NKorea arms seizure could hurt US-Cuba detente

HAVANA (AP) ? Cuba's admission that it was secretly sending aging weapons systems to North Korea has turned the global spotlight on a little-known link in a secretive network of rusting freighters and charter jets that moves weapons to and from North Korea despite U.N. sanctions.

The revelation that Cuba was shipping the arms, purportedly to be repaired and returned, is certain to jeopardize slowly warming ties between the U.S. and Havana, although the extent of the damage remains uncertain. Experts said Cuba's participation in the clandestine arms network was a puzzling move that promised little military payoff for the risk of incurring U.N. penalties and imperiling detente with Washington.

The aging armaments, including radar system parts, missiles, and even two jet fighters, were discovered Monday buried beneath thousands of tons of raw Cuban brown sugar piled onto a North Korean freighter that was seized by Panama as it headed for home through the Panama Canal.

North Korea is barred by the U.N. from buying or selling arms, missiles or components, but for years U.N. and independent arms monitors have discovered North Korean weaponry headed to Iran, Syria and a host of nations in Africa and Asia. The U.N. says North Korea also has repeatedly tried to import banned arms. What's more, analysts say, it maintains a thriving sideline in repairing aging Warsaw Pact gear, often in exchange for badly needed commodities, such as Burmese rice.

"They don't know how to grow rice, but they know how to repair radars," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a private group dedicated to promoting arms control.

"The North Koreans are taking desperate measures to pursue that work. Despite the best efforts of the international community to cut off arms transfers to and from North Korea, it will continue in some form."

The surprise for many observers was that the latest shipment of arms headed to North Korea comes from Cuba, which acknowledged late Tuesday that it was shipping two anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles, two Mig-21 fighter jets and 15 jet engine, saying they were headed to North Korea to be repaired there.

The discovery aboard the freighter Chong Chon Gang was expected to trigger an investigation by the U.N. Security Council committee that monitors the sanctions against North Korea, and Panamanian officials said U.N. investigators were expected in Panama on Thursday. Britain's U.N. Ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, said that "any weapons transfers, for whatever reason, to North Korea would be a violation of the sanctions regime."

If Cuba wanted to send the weapons for repairs and have them returned, it would have needed to get a waiver from the Security Council committee monitoring the North Korea sanctions. A spokesman for Luxembourg's U.N. Mission, which chairs the North Korea sanctions committee, told The Associated Press that there had been no such request from Cuba.

Democrat Robert Menendez, the Cuban-American chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the incident "almost certainly violated" U.N. sanctions and urged the Obama administration to bring it to the Security Council for review.

"Weapons transfers from one communist regime to another hidden under sacks of sugar are not accidental occurrences," Menendez said Wednesday, adding that it "reinforces the necessity that Cuba remain on the State Department's list of countries that sponsor state terrorism."

Panama's seizure of the freighter, which saw its North Korean captain try to commit suicide and 35 crewmen arrested after resisting police efforts to intercept the ship in Panamanian waters, was badly timed for officials working on baby steps toward a limited detente between the U.S. and Cuba.

High-ranking Cubans were in Washington on Wednesday for migration talks that are supposed to be held every six months but have been on ice since January 2011, as the nations remain at odds on issues like Cuba's imprisonment of U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross.

"I don't think you can sugarcoat this," said Ted Piccone, senior fellow and deputy director for foreign policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. "You have a suspicious cargo of weapons going to a heavily sanctioned state, and this is bad for U.S.-Cuba relations. The timing, the same week as the restart of long postponed migration talks, couldn't be worse."

In the past those discussions have provided a rare opportunity to discuss other issues informally in one of the few open channels of dialogue between the countries.

U.S. and Cuban representatives last month also sat down for talks on resuming direct mail service. Earlier this year, a U.S. judge allowed a convicted Cuban intelligence agent to return to the island rather than complete his parole in the United States. And there have been whispers that Washington could remove Cuba from its annual list of state sponsors of terrorism.

On Tuesday, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, urged a suspension of the migration talks.

"At a minimum this development will decrease the chances of any change in U.S. policy," Piccone said. "Or at least postpone changes that have been discussed quietly and publicly for some time in Washington."

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said Wednesday that Washington had told Cuban officials that it would discuss the seized ship with them soon, but that it would not be a focus of the one-day migration talks.

Panamanian officials said Wednesday that the ship's crew was the subject of a criminal investigation that could lead to charges, adding that two North Korean diplomats based in Havana had been issued visas to travel to Panama to talk with authorities about the case. Panamanian authorities said it might take a week to search the ship, since so far they have only examined two of its five container sections.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Panama should release the crew because no drugs or illegal cargo were aboard, reiterating Cuba's explanation that, "this cargo is nothing but aging weapons which are to be sent back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a legitimate contract."

Experts said the equipment found aboard the North Korean vessel does not pose a military threat to the United States or its allies.

Like other aspects of Cuba's economy and infrastructure since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the island's armed forces rely greatly on aging technology that requires frequent maintenance and parts that are difficult to obtain.

North Korea has a robust capability to repair and upgrade such Soviet-era military equipment, and a track record of doing that in exchange for commodities such as sugar. Soviet-built air-defense missiles, radar systems and MiG-21 fighter jets are complex enough to periodically require a factory repair in addition to regular maintenance.

North Korea is also known to be seeking to evade sanctions and get spare parts for its own weapons systems, particularly Mig jet fighters. That raises the possibility that in lieu of cash, Cuba was paying for the repairs with a mix of sugar and jet equipment, experts said.

"We think it is credible that they could be sending some of these systems for repair and upgrade work," said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for IHS Jane's Intelligence. "But equally there is stuff in that shipment that could be used in North Korea and not be going back."

"Upgrading, servicing and repairing, that's what the North Koreans do," added Hugh Griffiths, arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "It is military equipment prohibited under U.N. sanctions, so whether payment is made in the form of barter trade or foreign currency, it still constitutes a violation."

The private defense analysis group IHS said satellite tracking data showed that another North Korean vessel had made a similar trip last year, crossing the Panama Canal on its way to Cuba, then crossing back, although there was no evidence yet that it had been carrying arms.

Griffiths also said his institute earlier this year reported to the U.N. a discovery it made of a flight from Cuba to North Korea that traveled via central Africa, a flight it said should now be receiving new scrutiny.

Under current sanctions, all U.N. member states are prohibited from directly or indirectly supplying, selling or transferring arms, missiles or missile systems and the equipment and technology to make them to North Korea, with the exception of small arms and light weapons.

The most recent resolution, approved in March after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, authorizes all countries to inspect cargo inside or transiting through their territory that originated in North Korea. It also lets countries inspect cargo destined for North Korea if a state has credible information the cargo could violate Security Council resolutions.

____

Weissenstein reported from Mexico City. Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Malin Rising in Stockholm, Foster Klug in Seoul, South Korea, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Juan Zamorano in Panama contributed to this report

____

Follow Michael Weissenstein on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mweissenstein

Follow Peter Orsi on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nkorea-arms-seizure-could-hurt-us-cuba-detente-223443942.html

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R&B singer shoved after Trayvon Martin dedication

HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) ? R&B singer Lester Chambers is recovering from injuries he suffered after a woman leaped onto the stage and shoved him when he dedicated a song to Trayvon Martin during a concert in the San Francisco Bay Area, a newspaper reported Monday.

Lester Chambers ? a member of the Chambers Brothers, best known for their 1968 hit "Time Has Come Today" ? had a bruised rib muscle and nerve damage after he was attacked Saturday at the Hayward Russell City Blues Festival, family members told The San Jose Mercury News (http://bit.ly/12uRHLF).

Chambers dedicated the Curtis Mayfield hit "People Get Ready" to the slain Florida teen, the newspaper reported.

Witnesses said 43-year-old Dinalynn Andrews Potter of Barstow yelled "it's all your fault" before shoving 73-year-old Chambers.

"She must have been an acrobat," Lola Chambers, Lester Chambers' wife, told the Mercury News. "She did it in one leap. He didn't see her coming."

Andrews Potter was arrested on suspicion of battery, cited and released.

George Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, was found not guilty of second-degree murder in last year's death of Martin, who was black. The jury had the option to consider manslaughter but declined to convict him of the lesser charge.

The case prompted debate nationwide over racial profiling, self-defense and equal justice. Zimmerman was acquitted Saturday.

Chambers' family wants police to file hate crime charges. Andrews Potter is white, they said. Chambers is black.

Hayward Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

___

Information from: San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, http://www.mercurynews.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/r-b-singer-shoved-trayvon-martin-dedication-224703585.html

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Disgraced Illinois governor Blagojevich appeals corruption conviction

(Reuters) - Lawyers for Rod Blagojevich have filed an appeal challenging the disgraced former Illinois governor's corruption conviction and 14-year prison term.

Blagojevich was sentenced in 2011 after being convicted of multiple criminal corruption counts over a scheme to sell a U.S. Senate seat vacated by then president-elect Barack Obama.

A filing with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago late on Monday argued there was insufficient evidence to prove any of the charges against him.

It also argued the jury was misled about the laws on fraud, extortion and bribery at his trial.

A flamboyant two-term Democrat, Blagojevich was ousted from office in 2009 after impeachment proceedings by the state legislature.

He was also convicted of charges he used his office to extort campaign contributions and jobs for himself and his wife.

(Reporting by David Bailey; Writing by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/disgraced-illinois-governor-blagojevich-appeals-corruption-conviction-063414023.html

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Snowden says data can't leak if he doesn't want it to

Yesterday I wrote about NSA leaker Edward Snowden's threat, made via Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, to release information damaging to the US government if he's killed, and concerns about what exactly that information might be.

Today Mr. Snowden remains at a Moscow airport. He applied for temporary asylum in the country yesterday. His Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, said today that Snowden has no plans to try to leave the country soon and has not ruled out applying for Russian citizenship. As he seeks help in avoiding arrest and capture, it's hard not to wonder if Snowden will trade information he has in exchange for help.

After I wrote my story yesterday, Mr. Greenwald published a series of e-mails involving former New Hampshire Sen. Gordon Humphrey, Snowden, and himself, in which Snowden was insistent that it's impossible for information in his possession to be obtained by enemies of the US.

RECOMMENDED: NSA surveillance 101: What US intelligence agencies are doing, what they know

"Provided you have not leaked information that would put in harm's way any intelligence agent, I believe you have done the right thing in exposing what I regard as massive violation of the United States Constitution," Senator Humphrey wrote to Snowden. Snowden responded, thanking Humphrey and complaining he's been misrepresented by the press:

"The media has distorted my actions and intentions to distract from the substance of Constitutional violations and instead focus on personalities. It seems they believe every modern narrative requires a bad guy. Perhaps it does. Perhaps, in such times, loving one's country means being hated by its government," he wrote. "Though reporters and officials may never believe it, I have not provided any information that would harm our people ? agent or not ? and I have no intention to do so."

Snowden continues:

"Further, no intelligence service ? not even our own ? has the capacity to compromise the secrets I continue to protect. While it has not been reported in the media, one of my specializations was to teach our people at DIA how to keep such information from being compromised even in the highest threat counter-intelligence environments (i.e. China).

You may rest easy knowing I cannot be coerced into revealing that information, even under torture."

I think his good intentions, as he sees them, are fair to assume. But his certainty that it is impossible to compromise what he knows seems questionable. Presumably he has digital files that are encrypted in some fashion. But if the files are accessible at all, there has to be a key.

Or even imagine a Escherian progression of unbreakable locks containing the key to the next unbreakable lock in the progression, which in turn contains the next key. Layers of difficulty are just that ? problems to be overcome. Assertions of insurmountably seem specious as long as a key or set of keys exists and someone hasn't destroyed the first one in the sequence.

And if Snowden's claims are to be believed, a key to whatever data he has does exist. Greenwald says Snowden's NSA files have been set up for release in the event Snowden is killed by the US. Greenwald hasn't said what the mechanism would be and what precisely would be released beyond, "if something does happen to [Snowden] all the information will be revealed and it could be [the US government's] worst nightmare."

That implies that there is some process, known to some people or persons, that allows for access. And while state of the art encryption can foil technical efforts to break it, it's hard to see how gaining access to the knowledge of others is impossible. Spy agencies use trickery, bribery, coercion, and sometimes worse to pry out others' secrets. Yet Snowden was insistent in his letter to Senator Humphrey.

RECOMMENDED: NSA surveillance 101: What US intelligence agencies are doing, what they know

I originally took the torture comment to be a bit of naive bravado (people will say or do almost anything to stop the unspeakable horror of torture) though Greenwald implies today that what Snowden meant was that he doesn't know how to get at the files himself. But then, who does?

If the answer is "no one," then it's hard to square with his claim of a release being made in the event of his death. If the answer is "someone" or "some group of people," then his confidence that secrets can't be compromised seems misplaced. (I asked a number of people who know more about encryption than I about this; the answer always circled back to "the key is the vulnerability." Perhaps there's something we're all missing?)

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-says-data-cant-leak-doesnt-want-164253919.html

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Sen. Reid says filibuster showdown may be averted

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Senators moved toward resolving their feud over Republican filibusters of White House appointees on Tuesday, hoping to avoid a Senate rules change by Democrats that would worsen the partisanship already troubling the chamber.

Officials said both parties were discussing a plan to permit prompt confirmation for most of the contested nominees, including Tom Perez to head the Labor Department, Gina McCarthy to run the Environmental Protection Agency and Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Senate voted 71-29 to clear the way for eventual confirmation of Cordray, whom President Barack Obama installed when the Senate was in recess, angering Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed confidence that a broader deal was within reach, even if it would leave open the possibility of future filibusters of Obama's executive nominees. Reid had been threatening to change the rules, to bar such filibusters.

Senators are not questioning the ability to keep using filibusters -- in which 41 of the 100 senators can block action -- on legislation and judicial nominees, who seek lifetime appointments.

Under the current proposal, Obama would drop efforts to win confirmation for two members of the National Labor Relations Board and name two replacements who would receive speedy consideration. Richard Griffin and Sharon Block were originally named to their posts as recess appointees, meaning they bypassed confirmation. An appeals court has since ruled their appointments were invalid, and the Supreme Court has agreed to review the case.

The proposed agreement would not resolve deep partisan divisions over the future use of filibusters to block a president's executive nominees.

"It is a compromise, and I think we get what we want, they get what they want. Not a bad deal," Reid said on the Senate floor.

The developments unfolded the morning after a closed-door meeting of nearly all 100 senators, eager to avoid a rules change that could poison relations between the two parties.

If ratified, the deal would mark a retreat by Reid from his insistence on Monday that Republicans promise not to filibuster future executive nominees. Republican leader Mitch McConnell had privately offered to clear the way for the currently contested nominees -- providing Block and Griffin were replaced -- officials in both parties said. That's largely the deal Democrats agreed to on Tuesday.

Reid credited Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., with helping broker a breakthrough.

McCain told reporters it was "probably the hardest thing I've been involved in." Noting the Senate recently passed a bipartisan immigration bill, he said, "Maybe we can show more momentum toward bipartisanship. Is it a panacea? No, but I think it's an important step forward."

Democrats acknowledged that a rules change probably would have prompted Republicans to retaliate by doing even more to reduce the minority party's rights if the GOP regained control of the Senate. That could happen as early 18 months from now, after the 2014 elections.

"It's a decision that, if they actually go through with it, they will live to regret," McConnell has said.

Unlike the 435-member House, the Senate has a long and bumpy tradition of granting rights to minority-party members. The most powerful tool is the filibuster, which can kill a measure by using endless debate to prevent a yes-or-no vote.

The mere promise of a filibuster can block Senate action on almost anything unless 60 of the 100 senators vote to overcome it. Filibuster-proof majorities are rare, and Republicans now hold 46 Senate seats.

Both parties have accelerated their use of the filibuster threat in recent times. Since Obama took office in January 2009, Republicans have threatened filibusters repeatedly, infuriating Democrats.

Reid said Lyndon B. Johnson faced one filibuster during his six years as Senate majority leader. In the same length of time as majority leader, Reid said he has faced 413 threatened filibusters. The tactic, he said, blocks action on routine matters that Congress once handled fairly easily.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters the Senate "needs to confirm this president's nominees in a timely and efficient manner." That will be true, he said, "for the next president, and the next president after that. This has become ridiculous."

Asked Monday if Obama worries that a filibuster rule change would make the Senate even more dysfunctional, Carney said, "Well, it boggles the mind how they would achieve that."

This notion that things can't get much worse in the often stalemated Senate seems to have convinced numerous senators and interest groups in recent months that there was little risk in talking about changing traditions to end at least some of the logjams.

___

Associated Press writers Alan Fram and David Espo contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sen-reid-says-filibuster-showdown-may-averted-151225951.html

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A/C D.C.

The growing prominence of air conditioning comes at a high cost. Back in 2006, Saletan explained how, in order to carve out havens of pressurized cold, we are increasing our greenhouse gas emissions. His original article is printed below:

Workers install an air-conditioning unit in a food stall in Shanghai on July 2, 2013.

Photo by PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images

Have you heard the news? Scientists have found a planet that can support life. Its atmosphere is too hot for year-round habitation, its gases impede breathing, and surface conditions are sometimes fatal. But by constructing a network of sealed facilities, tunnels, and vehicles, humans could survive on this planet for decades and perhaps even centuries.

The planet is called Earth.

If you've seen this planet lately, you know what's going on: temperature records shattering, scores of Americans dead. By summer's end, the toll will be in the hundreds. It's not as bad as 2003, when a heat wave killed 30,000 people in Europe. But according to global-warming forecasts, within 40 years, every other summer will be like that one.

Thank goodness for air conditioning. To keep old folks alive, cities from Washington to Los Angeles are opening artificially cooled buildings to the public. Meanwhile, people are lining up to buy window units. According to the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute, shipments of air conditioners and heat pumps have tripled over the last three decades. The percentage of single-family homes built with central air has gone from 36 to 87. The percentage of cars built with air conditioning has risen from 61 to 98. In 1970, only 42 percent of occupied mobile homes had it. By 2003, that percentage had more than doubled.

It's a heartwarming?or, more precisely, a heart-cooling?story. Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. Air conditioning takes indoor heat and pushes it outdoors. To do this, it uses energy, which increases production of greenhouse gases, which warm the atmosphere. From a cooling standpoint, the first transaction is a wash, and the second is a loss. We're cooking our planet to refrigerate the diminishing part that's still habitable.

All over the country, power consumption is breaking records, and air conditioning is a huge reason why. We use about one-sixth of our electricity to cool ourselves. That's more than the total electricity consumption of India, a country whose population exceeds 1 billion. To get the electricity, we burn oil and coal. We also run air conditioners in our cars, which reduces urban fuel efficiency by up to four miles per gallon, at an annual cost of 7 billion gallons of gasoline.

More burning of oil and coal means more greenhouse gases. Based on government data, Stan Cox, a scientist at the Land Institute, calculates that air-conditioning the average U.S. home requires 3,400 pounds of carbon-dioxide production per year. The effects of this are particularly bad at night. Over the last five summers, very high minimum daily temperatures?those that score in the top 10 percent historically?have been far more widespread in this country than during any other five-year period. This is what's killing people. Outdoor air used to cool at night, allowing us to recover from the day's heat. Now it doesn't. To fuel our own air conditioning, we're destroying nature's.

The hotter it gets, the more energy we burn. In 1981, only one in three American households with central air used it all summer long. By 1997, more than half did. Countries once cooled by outdoor air now cool themselves. In Britain, 75 percent of new cars have air conditioning. In Canada, energy consumption for residential cooling has doubled in 10 years, and half the homes now have central or window units. Kuujjuaq, an Eskimo village 1,000 miles north of Montreal, just bought 10 air conditioners. According to the mayor, it's been getting hot lately.

Instead of fixing the outdoors, we're trying to escape it. On every street in my neighborhood, people have torn down ordinary homes and put up giant air-conditioned boxes that extend as far as possible toward the property line. They've lost yards and windows, but that's the whole idea. Outdoor space is too hard to control, so we're replacing it with indoor space. From 1991 to 2005, the median lot size of single-family homes sold in the United States shrank by 9 percent, but the median indoor square footage increased by 18 percent. If you can't stand the heat, go hide in your kitchen.

Seven years ago, when my wife and I moved into our house, we built a garden and patio in the back yard. Now, overcome by heat and mosquitoes, we're thinking of replacing them with something a bit more climate-controlled. We still want to look at nature. We just don't want to feel it. And for better or worse, we'll probably succeed. Two months ago, we saw Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Walking out of the air-conditioned theater, we agonized over what we could do to fight global warming. The conversation ended when we realized that our most useful contribution would be to cancel the renovation. Wrapping ourselves in a climate-controlled bubble can't make global warming less true. But in the short run, it can make it a lot less inconvenient.

That's the problem in Washington today. Policymakers aren't facing global warming, because they aren't feeling it. They gave themselves air conditioning in the 1920s and '30s, long before the public got it. White House meetings and congressional hearings on climate change are doomed hours beforehand, when the thermostats are set. One minute, you're watching video of people sweltering in New Orleans. The next minute, you're watching senators dispute the significance of greenhouse gases. Don't ask whether these people are living on the same planet. In effect, they aren't.

When outdoor heat leaks into the Washington bubble, like crime into a white neighborhood, officials treat it as a faux pas. Three weeks ago, House Majority Leader John Boehner told reporters in a Capitol press gallery, "It'd be nice if they could get you a little more air conditioning up here." This week, President Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, assured White House correspondents that their briefing room would soon be renovated. "Gathering from the temperature in this room at this moment, I think everybody agrees that it's probably about time to have a new and updated air conditioning and heating system," he joked. But maybe the air conditioning system we need to fix is the one outdoors. And maybe we won't face that truth till it becomes more inconvenient.

A version of this piece appears in the Washington Post Outlook section.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2006/08/ac_dc.html

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