Day: June 14, 2024

Are Russia’s Governments-in-Exile Actually Western Intelligence Ops?  Atlas News

Ukraine rejects Russia’s demands it drop NATO ambitions and hand over four provinces  ABC News

NATO Is Giving Ukraine a Shot at Repelling Russia’s Glide-Bomb Attacks  Business Insider

The post В Ростовской области на подлете к Каменску-Шахтинскому сбили несколько БПЛА first appeared on The News And Times.

The post Зеленоградский маньяк Юрий Гриценко выходит на свободу first appeared on The News And Times.

The post Названы лучшие исполнители страны по версии премии МУЗ-ТВ first appeared on The News And Times.

The post How to watch the US Open Golf Championship: Live stream Round 3 first appeared on The News And Times.

MATAMOROS, Mexico — Some shelters south of the U.S. border are caring for many more migrants now that the Biden administration stopped considering most asylum requests, while others have yet to see much of a change.

The impact appears uneven more than a week after the temporary suspension took effect. Shelters south of Texas and California have plenty of space, while as many as 500 deportations from Arizona each day are straining shelters in Mexico’s Sonora state, their directors say.

“We’re having to turn people away because we can’t, we don’t have the room for all the people who need shelter,” said Joanna Williams, executive director of Kino Border Initiative, which can take in 100 people at a time.

About 120 are in San Juan Bosco shelter in Nogales, across the border from the Arizona city with the same name, up from about 40 before the policy change, according to its director, Juan Francisco Loureiro.

“We have had a quite remarkable increase,” Loureiro said Thursday. Most are Mexican, including families as well as adults. Mexico also agreed to accept deportees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

A shelter in Agua Prieta, a remote town bordering Douglas, Arizona, also began receiving more Mexican men, women and children last weekend — 40 on Sunday, more than 50 on Monday and then about 30 a day. Like those sent to Nogales, most had entered the U.S. farther west, along the Arizona-California state line, according to Perla del Angel, a worker at the Exodus Migrant Attention Center.

Mexicans make up a relatively large percentage of border arrests in much of Arizona compared to other regions, which may help explain why Nogales is affected. Mexicans are generally the easiest nationality to deport because officials only have to drive them to a border crossing instead of arranging a flight.

In Tijuana, directors of four large shelters said this week that they haven’t received a single migrant deported since the asylum ban took effect. Al Otro Lado, a migrant advocacy group, consulted only seven migrants on the first full day operating an information booth at the main crossing where migrants are deported from San Diego.

“What there is right now is a lot of uncertainty,” said Paulina Olvera, president of Espacio Migrante, who houses up to 40 people traveling in families, predominantly from Mexico, and has others sleeping on the sidewalk outside. “So far what we’ve seen is the rumors and the mental health impact on people. We haven’t seen returns yet.”

Biden administration officials said last week that thousands have been deported since the new rule took effect on July 5, suspending asylum whenever arrests for illegal crossings hit a trigger of 2,500 in a single day. The officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, were not more specific. The halt will remain in effect until arrests fall below a seven-day daily average of 1,500.

“We are ready to repatriate a record number of people in the coming days,” Blas Nuñez-Neto, assistant homeland security secretary for border and immigration policy, told Spanish-language reporters after the policy was announced.

The Homeland Security Department did not immediately respond to a request for figures on Friday and neither did the National Immigration Institute in Mexico. 

BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military government has launched a major effort to block free communication on the internet, shutting off access to virtual private networks — known as VPNs — which can be used to circumvent blockages of banned websites and services. 

The attempt to restrict access to information began at the end of May, according to mobile phone operators, internet service providers, a major opposition group, and media reports. 

The military government that took power in February 2021 after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi has made several attempts to throttle traffic on the internet, especially in the months immediately after their takeover. 

Reports in local media say the attack on internet usage includes random street searches of people’s mobile phones to check for VPN applications, with a fine if any are found. It is unclear if payments are an official measure. 

25 arrested for having VPNs

On Friday, the Burmese-language service of U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia reported about 25 people from Myanmar’s central coastal Ayeyarwady region were arrested and fined by security forces this week after VPN apps were found on their mobile phones. Radio Free Asia is a sister news outlet to Voice of America. 

As the army faces strong challenges from pro-democracy guerrillas across the country in what amounts to a civil war, it has also made a regular practice of shutting down civilian communications in areas where fighting is taking place. While this may serve tactical purposes, it also makes it hard for evidence of alleged human rights abuses to become public. 

According to a report released last month by Athan, a freedom of expression advocacy group in Myanmar, nearly 90 of 330 townships across the country have had internet access or phone service — or both — cut off by authorities. 

Resistance that arose to the 2021 army takeover relied heavily on social media, especially Facebook, to organize street protests. As nonviolent resistance escalated into armed struggle and other independent media were shut down or forced underground, the need for online information increased. 

The resistance scored a victory in cybersphere when Facebook and other major social media platforms banned members of the Myanmar military because of their alleged violations of human and civil rights, and blocked ads from most military-linked commercial entities. 

Users unable to connect

This year, widely used free VPN services started failing at the end of May, with users getting messages that they could not be connected, keeping them from social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp and some websites.

VPNs connect users to their desired sites through third-party computers, making it almost impossible for internet service providers and snooping governments to see what the users are actually connecting to. 

Internet users, including online retail sellers, have been complaining for the past two weeks about slowdowns, saying they were not able to watch or upload videos and posts or send messages easily. 

Operators of Myanmar’s top telecom companies MPT, Ooredoo, Atom and the military-backed Mytel, as well as fiber internet services, told The Associated Press on Friday that access to Facebook, Instagram, X, WhatsApp and VPN services was banned nationwide at the end of May on the order of the Transport and Communications Ministry. 

The AP tried to contact a spokesperson for the Transport and Communications Ministry for comment but received no response. 

The operators said VPNs are not currently authorized for use, but suggested users try rotating through different services to see if any work. 

A test by the AP of more than two dozen VPN apps found that only one could hold a connection, and it was slow. 

The military government has not yet publicly announced the ban on VPNs. 

New COVID-19 strain KP.3 circulating in US. What is the situation in Riverside County?  Desert Sun