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Indias national security adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval might not have much room to maneuvre when, and if, he sits down with Chinese officials on Thursday or Friday to start a conversation to resolve the military stand-off near the Sikkim border.

Doval landed in Beijing on Wednesday afternoon to attend a BRICS security summit and is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping on Friday along with his NSA counterparts from the BRICS countries, including Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa.

But the focus will be on whether Dovals separate meetings with Chinese officials, including state councilor Yang Jiechi, will be able to resolve or at least begin to ease -- the Donglang (Doklam) standoff, which is now into its second month.

What is likely to complicate the situation further is the Peoples Liberation Armys (PLA) 90th anniversary on August 1.

A Chinese academic indicated that there is unease and anger within the PLA hierarchy about allowing foreign troops on Chinese soil even as the worlds largest armed forces gather to mark their raising day.

Donglang is under Chinas control but claimed by Bhutan. Beijing has repeatedly said it belonged to China from ancient times.

According to reports, President Xi Jinping the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPEC) and the chairperson of the Central Military Commission -- will observe the war games at Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base, 400km northwest of Beijing in Inner Mongolia, on August 1.

The PLA will certainly not be comfortable with the message that will go out if trespassing Indian troops continue to be present in Donglang while Xi -- the all-powerful Communist party general secretary -- is observing PLAs wargames on its birthday.

Its easier to shake a mountain than the PLA, Wu Qian, spokesperson for the ministry of national defence (MoD), said Monday.

Referring to Wus comments, the countrys official news agency, Xinhua, said, ...these words illustrated Chinas unwavering resolution to build a stronger army and guard the countrys sovereignty.

The Chinese academic indicated the possibility of a disaster if Indian troops dont withdraw before the day.

Doval would have been aware of this when he arrived here.

It is one of the longest-running face-offs between the militaries of India and China in recent history and the one in which Beijing has been most aggressive in decades.

The show of belligerence from China has so far comprised three main acts strong statements from the ministry of foreign affairs (MFA) and the MoD, a constant salvo of hostile editorials and articles from state-controlled media outlets and the calibrated release of information, photos and videos of military exercises in and around the Tibet Autonomous Region

Doval seems to have little scope to maneuvre as Beijing has made it clear what it wants for the standoff to end: withdrawal of Indian troops.

So far, foreign minister, Wang Yi has been the highest ranking Chinese politician to have commented on the military impasse.

Wang told reporters in Bangkok earlier this week that the problem was very straightforward.

...Even Indian officials publicly said that Chinese soldiers didnt enter the Indian territory. In other words, Indian side admitted (crossing) into Chinese territory.

Hu Shisheng, director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceanian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the tension will be quickly reduced once Indian troops pull out from Donglang.

This time, China and its top leaders feel humiliated badly by Indias adventurism and invasion, he said, adding, How can China withdraw? It (the standoff) is in Chinese territory according to the 1890 treaty (signed between Chinas Qing dynasty and British India).

Dovals visit is important in the run-up to the BRICS summit to be held in Chinas Xiamen city in the first week of September, which will be attended by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

On Friday, the five heads of security delegations from the BRICS countries will formally meet to discuss on global governance, counter-terrorism, cyber security and energy security, international and regional hotspots, and national security and development.

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Doklam standoff: NSA Doval in Beijing amid PLA unease over Indian 'trespass' - Hindustan Times

A former top U.S. Justice Department official and a former federal prosecutor have joined Reality Winners legal defense team in the National Security Agency leak investigation.

Joe Whitley, who served as the acting associate U.S. attorney general during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, is a partner with the Atlanta law firm of Baker Donelson. He also worked as the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys general counsel and served as a federal prosecutor in Georgia. Joining Whitley is Matthew Chester, a former assistant U.S. attorney who works for the same law firm in New Orleans.

They are teaming up with John Bell and Titus Nichols of Bell & Brigham in Augusta. The attorneys joined the case after First Look Media, the parent company of The Intercept online news outlet, announced this month that it would help Winners legal defense. First Look said its Press Freedom Defense Fund would provide $50,000 in matching funds to Stand With Reality, a nonprofit campaign to support Winners case through advocacy and fundraising.

RELATED:Owner of The Intercept assisting accused NSA leakers legal defense

The U.S. Justice Department has accused Winner of leaking to The Intercept a top-secret NSA report about Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Intercept published the report, which says Russian military intelligence officials tried to hack into the U.S. voting system just before last Novembers election.

A federal grand jury has indicted Winner, 25, on a single count of "willful retention and transmission of national defense information. She faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Winner, who is being held in the Lincoln County Jail, has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Winners mother, Billie Winner-Davis, released a statement to Stand With Reality about the new attorneys joining her daughters defense team.

I am very excited about Mr. Whitley joining Realitys defense team, she said, as he appears to have extensive experience. His background with homeland security should be helpful.

Originally posted here:
Former prosecutors join accused NSA leaker's legal defense team - MyAJC

After a year of testing, Kaspersky Lab has finally started to roll out the free version of its anti-virus software globally. Called Kaspersky Free, the software is being rolled out in phases and should be available in India sometime in the later half of September. The company notes that the free version will not compete with its paid versions as those versions offer a bunch of extra features like Parental Control, Online Payment Protection, and Secure. However, the free version will offer basic protection features such as file, email, and web antivirus, automatic updates, Self-Defence, quarantine and more. The company also notes that while Kaspersky Free is based on the same technologies as the paid versions, the software is lighter and faster than them.

Eugene Kaspersky, the companys founder said in a blog post, Last year the product successfully piloted in the Russia-Ukraine-Belarus region, in China, and also in the Nordic countries (thats Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, in case you were wondering). I say successfully that would be an understatement; for with practically zero promo activity Kaspersky Free was installed several million times, in doing so cranking up our market share considerably. Not that increasing market share is our aim; our aim is to raise the overall level of protection on the Internet. Anyway, heres thanks to all Kaspersky Free users for helping us save the world!

The launch of Kaspersky Free should come as welcome news to anyone looking for a free antivirus service from a reputed company. We've already seen two major attacks on a global scale in the form of WannaCry and Petya and this new software should help people sleep a little more peacefully at night.

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Kaspersky Free antivirus software headed to India in September - Digit

John Warren is an Enrolled Agent, photogaphed here inside his Medford office. Enrolled Agents are federally licensed tax professionals who are allowed to represent taxpayers before the IRS for audits and collections.

Around 2,100 Massachusetts residents received one of those chilling notices that says you owe the taxman some money. But it turns out to have been a false alarm.

After receiving calls from confused taxpayers and tax preparers, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue said it found a fault in a commercial software program called TaxAct that some professionals and individuals use to file returns.

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The program had incorrectly coded payment vouchers from those customers to 2017 instead of 2016, so their checks were applied to the wrong year.

A DOR spokeswoman said the agency received payments from fewer than 50 taxpayers, all of whom should receive a refund by next week. The 2,100 affected taxpayers will also soon receive a letter to let them know that the issue has been resolved, although the spokeswoman said many had already learned of the mistake by calling into the agency.

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John Warren, president of the Massachusetts Society of Enrolled Agents, said he began hearing of the problem last week from members.

We found out about it by just networking with each other, and taking the initiative to contact the right person at DOR, Warren said.

The DOR spokeswoman said that the mix-up was due to human error: Upon receiving the specifications for state forms to prepare its program, TaxAct put the wrong year in the barcode, and the DOR did not catch the mistake when the software was reviewed.

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In a statement, TaxAct said it became aware of the problem on Monday through the DOR. It added that 5 percent of TaxAct filers in the state were affected .

We have a good working relationship with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue and are working quickly and diligently with them to rectify the situation. We apologize to those impacted for the inconvenience and concern this has caused, and we will be contacting those filers impacted, TaxAct wrote.

The issue affected a relatively small portion of the approximately 3 million taxpayers in the state, but may make some question the accuracy and security of software like TaxAct. Last fall, Massachusetts decided to forgo its free online tax-filing system and encouraged residents to use commercial software programs. It joined the Free File Alliance , which offers software such as TurboTax for free to people with an income of less than $64,000. Only 2 percent of Massachusetts residents had used the states own system, and officials said at the time that commercial software is more secure.

But in 2015, Massachusetts and Vermont withheld almost 170,000 tax returns to investigate potential identity theft and fraud for taxes prepared through TurboTax. The company temporarily suspend its filing program because of suspicions that identity thieves were filing false returns using stolen identities.

TaxAct itself said a small number of accounts were affected by a data breach in late 2015, according to SC Media, a tech-industry publication. The next year, problems with TurboTax and other software was thought to cause up to 19,000 Vermont residents to pay less than what they owed the state government. H&R Block and Intuit, which makes TurboTax, paid nearly $2.5 million to the state tax agency to cover the arrears of their customers.

Amy Pitter, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Society of CPAs, said national tax software companies tend to wait to the last minute to get updated versions of their programs approved by local tax authorities, which can cause problems for tax preparers. While the TaxAct issue seems like a minor fluke, Pitter said Mass DOR should have been able to detect the mistake.

The more you have automation, the more you need to put in checks to make sure the automation doesnt run away with itself, Pitter said.

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Over 2000 Massachusetts taxpayers billed incorrectly due to software error - The Boston Globe

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DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Des Moines woman charged with murder in the shooting death of her stepfather is now arguing that the new "stand your ground law" applies to her case. The stand your ground legislation was signed into law by Governor Terry Branstad on April 13 and took effect on July 1. The defendant's lawyer is arguing it should apply to deadly shooting that happened on May 8.

"I would anticipate any person who has a self-defense claim that is pending, is going to probably try to utilize the new statute," said Drake University Law Professor Robert Rigg.

Rigg says a judge in one county could rule one way and a judge in another county could rule another way, but that whatever is decided in this case could have an effect on how the law is applied to other cases, although it wouldn't be binding.

"There are a series of cases that would have occurred prior to July 1, but wouldn`t have been litigated yet, so what the defense lawyers are trying to do and attempting to argue to the court is hey, that new stand your ground legislation should apply to that group of cases, the ones that occurred before July 1," said Professor Rigg.

Last month, 29 year-old Sera Alexander pleaded not guilty to first degree murder in the death of 49-year-old Anthony Hartmann. Police say Sera admitted to shooting Anthony when he came to the home to collect some of his belongings. Alexander`s mother, Susan Hartmann, said her daughter was unaware that a previous restraining order against Anthony had recently expired.

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Woman Charged with Murder Argues Stand Your Ground Law Applies to Her Case - whotv.com