Venezuelan Refugees, Undersea Cable, Camera Hackers
March 10, 2021
Yesterday’s Newsletter / March 10, 2021
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Biden administration giving temporary protected status to thousands of Venezuelans in US
Summary: The US government has announced a temporary decree that may allow tens of thousands of Venezuelans who, fleeing abysmal economic, political, and infrastructural conditions back home, have come to the States hoping for refugee status.
Context: The practicality of this decree has yet to be seen, and those to whom it applies will still need to jump through some hoops to ensure they fall under its aegis, but even just the announcement is a significant pivot from the previous administration’s stance on the matter—on former-President Trump’s final day in office, he issued an executive order that deferred the removal of these Venezuelan refugees without granting them temporary status: a move that left them locked in legal limbo.
Also: Biden faces challenge from surge of migrants at the border
—Los Angeles Times, The New York Times
Cyprus, Israel, Greece sign deal on electric cable link
Summary: The governments of Israel, Cyprus, and Greece have signed an agreement to speed up the technical work on a 2,000 megawatt undersea electrical cable that, when finished, will help these countries transition to cleaner, more sustainable energy.
Context: Many such international grids and mega-grids are being discussed right now, as being able to send large amounts of electricity from place to place could help create a regional market for energy that would help balance out supply and create a market for governments and businesses that are able to generate more than can be consumed, locally—Cyprus, for instance, is working on a potential, separate deal with Greece and Egypt.
—The Associated Press
Hackers breach thousands of security cameras, exposing Tesla, jails, hospitals
Summary: A hacker group says that they have accessed the feeds of around 150,000 security cameras operated by a Silicon Valley-based surveillance company called Verkada—giving the hackers access to live video from Tesla facilities, jails, and hospitals, among many other locations.
Context: Some of these feeds reportedly have facial recognition data collected along with the video, and a representative from the international hacker collective that breached Verkada’s system says that they did it to show how pervasive surveillance of this kind is throughout society, to promote anti-capitalist ideas, and because it was fun.
—Bloomberg
Visual
64%
Increase in cargo ship orders—measured by capacity—from 2019 to 2020.
Many of these ships carry between 15,000 and 23,000 standard, 20-foot cargo containers apiece, and this surge in cargo space is largely the result of China’s manufacturing resurgence, post-COVID, alongside the boom in shipping that is expected to occur when the world has moved on from the worst of the pandemic.
—The Wall Street Journal
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Yesterday’s Newsletter is published by analytic journalist and host of the Let’s Know Things podcast, Colin Wright.