Feb 11

Today’s News 11th February 2019

  • Sweden Extends Border Controls, Citing "Continued Threat To Public Order"

    A few short months after Sweden was harshly criticized over its border controls in a Schengen report released in September, the country announced this week that it will extend border control measures for an additional three months.

    “The decision is based on the government’s assessment that there is a threat to public order and internal security in Sweden,” a government press release stated. 

    In autumn 2015, Sweden introduced border checks on car and train traffic at the Öresund Bridge, as well as at ports in Varberg, Gothenburg, Malmö, Helsingborg and Trelleborg. The measures were in response to the large influx of migrants into the country. 

    And, as The Local reports, last summer, the checks were expanded to 12 new spots, including some of Sweden’s largest airports, after criticism that border controls were poorly manned and that those carrying out the checks lacked the necessary knowledge.

    Now, an additional 100 border officers will be added to the existing team of 400 by the end of the year. Stockholm border police will also aim to increase the number of border checks and improve equipment and training for staff. Border officers working at Arlanda Airport will also now be able to call on the entire Stockholm police region’s resources when needed.

    In announcing the extension of border controls on Thursday, Interior Minister Mikael Damberg indicated that the Swedish measures would not be necessary if there was a united European approach to border security. 

    “Sweden is one of a handful of countries that continue to have internal border controls due to lack of border controls at the Schengen’s external borders,” he said. 

    Just be careful if you start discussing this increased border security – which some might call racist – since, as we detailed previously, the see-something-say-something mantra is alive and well in Sweden… Head of online hate speech monitoring group “Näthatsgranskaren” Tomas Åberg receives tax funds for mass reporting pensioners and others who write critically about migration on Facebook.

    And now he claims that his reports to the police have resulted in almost 150 hate speech convictions.

    “1,218 police reports 2017-2018. 144 hate speech sentences, from 214 notifications. Many are waiting for prosecution!”, writes “Näthatsgranskaren” (The Online Hate Speech Monitor) on Twitter.

  • "Get Over It!" Pepe Escobar Warns The 21st Century Will Be Asian

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    The greatest merit of Parag Khanna’s new book, The Future is Asian, is to accessibly tell the story of a historical inevitability – with the extra bonus of an Asian point of view. This is not only a very good public service, it also blows out of the water countless tomes by Western “experts” pontificating about Asia from an air-con cubicle in Washington.

    Asia hands from the West tend to be extremely protective of their extra-territoriality. In my case, I moved to Asia in 1994, and Singapore was my first base. In time I found out – along with some of my colleagues at Asia Times – nothing would ever compare to following the ever-developing, larger than life Asian miracle on the spot.

    Khanna has always been in the thick of the action. Born in India, he then moved to the UAE, the West, and is now a resident in Singapore. Years ago we spent a jolly good time in New York swapping Asia on-the-road stories; he’s a cool conversationalist. His Connectography is a must read.

    Khanna found a very special niche to “sell” Asia to the Western establishment as a strategic adviser – and is very careful not to ruffle feathers. Barack Obama, for instance, is only guilty of “half-heartedness”. When you get praise from Graham Allison, who passes for a Thucydides authority in the US but would have major trouble understanding Italian master Luciano Canfora’s Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L’Esilio, you know that Khanna has done his homework.

    Of course, there are a few problems. It’s a bit problematic to coin Singapore “the unofficial capital of Asia”. There’s no better place to strategically follow China than Hong Kong. And as a melting pot, Bangkok, now truly cosmopolitan, is way more dynamic, creative and, let’s face it, funkier.

    In 1997 I published a book in Brazil titled 21st: The Asian Century, based on three years of non-stop on-the-road reporting. It came out only a few days before the Hong Kong handover and the collapse of the baht that sparked the Asian financial crisis – so the book’s argument might have been seen as passé. Not really; once the crisis was over, the development push by the Asian tigers was overtaken by China. And 10 years later, slightly before the Western-made global financial crisis, the road to the Asian Century was more than self-evident.

    Khanna hits all the right tones and multiple overtones stating the case that the Asian century “will…” begin when Asia crystallizes into a whole greater than “the sum of its many parts”. It’s already happening, and it’s a wise choice to set the point of no return towards an Asia-led new world order at the first Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) summit in May 2017 in Beijing.

    Yet throughout the book Khanna feels the need to take immense pain showing frightened Anglo-American readers that China won’t lead the Asian future; there will be no “Chinese tianxia, or harmonious global system guided by Chinese Confucian principles”.

    And that offers room for references to the push by the US and its allies to “deter China”, or the push by “Japan, India, Australia and Vietnam” to “counter China aggression”. Not to mention credit to the pathetic notion of “clash of civilizations”. But, on a whole, Khanna nails it.

    “By joining BRI, other Asian countries have tacitly recognized China as a global power – but the bar for hegemony is very high.”

    No East and West

    Within the scope of an article, and not a book, it’s possible to show that this epic story is not about hegemony, but connectivity.

    First of all, there’s no East and West; as Edward Said has shown, this is essentially inherited from Eurocentrism and colonialism, starting way back when the Ancient Greeks situated the western borders of Asia in the eastern Mediterranean.

    Asia, the term, comes from the ancient Assyrian assu – which means rising sun. A clear distinction between East and West was stamped by the end of the 3rd century, at the time of Diocletian, when the Roman empire was cut in half following a meridian from Dalmatia to Cyrenaica, a partition confirmed at the death of Theodosius 1 in 395 AD.

    The East then organized itself around Constantinople while the West was divided and regarded as Europe, a distinct unity under Charlemagne (800 AD). What’s interesting is that in contrast with China – self-defined as the center of the world – neither the Roman Empire nor Islam saw themselves as such, admitting the existence of other quite populated worlds: China and India.

    The notion of a “continent” only came up in the 16th century, based on the tri-partition Europe-Asia-Africa made by the Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean, adopted by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and ratified by the “discovery” of the New World: the Americas. So once again, “continent” is a Western invention.

    Eurasia is essentially a giant, elliptical, unified space. Crack geographers tend to see it to the north – from Central Asia up to the northwest of India – as the realm of caravan routes, Silk Roads, cosmopolitan oases, steppes and deserts crisscrossed by nomads.

    To the south, it’s a sort of monsoon “shawl” draped over a unique ocean; maritime routes through straits; and cosmopolitan ports and warehouses.

    Southeast Asia enjoys a unique status, squeezed in a historical and cultural pincer movement between two major forces, constituted in an independent manner from one another as two major civilizations; India to the west and China to the northeast.

    The inner logic of all this immense space is mutation, trade exchanges, and migrations. So Eurasia is essentially unified as two major “on the move” spaces; continental and steppe (on horseback), plus maritime (via navigation). Historically, between these two corridors, we find the creative hubs of civilizations and more durable empires: China, the Indian world, Persia/Iran, the Arab world, the Byzantine-Ottoman empire.

    Hard node of history

    In one of his exceptional books, French geographer Christian Grataloup conclusively shows how Eurasia is a geo-historic entity – exhibiting a “system of inter-relations from one end to another”. Yes, it’s all about connectivity, as the Chinese are stressing with the New Silk Roads or BRI.

    Already by the 15th century, every society in Eurasia exhibited the same presence of cities, writing, monetary exchange. So it’s possible to conceive a common history, from the Mediterranean to Japan, for over two millennia. Grataloup’s intuition is breathtaking. “This is the hard node of world history”.

    Historically, it’s all about the confluence of eastern routes in the north, the Silk Roads at the center, and southern routes, mostly the Spice Route. In the central segment of the major axis, decisive innovations occurred; the first villages, the first forms of agriculture, writing, the birth of the State. As the great Mongol caravan empire, built around the Silk Roads in the 13th century, fractured, while societies in the extremities of Eurasia developed maritime power.

    Khanna offers myriad details on the key fact; that the Eurasian space is finally being rearranged, rebuilt via economic development, along transversal axes configured as economic corridors; the result of a modernization process that started in Japan in the second half of the 19th century to expand to all of East and Southeast Asia, then China, and finally India. The genius of the BRI project is to make it happen.

    The Chinese ambition to be the economic leader of the Eurasia ensemble – by land and by sea – is a unique development in the region’s history, combining the continental approach of the Mongol empire of the steppes, or the Russia empire, with the maritime approach of the West, especially via the British Empire.

    But contrary to Western imperialism, it’s all based on economy and culture. So, China will have a lot of work mastering the art of soft power. Time though is on the BRI side; the horizon is 2049 – not profits in the next quarter. Maritime routes in the north like the Arctic Silk Road, and via the South China Sea and Indian Ocean to the south, will envelop Eurasia, which will articulate itself in the center over high-speed rail and highway corridors of the New Silk Roads and the upgraded Trans-Siberian links.

    They call it Euro-Asia in Beijing, and they call it Greater Eurasia in Moscow. The whole process is historically inexorable, already forging the future – call it Asian or Eurasian.

  • Arizona Wants To Declare Porn A Public Health Crisis 

    A Republican state lawmaker in Arizona is disturbed about the proliferation of erotic images and videos online and their “toxic” effect on human behavior, has introduced a bill that would declare pornography a public health crisis.

    The bill, first introduced by state Rep. Michelle Udall, R, passed through the Arizona House Committee of Health & Human Services on Thursday, the first major obstacle in its path to a possible full vote, AZ Central reported.

    The bill has no legal ramifications but states that porn “perpetuates a sexually toxic environment that damages all areas of our society.”

    “Like the tobacco industry, the pornography industry has created a public health crisis,” Udall told lawmakers last week. “Pornography is used pervasively, even by minors.”

    Udall’s bill states the minors exposed to pornographic websites can develop “low self-esteem, eating disorders and an increase in problematic sexual activity at ever-younger ages.”

    The bill indicates that scientific research has shown pornography to be biologically addictive.

    “Potential detrimental effects on pornography users include toxic sexual behaviors, emotional, mental and medical illnesses and difficulty forming or maintaining intimate relationships,” the measure states.

    The bill also says excessive porn watching can alter human behavior, which may lead to extreme or violent sexual acts.

    It “normalizes violence and the abuse of women and children by treating them as objects, increasing the demand for sex trafficking, prostitution and child porn,” the bill reads.

    Udall’s opponents agree that too much porn is bad for humans; however, they point out the bill misses the underlying problem.

    “If we really want to look at this, we should start with education. It’s embarrassing that we are one of the states that does not have medically accurate sex education. In testimony, they were trying to blame everything on pornography. That is a stretch,” said Democrat Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley, who is sponsoring a different bill, HB2577, that focuses on medically accurate sex education.

    “I don’t disagree that the bill needs more teeth,” said Rep. Jay Lawrence, R-Scottsdale, who voted for the bill, according to the Arizona Republic. “That is our goal.”

    The bill is being prepared for a vote in the GOP-majority Arizona House of Representatives. Similar bills are being introduced in eleven states declaring porn a public health crisis.

  • Harsh Turkish Condemnation Of Xinjiang Cracks Muslim Wall Of Silence

    Authored by James M. Dorsey via Mid East Soccer blog,

    In perhaps the most significant condemnation to date of China’s brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its north-western province of Xinjiang, Turkey’s foreign ministry demanded this weekend that Chinese authorities respect human rights of the Uighurs and close what it termed “concentration camps” in which up to one million people are believed to be imprisoned.

    Calling the crackdown an “embarrassment to humanity,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said the death of detained Uighur poet and musician Abdurehim Heyit had prompted the ministry to issue its statement.

    Known as the Rooster of Xinjiang, Mr. Heyit symbolized the Uighurs’ cultural links to the Turkic world, according to Adrian Zenz, a European School of Culture and Theology researcher who has done pioneering work on the crackdown.

    Turkish media asserted that Mr. Heyit, who was serving an eight-year prison sentence, had been tortured to death. 

    Mr. Aksoy said Turkey was calling on other countries and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to take steps to end the “humanitarian tragedy” in Xinjiang.

    The Chinese embassy in Ankara rejected the statement as a “violation of the facts,” insisting that China was fighting seperatism, extremism and terrorism, not seeking to “eliminate” the Uighurs’ ethnic, religious or cultural identity.

    Mr. Aksoy’s statement contrastèd starkly with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s declaration six months earlier that China was Turkey’s economic partner of the future. At the time, Turkey had just secured a US$3.6 billion loan for its energy and telecommunications sector from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).

    The Turkish statement constitutes the first major crack in the Muslim wall of silence that has enabled the Chinese crackdown, the most frontal assault on Islam in recent memory. The statement’s significance goes beyond developments in Xinjiang.

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    Like with Muslim condemnation of US President Donald J. Trump’s decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Turkey appears to be wanting to be seen as a spokesman of the Muslim world in its one-upmanship with Saudi Arabia and to a lesser degree Iran.

    While neither the kingdom or Iran are likely to follow Turkey’s example any time soon, the statement raises the stakes and puts other contenders for leadership on the defensive.

    The bulk of the Muslim world has remained conspicuously silent with only Malaysian leaders willing to speak out and set an example by last year rejecting Chinese demands that a group of Uighur asylum seekers be extradited to China. Malaysia instead allowed the group to go to Turkey.

    The Turkish statement came days after four Islamist members of the Kuwaiti parliament organized the Arab world’s first public protest against the crackdown.

    By contrast, Pakistani officials backed off initial criticism and protests in countries like Bangladesh and India have been at best sporadic.

    Like the Turkish statement, a disagreement between major Indonesian religious leaders and the government on how to respond to the crackdown raises questions about sustainability of the wall of silence.

    Rejecting a call on the government to condemn the crackdown by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top clerical body, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla insisted that the government would not interfere in the internal affairs of others.

    The council was one of the first, if not the first, major Muslim religious body to speak out on the issues of the Uighurs. Its non-active chairman and spiriitual leader of Nahdlaltul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization, Ma’ruf Amin, is running as President Joko Widodo’s vice-presidential candidate in elections in April.

    The Turkish statement could have its most immediate impact in Central Asia, which like Turkey has close ethnic and cultural ties to Xinjiang, and is struggling to balance relations with China with the need to be seen to be standing up for the rights of its citizens and ethnic kin.

    In Kazakhstan, Turkey’s newly found assertiveness towards China could make it more difficult for the government to return to China Sayragul Sautbay, a Chinese national of ethnic Kazakh descent and a former re-education camp employee who fled illegally to Kazakhstan to join her husband and child.

    Ms. Sautbay, who stood trial in Kazakhstan last year for illegal entry, is the only camp instructor to have worked in a reeducation camp in Xinjiang teaching inmates Mandarin and Communist Party propaganda and spoken publicly about it.

    She has twice been refused asylum in Kazakhstan and is appealing the decision. China is believed to be demanding that she be handed back to the Xinjiang authorities.

    Similarly, Turkey’s statement could impact the fate of Qalymbek Shahman, a Chinese businessman of Kazakh descent, who is being held at the airport in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent after being denied entry into Kazakhstan.

    “I was born in Emin county in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to a farming family. I wanted to go to Kazakhstan, because China’s human rights record was making life intolerable. I would have my ID checked every 50 to 100 meters when I was in Xinjiang, This made me extremely anxious, and I couldn’t stand it anymore,” Mr. Shahman said in a video clip sent to Radio Free Asia from Tashkent airport.

    A guide for foreign businessmen, Mr. Shahman said he was put out of business by the continued checks that raised questions in the minds of his clients and persuaded local businessmen not to work with him.

    Said Mr. Zenz, the Xinjiang scholar, commenting on the significance of the Turkish statement:

    “A major outcry among the Muslim world was a key missing piece in the global Xinjiang row. In my view, it seems that China’s actions in Xinjiang are finally crossing a red line among the world’s Muslim communities, at least in Turkey, but quite possibly elsewhere.”

  • Rape, Murder, & A Suspicious Suicide: Jailed "Psychic Surgeon" To Stars Ran Gruesome Sex Slave Farms

    A 76-year-old Brazilian faith healer who turned himself in to authorities following more than 600 sexual abuse claims has been accused of running sex slave farms used for child trafficking, then killing the mothers after 10 years of birthing. 

    Joao Teixeira de Faria a.k.a. “John of God”

    Known as the “John of God” and the “psychic surgeon,” Joao Teixeira de Faria started his “spiritual hospital” in 1978, the Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola – named after Saint Ignatius, one of the 37 spirits Faria claimed would inhibit his body during psychic healing sessions, according to The Sun. In 1979, a benefactor secured land for him in a small town of Abadiânia, Brazil, where he has been receiving over 10,000 visitors a month. 

    Faria rose to international fame after Oprah Winfrey sat down with him in a 2010 interview. His high profile clients are rumored to include supermodel Naomi Campbell, former President Bill Clinton and singer Paul Simon. 

    John of God’s “spiritual surgeries” would often involve scraping people’s eyeballs without anesthetics, or inserting scissors of forceps inside people’s noses to cure various conditions. His accusers say he took it much further – instructing them to face away from them before performing sexual acts to “cure” them, allegations Faria denies. 

    Joao Teixeira de Faria performing “psychic surgery” with “spirit cook” Marina Abramović

    In December, four women came forward on Brazilian television to accuse Faria of abusing them during sessions, including Dutch choreographer Zahira Lienke Mous, who says she learned of Faria from Oprah Winfrey’s interview.

    Speaking on TV Globo, three of the women described their encounters with Faria to host Pedro Bial on condition of anonymity. Dutch choreographer Zahira Lieneke Mous decided to be named, and said that during one of her trips to see the healer to be cured of the trauma of previous sexual assault, he took her into a back room and had her masturbate him. He then had her pick out a gemstone from a set and granted special treatment. She has also accused him of raping her during another session.

    …

    São Paolo businesswoman Aline Salih told local newspaper Folha de São Paulo in an article that published on Monday that a similar incident had happened to her. –BuzzFeed News

    Following the broadcast, Brazilian prosecutors announced that more than 200 women had come forward with similar claims, leading for prosecutors for the state of Goias to call for his arrest. 

    Meanwhile, Faria’s own daughter – Dalva Teixeira, claims that he abused and raped her between the ages of 10 and 14, and that he only stopped after she became pregnant by one of his employees. The subsequent beating she received from “John of God” caused her to miscarry, she says. 

    Dalva Teixeira, Faria’s daughter

    “My father is a monster,” stated Teixeira. 

    Disturbingly, the 38-year-old Brazilian activist who brought Faria down, Sabrina Bittencourt, mysteriously “committed suicide” last Saturday in Lebanon while she was on the run and “living under protection.” 

    Sabrina Bittencourt

    Bittencourt said she had received reports of Faria’s sex slave operation in which newborns were sold for up to £40,000 ($51,000 USD) in the United States, Europe and Australia. 

    She claimed Faria would offer money to poor girls aged 14 to 18 to go and live in mineral mines or farms he owns in the Brazilian states of Goias and Minas Gerais.

    There they would become sex slaves and be forced to get pregnant, then their babies would be sold to the highest bidder.

    “In exchange for food, they were impregnated and their babies sold on the black market,” she said.

    “Hundreds of girls were enslaved over years, living on farms in Goias, and served as wombs to get pregnant, for their babies to be sold.

    “These girls were murdered after 10 years of giving birth. We have got a number of testimonies.” –The Sun

    Bittencourt’s eldest son, Gabriel Baum, confirmed her death on Facebook with a note that read: “She took the last step so that we could live. They killed my mother.“

    “We said goodbye in Paris, she traveled to Barcelona for a few days to create the protection network for Brazilians of exile and returned to Lebanon with her girlfriend. It was one of the countries she loved!” Gabriel posted to Facebook.

  • Dummy's Guide To Decoding The Doublespeak On Syria

    Authored by Peter Ford via 21stCenturyWire.com,

    The prospect of US withdrawal from Syria has taken the use of doublespeak by frothing neocons and their liberal interventionist fellow travellers to a new level…

    Here to help the confused observer is a glossary of some of the most frequently used key terms and their true meanings, along with guidance on usages deemed taboo in Western policy-making and media circles. 

    Entrenched. As in: ‘We have to stop Iran getting more entrenched in Syria’. Meaning: ‘Supportive’. Without Iran and Hizbollah helping Syria government forces ISIS and Al Qaida would be ruling the roost in Syria today. Do not say: ‘Israel is becoming more and more entrenched in the West Bank and Golan’.

    Forward deployment. ‘US troops are in forward deployment in the Al Tanf enclave on the Syria – Iraq border’. Meaning: Occupation. The US troops have no mandate to be there, not even the approval of the US Congress.

    Engagement. ‘Ambassador Jeffrey is the Secretary’s Envoy for Syria Engagement’. Meaning: Disengagement. Much to his chagrin, the archetypal hawk Jeffrey had his pledge to the effect that the US was in Syria for the duration unsaid by the president within hours of his uttering it. Since then he appears to have lost his tongue.

    Vacuum. ‘The US will be leaving a vacuum when it pulls troops out’. Meaning: Restoration of law and order. Once the US stops blocking the way the Syrian government will return to the currently US-controlled territory and will keep ISIS down, as it is doing in the rest of Syria, and Turkey out.

    Syria. ‘ With the withdrawal he’s handing Syria over to the Russians and the Iranians’. Meaning: The one and a half provinces of Syria (Hasakeh and part of Deir Ez Zor) currently controlled by the US. Blinkered Western armchair strategists are blind to the fact that Russia and Iran are already influential in the larger part of the country controlled by the Syrian government.

    Land bridge. ‘We must stop Iran from creating a land bridge across Syria by keeping troops in Al Tanf’. Meaning: We know journalists are too lazy to look at a map so we ignore the fact that semi-US occupied Iraq, helpfully characterised this week by President Trump as a big spy base, stands between Iran and Syria. Anyway Iran could use other crossing points besides Al Tanf if it got tired of resupplying Hizbollah by air.

    Lose. ‘How the US lost Syria’. Meaning: Win. Syria was never ‘ours’, as President Trump has also helpfully explained. By leaving, the US does itself a huge favour, avoiding another 19 year unwinnable war like Afghanistan.

    Malign. ‘Pompeo lashed Iran’s malign behaviour destabilising the region’. Meaning: Helpful, beneficient. Without Iran and Hizbollah Syria would not be almost rid of ISIS.

    For. ‘At this crucial juncture we need a serious policy for Syria’. Meaning: Against. Almost invariably those wanting a policy for another country are scheming up some evil. Even well-meaning folk can unconsciously slip into this condescending neo-imperialist mode. Never say: ‘I wonder if Syria has a policy for the UK, which seems unstable.’

    Regime. ‘The Syrian regime’. Meaning: Government. Never say: ‘The Saudi regime’, except in the immediate aftermath of a particularly gruesome murder of a critic with Western connections.

    Stabilise. ‘Our programmes support local administrations aimed at helping to stabilise the areas outside Syrian government control’. Meaning: Destabilise, help engineer partition.

    Destabilise. ‘Russia’s provision of S-300 missiles will destabilise the situation with Israel’. Meaning: Stabilise. These purely defensive missiles will help deter any reckless politicians with the feds breathing down their necks from launching yet more air-borne attacks on Syria.

    Safe zone. ‘Turkey wants a safe zone 20 miles deep all along the border with Syria’. Meaning: Danger zone. Currently the border is quiet. A Turkish incursion or attempted insertion of proxy forces would be bloodily resisted by the Kurds. The Syrian government can guarantee the area stays quiet, given a chance.

    Embolden. ‘US withdrawal will embolden Iran and Russia’. Meaning: Not kowtowing to US regional hegemony. Never say: ‘Western support for Israeli bombing of Syria has emboldened Netanyahu’.

    And finally, a gloss on the propagators of many of the above terms:

    Think tank. The likes of Washington Institute for the Middle East, Heritage Foundation, Henry Jackson Society, Chatham House, RUSI. Meaning: Bilge tanks. Generously funded perches for neocons resting between regime change assignments and academics for hire, producing garbage predictions proven wrong time and time again and rewarded with new commissions.

  • China Programming AI Drones To Autonomously Murder Without Human Input

    China is programming new autonomous AI-powered drones to conduct “targeted military strikes” without a human making the decision to fire, according to a new report by the Center for a New American Security, a US national security think tank. 

    Authored by Gregory C. Allen, the report is a comprehensive look at Chinese AI (and American officials’ underestimation of it). Allen notes that drones are becoming increasingly automated as designers integrate sophisticated AI systems into the decision-making processes for next-generation reconnaissance and weapons systems. Before writing his analysis, Allen participated in a series of meetings “with high-ranking Chinese officials in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, leaders of China’s military AI research organizations, government think tank experts, and corporate executives at Chinese AI companies.” 

    “Though many current generation drones are primarily remotely operated, Chinese officials generally expect drones and military robotics to feature ever more extensive AI and autonomous capabilities in the future,” writes Allen. “Chinese weapons manufacturers already are selling armed drones with significant amounts of combat autonomy.“

    “The specific scenario described to me [by one anonymous Chinese official] is unintentional escalation related to the use of a drone,” said Allen in a Wednesday report by The Verge. 

    As Allen explains, the operation of drones both large and small has become increasingly automated in recent years. In the US, drones are capable of basic autopilot, performing simple tasks like flying in a circle around a target. But China is being “more aggressive about introducing greater levels of autonomy closer to lethal use of force,” he says. One example is the Blowfish A2 drone, which China exports internationally and which, says Allen, is advertised as being capable of “full autonomy all the way up to targeted strikes.” –The Verge

    “Mechanized equipment is just like the hand of the human body. In future intelligent wars, AI systems will be just like the brain of the human body,” said Zeng Yi, a senior executive at Chinese’s third largest defense manufacturer, who believes AI will be at the core of warefare in the future. 

    “AI may completely change the current command structure, which is dominated by humans,” and instead fall under the control of an “AI cluster.” 

    Targeted Precision Strikes

    Chinese military drone manufacturer Ziyan’s Blowfish A2 can be armed with either missiles or machine guns depending on the customer’s preferences, and “autonomously performs complex combat missions, including fixed-point timing detection and fixed-range reconnaissance, and targeted precision strikes.”

    “The point made to me was that it’s not clear how either side will interpret certain behaviors [involving autonomous equipment],” said Allen. “The side sending out an autonomous drone will think it’s not a big deal because there’s no casualty risk, while the other side could shoot it down for the same reason. But there’s no agreed framework on what message is being sent by either sides’ behavior.“

    S.A.I.N.T. (a.k.a. “laser lips”) Short Circuit (1986)

    The concerns are amplified when you consider advancing autonomy, according to The Verge. How will a warning shot fired by a drone or a robot be interpreted, for example? Will it be understood that it was an autonomous action, or that of a human? And what then? 

    In essence, says Allen, countries around the world have yet to define “the norms of armed conflict” for autonomous systems. And the longer that continues, the greater the risk for “unintentional escalation.”

    “I think that’s a real and legitimate threat,” says Allen. –The Verge

    In November, a Chinese state-owned company unveiled its CH-7 autonomous drone at a 2018 airshow in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province. Its chief designer, Shi Wen, says that the aircraft can “fly long hours, scout and strike the target when necessary,”according to CBS News.

    “Very soon, I believe, in the next one to two years, (we) can see the CH-7 flying in the blue skies, gradually being a practical and usable product in the future,” said Shi. 

    With a wingspan of 22 meters (72 feet) and a length of 10 meters (33 feet), the swept-wing CH-7 is the size of a combat aircraft and its single engine can propel it at roughly the speed of a commercial jet airliner.

    …

    While the CH-7’s ultimate effectiveness remains to be determined, if exported, it would “mark another step-change for China, which has traditionally not offered its cutting-edge technology to foreign customers,” Roggeveen said.

    Across the Middle East, countries locked out of purchasing U.S.-made drones due to rules over excessive civilian casualties are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, now the world’s main distributor of armed drones. –CBS News

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    Allen concludes that “The U.S. policymaking community ought to make it a priority to be equally effective at translating, analyzing, and disseminating Chinese publications on AI for the insights they provide into Chinese thinking.”

  • How A Fake Eyelash Boom Is Propping Up Kim Jong-Un

    Authored by Jan Bauer via SafeHaven.com,

    Russia and China may be the first to come to mind in reference to violating sanctions against North Korea, but the list is actually a bit longer, and fairly more complicated – and the end of the day, our out-of-control vanity has led to a boom in fake eyelashes that have been helping to prop up the North Korean government.

    In late January, California-based cosmetics company ELF agreed to pay a nearly US$1m fine to settle civil liabilities for importing fake eyelashes containing materials from North Korea in breach of sanctions.

    The U.S. Treasury Department said that between 2012 and 2017, the company imported 156 shipments of false eyelash kits, valued at $4.43 million from two suppliers located in the People’s Republic of China that contained materials sourced by North Korean suppliers.

    ELF (eyes, lips, face), with annual revenues of $295 million, faced more than $40 million in penalties, but the treasury took mitigating circumstances into account; namely, the small amount involved and the fact that the company itself reported the sanctions violation after a self-audit of third-party suppliers.

    “This enforcement action highlights the risks for companies that do not conduct full-spectrum supply chain due diligence when sourcing products from overseas, particularly in a region in which North Korea as well as other comprehensively sanctioned countries or regions, is known to export goods,” the Treasury said.

    “Until January 2017, ELF’s compliance program and its supplier audits failed to discover that approximately 80 percent of the false eyelash kits supplied by two of ELF’s China-based suppliers contained materials from the DPRK,” it added.

    On top of that, the company’s stock has lost 51 percent of its value since it was first floated in September 2016. Based on its latest results, sales are down 11 percent compared to the same period last year.

    Beyond eyelashes, North Korea has proven quite resources at evading sanctions, with indications that it’s mastered smuggling.

    A recent UN report notes that sanctions against North Korea were “ineffective,” with authorities there still able to acquire illegal shipments of oil products, sell banned coal and violate the arms embargo.

    The report also said that despite the imposed sanctions, North Korean financial institutions continue to operate in at least five countries, while the country’s diplomats help their country evade sanctions by controlling bank accounts in multiple countries.

    The UN experts who compiled the report detailed violations across several countries, including Bulgaria, China, Germany, India, Myanmar, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Tanzania and Uganda.

    On the lower level of sanctions-busting, other luxury goods that have made it to North Korea including sparkling wine and spirits from Germany, wine and vermouth from Italy, and perfume and cosmetics from Bulgaria.

    A Singapore-based company has been stocking department stores in Pyongyang, the capital, with luxury items from Japan and Europe.

    Last year, the US government published guidance for US companies to detect certain of North Korea’s “deceptive” practices in avoiding U.S. sanctions.

    While the sanctions are enforced by the prosecution or sanctioning companies that do business with North Korea, outsourcing the production and supply chains can be hard to spot—as with ELF’s fake eyelashes.

    A Wall Street Journal report from December last year explains that many U.S. banks and companies are unwillingly participating in a network in which North Korea uses proxies with hidden government ties across the globe to facilitate payments and transactions.

    U.S. companies outsource production to Asian companies, but even they exploitlow labor and material costs in jurisdictions like North Korea where manufacturers can save up to 75 percent.

    The Trump administration has led the drive at the United Nations to impose a series of tough economic sanctions on North Korea in response to its nuclear tests and missile launches in 2017.

  • It Was The Brother: Michael Sanchez Identified As Source Of Leaked Bezos "Dick Pic"

    Last week, we reported that Jeff Bezos’ investigation into who leaked steamy text messages exchanged between himself and his mistress, former “So You Think You Can Dance?” host Lauren Sanchez, had zeroed in on a likely – if unfortunate – source: Sanchez’s brother, Hollywood manager Michael Sanchez. Sanchez supported President Trump during the 2016 race, and at the time, sources from within Bezos’ camp were saying that they believed Sanchez had leaked the texts for “political” reasons.

    Well, one week later, and the story of the investigation has been blown wide open by Bezos’ publication of emails exchanged between lawyers for AMI and the lead attorney for his investigators, where not only did AMI detail the contents of the unpublished texts (which apparently included what millennials would call a “dick pic” sent by the world’s richest man), but Bezos accused the owner of the National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him into dropping his investigation, as well as walking back allegations that the Enquirer’s campaign was politically motivated (either by its allegiance to Trump, or the Saudi government).

    Sanchez

    And now, the Daily Beast, which has led the pack on scoops related to Bezos’ investigation, has seemingly confirmed that investigators’ initial suspicions about the source of the leak were correct: According to several AMI insiders, Sanchez was in fact the tabloid’s source.

    The brother of Jeff Bezos’ mistress, Lauren Sanchez, supplied the couple’s racy texts to the National Enquirer, multiple sources inside AMI, the tabloid’s parent company, told The Daily Beast. Another source who has been in extensive communication with senior leaders at AMI confirmed that Michael Sanchez first supplied Bezos’ texts to the Enquirer.

    AMI has previously refused to identify the source of the texts, but a lawyer for the company strongly hinted at Sanchez’s role during a Sunday morning interview on ABC. “The story was given to the National Enquirer by a reliable source that had given information to the National Enquirer for seven years prior to this story. It was a source that was well known to both Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez,” attorney Elkan Abramowitz told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

    Asked directly whether Sanchez was the source, Abramowitz said, “I can’t discuss who the source was. It’s confidential within AMI.” An AMI spokesperson declined to comment for this story. Asked directly more than a half-dozen times whether or not he supplied the texts to the Enquirer, Sanchez declined to do so.

    The report also suggests that, to Bezos, at least, this isn’t news: A source from within AMI said that Bezos’ team had likely already identified the source of the leak, and that Sanchez didn’t steal the texts, but obtained them by some other, likely legitimate, means.

    Sanchez is reportedly close with several Trumpworld figures, including Roger Stone and pro-Trump pundit Scottie Nell Hughes (whose private emails were once leaked to AMI). 

    His tweets indicate that Sanchez has also been a vocal supporter of the president:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Though he also denied the allegations that he was the source of the leak:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The jury is still out on whether a “government entity” was involved in the leak of Bezos’ intimates, as his lead investigator reportedly believes. But whether it’s true or not, Sanchez’s reported involvement will likely make for an awkward Thanksgiving in the Sanchez household this year.

    Now, we wait to learn how Bezos and his mistress are going to handle this stunning betrayal…

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