2 key senators back bill to force unlocking of encrypted data

( April 18th, 2016)  U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Republican Richard Burr and the panel’s vice chairman,  Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, are circulating proposed legislation that would require companies to unlock encrypted data, in, for example, an iPhone, when served with a court order involving probable cause of a crime (presumably especially terrorism).

13035647_1676489199267647_836828979_oThe tech companies  and some civil-liberties purists don’t like the idea. But after the  inevitable next terror attack in the U.S. such legislation would sail into law.

 

 

Japanese government spokesman speaks on G7 Summit issues

Japanese government spokesman speaks on G7 Summit issues

(April 14th, 2016) The event below will start at 7:30 EDT, April 18. That is a change from  April 14 forced by a last-minute urgent meeting between Japanese and Russian diplomatic officials visiting Japan.

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Yasuhisa Kawamura, Director-General for Press and Public Diplomacy  of the Japanese government, a job that includes being chief spokesman for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will be the featured speaker in a Boston Global Forum  (BGF) live online dialogue titled “The Role of Japan in Peace, Security and Development in the World Today.’’  Such a dialogue takes on particular importance now because Japan will host this year’s G7 Summit, to be held on May 26-27.

The event can be seen live at www.bostonglobalforum.org.

Joining Mr. Kawamura in the discussion will be Michael Dukakis, Chairman of the Boston Global Forum’s Board of Directors and Board of  Thinkers, and Prof. Thomas Patterson, a member of the BGF Board of Directors and Board of Thinkers; Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Acting Director of  the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

The session is one in the series of online dialogues in the Boston Global Forum’s BGF-G7 Summit Initiative, in which BGF experts have been working with Japanese officials to craft proposals to be considered by the national leaders at the summit.

The Boston Global Forum encourages its members and friends to send questions for the discussants to [email protected]. Members of the Boston Global Forum’s Special Editorial Board will gather your questions and insights and send them to the speakers.

The talk and listeners’ responses to it will be live-streamed at www.bostonglobalforum.org

About Mr Yasuhisa Kawamura

Press Secretary

Director-General for Press and Public Diplomacy

1956 Born in Nagoya, Japan

1981 Graduated from Hitotsubashi University (BA of Law)

Joined Ministry of Foreign Affairs(MOFA)

1984 Graduated from Amherst College, MA, USA

Second Secretary, Embassy of Japan to U.S.A.

1988 Deputy Director, Second North America Division, MOFA

1993 Principal Deputy Director, Second Southeast Asia Division, MOFA

1993 First Secretary, Permanent Mission to Int’l Organization in Geneva

1995 Counselor, Embassy of Japan in Indonesia

1998 Director, International Press Division, MOFA

2000 Director, Second International Organization Division, Economic Affairs Bureau, MOFA

2002 Counselor, Permanent Mission of Japan to European Union

2004 Representative in Tokyo, Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation

2008 Deputy Press Secretary (Deputy Director General) for Foreign Minister

2010 Deputy Consul General, Consulate General of Japan in New York

2012 Deputy Chief of Mission, Consulate General of Japan in New York

2013 Minister & Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Japan in India

2015 Press Secretary, Director-General for Press and Public Diplomacy

Married, One Daughter

U.S. officially launches cyberwar on Islamic State

(April 11st, 2016) The U.S. government has officially announced that it is launching cyberwarfare against the so-called Islamic State, in the first case of the U.S. publicly disclosing cyberattacks in warfare, although it has acted before against U.S. foes with cyberattacks on, for example, and most famously, Iran in order to slow that nation’s nuclear program.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said: “I have given the Defense Department’s Cyber Command really its first wartime assignment. Even a few years ago, it would not have occurred to a secretary of defense to say, ‘let’s get cyber in the game,’ but here we have real opportunities.”

The U.S. will use its digital tools to weaken the Islamic State’s online communications network and its access to money and trade. Mr. Carter said the aims include undermining “their ability to command their forces, interrupting their ability to plot” and damaging “their finances, their ability to pay people”.

BGF’s CEO promotes Global Citizenship at his alma mater

(April 11st, 2016) On March 20, Nguyen Anh Tuan, CEO and co-founder of The Boston Global Forum (BGF), gave a keynote speech to help celebrate the 70th anniversary of one of Vietnam’s leading high schools,  the Ngo Sy Lien School, in Bac Giang, Vietnam.
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In the speech, he encouraged the school to bring the Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education program to its students and teachers.

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Global Citizenship Education  has been  a priority of the BGF, which was founded in 2012.

Tuan is chairman of the International Advisory Committee of the UNESCO Chair of Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education at the University of California at Los Angeles.

An Internet pioneer in Vietnam, as well as Boston-based international civic leader and businessman, Tuan is one of the school’s most successful alumni.

Abe says G7 Summit leaders will discuss Ukraine

(April 11st, 2016) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe assured visiting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko last week that G7 leaders meeting at their summit in Japan on May 26-27 would discuss  Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 and  its continuing support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

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“Issues surrounding Ukraine remain among the important issues for the international community,”  Mr. Abe said at a joint appearance with Mr. Poroshenko. “Japan views this issue seriously, and we plan to thoroughly discuss it at the G7 summit.’’

The Boston Global Forum last December honored Mr. Abe as a “World Leader for Peace, Security and Development”.