First, via BuzzFeed News, a screenshot of a Tweet from United Press International’s account:
And from United Press International, the explanation:
UPI website, Twitter account hacked
United Press International’s website and Twitter account were hacked Friday afternoon, with someone attempting to publish false stories.
It started on Twitter, where six fake headlines were posted in about 10 minutes, starting about 1:20 p.m. Some of them were about the Federal Reserve; others contained a false report that the USS George Washington had been attacked.
Around the same time, editors noticed that a “breaking news” banner touting the Federal Reserve story was published to the UPI. com homepage. UPI’s technology support team quickly shut down access.
Similar posts were also posted on the Twitter account of The New York Post.
Then on to the more serious news of the day, first with the Los Angeles Times:
Counter-terrorism sweeps net more than two dozen suspects in Europe
A week after the worst terrorist attacks in France in decades, European counter-terrorism officials conducted sweeping raids that netted at least 29 people, searching numerous sites starting late Thursday in Belgium and continuing Friday in France and Germany.
Federal prosecutors in Belgium said they had prevented another “large-scale” attack, telling reporters that five of those held had been charged with participating in the activities of a terrorist group.
The Belgian raids left two suspects dead after clashes with police in the city of Verviers, the prosecutors said. At least 13 people were initially taken into custody — one in Verviers, nine in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, two in Brussels and one in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe. Two more suspects were arrested in France; Belgian prosecutors are seeking to extradite them.
More from BBC News:
Paris attacks: Twelve suspects held overnight
Twelve suspects are being held by police in the Paris region over last week’s attacks in the French capital that killed 17 people.
They are being questioned about “possible logistical support”, such as weapons or vehicles, they could have given the three gunmen, police say.
Police conducted raids in five towns in the Paris region. In the latest development, police carried out raids in the towns of Montrouge, Grigny, Chatenay-Malabry, Epinay-sur-Seine and Fleury-Merogis overnight, iTele reported.
The Guardian has more:
Islamists killed in Belgian terror raids ‘planned to massacre police in street’
Counter-terror officers kill two and arrest 15 suspected jihadis in Belgium and France with Europe on high alert for further attacks
A major Islamist plot to kill police officers in the street has been foiled at the eleventh hour, prosecutors have said, after counter-terror raids led to the arrest of 15 suspected jihadis in Belgium and France.
In the same series of raids, two suspected terrorists were shot dead by police and another wounded in the Belgian town of Verviers, near the German border.
Authorities said they had moved to dismantle an active terror cell spanning both European countries to avert an imminent terrorist attack aimed at police officers and buildings in Belgium.
Eric van der Sypt, a Belgian federal magistrate, said 13 suspected terrorists were arrested in Belgium overnight with a further two detained in France. Nine of the suspects were held in raids in Molenbeek, two in Brussels, one in Berchem, one in Verviers, where the shootout took place, and two in France.
CNN sounds the alarm:
Terror cell warning as Europe scrambles to handle threats
European counterterrorism agencies scrambled Friday to assess the potential danger of a complex and growing terrorism threat exposed by the arrests of more than two dozen people with suspected links to Islamic extremists.
As many as 20 sleeper cells of between 120 and 180 people could be ready to strike in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, a Western intelligence source told CNN.
European Union and Middle East intelligence agencies had identified an “imminent threat” to Belgium, and possibly to the Netherlands, the source told CNN.
Deutsche Welle covers more alarms:
Foreign intelligence warnings of militant attacks on Berlin, Dresden train stations
German authorities say they have received warnings of possible attacks on Berlin and Dresden train stations, and the weekly anti-Islamization PEGIDA rally. The information came from foreign intelligence agencies.
“German security authorities are doing everything they can to protect the public as effectively as possible,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said in response to the news published on the website of weekly news publication “Der Spiegel” on Friday. He added that not all protective measures were visible to the public.
The warnings concerned possible attacks on the two main train stations in the capital Berlin and in Dresden, where the weekly PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West) demonstration was also cited as a possible target. “We’ve been tipped off about possible attacks on these rail stations,” according to a security source quoted by Der Spiegel.
The route of the Monday PEGIDA rally goes close to Dresden railway station.
The intelligence agencies had monitored communications by “known international jihadists” according to the report. “We’re taking these tips seriously,” Der Spiegel quoted a high-ranking security official as saying.
German arrests from TheLocal.de:
Suspected Isis terrorists arrested in Berlin
Overnight raids in Berlin ended in the arrest a pair of Turkish men for planning a terrorist attack on Friday, though the German capital was not their intended target.
According to police and Berlin state prosecutors, the two men, aged 41 and 43, had pledged allegiance to terrorist political group Islamic State (Isis) and were planning a massive attack on Syrian soil.
Police also said there was no evidence of the group planning an attack on German targets.
Ismet D., 41, had declared himself as the Emir – or general – of an Islamic group in Berlin. There members were of Turkish, Russian, Czech and Dagestani origins. Police said Ismet D. carried out lessons in Islam that radicalized the group and convinced them to partake in jihadi attacks against “non-believers” in Syria.
Another alarm from the London Telegraph:
Terror threat to UK police increased
The chance of a Paris-style terrorist strike on UK police officers has increased to ‘highly likely’, according to intelligence officials
British police have been put on the highest level of alert amid fears that they may be the target of an attack similar to that which was narrowly averted in Belgium.
The increase of the threat level to ‘severe’ comes after raids on a Jihadi cell in the country which appears to have been planning to murder officers.
Worryingly for authorities, the suspects had police uniforms and radios in their possession.
The elevation of the thereat level brings the police service in line with the general threat level which has been at severe for some time.
And from the McClatchy Washington Bureau, the inevitable:
Boehner suggests NSA wiretap led investigators to Ohio jihadist
House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that the government “would never have known” that a Cincinnati area man was allegedly plotting this week to wage jihad on the U.S. Capitol with semi-automatic weapons were it not for a wiretap ordered by a secret foreign intelligence court.
Boehner’s statement added intrigue and a tinge of politics to Wednesday’s arrest in Ohio of 20-year-old Christopher Lee Cornell, shortly after he allegedly bought two M-15 rifles and 600 rounds of ammunition with plans to spray bullets on congressional officials.
The Republican leader’s comments also seemed to reflect rising unease in Washington, with the Islamic State and Al-Qaida seemingly in open competition to whip up attacks on western nations.
An FBI affidavit filed Wednesday in federal court in Cincinnati to support a criminal complaint against Cornell said that a tipster alerted authorities last fall that he had posted statements, videos and other content expressing support for the Islamic State and violent jihad. It made no mention of a wiretap by the National Security Agency, activity that normally is classified.
From RT, a silver lining for big pharma:
Record numbers of French turn to tranquilizers after Charlie Hebdo attack
People in France have reportedly consumed a record number of tranquilizers over the week that followed the deadly Charlie Hebdo attack, with the intake increasing by 20 percent in just a few days.
The research was conducted by French health data consultancy firm Celtipharm, the Times reported.
After contacting 4,800 chemists, Celtipharm reported skyrocketing consumption of tranquilizers over the several days after the attack. Between January 9 and 13 there was an 18.2 percent rise.
“This type of phenomenon has never been observed before,” Celtipharm CEO Patrick Guerin told The Times.
After the jump, French speech evaporates, angry anti-Charlie Hebdo protest in Niger ends in arson and four deaths, four more deaths in Pakistani anti-Charlie Hebdo riots, Florida cops behaving badly, Holder deprives cops of ill-gotten gains, San Francisco police violence protests shut down rail transit stations, a jihadi corporate hack in Spain, a British bust for a PlayStation Network/Xbox Live hack, Israel crosses a Swedish line, the African Union mulls military campaign against Boko Haram, the body count adds up in Pakistani anti-militant crackdown, China grows more anxious as Japan shifts hard right, a top Chinese folks faces corruption charges, and to close, some food for thought. . .
From the New York Times, and careful what you say:
French Rein In Speech Backing Acts of Terror
The French authorities are moving aggressively to rein in speech supporting terrorism, employing a new law to mete out tough prison sentences in a crackdown that is stoking a free-speech debate after last week’s attacks in Paris.
Those swept up under the new law include a 28-year-old man of French-Tunisian background who was sentenced to six months in prison after he was found guilty of shouting support for the attackers as he passed a police station in Bourgoin-Jalieu on Sunday. A 34-year-old man who on Saturday hit a car while drunk, injured the other driver and subsequently praised the acts of the gunmen when the police detained him was sentenced Monday to four years in prison.
All told, up to 100 people are under investigation for making or posting comments that support or try to justify terrorism, according to Cédric Cabut, a prosecutor in Bourgoin-Jalieu, in the east of France. The French news media have reported about cases in Paris, Toulouse, Nice, Strasbourg, Orléans and elsewhere in France.
Violent cartoon blowback in Africa, via TheLocal.fr:
French cultural centre set ablaze in Niger
Protesters angered by Charlie Hebdo’s latest Prophet Muhammad cartoon set fire Friday to the French cultural centre in Zinder, Niger’s second biggest city, the head of the centre said.
An irate crowd of around 50 people smashed the centre’s entrance door and set fire to the cafeteria, library and offices in spite of warning shots by two police guards, director Kaoumi Bawa told AFP.
Three churches – one Catholic and two Protestant – were also ransacked by the protesters, authorities in the southern city of Zinder said.
More from BBC News:
Charlie Hebdo: ‘Four dead’ in Niger protest
At least four people have been killed in violent protests against French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Niger’s second city of Zinder, officials say.
A number of churches and the French cultural centre were among several buildings raided and set alight.
Friday saw protests across the Muslim world over the magazine’s publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
It comes more than a week after gunmen carried out a massacre at the French magazine’s offices in Paris.
And four more deaths in Pakistan, via the New York Times:
4 Shot During Protest Against Charlie Hebdo in Pakistan
Clashes between the police and protesters outside the French Consulate in Karachi on Friday left four people with gunshot wounds, two of them journalists, as demonstrations erupted across Pakistan against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and its publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
The Karachi protest was led by the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest religious party. The demonstrators threw stones at riot police officers, who responded with tear gas, water cannons and gunfire.
Among those injured was a photographer for the Agence France-Presse news agency, Asif Hassan. He had been shot in the chest and was “out of danger” after emergency surgery, said Dr. Seemi Jamali, head of the emergency ward at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center. The agency said it was trying to determine whether Mr. Hassan had been specifically targeted.
From VICE News, Florida cops behaving badly:
Florida Cops Caught Using Real Mug Shots of Black Men as Gun Range Targets
A Florida police department’s target practice methods are coming into question after it was discovered officers were using actual mug shots of suspects as targets at a shooting range, including one photo lineup of all African American men.
Florida National Guard Sergeant Valerie Deant and her fellow guardsmen made the discovery after attending a shooting range in December. The team found six bullet-riddled mug shots left by the North Miami Beach police department after an earlier practice session. All the images were of black suspects, according to NBC South Florida, which broke the story Thursday.
Deant then noticed one of the photos was of her brother, Woody Deant, taken from a booking shot photographed more than a decade ago when he was 18-years-old. She relayed the information to her sibling, who was angered by the news.
Holder deprives cops of ill-gotten gains, via BuzzFeed News:
U.S. Attorney General Bans Local Police From Seizing Assets Under Federal Law
The new policy will “return assets to victims,” Eric Holder said on Friday.
State and local police in the U.S. will no longer be able to use federal law to seize assets from suspects without evidence of a crime, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday.
The controversial program began about 30 years ago, allowing the federal government to “adopt” cash and other items seized during stops for largely minor infractions, like traffic violations, by local and state police departments. The federal government and police departments shared in the proceeds, with the majority going to the state and local forces.
To get the items back, people had to prove how they acquired them, according to a Washington Post investigation concerning the practice.
Police violence protest shuts down rail transit stations, via the Guardian:
San Francisco protesters force shutdown of two transit stations
Embarcadero and Montgomery Bart stations shut as activists took over the system to protest against what they call police brutality
Demonstrators shut down two San Francisco transit stations on Friday morning to bring attention to what they say are unfair charges against 14 protesters accused of blocking rail service two months ago.
Bay Area Rapid Transit says its trains were not stopping at the Montgomery and Embarcadero stations downtown as activists overtook the system to protest against what they call police brutality. Commuters reported a tougher-than-usual commute, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Activists say the protests aimed to pressure Alameda County prosecutors to drop charges against 14 people accused of halting Bart service by chaining themselves to trains and each other at West Oakland station in late November.
That protest was among many in California and nationwide stemming from a grand jury decision not to indict a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.
A jihadi corporate hack in Spain, via TheLocal.es:
Jihadists hack Spanish home appliance website
The website of the Catalan household appliance manufacturer Taurus was taken down by jihadist hackers from the Middle East on Wednesday who may have confused it with the Brazilian-US gunmaker of the same name.
Officers from Catalonia’s Mossos police force are investigating the cyberattack which was apparently carried out by a jihadist group.
The hackers replaced the website with a screen displaying the message “Hacked by Middle Easy Cyber Attack” while Islamic prayers played in the background.
Local daily La Vanguardia quoted police sources who said that the attack could have been related to the recent spate of cyberattacks on thousands of French companies.
From Network World, a British bust for a PlayStation Network/Xbox Live hack:
UK police make arrest related to denial of service attack on Playstation and Xbox networks
U.K. police have arrested a man they believe was involved in the denial-of-service attacks directed at PlayStation Network and Xbox Live at end of last year.
Proud new owners of PlayStation and Xbox consoles weren’t able to or had trouble accessing Sony’s and Microsoft’s networks starting on Christmas day as a result of the attack, which the hacking group Lizard Squad took responsibility for.
Authorities around the world have since been working to apprehend the people involved. The U.K. South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) said on Friday it had collaborated closely with the FBI to arrest an 18-year-old man in Southport, a seaside town located 20 miles north of Liverpool.
An Israeli Swedish line-crossing, via TheLocal.se:
Israel ‘crossed line’ says Swedish Foreign Minister
Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, who last week postponed a scheduled trip to Israel, has said that the middle eastern country is using “a rhetoric that crosses all lines.”
She told Dagens Nyheter that the overall Israeli reaction to Sweden’s recognition of the State of Palestine had been expected, but that Israel’s latest comments were unacceptable.
“They have a rhetoric that crosses all lines,” she said.
“It is not acceptable the way they talked about us… It has angered not only us but also the Americans and everyone else who is dealing with them right now. They are using a very harsh and unforgiving tone.”
The African Union mulls military campaign against Boko Haram, via BBC News:
Boko Haram crisis: African Union to discuss multinational force
Ghana’s President John Mahama has said he and other African leaders will discuss plans next week to “deal permanently” with Boko Haram militants.
He said he wanted African Union (AU) countries to produce a “specific plan of action” for tackling the Nigeria-based Islamist group collectively. “This has to end. We have to make this terror end,” he said.
Boko Haram has seized control of many towns and villages in north-east Nigeria in a six-year insurgency. It has also begun threatening Nigeria’s neighbours and earlier this week launched a raid on a military base in northern Cameroon.
The body count adds up in Pakistani anti-militant crackdown, via the Express Tribune:
2,000 militants killed in North Waziristan so far: DG ISPR
Director General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa said security forces have killed 2,000 militants in North Waziristan so far, Radio Pakistan reported on Friday.
Bajwa said 200 soldiers had been killed during Operation Zarb-e-Azb, and 800 others had sustained injuries.
He reiterated the army’s resolve to ensure writ of the state in Bajaur and North Waziristan agencies at all costs by wiping out militants.
China grows more anxious as Japan shifts hard right, via Want China Times:
Right-wing tendency in Japan a bigger concern for China than Diaoyutai
The right-wing tendency of the Japanese administration, rather than the Diaoyutai issue, is the major sticking point for China in its relations with Japan, according to Duowei News, a media outlet run by overseas Chinese.
From 2012 onward the prospect of a Sino-Japanese conflict in the East China Sea has been batted around by media outlets from both countries, turning the issue into a piece of diplomatic theater. However, many analysts have suggested that tensions have eased, which means that many of the dramatic claims made by media outlets covering the dispute have fallen on deaf ears, particularly news about the Japanese defense budget in 2015 trumping that of previous years.
In previous years the US$44.3 billion that Tokyo has granted for defense spending might have incurred Beijing’s wrath, but this may not be the case in 2015. As more and more Chinese warships and aircraft patrol the South China Sea, the East China Sea and Diaoyutai have become less of an immediate priority for China. This means that news stories from Tokyo about the Japanese defense budget and heightened defenses on the Ryukyu Islands are getting less and less traction in Beijing.
From Shanghai Daily, a spooky takedown:
Intelligence chief suspected of graft
One of China’s top intelligence chiefs is being investigated for corruption, the Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog said yesterday.
Ma Jian, a vice minister at the Ministry of State Security, is the most senior security official to be investigated since former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang was ensnared in a graft scandal last July.
Several of Ma’s men are also being questioned to assist with the investigation.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said Ma was under investigation on “suspicion of serious violations of discipline and the law,” words usually indicating corruption.
And to close, some food for thought from BBC News:
Stress is ‘barrier to feeling empathy for strangers’
Stress is the reason why we find it hard to empathise with someone we do not know, researchers suggest.
In separate tests in mice and people, empathy towards strangers increased when stress hormones were blocked by a drug. Playing a fun video game with a stranger was found to have a similar effect to the drug.
The Canadian and American research team published their findings in Current Biology. Dr Jeffrey Mogil, study author and neuroscientist from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, said his team’s findings suggest that the stress system in the brain can have a “veto” on our empathy system.
“Yet few people would realise that there is a stress response when you’re in a room with a person you don’t know,” he added.
