Notations On Our World (Special Edition): On the latest re @realDonaldTrump

General McMaster at the White House Earlier This Evening

As we went to press, we were assessing reporting by the +Washington Post about President Trump having disclosed classified information to the Russian Foreign Minister at a meeting at the White House after the President Fired former Director Comey.   It must be noted that the President has the authority to declassify as he deems appropriate.   There have been denials by the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor as reported by the Washington Examiner earlier tonight.    General McMaster appeared before reporters to deny the report as "reported".

Beyond this latest development, there is a more interesting development looming about a possible Senior Staff shakeup at the White House.    It will be an interesting few days as we continue to assess this and curate our Twitter Channel.   

Notations From the Grid (Weekly Special Edition): On #WannaCry

As the World continues to deal with  #WannaCry, our team received this very good primer on it courtesy of the team at the +Washington Post  that underscores how we should take every care possible to be careful although as one of our Education Partners noted in an advisory for all, "....Unfortunately there is not a standard email or path by which the ransomware accesses your computer...".  As such being careful more than ever before is critical (and as we work away, we just got word that a group called the Lazarus Group (linked to the North Koreans) may be behind it as Kaprinskly & Symantec are working to investigate it): 

How to protect yourself from the global ransomware attack The WannaCry ransomware catastrophe, explained By Brian Fung  •  Read  What you need to know about bitcoin after the WannaCry ransomware attack The price of bitcoin hit an all-time high in the hours before the attack. By Brian Fung  •  Read more » Update your Windows systems now. Right now. Friday's massive international cyberattack may give you the best reason to hit “update.” By Hayley Tsukayama  •  Read more » One of the most important lessons of the crippling ransomware crisis It's a teachable moment. By Brian Fung  •  Read more »

Notations On Our World (Weekly Edition) : On This historic #MothersDay2017

It is Mothers Day here int he United States.  We wanted to begin by wishing all the most joyous of Mothers' Day as we gear up for a very interesting week before us and as we have had quite a week. Google's Doodle Tribute was quite cute:

As we assessed our World, we picked up this courtesy of the team at Ozy Media that was quite interesting in featuring who actually curated it: 

IMPORTANT MAY 14, 2017

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris

Senator Kamala D. Harris Curates OZY's PDB She just made history as the second African-American woman ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Today, Harris joins the ranks of OZY guest editors like Karl Rove, Katie Couric and Tucker Carlson to share her take on current must-know news and trends. A lifelong public-safety and civil-rights leader, Harris was the first African-American and first woman to serve as California's attorney general. From the courtroom to setting policy, this Oakland native has always focused on children and family wellness, and as a U.S. senator she is pushing hard on health care access and immigration.

As we congratulate our home state Senator on this milestone, it must be noted that there is some talk that she might be preparing a potential Presidential Bid in 2020 which will be interesting to be witness to as the battle lines are drawn as America continues to grapple with the Trump Presidency.   In our view, the team at France24 captured the predicament perfectly in addition to some of the analysis done in US Media (including the Washington Post on its' Daily 202 Column):

Tumultuous week puts Trump presidency on perilous path

http://f24.my/1Dfs.F

The President thereafter came out and noted that he won't talk about the "taping" of the conversations iwth the now Former Director.   What is of note is the cover of the Economist of London was telling in terms of the scepticsm at hand as the President gears up for a trip to the Vatican, Saudi Arabia and Israel: 

 

 Meanwhile, in Europe, an era comes to an end and a new era arrives as the New President of France took charge with profound challenges before it:

After Emmanuel Macron took the oath of office, he visited wounded French Soldiers and now is arriving at Paris City Hall as we went to press.  

Beyond the shores of the United States and Europe, there is the advent of the new "Silk Road' --One Belt, One Road--in China that was launched today.   Some 68 Countries are involved to resurrect the "old silk road" that China notes is to transform the World in a major way.    Our team has featured stories on it in our Twitter Feed as the Conference was launched with a keynote by the Chinese President Today:

This is as the Chinese President has committed to spending billions on infrastructure as well.     It will a focus of ours here as we transition our properties to a weekly "Focus" in line with our mission to help "change the conversation about our World".    Here is a sampling of the stories on China Dialy we hope all enjoy: Belt and Road bedtime stories-Episode 5 

There is of course, Iran--a focus of ours as the Presidential campaign heats up.   It appears from the headlines in the aftermath of the third Presidential Debate that the Conservatives lost major ground as some hard truths including directly his main conservative challenger, Raisi, over allegations before him some 10 years ago: 

Headlines in Iranian Media read, "...Ghalibaf (The Mayor of Tehran) was railroaded; Raisi was speechless.." which underscored how aggressive President Rouhani's Re-Election Campaign has been and as he published his proposed Manifesto for the Next Four Years.   Al Jazeera has prepared a good primer on the Elections that is available by clicking here.
We have also been assessing the on-going situation in Syria as the Syrian Army continues to advance, Iraq as the push to kick out Daesh out of Mosul and as in Africa, there is a growing mutiny in the Ivory Coast.    North Korea also fired off a new set of missiles.    

Beyond the political challenges in focus, there is one key development which our team has also dealt with that led to our entire network being reset at considerable cost on the latest ransomware attack. Our team released the latest guidance from US-CERT on it--Europol reports that some 200,000 people in over 150 countries have been impacted.     

It is bound to be a very interesting week indeed.....