VIENNA: Austria’s chancellor said on Sunday his country’s intelligence agencies should have greater power to monitor communications on messaging apps to stop extremists after a planned suicide attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna was thwarted this week.
Swift’s three planned concerts were canceled after Austrian authorities got wind of a plot led by a 19-year-old youth to launch an Daesh-inspired suicide attack at a soccer stadium where tens of thousands of fans were planning to attend the shows.
News of the planned attack has reanimated debate over the tight restrictions Austria has in comparison to other western nations on the monitoring of messaging communications just as the country gears up for an election on Sept. 29.
“We really need our agencies to be upgraded technically so they’re on an equal footing with terrorists, with organized crime, so we can combat them,” Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in an interview with Germany’s Bild newpsper.
“It’s vital that messenger services like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram can be decrypted for security authorities, under judicial oversight, while upholding the rule of law,” added Nehammer, who is seeking re-election next month.
Nehammer, who said Austria received a tip from a foreign intelligence service over the planned Swift attack, said the main suspects so far in the case had been captured.
But he spoke of more arrests being made as police continue investigations among criminal networks. More Daesh supporters had been identified, he said.
Austria chancellor urges more comms monitoring after Taylor Swift plot
https://arab.news/83sm9
Austria chancellor urges more comms monitoring after Taylor Swift plot
- Swift’s three planned concerts were canceled after Austrian authorities got wind of a plot led by a 19-year-old youth to launch an Daesh-inspired suicide attack
- ews of the planned attack has reanimated debate over the tight restrictions Austria has in comparison to other western nations on the monitoring of messaging communications
Spanish PM announces $710 million in military aid for Ukraine
- Sanchez says, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “neo-imperialism” aims to “weaken the European project and everything it stands for”
MADRID: Spain will give Ukraine a fresh military aid package worth 615 million euros ($710 million) to help it fight Russia’s invasion, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday.
Speaking at a Madrid press conference alongside visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Sanchez said around 300 million euros will go toward “new defense equipment.”
“Your fight is ours,” Sanchez said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “neo-imperialism” aims to “weaken the European project and everything it stands for.”
The announcement came after the leaders signed several bilateral agreements, including measures to combat Russian disinformation.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, tens of thousands of people — both civilians and soldiers — have died, and millions have been displaced, leaving large swathes of the country devastated.
Earlier on Tuesday, Sanchez and Zelensky visited Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum to view Pablo Picasso’s anti-war masterpiece “Guernica.”
In April 2022, just weeks after Russia’s invasion, Zelensky compared it to the 1937 bombing of Guernica, a small Basque town attacked by Nazi warplanes in support of Franco’s troops during the Spanish Civil War.
Zelensky, who visited Paris on Monday, is scheduled to travel to Turkiye on Wednesday for renewed peace talks involving Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US envoy Steve Witkoff.
