Sunday, December 12, 2010

Japan to Shift Its Military Toward Threats From China

Japan has realigned its military to be more mobile in order to be able to react to China's growing presence in the Southernmost Islands. The United States is using this as an opportunity to strengthen our relationship with our Ally Japan. Washington has proposed to create a three way tie including their ally, South korea.
The proposal of three-nation drills has already met resistance in Japan, whose military is severely constrained by its pacifist, postwar Constitution, and also in South Korea, where bitter memories of Japan’s brutal early-20th century march through Asia still run deep. However, Japan has slowly begun to shed some of the postwar phobias against a larger Asian role for its military, known as the Self-Defense Forces, one of the largest and most technologically advanced in the region.
It's hard to forget the brutality of World War II. Japan still struggles with the limitations put on their military by the postwar Constitution, but hopefully over time they can show us and South Korea that they have changed for the better and can be trusted as an ally. I think its a great step forward if we are able to create a three way tie between these two countries, for it will allow us to create a stronger force of defense in Asia.

Sweden Begins Terror Inquiry After Bombing in Stockholm

Swedish authorities are calling the bombing in the heart of Sweden's Capital an act of terrorism. Investigators believe the suicide bomber was a 28year old Swede of Iraqi origin, and who had been carrying pipe bombs and a backpack full of nails. They had also received e-mails minutes before the blasts of a guy making statements in English, Arabic, and Swedish.
He read haltingly from what was apparently a prepared script, and said that Swedes had brought “these actions” on themselves. The message singled out Lars Vilks, a cartoonist threatened repeatedly with murder since publishing a derogatory cartoon of the prophet Mohammed in 2007, and demanded that European nations withdraw their soldiers from Afghanistan. Then, with the sound of the turn of a page, he addressed his wife and children. The man confessed to them that trips he had made to the Middle East were not for business, but for “jihad”.
It terrifying to know that there are terrorist threats that go around all the time. Its also very upsetting that Countries like the United States and Sweden are targets for these terrorist groups because of actions we have  

Mental Health Break- How the Midterms Will be Remembered 1,000 Years From Now

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives

Once a month an elite team coming from the huge giants like JPMorgan, Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, come together to protect the interests of big banks in the market. But they actually come together to ensure no other banks come into the market.
But big banks influence the rules governing derivatives through a variety of industry groups. The banks’ latest point of influence are clearinghouses like ICE Trust, which holds the monthly meetings with the nine bankers in New York.
Today our government is controlled by these banks. They control the market, trade and the prices of our fixed rates. If we continue on this path the Government will loose all sense of control and hand all the say in our country to the banks.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Hackers Attack Companies That Hindered WikiLeaks

On Wednesday, a small group of hackers came up with a campaign to hack companies against WikiLeaks that had released classified American Documents. Mastercard, Amazon and PayPal were targets by these group of Hackers. For they had hindered WikiLeaks by cutting of donations, revoking server space and cutting off commercial cooperation. These companies websites are dealing with heavy traffic and slow access caused by the hackers.
Mr. Housh, who has worked on previous campaigns with Anonymous but disavows any illegal activity himself, said it was the first time the group had enough firepower to bring down well-secured blue chip companies like Mastercard. “No tactics have changed this time,” he said, “but there is so much support and there are so many people doing it that sites like that are going down.”
Its odd to see these big cooperations struggling with these anonymous hackers that are hindering their web sites to work. You would expect for these companies to have a strong security team of hackers that would have no problem protecting their web sites. This proves that our privacy such as credit card numbers and social security numbers may not be as well protected as we may think.