A date that will live in infamy ...
7th December 2017, marks the 76th anniversary of the surprise Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor The attack, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, led to the United States' entry into World War II.

In just 90 minutes more than 2,400 Americans lost their lives and seventeen ships were damaged or lost. Of the sailors who perished, more than half were killed when the forward magazine of the USS Arizona was hit by a shell and exploded.

Of the 402 American aircraft in Hawaii, 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged. Almost none were ready to take off to defend the base when the attack started, and just eight managed to get airborne during the attack.

Despite the devastation the Japanese left behind, 14 of the 17 damaged ships returned to service later in the war. The Arizona, the Oklahoma and the USS Utah - a training ship - were the only ones to be permanently destroyed.

Clearing the US base on Hawaii was seen as vital to capturing the Philippines, Guam, Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong from the Americans, British and Dutch.

The attack was part of a campaign of Pacific expansion undertaken by Imperial Japan that was intent on carving out an Asian empire to rival those of Europe.

Admiral Hara Tadaichi summed up the Japanese result by saying: “We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor and thereby lost the war”.

“Taking the Mickey” ...
Toni Basil, the acclaimed choreographer and self-described one-hit wonder, has filed suit against various corporations, including Walt Disney Co., Viacom and Forever 21, as well as the music publisher Razor & Tie.

It's the latest development in Basil's ongoing fight over rights to the popular song “Mickey”, which she recorded in 1981.

Basil alleges that Razor & Tie has been illegally licensing the song for use in commercials and TV shows. The recent suit is part of a saga stretching back decades.

According to the new suit, which was filed on Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Razor & Tie “regularly held themselves out as rights holders with the ability to license ‘Mickey’ for commercial synchronization”, when in fact it had no right to do so.

The defendants, the suit also claims,“knowingly used Basil's name, likeness, and/or persona for the purpose of advertising, selling, and/or soliciting purchase of merchandise, goods and/or services ”without her consent”.

The suit claims Basil ”became withdrawn, despondent and physically ill” as a result of the alleged unauthorized use in shows including “South Park” and “RuPaul's Drag Race” and commercials by Forever 21.

Attorneys for Basil and Razor & Tie were unavailable for immediate comment on Friday.

Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki ...
Amid growing tension between the United States and North Korea, the mayor of Nagasaki, Japan, said Wednesday at a ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of the U.S atomic bombing of his city that the fear of another nuclear attack is growing.

Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue urged nuclear states to abandon such weapons and criticised Japan's government for not taking part in the global effort toward a nuclear ban. He urged Japan's government to change its policy of relying on the U.S nuclear umbrella and join the nuclear prohibition treaty as soon as possible.

The world's first atomic bomb, dropped on August 6th, 1945, killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima, Japan. The bombing of Nagasaki three days later killed 70,000 more. Japan surrendered days later ending World War II.

At 11:02 a.m., the time that the bomb struck 72 years go, the people at the ceremony observed a moment of silence as the peace bell rang.

More than 175,000 survivors or “hibakusha” have died in Nagasaki since the attack, including 3,551 in the past year, while over 300,000 of their peers have died in Hiroshima. Many survivors suffer from lasting effects of radiation.

Seventy two years after the bombing, there are 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world.

Bitcoin Scam ...
Greek police have arrested a Russian national, Alexander Vinnik, 38, for his role as owner of the BTC-e Bitcoin trading platform. In the US, the Department of Justice (DOJ) formally indicted Vinnik on 21 charges related to money laundering and the operation of an unlicensed money exchange.

According to several information sources, Vinnik and his platform BTC-e were the key points through which ransomware authors cashed in their earnings and hackers laundered money stolen from other hacked Bitcoin trading platforms.

In addition, the DOJ indictment also claims Vinnik's BTC-e platform allowed ransomware operators to convert Bitcoin into fiat currency and cash-out their illegal activities.

The research team, formed from experts from Google, Chainalysis, University of California, San Diego, and New York University, said ransomware operators made between $1 million and $2 million per month during 2016, and most of this money was cashed out via BTC-e.

Vinnik was arrested in a seaside village in the country's northern region. US authorities have requested his extradition. Vinnik faces a combined maximum sentence of up to 35 years in prison, along with various fines.

Authorities believe that Vinnik's platform helped launder over $4 billion in illegal funds. BTC-e handled over $7 billion during its lifetime.

Iran Sanctions ...
The Trump administration certified to Congress late Monday that Iran has continued to meet the required conditions of its nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers.

The announcement came just hours before the midnight deadline for US President Donald Trump to inform congress whether Iran had met the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal.

“The conditions have been met, based on information available to the United States”, one official said during a briefing with reporters on Monday.

But senior administration officials made clear that the certification was grudging, and said that President Trump intends to impose new sanctions on Iran for ongoing “malign activities” in non-nuclear areas such as ballistic missile development and support for terrorism.

Winnie the Pooh Blacklisted ...
Winnie the Pooh has been censored from Chinese social media after unflattering memes compared the honey-loving bear to the country‘s President Xi Jinping.

Ahead of the country‘s Communist party congress this autumn, posts featuring the beloved children‘sbook character were censored on the Chinese social network Sina Weibo.

Searches for the ‘Little Bear Winnie’ as Pooh is called in China returned the error message“ content is illegal”. Meanwhile, animated gifs fearing Pooh vanished from messaging app WeChat.

Death by China ...
China is facing a barrage of international criticism for its treatment of the Nobel laureate and democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo, who died at the age of 61 on Thursday.

Liu, who championed non-violent resistance as a way of overcoming “forceful tyranny”, had been serving an 11-year jail sentence for demanding an end to one-party rule when he was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer in May.

He died of multiple organ failure while under guard at a hospital in north-east China, making him the first Nobel peace prize winner to die in custody since German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, the 1935 recipient, who died under surveillance after years confined to Nazi concentration camps.

United Nations adopts historic ban on nuclear weapons ...
More than 70 years after the world witnessed the devastating power of nuclear weapons, a global treaty has been approved to ban the bombs, a move that supporters hope will lead to the eventual elimination of all nuclear arms.

The treaty was endorsed by 122 countries at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday after months of talks in the face of strong opposition from nuclear-armed states and their allies. Only the Netherlands, which took part in the discussion, despite having US nuclear weapons on its territory, voted against the treaty.

All of the countries that bear nuclear arms and many others that either come under their protection or host weapons on their soil boycotted the negotiations. The most vocal critic of the discussions, the US, pointed to the escalation of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programme as one reason to retain its nuclear capability. The UK did not attend the talks despite government claims to support multilateral disarmament.

Trump takes US out of Paris climate deal ...
President Donald Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate accord, prompting widespread criticism from allies and business leaders as America became one of only three nations to oppose the 2015 global pact to combat climate change.

Announcing his decision from the White House Rose Garden, Mr Trump said the Paris accord was an example of an international deal that hurt the US economy, and that he was fulfilling his “America First” campaign pledge to help American workers.

During the 2016 race, Mr Trump vowed to withdraw from the Paris accord, as he questioned the science behind climate change - which he had earlier called a “hoax” manufactured by China - and argued that it hurt the US economy.

However, several US mayors and governors also voiced opposition, saying they would continue with local-level efforts to combat climate change.

While many Republican members of Congress hailed the decision, it drew fire from former President Barack Obama, who signed the deal in 2015. “The nations that remain in the Paris agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created,” he said.

White House officials said Mr Trump wanted the withdrawal to be “consistent with the Paris agreement”, which they acknowledged meant that the accord would remain in force for three years before the US could formally submit notice of its exit. That means that the US will technically remain in the accord until November 2020.