We’ve been under the weather these last few days, so today’s collection of tales from the dark side has beaucoup items, starting with the latest buggery headline from the Independent:
Israel-Gaza conflict: John Kerry’s phone calls ‘tapped by Israeli government’ while he mediated Middle East peace talks
Israeli intelligence agencies reportedly tapped John Kerry’s phone while the US Secretary of State was in the Middle East trying to negotiate an end to the Gaza conflict.
According to reports in Sunday’s Der Spiegel, Israeli spies listened in on Mr Kerry’s conversations with other high-profile negotiators during the peace talks last year.
Mr Kerry was said to have used both encrypted and standard telephones to discuss issues between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states – and some of those normal calls were reportedly picked up by the authorities in Jerusalem.
Details from the Spiegel report:
During the peak stage of peace talks last year, Kerry spoke regularly with high-ranking negotiating partners in the Middle East. At the time, some of these calls were not made on encrypted equipment, but instead on normal telephones, with the conversations transmitted by satellite. Intelligence agencies intercepted some of those calls. The government in Jerusalem then used the information obtained in international negotiations aiming to reach a diplomatic solution in the Middle East.
In the current Gaza conflict, the Israelis have massively criticized Kerry, with a few ministers indirectly calling on him to withdraw from peace talks. Both the US State Department and the Israeli authorities declined to comment.
Only one week ago, Kerry flew to Israel to mediate between the conflict parties, but the Israelis brusquely rejected a draft proposal for a cease-fire. The plan reportedly didn’t include any language demanding that Hamas abandon its rocket arsenal and destroy its tunnel system. Last year, Kerry undertook intensive diplomatic efforts to seek a solution in the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but they ultimately failed. Since those talks, relations between Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been tense.
And on to the latest evidence of spooks spooking on Congress, via Techdirt:
CIA Spying On The Senate Went Much Further Than Originally Reported
from the because-of-course-it-did dept
We already covered how the CIA has admitted to and apologized for its spying on the Senate, but the CIA’s official “unclassified” statement on the matter shows that what the CIA did was even worse than the initial allegations. Here’s the basic summary, according to the CIA’s Inspector General:
Agency Access to Files on the SSCI RDINet: Five Agency employees, two attorneys and three information technology (IT) staff members, improperly accessed or caused access to the SSCI Majority staff shared drives on the RDINet.
Agency Crimes Report on Alleged Misconduct by SSCI Staff: The Agency filed a crimes report with the DOJ, as required by Executive Order 12333 and the 1995 Crimes Reporting Memorandum between the DOJ and the Intelligence Community, reporting that SSCI staff members may have improperly accessed Agency information on the RDINet. However, the factual basis for the referral was not supported, as the author of the referral had been provided inaccurate information on which the letter was based. After review, the DOJ declined to open a criminal investigation of the matter alleged in the crimes report.
Office of Security Review of SSCI Staff Activity: Subsequent to directive by the D/CIA to halt the Agency review of SSCI staff access to the RDINet, and unaware of the D/CIA’s direction, the Office of Security conducted a limited investigation of SSCI activities on the RDINet. That effort included a keyword search of all and a review of some of the emails of SSCI Majority staff members on the RDINet system.
Lack of Candor: The three IT staff members demonstrated a lack of candor about their activities during interviews by the OIG.
From The Hill, that paragon of Hope™ and Change™ springs to the defense:
President gives vote of confidence to CIA chief
President Obama issued a strong defense of CIA Director John Brennan on Friday in the face of revelations that his agency spied on congressional staffers’ computers.
“I have full confidence in John Brennan,” Obama said in a White House press conference. “I think he has acknowledged — and directly apologized to [Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman] Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein [D-Calif.] — that CIA personnel did not properly handle an investigation into how certain documents that were not authorized to be release to the Senate staff got somehow into the hands of the Senate staff.
“It’s clear from the [inspector general] report that some very poor judgment was shown in terms of how that was handled,” Obama added. “Keep in mind, though, that John Brennan was the person who called for the IG report, and he’s already stood up a task force to make sure that lessons are learned and mistakes are resolved.”
And from The Wire, gettin’ all folksy and whatever:
Obama Condenses History With These Four Words: ‘We Tortured Some Folks’
President Obama is known for being long-winded, but on Friday he uttered a phrase that may be as blunt as any modern president has ever made.
“We tortured some folks,” the president said toward the end of a White House news conference as he responded to the release of a Senate report on the C.I.A.’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the months after 9/11.
“We crossed a line,” Obama continued. “That needs to be understood and accepted, and we as a country need to take responsibility for that so we don’t do it again in the future.”
From C-SPAN, the money shot:
President Obama: “We tortured some folks.”
Program note:
President Obama answers questions on CIA Spying and Torture Tactics and says, “We tortured some folks.”
MintPress News covers the Big Spin:
State Dept. ‘Torture Talking Points’ Reveal White House PR Machine Ahead Of Senate Report
Obama administration to argue that revelation of CIA torture program is an example of “America’s democratic system”.
A State Department document obtained by the Associated Press reveals part of the Obama administration’s attempt to ready its public relations response to an upcoming Senate report on the CIA’s torture program.
Due to be declassified in the coming days, the report is said to criticize the agency for its post-9/11 illegal torture of detainees in secret prisons. The document details some of the administration’s prepared talking points to be used once a White House-approved version of the report is released.
Reportedly sent by accident via email to the AP, the State Department memo describes the report as a demonstration of American democracy, rather than as an indictment of the CIA’s torture practices. The document states that “no American is proud” of the CIA’s tactics, but that “the story” of illegal, indefinite torture and imprisonment is part of a larger message, one in which “America’s democratic system worked just as it was designed to work in bringing an end to actions inconsistent with our democratic values.” That story, the document proclaims, is one in which Americans can take pride.
While the Observer covers a hoped-for coverup:
Britain ‘attempts to censor’ US report on torture sites
US Senate report may confirm that Diego Garcia was used for extraordinary rendition after 9/11
The government stands accused of seeking to conceal Britain’s role in extraordinary rendition, ahead of the release of a declassified intelligence report that exposes the use of torture at US secret prisons around the world.
The Senate report on the CIA’s interrogation programme, due to be released in days, will confirm that the US tortured terrorist suspects after 9/11. In advance of the release, Barack Obama admitted on Friday: “We tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.”
Now, in a letter to the human rights group Reprieve, former foreign secretary William Hague has confirmed that the UK government has held discussions with the US about what it intends to reveal in the report which, according to al-Jazeera, acknowledges that the British territory of Diego Garcia was used for extraordinary rendition.
And from the McClatchy Washington Bureau, California’s plutocratic senator and a mandated delay:
Citing redactions, Feinstein delays release of report on CIA interrogations
The Obama administration censored significant portions of the findings of an investigation into the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation methods on suspected terrorists, forcing the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to delay their release “until further notice.”
The postponement late Friday added to serious frictions over the investigation between the administration and lawmakers, who have been pressing for the swiftest, most extensive publication of the findings on one of darkest chapters in the CIA’s 65-year history.
Feinstein announced the delay only hours after the White House returned the document to her after it completed its declassification review. It also came after Obama acknowledged hours earlier that interrogators for the spy agency had tortured suspected terrorists.
While the Guardian covers the inevitable torture advocacy:
Senate Republicans to issue minority report on CIA ‘torture’ techniques
Saxby Chambliss: ‘information gleaned took down Bin Laden’
Majority to allege techniques were unnecessary and unhelpful
Republicans on the Senate intelligence committee will soon release a minority report asserting that the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques helped bring down Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, the panel’s top Republican said on Sunday.
“Information gleaned from these interrogations was in fact used to interrupt and disrupt terrorist plots, including some information that took down Bin Laden,” the Georgia senator Saxby Chambliss said on CBS’s Face the Nation.
The Senate intelligence committee reports will come five years after it authorised an investigation into the use of possible torture by the CIA after the September 11 attacks.
Heading north of the border and a put-up-or-shut-up response via the Toronto Globe and Mail:
China challenges Canada to produce evidence of cyberattacks
China’s ambassador to Canada says if Ottawa has evidence that Beijing is responsible for a cyberattack on a top Canadian research body, it should turn it over to the Chinese government.
“If you have evidence, credible evidence, we will be happy to see that,” Ambassador Luo Zhaohui said in an interview. “Show me the evidence and then we can do something to investigate,” the Chinese envoy said.
This week, for the first time, the Canadian government publicly singled out China for hacking, announcing in a statement that computers at the National Research Council were breached, and pointing to “a highly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor.”
On to Germany and a decline from Deutsche Welle:
Journalist Greenwald refuses to speak to Germany’s NSA scandal inquiry
Journalist Glenn Greenwald has refused to speak to a German parliamentary inquiry on the NSA scandal. He said the Bundestag’s decision not to interview Edward Snowden is indicative of the committee’s “empty symbolism.”
Greenwald on Friday said he had turned down an invitation to testify before the German parliament later this summer about the NSA spying scandal. The US journalist said that while he was “very supportive of any attempt by the German Parliament to conduct a serious investigation into NSA spying on Germans,” the existing Bundestag inquiry was not that.
“Unfortunately, German politicians have demonstrated, with their refusal to interview the key witness in person – Edward Snowden – that they care far more about not upsetting the US than they do about conducting a serious investigation,” he said in a statement.
Greenwald had been expected to speak to the Bundestag on September 11 via video link from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he lives.
While Ars Technica covers the tech savvy:
Terrorists embracing new Android crypto in wake of Snowden revelations
Android is the “preferred platform” for terrorist groups, according to report.
Security researchers announced Friday that they have found new evidence to bolster claims from the National Security Agency that terrorists have altered their countermeasures in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations.
“Al-Fajr, one of Al-Qaeda’s media arms, released a new Android encryption application [in] early June 2014 on their website, referring to how it follows the “latest technological advancements” and provides ‘4096 bit public key’ encryption,” intelligence firm Recorded Future said in a Friday report.
The report added that Global Islamic Media Front, another arm of Al Qaeda, just released a “new version” of Android crypto software.
After the jump, drone dilemmas, Internet crackdowns and privacy lawsuits, the 411 on Facebook 911 calls, online amnesia laments, USB under seige, homeland insecurity, Scotland Yard corruption, the latest escalation in the Asian Game of Zones, a terrorist who wasn’t, an Israeli call for genocide, and more. . .
The Guardian covers dronal inecurities:
Rise of the drones has police and regulators scrambling to catch up
Technology and mass production have made unmanned aircraft widely available but some say alarm at their use is exaggerated
Wardens at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopsville, South Carolina, were taken aback a few weeks ago when they conducted a routine sweep of the prison grounds. They discovered quantities of marijuana, cigarettes and cellphones scattered among the bushes in the no man’s land that surrounds the maximum-security institution.
The guards were even more astonished to find in the middle of the stash of contraband a small, lightweight object, with propellers attached. Closer inspection revealed the item to be an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), better known as a drone, whose operators had evidently made an audacious attempt to breach the prison walls that had come unstuck when it crash-landed.
Another day, another drone controversy. The failed smuggling attempt in Bishopsville, disclosed this week, is just one among an ever-intensifying rash of stories relating to the remote-controlled devices as they make their onward march into American civilian life.
BBC News covers an online crackdown from Moscow:
Russia enacts ‘draconian’ law for bloggers and online media
A new law imposing restrictions on users of social media has come into effect in Russia.
It means bloggers with more than 3,000 daily readers must register with the mass media regulator, Roskomnadzor, and conform to the regulations that govern the country’s larger media outlets.
Internet companies will also be required to allow Russian authorities access to users’ information.
One human rights group called the move “draconian.”
EurActiv has the latest official Facebook crackdown:
Facebook faces EU and US probes over data harvesting
Facebook faces separate investigations by EU and US data regulators over its plans to collect web browsing histories for targeted advertising after a complaint by consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.
The social media giant wants to use cookies and pixel tags to harvest data and use it to match adverts to users’ interests.
Facebook already collects browsing information on its website and through its mobile apps but this could now be expanded to any website with the right coding. The company’s new data harvesting policy is planned for the US first before being rolled out in Europe.
Deutsche Welle covers a private action:
Privacy activists launch lawsuit against Facebook
Privacy activists in Austria have launched a class action lawsuit against Facebook. The head of the initiative has called on users around the world to join the cause and put pressure on the social media giant.
Austrian lawyer and data protection activist Max Schrems on Friday filed the lawsuit at Vienna’s commercial court over Facebook allowing its users’ data to be used by the US government for surveillance program PRISM, and other alleged breaches of EU consumer laws.
Schrems is suing for a symbolic sum of 500 euros ($671) for each claimant, saying the main concern is about reforming Facebook’s privacy practices rather than money.
The lawsuit only applies to Facebook members outside the US and Canada, who are handled by Facebook Ireland. Users in the North America have their contracts with Facebook USA.
Schrems urged Facebook members to join the lawsuit against Facebook Ireland Ltd.
And the Register has the 411 on those Facebook 911 calls:
Facebook goes down, people dial 911
Police appeal for calm – yes, seriously
Facebook’s servers fell over today – with users on the US east coast, and in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, complaining of outages.
According to IsItDownRightNow.com, the downtime appears to have kicked off at 7am Pacific time (3pm UTC) and many peeps are still having problems. Facebook has acknowledged the outage, but has given no reasons for it as yet.
“Earlier this morning, some people had trouble accessing Facebook for a short time. We quickly investigated and are currently restoring service for everyone. We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” a spokeswoman told El Reg in an email.
While Facebook going down is a good thing as far as office productivity goes, it’s clear that some addicts aren’t happy: police in California got so tired of getting calls about the outage that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s public information office was forced to take to Twitter to tell off people for wasting police time.
From Network World, Google amnesia moves questioned:
Some are twisting the facts in requests to be forgotten, Google says
Some of those seeking to scrub their histories from the Web under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” rule are being economical with the truth when making their requests, Google said Thursday.
In a letter to European data regulators, Google listed some of the challenges it faces in complying with the ruling, which allows people to compel search engines like Google and Bing to remove links to pages that mention their name, if the references are “inadequate,” “irrelevant” or “excessive.”
Part of the problem is that Google must often rely on information submitted by the requester in granting or rejecting a request.
And from Wired, memory stick hackery:
Why the Security of USB Is Fundamentally Broken
Computer users pass around USB sticks like silicon business cards. Although we know they often carry malware infections, we depend on antivirus scans and the occasional reformatting to keep our thumbdrives from becoming the carrier for the next digital epidemic. But the security problems with USB devices run deeper than you think: Their risk isn’t just in what they carry, it’s built into the core of how they work.
That’s the takeaway from findings security researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell plan to present next week, demonstrating a collection of proof-of-concept malicious software that highlights how the security of USB devices has long been fundamentally broken. The malware they created, called BadUSB, can be installed on a USB device to completely take over a PC, invisibly alter files installed from the memory stick, or even redirect the user’s internet traffic. Because BadUSB resides not in the flash memory storage of USB devices, but in the firmware that controls their basic functions, the attack code can remain hidden long after the contents of the device’s memory would appear to the average user to be deleted. And the two researchers say there’s no easy fix: The kind of compromise they’re demonstrating is nearly impossible to counter without banning the sharing of USB devices or filling your port with superglue.
“These problems can’t be patched,” says Nohl, who will join Lell in presenting the research at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. “We’re exploiting the very way that USB is designed.”
Homeland Security News Wire covers a notable insecurity:
DHS slow to inspect high-risk chemical plants
Congress passed the $595 million Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standardsprogram in 2006 to help regulate high-risk chemical facilities, but nearly a year after the massive chemical explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant, a new report found little improvement in securing threats from the U.S. 4,011 high-risk chemical facilities.As of 30 June, DHS has not yet conducted security compliance inspections on 3,972 of the 4,011 high-risk chemical facilities.
A yearlong investigation commissioned by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) suggests that DHS is underestimating the threat of a chemical attack on densely populated cities, and the department has failed to inspect a majority of the chemical facilities it considers vulnerable to terrorists.
Congress passed the $595 million Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program in 2006 to help regulate high-risk chemical facilities, but nearly a year after the massive chemical explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant, the report found little improvement in securing threats from the U.S. 4,011 high-risk chemical facilities. Almost half of the facilities are in ten states with dense metropolitan areas: California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and New Jersey.
And from the Independent, Scotland Yard, cesspool of corruption:
Police files reveal ‘endemic corruption’ at the Met
Scotland Yard holds an astonishing 260 crates of documents on police corruption in one corner of London alone – and very few of the rogue detectives have ever been successfully prosecuted.
A review led by one of Britain’s most senior police officers has unearthed a mammoth amount of intelligence spawned by Operation Tiberius, a secret police report written in 2002 that concluded there was “endemic corruption” inside the Metropolitan Police.
The file found organised crime networks in north-east London were able to infiltrate the Met “at will” to frustrate the criminal justice system.
The huge number of crates, revealed in a letter by Craig Mackey, the Met’s deputy commissioner, indicates the scale of criminality inside Scotland Yard’s north-east London units, which appears to have gone almost unchallenged since Tiberius was compiled 12 years ago.
While the London Daily Mail cover yet another lethal flaw in the FBI’s once-vaunted crime lab:
FBI used flawed hair-testing method to convict thousands of people for serious crimes in the 1980s and ‘90s – including some on death row
The FBI and the Justice Department are re-examining thousands of convictions based on forensic evidence
In the 1980s and ‘90s, FBI scientists testified in criminal cases based on flawed science
The method involved comparing hairs from the defendant to ones obtained from the crime scene under microscope
Presented by many scientists as irrefutable, the method is inexact
Letters are being sent to many inmates, some on death-row, explaining their right to DNA testing to prove their innocence
On to Asia for yet another installment in the increasingly tense China Seas Game of Zones, first with this from China Daily:
‘Military drill isn’t targeting any nation’
Maneuvers to test combat capability, better prepare for security challenge
China rejected any suggestion on Thursday that its ongoing military exercises, believed to be some of the most extensive off its eastern seaboard, sent a message to any country.
These exercises are a routine arrangement in the annual training plan, and the outside world should not speculate or read too much into it, Ministry of National Defense spokesman Geng Yansheng said at a regular news briefing on Thursday.
“If someone feels uneasy or that they are being targeted, it’s absolutely their own problem,” he said.
And a clip from China’s CCTV America:
RIMPAC, largest naval exercise coming to a close
Program notes:
It was the biggest ever Rim of the Pacific exercises, with first-time participation from Beijing that included the missile destroyer the Haikou conducting live fire drills, and the hospital ship the Peace Ark demonstrating its humanitarian capabilities.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore covers a complain about yet another war game:
North Korea turns to UN over US-S Korea war games
North Korea is asking the UN Security Council to hold an urgent session to discuss upcoming US-South Korean joint military exercises that Pyongyang described on Friday (August 1) as a threat to peace.
Deputy representative Ri Tong Il told reporters that the top world body had not responded to the request contained in a July 21 letter, and vowed North Korea will keep up missile launches in response to the planned war games.
“They are disregarding us. We cannot accept this,” Ri told reporters. “If the UN Security Council turns away from this request for an emergency meeting, it will only expose itself as a UN body that has lost its principles, lost impartiality and lost its mandate of peace and security.”
And a major escalation by Washington from Want China Times:
US enhances nuclear strike capability at Guam: Sankei Shimbun
The United States is enhancing its nuclear strike capability at Guam for a potential confrontation against China in the Far East, the Tokyo-based Sankei Shimbun reported on July 30.
General John M Paxton Jr, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, said at a Navy hearing that the US military forces in Japan are improving their capability to launch amphibious operations against the China coast should conflict break out in the East or South China seas. He said the US Marine Corps has a total of four amphibious assault ships and amphibious transport docks under its command at United States Fleet Activities Sasebo.
Paxton said that with the support of those vessels, the Seventh Fleet of the US Navy is capable of launching a strike against crucial targets on the China coast. Equipped with 36 aircraft including AV-8 Harrier fighters and AH-1W assault helicopters, the USS Essex amphibious assault ship was recently sent to the South China Sea for a joint exercise with the Philippine Navy. Sankei Shimbun said this is a move aimed against Chinese ambitions in the disputed region.
And from SINA English, a Chinese escalation:
China confirms new generation long range missiles: report
China has acknowledged the existence of a new intercontinental ballistic missile said to be capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads as far as the United States, state-run media reported Friday.
A government environmental monitoring centre in Shaanxi said on its website that a military facility in the province was developing Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) missiles, the Global Times reported.
The DF-41 is designed to have a range of 12,000 kilometres (7,500 miles), according to a report by Jane’s Strategic Weapon Systems, putting it among the world’s longest-range missiles.
Jiji Press covers a classroom gambit:
Japan Reiterates Support for Joint University in Vietnam
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida reiterated his country’s support Saturday for plans to jointly establish a university in Vietnam.
The university will cultivate young people who will shoulder the future of relations between the two countries, Kishida said while visiting its planned construction site at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park in Hanoi.
The joint university plan was launched by the Japan-Vietnam Economic Forum, a private organization which aims to help strengthen bilateral economic relations.
The Japan Times hints at a deep cover move to ease things a bit:
Fukuda may have met Xi during secret China visit
Former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda secretly visited Beijing on Sunday and is thought to have held a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in an effort to help the two countries mend their soured relationship, according to sources.
Both the Chinese and Japanese sides have been trying to prevent Fukuda’s visit, and the possible Xi-Fukuda meeting, from being made public.
Xi has not held a one-on-one meeting with a Japanese political leader since he met in January 2013 with Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of New Komeito, the junior coalition partner of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The Japan Times again, with a simultaneous escalation from Tokyo:
Japan names five more islets for addition to Senkaku chain
Japan on Friday named five uninhabited islands and added them to a disputed chain in the East China Sea, a move likely to spark anger from fellow claimants China and Taiwan.
The five were among the 158 uninhabited islands officially named Friday as Japan steps up protection and claims over border islands and the waters around them.
The government’s maritime policy department published a list of all of the names on its website later Friday.
The five new Senkaku islets are: Nantokojima, Nanseikojima and Higashikojima, near Minamikojima Island, and Seihokuseikojima and another islet also named Nantokojima, near Kubashima. All are now part of the Senkakus, which China and Taiwan call Diaoyu and Tiaoyutai, respectively. The chain has recently become a regional flashpoint.
Global Times has the inevitable response:
Japan’s naming of islands illegal, invalid: China
China on Friday opposed Japan’s naming of five islets belonging to the Diaoyu Islands, saying the move is illegal and invalid.
“China resolutely opposes Japan’s move to undermine its territorial sovereignty as the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands are China’s territory and have been already named by the country,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement.
Qin’s comments came hours after Japan named five isles belonging to the Diaoyu Islands.
“Japan’s unilateral measure is illegal and invalid and cannot change the fact that the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands are part of China’s territory,” the spokesman said.
While JapanToday ups the ante:
Japan provides Vietnam with 6 vessels
Japan will provide Vietnam with six vessels as part of a grant aid package that will boost Hanoi’s maritime security patrol capacity at a time the country is locked in a territorial standoff with China in the South China Sea.
The deal announced Friday for the six used vessels worth 500 million Yen ($5 million) was signed by Vietnam’s Minister of Planning and Investment Bui Quang Vinh and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who is on a two-day visit for a cooperation conference.
“We hope this will help strengthen the maritime law enforcement capability of Vietnam,” Kishida told journalists at a news conference with his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh.
From Kyodo News, signs of a schism in the opposition:
Hiroshima, Nagasaki peace declarations to differ on defense policy
The mayor of Nagasaki will in a statement commemorating the atomic bombing of the city touch on the subject of collective self-defense, a contentious issue in Japan amid the central government’s moves to allow its exercise, while his Hiroshima counterpart will refrain from doing so, according to outlines of the statements released Friday.
In his statement, Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue will stop short of commenting on the Cabinet’s approval last month of the exercise of the right to come to the aid of allies, but he will call on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to note concerns voiced by many about this departure from Japan’s postwar pacifism.
Taue will speak at a ceremony on Aug. 9, the day U.S. forces dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki in 1945.
And from the Japan Times, the memory lingers on:
In China, Sino-Japanese War still stings 120 years later
When China and Japan first went to war 120 years ago this Friday, Beijing suffered a “national humiliation” that resonates to this day as tensions between the Asian rivals intensify again.
Unlike most defeated nations, China marks the anniversaries of its losses with fervor, as the ruling Communist Party, which espouses nationalism in its claim to a right to rule, reinforces a narrative of historical victimization.
Years in the making, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 was fought for control of Korea, which at the time paid formal tribute to China’s Qing emperors but was increasingly coveted by Tokyo, whose ambition was to emulate the empires of the Western powers.
From Jiji Press, ditto:
S. Korea to Issue “Comfort Women” White Paper
South Korea’s Gender Equality and Family Ministry said Sunday it will issue a white paper on “comfort women” around the end of 2015 and distribute it worldwide.
In the report, the ministry will refer to documents and studies on the Japanese wartime prostitution system, and comprehensively analyze and explain the system’s reality and criminality based on reports by international organizations and civic groups. It will also review rows and dialogues between the Japanese and South Korean governments.
The white paper appears to be a South Korean response to the Japanese government’s disclosure of the results of its investigation into how the so-called Kono statement was drawn up, pundits said.
The statement announced by then Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993 acknowledged the now-defunct Japanese Imperial Army’s direct involvement in managing brothels for soldiers and recruiting comfort women, many of whom were Koreans.
From the Japan Times, Abe bellicosity unpopularity:
84% of public says explanation of collective defense decision unclear: poll
A survey conducted over the weekend says 84.1 percent of the public believes the government hasn’t yet provided a sufficient explanation of why the Cabinet decided to reinterpret the Constitution so Japan can exercise the right to collective self-defense.
In the nationwide telephone survey by Kyodo News on Saturday and Sunday, 12.7 percent said the government provided a sufficient explanation on the decision.
In the survey, 60.2 percent said they oppose using the right, which will allow Japan to come to the defense of allies under armed attack, up 5.8 points from the July survey. But 31.3 percent expressed support, down 3.3 points.
For our penultimate item, Salon covers idiocy beyond measure:
“Genocide is permissible” according to insane Times of Israel Op-Ed
Blogger Yochanan Gordon argues that the solution to opponents in Gaza is to “obliterate them completely”
The Times of Israel is under fire on Friday after publishing a blog post titled “When Genocide Is Permissible.” The post, written by Yochanon Gordon, was quickly removed from the Times’ website, but cached and screen-captured versions of the piece quickly proliferated on social media.
In the article, Gordon blasts the United Nations for its recent admonition against the “disproportionate” use of force by Israel in Gaza, insisting that international observers “are completely out of touch with the nature of this foe and are therefore not qualified to dictate or enforce the rules of this war.”
Because of the supposedly unique menace that Hamas presents to Israel, Gordon contends that “nothing … can be considered disproportionate when we are fighting for our very right to live.”
And to close, The Local covers a consequence of cultural paranoia:
82-year-old cyclist mistaken for terrorist
Norwegian police searched and charged an elderly man whom they suspected of carrying a bomb on his bike, in Oslo this week.
82-year-old Ørnulf Pedersen from Oslo was riding his bike on Ekebergsletta, Oslo on Monday when police swooped.
Pedersen was travelling on an electrical bike powered by a home-made battery to watch the Norway Cup football tournament. Police mistakenly took his bike’s battery-pack for a bomb device.
The elderly Norwegian said to “VG” he cycled a lot, but at his age, and a recent bypass-operation, had made him dependent on a motor on his bicycle.
