Category Archives: Britain

Britain, Government, National Security, Russia, Society, Technology, Terrorism, United States

Russia funded cyber terrorists targeting West under guise of Islamic State…

CYBER TERRORISM

A cyber security expert has warned that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is funding Islamic State hacking groups which pose a serious threat to some of the UK’s largest organisations.

Richard Turner, President of EMEA, has claimed his firm has proof that a crack team of highly skilled hackers with links to the Kremlin are targeting UK energy suppliers, defence networks, financial and telecommunication companies.

Mr Turner also claims they are responsible for bringing down a major television broadcaster in France.

Islamic State (IS) cyber terrorists were cited as the source as TV5 Monde was taken off air and the websites of smaller companies were hit by pro-IS propaganda in April. Mr Turner says, however, that the attacks were not carried out by IS but by a troupe of cyber terrorists, known as the APT28 group, which he believes are being sponsored by the Russian government and are masquerading as IS.

The security chief warns that hackers could easily bring down a media organisation in the UK or US. Mr Turner said his company has been tracking the work of APT28 since 2007.

An analysis of the information and data within the cyber caliphate website during the French attacks has been identified as being the same online data used by ATP28 in the past.

Their motives, according to Mr Turner, could be to push the news agenda away from Russia or by spreading fear and disinformation. He said: ‘If you can disrupt broadcast media through a cyber-attack you get the upper hand in spreading fear and propaganda.’

Mr Turner says that such attacks have been present for a number of years now and that many firms and individuals are only starting to realise the extent of it.

Such reports come amid increasing tensions between the west and Russia. RAF aircraft have been deployed numerous times over the past few months to fend off Russian bomber jets that have made frequent incursions into UK airspace. Russia has also beefed up its nuclear weaponry in response to US government plans to base military hardware in Eastern Europe.

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Arts, Britain, France, History

Battle of Waterloo and its 200th anniversary…

WATERLOO

This month marked the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo, in which Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated in present-day Belgium by a military alliance commanded by the Duke of Wellington.

The legacy of the battle remains contentious today, with France at odds with Belgium about how it should be commemorated.

Fought on Sunday 18 June, 1815, near Waterloo, in what is now central Belgium, the battle was contested between Wellington, with his British, Dutch, Belgian and Hanoverian army, and Napoleon Bonaparte with his French Imperial Guard. It was a clash of the titans: both men were military giants, they were the same age, celebrated strategists and had several victories under their belts.

Napoleon, who had risen through the ranks of the army during the French Revolution (1789-1799), had taken control of the French government in 1799 and became emperor in 1804. He was desperate to build a military empire, but a series of defeats led to his abdication and immediate exile in 1814.

In 1815, he returned to Paris with 1,000 supporters alongside him. The new king, Louis XVIII, promptly fled. With his ambitions for an empire rekindled, Napoleon then embarked on what came to be known as his Hundred Days campaign, prompting Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria to declare war on him.

In June, he invaded Belgium, then part of the Netherlands, in the hope of capturing Brussels. Separate armies of British and Prussian troops were camped there. On June 16, Napoleon’s men defeated the Prussians, who were under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher. Two days later, his army faced Wellington, who was based south of Brussels, near Waterloo.

A significant factor leading to his defeat was his decision to wait until midday to attack the British. There had been heavy rain the previous evening and Napoleon wanted to allow the sodden ground to dry. However, the delay allowed Blucher’s remaining troops – as many as 30,000 according to some historians – time to march to Waterloo and join forces with the British. This proved crucial.

The two sides fought for ten hours. Napoleon committed a number of tactical errors and also appointed inappropriate men as commanders. The arrival of Blucher’s men tipped the balance against him. However, Wellington said afterwards that the victory was by no means crushing. He described the battle as ‘the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life’.

The fighting ended when the outnumbered French retreated in defeat. Both sides faced horrific losses. Historians estimate that Napoleon’s army suffered more than 33,000 casualties, while British and Prussian casualties numbered around 22,000. The battle was the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Wellington went on to serve as British Prime Minister, while Napoleon was forced to abdicate for a second and final time. He was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. He died there in 1821, at the age of 51.

Belgium hosted a major reconstruction of the battle, which included 5,000 actors and some 300 horses, while in Britain the National Army Museum hosted a collection of objects from the time. The Royal Albert Hall also staged a 200th anniversary concert, featuring a series of scenes and music.

Earlier this year, the earliest artistic image of the battlefield of Waterloo – depicting the naked bodies of fallen soldiers – went on display after being discovered in a private collection.

OPINION

Undoubtedly, the Battle of Waterloo was a decisive moment in European history. It was also one of Britain’s greatest military victories, albeit with strong support from the Prussians. Yet 200 years on, the commemorations are relatively muted. In-part that is just a consequence of the passage of time: the days of weapon-wielding cavalry and red-coated infantry seem impossibly remote. But it is also due to Britons being disinclined of tub-thumping over battlefield successes.

We celebrate the ends of conflicts: most notably that of two world wars, but the overriding emotions on those occasions tend to be sorrow and relief. Patriotism is normally the common feature that provides the backdrop of such commemorations, but jingoistic revelling in the success of British might is a feature that is distinctly absent.

Military events that really seem to capture our imagination are the unmitigated disasters or where Britain has found itself battling against the odds. Dunkirk is the prime example, an occasion which illustrates that, whilst not exactly victorious, the country was at least not defeated. Other synonymous military campaigns of Britishness that fall into a similar category include the Battle of Britain, Trafalgar, possibly too even the Falklands War – victories, yes, but very much defensive ones.

Whether we can commemorate war without guilt is a point often borne out. Seeing off potential invaders and being on the receiving end of almighty catastrophes might not require a complex debate about culpability, but commemoration treads a fine line with those who wish to glorify war in whatever shape or form. There again, we rarely celebrate Britain’s ‘successful’ wars of colonial aggression, either. Our roles in the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan, has led us more towards introspection than pride.

For all our past expeditionary vim – perhaps, even, because of it – Britain is not a militaristic nation. It is notable that public anxiety about the current cuts to the defence budget is relatively muted.

In France, there is far less appetite in commemorating Waterloo. But that may reflect the fact that, whereas Britons are cautiously wary of celebrating the victory, our neighbours in Europe still refuses to accept that Waterloo was a defeat.

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Britain, European Court, Government, History, Human Rights, Politics, Society, United Nations

Celebrating 800 years of the Magna Carta: why would Britain contemplate leaving the ECHR?

MAGNA CARTA & ECHR

The 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta will be celebrated in Britain this year. This was the treaty signed between King John and a group of rebellious barons in 1215 that guaranteed British citizens a range of freedoms and civil rights. One of the 25 guarantors of the Magna Carta was the Earl of Winchester, Saer de Quincy, whose ancestors were from France. De Quincy fought King John when he failed to respect the Magna Carta and it all contained, and asked the French prince Louis to lay claim to the English throne. Whilst on a crusade, and far away from home, De Quincy died in 1219.

As a crusader today, De Quincy would probably have been labelled a foreign fighter by the intelligence services and would never have made it to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, having been stopped by border control as he attempted to leave the UK. His attempts to have King John of Runnymede replaced by a French king would have landed him in jail under anti-terrorism laws. And no doubt GCHQ, the intelligence services listening outpost in Cheltenham, would have kept him and his fellow barons under 24/7 surveillance as a threat to national security.

Today Magna Carta (and the accompanying legal presumption of habeas corpus) is celebrated as one of the most important documents in the history of civil rights. It is widely seen and accepted as being the precursor to later conventions that protect human rights and the rule of law, including the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and, more recently, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Magna Carta, though, was never meant to protect all the people, whereas the UN and European documents gives equal protection to all citizens, regardless of their status in society.

Today, too, we don’t need charters to protect Barons against the abuse of power by Kings. But we do need laws that protect citizens against abuse of power by governments, and we need not only national laws, but European and international ones.

David Cameron symbolises Magna Carta as the ultimate expression and mantra of British values. While some Tories are now promulgating the argument that the UK should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and return to those traditional values, against the backdrop of the Magna Carta anniversary celebrations their arguments are especially ironic. For example, they strongly accuse the ECHR of limiting the freedom of governments, but King John probably complained too about the Magna Carta unduly restricting his absolute freedom to rule as he wanted. But crucially those in power must be bound by law in order to protect citizens from arbitrary rule.

800 years on, the values and principles laid down in Magna Carta have been embraced by large parts of the world. They have become universal and their shared values are at the core of the European Union as a community of citizens. We should be glad that European courts in Luxembourg and Strasbourg protect us against governments exceeding and abusing their powers, undermining civil liberties and the rule of law.

Fundamental rights, the rule of law and democratic principles enshrined into nationhood are frequently violated in nearly all EU member states. In some cases, the violations are serious and systematic. The current Hungarian government is one of the most egregious offenders. In recent years, the media has been critically gagged, electoral law changed to secure an absolute majority for the governing party, political opponents weakened and the independence and impartiality of the judiciary undermined. But there are also many other examples across Europe: the ant-gay laws in Lithuania, the deportation of Roma people from France, the cruel and inhumane treatment of underage asylum seekers in the Netherlands, and the collective disregard shown for the law and civil liberties in many countries’ counter-terrorism policies.

If we become accepting of tolerating torture, secret prisons, rendition, abduction, and indefinite detention without fair trials and representation then we will lose our moral authority. Such blots tarnish Europe’s status as a shining beacon of freedom and human rights in the world. EU governments must be held accountable for such crimes, especially those that are committed in the name of defending democracy.

That is why we need legal instruments to uphold our common values, even if this means that sometimes national authorities are overruled. EU member states voluntarily signed up to these supranational laws and conventions for good reason, namely because it is the essence of democracy that those in power are bound by laws and that their powers are limited. Whilst that may sometimes be awkward, such checks and balances are the vital safeguards which protect us against abuse of power by the state.

As it happens, these principles are not politically left or right-wing, nor are they alien to modern British culture. Quite the opposite: safeguarding citizens’ rights and the rule of law have their roots firmly established in that ancient, famous document that will be celebrated this year. Magna Carta does not set Britain apart from the rest of Europe. It is the expression and very epitome of the common European values that we have all come to embrace.

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