DAMASCUS, Syria—The New York Times reports that the recent killing of a 13 year-old-boy in Syria has led to some of the largest antigovernment protests the country has seen in weeks. The protests come despite the lack of Syria’s internet network, which has been a crucial component in helping protestors rally together. President Bashar al-Assad has refused to step down despite continued demonstrations against his regime. A crackdown on the protestors has led to the killing of over 1,000 people and the arrests of hundreds more. 13-year-old Hamza Ali al-Khateeb was arrested by the Syrian government, where he was shot and killed and had his genitals mutilated. The boy’s body was then sent back to his family as a warning to them and the rest of the country of the consequences of protesting. A postmortem video of the boy was posted by his family before his funeral. The video was so graphic it was taken down from YouTube for a short period of time. A Facebook page entitled “We Are All the Child Martyr Hamza Ali al-Khateeb” encouraged people to take the streets on Friday in protest for the “Day of Hamza”. More than 30 of the protestors were killed in the city of Hamah on Friday, according to Rami Abdelrahman, a human rights monitor.
La FORTUNA, Costa Rica—A security guard accused of murdering a 16-year old American student in Costa Rica was charged with simple homicide on Friday. According to CNN, Justin Johnston was on a 9 day trip with his school’s Spanish club where they stayed in La Fortuna, a popular tourist spot near the Arenal volcano. The boy and three of his friends left their rooms after curfew to visit some people on the other side of the hotel. At around 4 a.m., the boys were heading back to their rooms by cutting through a wooded area on the hotel grounds. The security guard saw them and mistook them for robbers leading him to fire his weapon. Johnston was fatally shot in the chest. None of the other boys were injured. Prayer services were held across in the church across the street from his school in McLouth, Kansas. Simple homicide in Costa Rica can be equated with manslaughter in the United States. The guard was said to have not had the required permit to be carrying the weapon and will remain incarcerated until his trial.
BEIJING, China—According to NBC News, China ramped up their condemnation of the United States due to back and forth allegations of cyber warfare. The government responded angrily to accusations that it was the perpetrator of a hacking scheme that was specifically designed to trick American government workers, Chinese political activists, journalists, and Asian regional defense reps into giving up their Google email passwords. Chinese newspapers also responded by publishing a large amount of commentary on the hacking incident. Bejing has said that it has enough problems controlling hacking domestically that it would not be in the business of expanding it. It was reported by China’s state news agency, Xinhua, that 60 percent of the country’s Internet users in 2010 were hacked in some form. It was also reported that at least 30 percent had their passwords stolen. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the Pentagon’s first formal cyber warfare strategy plan which was viewed by China as the United States trying to achieve strategic supremacy. China has also claimed that the argument has been framed in a pro Western light due in part to the hackings occurring within an American company like Google.
