Former Head of Medicare to Head Lobbying Arm of Health Insurance Companies

Marilyn B. Tavenner, who was criticized for the troubled rollout of the HealthCare.Gov website, will succeed Karen M. Ignagni as the insurance industry’s top lobbyist.

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When Hacking Team Met Bart Gellman : Additional Focus : Our Work

Last Sunday, the Milan-based spyware firm uncreatively known as “Hacking Team”—notorious for selling powerful, out-of-the-box surveillance tools to any government or law enforcement agency willing to pay the hefty price-tag—was itself hacked by unknown actors.

The firm’s compromised Twitter account began tweeting links to over 400 gigabytes of internal data, including company emails, invoices, financial documents, and source code—most of which appears to have been stored sans encryption on company servers.

To add insult to injury, the hacker(s) responsible—seemingly the same person(s) who infiltrated spyware purveyor Gamma Group last year—changed Hacking Team’s Twitter account name to “Hacked Team.”

The contents of the data dump confirms what researchers and journalists had long suspected: that Hacking Team regularly sells its spyware to repressive regimes—including Ethiopia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan—some of whom have used the technology to spy on reporters and activists.

In other words, the company has more than earned the appellation bestowed upon it by Reporters without Borders: Hacking Team is an “Enemy of the Internet.”

via When Hacking Team Met Bart Gellman : Additional Focus : Our Work.

East Jerusalem youth find escape in drugs | Middle East | DW.COM | 15.07.2015

Tamer Zakkak, director of a counseling center situated in the old city, claims over 5,000 children aged 12-17 years are using drugs in East Jerusalem. The center, run by the charity Caritas Jerusalem, has noticed that more children are being drawn toward drugs at increasingly younger ages.

“In the past we were working with children, 16, 17, 18, who were dealing with drug addiction,” Zakkak said from his office, just outside the old city walls. “In some cases we are now dealing with 13- and 14-year olds.” Zakkar refers to his most recent case as an example: a 13-year-old homeless boy hooked on marijuana and ecstasy.

Children as young as nine begin on what appear to be harmless legal highs, but before they know it they are craving a much bigger hit, says Zakkak. He is referring to synthetic marijuana. Packed with potent chemicals that can induce psychotic episodes, it is cheap, readily available, addictive – and a hit with the youth. “Some people leave school age eight or nine and start working in the streets, learning from adults and other youth in the streets about drugs,” Zakkak adds. “Heroin is the second level.”

via East Jerusalem youth find escape in drugs | Middle East | DW.COM | 15.07.2015.

Bird Flu Cost the US $3.3 Billion and Worse Could Be Coming – Phenomena: Germination

As I reported earlier, animal-health authorities suspected—and virus analysis is now confirming—that while the flu was originally brought to the US by wild birds migrating down from Canada, most of the spread within the US was due to people and vehicles inadvertently carrying the virus from farm to farm.

via Bird Flu Cost the US $3.3 Billion and Worse Could Be Coming – Phenomena: Germination.

“Maryn is an excellent reporter and researcher. I think she will find or has already found and will report soon that if some wild birds were involved in the transmission of avian influenza, they most likely acquired it from domestic industrial flocks in China, Korea. Wherever industrial poultry is practised across the globe, this flu is developing, mutating in the industrial settings and being transmitted more by commerce, than migrating birds that come in contact with infected industrial birds.”

www.german-foreign-policy.com – Greece, Germany – deja vu?

In several western and southern European countries, the agreement on Greece reached in Brussels signals a looming collapse of the continental post-war order and Germany’s revival as an ostentatious dictatorial power. Whereas social-democratic observers do not exclude an attenuation of the contradictions, southern European conservative media are among those who speak of a revival of German hegemonic ambitions, which had largely determined or triggered the First and Second World Wars. The consequences of the French-Italian submission during negotiations in Brussels are generating those fears, because Paris had not succeeded to and Rome had not even seriously attempted to thwart the German dictates of sovereignty over Greece. Both, Italy and France are aware of the dangers of becoming the next victim of German financial dictatorship. They are competing for admission in a northern European core Europe, whose membership will be decided by Berlin, in the case of a possible collapse of the European Union. Current events are directly linked to German foreign policy endeavors in the 1990s and the territorial expansion of Germany’s economic basis through the so-called reunification.

via www.german-foreign-policy.com.

Italy′s sovereign debt hits record high | Business | DW.COM | 14.07.2015

“Is Italy next on 4th Reich’s over-reach to dominate Europe?”

Italian public debt has risen upwards of 2.2 trillion euros in May, new data showed Tuesday – a new record for the southern European country that is the eurozone’s second-most indebted after Greece.

The new numbers from the Central Bank of Italy come at a time when the Greek debt crisis is dominating headlines and observers view ballooning public debt within the currency union with worry.

Italy’s debt is now at 132 percent of GDP, compared to Greece’s 175 percent. Both countries find themselves far from the 60 percent debt-to-GDP ratio target set by the European Commission.

The consequences of an Italian debt crisis would however be more dire – it’s the third largest economy in the eurozone.

via Italy′s sovereign debt hits record high | Business | DW.COM | 14.07.2015.

Nazi shock for Donald Trump as image of SS soldiers found in presidential campaign tweet – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

John Schindler, a former national security affairs professor at the US Army War College, was one of the first to notice something odd about the image.

“These guys are dressed as late (1944-45) WWII Waffen-SS infantry. Nothing to debate here. Way to go, Trump!” he tweeted.

via Nazi shock for Donald Trump as image of SS soldiers found in presidential campaign tweet – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Latin America Has Beaten Down, but not Beaten, HIV/AIDS | Inter Press Service

As an example to be followed, the report cites a major regional accomplishment: on Jun. 30 Cuba became the first country in the world to receive validation from the World Health Organisation (WHO) that it had eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay are set to become the next countries in the region to receive validation, possibly before June 2016, the regional director of UNAIDS for Latin America, César Núñez, said in an interview with IPS from Panama City.

via Latin America Has Beaten Down, but not Beaten, HIV/AIDS | Inter Press Service.

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