Homeland Security News

A Dutch-led investigation has publicly shared evidence that links the Russian government to the militant group responsible for the the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.

In transcripts from intercepted telephone calls released by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on Thursday, high-ranking Russian officials speak with leaders of the militant group "Donetsk People's Republic" (DPR) who shot down the commercial aircraft, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

Three calls intercepted between June and July 2014 show separatist group leaders Igor Girkin and Alexander Borodai speaking with government contact points including Russian-appointed Crimean leader Sergey Aksyonov and Vladislav Surkov, a high-ranking Russian government official and aide to Vladimir Putin.

Read more: Deutsche Welle

Under a November full moon, hundreds of young people dressed in black set about turning several of Hong Kong’s top universities into fortresses, well stocked with improvised weapons.

At City University, protesters used ping pong tables, potted plants, furniture, sports equipment, and bamboo to form a network of barricades to block roads and fortify the entrances to the student residence complex.

Hundreds of protesters wearing gas masks and helmets tore up piles of paving bricks and ceramic tiles to hurl at police, while others stockpiled dozens of petrol bombs, distributing them to their forward positions.

Read more: Reuters

More than 60 years of hassle-free travel from Sweden to Denmark has ended after the Danish authorities, struggling to quell a wave of bombings blamed on Swedish gangs, introduced passport checks for the first time since the 1950s.

The measures put in place on Tuesday are temporary and will be applied intermittently, but the Danish police said that most travelers should carry passports or national identification cards. Only air travelers from Sweden will be exempted.

“To counter the threat from serious, cross-border crime, we are enforcing the protection of the border with Sweden,” the Danish minister of justice, Nick Haekkerup, said in a statement last month

Read more: New York Times

At least seven people were killed and 10 others, including four foreign nationals, wounded in Kabul on Wednesday when a van packed with explosive targeted a vehicle belonging to a foreign security company, Afghan security officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rush-hour attack, which came a day after the Afghan government agreed on a prisoner exchange with the Taliban insurgents in the hopes of reviving peace talks.

Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said a suicide bomber driving a van targeted an armoured vehicle that belonged to GardaWorld, a Canadian security company that saw four of its staff wounded in the attack.

Read more: Reuters