Ukraine abandons nonaligned status

Dec 24, 2014

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin

KIEV: Ukraine's parliament dropped the nation's nonaligned status on Tuesday, possibly paving the way for a bid to join NATO in defiance of the Kremlin's wishes. Russia, meanwhile, finalized a new economic alliance with other former Soviet nations it had vainly hoped Ukraine would join. 

The parallel moves reflected new divisions in Europe as Russia-West ties have plummeted to their lowest point since Cold War times over the Ukrainian crisis. 

The parliament in Kiev passed the bill to drop the nonaligned status in a 303-9 vote, with supporters saying it was justified by Russian aggression toward Ukraine, including the annexation of its Crimean Peninsula in March and Russian support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where some 4,700 people have been killed since the spring. 

But opponents said it will only increase tensions, and Moscow echoed that view. 

``This is counterproductive, it only heats up the confrontation, creating the illusion that accepting such a law is the road to regulating the deep internal crisis in Ukraine,'' said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. 

The move doesn't mean that Ukraine will apply to join NATO. But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told the parliament the law opens up new mechanisms ``in the conditions of the current aggression against Ukraine.'' 

Ukraine's prospects for NATO membership in the near term appear dim. With its long-underfunded military suffering from the war with the separatists and the country's economy in peril, Ukraine has much to overcome to achieve the stability that the alliance seeks in members. 

Five NATO countries _ Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland _ now share relatively short borders on Russia's western outskirts, totaling about 1,300 kilometers (780 miles). Adding Ukraine's 1,500-kilometer (900-mile) border with Russia to that would move the alliance's eastward flank substantially, and put it roughly on the same longitude as Moscow. 

An alliance official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with NATO practice, told The Associated Press ``our door is open and Ukraine will become a member of NATO if it so requests and fulfils the standards and adheres to the necessary principles.'' 

Although Ukraine had pursued NATO membership several years ago, it declared itself a non-bloc country after Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych became president in 2010. Yanukovych was driven from power in February after months of street protests that exploded into violence, and was replaced with Western-leaning Petro Poroshenko in May. 

Jihad habit’ & the DNA that can’t be changed

Chidanand Rajghatta

Dec 24, 2014

As far as the Indian side is concerned, all this is part of a continuing Faustian bargain between US and Pakistan that will have no winners, only losers. The Pakistani DNA cannot be changed.

Co-author of a legislation that lavished billions of dollars on Pakistan throughout the years the country fostered terrorist groups, often killing American soldiers in Afghanistan, US secretary of state John Kerry is a figure who evokes mixed feelings among Indian interlocutors. On surface, he is affable and charming with Indian officials and speaks highly of India (he's headed for the Vibrant Gujarat summit in January). But his inexplicable support for Pakistan even when it is brazenly using terrorism as a policy instrument is something that baffles Indian officials, none of whom would speak on record.

In fact, Kerry's reputation as an apologist for Pakistan is vividly chronicled even in the opening title sequence of 'Homeland'. Whereas Hillary Clinton is shown with her famous "You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them to only bite your neighbours,'' admonition of Pakistan, Kerry is shown defending the country, saying "there are things that Pakistan has done, as complicated as this relationship is.''

In the days following his meeting with Raheel Sharif, it became evident that still there are things that Kerry and his ilk in Washington hope Pakistan will do, as complicated as this relationship is, in return for more life-giving aid, sustenance, and military hardware. Within days of Sharif's return to Pakistan, its military took out two prominent terrorists, including al-Qaida fugitive Adnan el-Shukrijumah and Umar Farooq. In return, the US ordered the release of Latif Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban's No. 2 from a military prison in Afghanistan. Intelligence circles suspect the attack in the Army Public School in Peshawar is linked to that.

As far as the Indian side is concerned, all this is part of a continuing Faustian bargain between US and Pakistan that will have no winners, only losers. The Pakistani DNA cannot be changed. In fact, most US analysts too held out bleak prospects of Pakistan revisiting its 'good terrorists, bad terrorists' policy.

Complicated relationship: John Kerry with Nawaz Sharif

One exception: CNN's Peter Bergen, who described the Peshawar attack as Pakistan's 9/11, recited the entire Pakistani military narrative of fighting terrorism, and wrote: "Today the Pakistani military understands that the Frankenstein that it helped to create must now be killed.''

Sony announces limited release for 'The Interview'

Dec 24, 2014

Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton said on Tuesday that Seth Rogen's North Korea farce ``will be in a number of theaters on Christmas Day.''

NEW YORK: Sony Pictures Entertainment announced on Tuesday a limited theatrical release of ``The Interview'' beginning on Thursday, putting back into the theaters the comedy that prompted an international incident with North Korea and outrage over its cancelled release. 

Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton said on Tuesday that Seth Rogen's North Korea farce ``will be in a number of theaters on Christmas Day.'' He said Sony also is continuing its efforts to release the film on more platforms and in more theaters. 

``While we hope this is only the first step of the film's release, we are proud to make it available to the public and to have stood up to those who attempted to suppress free speech,'' said Lynton. 

Moviegoers celebrated the abrupt change of fortune for a film that appeared doomed, as ``The Interview'' began popping up in the listings of a handful of independent theaters Tuesday, including the Alamo Drafthouse in Texas and Atlanta's Plaza Theater. 

``The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed! Sony didn't give up!'' said Rogen on Twitter. 

Rogen, who stars in the film he co-directed with Evan Goldberg, hadn't made any public comments throughout the surreal ordeal that began with hackers leaking Sony emails and culminated in a confrontation between the US and North Korea. 

North Korea suffered sweeping Internet outages in an apparent attack Monday that followed vows from President Barack Obama of a response to what he called North Korea's ``cyber vandalism'' of Sony. The White House and State Department declined to say whether the US government was responsible. 

After hackers last Wednesday threatened violence against theaters showing the film, the nation's largest theater chains dropped ``The Interview.'' Sony soon thereafter canceled the film's release altogether and removed mention of it from its websites. 

But that decision drew widespread criticism, including from Obama, who chastised Sony for what he deemed ``a mistake'' that went against American principles of free speech. 

Independent theaters had shown a stronger appetite to screen ``The Interview,'' after chains like Regal, AMC and Cinemark pulled the film. Art House Convergence, which represents independent exhibitors, sent a letter Monday to Sony saying its theaters (comprising about 250 screens) wished to show the film.

From a footnote to the forefront

A. R. VENKATACHALAPATHY

December 24, 2014

In fin-de-siècle Tamil Nadu, Iyodhee Thass Pandithar forged a radical identity for Dalits

The death centenary of C. Iyodhee Thass Pandithar (1845-1914) has passed practically unnoticed. But for a few Tamil magazines and some Dalit intellectuals, no one seems to have commemorated it. When I suggested his name to a scholar-administrator seeking nominations for a scheme of the Ministry of Culture, which celebrates the centenaries of leading Indian personalities, I had to write a follow-up mail outlining who he was.

Who was Iyodhee Thass Pandithar? To put it simply, he was an intellectual who anticipated Dr. B.R. Ambedkar by two generations. In fin-de-siècle Tamil Nadu, Iyodhee Thass forged a radical identity for Dalits. He argued that they were the original Buddhists who were stigmatised as ‘untouchables’ by Brahmins for resisting the caste system. At a time when Buddhism was in practical oblivion (and whatever little was known of it was mediated by Orientalist antiquarians), he reinterpreted Indian and Tamil history through Buddhism. His movement to revive Buddhism radicalised significant numbers of Adi Dravidars — “the original Dravidans” is how he described the Dalit — especially among the working classes in the Kolar Gold Fields.

For long Iyodhee Thass was little more than a footnote in the history of the Dravidian movement. People knew of him through tantalising references in the great Tamil writer and political personality, Thiru.Vi. Kalyanasundara Mudaliar’s classic autobiography. In the wake of Dr. Ambedkar’s birth centenary, the Dalit movement in Tamil Nadu, for long subsumed within the non-Brahmin movement, came into its own. In 1999, G. Aloysius, following his pioneering monograph on Iyodhee Thass’ movement (Religion as Emancipatory Identity: A Buddhist Movement among the Tamils Under Colonialism, 1998), published an edition of his copious writings from Tamilan, the weekly that Iyodhee Thass published from 1907 until his death. These volumes have been the major ideological arsenal for the Dalit intellectual movement in Tamil Nadu over the last decade and a half.No sense of history

India is notorious for not having a sense of history. The terrible shambles of most of our archival repositories stands testimony to our apathy. The mainstream disdain for lower caste histories makes this historical apathy lethal. Not surprisingly, our knowledge of Iyodhee Thass — “Not much is known of [Iyodhee Thass’] life,” observes G. Aloysius in a footnote — especially until the launch of Tamilan in the last years of his life, is particularly sketchy. Based on some documents in the colonial archive and a report in The Hindu, both dating to 1898, I present some new information on Iyodhee Thass and his movement.

In mid-1898, the Government of Madras noticed from occasional newspaper reports that certain persons of the outcastes were attempting to establish that they were once Buddhists. The issue was referred to the Commissioner of Police, who set the intelligence machine in motion. The police functionary, who made the enquiries, was on the mark when he noted that caste disabilities rather than purely religious motives were behind the claim to a Buddhist identity. Even though he remarked pejoratively that they were “posing as Buddhists,” he rightly noted their desire to be “free from all the intolerance of caste” and be “liberated from the position of degradation in which they now are.”

The investigator also had “a long conversation” with Iyodhee Thass himself (we do not know if Iyodhee Thass knew that he was speaking to a policeman), but the results provide interesting gleanings that amplify the little that we know about his life.

Debating the conversion conundrum

SHIV VISVANATHAN

December 24, 2014

In the furore over conversion, there is a need for dialogue where religion must debate belief within a constitutional framework. There must be an assumption that every citizen has two critical texts to follow — his own religious code and the Constitution. There must also be a shedding of ugly stereotypes

Sometimes as I watch TV, I feel a sense of despair. One sees public debates which are not truly public. In fact, one wonders whether they are even representatives. I am referring to the political battles on the television when each party sends a spokesman to pose an official line. What we have is a desiccated choreography of positions without the dance and dynamic of debates. At the end of the rituals, the audience realises that there has been little argument and less conversation. Each man recites his set piece and moves on glibly. I felt this way while watching the debates on conversion. The very word conversion is like a political signal generating animosity and anxiety around each little event. Recently, when the Bajrang Dal grandly announced that it was reconverting a few thousand Christians and Muslims, the nation’s intelligentsia went apoplectic seeing a threat to constitutional values. What was interesting to notice is that the word ‘conversion’ means different things to different people; that the dictionary definition does not quite capture the contextual emotions of the word — meanings one should open up the debate to by looking at the various nuances of the word.

Strands to conversion

Conversion is a ritual act where an individual or group affirms a faith different from the one previously held. The discussion is not so much on the ritual change but on the audience response to that change. One can discern six different strands here. There is first the conversion of lower caste Hindus to Islam or Christianity. The economics element was primary; in fact even among Christians, such groups were called Rice Christians. The Bajrang Dal event where Muslims and Christians reconverted to Hinduism is another variation. The Dal calls this act homecoming (Ghar Vapsi). It felt that this act was a return from exile and cultural displacement and considers it an act of historical rectification. The idea of historical rectification usually involves the corrections of texts, especially ideological debates. One saw in such acts, especially around the Stalinist era, that a major personality would be dissolved into a non-person.

The Bajrang Dal felt that by reconverting these individuals, it was restoring justice by reconstituting the original normalcy. The right wing announced that it would reconvert another 4,000 Christians and Muslims on Christmas day. The Dal and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) felt that this was a true vindication of history.

A third type of conversion takes place among Dalit movements. These groups reject caste and enter Hinduism and opt for new Buddhism. As Ambedkar writes, their opposition to the injustice of Hinduism is clear. Here, conversion is first a rejection of Hinduism, and second, an affirmation of a new social identity as a vehicle for social transformation.

A fragmented verdict

December 24, 2014

The fiercely fought election in Jammu and Kashmir has thrown up a fragmented verdict that is not going to easily yield a government, in one of the most difficult places to govern in India. The performance of the BJP, the People’s Democratic Party, the National Conference and the Congress shows that the contest was truly a four-cornered one, and was not just about a polarisation between two parties. But the outcome suggests a polarisation on religious lines, between Hindus of the Jammu region who voted overwhelmingly for the BJP and Muslims of the Kashmir valley, who split their approval among the PDP, the NC and the Congress. Contradictory interpretations can be attributed to the outcome that would make the process of government-formation difficult. 

First, it was an outright disapproval of the NC government led by outgoing Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Second, the popular approval of the BJP is the highest of all four contestants — it won 23 per cent of the votes polled. Third, the PDP, despite scoring lower than the BJP in terms of vote share, has won the highest number of seats, and has become eligible to be invited to form the government, going by precedents. Fourth, unless at least two parties come together a government in the State cannot be sustained, and not any two parties can now add up to a simple majority. For instance, the PDP and the Congress, the least hostile pair ideologically, do not have a combined strength of 44.

The situation, therefore, calls for an extraordinary level of wisdom, maturity and willingness on the part of all the four parties to place the national interest above partisan interests. If the BJP and the Central government that it leads are clear that it is not desirable to have Governor’s Rule in the sensitive State, several combinations are possible. The PDP has said it would explore the options without losing its credibility, to see whether it can form a government that can live up to the expectations of the people. The BJP has said all options — offering support to someone, taking support from someone and sitting in opposition — are open. The NC has admitted that it lost the mandate and would not be proactive in any government-formation efforts. 

The Congress has offered support to the PDP. Any combination that one can think of could be seen as going against the popular verdict or being opportunistic, or both. Therefore, the onus is on all four main parties, Sajjad Lone’s People’s Conference that has won two seats, and Independents, to work in tandem in the interests of the State, irrespective of where they are — in the government or in opposition — to meet the expectations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. For they voted in large numbers in the hope of better governance and fewer troubles in their lives.

Researchers read and write brain activity with light

MO COSTANDI

December 24, 2014

A team of neuroscientists at University College London has developed a new way of simultaneously recording and manipulating the activity of multiple cells in the brains of live animals using pulses of light.

The technique, described today in the journal Nature Methods, combines two existing state-of-the-art neurotechnologies. It may eventually allow researchers to do away with the cumbersome microelectrodes they traditionally used to probe neuronal activity, and to interrogate the brain’s workings at the cellular level in real time and with unprecedented detail.

One of them is optogenetics. This involves creating genetically engineered mice expressing algal proteins called Channelrhodopsins in specified groups of neurons. This renders the cells sensitive to light, allowing researchers to switch the cells on or off, depending on which Channelrhodopsin protein they express, and which wavelength of light is used. This can be done on a millisecond-by-millisecond timescale, using pulses of laser light delivered into the animals’ brains via an optical fibre.

The other is calcium imaging. Calcium signals are crucial for just about every aspect of neuronal function, and nerve cells exhibit a sudden increase in calcium ion concentration when they begin to fire off nervous impulses. Using dyes that gives off green fluorescence in response to increases in calcium concentration, combined with two-photon microscopy, researchers can detect this signature to see which cells are activated. In this way, they can effectively ‘read’ the activity of entire cell populations in brain tissue slices or live brains.

Calcium-sensitive dyes are injectable, so targeting them with precision is difficult, and more recently, researchers have developed genetically-encoded calcium sensors to overcome this limitation. Mice can be genetically engineered to express these calcium-sensitive proteins in specific groups of cells; like the dyes before them, they, too, fluoresce in response to increases in calcium ion concentrations in the cells expressing them.

Each of these methods is extremely powerful when used alone. Earlier this year, for example, researchers at MIT used optogenetics to label and then manipulate the neuronal populations encoding memories in the mouse brain, while a team at Janelia Farm used calcium imaging to visualise the firing of every single neuron in the embryonic zebrafish brain.

How the Spies Failed to Connect the Dots Before 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attack

James Glanz, Sebastian Rotella and David E. Sanger

December 22, 2014

In 2008 Mumbai Killings, Piles of Spy Data, but an Uncompleted Puzzle

In the fall of 2008, a 30-year-old computer expert named Zarrar Shah roamed from outposts in the northern mountains of Pakistan to safe houses near the Arabian Sea, plotting mayhem in Mumbai, India’s commercial gem.

Mr. Shah, the technology chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terror group, and fellow conspirators used Google Earth to show militants the routes to their targets in the city. He set up an Internet phone system to disguise his location by routing his calls through New Jersey. Shortly before an assault that would kill 166 people, including six Americans, Mr. Shah searched online for a Jewish hostel and two luxury hotels, all sites of the eventual carnage.

But he did not know that by September, the British were spying on many of his online activities, tracking his Internet searches and messages, according to former American and Indian officials and classified documents disclosed by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor.

They were not the only spies watching. Mr. Shah drew similar scrutiny from an Indian intelligence agency, according to a former official briefed on the operation. The United States was unaware of the two agencies’ efforts, American officials say, but had picked up signs of a plot through other electronic and human sources, and warned Indian security officials several times in the months before the attack.

From left: Zarrar Shah, Sajid Mir and the American David Coleman Headley. Mr. Shah was the technology chief of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba. CreditProPublica/Frontline, left and right; Department of Justice

What happened next may rank among the most devastating near-misses in the history of spycraft. The intelligence agencies of the three nations did not pull together all the strands gathered by their high-tech surveillance and other tools, which might have allowed them to disrupt a terror strike so scarring that it is often called India’s 9/11.

“No one put together the whole picture,” said Shivshankar Menon, who was India’s foreign minister at the time of the attacks and later became the national security adviser. “Not the Americans, not the Brits, not the Indians.” Mr. Menon, now retired, recalled that “only once the shooting started did everyone share” what they had, largely in meetings between British and Indian officials, and then “the picture instantly came into focus.”

Newly Discovered Chinese Malware System Targeted Visitors to Afghan Government Websites

December 22, 2014

U.S. firm finds malware targeting visitors to Afghan government websites

Malicious software likely linked to China was used to infect visitors to a wide range of official Afghan government websites, U.S. cybersecurity researchers say.

ThreatConnect, a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm, said its researchers last week found a corrupted JavaScript file that was used to host content on “gov.af” websites, and there are no known antivirus protections available for the malware.

Rich Barger, chief intelligence officer of ThreatConnect, told Reuters his company was confident the new campaign, “Operation Poisoned Helmand,” was linked to the “Poisoned Hurricane” campaign detected this summer by another security firm, FireEye, that linked it to Chinese intelligence.

He said the latest attack was very recent and one timestamp associated with the Java file was from Dec. 16, the same day Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang met with Afghanistan’s chief executive officer, Abdullah Abdullah in Kazakhstan.

China is seeking to take a more active role in Afghanistan as the United States and NATO reduce their military presence.

"We found continued activity from Chinese specific actors that have used the Afghan government infrastructure as an attack platform," Barger said, adding that Chinese intelligence could use the malware to gain access to computer users who had checked the Afghan government sites for information.

Barger said the attack was a variant of what he called a typical “watering-hole” attack in which the attackers infect a large number of victims, and then follow up with the most “promising” hits to extract data.

He said researchers this summer saw a malicious Java file on the website of the Greek embassy in Beijing while a high-level delegation led by Keqiang was visiting Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Athens.

The two events were not directly related, Barger said, and additional research was needed into the status of ministerial and official government websites on or around the dates of notable Chinese delegations and or bilateral meetings.

In this case, the malware was created on Dec. 13, just days before the high-level meeting, Barger said.

The malware was found on numerous Afghan government websites, including the ministries of justice, foreign affairs, education, commerce and industry, financeand women’s affairs, and the Afghan embassy in Canberra, Australia, according to ThreatConnect, which was formerly known as Cyber Squared.

By late Sunday, Barger said it appeared that the malicious Java file had either been inactivated by the attackers or “cleaned up” by the Afghan government.

AFTER PESHAWAR, EXPECT BUSINESS AS USUAL IN PAKISTAN

C. Christine Fair

December 22, 2014

http://warontherocks.com/2014/12/after-peshawar-expect-business-as-usual-in-pakistan/

Last week, the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP or “Pakistani Taliban”) outraged the world when it attacked anArmy Public School in Peshawar. The attackers sprayed bullets frenetically, killing 145 persons among whom 132 were children. Ostensibly, this slaughter was a retaliation for the Pakistan army’s ongoing security operations in North Waziristan against those elements of the Pakistani Taliban who could not be persuaded to leave Pakistan to either fight Americans and their allies in Afghanistan or kill Indians in and beyond Kashmir. Amidst the bloodshed, Pakistan and international observers alike hope that such a watershed event will jolt Pakistan out of its somnolence and take its terrorist problems seriously. However, as with most things in Pakistan, such optimists should brace for disappointment.

Being a Student is an Occupational Hazard

Pakistan is the most dangerous place to be a student. Between 2009 and 2012, there were more than 838 attacks on schools in Pakistan. Terrorists have destroyed hundreds of schools, murdered teachers and academics, and even recruited children from public schools and madrassahs (religious seminaries) for suicide attacks. But this attack was different. First, although the school had sections for male and female students studying in the fifth through twelfth grades, the terrorists focused their heinous efforts on the boys’ section.. Second, the death toll was unprecedented. Third, it was an army public school. The majority of the students were themselves the children of military personnel in the Peshawar area. Fourth, unlike generic attacks on schools intended to terrify by attacking prominent state institutions, the terrorists selected this school because they sought to target the sons of specific army officers. They had even prepared a hit listfor the gruesome task. In an emailed statement, the Pakistani Taliban claimed that “more than 50 sons of important army officers were killed after being identified.” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif described it as “the biggest human tragedy Pakistan may have ever seen.”

As the country mourned the loss of its children, Nawaz Sharif declared to the world that Pakistan would “continue the war against terrorism till the last terrorist is eliminated.” He assured global and domestic audiences alike that Pakistan would not differentiate between “good and bad Taliban.” In an effort to reassure his citizens that his government would deal with terrorists seriously, he even suspended the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism-related cases. The moratorium had been in place since 2008. The spokesperson for Pakistan’s powerful military, Major-General Bajwa, bellowed, “For the military, there’ll be no discrimination among Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Haqqani network or any other militant group.” Pakistan’s army chief travelled to Afghanistan where he met President Ashraf Ghani. Both vowed that the two countries would fight terrorism together. Some observers, such as Peter Bergen, echoed Pakistani talking points and opined that this atrocity “may prove as pivotal to Pakistan’s national security policy as the 9/11 attacks were for the United States.”

Despite the upbeat assessments of such Panglossians, it is nearly certain that no matter how heinous this attack was, it will not motivate Pakistan to abandon its long-held reliance upon a flotilla of Islamist militant groups who operate with impunity in Afghanistan and India. After all, Pakistan has used Islamist militants as tools of foreign policy since 1947. With the acquisition of an existential nuclear deterrent as early as 1980, Pakistan became ever more bolder in its reliance upon these proxies. As Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella expanded, it became increasingly confident that India would not retaliate, nor would the United States muster the requisite scrotal fortitude to deal appropriately with this twinned menace of nuclear weapons and terrorism.

Pakistan: Weaponisation of a nation

By Dr. Sanchita Bhattacharya

Dec 16, 2014 

http://southasiamonitor.org/detail.php?type=sl&nid=9919

With the escalating inclination towards terrorism and lawlessness in Pakistan, the number of illegal weapons has also crossed the 60 million mark in the country.

According to a December 2014 report, the data collected from various sources reveals that the number of prohibited and non-prohibited weapons is about 65 million in Pakistan. The report reveals upsetting details: of these weapons, only 5 million weapons have licences while over 60 million are being carried by people without licences.

A huge number of illegal weapons is present in the suburbs of Peshawar, provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and tribal areas. There are also factories making big and small weapons, including Mausers, pistols and Kalashnikovs. The sources say most of the weapons found in Pakistan are brought from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Peshawar and Afghanistan’s Kunar province via Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies. The illegal weapons are also smuggled to Punjab from Afghanistan’s Paktia province via North and South Waziristan.

The domestic situation in Pakistan is worsened due to easy availability of weapons and arms. An unknown quantity of weapons, likely in the thousands, diverted into the hands of Pakistani dealers eventually ended up in border arms bazaars, supplying militant sectarian groups, terrorists, drug cartels, criminals and those seeking protection from such groups. Although the Afghan situation exacerbated the problem, it is a known fact that ‘gun culture’ has long existed in the northern frontier and the adjacent tribal areas. Therefore, in addition to the enduring weapons from the Cold War, areas in KP have a long history of craft production of weapons. In addition, tribal disputes in the frontier province of Balochistan, and in Sindh and Punjab are perpetrated by the abundance of cheaply available firearms.

Directly, the most affected province by the growing availability of these weapons is Sindh, particularly state capital Karachi. Though the problems in Sindh have been more political than ideological, much division occurs along ethnic lines. Throughout the 1980s, the levels of violence in Karachi reached unprecedented and shocking levels prior to the Pakistan Army’s intervention in 1992. Although Sindh traces a streak of violence, it is agreed that dramatic increase in the violence and polarisation dates from 1985 to 1986, when weapons from the Afghan pipeline began to find their way into commercial channels.

According to the 1998 census, there were two million licensed and 18 million unlicensed weapons in the country. On the contrary, the present number is worrisome. The sources say that there are about 17 million legal and illegal weapons only in Karachi (Sindh), whereas their number is over four million in Lahore (Punjab). In Karachi, nearly 18,000 people fell victim to gun violence between 1992 and 1998.

Interestingly, in the month of November 2014 a report stated that Hyderabad in Sindh is the most weaponised city of the province. Karachi, however, is perceived to be the metropolis with heaviest weaponisation figure. According to S.M. Iqbal, spokesperson of the Sindh Home Department, the provincial government had so far issued some 10,57,456 arms licenses to people from across Sindh. Of most of the total licences issued, at least 3,76,401, were to the people of Hyderabad. Karachi, where politically-motivated violence is the order of the day, comes next with its residents having got at least 2,54,255 of their weapons licensed apparently for 'self-defence'.

Congress Gives Pakistan 300 Million New Reasons to Fight Terror

BY GOPAL RATNAM

DECEMBER 22, 2014 

Source Link

Islamabad swears it's committed to the anti-terrorism fight, but U.S. lawmakers want to see more proof before they sign over $300 million in new aid. 

Gopal Ratnam is a senior staff writer at Foreign Policy, covering the White House, the Pentagon and broader nationalsecurity issues. A native of India,Gopal has covered topics ranging from child-labor law violations and the automotive industry to the international arms trade, the politics of weapons purchases, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has reported from dozens of countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently he was the Pentagon reporter for Bloomberg News. 

Washington has given Islamabad $11 billion over the past 11 years to reimburse Pakistan for its on-again, off-again efforts to combat militants operating along its porous border with Afghanistan. But with violence spiking in both countries, Congress has tightened a measure requiring the Pentagon to certify that Pakistan is a true ally in the anti-terrorism fight before it gives the country $300 million in fresh payments this fiscal year.

The new certification requirement included in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act is the latest attempt by Congress to ensure that Pakistan abides by its promises to stop harboring terrorist groups that have been implicated in cross-border attacks on U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. It shows lawmakers’ unease in fully trusting Pakistan’s claims that it’s battling all terrorist groups.

Of the $1 billion available as reimbursement to Pakistan under the coalition support funds — used since September 2011 to pay partners for aiding American counterterrorism efforts — Congress has specified that a third of the money will be payable only if the Pentagon certifies that Islamabad’s military operations in North Waziristan make the region inhospitable for the Haqqani network. Congressional aides say that they want to hold back the roughly $300 million to ensure that North Waziristan doesn’t go back to being a stronghold for the group once Pakistan completes its current military operations.

“It’s a subtle but important shift in language that previously required them to disrupt safe havens and prevent freedom of movement for the group,” one congressional aide familiar with the latest requirement said. “The emphasis is on the outcome of Pakistan’s ongoing military operation in the [region] and is basically asking Pakistan to stick to what it has promised to do.”

The move comes as Pakistan ramps up its military campaign against the Taliban and other militants in the wake of the massacre of 148 people — including 132 children — at a military-run school in Peshawar. In recent days, Pakistan has escalated its assault on known terrorist strongholds, claiming to have killed 77 militants, and has ended a six-year moratorium on the death penalty with plans to execute as many as 500 imprisoned militants.

The tussle stems from legislation Congress passed in 2008 that has required the Pentagon and the State Department to certify that Pakistan has been keeping its commitments to the anti-terrorism fight before giving Islamabad new aid. The provisions haven’t had as much impact as many lawmakers had hoped because Barack Obama’s administration has either sought and received waivers on national security grounds or has provided certifications even though later events — such as the discovery that Osama bin Laden was hiding in a Pakistani military garrison town — showed those assurances to have been unfounded.

The Growth of Islamism in the Pakistan Army

by Jason Roach

Islamization of the Pakistan Army is of significant concern to the National Security of the United States. Success in the United States’ campaign against global terrorism rests in large part with the fate of Pakistan. Many actors are at work within its borders to turn that nation and its army decisively against the United States and its interests in the region. Understanding these forces will allow American decision and policy makers to identify risks to the status quo and help mitigate threatening outcomes of Pakistan’s internal struggles. This essay first defines the history of those risks and the significance behind them.

Islamization of the Pakistan Army has been occurring in some form since its birth in 1947. The nation was founded on the unity of a common religion. This religious identity was ingrained in the Army as a way of distinguishing itself from its Hindu counterpart. Officials accomplished this in superficial ways initially.[1]

In its early years, the Pakistan Army was very proud of its ability separate religion from the conduct of its internal business. Initially, the Pakistan Army’s actions were characteristic of a capable conventional military force, focused on preservation of the nation. The promotion of officers was based solely on their leadership ability and understanding of the art of war.

Military organization and structure was left unaffected through the first 30 years of its existence, despite the Army’s reliance on Islamists and Militant Islam to affect both foreign and domestic issues. Since then the institution has gone through change, at times significant change, which began to alter the way the Army operated. More important, this change has affected the mindset of the officers and soldiers of the organization.

Shortly following the creation of the state, the Pakistan Army realized that they were the disadvantaged force when engaging in direct conventional conflict with the massive Indian Army.[2] Starting with the First Indo-Pakistan War in 1947, the Pakistan Army used Militant Islamists as a weapon against the Indian military. The Army used Islamist rhetoric to mobilize Pashtun tribesmen from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and urged clerics to issue fatwas ordering their clans into Kashmir.[3] This was the beginning of the perpetual patron-client relationship between the Pakistan Army and Militant Islamists. 

The Army, much through its own devices, was the only stable and reliable official body within Pakistan. This sense of acting as the nation’s saving grace conditioned the officer corps to preserve that status. General Ayub Khan, the first native Army Chief of Staff and eventual military head of state after a coup in 1958, used Islamic rhetoric freely. He used it to undermine the two prominent parties in East and West Pakistan, the Awani League and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), who he saw as a threat to the domestic authority of the Army.[4] During The Second Indo-Pakistan War in 1965, the military used Islam-charged language to solidify the nation behind the liberation effort of Kashmir.[5]

General Yahya Khan, Ayub Khan’s successor, maintained the policy of using Islam as a means to affect internal issues in favor of consolidating national power under the Army. Aside from continuing secretly to support Islamist movements against the populist parties, Gen. Yahya Khan unleashed Deobandi mujahedeen against his own citizens in East Pakistan.[6] He and his generals cited the conflict as a jihad against liberal forces whose aim it was to divide the country. The result of Pakistan’s slaughter of its own people was Indian interference on behalf of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.[7]

Newly Discovered Chinese Malware System Targeted Visitors to Afghan Government Websites

December 22, 2014

U.S. firm finds malware targeting visitors to Afghan government websites

Malicious software likely linked to China was used to infect visitors to a wide range of official Afghan government websites, U.S. cybersecurity researchers say.

ThreatConnect, a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm, said its researchers last week found a corrupted JavaScript file that was used to host content on “gov.af” websites, and there are no known antivirus protections available for the malware.

Rich Barger, chief intelligence officer of ThreatConnect, told Reuters his company was confident the new campaign, “Operation Poisoned Helmand,” was linked to the “Poisoned Hurricane” campaign detected this summer by another security firm, FireEye, that linked it to Chinese intelligence.

He said the latest attack was very recent and one timestamp associated with the Java file was from Dec. 16, the same day Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang met with Afghanistan’s chief executive officer, Abdullah Abdullah in Kazakhstan.

China is seeking to take a more active role in Afghanistan as the United States and NATO reduce their military presence.

"We found continued activity from Chinese specific actors that have used the Afghan government infrastructure as an attack platform," Barger said, adding that Chinese intelligence could use the malware to gain access to computer users who had checked the Afghan government sites for information.

Barger said the attack was a variant of what he called a typical “watering-hole” attack in which the attackers infect a large number of victims, and then follow up with the most “promising” hits to extract data.

He said researchers this summer saw a malicious Java file on the website of the Greek embassy in Beijing while a high-level delegation led by Keqiang was visiting Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Athens.

The two events were not directly related, Barger said, and additional research was needed into the status of ministerial and official government websites on or around the dates of notable Chinese delegations and or bilateral meetings.

In this case, the malware was created on Dec. 13, just days before the high-level meeting, Barger said.

The malware was found on numerous Afghan government websites, including the ministries of justice, foreign affairs, education, commerce and industry, financeand women’s affairs, and the Afghan embassy in Canberra, Australia, according to ThreatConnect, which was formerly known as Cyber Squared.

By late Sunday, Barger said it appeared that the malicious Java file had either been inactivated by the attackers or “cleaned up” by the Afghan government.

China to 'Regulate' Foreign NGOs

By Ankit Panda

December 23, 2014

China may pass a national law stifling the operations of foreign NGOs in the country. 

On Monday, China announced that it would move to “regulate” foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to keep political checks on these organizations and to prevent them from fomenting political unrest. NGO regulation is part of a new law being discussed this week, according to reports in Chinese state media. Reuters reports that the new law will primarily step up supervision of the “fast-growing” NGO sector in China. The law is under debate following a months-long investigation into foreign NGO operations in China as part of a national security initiative. Chinese President Xi Jinping himself headed the national panel under which the NGO investigation was conducted.

China’s move to regulate NGOs is occurring at both national and local levels. For example, Guangzhou recently passed a law requiring NGOs and other civic groups to register with the city government. The city government cited concerns over “illegal” social organizations. Critics of the law noted that it would almost certainly result in a large decrease in civil society activism in and around the city. Guangzhou’s decision to implement the law went against the Hu Jintao-era reform of semi-liberal Guangdong party secretary Wang Yang, who actually relaxed NGO registration laws. Wang, who is best known for defusing the crisis in Wukan some years ago, is now a vice premier in the Xi Jinping government.

On the current debate over the national law, Xinhua, citing Deputy Public Security Minister Yang Huanning, notes that ”the bill aims to regulate the activities of overseas NGOs in China, protect their legal rights and interests, and promote exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and foreigners.” Additionally, under the law, all levels of government bureaucracy in China will be required to ”provide policy consultation, assistance and guidance for overseas NGOs so that they can effectively and legally operate in the mainland.” ”It is necessary to have a law to regulate, guide and supervise their activities,” Yang added. There is no confirmation of when this law might come into effect, but it could be as soon as early 2015.

Sony’s Yuletide Doldrums Could Lead to Comeback

By Shihoko Goto

December 22, 2014

Heeding some advice from an unlikely source could help the Japanese company salvage its reputation. 

Could pulling the plug on what seems to be a fairly mediocre film be a blessing in disguise for Sony?

For investors already wary about the electronic giant’s future, Sony Pictures’ decision to postpone the release of its latest comedy about an assassination attempt on the pariah state’s leader may simply be its final death knell. But if it plays its cards carefully, Sony may actually be able to win public sympathy and even trust from its decision to hold off releasing the movie about an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un amid worries about safety concerns for theatergoers.

A bevy of A-list names from Rob Lowe to Aaron Sorkin have been quick to weigh in how Sony’s decision to cancel showing the film, and how the decision not to show The Interview, which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco, is in effect a capitulation by the West to the diktats of the North Korean regime.

But perhaps the most practical and game-changing response has come from none other than former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. In a tweet to Sony Pictures, he advised that the company make the movie available “free online globally. Ask viewers for voluntary $5 contribution to fight #Ebola.” In fact, that could possibly be a very clever way for Sony not only to justify some of the $42 million it has sunk into the project, but also to reverse its tarnished image.

For 2014 has no doubt been an annus horribilis for the Japanese electronics manufacturer, whose fate seemingly has echoed the country’s economic woes.

At the beginning of the year, Sony’s debt rating was downgraded to junk status by credit rating agency Moody’s, amid worries that its earnings would remain “weak and volatile,” and profits would continue to tumble. Soon thereafter, the company announced that it would retreat from the PC business and stop producing its Vaio line of laptops and computers. The company that once rocked the world by redefining youth culture with the Walkman and then charmed it with its Aibo robot dog no longer had any mega-hits that could compete with either Apple or Samsung.

One exception to the string of disappointments had been Sony’s foray into Hollywood.

Beware of Chinese Hegemony

Rebecca Liao

December 19, 2014 

Amidst misguided campaigns to make the world safe for Western liberal democracy, the global community has forgotten that authoritarian countries, too, are guilty of hegemony. Soon after Russia’s October Revolution, the Comintern billed itself as the savior of post-colonial societies looking to emerge into modernity from the yoke of Western exploitation. The price for such delivery? Adopting a Soviet system of government.

China is in danger of reviving that tradition of exporting its take on authoritarianism. Granted, its methods are much more subtle. In place of the Soviet demand for twinning, China requires loyalty in matters of foreign affairs, which often means foregoing true democracy. The country has (sincerely) insisted that, unlike the West, it is opposed to interference in the internal affairs of others. However, a bet that China will succeed in bringing about true multilateralism where the Pax-America order has failed will prove to be a fantasy.

Last month was the culmination of China’s yearlong announcement that it will take up its own mantle of global governance. Since the lead-up to the APEC summit, Beijing has rolled out a veritable alphabet soup of multilateral organizations to challenge the much-maligned preeminence of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.

China’s most credible claim to leadership is in the area of infrastructure development. Not surprisingly, the most developed of its multilateral initiatives is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Twenty-one countries have subscribed to the $50 billion bank to make a dent in Asia’s $3 trillion infrastructure funding need. Significantly, South Korea and Australia did not join due to American and European diplomatic pressure. The Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, China’s bid to transform Asia into the EU lite, met with even more intense resistance. Still, the APEC nations have agreed to explore the idea.

Nor Beijing is neglecting alliance-building outside of Asia. The New Development Bank (more commonly known as the BRICS bank) was established earlier this year and is the most mature of China’s multilateral engagements outside the region. Beijing is also actively building silk roads to Central Asia, East Africa, the Middle East and Europe to facilitate trade and investment. Even the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an anti-terror security body comprised of Central Asia and China, is looking to expand and strengthen economic ties between its members.

Captured Iraqi Terrorists Forced to Make Reality TV Show

December 22, 2014

BAGHDAD (AP) — Haider Ali Motar was convicted of terrorism charges about a month ago for helping to carry out a string of Baghdad car bombings on behalf of the Islamic State extremist group. Now, the 21-year old is a reluctant cast member in a popular reality TV show.

"In the Grip of the Law," brings convicted terrorists face-to-face with victims in surreal encounters and celebrates the country’s beleaguered security forces. The show, produced by state-run Iraqiyya TV, is among dozens of programs, cartoons and musical public service announcements aimed at shoring up support for the troops after their humiliating defeat last summer at the hands of the Islamic State group, which now controls about a third of the country.

On a chilly, overcast day last week, the crew arrived at the scene of one of the attacks for which Motar was convicted, with a heavily armed escort in eight military pick-up trucks and Humvees. Passing cars clogged the road to watch the drama unfold, but were quickly shooed away by soldiers.

After being pulled from an armored vehicle, a shackled Motar found himself face-to-face with the seething relatives of the victims of the attack. “Give him to me — I’ll tear him to pieces,” one of the relatives roared from behind a barbed wire barrier.

A cameraman pinned a microphone on Motar’s bright yellow prison jumpsuit as he stood alongside a busy Baghdad highway looking bewildered by his surroundings.

"Say something," the cameraman said to him.

"What am I supposed to say?" a visibly panicked Motar asked.

"It’s a mic check! Just count: 1,2,3,4…"

Once the cameras were rolling, the show’s host Ahmed Hassan quizzed the still-shackled prisoner. When Motar was confronted by one of the victims, a young man in a wheelchair who lost his father in one of the attacks, the convict began weeping, as the cameras rolled.

Iraq has seen near-daily car bombs and other attacks for more than a decade, both before and after the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops at the end of 2011. But the central message of the show, the filming of which began last year, is that the security forces will bring perpetrators to justice.

"We wanted to produce a program that offers clear and conclusive evidence, with the complete story, presented and shown to Iraqi audiences," Hassan told The Associated Press. "Through surveillance videos, we show how the accused parked the car, how he blew it up, how he carries out an assassination."

The episodes often detail the trail of evidence that led security forces to make the arrest. Police allow the camera crew to film the evidence — explosive belts, bomb-making equipment or fingerprints and other DNA samples.

"We show our audiences the pictures, along with hard evidence, to leave no doubts that this person is a criminal and paying for his crimes," Hassan said.

ISIS Has Reportedly Executed 100 of Its Foreign Fighters Who Were Trying to Desert

Agence France-Presse

December 22, 2014

IS has executed 100 foreigners trying to quit: report

 

The Islamic State extremist group has executed 100 of its own foreign fighters who tried to flee their headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Financial Times newspaper said Saturday.

An activist opposed to both IS and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is well-known to the British business broadsheet, said he had “verified 100 executions” of foreign IS fighters trying to leave the jihadist group’s de facto capital.

IS fighters in Raqqa said the group has created a military police to clamp down on foreign fighters who do not report for duty. Dozens of homes have been raided and many jihadists have been arrested, the FT reported.

Some jihadists have become disillusioned with the realities of fighting in Syria, reports have said.

According to the British press in October, five Britons, three French, two Germans and two Belgians wanted to return home after complaining that they ended up fighting against other rebel groups rather than Assad’s regime. They were being held prisoner by IS.

In total, between 30 and 50 Britons want to return but fear they face jail, according to researchers at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, which had been contacted by one of the jihadists speaking on their behalf.

Since a US-led coalition began a campaign of air strikes against IS in August, the extremist group has lost ground to local forces and seen the number of its fighters killed rise significantly.

There have been a string of apparent setbacks for IS in recent weeks.

Iraqi Kurds claimed Thursday to have broken a siege on a mountain where Yazidi civilians and fighters have long been trapped.

The Kurdish advances came during a two-day blitz in the Sinjar region involving 8,000 peshmerga fighters and some of the heaviest air strikes since a US-led coalition started an air campaign four months ago.

Meanwhile Thursday, the Pentagon said several IS leaders had been killed in US air strikes.

Angela Merkel has faced down the Russian bear in the battle for Europe

Timothy Garton Ash

22 December 2014 

In dealing with Putin, the German chancellor has united Europe. She is the stateswoman of the year 

Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin. 'Both were in east Germany in 1989 – he as a KGB officer, she as a young scientist – and the lessons they drew were diametrically opposed.' Photograph: Kay Nietfeld/Corbis

In 2014, the battle for Europe’s future has been fought between two leaders: Russian president Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel. The contrast between them could not be sharper. There the Russian man: macho, militarist, practitioner of the Soviet-style big lie (Russian soldiers in Crimea? What soldiers?), a resentful post-imperial nationalist who in a recent press conference compared Russia to an embattled bear. Here the German woman: gradualist, quietly plain-speaking, consensus-building, strongest on economic power, patiently steering a slow-moving, sovereignty-sharing, multinational European tortoise. 19th-century methods confront 21st-century ones; Mars, the god of war, against Mercury, the god of trade; guns versus butter. For the first half of 2014, the bear was making the running, but now, with the Russian economy close to meltdown, it seems the tortoise may be winning after all.

Merkel has long been recognised as Europe’s leading politician, but this year, during the crisis over Ukraine, she became its leading stateswoman. I remain critical of her handling of the eurozone crisis, but I have only admiration for how she has addressed the return of war to European soil on the hundredth anniversary of 1914.

At the beginning of this year, German president Joachim Gauck, an east German Protestant, took up the appeal that other Europeans had already made for Germany to assume more leadership responsibility in Europe. In the course of the year, Merkel, an east German Protestant, has answered that appeal. The eastern half of Europe is her world. She has it in her bones. She understands it.

One of the early influences on her was a teacher of Russian. As a schoolgirl, she won East Germany’s Russian-language Olympiad. On her office wall, she has a portrait of Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst, the Pomeranian princess who became Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. She can speak to Putin in Russian, as he can to her in German.

Both were in east Germany in 1989 – he as a KGB officer, she as a young scientist – and the lessons they drew were diametrically opposed. In domestic politics she can appear the perfect tactician, tacking this way and that, ruthless as Catherine the Great in seeing off challenges to her power. But in this European crisis, two profound, personal commitments of a Protestant east German of her generation have come to the fore: to peace and to freedom.