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Crackdown on Amritpal Singh: Police invoke NSA against five Amritpal associates; preacher’s uncle, driver arrested

March 20, 2023 by economictimes.indiatimes.com Leave a Comment

Synopsis

Punjab Police invoked the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against five people linked to radical preacher Amritpal Singh’s ‘Waris Punjab De’ outfit on Monday. The preacher is on the run and efforts are being made to nab him. Six FIRs have been registered and 114 people have been arrested in the crackdown against elements of the outfit. Police suspect an “ISI angle” and foreign funding in the matter.

The Punjab Police on Monday flagged a possible “ISI angle” as it invoked the stringent National Security Act against five men linked to radical preacher Amritpal Singh , whose uncle and driver surrendered amid a state-wide crackdown against his ” Waris Punjab De ” group.

The Khalistan sympathiser’s uncle Harjit Singh and driver Harpreet Singh gave themselves up before police past Sunday midnight.

Harjit Singh, who officials say helped his nephew gain control over the accounts of “Waris Punjab De”, is among the five slapped with the NSA , which allows the preventive detention of anyone who could threaten national security or public order.

Harjit Singh will be shifted to the central jail in Assam’s Dibrugarh, where the other four were brought on Sunday. They are Daljit Singh Kalsi, Bhagwant Singh, Gurmeet Singh and ‘Pradhanmantri’ Bajeka.

Punjab Inspector General of Police (Headquarters) Sukhchain Singh Gill told reporters here that specialised units are involved in the efforts to nab the preacher – who gave police the slip during a car chase in Jalandhar district on Saturday.

Gill indicated that the preacher, who heads Waris Punjab De, could also be detained under the NSA.

“It can be invoked against him once he is arrested, and the rest of the facts will be made clear to you,” he said, replying to a question at the press conference.

The IG said police have a strong suspicion of an “ISI angle” and foreign funding against those arrested in this case, and further investigations are underway.

The Punjab Police operation began Saturday, weeks after Amritpal Singh and his supporters stormed the Ajnala police station near Amritsar to secure the release of an arrested associate.

The episode had raised fears over the possibility of the return of Khalistani militancy to the border state.

The Punjab government has again extended the suspension of mobile internet and SMS services, this time up to Tuesday noon. Police have warned people against spreading rumours.

The Twitter accounts of some Punjab have been “withheld”. Gill said he is not aware of this.

Amid the crackdown, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has condemned the “excesses” being committed against Sikh youths in the past few days.

Amritpal Singh’s uncle and the driver surrendered near Bullandpur gurdwara in Jalandhar’s Mehatpur area. Deputy Inspector General of Police (Border Range) Narinder Bhargav was among the officers at the spot.

In a video shot then, Harjit Singh can be seen producing his licensed 32 bore pistol and cash amounting to Rs 1 lakh to 1.25 lakh which he was carrying in a Mercedes.

The car was later seized and the two men taken away by the Amritsar Rural police, officials said.

Three other vehicles that were part of Amritpal Singh’s convoy on Saturday have also been seized. So far, six FIRs have been registered, 114 people arrested, and ten weapons and 430 cartridges recovered in the action against Waris Punjab De, police said.

On the provisions of the NSA, the IG Gill said, “There is a provision under section 5 that to maintain peace and public harmony, anybody can be transferred to another state with its consent. It has been invoked in this matter and is totally legal,” he asserted.

He said police found AKF (Anandpur Khalsa Fauj) inscribed on bullet proof jackets and weapons recovered during the operation. The initials were given to the preacher’s close associates, he added.

The police are checking the source of funds for Waris Punjab De. Gill said the outfit has received foreign funding through hawala in small amounts to bank accounts.

Police are also probing the funding for the seized vehicles as people in whose names they are registered did not have the means to afford them, he said.

Replying to a question on the habeas corpus petition that seeks the preacher’s production in court, the IG said the police will present the facts before the court.

Amritpal Singh is still not in the custody of police, he said. “What we have done in this case is as per the law.”

Police are taking out flag marches in the state and peace committee meetings are being held in all districts. There is complete peace in Punjab, he said.

The official urged people not to believe in rumours and fake news, saying strict action will be taken against those who spread them.

Waris Punjab De was set up singer-activist Deep Sandhu. Amritpal Singh took over as its chief month after his death last year.

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In Video: Amritpal Singh still at large, NSA imposed on his 5 aides; suspect ISI involvement: Punjab Police

Monday, 20 Mar, 2023

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Pro overclocker bricks AMD’s best gaming chip without really trying

March 20, 2023 by www.pcgamer.com Leave a Comment

Seems like it might be surprisingly easy to brick one of AMD’s best gaming CPUs, even if you’re a professional overclocking YouTuber. The world now has one less AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D (opens in new tab) after a slight voltage tweak above just 1.35V.

Roman Hartung, aka der8auer, recently took a trip to Taiwan to visit the Asus testing labs. There he decided to put some CPUs to the test but, as it turns out, even when it comes to enthusiast grade CPUs such as the latest X3D chip the old saying stands: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Actually, with AMD’s finest gaming chip, it seems you really really shouldn’t.

One of the great things about AMD’s Ryzen 7000-series CPUs (opens in new tab) , is that it’s been made super easy to overclock in Windows using PBO 2 and Curve Optimizer. There still remains the option to overclock your chip in the BIOS, however, where you may be presented with the option to push the voltage all the way up to 2.5V. Eep.

So, alongside some other testing, Hartung set about pushing the voltages of a Ryzen 9 7950X3D Asus had lent him. Much to his dismay, all did not go to plan (opens in new tab) (via HardwareLuxx (opens in new tab) ).

He first tested the waters by babystepping the voltage up to 1.35V. And while it was necessary to run and grab a liquid nitrogen cooler to keep it between 85°C and 90°C, Hartung still decided to push things further.

He saw the danger, and he did it anyway.

The moment the CPU hit 1.5V, everything went out the window. The motherboard threw up a 00 error code, and despite his best efforts, sadly it looked like nothing could be done to save the CPU.

It was clear the Ryzen 9 7950X3D had been fried even before the CPU came under load. And while Hartung himself admits it could just be bad luck on his part, since not many extreme tests have come out for AMD’s new super high-end addition to the Ryzen family, HardwareLuxx has issued a warning to users in case anyone decides to push the voltage just because the option is there.

He has spoken to both AMD and Asus and been told the chips weren’t intended to be allowed to run with such a high VCore rating. He also says that “Asus will probably limit the max manual voltage to 1.35V,” which will likely be done via BIOS updates.

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During his trip, Hartung also had a chance to check out the $6,000 Intel Xeon W9 3495X chip. We’ve already reported on der8auer showing off the 56-core Intel chip (opens in new tab) at stock speeds of 4.2GHz at home, but he was confident then he could push it further in Asus’ labs.

“I actually thought that 4.4GHz or 4.5GHz should be totally easy, but that was not the case”, says Hartung about the Sapphire Rapids CPU (machine translated). That said, he did manage to beat 4.7GHz on all 56 cores despite several crashes in Cinebench R23 owing to issues with the input voltage. That translated to around 114,000 points, and really shows what these enthusiast CPUs are capable of when paired with just an AIO watercooler.

With a liquid nitrogen cooling solution, Hartung was able to push the CPU up to 2.5GHz and achieve a smashing 125,000 points in Cinebench R23—a new record, in fact.

Red team enthusiasts may be disappointed that they’re not going to be able to push their CPU voltages up to those kinds of heights, but at least we can rest assured that BIOS are likely to be updated to stop folk going beyond 1.35V. No one wants to find out they’ve accidentally fried their monster CPU in a flight of overvolting fancy.

Only you can prevent CPU fires.

Australia shouldn’t have signed Aukus deal with ‘gormless Brits’, says ex-PM

March 15, 2023 by www.telegraph.co.uk Leave a Comment

A former Australian prime minister accused his country of following “gormless Brits” into a landmark nuclear-powered submarine deal that could carry “deadly consequences”.

Paul Keating said that Australia was beginning a “dangerous and unnecessary journey” by joining the UK and US in the Aukus security and defence pact that aims to counter China’s growing military footprint in the Indo-Pacific region.

In San Diego on Monday , the three Western allies announced that Australia would buy up to five US submarines and launch a 30-year plan to build its own fleet of British-designed nuclear-powered subs .

But Mr Keating, who led Australia between 1991 and 1996, argued that China posed no tangible threat, saying that blindly pursuing the US “with the gormless Brits lunging along behind” was a “great mistake” that could draw Australia into future conflicts .

His objections closely echoed those of Beijing, which reacted with predictable anger to the Aukus deal , charging that it “completely ignored the concerns of the international community” and would fuel a regional arms race.

Penny Wong , Australia’s foreign minister, hit back at China’s claims in an interview with The Telegraph.

“I don’t think the facts bear that out,” she said, urging Beijing to accept Washington’s overtures to set “guardrails” to keep strategic competition over potential regional flashpoints in check .

The deal has been described as Australia’s biggest-ever military upgrade and was introduced by Joe Biden, the US president, as a joint effort to keep the Indo-Pacific “free and open”.

Ms Wong said that Australia’s intentions were driven by a desire for regional stability and prosperity.

“ Australia – as a middle power in the region, as a country of the Indo-Pacific – we seek this capability to contribute to peace. We don’t seek to escalate,” she said.

“China, obviously, has its own national interests and it has chosen to make a set of decisions about its strategic capability. What we are doing is making sure we replace our existing submarine capability with a new capability which we intend to contribute to peace.”

However, she cautioned that “the region has an interest in the great powers managing their competition wisely” to avoid “escalation” and “miscalculation” .

Relations between China and the US have deteriorated sharply in recent years over disputes about trade, Beijing’s territorial claims to the South China Sea and Taiwan, as well as allegations of Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong .

Diplomatic efforts to restore ties and agree on so-called “guardrails” to stop tensions from spiralling out of control were derailed earlier this year when the US shot down what it said was a Chinese spy balloon.

Ms Wong appealed to China to accept the US offer, saying: “Australia is very supportive of the Biden administration putting guardrails on the table. We would urge China to respond positively.

“What the region wants is for competition to be managed because we recognise that the consequences of escalation for all of us could be catastrophic.”

Territorial disputes over the resource-rich South China Sea, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and border clashes between China and India have all been viewed as potential powder kegs.

Jitters over China’s stance on Taiwan

However, it is the looming prospect of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan that has most recently put the Indo-Pacific on edge.

The Chinese Communist Party claims self-governed Taiwan as its own, even though it has never ruled there and Beijing has ramped up its military and political intimidation of the democracy of 23.6 million people, threatening to forcibly seize it.

Ms Wong declined to speculate on Australia’s reaction if China attacked Taiwan.

“What I will say is this: that peace is best preserved by the maintenance of the status quo, that Australia will continue along with others to urge all parties to ensure that there is no unilateral change to the status quo,” she said.

Small and medium-sized Pacific countries did not simply see themselves as “observers of great power competition”, Ms Wong said.

“[We] have agency in an era of strategic competition, and we should shoulder that agency and we should utilise it. That’s what we are doing with this Aukus announcement.”

Restaurant shut down after couple ‘found RAT in beef soup’ and filed lawsuit

March 20, 2023 by www.express.co.uk Leave a Comment

Dead rat

A couple claimed to find a dead rat in their soup (Image: Instagram)

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A popular Korean restaurant in New York City that allegedly served a couple a rat in their beef soup has been forced to close after failing a health and safety inspection. Gammeeok, a Koreatown restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, failed to pass a health and safety inspection by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene after it found rat droppings and improperly stored food.

A lawsuit filed by Eunice Lucero-Lee and her husband Jason Lee alleged that the pair became “violently sick, causing them to vomit and seek medical attention” when they allegedly found the rodent in their meal.

The couple also posted horrifying video and photos of their meal to Instagram on Monday showing the rat floating in their beef soup.

Yet the restaurant appeared popular with some customers. It has a 4-star Google rating after reviews from more than 700 customers.

A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams said: “The Department of Health closed Gammeeok on March 15, following an inspection.

Gammeeok is now closed (Image: Google )

“No New York City restaurant is authorized to have mice or rats on the menu and we are investigating further.

“Our top priority is protecting the health of New Yorkers and if a restaurant has conditions that threaten our city’s diners, they will be shut down.”

But despite the evidence, Gammeeok’s owners pushed back against these claims and argued that the couple’s allegations were “nonsense”.

The restaurant even released footage earlier this week showing servers supposedly preparing the couple’s food.

Gammeeok posted a video showing the chefs preparing food (Image: Instagram)

The restaurant wrote in a series of instagram posts: “We are open 24 hours, and there are at least 3 or 4 people in the kitchen at all times.

“As you can see in the video, it doesn’t make sense for a rat to avoid people and enter a pot on a hot fire.”

The post continues: “When we transferred the soup, we served it four times with a ladle while the staff watched it with their eyes. If there was a mouse that big, there’s no way I wouldn’t have missed it. There is also a video recording of the recording process.

“We checked the whole process of making the soup, but we couldn’t find any problems.”

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The restaurant can reopen if it addresses the violations as pays fines (Image: Instagram)

DeSantis Responds To Rumored Trump Indictment By Soros-Funded Prosecutor | The Daily Wire

March 20, 2023 by www.dailywire.com Leave a Comment

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis responded on Monday to reports that former President Donald Trump could be indicted this week, calling the situation a “manufactured circus” by a prosecutor “trying to virtue signal for his base.”

DeSantis’ remarks come after Trump claimed over the weekend that he was going to be “arrested on Tuesday” in connection with a prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office involving an alleged hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. A spokesperson for Trump later said that Trump has been given “no notification” that there will be an arrest next week.

“I’ve seen rumors swirl. I have not seen any facts yet,” DeSantis said at a press conference. “And so I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I do know this, the Manhattan district attorney, is a Soros-funded prosecutor. And so he like other Soros funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety. He has downgraded over 50% of the felonies to misdemeanors, he says he doesn’t want to even have jail time for the vast, vast majority of crimes. And what we’ve seen in Manhattan is we’ve seen the crime rate go up, and we’ve seen citizens become less safe.”

DeSantis said Bragg was “weaponizing” the justice system by choosing to pursue the case from several years ago while “ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction.”

“And I think that that’s fundamentally wrong,” DeSantis said. “I also think it’s important to point out when you’re talking about these Soros funded prosecutors, yes, they may do a high profile politicized prosecution. And that’s bad.”

DeSantis said big-city prosecutors who benefited from Soros campaign donations have contributed to a rise in crime as they pursue political agendas instead of fighting crime which has led to ordinary Americans being hurt.

DeSantis also said that he is the only governor in the country who has removed a Soros prosecutor from office, a reference to his suspension of State Attorney Andrew Warren of the 13 ^th Judicial Circuit last August due to neglect of duty.

“We are not involved in this, won’t be involved in this,” DeSantis said. “I have no interest in getting involved in some type of manufactured circus by some Soros DA. He’s trying to do a political spectacle. He’s trying to virtue signal for his base.”

DeSantis’ comments followed a similar denunciation of Bragg by Mike Pence, another potential 2024 presidential candidate.

“I’m taken aback at the idea of indicting a former President of the United States, at a time when there’s a crime wave in New York City, that — the fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority, I think is, just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country,” Pence told ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issues a strong statement against the Soros-backed DA pursuing charges against Donald Trump in what is clearly a politically motivated attack. This is class.

pic.twitter.com/3NxwBMD6uz

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 20, 2023

Trump’s claim that he was going to be arrested came after a report from NBC News said federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies were analyzing security assessments and making plans to prepare for the possibility that he could be indicted, but no exact date was given in the report.

The case involves an alleged payment that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen admits he made to Daniels during the presidential race to keep quiet about an alleged 2006 tryst between Trump and Daniels. Cohen pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.

Although non-disclosure agreements are legal, the potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed Cohen. The payment was listed as a legal expense and the company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. The retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. The report said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.

Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump’s “‘intent to defraud’ included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”

Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the alleged $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story for the purpose of benefiting his presidential campaign.

This is a breaking news story; refresh the page for updates.