Argus Geopolitical Intel

SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook Scraped Data Issue Surfaces in Vietnam via GEOPoliticalMatters.com Posted by: PRChannel Team - GEOPoliticalMatters.com European News & Media Centre Málaga The security research team, led by Anurag Sen , at Safety Detectives has uncovered a significant leak of Facebook data. As much as 3 gigabytes of scraped Facebook user data was found on an Elastic server, which raises additional concerns regarding the company’s security measures. This follows not only the Cambridge Analytica scandal of March 2018, but a previous data scrape of Facebook users by hackers purportedly based in Vietnam in January 2020. The data that our research found is on top of what was already found, and adds another 12 million records to the list. Many, but not all, of the entries included full details of personally identifying information (PII), stemming from multiple sources – Facebook included. We still do not know who is ultimately responsible for this scrape and how they were able to ...

The Emerging Post, Post-Cold War World Order: Bipolar, Multipolar, Anarchic or Pluralist? By Professor Ijaz Khan via GEOPoliticalMatters.com Prof. Ijaz Khan debates on what shape will the emerging order be, which no more sees its interests tied with spread of democracy, has put the existing post cold war order on its deathbed.  Though this process had started earlier, the Covid-19 Pandemic has fast forwarded it. The increasing Chinese role and influence is accompanied by a model of development, known as the ‘Chinese Model’ also termed meritocracy or Confucianism (Daniel A. Bell: The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy. Princeton, 2015) as an alternate to the liberal model. The Chinese model replaces the socialist ‘Soviet Model’ combining the liberal economic system with the political administrative system of the Soviet Model. Chinese Model permits more political parties, thus claiming to be a multiparty state, however, all parties has to work under the co...

WHO warns of second peak as its suspends testing on Trumps Covid cure ... By Iain Fraser - Consultant Editor Malaga (Remote) The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the very real possibility of a "second peak" in coronavirus cases if global lockdown restrictions are lifted too soon. The statement from the WHO´s head or emergencies, Dr Mike Ryan at yesterday´s [25th May 2020] media briefing bore heightened resonance as he announced that the Organization would no longer be continuing to testing hydroxychloroquine as a possible Covid-19 treatment, despite US President, Donald Trump´s self medication as a possible preventative measure to contracting or "curing" Coronavirus. The WHOs statement follows hot on the heels of an observational study published in the Lancet last Friday [22nd May 2020] on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine and its effects on COVID-19 patients that have been hospitalised. It is believed that the drug could cause heart problems in patien...

ECONOMY Is Gold still a resilient hedge to stem Geopolitical fallout? Posted by: Iain Fraser - Consultant Editor-at-large Malaga City (Remote) I have been monitoring "spot" gold [Pegged: 17 March 2020 at €1331.00 per oz & closing off last Friday - 22nd May 2020 at €1590.71 per oz] -v- "black gold" with the focus on gold price rises, as an observation project to monitor the Geopolitical and Macroeconomic effect of both the Coronavirus and the Saudi-Russia oil price war, which of course hasn't done Russia any favours. While, of course oil fell completely out of bed as a result of these joint-factors, traders generally believe the worst is over, but no one is rising above the parapet (that I can find) to predict when global demand for oil will recover to pre-pandemic levels, or as one trader told me "if it ever does". Even ultra blue-chip Shells´, head honcho, Ben van Beurden has called the scenario a "crisis of uncertainty" at the same tim...

CORONAVIRUS: What exactly is "R" and how does it affect lockdown easing ... By Iain Fraser - Consultant Editor, GEOPolitical Matters.com Malága (Remote) You would have to be a hermit or off-grid of course, not to have heard continual Government references to the "R" factor. We have received a lot of enquiries via our Geopolitical Knowledge Hub asking: "What exactly is R?" R = Reproduction First of all "R" stands for Reproduction. It is simply the number used and a key indicator of a diseases ability to spread. Dictionary.com defines it as "a genetic component of some bacteria that provides resistance to antibiotics and can be transferred from one bacterium to another by conjugation" In simple terms though,  it is a crucial number used to fully understand the threat posed by any virus. In essence it's the number of people that one infected person can pass the virus on to. "R is the number of people each infected person pass...

COVID-19 & THE US ECONOMY: US Unemployment figures continue to rattle already fragile economy ... Posted BY Iain Fraser - Consultant Editor, GEOPoliticalMatters.com Malaga Technology Centre (Remote) The latest US unemployment figures make for stark reading and will do nothing to allay fears about the already fragile US Economy. The latest figures from the US show that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped by almost 3 million last week as the Coronavirus lockdown continues to take its toll on the overall US economy, bringing the total number of new jobless claims, since the middle of March to stratospheric levels to more than 36 million, accounting for a little under 25% of the entire US workforce. The cumulative weekly statistics had been falling, but taking historical figures they are still gargantuan, totally eclipsing the prior record of 700,000 in fact figures not witnessed since the Great Depression, prompting the head of America's central bank to wa...

GEOPOLITICS & COVID-19: What will be the new normal if Coronavirus is here to stay ...? By Iain Fraser - Consultant Editor, GEOPoliticalMatters.com Malaga Technology Centre The World Health Organisation [WHO] has issued a grave warning that the coronavirus "may never go away" in yesterdays [Wednesday, 13 May 2020] online briefing. WHO executive director Dr Mike Ryan warned against trying to predict when the virus would disappear, adding that even if a vaccine is found, controlling the virus will require a "massive effort" globally. In the most stark warning to date from the WHO , Dr Ryan said “It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” "HIV has not gone away - but we have come to terms with the virus." he told the online audience. He went on to say “I think it is important we are realistic and I don’t think anyone can predict when this disease wil...

VIRTUAL EVENT: The Geopolitical Implications of COVID-19 By PRChannel Team - GEOPolitical Matters Malága Technology Centre Fri, May 15, 2020 12:30 PM ONLINE EVENT – In this virtual ‘fireside chat’ co-hosted by the Atlantic Council and SACC-USA, Barry Pavel addresses the Scowcroft Center’s efforts to both comprehend the geopolitics of COVID-19 and shape the US and allied response. The coronavirus pandemic represents a geopolitical inflection point that will continue to shape international and domestic phenomena for decades. The United States, alongside allies and partners like Sweden, has only just begun to comprehend its implications for the health, economic vitality, and security of the current world order. REGISTER HERE Accordingly, the Atlantic Council l and its Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security have been at the forefront of global efforts to map the potential geopolitical trajectories of this pandemic. In previous weeks, the Scowcroft Center launched a groundbreaking ...

Corona Pandemic, Afghanistan and the Peace Process By Professor Ijaz Khan Former Chairman, Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar, Pakistan. Author of Pakistan’s Strategic Culture and Foreign Policy Making. The Doha agreement between US and Taliban was hailed by some as a peace agreement, Taliban celebrated it as a victory, some including the US, called it the first step in a peace-making process, while a few considered it as the initiation of a more violent conflict within Afghanistan.  The post agreement progression of events and controversies is strengthening the perception (right or wrong) of Taliban victory or more violence.  The Corona Pandemic has slowed or dampened all other concerns the World over, however in Afghanistan it has not dented to any significant level the conflicts and the challenges to peace. The Taliban massacred 35 Afghan soldiers just before the arrival of Mr. Pompeo who was neither able to resolve the Afghan presidential conflic...

CYBER SECURITY: Detected Malware infections top out at over 400 million in 30 days - Analysis Posted by NewsTeam - GEOPoliticalMatters.com City of London Newsroom A report by Atlas VPN has revealed that there have been nearly 404 million malware infections globally in the last 30 days. [Benchmark date: April 5th 2020] That equates to a massive 10 million+ cases per day, with more than 64% of the malicious attacks targeting educational institutions. In April, the number of global infections worldwide fluctuated between 10 million to nearly 16 million daily cases. On the first day of the month, there have been around 12 million infections registered worldwide, with the instances falling to the lowest point on April 5th with the Kaspersky Cyberthreats map detecting about 10 million infections that day. By April 16th, the number of local infections reached its peak, hitting nearly 16 million cases worldwide. Since then, it has started decreasing, dropping to 11 million infections on Apri...

Videowall: How coronavirus charts can mislead us

AI IN DEFENCE: Artificial intelligence and humans have different risk tolerances when data is scarce - Analysis GEOPoliticalMatters.com - Newsteam City of London Newsroom (Remote) Unexpected Findings in AI v Human Activity comparisons - Analysis #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning #Defence #Technology Recent findings by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has revealed that in a real comparison scenario where humans and AI were looking at enemy activity, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was actually more cautious than humans about its conclusions of possible outcomes, especially when data is limited, turning conventional thinking on its head. Artificial intelligence and humans have different risk tolerances when data is scarce. While the recent findings are being classified as "preliminary", they offer an important snapshot into how humans and AI will complement one another in critical defence and security scenarios. The DIAs technical director of Machine-Assisted A...

EU ENVOY: EU needs to act cohesively to overcome impact of COVID-19 Posted by: Newsteam - City of London Newsroom India´s Ambassador to EU has used an EU-Indian webinar to voice his concerns over a lack of cohesion by the EU as they prepare for readiness for a post COVID-19 international environment. India Ugo Astuto said in his address that the EU and India have converging interests and shared values and need to work closely together to overcome the impact of COVID-19 by garnering joint research in innovation and formulating a coordinated response to deal with the economic consequences of the crisis. He said that "We can succeed in overcoming this crisis if we act in a coordinated manner. We have to act together to meet the impact of the virus. We have to foster research in innovation and vaccines and we have to share best practices, we have to ensure that knowledge and expertise are invested and information is transparently shared." Astuto added "We will need a coordi...

FPRI: China’s Military Capabilities and the New Geopolitics Posted by: Newsteam - City of London Newsroom (Remote) The Foreign Policy Research Unit [FPRI] has put together a valuable and thought provoking analysis discussing China’s Military Capabilities and its Geopolitical ambitions. They highlight that any discussion on Chinese global goals inevitably draws attention to the build-up of naval weaponry in recent years, with each year bringing fresh confirmation of China’s ability to leapfrog existing assessments of the size of its navy. They cite that in April this year [2020], China constructed a second Type 075 warship, a class specifically designed to compete in amphibious capability with the American Wasp class ships. Two more are anticipated, as are two more aircraft carriers. These are clearly designed to match American naval capability, and raise interest in China’s ability to sustain distant interest by sea, most obviously in the Indian Ocean, but wherever Chinese Geopolitica...

NEWSBYTE: #BREAKING Brent Crude trades above $30 a barrel for first time in almost a month ... Update to our post "GOLD: A safe bet ... Posted by: Newsteam - City of London Newsroom (Remote) Brent Crude trades above $30 a barrel for the first time since 15 April [2020] More to follow ...