- Japan cabinet approves landmark military change
BBC July 01, 2014
Japan's cabinet has approved a landmark change in security policy, paving the way for its military to fight overseas.
Under its constitution, Japan is barred from using force to resolve conflicts except in cases of self-defence.
But a reinterpretation of the law will now allow "collective self-defence" - using force to defend allies under attack.
PM Shinzo Abe has been pushing hard for the move, arguing Japan needs to adapt to a changing security environment.
"No matter what the circumstances, I will protect Japanese people's lives and peaceful existence," he told journalists after the change was approved.
The decision must be passed by parliament, which the ruling bloc controls. But by reinterpreting rather than revising the constitution, Mr Abe avoids the need for a public referendum.
The US - with whom Japan has a decades-old security alliance - will welcome the move, but it will anger China, with whom Japan's ties are already very strained.
The decision is also highly controversial in a nation where post-war pacifist identify is firmly entrenched.
On Sunday a man set himself on fire in central Tokyo to protest against the change.
'No recovery'
Mr Abe first endorsed the move in May, after a panel of his advisers released a report recommending changes to defence laws.
Japan adopted its pacifist constitution after its surrender in World War Two. Since then, its troops have not engaged in combat, although small numbers have taken part in UN peace-keeping operations.
2. Viewpoint: Isis caliphate a dangerous development
BBC June 30, 2014
With the declaration by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) of a caliphate - an Islamic state ruled by a single political and religious leader - a new era of international jihadism has been ushered in.
This has huge theological, ideological and political implications for both the international community and the jihadist groups that challenge it.
In Islamic history, the caliphate was viewed as a just leadership that facilitated the practise of the faith. The caliph was also a political leader that led an empire and was viewed as the successor to the Prophet Muhammad.
Historically, the caliph was viewed as the leader of Muslims the world over, whose allegiance and loyalty he expected. This political model was eventually disbanded in the early 20th Century and replaced by the modern nation state.
The caliphate with Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at its head, however, is very different from its forebears. Its announcement will be rejected by nearly all Muslims, who do not want, at any cost, the jihadist group to represent them.
The declaration will be cast aside by Muslims in all walks of life, even if they believe in the concept of "khilafa" (caliphate), as perfidious, premature and blasphemous.
However, that does not change the situation for those living under Baghdadi's rule.
In the new seat of the caliphate, the Syrian city of Raqqa, as in the rest of Isis-controlled territory, the land is to be administered by a medieval and literalist interpretation of Sharia, under which smoking is punished by flogging, thieves face amputations and opponents are summarily executed.
In light of this, it is somewhat surprising that, in the wake of the announcement, on a local level Isis's popularity seems to have been fortified.
For example, as celebrations in Falluja show, there are many people who welcome this news with jubilance.
If, however, one is not a Sunni Muslim predisposed to Baghdadi's binary worldview, it is extremely troubling news, for his group has no tolerance for what it views as dissent, as demonstrated by June's massacre of Iraqi soldiers and reported crucifixions of moderate Syrian rebels.
3. In Rueful Defense of Sarkozy
The Bloomberg JUL 4, 2014
The more details emerge about the wiretapping and arrest of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the more disturbing the French justice system's conduct in the case seems to be.
The charges against Sarkozy derive from taped conversations between him and his lawyer, and between his lawyer and a judge. Allegedly, the judge was asked to provide information about a campaign-financing investigation against Sarkozy in exchange for a nice posting in Monaco. The wiretaps were authorized by investigators pursuing allegations that Sarkozy took up to $70 million from former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in undeclared (and therefore illegal) campaign funds for the 2007 election.
Sarkozy says the latest charges against him -- for influence peddling and judicial interference -- are politically motivated. Whether or not that's true, there are two problems with how he was busted. First, never before had French police been given permission to record and transcribe phone conversations between a lawyer and a judge, who is also a lawyer. "We were all just shocked," Beryl Brown, who runs a criminal law practice in Paris, told me. "If lawyers can't talk to lawyers on the phone, certain of confidentiality, we can't do our jobs. It is absolutely incredible."
So upset are French legal professionals that the French bar association is drawing up a petition demanding that a bill on protected correspondence be amended to ensure that conversations between lawyers can never again be tapped.
To appreciate the second problem with the wiretap, consider the logic needed to approve it: In order to gather evidence on charges that the suspect collected money from a man who is now dead, to fund an election campaign that ended seven years ago, we need to listen in on his current phone conversations to gather proof of this illegal activity.
In some other jurisdictions, such as the U.K., that would be a non-starter. Even in France, where tapping phones for police investigations is commonplace, authorities are supposed to have a reasonable expectation of gathering information directly related to the case they are pursuing. Moreover, under French law, anything that isn't tied to the case cannot be transcribed. Otherwise, investigators can simply go on fishing expeditions and use whatever they discover -- which appears to be precisely what happened in this case.
While Sarkozy may prove to be guilty of taking money from Qaddafi, and may have tried to undermine the investigation into that alleged crime by suborning a judge -- both serious and pretty despicable crimes -- the decision to tap his phone was indefensible. Whatever else comes of l'affaire Sarkozy, it should include a thorough reappraisal of France's overly lax rules on wiretapping.
4. Culture War Fuels Hong Kong Protests
The Bloomberg Adam Minter 8 JUL 2, 2014
Political freedom isn't the only impetus for the hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters who this week marched through central Hong Kong. True, the immediate cause was the Chinese government’s recent efforts to assert greater control over Hong Kong. But that’s not all of it, by any means. Tensions between citizens of Hong Kong and mainland China have been increasing for several years now, metastasizing into cross-border online shouting matches that have made strong impressions on people -- and governments -- in both places.
Earlier this year, mainland Chinese were shocked by a deplorable incident in which Hong Kong locals sprayed mainland tourists with water from bottles labeled “locust insecticide.” As most every mainland Chinese knows by now, "locust" is what tens of millions of Chinese tourists who visit Hong Kong annually were labeled in a notorious 2012 advertisement in Hong Kong’s most ardent pro-democracy newspaper, the Apple Daily. (The ad was paid for by 800 donors responding to a Facebook campaign.) It was an ugly message, and it served little purpose beyond highlighting an intractable cross-border culture war -- all the while convincing many Chinese that to be pro-democracy is to be anti-Chinese.
The contrast of world views, and the hate it engenders, is profound. In the eyes of many Hong Kong residents, mainland Chinese are uncouth buffoons with bulging wallets, no manners, and no deference to Hong Kong's status as a more highly developed and cultured gem. (Imagine Manhattanites reacting to an influx of Texans.) For mainlanders, Hong Kong residents are snobs who fail to accept that they belong to One China. The skirmishes between the two -- mostly conducted online -- are depressingly predictable, typically opening with a mainland Chinese tourist committing a petty offense that would hardly be noticed, much less prosecuted, back home.
