We begin with a violence in South Korea, via SINA English:
US ambassador to South Korea attacked and hurt: local media
U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert was attacked by a man wielding a razor and screaming that the rival Koreas should be unified, South Korean police and media said Thursday. TV images showed Lippert bleeding from his head and wrist, but his injuries weren’t immediately clear. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.
YTN TV reported that the man screamed “South and North Korea should be reunified” during the attack. The rival Koreas have been divided for decades along the world’s most heavily armed border. The U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea, and some South Koreans see the U.S. presence as a barrier toward a unified Korea.
YTN TV said Lippert’s injuries weren’t seen as life threatening. Police confirmed that Lippert was attacked and a suspect was detained and being questioned but didn’t have other details, including the type of weapon and the extent of Lippert’s injuries. YTN said a man only identified by his surname, Kim, was detained after the attack.
BBC News covers a clearance:
Darren Wilson will not face US charges over Brown killing
The US Justice Department has said it will not charge former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson over the killing of black teenager Michael Brown.
But the same department has accused city’s police and court system of widespread racial bias.
The investigation found no evidence to disprove Mr Wilson’s testimony that he feared for his safety or other evidence enough to bring civil rights charges.
A Missouri grand jury also declined to charge him with murder in November.
From United Press International, blowback:
One Ferguson official fired, two suspended in wake of DOJ report
“This type of behavior will not be tolerated in the Ferguson Police Department or any other department. We must do better not only as a city, but also as a state and country.” — Ferguson Mayor James Knowles.
In the wake of a scathing U.S. Justice Department report accusing the Ferguson judicial system of systematic racism, one police official was fired and two others were suspended, the city’s mayor said Wednesday.
Mayor James Knowles spoke to reporters Wednesday evening after Attorney General Eric Holder presented the results of two investigations stemming from the August shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson.
The department determined no charges would be brought against Wilson but found evidence of racism and misconduct in Ferguson’s police department and municipal court system.
Knowles said one police official was fired and two others were suspended in response to the Justice Department uncovering several racist emails sent by police and court employees.
The Atlantic Monthly‘s headline notes the distinction:
Officer Cleared, City Indicted
In two sweeping reports, the Justice Department cleared former officer Darren Wilson, but lambasted Ferguson’s police department for discriminatory practices.
Almost seven months after Michael Brown was shot and killed by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, the Justice Department cleared Wilson of civil-rights violations in a report released on Wednesday. But the tenor of the report— along with a separate 105-page report that excoriated the Ferguson Police Department for “racial bias”—was hardly tame.
“There is no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilson’s stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety,” the report read, in a cutting use of negative space. It also concluded that there were no “prosecutable violations” by Wilson and that witness accounts of Brown surrendering with his hands up, a gesture that became the inspiration for the protests that followed his death, “are inconsistent with the physical evidence.”
The more incendiary details came from the investigation into Ferguson’s police department and its municipal court, the practices of which “both reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias, including racial stereotypes,” the report read. “Ferguson’s own data establish clear racial disparities that adversely impact African Americans. The evidence shows that discriminatory intent is part of the reason for these disparities.”
From Reuters, a stacked deck asserted:
Snowden says U.S. not offering fair trial if he returns
Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of the government’s mass surveillance programs, said on Wednesday he is not being offered a fair trial if he returns to the United States.
“I would love to go back and face a fair trial, but unfortunately … there is no fair trial available, on offer right now,” he said in a live question and answer discussion organized by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Ryerson University and the CBC.
“I’ve been working exhaustively with the government now since I left to try to find terms of a trial.”
More context from the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald:
The “Snowden is Ready to Come Home!” Story: a Case Study in Typical Media Deceit
Most sentient people rationally accept that the U.S. media routinely disseminates misleading stories and outright falsehoods in the most authoritative tones. But it’s nonetheless valuable to examine particularly egregious case studies to see how that works. In that spirit, let’s take yesterday’s numerous, breathless reports trumpeting the “BREAKING” news that “Edward Snowden now wants to come home!” and is “now negotiating the terms of his return!”
Ever since Snowden revealed himself to the public 20 months ago, he has repeatedly said the same exact thing when asked about his returning to the U.S.: I would love to come home, and would do so if I could get a fair trial, but right now, I can’t.
His primary rationale for this argument has long been that under the Espionage Act, the 1917 statute under which he has been charged, he would be barred by U.S. courts from even raising his key defense: that the information he revealed to journalists should never have been concealed in the first place and he was thus justified in disclosing it to journalists. In other words, when U.S. political and media figures say Snowden should “man up,” come home and argue to a court that he did nothing wrong, they are deceiving the public, since they have made certain that whistleblowers charged with “espionage” are legally barred from even raising that defense.
From CBC News, weakness north of the U.S. border:
Edward Snowden says Canadian intelligence gathering has ‘weakest oversight’
NSA whistleblower says he would return to U.S. to face charges but can’t be guaranteed a fair trial
U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden says Canada has one of the “weakest oversight” frameworks for intelligence gathering in the Western world.
Snowden made the comments during a teleconference discussion hosted by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and the Ryerson School of Journalism, moderated by CBC Radio host Anna Maria Tremonti. He was speaking via video link from Russia.
“Canadian intelligence has one of the weakest oversight frameworks out of any Western intelligence agency in the world,” he said.
Snowden said he wouldn’t specifically weigh in on the government’s new anti-terror legislation, saying that whether it is good or bad is ultimately up for Canadians to decide.
Bill C-51 provides for a sweeping range of measures that would allow suspects to be detained based on less evidence and lets CSIS actively interfere with suspects’ travel plans and finances.
Critics say the legislation is too broad and lacks oversight.
CBC News covers a needed resource:
Edward Snowden archive aims to ‘piece together the bigger picture’
Canadian project to create fully searchable database began last summer
A Canadian team has created a searchable database of all the publicly released classified documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in hopes it’ll help citizens better understand the complex files trickling out around the world.
The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and the Politics of Surveillance Project at University of Toronto’s faculty of information revealed the archive on Wednesday before hosting a live Q&A with Snowden, the U.S. whistleblower and subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour.
“What we’re hoping this database can do is start to piece together the bigger picture,” said Laura Tribe, CJFE’s national and digital programs lead.
The database may be found online here.
Advice from one who knows, via CBC News:
The apps Edward Snowden recommends to protect your privacy online
There are a host of free, easy-to-use apps and programs that can help protect your privacy online, and if everybody uses them it can provide a sort of “herd immunity” said Edward Snowden in a live video chat from Russia on Wednesday.
Snowden recommended using programs and apps that provide end-to-end encryption for users, which means the computer on each end of the transaction can access the data, but not any device in between, and the information isn’t stored unencrypted on a third-party server.
“SpiderOak doesn’t have the encryption key to see what you’ve uploaded,” said Snowden, who recommends using it instead of a file-sharing program like Dropbox. “You don’t have to worry about them selling your information to third parties, you don’t have to worry about them providing that information to governments.”
“For the iPhone, there’s a program called Signal, by Open Whisper Systems, it’s very good,” said Snowden. He also recommended RedPhone, which allows Android users to make encrypted phone calls, and TextSecure, a private messenging app by Open Whisper Systems.
“I wouldn’t trust your lives with any of these things, they don’t protect you from metadata association but they do strongly protect your content from precisely this type of in-transit interception,” said Snowden.
The Guardian covers a franchise operation:
New Zealand spying on Pacific allies for ‘Five Eyes’ and NSA, Snowden files show
Secret papers show NZ spy agency GCSB is collecting calls and internet traffic in bulk and sending it to the US National Security Agency
New Zealand is spying indiscriminately on its allies in the Pacific region and sharing the information with the US and the other “Five Eyes” alliance states, according to documents from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The secret papers, published by the New Zealand Herald, show that the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) collects phone calls and internet communications in bulk in the region at its Waihopai Station intercept facility in the South Island.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11411730
Since a 2009 upgrade, Waihopai has been capable of “full take” collection of both content and metadata intercepted by satellite, the documents showed. The data is then channelled into the XKeyscore database run by the US National Security Agency, where it also becomes available to agencies in each of the “Five Eyes” countries: the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
A leaked NSA memo credits the GCSB with providing “valuable access not otherwise available to satisfy US intelligence requirement”.
From TheLocal.de, intention or irony?:
NSA inquiry chief suffers phone tampering
Patrick Sensburg, chairman of the Bundestag (German parliament) inquiry into spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA), asked security experts to examine his phone after suspecting he might have been hacked – only for it to be tampered with in the post.
Die Welt reported on Wednesday that Christian Democratic Union (CDU) MP Sensburg’s encrypted Blackberry Z30 wasn’t working properly in February.
Parliamentary officials immediately packed it in a lead-lined container (to block wireless signals) and sent it for testing at the Federal Office of IT Security (BSI) in Bonn by ordinary DHL parcel post.
It was the first time an MP’s phone had had to be transported in this way. But the Bundestag confirmed to Die Welt that the BIS found the signal-proof container had been opened before the phone arrived at their offices.
From Nextgov, a panopticon deadline looms:
Time is Running Out to Reform NSA Mass Surveillance
There’s another national security clock ticking in Congress.
Lawmakers have less than 100 days left to decide whether they want to reform the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk collection of U.S. call data—or risk losing the program entirely. Core provisions of the post-9/11 Patriot Act are due to sunset on June 1, including Section 215, which grants intelligence agencies the legal authority they need to carry out mass surveillance of domestic metadata—the numbers and timestamps of phone calls but not their actual content.
Government officials have said they have no backup plan for replacing the intelligence void if Congress fails to reauthorize the law in some fashion. And earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested lawmakers should bear the brunt of blame if the program lapses and the homeland is struck by terrorism.
After the jump, a 2014 U.S. identity theft tally, a GoDaddy-based hack attack spree, Merkel issues a Russian sanctions threat, a Pakistani convicted of a Big Apple bomb plot, Charlie Hebdo arson arrests in Germany, France faces a long-term attack-level terror alert as drones send Paris into another flurry, the House of Lords lays out a British drone boom, another Colombian journalist assassinated, on to the ISIS front and a major strike at Syrian Air Force Intelligence, America’s top soldier welcomes Iran’s involvement in the ISIS war, and ISIS grows desperate for cash, Libyan fundies grab oil fields, on to the Boko Haram front and an ultimatum from Chad, and more than a million Nigerian refugees, ISIS threatens a Pakistani university, India’s prime minister bans a powerful lethal gang rape documentary, a leak reveals a self-serving Sri Lanka hyperbole, Indonesian press limitations, China ups its military budget again and an admiral calls for more aircraft carrier to control the Indian Ocean, China reassures tech firms over new cyber-backdoor demands and inaugurates a crackdown on foreign NGOs, Japan marks a distancing from South Korea, the Comfort Women issue sparked a South Korean visit, Japan announces a watch of the Chinese military budget, and a debate erupts over allegations of Shinzo Abe media meddling. . .
From SecurityWeek, victimization costs:
Identity Fraud Cost U.S. Consumers $16 billion in 2014
Identity thieves were busy during 2014, but a new study estimates that U.S. consumers actually suffered fewer losses than in the past.
According to the 2015 Identity Fraud Study from Javelin Strategy & Research, the number of identity fraud victims decreased slightly last year, dropping by three percent from 2013. All totaled, Javelin estimates 12.7 million U.S. consumers were victimized in identity theft in 2014, compared to 13.1 million the previous year. Total fraud losses fell as well, dropping from $18 billion in 2013 to $16 billion in 2014.
In another bright spot in the report, new account fraud – where a scammer opens a new account in the name of the victim – appears to have hit a record low in 2014. The good news does not go much further than that however. The report also found that victims of new account fraud are three times more likely to take a year or more to discover that their identities were misused than victims of other types of fraud.
A GoDaddy-based hack attack spree, via Network World:
Drive-by attack relies on hacked GoDaddy accounts
Hundreds of hacked domain name accounts registered through GoDaddy are being used as part of a highly effective campaign using the Angler exploit kit to infect computers with malware.
The attackers are using the accounts to create subdomains that shuttle Web surfers to websites hosting Angler, wrote Nick Biasini, an outreach engineer with Cisco Systems.
The owners of the accounts are usually unaware of the activity, which Cisco calls “domain shadowing,” since they may rarely log into their accounts. Hundreds of GoDaddy accounts that have several thousand domain names assigned to them have been compromised, Biasini wrote.
Merkel issues a Russian sanctions threat, via Deutsche Welle:
Merkel warns Russia of new sanctions if Ukraine ceasefire violated
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned Russia to live up to the Ukraine peace agreement it backed in Minsk last month or face tougher sanctions. She said the EU stands ready to impose new measures if needed.
Merkel told reporters that the immediate task at hand was to stop the bloodletting in eastern Ukraine, where a fragile ceasefire is largely holding despite some violations since the Minsk agreement signed in February.
She underlined that “if Minsk doesn’t work, then the member states and the European Commission are quite prepared to take tougher sanctions.”
“There is a link between current sanctions and complete implementation of Minsk so that Ukraine officials will have access to their own frontier,” Merkel said in Brussels. “Territorial integrity can only be restored if you have Ukraine officials on the Russian border. That is what we are working on.”
From United Press International, a Pakistani convicted of a Big Apple bomb plot:
Terror suspect found guilty in 2009 al-Qaida bomb plot
A jury in New York on Wednesday found a suspected al-Qaida member guilty of supporting terrorism and conspiracy in a plot to bomb a British shopping center in 2009.
Abid Naseer, 28, of Pakistan, represented himself in U.S. district court on charges of supporting terrorism and conspiracy.
Prosecutors argued Naseer was trained in a terror camp in Pakistan then sent to Britain to help coordinate an attack on a Manchester shopping center. He kept in touch with an al-Qaida handler through email using codewords meant to make it look like he was planning a wedding with his girlfriend.
Charlie Hebdo arson arrests in Germany, via TheLocal.de:
Police catch Charlie Hebdo arson suspects
Hamburg police temporarily detained nine suspects on Wednesday over a January arson attack on a newspaper that had reprinted cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed from French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
Officers searched 12 apartments in dawn raids, detained the suspects aged 16 to 21, and took them to a police station to record their personal details before releasing them, police in the port city said.
The group of local-area youths and adolescents, who were of German, Nigerian, Cameroonian and Turkish origin, were also suspected of having vandalised a nearby high school a day before the arson attack, police and prosecutors said in a joint statement.
From TheLocal.fr, France faces a long-term attack-level terror alert:
France to remain on high terror alert ‘for months’
France will remain on high terror alert for months, it emerged on Wednesday, despite the huge cost of the heightened security. It’s not all bad news however, with the increased presence of the police and army prompting a drop in the number of burglaries and thefts.
France has been on edge ever since the terror attacks in January when 17 people were killed by Islamist gunmen in Paris. And things are not about to return to normal any time soon.
The country’s anti-terror alert system known as Plan Vigipirate, will remain at “attack” level for several months in Ile-de-France and in the Alpes-Maritimes region around the Riviera, according to reports on Wednesday. The rest of France, meanwhile, will remain at “high vigilance” level.
As drones send Paris into another flurry, via BBC News:
Paris drones: New wave of alerts
Ten more drones have been spotted flying over Paris and reports say police are searching for four men after a chase in the east of the city.
The latest drones were seen hovering near the Eiffel Tower and several other areas further away from the centre.
Some 60 drones have been sighted since October, over nuclear installations and central Paris, the government says. The most recent have all been over Paris, prompting security fears after the murders of 17 people last month.
From TechWeekEurope, the House of Lords lays out a British drone boom:
Drones Could Create 150,000 EU Jobs, Says House Of Lords Report
Drone committee urges UK to become leaders in the drone industry, with thousands of jobs created by 2050
A House of Lords report on drones has found that the industry could create as many as 150,000 jobs by 2050.
The House of Lords EU Committee reports also urged to make Europe and the UK global leaders in the drone industry.
The committee has been scrutinising the European Commission’s proposals for drones, and supports its plans to homogenise safety rules across the EU, but does argue for national flexibility for smaller drones and ‘remotely piloted aircraft systems’ (RPAS).
From the Guardian, another Colombian journalist assassinated:
Colombian radio journalist murdered, the second to die in three weeks
Presenter who criticised police and political corruption is shot dead
Radio presenter Edgar Quintero became the second Colombian journalist to be murdered in three weeks on Monday (2 March) when a gunman shot him as he entered a baker’s shop near his workplace.
The killer arrived by motorbike and, after shooting Quintero seven times, mounted his bike and fled.
Quintero, known as Quintín, hosted a daily news and commentary programme on Radio Luna in Palmira, a city in Colombia’s south-western department, Valle del Cauca.
According to local journalists cited by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), he often criticised local government and police officials while discussing issues such as corruption.
On to the ISIS front and a major strike at Syrian Air Force Intelligence, via BBC News:
Syria conflict: Blast ‘hits Aleppo intelligence HQ’
Dozens of Syrian security personnel and rebels have been killed in an attack on an intelligence facility in the city of Aleppo, a monitoring group says.
The attack began when a bomb placed in a tunnel near Air Force Intelligence’s headquarters was detonated, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Islamist and jihadist rebels then launched an attack on the building.
Aleppo has been divided between rebel and government control since fighting erupted in the city in mid-2012.
An American welcome to Iran, via the Associated Press:
Dempsey says Iranian hand in Iraq could turn out well
Iran’s direct support for an Iraqi push to dislodge the Islamic State group from the northern city of Tikrit could turn out to be “a positive thing” if it does not inflame sectarian tensions, the top U.S. general said Tuesday.
The statement by Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reflected the delicate balance Washington is trying to strike between limiting Iranian influence and allowing Iraqi leaders to determine their own path to defeating the Islamic State.
U.S. officials have said Iraq did not ask the U.S. to provide air support for the Tikrit offensive, even though the U.S.-led military coalition has been conducting airstrikes in much of Iraq since August and has deployed hundreds of U.S. soldiers to try to regenerate an Iraqi army that collapsed last June.
And ISIS grows desperate for cash, from the McClatchy Foreign Staff:
As airstrikes damage Islamic State, it seeks ‘money, money, money’
The Islamic State might be the best-funded radical Islamist group, perhaps in history, but the coalition air campaign that’s targeting its oil-refining operations and military assets has begun to damage its ability to earn.
And by denying the group additional territorial expansion, the airstrikes have limited the opportunities for it to profit from capturing new infrastructure and banks, according to a recent report by a money-laundering watchdog group, as well as U.S. officials and residents of Islamic State territory.
The Islamic State, a self-styled modern caliphate that controls much of northern and western Iraq and eastern Syria, turned itself into perhaps the richest and best-equipped military non-state actor last June after seizing tremendous amounts of money and equipment from the Iraqi government as it swept through Mosul and to the western and northern outskirts of Baghdad while the Iraqi army collapsed.
Libyan fundies grab oil fields, via Independent Online:
Libya: militants seize two oil fields
Islamist militants seized control of at least two oil fields in central Libya on Tuesday, a spokesman for the country’s oil industry security service told AFP.
“Extremists took control of the Al-Bahi and Al-Mabrouk fields and are now heading to seize the Al-Dahra field following the retreat of the force guarding these sites, due to lack of ammunition,” Colonel Ali al-Hassi said.
Violence and a slow-down at export terminals has already forced a shutdown at the Al-Bahi and Al-Mabrouk fields, about 500 kilometres east of Tripoli, for the last several weeks.
An attack on the sites in February killed 11 people and all staff were evacuated.
On to the Boko Haram front and an ultimatum from Chad, via Reuters:
Chad president tells Boko Haram leader to surrender or face death
President Idriss Deby of Chad said on Wednesday he knew the whereabouts of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, and called on him to surrender or risk being killed.
Chad’s army has waged a series of battles against Boko Haram as part of a cross-border military campaign and has re-taken territory the militant group held in northeastern Nigeria.
“Abubakar Shekau must surrender. We know where he is. If he doesn’t give himself up he will suffer the same fate as his compatriots,” he told a news conference after a regional meeting.
And from IRIN, more than a million Nigerian refugees:
Boko Haram violence displaces 1.2 million Nigerians
More than 1.2 million people have been driven from their homes in northern Nigeria, the vast majority as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency, according to the latest figures from the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA).
The displaced are mainly from Borno (62 percent), Adamawa (18 percent) and Yobe (13 percent) – the three states hardest hit by the violence. The numbers represent an increase on the 981,416 NEMA reported in January, but are likely to understate the scale of the crisis as the agency had access to only three out of Borno’s 27 Local Government Areas (LGAs). Two LGAs in Adamawa and two in Yobe were also unreachable at the time of the assessment “due to security reasons”, according to a joint NEMA and International Organization for Migration Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) report released today.
The DTM report said 1,188,018 internally displaced persons (IDPs) were in Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba states. A further 47,276 are sheltering further south in Plateau, Nasarawa, Kano, Kaduna, and the federal capital, Abuja. According to the report, 92 percent of the IDPs have been made homeless by the jihadist insurgency – the majority of them fled in 2014, a reflection of Boko Haram’s strategy of seizing towns and villages.
From the Express Tribune, ISIS threatends a Pakistani university:
Lahore university receives threatening letter from ‘Islamic State’
Security around the University of Engineering and Technology on Wednesday was put on high alert by police after the university in Lahore received a threatening letter from the militant group Islamic State.
The letter threatened to attack the university with a suicide attack or a series of bombings, according to a police officer. And UET public relations officer Dr Tanvir Qasim confirmed the letter had been received via posted mail from an unidentified source. However, he said the contents of the letter were unknown to him.
UET sources claim the letter was received yesterday from unknown sources claiming to be from IS, threatening to attack hotels and the university campus after which security within the UET campus was put on high alert.
On to India and a powerful act of censorship appealed, via the Guardian:
Delhi rape documentary-maker appeals to Narendra Modi over broadcast ban
India’s Daughter director Leslee Udwin appeals to Indian PM to deal with ‘unceremonious silencing of the film’
The British director of a hard-hitting documentary about the gang rape of a young woman in Delhi has appealed to the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, to intervene after authorities banned the domestic broadcast of the film and said they were also trying to prevent it from being shown worldwide.
Leslee Udwin, whose documentary India’s Daughter is scheduled to be broadcast internationally on Sunday, made an emotional plea to Modi “to deal with this unceremonious silencing of the film” in India.
Shortly before her statement was released, the parliamentary affairs minister, M Venkaiah Naidu, declared: “We can ban the film in India. But this is an international conspiracy to defame India. We will see how the film can be stopped abroad too.”
Based on the brutal rape in December 2012 of 23-year-old physiotherapy student Jyoti Singh, Udwin’s documentary includes interviews with one of the men convicted for the crime, who is now in prison in Delhi and waiting for the supreme court to hear his appeal against the death sentence.
In it, Mukesh Singh suggests his victim would not have been killed if she had not fought back against her attackers. He appears to blame her for not behaving like “a decent girl”.
A leak reveals a self-serving Sri Lanka hyperbole, via Al Jazeera:
Spy cables reveal Sri Lanka hyped up Tamil Tiger postwar threat
Exclusive: Sri Lanka played up concerns of LTTE regrouping in South Africa despite contrary intelligence report
In November 2010, a Sri Lankan member of Parliament expressed his dismay when a small statue of a leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was erected on private property in a Paris suburb. It was an alarming sign, said Sarath Weerasekara, a retired rear admiral in the Sri Lankan navy, that the LTTE, an armed separatist group that Sri Lanka defeated decisively in 2009, might be regrouping in other countries.
“Its one leg is in America and the other one in France,” Weerasekera said in a statement in Parliament. “The head is in Norway and the other body parts in Australia or South Africa.” His rhetoric was consistent with the views of then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, which repeatedly warned of the threat posed by LTTE supporters organizing abroad after they were crushed by the Sri Lankan army at home.
But months before Weerasekera’s speech, the Sri Lankan government was told quite plainly that, at least in the case of South Africa, the LTTE posed no threat at all, according to a secret intelligence agency cable (PDF) obtained by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit.
From the Guardian, Indonesian press limitations:
Reports journalists were banned from asking about West Papua condemned
Journalists in Papua New Guinea say they were told not to ask Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi about West Papua and reporters in the Solomon Islands say they were ‘uninvited’ to an event with Marsudi
Reports journalists were instructed not to ask questions about West Papua during a three-nation tour by the Indonesian foreign minister have been met with disappointment by media advocacy groups, who say Pacific nations should not assist Indonesian officials in avoiding accountability.
There have been numerous reports over the years of human rights abuses and violent crackdowns by Indonesian authorities against a long running pro-independence movement in West Papua.
The Indonesian foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, recently visited Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Fiji, but reports have emerged that journalists attending a Port Moresby press conference by Marsudi and her PNG counterpart, Rimbink Pato, were told not to raise the issue of West Papua, and that a Solomon Islands media opportunity was cancelled.
China ups its military budget again, via BBC News:
China military budget ‘to rise 10%’
China’s military budget will rise by about 10% in 2015, an official says.
Fu Ying, spokeswoman for China’s annual parliament session the National People’s Congress (NPC), gave the “rough” figure and said it was in line with overall spending growth. A formal announcement will be made on Thursday when the NPC opens.
China has seen several years of double-digit defence spending increases. It is the world’s second-highest military spender, but remains far behind the US.
And an admiral calls for more aircraft carrier for the Indian Ocean, via Want China Times:
China needs more carriers to secure Indian Ocean routes: PLA hawk
China must continue to develop aircraft carriers to maintain the security of its Indian Ocean routes, says People’s Liberation Army hawk Yin Zhuo.
The 69-year-old rear admiral made the comments Monday, a day before the commencement of the annial “two sessions” of the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing.
As a member of the CPPCC National Committee, China’s top political advisory body, Yin said the PLA’s continued development of aircraft carriers is imperative given that neighboring countries all have ongoing carrier programs in place. South Korea is still in the planning stages, though Japan already has two carriers and India will soon have three or four, he said. China on the other hand only has one, the Lianoning, commissioned in 2012.
And in the first of two crackdown stories from Reuters, China reassures tech firms over new cyber-backdoor demands:
China says tech firms have nothing to fear from anti-terror law
China’s proposed anti-terrorism law will not affect the legitimate interests of technology firms, a top Chinese spokeswoman said Wednesday after U.S. President Barack Obama warned of its impact and demanded amendments.
China’s proposals, which would require tech firms to provide encryption keys and install backdoors granting law enforcement access for counterterrorism investigations, drew criticism from Obama, who told Reuters in an interview this week China would have to change the draft law if it were “to do business with the United States”.
Fu Ying, China’s parliamentary spokeswoman, said many Western governments, including Washington, had made similar requests for encryption keys while Chinese companies operating in the United States have long been subject to intense security checks.
And an NGO crackdown from Reuters:
China says NGOs need regulating for national security reasons
China needs to better regulate foreign non-governmental organizations (NGO) operating in the country for national security reasons, an official said on Wednesday, as the government drafts a law that has unnerved many aid groups.
Fu Ying, spokeswoman for China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, said she understood there were more than 6,000 foreign NGOs operating in the country, who had brought with them money, expertise and technology.
“They have been beneficial for our development and have made contributions, but there are some deficiencies in their management,” she told a news conference, a day ahead of the opening of parliament’s annual meeting.
From the the Asahi Shimbun, Japan marks a distancing from South Korea:
Foreign Ministry no longer says South Korea shares ‘basic values’
In an apparent criticism of Seoul’s judicial system, the Japanese Foreign Ministry deleted from its website a phrase that said South Korea shares “basic values, such as freedom, democracy and a market economy.”
The change mirrors Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s continually shortened descriptions of the neighboring country in his policy speeches and underscores the persistent friction between the two nations. “We changed the description so that it matches the one that has often been used recently,” a Foreign Ministry official said.
Previously, the ministry’s website said, “(South Korea) is an important neighboring country that shares basic values, such as freedom, democracy and a market economy, with Japan.” By March 2, the phrase was shortened to: “(South Korea) is the most important neighboring country for Japan.”
The Comfort Women issue sparked a South Korean visit, via the Japan Times:
U.S. says ‘comfort women’ issue was behind Lee’s 2012 isle visit
The U.S. government believed the “comfort women” issue was behind South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s August 2012 visit to islets at the heart of a territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea, a U.S. document revealed on Tuesday.
The visit by Lee to the islets, called Takeshima in Japan, Dokdo in South Korea and Liancourt Rocks by others, was initially viewed by some as an attempt to shore up his domestic popularity ahead of the February 2013 end of his tenure.
But the document, obtained by Jiji Press under the Freedom of Information Act, says that Lee was “motivated by Japan’s inadequate response to the victims of sexual slavery (comfort women).”
The document was compiled by the U.S. Defense Department on Aug. 12, 2012, two days after the visit by Lee.
Japan announces a watch of the Chinese military budget, via NHK WORLD:
Japan to watch China’s defense spending
Japan’s top government spokesperson says the administration will keep a close watch on China’s 2015 defense spending and related moves.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was referring to a report that China’s defense budget will rise about 10 percent this year from last year.
He asserted that the situation for regional security is difficult due to a variety of factors.
And a debate erupts over allegations of Shinzo Abe media meddling, via the Mainichi:
Abe pushes back against opposition accusations of news media meddling
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe responded angrily on March 3 to opposition criticism that he had demanded a TV station change the tone of its coverage regarding his government’s economic policies in November last year.
On Nov. 18, 2014 — the day Abe announced the dissolution of the House of Representatives ahead of a general election — Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) aired a live spot interview segment, asking people on the street about Japan’s economic situation — a main point of contention in the coming campaign. Many of the comments were negative, prompting Abe to state soon after that they had been “cherry-picked,” and that the TBS coverage was “strange.” Two days later, Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) sent a letter to six Tokyo TV stations demanding “fair and impartial” reporting of the election campaign.
During a March 3 House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting, opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) lawmaker Hiroshi Ogushi took the prime minister to task for his comments regarding the TBS program, stating, “It’s a problem (for the prime minister) to call the way a certain news report is done ‘strange.’”
