Including a widening war on the press. . .
First, from CBC News, a new development in a trans-Atlantic online extortion that ended in a Canadian teen’s suicide:
Amanda Todd: police alerted to extortion suspect before her suicide
Police in Norway asked Dutch police to investigate Aydin Coban for alleged blackmailing another girl
An investigation by CBC’s the fifth estate and Dutch news program Zembla has found that police in the Netherlands were alerted to the online activities of the man eventually charged in the extortion of Amanda Todd, well before the teen committed suicide.
In October 2012, the 15-year-old from Port Coquitlam, B.C., committed suicide after posting a video on YouTube saying she had been blackmailed by an online predator after exposing her breasts using a webcam.
In January 2014, police in the Netherlands arrested Aydin Coban, 35, in relation to an investigation in that country involving Dutch victims and charged him with nine offences.
Here’s an earlier extended report from CBC News on the victim and the crime itself:
The Sextortion of Amanda Todd – the fifth estate
Program notes:
A year after her death, most people remember Amanda Todd from her YouTube video, holding up hand-written pages describing how one mistake in front of a webcam led to her torment by bullies at school and online. But beyond that viral video, the fifth estate reveals a more complex and disturbing story about what happened to the B.C. teenager driven to suicide in October 2012 – not just bullying, but the deliberate sexual extortion of a 15-year-old girl by online predators. the fifth estate host Mark Kelley goes deep into Amanda’s world, with never-before-seen videos and web chats from two personal laptops that her family shared with the fifth estate. With in-depth interviews from her mother, father and friends, Kelley reveals the untold story of The Sextortion of Amanda Todd.
From Al Jazeera America, protesting a growing source of domestic insecurity in the U.S.:
Workers hit the streets across US in growing minimum wage fight
Workers and supporters stage strikes, walkouts, demonstrations at fast-food restaurants, airports, gas stations
Fast-food workers and other low-wage employees in nearly 200 cities across the country took part in a strike and protests Thursday, demanding a base wage of $15 per hour and the right to form unions in the latest in a series of day-long labor actions coordinated through a nationwide coalition of workers’ groups.
The protests in cities including New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia — organized under an umbrella organization called Fight for 15 — are believed to be the most expansive of such demonstrations to date, increasing to about 190 cities from 150 in a similar event in September. No arrests have so far been reported, according to Reuters.
Strikes and walkouts at fast-food restaurants were staged by workers at McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s locations as well as at major airports including New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Organizers said gas station employees and home care workers were also joining.
The anatomy of a murder from the Washington Post:
Investigation: Afghan shooter ambushed slain Army general at close range
The mass shooting that killed a two-star Army general and wounded 18 other people in Afghanistan on Aug. 5 was carried out by a lone Afghan soldier who did not have any apparent ties to the Taliban and who simply seized “a target of opportunity,” according to a U.S. military investigation.
The investigation, released by U.S. Central Command on Thursday, found that Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, of Falls Church, Va., died immediately after being shot multiple times in the pelvis, head and neck by an army private named Rafiqullah, 22, who also was killed in the incident. The report found that Rafiqullah opened fire from a bathroom window in a military police barracks less than 15 meters away from the nearest person he targeted. He had previously expressed disdain for Americans.
Greene was the highest-ranking U.S. officer killed in a combat zone since the Vietnam War. The others wounded in the shooting included German Army Brig. Gen. Michael Bartscher and Afghan Brig. Gen. Miyan-Yar Gulalm Sahki. The names of the others wounded are redacted from the newly released documents, but they include 10 Americans, three Afghans and two individuals from Britain.
The NSA , doing its thing, via the Guardian:
NSA accused of intercepting emails sent by mobile phone firm employees
New claims against National Security Agency’s surveillance operations based on information obtained by Edward Snowden
The National Security Agency has reportedly intercepted emails sent by employees of mobile operators in an attempt to find security weaknesses in their networks that it could exploit for surveillance purposes.
The US government body has spied on hundreds of companies and organisations, including those in allies such as Britain and Australia, as well as in nations America regards as hostile. It plans to insert flaws into communications systems so that they can be accessed by their operatives.
The allegations, reported by the Intercept, are based on documents provided to the website and contained in material provided to them by Edward Snowden, the whistleblower and former NSA subcontractor who is now living in Russia.
A covert operation called AURORAGOLD that started in 2010, if not earlier, has monitored the content of messages to and from 1,200 email accounts associated with mobile operators to intercept relevant documents, the article states.
By May 2012, the NSA had collected technical data on about 700 of the almost 1,000 mobile networks worldwide.
And from Deutsche Welle, explains a lot:
Witness: German intelligence helped NSA to tap Internet hub
A German parliamentary inquiry has been told that German intelligence fed America’s NSA filtered data from an Internet hub in Frankfurt, after clearance from Berlin. The “Eikonal” project ended in 2008.
A witness told a German parliamentary inquiry on Thursday that America’s NSA was fed filtered data from an internet exchange point in Frankfurt, after an OK from the Chancellery in Berlin.
The Eikonal project leader within Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency – identified only as S.L. – said the exchange’s own operator had legal doubts, but was convinced once confirmation came from the-then chancellery.
Germany’s federal intelligence service (BND) delivered filtered information from 2004 until 2008, when the “Americans saw that we could not extract anything more for them,” said the witness, who was quoted by Germany’s main news agency DPA.
Over that period, Germany was first governed by a center-left coalition headed by Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and from October 2005 by Chancellor Angela’s first grand coalition cabinet.
If at first you don’t succeed, from the National Journal:
House Lawmakers to Reintroduce Bill to Limit NSA ‘Backdoor’ Spying
The measure passed the House earlier this year with major bipartisan support, but was cut out of ongoing funding negotiations.
House lawmakers are attempting to revive a popular bill that would limit the National Security Agency’s ability to spy on Americans’ communications data, a day after the measure was left out from ongoing government funding negotiations.
The measure, dubbed the Secure Data Act and spearheaded by Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, would block the NSA and other intelligence agencies from compelling tech companies to create so-called backdoor vulnerabilities into their devices or software. Sen. Ron Wyden, also a Democrat, introduced a similar version of the bill earlier Thursday.
A Lofgren aide said the bill is expected to be introduced later Thursday with Republican cosponsors.
A broader form of the legislation overwhelmingly passed the House in June with bipartisan support on a 293-123 vote, in the form of an amendment tacked on to a defense appropriations bill. That previous bill additionally would have prevented intelligence agencies from engaging in content surveillance of Americans’ communications data without a warrant.
And from Sky News, the latest American legal travesty:
Eric Garner Chokehold Decision ‘A Travesty’
As civil rights leaders lash out, fresh demonstrations are held and a judge releases details about the Eric Garner grand jury
Civil rights leaders have condemned a grand jury decision not to charge a white policeman in the chokehold death of a black man as “a travesty of justice”.
Following a meeting at the New York City headquarters of Rev Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, they also announced plans for a summit on racial justice in Washington later this month.
Father-of-six Eric Garner, 43, died after he was restrained by police while being arrested on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes on Staten Island in July.
More from the Associated Press:
Police cases converge to stir national debate
From the White House to the streets of some of America’s biggest cities, the New York chokehold case converged with the Ferguson shooting and investigations out of South Carolina and Cleveland to stir a national conversation Thursday about racial justice and police use of force.
A day after protests erupted in New York over the decision not to charge a white officer in the death of a black man, civil rights leaders pinned their hopes on a federal investigation. Demonstrators turned out in such cities as Denver, Detroit and Minneapolis. And politicians and others talked about the need for better police training, body cameras and changes in the grand jury process to restore faith in the legal system.
“A whole generation of officers will be trained in a new way,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he and his police commissioner outlined previously announced plans to teach officers how to communicate better with people on the street.
From Reuters, hardly surprising:
More protests expected after no charges in New York chokehold case
A police union official on Thursday defended a white officer’s role in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man in New York even as protesters planned a new round of demonstrations a day after a grand jury voted not to bring charges.
New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch told reporters on Thursday that Officer Daniel Pantaleo had acted properly in restraining Eric Garner during an arrest attempt in the borough of Staten Island in July.
“He’s a model of what we want a police officer to be,” Lynch said.
Meanwhile, the Rev. Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders called for the appointment of a special federal prosecutor to investigate suspected cases of police abuse, including the shooting death in August of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri.
While the Guardian questions a proclaimed preventative measure:
Body cameras for police officers? Not so fast, say researchers
Obama supports the use of body cameras on police officers, but researchers say they’re unconvinced of the merits of the technology
In police departments across the country, body camera initiatives have been fast-tracked, aided by recent presidential backing. But among activists stung by a New York City grand jury’s refusal to indict an officer in the death of Eric Garner, an incident that was captured on video by at least three bystanders, body cameras are losing their appeal.
“There is a video of officer [Daniel] Pantaleo killing Eric Garner and the New York City medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide,” said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project civil rights advocacy group, in a statement on Wednesday. “Yet he walks free.”
As media reports have pointed out, body cameras devices may not help prosecute police officers – many episodes of apparent brutality are captured on camera, but charges against officers are infrequent. Still, some say the devices should not be dismissed.
“There are a lot of good reasons to think the technology could be a win-win,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union. The organisation is known for its right-to-privacy advocacy, but Stanley comes down on the side of the cameras. He argues they could make police more accountable to the public, “if the technology is done right”. “And that may be a big if,” he said.
Meanwhile, Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles has a suggestion for another way to use body cams:
The New York Times covers more of the usual:
Cleveland Police Abuse Pattern Cited by Justice Department
One week after the release of a surveillance video showing a Cleveland police officer fatally shooting a 12-year-old African-American boy who was holding a pellet gun, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. flew here on Thursday to announce that a lengthy Justice Department civil rights investigation had found “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force” by the city’s Police Department.
The Cleveland abuses highlighted by Mr. Holder included many that have caused friction with the police in minority communities around the country. Those include excessive use of deadly force like shootings and using weapons to hit suspects on the head; the “unnecessary, excessive or retaliatory use of less lethal force” involving Tasers, chemical spray and fists; excessive force against mentally ill people; and tactics that have escalated encounters into confrontations where use of force became inevitable.
“Cleveland officers are not provided with adequate training, policy guidance, support and supervision,” the Justice Department concluded in its report.
A surprising decision, given the state where it happened, from the San Antonio Express-News:
Texas cop resigns after putting woman in chokehold while she filmed arrest
An off-duty police officer who used a controversial neck restraint on a woman after she refused to stop filming an arrest in a Corpus Christi parking lot has resigned.
Gary Witherspoon, an off-duty investigator for the Nueces County Attorney’s Office, resigned at about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to a news release from Nuces County District Attorney Mark Skurka provided to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
“The termination is a result of his involvement and actions at an incident that took place on August 16, 2014, as well as other employment issues,” the news release said. “However, during the termination process, Mr. Witherspoon asked for and was allowed to resign in lieu of (termination).”
And then there’s this, from the U.N. Press Center:
US should respond to public demands for greater police accountability – Ban
In the wake of a grand jury decision in New York yesterday not to indict a police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, an unarmed man, in July, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the United States to do “anything possible to respond to demands of greater accountability.”
“We are obviously aware of what is going on here in our backyard,” said UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric responding to questions at the daily press briefing at UN Headquarters. He said the Secretary-General’s thoughts are with the families of Mr. Garner, a Staten Island resident, and the people of New York.
“I think the case is again focusing on the attention of accountability of law enforcement officials,” he added, welcoming the announcement by the US Justice Department of opening a civil rights investigation in the case.
“I think I would just add that we’ve seen a lot of demonstrations here in New York. [Mr. Ban] would urge the [protestors] to demonstrate peacefully, and for the authorities for the respect of those demonstrators to do so peacefully,” the spokesperson said.
And from RT America, inevitable:
Protests spread nationwide after NYPD non-indictment
Program notes:
Thousands took to the streets of New York, Washington and other cities across the country on Wednesday night, protesting a grand jury’s decision to not indict a police officer who killed 43-year-old unarmed Eric Garner with a chokehold. Coming just over a week after the latest Ferguson, Mo. unrest, the decision touched a nerve with many who feel justice for victims of police brutality is not being served. RT’s Alexey Yaroshevsky and Manuel Rapalo have more details.
From the London Telegraph, a nose for it:
Police use ‘nose telescope’ for cannabis odour mapping
Police in Denver are using a nose telescope to tackle odours from the recreational use of marijuana
As more cities in America legalise the drug, attention has switched to the pungent smell that wafts from the joint itself.
Denver has passed a new “odour ordinance” with a potential $2,000 (£1,247) fine for anyone found guilty of polluting the atmosphere.
The need to draw up standards emerged because of the confusion over the legal position of whether somebody smoking marijuana in their own home could be committing an environmental offence when the smell seeps into the street.
Under the new law an offence is committed if the odour is detectable when the smoke is mixed with seven times the volume of clean air.
And from RT, a cop shock Down Under:
Brutal police beating of model shocks Australia
A video showing three Sydney police officers brutally beating a young woman has gone viral, with over 750,000 views on Facebook. During the clip, the victim is repeatedly hit with a police baton and appears to be kicked in the head by a male officer.
Police brutality has been hitting the headlines in the US, but now it seems the unfortunate trend has made its way to Australia. The woman in question, Claire Helen, who works as a model and actress and was on the receiving end of recurring blows from a police officer, said: “It was the most frightening and humiliating experience of my life.”
Law enforcement officers allege that Helen punched a policewoman in the mouth, as well as resisting arrest – an action that the model stringently denies. “They pushed me down. They hit me and kicked me. They pulled my dress over my head,” she said, speaking to Channel Nine. Onlookers could be heard shouting, “Let her go,” and, “She’s not resisting arrest.”
A controversial figurative branding from TheLocal.fr:
French homeless forced to wear ‘yellow triangles’
The city of Marseille has been blasted for using Nazi-era tactics to identify its homeless population by issuing them with ID cards, adorned with a yellow triangle. The cards detail their health issues and will be worn visibly.
Authorities in France’s second-largest city have come under fire for issuing its homeless with ID cards that detail their health issues.
Human rights groups and government ministers have slammed the “yellow triangle cards”, comparing them to the Nazi-era Star of David that was sown onto Jewish people’s clothes during the Holocaust.
“This is scandalous, it’s stigmatizing,” Christophe Louis, president of the homeless charity Collectif Morts de la Rue, told The Local.
After the jump, it’s on to the Hollywood hack of the year and a denial from Pyongyang, while suspicion remains though questions are raised, the leaks continue, and a malware signature is discovered, a gang of cybercrooks is broken, Chinese cybervulnerabilities proclaimed, rottenness from an Apple and a Russian Apple ban contemplated, deadly message for a Sicilian journalist covering the mafia, politics behind Egypt’s jailing of journalists, a Liberian journalists fear a secret police death plot, Allegations of a British undercover provocateur’s incitement, a Pakistani lawyer threatened with gunshots and death for defending an alleged blasphemer, Indian bigotry empowered, a Chinese takeover of Taiwan predicted and a Taiwanese arsenal addition, Vietnam jails a blogger critical of the government, China mulls an Obama criticism of the country’s president, China ends a gruesome recycling operation, remaining Occupy Hong Kong activists mull retreat, Beijing slams Washington’s agreement with an Occupy aim, Japanese police monitor anti-Korean hate group and the air force install cameras to monitor Chinese fly-bys, plus Tony Blair’s Henry Kissinger fetish. . .
On to the Sony hack and a denial via the Guardian:
North Korea denies hacking Sony Pictures
Pyongyang not behind cyber-attack that led to leak of several unreleased movies, says diplomat in New York
North Korea has denied it was behind last week’s cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, which resulted in the leak of several unreleased films and caused massive disruption to the company’s email and other parts of its internal computer network.
A Pyongyang diplomat in New York said recent speculative reports linking North Korean hackers to the attack were incorrect.
“Linking [North Korea] to the Sony hacking is another fabrication targeting the country,” the official, who asked to remain anonymous, told broadcaster Voice of America. “My country publicly declared that it would follow international norms banning hacking and piracy.”
But suspicions remain, via Reuters:
North Korea still a suspect in Sony attack despite denial
North Korea is a principal suspect in the cyber attack on Sony Pictures, a U.S. national security source told Reuters on Thursday, while a North Korean diplomat denied Pyongyang was behind the crippling hack.
The U.S. government’s investigation into the Nov. 24 attack is being led by the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office and the Hollywood studio is cooperating, a law enforcement source said.
The national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said North Korea is not the only suspect and it was too soon to definitively know who is behind the attack that exposed a trove of internal data and shut down the computer systems at the entertainment arm of Sony Corp.
Others disagree, via Network World:
North Korea unlikely to be behind Sony Pictures attacks
The secretive nation has been fingered in part because the same malware was used against Sony that crippled South Korea in March 2013. Those attacks, dubbed “Dark Seoul,” wiped data from banks’ computers, disabled ATMs and crippled websites.
It was also theorized that North Korea was angry about a forthcoming movie in the U.S., “The Interview,” a comedy in which two show business reporters travel to North Korea to interview leader Kim Jong Un.
But the Sony attacks have been a more public affair, with taunting images displayed on hacked PCs, sensitive company documents posted online and gigabytes of leaked documents sent to journalists.
They are not tactics normally associated with state-sponsored attacks, said Lucas Zaichkowsky, an enterprise defense architect with Resolution1 Security.
The hemorrhage continues, via the Los Angeles Times:
Sony tries to contain damage as hackers leak more data
Sony executives are struggling to contain damage in the aftermath of a hacking that leaked several finished films, personal information about thousands of employees and other confidential documents.
On Wednesday, hackers distributed digital files that contained a list of nearly 2,500 servers and 245 individual computers that the hackers said they had access to at Sony offices in New York, Atlanta, Glendale, the Sony Pictures Studios lot and elsewhere.
The files, from a link hackers sent in emails to the media, also included documents with people’s passwords to various accounts for Sony’s YouTube channels, Google Analytics and Verizon Wireless. The hackers also claimed to have had access to an additional 2,990 computers in North America and 5,000 elsewhere around the world.
The trove of documents also included allegedly confidential information about Walt Disney Co.’s ABC TV stations and other TV station groups that license syndicated fare from Sony Television, including the daytime talk shows “The Queen Latifah Show” and “The Dr. Oz Show,” and reruns of off-network sit-coms “Seinfeld” and “The Queen of Kings.”
And a signature is found, via Network World:
Technical evidence links destructive malware to attack against Sony Pictures
The malware, which Trend Micro detects as BKDR_WIPALL, has several components including diskpartmg16.exe, igfxtrayex.exe and usbdrv32.sys, the Trend Micro researchers said in a blog post Wednesday. The diskpartmg16.exe file is the initial installer and contains a set of encrypted usernames and passwords that are used to access the shared network, they said.
The credentials are intentionally blurred in a screen shot of the malware program’s code that was published by Trend Micro, but visible parts show that they’re arranged on lines starting with SPE, which likely stands for Sony Pictures Entertainment.
A bitmap image file called walls.bmp that is dropped by the malware on infected systems is an even stronger connection to the company. This file is a wallpaper containing the GOP message that Sony Pictures Entertainment employees reportedly saw on their computers.
Cybercrooks captured, via BBC News:
Kenya breaks ‘Chinese-run cyber crime network’
Kenyan police say they have cracked a cyber crime centre run by 77 Chinese nationals from upmarket homes in the capital, Nairobi.
Police believe they were involved in hacking and money laundering. The group has been remanded in custody for five days to allow for further investigations.
The foreign ministry summoned a Chinese diplomat to discuss the arrests. A Chinese official said the embassy was co-operating with investigations. It was checking the passports of the suspects to see whether they were, in fact, Chinese nationals, the official told the BBC on condition of anonymity.
Cybervulnerabilities proclaimed, via China Daily:
93% of Chinese govt websites have security loopholes: report
More than 93 percent of nearly 1,000 Chinese government websites under evaluation have security lapses, and 97 percent of websites at the district or county level have security risks, a recent report has announced.
Released by the China Software Testing Center under the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the 2014 report on the performance of China’s government websites covers sites at the ministerial, provincial, municipal, district and county levels.
The report said 43 percent of the websites were categorized as “extreme risk,” while 30 percent were “high risk.”
Nearly half of all the sites examined were found to contain more than 30 security loopholes, and at least 70 had more than 100 security loopholes.
From News Corp Australia, rottenness from an Apple:
Apple deleted your music without you knowing
IN NEWS that recalls the late Steve Jobs’ complete disdain for his competition, it has been revealed during ongoing court proceedings that Apple intentionally deleted music not bought on iTunes from users’ iPods between 2007 and 2009.
Attorneys in the potentially billion dollar antitrust case claim that Apple actively stifled competition, allowing the company to jack up prices on its music devices to unfair rates.
“You guys decided to give them the worst possible experience and blow up [a user’s music library],” attorney Patrick Coughlin said during the proceedings.
Coughlin states that when iPods loaded with music downloaded from a competitor tried to synch with an iTunes library, an error message appeared instructing users to restore their device to factory settings, which would result in the deletion of all the music found on the device. According to Apple’s Security Director, Augustin Farrugia, these instructions were a legitimate security measure designed to prevent hackers from infiltrating users’ iPods.
intelNews covers a Russian Apple ban contemplated:
After China, Russia may ban some Apple products, fearing espionage
Parliamentarians in Russia are preparing a bill that would prevent lawmakers from using several Apple products, including iPhones and iPads, due to fears that they are susceptible to penetration by foreign intelligence agencies.
A group of lawmakers in the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, have drafted the bill, which argues that State Duma deputies with access to confidential or classified government information should be banned from using iPhones and iPads, among other Apple products.
One deputy, Dmitry Gorovtsov, from the center-left Just Russia party, said parliamentarians should simply “switch to simple mobile phones”, preferably produced by Russian manufacturers, and should use them “only for phone calls”.
A deadly message for a Sicilian journalist covering the mafia via the Guardian:
Journalist known for investigating mafia finds dogs hung from post
Two dogs belonging to Pino Maniaci, head of Sicilian TV station Telejato, are found hanging from a metal post in a yard
Pino Maniaci, head of Telejato, a Sicilian TV station, is known for at least two things. One is his love of animals. He has two dogs: a belgian shepherd and an english setter.
Or rather, he had. On Wednesday afternoon, they were found hanged from a metal post in a yard near Maniaci’s place of work.
That almost certainly had to do with the other reason for which the journalist is known – his fearless investigation of the Sicilian mafia. He has been under police protection since 2007 and just last week a car he owns was set alight outside his channel’s studios in the town of Partinico, near Palermo.
The politics behind Egypt’s jailing of journalists, via the Independent:
Al-Jazeera journalists imprisoned by Egypt to ‘teach Qatar a lesson’ for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood
Mohamed Fahmy is an angry man. And so he should be. He says that he and his two colleagues from the Qatari-based al-Jazeera channel – Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed – were imprisoned by the Egyptians to “teach Qatar a lesson” because the emirate supported the banned Muslim Brotherhood. And, in messages passed to The Independent by his family, Mohamed Fahmy lists his grievances against his employers – al-Jazeera, through its own negligence, unwittingly endangered him and his colleagues in the days before and after their arrest.
It’s a sorry story, more so because Mohamed, the bureau chief of al-Jazeera English in Cairo – whom I know personally and with whom I’ve worked in Iraq – is a professional journalist, just like his two fellow prisoners; and they are victims, as he himself says, of “a real ongoing cold war between Egypt and Qatar”.
The oil and gas state created al-Jazeera back in 1996 as a foreign policy project. But the job of Chief Executive Officer has been vacant for months, and the junior management appears to have failed their imprisoned employees when their advice was desperately needed. Mohamed, who holds dual Canadian and Egyptian citizenship, worked for The Los Angeles Times and CNN before joining al-Jazeera as Egypt bureau chief, and he hinted at his predicament in a written text he sent to the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) in Toronto this week.
A reporter’s nightmare, from the Liberian Observer:
NSA, LNP Hunting Tetee?
Journalist Calls on PUL to stop plan to assassinate her
A Liberian female journalist is calling on the Press Union of Liberia to intervene to stop an alleged plan to assassinate her.
According to journalist Tetee Gebro, the plot is allegedly being hatched by both Fumba Sirleaf and Chris Massaquoi, directors of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Liberia National Police (LNP), respectively.
Tetee, has resigned her post at Sky FM for what she described as the management’s perception of her being critical of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s son, Robert Sirleaf.
Robert Sirleaf is an independent candidate for Montserrado County in the upcoming senatorial elections slated for December 16.
Allegations of a British undercover provocateur’s incitement via the Guardian:
Undercover police spy accused of encouraging activist to crime
Animal rights campaigner aims to overturn conviction on grounds of undisclosed role of Met officer who ‘encouraged illegal acts’
An undercover police officer has been accused of encouraging and helping an animal rights campaigner to commit illegal acts which led to his being jailed for four years, according to legal documents.
The campaigner, Geoff Sheppard, has lodged an appeal to overturn his convictions for possessing a shotgun and components for an incendiary device, alleging, in effect, that he was a victim of an agent provocateur.
Sheppard said the undercover officer, whose covert role is revealed by the Guardian this Thursday, actively encouraged him to buy the shotgun and offered him money to purchase it. He claims that as part of a “determined, cynical, and targeted effort” against him, the undercover spy asked him for instructions on making an incendiary device, and tested it.
The Guardian has established that the undercover officer at the centre of the new allegations worked for a controversial covert unit that infiltrated hundreds of political groups for 40 years.
Pakistani provocation from the Express Tribune:
Gunmen attack residence of lawyer defending blasphemy accused in Multan
Gunmen opened fire at the residence of a lawyer defending a university lecturer accused of blasphemy and dropped a letter warning him to withdraw from the case, police said on Thursday.
Shahbaz Gormani escaped unhurt after gunmen riding motorbikes attacked his residence in Multan late Wednesday.
Gormani had been appointed defence lawyer in the case after gunmen shot dead Rashid Rehman, a defence counsel for Junaid Hafeez in May.
Hafeez, a lecturer at Bahauddin Zakariya University, was accused of making derogatory remarks against the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) in March last year.
Hafeez was known at the university for his liberal views and the blasphemy case was registered after pressure from right-wing student groups.
From BBC News, bigotry empowered:
India ‘hate speech’ minister Niranjan Jyoti keeps job
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused to sack a minister who used an abusive term to refer to non-Hindus.
Niranjan Jyoti had told crowds at a rally in Delhi that they faced a choice between a “government of followers of Rama and a government of bastards”.
Mr Modi told MPs he disapproved of her language, but said she had apologised and called for politicians to move on.
Critics accuse the prime minister and his supporters of exploiting religious divisions to court voters.
And an Indian prediction from Taiwan’s Want China Times:
China to take Taiwan by 2050, says India’s air force chief
The head of the Indian Air Force (IAF), Arup Raha, has said that by 2050 China will annex Taiwan, the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, the islands in the East China Sea administered by Japan as the Senkaku, reclaim territory in Russia and Mongolia, and occupy the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, reports China’s state media.
Han Xudong, an expert with PLA National Defense University, refuted the Indian official’s comments, saying that he was exaggerating China’s threat to highlight the importance of India’s air force and in doing so secure a bigger national defense budget.
Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha made his claims during an annual memorial lecture on Nov. 29.
“The strategic gravity has shifted to Asia and Asia-Pacific, but there are huge challenges in terms of security in the region. First and foremost, the assertive China,” Raha said. “The situation is not good, as the peaceful rise of China remains a distant dream. An assertive China is investing heavily in developing military power, especially aerospace power, laying claims on international waters, island territories, and the air space over the South China and East China seas,” India’s Indo-Asian News Service quoted Raha as saying.
From Want China Times, opposing force:
Taiwan unveils its Hsiung Feng III carrier killer missile
Taiwan’s Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missile seems to be better than Russia’s P-270 Moskit, also known as the SS-N-22 Sunburn anti-ship cruise missile, according to our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily.
The local Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology demonstrated the power of the Hsiung Feng III anti-ship cruise missile and Tiangong III air defense missile for the first time via video in Taoyuan on Dec. 2. With the Hsiung Feng III, Taiwan becomes the fourth nation in the world to develop a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile after Russia, China and India. Yet there is debate that the missiles produced by China and India may not be qualified to be termed supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles.
During the presentation by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the company stated that Hsiung Feng III is indeed more powerful than its Russian counterpart, the Moskit. Chou Sheng-nan, the designer of the missile, said test result show the missile can easily penetrate a target even without munitions. The video clip also indicated that the Hsiung Feng III is capable of changing direction multiple times in midair.
Vietnam jails a blogger critical of the government, from the Guardian:
Vietnamese blogger arrested for ‘anti-state articles’
Press freedom group says charges are bogus
A blogger was detained in Vietnam on Saturday on anti-state charges for postings deemed critical of the government, reports the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Police arrested Hong Le Tho, also known by his blog name Nguoi Lot Gach (“Brick Layer”), at his home in Ho Chi Minh city, according to news reports.
A statement on the public security ministry’s website said Tho had been arrested for “online articles with bad content and false information that discredit and create distrust among people about state agencies, social agencies and citizens.”
Agence France-Presse reports that Tho’s blog deals with social and political issues in Vietnam, including critical commentary on sensitive bilateral relations with China.
Fuming in Beijing with South China Morning Post:
Beijing ‘needs more time’ to respond to Barack Obama’s take on Xi Jinping’s personal power
Foreign ministry says it needs to study US president’s comments before replying
Obama, who met Xi last month in Beijing, told the Business Roundtable group of US chief executives that the Chinese leader had won respect in the short time since he had taken over.
“He has consolidated power faster and more comprehensively than probably anybody since Deng Xiaoping ,” Obama said, referring to the man who led China from 1978 to 1992. “And everybody’s been impressed by his … clout inside of China after only a year and a half or two years.”
But Obama said there were negative sides to Xi’s rise.
“There are dangers in that. On issues of human rights, on issues of clamping down on dissent. He taps into a nationalism that worries his neighbours,” Obama said, noting maritime disputes in the region.
China ends a gruesome recycling operation, via the Guardian:
China to stop using executed prisoners as source of transplant organs
Move is welcomed by human rights groups but will worsen already massive gulf between demand and donations
China will stop using executed prisoners as a source of organs for transplants from 1 January, the head of the country’s organ donation committee has said.
The move, which has been widely welcomed by human rights groups, will worsen the huge shortfall in organs in the short term. Death row prisoners have provided the overwhelming majority of transplanted organs for years, owing to high demand and low donation rates. But in future their organs will only be used if they volunteer to donate and their families approve the decision.
Huang Jiefu, head of the donation committee, told a meeting on Wednesday that almost 40 major transplant centres had already stopped using such organs, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
Remaining Occupy Hong Kong activists mull retreat, via South China Morning Post:
Hong Kong student federation to consider a retreat from Occupy zones within a week
The Federation of Students, the major force behind the Occupy Central protests, could decide within a week whether to retreat from occupied sites after refusing for more than nine weeks to call off its civil disobedience action.
A change of mind at the core of the federation seems to be afoot after its chief admitted an escalation in their protests on Sunday, when the government headquarters was besieged, had failed.
But the other Occupy student group, Scholarism, appears to be pressing on. Two new hunger strikers joined three others as one of them, group convenor Joshua Wong Chi-fung, drank a teaspoon of glucose on doctors’ orders. This happened after his blood sugar dropped worryingly.
Condemnation, via Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
China denounces foreign influence in Hong Kong after US criticism
“Hong Kong affairs belong to China’s domestic affairs,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular briefing on Thursday
China on Thursday (Dec 4) reiterated that foreign countries should not stoke trouble in Hong Kong after a top US official gave Washington’s strongest backing yet to democracy protesters in the Chinese territory.
“Hong Kong affairs belong to China’s domestic affairs,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular briefing on Thursday, stressing that Beijing is opposed to any outside interference. “We have repeatedly expounded on our solemn position on some foreign individuals’ and forces’ attempts to interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs or even incite or support illegal activities such as Occupy Central,” she said.
Hua spoke after Daniel Russel, the top US diplomat for Asia, called for “competitive” 2017 elections in Hong Kong in an appearance before US lawmakers on Wednesday.
Japanese police monitor anti-Korean hate group, from the Asahi Shimbun:
Extremist group requires close monitoring, says NPA
The National Police Agency singled out a right-wing group that promotes hate speech as a potential threat to law and order in Japan.
Released Dec. 3, the NRA report for the first time named Zainichi Tokken wo Yurusanai Shimin no Kai (Group of citizens who do not tolerate privileges for ethnic Korean residents in Japan), known more commonly as Zaitokukai, as a group that required monitoring.
The report described Zaitokukai as a right-wing citizens group whose activities were based on extreme nationalism and xenophobia.
Zaitokukai argues that ethnic Koreans living in Japan have special privileges because of their status as special permanent residents. The group’s website claims about 15,000 members.
A new YouTube channel coming? From Want China Times:
Japan’s fighters to install cameras to prove run-ins with PLA
Japan has decided to install video cameras on its jet planes to back allegations that Chinese fighter jets are coming within extremely close proximity during routine flights, reports China’s state-run Reference News.
Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force will respond to the government’s call to have the country’s jet planes installed with video cameras, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Dec. 1.
In June, military jets from China reportedly came to within 30 meters of Japan’s fighters on the East China Sea, in a region Beijing unilaterally declared as part of its air-defense identification zone in November last year.
And Bush’s Poodle has a new role model, via the Guardian:
Tony Blair defends business dealings and cites Henry Kissinger as role model
In interview with Vanity Fair, Blair says his work advising countries such as Kazakhstan is not as lucrative as people think
Tony Blair has insisted that his much-criticised business dealings with dubious governments round the world have not been as lucrative as people think – as one of his staff suggested his wealth amounted to about £10m.
In a wide-ranging interview with Vanity Fair, the former prime minister also cites Richard Nixon’s controversial national security adviser Henry Kissinger as a role model.
Kissinger is despised by many on the left because of his part in the covert bombing of Cambodia but Blair appears to have had in mind his longevity rather than his politics or diplomacy.
