We begin with a Pyrrhic victory declared from the Washington Post:
NATO flag lowered in Afghanistan as combat mission ends
The 13-year NATO combat mission in Afghanistan formally ended Sunday with a ceremonial retirement of its green flag and a pledge by top officials of the U.S.-led coalition to remain reliable partners in Afghanistan’s unfinished war against the Taliban and other militant groups.
Scores of Afghan and foreign officials gathered to witness the symbolic shift to a new, much smaller NATO assistance and training mission. The event was held in a basketball gym inside NATO headquarters here in the Afghan capital and accompanied by a brass band and color guard.
“Our commitment to Afghanistan endures. . . . We are not walking away,” promised Gen. John F. Campbell, the U.S. commander of the outgoing International Security Assistance Force combat mission. He will lead the new NATO support mission, which technically begins at midnight on Dec. 31.
And the ongoing legacy, via Spiegel [emphasis added]:
Obama’s Lists: A Dubious History of Targeted Killings in Afghanistan
Combat operations in Afghanistan may be coming to an end, but a look at secret NATO documents reveals that the US and the UK were far less scrupulous in choosing targets for killing than previously believed. Drug dealers were also on the lists.
The 13-year combat mission in Afghanistan comes to an official end this week, but the kill lists raise legal and moral questions that extend far beyond Afghanistan. Can a democracy be allowed to kill its enemies in a targeted manner when the objective is not to prevent an imminent attack? And does the goal of eliminating as many Taliban as possible justify killing innocent bystanders?
Different rules apply in war than in fighting crime in times of peace. But for years the West tied its campaign in Afghanistan to the promise that it was fighting for different values there. A democracy that kills its enemies on the basis of nothing but suspicion squanders its claim to moral superiority, making itself complicit instead. This lesson from Afghanistan also applies to the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen.
The material SPIEGEL was able to review is from 2009 to 2011, and falls within the term of US President Barack Obama, who was inaugurated in January 2009. For Obama, Afghanistan was the “good” war and therefore legitimate — in contrast to the Iraq war. The president wanted to end the engagement in Iraq as quickly as possible, but in Afghanistan his aim was to win.
From the Guardian, caught in the middle:
NYPD chief defends mayor de Blasio and criticises police funeral protest
Commissioner Bratton: turning of backs on mayor ‘very inappropriate’
Suggests ongoing contract negotiations may contribute to rift
The commissioner of the New York Police Department, Bill Bratton, has given strong backing to Bill de Blasio, denouncing the protest of rank-and-file officers who turned their back on the mayor at a weekend funeral as politicised and inappropriate.
Speaking on CBS on Sunday, the leader of the largest police force in the US came out fighting on behalf of the beleaguered politician who appointed him.
“This is a mayor who cares very deeply about New York police officers, cares very deeply about the divide in the city and is working hard to heal that divide,” Bratton said.
De Blasio has faced expressions of open hostility from New York’s police unions since two officers were killed last weekend. On Saturday a cordon of officers turned their back on the mayor’s image as it was being screened outside Christ Tabernacle church in Queens, where de Blasio was addressing the funeral of one of the murdered officers, Rafael Ramos.
Well-deserved, via the Los Angeles Times:
Ferguson officer on leave after remarks about Michael Brown memorial
A Ferguson, Mo., police spokesman has been put on unpaid leave after initially denying, then admitting that he referred to a memorial for Michael Brown as a “pile of trash” to a Washington Post reporter.
Post reporter Jose A. DelReal called Officer Timothy Zoll, the Ferguson Police Department’s public relations officer, after some residents claimed a motorist had intentionally driven a car through a memorial to the 18-year-old who was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer in August.
“I don’t know that a crime has occurred,” Zoll told DelReal on Friday. “But a pile of trash in the middle of the street? The Washington Post is making a call over this?”
Zoll inititally denied making the statement but later admitted to the remarks and to misleading his superiors when confronted on the issue, the city said in a statement Saturday night.
And from United Press International, suspicious circumstances:
Mentally challenged man killed by LA police had muzzle imprint on back
The autopsy of an unarmed, mentally challenged black man killed by Los Angeles police in August revealed he was shot three times and had the imprint of a gun muzzle on his back at the site of one of the wounds.
Ezell Ford, 25, died Aug. 11 at a hospital after an an incident with police on the street where he lived.
Police said they shot Ford after he allegedly struggled with officers and attempted to remove a gun from one of their holsters.
An unidentified cousin of Ford’s told KTLA at the time that Ford was laying down when he was shot.
The coroner’s report, released Monday, said Ford was shot three times — once in the back, once in the side and once in the arm. The wound on his back had a muzzle imprint, indicating he was shot at close range.
From the Washington Post, strange bedfellows:
The U.S. and Iran are aligned in Iraq against the Islamic State — for now
Iranian military involvement has dramatically increased in Iraq over the past year as Tehran has delivered desperately needed aid to Baghdad in its fight against Islamic State militants, say U.S., Iraqi and Iranian sources. In the eyes of Obama administration officials, equally concerned about the rise of the brutal Islamist group, that’s an acceptable role — for now.
Yet as U.S. troops return to a limited mission in Iraq, American officials remain apprehensive about the potential for renewed friction with Iran, either directly or via Iranian-backed militias that once attacked U.S. personnel on a regular basis.
A senior Iranian cleric with close ties to Tehran’s leadership, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, said that since the Islamic State’s capture of much of northern Iraq in June, Iran has sent more than 1,000 military advisers to Iraq, as well as elite units, and has conducted airstrikes and spent more than $1 billion on military aid.
Reuters covers a body count:
Islamic State executed nearly 2,000 people in six months – monitor
The Islamic State militant group has killed 1,878 people in Syria during the past six months, the majority of them civilians, a British-based Syrian monitoring organisation said on Sunday.
Islamic State also killed 120 of its own members, most of them foreign fighters trying to return home, in the last two months, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The militant group has taken vast parts of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate in territory under its control in June. Since then it has fought the Syrian and Iraqi governments, other insurgents and Kurdish forces.
Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian monitoring group, told Reuters that Islamic State killed 1,175 civilians, including eight women and four children.
He said 930 of the civilians were members of the Sheitaat, a Sunni Muslim tribe from eastern Syria which fought Islamic State for control of two oilfields in August.
The Associated Press covers dronal decisions:
Congress likely to make key decisions on drones
The Obama administration is on the verge of proposing long-awaited rules for commercial drone operations in U.S. skies, but key decisions on how much access to grant drones are likely to come from Congress next year.
Federal Aviation Administration officials have said they want to release proposed rules before the end of this month, but other government and industry officials say they are likely to be delayed until January. Meanwhile, except for a small number of companies that have received FAA exemptions, a ban on commercial drone flights remains in place. Even after rules are proposed, it is likely to be two or three years before regulations become final.
That’s too long to wait, say drone industry officials. Every year the ban remains in place, the United States loses more than $10 billion in potential economic benefits that drones could provide, according to the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a trade group.
From MercoPress, more Cold War 2.0?:
London concerned as Russian military jets available to Argentina
Putin reportedly offered them in exchange for beef and wheat during his last trip to Buenos Aires. ‘Sunday Express’ cites UK defence sources.
During his trip to Buenos Aires in July, Russian President Vladimir Putin has allegedly offered his Argentine counterpart Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to exhange military equipment, specifically jet aircraft, for wheat and beef and other items Moscow needs due to EU embargoes, London’s Sunday Express reported.
The type of aircraft involved in the proposal would be able to mount air patrols over Port Stanley, the article explained. “Ministry of Defence officials fear Buenos Aires would take delivery of the planes well before the deployment in 2020 of the Navy’s 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and its F-35B fighters, leaving a ‘real window of vulnerability’,” the newspaper said.
According to the Express, “defence cuts have left the Falklands with just four RAF Typhoon fighters, Rapier surface-to-air missiles and fewer than 1,200 troops, supported by a naval warship that visits throughout the year.”
On to the world of the spooky, first with Spiegel:
Prying Eyes: Inside the NSA’s War on Internet Security
US and British intelligence agencies undertake every effort imaginable to crack all types of encrypted Internet communication. The cloud, it seems, is full of holes. The good news: New Snowden documents show that some forms of encryption still cause problems for the NSA.
When Christmas approaches, the spies of the Five Eyes intelligence services can look forward to a break from the arduous daily work of spying. In addition to their usual job — attempting to crack encryption all around the world — they play a game called the “Kryptos Kristmas Kwiz,” which involves solving challenging numerical and alphabetical puzzles. The proud winners of the competition are awarded “Kryptos” mugs.
Encryption — the use of mathematics to protect communications from spying — is used for electronic transactions of all types, by governments, firms and private users alike. But a look into the archive of whistleblower Edward Snowden shows that not all encryption technologies live up to what they promise.
One example is the encryption featured in Skype, a program used by some 300 million users to conduct Internet video chat that is touted as secure. It isn’t really. “Sustained Skype collection began in Feb 2011,” reads a National Security Agency (NSA) training document from the archive of whistleblower Edward Snowden. Less than half a year later, in the fall, the code crackers declared their mission accomplished. Since then, data from Skype has been accessible to the NSA’s snoops. Software giant Microsoft, which acquired Skype in 2011, said in a statement: “We will not provide governments with direct or unfettered access to customer data or encryption keys.” The NSA had been monitoring Skype even before that, but since February 2011, the service has been under order from the secret US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), to not only supply information to the NSA but also to make itself accessible as a source of data for the agency.
From the Guardian, unanswered questions:
Metadata: most Australian police forces can’t say how many times it has been used to prevent crime
‘It is not possible to approximate with any degree of certainty how many criminal actions, including terrorist acts, have been averted,’ AFP tells MPs
Most of Australia’s law enforcement agencies are unable to say how many times phone and web data has been used to prevent serious crimes or terrorist attacks, or how many convictions resulted from requests.
A joint parliamentary committee is examining the federal government’s bill to retain Australians’ phone and web data – commonly known as metadata – for two years. Many of Australia’s law enforcement agencies have argued strongly in favour of the scheme.
Under the plan, access to metadata would be warrantless and without prior oversight from independent agencies or judges.
But in response to questions from the parliamentary committee, few could provide accurate information about how they had used metadata in criminal investigations.
And TheLocal.de covers a suspicious appearance:
Spy malware found on government computer
The IT security team at the Chancellery in Berlin say that an employee was the target of an espionage attack through a computer virus that is associated with British and American spy agencies, it was revealed on Monday.
Government spokesperson Christiane Wirtz said that the IT system of the Chancellery, where Angela Merkel conducts her work, was not infiltrated no other employees were targeted in the malware attack.
They also said it was different from the bug that allowed Merkel’s mobile telephone to be tapped by the American spy agency.
The latest federal government cyber espionage was carried out by software called Regin. A senior figure of the European unit in the chancellory took some documents on a personal USB stick home one day. According to Bild, it was a speech on strategies in the Europan Union. Officials say the virus was transmitted through her home computer.
More German complications from the Washington Post:
Backlash in Berlin over NSA spying recedes as threat from Islamic State rises
Over the past year, Germany has secretly provided detailed information to U.S. spy services on hundreds of German citizens and legal residents suspected of having joined insurgent groups in Syria and Iraq, U.S. and German officials said.
Germany has done so reluctantly to enlist U.S. help in tracking departed fighters, determining whether they have joined al-Qaeda or the Islamic State and, perhaps most importantly, whether they might seek to bring those groups’ violent agendas back to Germany.
The stream of information includes names, cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses and other sensitive data that German security services — ever mindful of the abuses by the Nazi and Stasi secret police — have been reluctant even to collect, let alone turn over to a suspect ally.
A senior German intelligence official compared the U.S. relationship to a dysfunctional marriage in which trust has bottomed out but a breakup is not an option. Amid what Germans see as evidence of repeated betrayal, “the question remaining is whether the husband is a notorious cheater or can be faithful again,” said the official, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. “We’re just going to have to give it another try. There is no alternative. Divorce is out of the question.”
After the jump it’s on to the world of the hack, first with an interesting development in biometric security, The Interview’s impressive earnings, North Korea’s Internet collapses again, the FBI continues to insist North Korea did it but others disagree, another American media offering inflames Pakistan, the PlayStation Network recovers from a hack and a hacker explains it all, another mosque set ablaze in Sweden, more worries over German Islamophobia, an Aussie shock jock’s anti-Lebanese hate speak ends in a court loss, a Pakistani court orders a release for a terror suspect, Thai students face long prison terms for insulting royals, South Korea teams with U.S. and Japan against the North, A Gmail shutdown in China, China stages a provocative naval drills, China eases air defense zone tensions, Japan ramps up its own aerial patrols while it pushes forward with plans for overseas troop deployments, the Japanese panopticon hits the subway, Germans worry over Japan’s new state secrets act, and pressure mounts for a Japanese hate speech law, while robots are committing online crimes. . .
From Deutsche Welle, very interesting:
German Defense Minister von der Leyen’s fingerprint copied by Chaos Computer Club
A speaker at the yearly conference of the Chaos Computer Club has shown how you can fake fingerprints using only a few photographs. Jan Krissler has warned the world about relying on certain security technologies.
Jan Krissler, also know by his alias “Starbug” told a conference of hackers he has copied the thumbprint of German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. Speaking at the 31st annual Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg, Krissler highlighted the dangers in relying on security technology that is not necessarily safe.
Krissler explained that he didn’t even need an object that von der Leyen had touched. Using several close-range photos in order to capture every angle, Krissler used a commercially available software called VeriFinger to create an image of the minister’s fingerprint.
Along with fellow hacker Tobias Fiebig, Krissler has been working at the Technical University of Berlin on research into weaknesses of biometric security systems. Krissler pulled a similar stunt in 2008 with a fingerprint of then interior minister and current Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
Jan Krissler intends to show how systems which use these prints or iris scans to verify identity, which are becoming more prevalent and popular, can be outsmarted. He gave the example of facial recognition software that can be fooled by a person’s photograph, as well as showing how his fake fingerprint can trick the iPhone fingerprint sensor.
The Interview’s impressive earnings, via the Guardian:
The Interview makes $18m after massive online sales
Sony Pictures comedy about killing of Kim Jong-un makes most of limited release amid surge of publicity due to cyberattack
Sony Pictures says The Interview has earned more than $15m in online sales and another $2.8m in cinemas, an impressive return made possible by the publicity surrounding the cyberattack blamed on North Korea.
The raunchy comedy that depicts the assassination of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un made almost as much money through online distribution and in limited cinemas in its opening weekend as it would have in a wide release that was shelved after threats from hackers.
The studio said on Sunday the film had been purchased or rented online more than 2m times on the four days through to Saturday, making it Sony Pictures’ No 1 online movie of all time.
North Korea’s Internet collapses again, from the London Daily Mail:
North Korea’s internet and mobile networks paralysed AGAIN a day after Pyongyang called President Obama a ‘monkey’ in row over Sony hack
North Korea’s Internet and 3G mobile networks were paralyzed Saturday
North Korean government quickly blames the United States for the attack
It comes after the dictatorship was blamed for a hack on Sony over a film
This led to a cancellation of the comedy ‘The Interview’ in U.S. cinemas
President Barack Obama said Sony made a mistake by cancelling
The film was shown during screenings throughout America over holidays
Leader Kim Jong Un called President Obama ‘a monkey’ for his comments
The cyber war between America and North Korea took another turn on Saturday when North Korea’s Internet and 3G mobile networks were paralyzed again for the third time in a week.
From the McClatchy Washington Bureau, the FBI continues to insist North Korea did it:
FBI stands firm on N. Korea as doubts surface over who hacked Sony
Amid growing speculation by some cybersecurity experts that North Korea might not have been behind the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday dismissed the possibility that anyone else was to blame.
“There is no credible information to indicate that any other individual is responsible for this cyber incident,” the FBI said in a statement.
The agency stood by its conclusion that the North Korean government was behind the devastating attack on Sony, which resulted in the release of reams of sensitive data and personal emails.
But others disagree, via The Hill:
FBI hears evidence questioning North Korea’s role in Sony hack
The FBI will hear evidence on Monday that six individuals, including one or more former employees, were behind the cyberattack on Sony Pictures.
The bureau has publicly blamed North Korea for sponsoring the attack, but security experts have since questioned the official story, arguing they cannot find a solid link between those suspected in the attack and the reclusive East Asian government.
The U.S. believes the hit was retaliation for Sony’s comedy, “The Interview,” which depicts the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Cybersecurity firm Norse believes it has identified a narrow set of people across the U.S., Canada, Singapore and Thailand who launched the assault. The firm is presenting its findings to the FBI late Monday afternoon, said Kurt Stammberger, a Norse senior vice president, in an interview.
Meanwhile, another American media offering inflames Pakistan, via GlobalPost:
Pakistan says ‘Homeland’ insulting to terror fight
The latest season of the US spy drama is ruffling feathers among Pakistani officials who are unhappy at the unflattering portrayal of the country’s powerful spy agencies
The latest season of US TV spy drama “Homeland” is ruffling feathers among Pakistani officials who are unhappy at the unflattering portrayal of the country’s powerful spy agencies.
Season four of the hit series starring Claire Danes as troubled CIA agent Carrie Mathison revolves around feared Taliban group the Haqqani network and Pakistan’s top spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
A Pakistani official told AFP on Sunday that the show “insulted” the country’s security personnel by suggesting the ISI protected militants at the expense of its citizens.
From PCWorld, the PlayStation Network recovers from a hack:
Sony: PlayStation Network is back online now, really
After giving gamers false hope on Saturday, Sony now says its PlayStation Network has been fully restored after a Christmas Day attack that knocked it offline for about three days.
At around 1 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time on Sunday, Sony declared its online gaming platform fixed and, as it had done the day before, blamed the problems on a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
“PlayStation Network and some other gaming services were attacked over the holidays with artificially high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity and online gameplay. This may have prevented your access to the network and its services over the last few days,” wrote Catherine Jensen, Vice President of Consumer Experience at Sony Computer Entertainment America, in an update to a blog post she had published originally on Saturday.
And from Channel 4 News, one of the hackers from the Informal Anarchist Federation explains why they did it:
Who are the anarchist arsonists from Bristol? | Channel 4 New
Program notes:
An anarchist arson group from Bristol post their explanations on the internet after each attack, but police are increasingly concerned about public safety after the group set fire to the car of a retired teacher.
Another mosque set ablaze in Sweden, via the Guardian:
Swedish mosque set ablaze in second suspected arson attack in a week
Special security forces lead hunt for perpetrators of latest fire as mainstream politicians struggle to stem ascent of far right
Special security forces in Sweden are hunting suspected arsonists after fires at two mosques.
The blazes follow a period of increased tension in the country, as politicians struggle to stem the rise of the anti-immigrant far right.
The Säpo were called in after a blaze at a mosque in the southern town of Eslöv in the early hours of Monday morning. It followed a similar incident on Christmas Day in Eskilstuna, near Stockholm, in which five people were injured when a fire broke out during prayers.
“It’s probably Islamophobia,” an Eslöv imam, Samir Muric, told Swedish media. “I live close and do not feel safe anymore.”
More worries over German Islamophobia from TheLocal.de:
German-Turkish group against far-right talks
A Turkish community leader in Germany warned on Sunday against proposals by mainstream politicians for “dialogue” with a far-right populist movement that has drawn thousands to anti-Islamic street protests.
Several ministers and lawmakers have argued the government must listen to the fears about immigration voiced by the so-called “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident” or PEGIDA.
The chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany, Safter Cinar, warned that seeking to understand PEGIDA was dangerous and that xenophobia and racism must remain taboo, the newspaper Tagesspiegel reported.
An Aussie shock jock’s anti-Lebanese hate speak ends in a court loss, via the Guardian:
Alan Jones loses lengthy legal battle with Muslim leader Keysar Trad
Tribunal rules that calling Lebanese men ‘vermin’ and ‘mongrels’ constituted racial vilification
Alan Jones has lost his lengthy legal battle with the Muslim leader Keysar Trad and been ordered to pay him $10,000 plus costs after a tribunal ruled that calling Lebanese men “vermin” and “mongrels” constituted racial vilification.
In a 2005 broadcast on his popular 2GB morning radio program, Jones described Lebanese men as “idiots” who hated “our country and heritage”.
The inflammatory comments went to air when Jones read a letter he said he had received from a listener. The letter, which he also commented on, was in response to a story on Nine’s A Current Affair program the night before about young men taunting police and showing disrespect for the Anzac tradition.
The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal said in its judgment: “The assertion is made that these men simply rape, pillage and plunder a nation that’s taken them in. They are then described in sub-human terms as ‘vermin infest[ing] our shores’.
“These words, which are highly insulting and inflammatory, portray Lebanese men in an extremely negative way, suggesting that they rape and are warlike and violent. The words ‘vermin’ also carry the inference that they are unwanted parasites. Lebanese males are a threat – a ‘national security problem in the making’.”
A Pakistani court orders a release for a terror suspect, via the Associated Press:
Pakistan court suspends detention of Mumbai attack planner
A Pakistani court Monday suspended a detention order keeping the alleged planner of the Mumbai terror attacks in jail, possibly paving the way for his release, officials said.
The prospect of Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi going free presents an embarrassing turn of events for the Pakistani government that has vowed to crack down hard on militancy following the Dec. 16 Taliban school attack in Peshawar that left at least 148 people dead, mostly schoolchildren. It also raises the prospect of a serious political conflict with India, which has long-accused Islamabad of being soft on its home-grown militants.
Lakhvi is one of seven men on trial in Pakistan in connection with the 2008 attack in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people.
Lakhvi is still in prison, pending the posting of his bail money, and Pakistani officials could try to fight the court’s decision. An immediate condemnation by neighboring India, calling the development “extremely disturbing,” underscored how contentious the issue remains.
Thai students face long prison terms for insulting royals, via BBC News:
Students admit insulting Thai royals in theatre play
Two Thai students have admitted insulting royalty in a play they performed about a 1973 uprising.
Patiwat Saraiyaem, 23, and Pornthip Munkong, 25, face up to 15 years in jail under lese majeste laws, which protect the royals from any insults.
The play called Wolf Bride featured a fictional king and his advisor.
Thailand’s lese majeste laws are the world’s strictest, but critics say they are often used to settle personal rows or silence political opposition.
The play was performed at Bangkok’s Thammasat University in October 2013, but the pair were not arrested until August this year.
South Korea teams with U.S. and Japan against the North, via Reuters:
Japan says close to deal with South Korea and U.S. on North Korea defense
Japan, the United States and South Korea are close to reaching a deal on sharing and safeguarding sensitive information on North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, Japan’s Defence Ministry said on Friday.
As Japan lies well within the range of North Korea’s mid-range missiles, acquiring military intelligence on North Korea in a timely manner is vital for its security.
“Ever since defense ministers of Japan, the United States and South Korea agreed on the importance of information sharing in May, discussion has taken place at various levels,” a Japanese Defence Ministry official told a media briefing.
“And now we are in the final stages toward signing.”
A Gmail shutdown in China via the Los Angeles Times:
Gmail access blocked in China months after crackdown began
Officials in China appear to have blocked access to Google email, months after a crackdown on the Internet giant’s myriad services began.
According to data from Google’s Transparency Report, Gmail traffic in China dropped sharply starting Thursday night and has remained low.
A spokesman for Google said in a statement that the company has checked its email service and “there’s nothing technically wrong on our end.”
Google services like Maps and Google Books have increasingly been restricted by Chinese censors this year. In June, days before the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, users reported disruptions to Google’s search engine, Google Scholar, and country-specific pages.
China stages a provocative naval drills, via Want China Times:
PLA drills sandwich Japan from north and south
The People’s Liberation Army appears to be strategizing on how it would sandwich Japan from the north and south in the event of a military conflict, says a Taiwanese military expert.
Ching Chang, a research fellow at Taiwan’s Society for Strategic Studies, made the comments in response to a series of naval drills conducted by the PLA’s three main fleets — the North Sea Fleet, the East Sea Fleet and the South Sea Fleet — earlier this month.
On Dec. 4, the North Sea Fleet’s flagship Harbin Type 052 destroyer, the 054A Yantai and Yancheng multi-role frigates, and the Taihu Type 903 replenishment ship, traveled east through the narrow Osumikaikyo Strait southwest of Japan, before heading north to perform drills by passing through the Kuril Islands north of Japan and into the Sea of Okhotsk. Then on Christmas Day, the fleet passed through the La Perouse Strait north of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido before returning via the disputed East China Sea.
More from NHK WORLD:
Chinese naval vessels circle Japan
Four Chinese naval vessels have circled the Japanese Archipelago. No intrusions into Japan’s territorial waters have been reported.
The Defense Ministry says Maritime Self-Defense Force spotted the 4 Chinese vessels, including a destroyer, navigating 310 kilometers northeast of Japan’s Tsushima Island in the Sea of Japan at around 2:30 PM on Saturday.
The 4 boats passed through the Tsushima Strait and had returned to the East China Sea by Sunday morning.
The Defense Ministry says that on December 4th, the 4 vessels passed through the Osumi Strait off Kagoshima Prefecture to reach the Pacific Ocean.
China eases air defense zone tensions, via the Asahi Shimbun:
China withdraws threat against violations of airspace zone over East China Sea
Chinese aviation authorities have removed a warning that possible “defensive emergency measures” could be taken against carriers failing to comply with regulations set for China’s airspace zone in the East China Sea.
The move by the Civil Aviation Administration reflects fears that hostilities could be triggered with other countries if China strictly applied rules for the air defense identification zone it established last year, according to diplomatic sources.
However, there is no change in the operating rules for the new ADIZ outlined on the Chinese Defense Ministry’s website, leaving the disparity between the two unaddressed.
From the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan ramps up its own aerial patrols:
JCG planning to increase aerial surveillance by 20%
The Japan Coast Guard plans to increase aerial patrols by 20 percent from next fiscal year to better monitor Chinese intrusions into Japanese territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture and the illegal collection of coral off the Ogasawara Islands.
The patrols will be mainly carried out over the nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). As the scale of the aerial patrols has been kept at virtually the same level in recent years, a JCG official said, “The planned scale of the increase is unprecedented.”
The JCG owns 27 aircraft, which it uses to monitor Japan’s territorial waters and for other purposes. In next fiscal year’s budget, the JCG is seeking increases in spending for fuel and maintenance costs to reinforce its patrols.
Remilitarization moves forward, via Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
Japan plans law to speed up overseas deployment of troops
The move could strain relations with neighbours wary about Japan’s wartime history
Japan plans to draw up a law to speed up the deployment of troops overseas for peacekeeping operations and to support allies, reports said on Sunday, in a move that could strain relations with neighbours wary about Japan’s wartime history.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) plan to draw Bills early next year aimed at facilitating administrative processes to deploy Japanese troops abroad, the leading business daily Nikkei and other media reported.
The move would overwrite the past practice of ad-hoc legislation each time Japanese Self-Defense Forces were deployed abroad, except in UN peacekeeping operations and in emergencies in Japan’s neighbourhood – cases for which Japan already has permanent laws.
The Bills would govern the dispatch of Japanese troops overseas in logistical support of multinational forces or key ally the United States. But the LDP still needs to convince its junior coalition partner Komeito party to support the plan as Komeito remains reluctant to enact such a law, the Nikkei and Kyodo News said.
Here’s looking at you, via the Asahi Shimbun:
Police, Tokyo Metro to consider video surveillance system as anti-terrorism measure
As part of anti-terrorism measures, the Metropolitan Police Department and subway operator Tokyo Metro Co. will start discussing the use of an emergency video footage transmission system, MPD sources said Dec. 25.
The system enables transmission to the MPD of footage from security cameras at subway stations in real time in the event of serious incidents and disasters. The two organizations aim at starting operations of the system in earnest as early as fiscal 2015, which starts in April, the sources said.
The system could be installed at venues of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the Olympic athletes’ village and other railway operators.
Germans worry over Japan’s new state secrets act, via the Mainichi:
Concerns over Japan’s secrecy law raised in Germany
The Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets came into effect in Japan on Dec. 10, stiffening penalties for leakers of state secrets. While the law tightens the government’s information management, concerns have been raised that it might jeopardize the public’s right to know. Criticism against the controversial law has also been raised in Germany, where legal revisions have been made to guarantee freedom of the press in recent years.
On Dec. 10, the German Press Agency (DPA) pointed out that Japan’s secrecy law raises the possibility of journalists facing punishment for abetting the leakage of secrets. The news agency noted criticism within Japan that the law constitutes an attack on freedom of the press.
In Germany, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany — the country’s constitutional law — guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. At the same time, Germany’s penal code prohibits the provision of defense secrets to foreign countries and bans public servants from leaking state secrets. In the past there were many instances of journalists having been investigated on suspicion of “abetting” leaks of secret information.
In 2007, Germany’s constitutional court ruled it illegal for authorities to search members of the press to expose their sources. In 2012, a new law was enacted and the penal code was revised to enhance freedom of the press, so that journalists would not be judged to have violated laws by publishing classified secrets as long as they did so for the purpose of news reporting.
And from the Asahi Shimbun, it’s about time:
Assemblies ratchet up pressure to stamp out hate speech
Local assemblies around Japan are stepping up pressure on the central government to take action to eradicate “hate speech.”
This month alone, 12 entities have adopted statements calling on the government to act decisively on the issue.
The flurry of calls follows a recommendation by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in August and a Supreme Court ruling on Dec. 9.
The CERD called on the Japanese government to take legal steps to stamp out hate speech, while the Supreme Court ruling recognized that hate speech constitutes racial discrimination.
Finally, via Fusion, robocrook:
Robots are starting to break the law and nobody knows what to do about it
Maybe it’s a sign that robots are growing up, and thus hitting the rebellious stage.
The Random Darknet Shopper, an automated online shopping bot with a budget of $100 a week in Bitcoin, is programmed to do a very specific task: go to one particular marketplace on the Deep Web and make one random purchase a week with the provided allowance. The purchases have all been compiled for an art show in Zurich, Switzerland titled The Darknet: From Memes to Onionland, which runs through January 11.
The concept would be all gravy if not for one thing: the programmers came home one day to find a shipment of 10 ecstasy pills, followed by an apparently very legit falsified Hungarian passport– developments which have left some observers of the bot’s blog a little uneasy.
If this bot was shipping to the U.S., asks Forbes contributor and University of Washington law professor contributor Ryan Calo, who would be legally responsible for purchasing the goodies? The coders? Or the bot itself?
