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India should get ready for an all-out confrontation along the entire stretch of the disputed boundary with China, the countrys state media said on Tuesday, threatening to open up new fronts of conflict on the 3,488 km non-demarcated border between the two countries.

China isnt afraid to go to war with India and will be ready for a long-term confrontation, the Global Times comment piece said.

The threat of new geographical points of conflict being opened up along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) comes amid the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) recently carrying out live-fire drills in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) close to Arunachal Pradesh, claimed by China as part of south Tibet.

Read more: India rejects malicious Pakistani media report of soldier deaths in Chinese attack

The continuing hostile posturing by Chinas state-controlled media is a crucial aspect of Beijings overall aggressive stand taken on the ongoing military impasse at Donglang across the Sikkim border.

China can take further countermeasures along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). If India stirs up conflicts in several spots, it must face the consequence of an all-out confrontation with China along the entire LAC, the nationalistic tabloid, Global Times, said in a comment piece on Tuesday. China doesnt advocate and tries hard to avoid a military clash with India, but China doesnt fear going to war to safeguard sovereignty either, and will make itself ready for a long-term confrontation, it added.

Affiliated to the Communist Party of China (CPC) mouthpiece, Peoples Daily, the Global Times has been on the forefront of Chinese medias editorial attack on India. Its battle-plan is short and simple obfuscate New Delhis points of view on the current impasse and peddle Chinas deliberately one-sided view of the situation.

For one, the GT article claimed that since the 1962 war, it is only India that has provoked China along the border, conveniently not mentioning the incursions made by the PLAs border troops over the decades.

The 3,500-kilometer border has never been short of disputes. Since the 1962 border war, the Indian side has repeatedly made provocations. China must be prepared for future conflicts and confrontation. China can take further countermeasures along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), wrote GTs Duo Mu in the newspaper.

If India plans to devote more resources in the border area, then so be it. China can engage in a competition with India over economic and military resources deployment in the border area, the newspaper wrote.

The article mentioned Chinas superior military and economic infrastructure in the Sino-India border region, and how thats an advantage.

With growing national strength, China is capable of deploying resources in remote border areas. It is conducive to the economic growth of these regions, as well as to safeguarding integration of Chinas territory. Road and rail in the Tibetan area have been extended close to the border area with India, Nepal and Bhutan. Its a competition of military strength, as well as a competition of overall economic strength, it said.

The author said in China there are voices calling for the Indian troops to be expelled immediately to safeguard the countrys sovereignty, while Indian public opinion is clamoring for war with China. However, the two sides need to exercise restraint and avoid the current conflict spiraling out of control.

China has blamed India for the ongoing Donglang (Doklam) impasse, accusing Indian soldiers of trespass and preventing Chinese soldiers from building a road in the region, which is also claimed by Bhutan.

Beijing wants India to withdraw its troops from Donglang before the two sides can open talks. New Delhi says the road, if built, will have serious security implications for India.

Read the rest here:
Doklam standoff | India should be ready for all-out confrontation: Chinese media - Hindustan Times

When Somalias new minister of information took office in March, he promised to review the countrys restrictive media law, raising hopes of fostering a better environment for journalists and free expression in the country.

Journalists queue for a security sweep outside the venue of the presidential vote at the airport in Somalia's capital Mogadishu February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

Those hopes have largely been dashed. The amended law, approved by the cabinet on July 13, makes some reforms but does little to address the laws deep flaws. Somalias journalists a grueling and life-threatening profession here deserve better.

Being a journalist in Somalia is dangerous: at least two journalists were murdered in 2016. Authorities have used various tactics to restrict media coverage, including arbitrary arrests and forced closures of media outlets, threats, and occasionally, criminal charges. The Islamist armed group Al-Shabab also targets journalists for reporting deemed unfavorable. Not surprisingly, journalists often self-censor on key issues of public interest, including security and governance, to stay safe.

While amendments to the law have partially addressed some concerns raised by Somali media organizations including by reducing the heavy fines imposed on journalists for violating the laws restrictions, and no longer making a journalism degree a requirement to practice journalism the law still hands authorities a big stick to keep the media under control.

The law maintains vague and overbroad restrictions, including prohibiting propaganda against the dignity of a citizen, individuals or government institutions, and dissemination of false information. This leaves lots of room for interpretation by authorities in response, journalists unclear of where the lines are drawn are likely to self-censor even more.

International and regional legal standards place a high value upon uninhibited expression concerning public persons and state institutions, and discourage open-ended and ill-defined provisions that risk chilling the media. Similar articles persist in Somalias 1963 criminal code, also under review.

But journalists continue to be arrested, and on occasion charged, under such outdated provisions. Two weeks ago, the authorities in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland arrested a journalist, Ahmed Ali Kilwe, reportedly for criticizing the president; he has since been released without chrge.

The amended media law does not provide for parliamentary oversight of nominations for a new media regulatory body. It also maintains watered-down but still substantive requirements for entry into the journalism profession there should be none.

When the revised media law heads to parliament for review, key committees should direct that the law be sent back to the drawing board to ensure that the final version helps to promote, not stunt, the development of a free and vibrant media in Somalia.

Read the rest here:
Review of Somalia's Media Law Falls Short - Human Rights Watch

Gun control advocates keep claiming that guns are only used to kill people and that people should just rely on the police to protect them.

But gun controllers actions keep showing that they dont believe that. When it comes to their safety, they understand that guns save lives. Guns are for them, not the untrusted, unwashed masses.

Over the weekend, Womens March leaders, such as co-president Linda Sarsour, were walking around with private armed security.

After all, the police were just yards away, not a phone call and an eight to 10minutes' wait for officersto arrive.

Of course, Michael Bloomberg and the executives at his Everytown for Gun Safety dont go anywhere without their security details.

The Womens March participants carried signs such as Real men dont need guns or Loaded guns under beds are bad, but their actions presumably imply that at least women need guns for protection when they are out in public.

The media gives extensive negative news coverage to conservatives who are caught engaging in extramarital affairs because of the family values hypocrisy angle. The hypocrisy is said to be what makes the story newsworthy, but one will search in vain to see any of the mainstream media pointing to this hypocrisy by gun control advocates.

This hypocrisy is nothing new.

Gun control advocates from politicians such as former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to Media Matterss David Brock to celebrities such as Rosie ODonnell have all criticized gun ownership for others while they have guns being used to protect themselves.

It is understandable that gun control advocates want to protect themselves, but they arent the people really at risk.

And, thankfully, being a gun control advocate isnt a particularly risky occupation. After all, it isnt like being a poor black living in cities like Chicago or Washington, D.C.

Even after his retirement, ChicagoMayorRichard Daleysurrounded himself with round-the-clock armed police officers for protection, at the cost of $40,000 per month.

Yet, he supported banning handgun licenses for people to keep a gun in their home, even in the most dangerous parts of the city.

At the time, Chicago had the highest murder rate of any large city in the United States, but Daley had no problem imposing large penalties on Chicago taxi drivers who refused certain fares over fears of crime.

David Brock, the founder of Media Matters, had a personal assistant illegally publicly carry a concealed handgun in the District of Columbia in order "to protect Brock from threats.

Few organizations have declared their opposition to gun ownership or concealed carry laws as strongly as Media Matters.

Brocks actions were arguably much worse than the hypocrisy of others as carrying a concealed handgun in Washington, D.C., in 2012 was completely illegal.

Remember comedian Rosie ODonnell, who in 2000 emceed the so-called Million Mom March for gun control?

She claimed: I also think you should not buy a gun anywhere. It created quite a ruckus when her bodyguards applied for permits to carry concealed handguns.

But the media blackout on the hypocrisy over using guns for protection wasnt the only media bias shown in their coverage.

In January, the Womens March reportedly involved 2.6 million participants.

The Womens March in front of the NRA headquarters managed to draw something in the low hundreds.

Yet, none of the media coverage pointed out how few people Michael Bloombergs Everytown and the Womens March could muster between their two groups.

All too often gun control advocates really do understand the safety benefits of gun ownership when it comes to their protecting their own personal safety. Remember that the next time you hear them calling for gun-free zones as a way to protect people.

John Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author more recently of The War on Guns (Regnery, 2016).

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

See the original post:
Media shows its true colors on guns at women's march | TheHill - The Hill (blog)

For a year, the big question of Russiagate has boiled down to this: Did Donald Trumps campaign collude with the Russians in hacking the DNC?

And until last week, the answer was no.

As ex-CIA director Mike Morell said in March, On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all. Theres no little campfire, theres no little candle, theres no spark.

Well, last week, it appeared there had been a fire in Trump Tower. On June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort met with Russians in anticipation of promised dirt on Hillary Clintons campaign.

While not a crime, this was a blunder. For Donald Jr. had long insisted there had been no collusion with the Russians. Caught in flagrante, he went full Pinocchio for four days.

And as the details of that June 9 meeting spilled out, Trump defenders were left with egg on their faces, while anti-Trump media were able to keep the spotlight laser-focused on where they want it Russiagate.

This reality underscores a truth of our time. In the 19th century, power meant control of the means of production; today, power lies in control of the means of communication.

Who controls the media spotlight controls what people talk about and think about. And mainstream media are determined to keep that spotlight on Trump-Russia, and as far away as possible from their agenda breaking the Trump presidency and bringing him down.

Almost daily, there are leaks from the investigative and security arms of the U.S. government designed to damage this president.

Just days into Trumps presidency, a rifle-shot intel community leak of a December meeting between Trump national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn and Russias ambassador forced the firing of Flynn.

An Oval Office meeting with the Russian foreign minister in which Trump disclosed that Israeli intelligence had ferreted out evidence that ISIS was developing computer bombs to explode on airliners was leaked. This alerted ISIS, damaged the president and imperiled Israeli intelligence sources and methods.

Some of the leaks from national security and investigative agencies are felonies, not only violations of the leakers solemn oath to protect secrets, but of federal law.

Yet the press is happy to collude with these leakers and to pay them in the coin they seek. First, by publishing the secrets the leakers want revealed. Second, by protecting them from exposure to arrest and prosecution for the crimes they are committing.

The mutual agendas of the deep-state leakers and the mainstream media mesh perfectly.

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Consider the original Russiagate offense.

Confidential emails of the DNC and John Podesta were hacked, i.e., stolen by Russian intelligence and given to WikiLeaks. And who was the third and indispensable party in this Tinker to Evers to Chance double-play combination?

The media itself. While deploring Russian hacking as an act of war against our democracy, the media published the fruits of the hacking. It was the media that revealed what Podesta wrote and how the DNC tilted the tables against Bernie Sanders.

Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, Americas independent news network.

If the media believed Russian hacking was a crime against our democracy, why did they publish the fruits of that crime?

Is it not monumental hypocrisy to denounce Russias hacking of the computers of Democratic political leaders and institutions, while splashing the contents of the theft all over Page 1?

Not only do our Beltway media traffic in stolen secrets and stolen goods, but the knowledge that they will publish secrets and protect those who leak them is an incentive for bureaucratic disloyalty and criminality.

Our mainstream media are like the fellow who avoids the risk of stealing cars, but wants to fence them once stolen and repainted.

Some journalists know exactly who is leaking against Trump, but they are as protective of their colleagues sources as of their own. Thus, the public is left in the dark as to what the real agenda is here, and who is sabotaging a president in whom they placed so much hope.

And thus does democracy die in darkness.

Do the American people not have a right to know who are the leakers within the government who are daily spilling secrets to destroy their president? Are the identities of the saboteurs not a legitimate subject of investigation? Ought they not be exposed and rooted out?

Where is the special prosecutor to investigate the collusion between bureaucrats and members of the press who traffic in the stolen secrets of the republic?

Bottom line: Trump is facing a stacked deck.

People inside the executive branch are daily providing fresh meat to feed the scandal. Anti-Trump media are transfixed by it. It is the Watergate of their generation. They can smell the blood in the water. The Pulitzers are calling. And they love it, for they loathe Donald Trump both for who he is and what he stands for.

It is hard to see when this ends, or how it ends well for the country.

See the rest here:
The real crime: Collusion between media, leakers - WND.com

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Kingston is on a roll with its HyperX gaming brand. What started with high-performance memory 15 years ago has recently branched out to peripherals, with great success. Its headphones and gaming mice are lauded for delivering a lot of bang for the buck, and its Cloud II headset is our hands-down favorite for the price.

Now, the company has expanded its keyboard line with its latest model, the HyperX Alloy Elite (See it on Amazon). It's similar to the Alloy FPS and addresses most of that model's annoyances in a less-portable footprint. If your keyboard stays attached to your gaming PC all the time, the improvements in the Elite are easily worth the measly $10 price hike.

Design and Features

The Alloy Elite shares much in common with the Alloy FPS, design-wise. Both are heavyweight, durable keyboards with a steel frame and a thick braided USB cable. Its got a nice charcoal black finish with matching keys, and Kingston throws in a set of textured, colored keycaps for the W-A-S-D and 1-2-3-4 keys. Those are red on the FPS; theyre silver on the Elite.

The keyboard is available with your choice of three different Cherry MX switches: Blue (clicky), Brown (tactile bump but not clicky), or Red (smooth linear motion). Of these, gamers tend to prefer the Brown or Red variants. Hardcore typers like the old-style audible click and firmer action of the Blue switches. My test unit came with Red switches.

In terms of how the Alloy Elite differs from its predecessor, first you must understand that there are three essential issues with the Alloy FPS model: There are no individual buttons for the lighting and media controls (you have to use Function keys), the USB port is for charging only, and there is no wrist rest. The Alloy Elite addresses all of these.

Though the keyboard offers only a red backlight, there are six lighting modes, the same as those found on the Alloy FPS: Always on, breathing (pulsing), wave (a left-to-right motion), trigger (keys light up as you press them, then slowly fade), and explosion (tapping key creates ripples of light). The sixth mode is programmable, so you can select which keys you want illuminated (it defaults to W-A-S-D, CTRL, Space, and 1-2-3-4). My favorite by far is the trigger mode. The slick fade effect looks awesome as youre furiously typing away.

Though I would prefer RGB lighting the red backlight looks great with the black keyboard and fits the HyperX branding. While the Alloy FPS has five lighting levels, the Alloy Elite has just four: off, low, medium, and high. Frankly, theres no practical need to have more.

You get dedicated media controls too: mute, play/pause, forward, back, and a slick volume wheel. And of course theres a gaming mode button, which disables the Windows key so you dont accidentally pop open the Start menu in the middle of a heated match. Thats par for the course with all gaming keyboards.

But while the Alloy FPS puts lighting and media controls on the Fn keys to save space, the Alloy Elite adds a bar up above the keys, dedicated to the lighting and media controls. This makes them drastically more user-friendly. I especially love the wide, vertically-rolling analog volume wheel. The control area is separated from the keys by a thin line that follows the lighting pattern and adds a touch of style to an otherwise workmanlike design.

The USB cable is permanently attached to the keyboard rather than detachable as it is on the Alloy FPS, a clear sign that this is not meant to be tossed in a bag to travel with you. But Kingston did correct the FPSs annoying charge only USB port, upgrading it to full USB 2.0 pass-through on the Elite. Now its good for more than charging your phone; its a handy place to plug in a USB headset or wireless controller dongle.

Finally, typists who want a comfortable wrist angle usually opt for a keyboard with a wrist wrest, and the Alloy FPS doesnt include one. The Alloy Elite does, and while its plastic, it feels sturdy and nicely matches the soft black finish of the metal keyboard deck.

These are all great features, but the Alloy Elite is a little spartan compared to fancier (and pricier) keyboards due to its lowish $109.99 price tag. For example, there are no programmable macros, no headphone jack, no full-color RGB lighting. You can get these sorts of features from other keyboards, but youll usually pay more for it. Kingstons approach has one stand-out benefit: its 100% driverless. Theres no software to install; just plug it in and play.

Gaming Performance

Theres no doubting the build quality of this thing. Its built like a tank. The heavy steel frame is apparent the moment you pick it up, and that extra heft really keeps the keyboard in place. It doesnt slide around at all.

Then you have the genuine Cherry MX switches. Some other budget mechanical keyboards opt for cheaper switches, like those from Outemu or Kailh. And Logitech and Razer have their own custom mechanical switches, which have met with mixed reviews. But Cherry MX endures because of its consistent and reliable performance. Theres a whole internet subculture devoted to mechanical keyboards, and Cherry MX are so popular that a cottage industry has sprung up to provide replacement switches, custom keycaps, and mods like O-ring switch dampeners.

I like the smooth motion of the Cherry MX Red switches our test unit came with. The activation point is right around 2mm with the reset point just a shade above that, which is great for fast-paced key tapping. Cherry MX Brown are very similar, but with a noticeable bump as you press down for a tactile feel. Cherry MX Blue have that tactile bump and an audible click, which remind you of old IBM keyboards from the early PC days. But theyre less suitable for gaming, as the activation point is beyond 2mm and the reset point is around 1.5mm. This means you must press the key down further to make it register, and let it go back up further before it can register again.

Game Tests

In addition to using the Alloy Elite to type thousands of words over the past couple weeks, I also used it with a variety of games, from intense FPS titles like PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds and Overwatch to more sedate fare like Planet Coaster and Stardew Valley. I couldnt have asked for better performanceno keypress ever went unregistered, I never felt like response was anything other than instant, and even my most heated moments didnt cause the keyboard to slide on my smooth desk. Just to confirm Kingstons n-key rollover claim, I fired up Aqua Key Test and, sure enough, you can press as many keys at once as you want without any of them failing to register.

I can also appreciate that the keys are raised up above the key deck. If youre the type to enjoy a few snacks while gaming, youll appreciate that its easy to get under and around the keys to clean everything off.

Purchasing Guide

The HyperX Alloy Elite has an MSRP of $109.99 and is available for pre-order today on Amazon:

See the HyperX Alloy Elite on Amazon

The Verdict

At $109.99, the HyperX Alloy Elite is a steal. Thats only $10 more than the Alloy FPS, and for that minor difference in price and a little less portability, you get some nice quality-of-life improvements. There are dedicated controls for lighting and media, including an excellent analog volume wheel, a wrist rest, and full-powered USB pass-through. You dont get fancy programmable macro buttons or RGB lighting, but you also dont ever have to mess with drivers or software. It didn't blow us away with amazing new innovations, but if you want a well-made mechanical gaming keyboard at a fair price, you'll love the Alloy Elite.

Read more here:
Kingston HyperX Alloy Elite Review - IGN