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As India is mulling new rules for digital money, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for regulations to ensure cryptocurrencies like bitcoin do not “end up in the wrong hands,” warning that this could “spoil” young people.

While he did not expand on those concerns, Modi spoke on Thursday about the need for “democratic nations” to band together and deal with challenges posed by emerging technologies. He was delivering a virtual address at the Sydney Dialogue, an annual cyber-tech summit.

Noting that technology and data could either become “new weapons” for conflict or “instruments of cooperation,” Modi brought up digital currencies as an example of how it was important that like-minded nations “work together on this” to “ensure it does not end up in the wrong hands, which can spoil our youth.”

We are at a historic moment of choice. Whether all the wonderful powers of technology of our age will be instruments of cooperation or conflict, coercion or choice, domination or development, oppression or opportunity.

He also urged the development of technical and governance standards and norms, singling out the use of data, and called for renewed efforts to prevent manipulation of public opinion. In recent weeks, Indian authorities have raised concerns over claims of huge returns from cryptocurrency investment as well as its potential connections to money laundering, organized crime and terror financing.

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© AP Photo / Charles Krupa
Bitcoin crashes after China rules all crypto-related transactions illegal

On Saturday, Modi chaired a meeting to formulate the country’s approach to digital currencies and examine their impact on the economy. According to The Economic Times, Indian officials are drafting regulations to propose a ban on all transactions and payments in cryptocurrencies, while allowing investors to hold them as assets, similar to gold, bonds and stock shares.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with the government’s discussions, the newspaper said there was a belief in policy circles that crypto markets needed to be regulated in order to tackle the problem of opaque advertising that exaggerates investment returns in order to attract young investors.

The sources informed the newspaper that draft legislation on the matter was expected to be forwarded to Modi’s cabinet for consideration in the next two to three weeks.

In September, China had banned all cryptocurrency transactions and crypto-mining.

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This piece was first published by RUSI in London.  The views do not represent those of RUSI.

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE –The international community is coming under increasing pressure to recognise the Taliban and to unfreeze Afghan funds held by the IMF or to risk a humanitarian crisis over the winter and a resurgence of international terrorism.

As Afghanistan heads deeper into winter the desperate need is to avoid a humanitarian crisis. The World Food Programme has launched an appeal to feed up to 23 million people and Médecins sans Frontières have followed suit in the healthcare field. Fortunately, the distribution mechanisms are in place inside Afghanistan; what is needed is for the international community to ensure that UN humanitarian programmes are fully funded. This will require Western capitals to get over the shock of their recent defeat. It goes without saying that hunger and health should not be used as instruments of political leverage.

Meanwhile, it is becoming ever more apparent that the Taliban do not have the skills to administer a country which is far more complex than the Afghanistan of 1996 – when they began their previous and disastrous spell in office. They will need international assistance to stabilise the economy, get people back to work and, in time, continue the gradual infrastructure improvements which have been underway since 2002. China will doubtless be willing to assist in some areas but Beijing has already made clear that it is adopting a cautious, gradualist approach. However, there are emerging indications that the Taliban’s intransigent views are beginning to relax; such as their approval of the polio vaccination scheme and their willingness to work with UN humanitarian agencies.

The Taliban will also need outside help in defeating the threat from the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISK). Already the Taliban are finding it difficult to counter similar asymmetric tactics which they used so successfully against Western forces. This is likely one of the subjects which CIA Director William Burns discussed with the Taliban during his visit on 24 August and where there is a mutual interest.

What can the international community (not just the West) realistically expect from the Taliban, following the militant group’s stunning victory? Maximalist demands will inevitably get short shrift.

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First, the Taliban should form a more inclusive government. According to multiple sources, the Taliban were intending to form such an administration had Ashraf Ghani not fled the country on 15 August. I am sceptical that this was ever their intention but former president Hamid Karzai and former reconciliation chief Abdullah Abdullah may have remained in Kabul on this understanding and Fatima Gailani, a former negotiator, insists this was the Taliban’s intention.

An inclusive government would need to include women and non-Taliban representatives from the Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik communities. It need not comprise the failed politicians and bloodstained warlords of the past, least of all Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Rashid Dostum. It is surely time for a new generation of more technocratic Afghans to become involved in government. Some may be persuaded to return from abroad but they will need assurances for their safety.

Second, the international community should insist on female education at all levels be restored and for women to play a fuller role in society. The Taliban will baulk at this but they only need to look at Pakistan where women play an important role in an avowedly Islamic, if not Islamist, society.

Third, all neighbouring countries, as well as the wider world, want Afghanistan to commit to removing all terrorist bases and terrorists from its soil; not just ISK and Al-Qa’ida but also the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), anti-Iranian and anti-Indian groups, and Central Asian militant movements including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Fourth, the Taliban should commit to allow people to join their families in exile if they wish and also cease the continuing search for and punishment of those Afghans who served the Afghan government and Western allies since 2001.

Go beyond the headlines with expert perspectives on today’s news with The Cipher Brief’s Daily Open-Source Podcast.  Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In an ideal world there would also be a fifth request: to remove Haqqani network members from the Taliban administration. However, that pass was sold when the US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad engaged with the Haqqanis in Doha – another result of that calamitous dialogue. Furthermore, the current reality is that the Haqqanis control both Kabul and its airport and Sirajuddin Haqqani holds the key position of interior minister.

Instead, the Haqqanis need to be persuaded to prevent Al-Qa’ida regrouping in Afghanistan. Sirajuddin’s father was close to Osama bin Laden and the group retains its Al-Qa’ida connections. Pakistan is already using the Haqqanis to bring the TTP to the negotiating table. It remains to be seen how successful this will be. It is doubtful that the Haqqanis would be willing to take military action against a group from a similar area in the tribal borderlands. However, the Haqqanis could be useful as intermediaries, if not as enforcers.

Meanwhile, the wider Taliban, usually referred to as the ‘Kandaharis’, are increasingly exasperated by the entryist Haqqanis. Although they have worked together, there was never much love lost between the two. The Kandaharis have always distrusted the Haqqanis’ proximity to the Pakistani military. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul-Ghani Baradar, whose willingness to negotiate with the Kabul government in 2008 and 2010 earned him eight years in a Pakistani prison, has been sidelined. There will doubtless be a reckoning

A lasting regret of the US’s careless withdrawal is that Washington did not conclude a broader settlement for Afghanistan involving China, Iran, Russia, India and the Central Asian Republics. From now on it is essential to include all the neighbours in the discussion of recognition and the conditions required. But first the Afghans must be helped to survive the winter.

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Covid-19 variants keep emerging in different parts of the world, causing experts to ask how long the pandemic will last, and how effective the current methods of protection really are.

Since the pandemic started in 2019, people have referred to the disease which has paralyzed the world simply as ‘coronavirus’. Now, in 2021, when we talk about it, we mean not just the original variant, but also its numerous mutations. 

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© Getty Images / sasacvetkovic33
Drastic drop in Covid vaccine effectiveness – study

In May, the WHO decided to label the key variants with Greek letters. Since then, the Delta variant has been proclaimed the predominant strain across the world, and now we have titles that look like codes to detail the differences between variants. Last month, the UK was put on high alert over a fast-spreading Delta AY.4.2 variant. This week, Norway reported finding one more version of the Delta strain – AY. 63. The country’s experts suggest it’s not more dangerous than the Delta mutation itself. Meanwhile, another Covid variant, discovered in France (B.1.640), brought the researchers an unpleasant surprise: they said they’d never seen mutations like it. 

Professor David Dockrell, from the Center for Inflammation Research of the University of Edinburgh, described to RT the reasons for the constant mutation of the coronavirus. “The areas in the virus that are most likely to change are those that come into contact with what we call ‘selective pressures’ – or factors that make them need to change,” he explains. “So, a version of the virus which mutates and changes to give it a selective advantage to escape from the immune system is more likely to prosper and become a dominant strain.” 

That’s how it works: The part of the virus many of the immune responses (or antibodies, T-cells etc.) are responding to is called the spike protein (or the S-protein). So, the virus tries to change it in order to survive. 

“We know that a variety of different viruses are able to mutate and change when exposed to the selective pressure of the immune system, whether it would be the human immune system or other species in which these viruses have evolved,” Prof. Dockrell says. “And of course, we’ve seen it most clearly with HIV, which is particularly good at changing and evolving. It does something called ‘reverse transcription’ – it copies material in the reversed direction from DNA to RNA.” 

Covid is still seemingly running faster than humanity’s efforts to curb it, but Prof. Dockrell has some good news. “The coronavirus – and viruses like it – are not as able to make these changes. They are going to do it to some extent, but they are not going to be as successful as retroviruses and HIV.” 

And the other major thing to say: When the viruses make changes, there’s always what we call ‘a fitness cost’. Many of the potential changes that the virus could make will actually not favor its survival. So there are only a certain number, potentially, of changes that the virus can make, before it starts affecting its fitness. 

Now, unfortunately, we are still in a phase where Covid19 can continue to evolve and change. It’s not time to panic, though, because across the world various ways to adapt the current anti-Covid strategies are already in place. First of all, people should keep getting vaccines – maybe receiving slightly altered booster doses, Prof. Dockrell suggests, “in a way, that we, after all, have to do with influenza, by providing a seasonal influenza vaccine and changing it every year.” 

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RT
WHO sounds alarm over looming Covid-19 catastrophe in Europe

“And maybe we have to keep changing some of the treatments like these new monoclonal antibodies against the virus, because they also may be limited by the emergence of a mutation of the virus evolving the S-protein,” he adds. 

Sounds promising – but won’t it become a never-ending race against constantly emerging mutations? 

Hopefully not. According to Prof. Dockrell, there are parts of viruses that scientists call ‘conserved areas’. With time, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies will target these areas, which the virus finds very hard to change. “Clearly, the direction of travel is to develop either vaccine responses that affect more different kinds of virus, or these ‘monoclonal antibodies’ that we could use to prevent or treat infection, that they will target more conserved areas and therefore will be less limited by the ability of these virus to evolve and change,” he concludes.

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This piece by General Joseph Votel (Ret.) and Lt. Gen. Michael K. Nagata (Ret.) and was first published by our friends at the Middle East Institute.

Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael K. Nagata is a distinguished senior fellow on national security at MEI. He retired from the U.S. Army in 2019 after 38 years of active duty, with 34 years in US Special Operations. His final position was director of strategy for the National Counterterrorism Center from 2016 to 2019.

Gen. (ret.) Joseph L. Votel is a distinguished senior fellow on national security at MEI. He retired as a four-star general in the U.S. Army after a nearly 40-year career, during which he held a variety of commands in positions of leadership, including most recently as commander of CENTCOM from March 2016 to March 2019. 

OPINION – The United States and Pakistan have had a complex and often disappointing “love-hate” relationship since 1947 — one severely tested during the 20-year U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan. We believe the time has come for serious policy consideration of whether and how both nations can achieve a more strategically beneficial and sustainable post-intervention relationship between the American and Pakistani governments and their populations.

As we consider a new policy, the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades of leading the international coalition is almost complete. Early indications are that Afghanistan is increasingly likely to descend into significant instability and possibly serious fracture, which will have unwelcome consequences for the Afghan people and all of Afghanistan’s neighbors. It is already clear that international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State-Khorasan Province will continue to enjoy and probably grow their safe havens.

Whatever U.S. strategic concerns may be about the future of Afghanistan, the course and direction of Pakistan’s strategic choices in coming years will also matter to the United States. There are a variety of reasons for this.

First, Pakistan is a nuclear weapon state. Decades of investments in nuclear weapons by Pakistan and India, compounded by unrelenting and mutual historical, religious, cultural, and political antagonism between them, make this one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints.

Second, all of the countries Pakistan borders are consequential for the U.S. Pakistan also has significant religious, cultural, and economic ties to other Muslim states such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In an era of “great power competition,” while Pakistan may not be one of the principal players, its network of relationships can be of strategic benefit to any of the great powers now involved, including the U.S. and China.

Third, despite its significant political and economic difficulties, Pakistan has a growing technology sector. Its youthful population and worldwide diaspora of Pakistani doctors, scientists, academics, and other professionals have become an increasingly important part of the global community.

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As long-time veterans of South Asia, both of us understand the sources of “weariness and wariness” that U.S. policymakers, in both Democratic and Republican administrations, often associate with strategic discussions of Pakistan. We have both seen the U.S. government’s reluctance toward undertaking any kind of strategic interaction or rapprochement with Pakistan because of previous disappointments or perceived betrayals. Understanding the enormous complexities of Pakistan’s relationships, influence, and strategic choices in the South Asia milieu can be intellectually challenging and draining.

Yet, we have both concluded that the only thing harder than establishing a functional and mutually beneficial relationship with Pakistan is living without one. Given unstable borders, a nuclear standoff with India, the continued presence of terrorist organizations, and the high potential for all of this to further disrupt our interests, there is no better alternative.

Among those areas that we believe worth exploring with the Pakistanis are these:

First, the possibility of planning, along with other like-minded international actors (both state and non-state), to manage the consequences of significant political instability and human suffering emerging from Afghanistan, including the possibility of substantial refugee flight into Pakistan. Indeed, the Pakistanis have long and miserable memories of the surge of Afghan refugees after the Kabul government collapsed in the 1990s and have consistently expressed deep concerns about a possible repeat resulting from the U.S. withdrawal now nearing its completion.

Second, the possibility of counterterrorism cooperation against any terrorist threat that emerges from Afghanistan and prevents it from sowing further instability across the region. We do not consider it likely that Pakistan will allow any positioning of U.S. intelligence or counterterrorism elements within its borders. Still, there may be other ways (e.g., working groups, forums, or exchanges) to foster better cooperation if a threat emerges from Afghanistan that is of concern to our mutual interests.

Third, the possibility of enlisting Pakistan cooperation, and that of India, toward some type of partial de-escalation of tensions along their common border and, with it, even a slight amelioration of the nuclear weapons threat. It is instructive to recall that, before 9/11, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee initiated a dialogue about the de-escalation of tensions that included the highly emotional issue of Kashmir. However, talks broke down without significant agreement. While we recognize this is an extraordinarily complex and fraught issue for the U.S. to embrace, given all of its other strategic challenges, the specter of a potential nuclear conflict in South Asia should at a minimum prompt us to ask ourselves, “why not at least try?” Indeed, U.S. antagonists such as China would probably take a dim view of such efforts, and we believe that might be a reason for doing so rather than a reason to flinch from it.

Go beyond the headlines with expert perspectives on today’s news with The Cipher Brief’s Daily Open-Source Podcast.  Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

We have long heard U.S. policy and operational practitioners cite phrases such as “never underestimate the Pakistanis’ ability to disappoint us.” But, unfortunately, most American policymakers do not understand how often we have heard the Pakistanis say the same thing about Americans. Thus, both sides have longstanding “neuralgias” about the other. As we end our Afghan campaign, now is the time to move beyond our neuralgias and carefully weigh the strategic costs of whether trying to somehow partner with Pakistan is more, or less, than the cost of failing to do so. We believe, in the long run, it is likely to be less costly.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors.

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Australia’s Jewish community has condemned the repeated displays of Nazi references at anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown rallies in Victoria, some of which saw the state premier depicted as Adolf Hitler.

Daniel Aghion, the president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, claims that references to the genocidal regime of the Nazis amid the current unrest over pandemic rules is a false equivalence.

“The Nazis had the intention of wiping from the face of the Earth a race or religion simply because of what they were,” Aghion told Guardian Australia. “Nothing in the current proposals is remotely like that, and the comparison to Nazi Germany is therefore shocking, inappropriate and wrong,” he added.

Aghion’s comments come after demonstrators, protesting against pandemic laws, referenced Nazi Germany in an effort to make their point. Some carried placards depicting state premier, Daniel Andrews, as Hitler. 

 Wendy Lovell, a Liberal MP, had also claimed laws proposed to govern future pandemics were similar to Germany’s 1933 Enabling Act – which allowed the Reich government to issue laws without the consent of parliament and preceded atrocities, most notably the Holocaust.

MP Bernie Finn had gone as far as to share a social media post depicting the state premier as Hitler. It was later deleted.Laws proposed by Andrews seek to grant powers to the state leaders in the event of another pandemic. Under the move, the minister “may make any order… that the minister believes is reasonably necessary to protect public health.” 

Opponents claim the legislation, which would see power concentrated with the head of state and health minister, is too broad and far reaching.

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Planetary alignment on Friday has offered sky-gazers around the globe a chance to witness a spectacular near-total lunar eclipse, the longest since the 1440s.

The fascinating astronomical phenomenon lasted three hours and 28 minutes – the longest in centuries, according to international space agencies. On Thursday and Friday, depending on local time zones, the Earth, Sun and Moon aligned in such a way that 97.4% of our natural satellite’s surface was darkened in shadow.

When the Moon came out of the shroud, it turned bloody or rusty red in sunlight.

The dramatic celestial show was visible in those parts of the globe where the Moon appeared above the horizon during the eclipse.

Sky watchers in North and South America, parts of Eastern Asia and Australia had a chance to witness the phenomenon.

In Russia, the partial eclipse could be seen in Siberia and the Far East. Russian space agency Roscosmos also shared images of the shadowed moon as seen from the International Space Station (ISS).

Adding to the astonishment, the Moon was very low in the sky for much of the eclipse, causing an optical illusion that made it seem larger.

While the full Moon travels through Earth’s shadow roughly two times a year, lunar eclipses are usually far shorter.

The latest event, due to its rare duration, might have affected people not only visually, but also emotionally, astrologers cautioned.

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EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — A meeting – albeit virtual – between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping finally happened.  It was a cordial and reportedly candid exchange that hopefully cooled some of the tension between the U.S. and China.

President Biden captured the essence of the meeting with his concern that this tension “does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended.”  President Xi said, “China and the U.S. need to increase communications and cooperation” and “respect each other and coexist in peace.”

It’s hard to believe that in 1979, when formal U.S. – China diplomatic relations were established, Chinese President Deng Xiaoping looked to the U.S. as the country that would provide the investment, technology, and unlimited access to our best universities.  And the U.S. didn’t disappoint.  Investment and sophisticated technology flowed to China, with hundreds of thousands of Chinese students enrolling in our universities.  Strategic bilateral cooperation initially contributed to the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, with joint efforts to address international terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

So, during the span of forty-two years, relations have gone from close economic and strategic cooperation to a concern about conflict, intended or unintended.  Understandably, scholars will spend considerable time analyzing what went wrong. 

What is important now is that U.S. – China relations move in a more positive direction.  That tension over China’s aggression against Taiwan, the militarization of islands and reefs in the South China Sea, internment camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the national security law in Hong Kong that suppresses democratic protests and the theft of intellectual property all must be candidly discussed by our diplomats and leaders to avoid misunderstanding and accidental conflict.

President Biden said Washington continues to have a “one China” policy and “opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo.”  President Xi reportedly said, “Beijing will take decisive measures if the pro-Taiwan independence movement crosses a red line.”

The three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 specifically states that, inter alia, “the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means; to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, is a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.”

The challenge for the U.S. and China is to address Taiwan and a myriad of other irritants in the bilateral relationship to ensure that no one issue, or series of issues leads to conflict.  Toning down the rhetoric and pursuing a policy of substantive and sustained communications, especially by our diplomats, would be a necessary first step.

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The annual Economic and Strategic Dialogue with China, led by the heads of State Department and Treasury and their counterparts in Beijing was established to oversee progress in addressing these and other challenging issues.  A forum of this type, with announcements to ensure that the public is kept apprised of the issues and the work being done to resolve these issues, is of value, only if this dialogue is substantive and not just ceremonial.

This virtual presidential summit can be transformative if, in addition to addressing these and other irritants, it also addresses the opportunity to cooperate on a multitude of geopolitical issues that affect the security of the U.S. and China – and the world.

I’ll start with the nuclear issue and the fact that there’s minimal dialogue with China on its nuclear program.  And given recent reporting on the three sites in China with the construction of hundreds of missile silos and the recent DIA report that China, by 2030, will have a nuclear arsenal of 1000 nuclear warheads is of concern.  Ideally, China should be part of New Start arms control negotiations with the U.S. and Russia.  But they previously refused to join in this or any other arms control dialogue.  At a minimum, China should be responsive to a dialogue with the U.S. on nuclear-related issues, to include their recent test of two hypersonic missiles.

A separate but equally important dialogue with China is on cyber, to ensure that the cyber domain is not weaponized and used against our private sector for economic advantage.  Also, to ensure that outer space is used exclusively for peaceful purposes.

There are a multitude of global issues requiring bilateral cooperation.  We recently saw some U.S. – China cooperation on climate change at the Glasgow COPS 26 UN Climate Change Conference.  Obviously, more must be done, but this is a positive first step.

Other issues, like North Korea can and should be addressed now.  China has unique leverage with a North Korea that relies on China for its economic survival.  China can use that leverage to get North Korea to return to negotiations and to convince the North that complete and verifiable denuclearization, in return for significant deliverables, is in North Korea’s interest.

With over five million global casualties and over 760,000 deaths in the U.S. due to COVID-19, it should be obvious that greater bilateral cooperation on this and future pandemics is necessary.

Go beyond the headlines with expert perspectives on today’s news with The Cipher Brief’s Daily Open-Source Podcast.  Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Bilateral cooperation on nuclear proliferation, countering international terrorism, the trafficking of narcotics and confronting international organized crime are just some of the global issues that affect the security of the U.S. and China and the global community.  Failure to cooperate on these and other international issues is not only a security imperative, but a moral responsibility of all great powers.

Finally, with the Taliban back in control in Afghanistan, the U.S. and China have a shared goal: ensuring that the Taliban does not permit Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to once again use Afghanistan as a base for its international terrorist operations. China has engaged this Taliban government and should use its significant financial leverage to ensure that all terrorist groups are permanently removed from Afghanistan.

Xi Jinping was just anointed by the Chinese Communist Party as one of its revered leaders, with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.  The Party congress next year will likely give Xi a third five-year term as the Party’s Secretary General.  There are a multitude of domestic issues requiring Xi’s and the Party’s attention, to include a campaign of “common prosperity” – addressing the disparity of wealth in a China governed by a capitalist system with Chinese characteristics.

Hopefully, President Xi Jinping will work with President Joe Biden to ensure that the two great powers, consumed with domestic issues, will also address the myriad of international issues requiring immediate and long-term attention and avoid a cold war that could veer into conflict.

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Any apology for Nazism is unacceptable, Colombia’s president Ivan Duque has insisted, after photos of police academy cadets dressed up in Third Reich uniforms were uploaded online, causing outrage.

“Any apology for Nazism is unacceptable,” Duque stated in a tweet on Friday. The president said he condemned any references to those who were “responsible for the Jewish Holocaust that claimed the lives of more than 6 million people,” adding that “anti-Semitism has no place in the world.”

Duque had earlier made demands for “heads to roll” at an academy that “promotes such criminal practices,” with its director, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Ferney Bayona Sanchez, already having been sacked.

Colombia’s defense ministry, which oversees the country’s police, also insisted in a statement that that its training programs “don’t envisage in any way an activity such as the one which took place” at the academy.

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Nazi uniforms found inside the house of a man suspected of raping a 12-year-old boy at the Vargem Grande neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. © AFP / Rio de Janeiro Civil Police
Brazilian police discover $3.5mn trove of Nazi memorabilia at home of ‘insane psychopath’ suspected of child rape

The images of police cadets in Nazi uniforms caused anger and bewilderment among internet users.

The German and Israeli embassies in the country reacted by issuing a joint statement, in which they expressed “total rejection of any form of apology or demonstration of Nazism.” The US embassy in Bogota also said that it was “shocked and deeply disappointed” by the development.

The controversial images, in which aspiring officers were caught sporting black SS outfits with red swastika armbands and grey Wehrmacht uniforms from the World War II era, weren’t revealed in some bombshell media report, but were actually published on the official Twitter account of the Colombian police this Thursday.

The photos were taken as part of a “cultural exchange” event at the police academy in the city of Tulua, aimed at commemorating Germany and “strengthening the knowledge of our police students.” The cosplay was apparently intended to illustrate the history of German law enforcement, with more cadets pictured wearing more modern versions of the country’s police uniforms in the pictures.

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An object lurking in the outer region of our solar system may well be the elusive Planet 9, a leading British astronomer has suggested after digging through the telescope archives of 250,000 point sources.

Possible evidence of a mysterious planet up to 10 times bigger than Earth, with a distant orbit around the Sun, has been unveiled by professor of astrophysics at Imperial College of London, Michael Rowan-Robinson. Aiming to prove – or rule out – the existence of another big planet beyond Neptune, the UK scientist decided to conduct a new analysis of data collected by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) in 1983.

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Courtesy NASA TV
NASA’s Lucy mission blasted into outer solar system to study Trojan asteroids & planetary evolution (VIDEO)

The astronomer has looked through some 250,000 point sources detected by the telescope, which took a far-infrared survey of 96% of the sky. Having analyzed the data, keeping in mind the hypothetical planet’s size and distance, “at the very limit of the survey,” he singled out a moving object that the satellite picked out on three occasions.

The candidate for Planet 9 would be up to five times the mass of Earth, according to the IRAS data. Its orbital distance would be some 225 times farther than that of our planet, equaling about 33.7 billion kilometers (20.9 billion miles) from the Sun. 

READ MORE: Astronomers find exoplanet with unusual orbit

If the enigmatic object is indeed rotating around the Sun at such a distance, it would be extremely cold and not much sunlight would be reflected by it, making it even more elusive and harder to find. While the latest study is not a clear detection, it could be valuable as guidance for where exactly to search for the new planet, the astronomer concluded. 

“Given the great interest of the Planet 9 hypothesis, it would be worthwhile to check whether an object with the proposed parameters and in the region of sky proposed, is inconsistent with the planetary ephemerides,” he wrote in the preprint paper, accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

A debate on the possible existence of an undiscovered planet in our solar system has been ongoing for decades. With no concrete evidence found, there has been speculation about its presence, mainly based on the gravitational clustering of objects in the system’s outer reaches. Several years ago, a suggestion was put forward that a group of icy objects that lie beyond the orbit of Neptune in the Kuiper Belt are possibly under the gravitational influence of a larger mysterious body, possibly Planet 9. The claim was based not on observation, but on modeling. 

Currently, the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun is Neptune. In the last century, Pluto, discovered in 1930, was regarded as the ninth planet, but a controversial vote at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 formally excluded it from the solar system’s ‘planets’, and reclassified it as a dwarf planet.

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