China, Vietnam Vessels Collide At Sea – Literally

TAIPEI, Taiwan - A Vietnam Maritime Police vessel rammed a China Maritime Surveillance vessel within the past six months. Exactly where the incident ensued is unknown, but given the fact that it was a "police" vessel points to the likelihood it was within Vietnam's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
The video appeared on YouTube on Nov. 7 and shows a Vietnamese vessel ramming the Chinese vessel.

Sources in the region indicate that if it occurred after the July 20 agreement for the Declaration of Conduct guidelines for South China Sea claimant countries or after the Oct. 11 China-Vietnam agreement on basic principles to settle sea issues, it then raises questions on which country is in violation.
However, Vietnam is clearly the aggressor in the video, and the video demonstrates that the Vietnamese vessel violates safety of navigation and international regulations preventing collisions at sea.
Tensions from overlapping claims in the South China Sea have been rising in the past year as China increases naval patrols in the region and ignores the EEZ of its neighbors.
Since January, Chinese vessels have harassed Filipino and Vietnamese fishing- and oil-exploration vessels with greater regularity, including allegations China has placed equipment near Reed Bank, claimed by the Philippines.
On May 26, three Chinese state-operated Ocean Marine Surveillance vessels harassed the Binh Minh 02, a vessel owned by the oil company PetroVietnam, cutting a towed survey cable. Then on June 9, a Chinese fishing boat rammed a PetroVietnam vessel conducting an oil survey. Both incidents occurred within Vietnam's EEZ.
China and Vietnam have been bumping into one another in the South China Sea since the 1970s. In 1974 China took the Paracel Islands by military force from then-South Vietnam, but Hanoi continues to claim the islands. In 1988 China and Vietnam fought over the Johnson South Reef in the South China Sea. China sank two Vietnamese naval vessels and opened fired on Vietnamese troops occupying the reef, killing over 30.

TENSION TIMELINE

· Feb. 25: A Chinese frigate fired warning shots at three Filipino fishing boats near the Jackson atoll near Palawan Island, Philippines.
· March 2: Two Chinese maritime patrol vessels threatened to ram a Philippine government energy-research vessel, the M/V Venture, conducting a seismic survey in the Reed Bank area near Palawan Island.
· May: China announces a unilateral fishing ban for the northern part of the South China Sea from May to August.
· May: Vietnam alleges Chinese naval vessels fired on four Vietnamese fishing vessels near East London Reef and Cross Island.
· May: Chinese vessels laid steel posts and a buoy in the Amy Douglas Bank, southwest of Reed Bank within the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zones.
· May 11: Two unidentified fighter jets, said to be Chinese, were sighted near Palawan Island, claimed by the Philippines.
· May 23: Philippine President Benigno Aquino III warned Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Liang Guanglie during his visit to Manila of a possible arms race if tensions worsened over South China Sea disputes.

Coordinated Approach to Cyber Defense Urged

BRUSSELS - Countries need to have a good understanding of the cyber capabilities being developed by opponents, said a leading Israeli government official, because "you can't block an attack by waiting for the attack to come, including in cyber defense."
Isaac Ben-Israel, a senior cybersecurity adviser to the Israeli prime minister, was speaking at a Security and Defence Agenda event on cybersecurity.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Fermier, director of NATO C3 Staff, dodged a question about whether there was a need to improve cyber offensive capacity to improve cyber defense.
"NATO is trying to develop the protection of its infrastructure network," Fermier said. This is the first step, he added, after which "we'll see, at 28, what steps to take in the future. Protecting information and information sharing is a key parameter of success in any military operation."
Robert Bell, senior civilian representative of the secretary of defense in Europe and defense adviser to the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said that NATO needs to get all its agencies and commands under a single cyber defense roof by the end of 2012 and was on track to do that. He also said NATO needs to identify standards.
"We have no alternative except to work in close partnership with industry, which has much to teach us about the use of open standards to get us to the point where we need to be," he said.
Ben-Israel said Israel had realized in 2002 that the most vulnerable points are power production, water distribution, food supply etc. The country then set down a list of 19 key areas but faced a legal problem because most are owned or operated by the private sector. As a result, Israel had to change its laws and define how much government "intrusion" into the private sector was allowed in order to guarantee security.
The EU is faced with a similar issue in that a lot of its critical infrastructure is owned by the private sector. On this point, the German Ministry of the Interior has taken a stance in its national cybersecurity strategy, unveiled earlier this year.
"We are in favor of the alliance's commitment to establishing uniform security standards, which member states may also use for civilian critical infrastructures on a voluntary basis, as foreseen in NATO's new Strategic Concept," says the document.
Ben-Israel also said "there was a real threat from states and major criminal organizations." In that context, a report released Nov. 3 by U.S. intelligence agencies said, "the governments of China and Russia will remain aggressive and capable collectors of sensitive U.S. economic information and technologies, particularly in cyberspace."
Cecilia Malmström, the EU's commissioner for Home Affairs, pointed out that the EU has developed relations with NATO in this area and has a formal relationship with the U.S. But asked if there was an EU-NATO plan to respond to an Estonia-type cyber attack by another state or terrorist organization, she said that "there was no strategy."

U.S. 'Confident' on Pakistan Nuclear Weapons Safety

WASHINGTON - The United States believes that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are in safe hands, a State Department spokesman said Nov. 9, rebutting a report that Islamabad's atomic arsenal was vulnerable to theft.
Two U.S. publications, The Atlantic and the National Journal, citing unnamed sources, last week said Pakistan had transported nuclear weapons in low-security vans on congested roads to hide them from U.S. spy agencies.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters in Washington that the United States was not persuaded that safety had been compromised.
"We have confidence that the government of Pakistan is well aware of the range of potential threats to its nuclear arsenal and is accordingly giving very high priority to securing its nuclear weapons and materials effectively," Toner told reporters. "We continue to have confidence... that they're taking appropriate steps," he said.
Pakistan at the weekend rejected as "pure fiction" the report's assertion that transporting the weapons in such a manner had made them more susceptible to theft by Islamist militants.

EU President Warns of Asia-Pacific Militarization

ZURICH - The Asia-Pacific region is showing signs of militarization that could lead to an arms race, EU President Herman Van Rompuy warned Nov. 9, calling for closer trade ties to defuse any political tensions.
"Whereas Europe used to be the most dangerous continent in the past century... the focus of security analysts and hard power strategic planners has recently moved towards developments in Asia and the Pacific," said Van Rompuy in a speech at the University of Zurich.

"They do not yet observe a full-blown arms race, but in terms of military spending and confrontational psychology, the premises of an arms race are there," he added, without naming individual countries.
"It will thus be key to continue deepening economic relationships within that region, so as to make a war as it were 'materially impossible,' " added Van Rompuy.
Noting that the EU is a key trading partner to major economies in the region, the EU Council president said Brussels "does not only have a significant stake in regional stability, but itself is a potential major factor contributing to this stability."
This fact "should also be reflected in higher political attention paid to and political activity shown in the region," he added.

Terrorist Group Says It Acquired Libya Weapons

NOUAKCHOTT - Al-Qaida's North Africa franchise acknowledged it had acquired part of slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's arsenal, in comments by one of its leaders quoted Nov. 9.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, believed to be one of the leaders of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), made the remarks to Mauritanian news agency ANI, which has carried interviews and statements from the group in the past.

"We have been one of the main beneficiaries of the revolutions in the Arab world," said Belmokhtar, an Algerian national.
"As for our acquisition of Libyan armament, that is an absolutely natural thing," he said, without elaborating on the nature of the weapons purportedly acquired.
Officials and experts have expressed concern that part of Gadhafi's considerable stock of weapons could end up in the hands of AQIM, which has bases in the Sahel and currently holds several foreign hostages.
According to several experts, AQIM has acquired surface-to-air missiles which could pose a threat to flights over the region.
Belmokhtar also claimed a level of ideological convergence existed between his movement and the Islamist rebels who eventually toppled Gadhafi last month and became Libya's new rulers.
"We did not fight, alongside them in the field against the Gadhafi forces," he said. "But young Islamists, jihadis ... were the ones spearheading the revolution in Libya."
The National Transitional Council now in charge of Libya owes its victory over Gadhafi's 42-year rule partly to Western military backing and claims to seek the establishment of a moderate Islamic administration.

NATO Urges Georgia to Deepen Reforms

TBILISI - NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged Georgia on Nov. 9 to intensify its political and military reforms to bring the ex-Soviet state closer to membership of the Western alliance.
"Further reforms will be a ticket to membership," Rasmussen told reporters in Tbilisi at the start of his two-day visit to the country.

NATO leaders agreed at their 2008 summit in Bucharest that Georgia and Ukraine could join the military alliance at an unspecified point in the future, although they were denied coveted pre-membership status amid strong opposition from Russia.
"Since the Bucharest summit, Georgia has become a lot closer to NATO but there is still work to be done," Rasmussen said.
He praised the government's reform process but said more must be done to strengthen the rule of law, media freedoms, the judiciary and the electoral process before upcoming polls.
"The elections of 2012 as 2013 will be a litmus test of your democracy," he said, referring to parliamentary and presidential votes over the next two years.
The small Caucasus republic's NATO aspirations have infuriated its powerful neighbor Russia, which fought a brief war with Georgia in 2008.
Seeking to prove itself as a reliable partner, Georgia has become one of the largest non-NATO contributors to the Western alliance-led mission in Afghanistan, deploying more than 900 troops to help combat the Taliban.
"That is a priceless contribution and the best proof of your commitment to our alliance," Rasmussen said.
NATO membership is a key goal for the pro-Western government led by President Mikheil Saakashvili and has strong public support amid Tbilisi's continuing disputes with Moscow.
"Georgia's NATO aspirations... are a consensus within the whole Georgian society and the whole Georgian political spectrum," Prime Minister Nika Gilauri said at the media briefing with Rasmussen.
But opposition critics accuse the authorities of flouting democratic principles and argue that the 2008 war set back hopes of joining the alliance.

Cuba's New Defense Minister is an Angola War Vet

HAVANA - Cuba named Gen. Leopoldo Cintra Frias, a hero of military campaigns in Angola and Ethiopia, as the country's new defense minister on Nov. 8.
Cintra, 70, replaces the late general Julio Casas Regueiro - President Raul Castro's right hand man - who died of a heart attack Sept. 3 at the age of 75.

The announcement that Cintra was appointed Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces came in a statement read on state television.
Cintra, a member of the influential Communist Party politburo since 1991, is a symbol of Cuba's military internationalism for his participation in campaigns in Ethiopia and Angola in the 1970s and 1980s respectively.
He has been deputy defense minister since 2008.
Cintra - nicknamed "Polito" by former Cuban president Fidel Castro - was awarded the title "Hero of the Cuban Republic" in 1988.
Cintra joined Cuban rebels aiming to topple dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1957 and is one of the "young" revolutionary leaders: Raul Castro turned 80 in June, while his older brother Fidel is 85; first vice president Jose Ramon Machado is 81, and the historic revolutionary commander Ramiro Valdes is 79.