World View: Japan's Shinzo Abe Threatens 'Force' Against China's Ships

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• France’s embassy in Tripoli, Libya, attacked by car bomb
• Israel accuses Syria of using chemical weapons, then retracts
• Twitter hoax causes a new Wall Street ‘Flash Crash’
• Japan’s Shinzo Abe threatens ‘force’ against China’s ships

France’s embassy in Tripoli, Libya, attacked by car bomb

France’s embassy in Tripoli on Tuesday after car bomb explosion (AFP)

Two guards were wounded when a car bomb exploded early Tuesday morningin front of France’s embassy in Tripoli, Libya. The explosion createda deep crater in the street, and destroyed two cars parked nearby,damaging nearby buildings. There were so few casualties because theblast occurred at 7:10 am local time, before most embassy personnelhad arrived for work. There has been very little dependable securityin Libya since the 2011 Nato war in Libya. The region of greatestinsecurity has been around Benghazi, which has been hit by multiplebombings and assassinations. Four Americans, including ambassadorChris Stevens, were killed when heavily armed men overran the Benghazimission on September 11th, setting fire to much of the compound andthen attacking a nearby annex. The Benghazi attack remains highlycontroversial in Washington, since there’s evidence that theAdministration repeatedly lied and covered up the facts surroundingthe attack. The Local/AFP (France) and CBS News

Israel accuses Syria of using chemical weapons, then retracts

Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of research and analysis in Israelimilitary intelligence, told a security conference on Tuesday that theregime of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons,including the lethal nerve agent sarin, multiple times:

“To the best of our professional understanding, theregime used lethal chemical weapons against the militants in aseries of incidents over the past months, including the relativelyfamous incident of March 19. Shrunken pupils, foaming at themouth and other signs indicate, in our view, that lethal chemicalweapons were used.”

However, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that he had spoken toIsrael’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who refused to confirmBrun’s accusations.

The United States and the west are extremely reluctant to confirm theuse of chemical weapons in Syria, since President Barack Obama hassaid that their use would cross a “red line,” and require militaryintervention in Syria. AP and McClatchy

Twitter hoax causes a new Wall Street ‘Flash Crash’

Graph of Tuesday’s ‘flash crash’ (WSJ)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly crashed 150 points on Tuesdayat 1:08 pm, when someone hacked into the Associated Press Twitteraccount and posted a phony story saying that explosions at the WhiteHouse had injured President Barack Obama. AP immediately retractedthe story, and things were back to “normal” by 1:15 pm. The rapidcrash was caused by computer algorithms that scan all news stories andreact within nanoseconds when certain keywords are recognized. Creditfor the AP hack was claimed by a shadowy group called the “SyrianElectronic Army.” CNBCand NBC News

Japan’s Shinzo Abe threatens ‘force’ against China’s ships

Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe made the most threatening statementso far in the dispute with China over the Senkaku / Diaoyu islands:

“We would take decisive action against any attempt toenter territorial waters and to land. We would never allow [alanding].

It would be natural for us to expel by force (the Chinese) if theywere to make a landing.”

China sent a fleet of eight warships to the waters around theislands, and forced boats carrying 80 Japanese nationalists toturn back.

Threats between Japan and China are back in the news again, afterbeing eclipsed by other crises, including the Boston terror attack andthe North Korean war threats. But tensions have remained very high.China refused to allow Japan to contribute humanitarian aid to victimsof the recent earthquake in Sichuan province. And the Chinese areinfuriated that 168 Japanese lawmakers on Tuesday visited the YasukuniShrine, which commemorates World War II war dead, including some whohave been declared war criminals for atrocities committed againstChina. Japan Times and China Daily

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail