Fire on board an oil tanker off Germany’s Baltic Sea coast extinguished

Fire on board an oil tanker off Germany’s Baltic Sea coast extinguished
The oil tanker Annika, which was wrecked in the Baltic Sea after a fire, is towed to Rostock, Germany on Oct. 12, 2024. (dpa via AP)
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Updated 12 October 2024
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Fire on board an oil tanker off Germany’s Baltic Sea coast extinguished

Fire on board an oil tanker off Germany’s Baltic Sea coast extinguished
  • The fire appears to have broken out in the engine room or in a storage room for paint and spread across the stern of the ship

BERLIN: A fire that broke out on board an oil tanker off Germany’s Baltic Sea coast has been extinguished, authorities said Saturday. The blaze didn’t spread to the ship’s load.

The maritime rescue service was alerted to the fire on board the German-flagged Annika on Friday morning, and shortly afterward took all seven crew members off the vessel. Black smoke from the tanker, which was carrying about 640 metric tonnes of oil, could be seen from the coast.

The fire appears to have broken out in the engine room or in a storage room for paint and spread across the stern of the ship. On Friday afternoon, experts determined that the ship’s condition was stable and authorities decided to have it towed to the port city of Rostock to continue fighting the blaze.

Firefighters inspected the 73-meter long ship after it arrived in the harbor around 1 a.m. and found that the fire was out, Germany’s Central Command for Maritime Emergencies said.


Australia mushroom murder jury to deliver verdict today

Australia mushroom murder jury to deliver verdict today
Updated 26 sec ago
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Australia mushroom murder jury to deliver verdict today

Australia mushroom murder jury to deliver verdict today
  • Erin Patterson allegedly murdered three elderly relatives of her estranged husband using poisonous mushrooms
SYDNEY: The jury in the trial of an Australian woman who allegedly murdered three elderly relatives of her estranged husband using poisonous mushrooms will deliver its verdict on Monday, the court said in a statement.
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with the murders of her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, along with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, in July 2023.

North Korea bars Western influencers from trade fair tour

North Korea bars Western influencers from trade fair tour
Updated 5 min 52 sec ago
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North Korea bars Western influencers from trade fair tour

North Korea bars Western influencers from trade fair tour
  • Diplomatically isolated North Korea has welcomed sporadic groups of international visitors in recent months
  • Foreign tourists to be taken on a trip to the authoritarian state from October 24 to November 1 via Beijing

BEIJING: North Korea has barred Western influencers from joining a delegation of tourists to an international trade fair in October, a China-based tour operator said on Monday.

Diplomatically isolated North Korea has welcomed sporadic groups of international visitors in recent months, including hundreds of foreign athletes in April for the first Pyongyang International Marathon in six years.

Travel agency Young Pioneer Tours (YPT) announced Saturday that it would take a group of foreign tourists on a trip to the authoritarian state from October 24 to November 1.

But the tour would not be open to journalists, travel content creators or influencers, the company said on its website.

YPT co-founder Rowan Beard said the curbs on creators were “a specific request from the North Korean side.”

“We anticipate that once the country officially reopens, there may be stricter scrutiny or limitations on influencers and YouTubers joining tours,” Beard said.

The company had “no visibility” on when Pyongyang would restart official media delegations, he added.

Several online influencers have shared slickly produced videos from inside North Korea in recent months.

Priced at €3,995 ($4,704), the YPT tour will depart from the Chinese capital Beijing and take in the Pyongyang Autumn International Trade Fair, North Korea’s biggest international business exhibition.

Participants will have a “unique chance” to stroll through over 450 trade booths exhibiting machinery, IT, energy, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods and household items, YPT said.

The company added that the Pyongyang Chamber of Commerce would “hold a VIP presentation for us for an in-depth overview and insights into the (North Korean) economy.”

The itinerary also includes major sights in Pyongyang as well as the first Western visit in over five years to Mount Myohyang – a mystical peak boasting a museum of lavish gifts presented to former North Korean leaders.

China has historically been the biggest diplomatic, economic and political backer of North Korea, which remains under crippling international sanctions.

Chinese people used to make up the bulk of foreign tourists and business visitors to the isolated nuclear nation before it sealed its borders during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But numbers have not rebounded despite Pyongyang’s post-pandemic reopening, a trend that some analysts have attributed to Beijing’s anger at North Korea’s explicit support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.


Trump says alignment with BRICS’ ‘anti-American policies’ to invite additional 10% tariffs

Trump says alignment with BRICS’ ‘anti-American policies’ to invite additional 10% tariffs
Updated 25 min 32 sec ago
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Trump says alignment with BRICS’ ‘anti-American policies’ to invite additional 10% tariffs

Trump says alignment with BRICS’ ‘anti-American policies’ to invite additional 10% tariffs
  • Trump also said that he would start sending other countries the first letters on tariffs and trade deals on Monday
  • BRICS leaders on Sunday said that Trump’s “indiscriminate” import tariffs risked hurting the global economy

US President Donald Trump on Sunday said that countries aligning themselves with the “Anti-American policies” of BRICS, will be charged an additional 10 percent tariff.

“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10 percent Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Trump did not clarify or expand on the “Anti-American policies” reference in his post.

The original BRICS group gathered leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China at its first summit in 2009. The bloc later added South Africa and last year included Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia as members.

Trump also said that he would start sending other countries the first letters on tariffs and trade deals on Monday, ahead of a deadline for the paused levies to take effect.

“I am pleased to announce that the UNITED STATES TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals, with various Countries from around the World, will be delivered starting 12:00 P.M. (Eastern), Monday, July 7th,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.


Visa’s 24/7 war room takes on global cybercriminals

Visa’s 24/7 war room takes on global cybercriminals
Updated 07 July 2025
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Visa’s 24/7 war room takes on global cybercriminals

Visa’s 24/7 war room takes on global cybercriminals
  • The warning signs are clear: anything that seems too good to be true online is suspicious, and romance opportunities with strangers from distant countries are especially dangerous
  • Visa maintains identical facilities in London and Singapore, ensuring 24-hour global vigilance

ASHBURN, United States: In the heart of Data Center Alley — a patch of suburban Washington where much of the world’s Internet traffic flows — Visa operates its global fraud command center.

The numbers that the payments giant grapples with are enormous. Every year, $15 trillion flows through Visa’s networks, representing roughly 15 percent of the world’s economy. And bad actors constantly try to syphon off some of that money.

Modern fraudsters vary dramatically in sophistication.

To stay ahead, Visa has invested $12 billion over the past five years building AI-powered cyber fraud detection capabilities, knowing that criminals are also spending big.

“You have everybody from a single individual threat actor looking to make a quick buck all the way to really corporatized criminal organizations that generate tens or hundreds of millions of dollars annually from fraud and scam activities,” Michael Jabbara, Visa’s global head of fraud solutions, told AFP during a tour of the company’s security campus.

“These organizations are very structured in how they operate.”

The best-resourced criminal syndicates now focus on scams that directly target consumers, enticing them into purchases or transactions by manipulating their emotions.

“Consumers are continuously vulnerable. They can be exploited, and that’s where we’ve seen a much higher incidence of attacks recently,” Jabbara said.

The warning signs are clear: anything that seems too good to be true online is suspicious, and romance opportunities with strangers from distant countries are especially dangerous.

“What you don’t realize is that the person you’re chatting with is more likely than not in a place like Myanmar,” Jabbara warned.

He said human-trafficking victims are forced to work in multi-billion-dollar cyber scam centers built by Asian crime networks in Myanmar’s lawless border regions.

The most up-to-date fraud techniques are systematic and quietly devastating.

Once criminals obtain your card information, they automatically distribute it across numerous merchant websites that generate small recurring charges — amounts low enough that victims may not notice for months.

Some of these operations increasingly resemble legitimate tech companies, offering services and digital products to fraudsters much like Google or Microsoft cater to businesses.

On the dark web, criminals can purchase comprehensive fraud toolkits.

“You can buy the software. You can buy a tutorial on how to use the software. You can get access to a mule network on the ground or you can get access to a bot network” to carry out denial-of-service attacks that overwhelm servers with traffic, effectively shutting them down.

Just as cloud computing lowered barriers for startups by eliminating the need to build servers, “the same type of trend has happened in the cybercrime and fraud space,” Jabbara explained.

These off-the-shelf services can also enable bad actors to launch brute force attacks on an industrial scale — using repeated payment attempts to crack a card’s number, expiry date, and security code.

The sophistication extends to corporate-style management, Jabbara said.

Some criminal organizations now employ chief risk officers who determine operational risk appetite.

They might decide that targeting government infrastructure and hospitals generates an excessive amount of attention from law enforcement and is too risky to pursue.

To combat these unprecedented threats, Jabbara leads a payment scam disruption team focused on understanding criminal methodologies.

From a small room called the Risk Operations Center in Virginia, employees analyze data streams on multiple screens, searching for patterns that distinguish fraudulent activity from legitimate credit card use.

In the larger Cyber Fusion Center, staff monitor potential cyberattacks targeting Visa’s own infrastructure around the clock.

“We deal with millions of attacks across different parts of our network,” Jabbara noted, emphasizing that most are handled automatically without human intervention.

Visa maintains identical facilities in London and Singapore, ensuring 24-hour global vigilance.

 


BRICS nations slam US tariffs, but avoid naming Trump

BRICS nations slam US tariffs, but avoid naming Trump
Updated 07 July 2025
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BRICS nations slam US tariffs, but avoid naming Trump

BRICS nations slam US tariffs, but avoid naming Trump
  • The bloc is divided about much, but found common cause when it comes to Trump and his stop-start tariff wars
  • Trump has now warned he will impose unilateral levies on partners unless they reach “deals” by August 1

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil: BRICS leaders at a summit on Sunday took aim at US President Donald Trump’s “indiscriminate” import tariffs.

The 11 emerging nations — including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — account for about half the world’s population and 40 percent of global economic output.

The bloc is divided about much, but found common cause when it comes to the mercurial US leader and his stop-start tariff wars — even if they avoided naming him directly.

Voicing “serious concerns about the rise of unilateral tariff” measures, BRICS members said the tariffs risked hurting the global economy, according to a summit joint statement.

They also offered symbolic backing to fellow member Iran, condemning a series of military strikes on nuclear and other targets carried out by Israel and the United States.

In April, Trump threatened allies and rivals alike with a slew of punitive duties, before offering a months-long reprieve in the face of a fierce market sell-off.

Trump has now warned he will impose unilateral levies on partners unless they reach “deals” by August 1.

In an apparent concession to US allies, the summit declaration did not criticize the United States or its president by name at any point.

Conceived two decades ago as a forum for fast-growing economies, the BRICS have come to be seen as a Chinese-driven counterbalance to US and western European power.

But as the group has expanded to include Iran, Saudi Arabia and others, it has struggled to reach meaningful consensus on issues from the Gaza war to challenging US global dominance.

BRICS nations, for example, collectively called for a peaceful two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict — despite Tehran’s long-standing position that Israel should be destroyed.

An Iranian diplomatic source said his government’s “reservations” had been conveyed to Brazilian hosts. Still, Iran stopped short of rejecting the statement outright.

Xi Jinping, Putin skip summit

The political punch of this year’s summit has been depleted by the absence of China’s Xi Jinping, who skipped the meeting for the first time in his 12 years as president.

The Chinese leader is not the only notable absentee. Russian President Vladimir Putin, charged with war crimes in Ukraine, also opted to stay away, participating via video link.

He told counterparts that BRICS had become a key player in global governance.

The summit also called for regulation governing artificial intelligence and said the technology could not be the preserve of only rich nations.

The commercial AI sector is currently dominated by US tech giants, although China and other nations have rapidly developing capacity.