We’ve got a major collection today, including some items revealing how vulnerable our phones, cars, planes, and more are increasingly vulnerable to government, corporate, and other hackers, the latest developments in Asia’s Game of Zones, and a whole lot more. . .
We open with the newest phase of America’s endless wars — call it Iraq.3.0 — via the New York Times:
U.S. Warplanes Strike Militants in Iraq
The United States on Friday afternoon launched a second round of airstrikes on Sunni militants in northern Iraq, sending four Navy fighter jets to strike eight targets around Erbil, according to Pentagon officials.
The attacks came hours after an initial wave of strikes by military aircraft and armed drones, escalating the American involvement in Iraq a day after President Obama announced that the United States military was returning to a direct combat role in the country it left in 2011.
Military officials said they believed that the second round of attacks resulted in a number of casualties among the militants with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The Navy fighters launched from the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush, which has been deployed in the Arabian Sea.
Earlier Friday, two F-18 fighters dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery target that had just begun shelling Erbil, Pentagon officials said. A senior military official said on Friday that the artillery unit hit in the earlier bombing was being towed by a truck toward Erbil.
The Associated Press has some context:
Iraq official: Militants hold 100s of Yazidi women
Hundreds of women from the Yazidi religious minority have been taken captive by Sunni militants with “vicious plans,” an Iraqi official said Friday, further underscoring the dire plight of Iraq’s minorities at the hands of the Islamic State group.
Kamil Amin, the spokesman for Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry, said hundreds of Yazidi women below the age of 35 are being held in schools in Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul. He said the ministry learned of the captives from their families.
“We think that the terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them,” Amin told The Associated Press. “We think that these women are going to be used in demeaning ways by those terrorists to satisfy their animalistic urges in a way that contradicts all the human and Islamic values.”
While the London Daily Mail rattles sabers:
TWO retired four-star generals blast Obama for failing to use ‘decisive’ force in Iraq with ‘pinprick’ attacks for ‘political posturing’
Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey laid into Obama on Friday, saying bombing runs against ISIS positions are political posturing
‘These are political gestures using military power,’ he said, lamenting the president’s lack of commitment to a full-blown military campaign
Obama ran for president on a platform of getting US military out of Iraq but began bombing runs Friday morning in the country’s northern region
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest assured reporters on Friday that a ground-troop incursion is out of the question
GOP critics are hammering the White House for not being more aggressive
House Speaker John Boehner said the White House has an ‘ongoing absence of a strategy for countering the grave threat ISIS poses’
Obama underestimated ISIS in January, telling The New Yorker that ‘If a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant’
CNBC raises an ironic question:
Will US airstrikes target US-supplied weapons?
As American pilots fly new airstrikes over northern Iraq Friday, they’ll see some very familiar weaponry in the hands of Islamic State forces: Humvees, MRAP transports, American-made heavy machine guns and American artillery.
Islamic State (which also goes by ISIS or ISIL) forces captured the haul of American weapons as the U.S.-supplied Iraqi Army retreated in the face of the extremist onslaught, leaving expensive American equipment littered on the battlefield.
All that raises the prospect that, at some point during these airstrikes, American taxpayer-financed fighter jets will fire on and destroy American taxpayer-financed weapons on the ground.
And the McClatchy Washington Bureau adds a dash of bitters:
Why can’t Islamic State be stopped? Analysts say it’s better armed, better organized
Observers on the ground and analysts in Washington believe that the latest push was possible because the peshmerga forces are stretched trying to defend a frontier with the Islamic State that is nearly 900 miles long. The Islamic State is also better equipped, with U.S.-supplied weapons that its forces have looted from every Iraqi military based it has seized. It also has recently captured major Syrian arsenals.
On Twitter, the Islamic State often posts photos of its bounty from military bases, which include rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, artillery and weapons that are far more sophisticated than those in the peshmerga arsenal.
The Islamic State also has the advantage of momentum. According to the Long Wars Journal, citing a tweet by the Islamic State, its forces have taken control of 17 communities in the area around Mosul. Its push stretches all the way to Diyala province in northeast Iraq, which borders Iran. On Thursday, the Islamic State claimed to control the Mosul Dam, the largest water supply source in Iraq _ a claim U.S. and Iraqi sources confirmed.
And perhaps most importantly, the Islamic State has very simply put together a smarter offensive plan. Its push toward Irbil is believed by many not to be a move to take that city but to force the peshmerga to defend its capital, allowing the Islamic State to harden its grip on places nearby it’s more interesting in holding.
And for our final item on the subject, no comment needed, via The Verge:
The Pentagon used a tweet to tell the world about airstrikes in Iraq
Tweets are the new briefings
From United Press International, gettin’ real [somewhat late]:
New York Times will now use the word ‘torture’
President Barack Obama made waves last Friday when he admitted the United States tortured terror suspects in order to get information.
The New York Times will now use the word “torture” in stories regarding interrogations in which the paper is sure pain was inflicted to get information.
The Times has faced criticism for its hesitation to use the word when speaking about the controversial interrogation techniques used by the United States and specifically the Central Intelligence Agency when trying to get information from terror suspects. They had previously used Bush administration-coined euphemisms such as “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
In an editorial published Thursday, executive editor Dean Baquet said The Times will no longer use these euphemisms and instead call it what it is.
From Aviation Week, Skynet fears continue unabated [thank heavens]:
‘Certifiable Trust’ Required To Take Autonomous Systems Past ‘Unmanned’
Deployment of autonomous capabilities across aerospace faces major hurdle
Aviation has been built around humans since before the origins of powered flight, but unmanned technology is opening new design spaces in unexpected ways. Now shaped by the strengths and weaknesses of pilots and controllers, how aircraft are flown and air traffic managed could change dramatically in coming decades as autonomy becomes understood, accepted and, eventually, trusted.
“Aviation has been very successful with a -humancentric paradigm, the idea that it is humans that save the day,” says Danette Allen, chief technologist for autonomy at NASA Langley Research Center. Even with the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk—arguably the most automated of today’s unmanned aircraft—“the human is still on or in the loop for situational awareness, just in case they have to jump in and solve problems,” she says.
But autonomy means machines making decisions, not humans, and behaving in ways that are not painstakingly pre-planned and pre-programmed. It requires safe and trusted systems than can perceive their environment for situational awareness and assessment, make decisions on uncertain and inaccurate information, act appropriately, learn from experience and adapt their behavior. “In Washington, autonomy has become the ‘A’ word. It has become a negative,” says Rose Mooney, executive of the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership, one of six civil-UAS test sites established by the FAA.
“Certifiable trust”? Does that mean you have to be certifiable to trust ‘em?
For our next drone story, we turn to the Associated Press:
Central NY airport new site for drone safety tests
Federal regulators have approved drone research flights at a central New York airport, one of six sites nationally chosen to assess the safety of the aerial robots in already busy skies.
The other mission at Griffiss International Airport in Rome will be to study how drones can help farmers stay on top of pests, weeds and the conditions of their crops.
The NUAIR Alliance, a consortium of private industry, academic institutions and the military, says flights could begin in a couple of weeks after the Federal Aviation Administration approval Thursday. Future operations will include Massachusetts. The other test sites are in Alaska, North Dakota, Nevada, Texas and Virginia.
And for our final dronal delight, there’s this from Ars Technica:
San Jose Police Department says FAA can’t regulate its drone use
FAA disagrees, says law enforcement definitely needs permission to use a drone.
Newly published documents show that the San Jose Police Department (SJPD), which publicly acknowledged Tuesday that it should have “done a better job of communicating” its drone acquisition, does not believe that it even needs federal authorization in order to fly a drone. The Federal Aviation Administration thinks otherwise.
Late last month, a set of documents showed that the SJPD acquired a Hexacopter called the Century Neo 660, along with a GoPro video camera and live video transmitter. The nearly $7,000 January 2014 purchase was funded through a grant from the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative, a regional arm of the Department of Homeland Security. San Jose, which proclaims itself the “capital of Silicon Valley,” is the third-largest city in California and the tenth-largest in the United States.
The documents, which were sent to MuckRock as part of a public records request and were published on Wednesday for the first time, make a number of statements suggesting that the SJPD has a deep misunderstanding of current drone policy.
Next up, more dirty dealing at Scotland Yard from the Independent:
Secret internal police report points to ‘highly corrupt’ cells in the Met
Three former Scotland Yard detectives were part of “highly corrupt cells within the Metropolitan Police Service” but have never been brought to justice, according to a secret internal report seen by The Independent.
The police officers, who left the Met to open a private investigation agency, were suspected of seizing tens of thousands of ecstasy tablets from criminals and selling the drugs themselves, according to a file produced by the force’s anti-corruption command.
The 2000 report said the officers also had links to London’s criminal underworld and were capable of tracking down and threatening witnesses involved in sensitive trials.
On to the world of hackery, starting with the latest biggie, first from ProPublica:
Leaked Docs Show Spyware Used to Snoop on U.S. Computers
Software created by the controversial U.K. based Gamma Group International was used to spy on computers that appear to be located in the United States.
Software created by the controversial U.K. based Gamma Group International was used to spy on computers that appear to be located in the United States, the U.K., Germany, Russia, Iran and Bahrain, according to a leaked trove of documents analyzed by ProPublica.
It’s not clear whether the surveillance was conducted by governments or private entities. Customer email addresses in the collection appeared to belong to a German surveillance company, an independent consultant in Dubai, the Bosnian and Hungarian Intelligence services, a Dutch law enforcement officer and the Qatari government.
The leaked files — which were posted online by hackers — are the latest in a series of revelations about how state actors including repressive regimes have used Gamma’s software to spy on dissidents, journalists and activist groups.
And The Intercept covers one country amongst the targets:
Leaked Files: German Spy Company Helped Bahrain Hack Arab Spring Protesters
A notorious surveillance technology company that helps governments around the world spy on their citizens sold software to Bahrain during that country’s brutal response to the Arab Spring movement, according to leaked internal documents posted this week on the internet.
The documents show that FinFisher, a German surveillance company, helped Bahrain install spyware on 77 computers, including those belonging to human rights lawyers and a now-jailed opposition leader, between 2010 and 2012—a period that includes Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. FinFisher’s software gives remote spies total access to compromised computers. Some of the computers that were spied on appear to have been located in the United States and United Kingdom, according to a report from Bahrain Watch.
Earlier this week, an anonymous hacker released 40 gigabytes of what appears to be internal data from FinFisher on Twitter and Reddit, including messages between people who appear to be Bahraini government officials and FinFisher customer service representatives.
In those messages, Bahraini software administrators complained to FinFisher that they were “losing targets daily” due to faults in its software. In one message employing the language of a frustrated consumer, a spy appeared to complain that he or she had to keep re-infecting a targeted computer, risking detection: “[W]e cant stay bugging and infecting the target every time since it is very sensitive. and we don’t want the target to reach to know that someone is infecting his PC or spying on him” one message reads.
For our next hackery item, RT America covers a major conference and some revelations aired during sessions:
Black Hat hackers conference exposing flaws in everyday electronics
Program notes:
The “Internet of Things” is a hot topic at this year’s Black Hat cybesrsecurity conference in Las Vegas. With more household, security and even medical devices being connected to the internet, the threats posed by hackers and nefarious governments are growing. Web connected insulin pumps, home thermostats and other technologies are easily hacked and have had numerous security flaws exposed, potentially putting lives at risk, warn experts. Erin Ade, host of RT’s Boom Bust, is at the conference and has more.
Al Jazeera America has another overview:
Hackers sound alarm about Internet of Things
By reframing cybersecurity as a public safety issue, white-hat hackers may be making inroads in Washington
A hacker with a smartphone can unlock your front door. Your refrigerator becomes infected with a virus that launches cyber attacks against activists in Bahrain. Criminals and intelligence agencies grab data from your home thermostat to plan robberies or track your movements.
According to computer-security researchers, this is the troubling future of the Internet of Things, the term for an all-connected world where appliances like thermostats, health-tracking wristbands, smart cars and medical devices communicate with people and each other through the Internet. Many of these products are already on the market, and over the next decade, they are expected to become dramatically more commonplace.
For consumers, the Internet of Things will allow high-tech convenience that not long ago seemed like science fiction — a car’s GPS automatically turning on the air conditioner in your house as you drive home from work, for example. But security experts see a dystopian nightmare that is quickly becoming reality. A study released last week by Hewlett Packard concluded that 70 percent of Internet of Things devices contain serious vulnerabilities. Experts say it’s the latest evidence that our dependence on Internet-connected technology is outpacing our ability to secure it.
Defense One covers one session’s fruits:
Hacker Shows How to Break Into Military Communications
Soldiers on the front lines use satellite communications systems, called SATCOMS to call in back up, lead their comrades away from hot spots and coordinate attacks, among other things. Airplanes use SATCOMS to rely on data between the ground and the plane, and ships use them to avoid collisions at sea and call for help during storms or attacks. A well-known hacker says he’s found some major flaws in the communication equipment that ground troops use to coordinate movements. The equipment is also common on a variety of commercial ships and aircraft rely on to give pilots vital information. In other words, you can hack planes.
Speaking at the Black Hat cyber security conference, analyst Ruben Santamarta of IOActive presented a much-anticipated paper showing that communications devices from Harris, Hughes, Cobham, Thuraya, JRC, and Iridium are all highly vulnerable to attack. The security flaws are numerous but the most important one — the one that’s the most consistent across the systems— is back doors, special points that engineers design into the systems to allow fast access. Another common security flaw is hardcoded credentials, which allows multiple users access to a system via a single login identity.
Santamarta claims that a satellite communication system that’s common in military aviation, the Cobham Aviator 700D, could be hacked in a way that could affect devices that interact with critical systems possibly resulting in “catastrophic failure.”
MIT Technology Review covers another:
Black Hat: Google Glass Can Steal Your Passcodes
Footage of people unlocking their phones can be used to steal mobile passcodes even if the typing can’t be seen.
Criticism of Google Glass has often focused on the way its camera makes surreptitious video recording too easy. Now researchers have shown that footage captured by the face-mounted camera could also pose a security threat.
Software developed by the researchers can automatically recover the passcodes of people recorded on video as they type in their credentials, even when the screen itself is not visible to the camera. The attack works by watching the movement of the fingers to work out what keys they are touching. It also works on footage from camcorders, webcams, and smartphones, but Glass offers perhaps the subtlest way to stage it.
The work suggests that “shoulder surfing”—stealing passwords or other data by watching someone at a computer—could become more of a threat as digital cameras and powerful image processing software become more common.
Ars Technica covers a third:
Security expert calls home routers a clear and present danger
In Black Hat Q&A, In-Q-Tel CISO says home routers are “critical infrastructure.”
During his keynote and a press conference that followed here at the Black Hat information security conference, In-Q-Tel Chief Information Security Officer Dan Geer expressed concern about the growing threat of botnets powered by home and small office routers. The inexpensive Wi-Fi routers commonly used for home Internet access—which are rarely patched by their owners—are an easy target for hackers, Geer said, and could be used to construct a botnet that “could probably take down the Internet.” Asked by Ars if he considered home routers to be the equivalent of critical infrastructure as a security priority, he answered in the affirmative.
Geer spoke about the threat posed by home routers in advance of “SOHOpelessly Broken,” a router hacking contest scheduled for the DEF CON security conference later this week sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Because they are so cheap, you can get a low-end router for less than 20 bucks that hasn’t been updated in a while,” Geer explained.
Attackers could identify vulnerabilities in particular models and then scan the Internet for targets based on the routers’ signatures. “They can then build botnets on the exterior of the network—the routing that it does is only on side facing ISPs,” he said. “If I can build a botnet on the outside of the routers, I could probably take down the Internet.”
MIT Technology Review covers a fourth:
Black Hat: Car Security Is Likely to Worsen, Researchers Say
In-car applications and wireless connectivity are a boon to hackers who take aim at cars.
The electronic systems in cars increasingly control safety-critical functionality.
As more cars come with wireless connectivity and in-car apps, more of them will be vulnerable to potentially dangerous hacking, two well-known researchers warned at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
In a study of nearly 20 different vehicles, Charlie Miller, a security engineer with Twitter, and Chris Valasek, director of vehicle security research with security services firm ioActive, concluded that most control systems were not designed with security in mind and could be compromised remotely. The pair created cybersecurity ratings for the vehicles, which will be published in a paper later this week.
And from Wired threat level, that darned cat:
How to Use Your Cat to Hack Your Neighbor’s Wi-Fi
Late last month, a Siamese cat named Coco went wandering in his suburban Washington, DC neighborhood. He spent three hours exploring nearby backyards. He killed a mouse, whose carcass he thoughtfully brought home to his octogenarian owner, Nancy. And while he was out, Coco mapped dozens of his neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks, identifying four routers that used an old, easily-broken form of encryption and another four that were left entirely unprotected.
Unbeknownst to Coco, he’d been fitted with a collar created by Nancy’s granddaughter’s husband, security researcher Gene Bransfield. And Bransfield had built into that collar a Spark Core chip loaded with his custom-coded firmware, a Wi-Fi card, a tiny GPS module and a battery—everything necessary to map all the networks in the neighborhood that would be vulnerable to any intruder or Wi-Fi mooch with, at most, some simple crypto-cracking tools.
Reuters covers another blow to online anonymity:
Russia demands Internet users show ID to access public Wifi
Russia further tightened its control of the Internet on Friday, requiring people using public Wifi hotspots provide identification, a policy that prompted anger from bloggers and confusion among telecom operators on how it would work.
The decree, signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on July 31 but published online on Friday, also requires companies to declare who is using their web networks. The legislation caught many in the industry by surprise and companies said it was not clear how it would be enforced.
A flurry of new laws regulating Russia’s once freewheeling Internet has been condemned by President Vladimir Putin’s critics as a crackdown on dissent, after the websites of two of his prominent foes were blocked this year.
The Guardian covers the Down Under version of a familiar story:
Warrantless metadata access is already taking place at higher rate than ever
A multitude of agencies currently have access to metadata and in 2012-13 used those powers on 330,640 occasions
Given the current debate about metadata retention in Australia it’s worth pointing out that various organisations can access your metadata already, without a warrant – and it’s occurring at a higher rate than ever before.
In mid 2013 we wrote about how agencies from the police to the RSPCA to the Victorian Taxi Directorate are able to access “existing information or documents” from telecommunications companies without a warrant. The information can include details of phone calls (but not the contents of the call) and internet access details such as subscribers’ personal information, and dates and times of internet usage.
The most recent figures, released in December 2013, show warrantless access to metadata occurred on 330,640 occasions in the 2012-13 financial year. The agency requesting the data is required to fill out a request form, however there is no judicial oversight or requirement that law enforcers prove suspicion of a crime being committed.
And from the McClatchy Washington Bureau, idiotic obstructionism:
Judge dings FBI for response to inmate’s FOIA requests
A federal judge has slapped the FBI, or maybe just laughed at it, for making “transparently implausible” arguments while resisting a prison inmate’s Freedom of Information Act requests.
The feds, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg wrote, in what sounds like a state of near-incredulity, argued that the “FOIA request need not be disclosed because they reside on two CDs and a thumb drive.”
That’s right. The FBI seemed to say that information was exempt from disclosure because of the medium it was stored on.
After the jump, the latest developments in the Game of Zones, including spooky arrests, an Orwellian anecdote, an X-rated protest, and a whole lot more. . .
From the Times of India, the latest in an ongoing Spy vs. Spy drama:
Army man takes Pakistan spy bait, arrested for espionage
Indian Army Naib Subedar Patan Kumar Poddar became the victim of his carnal desires and greed for money. The 40-year-old Poddar, who was posted at 151 MC/MF detachment at the Secunderabad railway station, was on Wednesday arrested by the Hyderabad police for espionage.
TOI accessed the seven-page ‘remand case diary’ of Poddar, who is from Malda district in West Bengal, and found he is accused of passing on vital information to a female Pakistani spy since last July. In return for his bits of information, the spy deposited money at regular intervals in his account, entertained him with her nude videos and even promised an all-expenses paid trip to London.
During interrogation, Poddar told the central crime station (CCS) and Army officers that he came in contact with ‘Anushka Agarwal’, who claimed to be from Jhansi town in Uttar Pradesh, via Facebook last year and she introduced herself as an MSc student. The woman told Poddar her father, reportedly a retired IAF commander, ran an NGO for the UN in Jhansi.
And the Economic Times covers a Washington big sure to inflame tensions:
India, US agree to cooperate in joint production of defence hardware
Having decided to increase the FDI cap in defence sector to 49 per cent, India today said it wants to work closely with the US in developing its indigenous military hardware manufacturing industry and go for joint production of equipment.
At a delegation-level meeting between Defence Minister Arun Jaitley and his American counterpart Chuck Hagel, the two countries agreed to enhance their cooperation in joint production and development of defence equipment.
“The development of our own indigenous capabilities is a major objective that guides our present policies. In this direction, we have taken steps to raise the FDI cap in the defence sector. We look forward to work closely with the US in this regard,” Jaitley told the US in the meeting.
More from South China Morning Post:
Renewing defence pact top of Chuck Hagel’s agenda on visit to India
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel held talks yesterday with India’s new foreign minister at the start of a three-day visit to New Delhi aimed at boosting military trade and cooperation with the world’s biggest arms importer.
Asked about India’s reluctance to embrace the United States as an ally and defence partner, Hagel said: “The US is mindful of the sensitivity of India’s independence, and it has been an independent non-aligned nation since it became a democracy.
“No nation wants to be seen as a second-cousin type of arrangement to the US or any other country. That is as it should be.”
From the London Telegraph, no comment needed:
Don’t pack George Orwell, visitors to Thailand told
Travellers heading to Thailand have been urged not to carry a copy of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984
The warning can supposedly be found inside the in-flight magazine of Philippine Airlines and has been circulated on Twitter.
Passengers with Philippine Airlines are told that “Thailand is very safe for tourists” but are offered five tips to help “blend in”.
They include “carry your passport (or a copy) with you at all times”, “avoid wearing red t-shirts, which are association with a group opposed to the military government”, and “don’t carry George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984′. You don’t want to be mistaken for an anti-coup protestor.”
Associated Press patches up an old wound:
McCain: Time to ease arms sales ban on Vietnam
U.S. Sen. John McCain says it’s time for the United States to ease restrictions on arms sales to Vietnam, citing progress the communist country has made on human rights.
McCain told reporters in Hanoi on Friday that he hopes the easing could begin as early as next month. The sales would be limited to arms with defensive capabilities.
The Republican and Vietnam War veteran said the easing of arms sales restrictions has nothing to do with recent Chinese placement of an oil rig in a disputed part of the South China Sea.
From Want China Times, WTF?:
Anti-Japan, anti-porn protesters throw eggs at showgirls
The opening ceremony of the 2014 China-Dalian International Adult Exhibition on Aug. 1 ended in chaos, with anti-Japan and “anti-pornography” middle-aged protesters throwing eggs at Japanese adult video stars, and exhibition-goers demanding their money back, reports our Chinese language sister newspaper Want Daily.
There have been a series of adult-themed exhibitions in major cities in China, such as Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province; Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province, and Tianjin.
The adult video stars, who had been invited as showgirls to the event, ran screaming off stage after being pelted with eggs. Many visitors to the exhibition were also hit with stray eggs.
China Daily regrets:
China regrets WTO ruling on rare earth
China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Thursday that it regretted the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) decision to uphold a previous ruling against China’s management of rare earth exports.
China regrets the WTO’s final ruling that China’s export duties, quotas, and administration of rare earths, tungsten and molybdenum products were inconsistent with WTO rules and China’s Accession Protocol, said a MOC official.
But China welcomed the WTO’s decision to support China’s appeal, while not supporting the appeal lodged by the United States after the previous ruling, the official said.
South China Morning Post covers another bust:
GSK sleuth Peter Humphrey caught by increasing Chinese restrictions on obtaining information
Peter Humphrey was caught, literally, by the increasing restrictions on obtaining information on the mainland. The Briton and his American wife, Yu Yingzeng, will be tried this morning at the Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People’s Court for illegally obtaining personal information of Chinese citizens.
In April last year, Humphrey was hired by senior executives of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Britain’s largest drug firm, to investigate a suspected whistle-blower who alleged bribery in GSK’s China operations.
In May last year, the website of his risk consultancy firm, ChinaWhys, posted his article describing how fraud investigations had become more difficult in China, because private detectives could no longer freely access corporate information on the mainland. It was the last article by Humphrey posted on the website before he and Yu were detained in Shanghai in July last year.
People’s Daily states the obvious:
China says Japan’s defense policy contradictory to improving ties
Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to Japan’s latest defense white paper, saying Japan’s move was contradictory to its stated desire to improve bilateral ties.
Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement that the white paper ignored the facts once again and artificially created tension by making irresponsible remarks on China’s normal military development and maritime activities and maliciously played up the so-called “China threat.”
The Japanese cabinet approved a defense white paper for 2014 on Tuesday. It expressed strong concern about China’s military development and activity in the East China and South China seas; the establishment of an air defence identification zone in the East China Sea; and an “unusually close encounter” between Chinese and Japanese military aircraft.
NHK WORLD covers regional politicking:
ASEAN discussed Philippine proposal
Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations discussed a plan to ease tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
The ministers of the 10 ASEAN member countries began a series of talks in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, on Friday.
The Philippines, which has disputes with China, put forth a proposal to establish a time period where the parties involved would refrain from acts that increase tension. One participant says many ministers basically support the proposal. But some reportedly think further discussions will be needed for the details.
More from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
ASEAN, China should exercise restraint in South China Sea activities: Shanmugam
Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on Friday (Aug 8) said ASEAN and China should undertake self-restraint in their activities in the South China Sea as spelt out in the Declaration of Conduct (DOC) signed by the two parties in 2002.
Mr Shanmugam is in Myanmar attending the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM). ASEAN foreign ministers began their meeting in Nay Pyi Taw on Friday by exchanging views on regional and international issues.
Myanmar’s President Thein Sein started the session, urging ASEAN to strengthen its ability to push for a peaceful settlement of disputes. Several ASEAN member countries are embroiled in on-going territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. The Philippines recently called for a moratorium on provocative actions in the disputed territory.
And for our final item, an atheist state embraces religion. Or not. From South China Morning Post:
China will create own Christian belief system amid tensions with church, says official
New Chinese theology must suit Chinese culture and values, State Religious Affairs director says
China will construct a “Chinese Christian theology” suitable for the country, state media reported on Thursday, as both the number of believers and tensions with the authorities are on the rise.
China has between 23 million and 40 million Protestants, accounting for 1.7 to 2.9 per cent of the total population, the state-run China Daily said, citing figures given at a seminar in Shanghai. About 500,000 people are baptised as Protestants every year, it added.
“Over the past decades, the Protestant churches in China have developed very quickly with the implementation of the country’s religious policy,” the paper quoted Wang Zuoan, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, as saying.
“The construction of Chinese Christian theology should adapt to China’s national condition and integrate with Chinese culture.”
