We begin that last one, via the Hill:
Obama, GOP tiptoe on war authorization
President Obama agreed during a meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday to begin preparing draft language for legislation that would authorize the use of military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said after the meeting that Obama “indicated he is working towards sending us an authorization for the use of military force” and that he expected the draft proposal in “the near future.”
“I think a good starting place would be for him to tell us what he wants, and provide the initial document off which we would work,” McConnell said. But a White House official emphasized Tuesday that the administration would continue to solicit input from Congress through meetings with both lawmakers and staff before producing a draft.
From the Guardian, #factsnewsfacts lives:
Nigel Farage tells Fox News no-go zones for non-Muslims in French cities
Ukip leader speaks on Charlie Hebdo attack on US channel, insisting UK turning blind eye to FGM and sharia law
Nigel Farage has told Fox News there are now “no go zones” for non-Muslims in “most big cities” in France in inflammatory comments which will prompt further claims that he is seeking to exploit the Charlie Hebdo mass shootings in Paris.
His remarks echo previous comments on the US channel claiming the whole of Birmingham was off-limits to non-Muslims.
The Ukip leader also claimed “big ghettos” have been allowed to develop across Europe while governments turn a “blind eye” to issues including the child grooming scandals in Rotherham and Rochdale, female genital mutilation and the application of sharia law.
His comments also follow several other interventions over the last five days which have been criticised by David Cameron and Ed Miliband for attempting to make political gains from the murders of French citizens by Islamists.
The Washington Post covers panopticon extension pretensions:
Private surveillance camera footage could be used by police under New Jersey law
New Jersey lawmakers want outdoor surveillance camera owners to register with police in hopes of helping law enforcement better track down criminals.
Under a bill that was released by an Assembly panel Monday, camera owners can voluntarily provide law enforcement with information about their cameras. That data can be accessed by officers but would not be public record, the bill states.
“This will help law enforcement officials with investigations of criminal activity and save valuable time and resources by providing them with a registry to determine whether a camera is located near where criminal activity occurred,” Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D), a sponsor, said in a statement.
And the Guardian cover another New Jersey story:
New Jersey Muslims seek new ruling on NYPD mass surveillance program
Eleven plaintiffs bring arguments to US court of appeals over whether program can be challenged in court, a year after judge dismissed case
On Tuesday the US court of appeals will hear arguments over whether the 11 have the right to challenge the program in court. Last February the New Jersey district court dismissed the case in a controversial ruling. Justice William Martini found that the “motive of the [surveillance] program was not solely to discriminate against Muslims, but rather to find Muslim terrorists hiding among among ordinary, law-abiding Muslims”.
But the extent of the program, devised in the aftermath of 9/11 and exposed in a series of Pulitzer prize-winning reports by the Associated Press in 2011, was eye-watering in its totality. It produced no convictions.
The NYPD dispatched plain-clothed officers or “rakers” to Muslim neighbourhoods in New Jersey, monitoring bookstores, bars, nightclubs and cafes. Rakers would compile surveillance papers, which according to plaintiff documents filed with the court of appeal would “catalogue religiously oriented facts such as:
Muslim prayer mats hanging on restaurant walls.
Flyers posted in shops advertising for Quranic tutoring;(iii) pictures of mosques hanging in grocery stores;(iv) restaurants that serve “religious Muslims” or that are located near mosques;(v) customers visiting Dunkin’ Donuts after Friday prayer;(vi) employees or customers of establishments observed wearing “traditional clothing;”(vii) and stores posting signs announcing that they will be closed in observance of Friday prayer.
From ABC News, ramping it up:
US Steps Up Airport Security After Al Qaeda’s ‘Hidden Bomb’ Recipe
American airports are increasing security measures across the country in the wake of dual terrorist attacks in Paris and the publication by al Qaeda of what counterterrorism experts say appears to be the most detailed, and potentially lethal, bomb recipe ever to be sent to their followers.
The top security chiefs for major American airlines have been briefed about the troubling publication, according to a senior U.S. law enforcement official.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Monday the Transportation Security Administration has stepped up random searches of travelers and carry-on luggage in addition to enhanced screening that was ordered this summer at “certain foreign airports.”
Bombs away with Deutsche Welle:
France votes to continue military campaign againist ‘Islamic State’
One house of French parliament has voted by an overwhelming margin to continue airstrikes against the terrorist group Islamic State. “France is at war with terrorism…not Muslims,” the French PM told lawmakers.
By a rather clearcut margin of 488 ballots to 1, with 13 abstentions, France’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday voted to extend French airstrikes against the self-styled “Islamic State” (IS) in Iraq for another four months. The single dissenting voter – Jean-Pierre Gorges of the center-right UMP party – argued that the situation on the ground was improving and warned that continued bombing could inspire more extremist violence. His voice was drowned out, however, by other vigorous defenders of the campaign.
“France is at war with terrorism, jihadism and radical Islamism,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the National Assembly shortly before the vote, triggering thunderous applause. “France is not at war with a religion. France is not at war with Islam and Muslims,” Valls told the lawmakers.
The vote comes after France’s worst terror attack in decades, when two men opened fire in the offices of Parisian satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12. The murders at the magazine were followed by the killing of a policewoman and the deaths of four hostages in a Jewish supermarket at the hands of their associate. All three men claim allegiance to IS.
Well, at least the hobgoblin-plagued, small-minded, orange-hued one is consistent. Via Reuters:
Boehner: House will fund Homeland Security, block Obama on immigration
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security this week while blocking President Barack Obama’s actions on immigration, House Speaker John Boehner said on Tuesday.
The $39.7 billion spending bill was expected to pass by Wednesday, when House Republicans leave Washington for a two-day policy retreat in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
But its fate in the Senate was uncertain, and it may draw a White House veto.
From the Washington Post, opportunism writ in blood:
Far right in Europe sees opportunity after wave of terror in France
The wave of terror that left 17 people dead in and around Paris has ushered in a new sense of insecurity across Europe — but also what could be a defining moment for the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam forces of the far right.
Nationalist and populist movements are surging across the region, most notably in France, where the National Front — a party once linked to former Nazi collaborators — has become the nation’s third-largest political force. Yet now it appears that the far right sees an opening in the new atmosphere of angst that could help bolster its long-standing critiques of Islam and calls for tighter security and immigration caps.
The terrorist violence is also fueling fears of a backlash against Muslims, particularly among France’s community of 5 million, the largest in Europe. Muslim leaders say the days after last week’s shootings have produced 54 “anti-Muslim attacks” – an unprecedented number that includes the beating of a Muslim boy after a moment of silence for last week’s victims as well as multiple arson attacks on mosques.
Likewise, via RT:
Muslim group’s building in Sweden vandalized with graffiti, pig’s head
The building which is used by a Muslim Association in the Swedish town of Borås has been vandalized, with pig’s head left outside, and graffiti “Vive La France” sprayed on an outside wall.
The facility is used by the local Svenljunga Muslim Association. Police are investigating the incident.
The pig’s head is offensive for Muslims, as its flesh represents a taboo in Islam.
It’s not the first time such an act of vandalism took place in the area: just over a year ago, a pig’s head was left outside a mosque in a nearby town, Limmared.
From the London Telegraph, the fear factor:
Britain will descend into ‘vigilantism’ unless security measures are stepped up, former MI5 boss warns
Baron Evans of Weardale says Charlie Hebdo attacks have bred “vulnerability and fear” which can only be countered with increased security
Britain will descend into “vigilantism” unless security measures are stepped up to counter the “vulnerability and fear” that people feel in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the former head of MI5 has warned.
Baron Evans of Weardale, who as Jonathan Evans worked for the Security Service for 33 years, also warned that the world faced a build-up of trained terrorists not seen since al-Qaeda ran training camps in Afghanistan before 9/11.
He spoke in a House of Lords debate as police forces prepared to deploy officers at newsagents selling a special issue of Charlie Hebdo depicting the Prophet Mohammed after extremists said it would “definitely” provoke fresh terrorist attacks.
Numbers of note from TheLocal.de:
100,000 march against Pegida’s record turnout
Around 100,000 people took to German streets in counter-demonstrations against Pegida on Monday evening, after the anti-Islam movement were accused of trying to exploit last week’s terror attacks in Paris to boost support.
In Dresden, the Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) stronghold, only a few hundred people turned out to protest against the 25,000 police counted marching for the movement.
That was the largest turnout ever for Pegida, which last week numbered 18,000 on the Saxon capital’s streets.
But Pegida demonstrators were massively outnumbered in other cities like Leipzig, where 30,000 counter-demonstrators faced around 5,000 from offshoot ‘Legida’.
And more terror-turmoil from TheLocal.dk:
Danish Jews ask for police protection
In light of last week’s killing of four Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris and an August incident in which a Jewish school in Copenhagen was vandalised, Jewish targets see themselves as “high priority” targets.
Denmark’s main Jewish group on Tuesday called for police protection for its school and synagogue in Copenhagen after four Jews were killed last week in a hostage drama in a kosher supermarket in Paris.
“With the situation being like it is, we believe it’s very clear that Jewish targets are a high priority for the terrorists,” the deputy chairman of the Jewish Community of Denmark, Jonathan Fischer, told AFP.
The Atlantic considers a conundrum:
France’s First Free-Speech Challenge After Charlie Hebdo
Provocateur and “comedian” Dieudonné could face charges after posting a controversial statement on his Facebook account
Even before last week’s horrific events, the relative complexity of free speech in France could be encapsulated by Dieudonné M’bala M’bala?a political comedian or practitioner of hate speech, depending on your take.
Days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the ensuing violent hostage situations, Dieudonné is back in the news. On Monday, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it will investigate a (since-deleted) Facebook post in which Dieudonné wrote a short missive about the solidarity march in Paris, ending it with the words “I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.”
“Charlie Coulibaly” appears to be a mash-up referring to Charlie Hedbo, the satirical magazine targeted last week, and Amedy Coulibaly, the shooter who killed a policewoman last Thursday and died during a stand-off in a kosher supermarket in which four Jewish hostages were killed.
From the Guardian, to the contrary:
Charlie Hebdo attacks: Je ne suis pas Charlie – I am not Charlie
Program notes:
After the Paris shootings, an estimated 1.6 million people took to the streets of the French capital to voice their solidarity with those murdered at the hands of radical Muslim terrorists and proclaim ‘Je suis Charlie’ (I am Charlie).
But not everyone in the city felt comfortable with that idea. Many Muslims throughout Paris chose to stay away – some of them even stating ‘Je ne suis pas Charlie’ (I am not Charlie). Iman Amrani meets members of this community and investigates their reaction to the ‘Je suis Charlie’ movement.
El País covers bi-partisanship, Spanish style:
Socialist government approved secret plan against jihadism in 2010
Ruling Popular Party’s new anti-terrorist proposals resemble many of document’s ideas
Spain’s previous Socialist administration secretly approved a plan for tackling jihadist terrorism in June 2010.
Under former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish government was already trying to “prevent the recruitment of new terrorists, improve border control, reinforce security in crowded places, and act against the criminals’ support groups and financing networks.”
The plan warned about the risk posed by returning combatants, who were then mostly fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Al Qaeda’s stronghold.
From El País again, rmping up the rhetoric:
Foreign minister compares fight against jihadism with World War II
Democracies facing totalitarians with whom dialogue is impossible, says García-Margallo
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo, who is on a tour of the Middle East, has compared the fight against jihadism with World War II, a time when democracies battled against totalitarianism.
Speaking in Amman, the capital of Jordan, on Sunday, García-Margallo stated that attempting to dialogue with the Islamic State, Al Qaeda or any of its offshoots “would be a first-class political error.”
The conservative politician even used a popular historical slogan coined by Spanish republicans when Franco’s troops were threatening to take over the country during the Civil War: “No pasarán” (“They shall not pass.”)
After the jump, Canadian military sends spooks to the Arctic, Obama unveils his cybersecurity agenda with a hefty dose of immunity, doubts about Camerons Old Blighty cybersnooping ambitions, Spain calls a halt to extrajudicial cybersnooping agenda, another North Korea-themed U.S. media project hacked, another software maker’s products draw hacker attentions, another sinister side fo Facebook, a former Gitmo child detainee going blind in a Canadian prison, Illinois teen charged with ISIS ambitions, a declaration of atheism lands an Egyptian in jail, a mass exodus from Boko Haram terror war in Africa and the U.N. calls for order in Nigeria, Washington makes a Pakistani terrorist designation [drones to come, no doubt], Pakistan ramps up hangings, and ISIS ramps up its recruiting, an Indian Hindu fundamentalist government official promises gay conversion therapy while his boss backpedals, China’s army denies first strike power, Beijing/Tokyo hotline talks resume, coming Seoul/Tokyo/Washington talks on Pyongyang, that old Tokyo/Seoul “Comfort Women” schism continues, Tokyo plans a space race with China, and Abe holds back on remilitarization bill until after local elections, European coke habits lead to Slaughter in the Amazon, and the curious beliefs of Boehner’s would-be bane. . .
From CBC News, a spooky northern exposure:
Canada regularly sending spies to the North
Operation Nanook created to counter ‘espionage, terrorism, sabotage and subversion’
The Canadian military has been routinely deploying a counter-intelligence team to guard against possible spying, terrorism and sabotage during its annual Arctic exercise, according to internal documents.
In the view of intelligence experts, the move is unusual because Operation Nanook is conducted on Canadian soil in remote locations of the Far North. Foreign involvement is limited to friendly, close allies.
It is also curious because guarding against such threats at home is usually the purview of either the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or the RCMP, said Wesley Wark, a University of Ottawa professor and one the country’s leading experts on intelligence.
A spokesman for the military’s intelligence branch says the team has been deployed every year since 2008, which is two years after Prime Minister Stephen Harper began attending the military exercise with members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery in tow.
Obama unveils his cybersecurity agenda, via Xinhua:
Obama announces new cybersecurity legislative proposal
U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a new legislative proposal aimed at promoting better cybersecurity information sharing between the private sector and government as well as combating cyber crime.
Obama unveiled his proposal at the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center in Arlington, Virginia.
“Now, the problem is that government and the private sector are still not always working as closely together as we should. Sometimes it’s still too hard for government to share threat information with companies” and vice versa, Obama said.
His proposal encouraged the private sector to share cyber threat information with the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center and other federal agencies. In exchange, companies will be provided with “targeted liability protection.”
Immunity questioned, via the Guardian:
Cybersecurity bill: privacy activists warn of unnecessarily ‘broad legal immunity’
White House hoping legislation will toughen private sector response by allowing companies to share information with government agencies including NSA
Barack Obama plans to announce new cybersecurity measures on Tuesday amid warnings from privacy campaigners about unnecessarily “broad legal immunity” that could put personal information at risk in the wake of attacks like the Sony Pictures hack.
Just a day after the Pentagon’s own Twitter account was compromised and Obama pushed a 30-day window for consumer security breaches, his administration was hoping the proposed legislation would toughen the response of the private sector by allowing companies to share information with government agencies including the NSA, with which the White House admitted there were “overlapping issues”.
“I’ve got a State of the Union next week,” Obama said after a Tuesday meeting with Republican leaders at the White House. “One of the things we’re going to be talking about is cybersecurity. With the Sony attack that took place, with the Twitter account that was hacked by Islamist jihadist sympathizers yesterday, it just goes to show much more work we need to do both public and private sector to strengthen our cybersecurity.”
And from the Guardian, doubts about Cameron’s Old Blighty cybersnooping ambitions:
David Cameron in ‘cloud cuckoo land’ over encrypted messaging apps ban
The prime minister’s pledge to give security services access to encrypted communications is ‘crazy’, experts say
David Cameron is “living in cloud cuckoo land” when he suggests a new Tory government would ban messaging apps that use encryption, security experts have told the Guardian.
The prime minister has pledged anti-terror laws to give the security services the ability to read encrypted communications in extreme circumstances. But experts say such access would mean changing the way internet-based messaging services such as Apple’s iMessage or Facebook’s WhatsApp work.
Independent computer security expert Graham Cluley said: “It’s crazy. Cameron is living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks that this is a sensible idea, and no it wouldn’t be possible to implement properly.”
Other security experts echo Cluley, describing the approach as “idiocy” and saying Cameron’s plans are “ill-thought out and scary”. The UK’s data watchdog has also spoken out against “knee-jerk reactions”, saying moves could undermine consumer security.
Spain calls a halt to extrajudicial cybersnooping agenda, via TheLocal.es:
Spain to scrap ‘big brother’ wiretap plans
The Spanish government said on Tuesday it wouldn’t push ahead with controversial legislation that would give top officials more power to bypass judges and authorize wiretaps or other surveillance.
Under the changes proposed in December, the interior minister and the secretary of state for security would have been granted the power to authorize surveillance in “emergency cases,” or for a matter of “particular gravity”.
The measure would have allowed the government to order authorities to tap phone, written and online communications when investigations target criminal organisations, terrorism, crimes against minors or “people with a special legal status,” which was not clearly defined.
At present police can intercept private communications without a judge’s consent only in probes targeting suspected terrorists or organized crime groups.
From the Guardian, another North Korea-themed U.S. media project hacked:
North Korea video game Dear Leader! on hold after hacks
Firm cancels funding campaign for game citing financial trouble and cyber attacks. NK News reports
The US developers of a video game inviting players to fight Americans as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have cancelled a fundraising campaign for the project after falling victim to “a hack inspired by the attack on Sony”.
The controversial “retro style run ‘n’ gun” video game named Glorious Leader! had attracted widespread media attention when it was announced in May last year, but won’t be published any time soon according to MoneyHorse, which also blamed financial troubles for the decision to suspend the project.
“Over the holidays we were victims of a hack inspired by the attack on Sony,” the Atlanta-based firm said in a statement posted on its Kickstarter page last week. “The hackers destroyed data pertaining to Glorious Leader! and other projects we had in development and locked us out of our own computers and wesbite (sic).”
Another software maker’s products draw hacker attentions, via PCWorld:
Corel software vulnerabilities let attackers execute malicious code on your PC
Several photo, video and other media editing programs from software maker Corel contain DLL hijacking vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to execute malicious code on users’ computers.
According to vulnerability research firm Core Security, when opening a media file associated with one of the vulnerable Corel products, the product will also load a specifically named DLL (Dynamic Link Library) file into memory if it’s located in the same directory as the opened media file.
DLL files contain executable code so they can be used to install malware on computers.
The vulnerable products are CorelDRAW X7, Corel Photo-Paint X7, Corel PaintShop Pro X7, CorelCAD 2014, Corel Painter 2015, Corel PDF Fusion, Corel VideoStudio PRO X7 and Corel FastFlick, the Core Security researchers said in an advisory published Monday. Other versions might be affected too, but they haven’t been checked, they said.
Another reason to unLike Facebook, via Science:
Your computer knows you better than your friends do
The idea for the study came together last year when psychologist Youyou Wu and computer scientist Michal Kosinski, then both at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, watched Her, a 2013 science fiction film in which a man falls in love with his computer operating system. “By analyzing his digital records, his computer can understand and respond to his thoughts and needs much better than other humans,” Wu says, “including his long-term girlfriend and closest friends.” Wu and Kosinski wondered: Is that possible in real life?
They had access to a perfect data set to put the idea to the test. In 2007, their colleague David Stillwell, another Cambridge psychologist, created a Facebook app called myPersonality. With consent, users give the app abundant personal data. Not only do they grant access to Facebook info such as their likes and list of friends, but they also take standard psychological tests and answer survey questions. Their only rewards are the results of those psychological tests and a synopsis of how they compare with the rest of the myPersonality user population.
With Kosinski’s help, the app became a viral hit, with more than 4 million people signing up and using it so far. It also became a scientific gold mine. In a 2013 analysis of the myPersonality data published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team led by Kosinski showed that the pattern of people’s likes on Facebook is enough to predict their personal traits such as gender, race, political persuasion, and even sexuality. The paper was one of the year’s most blogged about and cited.
Former Gitmo child detainee going blind in a Canadian prison, via The Intercept:
Prison Dispatches from the War on Terror: Former Child Gitmo Detainee Going Blind
Nearly 13 years after he was first captured as a child soldier in Afghanistan, Omar Khadr remains behind bars in a Canadian prison where he is losing his remaining eyesight, according to his lawyer.
Khadr, who was born in Canada, was inducted into a life of militancy by his father — a now-deceased al Qaeda financier — who took his young son from suburban Toronto to rural Afghanistan. Fifteen-year-old Khadr was captured following a U.S. military raid in Afghanistan that left him partially paralyzed and blind in one eye.
Following his capture in 2002, Khadr was held for several months at Bagram Airbase before being transferred to Guantanamo. At both sites he was subjected to torture, including sexual humiliation, shackling in stress positions, and sleep deprivation, according to his lawyer.
In one 2003 incident, he is alleged to have been dragged through a mixture of pine oil and urine by his interrogators and denied a change of clothing for two days thereafter.
Criminally ambitions, says Uncle Sam, via United Press International:
Illinois teen pleads not guilty to attempting to join IS
A 19-year-old Illinois man pleaded not guilty to attempting to support the Islamic State terror group on Tuesday.
Mohammed Hamzah Khan was arrested in October at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Vienna. He was allegedly trying to fly to Syria with his younger siblings to join IS, which is also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL.
He was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
According to the arrest affidavit filed Monday, Khan purchased a roundtrip ticket from Chicago to Istanbul on Sept. 26. He was stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the screening checkpoint at O’Hare and taken to be questioned by the FBI.
A declaration of atheism lands an Egyptian in jail, via the Guardian:
Egyptian student jailed for proclaiming that he is an atheist
Karim Ashraf Mohamed al-Banna is sentenced to three years on blasphemy charges for Facebook entry
It is dangerous in Egypt nowadays not to conform. If you support the Muslim Brotherhood you could end up joining many hundreds of Islamists in jail.
If you are a journalist, as the al-Jazeera staff know well, jail is a real possibility. Now it appears that if you are an atheist, you could well be jailed too.
A student has been sentenced to three years in prison for announcing on Facebook that he was an atheist and thereby “insulting Islam”. Karim Ashraf Mohamed al-Banna, aged 21, was arrested in November 2014 with a group of other people at a cafe in Cairo.
Police then closed down the so-called “atheists cafe” in what is being viewed as a coordinated government crackdown on atheists. A local administrator told a news website that the coffee shop was “known as a place for satan worship, rituals and dances”.
From the Thomson Reuters Foundation, mass exodus in Africa:
Thousands flee Nigeria after Boko Haram attack, Niger, Chad struggle
Some 20,000 Nigerians have fled to Chad, Niger and Cameroon in the past two weeks after their towns and villages were attacked by Islamist sect Boko Haram, according to the United Nations and government figures.
The influx of refugees has put further strain on some of the poorest nations in Africa, which are already struggling to feed and protect their own people in a region that is recovering from drought.
Human rights group Amnesty International says Boko Haram may have killed some 2,000 people around Jan. 3 in Baga in northern Nigeria.
And the U.N. calls for order in Nigeria, via Reuters:
U.N. urges Nigeria to restore law and order, probe mass killings
The United Nations called Nigeria on Tuesday to restore law and order in the northeast and investigate “mass killings” of civilians blamed on Boko Haram insurgents.
Nigeria’s military said on Monday that at least 150 people had been killed in clashes with Islamists in the northeastern town of Baga, but the U.N. human rights office noted that there were “wildly differing” accounts with some reports putting the toll this year at 2,000.
“While the exact details remain unclear, what appears fairly certain is that mass killings and mass forced displacement have occurred,” U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a news briefing in Geneva.
“We urge the government to act swiftly to restore law and order while ensuring that security operations are conducted in line with international law and full respect for human rights.”
From Reuters, Washington makes a Pakistani terrorist designation [drones to come, no doubt]:
U.S. brands as ‘terrorist’ Pakistani Taliban head behind massacre
The United States on Tuesday declared Pakistani Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah a “global terrorist,” making it a crime to engage in transactions with the man behind the Dec. 16 attack in which 134 children at a Peshawar school were killed.
The State Department said in a statement the formal designation also allows the U.S. government to seize any of his property or interests in the United States, including those under the control of U.S. citizens.
Fazlullah and the Taliban claimed responsibility for the school attack that resulted in the deaths of “at least 148 individuals, mostly students,” the department said.
Fazlullah also was behind the 2012 assassination attempt on Pakistani schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai, who last year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Fazlullah was elected leader of the Taliban in 2013.
Hanging tough with the Washington Post:
Pakistan hangs seven to show determination to fight terrorism
Authorities in Pakistan hanged seven prisoners on Tuesday, a move intended to demonstrate the country’s resolve to press its fight against Islamist militants.
The executions were simultaneously carried out in four prisons when Secretary of State John F. Kerry was in the capital, Islamabad, to pledge U.S. support and extra funding for Pakistan’s stepped-up counterterrorism offensive.
At a joint news conference with Sartaj Aziz, chief national security adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Kerry said the Pakistani military had made serious gains in dislodging terrorist groups from North Waziristan.
While ISIS ramps up its recruiting, via the McClatchy Foreign Staff:
Islamic State begins recruiting campaign in Pakistan, Afghanistan
The Islamic State formally has opened for business in the crowded militant markets of Afghanistan and Pakistan, announcing in a video over the weekend that it’s established an organizational structure dominated by notoriously anti-Shiite-Muslim former commanders of the Pakistani Taliban.
The announcement, in a video bearing the Islamic State’s back-flagged insignia that was posted Saturday, launched a recruitment drive in both countries that’s part of a strategy to establish bases of operations in Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan, retired militants said.
From there, the group would command, and provide financial and logistical support to, militant associates in Pakistan, who’ve pieced together networks in the country’s two western provinces, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, and are in the process of setting up operations in the southern city of Karachi, they said.
An Indian Hindu fundamentalist government official promises gay conversion therapy, via the Guardian:
Indian minister causes outrage over Goa plan to make gay people ‘normal’
Ramesh Tawadkar says state government in resort region planning to open centres to ‘train and give them medicines’
An Indian minister has come under fire after he announced plans to make gay people “normal” in the Goa resort region.
Ramesh Tawadkar, from prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), said the Goa state government was planning to open centres to treat gay people in the region.
“We will make them normal. We will have centres for them, like Alcoholics Anonymous centres,” the sports and youth affairs minister told reporters on Monday, adding that the government would “train them and give them medicines too”.
Gay rights groups described the comments as offensive and ignorant, while the main opposition Congress party criticised the minister’s attitude as shameless.
While his boss backpedals, via the Times of India:
Goa CM calls homosexuality ‘natural quality’
Goa’s BJP chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Tuesday tried to defend his ministerial colleague Ramesh Tawadkar, who triggered widespread outrage by calling homosexuality a “problem that needed treatment”. Parsekar said, “It (homosexuality) is not a disease but a natural thing – an inborn quality.”
Responding to questions, Parsekar then added, “There’s no cure for homosexuality and the government has no policy for ‘normalizing’ LGBTs.” This was after he first evaded questions on Tawadkar’s comment saying he had entrusted portfolios to ministers and it was for them to react to matters relevant to their departments.
From Want China Times, China’s army denies:
PLA does not have first strike capability, says Chinese expert
While experts from the United States and Russia have expressed their concerns regarding China’s DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missiles, Chinese military analyst Liu Jiangping has told the country’s Global Times that the People’s Liberation Army is still unable to launch a first nuclear strike against North America.
Vasily Kashin from Moscow’s Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies said China’s DF-31, DF-31A and DF-41 ICBMs should be considered threats because they are all powered by solid-propellant rockets. It takes hours for China to launch the obsolete DF-5 missile because has a liquid-fueled rocket, while missiles using solid-propellant rockets take only 30 minutes to launch.
A report by the Pentagon said China has at least 10 DF-31 missile systems and may have up to 30 DF-31 mobile launching systems. At the same time, the DF-41 currently under development has the potential to carry multiple independently targeted warheads.
From the Asahi Shimbun, can we talk?:
Japan, China resume talks on emergency hotline after long hiatus
Japan and China resumed discussions on establishing a special hotline to avoid unexpected sea and air clashes at a meeting in Tokyo on Jan. 12, more than two years after the talks were suspended.
At the meeting, which follows top-level talks between the countries last November, the two sides agreed to continue discussions to swiftly start operations of the so-called Japan-China maritime communication mechanism.
The last meeting between Japanese and Chinese defense officials on the issue was in June 2012.
NHK WORLD covers coming Seoul/Tokyo/Washington talks on Pyongyang:
Japan, US, S.Korea planning to discuss N.Korea
Japan, the United States and South Korea are working out a schedule for high-level talks on North Korean issues later this month in Tokyo.
The talks will be attended by Junichi Ihara, the head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Sung Kim, a US special envoy for North Korea policy and Hwang Joon-kook, South Korea’s Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs.
The 3 countries are expected to reaffirm their cooperation over North Korea’s nuclear and missile issues, as the six-party talks on this topic have been stalled for about 6 years.
Other likely items on the agenda are the US financial sanctions on North Korea in response to the recent cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment and the North’s human rights record, which was recently taken up by the UN Security Council.
And an old problem lingers on, from the Nikkei Asian Review:
‘Comfort women’ issue still vexes 50 years after relations normalized
This year marks the 50th anniversary of normalized relations between Japan and South Korea. In 2005, the two countries hosted more than 700 commemorative events to celebrate the 40th anniversary, but things are different this time around.
An official logo has yet to be chosen for this anniversary, and it remains uncertain whether the ceremony to usher in the 50th year will be held this month as planned.
The biggest reason behind all this is the chilly relationship between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Back in 2005, then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and then South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun agreed to designate that year as the Japan-Korea Friendship Year. However, there has been no summit between Abe and Park, which is hampering efforts by government officials, said a person close to the government.
Relations are being strained mostly by the so-called “comfort women” issue involving the former Imperial Japanese Army. Park, South Korea’s first female president, has effectively set progress on this issue as a prerequisite for a summit with Abe. Indeed, comfort women support groups in South Korea have been calling for an official apology, as well as legal and other compensation by the Japanese government.
Tokyo plans a space race with China, via Want China Times:
Japan prepares for space race with China
By issuing its new Basic Plan on Space Policy on Jan. 9 and receiving assistance from the US, Japan is preparing itself to confront China’s space program within the next 10 years, according to Tokyo’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
Japan on Dec. 3 last year launched an H-IIA rocket carrying an information gathering satellite from the Tanegashima Space Center located 115 kilometers south of Kyushu. Under the Basic Plan on Space Policy, Japan will invest more money to develop new satellites and rockets. This new plan aims to revive the nation’s declining aerospace industry since China is now using its satellites and other types of weapon systems in space.
The plan did not stress the country’s principle of the peaceful use of space. Instead, it discussed the potential of using space technology as a means to defend national security. China’s launching of satellites with the capability to capture other satellites in orbit has sent Japan and the United States an important message that space has become a potential battlefield in the future.
From Kyodo News, legislatus interruptus:
Gov’t to submit security legislation in late April after local polls
The government plans to wait until after key local elections in late April to submit to the Diet security legislation that will enable Japan to expand the role of its military, administration sources said Tuesday.
Senior lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito have approved the schedule in principle, and the ruling parties will likely start talks in early February to outline how to legalize changes to Japan’s postwar security policy to allow the exercise of the right to collective self-defense, the sources added.
Under the current scenario, the government will most likely have a series of bills on security approved by the Cabinet for submission to the Diet on April 28, according the sources.
From the Guardian, European coke habits lead to slaughter in the Amazon?:
Does Europe’s coke habit mean massacring ‘uncontacted’ indigenous people?
Reported killings in the Amazon are thought to have been committed by drugs traffickers
What might it take to stop people from using, or glamourising the use of, cocaine? The violence, murders and crime endemic to the cocaine trade, perhaps, or the fact it finances terrorism, guerrilla warfare, paramilitaries and myriad other criminal operations.
Either that, or the way it corrupts politics, governments and institutions, or exploits child labour, damages the environment, poses threats to security, development and law, and diverts billions of pounds of public money that could be spent on other things. That’s to say nothing of the devastating impacts of initiatives supposedly intended to crush the trade, including military interventions and the aerial fumigation of coca – the raw material for cocaine – with dangerous chemicals.
If none of the above seem appalling enough, here’s something else: getting the cocaine to market means traffickers invading Peru’s biggest national park and may involve killing indigenous people who live so remotely in the Amazon they are sometimes described, entirely erroneously, as “uncontacted.”
And to close, via the Hill, what if he’s right?:
Boehner’s former bartender charged with plans to poison him
Speaker of the House John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) former bartender was indicted last week, charged with trying to poison Boehner because he thought Boehner was the devil.
The man, Michael Hoyt, called 911 on Oct. 29 and police made contact with him, according to a criminal complaint. The complaint says he told an officer that he had been fired from his job at Wetherington Country Club in West Chester, Ohio, and had not had time to put something in Boehner’s drink.
The indictment was first reported on Tuesday by WCPO Cincinnati.
“Hoyt told the officer that he was Jesus Christ and he was going to kill Boehner because Boehner was mean to him at the country club and because Boehner is responsible for Ebola,” the complaint states.
