After releasing 10 back-to-back episodes of the Season 5 premiere of Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black,” a hacking group calling itself The Dark Overlord is threatening to leak a trove of other unreleased TV shows and movies.

The Dark Overlord (TDO) posted links to the first 10 episodes of the upcoming season of “Orange Is the New Black” show to a piracy website after Larson Studios and Netflix failed to fulfill the group’s ransom demand.

According to Netflix’s website, the season 5 of “Orange Is the New Black” show is scheduled to debut June 9 and supposed to run 13 episodes. But TDO claimed that only the first 10 episodes were available at the time the group gained access to the show.

On Saturday, the group headed on to Twitter and posted links to a Pastebin page, GitHub profile, and the Pirate Bay torrent site sharing Episode 1 of “Orange Is The New Black” season 5 show.

At the time of writing, the Pastebin (web archive) and GitHub links went down, but the Pirate Bay torrent file remained up, and users have downloaded and shared its content.

10 out of 13 “Orange Is The New Black” Season 5 Episodes Leaked Online

Following the release of Episode 1, TDO posted links to Pastebin and a second torrent file, hosted on The Pirate Bay, which includes episodes 2 through 10 of the season 5 of “Orange Is The New Black.”

According to the Pastebin post, the group released 10 episodes of the show because Netflix didn’t pay a ransom demand.

Here’s what the TDO’s statement posted on Pastebin (web archive) stated:

“It didn’t have to be this way, Netflix. You’re going to lose a lot more money in all of this than what our modest offer was. We’re quite ashamed to breathe the same air as you. We figured a pragmatic business such as yourselves would see and understand the benefits of cooperating with a reasonable and merciful entity like ourselves. And to the others: there’s still time to save yourselves. Our offer(s) are still on the table – for now.”

In an interview with the DataBreaches.net, the hacking group revealed it managed to steal “hundreds of GBs [gigabytes] of unreleased and non-public media” from the servers of Larson Studios, an ADR (additional dialogue recorded) studio based in Hollywood in late 2016.

The Dark Overlord Demanded 50 BTC

While the group did not reveal its attack method nor how much ransom it demanded, according to a copy of a contract allegedly signed between TDO and Larson, the hacking group asked for 50 BTC ($70,422) by January 31.

But after the studio stopped responding to the group’s email requests in January, TDO turned to Netflix, which also did not pay the ransom either, eventually forcing the group to release the first 10 episodes of season 5 of “Orange Is The New Black” after two months.

Netflix said in a statement that it was “aware of the situation. A production vendor used by several major TV studios had its security compromised, and the appropriate law enforcement authorities are involved.”

The Dark Overlord Threatens to Leak More Shows to the Internet

After releasing all the 10 episode of the unreleased show, TDO threatened to leak other unreleased shows and movies from several other studios in its possession.

The Dark Overlord tweeted: “Who is next on the list? FOX, IFC, NAT GEO, and ABC. Oh, what fun we’re all going to have. We’re not playing games anymore.”

The hacking group provided a list of unreleased shows and movies (some are released on their scheduled date) it stole from different studios, which includes:

• A Midsummers Nightmare – TV Movie
• Bill Nye Saves The World – TV Series
• Breakthrough – TV Series
• Brockmire – TV Series
• Bunkd – TV Series
• Celebrity Apprentice (The Apprentice) – TV Series
• Food Fact or Fiction – TV Series
• Hopefuls – TV Series
• Hum – Short
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – TV Series
• Jason Alexander Project – TV Series
• Liza Koshy Special – YoutubeRed
• Lucha Underground – TV Series
• Lucky Roll – TV Series
• Making History ) – TV Series
• Man Seeking Woman – TV Series
• Max and Shred – TV Series
• Mega Park – TV Series
• NCIS Los Angeles – TV Series
• New Girl – TV Series
• Orange Is The New Black – TV Series
• Portlandia – TV Series
• Steve Harveys Funderdome – TV Series
• Story of God with Morgan Freeman – TV Series
• Superhuman – TV Series
• The Arrangement – TV Series
• The Catch – TV Series
• The Middle – TV Series
• The Stanley Dynamic – TV Series
• The Thundermans – TV Series
• Undeniable with Joe Buck – TV Series
• X Company – TV Series
• Above Suspicion – Film
• Handsome – Film
• Rebel In The Rye – Film
• Win It All – Film
• XXX Return of Xander Cage – Film

The Dark Overlord is a known hacking group that was responsible for cyber attacks on Gorilla Glue and Little Red Door, an Indiana Cancer Services agency. The group also put 655,000 healthcare records lifted from 3 separate data breaches up for sale on the dark web.

Paris, France – For the first time in modern French history, the runoff vote will not feature a single presidential candidate from a mainstream party.

On Sunday, tens of millions of people will choose between Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old centrist who – himself disillusioned with traditional political groups – founded En Marche! (On The Move!) last year, and Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate who until recently was running under the National Front party.

After securing her place in the final, Le Pen stepped down from the party, a measure she says will allow her to represent better the interests of “all French people”.

Le Pen is the more obvious populist leader – her slogan is “in the name of the people”. But Macron, too, has exhibited some populist tendencies.

He has repeatedly said he wants a new kind of politics, called for the reform of his beloved European Union and set up not a party to the left nor right, but a “movement”.

“In a broader sense, his populism can be seen as a case of soft populism, a homoeopathic remedy to the hard populism expressed by his competitor: an anti-populist populism,” said Fabio Bordignon, who teaches Political Science at Italy’s University of Urbino Carlo Bo.

Jason Cowley, editor of Britain’s New Statesman magazine, describes Macron as “that rare thing – a populist eruption from the liberal centre”.

That two outsiders won most votes on April 23 in the first round, followed by the Trotskyist-turned-populist-leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, marks a momentous change. Mainstream parties are breaking down.

READ MORE: Why does Le Pen get so much support from young voters?

Traditionally, France chooses between two political bands.

The left wing centres around the Socialist Party of Francois Hollande, an outgoing president so deeply unpopular that he made the unprecedented move not to run again, and Benoit Hamon, this year’s candidate who came last of the major runners.

The right rallies around The Republicans, which failed in the first round as its hopeful, Francois Fillon, was embroiled in a corruption scandal.

“Political life in France was cut off between two political parties for 50 years,” explained David Bobin, an editor at CNews, a digital channel. “I think the French wanted to have new faces.”

While Macron, the strong favourite, caters to voters “between the left and right”, Le Pen “takes advantage” of people’s fears, such as concerns over the economy, Bobin told Al Jazeera.

The unemployment factor

Unemployment is at the heart of those fears, arguably the top voter concern.

France’s unemployment rate runs at around 10 percent, more than double the level of Germany and Britain, and higher than the eurozone average.

It has not dipped below nine percent since before the global economic crisis of 2008.

Macron has promised to slash that figure by three percent, while Le Pen says state-led industrialisation and greater taxes on foreign workers will boost employment.

“Populism is on the rise all over Europe,” said Samia Hathroubi, European director of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

“It’s a clear trend, but it seems that none of the traditional parties knows how to tackle it and how to respond to the economic crisis and its consequences.”

The two oft-cited examples of a gripping populist wave in the West – the election of US President Donald Trump and Britain’s decision to leave the European Union – were also soaked in fears over joblessness.

Trump promised more jobs at every campaign stop, and those lobbying for a so-called Brexit – particularly the populist United Kingdom Independence Party – assured voters that stronger borders would prevent economic migrants from snatching opportunities from hard-working Britons.

“The economy is the first issue for voters,” said Hathroubi. “We have seen hundreds of debates about Islam and identity, but apart from Marine Le Pen, no one is addressing the losers of globalisation.”

Macron, meanwhile, a former economic minister under Hollande, finds it hard in some quarters to shake his old connections.

“One of the biggest debates happening today is whether or not people should vote for Macron in order to prevent a Le Pen victory,” said Hathroubi.

The last time the far-right made it this far was in 2002, when Marine’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was up against the right-wing Jacques Chirac, who ultimately won.

“In 2002, it was clear. Even if people didn’t vote for Chirac in the first round, they voted for him in the second,” Hathroubi said.

“Now it is no longer clear, because Macron is seen as someone who will continue to increase social inequality as Hollande did – Macron was his minister.”

Show tactics

Le Pen, a master of tapping into people’s greatest anxieties, has railed around what she terms “savage globalisation”.

At a recent campaign stop in the northern city of Amiens, Macron’s hometown, she upstaged her rival at the Whirlpool factory, which is threatened with outsourcing.

As Le Pen posed for the media on the picket line among a sea of worried workers, Macron met in a more sober setting with union leaders behind closed doors.

“Globalisation scares people: manufacturing factories are closing and moving, robotisation is slowly taking over and no answers are given,” said Rim-Sarah Alouane, a PhD candidate and researcher in public law at the University of Toulouse.

“Youth unemployment is also a major issue that has not been tackled accordingly …The current economic situation actually drove young French voters towards Le Pen.”

‘Mainstream’s profound crisis’

Youth unemployment is around 24 percent – far lower than Spain and Greece but way off Germany’s 7.7 percent – Europe’s most successful employer of young people. And according to some polls, almost 40 percent of young people intend to vote for Le Pen.

But while concerns over unemployment have contributed to the populist sentiment of the French election so far, so too has the stark inability of traditional parties to address concerns that they are simply not engaged – perhaps proving the point.

“Clearly, the most important issue for voters in this election is unemployment,” Pierre Bocquillon, a lecturer of politics at Britain’s University of East Anglia, told Al Jazeera.

“I think the result [of the first round] really reflects a profound crisis of both the mainstream left and right parties. This election reveals a recomposition of both the left and right. Many people are tired of incumbent politicians and don’t feel represented by the two main parties.”

Within a year Macron has gone from political outsider to presidential frontrunner [Eric Feferberg/ AFP]

Source: Al Jazeera

News of the vicious murder of seven United Nations employees in Mazar-i Sharif has outraged and bewildered Western observers as well many Afghans.

Thousands of protesters had attended Friday prayers and heard the preacher of the celebrated Blue Mosque condemn the burning of the Quran half a world away at Pastor Terry Jones’ Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida.

Agitated protesters then streamed into the streets, and a sizable group laid siege to the UN compound. The attackers beat, shot, and stabbed the staff and, according to initial reports, may have attempted to behead two of the victims.    

The tragedy surprised most observers because it took place far from the Taliban heartland in a province thought to be among the most secure areas of Afghanistan and in an ethnically and religiously diverse city that had been in 1998 the site of a bloody Taliban massacre. 

Why had so many Afghans in this anti-Taliban stronghold turned against the UN, a symbol of solidarity with the Afghan people, and why had they reportedly demonstrated with the slogans “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”?

Speculation about Taliban infiltration of last Friday’s demonstrations only deepened the mystery. But it was not limited to Mazar-i Sharif.

For five straight days Afghans have taken to the streets in Kandahar, Jalalabad, and Kabul to voice similar sentiments. Reports of the killing on Wednesday of an Afghan woman by a British military vehicle in a traffic accident in Kabul have heightened tensions there. 

If accounts of the beheadings are true, the appropriation of this hallmark tactic of al-Qaeda by residents of Mazar-i Sharif would signal an extraordinary shift in Afghan politics.

Yet, in seeking to make sense of this horrific act, not everyone has registered surprise. Critics of Islam have interpreted it as familiar proof of the intolerance of the Muslim faith.

For many war sceptics, this event has raised further questions about the character of the Afghan people who, like president Hamid Karzai, have figured more and more frequently since 2008 in American debates as shaky – and ungrateful – partners.

Indeed some commentators quickly pointed the finger at Karzai for drawing attention to the Quran burning, an event that had received relatively little press coverage. 

Western media reports of corruption at the Kabul Bank, officials’ grandiose villas in Dubai, drug use among army recruits, and rampant violence against women and paedophilia have displaced romantic images of valiant Afghans in the early post-Taliban era.

A more sober reading of the violence in Mazar-i Sharif and elsewhere should lead us instead to a very different understanding of the state of Afghan politics.

Washington has tended to reduce the Afghan political landscape to an archaic world of tribal loyalties and patronage networks. Yet the protest in Mazar-i Sharif demonstrates that other ideas animate Afghan politics, modern ideas that can’t be dismissed as the mad ravings of obscurantist mullahs. 

A broader context is crucial to understanding this violence. Since at least 2004 Afghan towns and cities have provided the setting for dozens of mass demonstrations.

Few of these protests have made it into the Western press, but a review of the Afghan media and the WikiLeaks logs reveals a dramatic pattern of nationalist political mobilisation in hamlets, towns, and cities across the country. 

Protesters have taken up diverse causes, though the mosque has rarely been the rallying point as it appears to have been in Mazar-i Sharif.

Voicing condemnation of the US and Karzai, most gatherings have emerged as spontaneous, and mostly peaceful, responses to reports of civilian casualties – as in last month’s demonstrations in Kabul – as well as to detentions, and slights against Islam. 

This last category has been quite expansive, reflecting an Afghan public that is more integrated than ever before into global circuits of ideas.

Not just the Danish cartoon controversy – which prompted violent rioting in 2006 – but also news of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, has brought Afghans out into the streets on a number of occasions in expressions of wider Muslim solidarity.

Connecting Afghans to the rest of the world via radio, TV, the internet, and print, the expansion of Afghan media is only one part of the story. 

The other is mounting frustration with foreign domination of Afghan politics, a dynamic that more and more Afghans interpret through a framework with a deep history in popular memory: from parliament to the streets of Kabul, Mazar-i Sharif, Herat, Kandahar and Jalalabad, calls for the safeguarding of national sovereignty against foreign interference now transcend political rivalries and join varied factions against the US and its allies. 

Even the Taliban have shifted their rhetoric in response. Denouncing collaboration with coalition forces, Taliban media outlets cast their cause as a popular resistance movement on behalf of all Afghans.

They present themselves as the pure and uncorrupted leaders of a national tradition of jihad. Promising liberation from an oppressive occupation and corrupt government, their nationalist message echoes the protests of parliamentarians and aggrieved villagers and townspeople alike. 

The tragedy of Mazar-i Sharif tells us less about the essential nature of Islam or of the Afghan people than it does about the potential for a nationalist mobilisation that could dramatically broaden the war in Afghanistan. 

If Washington does not hasten its efforts to negotiate a peace agreement and establish a viable mechanism to share power more broadly among Afghan political factions, the US may face a far deadlier struggle against foes drawing inspiration from the last century’s history of anti-colonial politics.

The international community has badly misjudged the impatience of many Afghans who see their protests as the latest chapter in a very modern, and universal, story of the defence of nation and faith against colonial rule.

Robert D Crews is co-editor of The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (Harvard University Press) and director of the Centre for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at Stanford University, where he also teaches in the Department of History.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

Each year, people across the globe take to the streets to commemorate International Workers’ Day, or May Day. 

In dozens of countries, May Day is an official holiday, and for labour rights campaigners it is particularly important.

In the United States, it is symbolic of past labour struggles against a host of workers’ rights violations, including lengthy work days and weeks, poor conditions and child labour.

Why is International Workers’ Day on May 1?

In the late-19th century, socialists, communists and trade unionists chose May 1 to become International Workers’ Day.

The date was symbolic, commemorating the Haymarket affair, which took place in Chicago, in the US, in 1886.

For years, the working class – often forced to work up to 16 hours a day in unsafe conditions – had been fighting for an eight-hour workday.

Then, in October 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labour Unions of the United States and Canada decided that May 1, 1886, would mark the first day that an eight-hour workday would go into effect.

When that day arrived, between 300,000 and a half-million American workers went on strike in cities and towns across the country, according to various historians’ estimates.

Chicago, which was the nucleus of the struggle, saw an estimated 40,000 people protest and strike. 

Until May 3, the strike was well-coordinated and largely nonviolent.

But as the end of the workday approached, striking workers in Chicago attempted to confront strikebreakers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. Large police contingents were protecting the strikebreakers, and officers opened fire on the striking workers, killing at least two.

As the police attempted to disperse the protesters on May 4 in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, a bomb was thrown at them, killing seven officers and at least four civilians.

Police subsequently rounded up and arrested eight anarchists, all of whom were convicted of conspiracy. A court sentenced seven to death and one to 15 years imprisonment. Four were hanged, one committed suicide rather than face the gallows and two had their sentences commuted to life in prison.

Those who died are regarded by many on the left, including both socialists and anarchists, as the “Haymarket Martyrs”. 

OPINION: May Day – Reflecting on Bangladesh factory disaster and corporate terror

The Haymarket affair galvanised the broader labour movement.

In 1889, the Second International, the international organisation for workers and socialists, declared that May 1 would from then on be International Workers’ Day. 

In the US, however, the eight-hour work day wasn’t recognised until it was turned into law in 1916, after years of strikes, protests and actions in favour of it. 

What is the holiday’s history after 1916? 

After the eight-hour day was initiated in the US in 1916, it was endorsed by the Communist International, an international coalition of socialist and communist parties, and by communist and socialist parties in various countries.

In that same year, as World War I continued, partial strikes and clashes with police in the US and several European countries were fuelled by massive anti-war sentiment as much as they were driven by the struggle for labour rights.

In 1917, as the US declared its involvement in the war, socialists and other leftists demonstrated against the bloodshed. 

Marxist leaders across the globe – among them Rosa Luxemburg and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who is most widely known as Lenin – considered the war to be an example of capitalist, imperialist countries pitting members of an international working class against one another. They argued that workers should unite and wage a revolutionary war against the ruling classes in their own countries.

Four days after the revolution that toppled Tsarist rule in Russia, the eight-hour workday was introduced there by official decree.

What have been some of the most memorable International Workers’ Day protests?

International Workers’ Day is marked with celebrations, protests, strikes and commemorations around the world.

While the size and intensity of commemorations have ebbed and flowed over the years, several International Workers’ Day commemorations stand out.

In the US in 1971, as the war in Vietnam continued under the presidency of Richard Nixon, protests in Washington, DC, spanned several days and included civil disobedience against the war. 

Nixon sent in an estimated 10,000 troops and mass arrests were made, prompting accusations of civil rights violations. Police and security forces arrested more than 12,000 people, although most were eventually released without charges. 

In Berlin, Germany, May Day protesters clashed with police in 2009 [File: Getty Images]

More recently, in 2006, a series of US-wide immigration reform marches continued on May 1, when organisers called for a strike they named a “day without immigrants”. Protests had already drawn the participation of between 350,000 and 500,000 people in cities across the US.

In 2016, large May Day protests and marches were held in countries across the world. In the Turkish city of Istanbul, protesters clashed with police while trying to reach the city’s iconic Taksim Square. At least one protester was killed and dozens arrested. 

READ MORE: May Day – US workers’ struggle, then and now

In Moscow, tens of thousands of Russians marched in a pro-Kremlin rally to commemorate the holiday, while left-wing groups held separate events in several Russian cities. 

In Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, labour unions took to the streets with a march to call on the government to reduce working hours and increase wages.

Thousands of people in the German cities of Berlin and Hamburg participated in public demonstrations. Protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (also known as AfD) party were held in several German cities. 

What should you expect in 2017? 

With a growing protest movement against the policies of US President Donald Trump and increasing clashes between his supporters and opponents, there will be large demonstrations in several US cities, including New York, Chicago, Seattle and Washington, DC, among others. 

In recent weeks, clashes between anti-fascist, or Antifa, activists and Trump supporters have increased in frequency and intensity. Two weeks ago in Berkeley, California, pro- and anti-Trump demonstrators fought in the streets, leading to multiple arrests and injuries. 

On Monday, organisers from Movimiento Cosecha, an immigrant rights campaign, say an estimated 400,000 workers have committed to strike in the US. 

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a left-wing organisation, and several anarchist and anti-fascist groups plan to hold protests in New York City and elsewhere. 

Police and demonstrators clashed during Trump’s inauguration on January 20 [File: Stephen J. Boitano/LightRocket via Getty Images]

The Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC), a New York City-based umbrella group, called for a mass anti-fascist and anti-capitalist bloc to stand in solidarity with immigrants, workers and prisoners. 

Before the planned protests, police in Seattle, Washington, have prepared for violent confrontations. A police official says anti-Trump sentiment is likely to fuel the protests and lead to confrontations between his supporters and opponents. 

“I think there’s a great opportunity for crowd on crowd conflict,” Seattle Police Capt. Chris Fowler said on Friday, according to local news. He said the police were preparing by practising crowd control techniques and the formation of barriers. 

Protests are expected to be held in several countries across the globe.

In Nazareth, hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel, mostly from the local communist party, already marched to commemorate May Day on Saturday. 

Source: Al Jazeera News