Belated by exhaustion [16-hour blogging days taking a toll], but here tis. . .
First, from the Intercept, oh joy:
Hackers Could Decide Who Controls Congress Thanks to Alaska’s Terrible Internet Ballots
When Alaska voters go to the polls tomorrow to help decide whether the U.S. Senate will remain in Democratic control, thousands will do so electronically, using Alaska’s first-in-the-nation internet voting system. And according to internet security experts, including the former top cybersecurity official for the Department of Homeland Security, that system is a security nightmare that threatens to put control of the U.S. Congress in the hands of foreign or domestic hackers.
Any registered Alaska voter can obtain an electronic ballot, mark it on their computers using a web-based interface, save the ballot as a PDF, and return it to their county elections department through what the state calls “a dedicated secure data center behind a layer of redundant firewalls under constant physical and application monitoring to ensure the security of the system, voter privacy, and election integrity.”
That sounds great, but even the state acknowledges in an online disclaimer that things could go awry, warning that “when returning the ballot through the secure online voting solution, your are voluntarily waving [sic] your right to a secret ballot and are assuming the risk that a faulty transmission may occur.”
On to the war of the day, via the Toronto Globe and Mail:
Canadian warplanes launch air strikes against Islamic State militants
Canada has made its mark on the battlefield in Iraq with CF-18 warplanes dropping their first bombs in this country’s combat mission there.
Canadian fighter jets attacked Islamic State militant targets near the city of Fallujah on Sunday, Ottawa said.
It’s not clear how much damage the CF-18s caused. The military says it requires two days, until Tuesday, before it can tell Canadians what was achieved.
More from CBC News:
Canada’s forces face daunting mission against ISIS in Iraq
If mission remains an air war, it will neither be quick, nor easy to destroy ISIS
Canada has pitched its tent with the US-led coalition against ISIS, the radical Sunni Muslim militant group which has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria, terrorizing—and often executing—those in its way. Its aim is to topple the governments of both of those countries to create one huge Islamic state that is stricter in its interpretation of the Koran than either Afghanistan’s Taliban or Saudi Arabia next door. The coalition’s aim is to destroy it.
That will neither be quick, nor easy. It may not even be possible.
The coalition itself is awkward. It mostly consists of the United States, with some Arab countries offering token help against ISIS in Syria, and some western countries—Canada, Britain, Australia, France and others—helping in Iraq.
Canada shares its Kuwait base with U.S. forces, but the American military Central Command doesn’t seem to have noticed that Canadian planes have arrived. As recently as Sunday, news releases listing coalition activities and members left out any reference to Canada.
From the Guardian, more blowback:
Muslim leader shot outside Sydney prayer hall by alleged Isis supporters
Rasoul Al Mousawi to undergo surgery after he was shot in the face outside an Islamic centre in Greenacre just hours after threats allegedly made
A Shia Muslim community leader will undergo surgery after being shot in the face with pellets outside a Sydney religious hall, which witnesses say was targeted by supporters of Islamic State hours earlier.
Rasoul Al Mousawi, 47, was standing outside the building in Greenacre in Sydney south-west around 1.15am on Monday morning when a number of pellets were fired.
Police said Al Mousawi sustained wounds to his head and shoulder and is expected to undergo surgery, but his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
From McClatchy Washington Bureau, a serious setback:
Slaughter of Anbar tribesmen shows weakness in U.S. plan to beat Islamic State
Exhausted, hungry and low on ammunition, al Goud and hundreds of his tribesmen ceased firing on Oct. 22 in return for a pledge from the Islamic State that civilians wouldn’t be harmed. They then set out on a 15-hour overnight drive through the desert, leaving behind families and associates and nursing another in a long list of Sunni tribal grievances that are hindering reconciliation with the Shiite-led government and threatening to derail President Barack Obama’s plan to crush the Islamic State.
“They did nothing for us,” al Goud said in an interview last week in a rented house in Baghdad. “It’s all killing and disaster.”
A week later, the Islamic State executed more than 40 Albu Nimr captives on a Hit street and drove thousands of Albu Nimr civilians into the desert, where hundreds have been slaughtered – more than 400 by Monday. Tribal leaders’ calls for help from the Iraqi army and for U.S. airstrikes again went unanswered.
But good news for a very few from RT:
Head Hunters: ISIS offers top oil jobs for ‘ideologically suitable’ engineers
Program notes:
ISIS jihadists have a job offer for a professional to manage the seized refineries. Reports have emerged that Islamic State is scouring North Africa for a suitable candidate to oversee production. In return, the jihadists are offering over 200-thousand dollars a year. But for that, the right candidate will have to be a skilled industry professional – devoted to Islamic State’s ideology.
And not so good news for other, also from RT:
ISIS introduces ‘price scheme’ for selling enslaved women and girls
Islamic State has set fixed prices to sell Yazidi and Christian women who have been abducted by members of the militant group, Iraqi media have reported. The barbaric tariffs range from around $40 for older women to $170 for children.
The group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, says they will execute anyone who violates the controls, which have been implemented. $43 is the price for a Yazidi or Christian women who is aged between 40 and 50. For those aged between 20 and 30, the price is $86. The sickening trend continues, with girls falling into the 10 to 20 age group being sold for $129 and children up to the age of nine, commanding the highest prices of $172 or 200,000 dinars.
The document states that there has not been so much interest in purchasing slaves recently. “The market to sell women and spoils of war has been experiencing a significant decrease, which has adversely affected ISIS revenue and financing of the Mujahideen,” said the document, which was obtained by the website IraqiNews.com.
The document also says that no individual is allowed to buy more than three slaves. However there are no exceptions for foreigners, such as those from Turkey, Syria and the Gulf States.
While the Independent examines origins:
Camp Bucca: The US prison that became the birthplace of Isis
In March 2009, in a wind-swept sliver of Iraq, a sense of uncertainty befell the southern town of Garma, home to one of the Iraq War’s most notorious prisons. The sprawling detention center called Camp Bucca, which had detained some of the Iraq War’s most radical jihadists along the Kuwait border, had just freed hundreds of inhabitants. Families rejoiced, anxiously awaiting their sons, brothers and fathers who had been lost to Bucca for years. But a local official fretted.
“These men weren’t planting flowers in a garden,” police chief Saad Abbas Mahmoud told The Washington Post’s Anthony Shadid, estimating 90 percent of the freed prisoners would soon resume fighting. “They weren’t strolling down the street. This problem is both big and dangerous. And regrettably, the Iraqi government and the authorities don’t know how big the problem has become.”
Mahmoud’s assessment of Camp Bucca, which funneled 100,000 detainees through its barracks and closed months later, would prove prescient. The camp now represents an opening chapter in the history of Islamic State — many of its leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were incarcerated and likely met there. According to former prison commanders, analysts and soldiers, Camp Bucca provided a unique setting for both prisoner radicalization and inmate collaboration — and was formative in the development today’s most potent jihadist force.
Screens going up from BuzzFeed:
U.S. To Tighten Screening Of Europeans And Australians Amid Concerns Of Islamist Militants
Additional security measures will be imposed for millions of travelers from countries that do not require U.S. visas due to the rising threat of Islamic militants with Western passports.
The Department of Homeland Security will introduce heightened screening measures for travelers from Europe, Australia, and other countries exempt from U.S. visas on Monday due to growing number of Islamist militants in Syria with Western passports, the Washington Post reported.
According to the new rule, travelers who do not need visas to enter the U.S. will need to provide detailed information to authorities before boarding a flight to the country. Usually such travelers undergo lighter security.
And from RT, add fuel to fire:
Afghan police sell arms to Taliban ‘to feed families’ as wages go unpaid for months – report
The Afghan police service has been forced to sell its arms to the Taliban, as officers have not received wages for months. Some have even joined the insurgents, local Khaama Press newspaper reported.
The local police in Ghazni, Logar, and Maidan Wardak provinces say they have not been paid for three months and do not have money to feed their families.
“We have turned to begging for bread,” Mohmad Ajan, who had fought the Taliban insurgents for the last two years in Maidan Wardak, told Khaama Press. He added that the policemen face “hunger, thirst and the cold.”
Many officers reportedly say they have no other choice but to sell their personal arms and ammunition. The buyers are usually local people – but sometimes they are Taliban militants. It has also been reported that some of the policemen have joined the militants.
While the Los Angeles Times sounds a familiar theme:
U.S. Muslim leaders say FBI pressuring people to become informants
Muslim leaders nationwide say the FBI is pressuring some Islamic community members and religious leaders to spy on fellow Muslims as part of a government effort to combat extremist recruiting in the U.S.
The campaign has intensified in recent weeks, with mosques in California, Texas, Minnesota, Ohio, Florida and other states reporting unannounced visits by FBI agents, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
In a nationwide alert, the group urged mosque and community leaders to seek the advice of an attorney if they are approached by the FBI for questioning. They worried that the civil rights of numerous imams were being violated as the religious leaders were asked to meet with FBI agents, who then pressed them to inform on members of their congregations.
On to Cold War 2.0 from News Corp Australia:
Russian military flights sending message they are ‘great power’: NATO leader
RUSSIA’S recent military flights into European airspace are meant to demonstrate to the West that the country is a “great power,” NATO’s supreme allied commander said on Monday.
Although there has been an increase in Russian air activity over Europe during the past year, last week marked the first time Moscow had sent in larger formations of warplanes, General Philip Breedlove told reporters.
“My opinion is they’re messaging us. They’re messaging us that they are a great power,” Breedlove said.
Moscow wanted to show it can exert influence on the alliance’s calculations, he said.
The London Telegraph looks at the other cyberwar:
Britain’s spy chief says US tech firms aid terrorism
New GCHQ director Richard Hannigan accuses some Silicon Valley companies of becoming ‘the command and control networks of choice’ for terrorists
Technology giants such as Facebook and Twitter have become “the command and control networks of choice” for terrorists and criminals but are “in denial” about the scale of the problem, the new head of GCHQ has said.
Robert Hannigan said that Isil terrorists in Syria and Iraq have “embraced the web” and are using it to intimidate people and inspire “would-be jihadis” from all over the World to join them.
He urged the companies to work more closely with the security services, arguing that it is time for them to confront “some uncomfortable truths” and that privacy is not an “absolute right”.
He suggested that unless US technology companies co-operate, new laws will be needed to ensure that intelligence agencies are able to track and pursue terrorists.
The Independent takes a different tack:
GCHQ head demands internet firms open up to intelligence services, claiming privacy is not an absolute right
The new head of Britian’s GCHQ intelligence agency has demanded that internet firms open themselves up to intelligence services, and has claimed that privacy is not an absolute right.
Accusing internet companies of being “in denial” of the role they play in terrorism, Robert Hannigan said they had become the “command-and-control networks of choice” for a new generation of criminals and extremists, such as the militant group Isis which has swept across Iraq and Syria and is well known for its use of online propaganda.
Citing the group which calls itself the Islamic State (IS), Hannigan said it did not show the beheadings of hostages including British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning in recent videos as proof of extremists’ increasing expertise in online propaganda.
“By self-censoring they can stay just the right side of the rules of social media sites, capitalising on western freedom of expression,” he said.
More from the Guardian:
Former NSA lawyer: the cyberwar is between tech firms and the US government
Stewart Baker said that Apple and Google could be restricting their business in markets like China and Russia by encrypting user data
The battle over encryption of consumer internet users’ data has pitched US technology companies against the US government itself, former NSA general counsel Stewart Baker said on Tuesday.
Speaking at Web Summit in Dublin, Baker claimed that moves by Google and Apple and others to encrypt user data was more hostile to western intelligence gathering than to surveillance by China or Russia.
“The state department has funded some of these tools, such as Tor, which has been used in Arab Spring revolutions or to get past the Chinese firewall, but these crypto wars are mainly being fought between the American government and American companies,” he said, in conversation with Guardian special projects editor James Ball.
And a rebuff from the Independent:
Tech giants reject GCHQ boss Robert Hannigan’s call for deal with government
Organisation representing major technology companies including Apple criticise comments by the new director of government listening post
A technology industry group which represents Silicon Valley giants including Apple, Microsoft and Google has insisted there will be no “new deal” with the Government to tackle web extremism.
Robert Hannigan – the new director of GCHQ, the government listening post – had earlier called for a pact between “democratic governments and technology companies in the area of protecting our citizens”.
But the head of a leading industry group tech UK representing 860 companies employing more than half a million people in Britain rejected the idea and said any new moves should instead be based on a “clear and transparent legal framework”.
Julian David, chief executive officer of techUK, also said Mr Hannigan was “wrong” to claim IT companies were in denial about misuse of social media and other technology by Isil terrorists and other extremists.
From the Guardian, most peculiar, in light of the above:
Apple users raise privacy concerns after hard-drive files uploaded to servers
Line between devices and cloud services fades as online storage allows users to switch without losing data
After security researcher Jeffrey Paul upgraded the operating system on his MacBook Pro last week, he discovered that several of his personal files had found a new home – on the cloud. The computer had saved the files, which Paul thought resided only on his own encrypted hard drive, to a remote server that Apple controls.
“This is unacceptable,” thundered Paul, an American based in Berlin, on his personal blog a few days later. “Apple has taken local files on my computer not stored in iCloud and silently and without my permission uploaded them to their servers – across all applications, Apple and otherwise.”
He was not alone in either his frustration or surprise. Johns Hopkins University cryptographer Matthew Green tweeted his dismay after realising that some private notes had found their way to iCloud. Bruce Schneier, another prominent cryptography expert, wrote a blog post calling the automatic saving function “both dangerous and poorly documented” by Apple.
The criticism was all the more notable because its target, Apple, had just enjoyed weeks of applause within the computer security community for releasing a bold new form of smartphone encryption capable of thwarting government searches – even when police have warrants. Yet here was an awkward flip side: police still can gain access to files stored on cloud services, and Apple seemed determined to migrate more and more data to them.
And from the Washington Post, more corporate cyberstalking:
Verizon, AT&T tracking their users with ‘supercookies’
Verizon and AT&T have been quietly tracking the Internet activity of more than 100 million cellular customers with what critics have dubbed “supercookies” — markers so powerful that it’s difficult for even savvy users to escape them.
The technology has allowed the companies to monitor which sites their customers visit, cataloging their tastes and interests. Consumers cannot erase these supercookies or evade them by using browser settings, such as the “private” or “incognito” modes that are popular among users wary of corporate or government surveillance.
Verizon and AT&T say they have taken steps to alert their customers to the tracking and to protect customer privacy as the companies develop programs intended to help advertisers hone their pitches based on individual Internet behavior. But as word has spread about the supercookies in recent days, privacy advocates have reacted with alarm, saying the tracking could expose user Internet behavior to a wide range of outsiders — including intelligence services — and may also violate federal telecommunications and wiretapping laws.
And another techie turmoil from the Guardian:
Six types of killer use Facebook to commit crimes, says study
Criminologists identify murderer profiles who use networking site but emphasise technology itself is inherently safe
Researchers at Birmingham City University have identified six types of killer who use Facebook to commit crimes, in the first-ever study on how the social networking site can affect criminal behaviour.
Dr Elizabeth Yardley and Prof David Wilson, from the university’s centre of applied criminology, analysed cases of murder in which the site had been reported as a significant factor. They found 48 examples from across the world, including that of Wayne Forrester, an HGV driver, who killed his wife Emma in 2008 after reading her Facebook posts in which she claimed that they had separated and she wanted to meet other men.
They identified the types of killer as: reactor, informer, antagonist, fantasist, predator and imposter.
intelNews covers a work-around:
Brazil builds direct Internet cable to Europe to avoid US spying
The government of Brazil is to construct a transatlantic cable across the Atlantic Ocean in order to avoid having its Internet traffic to and from Europe intercepted by American intelligence agencies. According to reports, the fiber-optic cable will stretch for 3,500 miles from the northeastern Brazilian city of Fortaleza to the Portuguese capital Lisbon.
It will cost the Brazilian government in excess of US$185 million, but it will allow the country’s existing Internet traffic to and from Europe to travel without going through cables owned by American service providers. According to Brazilian officials, the construction of the cable is among several steps announced by the Brazilian government aimed at disassociating its communications infrastructure from American companies.
The move follows revelations made last year by American defector Edward Snowden that the US National Security Agency specifically targeted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s personal communications as part of its intelligence-collection efforts targeting Brazil.
The South China Morning Post covers another:
China to launch hack-proof quantum communication network in 2016
China will complete and put into service the world’s longest quantum communication network stretching 2,000km from Beijing to Shanghai by 2016, say scientists leading the project.
The quantum network is considered “unhackable” and will provide the most secure encryption technology to users.
By 2030, the Chinese network would be extended worldwide, Xinhua reported.
China is the first major power to come up with a detailed schedule to put the technology into extensive, large-scale use. The South China Morning Post earlier reported that Beijing would launch the world’s first quantum communication satellite in 2016.
From TechWeekEurope, help wanted:
Why The UK Desperately Needs 200,000 IT Security Specialists
Businesses must take urgent measures to protect themselves from growing cyber crime threat, cyber security recruiter warns
The UK’s lack of available talent with the right cyber security skills presents a very real danger to British businesses, according to a London-based cyber security specialist recruiter.
Responding to recent reports by EY and the office of the Minister for Universities and Science, Cornucopia IT Resourcing, warned that the unless the deficit in the number of available cyber security professionals is addressed, British businesses will remain the target of cyber attacks.
Security breach
Accordingly, 93% of large companies and 87% of SMEs have suffered at least one security breach in the last 12 months, at an average cost of £450k-850k and £35k-65k respectively, according to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.
This has fuelled a demand for cyber security experts which the industry is struggling to meet.
While this headline from RT makes us wonder how the NSA, GCHQ, et al might use the tech involved:
Anti-depression app: Smartphones to analyze mental health through speech
If you are one of more than 350 million people globally who suffer from depression, then scientists are working for a new smartphone app for you that will detect when you’re having a tough time through speech analysis.
Researchers from the University of Maryland are seeking to develop an app based on their scientific finding that claim that as patients’ feelings of depression worsen, certain vocal features change in their voice.
Acoustician Carol Espy-Wilson and her colleagues have discovered that patients’ vocal patterns change as feelings of depression worsen.
“Their emotions are all over the place during this time, and that’s when they’re really at risk for depression. We have to reach out and figure out a way to help kids in that stage,” she said in a press release.
After the jump, American nuclear tests, more Air Force firings of nuclear commanders, nude-selfie-stealing Cal copper clapped in irons, a latter-day Berlin Wall protest, Mexican mayor suspected in college student protests busted with his wife as parents stand tall, a look at the unique college at the eye of the storm, and another Mexican police commander is slain, disproportionate punishment in Israel, religious slayings in Pakistan, on to China and a Japanese gambit rebuffed, a laser anti-drone defense locked and loaded, and major diplomatic moves toward Pakistan and Indonesia, a chemical warfare munitions destroying facility readied, and the latest from Hong Kong, on to Japan and jet-fueled anxiety, naval anxieties at Chinese naval encroachment plus lesser worries from Chinese poachers, the Philippines lust for closer military ties with Tokyo, and a famous author confront his country’s hysterical historical hypocrisies, Kim wants tourists [just not ones from Ebolaland], and the bloody plight of the Fourth Estate. . .
The Mainichi gets testy:
U.S. conducts plutonium tests on capabilities of nuclear weapons
The United States conducted a test using plutonium to examine the capabilities of nuclear weapons in September and October, an official of the National Nuclear Security Administration said Monday.
The tests involved a device called a “Z machine” that generates strong X-rays to create a fusion reaction to assess the performance of nuclear weapons. The United States has repeatedly conducted such tests at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
Despite President Barack Obama’s much-touted 2009 call for a nuclear weapon-free world, his administration has vowed to maintain existing nuclear arms.
Sackings, via United Press International:
Air Force fires 2 nuclear missile commanders
Monday’s actions are the latest in a string of incidents involving the group in charge of U.S. inter-continental ballistic missiles. These have included a cheating scandal, failures in operations inspections and the dismissal of Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, who was commander of the 20th Air Force and in charge of the ICBM fleet, for apparent drunken behavior during a conference in Russia.
Lt. Col. Jimmy Brown was relieved as commander of the 741st Missile Squadron at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota on Monday. Officials said Brown told a subordinate that becoming pregnant would hurt a woman’s career and also failed at “ensuring the well-being of his airmen.”
Col. Carl Jones, the vice wing commander at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in North Dakota, was also relieved of command. Officials said he had engaged in displays of temper at the base bowling alley and at a thrift shop known as the Airmen’s Attic.
Col. Richard Pagliuco, the 91st Operations Group Commander at Minot, was given an administrative punishment.
Nude photo-stealing Cal copper clapped in irons from the Los Angeles Times:
Ex-CHP officer charged with two felonies in nude-photo sharing case
A California Highway Patrol officer who resigned after he was caught sharing nude photographs taken from the cellphones of female suspects has been charged with two felonies.
Sean D. Harrington, 36, resigned from the CHP’s Dublin office Wednesday and has apologized to the department, his victims, and the public, according to a statement released by his attorney, Michael Rains.
Harrington’s actions were “simultaneously improper, impulsive, and entirely insensitive to the privacy rights” of his victims, the statement said. Rains said that his client was “embarrassed” that he tarnished the CHP’s reputation.
According to the criminal complaint filed against Harrington, he went through the phone of a 19-year-old woman who was in custody on suspicion of DUI on Aug. 6 while she was being treated at a local hospital. Harrington sent photos from her phone to his, according to Contra Costa County prosecutors.
On Aug. 29, Harrington allegedly searched another woman’s phone while she was in jail for a DUI arrest and sent revealing photos to his phone.
The Guardian covers a latter-day Berlin Wall protest:
Art group removes Berlin Wall memorial in border protest
Centre for Political Beauty says it took white crosses to highlight hypocrisy of fortifying borders while celebrating fall of another
For the past 10 years, 14 white crosses in the heart of Berlin have marked the lives of those who died trying to cross from east to west. Over the weekend, they disappeared, replaced with empty black metal frames and a note: “There’s no thinking going on here.”
On Monday, the crosses resurfaced, not in Germany but on walls and fences that mark the very outer edges of Europe, in Greece, Bulgaria and Melilla, on the north African coast. A performance art group called the Centre for Political Beauty claimed to have organised the stunt.
In a video statement, the group criticised what it said was Europe’s hypocrisy in fortifying its borders in the south just as it celebrated the fall of an old border in the east.
On Friday, two days before the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall, the group plans to send up to three coachloads of people from Berlin to the Mediterranean, to “tear down the European wall”. Its crowdfunding page carries Ikea-style instructions on how to dismantle a wire fence with a bolt-cutter and an angle grinder.
On to Mexico and a major break in the case of those missing college students from the New York Times:
Fugitive Mexican Mayor and Wife Are Detained in Case of Missing Students
The fugitive mayor of the Mexican town where 43 college students were apparently abducted in September after he reportedly ordered the police to attack them has been detained along with his wife, a federal official said on Tuesday.
José Ramón Salinas, a spokesman for the federal police, said on Twitter that Mayor José Luis Abarca of Iguala and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa, were arrested in Mexico City, 120 miles north of Iguala, but gave no other details.
Their detention could provide a pivotal break in a case that has frustrated the authorities since Sept. 26, when an outbreak of violence in Iguala left six people dead, including three students. The students, who were part of a large group from a left-wing teachers’ college with a history of provocative protest, were soliciting donations and stealing buses for transportation to a coming demonstration.
Mr. Abarca and his wife were believed to have close ties to a drug gang, Guerreros Unidos, which had been linked to corruption in the Iguala police force, and to several other gangs in Guerrero State.
Mr. Abarca ordered the police to “teach them a lesson,” Mexican news reports said, citing documents in the investigation. The move was said to be out of concern that the students would disrupt a speech his wife, who had political aspirations, was giving in the central plaza.
More from the Los Angeles Times:
Arrests of Mexican mayor, wife, seen as key to missing students case
Rogelio Ortega, the acting governor of Guerrero, predicted the detention of Abarca will serve as a key to solving the puzzle of the missing students.
The capture “represents the possibility of finding substantive clues of what really happened… and [could allow] a more precise search,” Ortega told the Televisa television network Tuesday morning.
Parents of the missing welcomed the arrest of the mayor they blame for their children’s disappearance but said they still want the priority of authorities to be finding the students.
“For us, this is news that will assure us that we will get our young people back; it was the piece that was missing,” father Felipe de la Cruz told Milenio TV.
While Frontera NorteSur looks at the unique college targeted by mayoral rage:
The Blazing Ashes of Ayotzinapa
In late 2014 Mexico there is one word that captures the socio-political reality: Ayotzinapa. From border to border and from coast to coast, the crisis triggered by the September 26-27 police killings and forced disappearances of students and civilians in the state of Guerrero only deepens, with unpredictable consequences for the 2015 Congressional elections, the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto and Mexican polity as a whole.
Rising with a three-day national protest October 29-31 and continuing into the November 1-2 Days of the Dead festivities, protests in support of the 43 missing male students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers College of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero sizzled throughout the country and abroad.
The students, whose photos have practically become iconic images in Mexico, were detained and disappeared by municipal police officers in Iguala, Guerrero, after a confrontation developed over the students’ collection of money in public. Opening fire on the students and others, the police-and paramilitary gunmen linked to a drug cartel working with them- were then blamed for killing three students and three passerby.
The disappeared young men, who were all first year students at the Ayotzinapa school, were then bundled into police vehicles and whisked off to an uncertain fate.
More from the New York Times:
Keeping Mexico’s Revolutionary Fires Alive
In their first week of school, the new students eat and drink nothing but beans and cold coffee, and spend sleepless days cleaning up the buildings and planting crops.
It is a “boot camp” to foster a sense of community and prove that they really want to be here at the Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos. The small teachers’ college in southern Mexico has been at the center of a national crisis since 43 of its students disappeared in September after a violent confrontation with the local police force, which has been infiltrated by a drug gang.
The school’s students read books on Marxism, have weekly discussions on political documentaries championing leftist causes and try to adhere to the social justice ideals underpinning the school since its founding in 1926 after the Mexican Revolution, one of several such schools begun to keep alive its fires of social transformation.
Al Jazeera America covers another death in Mexico:
Security chief in Mexican border state shot
Ricardo Nino Villarreal, a security chief in Tamaulipas, was killed with his wife in area contested by drug cartels
A regional security chief in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas was shot to death along with his wife, authorities said Monday.
It was the latest round of violence affecting Tamaulipas, one of Mexico’s most dangerous states, and about 2,000 residents gathered in the state capital of Ciudad Victoria to protest the killings and disappearances.
The dead man, Ricardo Nino Villarreal, was security chief for the area around Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas. The area is considered the turf of the vicious Zetas drug cartel, which has been battling the Gulf cartel.
Nino Villarreal was a former general and one of several ex-military officers designated as regional commanders as part of a plan announced in May to stem a wave of violence in Tamaulipas.
Back to the Middle East and a case of massively disproportionate punishment via the Guardian:
Palestinian stone throwers could face 20 years in jail
Israel’s cabinet backs bill to hand out tougher penalties to stone throwers after months of clashes in east Jerusalem
Israel’s cabinet has approved a law change allowing harsher jail sentences of up to 20 years for stone throwers after tensions erupted again last week in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The move comes after months of rioting in east Jerusalem where Palestinian residents have thrown rocks and fire bombs at police, cars, buses and trains. Over the past 10 days, 110 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli police in the area.
The al-Aqsa compound, or Temple Mount, has become a central point in the escalating violence in the city. The compound houses Islam’s third-holiest site, but is also a sacred spot for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it once housed two Jewish temples.
Likewise in another troubled land from the Guardian:
Christians beaten to death for allegedly desecrating Qur’an in Pakistan
Bodies of couple burned in a brick kiln in Kot Radha Kishan, in latest case of violence against minorities accused of blasphemy
A Muslim mob beat a Christian couple to death in Pakistan and burnt their bodies in the brick kiln where they worked for allegedly desecrating a Qur’an, police have said.
The attack in Kot Radha Kishan, 40 miles south-west of Lahore, is the latest example of violence against minorities accused of blasphemy.
“A mob attacked a Christian couple after accusing them of desecration of the holy Qur’an and later burnt their bodies at a brick kiln where they worked,” local police station official Bin-Yameen said.
Another police official confirmed the incident. The victims were only identified by their first names, Shama and Shehzad, and were married.
On to China and a Japanese gambit rebuffed from Reuters:
China’s Xinhua pours cold water on idea of Xi-Abe talks
China’s official Xinhua news agency on Monday poured cold water on the idea that the leaders of China and Japan could have formal talks on the sidelines of next week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Expectations have been growing in Japan for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for an ice-breaking chat at the gathering of Asia-Pacific leaders.
A meeting of the two leaders would be a symbolic breakthrough in ties between the world’s second- and third-biggest economies, which have turned frigid in the past two years over a territorial row, regional rivalry and the bitter legacy of Japan’s wartime occupation of China.
A laser anti-drone defense locked and loaded from the Guardian:
China unveils laser drone defence system
Laser has 1.2-mile range and can bring down small low-flying aircraft within five seconds of locating target
China has developed a highly accurate laser weapon system that can shoot down light drones at low altitude, state media reported.
The machine has a 1.2-mile range and can bring down “various small aircraft” within five seconds of locating its target, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing a statement by the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), one of the developers.
Xinhua showed pictures of large metal boxes in camouflage paint and the wreckage of a small drone, some of it burning.
The laser system is expected to “play a key role in ensuring security during major events in urban areas” and address concerns on unlicensed mapping activities, according to Xinhua. It is effective up to a maximum altitude of 500 metres and against aircraft flying at up to 50 metres per second (112mph), Xinhua said.
From Xinhua, the first of two headlines on major diplomatic gambits:
China vows stronger ties with Pakistan
And the second, via Xinhua:
Chinese FM vows to forge substantial China-Indonesia ties
The Yomiuri Shimbun covers destruction of munitions past:
Facility to destroy chemical weapons in China to start operations this year
A facility to destroy chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army will likely start operations in China’s Jilin Province by the end of this year as part of a Japanese government project, according to sources.
The facility is now under construction in Haerba-ling, where 300,000 to 400,000 chemical shells are believed to be buried. By starting neutralization operations here, where the largest number of chemical weapons are buried in China, the Japanese government hopes to complete the destruction of chemical weapons in various parts of the nation by the end of 2022, as agreed by the Japanese and Chinese governments.
In 1991, the government started an on-site survey of buried chemical weapons, a year after Beijing asked Tokyo to destroy them. The Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect in 1997, requires the countries that abandoned chemical weapons to destroy them, so Japan is shouldering all the expenses for processing the weapons.
According to the Cabinet Office, about 50,000 shells have been recovered from about 50 locations in China. About 37,000 shells have been destroyed by mobile destruction facilities.
From South China Morning Post, protest nostalgia:
Tiananmen student leader sees hope for Hong Kong during emotional visit to Occupy protests
A former leader of the Tiananmen Square protest 25 years ago says Occupy site feels familiar, but that the ending will be far different
Zhou Fengsuo had hardly taken his first step among the tents and banners of Harcourt Road before the tears began.
The peaceful, determined occupation of the roads outside government headquarters brought to mind the 1989 pro-democracy movement on the mainland, of which Zhou was one of the leaders.
“[The scenes] are completely new [to me], but it’s also so familiar with what [happened] 25 years ago,” he said in an interview with the South China Morning Post on Monday morning.
“The fact that today’s China is still a totalitarian regime with no political freedom has made me very angry and sad,” he said. “But I am also very hopeful [to] see that this generation can stand up and take their future in their own hands… it’s very encouraging.”
The South China Morning Post again, with mixed messages:
Federation of Students now Hong Kong’s most popular political group, poll finds
The Federation of Students is the city’s most popular and best-known political group, according to a University of Hong Kong poll carried out amid pro-democracy street protests that the federation has been leading.
The poll, conducted from October 20 to 23, found 89.2 per cent of 1,013 people knew of the group and gave it an average support rating of 47.7 points out of 100.
But in a poll by Polytechnic University, nearly three-quarters of respondents felt that now was the right time to stop the civil disobedience action. Nearly half wanted the campaign to end because they said it had affected the economy and livelihoods.
On to Japan and jet-fueled anxiety with Nikkei Asian Review:
China concerns fuel Japan’s drive for homegrown fighter jets
Japan’s first homegrown fighter jet since the end of World War II will soon take to the skies as the country looks to counter China’s growing military might.
The Advanced Technology Demonstrator-X (ATD-X) aircraft, or Shinshin as the prototype fighter is known, is scheduled to make its maiden flight in January, fulfilling a long-held dream in Japan’s defense circles.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries unit Nagoya Aerospace Systems Works turned out some 18,000 planes, including Zero fighters and Type 10 carrier-launched fighters, before and during World War II. In the postwar period, the company based in central Japan’s Aiichi Prefecture has continued to be a leader in Japan’s defense industry, painstakingly honing its skills and technology, in large part through licensed production of U.S. fighters.
A final ground test of the Shinshin, including measuring the strength of the fuselage and checking its maneuvering system, is now underway at the MHI unit’s flagship Komaki Minami plant in the town of Toyoyama. Top-level engineers are on hand from major defense contractors, including IHI, Fuji Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Electric as well as MHI, the lead contractor for the Shinshin.
Crossing the line with NHK WORLD:
2 Chinese ships enter Japan’s territorial waters
Two Chinese patrol ships entered Japanese territorial waters off the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Monday morning.
Japan Coast Guard officials say the 2 Chinese vessels entered the waters off Uotsuri-jima Island of the Senkakus, Okinawa Prefecture, at around 9 AM.
The Chinese ships left Japan’s territorial waters after navigating there for about 2 hours. Japanese patrol ships are monitoring their movements.
Chinese government vessels have repeatedly intruded into the territorial waters off the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands, and claim sovereignty over them. This is the 27th day this year in which Chinese ships have intruded into the area.
NHK WORLD again, with lesser anxiety:
SDF won’t be mobilized for Chinese boats
Japan’s Defense Minister Akinori Eto says he will not mobilize the Self-Defense Forces to deal with suspected Chinese poachers in the Pacific Ocean.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Eto said that no matter what happens, the Japan Coast Guard and the police should deal with the problem first and foremost.
He added that if it becomes a pressing issue after that, the mobilization of the SDF will need to be discussed.
While someone wants to play, too, via Jiji Press:
Philippines’ Aquino Hopes for Joint Drills with SDF
Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Tuesday showed his hope that joint exercises will be held between his country’s military and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
“Somewhere down the line, we will have exercises with Japan,” he said during a meeting with Japanese reporters at the presidential palace in Manila.
When making the remark, he apparently had in mind territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China and Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines. The Japanese government’s recent constitutional reinterpretation to enable the country to exercise the right to collective self-defense “is something that the Philippines supports,” Aquino said.
And a famous author confront his country’s hysterical historical hypocrisies, via JapanToday:
Author Murakami chides Japan over WWII, Fukushima responsibility
Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has chided his country for shirking responsibility for its World War II aggression and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in an interview published Monday.
Speaking to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, the 65-year-old author said: “No one has taken real responsibility for the 1945 war end or the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. I feel so.”
“After the war, it was eventually concluded that no one was wrong,” said Murakami of the pervasive attitude in Japan. Japanese people have come to consider themselves as “victims” of the war, he added.
Sky News has a deal for you:
Costa Del Kim: North Korea Trips On Offer
Skiing in the secretive state is among the attractions as a firm selling trips opens a stand at the UK’s largest travel show
Travel firms are hoping rumours of dissenters being fed to the dogs will not deter a new wave of British tourists from choosing North Korea as a holiday destination.
An agency specialising in trips to the secretive state has set up a stall at the UK’s largest travel trade show – hoping to lure travellers with packages including skiing in a resort built on the orders of Swiss-educated dictator Kim Jong-Un.
Reports of a population living in abject poverty and wholesale human rights abuses are not prominent in the brochures, which instead feature communist propaganda-style drawings of workers toiling happily in the fields.
And to close, the Guardian covers the tragic plight of the Fourth Estate:
Murdered journalists: 90% of killers get away with it but who are the victims?
With 370 dead over 10 years, governments need to do more to catch the killers, says the Committee to Protect Journalists
A grim toll of 370 journalists have been murdered over the past 10 years in direct retaliation for doing their job. An even more alarming statistic is that 90% of their killers have not been brought to justice, according to statistics from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In its report, The road to justice: breaking the cycle of impunity in the killing of journalists, the CPJ argues that governments need to do much more to catch the killers.
