MMOTV Video: Anwar supporters break out into chants outside Federal Court

MMOTV Video: Anwar supporters break out into chants outside Federal Court
Islamic State could see Jordan as next target — Noah Feldman
More police than supporters as Anwar awaits sodomy decision (VIDEO)
Mystery ‘milky’ rain hits US Pacific Northwest, Nevada dust storm to blame
Microsoft settles patent dispute with Samsung

Posted: 09 Feb 2015 05:11 PM PST

Duration: 00:12, Published 10 Feb 2015

Anwar supporters chant from behind a security barrier outside the Federal Court in Putrajaya. — Video by Mayuri Mei Lin

Islamic State could see Jordan as next target — Noah Feldman

Posted: 09 Feb 2015 04:59 PM PST

The helicopter carrying Jordan's King Abdullah lands at Amman airport February 9, 2015. — Reuters picFEBRUARY 10 — Jordan's King Abdullah II was in battle gear last week, quoting Clint Eastwood and bombing Islamic State targets in retaliation for the horrific burning-alive of a Jordanian pilot. Is this a sign that Jordan is entering the war against the insurgent group in earnest, or is it a temporary show for a stunned Jordanian public?

The complicated reality is that Jordan and Islamic State are enmeshed in an extended, dynamic, repeat-play game in which the rules are just now being set. In fact, Abdullah was signalling to Islamic State that if it engages in further public challenges to the Hashemite Kingdom, he's prepared to devote real resources to the war against the militants.

For its part, Islamic State was testing Abdullah by publicising the video, trying to figure out how vulnerable Jordan's ever-cautious monarchy is, or thinks it is, to being undermined by an external threat that could easily become internal. The lesson of last week's exchange of messages between Jordan and Islamic State is that the struggle between them may just be getting started.

To see how that struggle is likely to evolve, begin with Islamic State's strategic interests vis-à-vis Jordan. The shape-shifting entity now has forces within or near the borders of three weak states, one strong state and Jordan. The two weakest states are Syria and Iraq, from which Islamic State has carved out great swaths of territory. The third weak state is Lebanon, where Islamic State could potentially find adherents among radical Sunnis, at the cost of finding itself in a pitched battle with Lebanese Hezbollah and Christian militias. So far, the group has held back from confrontation there. The strong state is Turkey, which Islamic State has no realistic chance of confronting successfully; instead it has taken advantage of Turkey's ambivalence about a spreading Kurdish state to fight Kurdish forces in the shadow of the Turkish border, as at Kobani.

Then there's Jordan. The state is much stronger than its Levantine neighbours, benefiting from a religiously heterogeneous Sunni Arab population. Its internal fault line has traditionally been between Jordanians of Palestinian origin, who by some accounts make up two-thirds of its population, and ur-Jordanians of tribal origin and (sometimes) continuing affiliation. To simplify a complex history, the Hashemite monarchy has owed its continued existence to a skilful and permanent juggling act between these constituencies. The tribes demand patronage and offer loyalty; the Palestinians offer entrepreneurship and seek influence in return.

Without a reliable source of revenue such as petroleum to buy off its population, Jordan has been, and remains, vulnerable to fundamentalist challenges. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the feared leader of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, one of Islamic State's predecessor organizations? He was from Zarqa, a Jordanian town 24 km northeast of Amman. This city of 700,000 produced not only Zarqawi, who took the town's name as his nom de guerre, but also a number of other radical jihadis.

To Islamic State, then, Jordan offers a potential target of opportunity. The group wouldn't challenge Jordanian sovereignty directly — for now. But over the medium to long term, it could plausibly strive to delegitimise the monarchy from without and within. It could do so with the mixed strategy of showing the regime's weakness by killing Jordanians and promoting acts of terrorism within the kingdom. Even if efforts to weaken Abdullah failed, Islamic State would still be on the offensive against Jordan, which would be better than the defensive. Jordan is the most likely base from which to stage the efforts of any serious coalition to take on the insurgents.

From Jordan's perspective, Islamic State is unquestionably bad news. The radical destabilisation of neighboring Syria and Iraq is perhaps worse for Jordan than any other country. As happened during the birth of the Iraqi refugee crisis, early refugees from Syria came to Jordan with money — but they stayed after their money ran out, and were followed by penniless refugees whose presence further destabilises Jordan. Some international financial aid has eased the burden, but a country whose population consists in no small part of Palestinian refugees will never take its eye off the refugee problem.

And Abdullah understands perfectly well that he represents a target of opportunity to Islamic State. That explains the aggressiveness of his public response to the pilot's gruesome death. Abdullah is trying to communicate to Islamic State leadership that there's no percentage in humiliating him by killing his airmen. Islamic State does not yet pose an existential threat to Abdullah — but if it chose to focus on his regime, it could.

So long as the militants get the message and back down, Abdullah's interest lies in helping anti-Islamic State efforts without committing himself irrevocably to them and hurting his standing with Sunni Jordanians who may feel sympathy with their Syrian and Iraqi counterparts. Abdullah could have played it cool, hoping that anti-insurgent sentiment would eventually burn out any nascent support. But this would be an extremely risky strategy given the inherent vulnerability of the monarchy to delegitimation. Holding back could easily be construed as weakness, not wisdom.

But escalation, even rhetorical escalation, has its own risks. Islamic State may well escalate in return — which would require Jordan to commit more serious and long-term resources against it, possibly including ground troops. This would thrill the US and probably please Saudi Arabia, because both have a desire to fight Islamic State without using their ground troops. Islamic State, of course, knows all this, too — but it might welcome the chance for a limited ground war against Jordanian forces, calculating that survival would turn the group into a permanent, credible regional actor.

This isn't the beginning of the end or even the end of the beginning. As far as Jordan and Islamic State are concerned, it's the beginning of the beginning. — Bloomberg

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

More police than supporters as Anwar awaits sodomy decision (VIDEO)

Posted: 09 Feb 2015 04:49 PM PST

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 — In stark contrast to his 2012 acquittal, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's supporters were today outnumbered by police personnel stationed outside the Federal Court that will decide on his second sodomy case.

Numbering over 100 and chanting "Reformasi" — the rallying cry that dates back to the former deputy prime minister's 1998 sacking — supporters were far fewer than the thousands who turned up to await news of the PKR de facto leader's case at the Kuala Lumpur High Court three years ago.

More than 150 police officers in riot gear began assembling shortly after dawn today.

Inside, the courtroom is already packed with Pakatan Rakyat leaders, Anwar's family and supporters as well as local and international media that are keenly watching today's Federal Court decision on Anwar's final avenue of appeal.

More than 150 police officers in riot gear began assembling shortly after dawn. — Picture by Saw Siow FengThe High Court had in 2012 acquitted Anwar of the 2008 sodomy charge but the appellate court ruled on March 7 last year that the trial judge had erred when rejecting the DNA evidence produced in the case.

More to come

Mystery ‘milky’ rain hits US Pacific Northwest, Nevada dust storm to blame

Posted: 09 Feb 2015 04:49 PM PST

Higher-altitude winds may have carried ash across the Pacific Ocean from Japan's Sakurajima volcano, which is currently erupting. — Reuters picPORTLAND, Feb 10 — Unusual rain that deposited a mysterious residue across a swath of the US Pacific Northwest appears to be a byproduct of dust storms hundreds of miles (km) away in Nevada, although volcanic ash from Japan cannot be ruled out, the National Weather Service said yesterday.

The so-called "milky rain" left an unusual powdery residue on cars and windows last week across large parts of Oregon and eastern Washington state, leaving residents wondering about its origins.

"We're fairly certain it came from Nevada, but to confirm that we'd need to know exactly what the substance is," Weather Service scientist Mary Wister said. "Nevada had incredibly strong winds Thursday night and Friday morning, and the dirt there is a very alkaline dust."

She added that low-elevation wind gusts have been blowing to the north, and likely carried the dust to rain clouds, which then could have deposited milky drops across a region that spans from remote Fossil, Oregon, to Spokane, Washington, she said.

She said that federal scientists at the mostly decommissioned Hanford nuclear site have suggested another possibility, that higher-altitude winds may have carried ash across the Pacific Ocean from Japan's Sakurajima volcano, which is currently erupting.

But she said that theory appeared less likely than the Nevada wind scenario, and cautioned that without a chemical analysis of the milky rain, it would be impossible to pinpoint its origins.

The National Weather Service is not equipped to perform such an analysis, and has not conducted tests on the substance, she added.

"We're hoping somebody else does tests and shares what they find," she said. — Reuters

Microsoft settles patent dispute with Samsung

Posted: 09 Feb 2015 04:49 PM PST

Microsoft sued Samsung last year in a federal court in New York, accusing Samsung of breaching a collaboration agreement by initially refusing to make royalty payments . — AFP picSAN FRANCISCO, Feb 10 —Microsoft and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd have settled a contract dispute over patent royalties, though terms of the settlement are confidential, Microsoft said in a statement yesterday.

Microsoft sued Samsung last year in a federal court in New York, accusing Samsung of breaching a collaboration agreement by initially refusing to make royalty payments after the US company announced its intention to acquire Nokia's handset business in September 2013.

The lawsuit claimed Samsung still owed US$6.9 million (RM24.55 billion) in interest on more than US$1 billion in patent royalties it delayed paying. Samsung has countered that the Nokia acquisition violated its 2011 collaboration deal with Microsoft.

In 2011 a technology analyst at Citigroup estimated that Microsoft was getting US$5 per Android handset sold by phone maker HTC under a patent agreement, and that Microsoft was looking for up to US$12.50 per phone from other handset makers it had yet to come to an agreement with. Microsoft has never confirmed those figures, but neither has it said publicly that the estimates were out of line.

To apply the US$5 price to Samsung, the Korean company could be paying Microsoft about US$1.6 billion per year, based on Samsung's sales of 318 million smartphones in 2014, according to IDC shipment numbers.

Samsung said it had agreed in 2011 to pay Microsoft royalties in exchange for a patent license covering phones that ran Google Inc's Android operating system. Samsung also agreed to develop Windows phones and share confidential business information with Microsoft, according to court filings.

Once Microsoft acquired Nokia, it became a direct hardware competitor with Samsung, the filings said, and Samsung refused to share some sensitive information because of antitrust concerns.

Antitrust regulators in the United States and other countries approved the Nokia acquisition.

The settlement yesterday also ends Samsung's request for arbitration with the Hong Kong office of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce. — Reuters