First, via the Independent, the usual suspects, faring well:
With US-led air strikes on Isis intensifying, it’s a good time to be a shareholder in the merchants of death
Last month American warships fired $65.8m worth of Tomahawk missiles within just 24 hours of each other
So who is winning the war? Isis? Us? The Kurds (remember them?) The Syrians? The Iraqis? Do we even remember the war? Not at all. We must tell the truth. So let us now praise famous weapons and the manufacturers that begat them.
Share prices are soaring in America for those who produce the coalition bombs and missiles and drones and aircraft participating in this latest war which – for all who are involved (except for the recipients of the bombs and missiles and those they are fighting) – is Hollywood from start to finish.
Shares in Lockheed Martin – maker of the “All for One and One for All” Hellfire missiles – are up 9.3 per cent in the past three months. Raytheon – which has a big Israeli arm – has gone up 3.8 per cent. Northrop Grumman shares swooped up the same 3.8 per cent. And General Dynamics shares have risen 4.3 per cent. Lockheed Martin – which really does steal Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers quotation on its publicity material – makes the rockets carried by the Reaper drones, famous for destroying wedding parties over Afghanistan and Pakistan, and by Iraqi aircraft.
And don’t be downhearted. The profits go on soaring. When the Americans decided to extend their bombing into Syria in September – to attack President Assad’s enemies scarcely a year after they first proposed to bomb President Assad himself – Raytheon was awarded a $251m (£156m) contract to supply the US navy with more Tomahawk cruise missiles. Agence France-Presse, which does the job that Reuters used to do when it was a real news agency, informed us that on 23 September, American warships fired 47 Tomahawk missiles. Each one costs about $1.4m. And if we spent as promiscuously on Ebola cures, believe me, there would be no more Ebola.
From United Press International, a very important source of insecurity right here in the U.S.A.:
Stop and frisk causes anxiety in young men, study claims
Stop and frisk has been a common practice in New York for well over a decade
A new study suggests the New York City Police Department’s stop and frisk practice may be leading to elevated levels of anxiety among young men in the city, especially young black men.
The policy allows police to stop pedestrians and search them for drugs or weapons.
“Although 80% of respondents reported being stopped 10 times or fewer, more than 5% of respondents reported being stopped more than 25 times, and 1% of respondents reported more than 100 stops,” says the study, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health on Thursday.
The study found that people who are stopped frequently report high levels of stress and anxiety when roaming the city, while those who are not stopped frequently do not feel those emotions. The study found black respondents were both more likely to feel those emotions and more likely to have been stopped regularly. The study involved 1,200 men ages 18 to 26, and it was conducted over a six month period.
On to the spooky world, first with BuzzFeed News:
Exclusive: Key NSA Official Has Another Business At Her Home
Powerful National Security Agency official registered “electronics” business at her home before her husband set up intelligence business there, BuzzFeed News finds. Her company owns a plane and a condo.
On a quiet street in Ellicott City, Maryland, a blue-grey two-story clapboard house, set back from the road, is shaded by two sycamores and a towering maple. It’s the unassuming home of one of the National Security Agency’s most powerful officials, Teresa H. Shea.
In September, BuzzFeed News disclosed a potential conflict of interest involving Shea, the director of Signals Intelligence. Called SIGINT in espionage jargon, it refers to all electronic eavesdropping and interception, including the controversial domestic surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone use.
As BuzzFeed News reported, there’s a private SIGINT consulting and contracting business based at Shea’s home in that quiet neighborhood. Shea’s husband, a business executive in the small but profitable SIGINT industry, is the resident agent for the firm, Telic Networks.
In addition, James Shea also works for a major SIGINT contracting firm, DRS Signal Solutions Inc., which appears to do SIGINT business with the NSA.
Now there’s a new wrinkle, which the NSA has also declined to discuss: Yet another company, apparently focused on the office and electronics business, is based at the Shea residence on that well-tended lot.
More from the Wire:
The NSA’s Moonlighting Problem
A former NSA head has recruited one of his underlings for his lucrative cybersecurity firm—but that underling still works for the agency
In Washington, the revolving door between government service and more lucrative ventures is common, if not expected. However, having one foot in each has raised questions for the National Security Agency, which has launched an internal review of one senior official who was recruited by former NSA director Keith Alexander to work for his new—and very lucrative—cybersecurity private venture.
Patrick Dowd, the NSA’s Chief Technological Officer, is allowed to work up to 20 hours a week for Alexander’s firm, IronNet Cybersecurity, Inc., according to Reuters, which broke the story on the deal. Although the arrangement was apparently approved by NSA managers and does not appear to break any laws on its face, it does raise questions about ethics and the dividing line between business and one of the most secretive agencies in government.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told Reuters, “This matter is under internal review. While NSA does not comment on specific employees, NSA takes seriously ethics laws and regulations at all levels of the organization.”
But one of the chief antagonists is in trouble, via The Hill:
Top NSA critic could lose seat
Critics of the government’s spy agencies are worried that Colorado’s hotly contested Senate race could end the public career of one of their best allies in Congress.
Sen. Mark Udall’s (D-Colo.) possible defeat would leave a void in the Senate and on the powerful Intelligence Committee, civil liberties and anti-secrecy advocates fear.
“I do think it would be a significant loss for the movement,” said Laura Murphy, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington office.
“What Udall has is the institutional memory, and the relationships in the civil liberties community, in the Democratic Party and in the tech industry so that we don’t have to start over again with someone new,” she added, while noting that her concern would be the same if Republican civil liberties advocates were also at risk of losing their seats.
From RT, a reminder that you don’t have to be paranoid to feel they’re out to get you:
Assange fears Ecuador embassy in London bugged
Lawyers for the WikiLeaks founder have filed eavesdropping claims to the Swedish court, as Julian Assange, who has been stuck in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over two years, fears he is being bugged.
In a submission presented to the Swedish Court of Appeal on Friday, Assange’s lawyers claim that he “is most likely under auditory surveillance,” the Daily Mail reports.
The defense also urged the Swedish side to hand over text messages, sent by one of Assange’s accusers, which they believe could serve as evidence that there was no ground for the arrest warrant. Assange says they reveal the woman’s ambiguity over his arrest and even her opposition to the case, based on sexual assault allegations.
The lawyers also believe that to “break the deadlock,” the 43-year-old Australian should be questioned at the embassy in Knightsbridge, where he is staying, rather than go to Sweden, which he believes could lead to his extradition to the US.
Next up, from TheLocal.se, the Swedish enigma continues:
Mystery deepens over reported Russian sub
Mystery deepened on Sunday over a Swedish military operation triggered by “foreign underwater activity” off the coast of Stockholm, amid an unconfirmed report of a hunt for a damaged Russian submarine.
Late on Saturday, Swedish armed forces stepped up an operation — involving more than 200 men, stealth ships, minesweepers and helicopters — in an area about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the Swedish capital.
The operation was initiated on Friday after the armed forces said they had been informed of a “man made object” in the water.
Officials denied they were “submarine hunting,” calling the mobilization — one of the biggest, barring purely training exercises, since the Cold War — an “intelligence operation”.
More from United Press International:
Sweden puts troops on alert after detecting possible foreign threat
Swedish media reported transmissions on an emergency frequency coming from waters of the Stockholm Archipelago to a reciever in Kaliningrad, Russia
Erik Lagersten, spokesman for the Swedish Armed Forces, could not confirm or deny speculations about the threat, including whether it was a missing foreign submarine.
“We are now trying to verify the information we received yesterday, which in our assessment comes from trustworthy sources, and see whether it has any substance or not,” Jesper Tengroth, press officer for the Swedish military, told Swedish media on Saturday.
Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported that the National Defence Radio Establishment detected emergency radio transmissions coming from the area to a reciever in Kaliningrad, Russia.
The Intercept debunks:
The FBI Director’s Evidence Against Encryption Is Pathetic
FBI Director James Comey gave a speech Thursday about how cell-phone encryption could lead law enforcement to a “very dark place” where it “misses out” on crucial evidence to nail criminals. To make his case, he cited four real-life examples — examples that would be laughable if they weren’t so tragic.
In the three cases The Intercept was able to examine, cell-phone evidence had nothing to do with the identification or capture of the culprits, and encryption would not remotely have been a factor.
In the most dramatic case that Comey invoked — the death of a 2-year-old Los Angeles girl — not only was cellphone data a non-issue, but records show the girl’s death could actually have been avoided had government agencies involved in overseeing her and her parents acted on the extensive record they already had before them.
In another case, of a Lousiana sex offender who enticed and then killed a 12-year-old boy, the big break had nothing to do with a phone: The murderer left behind his keys and a trail of muddy footprints, and was stopped nearby after his car ran out of gas.
And in the case of a Sacramento hit-and-run that killed a man and his girlfriend’s four dogs, the driver was arrested in a traffic stop because his car was smashed up, and immediately confessed to involvement in the incident.
The Guardian covers an accusation:
United States accused of misleading British minister over treatment of Shaker Aamer in Guantánamo Bay
Charity claims British resident cleared for release is being beaten by guards before force-feeding
The US government has been accused of misleading a British minister over the brutal treatment endured by the last British resident being held inside Guantánamo Bay.
Testimony from detainees has described increasingly violent “forcible cell extraction” (FCE) tactics, in which an inmate is forced out of his cell by armed guards, usually before being taken to the force-feeding chair.
Earlier this month a federal judge, Gladys Kessler, heard how methods used by the US military to feed inmates against their will present long-term health risks and that lubricating their feeding tubes with olive oil can cause chronic inflammatory pneumonia.
However, attempts by the British government to establish if Shaker Aamer, whose family are in south London, has been mistreated appear to have been dismissed. The foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, revealed in a letter dated 7 October: “We made inquiries with US government officials, who assured us that the report of an incident, relayed to you by another detainee, is not accurate.”
From PCWorld, gone phishin’:
Dropbox used for convincing phishing attack
Dropbox’s file storage service was used for a tricky phishing attack, although the service was quick to shut down it down, according to Symantec.
The security vendor said it detected a batch of phishing emails advising recipients that they’ve been sent a large file and included a link to Dropbox-hosted page.
“The email claims the document can be viewed by clicking on the link included in the message,” wrote Nick Johnston of Symantec in a blog post. “However, the link opens a fake Dropbox login page, hosted on Dropbox itself.”
By hosting the fake login page on Dropbox, the scammers gain some benefits over hosting it on a random, strange-looking domain name. The phishing page is contained within Dropbox’s user content domain, similar to shared photos or files, Johnston wrote
And the Guardian covers an admission:
Whisper chief executive answers privacy revelations: ‘We’re not infallible’
Michael Heyward releases statement on Guardian reports
Does not dispute accuracy of reporting
Says: ‘Reasonable people can disagree about online anonymity’
The chief executive of the “anonymous” social media app Whisper broke his silence late on Saturday, saying he welcomed the debate sparked by Guardian US revelations about his company’s tracking of users and declaring “we realise that we’re not infallible”.
Michael Heyward’s statement was his first public response to a series of articles published in the Guardian which revealed how Whisper monitors the whereabouts of users of an app he has in the past described as “the safest place on the internet”.
Whisper hosts 2.6 million messages a day posted through its app, which promises users a place to “anonymously share your thoughts and secrets” and has billed itself as a platform for whistleblowers.
After the jump, the latest on the search for those missing Mexican college students, an on-the-air killing of a Mexican activist, a crime activist slain, and a maverick cop murdered, the two Koreas exchange fire, on to Hong Kong and a protester condemnation, a mediator talks fairness, fear of a violent minority, and claims of foreign influence, Beijing/Washington cybertalks stalled, a shifting submarine balance, a Chinese wound is poked and a military response follows, a major provocation by China, plus a major threat for China’s mistresses. . .
Bodies, but the not the right ones, from the New York Times:
Mexico Finds Many Corpses, but Not Lost 43
With borrowed shovels and pick axes, the farmers drove their battered pickup trucks to a series of suspicious clearings in the countryside, jumped out and started digging.
“Hey, hey, it’s a spine,” one of the men, part of a citizen police patrol, called out last week, fishing out what appeared to be a piece of spinal column. Soon came other fragments — a rib? a knee bone?
Five mass graves have already been discovered in the hunt for 43 students who disappeared last month after clashing with the local police — and another half dozen secret burial sites like this one are being tested to determine the origins of the remains inside.
Even with hundreds of soldiers, federal officers, state personnel and local residents on the trail, the search has still not confirmed what happened to the missing students. Instead, it has turned up something just as chilling: a multitude of clandestine graves with unknown occupants right on the outskirts of town, barely concealing the extensive toll organized crime has taken on this nation.
A brazen murder from Journalism in the Americas:
Mexican activist killed during live broadcast in Sinaloa amid wave of attacks on journalists
Mexican activist Atilano Román Tirado was killed on Monday while giving a live radio broadcast in Mazatlan in the state of Sinaloa. Listeners of Román Tirado’s weekly radio show reported hearing gunshots after intruders entered the station and broke into the studio where the community leader was broadcasting.
According to initial reports, the attack occurred at 10:40 a.m. on Monday, when two armed men arrived at the radio station and requested information about the radio host from the receptionist. One of the men reportedly waited outside while the second made his way through the station and into the room where Román Tirado was working. He opened fire at close range, critically injuring the activist who died upon arrival at a nearby hospital.
“On air you could hear when the shot is fired, and then one of the co-workers is heard saying ‘Oh no, he killed him, killed him’,” station director Sergio Ontiveros told The Independent. “That is when the transmission cut off… the station operator dove to the floor and kicked out the master” cable.
An anti-crime crusader slain, via the Latin American Herald Tribune:
Mexico Probes Suspected Kidnap-Murder of Crime Watchdog Activist
Mexican authorities are investigating the suspected kidnap-murder of an organized crime watchdog activist who ran a Web site that alerted inhabitants of the northeastern state of Tamaulipas to public safety risks.
“We’re working on it,” a source with the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office told Efe, adding that a relative of the activist, Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, reported that she had been abducted by armed assailants on Wednesday.
Word spread Thursday on social networking sites and the Twitter account of ValorTamaulipas (CourageTamaulipas), which reports on public safety risks in that state, that Fuentes Rubio, a doctor by profession, had been kidnapped, tortured and killed.
The activist alerted citizens about organized crime-related public safety risks in Reynosa, a border city in Tamaulipas, through her Twitter account, which was suspended on Thursday after two photographs were distributed online apparently showing her dead body.
And from Borderland Beat, a maverick cop murdered:
Rurales Commander who said “We were Better Off with Autodefensas”, Ambushed and Killed
A Rurales commander who gave an interview to the press saying Michoacán was better off with autodefensas, has been killed.
Yesterday the commander of Coalcomán Rural Township, Felipe Ávila Díaz died. He had been shot last Friday morning and then transferred to Civil Hospital of Morelia. He succumbed to internal injuries caused by multiple gunshot wounds.
On 17 October, the police arrived at a sawmill located one kilometer Coalcomán, where he was taken after being abducted by armed men in a van. He was discovered where kidnappers discarded, what they must have thought was a dead body, near the sawmill.
The two Koreas exchange fire, via the China Post:
Koreas exchange fire along border
North and South Korean troops briefly exchanged fire Sunday in the latest in a series of minor border skirmishes that have raised military tensions on the divided peninsula.
The South’s defense ministry said the exchange inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the two rivals lasted only 10 minutes.
There were no reported casualties.
On to Hong Kong and a protester condemnation from the state-published Global Times:
Protesters condemned for charging police cordon in Hong Kong
The police on Sunday strongly condemned attempts by the protesters to charge police cordon lines in Hong Kong at midnight Saturday, saying such acts seriously undermined public order and threatened the safety of themselves and others.
More scuffles erupted late Saturday, the second turbulent night in Mong Kok following the police’s before-dawn operation on Friday, when most of the tents, canopies and barricades blocking main roads in the commercial area in Kowloon for almost three weeks were removed.
Scores of people, who were occupying the Nathan Road near the Argyle Street in Mong Kok, attempted to charge police cordon lines by pulling the mill barriers and shoving police officers early Sunday.
From Kyodo News, a mediator talks fairness:
Moderator says student, gov’t dialogue in H.K. to “fair, open”
The talks set for Tuesday between pro-democracy students and the government will be fair and open to all views, the moderator said Sunday following a second consecutive night of police crackdown on the civil disobedience campaign now into its fourth week.
“As the moderator, I’ll make sure we stick to the ground rules as agreed,” Lingnan University President Leonard Cheng told the press. “My role is not to give my own opinion on any of the issues, but to facilitate a meaningful discussion in the dialogue.”
The talks between the government and the Federation of Students, co-organizer of the occupation campaign aiming to press for a democratic leadership election by occupying streets and blocking traffic, will be the first direct contact between the sides.
Fear of a violent minority from South China Morning Post:
Fears over ‘radicals’ as protest violence increases, but sources say Beijing won’t be embarrassed into action
Protests getting out of hand, says Leung amid claims radical groups and foreign forces are pushing for city’s de facto independence
Beijing will not seek a quick end to the political turmoil in Hong Kong to avoid possible embarrassment ahead of some important domestic and international events, sources say.
People familiar with central government thinking also said there were “worrying signs” that radical groups in the city were pushing for the city’s de facto political independence under the cover of democracy and were “actively collaborating with foreign forces”.
For the first time yesterday, the People’s Daily linked the Occupy movement to an attempt to seek Hong Kong’s political independence. It said in a commentary that the movement’s organisers wanted Hong Kong to have “self-determination” and even to be “independent”.
From BBC News, claims of foreign influence:
Hong Kong protests: CY Leung ‘foreign link’ claim denied
Pro-democracy activists have strongly denied Hong Kong leader CY Leung’s claim that “external forces” are involved in protests in the territory.
Student activist Alex Chow said the leader’s comments were “irresponsible”, and said Mr Leung had not provided any evidence to support his claim.
In an interview with local broadcaster ATV, Mr Leung said the protests were “not entirely a domestic movement, as external forces are involved” – although he declined to give details or name the countries he thought were involved.
Mr Chow, from the Hong Kong Federation of Students, said: “To make a statement that there are foreign powers infiltrating this movement right before the discussions, is evidence that CY [Leung] is hoping to crack down on the entire movement.”
Beijing/Washington cybertalks stalled, via China Daily:
China says it’s hard to resume cyber security talks with US
Resuming cyber security cooperation between China and the United States would be difficult because of “mistaken US practices”, China’s top diplomat told US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Cyber security is an irritant to bilateral ties. On Wednesday the US Federal Bureau of Investigation said hackers it believed were backed by the Chinese government had launched more attacks on US companies, a charge China rejected as unfounded.
In May, the United States charged five Chinese military officers with hacking American firms, prompting China to shut down a bilateral working group on cyber security.
Yang Jiechi, a state councillor overseeing foreign affairs, told Kerry in Boston the United States “should take positive action to create necessary conditions for bilateral cyber security dialogue and cooperation to resume”, according to a statement seen on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website on Sunday.
From Want China Times, a shifting submarine balance:
China to use ‘naval suasion’ to defeat US sea power: expert
Dr Robert Ross, professor of political science at Boston College, estimates that the PLA Navy is likely to have 70 submarines by the year 2020, a number Global Asia, a magazine based in South Korea, reported earlier this month.
Of those 70 subs, Ross said that 63 will be nuclear- or diesel-powered attack boats to challenge US sea power in the region. He pointed out that not only warships and submarines but also land-based anti-ship missiles and aircraft have been mobilized to carry out this grand strategy. But this may be more saber rattling than anything else, as China is most likely trying to defeat US naval power in East Asia with “naval suasion.”
“Naval suasion,” which was described 40 years ago by naval strategist Edward Luttwak, is a term for a nation wanting to convince rivals that its navy can win on the high seas through a show of ships, warplanes and armaments without launching a real attack.
Ross said only 33 of the US Navy’s nuclear-powered fast attack submarines are currently deployed to the Asia-Pacific to counter the PLA Navy’s submarine fleet. This certainly gives China a great opportunity to demonstrate its power of “naval suasion.” The total number of US submarines will be reduced from 73 to 42 by the mid-2020s. Between 25 and 26 submarines are likely to be deployed to the Asia-Pacific region by 2025.
A wound is poked and response follows, via the Japan Times:
Abe Yasukuni offering followed by China coast guard visit to Senkakus
Chinese coast guard vessels entered waters off the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Saturday, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe angered Beijing by sending a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, along with Class-A war criminals.
The uninhabited islands, which China claims as Diaoyu, have inflamed passions in the world’s second- and third-biggest economies. The isles lie just off Taiwan, which claims them as Tiaoyutai.
Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have been further aggravated by the respects that Japanese politicians regularly pay at Yasukuni, which is widely viewed in Asia as a symbol of Japan’s war of aggression.
In a terse statement on its website, China’s State Oceanic Administration said three coast guard vessels patrolled “Chinese territorial waters” near the islands on Saturday. No other details were given.
More from NHK WORLD:
Japan monitoring Chinese ship in EEZ
The Japan Coast Guard says a Chinese government ship appears to be conducting a maritime survey in Japan’s exclusive economic zone off Miyako Island in Okinawa Prefecture.
It says a patrol plane spotted the Chinese maritime research vessel on Sunday evening towing what appeared to be wires.
The Coast Guard sent a message to the vessel that unauthorized research in Japan’s economic waters is not allowed and urged it to cease operations. The Chinese ship’s crew did not respond.
Japan’s Coast Guard has sent patrol boasts to monitor the activities.
And from Want China Times, a major provocation by China:
PLA to build airfield on Fiery Cross Reef
To further project its power into the disputed South China Sea, China has decided to build an airfield on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratlys after its land reclamation program according to the state-run China NewsWeek.
The Chinese foreign ministry claims China has a right to conduct any activity in its own territory and the People’s Liberation Army has stated that countries like the Philippines and Vietnam, rival claimants to the island group along with Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia, do not have any right to comment regarding the construction. The magazine stated that the land reclamation program on Fiery Cross Reef, which China calls Yongshu Reef, indicates that China is constructing a new airfield as a forward base for the PLA Navy and Air Force.
There are four airstrips in the Spratlys at present. The largest is located on Taiping, the largest of the Spratlys, which is administered by Taiwan. Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines each have one airstrip in the island group — Malaysia’s on Swallow Reef, Vietnam’s on Spratly Island and the Philippines’ on Thitu. Though ten Spratly islands, reefs and shoals are currently under Chinese administration, the PLA Navy and Air Force do not have an airstrip.
Plus a major threat for China’s mistresses from Global Times:
Mistresses exposed
Public shaming photos spread online, leave victims feeling cheated
Graphic photos of alleged mistresses being stripped naked by mobs of angry women seeking to publicly humiliate the accused are increasingly circulating on Chinese social media.
In a most recent case, images of a group of women photographed ripping the clothes from an unidentified woman on the streets of Puyang, Henan Province have gone viral since being uploaded on October 10. The unedited photos show onlookers standing by as the victim was attacked by the gang.
The photos continue to circulate online despite local public security bureau officers requesting that websites remove them over concerns of privacy violations, according to the Zhengzhou Evening News.
