Plus xenophobia galore. . .
From BuzzFeed News, found guilty without trial:
U.S. imposes sanctions on N. Korea following attack on Sony
The Obama administration imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday, the first known U.S. response since authorities concluded the repressive government was behind the cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.
President Obama, while vacationing in Hawaii, signed an executive order authorizing the sanctions. U.S. officials said the measures were a response to North Korea’s “ongoing provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and policies,” including the attack on Sony.
Under the new order, the Treasury Department imposed financial measures on 10 North Korean officials and three government agencies. The targets include the country’s main intelligence agency, believed to have orchestrated major cyber operations, as well as agencies responsible for weapons deals and military research and development.
More from the Los Angeles Times:
“We take seriously North Korea’s attack that aimed to create destructive financial effects on a U.S. company and to threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of restricting their right to free expression,” White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said in a statement.
But while the new actions were triggered by the Sony hack, a senior U.S. official said that none of the individuals and entities targeted were believed to be directly involved. Rather, the step reflects a broader concern about North Korea’s recent provocations on a host of fronts, particularly in cybersecurity.
“This attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment clearly crossed a threshold for us,” said another senior official, who like the first spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity. “We’ve moved from an era of website defacement and digital graffiti, as it were, to where people are actually willing to cross this line and conduct destructive attacks on data and try to coerce people. Therefore we felt the need very strongly to take decisive action.”
While the Intercept calls time out:
North Korea/Sony Story Shows How Eagerly U.S. Media Still Regurgitate Government Claims
The identity of the Sony hackers is still unknown. President Obama, in a December 19 press conference, announced: “We can confirm that North Korea engaged in this attack.” He then vowed: “We will respond. . . . We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States.”
The U.S. Government’s campaign to blame North Korea actually began two days earlier, when The New York Times – as usual – corruptly granted anonymity to “senior administration officials” to disseminate their inflammatory claims with no accountability. These hidden “American officials” used the Paper of Record to announce that they “have concluded that North Korea was ‘centrally involved’ in the hacking of Sony Pictures computers.” With virtually no skepticism about the official accusation, reporters David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth deemed the incident a “cyberterrorism attack” and devoted the bulk of the article to examining the retaliatory actions the government could take against the North Koreans.
The same day, The Washington Post granted anonymity to officials in order to print this:
Intelligence officials believe with “99 percent certainty” that hackers working for the North Korean government carried out the attack, said one individual who was briefed on the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. But the administration hasn’t figured out what to do, U.S. officials said.
The NYT and Post engaged in this stenography in the face of numerous security experts loudly noting how sparse and unconvincing was the available evidence against North Korea. Kim Zetter in Wired – literally moments before the NYT laundered the accusation via anonymous officials – proclaimed the evidence of North Korea’s involvement “flimsy.” About the U.S. government’s accusation in the NYT, she wisely wrote: “they have provided no evidence to support this and without knowing even what agency the officials belong to, it’s difficult to know what to make of the claim. And we should point out that intelligence agencies and government officials have jumped to hasty conclusions or misled the public in the past because it was politically expedient.”
Fusion hints that other possibilities are still in the running:
The FBI thought this Tennessee prankster was a Sony Pictures hacker
After an ill-advised prank, David Garrett Jr. spent an hour on New Year’s Day at an FBI bureau in Tennessee explaining that he was not a North Korea sympathizer and was not involved in any way in hacking Sony Pictures.
“I’ve never been in trouble before, just speeding tickets,” said Garrett by phone afterwards. “I just like to correct media inaccuracies.”
A week earlier, the 30-year-old Knoxville, Tennessee man had authored a post on Pastebin that claimed to be a message from the GOP, the group that hacked Sony Pictures; in it, he mocked CNN’s reporting on the hack and demanded the network hand over “the Wolf,” a.k.a. anchor Wolf Blitzer. He thought the message was obviously satirical, an almost word-for-word copy of a message posted earlier that day mocking the FBI, that CNN had reported as coming from the Sony Pictures hackers. Like that message, Garrett’s linked to a YouTube video with an “You’re an idiot” song. Garrett wanted to make the point that messages posted on Pastebin that claim to be from the GOP are not necessarily from the Guardians of the Peace unless they are accompanied by proof, such as new documents from the hack. A web designer and sometime political blogger, he considered mainstream journalists to be overly gullible in rushing to report any message that claimed to be from the GOP as legitimate and also in accepting claims made by the government about North Korea being responsible for the hack.
From Bloomberg, suggestive of corporate preemptive strikes:
FBI Investigating Whether Companies Are Engaged in Revenge Hacking
The hacked are itching to hack back.
So say a dozen security specialists and former law-enforcement officials, who described an intensifying and largely unspoken sense of unease inside many companies after the recent breach of Sony Corp. (6758)’s networks.
U.S. officials have shown little appetite to intervene as banks, retailers, casinos, power companies and manufacturers have been targeted by foreign-based hackers. Private-sector companies doing business in the U.S. have few clear options for striking back on their own.
That has led a growing number of companies to push the limits of existing law to consider ways to break into hackers’ networks to retrieve stolen data or even knock computers offline to stop attacks, the cybersecurity professionals said in interviews. Some companies are enlisting cybersecurity firms, many with military or government security ties, to walk them through options for disrupting hacker operations or peering into foreign networks to find out what intellectual property hackers may have stolen.
SecurityWeek adds motivation:
Boards Dissatisfied With Cyber, IT Risk Info Provided by Management
A recent survey from the National Association of Corporate Directors (NCD) found that the majority of directors are dissatisfied about the quantity of information provided by company management about cybersecurity and IT risk.
The survey fielded responses from more than 1,000 corporate directors. The research found that directors are spending more time than ever on board responsibilities – an average of 278 hours per year. These directors want changes in how risk oversight responsibilities are allocated. More than half of them believe this should be the province of the full board, rather than an audit committee alone.
In addition to being dissatisfied about the quantity of information management provides on cybersecurity and IT risk, some 36 percent said they are also unsatisfied with the quality of that information.
“As we continually hear from our members, and as this survey bears out, concerns about cyber risk are top-of-mind for directors today,” said Ken Daly, NACD president and CEO, in a statement. “Additionally, directors are expanding the time they are spending on critical board leadership issues, from CEO succession planning to risk oversight to responding to shareholder feedback. NACD’s annual public company governance survey provides a lens into the key issues influencing today’s boardroom.”
The Danes take up cyberarms, via TheLocal.dk:
Denmark prepares to wage cyber warfare
After seeing defence secrets and sensitive business information fall into the hands of foreign hackers, Denmark is ready to strike back.
The Danish Defence Intelligence Service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste – FE) is preparing Denmark to be able to attack foreign states and organisations in cyberspace, Politiken reported on Friday.
According to the report, some 465 million kroner ($75 million) is being invested through 2017 to build an offensive cyber attack unit.
The new approach comes after reports that foreign hackers targeted Danish defence industry, the Business and Growth Ministry, the Danish Maritime Authority (Søfartsstyrelsen) and Statens IT, which provides IT services to a number of government authorities.
Windows takes a Google Hit, from Network World:
Google discloses unpatched Windows vulnerability
A Google researcher has disclosed an unpatched vulnerability in Windows 8.1 after Microsoft didn’t fix the problem within a 90-day window Google gave its competitor.
The disclosure of the bug on Google’s security research website early this week stirred up a debate about whether outing the vulnerability was appropriate.
The bug allows low-level Windows users to become administrators in some cases, but some posters on the Google site said the company should have kept its mouth shut. Google said it was unclear if versions of the Windows OS earlier than 8.1 were affected by the bug.
Old school secret agentry from the Miami Herald:
Spy wars: a wilderness of mirrors in U.S.-Cuba swap
More than two weeks have passed since the White House announced that it had traded three imprisoned Cuban intelligence officers — including one convicted of conspiracy to murder — for a super spy held in a Havana prison whom President Barack Obama labeled “one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba.”
But since the president’s announcement, there’s been only silence. Nothing more has been said of the spy or his accomplishments. Of the people released from prison as part of the deal between Washington and Havana, the three Cuban spies and U.S. Agency for International Development contractor Alan Gross have all appeared on television to talk exultantly about their release.
Yet Washington’s master spy has remained anonymous and incommunicado. The only man who seems to fit the handful of clues the White House provided about the spy’s identity — former Cuban Interior Ministry Lt. Rolando Sarraff, jailed since his arrest in 1995 — has disappeared from the Havana prison where he was being held, and his family members say they’ve neither heard from him nor been told his whereabouts.
The Obama administration won’t confirm Sarraff’s name, much less why he could be out of reach.
More form Fox News Latino:
‘Important’ spy swapped for Cuban Five provided U.S. false intelligence, former mole alleges
An alleged former U.S. intelligence asset, however, claims that the silence over Sarraff by the U.S. is because he was playing the CIA by feeding them false information as part of a Cuban scheme to disrupt U.S. intelligence.
“They were acting on behalf of Fidel Castro,” Bill Gaede, an Argentinian engineer who says he carried information to the CIA from Sarraff and other Cuban intelligence officers, told the Miami Herald. “They weren’t genuine. They were full of caca.”
Gaede goes on to claim that both the CIA and the FBI knew from the start that Sarraff was a fake – or a “dangle” in spy talk – and that labeling him now as a valuable agent is just a political ploy to make the prisoner swap with Cuba more easily digestible for conservative lawmakers in the U.S.
This argument by Gaede, however, has been contested by another member of the spy ring — José Cohen, also a former lieutenant in the Cuban Interior Ministry – who says that Gaede is in cahoots with the Cuban government and only looking to discredit the U.S. media.
On to the battlefield with the Associated Press:
Iraqi general warns of military woes in fighting extremists
Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi had 225 fighters, a single Abrams tank, a pair of mortars, two artillery pieces and about 40 armored Humvees when he set out to retake a strategic city in northern Iraq captured by Islamic State militants over the summer.
It took 30 days as his force made an agonizingly slow journey for 40 kilometers (25 miles) through roadside bombs and suicide car attacks, then successfully laid siege to the oil refinery city of Beiji. The campaign earned al-Saadi the biggest battlefield victory by Iraqi forces since Islamic State fighters swept over most of northern and western Iraq in a summer blitz, prompting the collapse of the military.
Yet al-Saadi is deeply pessimistic. In a two-hour interview with The Associated Press, he said Iraq’s military lacks weapons, equipment and battle-ready troops and complained that U.S. air support was erratic. Both the military and the government remain riddled with corruption, he said. Most of the senior generals serving when the military fell apart had skills “more suited to World War II,” he said.
“If things don’t get better,” warned the general, “the country could end up divided” between its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish populations.
The New York Times covers great expectations unfulfilled:
Vanguard of Syria’s Uprising, Now on the Run From ISIS, Weighs a Bleak Future
Early in the Syrian conflict Antakya, long a sleepy provincial town, became the high-octane hub of an insurgency that thought it was winning. Back then, young fighters and activists, including some of those recently huddling in the hotel room, filled cafes to brainstorm, dreaming of new power and new freedoms.
But some of those flocking to Antakya would later become their enemies. The city was becoming a way station for foreign jihadists, who spent lavishly, even spurring a market for Taliban-style dress. They ultimately transformed Syria’s battlefield, many of them coalescing into the radical Islamic State group, which routed or co-opted other insurgents and shifted the West’s focus from ousting President Bashar al-Assad to countering the extremist group’s momentum. Now, the group has turned violently against any Assad opponents who fail to flock to its banner — like the young men in the hotel room.
Those men are part of what is looming as a lost generation of young Syrians. They are marooned in southern Turkey, unsure how to envision their future, and their hopes are deflating as rapidly as Antakya’s wartime boom.
And the Guardian keeps count:
US launches 23 air strikes against Isis in Syria and Iraq
Isis vehicles and buildings said to be destroyed
Latest strikes add to dozens already this week
The US and allies staged 23 air strikes on Islamic State (Isis) targets in Syria and Iraq on Thursday, the Combined Joint Task Force said on Friday.
The strikes followed a confirmed total of 29 strikes in Syria and Iraq on Wednesday, New Year’s Eve.
The task force said a dozen strikes near the Syrian cities of Kobani, Raqqa and Hasakah destroyed Isis vehicles, buildings and fighting positions and also hit a large Isis unit.
After the jump, ISIS fears in Spain, protest follows Swedish mosque burnings, a landmark [literally] anti-Islamophobia gesture in Germany, accompanied by a strong anti-xenophobic statement from employers, Islamophobia-enabling social media, Greek riot police violently riot again students, soldiers charged in civilian slaughter at an Afghan wedding, Israeli settlers stone cars of U.S. diplomats, Amal Clooney gets an Egyptian arrest warning, Kenya anti-terror regime halted by the country’s highest court, Pakistani military terror tribunals to get legislative backing, allegation of a Pakistan-based terror attack foiled off the Indian coast, South Korean disabled enslaved on island salt farms, high anticipation precedes Japanese prime minister’s remarks on World War II anniversary, and allegations of nefarious royal deeds. . .
Blowback fears in Spain from TheLocal.es:
Isis a real danger to Spain: foreign minister
Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa are the main security threats to Spain, the country’s foreign minister has said, as Spain takes its seat as a non-permanent member of the UN’s security council.
Spain took up its seat on the UN security council on January 1st which it will hold from 2015 to 2016.
On a trip to Egypt which will be followed by visits to Jordan, Palestine and Israel, Spanish foreign minister José Manuel García-Margallo stressed the danger of Isis in north Africa, particularly in Libya, where “the black flag is already flying in several cities”.
He said the current security threat coming from the Middle East and north Africa is “a more complicated situation since the appearance of Isis.”
Violent intolerance challenged in Sweden, via the Guardian:
Sweden protest after three mosque fires in one week
Swedish anti-racism campaigners have staged a big rally in central Stockholm after three arson attacks on mosques. Demonstrators held leaflets saying “Don’t touch my mosque” at the 1,000-strong rally outside parliament.
A petrol bomb was thrown at a mosque in Uppsala, eastern Sweden, on Thursday. The building did not catch fire. In late December a mosque was set ablaze at Esloev in the south, and earlier an arson attack on a mosque in Eskilstuna injured five people.
Anti-racism rallies also took place in the cities of Malmo and Gothenburg on Friday.
In Stockholm Sweden’s Culture Minister Alice Bah Kuhnke said the government would launch a national strategy to counter Islamophobia. The idea is to educate people about Islam and curb prejudice, she said.
In a mark of solidarity well-wishers plastered the entrance to the Uppsala mosque with red love hearts after Thursday’s attack.
A landmark [literally] anti-Islamophobia gesture in Germany, via the Guardian:
Cologne cathedral to switch off lights in protest at anti-Muslim march
March by Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West is latest in a series of anti-Muslim protests in Germany
Cologne Cathedral, one of Germany’s most famous landmarks, will be plunged into darkness on Monday evening in protest at a march by a grassroots anti-Muslim movement through the western German city.
The rise of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (Pegida) has shaken the political establishment, prompting the chancellor, Angela Merkel, to warn in her new year address that its leaders were racists full of hatred and citizens should beware being used.
The group’s last weekly rally in the eastern city of Dresden attracted an estimated 17,000 people. It plans to hold further marches in other cities.
Accompanied by a strong anti-xenophobic statement from employers, via Deutsche Welle:
German employers: PEGIDA is ‘damaging’ Germany’s image
The head of an employers group has said Germany’s image is being damaged by an anti-foreigner movement. Officials at Cologne’s cathedral have said they will turn off floodlights to counter a protest set for Monday.
Ingo Kramer, head of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA), told the Munich-based magazine Focus on Friday that Germany needed immigration to sustain its job market and social system, given that its population is aging.
Germany’s image as a business location was being damaged, Kramer said, by the impression that foreigners were the targets of Monday evening protests held since October by the PEGIDA movement in Dresden.
The group, which purports to be patriotically European and anti-Islamic, drew German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ire on Wednesday when she called its leaders racists who were full of hatred.
Kramer, like Merkel, said German society had a moral responsibility to help refugees fleeing conflict regions.
Islamophobia-enabling social media, via the Independent
Twitter and Facebook ‘allowing Islamophobia to flourish’ as anti-Muslim comments proliferate
Twitter and Facebook are refusing to take down hundreds of inflammatory Islamophobic postings from across their sites despite being alerted to the content by anti-racism groups, an investigation by The Independent has established.
The number of postings, some of which accuse Muslims of being rapists, paedophiles and comparable to cancer, has increased significantly in recent months in the aftermath of the Rotherham sex-abuse scandal and the murder of British hostages held by Isis.
The most extreme call for the execution of British Muslims – but in most cases those behind the abuse have not had their accounts suspended or the posts removed.
Facebook said it had to “strike the right balance” between freedom of expression and maintaining “a safe and trusted environment” but would remove any content reported to it that “directly attacks others based on their race”. Twitter said it reviews all content that is reported for breaking its rules which prohibit specific threats of violence.
Greek riot police violently riot again students, via EnetEnglish:
Riot police attack students outside Athens Polytechnic
Liberal use made of batons, stun grenades and tear gas
Video footage shows riot squad officers – who reportedly had given no prior warning to the students to disperse – chasing protesters, hitting them indiscriminately with batons, and spraying gas into a crowd of people they had cornered around the university entrance
Amid scenes of panic, riot police used batons, stun grenades and tear gas to attack hundreds students attempting to hold a protest meeting on the campus of Athens Polytechnic on Thursday night.
In a video filmed from a balcony on Stournari St, where students had managed to force open a side gate to the university, which reportedly had been locked on the orders of the rector, a detachment of MAT riot police can be seen attacking the demonstrating students as they approached the entrance at around 8pm.
The footage shows officers – who reportedly had given no prior warning to the students to disperse – chasing protesters, hitting them indiscriminately with batons, and spraying gas into a crowd of people they had cornered around the university entrance.
And that balcony video, via GiaNtakos:
Soldiers charged in civilian slaughter at an Afghan wedding, via the Associated Press:
Afghan arrests 2 soldiers after fatal army attack on wedding
Two Afghan soldiers have been arrested in connection with the deaths of at least 28 people, mostly women and children, who were killed by artillery fired from military checkpoints at a wedding party, an official said Friday.
Gen. Sultan Mahmoud, the head of the army in southern Helmand province, where the incident took place on Wednesday night, said the soldiers were arrested late on Friday. Another eight soldiers were still under investigation, he told The Associated Press.
“There is still a possibility of more arrests because the investigation is not over yet but those who were directly involved have been arrested today,” he said.
Investigators sent from Kabul by the Defense Ministry arrived in Helmand’s capital of Lashkar Gah earlier in the day, Gen. Dawlat Waziri, deputy Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Israeli settlers stone cars of U.S. diplomats, via the Guardian:
Israeli settlers stone two cars belonging to US consulate staff
US security staff reportedly unholster weapons during standoff in Jerusalem between US consular party and far-right settlers from illegal West Bank outpost
Israeli settlers have stoned two cars belonging to the staff of the US consulate in Jerusalem during an angry stand-off in which US security guards – according to conflicting accounts – reportedly unholstered their weapons.
The confrontation – unusual in seeing US diplomatic staff targeted – occurred between a US consular party and far-right settlers from the illegal Adei Ad outpost on the occupied West Bank on Friday.
While the initial details are sketchy it appears the US diplomats – accompanied by a security team – had been in the area after being invited by Palestinian farmers from the village of Turmus Aya, north-east of Ramallah, to examine olive saplings that had been uprooted overnight on Thursday by settlers.
The consular officials were asked to attend because some of the land owners affected hold US citizenship.
Amal Clooney gets an Egyptian arrest warning, via the Independent:
Egyptian officials warned Amal Clooney she risked arrest
Amal Clooney has claimed Egyptian officials warned she risked arrest over a document criticising the country’s judicial system.
The human rights barrister identified flaws in Egypt’s judiciary which she says led to the conviction of the journalists over a year ago.
In an interview with The Guardian, Clooney, who is the lawyer of Mohamed Fahmy, one of the three jailed men, said they were victims of flaws that she highlighted in a report from February 2014.
The report, produced for the International Bar Association, said Egypt’s judiciary was not wholly independent and according to Clooney, officials found the report extremely controversial and threatened her team with arrest if they tried to present it within Egypt.
Kenya anti-terror regime halted by the country’s highest court, via the Guardian:
Kenya high court suspends anti-terror measures after opposition objections
Critics say measures, including increasing the time suspects can be held without charge to 360 days, threaten civil liberties
Kenya’s high court has suspended some anti-terrorism measures signed into law two weeks ago by President Uhuru Kenyatta, in a partial victory for opposition groups who had argued they threatened basic liberties and free speech.
High court judge George Odunga suspended eight clauses, including a cap on refugees, and asked the chief justice – the head of the judiciary – to set up a constitutional court to scrutinise the new law.
The ruling is a setback for Kenyatta, who has faced mounting pressure to boost security since Somali al-Shabaab rebels killed 67 people in a Nairobi shopping mall in September 2013. After further attacks in 2014, he replaced the interior minister and police chief last month.
Pakistani military terror tribunals to get legislative backing, via the Express Tribune:
Parliamentary parties agree on providing constitutional cover to ‘special courts’
The All Parties Conference (APC) at the PM House on Friday reached consensus on providing constitutional cover to special courts through an act of Parliament, while a roadmap regarding the 20-point National Action Plan was presented.
Speaking to the media after the meeting on Friday evening, PTI Vice-Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that members of the APC agreed on the proposition that amendments be made to the Army Act to enable “speedy” trials against “hardened criminals”.
He added that the meeting was prolonged because of the discussion on whether what they were doing was enough.
“Legal experts were of the opinion that challenges are expected to any possible amendment to the Army Act or the Constitution in superior courts,” Qureshi said. “Legal experts believe that if amendments are made with constitutional cover it will be easier to defend them [in superior courts].”
Allegation of a Pakistan-based terror attack foiled off the Indian coast, from the Hindu:
Explosive-laden Pak fishing boat intercepted
Vessel sinks after cornered crew blow themselves up off Gujarat coast
Reviving memories of the 26/11 terror strike on Mumbai, the Coast Guard on December 31 night intercepted a Pakistani fishing boat with explosives near the maritime boundary off the Porbandar coast in the Arabian Sea.
At least four persons, who were seen on the boat but disregarded all warnings by the Coast Guard to stop, are believed to be dead, after the crew “blasted” the ship.
“As per the intelligence inputs received on 31st December, a fishing boat from Keti Bunder near Karachi was planning some illicit transaction in the Arabian Sea,” a statement from the Defence Ministry said on Friday.
More from the Times of India:
Coast Guard foils 26/11-type attack, intruder boat blows itself up
Coast Guard patrol vessels intercepted a “suspicious” Pakistani fishing boat in the Arabian Sea in the early hours of January 1, thwarting what some in the Indian security establishment contended could have been another attempt to unleash mayhem like the 26/11 strikes in Mumbai.
Defence ministry officials said the four people on the largish fishing trawler set it ablaze after an “hour-long hot pursuit”, which ended with “warning shots” being fired to stop the vessel around 365km from Porbandar. The ship, with those on board, finally sank to the seabed amid loud explosions around 6.30am on Thursday.
The defence ministry was quite emphatic that the fishing boat — which was being quietly tracked after it began its journey from Keti Bandar near Karachi based on specific intelligence inputs and wireless intercepts — was carrying explosives.
South Korean disabled enslaved on island salt farms, from News Corp Australia:
National shame: ‘A living hell’ for slaves on remote South Korean islands
HE RAN the first chance he got.
The summer sun beat down on the shallow, sea-fed fields where Kim Seong-baek was forced to work without pay, day after 18-hour day mining the big salt crystals that blossomed in the mud around him. Half-blind and in rags, Kim grabbed another slave, and the two men — both disabled — headed for the coast.
Far from Seoul, the glittering steel-and-glass capital of one of Asia’s richest countries, they were now hunted men on this tiny, remote island where the enslavement of disabled salt farm workers is an open secret.
“It was a living hell,” Kim said. “I thought my life was over.”
Five times during the last decade, revelations of slavery involving the disabled have emerged, each time generating national shame and outrage. Kim’s case prompted a nationwide government probe over the course of several months last year. Officials searched more than 38,000 salt, fish and agricultural farms and disabled facilities and found more than 100 workers who had received no — or only scant — pay, and more than 100 who had been reported missing by their families.
High anticipation precedes Japanese prime minister’s remarks on World War II anniversary, via the Japan Times:
All eyes on Abe for war’s 70th anniversary
The world marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II this year, and at home Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is crafting a statement on the Japanese government’s views on the war to be issued on Aug. 15, the day when Emperor Hirohito announced the nation’s unconditional surrender in 1945.
The world’s attention will be pinned on how Japan chooses to remember its wartime misdeeds. Experts pointed out that the content of Abe’s statement could have a critical impact on Japan’s diplomacy and reputation.
The list of provocative remarks made by politicians who have attempted to justify the war Japan waged on Asia and its brutal colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula is indeed long.
Most recently, the Abe administration gave the impression it was going to alter the 1993 apology issued by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono over the “ianfu” or “comfort women,” after it launched a review panel last year to scrutinize the way the apology statement was drafted. The bilateral process was reportedly supposed to be kept secret.
And to close, allegations of nefarious royal deeds, via the Guardian:
Prince Andrew named in US lawsuit over underage sex allegations
In case related to banker Jeffrey Epstein, woman alleges in court filing that she was forced to have repeated ‘sexual relations’ with duke
A woman who claims that an American investment banker loaned her to rich and powerful friends as an underage “sex slave” has alleged in a US court document that she was repeatedly forced to have sexual relations with Prince Andrew.
The accusation against the Duke of York is contained in a motion filed in a Florida court this week in connection with a long-running lawsuit brought by women who say they were exploited by Jeffrey Epstein, a multi-millionaire convicted of soliciting sex with an underage girl after a plea deal.
The woman, who filed the motion anonymously, alleges that between 1999 and 2002 she was repeatedly sexually abused by Epstein who, she also alleges, loaned her out to rich and influential men around the world.
The document – a motion to expand an ongoing lawsuit relating to prosecutors’ handling of Epstein’s case with two new plaintiffs – alleges that the woman “was forced to have sexual relations with this prince when she was a minor” in London, New York and on a private Caribbean island owned by Epstein.
