We open with the long-overdue, via the New York Times:
Obama Announces U.S. and Cuba Will Resume Relations
The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, President Obama announced on Wednesday.
In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 miles off the American coast.
“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the White House. The deal will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas” and move beyond a “rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”
Hosting a sit-down with the Associated Press:
Canada hosted secret meetings between Cuba and US
Canada hosted about seven meetings between the U.S. and Cuba that helped lead to President Barack Obama’s announcement Wednesday that the two countries will establish full diplomatic relations, a senior Canadian government official said.
The meetings were held in Ottawa and Toronto from 2013 to 2014, according to the official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, lacking authority to discuss the meetings publicly.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada did not play a role in the discussions themselves.
“I don’t want to exaggerate Canada’s role. We facilitated places where the two countries could have a dialogue and explore ways on normalizing relations,” Harper told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “We were not trying in any way to direct or mediate the talks. We just wanted to make sure they had the opportunity to have the kind of dialogue they needed to have.”
Anticipating another missile crisis, presumably non-Cuban this time, via the Christian Science Monitor:
Pentagon’s floating missile defense future: a pair of billion-dollar blimps
The Pentagon previewed two helium-filled surveillance airships Wednesday. The giant dirigibles are expected to be deployed over the East Coast in February as the United States’ new missile defense system.
Two US military blimps flying 10,000 feet above the East Coast will act as a new missile defense system for the United States.
The giant airships, known as the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS within the Pentagon, will be able to scan the oceans and coastline in a 340-mile radius, or from Norfolk, Va., to Boston.
It is designed to defend against cruise missile attacks, or the sort of rogue aircraft incursions that happened during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The US military previewed the giant balloons, which cost a reported $2.8 billion, in the skies near Baltimore for the media on Wednesday. They are expected to be fully operational by February and will be integrated into the defense systems of US Northern Command, which can respond with patriot missiles in the event of an attack on the US homeland.
On to U.S. domestic issue of the day, via the Smoking Gun:
“Witness 40″: Exposing A Fraud In Ferguson
TSG unmasks witness who spun fabricated tale
The grand jury witness who testified that she saw Michael Brown pummel a cop before charging at him “like a football player, head down,” is a troubled, bipolar Missouri woman with a criminal past who has a history of making racist remarks and once insinuated herself into another high-profile St. Louis criminal case with claims that police eventually dismissed as a “complete fabrication,” The Smoking Gun has learned.
In interviews with police, FBI agents, and federal and state prosecutors–as well as during two separate appearances before the grand jury that ultimately declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson–the purported eyewitness delivered a preposterous and perjurious account of the fatal encounter in Ferguson.
Referred to only as “Witness 40″ in grand jury material, the woman concocted a story that is now baked into the narrative of the Ferguson grand jury, a panel before which she had no business appearing.
That cop thing, much closer to Casa esnl, via the Oakland Tribune:
Berkeley: Police Department denounced at raucous City Council meeting
A smaller-than-expected crowd showed up at a rescheduled, venue-changed City Council meeting on a rainy Tuesday night, but what the gathering may have lacked in size, it more than made up in passion.
More than 50 speakers denounced, in often scathing terms, the conduct of Berkeley police and other cities’ forces that assisted them during recent, mostly peaceful protests against decisions by grand juries in Missouri and New York not to indict white police officers who killed unarmed black men.
But perhaps the biggest beating Tuesday was to Berkeley’s image as the most liberal city in America, a phrase used derisively by several speakers. Many painted a picture of a Berkeley not much different from Ferguson, Missouri, or the New York City borough of Staten Island, as a place where people of color as well as people with mental health issues bear the brunt of police suspicion and use of force.
“We haven’t come to grips with some of the issues that have plagued us for over 400 years in this country,” Councilman Max Anderson said during a break. “For us to have to declare, in 2014, that black lives matter, is an indictment of our failure to address the problems that beset us in this society.”
Terror ties question from StarAfrica:
Mauritania trade union wants CIA links clarified
The General Confederation of Mauritania Workers (CGTM) has demanded the government to clarify its alleged cooperation with the CIA over the presence of secret prisons in the country.
Over the last few days, some of the nation’s media have published articles, quoting [The Independent], suggesting information relating to a CIA program to build secret prisons in some countries, CGTM claimed in a statement.
According to the statement published in Nouakchott on Tuesday, the newspaper listed Mauritania among countries cooperating with the program.
For CGTM, “these practices banned by international conventions, including the Geneva Convention, must be prohibited and denounced by all those who have deep love for peace and justice.”
Old school spookery, via intelNews:
Estonian intel officer comes out as Russian spy in TV interview
Estonian authorities have charged a retired officer in the country’s internal intelligence service with espionage, after he revealed in a television interview that he spied for Russia for nearly 20 years.
Uno Puusepp retired from the Internal Security Service of Estonia, known as KaPo, in 2011. He first joined the Soviet KGB as a wiretapping expert in the 1970s, when Estonia was part of the USSR. Following the dissolution of the USSR, when Estonia became an independent nation, he was hired by KaPo and worked there until his retirement, three years ago, at which time he moved permanently to Russian capital Moscow.
Last Sunday, however, Puusepp was the main speaker in a documentary entitled Our Man in Tallinn, aired on Russian television channel NTV. In the documentary, Puusepp revealed that he was a double spy for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is KGB’s successor, from 1996 until his retirement.
And the possibly related, via RT:
Italian ex-MEP arrested, kicked out of Estonia & called Russian ‘agent of influence’
Journalist and former European Parliament member, Giulietto Chiesa of Italy, was detained by the Tallinn police due to his pro-Russian views, which make him a threat to Estonia’s national security, the country’s Foreign Ministry told RT in an e-mail.
Chiesa spent several hours behind bars after being taken into custody from his hotel in center of the Estonian capital Monday. The police told the Italian politician that he had violated a ban on entering the country imposed on him on December 13.
“Due to the current activities of Mr Giulietto Chiesa, there is a good reason to believe that he is involved in the Russian influence operations and his stay in Estonia may pose threat to Estonia’s security, its public order and public safety,” Mari-Liis Valter, Estonia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, wrote in answer to questions from RT.
On to the hack of the year, first with the Los Angeles Times:
Sony Pictures cancels Christmas Day release of ‘The Interview’
Sony Pictures Entertainment has canceled the Christmas Day release of “The Interview” after the nation’s major theater chains said they would not screen the film.
The studio said “we respect and understand our partners’ decision” and “completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theatergoers.”
Regal, AMC and Cinemark — the three largest chains in the United States — decided not to screen “The Interview” starting on Christmas Day in the wake of threats made by Sony hackers, said people familiar with the decision. The chains asked Sony to postpone the release date of the controversial film.
“Due to the wavering support of the film “The Interview” by Sony Pictures, as well as the ambiguous nature of any real or perceived security threats, Regal Entertainment Group has decided to delay the opening of the film in our theatres,” Regal said in a statement.
And it’s not just theatrical release that’s DOA, reports USA Today:
Some industry insiders speculated Sony might release the film in the video-on-demand format, but the studio tells USA TODAY there will be no further release plans of any kind.
“I think they just want to wash their hands of it,” says Matthew Belloni, executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter.
Internal blowback, again via the Los Angeles Times:
Sony hack draws lawsuits by former employees
The massive computer breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment could test laws that require companies to protect their employees’ personal and medical information.
Lawyers representing former Sony Pictures employees have separately filed in Los Angeles two lawsuits that seek class-action status, alleging Sony Pictures Entertainment was negligent in the months leading up to the devastating hack. One of the complaints — a 45-page federal lawsuit, which seeks to represent former and current Sony employees — contends that Sony ignored warnings that its computer network was prone to attack.
Sony “failed to secure its computer systems, servers and databases, despite weaknesses that it has known about for years” and “subsequently failed to timely protect confidential information of its current and former employees from law-breaking hackers,” according to the federal complaint filed late Monday.
The other suit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, also alleges negligence and invasion of privacy of former Sony employees.
The United Press International fingers a suspect:
Reports: U.S. officials blame Sony hacking on North Korea
U.S. officials believe those responsible for hacking into Sony Pictures were working under the direction of the North Korean government, several media organizations reported Wednesday.
Sources with direct knowledge of a U.S. government investigation into the security breach told the Wall Street Journal it is believed a North Korean government hacking team known as Unit 121 is behind the attack. The sources were not identified.
CNN, also quoting unnamed sources, reported that an official announcement is expected Thursday blaming the Pyongyang-based group called Bureau 121.
The London Daily Mail covers the sadly inevitable:
State Department saw graphic Kim Jong-un death scene in ‘The Interview’ and ‘approved of it,’ hacked emails reveal
Sony executives hired an foreign policy analyst to consult after North Korea called the film The Interview ‘an act of war’ for depicting the assassination of Kim Jon-un
The consultant gave a greenlight and said the scene showing the dictator’s death could be good for Koreans – on both sides of the dividing line
Consultant also said he spoke about the film to US envoy for North Korean issues
Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton said he also talked to a ‘very senior’ official at the State Department
And from the London Daily Mail again, , another film dies:
Hollywood studio pulls the plug on Steve Carell’s new movie Pyongyang just hours after Sony scraps release of The Interview
New Regency decided to cancel production of the thriller based on graphic novel by Guy Delisle
Movie that was set to be directed by Gore Verbinski, with Carell playing an American living in Pyongyang
The cancellation comes in the wake of Sony hacking scandal
The Sony hacking scandal continued reverberating throughout the Hollywood film industry Wednesday, leading New Regency studio to pull the plug on a new film about North Korea starring Steve Carell.
The announcement was made just hours after Sony scrapped the release of the controversial Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy The Interview, which was scheduled to premiere Christmas Day.
Titled Pyongyang, New Regency’s now-defunct film has been described as a thriller based on Guy Delisle’s eponymous graphic novel about his experiences living in the totalitarian state, reported The Wrap.
Following the news that Pyongyang has been scrapped, Steve Carell tweeted to his 3.64million followers: ‘Sad day for creative expression,’ followed by the hashtag, ‘feareatsthesoul.’
After the jump, it’s on to drone anxieties and a proposed Big Apple ban, Arab Springs succeeded by what was before, a born again demand on Swedish Jews, Nigerian mutiny ends in 54 death warrants, top Afghan spook bids a sad farewell to Western boots on the ground, a plea from Pakistan to Afghanistan to help catch the butchers of children, a lethal retaliatory assault, another killer drone strike, Pakistan’s peculiarly spooky complications, and the zealot in question whose most notable prior action made a Pakistani girl a Nobel Peace Price winner, and a solidarity demonstration for the children in Berkeley, Thai police launch an international hunt for lese majeste suspects, Chinese nuclear aircraft carrier ambitions, Obama and Abe — Trans-Pacific BFFs, and a university stands up to Tojo revisionism. . .
Dronal anxiety, via CBC News:
Drone threat concerns U.S. pilots as FAA weighs rules
Close mid-air encounters with drones worry airline pilots, but usage of devices set to soar
Pilots of private and commercial planes describe seeing small drones, the kinds that are increasingly popular with hobbyists and photographers, flying within just a few metres of them, in some cases as they are approaching the country’s busiest airports.
The pilots are concerned about the damage one could do if it struck a plane’s propeller or got sucked into an engine. Bird strikes are known to cause major damage, and drones, even small ones, are now becoming another risk in America’s crowded skies.
“Catastrophic,” is how Capt. Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, described the potential consequences if a drone collided with an aircraft. Moak testified recently on Capitol Hill at a House transportation committee meeting that focused on how the FAA is integrating drones into American airspace.
And from RT America, a proposed Big Apple ban:
NYC drone ban threatens jail time for offenders
Program notes:
New York’s city council is considering a ban on drones within the city’s limits. Concerned with privacy and security issues, several council members want to prohibit the use of the crafts, with potential jail time for offenders. RT’s Alexey Yarosehvsky is in New York with more details.
Arab Springs succeeded by what was before, from the Christian Science Monitor:
On Arab uprising anniversary, US back to business as usual with Egypt’s military
Four years after the start of the so-called Arab Spring, the US is back to business as usual with a military regime in Egypt
Four years ago today, frustrated Tunisian vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and started a wave of uprisings in the Arab world that continue to reverberate to this day – though not in the way that many expected.
Sadly, the promise of what some call the Arab Spring has not come to pass anywhere yet, except perhaps in Tunisia, the small country where it all began.
Since then, a democracy protest movement has been crushed, with Saudi Arabian help, in Bahrain, the kingdom that hosts the US Fifth Fleet; Syrian protests for change have deteriorated into the world’s bloodiest current civil war, with 200,000 dead, millions displaced from their homes, and the US fighting jihadis who became dominant in the uprising, not the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.
In Egypt, a military regime in the style of Hosni Mubarak has been restored; Libya, where US and other NATO warplanes helped defeat Muammar Qaddafi, is mired in a low-level civil war.
From the Guardian, a born again demand on Swedish Jews:
Swedish far-right leader: Jews must abandon religious identity to be Swedes
Jewish community leader condemns remarks by Sweden Democrats politician as ‘good old rightwing antisemitism’
The leader of Sweden’s Jewish community has condemned as “good old rightwing antisemitism” remarks by a far-right leader who said Jews cannot be Swedes unless they abandon their Jewish identity.
Lena Posner Körösi, president of the Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden, said the comments conveyed a message that Jews were untrustworthy and could not be considered real Swedes, “exactly like in 1930s Germany” from which her grandfather had fled.
Official Sweden and social media have been in uproar after Björn Söder, secretary of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats and deputy speaker in parliament, said Jews could become Swedish citizens but could not be Swedish unless they were assimilated.
A Nigerian mutiny ends in 54 death warrants, via Deutsche Welle:
Nigeria sentences 54 soldiers to death for mutiny
A Nigerian court martial has sentenced 54 soldiers to death for mutiny and cowardice as they refused to fight against Boko Haram Islamists. The case has highlighted the army’s problems with equipment and morale.
The men sentenced to death on Wednesday were part of the special forces division ordered in August to retake three towns in Borno state, which had been taken over by the Islamist Boko Haram insurgents.
Their lawyer, Femi Falana, said the 54 men were sentenced to death by firing squad and five had been acquitted. They were accused of conspiring to commit mutiny against the authorities of the 7th Division of the Nigerian army, which is on the frontline.
The trial began on October 15 and was conducted behind closed doors. It is subject to approval by top military officials, but there has so far been no indication that senior officers oppose the court martial. They were not available for comment afterwards.
Top Afghan spook bids a sad farewell to Western boots on the ground, via Reuters:
Afghan spy chief laments intelligence vacuum as foreign troops leave
The departure of most foreign troops from Afghanistan has left an intelligence-gathering vacuum that facilitates Taliban attacks, the head of the Afghan spy agency said on Wednesday.
Summoned to parliament to explain a surge in suicide bombings and commando-style assaults across Afghanistan, including in the fortified capital Kabul, intelligence chief Rahmatullah Nabil blamed a loss of manpower and technology.
“There were some 150,000 foreign troops in every corner of the country, equipped with drone air power which is no more,” Nabil told lawmakers.
A plea from Pakistan to Afghanistan to help catch the butchers of children, via the New York Times:
Pakistani Army Chief Asks Afghans to Help Find Taliban Commanders Behind Massacre
Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, traveled to Afghanistan on Wednesday to seek help in locating the Pakistani Taliban commanders who orchestrated the massacre at a Peshawar school on Tuesday in which 148 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed.
General Sharif and the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, Lt. Gen. Rizwan Akhtar, flew to Kabul, the capital, for meetings with President Ashraf Ghani and Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the Pakistani military said.
The sudden trip came as Pakistanis united in horror and grief at Tuesday’s assault, in which Taliban gunmen stormed the Army Public School and Degree College, firing randomly, throwing grenades and lining up some students to be executed. Of the 148 fatalities, 132 were students.
And from the Express Tribune, information received?:
57 terrorists killed, as army launches retaliatory strikes in Tirah Valley
In the wake of Peshawar school attack, army launched retaliatory air strikes in Tirah Valley, Khyber agency killing 57 terrorists.
20 strikes were carried out using dynamic targeting as Army chief General Raheel Sharif reviewed operations post Army Public School incident.
And a possibly related drone strike also from the Express Tribune:
Dec 16 drone strike in Afghanistan killed four TTP militants: Afghan official
A US drone strike on Wednesday killed at least four Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in eastern Afghanistan, Express News reported.
Seven other insurgents were also killed, an Afghan district official said, according to Reuters.
Mahlem Mashuq, the governor of Sherzad district in Nangarhar province, said the drone’s missiles hit a pickup truck killing all 11 occupants on Tuesday afternoon, as members of the TTP were staging a siege on a school in Peshawar near the Afghan border.
From the Guardian, Pakistan’s peculiarly spooky complications:
Pakistani spy agency’s relations with militants blamed for school massacre
Some see ISI’s ambiguous approach towards different groups in effort to counter Indian influence as fuelling attacks
The link is indirect. Few say that there is any connection between the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), the rough coalition of groups that has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the country’s security establishment.
“The military formally and institutionally considers the TTP as an enemy of the state as it has killed many soldiers over the years,” said Michael Kugelman of the Woodrow Wilson centre in Washington.
Pakistan’s use of certain militant groups as strategic assets, however, makes concerted action against others impossible, according to Ajai Sahni, an Indian security analyst.
“If you allow space for armed Islamist groups you can’t really distinguish one from another,” Sahni said.
From the Independent, a prior offense:
Peshawar school attack: ‘Mullah Radio’ grew to be a cult figure and was also behind Malala Yousafzai assassination attempt
Once, if you wanted to speak with the man known as “Mullah Radio”, you had to travel to the remote, mountainous lands of Swat province in north-west Pakistan. There, between radio segments, a bearded preacher who would later assume command of a Taliban insurgency that on Tuesday killed more than 100 schoolchildren, would perhaps drop by on his white horse. That’s what happened when the journalist Nicholas Schmidle arrived at the mullah’s compound in 2007.
At the time, the mullah, Maulana Fazlullah, was riding high. Tens of thousands of people in Swat were tuning in to his illegal FM radio station, from which he excoriated the evils of female education and urged jihad. Women donated earrings and bracelets to the cause. A cult figure was born. “He is totally out of control,” one local leader told Mr Schmidle, who found Fazlullah dangerous. “His ambitions exceeded the mere creation of an Islamic emirate in Swat,” Mr Schmidle wrote in The New York Times Magazine.
Those ambitions, which propelled Fazlullah into the Pakistan Taliban’s top slot late last year, manifested themselves once more on Tuesday in a particularly macabre fashion.
And from the Daily Californian, a solidarity gesture in Berkeley:
Students gather to mourn deaths of Pakistani students
Huddling under umbrellas, students and community members gathered on the steps of Sproul Hall on Tuesday evening to mourn the massacre of more than 140 people in Pakistan.
About 100 people stood through the rain, holding candles as students formed a circle and spoke one by one. The vigil came less than a day after Taliban militants attacked a school in Peshawar, killing at least 132 children in the deadliest Taliban attack in Pakistani history.
Some students recited poetry or song, while others spoke about the shared educational dreams of those in attendance and of the Pakistani students who were killed.
From the Bangkok Post, Thai police launch an international hunt for royal-insulting suspects:
Govt hunting lese majeste suspects
The government has sent requests to countries where suspects in alleged lese majeste offences are believed to be in hiding, asking that they be sent back to Thailand, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon said on Wednesday.
Gen Prawit, who is in charge of security affairs, said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha wants all fugitive lese majeste suspects, including Thammasat University history lecturer Somsak Jeamteerasakul, back in the country to face legal action.
He declined to reveal how many are wanted and in what countries they are believed to be living.
Gen Prawit, who is also defence minister and deputy chairman of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), said there are problems in that some of those countries do not have an extradition treaty with Thailand, and do not have a lese majeste law.
Nuclear naval ambitions from Want China Times:
China plans nuclear-powered aircraft carriers: US expert
China is developing a large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier similar to the Nimitz-class or Ford-class aircraft carriers of the United States Navy, Associate Professor Andrew S Erickson from the Strategic Research Department at the US Naval War College wrote in his recent article for National Interest magazine.
Erickson said three models of aircraft carriers displayed at Jinshuai Model Crafts based in Zhanjiang in Guangdong province show what China’s future aircraft carriers will look like. Jinshuai Model Crafts is located close to the headquarters of the PLA Navy’s South Sea Fleet and the models it makes usually provide reliable and detailed information about the design of China’s future warships.
The first important thing to notice, Erickson wrote, is that the three models give the hull numbers of China’s first three domestically built carriers as 17, 18 and 19. The models also show that the design of the PLA Navy’s future carriers will be different to its first carrier, the Liaoning, which carries the number CV-16. The carrier was purchased from Ukraine as the hulk of the Soviet-era carrier Varyag and refitted for service. It was commissioned in 2012.
Obama and Abe — Trans-Pacific BFFs, via NHK WORLD:
Abe, Obama confirm on strong bilateral alliance
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Barack Obama have confirmed they will maintain a strong bilateral alliance after Japan’s ruling coalition won a general election on Sunday.
The 2 leaders spoke by phone for about 15 minutes around noon on Wednesday, Japan time. The White House requested the call.
Obama congratulated Abe on the landslide victory of the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic and Komeito parties.
And from the New York Times, an act of resistance:
Japanese University Retains Ex-Journalist Facing Far Right’s Ire
A retired Japanese journalist who has been a prominent target of criticism by rightists seeking to rewrite Japan’s wartime history received a public show of support on Wednesday when his employer, a university, resisted pressure to cancel his teaching contract.
Hokusei Gakuen University, a Christian college in northern Japan, said it had decided to retain the former journalist, Takashi Uemura, despite demands from ultranationalists that he be fired. The college had received threats of bombings and attacks on students because of newspaper articles that Mr. Uemura wrote more than two decades ago about Korean women forced to work in Japanese military brothels during World War II.
The fate of Mr. Uemura, 56, has been widely watched here in Japan. The country appears to be in the grips of an ideological tug of war between an emboldened far right, which has gained influence under the conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and more moderate voices. For a time, the right gained ascendancy, verbally attacking journalists and scholars whom it viewed as promoting an overly masochistic view of Japan’s World War II-era history.
However, liberals and moderates have now begun to push back. In October, a group of more than 1,000 scholars, lawyers and journalists formed to support Mr. Uemura by calling on the college to renew his contract.
