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Why the Palmer Report Deserves No Deference

Audrey Bomse
CounterPunch
Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:39 UTC
Image
Israel Given Two Bites of the Apple

Almost all the factual findings, as well as the legal analysis and conclusions of the recently leaked UN Secretary General's Panel of Inquiry into the "Flotilla Incident" on May 31, 2010 (Palmer/Uribe Panel) directly contradict those of an earlier UN report of the Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission (FFM, whose conclusion that Israel's blockade of Gaza, including the naval blockade is illegal, was just reaffirmed on September 13, 2011 by five independent UN rights Special Rapporteurs. In line with all statements Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon has made about Gaza, the Goldstone report, and statements by other international agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), these UN international law experts rejected the Palmer/Uribe conclusions and demanded that "[t]he Israeli blockade of Gaza must end immediately and the people of Gaza must be afforded protection in line with international law."

For this reason, until a dispositive ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is issued on the legality of Israel's closure of Gaza, including its naval blockade, and therefore on the lawfulness of Israel's attack on the Mavi Marmara and other flotilla vessels, the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Palmer/Uribe Panel deserve no deference. States need not heed its recommendation to "dissuade" their citizens from trying to break the blockade. The Free Gaza Movement and other civil society initiatives to challenge the blockade certainly do not intend to abandon our mission; our boats will sail again.
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Gear

Governments Use Terror Threat to Erode Rights: Minister


Agence France-Presse
Tue, 20 Sep 2011 02:47 UTC
Jonas Gahr
© Associated Press (File Photo)
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store.

United Nations: Some governments exaggerate the threat of terrorism and over use the "war on terror" title to erode civil rights, Norway's foreign minister told a UN summit on Monday.

The Norwegian minister, Jonas Gare Store, and his counterpart from Indonesia said declaring "war" may be good for a politician's speeches but it does not help to combat militants.

"There is a risk that under certain special circumstances governments can play up the threat and eventually it may threaten civil liberties," Store told a forum of ministers and top officials on the sidelines of a UN summit on counter-terrorism.

"I think we should acknowledge that under the wrong circumstances that can happen," he added when asked if civil rights are damaged in the name of the "War on Terror".

Countries need "the full participation of civil society and democracy" to act as a watchdog on governments, he said. The minister echoed concerns raised in the United States, where President George W. Bush declared the "War on Terror" after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
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Display

Hackers break SSL encryption used by millions of sites

Dan Goodin
The Register
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:55 UTC
Beware of BEAST decrypting secret PayPal cookies

Researchers have discovered a serious weakness in virtually all websites protected by the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to silently decrypt data that's passing between a webserver and an end-user browser.

The vulnerability resides in versions 1.0 and earlier of TLS, or transport layer security, the successor to the secure sockets layer technology that serves as the internet's foundation of trust. Although versions 1.1 and 1.2 of TLS aren't susceptible, they remain almost entirely unsupported in browsers and websites alike, making encrypted transactions on PayPal, GMail, and just about every other website vulnerable to eavesdropping by hackers who are able to control the connection between the end user and the website he's visiting.

At the Ekoparty security conference in Buenos Aires later this week, researchers Thai Duong and Juliano Rizzo plan to demonstrate proof-of-concept code called BEAST, which is short for Browser Exploit Against SSL/TLS. The stealthy piece of JavaScript works with a network sniffer to decrypt encrypted cookies a targeted website uses to grant access to restricted user accounts. The exploit works even against sites that use HSTS, or HTTP Strict Transport Security, which prevents certain pages from loading unless they're protected by SSL.

The demo will decrypt an authentication cookie used to access a PayPal account, Duong said.
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Laptop

Japan: biggest defence contractor hit by hackers

John Leyden
The Register
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:00 UTC
Submarine plant, missile factory among targets

Japan's biggest defence contractor, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, has become the victim of a malware-based hack attack.

The firm said that the attack resulted in the infection of 10 of its sites across Japan, including its submarine manufacturing plant in Kobe and a facility in Nagoya which makes engine parts for missiles. In total 45 network servers and 38 PCs became infected with eight strains of malware, including Trojan horse programs, the Daily Yomiuri reports.

News of the security breaches emerged over the weekend. Mitsubishi said the circumstances of the intrusions - first detected in mid-August - are under investigation, with a report due by the end of the month. In the mean time the firm is playing down suggestions that the malware may have been used to successfully extract industrial secrets via compromised systems.
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Laptop

Google offers opt-out from Wi-Fi router location database

Anna Leach
The Register
Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:02 UTC
Never offered an opt-in, though

Google has given the owners of Wi-Fi routers around the world the right to opt out of a registry that the search giant uses to locate mobile phone users.

Currently Google uses location data tied to the unique codes of residential Wi-Fi routers to help triangulate the location of mobile devices.

Google made the change voluntarily, but it's likely it was a pre-emptive move before the search giant was forced to do so by European courts. Google has been embroiled in a legal challenge to the practice from privacy regulators in Germany.

The privacy fight waged by the German government will have benefits globally as Google extends the opt-out offer to people around the world.

The main benefit to Google of tracking the location of phone owners is to allow the company to deliver location-specific adverts. Where Wi-Fi router information is not available, it may use the device's GPS or the signatures of cellphone towers to locate a device.

The opt-out system should be in place by this autumn.
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Red Flag

DuPont's Herbicide Goes Rogue

Jim Hightower
Common Dreams
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:47 UTC
Image
© Common Dreams
The company's landscaping weed-killer turned out to be a tree-killer.

In the corporate world's tortured language, workers are no longer fired. They just experience an "employment adjustment." But the most twisted euphemism I've heard in a long time comes from DuPont: "We are investigating the reports of these unfavorable tree symptoms," the pesticide maker recently stated.

How unfavorable? Finito, flat-lined, the tree is dead. Not just one tree, but hundreds of thousands all across the country are suffering the final "symptom."
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Arrow Down

S&P Downgrades Italy; Euro, Futures Tumble

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:19 UTC
arrow

As usual, a corrupt and pathetic Moody's continues to boldly not go where everyone else has gone before. Luckily, S&P, which had the balls to cut the US, has just done so to Europe's next domino, by downgrading Italy from A+ to A, outlook negative. Then again, this was pretty much telegraphed 100% earlier today as noted in "Italy Expected To Cut Growth Forecasts Further." Anyway, those incompetents from Moody's are next.

Full report:

Italy Unsolicited Ratings Lowered To 'A/A-1' On Weaker Growth Prospects, Uncertain Policy Environment; Outlook Negative

Overview
  • Italy's net general government debt is the highest among 'A' rated sovereigns. We have revised our projections of Italy's net general government debt and now expect it to peak later and at a higher level than we previously anticipated.
  • In our view, Italy's economic growth prospects are weakening and we expect that Italy's fragile governing coalition and policy differences within parliament will continue to limit the government's ability to respond decisively to domestic and external macroeconomic challenges.
  • In our view, weaker economic growth performance will likely limit the effectiveness of Italy's revenue-led fiscal consolidation program.
  • We have revised our base-case medium-term projections of real GDP growth to an annual average of 0.7% between 2011 to 2014, compared with our previous projection of 1.3% (see "Credit FAQ: Why We Revised The Outlook On Italy To Negative," published May 23, 2011). As part of our ratings analysis, we have also prepared upside and downside macroeconomic scenarios that could drive our future rating actions on Italy.
  • We are lowering our long- and short-term unsolicited sovereign credit ratings on Italy to 'A/A-1' from 'A+/A-1+'.
  • The negative outlook reflects our view of additional downside risks to public finances related to the trajectory of Italy's real and nominal GDP growth, and implementation risks of the government's fiscal consolidation program.
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Star of David

Jewish groups worried by Vatican gesture

Rabbi Levi Brackman & Rivkah Lubitch
Y net News
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00 UTC
Bishop Williamson
© Reuters
Bishop Williamson. 'Promoting anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism'
More than 40 years of progress in Catholic-Jewish relations may be called into question by attempt to reach out to group of breakaway traditionalist Catholics, including Holocaust-denying bishop.

Some Jewish groups voiced concern Friday that the Vatican might be calling into question more than 40 years of progress in Catholic-Jewish relations by reaching out to a group of breakaway traditionalist Catholics that includes a Holocaust-denying bishop. The Vatican has been working for years to bring the breakaway Society of St. Pius X back into its fold, and this week told its members they must accept some core church teachings if they want to be fully reintegrated into the church.

But the Holy See said some expressions contained in documents from the Second Vatican Council could be left open for "legitimate discussion."

The 1962-65 Vatican II meetings brought modernizing reforms to the Catholic Church, including outreach to Jews and introduction of the Mass in the vernacular rather than Latin. The Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X was formed in 1969, opposed to many of Vatican II's reforms. The Vatican refused to say which core teachings the society must accept to be reintegrated, and which elements of Vatican II documents could be left open for discussion. A key Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate, revolutionized the Catholic Church's relations with Jews by declaring that Christ's death couldn't be attributed to Jews as a whole. Other Vatican II teachings to which the society objects concern religious freedom and ecumenical relations.
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Card - VISA

BA Faces €50m Bill for Carbon Emissions

Pilita Clark,
Financial Times
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 15:50 UTC
BA tail
© Bloomberg
British Airways faces a bill of nearly €50m, the highest of any airline, when carriers around the world are brought into the European Union's carbon emissions trading scheme next year, a new study estimates.

But BA and other large European carriers will face a relatively smaller burden than their rivals in the US and China, because they should get an average of 81 per cent of the carbon allowances needed under the scheme for free. The Chinese and American carriers will only get an average of up to 64 per cent, says the report by Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, the energy research firm.
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Bad Guys

The Future of Greece Rests on a Phone Call

Helena Smith
The Guardian
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 15:42 UTC
Greek protest
© Orestis Panagiotou/EPA
Further Greek austerity measures could lead to a repeat of the civil unrest of summer 2011.
'Make-or-break' conversation between finance minister, EU and IMF will determine next measures to prevent default

Europe's debt crisis has intensified after Greece's embattled government said the country's financial future would rest on a make-or-break conference call with EU and IMF officials on Monday.

Signalling that the 20-month saga had reached crunch point, Athens' finance minister prepared the austerity-weary nation for further belt-tightening, saying the time had come for "decisive" action to avoid a Greek default.

"There is great volatility in the markets," Evangelos Venizelos said after emerging from crisis cabinet talks. "If we want to avoid default, to stabilise the situation, to remain in the eurozone ... we must take big strategic decisions.
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