Two arrested in Sydney counterterror operation

Two men were arrested as part of an ongoing counterterrorism investigation into a group that officials have accused of plotting to kill a random member of the public in Sydney.

Sulayman Khalid, 20, was charged on Tuesday with possession of documents designed to facilitate a terrorist attack, while a 21-year-old was charged with breaching a control order, police said.

Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan said there was no specific terrorist threat and the arrests were related to an ongoing counterterrorism operation that led to a series of raids in Sydney in September. One man was charged at that time with conspiring with an Islamic State leader in Syria to behead a random person in Sydney. Tuesday’s arrests bring to 11 the number of people charged in connection with that operation.

“There is nothing that indicates at all that (there were) any specific targets or time frame in relation to this particular activity at all,” Phelan said, though he added that the documents seized by police did talk about potential government targets.
The latest arrests come one day after Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned there had been a “heightened level of terror chatter” in the week since a gunman took 18 people hostage in a downtown Sydney cafe. The standoff ended 16 hours later when police stormed the cafe in a barrage of gunfire to free the captives. Two hostages were killed, along with the gunman, an Iranian-born, self-styled cleric.

Australia’s government raised the country’s terror warning level in September in response to the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group.
The Sydney group that police have been investigating in relation to the alleged terror plot revealed in September involves about 15 to 20 people, and their ideology is linked to the Islamic State movement, Phelan said. They have also been accused of supporting terrorism by providing funds and facilitating the travel of people headed overseas to fight alongside extremists.

Police investigating the group issued additional search warrants last Thursday and seized a large number of documents and three guns from a home, New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said. The documents seized “talked a little bit about potential government targets” in Sydney, Phelan said. The material was concerning enough that police decided to move in and make the arrests, he said. “I am confident that we’ve disrupted the activity that they were planning,” Phelan said.

Khalid made a brief appearance via video link at Parramatta Local Court in western Sydney. He did not apply for bail, and the matter was adjourned until Feb. 18.
Khalid could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted, while the 21-year-old charged with breaching a control order faces up to two years. Judges sometimes issue control orders against persons of interest in criminal cases, restricting them from engaging in certain activities. Phelan declined to say what the specific orders were against the man, but said they were issued last Thursday and the man had breached them within 48 hours.

Australia battles worst wildfires in 30 years

Hundreds of firefighters were battling on Tuesday to contain Australia’s worst wildfires in 30 years, which have already swept across more than 12,000 hectares outside the southern city of Adelaide and destroyed at least 26 homes.

The fires, which are burning across a 240-km (150-mile) perimeter in the state of South Australia, come as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology announced on Tuesday that 2014 had been the country’s third warmest year on record.

That has raised questions about whether the blaze is the result of climate change and a possible sign of worse to come.

“Unless there are rapid, substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia and globally, Australia will experience more heat waves and bush fires as in 2014,” David Karoly, a professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Melbourne, said in a statement. At least 29 people have been injured or taken to hospital but no deaths have been reported.

The fires are the worst in terms of scale and intensity since the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 which killed 75 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

Country Fire Service state coordinator Brenton Eden said the next 48 hours were critical to firefighting efforts because of higher forecast temperatures and changing winds.

“Today we will see easterly winds coming through and by mid-afternoon, 4 p.m., we’re going to be back to 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 degrees Fahrenheit),” Eden said. “We’ve got to get through Tuesday and Wednesday and see no increase in the perimeter of this fire.”

Hundreds of families have been evacuated and firefighters have rescued scores of koalas in the fire that is raging through the Adelaide Hills, just outside the state capital. Wildfires are a natural annual event in Australia, but some scientists say climate change is increasing both the fire season and intensity.

The heat caused different problems in the West Australian capital of Perth where thousands of iiNet Ltd internet customers found themselves offline for hours after the company shut down some of its systems.

The temperature in Perth reached a maximum of 44.4 degrees Celsius on Monday, the hottest January day since 1991 when it reached 45.8 degrees.

“Due to record breaking temperatures, iiNet Toolbox, Email and our corporate websites are unavailable. Apologies for any inconvenience caused,” iiNet tweeted.

Divers recover crashed AirAsia jet’s cockpit voice recorder

Divers retrieved the cockpit voice recorder from the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet on Tuesday, an Indonesian investigator told Reuters, a key step towards determining the cause of the crash that killed 162 people.

Indonesia AirAsia’s Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather on Dec. 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors.

The cockpit voice recorder, which retains the last two hours of conversation between the pilots and with air traffic controllers, was found close to where the flight data recorder was recovered from the bottom of the Java Sea on Monday.

When asked if the so-called black box was found, Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee, told Reuters: “We can confirm”.

Together the black boxes, which are actually orange, contain a wealth of data that will be crucial for investigators piecing together the sequence of events that led to the Airbus A320-200 plunging into the sea.

The cockpit voice recorder was on board an Indonesian navy vessel and expected to be sent to the capital, Jakarta, for analysis, MetroTV said, quoting a transport official.
Calmer weather

Investigators may need up to a month to get a complete reading of the data.

The AirAsia group’s first fatal accident took place more than two weeks ago, but wind, high waves and strong currents have slowed efforts to recover bodies and wreckage from the shallow waters off Borneo island.

Dozens of Indonesian navy divers took advantage of calmer weather this week to retrieve the black boxes and now hope to find the fuselage of the Airbus.

Forty-eight bodies have been plucked from the Java Sea and brought to Surabaya for identification. Searchers believe more bodies will be found in the plane’s fuselage.

“Our main task is to find the victims,” Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters before heading to Surabaya to meet families of the victims.

“Even if both (black boxes) are found, it doesn’t mean that our operation is over.”
Relatives of the victims have urged the authorities to make finding the remains of their loved ones the priority.

“Even if the search has to last for a month, we are still hoping to find them,” said Lioni, who lost four family members in the plane crash. ”If they can find even one (of my family members), we would feel a little bit relieved.”

N Korea offers US talks over nuclear impasse

Proposal follows US refusal to end decades-old military drills with Seoul as condition to suspending nuclear tests. North Korea has offered holding talks with the United States in a renewed bid to sway Washington after it rejected Pyongyang's proposal to suspend nuclear tests under the condition that annual US military drills with South Korea were put off.

Japan approves record defence budget

Record $42b budget is to boost defences of disputed islands amid China's assertiveness in the region. Japan's cabinet has approved the country's largest defence budget, with plans to buy surveillance aircraft and F-35 fighter jets to improve defences of disputed islands amid China's increasing assertiveness in the region.

S Korea arrests activist for 'praising' North

Former politician arrested for praising North Korea, just days after her colleague was deported for similar offence. South Korean authorities have arrested an activist and former leftist politician for praising neighbouring North Korea.The move to arrest Lee Hwang Sun, leftist politician and a pro-unification activist on Wednesday, comes days after authorities deported another Korean-American woman for the same offence.

China enlists citizens to patrol border with North Korea - state media

(Reuters) - China is sending civilian militias to help secure the border it shares with North Korea, state media said, in the wake of two reported killings of Chinese citizens by North Koreans that could strain ties between Pyongyang and its sole major ally.

The China Defence News said on Wednesday the government had established a civilian-military defense system in the Yanbian prefecture of Jilin province. Yanbian shares a border of about 500 km (310 miles) with North Korea.

"China and North Korea are both keeping guard on the border ...," the newspaper said. "The situation is more complicated and relying on just one party would make it difficult to achieve effective control."

The government has also "guided the establishment of militia patrols" to guard border villages. Every 10 neighboring households would have their own border security group and there would be 24-hour video surveillance, the newspaper said.

Last week, China said it had lodged a protest with North Koreaafter media reported that a North Korean army deserter had killed four people during a robbery in the Chinese border city of Helong late last month.

State media has raised questions about the China-North Korea relationship, saying that the Chinese government "should not be too accommodating".

The issue of border security has become "very serious", said

Zhang Liangui, a North Korea expert at China's Central Party School.

"The fact that North Koreans are running over the border to China shows that North Korea's regulation of the border is seriously problematic," he said. "They have neglected it."

While it is too early to determine if there will be a longterm impact on diplomatic ties, the situation raised tension near the border, he added.

"For those Chinese citizens living near the border, there is widespread anxiety right now, the impact of the situation is very serious," he said. "To say that this will have no impact on relations with North Korea just doesn't match with reality."

China is North Korea's most important diplomatic and economic ally, although three nuclear tests, several rounds of saber-rattling and violence on the China-North Korea border have tested Beijing's support.

The 520 km-long Tumen River that divides China and North Korea is a popular route used by defectors fleeing the secretive North.

(Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez)

AirAsia plane: Divers examine fuselage under Java Sea

Part of the wing and the main body of the plane were visible in the pictures

Most of the 162 passengers and crew of the plane are still missing, and it is hoped they are inside the fuselage.Divers in Indonesia have gone down to examine the main body of AirAsia flight QZ8501, which was found at the bottom of the Java Sea on Wednesday.

The divers will determine whether bodies can be removed and the wreckage raised from the sea floor.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Wednesday thanked all those involved in the nearly three-week search operation.

In live televised comments he said he was very pleased the fuselage had been found, and hoped the bodies of those still missing would soon be recovered.

The section of the plane bears part of AirAsia's company slogan

Wreckage believed to be fuselage was detected earlier this week, but on Wednesday a Singaporean underwater robot was able to photograph it and confirm it was the missing section.

AirAsia's slogan "Now everyone can fly" could be seen written along the side.

North Korean leader proposes talks with South

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un proposed the "highest-level" talks with South Korea Thursday in a surprise overture delivered during the communist supremo's traditional New Year message.

The sudden move comes with his pariah state battling to fend off international prosecution over its dismal human rights record, and would clear the path for the first inter-Korean summit since a 2007 meeting in Pyongyang.

"Depending on the mood and circumstances to be created, we have no reason not to hold the highest-level talks," Kim said, calling for a turnaround in strained relations between the two Koreas, which are technically at war.

South Korean media said he was referring to a summit with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye.

Kim also urged Washington to take a "bold shift" in its policy towards Pyongyang and denounced the US for leading an international campaign over the North's human rights record.

U.S. takes aim at North Korea's remaining financial links

Tue, Jan 13 2015

By David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States aims to use new sanctions imposed on North Korea over the cyber attack on Sony Pictures to cut off the country's remaining links to the international financial system, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Tuesday.

Daniel Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the U.S. Treasury Department, said past sanctions had already discouraged "hundreds" of overseas banks, including China's major commercial banks, from doing business with North Korea.

New sanctions announced by President Barack Obama on Jan 2. provided "a tremendous amount of flexibility" and the goal was to identify remaining financial institutions that allowed North Korea access to the global system, which could face sanction themselves, Glaser told a House of Representatives briefing.

"We could target any North Korean government agency; we could target any North Korean government official ... we could apply sanctions with respect to any individual or entity who is providing them, in turn, material support," he said.

Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called for use of the full scope of the new sanctions announced after U.S. authorities said North Korea was behind the Sony attack.

"The significance of this new Executive Order may come from the broad power it gives the president to target anyone who is a part of the North Korean government, or is assisting them in any way … that is if the administration chooses to use it to its full advantage," he told the briefing.

"We need to step up and target those financial institutions in Asia and beyond that are supporting the brutal and dangerous North Korean regime."

When challenged by Royce about "a number of small banks" still doing business with North Korea and the need to choke off the country's access to hard currency, Glaser replied: "That's exactly what we are trying to do."

Royce said he hoped a bipartisan bill he sponsored that would label North Korea "a primary money laundering concern" would be passed by the Senate this year.

At a news conference at the United Nations in New York, North Korea's Deputy U.N. Ambassador An Myong Hun reiterated his country's position that it had nothing to do with the Sony hacking and said the United States should provide evidence.

Long-standing international sanctions have sought to push North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program, but while they have slowed the program, they have not stopped it.

The country's main economic ties are with China and, according U.S. government reports, its tiny economy has supported itself with money-making scams ranging from counterfeiting $100 bills to illicit arms and drug sales.

Vietnam Central Bank Devalues Dong to Buttress Exports: Economy

By Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen and Nguyen Kieu Giang - Jan 7, 2015

The State Bank of Vietnam devalued the dong for the second time in seven months as regional currencies declined, seeking to support exports that have sustained the country’s economic growth.

North Koreans Walk Across Frozen River to Kill Chinese for Food

By Bloomberg News - Jan 14, 2015

A spate of murders by North Koreans inside China’s border is prompting some residents to abandon their homes, testing China’s ability to manage both the 880-mile (1,400-kilometer) shared frontier and its relationship with the reclusive nation.