Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta ICC. Mostrar todas as mensagens
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta ICC. Mostrar todas as mensagens
sexta-feira, 6 de março de 2026
EUA criticam “políticas agressivas” criadas para enfrentar alterações climáticas
quarta-feira, 6 de agosto de 2025
Microsoft storing Israeli intelligence trove used to attack Palestinians
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| Microsoft Israel’s R&D Center, Herzliya The Israeli army’s elite cyber warfare unit is using Microsoft’s cloud servers to store masses of intelligence on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — information that has been used to plan deadly airstrikes and shape military operations, an investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal. Unit 8200, roughly equivalent in function to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), has transferred audio files of millions of calls by Palestinians in the occupied territories onto Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, operationalizing what is likely one of the world’s largest and most intrusive collections of surveillance data over a single population group. This is according to interviews with 11 Microsoft and Israeli intelligence sources in addition to a cache of leaked internal Microsoft documents obtained by the Guardian. In a meeting at Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle in late 2021, the then-head of Unit 8200, Yossi Sariel, won the support of the tech giant’s CEO, Satya Nadella, to develop a customized and segregated area within Azure that has facilitated the army’s mass surveillance project. According to the sources, Sariel approached Microsoft because the scope of Israel’s intelligence on millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is so vast that it cannot be stored on military servers alone. Microsoft’s immense storage and computing power capabilities enabled what multiple Israeli sources described as the project’s ambitious goal: to store “a million calls an hour.” Following the 2021 meeting, a dedicated team of Microsoft engineers began working directly with Unit 8200 to build a model that would allow the intelligence unit to use the American company’s cloud services from within its own bases. According to one intelligence source, some of these Microsoft employees were themselves alumni of Unit 8200, which made the collaboration “much easier.” According to the Guardian’s reporting, the leaked documents suggest that 11,500 terabytes of Israeli military data — equivalent to roughly 200 million hours of audio — were being stored on Microsoft’s servers in the Netherlands by July of this year, while smaller portions were being stored in Ireland and Israel. It is not possible to tell how much of this data belongs specifically to Unit 8200; as a previous investigation by +972, Local Call, and the Guardian revealed earlier this year, dozens of Israeli army units have purchased cloud computing services from Microsoft, and the company has a footprint in all major military infrastructures in Israel. The leaked documents further reveal that before the current Gaza war, Microsoft’s leadership viewed the cultivation of the company’s relationship with Unit 8200 as a lucrative business opportunity and characterized it internally as “an incredibly powerful brand moment” for Azure. Nadella himself, during his 2021 meeting with Sariel, defined the partnership as “critical” for Microsoft, and committed to providing the resources to support it. Microsoft has said publicly that it found “no evidence” that its technology was used to harm Palestinians in Gaza, and a spokesperson told us in response to this investigation that the company was unaware that its products had been used to aid the surveillance of civilians. But three Israeli intelligence sources stated that Unit 8200’s cloud-based intelligence trove has been used over the past two years to plan lethal airstrikes in Gaza, and that it often serves as a basis for arrests and other military operations in the West Bank. ‘Tracking everyone, all the time’ Sariel’s interest in upgrading Israel’s mass surveillance infrastructure dates back to 2015, when he was an intelligence officer in Israel’s Central Command. That year witnessed a wave of “lone-wolf” stabbing attacks in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and inside the Green Line — many of them carried out by Palestinian teenagers previously unknown to the security services, making the attacks particularly difficult to thwart. “We found ourselves going … from funeral to funeral,” Sariel recalled in a book he published about artificial intelligence in 2021, the year he took over as head of Unit 8200 (he resigned last year). “[A Palestinian] decides to perpetrate an attack using a kitchen knife to stab a victim, or the family vehicle to run people over,” he wrote. “Sometimes the person doesn’t even know a day before that he or she is going to commit such an attack. In these cases, traditional intelligence agencies are helpless. How can such an attack be predicted or prevented?” Sariel’s solution, according to an intelligence officer who served under him at the time, was to start “tracking everyone, all the time.” Over the next few years, he led a large-scale, well-funded project that dramatically expanded Israel’s surveillance of Palestinians and integrated multiple intelligence databases. “Suddenly, the public became our enemy,” another source who served in the unit under Sariel said. In his book, Sariel wrote about the need for intelligence agencies to “migrate to the cloud” to deal with the problem of how to store increasingly vast amounts of data. +972 and Local Call previously revealed that the Israeli army has also used Amazon’s cloud computing platform, AWS, to store internal military data. Sariel saw the collaboration with Microsoft as a breakthrough specifically because it would enable the mass storage of audio files. Multiple sources used the word “infinite” to describe the project’s scale. Beforehand, Unit 8200 could store the calls of tens of thousands of Palestinians defined as “suspects” on its internal servers. The unit also developed a system called “noisy message,” which collects Palestinians’ text messages and assigns each of them a rating indicating their level of “danger.” But with the help of Azure, Unit 8200 was able to begin storing the calls of millions of Palestinians, vastly expanding its pool of data. A senior source in Unit 8200 explained that Sariel viewed his relationship with Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, as a tool to advance “revolutions” in mass surveillance of Palestinians. “Yossi bragged a lot, even to me, about his connection with Satya,” the source said. (In response to this investigation, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that Nadella was only present in the 2021 meeting for 10 minutes, and that their only further contact was a condolence card Sariel sent after the death of Nadella’s son.) Not everyone in the unit looked favorably on this partnership. One source familiar with the project said it was significantly more expensive to transfer data to Microsoft’s servers than it would have been to purchase servers and processors independently. Others in the unit felt uncomfortable about storing sensitive information overseas. But Sariel insisted, making clear his excitement for the project’s potential. “For Yossi, ‘cloud’ and ‘Microsoft’ are buzzwords,” one intelligence source said. “He sold it internally and that’s how he got a huge budget. He said it was the solution to our problem in the Palestinian arena, and that this was the future.” ‘This isn’t leaving Azure anytime soon’ By early 2022, engineers from Microsoft and Unit 8200 were working quickly and closely to design a special model within the cloud that would be carefully tailored to the unit’s needs. “The rhythm of interaction with [8200] is daily, top down and bottom up,” one internal document noted. As part of its effort to migrate vast amounts of its surveillance data to the cloud, the leaked documents reveal, Unit 8200 was prepared to “push the envelope” on the types of data it was willing to store on Azure. A significant portion of the raw intelligence was expected to reside initially in Microsoft data centers outside of Israel. But Israel’s Justice Ministry and Finance Ministry raised concerns about potential lawsuits against cloud service providers abroad, which could force them to hand over stored data if it was suspected of being used to violate human rights. An internal legal opinion from the Justice Ministry in 2022 noted that both France and Germany required corporations to check for human rights violations in their supply chains by law. If it were to be revealed that these corporations are operating in the occupied Palestinian territories, such laws “may lead to the issuance of orders to prevent or restrict services” to Israel, it noted. The ministry warned that the Netherlands was working on similar legislation. Since cloud service providers are “some of the largest and most powerful companies in the world,” one Justice Ministry document warned, a potential lawsuit would be particularly harmful to Israel. Despite these concerns, Unit 8200’s partnership with Microsoft continued, spearheaded by Sariel himself. After Israel launched a war on the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack, it soon became clear that the enclave would remain under Israeli military control for a significant period. As a result, an intelligence officer explained, internal enthusiasm for storing mass surveillance data from Gaza on the cloud-based system increased. “[The army] understood that this is also needed in Gaza — that we’re heading toward long-term control there, like in the West Bank,” the source explained. “This [surveillance repository] isn’t leaving Azure anytime soon. It’s a huge project.” Several sources insisted that the project has “saved Israeli lives” by preventing Palestinian attacks. “You hear [someone say], ‘I want to become a martyr,’ and you feel reassured, as a security officer, that this stuff is being picked up by our system,” one officer said. But such blanket surveillance allows Israel to find potentially incriminating information on virtually any Palestinian, which can be used for all manner of purposes — including blackmail, administrative detention, or retroactively justifying killings. “These people get entered into the system, and the data on them just keeps growing,” an intelligence officer who recently served in the West Bank explained. “When they need to arrest someone and there isn’t a good enough reason to do so, [the surveillance repository] is where they find the excuse. We’re now in a situation where almost no one in the [occupied] territories is ‘clean,’ in terms of what intelligence has on them.” ‘Serious allegations of complicity in genocide’ In internal documents from 2023, Microsoft estimated that the partnership with Unit 8200 would generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the company over five years. It noted that the unit’s leadership hoped to multiply the amount of data it stores in Microsoft’s servers “tenfold” over the next few years. But media reports of Microsoft’s complicity in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza — including the revelation by +972 and Local Call that the company’s cloud and artificial intelligence sales to the Israeli military skyrocketed during the war — have increased pressure on the company from the public as well as from its own employees. In one highly publicized incident at the company’s annual conference in May, a Microsoft engineer interrupted Nadella’s keynote speech. “Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?” he shouted. “How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?” Against this backdrop, 60 Microsoft investors, collectively holding shares worth $80 million, approached the company in July with a demand to review its monitoring and oversight mechanisms for customers who misuse AI tools, “in the face of serious allegations of complicity in genocide and other international crimes.” Responding to the mounting pressure, Microsoft announced that it had conducted a review of whether its sales to Israel’s Defense Ministry had led to human rights violations. According to the statement, Microsoft provided “limited emergency support” to the Israeli army in the aftermath of October 7 to “help rescue hostages.” The company emphasized that there is “no evidence to date” that the military used Azure to “harm people in the conflict in Gaza,” stressing that Microsoft’s support didn’t violate “the privacy and other rights of civilians in Gaza.” Yet the internal documents detailing Microsoft’s partnership with Unit 8200 paint a different picture of the company’s concern for Palestinians’ privacy. In fact, Palestinians were not mentioned in the documents summarizing the 2021 meeting between Sariel and Nadella, which also involved Israeli intelligence officers and senior Microsoft executives. According to the Guardian’s reporting, Unit 8200 informed Microsoft of its intention to transfer up to “70 percent” of its data, including secret and top secret data, to Azure. And while the project’s ultimate goal (beyond “deepen[ing] the partnership”) does not appear to have been explicitly stated, an intelligence source said that executives of Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary — who worked closely with Unit 8200 personnel on the project — were given clearer indications. “Technically, they’re not supposed to be told exactly what it is, but you don’t have to be a genius to figure it out,” the source noted. “You tell [Microsoft] we don’t have any more space on the servers, that it’s audio files. It’s pretty clear what it is.” In response to our investigation, a Microsoft spokesperson stated: “Microsoft’s engagement with Unit 8200 has been based on strengthening cybersecurity and protecting Israel from nation state and terrorist cyber attacks. This was the purpose of the meeting in November of 2021 and, in addition to our standard commercial relationship, is the basis of our ongoing relationship with the 8200 Unit. “The leadership of Unit 8200 was interested in assessing security protection for data in our Azure public cloud offering,” the spokesperson continued. “We offer specific protections to numerous customers in retail, financial services and consulting organizations, as well as governments. Unit 8200 was interested in and tested this security; this was not a ‘secret’ or tented project. “At no time during this engagement or since that time has Microsoft been aware of the surveillance of civilians or collection of their cell phone conversations using Microsoft’s services, including through the external review it commissioned,” the spokesperson went on. “Any allegations about Microsoft leadership involvement and support of this project … are false.” The IDF Spokesperson stated that “the coordination between the Defense Ministry and the IDF with civilian companies is conducted based on regulated and legally supervised agreements,” adding that the army operates “in accordance with international law, with the aim of countering terrorism and ensuring the security of the state and its citizens.” Yossi Sariel declined to comment, referring us to the IDF Spokesperson. Following publication of this article, the IDF Spokesperson sent another statement: “We appreciate Microsoft’s support to protect our cybersecurity. We confirm that Microsoft is not and has not been working with the IDF on the storage or processing of data.” |
segunda-feira, 14 de novembro de 2022
Portugal sobe no índice de desempenho climático e fica entre os 15 melhores
Portugal está no grupo dos 15 países com melhor desempenho climático, subindo mesmo duas posições, segundo o Índice de Desempenho das Alterações Climáticas, publicado hoje e que analisa o progresso em 59 países com as emissões mais elevadas.
O Índice de Desempenho das Alterações Climáticas (Climate Change Performance Índex, CCPI, na sigla original) traduz o desempenho das políticas climáticas de 59 países, numa lista com 63 posições, mas na qual as três primeiras não são ocupadas, como usualmente, por nenhum país estar completamente alinhado com o objetivo, saído do Acordo de Paris de 2015, de manter o aquecimento global abaixo de 1,5°C (graus celsius).
Na lista, hoje divulgada na conferência da ONU sobre o clima (COP27) que decorre em Sharm el-Sheikh, no Egito, surge primeiro (no quarto lugar) a Dinamarca, seguida da Suécia e depois do Chile.
Num sistema de cores, os países a verde são classificados como tendo um alto desempenho climático, depois a amarelo os países com um desempenho médio, a laranja um desempenho baixo e a vermelho um desempenho muito baixo.
Portugal surge no grupo dos países a verde, na 14.ª posição, depois de países como Marrocos, Índia ou Estónia, com uma grande subida, ou a Noruega e Reino Unido, que desceram quatro lugares em relação ao anterior índice. A Finlândia, a Alemanha, o Luxemburgo e Malta surgem depois de Portugal e “fecham” a lista verde.
A amarelo está a União Europeia como um bloco, o Egito, que organiza a COP27, Espanha, com uma subida de 11 lugares, Indonésia, Itália, França (que desceu 11 posições) ou Nova Zelândia, entre outros.
E na lista laranja, também entre outros, a Irlanda, o Brasil, a Bélgica, a África do Sul, a Turquia e a Argentina.
Com a pior performance, no vermelho, estão 14 países, a começar pelo Japão e com o Irão em último lugar da lista, da qual fazem parte os maiores emissores de gases com efeito de estufa do mundo, a China e os Estados Unidos, além de outros como a Federação Russa, a Austrália, o Canadá ou a Arábia Saudita.
Os progressos em matéria de mitigação climática, e destacando Portugal, foram hoje divulgados pela associação ambientalista Zero, que participou no CCPI, e que explica que para os cálculos são usadas as estatísticas mais recentes da Agência Internacional de Energia relativas ao ano 2020 (o último ano disponível) e uma avaliação de peritos.
“O CCPI é uma ferramenta importante para aumentar a transparência na política climática internacional e permite a comparação dos esforços de proteção do clima e do progresso feito por cada país”, diz a associação, acrescentando que o índice pretende também pressionar política e socialmente os países que não tomaram medidas que contribuam o suficiente para a estabilidade climática global, destacando ao mesmo tempo os que têm melhores práticas.
Na análise da posição de Portugal, que subiu dois lugares graças ao fecho das centrais a carvão do Pego e de Sines, levando a uma melhoria na categoria de emissões de gases com efeito de estufa, e da publicação da Lei de Bases do Clima, nota-se o fraco desempenho no setor dos transportes, floresta e agricultura.
Já as categorias de utilização de energia, energias renováveis e política climática a classificação é média, tendo em conta especialmente a elevada quota de energias renováveis.
A Zero nota as melhorias alcançadas por Portugal, mas diz também que “há falta de ambição em algumas áreas, nomeadamente no que diz respeito aos subsídios aos combustíveis fósseis, cujo fim está apenas previsto para 2030”.
E releva que, nos transportes, as emissões não estão contidas, por falta de “políticas eficazes para o setor”, e não é suficientemente promovida a agricultura sustentável, com a agricultura intensiva e a monocultura a receberem “muitos incentivos”.
Em termos gerais, o destaque vai para países como Chile, Marrocos e índia, que têm vindo a subir no índice, e pelo lado negativo os Estados Unidos e a China, que desceu 13 lugares (a maior descida) pelos novos investimentos em centrais a carvão.
A Zero destaca ainda a subida de três lugares do bloco União Europeia, especialmente pelo pacote legislativo “Objetivo 55”, que visa reduzir as emissões de gases com efeito de estufa em pelo menos 55% até 2030.
Mas nota as diferenças entre Estados. A Polónia e a Hungria estão na lista vermelha e a Dinamarca e a Suécia ocupam as primeiras posições (quarto e quinto lugar, respetivamente).
O índice, publicado anualmente desde 2005, é da responsabilidade da organização não-governamental de ambiente alemã Germanwatch e do NewClimate Institute e avalia quatro categorias: emissões de gases com efeito de estufa (40% de peso na classificação final), energia renovável, uso de energia e política climática.
É publicado em conjunto com a Rede Internacional de Ação Climática (CAN International). Os países que compõem o índice são responsáveis coletivamente por cerca de 90% das emissões globais de gases de efeito de estufa.
quinta-feira, 27 de outubro de 2022
Putin's position would not give him 'immunity' from war crime prosecution, says ICC chief prosecutor
Vladimir Putin is not immune from war crimes prosecution if the evidence points towards him, according to the International Criminal Court's (ICC) chief prosecutor.
Karim A. A. Khan KC, who is currently investigating offences on the ground in Ukraine, told Euronews that the Russian president's position would not allow him to escape with impunity.
"Neither is superior orders a defence, nor is the official position of an individual as a general or as a president or as a prime minister grounds for immunity," the prosecutor said.
"There's no immunity for international crimes, and one of the Nuremberg principles, as you'll know, is that there's no statute of limitations for war crimes or crimes against humanity."
Russia is accused of committing war crimes throughout Ukraine, with rape, murder and torture all being used against the civilian population.
It comes as missile strikes launched on Monday by Moscow killed at least 19 people and wounded 105 in Ukraine.
Khan said these kind of attacks are unacceptable if found to be true.
"One thing is clear: you cannot deliberately, intentionally target civilian objects, schools and hospitals, places of residence of civilians unless they're being used to gain a distinct military advantage," he said on Wednesday.
"Even then, there is rule of proportionality. And this is something, you know, applicable.
"Of course, you can extrapolate from that in terms of a variety of different targets, whether they're bridges or energy locations. But spreading terror is not allowed. And then one is to look at things as part of an overall pattern, as opposed to just a one off instances."
The ICC prosecutor also said international law is more relevant than ever, given the current tensions between Russia and the West.
"We're in a very critical moment, the minute leaders talk about using violence, using bombs, using the bullet. It's a matter to pause and think, where are we going? But the minute we talk about tactical nuclear weapons, it's not just the twilight zone. It's the eve of a nightmare. And we need to take it extremely seriously," Khan said.
"I think the law has a role to play. It won't solve all the world's problems, but we need to make sure that it is seen to be relevant in these most critical moments that your viewers are living through, that we're all living through it. This is not a Hollywood movie. This is not something that is some drama. This is something that is up close and personal to too many."
Khan and his joint investigative team are currently looking into war crimes in Ukraine with six EU countries under the umbrella of Eurojust, the bloc's judicial co-operation agency.
Captured and wounded Wagner convict who served a term for aggravated murder (which he obviously denies). Says out of his group of 50 people, 12 remain alive so far.
domingo, 26 de junho de 2022
Documentário: A defensora da Terra (The Earth's Lawyer)
segunda-feira, 19 de abril de 2021
These Women Environmental Leaders Are Fighting For Their Communities
Women will continue to help shape the future as we fight to protect the environment that we all share — our planet.
Across the globe, women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate change. As primary caregivers and providers of food and other necessities, they’re more likely to need to relocate when flooding, drought, and other symptoms of a warming planet cut off their access to natural resources. Women make up 80% of people displaced by climate change, according to United Nations estimates.
Women are also leading the response to the climate crisis. As Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland, said: “Climate change is a man-made problem and must have a feminist solution.”
The truth is that women have been the heart of the environmental movement for generations. Long before Rachel Carson raised the alarm about pesticides in the 1960s, there were women like Dr. Rebecca Cole, a Black physician who saw that environmental conditions in cities were worse for Black people because White landlords kept them living in unhealthy conditions. She advocated for “cubic air space laws” to prevent overcrowding in apartments.
As the historian Rebecca Ortenberg explains on a podcast episode titled “How Women Build the Environmental Movement,” Dr. Cole was one of the women who helped to shift the focus of environmental advocates from exclusively protecting wild places and wildlife to ensuring that the places where people lived were safe and healthy. Women of color have played a particularly important role in broadening the movement, often in spite of resistance from White people.
Today, women are still working to ensure that the environments we live in, wild creatures and humans alike, are healthy and safe. Following is a discussion with two women environmental leaders who are fighting for change in their communities. Their words tell how women will continue to help shape the future as we fight to protect the environment that we all share — our planet.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ALASKA COMMUNITY ACTION ON TOXICS
ROSEMARY AHTUANGARUAK
In her work as a community health aide in the village of Nuiqsut, Alaska, Rosemary Ahtuangaruak has seen how the encroachment of fossil fuel development has harmed the Arctic’s people. When she first started her work in the village’s clinic in 1986, she had one asthmatic patient. A decade later that number had risen to 75 — a 600% increase. Many of these patients were children. Represented by Earthjustice, she is legally challenging a proposal to drill for oil and gas in the Western Arctic.
terça-feira, 13 de abril de 2021
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quinta-feira, 18 de fevereiro de 2021
EU supports recognition of ecocide
EU supports recognition of ecocide |
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Dear friends - after a break in January we’re back with news a-plenty!
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EU: taking ecocide seriously |
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In an amendment to its report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2019, the European Parliament voted to urge “the EU and the Member States to promote the recognition of ecocide as an international crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC)”. And In its opinion on the liability of corporations for environmental damage, the European Parliament’s ENVI (environmental) Committee echoed that vote - and also asked “the Commission to study its relevance for EU law and EU diplomacy”. |
Canada & Luxembourg to follow ecocide law developments |
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More about states leading on ecocide law at our dedicated web page |
Definition drafting & consultation |
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In January the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide had its first full meeting and drafting is now under way. The panel session was supported around the globe with ceremony held by Elders of the Mother Earth Delegation of United Original Nations, “lighting our sacred fires, standing with Mother Earth so Her voice can inform this panel of Her laws of nature.” (Grandmother Jyoti Ma) A public consultation was launched in January to encourage diverse input to the panel. Reports and background considerations have also been sought from respected scientific, indigenous, youth, corporate, faith and climate policy voices. The closing date on the consultation has been extended to Sunday 21st Feb. |
UK Treasury landmark report |
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The UK Treasury’s Dasgupta report marks a sea-change in economic thinking in the government context. While still using the financial language of “natural capital” and “ecosystem services”, there is nonetheless a genuine and significant shift towards acknowledging our interconnectedness with, and responsibility towards, the natural world. |
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