May, 2023
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Fearless Gurkha warriors to provide security at the Trump-Kim summit
Fearless Gurkha warriors to provide security at the Trump-Kim summit
Singapore (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The Gurkhas of Nepal, one of most fearless people in the world, will provide security for the historic summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s strongman Kim Jong-un.
The meeting in the city-state is scheduled for 12 June. Singapore Police Force, which includes a Gurkha contingent, will secure the summit venue, roads and hotels hosting the delegations.
The Gurkhas, who usually have a low-profile presence in Singapore, were more visible than usual at the weekend as they secured the hotel for a security conference that included Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and other regional ministers. For experts this was a rehearsal of the US-North Korea talks.
Despite their advanced weaponry, the Gurkhas do not prepare for battle without the khukri – a heavy curved knife. According to custom, the khukri must draw blood every time it is unsheathed.
Recruited from Nepal’s hill regions, about 1,800 Gurkhas serve in the Singapore police, across six paramilitary companies.
Admired for their valour and fighting abilities, the Nepali warriors have served Great Britain for more than 200 years.
At present, Gurkhas serve in the British, Indian and Nepalese armies, as well as in Brunei and Singapore. They have fought in both world wars as well as the Falklands conflict and, more recently, in Afghanistan.
In Singapore, they provide a neutral force within an ethnically diverse city state, including VIP and anti-riot protection.
At times of regional tension, they have protected international schools and are often seen at the Malaysia-Singapore border crossings.
They live with their families in the secure Mount Vernon Camp outside the city, an enclave that ordinary Singaporeans are not allowed to enter.
Typically recruited at 18 or 19, before being trained in Singapore, the Gurkha soldiers retire at 45 and are repatriated. Whilst their children attend local schools, Gurkhas are not allowed to marry local women.
Human Security
Human Security addresses all the critical issues confronting the world today, including peace, human rights, inequality, health, food, education, jobs, safe communities and personal safety, energy, pollution, biodiversity and, of course, climate change. It’s a flag that supports all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals which 193 countries have already approved and rallied around. But it speaks of these things in a personal language which everyone can identify with. It’s a message that can rally widespread support for the commitments already made by national governments, UN agencies, communities, corporations, NGOs, religious groups and others to make the world a better, safer place for everyone. Read more on the campaign here.
Security can no longer be solely concerned with national or military security. It must encompass all aspects of human wellbeing – health, food, employment, living standards, education, public confidence and social tolerance. Human Security is a broad conceptual approach applicable to all areas of development policy. Such an integrated approach can accelerate positive action to address threats such as pandemics and climate change, to coordinate and accelerate the implementation of the SDGs, and to enhance multilateral cooperation.
“Human security is a process that can and should be applied to enhance implementation of all socially-endorsed goals related to human rights and human development.”
Human Security is all about placing humans at the center of development. It is a unifying theme and force that serves as a core frame of reference to enhance the effectiveness of a wide range of high priority social objectives. Human Security must be established as a universal benchmark for effective development strategies in future.
Security Challenges in Nepal
At present, almost all countries across the world are facing one or another form of threats resulting from migratory movements, cyber terrorism, environmental degradation, attacks from the terrorist groups, the outbreak of contagious diseases, ethnic, racial or religious conflicts, abject poverty, inequality etc. These threats are different from the ones generated by inter-state rivalries and conflicts in the past. Nepal is also influenced by insurgency, poverty, education, unemployment and health problem including aforementioned challenges. Nepal is suffering from numerous security threats like demands of identity politics raised by ethnic and regional groups, extremism, corruption, transit hub of the narcotics, increasing culture of violence, crime and disregard to law and order, human trafficking, the politicization of government institutions and criminalization of politics. Apart from these challenges piracy, information security related issues, environmental security related challenges and different kinds of crises that vary from flood to earthquake to landslides are also critical problems on rising.
Additionally, in external front, Nepal is no exception to global challenges of non-traditional security.
Global challenges of non-traditional security are no exception for developed countries. The huge expansion of migration of people from rural to urban cities at the global level has change patterns of trans-boundary activities. At the same time, terrorism has been seen as manifold and devastating impacts in underdeveloped societies.
The trade in illicit drugs arguably carries the largest societal, political and economic consequences in many areas. It threatens the fabric of societies through addiction, crime, and disease. In the recent past infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, Swine Flu-H1N1 pandemics and Ebola Virus have shown the capacity to detrimentally affect the security and well-being of all members of society and all aspects of the economy.
Soon after signing the CPA several dozens armed groups were in existence and indulged in killing, abduction, and extortion posed serious cross-border challenges. The proliferation of small arms and light weapons across the open border is being the biggest threat to the country and postured serious challenges to the overall security environment of the country and severely weaken the law and order situation.
Nepal can cope up with internal and external adverse effects of natural disasters through technological advancement, building sustainable infrastructure and increased disaster preparedness. Expanding and enhancing the information and knowledge system on climate change, as well as mapping vulnerabilities, trends in internal migration and the incidence of disease can help create adaptive measures for reducing the effects of climate change. Improving the combating quality of security forces with advanced training and technology because with the access to nanotechnologies, cloud computing and the rise of internet use is opening new avenues of cyber security challenges are emerging. Use of intersection of technology, data and media can help to condense activities of violent non-state actors are becoming challenging for security forces.
However, the lack of relevant policies, political stability, politically eroded efficacies of security agencies, impunity and lack of transitional justice; natural calamities and financial irregularities are major problems. According to Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA); highway obstruction for minor reasons, the clash between the party youth organizations, miserable jail conditions, domestic and gender-based violence, messy immigration system, refugee issues and cross-broader crimes are the main challenges to be handled by Armed Police Force and Nepal Police together in cooperation. Establishing and implementation of duties of the federal setup of all government institutions and security forces will take a due time while there are possibilities of the rise of internal challenges while declaring provincial capitals, demarcation of the province and their electoral constituencies, use of natural resources i.e. river and mines illustrates upsurge of conflicts. Spreading of secessionist idea and identity issue in different parts of the country seems big challenges in the days to come for security institutions.
Internal and External Security Challenges of Nepal
Nepal has been a home to diversified settlement in terms of ethnicity, religion, dialect and culture since its outset in civilization. It also lies between two great military and economic giants of Asia – India and China – that are hostile to each other. While these bring abundant opportunities for Nepal, it possesses several internal and external security threats. Nepal suffers from cyber-attack, environmental degradation, pandemic, ethnic, racial or religious conflicts, inequality and poverty, extremism, human trafficking, corruption, migration and trans-boundary crime.
In addition, Nepal also faces several security threats, traditional and non–traditional, including terrorism and insurgency. These threats possess serious implications on peace and security of Nepal and the South Asian region. There is a need of serious study about the major internal and external security challenges that Nepal faces in recent decades. This study aims at examining some of the major security challenges, explore the factors behind it, and attempt to suggest few policy recommendations to the government of Nepal to deal with them. The study is conducted by reviewing the primary and secondary sources of data.
The primary data includes documents of the government agencies, press release, joint statement and organizational reports. It also includes the interviews with security experts, bureaucrats, policy makers and academicians. Similarly, secondary data includes books, news reports, academic journals, seminars report and reports of research institutes and think tanks. The study highlights that Nepal should prepare itself to meet with the emerging internal and external security challenges what have emerged in recent times. With the rise of India and China, two adversarial powers in the region, Nepal possess extreme challenges in days to come. Similarly, hardly any countries of the world had prepared itself to deal with recent pandemic like COVID-19 that has shattered even the most powerful countries of the world. Taking lessons from these, it is time for Nepal to learn and prepare to mitigate the challenges.
Source: Unityjournal
Five Principles To Help Keep Your Security Strategy Ahead Of The Curve
No one would argue that security shouldn’t be top of mind for most companies. Yet businesses of all sizes continue to suffer security incidents that lead to the compromise of confidential data. However, most incidents are not caused by sophisticated hackers; they result from not evolving security programs to match new technology, misconfiguration of cloud assets and outdated security monitoring approaches.
Security Programs Have To Evolve With The Advent Of New Technologies
Earlier this year, a security researcher named Giovanni Collazo used the Shodan search engine to discover more than 2,000 etcd servers on the internet. Etcd is a key element of most Kubernetes deployments. He then used commonly known scripts to connect to the etcd database and downloaded 8,781 passwords, 650 Amazon Web Service secret access keys, 23 secret keys and eight private keys. Exposing this information could have been avoided by enabling authentication (etcd before 2.1 was an open system with authentication disabled by default) and using a security group to control access.
So, how should a CSO ensure that a security program evolves properly?
1. Partner With Product And Engineering To Understand Their Respective Roadmaps
The security team is often the last to be informed (or not informed at all) of architectural changes, new features, new processes and new tools. In the best-case scenario, these kinds of changes are reviewed by security to ensure that applicable security best practices are implemented. In the worst-case scenario, security becomes aware of the changes only after the changes have resulted in a security incident.
A successful partnership among engineering, product and security teams can be implemented by having a repeatable roadmap planning process — and by making security an integral part of the process. This partnership must be driven by company leadership so that the CSO is able to participate in product roadmap planning sessions, prioritization meetings and engineering leadership meetings.
2. Evaluate Team Skills And Hire Additional Security Talent As Needed
Securing new technologies requires an understanding of how the technology works, the recommended security settings, common misconfigurations and exploits. The CSO should evaluate the technical skills of the security team and consider adding security talent with applicable subject matter expertise to supplement the existing security team’s expertise.
Ultimately, everyone on the security team should learn new technologies and relevant security practices. Relying on resources who are already committed to other mission-critical projects is not sufficient. The CSO, by participating in product roadmap planning, can formulate a forward-looking hiring and training strategy.
3. Develop A Threat Model For New Technology
To secure new architecture, security must develop a threat model and identify attack vectors and countermeasures. The threat model should be developed and updated through collaboration between security and engineering. In the process, those teams should create a complete view of the architecture. That means identifying all services and assets with sensitive data and resources, documenting all entry points and trust levels (i.e., which services are accessible on the internet and require authentication/authorization) and documenting data flows and dependencies.
4. Implement Security Tools Built For The New Technology
The traditional principles of defense in depth are still applicable, but new technologies may require new tools. In the case of microservices, traditional network-based and host-based hardening and monitoring are not sufficient. Security monitoring should provide a complete inventory of services, interdependencies and expected communication paths. Moreover, it should provide alerts when it detects communication that is not expected.
5. Allocate Resources To Security Research
Being in a reactive mode is an ineffective and inefficient strategy. The CSO must stay ahead of emerging threats and evolve their security program to proactively reduce the risk of a security incident.
In summary, a security strategy should evolve to address risks that are specific to new technologies. The CSO needs to be a forward-looking leader who can forge a close partnership with engineering and product management.
Source: Forbes
How Nepalis came to be the world’s security guards
Fourteen Nepali security guards working for the Canadian Embassy in Kabul were killed in a bomb attack on the bus they were travelling in.
KATHMANDU: Fourteen Nepali security guards working for the Canadian Embassy in Kabul were killed Monday in a bomb attack on the bus they were travelling in.
Here are five things to know about the thousands of Nepalis who work in the security industry around the world.
Why do Nepalis do dangerous work abroad?
Because they struggle to find jobs at home. Nepal is one of the world’s poorest countries with very high levels of unemployment, a situation made worse by last year’s deadly earthquake. Remittances from migrant workers abroad make up about 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
How did the trend start?
Nepal has a long history of providing Gurkha soldiers to the British army, where they can earn much more than for serving in their own army.
After the break-up of the British empire, several newly independent countries including India and Singapore retained the tradition of hiring Nepalis to serve as soldiers and police officers.
Today, private security companies around the world also hire Nepalis to guard embassies and private offices.
What is their reputation?
The Gurkhas have a reputation for fearlessness on the battlefield and unwavering loyalty to their employers.
Former Indian Army chief of staff Sam Manekshaw is reported to have said: “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha”.
Where do they work?
In Kabul alone 3,300 are currently employed as security guards. They are also in high demand in the Middle East, and in Malaysia where private security companies are only allowed to hire Malaysians or Nepalis.
Who are they?
Some are retired Gurkhas, but many are former soldiers with the Nepal army. There are also serving soldiers with the national army deployed to provide security to UN missions in countries in conflict. Currently, Nepal has 245 troops protecting the UN mission in Iraq and has been recently asked to supply forces to the mission in Libya.
Source: Indianexpress