Today’s headlines from the world of spies, deep politics, hackery, state violence, and the ongoing Asian Games of Zones is agenda’s so full we opted to switch the order of our compendia today, and we’ll get straight to it, first with a pair of stories about prominent conversations overheard.
We open with this from International Business Times:
Germany Recorded Hillary Clinton When She Was Secretary Of State, German Media Says
Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) recorded a conversation of Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state, three German media outlets reported on Friday. Clinton was recorded while flying in a U.S. government aircraft. Reports did not specify the exact date of the recording.
Germany’s largest daily newspaper and two public broadcasting services broke the story on the alleged incident and cited anonymous government sources that said the recording was by accident. One source said the recordings should have been destroyed immediately and it was “idiocy” that they weren’t. The report also mentions the BND recorded other “American politicians and other friendly countries,” but did not specify which politicians or what countries.
The disclosure came after last year’s revelation by Edward Snowden that the U.S. ran an espionage operation on Germany, one of America’s closest allies. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was bugged and recorded by the U.S., was highly critical of the surveillance, saying there must not be “spying among friends.” More recently, German officials revealed in July that the U.S had been working with a spy in Germany for more than two years.
And the other eavesdropping saga, via News Corp Australia:
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s phone was hacked at the height of the MH17 crisis
FOREIGN Affairs Minister Julie Bishop’s mobile phone was compromised while she was overseas leading tense negotiations to win access to the MH17 crash site in Ukraine.
Australian intelligence officials seized Ms Bishop’s phone on her return from a two-week trip to the United States, Ukraine and Holland, having secured a deal to get Australian police into the crash area.
Russian-backed rebels shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight with a surface-to-air missile on July 17, killing 298 passengers and crew, including 38 Australians.
It is thought that our intelligence agencies know which country those responsible for compromising Ms Bishop’s phone were operating from.
American accessory convicted, via Al Jazeera:
Court: Poland culpable for CIA secret prisons
The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Poland to pay reparations to two Saudis being held in Guantanamo Bay
On July 24, seven judges on the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against Poland in a landmark case, making it the first European Union country to be held accountable for its involvement in the United States’ systematic, extrajudicial detention of suspects, known as the “extraordinary rendition” programme. Established by the George W Bush administration in the aftermath of September 11 attacks, the programme was run by the CIA, and designed to detain suspects deemed to be of “high value”.
In the unanimous ruling, the judges stated that “Poland had cooperated in the preparation and execution of the CIA rendition, secret detention, and interrogation operations on its territory” and that it had failed in its duty under the European Convention on Human Rights to “ensure that individuals within its jurisdiction were not subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The ECHR ordered Poland to pay $175,000 to Saudi-born Palestinian Abu Zubaydah and $135,000 to Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Both applicants are currently being held in US custody in Guantanamo Bay, isolated from the outside world.
From the Daily Californian, an alarm sounds in Berkeley:
UC to evacuate affiliates in Pakistan after bombing this week
The university is initiating evacuation of UC affiliates in Pakistan after a bombing in the city of Quetta on Tuesday.
Two UC Berkeley faculty members are currently in Pakistan on UC-related business, according to campus risk manager Andy Goldblatt. No students or staff have been reported to be in the country, although an email was sent Wednesday to campus deans, directors and chairs asking for help identifying other UC faculty, staff and students in Pakistan.
Campus professor Ron Gronsky, special faculty assistant to the chancellor for international relations, said in the email that not all UC affiliates take the recommendation that they register their international travel with the university.
The Los Angeles Times plays the overture for the next act:
Nouri Maliki’s departure sets stage for deeper U.S. role in Iraq
The resignation of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki after a bitter final power struggle sets the stage for increasing U.S. arms shipments and military advisors, deepening America’s role in a conflict President Obama had sought to avoid.
White House officials, who had urged Maliki to step down, praised him for agreeing Thursday to back Haider Abadi, a less divisive successor who they hope can unite Iraq’s political and religious factions against the Islamic State militants who control or threaten much of the country.
“Iraqis took another major step forward in uniting their country,” national security advisor Susan Rice said in a statement. “These are encouraging developments that we hope can set Iraq on a new path.”
And from the Associated Press, hints of Perry-less times ahead for the Lone Star State:
Texas’ Perry indicted for coercion for veto threat
A grand jury indicted Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday for abusing the powers of his office by carrying out a threat to veto funding for state prosecutors investigating public corruption — making the possible 2016 presidential hopeful his state’s first indicted governor in nearly a century.
A special prosecutor spent months calling witnesses and presenting evidence that Perry broke the law when he promised publicly to nix $7.5 million over two years for the public integrity unit, which is run by Travis County District Rosemary Lehmberg’s office. Several top aides to the Republican governor appeared before grand jurors in Austin, including his deputy chief of staff, legislative director and general counsel. Perry himself wasn’t called to testify.
He was indicted by an Austin grand jury on felony counts of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant. Maximum punishment on the first charge is five to 99 years in prison. The second is two to 10 years.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press challenges First Amendment insecurity:
Media coalition protests police treatment of reporters during Ferguson events
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press led a coalition of 48 national media organizations that sent a protest letter [PDF] objecting to the treatment of reporters during the recent events in Ferguson, Mo., that followed the police shooting of Michael Brown.
The letter was sent to the heads of the city and county police, as well as the state highway patrol.
“Officers on the ground must understand that gathering news and recording police activities are not crimes,” the letter states. “The actions in Ferguson demonstrate a lack of training among local law enforcement in the protections required by the First Amendment as well as the absence of respect for the role of newsgatherers. We implore police leadership to rectify this failing to ensure that these incidents do not occur again.”
From the Washington Post, another source of insecurity:
Ex-cop who burned body again gets 17 years
For a second time, a former New Orleans police officer has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for burning the body of a man shot to death by another New Orleans police officer in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina.
Gregory McRae, 53, already is imprisoned for burning Henry Glover’s body. However, an appeals court had ordered a recalculation of his original 17-year sentence after one of his original convictions was thrown out.
In giving the same 17-year, 3-month sentence, U.S. District Judge Lance Africk said Friday that McRae was guilty of covering up an unlawful killing by fellow Officer David Warren. Africk’s assertion comes despite a jury’s earlier acquittal of Warren.
The Center for Investigative Reporting covers another insecurity on the borders:
Ousted chief accuses border agency of shooting cover-ups, corruption
More than two dozen people have died in violent clashes with U.S. Customs and Border Protection since 2010. Despite public outrage over some of the killings, no agent or officer has faced criminal charges – or public reprimand – to date.
Yet at least a quarter of the 28 deaths were “highly suspect,” said James F. Tomsheck, the agency’s recently removed head of internal affairs. In a sweeping and unauthorized interview with The Center for Investigative Reporting, he said the deaths raised serious questions about whether the use of lethal force was appropriate.
Instead, Tomsheck said, Border Patrol officials have consistently tried to change or distort facts to make fatal shootings by agents appear to be “a good shoot” and cover up any wrongdoing.
The Oakland Tribune covers questionable consistency:
Judge orders investigation into Oakland’s police arbitration losses
A federal judge with sweeping power over Oakland’s police department ordered an investigation Thursday into why the city consistently loses arbitration cases with officers who are appealing discipline.
U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson wrote that an arbitrator’s recent decision overturning the termination of an officer videotaped tossing a tear gas grenade into a crowd of Occupy Oakland protesters struck at the heart of a reform drive that he has overseen for more than a decade.
“Just like any failure to impose appropriate discipline by the (police) chief or city administrator, any reversal of appropriate discipline at arbitration undermines the very objectives of the (reform program),” Henderson wrote.
From the London Daily Mail, yet another way to bug you:
Are apps secretly listening to your calls? Security experts discover gyroscopes can identify voices from VIBRATIONS
Computer scientists from Stanford University and Israeli defence research group Rafael have turned a phone gyroscope into a crude microphone
Smartphones contain the sensors which are used for games and orientation
They found gyroscopes can pick up frequency of soundwaves around them
Vibrations are then decoded by software, making it possible for experts to eavesdrop on phone conversations – with 65 per cent accuracy
No permission is needed from third parties to access gyroscopes
Many people are careful to protect their pin numbers, and are vigilant about giving smartphone apps access to their microphone in case they could be listened in on.
But now there’s a new snooping threat, and it comes from a smartphone’s gyroscope.
From the Guardian, security questions:
Australian intelligence watchdog wants clarification on national security plan
Inspector General of Intelligence and Security also wants increased budget for effective oversight of expanded surveillance
Australia’s intelligence watchdog has called on the Abbott government to clarify various elements of its national security reforms – and also increase its budget so that it is in a position to carry out effective oversight in an environment where the surveillance footprint is being significantly expanded.
In a public hearing in parliament on Friday, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) should be required to report more extensively on the use of new powers proposed in the Coalition’s national security reforms.
IGIS said the government should consider adding a requirement to the first tranche of its security legislation requiring Asio to report on instances where it used force in operations, where it accessed third party property, or where it disrupted computers.
From the Guardian, those with info want others to have less info:
CIA security luminary: ‘Right to be forgotten is not enough’
Leading security expert Dan Geer says the EU ruling does not go far enough in protecting users’ privacy
The EU’s so-called “right to be forgotten” laws have not gone far enough to protect citizens’ privacy, according to Dan Geer, one of the world’s best-known security experts.
Geer, currently chief information security officer at the CIA’s venture capital arm, told delegates at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas that he was confused by the Guardian’s coverage of the issue. The so called “right to be forgotten” issue stemmed from a European court of justice ruling, forcing Google to remove a link relating to a 1998 newspaper article from its search results after a complaint from the person named in the article.
Geer described it as “notably ironic” that the Guardian had championed Edward Snowden’s revelations about intrusion by government agencies into civilians’ privacy, while also claiming in one editorial (though he did not specify which) that nobody has a right to be forgotten.
From the Washington Post, why are not surprised?:
U.S. firm helped the spyware industry build a potent digital weapon for sale overseas
CloudShield Technologies, a California defense contractor, dispatched a senior engineer to Munich in the early fall of 2009. His instructions were unusually opaque.
As he boarded the flight, the engineer told confidants later, he knew only that he should visit a German national who awaited him with an off-the-books assignment. There would be no written contract, and on no account was the engineer to send reports back to CloudShield headquarters.
His contact, Martin J. Muench, turned out to be a former developer of computer security tools who had long since turned to the darkest side of their profession. Gamma Group, the British conglomerate for which Muench was a managing director, built and sold systems to break into computers, seize control clandestinely, and then copy files, listen to Skype calls, record every keystroke and switch on Web cameras and microphones at will.
According to accounts the engineer gave later and contemporary records obtained by The Washington Post, he soon fell into a shadowy world of lucrative spyware tools for sale to foreign security services, some of them with records of human rights abuse.
More of the same from The Verge:
Hacking Team is spreading government malware through YouTube and Microsoft Live
You don’t have to click on a sketchy link to end up downloading malware. A new report from Citizen Lab’s Morgan Marquis-Boire shows how companies can spread targeted malware by intercepting web traffic en route, sending malicious traffic from an otherwise friendly link. A company called Hacking Team has been using the tactics on traffic from YouTube and Microsoft’s login.live.com servers, seeding innocent videos with surveillance software designed to track the target’s activities online.
The attacks are more targeted than traditional malware, usually targeting a single person at a time, and relying on access to government internet infrastructure to intercept the traffic. Hacking Team typically works with governments like Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, but Marquis-Boire says similar capabilities have been used by intelligence agencies in the US, Britain, Russia, China and Israel. Snowden documents released in The Washington Post have identified NSA malware injection attacks that infected more than 80,000 different devices.
Since the attacks are injected into everyday web traffic, defending against them is difficult, but many companies have already adopted HTTPS encryption as a possible defense. HTTPS would encrypt the connection between the user and the server, preventing injection attacks. At the moment, only a small fraction of web traffic is encrypted, but Google is offering incentives to sites that switch over, including a small boost in search rankings. It’s unclear whether login.live or YouTube will switch to default HTTPS, but Marquis-Boire says both Microsoft and Google “have taken steps to close the vulnerability by encrypting all targeted traffic.”
intelNews lays blame:
Malware targeting ex-Soviet states has Russian hallmarks
A malicious software that has infiltrated the computer systems of dozens of embassies belonging to former Eastern Bloc nations “has all the hallmarks of a nation-state” cyberespionage operation, according to researchers.
Security firm Symantec said last week that the malware appears to be specifically targeting embassies of former communist nations located in China, Jordan, as well as in locations across Western Europe.
In a report published on its website, Symantec said “only a nation state” was likely to have the funds and technical resources to create a malware of such complexity. Additionally, the malware seems to be designed “to go after explicit government networks that are not easy to find”, according to Symantec senior security researcher Vikram Thakur.
Big Brother still seduces, via Nextgov:
The Snowden Effect
Revelations last year that the National Security Agency is collecting Americans’ telephone metadata soured some people’s opinions about the U.S. intelligence community, but they apparently haven’t affected the views of many computer security professionals.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that leaks by Edward Snowden, the former systems administrator and contractor with the National Security Agency, have not hindered efforts to recruit or retain cyber staff at the three-letter agencies. Instead, the disclosures actually might have helped intelligence agencies attract computer aficionados by spotlighting the agencies’ bleeding edge technology.
“We have had no indication that cyber pros have any reticence about working for the government,” says Mark Aiello, president of Massachusetts-based Cyber 360 Solutions, a staffing firm. “It is probably the opposite, and mostly for the opportunity to work with some advanced tools or techniques. The Big Brother aspect is appealing if you are the watcher, not the watched.”
From Motherboard, young accomplices:
DARPA Uses Preteen Gamers to Beta Test Tomorrow’s Military Software
Sieg Hall doesn’t look like much from the outside. Located at the University of Washington, the building was constructed in the 1960s, when it was a focal point for Vietnam-era antiwar protests. Before renovations were carried out it had become so dilapidated that students had a tradition of taking home chunks of rock off its façade. If I didn’t know better, Sieg is just another nondescript computer science building, not a front line in military research and development.
But it’s here, tucked away on the third floor, that you’ll find precisely that: the Center for Game Science, a research lab that makes educational video games for children, and that received the bulk of its funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the wing of the US Department of Defense that supports research into experimental military technology.
Why is DARPA the original primary funder of the CGS? According to written and recorded statements from current and former DARPA program managers, as well as other government documents, the DARPA-funded educational video games developed at the CGS have a purpose beyond the pretense of teaching elementary school children STEM skills.
Instead, the games developed at CGS have had the primary purpose of using grade-school children as test subjects to develop and improve “adaptive learning” training technology for the military.
From MercoPress, invoking the T-word in a curious context:
Cristina Fernandez will use anti-terrorism law against US company that closed its Argentine plant
Argentina’s government will use an anti-terrorism law for the first time to seek criminal charges against a U.S.-based international printing firm which closed its Argentine plant without warning, president Cristina Fernández said on Thursday. She linked the company to some of the hedge funds in litigation with Argentina over defaulted bonds.
Several hundred workers were left jobless when RR Donnelly abruptly filed for bankruptcy and shut down its printing presses on the outskirts of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.
“We are facing a real case of fraudulent behavior and an attempt to intimidate the population,” said Cristina Fernandez in a speech at Government House.
“We will apply the anti-terrorist law. We filled a motion under charges of altering the economic and financial order and terrorizing of people,” the head of state expressed after blaming Donnelly with tax fraud and evasion.
On to other attempts to suppress information, first from the Latin American Herald Tribune:
Sexism of Authorities Aggravates Violence Against Women Journalists in Mexico
The sexism of Mexican authorities generates impunity and has led to a 300 percent increase in violence against women journalists in just a decade, according to a report presented by an NGO.
In the last few years 86 cases of violence against women journalists were reported, of which 54 percent occurred in 2013, the study by the Communication and Information for Women organization (CIMAC) revealed.
It added that Mexico City reported 35 percent of the total number of cases, thus making the capital “the most dangerous place for women in this profession.”
GlobalPost sends up a rocket:
Hamas says it has deported foreign journalists for reporting on missile launches
The group that runs Gaza says foreign media coverage of this latest conflict with Israel was skewed against the Palestinians.
Did Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, intimidate, harass or even deport journalists trying their damnedest to cover a dangerous war with Israel?
If you take Hamas’ word for it, the answer appears to be yes.
In an interview with the Lebanese-based Al Mayadeen TV, Hamas spokeswoman Isra Almodallal said that foreign journalists have been deported from Gaza for filming Hamas rocket launches.
Why? According to Almodallal, they “were fixated on the notion of peace and on the Israeli narrative. So when they were conducting interviews or when they went on location to report they would focus on filming the places from where the missiles were launched. Thus, they were collaborating with the occupation.”
From the Associated Press, many questions remain:
Liberian police seal newspaper office
Dozens of riot police have sealed the offices of a newspaper critical of the Liberian government and officers attempted to detain its publisher. Police spokesman Sam Collins says the paper’s criticisms could “plunge the country into confusion” when the government is struggling to contain an Ebola outbreak.
Philibert Brown’s National Chronicle has often accused President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government of corruption and on Wednesday it called for the government to step down.
Brown has been ordered to report for questioning Friday.
Sirleaf’s government has come under stiff criticism for its record on press freedoms. Sirleaf has signed the Declaration of Table Mountain, which calls for the Africa-wide repeal of defamation and “insult” laws, but multiple libel convictions have been handed down since she came to power in 2006.
From International Business Times, more media under fire:
China’s Anti-Corruption Crackdown Increasingly Targets CCTV, Flagship Network
In the latest sign that China Central Television, the country’s state-run television giant, is in political trouble, the government announced Friday that one of the network’s top officials is under detention.
China arrested Huang Haitao, deputy director of CCTV 8, a channel devoted to scripted dramas, according to 163.com, a popular news portal. His arrest is in connection with a wide-ranging government audit of CCTV, which claims an audience of more than 1 billion viewers.
Huang is only the latest prominent CCTV personality to run afoul of Chinese authorities since the December 2013 arrest of Li Dongsheng, a former vice president of the network. In late May, authorities arrested Guo Zhenxi, the head of CCTV’s financial news network, while high-profile anchor Rui Chenggang, whose “Economic News” program has an estimated 10 million viewers, was detained on July 11.
After the jump, more tensions in the Asian Games of Zones, including Pakistani protests and violence, a resounding chorus of moans from the ghosts of history, claims and counterclaims, U.S. marines of a Japanese island, and as story that really is too good to be true. . .
First, to Pakistan with South China Morning Post:
Clashes in Pakistan after shots fired at opposition leader Imran Khan
Former cricket star and Khan and populist cleric Tahir ul-Qadri are leading separate processions towards Islamabad where they plan to occupy main streets until Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigns
Clashes broke out on Friday as tens of thousands of Pakistani protesters from two anti-government movements converged on the capital, presenting the 15-month-old civilian government with its biggest challenge yet.
Gunshots hit the vehicle of former cricket star and opposition politician Imran Khan as he led his supporters through the eastern city of Gujranwala. Residents brandishing ruling-party posters attacked his convoy, throwing shoes and stones. Khan was not injured, his spokeswoman said.
Khan and populist cleric Tahir ul-Qadri are slowly leading separate processions towards Islamabad where they plan to occupy main streets until Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigns.
euronews has a video report:
Imran Khan’s anti-government convoy attacked on the road to Islamabad
Program notes:
Clashes have erupted in Pakistan as two anti-government rallies converge on the capital Islamabad.
In Gujranwala a convoy led by former cricketer, Imran Khan, came under attack from stone throwing hoards.
From the Financial Express, a new source of tension:
China inaugurates new Tibet rail link close to Sikkim
China today inaugurated its second railway line in Tibet, built at a cost of USD 2.16 billion, close to Indian border in Sikkim, enhancing mobility of its military in the remote and strategic Himalayan region.
The 253-km railway line links Tibet’s provincial capital Lhasa with Xigaze, the second-largest city in Tibet and also the traditional seat of the pro-Beijing Panchen Lama — stated to be second important Monk in Tibetan hierarchy.
The new line near the Indian border in Sikkim is also close to China’s border with Nepal and Bhutan.
Nikkei Asian Review sense strategic jockeying:
China shifts to waiting game on Senkakus
Quiet changes are taking place in Japanese territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands, although there are no signs of an end to the dispute between Japan and China over the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea.
China is starting to change its provocative stance on the Senkakus, according to Japanese government officials trying to understand the reasons behind the change.
One apparent change is a decrease in the frequency of Chinese vessels intruding into Japanese territorial waters around the Japan-administered islands, which are claimed by China, which calls them Diaoyu.
JapanToday provokes:
Dozens of politicians visit Yasukuni shrine; Abe sends ritual offering
Dozens of Japanese politicians visited a controversial war shrine Friday in a move criticised by China and South Korea, which condemn it as a symbol of Tokyo’s militarist past.
More than 80 politicians—including three cabinet ministers—went to the leafy Yasukuni shrine in downtown Tokyo, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stayed away, after a visit in December drew an angry reaction from Japan’s neighbors.
It also earned Abe a diplomatic slap on the wrist from the United States, a key ally, which said it was “disappointed” by the decision, with regional relations already strained over territorial disputes and vastly different views of history.
On Friday, Abe sent a donation to the shrine through an aide in an apparent bid to mend ties with Beijing and Seoul. But both South Korea and China reacted with renewed anger to the latest annual pilgrimage by lawmakers.
The Japan Times covers consequences:
Abe’s shrine offering riles China, South Korea
China said Friday it “resolutely opposed” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s monetary donation to war-related Yasukuni Shrine on Friday, the 69th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.
“We again urge the Japanese side to seriously take a responsible attitude” and “take practical action to gain the trust of its Asian neighbors and the international community,” said Hua Chunying, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman.
When Cabinet ministers visited the war shrine last year, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing summoned Ambassador Masato Kitera to lodge a protest. Japanese Embassy officials in Beijing said it only received a protest during a telephone call.
Meanwhile, in Seoul, South Korean President Park Geun-hye urged Japan to work with her country to make next year, which will mark the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties, a “new starting point for a new era” for the two countries.
More from China Daily:
China ‘firmly opposed’ to Japanese officials’ visit to Yasukuni Shrine
China is “firmly opposed” to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s offering and cabinet officials’ visit to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Friday.
“The Yasukuni Shrine honors 14 convicted Class-A Japanese war criminals from World War II and glorifies its history of aggression,” Hua said. “The visit and offering again reflect the Japanese government’s wrong attitude toward historical issues.”
The Yasukuni shrine is a spiritual tool and symbol of Japanese militarism and its invasion of foreign countries. The shrine reflects whether the Japanese government can correctly understand and deal with its past aggression, respect the feelings of victim countries in Asia and honor its commitments on historical issues, she said.
Hua said only when Japan faces up to and reflects on its invasion history and draws the line at militarism can China-Japan relations achieve sound and stable development.
Xinhua evokes ghosts of its own:
China Focus: China publicizes videos recording anti-Japanese war
China’s State Archives Administration (SAA) on Friday began releasing documents and videos showing Japan’s aggression and defeat to China during the 1930s and 1940s.
The 24-part video series, entitled “The Great Victory”, will be released on the SAA website. one episode per day, following the release of Japanese war criminals’ written confessions on 44 consecutive days since July 3.
The move is to mark the 69th anniversary of victory in both the national war against Japanese aggression and WWII.
JapanToday reassures:
Abe pledges Japan’s commitment to world peace
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday pledged Japan’s commitment to world peace. Abe made the pledge at a ceremony at the Budokan attended by Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko and about 4,700 relatives of the war dead, to mark the 69th anniversary of Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II.
“Here, before the souls of those who fell on the battlefields thinking of their homeland and concerned about their families as well as the souls of those who perished amidst the destruction of the war and those who lost their lives in remote foreign countries during the aftermath of the war, I offer my heartfelt prayers for the repose of their souls,” Abe said.
But the state-owned Global Times issues a stern Chinese response:
Japan must apologize for WWII aggression wholeheartedly, abstain from attempts to rewrite history
The spotlight will once again be firmly trained on Japan Friday, as this day marks the official 69th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II and Emperor Hirohito’s unprecedented “Jewel Voice Broadcast” radio address to the nation all those years ago announcing Japan’s surrender to the allies.
The surrender came on the heels of the United States dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 respectively 69 years ago. The severity of the actions at the time shocked Emperor Hirohito to the extent that he personally intervened in Japan’s Imperial war machine and ordered the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to agree to the terms the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration for ending the war.
Despite an attempted coup d’etat, the surrender went ahead and the day will forever remain in history as a day of relief, regret and remorse; a day of reflection, guilt and grief for all parties involved in World War II.
JapanToday covers internal dissent from notable voices:
Aging Japanese veterans voice concerns about military policy shift
Tokuro Inokuma, a former Imperial Japanese Army soldier, got his first taste of the horrors of war in 1945 when he scrambled to gather up the scattered limbs of his fellow servicemen, blown apart by a U.S. air raid in Japan. He was 16.
One of a dwindling number of World War Two veterans, Inokuma now finds troubling echoes in Tokyo’s policy shift away from the pacifist ideals adhered to after 1945.
“I find it quite dangerous … This is the path we once took,” said Inokuma, who fought in China soon after the deadly air strike, and survived two years in concentration camps in the then-Soviet Union following Japan’s surrender.
The Japan Times covers the story form China:
Japan’s war crimes still make paper-selling headlines in China, 69 years after WWII
Media coverage of the “War of Resistance Against Japan,” as it is called here, has reached a fever pitch this summer as the country observes several major anniversaries related to the conflict.
Take, for example, a recent story published by the state-run Xinhua News Service: “Japanese policeman confesses to torture of Chinese.”
A person who scanned the day’s headlines without reading further could be forgiven for thinking the story of Shigeo Hachisuka’s war crimes was breaking news.
In fact, it happened in 1943 when Japanese forces still occupied a large part of Northeastern China, then known as Manchuria.
And People’s Daily goes postal:
China’s first Anti-Japanese War post office opens
The Chinese government will hold commemorative activities as the 69th anniversary of winning the war against Japanese aggression approaches, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
“Relevant preparation is underway,” said ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. The anniversary of the victory of the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression falls on Sept. 3.
To memorize the hardship and the dauntless struggles waged by the Chinese people in the anti-Japanese war, and to demonstrate China’s will to safeguard peace and oppose aggression, the standing committee of the National People’s Congress in February designated Sept. 3 as the victory day of the anti-Japanese war and Dec. 13 as the memorial day to commemorate over 300,000 Chinese killed by Japanese aggressors during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, according to Hua.
Xinhua covers another source of tension:
Taiwanese protest against Japan’s rising militarism on V-J day
Hundreds of Taiwanese gathered on Friday in Taipei to commemorate the 69th anniversary of Japanese surrender in the World War II, urging the Japanese government to give up its militaristic ambitions.
The one-hour rally which was staged by Taiwan’s pro-unification groups, and activists defending the Diaoyu Islands, kicked off at 10 a.m. in front of the Taipei Office of Japan’s Interchange Association, which represents the Japan’s interests on the island.
Protesters chanted slogans urging Japan to apologize for its atrocities in the war. They also paid silent tribute, with white head bands, and bouquets of white lily and chrysanthemum, to the civilians killed during Japan’s aggression.
Jiji Press covers controversy:
LDP Team to Start Probe on Asahi’s “Comfort Women” Articles
A group of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers on history education on Friday decided to look at facts linked to the Asahi Shimbun’s recent withdrawal of articles on “comfort women” that it published decades ago.
The major Japanese daily last week withdrew the articles on the women who served as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers in wartime, acknowledging the reports were based on false statements.
At a meeting, the ruling party’s group chaired by National Public Safety Commission Chairman Keiji Furuya also decided that it will interview former House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono on the relationship between the Asahi reports on comfort women and his 1993 statement on the topic.
While the Mainichi Shimbun covers a curious form of Japanese intolerance:
Korean writer to file suit against Zaitokukai, website operator over hate speech
A 42-year-old writer and Korean resident of Japan will file suit with the Osaka District Court as early as Aug. 18 against the anti-Koran activist group Zaitokukai and an Internet site operator, saying their hate speech campaigns have damaged her reputation, the Mainichi Shimbun has learned.
Lee Shin-hye, a resident of Higashiosaka, Osaka Prefecture, will seek about 5.5 million yen from Zaitokukai and its leader Makoto Sakurai, and about 22 million yen from the site operator Hoshusokuhou (conservative bulletins) which posted similar racially discriminatory remarks. Experts say the suit is the first to be filed by an individual against hate speech mainly targeted at Korean residents of Japan.
Lee says Sakurai and his group repeatedly posted discriminatory messages from early last year to July this year, including some making a point of her nationality and calling her an “outlaw Korean.” The site operator also carried similar derogatory remarks by anonymous contributors, she says.
Kyodo News sends in the marines:
Gov’t to begin Futenma transfer site survey drilling Saturday
The Defense Ministry is expected to begin as soon as Saturday boring holes in the seabed off the coast of Nago, Okinawa, as survey work gets under way for construction of a replacement U.S. Marine base amid local opposition.
By Friday evening the ministry had nearly completed installing buoys and floats to cordon off waters along the Henoko district of Nago, where the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station is planned to be transferred under a Japan-U.S. agreement.
Bore holes will be drilled to investigate the strength of the seafloor to prepare for landfill work necessary to build the airstrip. Holes will be drilled at 16 locations, down from an initially planned 21, as the ministry seeks to carry out the survey more effectively, Okinawa bureau officials said Friday.
BBC News covers it from the Washington angle:
US welcomes start of base move on Japan’s Okinawa
The United States said it welcomes the start of Japan’s relocation of a US military base on the island of Okinawa.
Japan has placed buoys in a bay in the north of the island to cordon off an area earmarked for the new base.
The two sides agreed in 1996 on the move, which involves relocating Futenma airbase from a highly-congested part of the island to Nago in the north.
Xinhua covers the Pentagon:
Asia-Pacific rebalance remains central to strategy: Pentagon
Despite recent events in the Middle East, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the Defense Department remain dedicated to the U.S. rebalance to the Asia- Pacific region, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.
“Given the fact that there’s a lot going on in the world, that we’re still making these visits and still having these discussions, speaks volumes about how important we believe the Asia-Pacific theater is,” Kirby said at a news conference.
With more than 350,000 American troops based in the Pacific — including the majority of Navy assets — and with five of the seven U.S. treaty alliances there, the U.S. Department of Defense is very committed to the region, Kirby said.
The Diplomat looks for precedents:
Ford, Kissinger and US Asia-Pacific Policy
The US today could draw some useful lessons for its Asia policy from the administration of President Gerald Ford.
Despite the Obama administration’s attempt to bolster the U.S. position in the Far East through its “pivot,” the American alliance structure in the region is under its greatest pressure in a generation. China’s military modernization is spurring U.S. partners and allies to engage in buildups of their own. Of more immediate concern is Beijing’s expansionism, typified by its declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone over an area that includes the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Given U.S. President Barack Obama’s hands-off foreign policy, analysts and diplomats are increasingly questioning whether the U.S. will respond to more concrete moves by China to assert its control over disputed territories. If Beijing were to employ the sort of “special warfare” which Russia recently pioneered in Crimea, deploying paramilitaries or otherwise muddying its role, the outcome would seemingly be even more in question.
Obama is not the first president to face these problems – aggressive adversaries, nervous allies, and a U.S. public deeply unwilling to make the commitments necessary to reassure those allies – in the Asia-Pacific. A look back at the Asia-Pacific policy of President Gerald Ford and his chief foreign policy architect Henry Kissinger is surprisingly instructive for placing America’s contemporary position in the region in perspective.
And for our final item, the Los Angeles Times debunks:
Did murder defendant ask Siri where to hide his roommate? No, cops say
It appears that Siri, the automated iPhone assistant, is not a co-conspirator in the killing of an 18-year-old Florida college student.
Pedro Bravo, 20, is standing trial in Gainesville on a charge of murder in the death of Christian Aguilar after a dispute over a woman in September 2012.
The case garnered national attention this week after prosecutors showed a screen grab from the cellphone in court that read: “I need to hide my roommate.”
A photo of the evidence was taken by Doug Finger of the Gainesville Sun. In the same screen grab, Siri responded to the statement with a number of locations, including swamps, reservoirs and dumps.
The Sun reported Wednesday that courtroom testimony indicated that Bravo’s phone, an iPhone 4, did not have Siri, and the screen shot was found in a cache of Facebook images on the device.
