UN Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) Holds Summit On Terrorist Use Of the Internet

Source: United Nations

Published Friday, 29 January, 2010 – 17:06

Terrorists’ use of the Internet – including how it is utilized to recruit, organize criminal acts and raise money – was the focus of a United Nations gathering this week which brought together experts from around the world.

Participants at the two-day gathering in Berlin, convened by the UN Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), also discussed the effectiveness of laws currently in place regarding direct attacks on networks and computer systems.

APPG Event: Bonnie Jenkins, US Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programmes

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By Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, 4th February 2010

1:00-2:00pm, 4th February 2010,

Committee Room 8, House of Commons

To attend, please RSVP to:

george.grant@transatlanticsecurity.org

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Transatlantic & International Security is pleased to invite you to a discussion with Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, US Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programmes.

Nuclear proliferation is one of the most pressing challenges confronting the international community at present. Armed with a nuclear bomb, rogue regimes such as North Korea and Iran can wield strategic and military influence wholly disproportionate to their size and diplomatic and military clout, altering the balance of power in a manner inconceivable when outcomes were decided by the wealth of nations and the size of their armies. Likewise terrorist organisations, if given possession of a nuclear weapon, have the potential to wreak destruction on a devastating scale. Moreover, where such non-state actors are concerned, the prospect of nuclear retaliation – hitherto the principle deterrent – becomes almost meaningless.  Other more conventional threats to security also weigh on the mind of policy makers in this regard.  The unregulated flow of small arms and light weapons are arming insurgencies around the world, sustaining civil conflict and perpetuating regional instability.  Failed states provide opportunities to terrorists, and in this sense now affect our security more directly than ever before.  In addition, new threats, such as cyber or space related methods of potential attack have emerged and will need to factor into strategies for threat reduction.

Japan-U.S. security ties being tested

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TOKYO —

Japan faces an uphill struggle to convince the United States that the indecisive Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is in step with U.S. President Barack Obama in working to ensure the security of Japan as well as East Asia under the two countries’ 50-year-old treaty.

With uncertainties remaining near Japan such as China’s military buildup and North Korea’s nuclear programs, Hatoyama is being tested as to whether he can take advantage of the pact’s half-century mark to secure regional stability through working closely with Obama.

Afraid of the Dark in Afghanistan

Anand Gopal: An Inside Look at the Counter-Terror War

U.S. soldiers at an outpost in Afghanistan (CBS)

One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished.  He had last been seen in the town’s bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost’s dust-doused streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaar-goers for ransom.

But the hunt turned up nothing. Spring and summer came and went with no sign of Ismatullah. Then one day, long after the police and village elders had abandoned their search, a courier delivered a neat, handwritten note on Red Cross stationary to the family.  In it, Ismatullah informed them that he was in Bagram, an American prison more than 200 miles away. U.S. forces had picked him up while he was on his way home from the bazaar, the terse letter stated, and he didn’t know when he would be freed.

Canada: Demand Return of Ex-Child Soldier from Guantanamo

Government Should Bring Khadr Home Despite Court Ruling

January 29, 2010

(New York) – The Canadian government should immediately request the repatriation of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr from Guantanamo even though Canada’s Supreme Court did not order it to do so, Human Rights Watch said today.  Khadr, who was 15 years old when the US military took him into custody in Afghanistan, has been held at Guantanamo since 2002

The Canadian Supreme Court today unequivocally condemned Canada’s participation in Khadr’s interrogations at Guantanamo as violations of Khadr’s human rights, Canada’s constitution, and “basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth.” The court declined to order the Canadian government to seek Khadr’s repatriation because doing so would intrude upon the executive’s discretion in foreign affairs. However, the court held that the effects of US and Canadian violations continue into the present and that the Canadian government must, in exercising its foreign affairs powers, take this into account.

German diplomats involved in Iran riots: reports

TEHRAN — German diplomats had a hand in riots in Iran last month during the Shiite commemoration of Ashura, local news agencies reported Wednesday quoting an unnamed deputy intelligence minister.

The official IRNA news agency reported that the deputy minister spoke of the “involvement of German diplomats” in the riots on December 27, the day of Ashura.

Mexican Cartels “tortured and cook” American in Mexico

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January 27, 2:12
Michael Webster

Depicted here (to view photo’s goto: www.usborderfirereport.com ) are five gruesome beheadings believed ordered and carried out by MDC’s in Mexico.
One of the most dangerous Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC’s) known as the Gulf Cartel orders kidnappings and murders of Americans. What most Americans do not know about is that Americans have been kidnapped and murdered on both sides of the Mexican U.S. Border by Mexican Drug Cartel orders. Case in point the feds arrested suspected cartel kidnapping murderous gang members who are accused of taking American victims from Texas to Mexico where they were tortured, held for ransom and in this case — killed. The trial for alleged kidnapping ring member Luis Alberto Avila-Hernandez started before U.S. District Court Judge Randy Crane in McAllen Texas last week with out much fanfare or main stream media attention.

In still other cases the MDC’s have reached deep into the United States to kill Americans. MDC’s known member Jose Daniel Gonzalez was murdered on American soil in El Paso Texas. Gonzalez according to law enforcement was acting as an U.S. Government informant feeding important information about several Mexican Drug Cartel families to the feds.