Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Jay Obernolte (R-Hesperia)
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) and U.S. Representatives John Garamendi (D-CA) and Jay Obernolte (R-CA) led 16 of their colleagues in introducing the Impact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Act, legislation that would provide a total of $1 billion over four years for Impact Aid Construction Grants to address the significant backlog of facility needs at federally impacted school districts. In fiscal year 2024, Hawaii received $53.3 million through the U.S. Department of Education’s federal Impact Aid program.
Contact:
Elise Inouye: 202-770-7293 (Hirono)
Cameron Niven: 202-384-8625 (Garamendi)
Connor Chapinski: 202-225-5861 (Obernolte)
Hirono, Garamendi, Obernolte Lead Colleagues in Introducing Bill to Provide Construction Funding to Federally-Impacted School Districts
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) and U.S. Representatives John Garamendi (D-CA) and Jay Obernolte (R-CA) led 16 of their colleagues in introducing the Impact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Act, legislation that would provide a total of $1 billion over four years for Impact Aid Construction Grants to address the significant backlog of facility needs at federally impacted school districts. In fiscal year 2024, Hawaii received $53.3 million through the U.S. Department of Education’s federal Impact Aid program.
“Every child deserves to receive a quality education in a safe, suitable learning environment,” said Senator Hirono. “TheImpact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Act would provide critical funding for over 1,000 school districts across the country to address their significant backlogs of construction, repair, and maintenance needs. Impact Aid is one of many critical programs administered by the Department of Education and this bill would strengthen this program to help ensure that federally impacted school districts have the funding they need to support millions of students as they learn and grow in our public schools.”
“This bill addresses long-overdue repair needs to ensure equitable access to quality education and safe learning environments for students across the country,” said Rep. Garamendi. “I am grateful to Senator Hirono for introducing this legislation in the Senate and for fighting for safe environments for teachers and students,” said Garamendi. Every child should have the opportunity to learn and excel in a safe environment. This legislation brings us closer to realizing that goal.”
“In California’s 23rd District, many of our schools serve military families and are located near federal lands that do not pay local tax and therefore reduce local tax revenues,” said Rep. Obernolte. “These schools face serious infrastructure challenges—from outdated buildings to limited capacity for critical upgrades. The Impact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Act is a vital step forward. It provides the resources and federal-local collaboration our schools need to modernize their facilities and create safe, effective learning environments for every student. I’m proud to help lead this legislation because it delivers real support to our communities and honors our commitment to military families and rural schools alike.”
The Impact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Act would ensure that federally impacted school districts have the resources needed to provide every student with a quality education and safe learning environment by authorizing $250,000,000 annually for four years for Impact Aid Construction Grants. Of this funding, 25% would be made available via formula funding to all eligible school districts. The Department of Education would disseminate the remaining 75% as competitive grants with priority for those school districts with acute emergencies in their facilities.
The federal Impact Aid program offers federal support for public school districts where federal activity has reduced the available tax base. As federal lands are tax exempt, including military installations, Indian treaty, trust, or Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and federal properties and facilities, federally impacted school districts have significantly less tax revenue and bonding capacity to meet their needs. Currently, Impact Aid supports over 1,100 school districts, totaling more than 10 million students.
“TheImpact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Actis a crucial investment in the future of federally impacted school districts,” said Nicole Russell, Executive Director, National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS). “Too many schools serving military-connected children, Native American students, and others affected by federal property face deteriorating facilities that undermine student achievement and make it difficult to recruit and retain teachers–and they lack the tax base to overcome these challenges due to the presence of nontaxable federal property. By addressing the extensive backlog of infrastructure needs, this legislation is an important step in leveling the playing field and ensuring every student has access to a safe, modern learning environment that supports their success.”
“2025 marks the 75th anniversary of the Impact Aid law, which recognized the Federal Government’s obligation to replace lost tax revenue in school districts with a federal presence by providing operational and minimal construction funding,” said Brent Gish, Executive Director, National Indian Impacted Schools Association (NIISA). “TheImpact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Actwould provide crucial funding to districts serving students residing on Indian land and those in military and federal property areas. These districts have very limited and sometimes no bonding capacity to construct new or renovate existing facilities and teacher housing. The growing backlog of need now exceeds $4 billion. It is our strong belief that in America, all children deserve a high-quality education in a safe and modern facility that supports innovative, culturally rich teaching. Quality facilities coupled with research-based instruction yields positive learning outcomes!”
“Schools around the country that receive Federal Impact Aid have a distinct disadvantage when it comes to raising funds for school construction,” said Kyle Fairbairn, Executive Director, Military Impacted Schools Association (MISA). “In a majority of states, the only way to build a school or do an extensive remodel is by passing a local bond issue supported by property taxes. In Impact Aid districts, these funds become the responsibility of local taxpayers because the federal government does not pay taxes on land it owns. This makes passing a bond issue very difficult, as it places a tremendous burden on taxpayers who do pay property taxes. TheImpact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Actis a way to have the federal government help fund local schools, benefiting all taxpayers within an LEA.”
The Impact Aid Infrastructure Partnership Act is endorsed by National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS); National Indian Impacted Schools Association (NIISA); Military Impacted Schools Association (MISA); and Build America’s School Infrastructure Coalition (BASIC).
In the Senate, this legislation was cosponsored by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Tina Smith (D-MN).
In the House, it was cosponsored by Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Julia Brownley (D-CA-26), Marilyn Strickland (D-WA-10), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ-5), Don Davis (D-NC-1), Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM-03), and Emily Randall (D-WA-06).
The full text of the legislation is availablehere.
Source: United States Senator for Illinois Tammy Duckworth
April 03, 2025
The Senators wrote: “These shockingly reckless breaches of security protocols for safeguarding sensitive and classified information clearly warrant an investigation into whether any of the government officials involved violated federal laws”
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services (SASC), Veterans’ Affairs (SVAC) and Foreign Relations (SFRC) Committees—joined U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and 28 Senate Democrats in sending a letter to U.S. Attorney General (AG) Pam Bondi urging her to appoint a Special Counsel to thoroughly and impartially investigate whether any of the government officials involved in the Signal chat security breach violated federal criminal law. On March 24, The Atlantic’s editor in chief reported that President Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Waltz had included him in a group text chain with several high-ranking national security officials where highly sensitive, classified or controlled information was shared and discussed over Signal—an unsecure commercial messaging app.
“In addition to the reckless inclusion of a journalist in the chat, we are deeply concerned about this serious breach in the proper handling of such information and deliberations,” the Senators wrote. “Appointment of a Special Counsel is appropriate where the Department may have a conflict of interest or extraordinary circumstances are present, a criminal investigation is warranted and it is in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to investigate the matter. Such circumstances are clearly present here.”
The Signal chat group started by Mr. Waltz included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, among at least 18 other high-ranking government officials. In addition to discussing the sensitive foreign policy implications of military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, these officials proceeded to discuss key operational information regarding the precise timing of the planned attacks, the types of military aircraft and munitions to be used and the targets and results of the strikes as they occurred. An unprecedented security breach of this magnitude involving top senior government officials presents the kind of extraordinary circumstances clearly contemplated by the Special Counsel regulations.
“These officials conducted a highly sensitive discussion, including of clearly classified or controlled information, over the commercial messaging app Signal, including in some instances on personal devices and while traveling in foreign countries, rather than using the secure U.S. government channels and facilities that are designed and required for the sharing of such information. Despite subsequent claims to the contrary by you, President Trump and several of the officials involved, including in testimony before Congress, some of the information they shared and discussed over Signal would almost certainly be considered classified or, at a minimum, controlled, prior to and in the immediate aftermath of an impending strike,” the Senators wrote.
In the letter, the Senators raised concerns if the Signal chat violated federal law. For example, gross negligence in handling national defense information may violate the Espionage Act. Importantly, other laws, including the Federal Records Act, require the preservation of certain government records. Destruction of government records or property may constitute a violation of various criminal statutes. Subsequent statements to Congress and testimony before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees by several of the officials involved raise additional concerns about potential violations of federal criminal laws that prohibit making false statements to Congress, committing perjury in testimony to Congress, inducing another person to commit perjury or conspiring to commit any of the foregoing actions.
“During your confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, you assured the American people that everyone will be held to ‘an equal, fair system of justice’ if you were confirmed as Attorney General and that ‘no one is above the law.’ As the individuals most seriously implicated in this incident include senior officials at the highest levels, including several of your fellow cabinet members, appointment of a Special Counsel is necessary to ensure that the investigation and any ensuing prosecutions are fair, impartial, and independent and that no official, regardless of seniority or political affiliation, is above the law. The people of this country deserve the assurance that this matter will be taken seriously and addressed swiftly. To do so, we urge you to appoint a Special Counsel immediately,” the Senators concluded.
Along with Duckworth, Durbin and Schumer, the letter was co-signed by U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Peter Welch (D-VT), Jack Reed (D-RI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Chris Coons (D-DE), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), John Fetterman (D-PA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Patty Murray (D-WA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Ed Markey (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Gary Peters (D-MI).
Full text of the letter is available on Senator Duckworth’s website and below:
March 31, 2025
Dear Attorney General Bondi:
On March 24, The Atlantic’s editor in chief reported that President Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Waltz had included him in a group message chain with several high-ranking national security officials where highly sensitive, classified, or controlled information was shared and discussed over Signal—an unsecure commercial messaging app. In addition to the reckless inclusion of a journalist in the chat, we are deeply concerned about this serious breach in the proper handling of such information and deliberations. Given the extraordinary circumstances of this shocking incident and the significant public interests at stake, it is imperative that you immediately appoint a Special Counsel to thoroughly and impartially investigate whether any of the government officials involved violated federal criminal law.
Appointment of a Special Counsel is appropriate where the Department may have a conflict of interest or extraordinary circumstances are present, a criminal investigation is warranted, and it is in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to investigate the matter. Such circumstances are clearly present here.
The Signal chat group started by Mr. Waltz included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, among at least 18 other high-ranking government officials. In addition to discussing the sensitive foreign policy implications of military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, these officials proceeded to discuss key operational information regarding the precise timing of the planned attacks, the types of military aircraft and munitions to be used, and the targets and results of the strikes as they occurred. An unprecedented security breach of this magnitude involving top senior government officials presents the kind of extraordinary circumstances clearly contemplated by the Special Counsel regulations.
These officials conducted a highly sensitive discussion, including of clearly classified or controlled information, over the commercial messaging app Signal, including in some instances on personal devices and while traveling in foreign countries, rather than using the secure U.S. government channels and facilities that are designed and required for the sharing of such information. Despite subsequent claims to the contrary by you, President Trump, and several of the officials involved, including in testimony before Congress, some of the information they shared and discussed over Signal would almost certainly be considered classified or, at a minimum, controlled, prior to and in the immediate aftermath of an impending strike.
These shockingly reckless breaches of security protocols for safeguarding sensitive and classified information clearly warrant an investigation into whether any of the government officials involved violated federal laws pertaining to the proper safeguarding and preservation of such information. For example, gross negligence in handling national defense information may violate the Espionage Act. Importantly, other laws, including the Federal Records Act, require the preservation of certain government records. Signal allows users to schedule messages for deletion after certain time periods and Mr. Waltz appears to have set the chat messages to delete initially after one week and then later in the chat changed the setting to delete messages after four weeks. Destruction of government records or property may constitute a violation of various criminal statutes. Subsequent statements to Congress and testimony before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees by several of the officials involved raise additional concerns about potential violations of federal criminal laws that prohibit making false statements to Congress, committing perjury in testimony to Congress, inducing another person to commit perjury, or conspiring to commit any of the foregoing actions.
Even prior to his first Administration, President Trump campaigned for the need to prosecute and “lock up” individuals who allegedly “bypass government security” or “sent and received classified information on an insecure server.” Further, as an avowedly loyal and zealous advocate for the President, you echoed these same sentiments prior to your confirmation. Given the extraordinary nature of this security breach by senior Trump Administration officials, the likelihood that these actions needlessly endangered American lives and our nation’s security, the importance of putting our nation’s security before partisan political interests, and the range of federal criminal laws that may have been violated, it is imperative that the Department of Justice conduct a thorough investigation to assess the extent of the damage and determine whether any criminal charges are warranted against any of the government officials involved.
During your confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, you assured the American people that everyone will be held to “an equal, fair system of justice” if you were confirmed as Attorney General, and that “no one is above the law.” As the individuals most seriously implicated in this incident include senior officials at the highest levels, including several of your fellow cabinet members, appointment of a Special Counsel is necessary to ensure that the investigation and any ensuing prosecutions are fair, impartial, and independent and that no official, regardless of seniority or political affiliation, is above the law.
The people of this country deserve the assurance that this matter will be taken seriously and addressed swiftly. To do so, we urge you to appoint a Special Counsel immediately.
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Public Service Commission (PSC) Commissioner, Anele Gxoyiya, has commended government departments that are complying with the legislation of paying suppliers timeously.
“Departments that consistently comply with this legislation are commended and encouraged to continue and maintain this performance and pay all legitimate invoices from suppliers timeously or within 30 days as required by the Public Finance Management Act and its related prescripts,” Gxoyiya said.
Addressing the media in Pretoria earlier today, Gxoyiya highlighted that as of the end of the third quarter of the 2024/25 financial year, 38 153 invoices, amounting to approximately R1 billion, were paid by the national departments after 30 days.
However, 4 993 invoices valued at about R442 million, remained unpaid by the departments, beyond the 30-day period.
Gxoyiya said the Department of Defence reported the highest number of invoices paid after 30 days during the third quarter with 30 355 invoices amounting to over R456 million.
“This department was also the highest during the first and second quarters with an average of 61% and 80% respectively of the total number of invoices paid after 30 days by national departments,” Gxoyiya said.
“The most common reasons provided by departments for the late and/or non-payment of invoices vary from misfiled, misplaced or unrecorded invoices to internal control deficiencies,” he said.
Gxoyiya said a total of 76 154 invoices amounting to over R8 billion were paid after 30 days and a total of 94 914 invoices older than 30 days not paid with the rand value of over R12 billion.
“The non-payment of invoices within 30 days remains a concern to the PSC as it is a contravention of the Public Finance Management Act.
“The PSC will further engage the Office of the Auditor-General on mechanisms to ensure consequence management against Accounting Officers who fail to pay service providers within 30 days upon receipt of an invoice particularly where queries are concerned,” he said.
The National Treasury is continuously assisting suppliers with queries on non-payment of invoices through a dedicated central email address (30daysqueries@treasury.gov.za) by following up with transgressing institutions and providing feedback to suppliers with reasons for the late or non-payment of invoices, and possible date for the payment or any other resolution.
The National Treasury is encouraged to engage with service providers on various platforms to raise awareness of the dedicated queries communication platform so that more queries can come to the fore and receive attention. – SAnews.gov.za
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Kweisi Mfume (MD-07)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – One year after Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed, Maryland Congressman Kweisi Mfume joined a bicameral Congressional letter, led by Congressman Johnny Olszewski, urging states to conduct critical bridge safety tests to prevent further tragedy in communities across the country. The letter is also co-signed by Maryland Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks and Representatives Steny Hoyer, Glenn Ivey, Sarah Elfreth, April McClain Delaney (all-D) as well as Representatives Andre Carson (D-IN), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Chris Pappas (D-NH), Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Eugene Vindman (D-VA).
In the letter, the lawmakers said the Key Bridge collapse after a vessel strike on March 26, 2024, wasn’t an isolated incident. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation, also released last week, revealed the bridge was 30 times the acceptable vulnerability threshold according to now-required guidelines by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The NTSB said the bridge was among 67 across the country that have not completed an AASHTO-based vulnerability study because they were built prior to its adoption.
Also on the list is Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which the State of Maryland has recently committed to evaluating based on AASHTO safety guidelines.
“Just one year ago, the Baltimore region experienced a devastating tragedy that claimed the lives of six individuals and disrupted countless livelihoods when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after a vessel strike,” the lawmakers wrote. “The cost to rebuild the bridge is expected to near $2 billion and take at least three years for construction. We have since learned there are dozens of bridges across the country under state jurisdiction that lack recommended safety assessments.”
“To avoid another tragedy of this magnitude, we must take urgent action to address vulnerabilities that could lead to another catastrophic bridge failure or collapse. The Key Bridge disaster was not an isolated incident – it was a warning,” they continued.
“As leaders, we have a responsibility to prevent history from repeating itself. We urgently and respectfully request the expeditious adoption of the recommendations outlined by NTSB in its preliminary report. Specifically, we call on the 18 other states and Army Corps of Engineers with jurisdiction over the 66 bridges across the country that currently lack a vulnerability study to undergo such an evaluation as quickly as possible,” they urged.
“As Members of Congress, we stand ready to work hand in hand with you, aiming to provide the resources needed in each state and localities to bring our bridges up to safety standards,” they continued. “This is a moment to lead with compassion and foresight. The families who lost loved ones in Baltimore deserve to know that their heartache is not in vain – that we learned, acted, and are doing everything within our power to prevent another disaster,” the lawmakers concluded.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Leonie Fleischmann, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, City St George’s, University of London
The Israel Defense Forces has launched a further major ground assault in Gaza – this time with the intention of taking and holding significant amounts of territory as a “security buffer”. This appears unlikely to endear the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to many of the families of the remaining 59 Hamas hostages, who may well fear the worst for their loved ones.
It’s a high-risk strategy on Netanyahu’s part. But the prime minister is already walking a political tightrope as he simultaneously attempts to bend his country’s legal system to his will.
Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to protest the prime minister’s recent attempts to bring the country’s supreme court under government control. The saga started when he sacked the country’s most important spy chief, the head of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, in mid-March.
This was the first time a government had dismissed a serving head of Shin Bet, and the supreme court stepped in to freeze the order until it had the chance to hear opposition objections.
The attorney-general, Gali Baharav-Miara, a vocal critic of Netanyahu, accused the prime minister of ignoring the law. This led the government to pass a no-confidence motion in her as well.
The move was criticised by the Israel Democracy Institute, which described the new law as a “broader shift toward subordinating legal and security institutions to political authority” in Israel. It certainly has the potential to undermine the country’s system of checks and balances which – as in many western democracies – rests largely on the separation of powers.
Israel does not have a single written constitution. What it has is a set of “Basic Laws” which provide the rules of governance. Within these are checks and balances, which aim to prevent any one institution or individual from exercising untrammelled control. Putting the make-up of the supreme court into the hands of the government would threaten this basic democratic principle on which Israel has always operated.
On March 19, Netanyahu posted on X from the prime ministerial account: “In America and Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will. They won’t win in either place!” He later removed the post and reposted the same thing from his personal account.
The post linked his efforts to control the judiciary with the Trump administration’s loudly voiced campaign against state barriers to its power.
But anyone who has followed Netanyahu’s decision-making in recent years will discern a pattern. Since being charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in 2019 (which he denies) he has done anything he can to try to gain control of the country’s judiciary – for his own political preservation.
Netanyahu’s motivations
At the same time, many critics believe Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza had been with one eye to prolonging hostilities to delay proceedings in his own trials. Now it appears that the Israeli prime minister is attempting a frontal assault on Israel’s judiciary.
His decision to sack Bar came as the Shin Bet chief was supervising an investigation into allegations concerning, as he put it in a letter to the cabinet before his sacking: “Qatar’s involvement at the highest levels of Israeli decision-making, including the Prime Minister’s Office.”
Equally questionable is the attempted ousting of Attorney-General Baharav-Miara, who is overseeing the criminal case against him. Replacing them with more compliant and loyal individuals would help ensure that Netanyahu and the policies of his government are protected.
All of this drew a strong response from the former consul general of Israel in New York, Alon Pinkas. Writing in the opposition paper Haaretz on March 21, Pinkas argued that Israeli “democracy’s guardrails” are being brought “crashing down fast and furious by Netanyahu’s design”.
He concluded that the only two remaining checks on Netanyahu’s power are “the supreme court and the Israeli public” – adding that the court can only act when it is permitted. “So the Israeli public becomes the only potentially effective check.”
An active civil society is an important marker of democracy and my research shows that Israel has a strong history of protest and extra-parliamentary action across a range of social, economic and political issues.
There has been a continuous stream of anti-Netanyahu protests in Israel since the “black flag protests” in 2020 in opposition to Netanyahu’s continuing in power despite facing serious criminal charges. The protests grew ever stronger, despite COVID safeguarding regulations.
When the government attempted wide-ranging reforms which many critics feared would fundamentally weaken the independence of the judiciary, hundreds of thousands took to the streets weekend after weekend, forcing the government eventually to shelve its plans.
It remains to be seen, now, whether Alon Pinkas is right and whether the Israeli public can be an effective check against a leader who appears now to be governing solely in his own interests.
Leonie Fleischmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Juba (Agenzia Fides) – Soldiers of the South Sudanese army attacked a church, killing a parishioner and taking his body. This happened in Our Lady of Assumption Parish, in Loa, in Magwi County, in the State of Eastern Equatoria, when soldiers from a unit of the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) stationed in the area attacked the church on March 26 at around 5 p.m.According to a statement from the Diocese of Torit dated April 3 and sent to Fides, “the soldiers opened fire without warning, killing one civilian and wounding another.” The bullets hit the walls and windows of the rectory.”To cover up their crime,” the statement continued, “the soldiers took the body and hid it, covering the bloodstains on the floor with earth to eliminate any evidence. To date, the whereabouts of the body remain unknown.” “During the intrusion, church staff, aid workers, and local residents were intimidated, threatened, and interrogated,” the diocese reports.Monsignor Emmanuel Bernardino Lowi Napeta, Bishop of Torit, condemns the intrusion into church property and the “grave violation of sanctity and neutrality” as well as “the safety and rights of church staff” and calls for “an immediate and impartial investigation into the incident, the identification and prosecution of the military personnel involved, as well as concrete assurances and clear protocols from the SSPDF to ensure that similar incidents do not occur in the future.” The bishop also requests “the release of the body to the family so that a burial can take place” and “the deployment of security personnel by the State of Eastern Equatoria to protect the community of Loa, as well as a public apology to the Diocese of Torit for the attack.” (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 3/4/2025)
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Marines with I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) perform operations as part of previous iterations of Marine Rotational Force Darwin (MRF-D) in multiple locations throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
MRF-D is an upcoming annual six-month rotational deployment to enhance interoperability with the Australian Defense Force and provide a forward-postured crisis response force in the Indo-Pacific.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Gus Bilirakis (FL-12)
Washington, DC – This week, U.S. Representatives Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) re-introduced the Consensual Donation and Research Integrity Act, which will protect the dignity of those who donate their bodies to education or research. Specifically, the Act would create standards for registration, inspection, chain of custody, labeling and packing, and proper disposition. It would also create a registration and tracking system for bodies and body parts donated for research, thus preventing body brokers and bad actors from taking advantage of donors and donor families. When a family donates a loved ones’ organs or tissues for transplantation, the process is transparent and heavily regulated. However, in comparison, there is currently no federal law — and few state laws — governing the process when a body is donated for use in medical research or education. In almost every state, it remains legal to sell the human remains of adults, and worse, under current law, almost anyone — regardless of expertise — can dissect and sell human body parts. Because of this, grisly abuses of donor bodies abound.
“This important legislation provides safeguards to ensure that human remains are disposed of in a manner that preserves the dignity and choices of the patient or next of kin,”said Rep. Bilirakis. “The industry has been largely unregulated and sadly many families have been exploited for profit. Our bill gives family members the peace of mind of knowing that their wishes are being honored.”
“Families who choose to donate a loved one’s body for scientific research or educational use do so believing that they are benefitting others and that their loved ones will be treated with dignity and respect,” said Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher. “Sadly, many families have been taken advantage of by a largely unregulated industry. I am glad to partner with Congressman Bilirakis, Senator Murphy, and Senator Tillis to ensure that donor bodies are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve, while providing accountability and transparency.”
Currently, bodies and body parts ostensibly donated for medical research can be bought, sold, and leased again and again, making it extremely difficult without proper reporting requirements to consistently track what becomes of donors’ bodies, to ensure that they are handled with dignity, and to guarantee their return to their loved ones after cremation. Brokers make money — anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 — by providing bodies and dissected parts to companies and institutions that specialize in advancing medicine and other trades through training, education, and research. The Consensual Donation and Research Integrity Act of 2023would transform the landscape of tissue and whole-body donation by preventing body brokers from taking advantage of the generosity of donors and donor families by directing anyone who acquires or transfers a human body or human body part for education, research, or the advancement of medical, dental, or mortuary science to register with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, maintain a complete record for each case, ensure proper label and packaging of the remains, and dispose of them by returning them to a donor’s relative or personal representative.
Following are a few examples of the treatment donor bodies have been subjected to due to the lack of regulation of the process,as reported by Reuters:
In 2016, more than 20 bodies donated to an Arizona broker were used in U.S. Army blast experiments — without the consent of the deceased or next of kin. Some donors or their families had explicitly noted an objection to military experiments on consent forms.
In Honolulu, police were called twice to storage facilities leased by body broker Bryan Avery in 2011 and 2012. Both times, they found decomposing human remains, but both times, police concluded that Avery committed no crimes because no state law applied.
Health inspectors who visited Southern Nevada Donor Services, which offered grieving families free cremation in exchange for donating a loved one’s body to “advance medical studies,” found a man in medical scrubs holding a garden hose, thawing a frozen human torso in the midday sun. As the man sprayed the remains, “bits of tissue and blood were washed into the gutters.”
The Consensual Donation and Research Integrity Act of 2025is supported by the National Funeral Directors Association, the world’s leading and largest funeral service association, serving more than 20,000 individual members who represent nearly 11,000 funeral homes in the United States and 49 countries around the world.
On 8 and 9 April 2025, the NATO Secretary General, Mr Mark Rutte, will visit Japan.
On Tuesday, 8 April, the Secretary General will meet the Minister of Defence, Mr Gen Nakatani. He will also visit the Yokosuka Naval Base and the Mitsubishi Electric Kamakura Works.
On Wednesday, 9 April, Mr Rutte will meet the Prime Minister, Mr Shigeru Ishiba, the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Mr Yoji Muto, members of the Diet, and representatives of Japanese industry.
The Secretary General will also give a speech followed by a moderated conversation on the topic “NATO and Japan – Strong Partnerships in an Interconnected World”, at the Keio University, in Tokyo.
Media advisory
8 April, 12:20 (CEST) Remarks by the NATO Secretary General with the Minister of Defence of Japan
9 April, 11:50 (CEST) Joint press statements by the NATO Secretary General with the Prime Minister of Japan
Media coverage
The remarks with the Minister of Defence and the press statements with the Prime Minister will be streamed live on the NATO website available on EBU News Exchange.
Transcripts of the Secretary General’s remarks, as well as pictures, will be available on the NATO website. Video of all events will be available for free download from the NATO Multimedia Portal after the event.
Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –
Before the meeting, university veterans and members Academic Council laid wreaths and flowers at the sculpture group “Sorrow” in the Hall of Memory and Sorrow. In addition, they took part in the ceremony of transferring 185 stories of students and employees of the Higher School of Economics about their loved ones during the Great Patriotic War to the All-People’s Historical Project “Faces of Victory“.
In memory of the defenders of the Fatherland
The official ceremony of handing over the stories was opened by the General Director of the Victory Museum, Alexander Shkolnik. He recalled that the museum and the university had recently signed an agreement on partnership and cooperation. “After all, we are doing one big thing – raising new generations of real citizens of our country. And they can only be real when they know the history of their country, honor and remember its heroes,” he emphasized.
Rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Nikita Anisimov noted that those who have no past cannot be responsible for the future, and the university is responsible for the future. The transfer of stories of students and employees of the HSE about their heroic ancestors to the Faces of Victory project is the university’s contribution to perpetuating the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland.
“We are grateful to the Victory Museum for the opportunity to pay tribute to the memory and say words of gratitude to the heroes who defended our country in difficult years, and also to hold the Academic Council of the Higher School of Economics here. And we are happy to hand over to the museum 185 stories collected by our students and staff as part of the Faces of Victory project. We are a young university, but many of the HSE students have something in their families that is connected with the Great Patriotic War, they have a story of their heroes. And I also want to say thank you to everyone who is defending our country now. Among them are students and staff of the Higher School of Economics. And their names, I am sure, will be on the next pages of the memorial materials that we are compiling today,” said Nikita Anisimov.
The hero of one of these stories is the first rector of the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering (now Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics Yevgeny Armensky, who volunteered for the front after receiving his high school diploma and ended the war in Prague, was a member of the HSE. Nikita Anisimov noted that he created the glory of Russian engineering education and that it is important to remember this now, when it is being revived in Russia.
Preservation of historical memory
After the ceremonial meeting, the Academic Council met. The names of 11,695 Heroes of the Soviet Union are immortalized on the marble pylons of the Hall of Fame, where it was held, and a 10-meter figure of a victorious soldier is installed in the center.
At the beginning of the meeting, Nikita Anisimov awarded honorary certificates to university veterans: Boris Gerenrot, professor Faculty of Law, and Vladimir Gavrilov, head of the rector’s secretariat from 1998 to 2000. Boris Gerenrot was 15 years old in 1941, he was called up to the front in 1944, and Vladimir Gavrilov survived the war as a child – he was driven away with his family to Germany, and his mother was shot before his eyes.
The honorary guest of the Academic Council was the scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society (RMHS) Mikhail Myagkov. He gave a report on the topic “Memory of the Liberators of Europe in the 21st Century”, emphasizing the role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Mikhail Myagkov, in particular, said that in Prague, Marshal Konev lost control of the advanced units of the 1st Ukrainian Front for some time because the Praguers surrounded the soldiers and rocked them in their arms. More than 4 thousand monuments and memorials were erected in Europe, and, for example, 90% of the French considered the USSR’s role in the victory decisive, although France was liberated by the armies of the allies.
Today, in Europe and the USA, the winners are considered to be primarily the British and Americans, history is falsified to suit politics, and American textbooks devote two lines to the Battle of Stalingrad. At the same time, Mikhail Myagkov emphasized, the decisive contribution of the USSR to the victory in the war is confirmed by indisputable facts and figures. On the Soviet-German front, 607 enemy divisions were destroyed, and on the Western front, only 176.
The speaker answered questions from members of the Academic Council.
Focus on technology leadership
The second issue on the agenda of the Academic Council meeting was the participation of HSE in major federal projects and programs.
Recently, the HSE team successfully defended the university development program before the Council for Support of Development Programs for Higher Education Organizations, taking second place among the participants of the Priority 2030 program. Vice-Rector Elena Odoevskaya presented a new model for implementing this program at the university, emphasizing that the emphasis in it is on technological leadership. In the near future, it is necessary to develop a KPI model for university departments to ensure their contribution to achieving the program’s target indicators.
First Vice-Rector Leonid Gokhberg reported on the results of the work Center for Artificial Intelligence HSE University, created in 2021 following a large-scale competition. The most significant results: 31 publications at A* conferences and 23 articles in Q1 journals, 31 projects for industrial partners, 45 registered RIAs. More than 1,000 students have completed 34 AI courses created by the center. This year, the university applied for a new competition, the results of which will be announced soon.
Vice-Rector Sergey Roshchin presented the main findings of the analytical report “The Position of HSE Graduates in the Russian Labor Market”. It notes HSE’s leading positions in terms of graduates’ salaries in most areas of training: IT, business informatics, economics, management, etc. Key employers for HSE graduates are leading bigtech and fintech companies.
After the meeting, members of the Academic Council, accompanied by tour guides, visited the Victory Museum exhibitions “The Feat of the People” and “The Battle for Moscow. The First Victory.”
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs today announced the complete list of additional medical facilities at which it will deploy the Federal Electronic Health Record system in 2026 under its accelerated deployment schedule.
The nine additional VA medical centers and their associated clinics that will go live with the EHR in 2026 are as follows:
Cincinnati VAMC-Fort Thomas (Fort Thomas, KY)
Chillicothe VAMC (Chillicothe, OH)
Cincinnati VAMC (Cincinnati, OH)
Dayton VAMC (Dayton, OH)
Louis Stokes Cleveland VAMC (Cleveland, OH)
Fort Wayne VAMC (Fort Wayne, IN)
Marion VAMC (Marion, IN)
Richard L. Roudebush VAMC (Indianapolis, IN)
Alaska VA Healthcare System (Anchorage, AK)
The nine sites announced today were chosen following planning sessions among officials from VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office, regional and local VA medical leaders, VA clinicians and EHR vendor Oracle Health.
“We are excited to bring Veterans in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Alaska a modern medical record system that will result in improvements to care, coordination and convenience. The Federal EHR is integrated across all VA and Department of Defense components, enabling seamless data exchange while enhancing care, safety and customer service for patients,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins.
The Federal EHR system VA will deploy at a total of 13 sites in 2026 is the same electronic health record that is already operated by the Department of Defense, and the system will improve customer service and convenience for both VA and DOD patients.
The department previously announced in December 2024 that four VA sites in Michigan — VA Battle Creek Medical Center, VA Detroit Healthcare System, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, and VA Saginaw Healthcare System — would go live with the EHR in 2026. Full implementation of the Federal EHR system at every VA facility is expected as early as 2031.
VA is pursuing a market-based approach to site selection for its deployments going forward. This will enable the department to scale up the number of concurrent deployments, while also enabling staff to work as efficiently as possible.
VA will adopt a standard baseline of products, workflows and integrations aligned with subject-matter-expert recommendations. The standardized national baseline will ensure successful Federal EHR implementation, accelerate deployments, simplify decision-making and support future optimizations.
For more information about VA’s overall EHR modernization effort, see here.
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The Council’s investment in building and maintaining urban infrastructure has been highlighted in a new report going to Cabinet on Wednesday 9 April.
Over £12m has been invested across Derby to deliver wide ranging improvements across the city’s green and grey urban infrastructure. This includes almost 25km of road and over 12km of pavement maintenance as we look to improve the condition of our travel infrastructure.
The environment has been at the heart of many of these schemes as we look to build a greener, more sustainable city, including large signal replacement schemes to improve efficiency, and the continued work of our Transforming Cities Programme.
This green push goes beyond delivering physical infrastructure. We worked to decarbonise our highway maintenance operations and employed innovative in-situ recycling techniques to reduce lorry movements and minimise waste.
Several schemes have also improved safety on roads around the city, including traffic calming measures, School Safe Havens, and ensuring over 200 sets of traffic signals and crossings have been maintained.
To allow further improvements over the next year, Cabinet will be asked to formally accept over £15m of funding from the East Midlands Combined County Authority and approve a £9.5m capital programme for City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement, Bus Service Improvement Plan, and Active Travel Fund.
The City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement was allocated to Mayoral Combined Authorities following the cancellation of HS2 and would not have been accessible without the creation of EMCCA.
The report also sets out the proposed capital programmes for a number of key strategic areas including Highways and Transport (£9.4m), Vehicle Plant and Equipment (£5.2m), Flood Defence (£0.25m), and Parks and Open Spaces (£0.3m).
Councillor Carmel Swan, Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Transport, and Sustainability, said:
Our urban infrastructure plays a huge part in the lives of our citizens; from the roads and paths they travel on to the parks where they relax and exercise. Over the past year we’ve worked hard to make sure these assets are in the best condition, and I am confident that this will continue over the next year.
This isn’t without it’s challenges, and demand for new infrastructure and maintenance continues to escalate, which all costs money. However, I am delighted that funding has been offered from EMCCA to allow such works to continue.
This influx of funding is good news for Derby. While it’s no secret that we’re navigating a tricky financial situation, I’m glad that we are still able to support these important programmes which are connecting communities, making our streets safer, and our city greener.
By approving these programmes prior to the start of the financial year means that the schemes, projects and initiatives are delivered in the best possible way and achieve value for money.
2025/26 will be the first year to be supported through direct investment by EMCCA, which is now the majority funder of Derby City Council’s capital programme. This investment will be subject to appropriate EMCCA strategic plans, governance, assurance and performance processes.
PALM BEACH, Fla., April 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — FN Media GroupNews Commentary – The US Drone Surveying Market has been the Global Market Leader in recent years and is expected to continue for years to come. The US has been the market leader in the drone industry since the start of the drone revolution. Across industries, companies have employed drones for their day-to-day operations. Industries such as pharmaceuticals, mining, real estate, and agriculture are some of the prominent end-use industries for the drone surveying market. According to an industry report, the US drone surveying market is expected to witness double-digit market growth in the forecast period and is expected to reach a valuation of US$ 2540.0 million by the end of 2033. The construction and mining industry is expected to be the market leader in the demand for drone surveying services. Increased spending from governments and rising demand for residential and commercial spaces would add a significantly high pace to the overall drone surveying demand in the US. The report said; “Why Land Survey Commands Largest Market Share? The drone land survey as a service is a common one among all industries. The demand for land surveys arises from sectors such as construction, mining, energy, real estate, public administration, and agriculture among others. That is why land survey services contribute most to the drone survey company’s revenue. The drone land survey holds around 53% of the total market share in the drone survey industry. With the help of drone land surveys, companies/institutions get their desired datasets which ultimately help them in making informed decisions. For example, a land survey for infrastructure development can help companies and planning and development by providing required 3D maps or images. It is expected that the land survey market to remain the top revenue contributor for drone survey service providers.” Active Companies in the drone industry today include ZenaTech, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZENA), Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE: ACHR), Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: PLTR), EHang (NASDAQ: EH), Red Cat Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: RCAT).
Fact.MR continued: “Construction Industry to Contribute Most to the Drone Surveying Service Demand. The spending on infrastructural development has been all-time high across the major economies of the world. The market players are taking the help of drone service providers in different stages of planning and development. Drone surveying companies provide services for the use of town planning, land record digitalization, urban city development, and other development-related services. With the help of drones, companies are able to cover increased areas (acres of land/area) within no time, and with precise and accurate data. These collected images and data can be easily converted into meaningful output, which can be useful in the planning and development of urban towns. Drone surveying has been very useful for the construction industry by providing important insights with minimal cost and improved efficiency.”
ZenaTech (NASDAQ:ZENA) Closes Second Southeast Region Acquisition, Wallace Surveying Corporation, Set to Become the Third Acquisition to Power Its National Drone as a Service (DaaS) Business – ZenaTech, Inc. (FSE: 49Q) (BMV: ZENA) (“ZenaTech”), a technology company specializing in AI (Artificial Intelligence) drone, Drone-as-a-Service (DaaS), enterprise SaaS and Quantum Computing solutions, announces that it has closed the acquisition of Wallace Surveying Corporation (“Wallace”) of West Palm Beach, Florida, a well-established land survey company with thirty years of experience. Wallace provides construction and land development surveys delivering accurate and reliable data that supports project planning and design for developers, contractors, engineers, and architect customers.
This is ZenaTech’s second acquisition in the Southeast region as part of a larger national roll-up strategy to disrupt the land survey industry by accelerating the use of drones for speed and accuracy benefits. The acquisition also further powers the Company’s national Drone as a Service, or DaaS, business as the third US acquisition set to provide access to the ZenaDrone 1000 and the IQ series. These multifunction drones are set to provide a variety of services including power line inspections, precision agriculture, law enforcement, and search and rescue for natural disasters such as hurricanes.
“Wallace Surveying Corporation is well respected in the South Florida business community with longstanding existing customer relationships. Its team brings considerable expertise toward our goal of innovating land surveys at scale leveraging advanced drone data collection, data management, mapping and digital deliverables. This acquisition is another step towards our vision to create a national DaaS business, bringing AI drone efficiencies and precision to a variety of legacy verticals and manual tasks,” said CEO Shaun Passley, Ph.D.
ZenaTech’s Drones as a Service or DaaS model is similar to Software as a Service (SaaS), but instead of providing software solutions over the Internet, the company will offer ZenaDrone solutions and services on a subscription or pay-per-use basis. Customers can conveniently access drones for eliminating manual or time-consuming tasks achieving more precision, such as for surveying, inspections, security and law enforcement, or farming precision agriculture applications, without having to buy, operate, or maintain the drones themselves.
The DaaS business model offers customers such as government agencies, real estate developers, construction firms, farmers or energy companies reduced upfront costs as there is no need to purchase expensive drones, as well as convenience, as there is no need to manage maintenance and operation. The model also offers scalability to use more often or less often based on business needs and enables access to advanced drone technology sensors or attachments like spraying, without the need for specialized training.
Accurate land surveys are essential for the planning, designing, and executing of roads, bridges, and building projects for cities, commercial, and residential projects, and are required for legal purposes. Remotely piloted drones with an array of sensors and cameras, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), and GPS systems for capturing high-resolution pictures and data are revolutionizing the land survey industry gathering aerial data across expansive terrains in a matter of hours instead of weeks or months using more traditional photogrammetry methods. Continued…Read this full release by visiting:https://www.financialnewsmedia.com/news-zena/.
In Additional ZENA News: ZenaTech’s (NASDAQ:ZENA) 2024 Financial Results Shows Revenue and Assets Increase.
2024 Financial Results:
As of December 31, 2024, and consistent with its recent 6K filing, ZenaTech’s 2024 full-year revenue increased by 7% to $1.96 million as compared to $1.82 million for the full year of 2023 (all figures in $Cdn. dollars)
Comprehensive loss for the period was ($4.04 million) versus ($.251 million) last year due to increased one-time costs of listing on Nasdaq Capital Market from lawyers, accountants, auditors, financial advisor (investment banker) and other going public expenses
Assets have increased over 110% to $34.6 million at year-end 2024, up from $16.4 million at year-end 2023. This is due to the company’s acquisition of three patents, and a total of four software companies. In addition, the company has signed multiple Letters of Intent (LOIs) as part of an acquisition strategy that will tremendously increase future revenue
Liabilities continue to be low, having increased $3.7 million to $12.8 million at year-end 2024 from $9.1 million at year-end 2023
The Company’s ratio of debt to total capitalization is 31%, which is well within the accepted standard of less than 50%
ZenaTech’s existing cash and funds available through lines of credit will be sufficient to finance the next 12 months of the company’s operations. We anticipate that cash generated internally, and lines of credit will be sufficient to fund our drone development and acquisitions
Additional information is available from ZenaTech’s 6K filing on the SEC EDGAR website. The company will be filing its 20F by the due date, which is April 30, 2024, for Private Foreign Issuers. Continued…Read this full release by visiting:https://www.zenatech.com/newsroom/.
Other recent developments in the drone/aviation industries include:
Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE: ACHR) and Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: PLTR) recently announced a partnership today to build the AI foundation for the future of next-gen aviation technologies. For decades, the aviation industry has made only incremental improvements, constrained by legacy technology and a dominant duopoly in commercial aviation. With the rapid acceleration of AI, as well as breakthroughs in distributed electric propulsion, the industry is now poised for change.
The two plan to leverage Palantir Foundry and AIP to accelerate the scaling of Archer’s aircraft manufacturing capabilities at its facilities in Georgia and Silicon Valley, with the intent to advance the development of software solutions to drive innovation across the entire value chain.
This would include the development of next-gen software utilizing AI to improve a range of aviation systems, including air traffic control, movement control and route planning, with the goal of improving efficiency, safety and affordability across the industry.
Archer and Palantir will formalize this partnership later today during a signing ceremony between Palantir co-founder and CEO, Alex Karp, and Archer founder and CEO, Adam Goldstein, at Palantir’s AIPCon.
EHang (NASDAQ: EH), the world’s leading Urban Air Mobility (UAM) technology platform company, recently announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Guangdong EHang General Aviation Co., Ltd. (“EHang General Aviation”), and its joint venture company in Hefei, Hefei HeYi Aviation Co., Ltd. (“HeYi Aviation”), have been granted the first batch of Air Operator Certificates (“OC”) for civil human-carrying pilotless aerial vehicles by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (“CAAC”).
This milestone officially marks the launch of China’s human-carrying flight era in the low-altitude economy, allowing citizens and consumers to purchase flight tickets for low-altitude tourism, urban sightseeing, and diverse commercial human-carrying flight services at related operation sites in Guangzhou and Hefei. In the future, operators will also gradually expand into more other scenarios such as urban commuting based on operational conditions legally and compliantly. The issuance of the first batch of OCs sets a new benchmark for the low-altitude economy and urban air mobility and further unleashing a more powerful vitality of the new-quality productive forces.
Red Cat Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: RCAT), a drone technology company integrating robotic hardware and software for military, government, and commercial operations, recently reported its financial results for the 2024 Transition Period (as of December 31, 2024 and the eight months then ended) and provides a corporate update.
“Red Cat’s partnerships and global expansion strategy is already yielding strong results. Over the past few months, we’ve introduced the Black Widow and Edge 130 drones to key international markets, including the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and soon Latin America,” said Jeff Thompson, Red Cat CEO. “This momentum underscores growing global interest in our Family of Systems. The ongoing development of Black Widow for the U.S. Army’s SRR Program of Record, bolstered by AI partners like Palantir and Palladyne, we’re not only meeting immediate defense needs—we’re ensuring our warfighters and allies are well equipped for rapidly-evolving battlefield.”
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U.S. Navy Seabee Divers, assigned to Underwater Construction Team One (UCT 1), Construction Dive Detachment ALFA (CDD/A), deployed to the U.S. Sixth Fleet (C6F) Area of Operations (AOR) to conduct critical engineering operations in support of maritime security, regional stability, and building partner nation capacity.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (March 10, 2025) – The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) is the second nuclear-powered carrier of its class to implement a new reactor pin program. The program, started in December 2024, recognizes senior in-rate qualifications within the reactor department, providing Sailors with a visible symbol of their expertise and contributions to shipboard operations.
DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia (April 2, 2025) – The submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) departed Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, following a routine port visit, April 2, 2025. During the visit, Emory S. Land provided logistical support to the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783).
NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER AIRCRAFT DIVISION, Patuxent River, Md. – For the first time, U.S. Marine Corps F-35 and Air Force F-22 pilots trained as a joint fighting force in the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s (NAWCAD) Joint Simulation Environment (JSE) at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, March 24-27.
SAN JOSE, Calif., April 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, today announced the programming for its .NEXT 2025 event, set to take place in Washington, D.C., from May 7-9, 2025.
As artificial intelligence and cloud native applications continue to revolutionize IT strategies, .NEXT 2025 will bring together industry leaders, executives, developers, IT professionals, and thought leaders to explore the future of edge, datacenter, and cloud infrastructure. Attendees will gain valuable insights into emerging trends, best practices, and innovative strategies to optimize application and data management to simply, securely, and seamlessly run anything, anywhere.
The event will feature expert-led sessions and speakers to help attendees discover how to maximize cloud platform innovation to do more for their business. .NEXT will feature keynote speakers who are leaders and visionaries in their fields, including:
José Andrés – Chef, Restaurateur, and Author of Change the Recipe
Evy Poumpouras – Former Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service, Broadcast TV Host & Commentator, and Author of Becoming Bulletproof
Attendees will also hear from Nutanix customers, including Micron, Military Sealift Command & the U.S. Navy, and Tractor Supply, who will share real-world success stories and best practices for leveraging Nutanix solutions to:
Realize value from enterprise AI anywhere.
Simplify VM-container convergence with one platform to run apps and data anywhere.
Enhance resilience, security, and operations for the most critical and sensitive apps and data.
Efficiently operate at enterprise scale across private, public and hybrid clouds.
Nutanix partners will hear firsthand from company leadership about how we empower our partners to achieve sustainable growth through shared success. Through the exclusive partner breakout sessions, partners will be equipped with the knowledge, resources, and support to address the evolving needs of customers, learning how to leverage the power of the Nutanix partner ecosystem, activate and accelerate sales cycles, and unlock routes to market.
President and CEO Rajiv Ramaswami, as well as other Nutanix executives, will take the stage to share the latest innovations in hybrid multicloud, cloud native applications, and generative AI. Attendees will gain a clear vision of how Nutanix is driving transformation for CXOs, infrastructure and operations teams, cloud architects, and platform engineers through the Nutanix Cloud Platform and strategic partnerships.
Attendees will have the opportunity for hands-on labs, education courses, certification opportunities, and a broad range of expert sessions including:
AI and ML in the Enterprise
Datacenter, Edge and Hybrid Cloud
Cloud Native Applications
Databases and Business-Critical Applications
Unified Cloud Management
Migration to Nutanix
Networking Security for the Modern Cloud
Hyperscalers and Service Provider Clouds
End User Computing
As part of Nutanix’s growing ecosystem of partners, the company is proud to announce the list of platinum sponsors of .NEXT 2025, including:
About Nutanix Nutanix is a global leader in cloud software, offering organizations a single platform for running applications and managing data, anywhere. With Nutanix, companies can reduce complexity and simplify operations, freeing them to focus on their business outcomes. Building on its legacy as the pioneer of hyperconverged infrastructure, Nutanix is trusted by companies worldwide to power hybrid multicloud environments consistently, simply, and cost-effectively. Learn more at www.nutanix.com or follow us on social media @nutanix.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Intelligent Waves, LLC, located in Reston, and its owner agreed to pay $1.95 million to settle False Claims Act allegations involving two Air Force contracts.
In September 2019, Intelligent Waves entered into a contract, known as the Crowd-Sourced Contract, with the Air Force. Under the Crowd-Sourced Contract, Intelligent Waves provided crowd-sourced flight data collection support and data analytics to the 59th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base. The United States alleged that Intelligent Waves knowingly sold certain equipment to the Air Force that was not authorized under the Crowd-Sourced Contract and submitted invoices to the Air Force that portrayed the unauthorized equipment as authorized equipment under the Contract. The United States also alleged that Intelligent Waves knowingly invoiced the Air Force for products and/or labor that it did not deliver in the specific quantities stated in its invoices. After it failed to deliver the products and/or labor stated in its invoices, Intelligent Waves failed to provide a credit to the Air Force for undelivered products and/or labor, providing substitute products requested by non-procurement personnel instead.
In November 2020, Intelligent Waves also entered into a contract, known as the Special Access Program Facilities (SAPF) Contract, with the Air Force to build special access program facilities at Edwards Air Force Base,. The United States alleged that Intelligent Waves knowingly made false statements that induced the award of the SAPF Contract.
The United States alleged that Intelligent Waves provided meals and entertainment to Air Force employees before the award of and during the period of performance of the Crowd-Sourced and SAPF contracts.
This settlement arises in connection with a lawsuit filed by two former Intelligent Waves employees under the whistleblower provision of the False Claims Act, United States ex rel. Taylor et al. v. Intelligent Waves, LLC et al. The lawsuit alleged that Intelligent Waves’ owner was aware of certain of the alleged wrongful conduct. A whistleblower suit, or qui tam action under the False Claims Act, is commenced by an individual filing a complaint under seal in the U.S. District Court and providing a copy of the complaint and evidence to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The United States then has an opportunity to investigate the claims. The False Claims Act provides whistleblowers with a share of the government’s recovery.
The resolution obtained in this matter was the result of a coordinated effort between the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s Mid-Atlantic Field Office, and the Defense Contract Audit Agency.
This matter was investigated by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Kapoor and Forensic Auditor Peter Melaragni.
The civil claims settled by this False Claims Act agreement are allegations only; there has been no determination of civil liability.
Related court documents and information from the civil lawsuit can be accessed on PACER by searching for Case No. 1:22-cv-1463.
I am a law professor at Villanova University outside Philadelphia, and my research focuses on the work of the administrative agencies that compose the federal government.
I believe that understanding the federal government’s presence in the Philly metro area can highlight some of the potential consequences in our region for the rapid changes currently underway.
Here are some examples of the broad variety of services that federal employees in the Philadelphia region provide to the public.
Services to businesses
Several federal agencies in the Philadelphia area provide expertise, advice and resources for businesses.
For example, the U.S. Commercial Service, part of the Commerce Department, has an office in Philadelphia and assists U.S. businesses with exporting their products for international markets.
The Small Business Administration, which has a district office in King of Prussia, provides resources and support for small businesses.
And the Economic Development Administration operates a regional office in Philadelphia that distributes federal funds for construction, workforce training, manufacturing, disaster relief and other purposes.
Benefits for retirees and veterans
Other federal agencies administer government benefits programs. The Social Security Administration disburses benefits for retirees and the disabled, providing more than US$13 billion in benefits to almost 8 million people in the Philadelphia region each month.
About 3,800 Pennsylvanians work for the Social Security Administration in offices located around the state.
The Department of Veterans Affairs operates the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Medical Center in West Philadelphia. The center provides primary and specialty health care for veterans.
Statewide in Pennsylvania, about 17,000 federal employees work for the Veterans Health Administration. Another 1,500 work for the Veterans Benefits Administration, which provides veterans with education and training, home loans, life insurance and pensions.
Census data collection
The Census Bureau operates an office in Philadelphia to collect and disseminate data in a region that stretches from Tennessee to Pennsylvania.
The Census Bureau conducts the constitutionally mandated census of the U.S. population every 10 years, as well as an economic census of businesses every five years, and numerous surveys about communities, health, housing, crime, education and more.
In addition, regional census employees answer questions from local media, work with local organizations to encourage participation in censuses and surveys, and educate the public about census data. This work is of particular importance because census data determines how federal funding is allocated.
Military logistics
The Defense Logistics Agency’s Troop Support Command is headquartered in Northeast Philadelphia. Troop Support is responsible for creating and maintaining military supply chains. This includes securing food, clothing, equipment and medical supplies.
In addition to its role in supporting the military, the Corps of Engineers also constructs and maintains civil works projects. Its first civil works project in the Philadelphia region was the construction of a breakwater near Cape Henlopen, Delaware, in 1829.
The Environmental Protection Agency is perhaps best known as an environmental regulator, enforcing limits on air and water pollution and toxic substances. But it also is active in other areas, such as cleaning up contaminated sites in the Philadelphia area through the Superfund program.
EPA’s National Priorities List includes almost 40 contaminated sites in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. For example, EPA manages the cleanup of the Philadelphia Navy Yard in South Philadelphia, where part of the Navy Yard had historically been used to dispose of waste from ships. EPA’s cleanup has remediated the onsite landfill and prevents contamination from seeping into the Delaware River.
EPA also supervises the cleanup in Havertown of the site of a former wood treatment operation that contaminated the soil and groundwater with the highly toxic chemical pentachlorophenol, or PCP. Because of the cleanup, part of the contaminated site is now a widely used YMCA that serves the recreational and fitness needs of the community.
Tax help
The Internal Revenue Service, another agency known for its enforcement activities, also provides services in the Philadelphia area to support taxpayers. These include, for example, taxpayer assistance centers in Horsham, King of Prussia, Media and Philadelphia.
Todd Aagaard is a visiting fellow at Resources for the Future in addition to his faculty position at Villanova University. From 1999 to 2007, he served as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, April 3 — Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for pooling strength in the building of a Beautiful China and making the country even greener through afforestation efforts.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks when attending a voluntary tree planting activity in Beijing on Thursday.
The Army Mission – our purpose – remains constant: To deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars by providing ready, prompt & sustained land dominance by Army forces across the full spectrum of conflict as part of the joint force.
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From agriculture and law enforcement to entertainment and disaster response, industries are increasingly turning to drones for help, but the growing volume of these aircraft will require trusted safety management systems to maintain safe operations. NASA is testing a new software system to create an improved warning system – one that can predict hazards to drones before they occur. The In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) will monitor, assess, and mitigate airborne risks in real time. But making sure that it can do all that requires extensive experimentation to see how its elements work together, including simulations and drone flight tests. “If everything is going as planned with your flight, you won’t notice your in-time aviation safety management system working,” said Michael Vincent, NASA acting deputy project manager with the System-Wide Safety project at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “It’s before you encounter an unusual situation, like loss of navigation or communications, that the IASMS provides an alert to the drone operator.” The team completed a simulation in the Human-Autonomy Teaming Laboratory at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley on March 5 aimed at finding out how critical elements of the IASMS could be used in operational hurricane relief and recovery. During this simulation, 12 drone pilots completed three 30-minute sessions where they managed up to six drones flying beyond visual line of sight to perform supply drops to residents stranded after a severe hurricane. Additional drones flew scripted search and rescue operations and levee inspections in the background. Researchers collected data on pilot performance, mission success, workload, and perceptions of the experiences, as well as the system’s usability. This simulation is part of a longer-term strategy by NASA to advance this technology. The lessons learned from this study will help prepare for the project’s hurricane relief and recovery flight tests, planned for 2027. As an example of this work, in the summer of 2024 NASA tested its IASMS during a series of drone flights in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Transportation in Columbus, Ohio, and in a separate effort, with three university-led teams. For the Ohio Department of Transportation tests, a drone flew with the NASA-developed IASMS software aboard, which communicated back to computers at NASA Langley. Those transmissions gave NASA researchers input on the system’s performance.
NASA also conducted studies with The George Washington University (GWU), the University of Notre Dame, and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). These occurred at the U.S. Army’s Fort Devens in Devens, Massachusetts with GWU; near South Bend, Indiana with Notre Dame; and in Richmond, Virginia with VCU. Each test included a variety of types of drones, flight scenarios, and operators.
Each drone testing series involved a different mission for the drone to perform and different hazards for the system to avoid. Scenarios included, for example, how the drone would fly during a wildfire or how it would deliver a package in a city. A different version of the NASA IASMS was used to fit the scenario depending on the mission, or depending on the flight area.
When used in conjunction with other systems such as NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management, IASMS may allow for routine drone flights in the U.S. to become a reality. The IASMS adds an additional layer of safety for drones, assuring the reliability and trust if the drone is flying over a town on a routine basis that it remains on course while avoiding hazards along the way. “There are multiple entities who contribute to safety assurance when flying a drone,” Vincent said. “There is the person who’s flying the drone, the company who designs and manufactures the drone, the company operating the drone, and the Federal Aviation Administration, who has oversight over the entire National Airspace System. Being able to monitor, assess and mitigate risks in real time would make the risks in these situations much more secure.” All of this work is led by NASA’s System-Wide Safety project under the Airspace Operations and Safety program in support of the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility mission, which seeks to deliver data to guide the industry’s development of electric air taxis and drones.
Headline: Thales to recruit 8,000 people in 2025 and accelerate its ‘Learning company’ programme
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Thales, a global leader in advanced technologies for Defence, Aerospace and Cyber & Digital, plans to recruit 8,000 people worldwide in 2025 to support the strong growth momentum across its three business segments. Around 40% of new hires will join engineering roles (including software and systems engineering, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, data, etc.), while approximately 25% will join industrial roles (including technicians, operators and industrial engineers).
In parallel, more than 4,000 employees will benefit from functional and geographical internal mobility.
In a context marked by interconnected geopolitical crises, a rebound in air traffic and accelerating global connectivity, all of Thales’s businesses are growing and hiring. This builds on the strong momentum established in recent years, with:
Over 30,000 new hires between 2022 and 2024, including 9,000 in the Defence sector;
Over8,000 internal mobility moves between 2023 and 2024;
Ten consecutive years during which Thales has hired at least 5,000 people annually.
In 2025, recruitment will take place across all regions of operation, including approximately 3,000 people in France, over 1,000 in the United Kingdom, 500 in the Netherlands, 400 in the United States, 400 in Australia, 300 in Central Europe, 250 in India, 200 in Germany, and 150 in Africa and the Middle East.
Learning company: supporting employees’ professional development and keeping Thales’s expertise at the highest level
For the past three years, Thales has invested in its “Learning company” global skills development programme, delivered by 2,000 internal trainers as well as numerous tutors and mentors. Since 2023, Thales has increased the number of its Academies, which are designed to share knowledge globally. The Group now operates 13 Domain Academies (AI, Cybersecurity, Radar, Naval, Tube, Pyrotechnics, etc.) and 18 Functional Academies (Software, Hardware, Systems, Industry, Bid & Project Management, HR, Finance, Communication, etc.). By the end of 2025, Thales will have more than 35 academies.
The Group has also introduced innovative skills development methods, including a shared competency management system, simulation and virtual reality tools, and hands-on training solutions.
In 2024, 90% of Thales’s global workforce – 72,000 people – took part in skills development activities.
Thales is committed to raising awareness amongst youth about the importance of science and to promoting inclusion and diversity
Across all countries where it operates, Thales strengthened its outreach efforts in 2024, engaging with more than 150,000 young people and taking part in over 600 events. In France in 2025, the Group plans to host more than 3,000 interns and apprentices, around 25% of whom will go on to be hired on permanent or fixed-term contracts. Nearly 1,500 middle and high school students will also complete observation internships at Thales sites.
Improving gender balance within teams and leadership remains a key priority for the Group. In 2024, women accounted for 30% of new hires worldwide. More than 60% of the Group’s executive Committees included at least four women; Thales is aiming for 75% by 2026.
With the signing of a new Group-wide agreement in 2024 to further promote the inclusion of people with disabilities, Thales is reaffirming its commitment, with an employment rate of nearly 7% in France.
« To support the Group’s growth and performance, recruitment and internal mobility are essential, but we must go further. Giving our teams the opportunity to continuously develop their skills and encouraging them to pass on their expertise to colleagues is both the spirit and the ambition of our ‘Learning company’ programme. Our goal is to support the professional growth of our people and maintain Thales’s expertise at the highest level,»
Clément de Villepin, Senior Executive Vice President, Human Resources, Thales
Interested candidates can learn more and apply online at Thales careers
Speech by Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, at the International Federation of Accountants’ Chief Executives Forum
Amsterdam, 3 April 2025
Introduction
It is a pleasure to be taking part in the International Federation of Accountants’ Chief Executives Forum today.[1] In line with the topic of the event, I will reflect on the risks and uncertainty that threaten financial stability and their implications for policymakers. I will be brief to allow enough time to take your questions.
Conceptually, risk is associated with situations where the exact outcome is unknown but the possible outcomes can be identified and their probabilities can be estimated reasonably well.[2] For the ECB, financial stability is defined as a condition in which the financial system is capable of withstanding shocks and the unravelling of financial imbalances. So, when assessing financial stability, we evaluate the likelihood of shocks materialising and their potential impact. Uncertainty, by contrast, refers to scenarios where it is impossible to define and measure outcomes and probabilities, often owing to a lack of information. While risk is quantifiable, uncertainty can be proxied at best.
The current environment
Uncertainty in the macro-financial and credit environment is currently exceptionally high, in a world being reshaped by significant shifts in geopolitics, international cooperation, global trade policy, financial regulation and the role of crypto-assets. At the same time, the scale of the defence investment foreseen in the EU is unprecedented and adds another significant layer of uncertainty to the current environment.
According to a news-based index[3], economic policy uncertainty in the euro area is currently more than three times the historical average.[4] Similarly, an index of trade policy uncertainty is more than eight times the historical average.[5] These levels are well above those seen during the pandemic.
Amid all of this uncertainty, the ECB’s Governing Council decided to lower interest rates by another 25 basis points in March. The deposit facility rate is now at 2.5%, 150 basis points below its recent peak.
The disinflation process is well on track, with inflation developing broadly as expected. Headline inflation decreased further from 2.3% in February to 2.2% in March. According to recent data and in line with our projections, wage growth is moderating, which is helping services inflation to gradually decline. Most measures of underlying inflation suggest that inflation will settle at around our 2% inflation target, on a sustained basis.
But uncertainty surrounding the inflation outlook remains high, mainly on account of increasing friction in global trade. An escalation in trade tensions could see the euro depreciate and import costs rise, while much needed defence and infrastructure spending could raise inflation via aggregate demand. Geopolitical tensions could also lead to higher inflation owing to trade disruptions, rising commodity prices and energy costs. At the same time, lower demand for euro area exports and lower growth resulting from the impact of higher tariffs or geopolitical tensions could pose a threat to the economy, depress demand and push inflation down.
Weak economic growth remains a challenge for the euro area, even without any further shocks. ECB staff have again revised down their growth projections – to 0.9% for 2025, 1.2% for 2026 and 1.3% for 2026. The downward revisions reflect lower exports and ongoing weakness in investment. High uncertainty, both at home and abroad, is holding back investment, while competitiveness challenges are weighing on exports. Addressing these challenges in order to improve growth prospects is clearly more demanding in the current context of exceptionally high uncertainty about trade and economic policy.
Challenges when analysing financial stability
Our macroeconomic projections are not the only area where we face great difficulties navigating this environment of heightened uncertainty. Analysing financial stability also requires us to adjust our frameworks and use state-of-the-art tools to assess the financial system’s capacity to withstand shocks under these conditions.
Analysing multiple scenarios is a powerful way to deal with situations of high uncertainty. It allows us to test the resilience of the financial system against various possible manifestations of financial stress. Shocks cannot be predicted, but drawing on a diverse array of indicators and a range of sensitivity analyses is essential for us to understand the nuances of the current uncertainty. It is also crucial that our various approaches include ways to measure sources of risk amplification and non-linearities. By combining hard data indicators with survey results and analyses based on micro data, we can achieve a more granular, diverse and timely understanding of the economic landscape. Such a comprehensive approach can enhance our ability to anticipate and respond to emerging challenges.
The main risks to financial stability in the euro area
In the current economic environment, we are observing marked vulnerabilities in financial stability. While banks remain in good shape, with sound solvency and liquidity indicators that are well above regulatory minimums, there are weaknesses in several other areas. First, elevated valuations and concentrated risks make financial markets susceptible to adverse corrections. Non-bank financial intermediaries have remained resilient to recent bouts of market volatility, but they are still quite heavily exposed to risky assets. Broader market shocks could cause sudden investment fund outflows or trigger margin calls on derivative exposures, unsettling markets and leading to abrupt price corrections. Second, sovereign indebtedness is a cause for concern at a time when defence spending is emerging as a priority in Europe, with different countries having very different amounts of fiscal space to respond. Despite the likely increase in debt servicing costs, public finances need to be managed in a growth-friendly way and ultimately be sustainable. Third, the corporate sector has demonstrated resilience but faces competitiveness challenges and is subject to emerging credit risk concerns, especially in the case of firms that are more exposed to the export sector and geopolitical risks.
Conclusion
In conclusion, an extraordinarily high level of uncertainty around economic and trade policy has been acting as a drag on markets and the economy alike. Financial intermediaries need to adapt their risk management tools in the face of new vulnerabilities and scenarios at a time when it is no longer possible to measure likely outcomes and probabilities. This environment calls for heightened vigilance, which is why we are exploring unconventional sources of risk and vulnerability and using a broader range of tools, such as sensitivity and scenario analyses, to assess the resilience of the financial system.
In terms of monetary policy, this uncertainty means we need to be extremely prudent when determining the appropriate stance. While most indicators point to inflation moving in the right direction, the environment of exceptional uncertainty requires us to stick even more closely to our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.
The European Union is at a crossroads. Defence policy requires a significant overhaul and challenges relating to trade and economic competitiveness need to be addressed. In addition to ramping up defence spending, we need to deepen and strengthen our Economic and Monetary Union with a true single market for goods and services that shores up our structural economic growth prospects, supported by a complete banking union and capital markets union.
Government affiliated militias deliberately killed civilians from Alawite minority
Syrian government must ensure independent, effective investigations of these unlawful killings and other war crimes and hold perpetrators to account
Truth, justice and reparation crucial to ending cycles of atrocities
The Syrian government must ensure that the perpetrators of a wave of mass killings targeting Alawite civilians in coastal areas are held accountable and take immediate steps to ensure that no person or group is targeted on the basis of their sect, Amnesty International said today.
Militias affiliated with the government, killed more than 100 people in the coastal city of Banias on 8 and 9 March 2025, according to information received by Amnesty International. The organization has investigated 32 of the killings, and concluded that they were deliberate, targeted at the Alawite minority sect and unlawful.
Armed men asked people if they were Alawite before threatening or killing them and, in some cases, appeared to blame them for violations committed by the former government, witnesses told Amnesty International. Families of victims were forced by the authorities to bury their loved one in mass burial sites without religious rites or a public ceremony.
“The perpetrators of this horrifying wave of brutal mass killings must be held accountable. Our evidence indicates that government affiliated militias deliberately targeted civilians from the Alawite minority in gruesome reprisal attacks – shooting individuals at close range in cold blood. For two days, authorities failed to intervene to stop the killings. Once again, Syrian civilians have found themselves bearing the heaviest cost as parties to the conflict seek to settle scores,” said Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard.
“Deliberately killing civilians or deliberately killing injured, surrendered or captured fighters is a war crime. States have an obligation to ensure prompt, independent, effective and impartial investigations into allegations of unlawful killings and to hold perpetrators of international crimes to account.
Without justice, Syria risks falling back into a cycle of further atrocities and bloodshed.
Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard
“Syrians have already endured more than a decade of impunity for the grave violations and mass atrocities by Assad’s government and armed groups. The latest massacres targeting the Alawite minority create new scars in a country already burdened by too many unhealed wounds. It is critical that the new authorities deliver truth and justice for the victims of these crimes, to signal a break with the past and zero tolerance for attacks on minorities. Without justice, Syria risks falling back into a cycle of further atrocities and bloodshed”.
On 6 March 2025, armed groups affiliated with the former government led by President Bashar al-Assad launched multiple coordinated attacks on security and military sites in the coastal governorates of Latakia and Tartous. In response, the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Interior, backed by supporting militias launched a counteroffensive, leading to a significant escalation of violence. By 8 March, the authorities announced they had regained control of all affected areas.
In the days that followed, militias affiliated with the current government deliberately killed Alawite civilians in towns and cities along the coast, including the city of Banias, which was the site of a widely reported 2013 massacre by Bashar al-Assad’s government.
On 9 March, President Ahmed al-Sharaa pledged to hold perpetrators of crimes accountable, established a fact-finding committee to investigate the events on the coast, and formed a higher committee to maintain civil peace. While the fact-finding committee appears to be a positive step towards establishing what happened and identifying suspected perpetrators, the authorities must ensure that the committee has the mandate, authority, expertise and resources to effectively investigate these killings. This should include access to and the ability to protect witnesses and families of victims, as well as access tomass burial sites, and the required forensic expertise. They should also ensure that the committee has adequate time to complete its investigation.
Amnesty International conducted interviews with 16 people, including five living in Banias city and seven in other areas in the coast, two in other parts of Syria, and two outside Syria.
Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab verified nine videos and photos shared with researchers or posted on social media between 7 and 21 March 2025, conducted weapons analysis, and analyzed satellite imagery.
Amnesty International interviewed nine people, including five residents of Banias city who reported that 32 of their relatives and neighbours, including 24 men, six women and two children, had been deliberately killed by government-affiliated militias in Banias city between 8 and 9 March 2025. Of the 32 killed, 30 were killed in al-Qusour neighborhood in Banias city. Amnesty International also interviewed a medical worker in Banias city.
Interviewees identified their close relatives and neighbours and described to Amnesty International how they were killed. The organization also received the names of 16 civilians, whose relatives reported that they had been deliberately killed in Latakia and Tartous countryside.
In late January 2025, after Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied armed opposition groups captured Damascus, the interim government announced that all armed factions would be dissolved and integrated into government armed forces. That process is reportedly ongoing.
While the UN believes the number of people killed on the coast is much higher, they were able to document the killing of 111 civilians in Tartous, Latakia and Hama governorates. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights many of the cases documented were of “summary executions carried out on a sectarian basis reportedly by unidentified armed individuals, members of armed groups allegedly supporting the caretaker authorities’ security forces, and by elements associated with the former government”. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), documented the unlawful killings of 420 civilians and disarmed fighters (those hors de combat), including 39 children, mostly by militias affiliated with the authorities.
“In addition to ensuring independent, effective investigations and holding the perpetrators of these horrific killings to account,” Callamard said, “The government has obligations to carry out a human rights vetting process. Where there is admissible evidence that a person committed serious human rights violations, that person must not remain, or be placed, in a position where they could repeat such violations.”
Government affiliated militias deliberately killed civilians from Alawite minority
Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab verified videos and photos, conducted weapons analysis, and analysed satellite imagery
Interviews with witnesses include people living in Banias city and other areas in the coast
‘I was alone burying my brothers. Corpses are next to each other and above each other and then the truck covered the grave with soil’ – Saed*
‘Without justice, Syria risks falling back into a cycle of further atrocities and bloodshed’ –AgnèsCallamard
The Syrian government must ensure that the perpetrators of a wave of mass killings targeting Alawite civilians in coastal areas are held accountable and take immediate steps to ensure that no person or group is targeted on the basis of their sect, Amnesty International said today.
Militias affiliated with the government, killed more than 100 people in the coastal city of Banias on 8 and 9 March 2025, according to information received by Amnesty. The organisation has investigated 32 of the killings, and concluded that they were deliberate, targeted at the Alawite minority sect and unlawful.
Witnesses told Amnesty that armed men asked people if they were Alawite before threatening or killing them and, in some cases, appeared to blame them for violations committed by the former government. Families of victims were forced by the authorities to bury their loved one in mass burial sites without religious rites or a public ceremony.
Multiple coordinated attacks
On 6 March, armed groups affiliated with the former government led by President Bashar al-Assad launched multiple coordinated attacks on security and military sites in the coastal governorates of Latakia and Tartous. In response, the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Interior, backed by supporting militias launched a counter offensive, leading to a significant escalation of violence. By 8 March, theauthoritiesannounced they had regained control of all affected areas.
In the days that followed, militias affiliated with the current government deliberately killed Alawite civilians in towns and cities along the coast, including the city of Banias, which was the site of a widelyreported2013 massacre by Bashar al-Assad’s government.
On 9 March, President Ahmed al-Sharaapledgedto hold perpetrators of crimes accountable, established a fact-finding committee to investigate the events on the coast, and formed a higher committee to maintain civil peace. While the fact-finding committee appears to be a positive step towards establishing what happened and identifying suspected perpetrators, the authorities must ensure that the committee has the mandate, authority, expertise and resources to effectively investigate these killings. This should include access to and the ability to protect witnesses and families of victims, as well as access to mass burial sites, and the required forensic expertise. They should also ensure that the committee has adequate time to complete its investigation.
AgnèsCallamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said:
“Deliberately killing civilians or deliberately killing injured, surrendered, or captured fighters is a war crime. The perpetrators of this horrifying wave of brutal mass killings must be held accountable.
“Our evidence indicates that government affiliated militias deliberately targeted civilians from the Alawite minority in gruesome reprisal attacks – shooting individuals at close range in cold blood. For two days, authorities failed to intervene to stop the killings. Once again, Syrian civilians have found themselves bearing the heaviest cost as parties to the conflict seek to settle scores.
“The latest massacres targeting the Alawite minority create new scars in a country already burdened by too many unhealed wounds. It is critical that the new authorities deliver truth and justice for the victims of these crimes, to signal a break with the past and zero tolerance for attacks on minorities. Without justice, Syria risks falling back into a cycle of further atrocities and bloodshed.
“States have an obligation to ensure prompt, independent, effective and impartial investigations into allegations of unlawful killings and to hold perpetrators of international crimes to account. The government has obligations to carry out a human rights vetting process. Where there is admissible evidence that a person committed serious human rights violations, that person must not remain, or be placed, in a position where they could repeat such violations.”
Amnesty’s investigation
Amnesty conducted interviews with 16 people, including five living in Banias city and seven in other areas in the coast, two in other parts of Syria, and two outside Syria.
Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab verified nine videos and photos shared with researchers or posted on social media between 7 and 21 March, conducted weapons analysis, and analysed satellite imagery.
Amnesty interviewed nine people, including five residents of Banias city who reported that 32 of their relatives and neighbours, including 24 men, six women and two children, had been deliberately killed by government-affiliated militias in Banias city between 8 and 9 March 2025. Of the 32 killed, 30 were killed in al-Qusour neighborhood in Banias city. Amnesty also interviewed a medical worker in Banias city.
Interviewees identified their close relatives and neighbours and described to Amnesty how they were killed. The organisation also received the names of 16 civilians, whose relatives reported that they had been deliberately killed in Latakia and Tartous countryside.
In late January 2025, after Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and allied armed opposition groups captured Damascus, the interim government announced that all armed factions would be dissolved and integrated into government armed forces. That process is reportedly ongoing.
While the UN believes the number of people killed on the coast is much higher, they were able todocumentthe killing of 111 civilians in Tartous, Latakia and Hama governorates. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights many of the cases documented were of “summary executions carried out on a sectarian basis reportedly by unidentified armed individuals, members of armed groups allegedly supporting the caretaker authorities’ security forces, and by elements associated with the former government”. The Syrian Network for Human Rights,documentedthe unlawful killings of 420 civilians and disarmed fighters (those hors de combat), including 39 children, mostly by militias affiliated with the authorities.
Witness testimonies
Four residents of al-Qusour neighbourhood described how they heard heavy gunfire on 7 March. The next day scores of militia men affiliated with the current government entered the neighbourhood. Then, the killings began. They continued throughout 8 and 9 March.
Samira* told Amnesty that a group of armed men raided her home at around 10am on 9 March and killed her husband, shooting him in the head. One of the men asked her and her husband whether they were Alawite and then blamed the death of his brother on the Alawite community.
She said: “I begged them not to take [my husband]. I explained that we had nothing to do with killings that happened in the past or the death of his brother.” She said that the men took her husband to the roof, telling him they would show him how Alawites had killed Sunnis. “After they left, she said:
“I went to the roof and saw his body. I had to flee for my life and begged my neighbour to protect the body.”
Amnesty reviewed six images showing his body, which had an observable head wound, lying in a pool of blood.
In addition to her husband, Samira said that her neighbour’s husband, who was in his late 70’s, and her brother-in-law were also killed.
At around 11am on 8 March, Ahmad* received a phone call from his relative informing him that armed men raided his home and shot his father, who was in his late 60’s.
He said: “My mother told me that four armed men entered our home early in the morning. Their first question was if [my family members] were Alawite.” The men began beating Ahmad’s brother, and his father tried to stop them. “[My father] was ordered to turn away… As he did, an armed man shot him in the back with the bullet exiting his chest… 20 minutes later, they came back and took the body.”
Amnesty reviewed a video showing blood scattered on the floor, which belonged to his father, according to Ahmad.
Ahmad said that another close relative had to search through bodies at a nearby hospital, in the presence of armed men, multiple times until they were able to find his father’s body. A medical worker confirmed to Amnesty that they received scores of bodies from militias, The Syrian Network for Human Rights and civil defense teams, which were kept in the hospital in Banias, most outside the mortuary refrigerator, in piles. Families had to search through bodies to find their loved ones.
Saed* was visiting his parents in the neighbourhood for the weekend. On the morning of 8 March, the family heard gunshots and then silence. They thought their lives were spared, until the next day. At around 10am, a group of armed men entered the building. They heard gunshots.
Saed said:
“I called my family to follow me and ran outside the door towards the roof. They were behind me. I reached the roof, but I looked behind and [my family] wasn’t there… Then I heard the armed men ask my brother if you are Alawite or Sunni. My brother responded but his voice was trembling. My second brother intervened and told them: ‘Take anything you want but leave us’. Then I heard my father’s voice and then it sounded like they were taking them downstairs.” After that he heard gunshots.
A few minutes later, Saed found the bodies of his father, 75 years old, and his brothers, 31 and 48, shot dead at the entrance of the building. Amnesty reviewed images which showed three bodies located outside of what appeared to be a residential building.
Witnesses told Amnesty that many of the men involved in the killings were Syrian, but that there were also some foreigners amongst them.
According to residents, the authorities did not intervene to end the killings, nor did they provide residents with safe routes to flee the armed men. Two residents told Amnesty they had to walk for at least 15km through the woods to seek safety. Three others said the only way for them to flee was when, eventually, they were able to secure car rides from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a former armed group integrated into the government armed forces.
Burial of family members refused
Seven interviewees told Amnesty that they or their relatives were not allowed by authorities to bury family members killed in al-Qusour neighbourhood according to religious rites, in a location of their choosing, or through a public ceremony. Instead, bodies were piled up in an empty lot next to Sheikh Hilal cemetery close to the neighbourhood.
Saed* said security forces dug an empty lot next to the cemetery and lined the bodies up. He was not allowed to take photos or have other family members present during the burial.
“I saw hundreds of corpses,” he said. “I was alone burying my brothers [on 10 March]. Corpses are next to each other and above each other and then the truck covered the grave with soil.”
Amnesty’s Evidence Lab verified four pictures of the burial site in in al-Qusour neighbourhood, which showed graves marked in an informal manner. Satellite imagery confirms the ground in the area was scraped between 8 and 10 March.
According to international humanitarian law, the dead should be buried, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged and, in principle, in individual graves.
Raksha Mantri flags-off expeditions to Mt Everest & Mt Kangchenjunga 25 Indian Army climbers aim to summit Mt Everest; Joint team of Indian Army & Nepali Army set to scale Mt Kangchenjunga
10 NCC cadets aim to scale Mt Everest
Posted On: 03 APR 2025 1:25PM by PIB Delhi
Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh flagged-off expeditions to Mount Everest (8,848m) and Mount Kangchenjunga (8,586m) from South Block, New Delhi on April 03, 2025. The Indian Army’s Mount Everest expedition, comprising 34 climbers, will follow the traditional South Col Route, and will be led by Lieutenant Colonel Manoj Joshi. The joint Indo-Nepal expedition, which aims to scale Mount Kangchenjunga, will feature 12 mountaineers from the Indian Army and six from the Nepali Army. It will be led by Colonel Sarfaraz Singh of the Indian Army.
Additionally, a joint NCC expedition to Mount Everest will be led by Colonel Amit Bisht. The team consists of five girl cadets, five boy cadets, four officers and 11 permanent instructors staff. Scheduled to commence this month, the teams aim to reach their respective summits by May 2025.
Raksha Mantri interacted with the mountaineers, and commended their courage, dedication & determination. He exuded confidence that these expeditions will inspire the youth, and underscore India’s leadership in high-altitude mountaineering.
The expeditions are designed to showcase the exceptional skills, resilience, and indomitable spirit of the Armed Forces, while setting new benchmarks in the field of high-altitude mountaineering. These are expected to inspire future generations to pursue their dreams with courage, determination, and the spirit of excellence.
The event, organised by the Indian Army, was attended by Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, Chief of the Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi, Nepal’s Ambassador to India Dr Shankar P Sharma, a delegation from Nepal, and other senior civil & military officials.
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah, moves the statutory resolution in the Lok Sabha seeking approval of imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur The House expresses its respect, sympathy, and deep sorrow for those who lost their lives in the violence in Manipur
Ethnic violence in Manipur started due to a reservation-related dispute between two communities, triggered by a decision of the Manipur High Court
No violence since past four months in Manipur
The government is providing all necessary facilities, including food, medicines, and medical services, in the relief camps
Online arrangements for technical education and medical education have been made
Classes have been set up inside the camps for primary education, where arrangements for their learning have been made
Home Minister says there should not be any violence and ethnic violence should not be linked to any political party
Manipur has long experienced unrest, but the opposition is portraying it as if this is the first instance of violence in Manipur
During the previous government’s tenure, three major ethnic violences in Manipur after 1993 lasted for 10 years, 3 years and six months, but no one, including the Home Minister, from the government visited the region
Between 2012 and 2017, despite no ethnic violence, Manipur was shut down for an average of 212 days per year
Before the High Court order, there was not a single day of shutdown and blockade in Manipur during our rule and there was no violence
On the very day the High Court’s order was issued, security forces’ companies were dispatched to the region via Air Force planes
Home Minister appeals to all members, urging them not to politicize the issue, as the government is making every possible effort to restore peace in Manipur
After the imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur, discussions were held with both communities, and separate meetings with all organizations from both communities took place
Ministry of Home Affairs will soon convene a joint meeting
Government is working to restore peace in Manipur as soon as possible, rehabilitate those affected, and heal the wounds
Posted On: 03 APR 2025 4:21PM by PIB Delhi
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Minister, Shri Amit Shah, moved a statutory resolution in the Lok Sabha for the approval of the imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur. The resolution was thereafter adopted by the lower house. The House also expressed its respect, sympathy, and deep sorrow for those who lost their lives in the violence in Manipur.
Introducing the resolution, Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah, said that ethnic violence between two communities in Manipur had started due to a decision by the Manipur High Court regarding a reservation-related dispute. He mentioned that these are neither riots nor terrorism, but ethnic violence between two communities as a result of the interpretation of the High Court’s decision. Shri Shah further said that there has been no violence in Manipur for nearly four months, from December to March, and provisions for food, medicines, and medical facilities have been ensured in the camps. He said that online arrangements for technical and medical education have been made and for primary education, classes have been set up inside the camps, where arrangements for their studies have been made.
Shri Amit Shah said that there should not be any violence and ethnic violence should not be linked to any political party. He mentioned that the opposition tried to portray a picture that ethnic violence occurred during our governance. He informed the House that between 1993 and 1998, there was a Naga-Kuki conflict in Manipur for five years, which resulted in 750 deaths, and sporadic incidents continued for a decade. Shri Shah emphasized that while we believe such incidents should never happen under our rule, an unfortunate decision led to the violence, which was immediately brought under control. He said that of the 260 deaths in the violence, 80 per cent occurred in the first month, while the remaining deaths occurred in the following months. He also mentioned that in the 1997-98 Kuki-Paite conflict, more than 50 villages were destroyed, 40,000 people were displaced, 352 people were killed, hundreds were injured, and 5,000 homes were burned. He further added that during the six-month-long Meitei-Pangal conflict took place in 1993 in which over 100 deaths occurred.
Union Home Minister said that the opposition is trying to portray a picture as if this is the first violence in Manipur and our governance has failed. He mentioned that three major instances of violence—spanning 10 years, 3 years, and 6 months—had occurred during the rule of the previous government. He added that after these incidents of violence, no one from the then government, including the Home Minister, visited the region.
Shri Amit Shah noted that BJP came to power in 2017, and in the previous five years, Manipur was shut down for an average of 212 days per year, despite the fact that no ethnic violence occurred during that time. He mentioned that there were over 1,000 encounters, which had to be taken cognizance of by the Supreme Court. Shri Shah said that before the High Court order, there was not a single day of shutdown and blockade in Manipur and there was no violence, in the six years of BJP rule since 2017. He said that in a specific situation, when both communities interpreted a High Court decision as being against them, violence erupted within just two days.
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation stated that the opposition has also accused the government of ignoring the violence in Manipur. He informed the House that on the very day the High Court’s order was issued, security forces’ companies were dispatched to the region via Air Force planes. He emphasized that everyone shares the same concern on this matter. The Home Minister appealed to all members, urging them not to politicize the issue, as the government is making every possible effort to restore peace in Manipur. He added that for every life lost in this violence, the House should hold respect, empathy, and sorrow in its heart.
Shri Amit Shah stated that after the imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur, discussions were held with both communities, and separate meetings with all organizations from both communities have taken place. He mentioned that the Ministry of Home Affairs will soon convene a joint meeting. He emphasized that while the government is working to find a path to end the violence, the top priority is to establish peace. Shri Shah also noted that there have been no deaths in Manipur for the past four months, with only two people injured, and the situation is largely under control. However, he said that the situation would not be considered satisfactory until the displaced people are no longer living in camps. He further mentioned that discussions are ongoing regarding a rehabilitation package for the displaced people.
Union Home Minister stated that our Chief Minister resigned, and then the Governor held discussions with 37 BJP members, 6 from NPP, 5 from NPF, 1 from JD(U), and 5 from Congress. He mentioned that when most of the members stated that they were not in a position to form the government, the Cabinet recommended the imposition of President’s Rule, which was accepted by the President. Shri Shah further stated that the government wants peace to be restored in Manipur as soon as possible, along with rehabilitation efforts and healing the wounds of the affected people.
Many networks have a gap in their defenses for detecting and blocking a malicious technique known as “fast flux.” This technique poses a significant threat to national security, enabling malicious cyber actors to consistently evade detection. Malicious cyber actors, including cybercriminals and nation-state actors, use fast flux to obfuscate the locations of malicious servers by rapidly changing Domain Name System (DNS) records. Additionally, they can create resilient, highly available command and control (C2) infrastructure, concealing their subsequent malicious operations. This resilient and fast changing infrastructure makes tracking and blocking malicious activities that use fast flux more difficult.
The National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), and New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ) are releasing this joint cybersecurity advisory (CSA) to warn organizations, Internet service providers (ISPs), and cybersecurity service providers of the ongoing threat of fast flux enabled malicious activities as a defensive gap in many networks. This advisory is meant to encourage service providers, especially Protective DNS (PDNS) providers, to help mitigate this threat by taking proactive steps to develop accurate, reliable, and timely fast flux detection analytics and blocking capabilities for their customers. This CSA also provides guidance on detecting and mitigating elements of malicious fast flux by adopting a multi-layered approach that combines DNS analysis, network monitoring, and threat intelligence.
The authoring agencies recommend all stakeholders—government and providers—collaborate to develop and implement scalable solutions to close this ongoing gap in network defenses against malicious fast flux activity.
When malicious cyber actors compromise devices and networks, the malware they use needs to “call home” to send status updates and receive further instructions. To decrease the risk of detection by network defenders, malicious cyber actors use dynamic resolution techniques, such as fast flux, so their communications are less likely to be detected as malicious and blocked.
Fast flux refers to a domain-based technique that is characterized by rapidly changing the DNS records (e.g., IP addresses) associated with a single domain [T1568.001].
Single and double flux
Malicious cyber actors use two common variants of fast flux to perform operations:
1. Single flux: A single domain name is linked to numerous IP addresses, which are frequently rotated in DNS responses. This setup ensures that if one IP address is blocked or taken down, the domain remains accessible through the other IP addresses. See Figure 1 as an example to illustrate this technique.
Figure 1: Single flux technique.
Note: This behavior can also be used for legitimate purposes for performance reasons in dynamic hosting environments, such as in content delivery networks and load balancers.
2. Double flux: In addition to rapidly changing the IP addresses as in single flux, the DNS name servers responsible for resolving the domain also change frequently. This provides an additional layer of redundancy and anonymity for malicious domains. Double flux techniques have been observed using both Name Server (NS) and Canonical Name (CNAME) DNS records. See Figure 2 as an example to illustrate this technique.
Figure 2: Double flux technique.
Both techniques leverage a large number of compromised hosts, usually as a botnet from across the Internet that acts as proxies or relay points, making it difficult for network defenders to identify the malicious traffic and block or perform legal enforcement takedowns of the malicious infrastructure. Numerous malicious cyber actors have been reported using the fast flux technique to hide C2 channels and remain operational. Examples include:
Bulletproof hosting (BPH) services offer Internet hosting that disregards or evades law enforcement requests and abuse notices. These providers host malicious content and activities while providing anonymity for malicious cyber actors. Some BPH companies also provide fast flux services, which help malicious cyber actors maintain connectivity and improve the reliability of their malicious infrastructure. [1]
Fast flux has been used in Hive and Nefilim ransomware attacks. [3], [4]
Gamaredon uses fast flux to limit the effectiveness of IP blocking. [5], [6], [7]
The key advantages of fast flux networks for malicious cyber actors include:
Increased resilience. As a fast flux network rapidly rotates through botnet devices, it is difficult for law enforcement or abuse notifications to process the changes quickly and disrupt their services.
Render IP blocking ineffective. The rapid turnover of IP addresses renders IP blocking irrelevant since each IP address is no longer in use by the time it is blocked. This allows criminals to maintain resilient operations.
Anonymity. Investigators face challenges in tracing malicious content back to the source through fast flux networks. This is because malicious cyber actors’ C2 botnets are constantly changing the associated IP addresses throughout the investigation.
Additional malicious uses
Fast flux is not only used for maintaining C2 communications, it also can play a significant role in phishing campaigns to make social engineering websites harder to block or take down. Phishing is often the first step in a larger and more complex cyber compromise. Phishing is typically used to trick victims into revealing sensitive information (such as login passwords, credit card numbers, and personal data), but can also be used to distribute malware or exploit system vulnerabilities. Similarly, fast flux is used for maintaining high availability for cybercriminal forums and marketplaces, making them resilient against law enforcement takedown efforts.
Some BPH providers promote fast flux as a service differentiator that increases the effectiveness of their clients’ malicious activities. For example, one BPH provider posted on a dark web forum that it protects clients from being added to Spamhaus blocklists by easily enabling the fast flux capability through the service management panel (See Figure 3). A customer just needs to add a “dummy server interface,” which redirects incoming queries to the host server automatically. By doing so, only the dummy server interfaces are reported for abuse and added to the Spamhaus blocklist, while the servers of the BPH customers remain “clean” and unblocked.
Figure 3: Example dark web fast flux advertisement.
The BPH provider further explained that numerous malicious activities beyond C2, including botnet managers, fake shops, credential stealers, viruses, spam mailers, and others, could use fast flux to avoid identification and blocking.
As another example, a BPH provider that offers fast flux as a service advertised that it automatically updates name servers to prevent the blocking of customer domains. Additionally, this provider further promoted its use of separate pools of IP addresses for each customer, offering globally dispersed domain registrations for increased reliability.
Detection techniques
The authoring agencies recommend that ISPs and cybersecurity service providers, especially PDNS providers, implement a multi-layered approach, in coordination with customers, using the following techniques to aid in detecting fast flux activity [CISA CPG 3.A]. However, quickly detecting malicious fast flux activity and differentiating it from legitimate activity remains an ongoing challenge to developing accurate, reliable, and timely fast flux detection analytics.
1. Leverage threat intelligence feeds and reputation services to identify known fast flux domains and associated IP addresses, such as in boundary firewalls, DNS resolvers, and/or SIEM solutions.
2. Implement anomaly detection systems for DNS query logs to identify domains exhibiting high entropy or IP diversity in DNS responses and frequent IP address rotations. Fast flux domains will frequently cycle though tens or hundreds of IP addresses per day.
3. Analyze the time-to-live (TTL) values in DNS records. Fast flux domains often have unusually low TTL values. A typical fast flux domain may change its IP address every 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Review DNS resolution for inconsistent geolocation. Malicious domains associated with fast flux typically generate high volumes of traffic with inconsistent IP-geolocation information.
5. Use flow data to identify large-scale communications with numerous different IP addresses over short periods.
6. Develop fast flux detection algorithms to identify anomalous traffic patterns that deviate from usual network DNS behavior.
7. Monitor for signs of phishing activities, such as suspicious emails, websites, or links, and correlate these with fast flux activity. Fast flux may be used to rapidly spread phishing campaigns and to keep phishing websites online despite blocking attempts.
8. Implement customer transparency and share information about detected fast flux activity, ensuring to alert customers promptly after confirmed presence of malicious activity.
Mitigations
All organizations
To defend against fast flux, government and critical infrastructure organizations should coordinate with their Internet service providers, cybersecurity service providers, and/or their Protective DNS services to implement the following mitigations utilizing accurate, reliable, and timely fast flux detection analytics.
Note: Some legitimate activity, such as common content delivery network (CDN) behaviors, may look like malicious fast flux activity. Protective DNS services, service providers, and network defenders should make reasonable efforts, such as allowlisting expected CDN services, to avoid blocking or impeding legitimate content.
1. DNS and IP blocking and sinkholing of malicious fast flux domains and IP addresses
Block access to domains identified as using fast flux through non-routable DNS responses or firewall rules.
Consider sinkholing the malicious domains, redirecting traffic from those domains to a controlled server to capture and analyze the traffic, helping to identify compromised hosts within the network.
Block IP addresses known to be associated with malicious fast flux networks.
2. Reputational filtering of fast flux enabled malicious activity
Block traffic to and from domains or IP addresses with poor reputations, especially ones identified as participating in malicious fast flux activity.
3. Enhanced monitoring and logging
Increase logging and monitoring of DNS traffic and network communications to identify new or ongoing fast flux activities.
Implement automated alerting mechanisms to respond swiftly to detected fast flux patterns.
Share detected fast flux indicators (e.g., domains, IP addresses) with trusted partners and threat intelligence communities to enhance collective defense efforts. Examples of indicator sharing initiatives include CISA’s Automated Indicator Sharing or sector-based Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) and ASD’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Sharing Platform (CTIS) in Australia.
Participate in public and private information-sharing programs to stay informed about emerging fast flux tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Regular collaboration is particularly important because most malicious activity by these domains occurs within just a few days of their initial use; therefore, early discovery and information sharing by the cybersecurity community is crucial to minimizing such malicious activity. [8]
5. Phishing awareness and training
Implement employee awareness and training programs to help personnel identify and respond appropriately to phishing attempts.
Develop policies and procedures to manage and contain phishing incidents, particularly those facilitated by fast flux networks.
The authoring agencies encourage organizations to use cybersecurity and PDNS services that detect and block fast flux. By leveraging providers that detect fast flux and implement capabilities for DNS and IP blocking, sinkholing, reputational filtering, enhanced monitoring, logging, and collaborative defense of malicious fast flux domains and IP addresses, organizations can mitigate many risks associated with fast flux and maintain a more secure environment.
However, some PDNS providers may not detect and block malicious fast flux activities. Organizations should not assume that their PDNS providers block malicious fast flux activity automatically and should contact their PDNS providers to validate coverage of this specific cyber threat.
For more information on PDNS services, see the 2021 joint cybersecurity information sheet from NSA and CISA about Selecting a Protective DNS Service. [9] In addition, NSA offers no-cost cybersecurity services to Defense Industrial Base (DIB) companies, including a PDNS service. For more information, see NSA’s DIB Cybersecurity Services and factsheet. CISA also offers a Protective DNS service for federal civilian executive branch (FCEB) agencies. See CISA’s Protective Domain Name System Resolver page and factsheet for more information.
Conclusion
Fast flux represents a persistent threat to network security, leveraging rapidly changing infrastructure to obfuscate malicious activity. By implementing robust detection and mitigation strategies, organizations can significantly reduce their risk of compromise by fast flux-enabled threats.
The authoring agencies strongly recommend organizations engage their cybersecurity providers on developing a multi-layered approach to detect and mitigate malicious fast flux operations. Utilizing services that detect and block fast flux enabled malicious cyber activity can significantly bolster an organization’s cyber defenses.
The information and opinions contained in this document are provided “as is” and without any warranties or guarantees. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government, and this guidance shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.
Purpose
This document was developed in furtherance of the authoring cybersecurity agencies’ missions, including their responsibilities to identify and disseminate threats, and develop and issue cybersecurity specifications and mitigations. This information may be shared broadly to reach all appropriate stakeholders.
Contact
National Security Agency (NSA):
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA):
All organizations should report incidents and anomalous activity to CISA via the agency’s Incident Reporting System, its 24/7 Operations Center at report@cisa.gov, or by calling 1-844-Say-CISA (1-844-729-2472). When available, please include the following information regarding the incident: date, time, and location of the incident; type of activity; number of people affected; type of equipment user for the activity; the name of the submitting company or organization; and a designated point of contact.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI):
To report suspicious or criminal activity related to information found in this advisory, contact your local FBI field office or the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). When available, please include the following information regarding the incident: date, time, and location of the incident; type of activity; number of people affected; type of equipment used for the activity; the name of the submitting company or organization; and a designated point of contact.
Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC):
For inquiries, visit ASD’s website at www.cyber.gov.au or call the Australian Cyber Security Hotline at 1300 CYBER1 (1300 292 371).
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS):
New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ):
