The cyber-world has created a new era for intelligence services as they are increasingly growing in importance in a country’s defence, according to a former director at the British intelligence service MI5.
Dame Stella Rimington, who was speaking at the RSA security conference in Abu Dhabi this week, spoke of the transformation in the intelligence world since she served in the field.
“I do feel that they have a really difficult job to do," she said. “And as I look to the future, I wonder what is the future of security and intelligence now. It seems to me that terrorism is going to go on I’m afraid for at least another generation because it’s proved so successful in drawing issues to the public’s attention and I think rather than the grand scale organised operations that we were facing with the IRA particularly in the earlier days, we’re going to be facing more and more individual, home-grown sponsored got-off-the-internet sort of ideas that our intelligence services are finding it so very very difficult to combat.”
She said espionage would go on. “Countries are going to want to find out what other countries’ secrets are and to try and undermine countries they regard as their enemies,” Dame Rimington said. “But rather than doing it in the old way with intelligence officers going around cities trying to find out secrets, they’re going to be doing it in cyber-space. It seems to me now that it is far more effective if you want to try and undermine a nation to do cyber-space attacks to hack, deny services or to put out fake news, or whatever the Russians are being accused of having done in the United States - that seems to be far more effective than burying the place with intelligence officers.”
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Although there would still be intelligence officers, she said the future for intel services would change. “I wonder sometimes whether maybe in the future our intelligence services will be regarded as a far more important part of a country’s defence than our military,” she said. “And I wonder if I came back in 50 years, if the intelligence services were bigger and better resourced than the army, navy and air force.”
When she was first appointed to her position, Dame Rimington struggled as a female in the field. “When I was faced with the British tabloid press, as I’m a female, I knew it would be a sensationalist announcement,” she said. “This is because they are somewhat old-fashioned and their view of who should be the head of our intelligence services was obviously somebody like James Bond or if not, whoever it is, it should be a man and not a female with two children. So they dumped me into that box that they keep for uppity women and the box is the kitchen.”
She experienced headlines such as “housewife superspy” and “mother-of-two gets tough with terrorists” which went on for a while. The press soon found out through her neighbours where she lived, forcing her to move when they posted a photograph of her house on the front page. “One of our local papers published a story from one of our neighbours complaining that my helicopters ceaselessly roaming overhead were keeping her family awake,” she said. “The helicopters had nothing to do with me at all, they were the police monitoring the Arsenal football ground which was just up the road. So in the end we had to leave the house and find somewhere to live, myself, my daughter and the dog.”
Following her move, her and her colleagues managed to formulate an openness strategy with the press. “We could talk about what we do, the laws that govern what we do but we can’t talk about individual operations or sources,” she said. “The relationship got much better. I gave a lecture on BBC on where the line is between security and democracy back in 1996 and people are talking about it even more now so by creating our own openness strategy, we managed to get the better of some of this nonsense.”
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BANGLADESH SQUAD
Mashrafe Mortaza (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahim (wicketkeeper), Mahmudullah, Shakib Al Hasan (vice captain), Mohammad Mithun, Sabbir Rahaman, Mosaddek Hossain, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Rubel Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Abu Jayed (Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company Profile
Founder: Omar Onsi
Launched: 2018
Employees: 35
Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)
Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners
Read more about the coronavirus
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
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- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
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So what is Spicy Chickenjoy?
Just as McDonald’s has the Big Mac, Jollibee has Spicy Chickenjoy – a piece of fried chicken that’s crispy and spicy on the outside and comes with a side of spaghetti, all covered in tomato sauce and topped with sausage slices and ground beef. It sounds like a recipe that a child would come up with, but perhaps that’s the point – a flavourbomb combination of cheap comfort foods. Chickenjoy is Jollibee’s best-selling product in every country in which it has a presence.
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Price, base: Dh429,090
Engine 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8
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The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
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Five hymns the crowds can join in
Papal Mass will begin at 10.30am at the Zayed Sports City Stadium on Tuesday
Some 17 hymns will be sung by a 120-strong UAE choir
Five hymns will be rehearsed with crowds on Tuesday morning before the Pope arrives at stadium
‘Christ be our Light’ as the entrance song
‘All that I am’ for the offertory or during the symbolic offering of gifts at the altar
‘Make me a Channel of your Peace’ and ‘Soul of my Saviour’ for the communion
‘Tell out my Soul’ as the final hymn after the blessings from the Pope
The choir will also sing the hymn ‘Legions of Heaven’ in Arabic as ‘Assakiroo Sama’
There are 15 Arabic speakers from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan in the choir that comprises residents from the Philippines, India, France, Italy, America, Netherlands, Armenia and Indonesia
The choir will be accompanied by a brass ensemble and an organ
They will practice for the first time at the stadium on the eve of the public mass on Monday evening
Thank You for Banking with Us
Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
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How to avoid crypto fraud
- Use unique usernames and passwords while enabling multi-factor authentication.
- Use an offline private key, a physical device that requires manual activation, whenever you access your wallet.
- Avoid suspicious social media ads promoting fraudulent schemes.
- Only invest in crypto projects that you fully understand.
- Critically assess whether a project’s promises or returns seem too good to be true.
- Only use reputable platforms that have a track record of strong regulatory compliance.
- Store funds in hardware wallets as opposed to online exchanges.
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