Charlie Hebdo and the Poison to Europe's Soul

By Judy Dempsey

January 8, 2015

Source Link

The murders at French newspaper Charlie Hebdo should encourage European governments to defend, not clamp down on, civil liberties.

During the night of January 7, tens of thousands of French citizens took to the streets in several cities to pay homage to the twelve people who were gunned down earlier that day in Paris.

Most of the victims, who included four leading cartoonists, worked for the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The left-wing publication had been at the forefront in publishing cartoons. It spared no religion or creed.

Charlie Hebdo's offices had already been attacked in 2011. The magazine's provocative depiction of the prophet Muhammad enraged those who believed that the press had no right to publish such images. The latest shooting should encourage European governments to protect press freedom and other civil liberties, not restrict them.

The January 7 attack on Charlie Hebdo coincides with growing anti-Islam movements across Europe. The most recent group to be spawned is in Germany. There, an organization called Pegida(Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) is attempting-although it would deny it - to sow hatred against immigrants and refugees, mostly Muslims who are fleeing the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack, the worry now is that the leaders of these anti-Islam and populist movements will use the murders of the cartoonists to justify their propaganda. The danger too is that Muslims, whether European citizens or not, will become the target of such Islamophobia.

We Are Not All Charlie

JEFFREY GOLDBERG

JAN 8 2015

Source Link

It is easy to express solidarity with murdered cartoonists, but it is difficult to live as bravely as they did.

The police are evacuating the Gare du Nord station in Paris as my train from Brussels arrives; a suspicious package, I learned later. The rain is coming down quite hard. I resist the urge to interview my taxi driver about the current mood.

We see a blue “Je Suis Charlie” sign on a lamppost. Very nice. But the sentiment is partially a conceit. We are not all Charlie. Much of Europe, which, as a political entity, is not fully grappling with the totalitarian madness of Islamism, is not Charlie. Certainly much of journalism is not Charlie. Any outlet that censorsCharlie Hebdo cartoons out of fear of Islamist reprisal is not Charlie. To publish the cartoons now is a necessary, but only moderately brave, act. Please remember: Even after Charlie Hebdo was firebombed in 2011, it continued to publish rude and funny satires mocking the essential ridiculousness of the Islamist worldview. That represented a genuine display of bravery. CNN, the Associated Press, and the many other media organizations that are cowering before the threat of totalitarian violence represent something other than bravery.

Europe Is Under Siege Here is someone who is not Charlie: Tony Barber, of the Financial Times, who wrote yesterday: “Charlie Hebdo has a long record of mocking, baiting and needling French Muslims. If the magazine stops just short of outright insults, it is nevertheless not the most convincing champion of the principle of freedom of speech. France is the land of Voltaire, but too often editorial foolishness has prevailed at Charlie Hebdo.”

Editorial foolishness!

DNI Clapper Admits He Dined With North Korean General Allegedly Responsible for Sony Cyber Attack

January 8, 2015

US spymaster dined with N.Korea general responsible for Sony hack

The US intelligence chief revealed Wednesday that he dined with the North Korean general believed responsible for hacking Hollywood studio Sony, during a secret mission to Pyongyang two months ago.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper gave a riveting account of the visit at a New York conference on cyber security days after the government imposed new sanctions on North Korea in retaliation for the late November attack.

He said it was “the most serious cyber attack ever made against US interests” that could potentially cost hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

He said on November 7, the first night of his mission to free two Americans, he dined with General Kim, “in charge of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the RGB, who’s the organization responsible for overseeing the attack against Sony.”

Clapper did not give the general’s full name but he apparently was referring to General Kim Yong-chol, director of the RGB, also known as Unit 586, one of three North Korean entities sanctioned by the United States in response to the Sony hack.

Clapper called the elaborate, 12-course repast “one of the best Korean meals I’ve ever had” but said the four-star general spent most of the time berating him about American aggression “and what terrible people we were.”

"All the vitriol that he spewed in my direction over dinner was real," Clapper said.

"They really do believe they are under siege from all directions and painting us as an enemy that is about to invade their country every day is one of the chief propaganda elements that’s held North Korea together."

He said the pair communicated through a North Korean translator who spoke fluent English “with a British accent, which was kind of strange.”

Kim kept “pointing his finger at my chest and saying the US and South Korean exercise was a provocation to war and of course not being a diplomat, my reaction was to lean back across the table and point my finger at his chest.”

At one point, his assistant suggested Clapper take a “head break” to ease the tension.

At the end, he described presenting Kim with a letter from President Barack Obama, designating Clapper as his envoy and saying that the release of the two US citizens would be viewed as a positive gesture.

He admitted the next day was “kind of nerve-racking” and that he was not sure if they would get the two Americans back or not.

-‘Kind of creepy’-

At one point an emissary came to say North Korea no longer considered him a presidential envoy and as such could not guarantee his safety.

Pentagon Racing to Develop Weapons to Counter New Chinese Hypersonic Missile

Bill Gertz

January 8, 2015

Pentagon seeks new weapons to counter China’s hypersonic missiles

The Missile Defense Agency has tasked a major defense contractor to develop advanced missiles capable of knocking out maneuvering, ultrahigh-speed targets such as China’s high-tech Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle.

Missile defense specialists at Lockheed Martin, the main contractor for the Pentagon’s agency, told reporters Wednesday that an extended-range version of the Army’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system is being developed to deal with hypersonic threats.

Hypersonic missiles are maneuvering strike vehicles launched atop missiles that travel at speeds of up to Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound. They maneuver and glide along the edge of space, making them difficult targets for miassile defenses.

Current U.S. missile defense sensors and interceptors are designed primarily to hit ballistic missile warheads that travel in predictable flight paths from launch, through space and into ground targets.

China surprised U.S. intelligence agencies last year by conducting three flight tests of the Wu-14 in January, August and December. The vehicle traveled at speeds up to Mach 10, or nearly 8,000 miles per hour.

U.S. intelligence agencies assessed the Wu-14 to be a nuclear delivery vehicle designed to break through U.S. defenses.

In addition to China, Russia and India are working on hypersonic strike vehicles. A U.S. test of a hypersonic missile blew up shortly after launch in August. U.S. officials are concerned that hypersonic technology will proliferate to the missile systems of North Korea and Iran, the main focus of current U.S. missile defenses.

"One of the things that the MDA is looking very closely at is the upgrade of the THAAD system so that we can extend the reach in dealing with a target just like that," said Mike Trotsky, a vice president at Lockheed for defense missiles and fire control.

Hypersonic warheads seek to “find a seam” between space-capable interceptors and air-breathing defenses to avoid being shot down, he told reporters on a conference call. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense interceptors can blast missile warheads into space and into the upper atmosphere “in the region where that threat flies,” Mr. Trotsky said.

The extended-range version, with a larger booster and an enhanced upper stage, is being developed to deal with hypersonic threats, he added, noting that work has been underway for the past 12 to 18 months.

"And so the MDA is very interested in [Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense] ER and that’s one of the key reasons," Mr. Trotsky said.

GLOBAL HAWK Surveillance Drone Sets Flight Hour Record

January 8, 2015

Global Hawks achieve flight-hour record

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 8 (UPI) — Northrop Grumman reports that its high altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicles have achieved a flight-hour milestone.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk, flown by the U.S. Air Force, and other company HALE systems flew more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission hours in one week last September for the U.S. government than ever before — 781 hours.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk flew 87 percent of the missions. The U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Demonstration aircraft and NASA’s Global Hawk hurricane research UAS contributed to the record.

"There are at least two Global Hawks in the air at all times providing indispensable ISR information to those that need it," said Mick Jaggers, Global Hawk UAS program director, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "The 2014 fiscal year was the most active yet for the Global Hawk, with a 40 percent year over year increase in flight hours."

Northrop Grumman said its HALE UAS series have so far flown more than 130,000 total flight hours, with 75 percent of those hours in support of combat/operational missions.

Two new RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft were delivered to the Air Force last fall, bringing the service’s fleet of the UAS to 33. Three more are scheduled for delivery in 2016 and 2017.

Thousands of French Police and Intelligence Officers Hunting for Two Fugitives in Paris Terrorist Attack

Steven Erlanger and Dan Bilefsky

January 8, 2015

Manhunt for Charlie Hebdo Attack Suspects Continues

PARIS — As France mourned its dead, thousands of police were mobilized on Thursday in an extensive manhunt for two brothers suspected of killing 12 people, including two police officers, at a satirical magazine.

The police, who were also guarding key sites, including railway and subway stations, department stores and journalism offices, were said to be narrowing their search for the brothers to northern France, where the armed men broke into a gasoline station to get food and later abandoned one of the cars they had used in their getaway from Paris on Wednesday.

The sighting of the men at the station and the discovery of the car, in the town of Villers-Cotterêts, in Picardy, captivated a nation that seemed to come together, at least for a moment of silence at noon on a rare official day of national mourning, to defend French values like freedom of the press and religious tolerance.

Thousands wore stickers reading “Je suis Charlie,” referring to the magazine whose editors and most prominent cartoonists were killed, Charlie Hebdo National television ran constant live coverage of the manhunt for the fugitives, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, 34 and 32.

The gunmen killed their victims and wounded 11 more people with precision and calm, and were heard on videos shouting “Allahu Akhbar!” and “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad! We have killed Charlie Hebdo!” The men said that they were acting on behalf of Al Qaeda in Yemen, according to a witness. Two American officials said on Thursday that the brothers had ties to Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, but the officials declined to say whether that meant the suspects had been in communication with the group or had actually traveled there and perhaps received training.

Questions were raised about why the police and security services, who had known about the brothers, one of whom had spent time in jail for jihadist activities, had failed to disrupt the attack.

The moment of silence here was widely respected. But some worried that the sense of national solidarity may not last, given the shock these killings have delivered, which Arash Derambarsh, a publisher and politician, compared to Sept. 11 in the United States. There, Muslim radicals of Al Qaeda struck the symbols of American economic and political power; here, the target – the small, often vulgar satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, was an important cultural symbol of French secularism, liberty and license.

“This is a war between freedom of speech and our civilization and those who want to kill it,” Mr. Derambarsh said.

Charlie Hebdo announced that despite the loss of so many of its most talented people – cartoonists who have been famous in France for a generation — it would publish as scheduled next Wednesday, and rather than print the usual 60,000 copies, would print one million.

New North Korean Sub With Vertical Launch Tubes for Missiles Seen on New Satellite Imagery

Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr.

January 8, 2015

Recent commercial satellite imagery indicates that the conning tower of a new North Korean submarine first seen in July 2014 houses 1-2 possible vertical launch tubes for either ballistic or cruise missiles. The boat could serve as an experimental test bed for land-attack missile technology, which if successful, may be integrated into a new class of submarines. In addition, imagery over the past six months indicates that North Korea has been upgrading facilities at the Sinpo South Shipyard in preparation for a significant naval construction program, possibly related to submarine development.

North Korea’s development of a submarine-launched missile capability would eventually expand Pyongyang’s threat to South Korea, Japan and US bases in East Asia, also complicating regional missile defense planning, deployment and operations. Submarines carrying land-attack missiles would be challenging to locate and track, would be mobile assets able to attack from any direction, and could operate at significant distances from the Korean peninsula.

Nevertheless, such a threat is not present today. Moreover, an effort by Pyongyang to develop an operational missile-carrying submarine would be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor with no guarantee of success.

Possible Submarine Vertical Launch Tubes Spotted

Recent commercial satellite imagery provides additional details on North Korea’s new submarine and test stand at the Sinpo South Shipyard (Pongdae Boiler Plant) located on its east coast. Updating our October 19 and 28, 2014 articles, imagery now indicates that the conning tower houses 1-2 small possible vertical launch tubes for either ballistic or cruise missiles. The boat could serve as an experimental test bed for missile technology, which if successful, could be integrated into a new class of submarines.

In imagery from July 2014, the center section of the conning tower, which is approximately 10 meters long and 2.75 meters wide, was partially obscured by a large blue tarp. Imagery from December 18, 2014, indicates that the tarp is no longer present and reveals a rectangular opening approximately 4.25 meters long and 2.25 meters wide. While the current image is of insufficient resolution and quality to look down into the opening, its presence on the top of a large conning tower is unusual and suggests that a panel has been removed to access the interior. Taken in concert with a September South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff statement that “…the possibility of a North Korean submarine equipped with an SLBM has been detected recently…,” the new imagery suggests the possibility of 1-2 small vertical missile launch tubes.[1]

Figure 1. Newly identified submarine berthed with the secure boat basin at North Korea’s Sinpo South Shipyard (Pongdae Boiler Plant).

Note: image rotated. Image © 2014 DigitalGlobe, Inc. All rights reserved. For media licensing options, please contact thirtyeightnorth@gmail.com.

Figure 2. A close-up view of the SINPO-class submarine and the opening in the conning tower.

Note: image rotated. Image © 2014 DigitalGlobe, Inc. All rights reserved. For media licensing options, please contact thirtyeightnorth@gmail.com.

Is China’s Cyberwar Capacity More Backward Than We Think?

By Franz-Stefan Gady

January 08, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/is-chinas-cyberwar-capacity-more-backward-than-we-think/

China still needs to overcome a number of challenges before it becomes a first-rate military power in cyberspace. 

In a lecture on January 7 in Beijing, a senior PLA officer and professor at the PLA National Defense University called on “PLA troops to enhance their capability of winning informationalized warfare,” according to an article on the Chinese Ministry of Defense website. The article goes on to summarize the lecturer’s principle point: “Zhu Chenghu said the future war will be information-based local wars, featuring unprecedentedly high levels of intelligence. As a result, there will be no concept of front or rear. Space, air, sea, ground, cyberspace, and even electromagnetic pulse space can be the target to strike. The information security will become the most vulnerable area for China.”

This is nothing new. Many senior Chinese officers have repeatedly emphasized the need to bolster the country’s cyber capabilities, since they provide some asymmetric compensation at a comparatively low cost for the relative backwardness of the Chinese military vis-à-vis the U.S. military and its regional allies.

Despite many reported successes in cyber espionage, the PLA is a latecomer when it comes to applying information technology to broad military use. China has never issued a formal cyber warfare strategy document. At the 16th Party Congress in 2002, then General Secretary Jiang Zemin announced that the PLA’s future mission will be to persevere in “local wars under informationized conditions” by 2050. This strategic guidance set in motion a timetable of modernization with the end result of a total “informatization” of the PLA by 2050. In a speech back in November 2012, former Chinese president Hu Jianto stated that by 2020 China should have made “major progress in full military IT application.”

However, as I have pointed out elsewhere, China will need to overcome a number of challenges before it can be considered a first-rate military power in cyberspace. For example, Chinese technical institutes and universities still cannot compete with the United States in the highly specialized areas that support cyber warfare. On a micro level, Chinese specialists can compete with their Western analogs, but postgraduate training for military personnel in cyber-related spheres is not as good as it is in the United States.

The PLA also has other competing military priorities, such as the mechanization of the army, modernizing the air force and deploying a more robust navy. More importantly, the private sector capacity in China – the true center of gravity in any cyber conflict – is inferior to the highly sophisticated U.S. private sector’s capacity to support cyber war operations (e.g., training future cyber warriors).

The GoPro Soldier: Coming Soon to a War Near You

BY MAJOR MATT CAVANAUGH
January 08, 2015

http://www.warcouncil.org/blog/2015/1/8/the-gopro-soldier-coming-soon-to-a-war-near-you

If a soldier gets hit in a war and no one is around to film it, does it really matter?

Following two highly publicized police encounters - one in Ferguson, Missouri and the choking death of Eric Garner in New York City - the New York Times carried a story that raised the issue of police body cameras. Technologically (and economically), it is now feasible for the average “beat” cop to wear a camera integrated into body armor and clothing while on duty. President Obama has pledged to “request $75 million in federal funds to distribute 50,000 body cameras to police departments nationwide.”

To quickly run the math:

$75 million/50,000 body cameras = $1,500 each

Now let’s look to what it costs to outfit an American military soldier. According to a 2007 estimate, it was roughly $17,500 to outfit a US soldier (*worth noting that at the time it cost the Chinese People's Liberation Army roughly $1,500!). By now, it is reasonable to extrapolate that US figure to $20,000. If my raw math is accurate, and this is in fact the actual ratio, then body cameras would represent an additional expenditure on the order of a 7-8% which is roughly the equivalent cost of a latte flavor shot at Starbucks. But do we want this "flavor shot?" Should we want body cameras?

I'm not sure these questions matter. If the cameras are relatively inexpensive, and their widespread use is being considered in law enforcement circles, it is not a difficult leap to the assumption that at some point in the near future the land forces (Army and Marines) will adopt body cameras. I think this is highly likely, particularly for stabilization and counterinsurgency environments. We've already seen anecdotal trends pointing this way. 

U.S. Selling 170 More M-1 Abrams Tanks to Iraq After the Iraqi Army Lost 40 Last Summer to ISIS

January 6, 2014

Iraq is buying another 170 American M-1A1 tanks. In 2008 Iraq had ordered and received (by 2010) 140 M-1A1 tanks, 21 M88A1 armored recovery vehicles and 60 M1070 tank transporters (which can also carry supplies or other vehicles.) Iraq was not be the first Arab country to operate the M1 tank. Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia already operate over 1,600 of them, and Egypt has built hundreds of them (mainly using components imported from the U.S., but with some locally made parts). Iraq receives the M-1A1 version. All the other Arab users have at least some of the latest model (M1A2 SEP).

The Arab users of the M1 have been very happy with their American tanks. This satisfaction increased when they saw how the M-1 performed in Iraq. While most Arabs deplored U.S. operations in Iraq, Arab tank officers and M-1 crewmen were quietly pleased that their tanks appeared invulnerable, and able to assist the infantry in any kind of fight. Iraqi army officers have spoken to fellow Arab officers who have used the M-1, and were told this was the way to go.

Corruption in the Iraqi Army led to Iraqi M-1 crews being poorly trained and led. So far Iraqi troops have lost (or abandoned) at least 40 M-1s to enemy action or panic. At least one Iraqi Mi1 was destroyed by a Russian ATBM (anti-tank guided missile). The Iraqis promise they will do better with their new batch of M-1s.

Barack Obama's India visit: India, US to ink 10-year pact on defence framework

By Rajat Pandit, 

10 Jan, 2015

US undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics Frank Kendall will be in town on January 22, just before Obama.

NEW DELHI: India and the US are all set to ink their new 10-year defence framework pact when President Barack Obama comes visiting as the chief guest of the Republic Day parade on the special invite of Prime Minister NarendraModi.

US undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics Frank Kendall will be in town on January 22, just before Obama, to stitch up the loose ends. The new defence framework will be "more ambitious" than the earlier one which was signed in June 2005 by then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee and his counterpart Donald Rumsfeld without impinging on India's "strategic autonomy", sources said. 

The expansive framework will outline the series of steps to bolster the bilateral defence partnership, ranging from stepping up the scope and intensity of joint military exercises already taking place to advancing shared security interests for regional and global security. Collaboration in intelligence-sharing, maritime security and the drive against terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will also figure on the agenda. 

A significant addition will be the incorporation of the Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) to augment the ones existing under the overall mechanism of the Defence Policy Group, which chalks out the path for future defence cooperation. 

The US has been hard-selling a score of "transformative defence technologies" for co-development and co-production with India under the DTTI, which range from the next-generation of Javelin anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) and MH-60 Romeo multi-role helicopters to long-endurance UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and 127mm warship guns, as reported by TOI earlier. 

But the Modi government has already chosen an initial off-the-shelf purchase of Israeli Spike ATGMs, with 321 launchers and 8,356 missiles, for Rs 3,200 crore. Sources said India will initially choose only a couple of "simpler projects" from the ones being offered by the US to kick-off the DTTI process and then ascertain how they actually materialise on the ground. 

Government orders ISPs to unblock 32 websites, links

By Neha Alawadhi, 

10 Jan, 2015

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) Director-General Gulshan Rai confirmed to ET that the unblocking orders had been sent to ISPs.

NEW DELHI: The government on Friday ordered internet service providers (ISPs) to unblock 32 websites and website links it had asked them to block in December. Its decision to put curbs on these sites had stirred up massive online protests and debates over the need for standard procedures to deal with such situations. 

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) Director-General Gulshan Rai confirmed to ET that the unblocking orders had been sent to ISPs. Acting on an order by a Mumbai court, the government on December 17 asked ISPs to block 32 websites, which included popular online tools like GitHub and SourceForge used by thousands of programmers. The court's action was based on a complaint by the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad, which claimed that these sites were being used to spread pro-terror messages.

"If the government has indeed decided to unblock those websites, it is welcome. The step was prompted likely by the backlash it faced from internet users in the country, and could also reflect some serious rethinking within government as it attempts to defend Section 69A before the Supreme Court," said Arun Mohan Sukumar, senior fellow at the Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University.The government had invoked Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to ban these websites. The section allows the government to block websites when it fears that the "sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order" is under threat. While the rules for blocking websites and website links are clearly laid out, there are no clear procedures for lifting the curbs. 

"The fact remains that ad hoc blocking without any sound policy guidelines reflects poorly on the government's commitment to a free and open internet," added Sukumar. 

According to people familiar with the matter, instructions for lifting curbs on websites or links are extremely few. While ISPs have to inform concerned authorities on compliance, there are no audits or checks to ascertain if the orders have been complied with. 

The CERT-In is one of the agencies involved in the process of blocking and unblocking of websites. Other such agencies are the Department of Electronics and Information Technology and Department of Telecommunications. 

Legal and internet experts have time and again questioned the wide blocks the government orders on websites. "Unless an entire website has objectionable content (for example a pornographic site or a site that hosts religiously inflammatory speeches), it's less disruptive to block only the specific offensive content on a particular URL rather than block an entire website, which can inadvertently cause hardship to internet users looking for legitimate content," said Mrityunjay Tiwari, managing director, India, at web content filtering company Minesweeper. 

According to experts, the government could look at framing blocking rules on the lines of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US, which lays down clear guidelines for online service providers and ISPs to block access to alleged infringing material.

Don’t blame this bloodshed on France’s Muslims

Nabila Ramdani

January 10, 2015

Attributing violence to millions of law-abiding French Muslims is as cynical as trying to blame it on a small group of artists and writers

Those of us trying to make sense of the Charlie Hebdo massacre need to understand the bloody history of Paris. That four hugely popular cartoonists were considered legitimate targets by murderers said to have been living within a few miles of the Louvre and other global symbols of liberal Gallic civilisation doesn’t seem possible: donnish satirists are not meant to be gunned down in quaint Paris arrondissements any more than municipal policemen used to dealing with traffic and tourists.

Sadly, the French capital has been associated with some of the worst barbarism in human history.

The Terror started by the 1789 Revolution led to tens of thousands of deaths, with many of its victims guillotined in front of vengeful crowds. Savage mass murders continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, through the Commune and two World Wars, the second of which saw tens of thousands of Jews persecuted before being sent to their deaths in concentration camps. Postwar, many of the Gestapo-trained gendarmes involved in those atrocities showed a fresh brutality to Algerians displaced by their own nation’s fight for independence from France.

“Attributing violence to millions of lawabiding French Muslims is as cynical as trying to blame it on a small group of artists and writers”

The three French-Algerian men believed responsible for the 12 deaths in Paris on Wednesday would have been steeped in a recent history of this conflict which, in the 1960s, was exported from the battlefields of Algeria to Paris itself. During one notorious atrocity in 1961, up to 200 Algerians were slaughtered around national monuments, including the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame cathedral.

Half a century on, the violence has subsided but there is still a strong sense of resentment among alienated communities living in housing estates on the outskirts of the capital. Many are Muslims of north African origin who complain that discrimination against them extends to every field of life, from housing and employment to the right to religious expression. This is particularly so as politicians of the left and right regularly blame Islam for these social problems, which have nothing to do with spiritual faith.

Anti-religious hate speech has thus become all too prevalent in modern France, as it is manipulated for political purposes. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front, is a convicted racist and antisemite, and his daughter, Marine Le Pen, the party’s current leader, regularly stigmatises Muslims and other minority groups. Immigration policy underpins all of this discourse.

There is no doubt that Charlie Hebdo’s notorious cartoons satirising the prophet Muhammad saddened and angered Muslims in equal measure. When the magazine published a cover with a bearded and turbaned cartoon figure of the prophet saying “100 lashes if you’re not dying of laughter” in 2011, their offices were firebombed.

Will 2015 be the year of the LeT?

RANA BANERJI

January 10, 2015

The HinduFACE OF TERROR: “The mastermind of the Mumbai terror attack, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, might benefit in the face of a leadership crisis within the Lashkar-e-Taiba.” Picture shows Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel after the 2008 attack.

Even as the Pakistani establishment struggles to avoid international censure on Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi’s imminent release, the Lashkar-e-Taiba is likely to emerge in a high-profile role

The Pakistan Supreme Court ordered Mumbai 26/11 master-plotter, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi’s further detention on January 6, 2015, referring back the case for hearing both the sides by the Islamabad High Court. It is by no means certain that the judiciary may cater to pressure in this regard for too long.

Even as a beleaguered Pakistani establishment struggles to avoid international opprobrium on his imminent release, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) seems poised to emerge in a more high profile role in 2015.

A pamphlet, ‘Jehad in the Present Times’ written by Abdus Salaam bin-Muhammad, a leading Markaz Dawat wal’Irshad (MDI) ideologue in the early 1990s enunciated LeT’s raison d’être. Eight reasons were given for waging jihad. The first objective is to end the persecution of Muslims wherever it takes place; the second and third objectives are to restore the Muslim caliphate and establish the ‘dominance of Islam’; the fourth objective is to help weak and oppressed Muslims wherever they are; the fifth ordains taking revenge for murder of fellow Muslims; the sixth entails punishment to those who violate their oaths with Muslims; the seventh objective is to ‘fight to defend’ oneself and the eighth is to recapture occupied Muslim territory. Organisations such as MDI, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and LeT understand and use the concept of jihad in the sense of ‘qatl’ or ‘killing.’

Spreading terror to India

Soon after LeT’s formation, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed started presenting the jihadi discourse in Indian Kashmir as a struggle between Islam and kufr (unbelief). Kashmir was projected as the entry point but the aim was to break up the whole of India. Ahle Hadith members of MDI were asked to establish sleeper cells in different parts of India.

After the proscribing of LeT, other front names like MDI or JuD were propped up to divert focus and suggest that their work was bigger than that of LeT but its leadership has always claimed that ‘they would return to the banner of LeT one day,’ as the army the Prophet led into Mecca was also called Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the Army of Medina.

“LeT activists claim to enjoy the support of employees of almost every government department in Pakistan”

Charlie Hebdo suspects shot dead, hostages freed

APThe TV grab shows police officers storming a kosher grocery in Paris to end a hostage situation.

ReutersFrench special forces handle arms as they take position on a rooftop of the complex at the scene of a hostage taking at an industrial zone in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris on Friday.

Two brothers wanted for a bloody attack on the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were killed on Friday when anti-terrorist police stormed their hideout, while a second siege at a Jewish supermarket ended with the deaths of four hostages.

"These madmen, fanatics, have nothing to do with the Muslim religion," President Francois Hollande said in a televised address. "France has not seen the end of the threats it faces."

An audio recording posted on YouTube attributed to a leader of the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda (AQAP) said the attack in France was prompted by insults to Prophet.

Sheikh Hareth al-Nadhari said in the recording, "Some in France have misbehaved with the prophets of God and a group of God's faithful soldiers taught them how to behave and the limits of freedom of speech."

Following heavy loss of life over three consecutive days, which began with the attack on Charlie Hebdo when 12 people were shot dead, French authorities are trying to prevent a rise in vengeful anti-immigrant sentiment.

Mr. Hollande denounced the killing of the four hostages at the kosher supermarket in the Vincennes district of Paris. "This was an appalling anti-Semitic act that was committed," he said.

Officials said Cherif Kouachi and his brother Said, both in their thirties, died when security forces raided a print shop in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris, where the chief suspects in Wednesday's attack had been holed up. The hostage they had taken was safe, an official said.

Automatic gunfire rang out, followed by blasts and then silence as smoke billowed from the roof of the print shop. In thick fog, a helicopter landed on the building's roof, signalling the end of the assault. A government source said the brothers had emerged from the building and opened fire on police before they were killed.

Before his death, one of the Kouachi brothers told a television station he had received financing from an al-Qaeda preacher in Yemen.

"I was sent, me, Cherif Kouachi, by al-Qaeda of Yemen. I went over there and it was Anwar al Awlaki, who financed me," he told BFM-TV by telephone, according to a recording aired by the channel after the siege was over.

Kouachi's brother Said had also met al Al Awlaki, an influential international recruiter for al-Qaeda during a stay in Yemen in 2011.

Targeting Jews

Choosing thy neighbour

NEELANJAN SIRCARMEGAN REED

January 10, 2015

The very process of development and change in India may be generating new forms of social and economic competition that manifest themselves in terms of social bias

Popular debate around social biases in India is structured around two competing narratives. One view holds that as an urbanising country with rapid economic growth over the past few decades, the importance of ascriptive identities such as caste and religion is gradually eroding. An opposing view holds that these biases have remained resilient in India, even in the face of substantial economic development and increasingly heterogeneous cities.

Yet, such a simple dichotomy understates the complexity in characterising social biases in India. New forms of bias may emerge while other forms fade away. While social biases often result from prejudice or chauvinism, they may also result from legitimate apprehensions about, or threats from, another social group. In order to develop a deeper understanding of the profile of social biases in India, we analyse new data from the Lok Surveys, taking advantage of both the scale and the geographic spread of the sample. Before describing our results, we note that any survey-based analysis of social bias is necessarily fraught with difficulties — questions about bias are sensitive and respondents are often unwilling to admit to their biases. Furthermore, there is no universally accepted tool used to measure bias.

Identity of neighbours

Rather than relying on complex typologies that can be impacted by preconceived notions, we focus our analysis on a simple topic, which we believe represents a core form of social bias: differences in preferences for the identity of one’s neighbours. These preferences capture important dimensions of social structure. They involve beliefs about how different social groups affect social solidarity in a neighbourhood, as well as apprehensions about interacting with different social groups. To uncover social biases in preferences for neighbours, each of our respondents was asked the following question: Would you be against having a family of (another identity group) as a neighbour?

“It is the middle class group that accounts for much of the social bias in preferences for the identity of one’s neighbours”

Not anti-Islam, but anti-religion

VASUNDHARA SIRNATE

January 9, 2015

We need to understand Charlie Hebdo not as an anti-Islamic publication, but as an anti-religion, anti-institutional, anti-extremist publication

The French satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo, is an equal opportunity offender. In keeping with France’s secular intellectual tradition, no particular individual, ideology or religion was safe from being lampooned by Charlie Hebdo. In 2006, ‘Jesus on the cross’ was on the cover shouting, “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here,” referencing the popular British TV show of the same name. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI was on the cover holding a condom. In 2011, Prophet Mohammad was on the cover saying, “100 lashes for not laughing.”

The importance of Charlie Hebdo lies in what the publication represents — an aversion to giving in to illogical extremism of any kind and holding the right to offend people on sensitive matters like religion. The underpinning logic assumes that interrogation of self-sanctified institutions like religion needs to be done through the systematic practice of irreverence. The idea was to make humorous and irreverent attacks so frequent that a discussion on an institution like religion would be like a discussion on a popular movie, or sliced bread or some such thing— effectively defanging the institution and its hold on people. If you can laugh at it, you can question it.

Brave editorial course

This was a brave editorial course for Charlie Hebdo. In essence, the publication asserted the right to equally offend anyone and everyone as a part of the practice of French secularism. Over and above this, by doing so the French publication also presented itself in the vanguard of secularism, not concerning itself with short-term appeasement politics.

After all, the reasoning went, how much damage can pen and ink and some funny sketches do? However, for its editorial stances, in November 2011, following the publication of the cover bearing the Prophet, the offices of the publication were firebombed. Four years later on January 7, 2015, four gunmen stormed into Charlie Hebdo’s office in Paris and killed 10 people, two police officers and injured 11 people. Amongst those killed was the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Stephane Charbonnier, who had been on an al-Qaeda watch list since 2013.

“The publication found laughing at the extremists to be less violent than the standard political response of sending out soldiers after them”

What Charbonnier’s editorial line represented can be considered a strong desire to avoid self-censorship. When the special issue of Charlie Hebdo, which was “guest edited by the Prophet Mohammad,” hit the stands in 2011, the controversy it raised was overwhelming. Politicians and clerics in France alike, and even representatives of the U.S. government, cautioned the publication. Clerics found the issue offensive. Politicians said that the decision to publish such material was not a particularly clever one, even though they agreed thatCharlie Hebdo had a right to publish such material.

For Charbonnier, a committed left-wing intellectual, self-censoring to avoid offending one or two particular groups was not an option. He believed that secularism contained the right to offend. Charlie Hebdo’s manner of channelling offence was to turn it into humour. They believed that the only way to deal with religious extremism was to laugh at the extremists and depict them as being illogical. This the publication found to be less violent than the standard political response of sending out soldiers after extremists.

Some of the cartoons published can also be seen as deeply sensitive to the current politics of Islam. In fact, in some of the ‘provocative’ cartoons, the Prophet is shown to be at his wits’ end as he surveys his present day followers saying “it is difficult to be loved by idiots.” In another cartoon, the Islamic State is beheading the Prophet — Charlie Hebdo may have been trying to rescue Islam from the extremists. Perhaps this is precisely why extremist fury surrounded the publication.

Stress on secular culture

Jihadists offended Muslims more than cartoons: Hezbollah

Jan 10, 2015

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said what he called "takfiri terrorist groups" had insulted Islam more than "even those who have attacked the messenger of God through books depicting the Prophet or making films depicting the Prophet or drawing cartoons of the Prophet."

BEIRUT: The leader of the Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah said on Friday that Islamist terrorists had done more harm to Islam than any cartoon or book, a reference to the attack by suspected Islamist militants on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. 

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said what he called "takfiri terrorist groups" had insulted Islam more than "even those who have attacked the messenger of God through books depicting the Prophet or making films depicting the Prophet or drawing cartoons of the Prophet." 

Takfiri is a term for a Muslim who accuses others, including another Muslim, of apostasy. Hezbollah considers members of ultra-hardline Sunni-dominated groups like al Qaeda and Islamic State to be takfiris. 

Twelve people were killed in the presumed Islamist militant attack on Wednesday at the weekly Charlie Hebdo, which has often lampooned Islam and other religions as well as politicians and other public figures. 

Cartoons in Charlie Hebdo have provoked angry reactions from some Muslims. Footage of the killings at the paper's offices showed gunmen shouting "we have avenged the Prophet Mohammad". 

Nasrallah was speaking to supporters in Beirut's southern suburbs via video link to commemorate the birthday of the Prophet. 

Hezbollah, which Washington describes as a terrorist group, functions as a political party that is part of the Lebanese government. It also has a military wing that has sent hundreds of fighters to support President Bashar al-Assad's forces in neighbouring Syria.

#JeSuisCharlie tweeted more than five million times

Jan 10, 2015

The symbolic five-million mark, an unprecedented number in the history of France-related hashtags, was reached after elite forces killed the brothers suspected of the massacre and a jihadist ally in a dramatic finale to three blood-soaked days.

WASHINGTON: Twitter users have posted the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag, a sign of solidarity with the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, more than 5 million times, Twitter France said on Friday. 

The symbolic five-million mark, an unprecedented number in the history of France-related hashtags, was reached after elite forces killed the brothers suspected of the massacre and a jihadist ally in a dramatic finale to three blood-soaked days. 

The hashtag had been tweeted 5,044,740 times by 5:00 pm (2200 GMT) on Friday, with a peak of 6,300 tweets per minute.

The number still trails far behind the more than 18,136,000 times #Ferguson was tweeted in the aftermath of a fatal shooting of a young black American by a white police officer in the Missouri town -- the most tweeted hashtag of 2014.

On Friday the heavily-armed Charlie Hebdo massacre suspects were cornered in a tiny town northeast of Paris while an ally took terrified shoppers hostage in a Jewish supermarket, where four died and seven were hurt including three police officers.

Hundreds of people hold pencils and posters reading 'Je Suis Charlie (I Am Charlie)' during a tribute for victims of a terror attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

China Just Doubled the Size of Its Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Divisions

By Franz-Stefan Gady

January 09, 2015

Source Link

Should Taiwan be sweating? 

According to media reports China will double the number of its Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Divisions (AMID) from two to four. Initially, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fielded two AMIDs, one stationed in Guangzhou, the other in the Nanjing Military Region, with a total number of about 30,000 men. Now total manpower in the AMIDs will be around 52,000 – 60,000. These new amphibious forces are meant to complement the roughly 20,000 strong elite PLA Marine Corps in future conflicts over the East and South China seas as well as Taiwan, although the PLA Marine Corps and the AMIDs still lack a joint command system.

In comparison to the PLA Marine Corps, the AMIDs are mostly suitable for conventional large-scale amphibious assaults, such as would occur in a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. However, as a report by the U.S. Department of Defense on military and security developments in China notes: “Large-scale amphibious invasion is one of the most complicated and difficult military operations the PLA might pursue in a cross Strait contingency. Success would depend upon air and sea superiority, rapid buildup and sustainment of supplies on shore, and uninterrupted support. An attempt to invade Taiwan would strain China’s armed forces and invite international intervention …. China does not appear to be building the conventional amphibious lift required to support such a campaign.”

“The PLA is capable of accomplishing various amphibious operations short of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. With few overt military preparations beyond routine training, China could launch an invasion of small Taiwan-held islands in the South China Sea such as Pratas or Itu Aba. A PLA invasion of a medium-sized, better defended offshore island such as Matsu or Jinmen is within China’s capabilities.”

Thus, for now Taiwan appears to have little to fear from this nascent force. China simply cannot transport the AMIDs across the Taiwan Strait. Each of the four divisions is equipped with up to 300 armored and amphibious transport vehicles – the majority of which are of the ZBD05/ZLT05 type. However, these amphibious vehicles cannot traverse large stretches of water by themselves. Consequently, China will have to rely on its fleet of amphibious warfare ships such as the new Type 071 (Yuzhao-class) transports of which it is currently building two, with three completed and six more planned.

SAARC Energy Agreement: A step in the right direction

Sanket Sudhir Kulkarni

January 05, 2015

The Narendra Modi government has made energy security an important feature of its foreign policy, with some big ticket energy deals being signed. One major step in this regard related to regional energy security, when India, along with other South Asian countries, signed a regional cooperation agreement on electricity trade during the SAARC summit at Kathmandu. Under this agreement, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh would be able to import electricity from hydropower-rich Nepal and Bhutan.

But going by past experience, merely signing an agreement will not suffice. Several SAARC initiatives in the past failed to take off due to inherent political differences among its member nations. In addition to differences between ruling dispensations, opposition parties in some South Asian countries also held diverging view points on energy trade and often opposed projects for political gains thereby discouraging real time investment. For example, Nepal, a country with huge hydropower potential, has been unable to create a conducive environment for energy development due to this factor. Bangladesh also saw a similar trend, wherein political parties prevented any export of natural gas to India.1

In the present context, to make the energy agreement work, it would be necessary for the respective governments to provide leadership and direction on energy issues. The success of this initiative not only rests on individual governments in the eight countries, but also on the political behaviour of some opposition groups within these countries.

Currently, energy cooperation among SAARC members is occurring at a bilateral level. India imports about 1416 MW of electricity from Bhutan2 and it has begun to export electricity to Bangladesh. India’s cooperation with Nepal has resumed in the form of construction of mega projects through private investments like the Upper Karnali power project.