ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Country holds day of mourning after collapse of clothing factory in Dhaka that has killed at least 160 people. Rescuers in Bangladesh have continued to hunt for survivors in a collapsed building as the death toll rose to 161 and criticism mounted of foreign firms that source cheap clothes from the country. More than 1,000 people were injured when the site housing five garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka imploded on Wednesday, allegedly after managers ignored workers' warnings that the building had become unstable. Flags flew at half-mast on Thursday as the shell-shocked country declared a day of mourning for the victims of the nation's worst factory disaster, which highlighted anew safety concerns in Bangladesh's vital garment industry. Army Brigadier General Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder said many people are still trapped in the building, which housed a number of garment factories employing hundreds of people. Workers had warned a day earlier that large cracks...

China leads the world in computer espionage, according to an annual report that monitors the state of global cyber threats. Ninety-six percent of cyber espionage cases targeting intellectual property and business trade secrets were attributed to “threat actors in China,” while the remaining four percent were unknown, according to the “ 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report ," which is issued by Verizon, a large U.S. telecom firm. “This may mean that other threat groups perform their activities with greater stealth and subterfuge,” read the report. “But it could also mean that China is, in fact, the most active source of national and industrial espionage in the world today.” While the numbers certainly seem clear, some security experts caution not to draw too many conclusions from the report. “Verizon doesn't explain how they determine that an event is state-sponsored, nor how they distinguish between legitimate attacks originating from China and those which use compromis...

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese authorities accused 'terrorists' in China's far west of setting a trap to kill policemen, state media said Thursday, after a US-based rights group dismissed terrorism claims. Twenty-one people were killed in violence in west China's Xinjiang region on Tuesday, local government officials said, adding that six members of the ethnic Uighur minority shot dead in the clashes were suspected of terrorist plotting. "The terrorists may have set a trap," the state-run Global Times daily quoted local officials as saying, adding that knife-wielding men ambushed police after luring them to a house in Barchuk county, in the region's west. Fifteen police and 'social workers' were killed in the incident, including 10 from the Uighur minority, China's Foreign Ministry said. Uighurs are mostly Muslim and see Xinjiang as their homeland. Xinjiang, a region about twice the size of Turkey, is home to around nine million ethnic Uighurs, many o...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Gunmen took control of the Iraqi town of Sulaiman Bek on Wednesday after fighting with security forces, part of a bloody two days of violence that killed 128 people and wounded 269, officials said. Most of the casualties -- 102 dead and 195 wounded -- came from clashes and attacks involving security forces, protesters and their supporters, which have sent tensions in Iraq soaring. The violence, which began with clashes on Tuesday at a protest site in northern Iraq after security forces moved in, is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that erupted in Sunni Muslim areas of the Shiite-majority country more than four months ago. The Sunni protesters have called for the resignation of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and railed against the alleged targeting of their community by the authorities. On Wednesday, five soldiers and seven gunmen were killed and 63 people, including 20 soldiers, wounded in fighting in the Sulaiman Bek area in Salaheddin province, nort...

PANMUNJOM — The tense situation on the Korean peninsula may be the world’s most urgent security challenge. However, unlike threats from Iran or Syria’s civil war, the Korean situation has been unresolved for more than 60 years. The conflict's most recognized flashpoint is Panmunjom in the Korean DMZ (demilitarized zone). The division of North and South Korea has spanned seven decades. Neither side recognizes the other diplomatically and both claim the entire peninsula. The peninsula is divided along the 38th parallel. And, it is in the United Nations Military Armistice Commission's conference room T-2, where attempts have been made over the years to resolve the lingering differences. Herman: "So when we are crossing this table here, we are actually crossing into North Korea?" U.S. soldier: “Yes, you'll be crossing into North Korea....The microphones on this table ...are recording and monitored 24 hours a day. The microphones also represent the military demarca...

 

Japanese prime minister threatens force if China attempts to land on island chain in East China Sea. Japan has summoned the Chinese ambassador in protest over a flotilla of Chinese government ships that entered territorial waters near a disputed island chain. Japan's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had called in the envoy after eight Chinese vessels entered waters near the Senkaku islands, which China calls Diaoyu, the most in a single day since Tokyo nationalised part of the archipelago in September. The Chinese boats drove out a flotilla of 10 boats carrying about 80 Japanese activists from the nationalist Ganbare Nippon ("Stand Firm, Japan") group, which sailed into waters around the islets early on Tuesday. They then began to withdraw from the area on the orders of Japanese Coast Guard patrol ships, when Chinese government surveillance ships came nearby. "Our latest intelligence indicates that a large number of Chinese vessels have entered Japanese terr...

Too big to fail On Saturday, Italy's 87-year-old Giorgio Napolitano relented under the pressure of the main political parties and agreed to stand for re-election as president. By late afternoon, he had received an unprecedented second mandate, with more than two-thirds of the Italian electoral college voting their support. The rest of the world's leaders breathed a sigh of relief. Italy is too big to fail . This outcome was unexpected. Napolitano had made it clear for over a year that he did not want to continue in office. The physical and psychological demands of presiding over a divided Italy in turbulent times have exacted their toll. Napolitano is tired; he has earned the right to reflect on his long experience in public life. However, the main parties would not let that happen. They failed to agree on a consensus candidate to stand for office. Democratic Party (PD) leader Pier Luigi Bersani and centre-right People of Liberty (PdL) leader Silvio Berlusconi put...