Wednesday, Machado denied having fled Venezuela, as Maduro previously claimed.

“Venezuelans know I am here in Venezuela, people know it, and Nicolás Maduro knows it too, but they are desperate to know where I am, and I will not give them that satisfaction,” she told Florida’s EVTV network.

Would exile be the future of Machado? “I hope not,” said González, stating that he has not discussed that scenario with her.

The role of the Spanish government

Narbona said she knows “the vice president stopped for a few hours at Barajas Airport” in Madrid, but she “has no more information than what has emerged over time.”

For Narbona, the political asylum granted by Spain to González benefits him because “he lived under threat and wanted to leave Venezuela.” Spanish opposition parties, like the conservative Popular Party [PP] and the far-right Vox, have accused the Spanish government of only helping Maduro’s regime with González’s asylum.

“I have found myself in the middle of the diatribe between the two main political forces in Spain,” González said, adding that the Spanish government has provided him with all the facilities in his exile.

On September 18, the Spanish Senate approved by majority a motion presented by the Popular Party urging the Spanish government to recognize González as the elected president of Venezuela.

The former diplomat said he does not know whether Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is mediating with Nicolás Maduro’s regime. He reiterated that he considers dialogue always a tool to resolve a political crisis and says he supports the “important effort” of the Colombian and Brazilian governments to find a solution.

González’s goal: January 10

González said that he and the exiled opposition are working to respect the will “of the nearly 8 million who voted for a peaceful change.” The goal, he says, is to be in Venezuela on January 10 for the inauguration.

The National Electoral Council of Venezuela (CNE), controlled by Chavismo, says Maduro won with 51.95% of the votes to González’s 43.18%, although it has not yet published detailed results. This result is questioned by much of the international community for its lack of transparency.

Regarding the official figures, González says that “there is no evidence to prove they [Maduro’s regime] won.”

The opposition candidate said that an inauguration in exile has not been considered. At the same time, the possibility of not being in Venezuela on January 10 “is a scenario we have not considered,” but he is approaching it with “coolness and a fresh mind.”

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Abu Mohammed stands with red, bleary eyes. Women and young men walk on a muddied pathway as children run between rows of improvised tents in Deir al-Balah displacement camp, central Gaza.

Mohammed and others staying in makeshift displacement camps have survived Israeli bombardments that have laid waste to Gaza’s streets for over a year, enduring catastrophic violence, constant killings and disfigurement, and crippling hunger.

As Israel celebrated its killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar this week – with its allies hoping Sinwar’s death will now open a possibility for peace in Gaza – Mohammed and many others remain skeptical it will change their daily reality.

Sinwar was a divisive figure to Palestinians: a militant hardliner, Sinwar was seen as a brutal force by some, a pragmatic political thinker by others, and a freedom fighter to many.

Born in a refugee camp in 1962, his family displaced from the Palestinian village of Al-Majdal – in what is now the Israeli city of Ashkelon – Sinwar was “a symbol of the Palestinian people,” in Mohammed’s view and that of many others.

Many Gazans today are afraid to publicly voice support for Sinwar and Hamas for fear of being targeted by the Israeli military — which launched its siege of Gaza with the stated aim of destroying Hamas after it led the October 7 terror attacks, and to save the hostages taken that day. Others fear condemning Hamas, which controls the Palestinian enclave.

“Sinwar was a target for Israel and he was targeted and killed. He attacked Israel, and committed crimes that we have paid the price for … We paid with horrific tragedies, with the blood of our children, our money, and our homes.”

She too said she had little hope that his death would be a turning point in the war. “The assassination of leaders seems to change nothing. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu wants more and more people to be killed. We wish to live in security, peace, and stability,” she said.

Sinwar’s last moments

Sinwar’s death has prompted speculation among Western allies over whether the coming weeks could signal the beginning of the end of fighting in Gaza, and the release of 101 remaining Israeli hostages.

But Netanyahu has given no signal he is ready to end the war. And Hamas has vowed to continue fighting.

On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces released drone footage that it said shows Sinwar in his final moments. The edited video shows the interior of a hollowed-out building, where a man that the IDF identifies as Sinwar can be seen perched alone on an armchair.

In the footage, the figure’s face is obscured by a scarf and covered in a thick layer of dust. His right arm appears to be injured, as he turns toward the drone. He is holding what the IDF described as a piece of wood, before throwing it toward the lens.

The footage appeared to show Sinwar at his weakest – alone and nearing defeat. But that’s not how most Palestinians see it, according to Mustafa Barghouti, a physician and an independent Palestinian politician.

“This image will make him look like a hero for most Palestinians,” Barghouti added, explaining that Sinwar’s apparent defiance in his final moments would be perceived by Palestinians as part of a broader historical resistance, even among those who did not agree with the Hamas leader’s tactics.

Like Sinwar, at least 70% of residents in Gaza are refugees, or descendants of those uprooted by al-Nakba, or “the catastrophe,” according to Amnesty International, when about 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes during the creation of Israel in 1948.

Decades later, those same descendants are grappling with the same reality of being unable to return to their homes in Gaza, with an estimated 69% of buildings in the enclave now destroyed or partly damaged, according to the CUNY Institute.

For Abu Fares, one of hundreds of thousands prevented from returning to their homes, Sinwar’s death is just a continuation of a brutal war. “It will not stop the battle or the fighting, because the children who carried their father’s dismembered body and those who carried their sister’s dismembered body — what do you expect from them after 20 years?”

‘I wish for my own death’

Sinwar’s killing comes as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza spirals and the death toll from Israeli airstrikes continues to rise.

At least 42,500 people have been killed since October 8, 2023, with another 99,546 injured, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. At least 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have been displaced, according to the UN.

Entire families have been erased, with many neighborhoods reduced to wastelands of thick sewage pools. More than a million people in northern Gaza are facing a looming famine compounded by Israel’s aid restrictions, the UN warned earlier this year.

Around 70% of Palestinians killed by Israel’s strikes are women and children, according to the Hamas-run Government Media Office (GMO). More than 17,000 children have been killed in the Israeli attacks since October 8, the office said.

Israel has said that its sustained military campaign in Gaza is designed to root out what remains of Hamas, following the Hamas-led attacks that killed 1,200 people in Israel and saw more than 250 people abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel says it takes steps to minimize civilian harm, like making phone calls and sending text messages to residents in buildings designated for attack. For years, it has also said Hamas fighters use mosques, hospitals and other civilian buildings to hide from Israeli attacks and launch their own – claims that Hamas has repeatedly denied.

But human rights agencies and many world leaders, including Israel’s allies, have repeatedly raised concerns over Israel’s war conduct and the civilian toll. Groups like Amnesty International also say warnings do not absolve Israel of responsibilities under international humanitarian law to limit civilian harm.

Mahmoud Jneid, also displaced in Deir al-Balah, said the world’s focus should rest on civilian suffering – not Sinwar’s death. “Sinwar was a target. What about us, the displaced? The closure of crossings and the lack of food and drink for children make our situation worse than (his) assassination,” he said.

“I wish Israel would assassinate me too,” Jneid said. “My brothers and family have died, and I wish for my own death so that I can find peace.”

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Italian parents who have made the often difficult and expensive decision to have children through surrogacy abroad have been thrown into a state of fear after a sudden shift in the country’s already strict restrictions on bringing those children up in Italy.

Italy has broadened its legislation on surrogacy, which has been illegal in the country since 2004, to now criminalize “surrogacy tourism” in countries like the United States and Canada, subjecting any intended parent who breaks the law to fines of up to €1 million ($1 million) and jail terms of up to two years.

As written, the law does not affect parents whose children born of surrogacy are already registered in the country, but many parents of younger children fear they could be targeted anyway when their children reach school age and have to register for the public school system.

The law, which came into effect immediately, passed the Italian Senate 84-58 after an impassioned debate that lasted more than seven hours on Wednesday and at times seemed as if it would come to blows.

Protesters demonstrating in front of the Senate during the lengthy debate carried signs that said: “We are families, not crimes,” and featured photos of their children under the words “the children we could never have.” Meanwhile, some called the proposed law a “medieval” ruling in interviews with Italian media.

The bill was introduced by Giorgia Meloni’s ruling far-right Brothers of Italy party and personally pushed by the prime minister, who has found in Pope Francis an ally on the surrogacy issue – underscoring the continued political influence of the Catholic Church in Italy, especially when it comes to reproductive issues.

Italy was one of the last western European nations to legalize same-sex unions, which it did in 2016, but still does not recognize same-sex unions as “marriage” under pressure from the Italian Catholic Church.

Meloni welcomed the Senate’s decision on X Wednesday, calling it “a common sense rule against the commodification of the female body and children. Human life has no price and is not a commodity.”

Earlier this year, Francis called for a global ban on surrogacy, describing the practice as “deplorable” and insisting that “a child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract.” The pope, however, has not called for the practice to be criminalized and a 2023 Vatican doctrinal ruling pointed out that children born through surrogacy can be baptized.

The Catholic Church opposes surrogacy because it is “contrary to the unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person” and is against in-vitro fertilization (IVF) because the process involves the disposal of unneeded embryos, which the church believes is immoral.

Francis has shifted the church’s approach on welcoming LGBTQ people, but has maintained a strong line opposing both abortion and surrogacy. He has framed his critique of surrogacy as part of his long-running concerns about a “throwaway culture” where human beings are considered as “consumer goods” to be discarded and in surrogacy sees a danger of poorer women being exploited.

The new Italian law does not differentiate between same-sex and heterosexual couples, nor between altruistic or paid surrogacy, but it will disproportionately affect the LGBTQ community, advocates fear.

“The alleged defense of women, the vaunted interest in children, are just fig leaves behind which the homophobic obsession of this majority is hidden, not so much,” Laura Boldrini, an Italian politician and former speaker of Italy’s lower house of Parliament who also joined the protest in front of the Senate posted on X.

“Law or no law, same-sex families exist and will continue to exist. We will always be at their side in the battle for the affirmation of the rights of boys and girls and the self-determination of women.”

Alessia Crocini, president of the Rainbow Families advocate group, said: “We as Rainbow Families will not stop and will continue our battle in the courts and in the streets. We will fight every day to affirm the beauty and freedom of our families and our sons and daughters.”

Italy already bans gay couples from adopting children and last year the country started removing lesbian mothers’ names from some birth registrations if they were not the biological parent. Many local governments have already changed birth registrations to allow for only “mother” and “father” rather than “parent 1” and “parent 2,” which is widely accepted across the European Union.

Michela Calabro, head of LGBTQ rights group Arcigay’s political arm, called the law a serious denial of individual freedoms and self-determination.

“Introducing a crime, even a universal one, not only limits the possibility of choice, but also fuels a patriarchal vision of women’s bodies,” she said in a statement on X. “This measure highlights the Government and Parliament’s inability to address other important and urgent issues in our country. In fact, the parliamentary majority once again chooses to demonstrate its strength mainly on ideological arguments, while on pragmatic issues it confirms its total inability.”

It is unclear how the new law will be enforced, or if DNA checks could be required when babies are said to be born to Italian women abroad.

LGBTQ activists who protested outside the Senate on Wednesday said that heterosexual couples make up 90% of all surrogacies.

They argue that those couples will still be able to “sneak their children in” and get around the new law since, in the US and Canada, intended parents’ names can be put on foreign birth certificates for babies born to surrogates in compliance with state rules. Gay male couples would find it harder to find a loophole when returning to Italy.

The new legislation could prove challenging for Meloni politically. She enjoys a strong approval rating, with the latest polls showing she has 29.3% support (up 3% from when she took office in late 2022).

But the broad reach of the legislation has prompted wide criticism, including from heterosexual couples who have come out to protest alongside those in the gay community. She is also a close political ally of tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has had children via surrogates and who spoke at her political convention in December, telling her supporters to “make more Italians” to combat the country’s dwindling birth rate.

The pope and Meloni have also found common ground on this topic, with the pair joining forces at a conference aimed at tackling Italy’s declining birth rate, while Francis has generated attention for his view that some couples nowadays prefer to have pets rather than children.

But not all of Meloni’s policies are in line with those of Francis. The same day the controversial law passed, Italy began shipping some migrant men rescued at sea to Albania, in a move that is starkly against the Church’s teaching that migrants should be welcomed and Francis’ outspoken advocacy on this topic.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

The amount of AI-generated child pornography found on the internet is increasing at a “chilling” rate, according to a national watchdog.

The Internet Watch Foundation deals with child pornography online, removing hundreds of thousands of images every year.

Now, it says artificial intelligence is making the work much harder.

“I find it really chilling as it feels like we are at a tipping point,” said “Jeff”, a senior analyst at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), who uses a fake name at work to protect his identity.

In the last six months, Jeff and his team have dealt with more AI-generated child pornography than the preceding year, reporting a 6% increase in the amount of AI content.

A lot of the AI imagery they see of children being hurt and abused is disturbingly realistic.

“‘Whereas before we would be able to definitely tell what is an AI image, we’re reaching the point now where even a trained analyst […] would struggle to see whether it was real or not,” Jeff told Sky News.

In order to make AI pornography so realistic, the software is trained on existing sexual abuse images, according to the IWF.

“People can be under no illusion,” said Derek Ray-Hill, the IWF’s interim chief executive.

“AI-generated child sexual abuse material causes horrific harm, not only to those who might see it but to those survivors who are repeatedly victimised every time images and videos of their abuse are mercilessly exploited for the twisted enjoyment of predators online.”

The IWF is warning that almost all the content was not hidden on the dark web but found on publicly available areas of the internet.

“This new technology is transforming how child sexual abuse material is being produced,” said Professor Clare McGlynn, a legal expert who specialises in online abuse and pornography at Durham University.

She told Sky News it is “easy and straightforward” now to produce AI-generated child sexual abuse images and then advertise and share them online.

“Until now, it’s been easy to do without worrying about the police coming to prosecute you,” she said.

In the last year, a number of paedophiles have been charged after creating AI child pornography, including Neil Darlington who used AI while trying to blackmail girls into sending him explicit images.

Read more: AI paedophile has ‘lenient’ punishment increased

Creating explicit pictures of children is illegal, even if they are generated using AI, and IWF analysts work with police forces and tech providers to remove and trace images they find online.

Analysts upload URLs of webpages containing AI-generated child sexual abuse images to a list which is shared with the tech industry so it can block the sites.

The AI images are also given a unique code like a digital fingerprint so they can be automatically traced even if they are deleted and re-uploaded somewhere else.

More than half of the AI-generated content found by the IWF in the last six months was hosted on servers in Russia and the US, with a significant amount also found in Japan and the Netherlands.

This post appeared first on sky.com

The amount of AI-generated child abuse images found on the internet is increasing at a “chilling” rate, according to a national watchdog.

The Internet Watch Foundation deals with child abuse images online, removing hundreds of thousands every year.

Now, it says artificial intelligence is making the work much harder.

“I find it really chilling as it feels like we are at a tipping point,” said “Jeff”, a senior analyst at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), who uses a fake name at work to protect his identity.

In the last six months, Jeff and his team have dealt with more AI-generated child abuse images than the preceding year, reporting a 6% increase in the amount of AI content.

A lot of the AI imagery they see of children being hurt and abused is disturbingly realistic.

“‘Whereas before we would be able to definitely tell what is an AI image, we’re reaching the point now where even a trained analyst […] would struggle to see whether it was real or not,” Jeff told Sky News.

In order to make the AI images so realistic, the software is trained on existing sexual abuse images, according to the IWF.

“People can be under no illusion,” said Derek Ray-Hill, the IWF’s interim chief executive.

“AI-generated child sexual abuse material causes horrific harm, not only to those who might see it but to those survivors who are repeatedly victimised every time images and videos of their abuse are mercilessly exploited for the twisted enjoyment of predators online.”

The IWF is warning that almost all the content was not hidden on the dark web but found on publicly available areas of the internet.

“This new technology is transforming how child sexual abuse material is being produced,” said Professor Clare McGlynn, a legal expert who specialises in online abuse and pornography at Durham University.

She told Sky News it is “easy and straightforward” now to produce AI-generated child sexual abuse images and then advertise and share them online.

“Until now, it’s been easy to do without worrying about the police coming to prosecute you,” she said.

In the last year, a number of paedophiles have been charged after creating AI child abuse images, including Neil Darlington who used AI while trying to blackmail girls into sending him explicit images.

Read more: AI paedophile has ‘lenient’ punishment increased

Creating explicit pictures of children is illegal, even if they are generated using AI, and IWF analysts work with police forces and tech providers to remove and trace images they find online.

Analysts upload URLs of webpages containing AI-generated child sexual abuse images to a list which is shared with the tech industry so it can block the sites.

The AI images are also given a unique code like a digital fingerprint so they can be automatically traced even if they are deleted and re-uploaded somewhere else.

More than half of the AI-generated content found by the IWF in the last six months was hosted on servers in Russia and the US, with a significant amount also found in Japan and the Netherlands.

This post appeared first on sky.com

A company was hacked after it hired a North Korean cyber criminal posing as an IT contractor.

The unnamed company fell victim to a new North Korean hacking tactic, according to cybersecurity company Secureworks, which investigated the incident.

A North Korean cyber criminal posing as an IT contractor was hired for a fixed-term contract by the firm, which is based either in the UK, US or Australia.

Secureworks is keeping the company’s location general in order to protect the company.

Within days of starting work, the criminal “accessed and exfiltrated company data”, according to Rafe Pilling, who is the director of threat intelligence at Secureworks.

Then, when the employment contract was finished, the criminal used the hacked data “to demand a hefty ransom in return for not publishing” it, said Mr Pilling.

This is a new tactic for the North Korean regime, which was already trying to sneak its workers into UK companies.

“It is almost certain that UK firms are currently being targeted by [North Korean] IT workers disguised as freelance third-country IT workers to generate revenue for the DPRK regime,” said an advisory note published by the government’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) last month.

UK companies that hire these workers could be breaching the “significant” sanctions currently placed on North Korea, according to OFSI.

Although it is thought those workers’ salaries were being used to fund the North Korean regime, this latest incident, and others like it, mark “a serious escalation” of risk for companies, said Mr Pilling.

“No longer are [the fake workers] just after a steady paycheck, they are looking for higher sums, more quickly, through data theft and extortion, from inside the company defences,” he said.

UK companies should protect themselves from these kinds of attacks by being on “high alert”, he said.

OFSI published a list of tell-tale signs that a new contractor is not who they say they are and is, in fact, an agent for the North Korean government.

Some of those include being inconsistent with the spelling of their name, their nationality, location, experience and online presence or refusing to appear on camera.

Mr Pilling said companies should monitor for long pauses if they do appear on camera for job interviews and OFSI warns that people who request prepayment but then fail to complete tasks, or just generally fail to do the job, could also be suspicious.

Attempts to re-route corporate IT equipment sent to the contractor’s home, routing paychecks to money transfer services and accessing the corporate network with unauthorised remote access tools should also be red flags.

This post appeared first on sky.com

The first UK trial of a rigid sail that can be fitted on commercial ships to reduce their carbon footprint is under way in the Irish Sea.

The sail being tested is more like an aircraft wing than the traditional sheet of billowing canvas. And the vessel it’s been fixed to is no ordinary ship either.

It’s one of the UK’s fleet of three nuclear transport vessels, specially designed to move high-level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel stored at Sellafield in Cumbria to destinations like Japan under long-standing nuclear decommissioning treaties.

“When this opportunity came up for us to trial a sail, we thought we’d be ideally placed to support a UK company that’s looking at an effective solution,” said Peter Buchan, managing director of shipping at Nuclear Transport Solutions, which is part of the government-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

“We’ve got highly safe and highly secure operations, so if you can make a sail work in our environment, then I’m sure that’s able to be translatable to right across the maritime industry.”

Most commercial ships have 30 or 40-year life spans and there are currently few alternatives to oil-burning engines for most ship types.

It’s why the overall contribution of shipping to global greenhouse gas emissions is expected to grow from a 3% share today to 10% by 2050.

The industry is also squeezed by volatile fuel prices, meaning growing interest from the industry in modern iterations of an ancient technology.

There have been previous demonstrations of various types of sail technologies fitted to ships, including kites, revolving wind-powered generators and wing-like sails.

But detailed evidence of how ships designed for diesel power perform under sail and how well they work on modern routes is lacking, say industry experts.

The trial, supported by the Department for Transport, is the first in the UK to test a rigid sail retrofitted to an existing vessel.

FastRig is a 20-metre retractable wing with control flaps similar to an aircraft built by Dumfries-based Smart Green Shipping.

“In theory we can move things through water with wind. We’ve done it for thousands of years. But how do we do it in a modern fleet?” said Diane Gilpin, the company’s founder.

“What impact does it have on the economics? What impact does it have on the crew? All of those details need to be ironed out, and that’s why we’re doing this trial.”

They’re not too worried about damaging the vessel.

The 100m-long Pacific Grebe that’s taking part in the two-week trial, has two hulls, two engines and propellors, and an array of security systems to keep nuclear cargoes safe.

Below decks are four radiation-shielded and heat-shielded holds designed to carry tonnes of high-level nuclear waste in specialised steel shipping flasks.

For the trial, it’s empty of hazardous cargo and fitted with a single FastRig sail.

Smart Green Shipping hopes to prove in the trial that ships fitted with several FastRig sails could see fuel and therefore emissions savings of up to 30%.

This post appeared first on sky.com

As the 2024 election showdown between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump reaches the home stretch, Harris will team up next week with arguably the two most popular Democrats in the country.

The Harris campaign announced on Friday that the vice president will join former President Barack Obama and his wife, former First Lady Michelle Obama, for get-out-the-vote events in two of the seven crucial battleground states – Georgia and Michigan.

According to the campaign, Harris will team up with the Obamas in Georgia on Thursday, Oct. 24. Early voting kicked off in the key southeastern battleground earlier this week and instantly set a new record.

Harris advisers also said that the vice president will join forces again on the campaign trail in Michigan on Saturday, Oct. 26, the day that early voting gets underway statewide in the crucial Great Lakes battleground.

This will be the first time that Harris has teamed up with either Obama on the campaign trail since she replaced President Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket nearly three months ago. 

The Obamas – longtime friends of Harris – officially endorsed her for president in July, five days after Biden’s blockbuster announcement that he was dropping his re-election bid and backing his vice president.

The former president and former first lady made the case for Harris during back-to-back headlining addresses at the Democratic National Convention in August in their hometown of Chicago.

And the former president hit the campaign trail for Harris a week ago, in Pennsylvania – which is arguably the most crucial of all seven battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential election. 

The former president is scheduled to return to the campaign in the coming days, with stops in Tucson, Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada, Detroit, Michigan, and Madison, Wisconsin. 

With a razor-thin margin of error race for the White House, both the Harris and Trump campaigns are scrambling to win over and turn out voters as early in-person, absentee, and mail-in balloting is now under way in roughly 40 states across the country.

The Harris campaign aims to use these campaign events to boost voter enthusiasm among the vice president’s supporters in order to get out the vote ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5, as well as to boost volunteer engagement to help voter turnout.

States have long allowed at least some Americans to vote early, like members of the military or people with illnesses. Many states expanded eligibility in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic made it riskier to vote in-person.

That year, the Fox News Voter Analysis found that 71% of voters cast their ballots before Election Day, with 30% voting early in-person and 41% voting by mail.

Early voting remained popular in the midterms, with 57% of voters casting a ballot before Election Day.

Fox News Digital’s Kellianne Jones and Rémy Numa contributed to this report. 

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Georgia Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson, a strong proponent of Supreme Court reform, says term limits for the justices is a way to eliminate ‘the possibility of long-term rot and decay’ that he argues is present on the high court now. 

‘Term limits is a way of creating a process that eliminates the possibility of long-term rot and decay due to corporate corruption on the court that we have now with no means of being able to correct it other than impeachment and conviction of a justice,’ Johnson told Fox News Digital in an interview Thursday.

‘And if you could not impeach and convict Donald Trump, you’re certainly not going to be able to remove a corrupt Supreme Court justice from office when he or she is doing the bidding of the right-wing forces that put them there in the very beginning.’

Johnson, a ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, previously teamed up with Democrats in both the House and Senate to propose court reform bills in an effort to both expand the court and impose term limits on the justices. During Congress’ most recent session, Johnson introduced the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act (TERM) that would impose 18-year term limits on justices.

In May 2023, Johnson joined Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Tina Smith, D-Minn., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as well as Democrat Reps. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Cori Bush, D-Miss., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in reintroducing the Judiciary Act of 2023 that would expand the Supreme Court to a 13-justice bench. The nine-justice court currently has a conservative supermajority.

‘We want to prevent this kind of rot and decay from ever overtaking a Supreme Court again,’ Johnson said. ‘And term limits would enable that to happen.’

Johnson went on to say that justices with lifetime tenure become ‘unaccountable, and they can do whatever they want,’ calling the bench ‘a club of kings and queens who can do whatever they want to do simply because they serve in a third co-equal branch of government.’

President Biden previously voiced support for such reform, releasing a statement in late July delineating three specific reforms, one of which called for Congress to approve term limits. Vice President Harris echoed Biden’s sentiments, saying in a statement that reforms were being proposed because ‘there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.’

Johnson said he has yet to have direct conversations with Harris about implementing such reforms in anticipation of the vice president possibly winning the Oval Office in November, but he said she is ‘aware of the challenge that we face.’

‘She’s supportive of efforts like my legislation,’ Johnson said. ‘So I look forward to having future conversations with, hopefully, President-elect and future President Kamala Harris and her team.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.

Johnson acknowledged that proposals to reform the court would face an uphill battle toward enactment, with the congressman foreseeing the Senate blocking the measures with a filibuster.

‘We’re in it for the long haul, and however long it takes, this legislation will be there for consideration,’ he said.

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