Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking in Washington on Wednesday, announced that his nation's security agencies had "foiled a series of cyberattacks" of "Russian origin."

Tajani said the attempted attacks targeted numerous "Foreign Ministry offices, starting with Washington, and also some Winter Olympics sites, including hotels in Cortina."

Past Olympic-related cyberattacks came in Paris in 2024, and Pyeongchang in 2018. It is widely thought that Russian actors were behind them.

Russian bans from games — both for doping infractions as well as its war of aggression in Ukraine — are seen as motivation for such acts of aggression.

British intelligence services say Russian hackers were also eyeballing attacks on Tokyo in 2021.

Russia has been excluded from this year's event over Ukraine. However, 13 Russian and 7 Belarus athletes have been allowed to compete as neutrals alongside 3,500 global Olympians. 

Diverse Olympic protests and highly policed 'red zones'

The northern Italian city of Milan and the neighboring Cortina d'Ampezzo region are hosting this year's Winter Olympics between February 6 and 22.

 

Some 2 million visitors are expected, including 60,000 at Friday's opening ceremonies at San Siro Stadium in Milan, which will be attended by US Vice President JD Vance among others.

Numerous protests are scheduled to take place throughout the course of the event, they will highlight issues ranging from the environmental destruction caused by the Olympic business model to Israel's inclusion in the games despite the situation in Gaza.

Police say Milan's city center will be declared a "red zone" closed to all pedestrian and vehicular traffic beginning on Friday.

Authorities say they have stepped up security checks at border crossings and rail stations, and that K-9 and bomb crews are conducting regular security sweeps at Olympic venues.

Additionally, snipers have been deployed across the network of tightly controlled red zone sites.

 

Not the ICE that Italians want at their Olympics

Controversially, a contingent of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents has also been dispatched to the event. Italian citizens and politicians have bristled at the idea that agents from the US domestic agency should be allowed to patrol their streets. Especially in light of negative headlines the agency has made with its deadly policing in Minneapolis.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi on Wednesday said US counterparts from ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) would serve solely in an advisory capacity.

"ICE does not and will never be able to carry out operational police activities on our national territory," Piantedosi said.

He said it was entirely normal for such forces to be deployed, noting that Italy had done the same in Paris in 2024. He also called anger voiced by regional citizens and political leaders over the presence of US agents "completely unfounded."

 

24-hour Olympic Operations Room in Rome will coordinate security

Beyond fending off cyber attacks, Italian authorities say some 6,000 police and 2,000 military personnel have been deployed across the region stretching from Milan to the Dolomites.

Italy's Defense Ministry is providing hardware including hundreds of trucks as well as aircraft, drones and radar to secure the event.

Bomb experts, anti-terror outfits, snipers and skiing police will all be on site said Interior Minister Piantedosi.

Overall security for the event will be coordinated remotely, at the Rome-based International Olympic Operations Room (SOIO). The command center will run around the clock from start to finish, coordinating numerous international and national operations and police headquarters.

Nationally, this means coordination with police in the northern Italian cities of Bolzano, Milan, Sondrio, Trento, Venice and Verona. 

"Officers from foreign police forces, as well as Interpol and Europol personnel, will be present to ensure timely information-sharing and the management of ⁠any critical issues requiring international cooperation," read a police statement.

Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez

https://www.dw.com/en/italy-says-it-has-foiled-russian-olympic-cyberattacks/a-75809776

 

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‘Absurd’: Greenpeace Calls Out Winter Olympics Sponsorship With Fossil Fuel Giant 

 

BY MARTINA IGINI

 

“Oil & gas like Eni drive the climate crisis, then sponsor the Winter Olympics & Paralympics to greenwash their image,” Greenpeace Italy said.

—

Greenpeace Italy has urged the organizers of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Italy’s Alps to end their “absurd” partnership with Italian oil and gas giant Eni. 

As one of the world’s largest contributors to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, Eni has been accused of using the event to greenwash its image while playing a key role in driving the climate crisis. 

“The Olympic values of respect for people and the environment matter, that’s why Greenpeace is calling for the International Olympic Committee to drop oil and gas sponsorship from the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games and commit to ending fossil fuel sponsorship across all Olympic Games,” said Greenpeace Italy’s climate campaigner Federico Spadini.

Fossil fuel companies are the primary drivers of global warming, which has pushed temperatures to record levels in recent years. Studies have linked emissions from major oil and gas companies to severe climate impacts, including deadly heatwaves. 

Among the industries affected by global warming are winter sports, which now face declining natural snowfall and shorter winter seasons. This has led to an increased reliance on artificial snow, a costly and unsustainable process that requires vast amounts of water and energy, placing significant strain on local ecosystems.

The impact of rising temperatures is particularly acute in the European Alps, where temperatures are increasing faster than in most other regions. Here, 90% of ski slopes in Italy now rely on artificial snow, and experts estimate that maintaining Alpine pistes annually consumes as much water as a city of one million people. Meanwhile, data collected by the non-profit environmental group Legambiente last year revealed that Italy has lost 265 ski resorts to rising temperatures. 

“Oil & gas like Eni drive the climate crisis, then sponsor the Winter Olympics & Paralympics to greenwash their image,” the environmental organization said in a video published Tuesday on its YouTube channel.

However, Eni is not alone in this practice. A 2023 study by campaign group Badvertising and think-tank New Weather Sweden revealed how major polluters back snow sports despite being responsible for the industry’s collapse. 

The study identified a total of 107 high-carbon sponsorship deals with skiing organisations, event organisers, teams, and individual athletes. 83 deals were led by car manufacturers, 54 of which involved German company Audi, a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG. Fossil fuel companies signed 12 deals while airlines were behind five.

“Through their pollution, high-carbon sponsors of winter sports are melting the future of the very sports they sponsor. With their clean, healthy outdoor image, winter sports are especially attractive to sponsorship from major polluters who want to ‘sportwash’ their image,” the report read.

‘Missed Opportunity’

Greenpeace is not alone in its criticism. On Monday, Legambiente called the upcoming Winter Olympics “missed a great opportunity for sustainability.” The organization accused event organizers of ignoring both environmental and economic sustainability and failing to address the Alpine region’s climate vulnerabilities. Instead, they prioritized controversial projects such as a new bobsleigh track and extensive road infrastructure over more sustainable investments in railway systems.

“In a region as vulnerable and subject to the effects of the climate crisis as the Alpine region, we need to focus on a new land management model based on climate adaptation, sustainable tourism, and innovation,” Legambiente said.

Winter Olympics At Risk

Rising global temperatures are putting the future of the Winter Olympics in jeopardy. Unreliable snowfall and shorter winters are making outdoor competition increasingly difficult, drastically reducing the number of potential host locations. The International Olympic Committee has warned that only 10 countries may still have the right climate to host the Games by 2040.

Greenpeace estimates that “over half of suitable locations will be unable to host the Winter Olympics” by 2080, and one study predicts that if current pollution trends continue, only one of the 21 cities that hosted the Games in the past century will have a climate suitable for winter sports by 2100.

The warning signs are already evident. The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing were the first to rely entirely on artificial snow. Similarly, the Milano Cortina Olympics organizing committee said it has produced nearly 1.6 million cubic metres of manufactured snow for all its venues in light of declining snow levels, Euronews reported.

https://earth.org/absurd-greenpeace-calls-out-winter-olympics-sponsorship-with-fossil-fuel-giant-eni/

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5755Rv7NwxE

 

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READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

Ski-jumpers accused of enlarging penises to enhance performance

By Jeremy Wilson

 

Anti-doping chiefs at the Winter Olympics are ready to investigate extraordinary suggestions that ski-jumpers are gaining a performance advantage by enlarging their penises.

Reports in the German newspaper Bild have raised fears that professional ski-jumpers are enlarging their genitalia by injecting hyaluronic acid to boost crotch dimensions.

This could be highly significant in ski-jumping because that would permit jumpers to wear a larger suit which would in turn improve their flight lift and thus overall distance.

A study in the journal Frontiers found that, for every two-centimetre increase in the circumference of a ski suit, there is a corresponding increase in lift of 5 per cent and increase in drag of 4 per cent. This was estimated to equate to a 5.8-metre increase in jump distance.

As well as unfair performance advantage, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) can prohibit substances on the basis of safety and violations of the “spirit of sport”.

“Ski-jumping is very popular in Poland, so I promise you I’m going to look at it,” Witold Banka, the WADA president, said. There was a broad smile as Banka spoke, but Olivier Niggli, WADA’s director general, did also confirm that they could potentially investigate substantiated reports that athletes were injecting themselves with hyaluronic acid.

“I’m not aware of the details of ski-jumping – and how this can improve [performance] – but, if anything was to come to the surface, we would look at anything if it is actually doping related,” Niggli said at a press conference in Milan on Thursday.

“We don’t do other means of enhancing performance, but our list committee would certainly look into whether this would fall into this category. But I hadn’t heard about that.”

Ski-jumpers are measured before each season with a body scanner, with dimensions taken from the lowest part of the genital area, and used as the basis for their suit’s design. Concerns have previously been raised over the potential use of padding inside a suit, but the use of a 3D scanner ensures that outside objects cannot now be inserted beneath the material.

Dr Kamran Karim, a senior consultant at Maria-Hilf Hospital in Krefeld in north-west Germany, told Bild: “It is possible to achieve a temporary, visual thickening of the penis by injecting paraffin or hyaluronic acid. However, this does not lengthen it. Such an injection is not medically indicated and is associated with risks.”

Mathias Hafele, from the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), told Bildthat there had been no enlargement with “visible aids”, but the use of injections was not specifically ruled out. “Currently, no further measurements are planned,” Hafele said. “However, we are already working behind the scenes on methods to improve this complex issue.”

It all follows an 11-month (FIS) investigation and then ban earlier this month of two coaches and a former equipment manager of Norway’s ski-jumping team.

They had admitted conspiring to manipulate the suits of the team’s top jumpers at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, Norway, last year. Video evidence of them inserting illegal stitching into the crotch area of their two star jumpers was anonymously posted on social media after an official inspection had taken place.

Banka has also outlined his concern at the presence in Milan of Eteri Tutberidze, the former coach of the Russian skater Kamila Valieva, whose positive doping test was revealed during the Beijing Games in 2022. Valieva was then 15. Tutberidze is now working at the Olympics with the Georgian skater Nika Egadze.

 

“It is not our decision – the investigation found no evidence that this particular person was engaged in this doping so there is no legal basis to exclude her,” Banka said. “But, of course, if you ask me personally about my feelings, I didn’t feel comfortable with her presence here at the Olympic Games for sure.”

The Telegraph, London

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/ski-jumpers-accused-of-enlarging-penises-to-enhance-performance-20260206-p5o01j.html

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.