And the deepening mystery of those missing Mexican college students, plus lots more. . .
We begin with the London Telegraph, and surely a wonderful thing — but in the hands of a police state, your worst nightmare:
Mind-reading device invented by scientists to eavesdrop on ‘inner voice’
Scientists at the University of California were able to pick up several words that subjects thought using a new mind-reading device
It might seem the stuff of science fiction, but a mind-reading device is being developed by scientists which can eavesdrop on your inner-voice.
Reseachers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a machine and computer programme which converts brain activity into sounds and words.
Speech activates specific neurons as the brain works interpret the sounds as words. Each word activates a slightly different set of neurons.
Now scientists have started to develop an algorithm that can pick up the activity and translate it back into words in the hope it might help people who are unable to speak.
The war de jour from the Washington Post:
Airstrikes against the Islamic State have not affected flow of foreign fighters to Syria
More than 1,000 foreign fighters are streaming into Syria each month, a rate that has so far been unchanged by airstrikes against the Islamic State and efforts by other countries to stem the flow of departures, according to U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials.
The magnitude of the ongoing migration suggests that the U.S.-led air campaign has neither deterred significant numbers of militants from traveling to the region nor triggered a spike in the rate of travel among Muslim populations inflamed by American intervention.
“The flow of fighters making their way to Syria remains constant, so the overall number continues to rise,” a U.S. intelligence official said. U.S. officials cautioned, however, that there is a lag in the intelligence being examined by the CIA and other spy agencies, meaning it could be weeks before a change becomes apparent.
More from the Independent:
Isis in Iraq: Army’s triumph at Jurf Al-Sakhar lays bare the cost of defeating the militants
On Tuesday, hundreds of militiamen trundled out of Jurf al-Sakhar in trucks and buses, handing over control of the town and outlying villages and farms to Iraqi security forces. As flatbed trucks carrying field artillery waited to move out, Humvees and bomb disposal vehicles burned in streets that the insurgents had laced with explosives.
In the town centre, the smell of death lingered in the air. The Shia forces could not remain in the area, militia commanders said, as their presence would spark accusations of sectarian killings.
Already revenge attacks have been reported. As a convoy of trucks blaring religious music from loudspeakers drove out of the town, the men in the trucks were jovial and flashed peace signs, but the decaying body of an alleged insurgent was being dragged behind.
CBC News covers the recruiting ground:
In Tunisia, democracy triumphs but troubles remain
Poster child for Arab democracy, Tunisia is also big source of recruits for ISIS
Today, Tunisia stands as the great Arab hope for democracy, the possible light in a region where the other Arab Spring countries have descended into civil war or military dictatorship.
Its parliamentary election this week — the second since the initial revolt — was notable for its transparency, and saw the more secular Nidaa Tounes party overtake the Islamist Ennahda party, which had been forced into a bi-partisan, unity government earlier in the year because of a long-running political crisis.
But with the swing of the democratic pendulum now comes the very real problems of governing.
“There are no jobs,” says Ayouni Nasreddine, an unemployed, 28-year-old university graduate who lives here. “That is why the revolution began in Sidi Bouzid. Many men are unemployed and have no money.”
And the Washington Post covers a domestic warning:
Pentagon security agency: Watch out for Islamic State attacks in the U.S.
Recent threats made against U.S. troops by the Islamic State call for vigilance, including varying routes to work, limiting social media activity and hiding Defense Department IDs while in public, according to a new warning from the agency that protects the Pentagon.
The warning was issued Oct. 24, and posted online by the Military Times newspaper chain Wednesday. It was issued by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, a civilian-run organization in the Defense Department that is responsible for protecting occupants and visitors at the Pentagon and other facilities.
The Pentagon’s security warning referenced threats and recent attacks in Canada, Britain and France, and urges Department of Defense employees to exercise caution.
The latest drone strike from the Associated Press:
Drone strike kills 2 militants in NW Pakistan
Suspected U.S. drone-fired missiles struck a house early on Thursday in a restive tribal region in northwest Pakistan, killing two militants, officials said.
Two intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media, said the missiles hit a house in Azam Warsak village in the South Waziristan tribal region.
The house, owned by a local tribesman, Ashraf Mahsud, was occupied by Arab militants affiliated with al-Qaida, the officials said but did not provide more details about those killed or the airstrike itself. Mahsud, who is known to be associated with Uzbek militants operating in other parts of the region, was not at the house at the time, the officials said.
According to one of the two officials, who is based in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, most of the al-Qaida-linked foreign militants have left the tribal regions but some are still hiding in inaccessible pockets in the area.
From El País, citing the Bush doctrine in Spain:
Military court drops prosecution of soldiers who beat Iraqi prisoners
Judges suggest inmates may not have been protected by Geneva Conventions
A military court has decided it will no longer pursue the prosecution of five soldiers who were under scrutiny for allegedly abusing two prisoners at the Spanish base in Diwaniya, Iraq in 2004.
The servicemen, who are all current or former members of the elite military unit known as La Legión, were facing between 10 and 25 years in prison if found guilty, according to the Military Penal Code.
The case came to light in March 2013 when EL PAÍS released video footage showing three soldiers kicking two defenseless men inside a cell, under the watchful eyes of three other soldiers.
The suspects were a captain who now works at the National Intelligence Center (CNI), two corporals – one of whom is still with La Legión and the other with the Civil Guard – and two Civil Guards who were legionnaires at the time.
In a surprising interpretation, the court states that the Geneva Conventions on the protection of prisoners of war “in no way extends to terrorists” and that the victims of this particular crime could, in fact, be “the three alleged terrorists” who were transferred to the Diwaniya base on January 27, 2004 and thought to be involved in the mortar attack against Tegucigalpa Base, a US installation in Iraq.
The idea that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to alleged terrorists is nothing new. The doctrine was applied by former US president George W. Bush to justify the detention center in Guantánamo (Cuba). The US administration considered detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan “illegal enemy combatants” rather than prisoners, thus denying them the rights encoded in the conventions.
CBC News covers a high profile hack:
White House cyberattack confirmed by National Security Council
Officials declined to say who was suspected of launching attack
An attack by hackers on a White House computer network earlier this month was considered so sensitive that only a small group of senior congressional leaders were initially notified about it, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The officials said the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives and the heads of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, collectively known as the “Gang of Eight,” were told last week of the cyberattack, which had occurred several days earlier.
Security experts said this limited group would normally be informed about ultra-secret intelligence operations and notifying them of a computer breach in this way was unusual.
Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said, “Consistent with sensitive intelligence matters, the director of the FBI notified congressional leadership and the chairs and ranking members of the intelligence committees.”
And from the Washington Post, a verdict:
Murky Pentagon contract to build silencers ends in guilty verdicts
A Navy intelligence official and a California hot-rod mechanic were found guilty Wednesday on federal conspiracy charges stemming from a mysterious scheme to manufacture hundreds of AK-47 rifle silencers for a secret military project.
Lee M. Hall, a civilian Navy intelligence official at the Pentagon, and Mark S. Landersman, the mechanic, were convicted of conspiring to build 349 untraceable silencers — without a firearms license — and shipping them across state lines for a sensitive mission that was never fully explained in court.
U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, who delivered the verdicts after bench trials in Alexandria, said she was unconvinced by defense attorneys’ assertions that the silencers were needed for a clandestine purpose and were necessarily obtained outside of normal channels.
Another drone story from Deutsche Welle:
France investigates mystery drones over nuclear plants
France has launched an investigation into unidentified drones spotted over several of its nuclear plants. The incident has reignited the debate about nuclear safety.
Unidentified drones seen over several of France’s nuclear reactors in recent weeks prompted the French government to launch an investigation on Thursday.
“Measures are being taken to know what these drones are and neutralize them,” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told France Info Radio.
According to the state electricity company EDF, the unmanned aircraft were spotted over seven nuclear plants across the country between October 5th and October 20th, without any impact on the plants’ safety or functioning.
It is not known who was behind the mysterious flights. Aircraft are not permitted to fly within a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius and an altitude of 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) over nuclear plants.
Aspirational from Jiji Press:
U.N. Panel Adopts Japan-Led Resolution on Nuclear Abolition
The U.N. General Assembly’s First Committee on Wednesday adopted a Japanese-led resolution confirming U.N. member states’ “determination” to take “united action” for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
The U.N. panel on disarmament approved the resolution by a vote of 163 to one, with 14 abstentions. Among the proponents were the United States, Britain and France, while such nations as Russia, China, India and Pakistan abstained. The only dissident was North Korea.
The First Committee adopted such a resolution for the 21st straight year. A record 116 countries, including Japan, the United States and Britain, jointly sponsored the latest resolution, Japanese officials said.
Panopticon on the march from Al Jazeera America:
With FBI biometric database, ‘what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas’
Agency officials defend police militarization and urge cops to adopt sophisticated technology to help identify suspects
The FBI has invested considerable energy in recent months in marketing a massive new biometric database to local cops, whom the agency will rely on to help feed it billions of fingerprints, palm prints, mug shots, iris scans and images of scars, tattoos and other identifiers.
But it took senior FBI consultant Peter Fagan just nine words this week to capture the ambitious scope of the agency’s aims with the new system, which is gradually replacing traditional fingerprint identification with facial recognition and other biometric identifier technology.
“What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas anymore,” Fagan told a roomful of police executives at the annual International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference in Orlando on Tuesday.
He said that reaching the FBI’s goal of better tracking criminal suspects from town to town depends on local cops’ ability to adopt increasingly sophisticated new technologies and to share their data with federal law enforcement. He urged police to begin to “pack the record[s]” by collecting as many high-quality biometric identifiers from arrested criminal suspects as possible.
And the National Journal covers the QT:
The FBI’s Secret House Meeting to Get Access to Your iPhone
The administration argues that encryption is making it difficult for police to catch dangerous criminals
The Obama administration is ramping up its campaign to force technology companies to help the government spy on their users.
FBI and Justice Department officials met with House staffers this week for a classified briefing on how encryption is hurting police investigations, according to staffers familiar with the meeting.
The briefing included Democratic and Republican aides for the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the staffers said. The meeting was held in a classified room, and aides are forbidden from revealing what was discussed.
It’s unclear whether the FBI is planning a similar briefing for Senate aides.
From the Intercept, imagine that!:
Secret Manuals Show the Spyware Sold to Despots and Cops Worldwide
When Apple and Google unveiled new encryption schemes last month, law enforcement officials complained that they wouldn’t be able to unlock evidence on criminals’ digital devices. What they didn’t say is that there are already methods to bypass encryption, thanks to off-the-shelf digital implants readily available to the smallest national agencies and the largest city police forces — easy-to-use software that takes over and monitors digital devices in real time, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.
We’re publishing in full, for the first time, manuals explaining the prominent commercial implant software “Remote Control System,” manufactured by the Italian company Hacking Team. Despite FBI director James Comey’s dire warnings about the impact of widespread data scrambling — “criminals and terrorists would like nothing more,” he declared — Hacking Team explicitly promises on its website that its software can “defeat encryption.”
The manuals describe Hacking Team’s software for government technicians and analysts, showing how it can activate cameras, exfiltrate emails, record Skype calls, log typing, and collect passwords on targeted devices. They also catalog a range of pre-bottled techniques for infecting those devices using wifi networks, USB sticks, streaming video, and email attachments to deliver viral installers. With a few clicks of a mouse, even a lightly trained technician can build a software agent that can infect and monitor a device, then upload captured data at unobtrusive times using a stealthy network of proxy servers, all without leaving a trace. That, at least, is what Hacking Team’s manuals claim as the company tries to distinguish its offerings in the global marketplace for government hacking software.
And they’re surprised? Via the Washington Post:
ICE twice breached privacy policy with license-plate database
After the Department of Homeland Security canceled a plan for broad law enforcement access to a national license-plate tracking system in February, officials established a policy that required similar plans be vetted by department privacy officers to ensure they do not violate Americans’ civil liberties.
Two months later, however, officials with DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency bypassed the privacy office in purchasing a one-year subscription for a commercially run national database for its Newark field office, according to public contract data and department officials. In June, ICE breached the policy again by approving a similar subscription for its Houston field office. The database contains more than 2.5 billion records.
The policy was created after Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who oversees ICE, canceled a solicitation that could have given ICE field offices across the country — more than 12,000 personnel — access to a national license-plate database.
From CNN, down and in:
Undercover sting: FBI agents posed as Internet repairmen
In sting operation last July, undercover FBI agents gained access to a hotel suite by disabling the hotel’s Internet, and then posing as Internet repair technicians.
Now one of the suspects who was charged in the sting is crying foul.
At Caesar’s Palace, a casino hotel on the Strip in Las Vegas, FBI agents deliberately cut off the Internet for a suite used by Paul Phua, a high-stakes gambler. Then, they showed up at the suite and made a bogus service call.
On their undercover video, you can hear the imposters asking their targets what the trouble is.
BuzzFeed covers dismay:
Senator Leahy Criticizes FBI For Creating Fake News Story
The letter comes after agents created a fake Associated Press article to nab a suspected school bomber in Seattle in 2007. This is the latest in a series of incidents in which cops have been criticized for pretending to be someone else.
Senator Patrick Leahy isn’t happy with feds pretending to be journalists online — even if they are going after dangerous suspects.
On Thursday, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to review “all techniques involving federal law enforcement officials impersonating others without their consent.”
Leahy’s letter comes just days after the American Civil Liberties Union revealed that agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation created a fake Associated Press article, as part of a 2007 operation to catch a potential school bomber.
After the jump, a Ferguson hack, and a massive hack of industrial vulnerabilities, malware in your magazine, credit card data theft refined, on to Mexico and those missing students starting with a violent protest at a gubernatorial manse, a presidential meeting fail, a mayoral resignation, global attention, and a parallel protest in Washington, violent dissent in Burkina Faso, an ominous declaration from Beijing, island-building by China and Vietnam in disputed waters, a Korean court hits a Japanese corporation with wartime reparations, and a French crackdown on creepy clowns. . .
Hacking news form the Los Angeles Times:
Investigation finds no Ferguson grand jury leak, but finds a ‘hack’
The leaks from the grand jury investigating the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old in Ferguson, Mo., are not coming from the grand jurors themselves, officials said Thursday.
The St. Louis area is tensely awaiting the grand jury’s decision, expected to be handed down in November, as to whether Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson should be criminally charged for fatally shooting Michael Brown on Aug. 9.
In recent weeks, local protesters and officials as prominent as U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. have been incensed over leaked information appearing in media reports, including what witnesses said in front of the grand jury, whose workings are supposed to be confidential.
Those reports cited unnamed officials who had been briefed on the investigation. The details were largely favorable to Wilson’s account of the shooting, prompting a strongly worded statement last week from the U.S. Justice Department that “there seems to be an inappropriate effort to influence public opinion about this case.”
Hacking industrial vulnerability with Network World:
Attack campaign infects industrial control systems with BlackEnergy malware
Since 2011 a group of attackers has been targeting companies that operate industrial control systems with a backdoor program called BlackEnergy.
“Multiple companies working with ICS-CERT have identified the malware on Internet-connected human-machine interfaces (HMIs),” the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a security advisory Tuesday.
HMIs are software applications that provide a graphical user interface for monitoring and interacting with industrial machinery. They are a component of SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems that are used in industrial environments.
Malware in your magazine from Threatpost:
Popular Science Website Infected, Serving Malware
The website of widely read Popular Science magazine is reportedly hosting a malicious script that is redirecting site visitors to a third-party domain containing an exploit kit, which is infecting users by uploading files containing malware to their machines.
To give an idea of the scope of this problem, according to estimated metrics from the site traffic analysis service Alexa, Popsci[dot]com ranks 6,297 globally and 2,234 in the U.S. in terms of total traffic.
The compromise was discovered by researchers from the Websense Security Lab, who said they contacted the IT team at Popular Science and informed them of the breach.
Credit card data theft refined Network World:
Cybercriminals create platform for automating rogue credit card charges
Cybercriminals have a new tool to make the most of stolen credit card details before payment processors detect the fraud, security researchers warn.
A Web-based application called the Voxis Platform is being advertised on underground forums as a tool for cashing out money from stolen credit cards by automating fraudulent purchases, according to security researchers from cybercrime intelligence firm IntelCrawler.
There are three main parties involved in every online transaction: the buyer, the seller and a payment processing provider that operates a payment gateway. In order to receive money from transactions, the seller needs to have a merchant account registered with the payment gateway.
On to Mexico and those missing students, first with RT:
Teachers’ Rampage: Mexican governor residence trashed over missing students
Program notes:
A group of teachers from the State Coordinator of Education Workers of Guerrero (CETEG) smashed the front gate of the official residence of the governor of Guerrero before setting fire to the truck at the premises in Chilpancingo on Thursday, in protest of the handling of the disappearance of 43 students near the town of Iguala.
The protest came on the same day Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto met with the relatives of the missing students.
A total of 56 people have been arrested in connection with the disappearance of the students, including Iguala police officers, officials and alleged members of drug rings. The students went missing after clashes with police on September 26.
A presidential meeting fail from the Los Angeles Times:
Mexico president, missing students’ relatives at odds after meeting
More than a month after 43 college students were led away by police and never seen again, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday met with relatives of the missing men in a bid to shore up flagging public faith in the search.
But the families apparently turned the tables on the normally well-choreographed president, rejecting his proposed approach and refusing to leave his headquarters in Mexico City for more than six hours.
Peña Nieto went on TV to promise a 10-point plan to find the students and address other grievances, while the families angrily denounced what they saw as official negligence. “All the powers of state, and they cannot find our children,” a father said at a chaotic news conference after the meeting.
More from Al Jazeera America:
Mexico president meets with relatives of missing students, one month later
Family members of 43 missing students say they left Mexico City ‘empty-handed’
Peña Nieto met with about 120 relatives and representatives of the missing students from Ayotzinapa Normal School — a teachers training college for the rural poor — in a five-hour meeting he said was meant to “generate an atmosphere of trust.”
But the parents dismissed the president’s efforts to find the missing and said their patience was running out.
“We came away with the same news — that the state is doing everything it can to find them. But we are still empty-handed,” said Felipe de la Cruz Sandoval, the father of one of the missing students. “We’re not going to believe the president’s words and the pledges he made until the 43 students are presented to us alive,” one of the fathers, Felipe de la Cruz, told a news conference late on Wednesday after meeting Pena Nieto.
A mayoral resignation from the Latin American Herald Tribune:
Mayor of City in Mexico Missing Students Case Steps Down
The new mayor of the city of Iguala, where 43 education students disappeared last month, asked the legislature in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero for leave from the job just hours after being appointed to the post, media reports said.
Luis Mazon was accompanied to the legislature by his brother, Lazaro, who served as state health secretary until two weeks ago under former Gov. Angel Aguirre.
Aguirre, of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, resigned last Thursday amid the social unrest sparked by the students’ disappearance.
Global attention from the McClatchy Foreign Staff:
In missing students case, Mexico draws world attention it doesn’t want
The clock ticks. A nation waits. More than a month after 43 student teachers went missing, a frantic search unfolds in the hills of western Mexico’s Guerrero state.
By some counts, more than three dozen potential grave sites have been searched. Some have yielded bodies. All have added to anguish. Yet no grave has relinquished a body identified as one of the missing students.
As events play out, the pressure is building on President Enrique Pena Nieto to either obtain results with the massive federal search now on or risk having his presidency permanently identified with unpunished violence rather than the economic growth he envisioned with his slogan “Mexico on the move.”
The crisis has ricocheted from the green hills of Guerrero state to Mexico City and on to the Vatican, other European capitals and Washington. The clamor has overwhelmed talk of Mexico’s welcome of foreign investment in the oil industry or the rapid expansion of its automotive sector.
And a parallel protest in Washington from the Latin American Herald Tribune:
Protesters Hound Mexican Officials at Rights Hearing in Washington
A group of protesters demanding justice for the 43 education students who disappeared last month in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero jeered and chanted slogans Thursday at Mexico’s delegation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or IACHR, here.
The demonstrators chanted “Criminals, murderers!” at Mexican officials in the U.S. capital to explain their government’s National Human Rights Program to the IACHR at the body’s 153rd session.
“It is obvious that the Mexican government has provided an official version that is not true. We are here today to break that official version,” Salvador Sarmiento, a spokesman for the protesters, said.
An African protest turns violent, via the Independent:
Burkina Faso: Protesters shot dead and parliament set ablaze as poor call end to President Blaise Compaoré’s rule
Protesters have stormed Burkina Faso’s parliament and set its main chamber ablaze in the most significant challenge ever to the President’s 27-year rule in one of the world’s poorest countries.
At least three protesters were shot dead and scores were wounded by security forces as the vast crowd tried to storm the home of the President’s brother and overran other state buildings. It was not possible to confirm the whereabouts of President Blaise Compaoré, who seized power in 1987.
The country’s military announced emergency measures, including the formation of a transitional government, after a day of violent protests which culminated in the imposition of an overnight curfew.
An ominous declaration from Beijing via Reuters:
Hong Kong protests a ‘national security issue’ for China
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests have escalated into a national security issue threatening Chinese sovereignty over the Asian financial center, a delegate to China’s rubber-stamp parliament said on Thursday.
Businessman and lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun said support for Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying was crucial to the city’s future stability and there was no longer any room to remain neutral.
The protesters have blocked key intersections for a month in their demand for fully-democratic elections for the city’s next chief executive in 2017. Beijing has said it will only allow a vote among pre-screened candidates.
Want China Times covers Chinese island-building:
Beijing to use floating docks for S China Sea reclamation: report
A source from the shipbuilding industry in China claims the nation is planning to develop floating docks to support its land reclamation projects in the disputed South China Sea, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly based in London.
An official from the China Ship Scientific Research Center under China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation told the weekly at the Shiptec China 2014 exhibition in Dalian that Beijing is developing multifunctional floating docks for deployment to the Paracel and Spratly islands in the South China Sea. He said the docks will be manufactured in China and transported to the islands for final assembly.
The docks are to be sent first to the Paracels for testing before being moved to the Spratlys. The source said the docks consist of a large rectangular platform and a bridge to connect the platform to an island or reef. The platform can be used in various ways by Chinese military and civilian vessels operating in the disputed waters.
And a second Want China Times story reveals that what Beijing can do Hanoi can undertake as well:
Satellite photo shows Vietnam’s land reclamation in South China Sea
Satellite images captured by Taiwan indicate that Vietnam is pushing for land reclamation much harder than China in the disputed South China Sea, the Christian Science Monitor reported on Sept. 23.
Wang Cheng-gi from the Satellite Surveying Center of the Department of Land Administration under Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior, who is in charge of a US$3 million project to produce high-resolution satellite images of the disputed South China Sea, said he was surprised to find out that Vietnam is developing reefs and artificial islands in the disputed Spratlys. He also said that one Vietnamese landfill project spans 11 football fields.
“Everyone is talking about mainland China, but Vietnam is going all out,” Wang said.
The Spratly islands are variously claimed in whole or in part by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia. Taiping, also referred to as Itu Aba, was the largest island in the group before the large scale land reclamation projects got underway and is the only island currently under Taiwan’s control. An armed conflict between Taipei and Hanoi could potentially take place in the future if Vietnam continues to expand its influence in the region.
Another last blast challenges Japanese amnesia, via the New York Times:
South Korean Court Orders Japanese Firm Nachi-Fujikoshi to Pay Forced Laborers
A South Korean court on Thursday ordered a Japanese company to compensate dozens of Koreans who were forced to work in its factory during Japanese colonial rule of Korea, which ended with Japan’s defeat in World War II.
The Japanese company, the Nachi-Fujikoshi Corporation, must pay $75,800 to $94,800 to each of the 13 former workers who are still alive and to the families of 18 who have died, the Seoul Central District Court said on Thursday.
In court rulings last year, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation were ordered to pay similar amounts to compensate South Korean plaintiffs.
Mitsubishi Heavy and Nippon Steel have filed appeals, and Nachi-Fujikoshi said it would do the same.
And, finally, a creepy crackdown from TheLocal.fr:
Facing panic, French town bans ‘evil’ clowns
A French village has banned teenagers from dressing up as clowns for Halloween after people kitted out as the colourful pranksters have sown terror and violence in several parts of the country.
The 6,000-strong village of Vendargues in southern France wants to “avoid any disruption… by evil clowns,” Bruno Giraudo from the village hall told AFP on Thursday.
“It’s about protecting children by preventing any ill-intentioned clowns from mixing with residents.”
