Day: October 6, 2023

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese voted on Saturday in a referendum to recognise the country’s Indigenous people in the constitution, a week from a national polling day on the measure that is trailing in opinion surveys.

Albanese’s centre-left Labor government backs the change, while the opposition Liberal-National conservatives urge a vote of “No”. Opponents lead the yes camp by 53% to 38%, according to an opinion poll this week.

If the “Voice to Parliament” referendum is approved on Oct. 14, it would enshrine Indigenous people in the constitution and set up an advisory body to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people input on policies that affect them.

Most Indigenous people favour the referendum, but some say it is a distraction from achieving practical and positive outcomes and would not fully resolve the issues affecting them.

The political opposition says the measure would not provide practical outcomes for Indigenous people and that regional and local committees in their communities could be more effective than a national body.

Taking advantage of early voting, Albanese posted a photo to Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, showing him casting his vote with his son Nathan Albanese.

“I cast my vote today for Yes and I did so proudly in the knowledge that this is the request of Indigenous Australians,” Albanese told reporters, according to a transcript.

A spokesperson said the prime minister voted in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, in Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, where 4.2% of people identify as Indigenous, slightly higher than the nationwide 3.8%, according to the latest census figures.

Last month, thousands rallied in state capitals across Australia in an effort to buoy the yes campaign, which sees the measure as a way to achieve better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Marginalised by British colonial rulers and not mentioned in Australia’s 122-year-old constitution, Indigenous Australians face disadvantages including discrimination, poor health and education outcomes and high incarceration rates. Their life expectancy is about eight years lower than non-Indigenous people.

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Six men suspected of involvement in the murder in August of Ecuador’s anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio were killed in prison on Friday, the prisons agency said, barely a week before a crucial run-off election.

The killings took place in a penitentiary in Guayaquil, the South American country’s largest city, the attorney general’s office announced earlier on Friday.

Ecuador’s government swiftly condemned the killings.

Outgoing President Guillermo Lasso pledged “neither complicity nor cover-up” in getting to the bottom of the killings, in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Here the truth will be known,” he said.

The SNAI prisons agency said in a statement the six men were all Colombian nationals. It gave no more details of the killings.

The government has said authorities are determined to identify those behind Villavicencio’s murder.

Villavicencio, a prominent journalist, was gunned down less than two weeks before a first round general election as he left a campaign event in the capital, Quito.

Police arrested the six Colombians on the day of Villavicencio’s assassination. A seventh suspect, also Colombian, was shot and killed by police, while other suspects were later arrested.

The second round run-off vote is scheduled for Oct. 15, the culmination of an election cycle marred by numerous incidents of violence.

Business heir Daniel Noboa, who holds a narrow lead in some polls ahead of the run-off, said in a social media post that the government must provide details of what occurred at the prison and that peace must be restored in the country.

His main rival for the presidency is Luisa Gonzalez, a protege of leftist former President Rafael Correa. She has said that surging crime is unprecedented and that voters should not allow “terror” to stop them from voting for change.

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Six people killed on Friday in a prison in Ecuador were suspects in the murder of anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, the prisons agency said in a statement.

The killings took place in Litoral Penitenciary in Guayaquil, the South American country’s largest city, the attorney general’s office said earlier on Friday.

Ecuador’s government condemned the killings.

President Guillermo Lasso pledged “neither complicity nor cover-up” in getting to the bottom of the crime, in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Here the truth will be known,” he said.

The SNAI prisons agency said in a statement the six men were all Colombian nationals. It gave no more details of the killings.

The government has said authorities are determined to identify those behind Villavicencio’s murder.

Villavicencio, a prominent journalist, was gunned down less than two weeks before a first round general election.

The six people killed on Friday in a prison in Ecuador’s Guayas province were all accused as suspects in the murder case of anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, the prisons agency said in a statement.

The Colorado man accused of murdering 10 people in a shooting rampage at a Boulder supermarket in 2021, then diagnosed as schizophrenic and declared mentally unfit for prosecution months later, is now competent to stand trial, a judge ruled on Friday.

Boulder County District Judge Ingrid Bakke agreed with state psychiatric experts and prosecutors that Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa has made enough progress through treatment to render him capable of understanding the charges against him and meaningfully assisting in his own defense.

Still, the judge asked that Alissa remain in the custody of the state hospital where he has been confined for the past two years. Bakke agreed with prosecutors that Alissa, 24, stands a better chance of avoiding regression if he stays hospitalized than if he were returned to jail to await trial.

Alissa’s lawyer, Kathryn Herold, argued during his competency review hearing last week that her client’s mental illness remains profound, so much so that he “engaged in an unprovoked” assault during the past month, apparently fueled by a psychotic episode.

She recounted that four psychologists had deemed Alissa to be mentally incompetent and suffering from schizophrenia, from October of 2021 through April of this year.

Psychiatric experts testifying at last Wednesday’s hearing said Alissa had suffered from hallucinations and had never been treated for severe mental illness before he arrived at the Colorado Mental Health Hospital following his arrest.

One forensic psychologist, Loandra Torres, who evaluated Alissa for competency, said he told behavioral health professionals at the hospital he had bought guns because he wanted to carry out a mass shooting and “commit suicide by cop.”

That testimony marked the first indication of a motive for the shooting offered in the case in open court.

The Colorado Department of Human Services issued a re-evaluation report concluding in August that Alissa had been “restored to competency” through court-ordered psychiatric treatment, including involuntarily administered drug therapy.

The legal definition for competency differs from the question of whether someone can plead not guilty by reason of insanity, a separate standard requiring prosecutors to show the defendant knew right from wrong at the time of committing an offense.

Alissa, bearded and bespectacled, appeared fidgety as he sat beside his attorney in court on Wednesday, dressed in striped jail garb.

He is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and dozens of attempted-murder charges and related offenses stemming from the March 2021 massacre at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, about 28 miles (45 km) northwest of Denver.

Alissa surrendered to law enforcement officials at the shooting scene after he was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with police, according to authorities.

Ten people, including a police officer, were killed in the rampage, which came less than a week after an unrelated series of attacks by a gunman who killed eight people at three Atlanta-area day spas.

Authorities said the murder weapon in the Boulder attack, a Ruger AR-556 pistol that resembles a semi-automatic rifle, was purchased by Alissa six days before the grocery store shooting spree.

The sheriff’s office said Alissa had a second weapon, a 9mm handgun, in his possession at the time but that gun was not fired during the rampage.

Alissa pleaded guilty to a third-degree assault in 2018 for punching a high school classmate without warning the previous year, court records show.

The Superior Court of Bogota on Friday rejected a prosecutor’s request to shelve a witness tampering and fraud case against divisive former President Alvaro Uribe, extending a long-running legal battle.

Uribe and several allies have been investigated over allegations of witness tampering carried out in an attempt to discredit accusations he had ties to right-wing paramilitaries.

Hospitality and entertainment company MGM Resorts announced that the costs of the recent ransomware attack costs exceeded $110 million.

In September the hospitality and entertainment company MGM Resorts was hit by a ransomware attack that shut down its systems at MGM Hotels and Casinos.

The incident affected hotel reservation systems in the United States and other IT systems that run the casino floors.

The company now revealed that the costs from the ransomware attack have exceeded $110 million. The company paid third-party experts $10 million to clean up its systems.

A few days later, an affiliate of the BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware group known as Scattered Spider claimed responsibility for the attack.

“The Company believes that the operational disruption experienced at its affected properties during the month of September will have a negative impact on its third quarter 2023 results, predominantly in its Las Vegas operations, and a minimal impact during the fourth quarter. The Company does not expect that it will have a material effect on its financial condition and results of operations for the year. Specifically, the Company estimates a negative impact from the cyber security issue in September of approximately $100 million to Adjusted Property EBITDAR for the Las Vegas Strip Resorts and Regional Operations, collectively.” reads the 8-K report filed with SEC. “The Company has also incurred less than $10 million in one-time expenses in the third quarter related to the cybersecurity issue, which consisted of technology consulting services, legal fees and expenses of other third party advisors.”

The Company states that its cybersecurity insurance will cover the financial losses and future expenses, however, the full scope of the costs and related impacts has yet to be determined.

According to the ongoing investigation, threat actors had access to the data of some of the Company’s customers who transacted with the Company prior to March 2019. Personal information exposed includes name, contact information (such as phone number, email address and postal address), gender, date of birth and driver’s license numbers). For a limited number of customers, Social Security numbers and passport numbers were exposed. The types of impacted information varied by individual.

The attack caused disruptions at some of the company’s properties, however, the incident did not expose any customer bank account numbers or payment card details.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, MGM Resorts)

The post Ransomware attack on MGM Resorts costs $110 Million appeared first on Security Affairs.

A typhoon was headed toward southern China and Hong Kong Friday after bringing record-breaking winds and leaving one dead in Taiwan. 

Typhoon Koinu, after initially weakening, regained strength as it headed west across the South China Sea toward China’s Guangdong province, the China Meteorological Administration said. The slow-moving storm was forecast to remain at sea, bringing rain to China’s southern coast through the weekend as it passes south of Guangdong and Hong Kong. 

The storm was about 240 kilometers (150 miles) southeast of Hong Kong and moving at about 12 kilometers (7 miles) per hour Friday evening, the city government’s Hong Kong Observatory said. It issued a strong wind warning and forecast squally showers, heavy at times, in the coming days. 

Hong Kong was hit by heavy rains about one month ago that killed at least two people and caused widespread flooding. 

Ferry service was suspended in parts of Guangdong province, and the city of Guangzhou canceled some flights and trains.  

Koinu, which means “puppy” in Japanese, brought pounding rain and wind gusts Thursday to southern and central Taiwan, downing trees and damaging buildings. An 84-year-old woman was killed by flying glass in Taichung city and about 400 others were injured around the island, Taiwan’s fire department said. 

A weather monitoring station on Taiwan’s outlying Orchid Island measured a gust of 342.7 kph (212.9 mph) at 9:53 p.m. Wednesday, as well as sustained winds that reached 198.7 kph (123.5 kph) at 9:40 p.m. The device measuring the wind speeds broke shortly afterward, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported. 

Former President Donald Trump lost a bid Friday to halt his civil fraud trial while he fights a pretrial ruling that could strip him of Trump Tower and other marquee properties.

An appeals court judge rebuffed Trump’s push to pause the New York trial, which will start next week, but agreed to leave him in control of his holdings for now. The decision, after an emergency hearing Friday afternoon, came five days into the closely watched trial.

Trump went to the courthouse for the first three days of the trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit, observing testimony — and complaining to TV cameras outside about a case he deemed a “a witch hunt and a disgrace.”

Trump’s lawyers had asked the state’s intermediate appellate court to suspend the trial and prevent Judge Arthur Engoron from enforcing a ruling he made last week. Engoron’s decision revoked the Republican presidential front-runner’s business licenses and put a court-appointed receiver in charge of his companies.

“This is a massive error. It is irreparable,” Trump lawyer Christopher Kise told the appellate judge, Associate Justice Peter H. Moulton. Kise argued that the ruling would make defendants in other cases fear that their companies and properties will be seized without recourse.

“We’re not seeking a delay. We’re seeking a fair trial,” Kise said.

Trump’s lawyers said Engoron’s ruling could harm not only the ex-president and other defendants but as many as 1,000 employees.

Offer from state

State Deputy Solicitor General Judy Vale told the appeals judge that James’ office had already offered to keep the business licenses as they are until after the trial. Kise acknowledged the offer, but said he was worried Engoron wouldn’t allow it.

“We could have resolved some of this, and we’re still happy to do so,” Vale said.

She called the defense arguments for a delay “completely meritless” and noted that mounting the trial has been “an enormous endeavor.” It has entailed extensive court planning, security resources for Trump’s attendance, and special arrangements for press and public access.

Ahead of the hearing, James said Trump and the other defendants “can continue to try to delay and stall, but the evidence is clear, and our case is strong.”

She declined to comment as she left the emergency hearing, at the state Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, in Manhattan.

In a statement, Kise said: “We are very pleased the First Department upheld New York law and put a halt to any cancellation of business certificates, receivers or dissolution. The trial court’s attempt to reach issues, entities and assets beyond the scope of this case has been suspended.”

The appellate court last week rejected the defense’s last-minute effort to delay the trial just days before it began. On Thursday, Trump’s lawyers dropped a lawsuit they filed against Engoron as part of that challenge.

Routine fraud found

Engoron ruled last week that Trump had committed years of fraud as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to fame and the White House.

The judge, ruling on the top claim in James’ lawsuit, found that Trump had routinely deceived banks, insurers and others by exaggerating the value of assets on his annual financial statements, which were used in making deals and securing loans.

Trump has denied wrongdoing, arguing that some of his assets are worth far more than what’s listed on the statements.

Before the appellate action, former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney testified at the trial Friday that values he assigned to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida — as much as $739 million in 2018 — were based on the false premise that it could be sold as a private residence. Such use is prohibited by Trump’s 2002 agreement with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“Were you aware that Mr. Trump had deeded away his right to use the property for any other purpose than a social club?” state lawyer Andrew Amer asked.

“I was not aware,” said McConney, who’s also a defendant in this case.

The trial will resume Tuesday with Trump’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, on the witness stand. Weisselberg, a defendant, oversaw Trump’s dealmaking, was involved in securing loans and supervised McConney’s work on the financial statements. He left jail in April after serving about 100 days for dodging taxes on $1.7 million in job perks.

Procedures for ruling

As the trial was unfolding this week, Engoron issued an order Thursday setting procedures for enforcing his ruling. He gave both sides until October 26 to submit names of potential receivers and gave Trump and other defendants seven days to provide a court-appointed monitor, retired federal Judge Barbara Jones, with a list of all entities covered by the ruling.

He also ordered the defendants to give Jones advance notice of any application for new business licenses in any jurisdiction and any attempts to create new entities to “hold or acquire the assets” of a company that’s being dissolved under the ruling.

Trump’s lawyers argued in court papers that Engoron had “no rationale or legal authority” to impose what they described as “the corporate death penalty.” They also rapped the judge for not being clear in explaining the real-world effects of his decision.

At a pretrial hearing on September 26, Trump lawyer Kise pressed Engoron to clarify whether his ruling meant Trump would be required simply to close up some corporate entities or if he’d be forced to relinquish some of his most prized assets. 

Engoron then said he wasn’t “prepared to issue a ruling right now.”

— Catherine Colonna (@MinColonna) October 3, 2023

The signs over the weekend suggested that the immediate crisis over Kosovo has been defused.

Some Serbian troops are pulling back from the border, and the threat of a return to armed conflict has receded for now.

The Biden administration acted decisively on Friday, drawing on some of the lessons from the run-up to the Ukraine invasion, going public with US intelligence on Serbian troop movements, and calling Belgrade to threaten sanctions and ostracism. The Nato peacekeeping force, Kfor, was immediately reinforced by the transfer of command of a battalion of British troops who were in the region for training.

While the immediate danger may have passed, however, the chronic crisis over Kosovo continues to fester.

The events of the past week could be an inflection point, depending on whether they lead to a policy rethink in Washington and Brussels.

Read the full story here.

The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Belgrade, Serbia, on 28 September.

Photograph: Zorana Jevtić/Reuters

Eyes on an international mission

Asked about the UN mission in Nagorno-Karabakh, a spokesperson for the US state department said yesterday that “we welcome that mission” and “we continue to work with our allies and partners about what a more long-term mission ought to look like”.

“Around 100,000 ethnic Armenians have left Nagorno-Karabakh, and relocated to Armenia. We believe that they ought – if they wish to return, they ought to have their rights respected, and that there ought to be an international monitoring mission in place to secure that,” the spokesperson said.

Only a few hundred people remain in the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team lead, Marco Succi, said today, Reuters reported.

“The city is now completely deserted,” he said via video link from the Karabakh capital.

“The hospitals … are not functioning; the medical personnel left; the water board authorities left; the director of the morgue also left. So this scenario is quite surreal,” he said.

Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh arrive in the border village of Kornidzor, Armenia, on 29 September.

Photograph: Irakli Gedenidze/Reuters

French minister heads to Armenia

France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, is visiting Armenia today, where she is expected to meet the prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and foreign minister, Ararat Mirzoyan, as well as refugees who fled Nagorno-Karabakh.

Ahead of the trip, the French foreign ministry said Colonna would underline France’s support for Armenia’s territorial integrity.

Armenia’s national assembly has ratified the founding statute of the international criminal court.

Russia had previously called the idea “extremely hostile”.

Nearly the entire ethnic Armenian population has left Nagorno-Karabakh, as the first United Nations mission arrived in the largely deserted mountainous region on Sunday.

Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN secretary general, said its team on the ground, the first UN mission to the region in 30 years, would “identify the humanitarian needs” both for people remaining and “the people that are on the move”.

Many of the Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabkah said they felt the international mission’s visit came too late, after Azerbaijan reclaimed the area in a lightning military operation last month.

Sitting on a bench near the central Republic Square in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, Aren Harutyunyan, who left the region known by Armenians as Artsakh last week, blamed the “international community” for the exodus.

“What is there left for the UN to monitor?” said Harutyunyan, 53, who arrived in Yerevan on Friday after a gruelling three-day journey from Stepanakert, the Nagorno-Karabakh capital.

“No one is there any more, everyone is gone, it’s a ghost town.”

Read the full story here.

People gather near an aid centre for refugees from the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the border village of Kornidzor, Armenia, on 29 September.

Photograph: Irakli Gedenidze/Reuters

Berlin wants international observers to stay in Nagorno-Karabakh to help build “trust” for civilians.

“It is a positive step that Azerbaijan has allowed UN observers into Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time,” the German foreign office said today.

“They need a permanent presence, as only transparency can build trust in Azerbaijan’s promise to protect the rights of all residents and returnees to the region,” it added.

An Azeri serviceman stands at a former Armenian separatists military position in the village of Mukhtar (Muxtar) retaken recently by Azeri troops, during an Azeri government-organised media trip in Azerbaijan’s controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday.

Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

Good morning and welcome back to the Europe live blog.

Today we will be looking at the latest on two crises that have raised concern across Europe: the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh and tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.

The European parliament is set to debate both issues later today.

Send your comments to lili.bayer@theguardian.com.