NightWatch

For the Night of 11 June 2009

Japan-North Korea: Update. The Diet stands “a good chance” of adopting legislation that would allow it to inspect North Korean cargo on the high seas, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters 11 June. He said the legislation would be prepared during the current session, which runs through July 28, if the U.N. Security Council adopts a resolution urging such actions -- which are not allowed under current Japanese law.

Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said the government also would consider enacting new unilateral sanctions against North Korea, following a new Security Council resolution. Speaking at a House of Councilors committee meeting, he said Tokyo would “like to cooperate with other countries to see the planned resolution lead to action in an effective manner.”

The practice of Maritime Self Defense Force or coast guard ships stopping North Korean merchant ships on the high seas might raise concerns by more Asian countries than just China and North Korea.

South Korea-North Korea: During today’s meeting of South Korean and North Korean officials at the Kaesong industrial park, North Korea demanded that South Korea increase the wages of North Korean workers by four times, The Associated Press reported. A South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman said the North Koreans also demanded that South Korea pay a substantial rent increase at the Kaesong complex. Substantial means a 3000 percent increase.

The report stated that South Korean companies had been paying $75 a month to each of the 40,000 North Korean workers. In the North Korean system most of the cash must be paid by each worker to the Workers’ Party as a form of tax or donation of one or other kind to the state in gratitude for free school for children, free rations when they are available and free health care, mainly aspirin for the rank and file.

The new wage rate is $300 per month for each worker, under the same conditions as before. Thus South Korean factories will pay a higher price for the privilege of supporting the communist elite in the workers’ paradise.

North Korea-UN: The Security Council is expected to approve a new sanctions resolution against North Korea on 12 June. Expect a strong North Korean action.

CNN reported that an unidentified US official leaked to the press that the US has indications that the North might be planning another nuclear test. There is less to this statement than meets the eye in that the North was planning another nuclear test after the 2006 detonation.

The timing of this vacuous statement relative to the UN vote makes the information seem related and a test imminent, which is not what the official said, but which CNN inferred. No news service from any state near North Korea has reported that information with the inference of imminence. Missile launches seem more likely and easier to execute sensationally with success.

China-India: A Chinese Foreign Ministry representative rejected today India's allegation that there have been increasing border-crossing incidents by Chinese military forces and said India's leaders and media should be "responsible and do something good for bilateral ties," Xinhua reported. The Ministry representative also said China is prepared to hold negotiations over the undetermined border and seeks to preserve peace and stability in the border region

The key to understanding this exchange rests with the words “undetermined border” which refers to the McMahon line, another British colonial travesty in which a foreign office wag drew a line on a poorly made map and declared it to be the boundary between Imperial China and Imperial India. Thus, Chinese incursions into territory the Chinese claim as theirs do not constitute border violations, except to the Indians.

The point is the public diplomacy between the two stresses harmony and cooperation but the real policy issues involve land, people, power and boundaries. The Peoples Liberation Army and the Indian Army have a grudge match to play, held over from China’s invasion of India in 1962 in which the Peoples Liberation Army humiliated the Indian Army in the Chumbi Valley.

China-US: A Foreign Ministry representative said 11 June that China opposes the transfer of 13 Chinese ethnic Uighur Muslims held at the Guantanamo Bay prison to Palau, Voice of America reported. The detainees, from the Uighur region of Western China, are no longer considered a threat by the U.S. military, but China says they are "terrorist suspects" who should be returned to China immediately.

This is a confusing story. At a time when the US is having trouble placing Guantanamo prisoners, the US declines to let the Chinese have Chinese citizens whom the Chinese want back. The reason is that now the Uighurs are not a threat to the US, says the US military which has held them for most of a decade and should know.

This kind of arbitrary decision-making erodes respect for the US. Apparently it is okay for the US to hold Chinese Uighurs indefinitely and for the US taxpayers to pay for their upkeep in Guantanamo, but now the US must protect those Uighurs from their own government – China-- and the US taxpayers must pay $11 million each for Palau to take them. But we still want Chinese cooperation in fighting terror. One might be justified in wondering who makes these decisions and why. When did the Uighurs ever threaten the US?

India-US: Addressing a press conference after meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns – on a three-day visit to India – stunned reporters by saying that the Kashmir issue had to be settled in line with the aspirations of Kashmiris. “It remains our view that a resolution of that issue has to take into account wishes of the Kashmiri people,” he said.

Pakistan’s Daily Times described the statement as a major change of US policy in favor of the Pakistani position that Kashmir should hold a plebiscite. India contends the political status of Kashmir was decided by its then rightful ruler 60 years ago and is non-negotiable.

To old hands the above statement will appear odd because Jammu and Kashmir State is listed in the Indian Constitution as one of the integral states of India. The statement could be understood -- is being understood in Pakistan -- as the US advocating the fragmentation and destabilization of India by arousing the ire of 120 million Indian Muslims.

Burns was misquoted, but that will not stop Pakistanis from considering themselves encouraged by the US to agitate and to destabilize Kashmir.

Pakistan: Two suspects were killed and six arrested as policemen and troops deployed at the Peshawar 11^th Army Corps Commander’s House foiled a terrorist attack in the high security zone on the Khyber Road today, private TV channels reported.

Citing witnesses, one channel broadcast that two suspects riding a motorbike tried to enter the Corps Commander’s House and fired at the security officials on being stopped. According to the channel, two other gunmen, also on motorbikes, followed the first pair. Two suspects were killed in the ensuing gunfight, the channel said.

The Peshawar police chief confirmed the killings but declined to comment further. Talking to reporters, he said the security forces had not suffered any casualties, and that they were clearing the area. A channel said an explosion was also heard before the gunfight.

Several important buildings are located in the high security zone on Khyber Road, including the houses of the inspector general of North West Frontier Province police, the governor, the chief minister, the Supreme Court’s Peshawar Registry and the Pearl Continental Hotel that was attacked on Tuesday. The residence of the Corps commander is adjacent to the Pearl Continental Hotel.

“We are in a state of war,” NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said while talking to a news channel. He said such attacks could take place anywhere, even in the areas where security has been beefed up. Despite the Minister’s reassurances, the attacks continued for a second day. Pakistani intelligence and security look incompetent.

Kyrgyzstan- US: Update. President Barack Obama sent a personal appeal to Kyrgyzstan in efforts to save a U.S. air base there, Reuters reported 11 June. According to President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s office, the message expressed gratitude to “Kyrgyzstan’s people and leadership for their efforts in stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan and fighting international terrorism and drug trafficking.”

It contained no direct mention of the Manas air base but discussed hopes of strengthening “various forms of cooperation” with Kyrgyzstan. Obama’s message also spoke of plans to send a high-ranking U.S. delegation soon to discuss expanding ties. Bakiyev has ordered the Foreign Ministry to prepare proposals for an official response.

Despite receiving a personal appeal from President Obama, Kyrgyzstan will not reverse a decision to close the U.S. air base at Manas, which has been used for supplying troops in Afghanistan, media reported 11 June. Speaking to the 24.kg news agency, Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbayev said that “the decision to annul all agreements on the Manas military air base has been taken, and there is no turning back on this.”

Something is going on, but it is not yet clear just what.

Iran: During this Watch, the polls opened for the presidential elections. At one point Ahmadi-Nejad appeared to be a shoe-in. After this weeks heated presidential debate with challenger Mousavi, the race is too close to call. Ahmadi-Nejad’s record of empty promises for internal reform plus international bombast and brinksmanship should result in his loss. He has the backing of the Revolutionary Guards, but not the support of the Shia clerisy.

This is as close to democracy as Iran gets – real choices and very different candidates, but within a bounded system, the Iranian theocracy.

Somalia-Kenya: A senior member of the Islamist insurgent movement, al Shabaab, threatened today to "invade" Kenya if it did not reduce its military presence on the border, Reuters reported. The official asked rhetorically, "What is its Kenya's military doing near Dhobley and our other towns in southern Somalia? If Kenya does not stop this, our troops will cross the border and fight inside their country.

Al Shabaab does not make idle threats. With Western encouragement, Kenya apparently is using its troops to try to prevent use of the border region as a safehaven and supply conduit for al Shabaab. This could lead to border skirmishing.

Mexico: The Associated Press reported today that police in Monterrey, Mexico’s third largest city, have now had their personal cell phones confiscated along with their assault rifles because of their links to drug gangs. The legislature in Nuevo Leon State, where Monterrey is located, unanimously approved a bill banning city and state police from carrying personal cell phones while on duty in an effort to prevent corrupt officers from communicating with drug gangs.

Lawmakers approved the measure late Tuesday, a day after municipal police in Monterrey pulled guns on masked federal agents during a standoff that sent motorists scrambling for cover — and underscored tensions over a crackdown on drug corruption among lawmen.

Earlier this month, federal forces raided police stations in 18 towns in Nuevo Leon, which borders Texas, and detained 78 officers suspected of working with drug smugglers. The operation came after soldiers found lists of police names in the possession of suspected drug traffickers in May. State lawmaker Mirthala Castillo said the cell phone ban would take effect later this month.

According to a US White House report today, Houston is the center of the drug trade in Texas, the Houston Chronicle reported. Underworld organizations, particularly those aligned with the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, have major bases of operation in Houston and Corpus Christi, continues the report, prepared for the Obama administration by the National Drug Intelligence Center. There are 201 international drug and money-laundering organizations in a 16-county region that stretches from Kenedy County, in deep South Texas, to just this side of the Louisiana border, according to the report.

Cyber: Infowarrior ran a comment today about the effects of globalization on cyber warfare. As the US attempts to protect its systems, its efforts are impeded by outsourcing to places including Argentina and Bangladesh that do not share the US sense of concern or vulnerability or serve other purposes.

Thus, “Forget for the moment about data incursions within the DC beltway, what happens when Pakistan takes down the Internet in India?  Here we have technologically sophisticated regional rivals who have gone to war periodically for six decades.  There will be more wars between these two. And to think that Pakistan or India are incapable or unlikely to take such action against the Internet is simply naive. The next time these two nations fight YOU KNOW there will be a cyber 
component to that war.”

“And with what effect on the U.S.?  It will go far beyond nuking customer support for nearly every bank and PC company, though that’s sure to happen.  A strategic component of any such attack would be to hobble tech services in both economies by destroying source code repositories.  And an interesting aspect of destroying such repositories — in Third World countries OR in the U.S. — is that the  logical bet is to destroy them all without regard to what they contain, which for the most part negates any effort to obscure those contents.”

The illogic of global efficiency is often revealed in the ripple effects of its vulnerabilities. The system works fine until it doesn’t. When the most efficient service or product provider in a global economy goes under for some reason, it drags down the global system with it because in a global economy redundancy has been minimized. What happens when American source code libraries are protected, but those outsourced to India are destroyed by Pakistani cyber warriors during a period of tension?

The writer suggests “The military answer of course is to isolate network traffic, as many readers have suggested.  But how do you enforce that in other countries?  And how effective is it at all against a strategic attack on essentially commercial resources? … what would a security audit of IT resources outsourced to Bangladesh find?

See Infowarrior.

End of NightWatch for 11 June.