A report released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says countries are not doing nearly enough to protect against disasters expected as global warming continues. UN Secretary General António Guterres calls the report compiled by 270 researchers from 67 countries “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.” [node:read-more:link]
RCMP say that a “calculated and organized violent attack” on a Coastal GasLink drill site in northern B.C. Feb. 17 “left its victims shaken and a multi-million dollar path of destruction.” The site was attacked by about 20 people, some wielding axes, and the company said that among other things, “an attempt was made to set a vehicle on fire while workers were inside” and flare guns were also fired at workers.” [node:read-more:link]
Noted environmentalist David Suzuki is standing by his weekend speculation that frustration with governments’ handling of climate change could lead to protesters “blowing up” pipelines. After he broached the possibility, there was a flurry of accusations that he was inciting violence, but he countered Nov. 22 that “we’ve come to a time where civil disobedience is what we have to do now — to put our bodies on the line.” [node:read-more:link]
A B.C. judge has released two journalists arrested by RCMP at a pipeline protest camp last week. They were released after agreeing to comply with terms of an injunction designed to keep protesters away from a pipeline construction site. A Coastal GasLink lawyer explained that unlike the 27 others arrested, the journalists had a “justified reason to go back.” [node:read-more:link]
The federal government is being asked by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to provide $2 billion over the next three years – followed by $1 billion annually – to help its 2,000 members to guard against more climate-related events such as wildfires, extreme heat, drought and floods. [node:read-more:link]
Responding to a ransomware attack on a Texas pipeline company in May, the Transportation Security Administration today directed owners and operators of critical facilities to take specific measures to protect their operations and to have recovery plans in place. Blamed on Russia-based cyber criminals, the attack resulted in gasoline shortages in several states. [node:read-more:link]
The annual cost of dealing with natural disasters attributable to extreme weather now averages $1.9 billion or nearly five times as much as a decade ago, and Natural Resources Canada says current efforts to address the impact on infrastructure are “insufficient in the face of rapidly accumulating social and economic losses” and “the window to reduce increasingly severe impacts is rapidly closing.” [node:read-more:link]
The U.S. Justice Department said June 7 that it had recovered much of the roughly $4.4-million Bitcoin ransom paid last month to Russian hackers who shut down the company’s control systems. A department team is reported to have seized some $2.3 million in cryptocurrency by hijacking the Darkside Network’s Bitcoin wallet. [node:read-more:link]
The cost to the federal government of dealing with natural disasters would indicate that Canada continues to be seriously affected by climate change. Public Safety Canada says the amount was $309.5 million in the 2018-2019 fiscal year compared with $494.9 million a year earlier and $485.8 million in 2016-2017. The average in the five previous years was $360 million, which was triple the average in the five years before that. [node:read-more:link]
The RCMP is investigating reports by a pulp-and-paper company in Richmond, B.C., that its systems have been infiltrated by malware. A spokesperson for Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corp. says communications and some production capability have been affected. [node:read-more:link]
Four days into a shutdown of nearly half of the U.S. east coast petroleum supply due to a ransomware cyberattack, the federal government and Colonial Pipeline were still working today to secure the network. The has disrupted fuel supply, triggering retail sales restrictions and pushing benchmark gasoline prices to a three-year high. [node:read-more:link]
An emergency Ontario-wide alert that woke thousands to warnings of an unspecified “incident” at the Pickering nuclear station near Toronto 12 January was erroneously sent out during a training exercise. Solicitor General Sylvia Jones says there was no danger to the public or the environment. [node:read-more:link]
An emergency Ontario-wide alert that woke thousands to warnings of an unspecified “incident” at the Pickering nuclear station near Toronto 12 January was erroneously sent out during a training exercise. Solicitor General Sylvia Jones says there was no danger to the public or the environment. [node:read-more:link]
Growing reliance on the public cloud as a core element of public- and private-sector transition to an increasingly digital world worries Eric Trexler, vice-president of global governments and critical infrastructure at Texas-based Forcepoint, a company partly owned by Raytheon which develops and markets cybersecurity software. While the trend is expected to give agencies more data storage flexibility, he says it also amounts to an “attractive bullseye” for cyberattackers. [node:read-more:link]
The Dutch government has no plans to lift a COVID-19 curfew after several days of often violent protests an looting in several cities. More than 180 persons described as “scum” by Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra have been arrested. [node:read-more:link]
