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Free Malaysia Today
a day ago
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
US judge clears the way for imminent deportation of 8 migrants to South Sudan
A police officer stands watch outside of the US Supreme Court. (AP pic) WASHINGTON : Eight migrants lost their last-ditch effort to halt their deportation to South Sudan by the Trump administration on Friday afternoon, clearing the way for their imminent transfer after a judge in Massachusetts denied their request. Lawyers for the US justice department said the men were scheduled to be flown to South Sudan on Friday at 7.00pm Eastern Time after two courts considered the request on an emergency basis on July 4, when courts are otherwise closed for the Independence Day holiday. The group of migrants had filed new claims in Washington late Thursday after the US Supreme Court clarified that Judge Brian Murphy in Boston could no longer require the US department of homeland securityy to hold them. US district judge Randolph Moss in Washington paused the deportation briefly on Friday when lawyers for the migrants filed new claims in his court and sent the case back to Boston, where Murphy denied the claim. Lawyers for the migrants and a spokesperson for homeland security did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The administration has detained the men for six weeks on a military base in Djibouti rather than bring them back to the US. The order was the latest round in the fight over the legality of the Trump administration's campaign to deter immigration through high-profile deportations to countries where migrants say they face safety concerns, which has already gone from lower courts to the Supreme Court twice. Department of justice attorney Hashim Mooppan told Moss during the hearing that court orders halting agreed-upon deportations pose a serious problem for US diplomatic relations and would make foreign countries less likely to accept transfers of migrants in the future. The group of men have been convicted of various crimes, with four of them convicted of murder, the department of homeland security has said. South Sudan has long been dangerous even for locals. The US state department advises citizens not to travel there due to violent crime and armed conflict. The UN has said the African country's political crisis could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018. The eight men, whose lawyers said are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Burma, Sudan and Vietnam, argue their deportations to South Sudan would violate the US Constitution, which prohibits 'cruel and unusual' punishment. Moss said that he would transfer the case to Massachusetts rather than hear it himself but remarked that if they proved their allegations that US authorities had sought to subject the migrants to potential abuse after deportation as a form of punishment, they would likely have a valid claim. 'It seems to me almost self-evident that the US government cannot take human beings and send them to circumstances in which their physical well-being is at risk simply either to punish them or send a signal to others,' Moss said during the hearing. The Friday effort to prevent the deportations came after months of back and forth between a Boston judge, the Supreme Court, and the Trump administration. US district judge Brian Murphy in Boston in May blocked the US from immediately moving the men to South Sudan after he found that officials had violated his earlier ruling in a class action lawsuit concerning the due process rights of migrants. That ruling, in April, had blocked the administration from sending migrants to countries where they have no ties without giving them the chance to raise safety concerns. The Supreme Court on June 23 put Murphy's April injunction on hold. But Murphy that same day said the high court ruling did not apply to his May order. Calling Murphy's decision a 'lawless act ofdefiance',' the justice department the next day urged the Supreme Court to clarify its decision. The nine-member Supreme Court on Thursday, over the dissent of two of its liberal justices, sided with the Trump administration and said its decision serves to reverse Murphy's May order blocking the deportations to South Sudan.
Daily Mail
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
I still get royalties from All Creatures Great And Small... five decades on! says CAROL DRINKWATER
Carol Drinkwater is an author and actress best known for playing Helen Herriot in the original BBC dramatisation of All Creatures Great And Small. After three series on the hit TV show, based on the James Herriot novels, the 77-year-old carved out a successful career as an author. Her Olive Farm quartet of books have sold more than a million copies. Her later Mediterranean travel books inspired a series of TV documentary films. She has lived in France with her French filmmaker husband, Michel Noll, since their marriage in 1988, and has two step-daughters from his first marriage. What did your parents teach you about money? My actress sister Linda (who was married to the late Man About The House star Brian Murphy) and I grew up in a Kent village near Bromley. My father Peter, the son of a Brixton cab driver, was very much a self-made man. After working as a band leader, he became a theatrical agent and made quite a lot of money – enough to have me educated privately. My mother Phyllis, an Irish farm girl, came to England to train as a nurse but stopped working after marrying Daddy and starting a family – ever afterwards she was dependent on him financially, but it was a tempestuous marriage and sometimes, if he was away working, there was no money to buy the essentials. I therefore grew up determined to be financially independent. Both my parents encouraged me to dream big – Mummy used to say, 'Think champagne and you'll drink champagne'. And from the age of ten, Daddy got me typing up contracts for his agency, earning sixpence a contract. By Friday, I'd have sometimes made ten shillings, so I learnt the value of money at an early age. Have you ever struggled to make ends meet? Yes, as a young actress when I was doing a bit of telly here and there. I rarely went on the dole because I felt there was a kind of shame to doing so, but worked as a waitress in the evening, or did temping work so I could pay the electricity bills in my rented flat. I'm still terrified of getting into debt all these years on. Have you ever been paid silly money? I was paid £250 an episode when I first joined All Creatures in the late 1970s, but by the time I left the show three series later I was the highest-paid actress at the BBC. I got £5,000 to appear in a couple of one-off episodes – although it was 'peanuts' compared to what an actor in a hit TV drama can earn today. The wonderful thing about All Creatures is that even now I get royalties as the show is still being aired. Three or four times a year I'll get a cheque for a few thousand pounds. It's like magic money! What was the best year of your financial life? I signed a six-figure book contract in the Nineties but Michel and I needed the money to bail out his film company, which nearly went bust after a partner on a movie project let him down badly. A series of Amazon Kindle novellas I wrote from 2010-2015, such as Hotel Paradise, also did very well, topping the charts in both the US and Germany. That was seriously good money. The most expensive thing you bought for fun? A nearly new, top-of-the-range navy blue Mercedes convertible, costing £45,000 in the late 1980s. I loved driving it along the French Riviera in a silky top and sunglasses –- in the days before I became more environmentally aware. It gave me a decade-plus of fun, though it wasn't cheap to run. What is your biggest money mistake? Our ten-acre olive farm in the south of France has proved cripplingly expensive and a money pit, and frankly it's getting a little beyond us now. I'm considering whether it's time to move on, though it would break my heart to do so. Leaving All Creatures was also a mistake financially. 'What do you think you're doing?' my father asked at the time. 'You're giving away the best card in your hand!' But I don't go in for regrets – it's a waste of energy. I'd love to have played Mrs Pumphrey in the All Creatures reboot but they wouldn't give it to me. Best money decision you have made? Buying our olive farm might have been a mistake financially, but it's also given me a huge amount of pleasure and the land is now worth a few million. Landing my All Creatures role was like winning the lottery, not just for the job but for the doors it opened, such as working in Australia. Will you pass your money down or spend it all? If I go first, I'd like to make sure Michel is financially secure. I also want to ensure that my step-daughters and grandchildren are OK moneywise when I'm gone. Do you own any property? Yes, a six-bedroom olive farm with a large pool, overlooking the Bay of Cannes, which Michel and I bought for £220,000 in 1985. We also own a 16th century former priest's house near the Champagne area, which I bought for around £180,000 about ten years ago. My father was a great believer in investing in property, and I am too. Do you have a pension? I don't have ISAs or stocks and shares, just a very basic British state pension. If you were Chancellor what would you do? If I'd bumped into Rachel Reeves after the PMQs where she was so tearful, I'd have dabbed her eyes with a hanky and given her a hug. If I was doing the job in France, I'd stop everyone moaning about the age of retirement and trying to get it back to 60. What is your number one financial priority? To ensure Michel and I are secure in the years ahead. I've no plans to retire – I'd like to keep writing until my words are too doddery for anyone to understand.
National Post
09-07-2025
- Business
- National Post
Obsidian Security Expands Go-to-Market Leadership Team to Scale SaaS Protection in the Age of AI
Article content PALO ALTO, Calif. — Obsidian Security, the leading SaaS security platform trusted by global enterprises including Snowflake, T-Mobile, and Pure Storage, today announced the expansion of its go-to-market leadership team with five strategic appointments. These hires position Obsidian to scale its operations as the company addresses the rapidly evolving security challenges posed by agentic AI and accelerates toward long-term growth and IPO readiness. Article content Article content The company has appointed Alison Tierney as VP of Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy, Corey Elinburg as Field Chief Technology Officer, Brian McHenry as Vice President (VP) of Worldwide Solutions Engineering, Tina Lei as VP of Revenue Marketing, and Tyler Mihevc to lead Mid-Market expansion. These appointments build upon Obsidian's recent hire of Chief Product Officer (CPO) Khanh Tran, former VP of Product Management at CrowdStrike, as the company assembles an industry-leading executive team. These leadership additions come as organizations worldwide grapple with unprecedented SaaS security risks driven by AI-powered attacks, application sprawl, embedded co-pilots, and AI agents leveraging overly permissive OAuth tokens. Article content 'We're proud to welcome leaders who have chosen Obsidian because they share in our mission and recognize the momentum we've built,' said Brian Murphy, Chief Revenue Officer of Obsidian Security. 'Their confidence and expertise strengthen our ability to scale every part of our go-to-market engine—from engineering and sales to mid-market expansion and international strategy. As our customers face growing pressure to secure their SaaS environments while driving innovation, our success in meeting those demands depends on the strength of our team. This is a strategic inflection point, and we're fully committed to increasing our market impact and driving long-term revenue growth.' Article content Addressing AI's Double-Edged Impact on SaaS Security Article content Agentic AI offers powerful productivity gains but also introduces new risks. While these agents streamline workflows and enhance efficiency, they expand the attack surface by leveraging the same integration mechanism used by SaaS-to-SaaS integrations. AI-embedded SaaS tools and autonomous systems operating with excessive permissions via longstanding OAuth connections magnify the SaaS-to-SaaS integration blindspot. Article content Obsidian's foundational Knowledge Graph provides a unique advantage in solving this problem. By unifying SaaS, endpoint, network, and identity data, Obsidian delivers the contextual insight necessary to understand not just what AI agents are accessing, but how that access fits within the broader ecosystem of application relationships and user behaviors. Article content The platform's deep visibility into application usage—enriched with workload context and in-app activity monitoring—enables Obsidian to detect subtle OAuth token anomalies that signal malicious or compromised AI agents. This intimate understanding of SaaS interconnections is exactly what's required to secure environments where autonomous agents have become new actors. Article content Building on this foundation, Obsidian is partnering with Fortune 500 customers to bring to market enterprise-tested solutions to safely and rapidly adopt Agentic AI. Article content Leadership Team Brings Proven Scale Experience Article content Alison Tierney, VP of GTM Strategy, joins from Snowflake, where she served as SVP of Sales and VP of Global Sales Strategy, driving global expansion and scaling high-growth sales organizations. She also held sales leadership roles at AppDynamics and Oracle. At Obsidian, Tierney will focus on building unified go-to-market strategies and leading international expansion. Corey Elinburg, Field Chief Technology Officer, brings over 26 years of enterprise security leadership experience. Previously the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at CommonSpirit Health (parent organization of Dignity Health), Elinburg oversaw security and IT operations for more than 175,000 employees across 2,200+ care sites in 24 states. He brings invaluable perspective on securing large-scale, distributed organizations. Brian McHenry, VP of Worldwide Solutions Engineering, joins from F5, where he spent 16 years building and leading the global security practice for technical sales. He set global security sales strategy and played key roles in the $1B acquisition of Shape Security and $500M acquisition of Volterra. His deep experience scaling security solutions makes him well-positioned to lead Obsidian's technical sales efforts globally. Tina Lei, VP of Revenue Marketing, brings extensive growth marketing expertise from NinjaOne, where she advanced from Performance Marketing Specialist to VP of Growth over nearly seven years. Lei led digital marketing, website optimization, and product-led growth, managing multi-million-dollar budgets and building high-performing teams. Tyler Mihevc leads Obsidian's Mid-Market revenue team. He brings proven sales leadership from high-growth companies including (Worldwide VP of Sales), PredictHQ (VP of Worldwide Sales and Customer Success), and senior roles at Okta. His appointment strengthens Obsidian's ability to serve organizations navigating AI-integrated business environments. Article content Scaling for Long-Term Growth Article content Built by security leaders who previously redefined endpoint and identity security at CrowdStrike, Okta, Palo Alto Networks, and Cylance, Obsidian Security protects more than 200 organizations across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand—including many of the world's largest Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 companies. Article content The company secures business-critical SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and hundreds of other enterprise tools that drive modern work. Obsidian operates data centers in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia to ensure robust protection for its global customer base. The company's modular approach to SaaS security allows it to meet the needs of large and small enterprises. Article content 'AI is changing the threat landscape faster than most organizations can respond,' said Hasan Imam, CEO of Obsidian Security. 'This moment demands leadership that understands both the scale of the challenge and the urgency of the opportunity. We're building a team that's done this before—so we can stay ahead of emerging threats and deliver on the promise of safe, scalable AI adoption.' Article content About Obsidian Security Article content Obsidian Security is the leading SaaS security platform, trusted by global enterprises like Snowflake, T-Mobile, and Pure Storage. We protect over 200 global organizations, including many of the world's largest Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 companies with data center availability in North America, EMEA, and APAC. Backed by top investors like Greylock, we're closing a critical gap: securing the SaaS apps where business happens like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and hundreds more. Our platform reduces risk, detects and responds to threats, and prevents breaches at the source. Obsidian was built by leaders who redefined endpoint and identity security at CrowdStrike, Okta, Cylance, and Carbon Black. Now, we're tackling the next frontier: securing SaaS in the era of agentic AI. As AI tools gain access to sensitive data through integrations, Obsidian uniquely detects human and non-human identity compromise and manages integration risk. Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Media Contact Article content Article content Article content
TimesLIVE
06-07-2025
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
Eight migrants deported from Djibouti to South Sudan: US Homeland Security
The fate of the migrants had become a flashpoint in the fight over the legality of the Trump administration's campaign to deter immigration through high-profile deportations to so-called "third countries" where migrants say they face safety concerns, which has already gone from lower courts to the Supreme Court twice. South Sudan has long been dangerous even for local residents. The US state department advises citizens not to travel there due to violent crime and armed conflict. The UN has said the African country's political crisis could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018. The eight men — who according to their lawyers are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam — had argued their deportations to South Sudan would violate the US constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. They had been held in US custody in Djibouti since a federal judge in Boston in May blocked the Trump administration from immediately moving them to South Sudan over due process concerns. Following additional litigation, the Supreme Court on Thursday sided with the administration, lifting those limits. Two courts considered requests from the migrants' lawyers on an emergency basis on Friday, when courts are otherwise closed for the holiday, but ultimately US district judge Brian Murphy in Boston said the Supreme Court order required him to deny their bid, clearing the way for their deportation. The location of the men in South Sudan after their arrival was not immediately known.
United News of India
06-07-2025
- Politics
- United News of India
US deports 8 men to South Sudan amidst legal controversy
Washington, D C, July 6 (UNI) In a controversial move, the United States has deported eight men, many of them foreign nationals to South Sudan, following a prolonged legal tug-of-war that ultimately ended with a Supreme Court ruling in favour of the Federal government. The individuals, all convicted of serious crimes ranging from murder to sexual assault and armed robbery, were with at the end or near completion of their prison sentences. Remarkably, only one of the eight men is a South Sudanese national. The rest are nationals of Myanmar, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and Mexico. US officials said most of their home countries had refused to accept them. Left with few options, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security opted to relocate them to South Sudan, a fragile nation on the verge of renewed civil conflict. Officials did not say whether the South Sudanese government had detained them or what their fate would be. The country remains unstable and is on the brink of civil war, with the US State Department warning against travel because of "crime, kidnapping and armed conflict", reports BBC. The deportation was originally halted in May after US District Judge Brian Murphy ruled that migrants facing expulsion to third-party nations must receive prior notice and be granted access to an asylum officer. The plane was diverted mid-flight to Djibouti, where the men remained for weeks while legal challenges played out. But last week, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration and overturned Judge Murphy's ruling. On Thursday, the Supreme Court confirmed that the judge could no longer require due process hearings, allowing the deportations to proceed. Lawyers then asked another judge to intervene, but he ultimately ruled that only Judge Murphy had jurisdiction. Judge Murphy then said he had no authority to stop the removals due to the Supreme Court's "binding" decision. Tricia McLaughlin from the Department of Homeland Security called the South Sudan deportation a victory over "activist judges". Earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked all visas for South Sudanese passport holders, citing the country's past refusal to accept deported nationals. UNI NST SS
