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UPDATE: 13:30 PM CET

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Free Iran Rally Paris 2018

They looked like any couple out shopping as they walked across the Place dArmes in Luxembourgs old city and into a branch of Pizza Hut. But the police were watching closely.

It was the pivotal moment in a terrorist plot blamed on Iran that is about to be laid bare in court to the fury of the regime in Tehran, which has threatened retaliation.

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UPDATE: 9:30 AM CET

The Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) announced on Saturday, November 14, 2020, that Coronavirus has taken the lives of more than 154,300 people in 465 cities across Iran. The death toll in various provinces include: 37,541 in Tehran, 11,460 in Khorasan Razavi, 8,670 in Isfahan, 6,530 in Lorestan, 6,415 in Qom, 6,382 in Mazandaran, 5,702 in East Azerbaijan, 4,984 in West Azerbaijan, 4,240 in Alborz, 4,195 in Fars, 3,986 in Golestan, 3,965 in Hamedan, 3,368 in Kermanshah, 2,840 in Markazi (Central), 2,655 in Yazd, 2,596 in Kerman, 2,360 in Semnan, 1,765 in Hormozgan, 1,688 in Ardabil, 1,445 in Zanjan, 1,355 in Ilam, 1,351 in South Khorasan, and 1,210 in Chaharmahal & Bakhtiari.

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According to New York Times Al Qaedas second-highest leader, accused of being one of the masterminds of the deadly 1998 attacks on American embassies in Africa, was killed in Iran three months ago, intelligence officials have confirmed.

Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was gunned down on the streets of Tehran by two assassins on a motorcycle on Aug. 7, the anniversary of the embassy attacks. He was killed along with his daughter, Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Ladens son Hamza bin Laden.

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One year ago today, 49 years old nurse Azar Mirzapur, on her way home from work was shot by security forces during Nov. 2019 Iran Protests in Karaj near Tehran.She was buried in Khoramabbad, West of Iran.

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WHAT ARE THE IRAN PROTESTS OF 2019?

Sunday, November 15, 2020, marks the 359th day since the beginning of the nationwide Iran protests.

ThePeoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)has identified828of the more than1500 protesters killedby the regime so far.

Mrs.Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect ofthe National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)has called on the United Nations to urgently send an international fact-finding mission to Iranian prisons to meet with the detainees.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE UPRISING:

Number of uprising cities:191

Number of martyrs: At least1500

Number of injured: More than4,000

Number of detainees: More than12,000

Read more:Iran News in Brief November 14, 2020

Go here to read the rest:
Iran News in Brief November 15, 2020 - NCRI - National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

Two recent ransomware waves that targeted Israeli companies have been traced back to Iranian threat actors, multiple sources have toldZDNettoday.

The ransomware attacks have been taking place since mid-October, have ramped up this month, and have repeatedly focused on Israeli targets.

Israeli companies of all sizes have been targeted by threat actors using thePay2KeyandWannaScreamransomware strains.

Hackers breached corporate networks, stole company data, encrypted files, and asked for huge payouts to deliver a decryption key.

Furthermore, adding to this tactic, this week, the Pay2Key ransomware gang also launched a "leak directory" on the dark web where the group is now leaking data they stole from companies who refused to pay the ransom demand,Ram Levi, Founder and CEO of Konfidas, a cybersecurity consulting firm based in Israel, toldZDNettoday.

The Pay2Key attacks are a curious case because, unlike most other ransomware operations taking place today, these attacks have repeatedly and primarilyfocused on infecting Israeli companies.

Attacks with the WannaScream ransomware have been spotted across the globe, butOmri Segev Moyal, Founder and CEO of Israeli security firm Profero, toldZDNetthat this ransomware is currently available via a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model and that one group who rents the ransomware from its creators is targeting Israeli companies in particular.

Profero, who is one of the local security firms that are currently providing Incident Response (IR) services to the many beleaguered Israeli companies, said today it tracked several payments Israeli companies made toExcoino, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Iran.

"The overall sophistication of both the WannaScream and Pay2Key ransomware waves is very average. The low level of sophistication with Pay2Key enabled us to track the bitcoin flow easily," Moyal toldZDNet.

"Our team pinpointed an exit strategy at Excoino, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Iran. This act is very uncommon for major ransomware operators," the Profero exec added.

"An experienced operator will go through mixing services, swapping between different coins via Binance sub-exchanges such as ChangeNow, or other less familiar exchanges such as coin2cards.

"We haven't seen any of those in this case. This might indicate the origin of the attackers, though it can be a false flag as we all aware in our industry."

Profero's findings and the links between Pay2Key and an Iran-based threat actor were also confirmed today by Check Point and a third source who spoke withZDNeton the condition of anonymity.

Check Point, who first spotted the Pay2Key ransomware wave last week, plans to publish an in-depth report on its newest findings and the Iranian links on Thursday.

While payments have not been traced to Excoino for the WannaScream attacks, other indicators in the code and ransom negotiations process have also led Moyal and others to think that this ransomware group is also managed by an Iranian entity.

Moyal's assessment that both Pay2Key and WannaScream are unsophisticated operations was also confirmed by evidence from real-world incidents.

For example, in some early Pay2Key incidents, the ransomware's command-and-control servers didn't release a decryption key to some victims that paid the ransom demand, leaving companies unable to recover their files.

In the case of WannaScream, the ransomware decrypter, the app that victims receive to decrypt their files after paying the ransom demand, has also been throwing errors in some cases, similarly leaving companies unable to recover their data even after making payments.

In recent months, both Israel and Iran have accused each other of carrying out cyber-attacks against each other's critical infrastructure[1,2,3].

At the time of writing, there was no evidence to link either Pay2Key or the WannaScream attacks that have taken place in Israel to an Iranian government entity beyond any doubt. Nonetheless, the door has been left open for future investigations.

More:
Recent ransomware wave targeting Israel linked to Iranian threat actors - ZDNet

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The deteriorating economic situation of Iran has been due to the anti-patriotic policies of the clerical regime and the spending of Iranian funds on the export of terrorism, nuclear and missile projects by the mullahs. The regime blames all economic problems of the country on international sanctions to cover up its corruption that has destroyed the countrys economic infrastructure.

Skyrocketing prices of necessities and revelations about the regimes lies about the sanctions have forced the regime officials including the regimes supreme leader, and other regime officials, to acknowledge that high prices have nothing to do with the sanctions. In this regard, in the infighting between the regimes factions, some of the facts related to the catastrophic economic policies of the regime have come to the surface. A look at the regimes media further discloses the dimensions of this catastrophe. For example, on November 13, the regimes Farhang radio broadcast the speech of Ehsan Arkani, a member of the regimes parliament from Neishabour, who said:

Although my constituency is considered as the center of industry, agriculture, and livestock in Khorasan, the people still suffer from many problems. Our ranchers are suffering from a lack of livestock inputs. Concerning the agricultural water, under the pretext of water consumption management, we cut the water of deep wells in the villages for six months, and then when the crop is dehydrated, we allow them to harvest on the condition of paying money for the water. Is this fair, is this water management or water sales.

He then indirectly explains that the reason for the rise in prices of products is the profitability of regime-affiliated brokers so that the price of the product in the market is more than 45 times the selling price at the place of production. In this The farmer cultivates with all these problems and costs, but they do not even buy his product at the cost price of production, a kilogram tomato costs 500 tomans, but in the market is sold 23,000 tomans. This has nothing to do with Trump and Biden and has nothing to do with negotiations, this has to do with the motivation of serving and offering work to the people, He said.

In another part of his speech, the member of the regimes parliament referred to the regimes imports over the past few years and said that 85% of the regimes imports between 2013 and 2018 were food and livestock, while the regime had not supported the domestic ranchers and farmers.

By addressing the regimes President Hassan Rouhani, he said: In your government, of the $370 billion in foreign exchange earnings, $314 billion, or 85 percent, was spent on imports. Between 2013 and 2018 alone, $39 billion was spent on livestock and food, including dairy and eggs, fruits, and vegetables. This is while our rancher in the country has no livestock feed and you are not buying our farmers product.

Mr. Rouhani, the result of your promise in inflation and controlling it, turned into astronomical inflation of 41%, your promise in the slogan of saving Irans economy, became the worst economic growth rate in the last three decades.

See the article here:
Iran: Skyrocketing Prices and Government Corruption - NCRI - National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine has said Iran is dragging its feet on investigating the downing of a Ukrainian airliner near Tehran in January by not sharing information and not responding to requests for cooperation.

FILE PHOTO: General view of the debris of the Ukraine International Airlines, flight PS752, Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed after take-off from Iran's Imam Khomeini airport, on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran January 8, 2020 is seen in this screen grab obtained from a social media video via REUTERS

Iran has also rejected Kyivs calls for life sentences for those responsible, Deputy Prosecutor General Gyunduz Mamedov told Reuters on Thursday, in written comments ahead of a third round of talks on the crash next month.

Irans Revolutionary Guards say they shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 by accident on Jan. 8, mistaking it for a missile at a time when tensions with the United States were high; Washington had killed Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani five days earlier with a drone strike in Iraq.

Many of the 176 people killed in the crash were Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

Iranian officials, who could not be reached on Friday, the weekend in Iran, have in the past blamed delays in the investigation on technical issues as well as the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Our preliminary legal assessment of the tragedy is a particularly grave crime, where the killing of 176 civilians took place using military equipment, Mamedov said.

The maximum punishment is life imprisonment, compensation payments to the victims and to airlines for the destroyed plane. This position of ours is unacceptable for Iran, but they do nothing to provide us with details and facts for a different classification of the crime.

Mamedov said Ukraine would pursue a parallel path if its demands were not met, without specifying what that meant.

He said Iran had not responded to requests for joint investigative actions or for permission to contact Iranian military prosecutors directly.

A governing panel at the United Nations aviation agency urged Iran last week to accelerate its investigation, while an Iranian official said a final report on the crash would be circulated soon.

Mamedov said he wanted to see results at the next round of talks on Dec. 3.

We still do not have an official documented position from Iran, he said. They dont say no, but their yes does not bring a development.

Additional reporting by Dubai newsroom; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Kevin Liffey

Originally posted here:
Ukraine says Iran dragging its feet in plane crash investigation - Reuters

In an attempt to better understand both sides of the argument, I am reaching out to prominent figures on both sides of the party to talk about how they see not just the 2020 election but also the future for Democrats. Today is the first of those conversations; I talked with Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for public affairs of Third Way, a moderate think tank.

Our conversation, conducted via email and lightly edited for flow, is below.

Bennett: Democrats only can win nationally and build legislative majorities on the backs of moderates. In the presidential race, Joe Biden, an avowed moderate, soundly beat an incumbent president for the first time since another moderate (Bill Clinton) did it 28 years ago. That followed a presidential primary in which moderate candidates (Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Mike Bloomberg) won 57% of the primary votes before the race effectively ended with Bernie Sanders dropping out and a huge Biden victory.

In the House, mainstream/moderate Democrats flipped 33 seats from red to blue in 2018 and three more in 2020. Far-left candidates backed by Our Revolution and Justice Democrats flipped ZERO. While there have been some high-profile evictions of moderate incumbents in primaries, those wins only served to turn blue districts bluer; they did not create or expand the Democratic House majority by a single seat.

In the Senate, the only way we can hope to win seats in the red and purple states that dominate the Senate map is with moderates running on a party brand that resonates with those voters.

Cillizza: How much did things like the Green New Deal and "defund the police" hurt Democrats in the 2020 election?

The shame about the Green New Deal is that centrists and mainstream progressives were (and are) inches apart on climate. But the Green New Deal included enough pieces that had nothing to do with climate and felt threatening to people's jobs and way of life. It was ripe for the usual preposterous distortions by the right. And it worked -- people believed that those Democrats were too far left.

The data are clear. Nationally, Joe Biden, running as a moderate with his own well-defined brand, is outperforming House Democratic candidates by 2.5 million votes. Voters knew Biden wasn't too far left, but some clearly worried about congressional Democrats. Take Nebraska's 2nd, a swing district in which Kara Eastman, running on those kinds of ideas, lost a winnable race in 2018. She ran again in 2020, and Biden won her district by 7 points. Eastman lost it again by 6.

Cillizza: What do you say to liberals like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez etc. who insist the energy (and money) of the party is on the liberal left?

Bennett: These notions were exposed as a myth by the 2020 elections. They are legends born of the political classes conflating things like noise on Twitter and (pre-Covid) rally crowd sizes with real-world impact and actual support. When it comes to the popularity of ideas, voter turnout, and results, the energy is with the moderates.

For example, in the primaries, turnout in the early states was highest in places where Buttigieg and Klobuchar won. Biden stoked huge turnout on Super Tuesday. The Sanders turnout in the primaries never materialized.

In the general, Joe Biden, running as a moderate, obliterated fundraising records. Other moderates, running for the Senate and the House, likewise brought in a sea of money. No Democrats, regardless of their place on the ideological spectrum, had trouble with fundraising or lost for lack of money. And this election saw record turnout in states and districts that Biden won. There was "energy" and money aplenty for moderates.

Cillizza: How much (or little) should Biden choose liberal favorites for Cabinet spots as a way to try to unify the party?

Bennett: The President-elect has made clear that he is going to have the most diverse Cabinet in history, and that will include ideological diversity. But he won't be pushed around by anyone, including those in his own political coalition. He will choose the people he needs to repair the damage done by Donald Trump and move the country forward.

We think he has this exactly right. No one in our party should be trying to impose litmus tests of any kind on his nominees, as the left has done. No one should be preemptively disparaging potential nominees, as the left has done (including public attacks on at least one African American woman). We think Biden should have the latitude and support of Democrats to pick the team that he wants and needs.

Cillizza: Finish this sentence: "The best way for Democrats to deal with the likes of AOC, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren is ___________." Now, explain.

Bennett: This question has it backward. The real question is how they will deal with the rest of the Democratic Party. Will they work smoothly with our new leader, Joe Biden? Will they acknowledge that moderates flipped the seats that gave Democrats their majority in the House? Will they recognize and accept these political realities? If not, they will fairly be viewed as obstructionists.

One thing to note is that Sen. Warren is in a somewhat different place than the others you name. She has enthusiastically campaigned with Democratic moderates, and she's made clear that they belong in the Party and are essential to building majorities.

Elections, the useful clich goes, have consequences. Biden decisively beat Sen. Sanders and won the nomination running as a moderate. He did the same against Trump in the general election. He ran on an ambitious, modern and moderate agenda from start to finish. So while those folks certainly have earned their seats at the table, they must recognize that Joe Biden is sitting at the head.

Read the original post:
Did 2020 prove that liberals can't win? - CNN