And a lot more.
We begin with a threat to jobs, one that will only get worse and lead to yet more global instability. First, from TheLocal.ch:
Nestlé to ‘employ’ robot clerks in Japan stores
Swiss-based food giant Nestlé says its Japan unit is hiring 1,000 robots as sales clerks at stores across the country.
The first batch of the robots — a chatty humanoid called Pepper — will report to work by the end of this year at outlets that sell coffee capsules and home espresso machines.
“From December, they will start selling coffee machines for us at big retail stores,” said Nestlé Japan spokeswoman Miki Kano.
“We are sure that our customers will enjoy shopping and being entertained by robots.”
More from PCMagazine:
Lowe’s Hires Robots for the Holidays
Lowe’s is hiring some new workers for the holiday season, but they’re not human.
The hardware store just announced plans to test customer service robots, which will be able to help you locate items in the store, and share real-time information about product promotions and inventory. Dubbed OSHbot, the robots can speak multiple languages and remotely connect with expert employees in other locations to answer project-related questions.
Unfortunately, the robots won’t yet be making an appearance at Lowe’s stores nationwide. Lowe’s will deploy two of the bots at its Orchard Supply Hardware store in San Jose, Calif. to see whether customers and employees embrace the technology.
The OSHbots roll right up to you, say hello, and ask what you need. They also feature 3D-scanning technology, so you can bring in a spare part, scan it under a 3D-sensing camera, and OSHbot will identify the product, tell you how much it costs, and then guide you to where you can find it on store shelves.
And another robotic development that’s particularly spooky, via United Press International:
Israeli company showcases manned/unmanned patrol boat
A patrol boat for homeland security applications that can operate autonomously or by personnel on board is being highlighted by Israel Aerospace Industries at an exhibition in France
A manned/unmanned patrol boat for homeland security and other applications is being highlighted in France this week by Israel Aerospace Industries.
The vessel being shown at the Euronaval International Naval Defense and Maritime Exhibition is the Katana, which the company launched earlier this year.
The Katana can operate autonomously through the use of an advanced command-and-control station or controlled by personnel on board.
On to the crisis of the year, via BBC News:
Islamic State crisis: Peshmerga fighters head to Turkey
Iraqi Kurdish forces are travelling to Turkey, from where they plan to cross into Syria to battle Islamic State (IS) militants besieging the town of Kobane.
Officials said a plane carrying 150 Peshmerga had left Irbil. Their heavy weapons will be transported by land.
Turkey agreed to the deployment last week after refusing to allow Turkish Kurds to cross the border to fight.
Earlier, the Turkish prime minister rejected claims that he was not doing enough to end the jihadists’ assault.
More from Reuters:
How the West buys ‘conflict antiquities’ from Iraq and Syria (and funds terror)
“Many antique collectors unwillingly support terrorists like Islamic State,” Michel van Rijn, one of the most successful smugglers of antique artifacts in the past century, told German broadcaster Das Erste this month.
And smuggling is booming in Iraq and Syria right now. In Iraq, 4,500 archaeological sites, some of them UNESCO World Heritage sites, are reportedly controlled by Islamic State and are exposed to looting. Iraqi intelligence claim that Islamic State alone has collected as much as $36 million from the sales of artifacts, some of them thousands of years old. The accounts data have not been released for verification but, whatever the exact number is, the sale of conflict antiquities to fund military and paramilitary activity is real and systematic.
Grainy video from soldiers fighting for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime at Palmyra, an ancient capital in what is now Syria, shows delicate grave reliefs of the dead, ripped out, gathered up and loaded into the back of their truck. The soldiers present the heads of decapitated statues to the camera. Other stolen Palmyrene treasures were exposed by an undercover reporter for The Sunday Times. Sculptures, pillar carvings and glass vessels were found to be on sale for knock-down prices in Beirut, Lebanon. Roman vases had been robbed from graves and were being sold by the box.
And this from Der Spiegel:
Interview with an Islamic State Recruiter: ‘Democracy Is For Infidels’
How does Islamic State think? How do its followers see the world? SPIEGEL ONLINE met up with an Islamic State recruiter in Turkey to hear about the extremist group’s vision for the future.
The conditions laid out by the Islamist are strict: no photos and no audio recording. He also keeps his real name secret as well as his country of origin, and is only willing to disclose that he is Arab. His English is polished and he speaks with a British accent.
He calls himself Abu Sattar, appears to be around 30 years old and wears a thick, black beard that reaches down to his chest. His top lip is shaved as is his head and he wears a black robe that stretches all the way to the floor. He keeps a copy of the Koran, carefully wrapped in black cloth, in his black leather bag.
Abu Sattar recruits fighters for the terrorist militia Islamic State in Turkey. Radical Islamists travel to Turkey from all over the world to join the “holy war” in Iraq or Syria and Abu Sattar examines their motives and the depth of their religious beliefs. Several Islamic State members independently recommended Abu Sattar as a potential interview partner — as someone who could explain what Islamic State stands for. Many see him as something like an ideological mentor.
And on a related note, via Reuters:
U.S. boosts security at government buildings, citing calls by terrorist groups
The United States is stepping up security at government buildings in Washington and other major cities in response to “calls by terrorist organizations for attacks on the homeland and elsewhere,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Tuesday.
“Given world events, prudence dictates a heightened vigilance in the protection of U.S. government installations and our personnel,” Johnson said in a statement.
From Reuters, a reminder of an earlier regime change venture:
Libya near ‘point of no return’, U.N. says as fighting toll rises
Factional warfare in Libya is pushing the oil producer “very close to the point of no return”, the U.N. special envoy to the country said on Tuesday with efforts to bring about a ceasefire and political dialogue showing no result.
The death toll from two weeks of street fighting between pro-government forces and Islamist armed groups in the eastern city of Benghazi has risen to 170, medics said. Seven people were killed alone on Tuesday, 15 on Monday.
The North African country has had two governments and parliaments since a militia group from the western city of Misrata seized the capital Tripoli in August, setting up its own cabinet and assembly.
From BuzzFeed, can you say “Hubris”?:
Blackwater Founder Blames “Anti-War Left” For The Convictions Of Guards Who Killed Iraqi Civilians
“In the Vietnam War, the anti-war left went after the troops and this time they went after contractors and Blackwater represented anything they love to hate.”
The founder and former CEO of Blackwater Erick Prince blamed the anti-war left Tuesday for the conviction of four former guards for the 2007 shootings of more than 30 Iraqis in Baghdad.
“There’s a lot of politics that surrounds the event,” Prince said on NewsMax TV’s Midpoint. “The government spent tens of millions of dollars after this one case and a lot came after that Nisour Square event.”
“The bureaucratic attack the company withstand because of this. It’s all wrapped into the anger of the Iraq War. In the Vietnam War, the anti-war left went after the troops and this time they went after contractors and Blackwater represented anything they love to hate.”
Panopticon pervasiveness from the Guardian:
GCHQ views data with no warrant, government admits
GCHQ’s secret “arrangements” for accessing bulk material revealed in documents submitted to UK surveillance watchdog
British intelligence services can access raw material collected in bulk by the NSA and other foreign spy agencies without a warrant, the government has confirmed for the first time.
GCHQ’s secret “arrangements” for accessing bulk material are revealed in documents submitted to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the UK surveillance watchdog, in response to a joint legal challenge by Privacy International, Liberty and Amnesty International. The legal action was launched in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations published by the Guardian and other news organisations last year.
The government’s submission discloses that the UK can obtain “unselected” – meaning unanalysed, or raw intelligence – information from overseas partners without a warrant if it was “not technically feasible” to obtain the communications under a warrant and if it is “necessary and proportionate” for the intelligence agencies to obtain that information.
The rules essentially permit bulk collection of material, which can include communications of UK citizens, provided the request does not amount to “deliberate circumvention” of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), which governs much of the UK’s surveillance activities.
And from National Journal, we’ll show you yours if you’ll show us ours:
British Spies Allowed to Access U.S. Data Without a Warrant
Newly released documents from the British government reveal a lack of judicial oversight for how it sifts through communications data collected by the NSA and other foreign governments
British authorities are capable of tapping into bulk communications data collected by other countries’ intelligence services—including the National Security Agency—without a warrant, according to secret government documents released Tuesday.
The agreement between the NSA and Britain’s spy agency, known as Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, potentially puts the Internet and phone data of Americans in the hands of another country without legal oversight when obtaining a warrant is “not technically feasible.”
The data, once obtained, can be kept for up to two years, according to internal policies disclosed by the British government. GCHQ was forced to reveal that it can request and receive vast quantities of raw, unanalyzed data collected from foreign governments it partners with during legal proceedings in a closed court hearing in a case brought by various international human-rights organizations, including Privacy International, Liberty U.K., and Amnesty International. The suit challenges certain aspects of GCHQ’s surveillance practices.
Threatpost covers the bottom line:
Cyberespionage: ‘This Isn’t a Problem That Can Be Solved’
“This isn’t a problem that can be solved. Don’t think it has a solution,” Joel Brenner, former head of national counterintelligence at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and former senior counsel at the NSA, said in a keynote speech at the Kaspersky Government Cybersecurity Forum here Tuesday. “We are economically interdependent with the Chinese in an extraordinary way.”
Brenner pointed out a number of factors that have hoped lead to the current state of affairs, including the interconnection of virtually every conceivable asset and what he says has been the stasis in defensive thinking and operations in the last 10 years or so.
“If you thought the state of cyber defense had become substantially better in the last ten years, you’d be wrong,” he said. “We’ve been walking backward on cybersecurity for more than a decade and we’ll continue to walk backward unless and until we can address the core issues. The defensive stance needs to change from filter and guard to hunt and kill.”
From the Japan Times, the high price of apocalyptic security:
Imminent U.S. revamp of nuclear weapons, subs and planes is too costly, some say
Over the next 30 years, Washington will have to overhaul or replace much of its nuclear arsenal, an effort that experts say could cost as much as a trillion dollars. The problems will lie in choosing what is truly indispensable, and in how to pay for it.
The congressionally mandated National Defense Panel put it bluntly in a July review of the Pentagon’s defense plans, saying the effort to build a new triad of nuclear bombers, missiles and submarines is “unaffordable” under present budget constraints.
With legislation in 2011 putting in place a decade of budget spending cuts, analysts say the White House will ultimately have to delay some systems, trim others or find more money. Most likely, it will have to do all three.
Gee, they’ve got mail! From the New York Times:
Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S.
In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations.
The number of requests, contained in a 2014 audit of the surveillance program by the Postal Service’s inspector general, shows that the surveillance program is more extensive than previously disclosed and that oversight protecting Americans from potential abuses is lax.
The audit, along with interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, offers one of the first detailed looks at the scope of the program, which has played an important role in the nation’s vast surveillance effort since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The Kansas City Star’s Lee Judge offers his take on the snail mail “hack”:
And they’re looking for more, via the Guardian:
FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance
Agency requests rule change but civil liberties groups say ‘extremely invasive’ technique amounts to unconstitutional power grab
The FBI is attempting to persuade an obscure regulatory body in Washington to change its rules of engagement that would grant it significant new powers to hack into and carry out surveillance of computers throughout the US and around the world.
Civil liberties groups warn that the proposed rule change amounts to a power grab by the agency that would ride roughshod over strict limits to searches and seizures laid out under the fourth amendment of the US constitution, as well as violating first amendment privacy rights. They have protested that the FBI is seeking to transform its cyber capabilities with minimal public debate and with no congressional oversight.
The regulatory body to which the Department of Justice has applied to make the rule change, the advisory committee on criminal rules, will meet for the first time on November 5 to discuss the issue. The panel will be addressed by a slew of technology experts and privacy advocates concerned about the possible ramifications were the proposals allowed to go into effect next year.
South China Morning Post has the latest plumbing news:
FBI net closing on ‘Edward Snowden-style’ leaker of terror watch-lists
The net is closing on a second “Edward Snowden-style” whistle-blower who has reportedly been identified by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, it emerged yesterday.
Agents had identified an employee of a US contracting firm who was suspected of leaking a US government watch list of terrorists to a journalist linked to Snowden, Yahoo News reported.
Agents had reportedly searched the suspect’s home and a criminal investigation had been opened by prosecutors in the US state of Virginia. However, no one had been arrested or charged, the report said.
It is believed that the suspect was inspired by Snowden.
From the Associated Press, pressing the issue:
AP, Seattle Times object to FBI’s fake news story
The Associated Press and The Seattle Times are objecting after learning that the FBI created a fake news story and website using their names to catch a bomb threat suspect in 2007.
Police in suburban Lacey, near Olympia, sought the FBI’s help as repeated bomb threats prompted a week of evacuations and closures at Timberline High School in June 2007.
After police interviews of potential suspects came up empty, the agency obtained a warrant from a federal magistrate judge to send a “communication” to a social media account associated with the bomb threats, with the idea of tricking the suspect into revealing his location, according to documents obtained by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The “communication,” which contained a software tool known as a “computer and Internet Protocol address verifier,” turned out to be a link to a phony AP story about the bomb threats posted on a fake Seattle Times webpage. The 15-year-old suspect clicked on the link, revealing his computer’s location and Internet address, and helping agents confirm his identity.
The boy was arrested.
Defense One covers hackery:
NATO’s Take on Cyberspace Law Ruffles China’s Feathers
Recent revelations by a group of security researchers of another China-based hacking group, reportedly more sophisticated than Unit 61398, is likely to set off the usual recriminations and denials, but have very little impact on the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. The Chinese embassy has already responded that “these kinds of reports or allegations are usually fictitious,” a response that Robert Dix, vice president of government affairs for Juniper Networks, colorfully and baldly describes as the Chinese giving “a big middle finger to anybody in the United States that’s tried to out them or point fingers in their direction.”
The report on the group, called Axiom, describes a six-year campaign against companies, journalists, civil society group, academics, and governments, and may preclude any real discussion on cyber issues between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next week. There was, however, very little chance that their sidebar discussion was going to lead to major progress. The differences between the two sides are deep.
An article that ran last week in the People’s Liberation Army Daily [Chinese] criticizing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and efforts to develop the laws of armed conflict in cyberspace shows just how deep the differences are.
And from CNET, most interesting:
People trust NSA more than Google, survey says
In a result consistent with previous polling, a new poll has respondents claiming they’re more concerned about Google seeing all their private data than the government
People don’t always say what they think. Especially in business and love.
Please, therefore, consider this question: whom would you trust more with your private data: the NSA, a company like Google, or your mom?
I ask because I’m looking at the results of a survey, conducted between October 9 and12, that asked just that. It asked simple questions, to which its sponsors hoped to get simple answers.
The results went like this. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being “I am shivering uncontrollably with fear”) the idea of Google or a similar concern having access to all your private data got a concerned score of 7.39.
The idea of the NSA having its eyes and hands all over you? 7.06. What about your boss snooping? That merited a mere 6.85. While the notion of your parents knowing it all got a 5.93.
From PandoDaily, another reason to make you hinky about da Google:
You can run, but you can’t hide: Google expands its real-world surveillance system with Google Fit
The company has developed an application that allows Android smartphone owners to collect health-related information in one place. It’s called Google Fit, and besides challenging Apple’s HealthKit service, it also represents Google’s efforts to gather real-world data to complement the information it already has about the digital world.
It’s no longer enough for companies to track someone’s activity across the Web by monitoring their emails, analyzing their browsing history, or keeping tabs on their online searches. All that information now needs to be supplemented with data about what someone’s doing in the real world, whether that’s demonstrated through location tracking or through a health application.
Why else would so many companies rush to help people track their steps, count their calories, or collect other health-related information? It’s not just about making self quantification more convenient for the few self-obsessed consumers who actually use that information. It’s also about increasing the amount of information that can be offered to advertisers — maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but certainly as soon as these companies can get away with it.
From the Daily Dot, can you hear them now?:
Verizon is launching a tech news site that bans stories on U.S. spying
Verizon is getting into the news business. What could go wrong?
The most-valuable, second-richest telecommunications company in the world is bankrolling a technology news site called SugarString.com. The publication, which is now hiring its first full-time editors and reporters, is meant to rival major tech websites like Wired and the Verge while bringing in a potentially giant mainstream audience to beat those competitors at their own game.
There’s just one catch: In exchange for the major corporate backing, tech reporters at SugarString are expressly forbidden from writing about American spying or net neutrality around the world, two of the biggest issues in tech and politics today.
Unsurprisingly, Verizon is deeply tangled up in both controversies.
After the jump, killing the Fourth Estate with impunity, blood on the newsroom floor, White House hackery, a major hack of a cell-phone-based electronic payment system, millions of Californians lose personal data to hackers, a major malware breach of Gmail Drafts, hacking arrests to come at an amoral media baron’s Old Blighty holding, feds crack down on stadium droners while others drones may carry heart-zappers, cops arm for violence in Ferguson, sending a battlewagon to bust grandpa, On to Mexico and probing for graves in the search for missing Mexican students as more arrests ensue and parents confront a president, a police purge in Venezuela, droning up Down Under as civil rights take a hit, an assassination plot in Bangldesh, on to Hong Kong and pressing the fight, two bizarre tales from North Korea, a call for a purge in a Japanese shrine, and those threatening clowns and trolls of Europe. . .
From the Guardian, blood on the newsroom floor:
90% of journalists’ murderers across the world get away with it – report
Governments failing to break cycle of impunity as 370 journalists murdered in past 10 years
Governments are falling short in their efforts to combat impunity in the killing of journalists, with 90% of murderers walking free, according to a report issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
It says the lack of justice in the hundreds of murders of journalists around the world continues to bedevil press freedom.
The report, The road to justice: breaking the cycle of impunity in the killing of journalists, argues that governments have failed to take meaningful action to reduce the high rates of targeted violence and impunity against journalists.
Governments are falling short in their efforts to combat impunity in the killing of journalists, with 90% of murderers walking free, according to a report issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
It says the lack of justice in the hundreds of murders of journalists around the world continues to bedevil press freedom.
The report, The road to justice: breaking the cycle of impunity in the killing of journalists, argues that governments have failed to take meaningful action to reduce the high rates of targeted violence and impunity against journalists.
http://cpj.org/reports/road_to_justice2014-english.pdf
In the past 10 years, 370 journalists have been murdered in direct retaliation for their work. The vast majority were local journalists reporting on corruption, crime, human rights, politics or war. But there are very, very few arrests or convictions of perpetrators.
In the past 10 years, 370 journalists have been murdered in direct retaliation for their work. The vast majority were local journalists reporting on corruption, crime, human rights, politics or war. But there are very, very few arrests or convictions of perpetrators.
Hackery on Pennsylvania Avenue, via Network World:
Hackers reportedly target unclassified White House network
Hackers targeted an unclassified White House network in recent weeks but did not damage any systems, according to news reports.
The intrusion, however, resulted in temporary disruptions in regular services while cybersecurity teams moved to contain it, according to The Washington Post, which quoted White House officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
The “activity of concern” was found in the unclassified Executive Office of the President (EOP) network. There is no evidence to date that the classified network was also breached, according to the report.
And a major hack of a cell-phone-based electronic payment system from TechWorm:
CurrentC hacked, Apple Pay rival hacked and data breached
CurrentC, a mobile payment solution service which is supposed to take on the newly launched Apple Pay has been hacked. CurrentC which is run by MCX (Merchant Customer Exchange) has support of top US retailers like Walmart, Best Buy, Gap and others. As per the news reports, the hackers managed to compromised CurrentC hackers and steal the email addresses of the testers who had signed up for the solution system. The company, however said, that its CurrentC mobile App has not been affected by this breach.
In a email sent to its users, CurrentC acknowledged that in the last 36 hours, unauthorized third parties (hackers) compromised the CurrentC servers and obtained the email addresses of some of its CurrentC pilot program participants and other individuals who had expressed interest in the App.
Millions of Californians lose personal data to hackers, via Reuters:
Cyber breaches put 18.5 million Californians’ data at risk in 2013: report
Cyber intrusions and other data breaches put the personal records of 18.5 million Californians, nearly half the state’s population, at risk in 2013, a seven-fold increase over the year before, the state attorney general reported on Tuesday.
The number of data breaches reported by companies and government entities increased 28 percent, from 131 in 2012 to 167 last year, more than half of them, or 53 percent, caused by cyber incursions such as computer hacking and malware, the report said.
The physical loss or theft of laptops and other devices containing unencrypted personal information accounted for 26 percent of the reported breaches last year, while the rest stemmed from unintentional errors and deliberate misuse.
The number of California residents whose personal information was compromised by breaches in data climbed sharply, from about 2.5 million in 2012 to roughly 18.5 million last year, the report said.
The bulk of that increase came from massive cyber intrusions of two large retail chains in 2013, Target Corp and LivingSocial, each of which compromised the personal data of 7.5 million Californians, according to the study.
A major malware breach of Gmail Drafts from TechWorm:
Gmail drafts being used by a new IcoScript variant to remotely control victims computer
Gmail Drafts used to update RAT and send victims data to the hackers
Researchers at the security startup Shape Security have discovered that Gmail Drafts are being used by hackers to contact their Command and Control servers, update the Remote Access Trojan (RAT) and steal victims vital and confidential information.
In a report on Wired, Shape Security say they have found a strain of malware on a client’s network that uses that new, furtive form of “command and control”—the communications channel that connects hackers to their malicious software—allowing them to send the programs updates and instructions and retrieve stolen data.
Shape Security researchers said that users/victims barely opened their drafts lying around in Gmail and this made the hackers job pretty easy. The RAT commands are hidden in unassuming Gmail drafts that are never even sent, the hidden communications channel is particularly difficult to detect.
And then there’s the hacking story that’s been causing endless headaches for a certain amoral media baron’s Old Blighty holdings, via the Independent:
Criminal phone-hacking charges against up to nine Mirror Group journalists ‘imminent’
Up to nine former Mirror Group journalists and executives could face “imminent” criminal charges over phone hacking, according to a lawyer representing the Metropolitan Police.
A civil court this week heard that four files containing documents including emails and expenses claims for disposable mobile phones were recently handed to Scotland Yard by the publisher Trinity Mirror.
The files now in the hands of Operation Golding, the ongoing Met criminal investigation into hacking at Mirror Group (MGN) titles, were described by Met’s counsel Jonathan Dixie as “evidence” that had changed the assessment on whether criminal proceedings would be brought against individuals who have previously been arrested in connection with hacking.
From the Associated Press, feds crack down on stadium droners:
Flying drones near stadiums could end in jail time
Operators who fly drones or model planes near or over large sports stadiums and auto racetracks are breaking the law and can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year, the Federal Aviation Administration warned in a notice posted on the agency’s website.
The notice marks the first time the FAA has sought to criminalize the use of drones and model planes, attorneys representing drone users said.
The notice, posted on Monday, updates a previous notice to pilots warning that aircraft are prohibited from flying below 3,000 feet and within 3 miles of a Major League Baseball, National Football League and NCAA Division I college football game for national security reasons. The NSCAR Sprint Cup, Indy Car and Champ series auto races are also included. The prohibition extends from one hour before the events until one hour after.
Drones to the rescue, via PCWorld:
Ambulance drones could bring defibrillators in minutes
Someone has collapsed on the ground from cardiac arrest and there’s no defibrillator around. What to do? Summon an ambulance drone.
A graduate student at Delft University of Technology in Netherlands has created a prototype drone that can autonomously navigate to a location in minutes and deliver a defibrillator, a device that can help reestablish normal heart rhythm.
Product engineering student Alec Momont of the university’s Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering created the drone, which has three rotors and an on-board defibrillator.
From the Guardian, cops arm for violence in Ferguson:
Ferguson police brace for new protests by spending thousands on riot gear
St Louis County police has spent $172,669 since August on teargas, grenades, pepper balls and other civil disobedience equipment
Since the height of the protests, the department has spent almost $25,000 buying 650 teargas grenades, smoke-and-gas grenades, smoke canisters and “hornets nest” CS sting grenades, which shoot out dozens of rubber bullets and a powdered chemical agent upon detonation.
It has spent a further $18,000 on 1,500 “beanbag rounds” and 6,000 pepper balls, paintball-style projectiles that explode with a chemical irritant when they strike a protester. The department uses LiveX branded pepper balls, which are billed as ten times hotter than standard pepper rounds.
Another $77,500 has been spent on 235 riot gear helmets, 135 shields, 25 batons and 60 sets of shin guards, and other “uniform items”. A further $2,300 was used to buy another 2,000 sets of the plastic handcuffs that have been used to detain dozens of demonstrators plucked from crowds on West Florissant Avenue.
In addition, an estimated $50,000 has been set aside by the department for repair work for damaged police vehicles. However, in a sign that further clashes are expected, they are in fact “not repairing any vehicles until unrest is over”, a department inventory said.
Armed for bear with the Guardian:
Wisconsin police send armoured vehicle to collect fine from 75-year-old
Roger Hoeppner, in dispute with city about tractors on property, learns from 911 call why BearCat and 24 officers had arrived
Marathon County sits in the center of the state of Wisconsin. The rural area has a little more than 135,400 residents and is the heart of the US’ ginseng growing industry. It is also the proud owner of a BearCat armored vehicle, which was used this month to draw a 75-year-old man out of his home because he owed $80,000 to the town in which he was born and raised.
The man, Roger Hoeppner, owns about 20 acres of land that has been the subject of a battle between him and the city in recent years. Earlier this month, nestled between the antique tractors he restores and the wood pallets he uses for his business, were 24 police officers, and, eventually, the armored truck.
“I just don’t understand why a dollar and a half of postage on an envelope that I would have had to pick up at the Wausau post office wouldn’t have done the same thing as 24 officers and an armored vehicle,” Hoeppner told the Guardian.
On to Mexico and probing for graves in the search for missing Mexican students, via BBC News:
Missing Mexico students: New ‘mass grave’ probed
Mexican authorities searching for 43 students who disappeared after clashing with police last month are investigating a suspected mass grave.
Mexico’s attorney general said the testimony of two arrested members of a drug gang had led them to the site. He said police officers had confessed to handing the students over to the drugs gang in southern Guerrero state.
Earlier this month, another mass grave was found, but DNA tests suggest the bodies were not those of the students.
So far, 56 people have been arrested in connection with the disappearance, among them police officers, local officials and alleged members of the drugs gang. The state governor has also resigned over the case.
More from the Los Angeles Times:
Mexico officials search grave, arrest suspect in missing students case
Mexican authorities Tuesday announced the arrest of another suspect in the disappearance of 43 college students and said they were working with the most solid clues to date in finding the youths’ whereabouts — centering on a mass grave at a trash dump near the city of Iguala.
The latest arrest brings to 57 the number of people detained in connection with the Sept. 26 incident in which the students were last seen being led away by local police after a clash that killed six people.
Two of the most recently captured suspects confessed to “direct participation” in the disappearances, Mexican Atty. Gen. Jesus Murillo Karam said, without offering details. Their information, he said, led investigators to the dump outside the town of Cocula, about 15 miles southwest of Iguala in rugged, hostile terrain in Guerrero state.
And an ultimatum from the Latin American Herald Tribune:
Family Members of Missing Students to Give Ultimatum to Peña Nieto in Meeting
More than a month after the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico, President Enrique Peña Nieto will meet the family members Wednesday when they say they will issue an ultimatum to find their missing children as authorities continue work at a dump in the search for bodies.
“We are going with the intention of demanding immediate answers and the appearance of the missing children from the Normal school because going more than a month without positive responses has been agonizing for us,” the spokesperson of the families, Felipe de Jesus de la Cruz, told Efe.
The parents have grown increasingly desperate in the absence of clues as to the whereabouts of their children following a night of violence in the city of Iguala on Sept. 26 in which six people died, including three students.
De la Cruz added that if the president did not give clear information as to the location of their children they would take “other actions” to show their frustration.
A police purge in Venezuela from BBC News:
Venezuela leader Nicolas Maduro announces police ‘purge’
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced on Monday that he would conduct a thorough “purge” of the country’s police force. The president said police officers had taken part in the murder of governing party lawmaker Robert Serra this month.
Mr Maduro said he would name a presidential commission to “revolutionise the police” and “fix everything that’s wrong” with it.
Mr Serra was found stabbed to death at his home in Caracas on 1 October. His partner, Maria Herrera, was also killed.
Droning up Down Under with United Press International:
Australia extending contract for use of unmanned aerial vehicles
The six-year contract extension would cost about $105.6 million
Australia is extending its contract with Canada-headquarted McDonald, Detwiler and Associates for continued use of Heron remotely piloted aircraft.
One Heron, a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, is operating at a Royal Australian Air Force in the country for training. A second is being used in Afghanistan and will be brought back to Australia by the end of the year.
Minister for Defense David Johnston said the six-year contract extension would cost about $105.6 million and would be covered by the existing Air Force budget and through a redistribution of tasks and priorities.
Extension of the contract would include portable ground control stations initially based at RAAF Woomera, maintenance, logistics and other associated items.
Civil rights take a hit, via the Guardian:
Ordinary citizens at risk of mass arrests during G20, says civil liberties group
Public remains unaware of greatly expanded police powers during the G20 in Brisbane and may risk arrest for otherwise lawful activities, council for civil liberties says
Ordinary citizens and peaceful protesters who do not understand the depth of special police powers during the G20 summit in Brisbane risk being caught up in mass arrests, the Queensland council for civil liberties (QCCL) has warned.
Police will have unusual powers, including the right to demand identification and search people without cause for suspicion, under special legislation covering most of inner city Brisbane during the event in mid-November.
QCCL president Michael Cope said the council was concerned that while media attention is focused on the spectre of violent protests from anarchist groups, there was little publicity around the police powers
An assassination plot in Bangldesh, via intelNews:
India uncovers plot to assassinate Bangladeshi prime minister
Indian authorities claim to have uncovered a plot by an outlaw militant group to assassinate the prime minister of Bangladesh and launch a coup d’état in the South Asian country. The Reuters news agency quoted three “senior Indian officials” on Tuesday, who claimed that the plot was primarily aimed against Sheikh Hasina, leader of the nationalist Bangladesh Awami League, who was elected to the office of the prime minister in 2009 for the second time, after having led the country of 156 million people from 1996 to 2001.
The National Investigation Agency of India (NIA) said the plot was to be carried out by members of the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a militant Islamist organization whose aim is to overthrow the government of Bangladesh and replace it with an Islamic theocracy based on Sharia law.
The group, which maintains close ideological links with the Pakistani Taliban, is believed to have over 100,000 members throughout the country.
On to Hong Kong and pressing the fight, via Reuters:
Nine out of 10 Hong Kong activists say will fight on for a year
Nearly nine out of 10 Hong Kong protesters say they are ready to stay on the streets for more than a year to push for full democracy to counter China’s tightening grip on the city, according to an informal Reuters survey on Tuesday.
For a month now, key roads leading into three of Hong Kong’s most economically and politically important districts have been barricaded with wood and steel by thousands of protesters who have set up semi-permanent occupation zones amid a sea of tents.
The so-called “umbrella” movement, named after umbrellas used as flimsy shields against police pepper spray, has become one of the biggest political challenges to face China’s Communist Party leadership since it crushed pro-democracy protests in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The overwhelming majority of the student-led protesters who responded to the Reuters survey – carried out at two major protest sites on the one-month anniversary of the start of the demonstrations – remained defiant.
From the Guardian, a regular cut-up?:
South Korean spy agency claims Kim Jong-un had surgery
Seoul intelligence service, which has erratic track record, says North Korean leader vanished from public life due to operation
South Korea’s spy agency claims it has solved the mystery of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s six-week public absence.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) told legislators that a foreign doctor operated on Kim in September or October to remove a cyst from his right ankle, according to Park Byeong-seok, an aide for the opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min.
The aide said the agency also told legislators in a closed-door briefing that the cyst could recur because of Kim’s obesity, smoking and heavy public schedule.
A serial killer? From Vice News:
North Korean Officials Reportedly Purged for Watching Soap Operas
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently executed 10 officials for watching soap operas, according to South Korea’s state news agency.
Yonhap News — which is known for having an anti-North Korean bias — reported Tuesday that 10 officials from the Workers’ Party of Korea were executed by firing squad on charges of corruption, watching South Korean soap operas, and other offenses. The report did not specify when the alleged executions took place.
Yonhap cited two South Korean lawmakers who attended a closed parliamentary audit of the National Intelligence Service, the main South Korean spy agency.
From the Japan Times, a call for a purge in a Japanese shrine:
Group tells Yasukuni Shrine to ditch convicted war criminals
An influential group that represents families of the war dead is urging Yasukuni Shrine to remove the names of the convicted war criminals currently enshrined there, an official said Wednesday.
A chapter of the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association passed a resolution at its annual meeting Monday, calling on the shrine’s governors to delist the names from the 2½ million Japanese souls honored there.
The change would enable “the Emperor and the Empress, the prime minister and all Japanese people to visit Yasukuni Shrine without discomfort,” an official from the group’s chapter in Fukuoka told reporters.
And we close with two threats receiving attention across the pond, first with TheLocal.dk:
Denmark funds research on underground trolls
The state-funded Danish Council for Independent Research has earmarked 2.5 million kroner to a PhD project that will look into the ‘under-earthlings’ rumoured to inhabit the island of Bornholm
The state-run Danish Council for Independent Research (Det Frie Forskningsråd – DFF) has announced its financial support of nine PhD projects, one of which will delve into the supposed presence of supernatural beings on the island of Bornholm.
According to Politiken, the cost of each PhD project is 2.5 million kroner ($428,000).
And finally, via Sky News:
Has Social Media Caused A Spate Of Attacks By ‘Armed Clowns’ In France?
Program note:
Police in France are on high alert after a spate of attacks by people dressed up as clowns.
French journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet and professional clown Caroline Simonds explain the bizarre phenomenon.
We would note that creepy clown sightings aren’t unique to France, with similar sightings reported in California and Indiana.
